After waking up early to pack all of my things, Maddy and I went downstairs to have breakfast before the long train ride back to Tokyo. On the train ride, I wrote as much on my blogs as my stomach could handle before taking a nap while listening to music. After getting to Tokyo and dropping off our bags in our hotel in Akihabara, we speed ran as many floors of Mandarake as possible, went to Super Potato to look at their retro games, and looked around Animate before having dinner and going to sleep.
For my last breakfast at the hotel, I was given toast with prosciutto, spinach, tomato, and parmesan. Although I was not a big fan of how hard the crust was, the rest of the toast was delectable. I also grabbed more fried fish because I’ve enjoyed all of the fried fish I’ve had here along with some egg, another croissant, some mushrooms, and yogurt with soybeans and brown sugar. I also got another glass of apple juice because I cannot resist its call.
After our long train ride, Maddy, Brody, Vincent and I went to a food court near the hotel and got some ramen. I got ramen with shrimp tempura in it because I love ramen and I love shrimp tempura, and I have already had the two together, so why not get it again?
For dinner, we decided to go to a sushi restaurant that Toshi recommended to us. I got this rice combination bowl with various different things in it so I could try a little bit of everything. It was absolutely delicious, and I would definitely recommend going there if you like sushi.
Tomorrow is our last free day on the trip, so let’s make the most of it!
For our second free day, Maddy and I went to Character Street in Tokyo Station to buy some (mainly from Ghibli) character-themed goodies. After that, we went back to Akihabara, looked through Radio Kaiken, went back to Mandarake to take our time looking through their merchandise, and various other stores in the area. After spending a lot of money and taking even more steps, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.
Who makes a better breakfast than McDonald’s in Japan? My answer is no one, especially if you consider how cheap it is. I ended up getting a chicken McMuffin, a hashbrown, and some hot coffee. I personally did not appreciate how bitter the hot coffee was, but I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my meal. The chicken McMuffin was savory and filling, and although I do not normally like mustard, the mustard in this sandwich was not too overwhelming so it didn’t bother me.
Maddy and I found this interesting steak place in Akihabara that was on the second floor of a building of restaurants. I ordered a rice dish with steak, cheese, garlic chips, and a fried egg. The sauce on the steak was so good, and the met itself was delicious. The yolk of the egg was runny which is exactly how I like my eggs, and the garlic chips paired well with all of the flavors present in this dish. They also gave me a side of broth which helped to mellow out the powerful flavors of my lunch.
Before dinner, we stopped to get boba. I got matcha with brown sugar and pearls. It was so good. That’s all I have to say. You know it’s good when I don’t have any words to describe it.
For dinner, Maddy, Vincent, Brody and I went to go get hot pot. We got a good variety of meats and vegetables. All I can say is that it was good, but definitely on the pricier side in comparison to the other meals I had eaten on this trip. The broth was also less flavorful than I had expected, but that’s on us for getting the normal broth instead of the spicy.
Friday was pretty packed with both events and rain! It rained pretty much the entire day, and the wind was a bit much at times, but it honestly just made the day more memorable.
We met at 10 AM and walked to Unreal Fest, a game industry networking / showcase event that Epic Games was hosting. It was cool, but I don’t think foreigners were the intended audience (obviously). The day we were able to go wasn’t focused on indie game showcases, but instead on seminars for people learning how to use Unreal Engine and make games. As someone who A) has never touched Unreal before, and B) can’t understand more than a couple simple phrases in Japanese, the seminar that I attended was pretty much just a break to sit for an hour. But the game showcases that were on display were really fun to play test!
One of the games I enjoyed most was a VR rhythm game where you’re shooting bullets at timed targets to the music. As someone who loves rhythm games, it was right up my alley. There was also a cool game about learning English based on groups of letters (for example, breaking “perfection” into “per”, “fec”, and “tion”) that had a really cute art style. They also gave us some merchandise for attending, namely a wristband, a bag, and some flyers that I definitely don’t have anymore. But I did buy a cute fruit sticker from one of the game showcase tables! (I didn’t really take any pictures from the Unreal Fesr, but I cannot for the life of me get rid of the image spot above / next to this text, so enjoy this weird random pic of an email they sent me about Unreal Fest lol.)
Once we were finished at Unreal Fest, we were all excited for lunch. I found a super small wagyu yakiniku place nearby, and man was it incredible. It was me, Pavel, Megan, Skyler, and Fabian, and just us alone took up nearly half of the space in the restaurant, but we got there at the perfect time when it was totally empty. Yakiniku is a type of restaurant where you’re provided with your own mini grill, and you can cook the meat to your liking. The meat was fantastic (and this was the first restaurant since being here in Japan that provided salt on the table, which was a big plus for me) and it was a really unique experience that I’m really happy I got to have. I’m really sad that I didn’t make it back here for the rest of my trip!
After lunch, we had some time to kill before we met with our professors again at 2:30. I went to the card store that I’d visited a couple days before to get some other cards that I’d been thinking about in my head, and then me and Pavel went to Bic Camera to meet up with Fabian. The only notable thing there was that they had a Pikachu keyboard on display, which was SO EXCITING to me because I’ve always seen them in videos and never gotten to play with one in person.
It was then time to head to CyberConnect2, a small game studio that we had the opportunity to tour that afternoon. They’re responsible for a lot of anime-to-video game titles, namely Naruto games, and it was cool to see all of the merchandise that they have in their offices and how small the teams really are in some gaming studios. The whole presentation they gave us felt super sugar-coated and corporate (and I’m not gonna lie, I was really close to falling asleep in the middle just because we were all SO tired from how busy we’ve been and getting to sit for an hour was few and far between) but it was a great experience! I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures inside of the office of course, but they did have an anniversary banner in their lobby that I got a picture of.
We were all pretty tired once we got back from the studio tour, but the next thing we had to worry about was dinner. We split into two main groups and the group I went with that went to Sushiro, a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. It’s another experience that I was really excited to have while being in Japan, and we had a lot of fun! Chloe, Fabian, Pavel and I sat at a booth together and I got to try some stuff that I don’t think I would’ve in another scenario, such as crab tempura with some mystery sauce on it (pretty sure it was mayo, but there is no guarantee). There was also a delicious chocolate cake slice that I of course had to order too!
Despite the rain, Chloe and I managed to convince Pavel and Fabian to come to the arcade next door with us to play the rhythm and crane games. We learned that Chloe is an absolute god at the cranes, winning a Miffy stuffed animal and a King Boo night light, and I had fun playing a rhythm game called maimai DX that I would definitely become addicted to if I lived here. Just before we left I also managed to win a Pokemon stuffed animal from one of the crane machines!
To end the night, we finished the Dungeons and Dragons movie and spent our final time together as a large portion of the group. Saying goodbye was really hard, but I’m so blessed to have been on this trip with so many incredible and amazing people and learned so much about myself and the world. I wouldn’t have traded this trip for anything else, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again when I’m back in Rochester. I love you guys!!
There is no other group of people I’d rather be crammed into an elevator with LOL!
Soooo I might have fallen behind on my blogs a little bit… oops. I would rather wait and put out a good blog making sure that I cover everything rather than skipping things to get them out on time, but I promise that I’ll still be covering every day until I leave! I’ve done sooo much since my last post and I’m so excited to share everything!!
To start the day, I woke up early and explored Akihabara with Fabian to see if we could find any more merchandise that we could snatch up as we were preparing to pack all our things again. I personally was looking to find some Pokemon cards as they’re basically sold out of everything in stores, and I stumbled across a card shop that had what I considered to be a LOT of good deals. I only bought some single cards because I didn’t want to chance my luck with the packs, and I’m really happy with the few that I got! We also went to a figure store called Tamashii Nations so Fabian could look at their Gunpla (a term for model kits… i think?) and he got a cool exclusive Iron Man figure.
We met up with the rest of the class at noon to head to Diver City, a place well known for its giant mall and giant Unicorn Gundam statue. While I don’t know much about the anime or the model kit community surrounding Gundam, the giant statue was really awesome and we even got to see it change forms (it basically just played some lights and music for 30 seconds and it’s horns closed together to become a single horn, like a unicorn). I don’t think I picked up anything from this mall, but there was a Mister Donut that I was finally able to try and MAN are those donuts good!!
Once we were finished at Diver City around 3, we went to the Miraikan Museum (“Mirai” means future) which had a lot of cool interactive exhibits that ended up being super depressing and existential. The entire thing was basically just “humanity is ruining Earth, we should fix it” and while I enjoyed seeing a lot of the exhibits they had it was kind of a mood killer. They did have this giant spherical Earth display that you could walk around that was really cool though!
The last group thing we did that day was by far my favorite. We finally got to visit TeamLab Planets, which has become really iconic online for its fantastic photoshoot potential. It’s basically an “interactive” art exhibition where you’re walking into these giant artsy scenes that make for some really good photos. I did already make my Instagram post about this because I just couldn’t wait, but I’ll put my photos here too because I’m really proud of them. The experience was really awesome and I think it’s especially fun as a couple or a group going through it together.
my personal favorite 🙂
they got mad at us after this 🙁
could not tell you what fabian was doing in this picture, but it’s hilarious
Once the school-sanctioned portion was over, Liam, Megan, Skyler, Fabian, Cameron and I decided to rent a karaoke room together for a couple hours because we felt like it was a quintessential Japan experience that we needed to have. Because I’m not one for singing with others (and a couple of the people I was with were MILES better than me) I didn’t sing much, but it was fun to look at all of the songs they had, both English and Japanese, and see how different the experience was compared to karaoke in America. We were in our own private room with couches, a massive screen, and two mics, and overall we had a great time! This was also, however, when the rain began.
Something interesting about our time in Tokyo is that there was actually a typhoon (Typhoon Mawar – though I’m pretty sure it was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached us) dancing along the coast of Tokyo over the last couple days, writing this in retrospect. From Thursday night until Saturday morning, a majority of the country (including where we were staying) faced a LOT of rain and wind. While it was never too bad for us rain-wise, the wind definitely broke a good chunk of our umbrellas and left me wishing I had brought a rain coat instead. We didn’t see any damage or severe flooding though, so I don’t think it was that bad!
Tomorrow is the last school-planned day of our trip! Which makes me really sad, because everyone leaves on Saturday 🙁 but I’m happy that I have a few extra days to get some final bucket list items out of the way!
Today, Esther and I spent our free day in Akihabara shopping! As a huge anime and game nerd, I was clearly very excited to get my hands on as much merch as I could from my favorite franchises.
We woke up relatively early to go to Tokyo Station and hit up Tokyo Character Street! Character street is filled with shops for Japanese franchises and characters like Sanrio and Hello Kitty, Studio Ghibli, Sumikko Gurashi, and more. My personal favorite was the Ghibli store, and my wallet hurt a bit after getting lots of gifts for friends there.
After spending some time at Character Street, we took the subway back to Akihabara where we spent the day going in the larger stores such as Mandarake, Animate, and Super Potato, as well as going to any and all smaller hole in the wall shops we could find. My personal favorite was a building we stumbled across called Radio Kaiken that turned out to be floors and floors of some of the coolest figure collections I’ve seen.
Some highlights from the shopping include:
Berserk figure
Majoras Mask Soundtrack
Original Ocarina of Time guidebook for the n64
Elden Ring Art Book
Pokémon White
lotsssss of Hunter x Hunter merch
We ended the day with some yummy hotpot and empty wallets, but it was very much worth the financial hit.
After an exhausting week, we were able to get up reasonably late and rest. The plan for the day was to get to Tokyo and to our hotel in Akhihabara. After a pretty quick two-and-half hour bullet train ride, we made it to Akhihabara and found our stay at the REMM Hotel, which was literally right next to the station, as well as the rest of Akhihabara. We settled in, got some food, and went to Madarake and Super Potato.
Madarake was a cool, warehouse, almost thrift-like store that had anime, games, art, manga, figurines, and just overall a lot of Japanese content, and even some Western things as well. It was really interesting, but also so much to look through in the hour we had.
Me looking around Mandarake
Afterwards, we split up to be on our own, and some of us went to Super Potato, a retro game store. It was really cool, but also quite cramped so it was difficult to thoroughly explore their collection. Afterwards, some of us separated further and went to ANIMATE, one of the top anime stores in Akhihabara, and it had a lot of content, but not much of what I was looking for, such as stickers or apparel.
After that, we went to a few more stores, but the rain really hindered our mood to explore, so we turned in for the night. However, we had an immediate free day in Tokyo to look forward to in the morning.
Today was our free day in Tokyo, so we decided to start the day with a quick trip to Starbucks for some drinks while we wait for the crepe place we intended to get breakfast at to open. By the time we had arrived at the crepe place I was pretty full on sugar, but luckily there was a beef skewer place just next door that was also opening, so I chose to get one of those instead. Nothing will top the beef skewer that I got at Nishiki Market, but it was still pretty good!
We also decided to visit Book-Off, a well known secondhand book/CD/video game store that held a surprising amount of Pokemon DS games. While most of them were 3DS games, I did manage to snag a copy of Pokemon Platinum for only $25 which I think is an unbelievable steal. The cartridge looks really cool too! I’m very excited to play it when I get home and see if there’s a save file on it (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they wiped it before putting it on sale). Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it and am already in bed, so here’s a picture of a really cute cat statue that I saw later in the day instead!
We then took a train to Tokyo station to find Character Street, a well known chain of shops under the station featuring a lot of popular chain stores like Disney, Pokemon, Kirby, and more. I didn’t find too many things there that I really liked, but I did get a cute cat sticker, a pressed coin from the Pokemon store, and some cute sweets from the mini Kirby cafe!
After a pit stop in the hotel to devour our goodies, we made a change to our original plan to go to Ginza and decided to stay in Akihabara and visit the Muji and Uniqlo stores here. I didn’t find anything interesting in Muji, but this Uniqlo store did have the Splatoon 3 shirts that I was looking for so I picked up two of them!
Splatoon was truly my downfall today. After visiting the Uniqlo store, I took a trip to the floor below to look at some video games and Pokemon merchandise. While none of the Pokemon merchandise caught my eye, I did see something else that made me excited… the Splatoon 3 Special Edition OLED Switch. Yes, it’s something I passed up at the beginning of my trip, but here I would be able to purchase it tax-free and save nearly $100 compared to how much it would cost in America. Cloud my judgement with the Splatoon and Splatoon 2 art books thrown in… I stood no chance. But I got a really good deal on some really amazing merchandise that I know I’ll use! So I’m happy.
After lugging all of my Splatoon merchandise home, we had to find a place for dinner. We decided to visit a sushi place that our professor had recommended us. The food itself was really good, but somehow the server or the chefs managed to forget about half of our order, so we were stuck there for over an hour. It was pretty affordable, but unfortunately I’d never go back just because of the bad experience we had.
To end the night, me and a few others decided to have a movie night in Skylar and Liam’s room and watch Bullet Train, a comedy/action movie set in a Shinkansen in Tokyo. The movie was actually really funny, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would! Tomorrow we will be going to TeamLab Planets, which I’m REALLY excited for because it’s a really iconic location with a lot of good photo ops. I think we are also visiting Diver City, which will probably have some cool merch spots! I’m sad that my time in Japan is moving so quickly, but I’m having so much fun that I don’t regret any of it.
Today we said goodbye to Kyoto and returned to Tokyo to stay in Akihabara for the rest of our trip. Akiba is considered the anime capital of Japan, loaded with merchandise to the brim, so I was excited to visit a lot of stores and look for anything niche and cool that I could snatch up.
The train ride from Kyoto to Tokyo didn’t hold anything interesting, but it was another pretty look at the scenery as it changed from more rural to more urban. Thankfully our hotel was only a couple minutes’ walk from the Akihabara station, so we didn’t have to do much walking and spent most of our transit on trains. We got a short bit of time to chill in our very interesting hotel rooms (Seriously – there’s a window between the bedroom and the shower that’s only blocked by the shower curtain. Kind of weird right??) before we headed out to explore some of the shops around our hotel.
I didn’t find anything of interest to me that didn’t seem super overpriced at most of the stores we visited, but Animate held a treasure trove of goodies for one of my favorite games right now: Project Sekai Colorful Stage. It’s a mobile rhythm game that I’ve been playing a lot over the last year, and it’s impossible to find merchandise of it in America, so it was one of the biggest things I was looking for when I came here. I also found a small store that was selling some really cute keychains of a couple of my favorite characters, so of course I had to pick those up too!
We ate dinner at a fried food restaurant that served fried chicken and shrimp, along with fries. We accidentally ordered WAY too much chicken but it was all very good! We then decided to go to Game Panic, a crane / rhythm arcade center that we ended up accidentally spending three hours in. Skylar won two things from the crane machines, but me and Megan had no luck. The rhythm games were super fun though!
Tomorrow we’ll hopefully be visiting Character Street in Tokyo for some more goodies, but the rest of our day is pretty open. We might do some karaoke or something else, who knows! I’m just happy I don’t have to wake up at 6 am tomorrow.
