Tag: Culture

day twelve: succumbing to my (converse) demons

today was yet another later starting day. man, no disrespect to yuko, but i could get used to this! my day pretty much started when we all got together as a group so we could travel to diver city. it was a pretty long train ride, about 40 minutes, but it also gave us a great view as we traveled through tokyo and its surrounding sub areas. there were many cool views we could look at while on board.

once we got to diver city we made a beeline for the gundam statue, which was actually really cool. it was like 100 feet tall and to scale. i could feel fabian’s smile and absolutely positive energy just radiating from him. after we took a couple photos it was inside the mall to get some food. i got these chicken bites that were pretty good, but unfortunately my appetite is small. i only had about three of them before i was full.

after lunch it was just meandering around the mall, and i knew i wanted to get a couple souvenirs here. as i was looking around i managed to stumble across gundam kitty and i actually wanted to explode she was so cute. i made my way to the actual gundam store though so i could buy my brother something. and then it was there i saw it. as i was riding the escalator down i happened to catch a glimpse of a certain logo.

the converse logo.

and for those that don’t know, i might have a tiny problem. let’s just say i have 25 pairs of converse— well, 24 before today. anyway, i immediately raced into the abc-mart and what did my tiny little eye spy? a pair of deep navy converse, duel navy racing stripes on the rubber, with gold colored eyelets around the laces, and a white collar with another set of duel navy racing stripes printed on it. i was in love. i needed them, and so naturally i bought them.

after that devastating blow to my wallet, it was time for a museum. and i gotta be honest. i kind of just sat on the bench with sten for a lot of it. i wasn’t all that interested because it was all pretty depressing stuff about how we’re killing our planet and other various things. it was fine, just i was too excited for what was coming next.

next on the agenda was teamlabs and that is probably one of the biggest things i’ve been looking forward to this entire time. it’s basically a glorified photoshoot space, but i didn’t care because it looked so damn cool. we eventually get to teamlabs but we were split into two groups and our time slot was the later one. so we waited for about two hours until we could finally enter.

but man once we did, my breath was taken away. the mirrors made everything so trippy, and interacting with all of the different rooms was so fun. i was looking around in amazement and wonder the entire time. talk about an experience. we took several group photos, as well as plenty of individual shots too. the people i was grouped with, matched with the ambiance of teamlabs really made it such a fun activity. i definitely would want to do that again (lol i’d do the entire trip again) if i ever came back to japan.

it was pretty late by the time we got out, so it was mostly just back to the hotel and off to sleep. tomorrow is the last full day of the trip and i can’t believe how quickly it already got here. until then.

day five: hiroshima

today was a lot both mentally and physically. mostly mentally, though. wow what a day. it started out with a two hour shinkansen to hiroshima. it was pretty cramped because i was sat in the reversible section facing cam, megan, and fabian. but the company was companionable and i enjoyed chatting with them.

when we actually got to hiroshima we went to a little center to get lunch. i got gyoza and rice which was really good. then we headed to the a-bomb dome. it was really surreal to see, especially considering how close to the epicenter of the blast it was. it was so close, within 600 meters, and yet there it stood still relatively intact. once we soaked that in it was time to go into the peace museum.

wow.

it was heavy. really, really heavy. reading the letters that parents wrote to their children, or older siblings to their younger siblings made me cry. they were such mundane letters, people expressing love and a wish to see each other soon, and yet it’s the knowledge of knowing that they never got to meet again. it’s such a tragedy, and seeing the horrors and atrocities that these people had to live through —less than eighty years ago, mind you— is insane. the suffering they had to endure, not only during the bombing itself, but for decades afterwards too is just-. i really can’t put it into words. and the fact that the u.s. decided to drop another bomb on nagasaki too??? horrific.

it’s weird to say that i ‘enjoyed’ the museum, because there definitely wasn’t joy involved per se. but it was an experience i’m glad i did, and it genuinely did make me stop and reconsider things. it offered pieces of history that i wasn’t even aware of, as well as modern history. i didn’t know that biden had been doing nuclear tests, but apparently the mayor of hiroshima wrote an official letter and implored him to rethink things, so that the atrocities that were seen in japan were never recreated elsewhere.

on a more lighthearted note though, following dinner me, belle, liam, esther, brody, vincent, megan, and skyler all went to the pokemon center. i managed to snag a really cool mug that had a bunch of dark types on it, as well as stickers of ditto and magikarp, a small dewott plushy, and a relatively large dragonite plushy for my older brother. but time was quickly running out and we didn’t have enough time to get a cab back to the station so all of us had to absolutely haul. ass. to get back the shinkansen station on time. it was rough not gonna lie, but so incredibly worth it.

the train ride back was a quiet one as we all kept to ourselves. i mostly reflected on the day’s events, and listened to my music. overall i did have a good day, but like i said by the end of the day i was both mentally and physically exhausted. tomorrow should be fun though since it’s our free day, and i can finally start spending a bunch of money!

day four: zen sesh and tea ceremony

we woke up so early today i can’t even THINK. anyway today started out with breakfast at the hotel, and then a bus ride to a zen meditation temple was how we began our morning. a monk guided us through the session where we had two fifteen minute meditation sessions.

i’ve meditated in the past, and honestly it’s not really for me. i feel like my mind is constantly moving, and it’s always too active to just calm down. i always find myself getting bored and can’t really push through that to achieve that zen state. but this time was actually pretty awesome. i felt myself getting into the zone, and really focusing on my breathing and the soft sounds of nature. when i noticed that my mind started to wander i asked the monk to whack me with his meditating stick (i totally forget what it’s called ?) twice in between my shoulder blades. this allowed me to feel more alert, but specifically in regards to meditating. it was awesome.

after that we headed to a temple (but not before accidentally forgetting skyler, whoops) that had 1,001 golden statues. they were all so intricately detailed and it’s said that one even looks like you. i managed to pick up a souvenir for my brother, and then me and jas headed out to the gardens to walk through them and take some photos. yuko still had us on a tight leash and quickly pulled us to the next area on our agenda.

we headed to a similar place near kiyomizu dera temple and walked the streets visiting less popular shrines, while the other half of the class participated in a tea ceremony. at this point i was starting to get a little cranky because i was pretty tired. but i pushed through because, honestly, how many times am i going to be in japan??? when it was our groups turn for the tea ceremony i wasn’t all too thrilled, because i’m not that big of a tea person either… i’m really 0/2 on these huh. the ceremony was lovely though, and we learned about wa kei sei jaku which means peace & harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility, which are the lessons to be learned from making the matcha tea.

following that we had plenty of free time to traverse the nishiki market. i got some beef skewers and they were so. good. ugh. i was hanging out mostly with belle, megan, and katherine and it was really fun! at one point sj got a wagyu beef skewer because he wanted to try it, but was willing to give the rest up to everyone else. unfortunately before anyone could have any katherine dropped it on the ground. it was super funny, but i tried not to laugh since i could tell she felt really bad about it. no harm no foul, but still pretty hilarious.

after that was bowling at round one, and i absolutely demolished during the first game. i played the best bowling game of my LIFE. with no bumpers either!!! unfortunately my winning streak ended abruptly and i never recovered. also me, belle, and megan were all pretty tired, and as lovely as waruni was, we really wanted to just go back to the hotel and sleep. belle won the second game, and in a surprise comeback waruni managed to steal the win from megan in the third and final game. all in all it was a solid day, but i look forward to what tomorrow has in store.

day three: temple run

i’m currently writing this at 9:17 pm, and i swear to god i could pass out at any given second. this long and eventful day started bright and early, meaning i had to wake up at 6 am, which is extremely early for me. i somehow managed to stay conscious long enough to get ready, eat breakfast, sit through a brief introduction with our guide, and then we were promptly on our way.

after a quick bus ride we were already at the kinkakuji temple. it was absolutely breathtaking. just walking into the entrance and seeing the main building was so beautiful. as much as i could have spent an entire day in the courtyard alone, yuko had a strict schedule to keep us on. we were quickly swept away to the main attraction: the golden pavilion. it was constructed in the 13th century and made from solid gold. the gardens and pond that surrounded it were gorgeous, and it was so cute to see the wildlife that lived peacefully there. walking around the entire stone path, at one point managing to lose a couple hundred yen trying to land a coin in a bowl, yuko lead us through the rest of the temple.

next up was the bamboo forest, and i was particularly excited for this one. not only was it going to be awesome as hell, it was also going to be shady and keep us cool from the suffocating heat and humidity. as we were driving there that’s when we all noticed just how many vending machine’s were posted up on almost every street corner. seriously. i didn’t realize japan happened to be the vending machine capital of the world or something, jeez. anyway once we got to the bamboo forest i was actually just floored. it was gorgeous. i could’ve gotten lost wandering around forever. however that was quickly dashed when yuko began dragging us along to the next stop.

following the forest was kiyomizu dera temple which was probably my favorite that we visited. between the traditional styled architecture, the bustling shops and stalls, and the gorgeous view of kyoto once you climbed to the top of the temple, it was just wonderful. as we were ascending the steps, and the hill (??? idk it was an upwards slope of stores) i saw so many things i wanted to buy, but again yuko had other plans. we quickly took a group photo, and headed up the rest of the way to the top of the temple. there was a lookout point that we could see all of kyoto from. the photos really don’t do it justice. once we were done we were allowed 30 minutes to shop around before meeting up for the next shrine. i stuck with belle, megan, and jess for this time and made notes for what i would come back for on our free day.

the final stop with yuko was the fushimi inari shrine. there are over 10,000 tori gates to go through, and that would take over two and a half hours which was time we didn’t have to spare. so instead we took the extremely abridged route, and only went through about two hundred. i liked the omokara ishi part a lot, it was a wishing stone and depending on how heavy the stone felt when you picked it up was an indicator of how likely it was to come true!

to round out the day we watched the demon slayer: mugen train movie, which was pretty interesting since i haven’t seen season one. i sat next to jasmine and kept asking her questions about what was happening and going on. it was very entertaining. then the class made the collective decision to get food at a malls foodcourt where we got to spend our first little bit of isolated time with toshi (my beloved). i got indian and received the largest piece of naan i’d ever seen in my LIFE. belle took a photo of me, skyler, and jess with each of our naan’s, which will stick with me forever.

Day 2 in Akiba

05/30/2023

Starbucks for breakfast today! I had this cookies n cream chiffon cake at a Starbucks in Hiroshima, and it was so good that I immediately went for it again at the sbux nearby our hotel in Akiba.

A small group of us wandered out to explore & shop since we had a free day today. We had plans to go to character street (and for some, the kirby cafe) but first, crepes!

Ironically, I did not order a crepe despite being in love with the fake food display. Ever since arriving in Japan, I became slightly more obsessed with soft serve than I ever have been in the states. So I ordered a small cone for 300JPY.

A bunch of us craved something savory after the dessert and got kebabs from the stand next door. Thank you Jess for holding my chicken kebab as I took the photo above ?

We shopped around character street and I got to experience some of the cute kirby desserts with those who went. We also stopped by muji!! Weird to say, but I’ve always wanted the handheld paper shredder from their website but the shipping costs stopped me before. I was able to snatch one in person for myself during our short drop-in and I was living the life.

By around 5pm, we were getting HUNGRY. I had a date to meet up with a friend for dinner tonight, so I thought I could eat a few pieces of sushi and still be hungry enough for dinner. Jess and I went to a sushi place where I made a huge mistake. For some reason I didn’t think I would get full off of a full set of sushi and happily chowed down on the fish & miso soup.

The sushi chefs were super friendly & funny with us, and we were enjoying the food so much that I just ate as much as I could. I met up with my friend in Ikebukuro 3 hours later and ended up only ordering a slice of cheesecake due to how full I was from the sushi.

I met up with my friend to grab a package that I had shipped to her earlier this year, and to make a trade off with our merch. She works as a professional translator, moonlighting as a mangaka & illustrator in her freetime. She had recently tabled at an event and sold out of her original series but she had saved one copy for me, so I greedily asked for her signature while sliding over some of my own merch as thanks!

The meal she ordered looked delicious, and unfortunately I ate the worst cheesecake of my life this night. The little pink bud things on the whipped cream were sakura flowers. For some reason I thought they looked fun to chew so I popped one in my mouth and a sour taste immediately blossomed in my mouth, mellowing out to a bitter taste a few seconds later. I died a little. The cheesecake itself was insanely dense (in a bad way) and very tasteless?! The berry sauce unfortunately did not help the flavor much, not to mention how TINY the slice was. It was around 700jpy and it was the first time I felt juped by the pricing of food since I arrived in Japan.

We went karaoking for almost 2 hours after dinner, and then said our tearful goodbyes at the station before heading back.

Game Jam Day 2

05/28/2023

Game Jam Day 2. Today was a blur. We worked hard on our respective parts for the game before having to present to everyone.

Omurice for lunch!

We met two very cool developers who critiqued our work and got to see what everyone else worked on during the jam. It was very interesting to see the concepts that everyone went for. Some were very cute, and some were very shonen-esque.

Here’s our very cute group photo once we were ready to head out!

This was also the day where I noticed my ankle had gotten bit at least 5 times by some sort of bug (not mosquitos…?) and was the start of a few miserable days following this day. It was just a bit itchy in the morning, and my entire right ankle had swollen up by the time we were leaving the university. Luckily, we weren’t walking around much and we took a cab home so my leg could rest in the meantime.

Tearful Goodbyes

Saturday was the day that most of our group was leaving. We spent the morning doing some last minute shopping and saying goodbye to people as they left. At noon, me and Jessica checked out of our hotel in Akihabara and jumped in a taxi with Jasmine to head to our hotels. Jasmine was staying in a hostel nearby so we dropped her off first and then headed to our hotel in Asakusa. The hotel was small but all of the staff were very nice and they had a lot of amenities and free drinks throughout the day that made up for my inability to leave my suitcases open for any long period of time because of the lack of space in our room.

We decided to get lunch at a pasta place across the street from our hotel, which marked the first time I’ve ever tried Carbonara before and MAN it was good!! I wanted to get french fries on the side but the waiter must have misheard me and gave me a sausage instead, which I wasn’t too happy about but I didn’t want to try to explain to him that I had asked for something else with the language barrier so I kept my peace. The pasta itself though was fantastic!!

After we ate, we headed to Shinjuku to look at the giant 3D cat billboard and a shrine nearby. The pictures for the billboard don’t look fantastic, but it did appear surprisingly real in person and made me very happy! The shrine was surreal because the grounds were tucked in amongst massive skyscrapers and office buildings, and felt like a little escape from the chaos of the city. We also stopped in at an arcade that we passed while walking back from the shrine and I managed to win two dog keychains for me and Jessica!

Once we were back from Shinjuku, we had to decide what to do with our evening. After some deliberation, we decided that it would be fun to go to an onsen. For those who aren’t familiar, an onsen is a hot spring bath (ours was in the middle of the city, so it was really just a communal hot tub) where you cannot wear a bathing suit. So yes, we sat naked in a hot tub with a bunch of strangers. And honestly, it wasn’t that bad! Once you get in and realize that nobody around you cares, and as long as you follow the rules and are respectful of everyone around you, it’s a pretty chill experience. But I’m not sure if I’d do it again, and definitely not alone!

I will likely combine Monday and Tuesday as they were less eventful than Sunday and Wednesday, but I won’t decide for sure until I write it. We’ll see! Almost there, I still have a lot more to share!!

Culture Day

My day started with brunch with my Dad, who was on a layover, at Denny’s. At Denny’s, I was taking to my Dad about the trip when the person at the table next to us caught our attention and introduced himself as a employee at Gamefreak. We talked for a while and connected on LinkedIn.

At noon, we all met to go to the Imperial Palace and walk around the gardens. Toshi explained the respect that people have for the Imperial family and thus it was a crime to take anything from there. The gardens were really pretty and one area had different species of trees from all over Japan.

After that, we went to Harujuku where we had a lunch at a cafe at the top of a mall. The mall was really fancy looking and had an escalator that looked as if it could be straight out of Doctor Strange.

The next stop was the Meiji Shrine where we walked through a forest to get inside. The shrine itself was impressive but the forest surrounding it was more impressive, in my opinion.

After the shrine was our free time where some of Jessica, Chloe and I went to Shibuya to shop at the One Piece store. We also stopped by the Jump Store and saw the Mewtwo tank at the Pokemon Center.

Last, we ended the day celebrating Fabian’s 21st birthday at the Monster Hunter cafe. The food was extremely mid but I got a delicious drink.

That’s all for today. See you next time!

To be continued…

Broke x2

Today we visited the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo! While we weren’t able to get actual tickets inside the palace, we spent the morning exploring the beautiful imperial gardens. The most memorial portion of the gardens was the koi pond. It was serenely calm, had a small waterfall and various flowers and plants scattered on its banks. Hence the name, there was also koi fish in the pond! I’m continuously awed by their vibrant colors and spent a while just sitting on the bridge watching them. I also made a pill bug friend!

After exploring the gardens for a while, we then headed over to Harajuku to grab lunch. We found a food court that had a really cool decora-themed interior. I got a korean corn-dog and fried seaweed 🙂 I will also never stop talking about the street fashion in Harajuku and I could easily spend all day people watching to observe the fits.

The group then headed to the Meiji Shrine in Shibuya, known for its large Torii gates. We spent some time at the shrine observing the gorgeous scenery and paying respects to the local deities.

After the shrine,Vincent, Brody, Esther, and I decided to hang around the Shibuya area since we were already here. Esther and I were told about Shibuya 109 (a shopping complex specifically for women’s clothing), and we’re immediately eager to check it out. In Shibuya 109 I found my dream store :0. The store was a blend of goth, punk, and skater styles and definitely embodied my dream style. Sadly, everything was so insanely expensive else I could have easily bought out the entire store. I followed them on Instagram though and I will be back someday with more money. Shibuya 109 was still a successful venture and I ended the day with a few new articles of clothing I was super excited about.

Moe Moe Kyun!!!

Our first free day in Tokyo started with a quick Starbucks run and a trip to a crepe shop. I got a tiramisu cream crepe and it was pretty good. The group then decided to go to Character Street at Tokyo Station where we bumped into a wild Sten wandering around Akihabara. He then joined us on our travels.

At Character Street, we shopped at all of the stores. I bought merch at the Jump store, Snoopy store, and a Quintessential Quintuplets pop up store. There were also other smaller stores where I bought my new favorite towel. It is a Haikyu towel of the character Kageyama Tobio and it says Ballin. They also had a Ghibli store and a pokemon center.

Afterwards, I headed back to the hotel with Sten and had a brief visit to Super Potato before heading back to the hotel. However, instead of resting, I had to find a coin laundry. I then found one on Google maps that was 11 minutes away and walked to it. Turns out, it was right next to a station one stop away from Akihabara so I went back to shop during the hour while my clothes were being washed. After picking up my clothes, I stopped off at a Thai restaurant for a quick early dinner.

At around 7:30, it was time for a maid cafe adventure with Sten and Steve. Since Jas and Jessica went to a cafe where the maids wore cat ears, we decided that it would be a great idea to approach any maid we saw but only if they were wearing cat ears. Immediately, Sten finds a cute maid in cat ears right outside our hotel and nonchalantly walked up to her and asked where her place was. The poor maid was in sheer terror as she probably had never met such a large and scary bald man with Yokai tatoos. After that, I was relegated to the duty of maid conversationalist as I am neither a large or scary bald man and I do not have Yokai tatoos. My ability to speak Japanese may have also been a deciding factor. Sten and Steve were lucky and had the job of pretending not to know me by hanging out in a nearby store to not scare the maid. After talking to a few maids, I struck a meaningful conversation with a maid and she offers to show me the way to her cafe. I call over Sten and Steve which surprisingly did not scare her off. She leads us up into a slightly suspicious bar with brightly colored and expensive looking alcohol where we quickly make our way out the door. We later found the maid cafe where Jas and Jessica went the day before. At the beginning, they served us Tokyo Mew Mew water where upon drinking it, you would turn into a cat! After turning into cats, we then enjoyed overpriced and aggressively mediocre deserts and soft drinks served by the maids in cat ears. We also got our pictures taken at the end.

Steve found the maid show mildly amusing, probably.
Sten enjoyed the experience, probably.
My Otaku cafe was about 1/10th as delicious as it was cute.

With that experience in the books, what could possibly top this?

To be continued…