Tag: excessive shopping

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 eleven: yuko back from the past?!

no, not actually. today was just a very jam packed day in a short amount of time that it almost felt like the spirit of yuko was guiding us along. we set out for the imperial palace and it was something that i was looking forward to seeing because i knew it had beautiful gardens. so we started our day by taking a train ride and then walking a short ways to the entrance of the palace.

as we began along the path it was crazy seeing just how large some of the stones in the walls were. they were cut so perfectly, smoothed down so nicely, were even taller than me (cries in 5’2″), that i reckon they had to be at least 1.5 tons each. EACH. and there were thousands of these stones littered across the emperor’s property. yeah, apparently the emperor lives there and we were just waltzing around. granted thousands of people visit a day, but shhhh.

once we got to the gardens i was extremely happy because everything was just so pretty!!! i really enjoyed walking around and just taking in the peace and tranquility of it all. i got some lovely photos, and i’m pretty surprised at how nice some of them turned out.

after that we were on our own so about half of us headed down to shibuya so we could hit up a couple stores. me, jess, and skyler once again headed to a one piece store. and yes once again i spent an absurd amount of money. while there we happened to run into maddy, esther, vincent, and brody, but unfortunately maddy got spoiled something while she was looking around womp womp. i purchased some goody’s for myself, my brothers, and my boyfriend, and then we headed over to the mall where the rest of the group was.

as soon as we got to the mall i headed to the nintendo store to look around. i thought maybe i’d find something mario odyssey related, or something adorable that i’d just HAVE to spend money on. i found neither of those things. then i realized that i couldn’t find jess and skyler. assuming they left with the big group i headed over to the pokemon store. i searched high and low for something magikarp themed for my boyfriend but to absolutely no avail. i was truly gobsmacked. feeling dejected i headed back to the train station only to find out that apparently skyler and jess hadn’t abandoned me and were waiting for me at the malls elevators, while i was already at the train station. whoops. after we all got back in one piece 😉 i headed up to my room to decompress.

later that night a bunch of us got together in liam and skyler’s room to watch the first half of the new d&d movie. it was pretty outrageous, kinda predictable, but it was goofy and fun. i really enjoyed watching it with everyone, even though towards the end of the night i was pretty tired.

day eight: gameJAM pt. ii and osaka

the end of the gamejam was a mad dash of last minute additions and changes that i can’t even remember everything. kiri and takato were stressed until the very end, and honestly me, cam, and jas, were just happy that we finished. i was a bit disappointed that my ui didn’t look as good as i wanted it to, and i could tell that cam wasn’t necessarily all that happy either, though jas seemed to be having a good time. takato and kiri were clearly unhappy at how it turned out, but i’m glad we got to spend that time with them.

we got to see everyone’s games and they were all so cool and unique. i really liked group one’s where you had to beat a fusion of godzilla and big foot using one player that could switch between eastern and western superhero identities. i also really liked group five’s (i think? it might have been group three) game where you had to take the customer’s order in your native language, but had to actually make their order in the language you were trying to learn. everyone had such different ideas that tackled the them of bridging the gaps of culture.

once we took our pictures and said our goodbye’s, a large group of us headed off to osaka. it was a thirty minute shinkansen ride, so before we knew it we were there! we immediately embarked on our quest to this mall, because it had several shops all on one floor for all of us to weeb out at. for me, that was the one piece store.

i went in all starry-eyed and amazed as if i was in heaven, similar to a toddler in toys r us (rip ✊?) around christmas time. it was magical. needless to say i spent several thousand yen here, and i hadn’t even been to the other stores yet. next up was the nintendo store where i exhibited some restraint and didn’t buy anything. however that restraint was all but thrown out the window when i got to the pokemon center. what? i bought a chouchou plushy from the one piece store and he was lonely, so i bought a ditto plushy as a friend. i had to.

me, belle, skyler, and jess got dinner at an italian place, and their four cheese pasta was alright. like it definitely could have been worse, but it also wouldn’t have been that hard to make it better either. after that though we headed to the shinkansen station so we could take the train back to kyoto.

deciding to not let the party end there when we got back to the hotel most of us decided to hang out and play some jackbox, while also sipping on some beverages(those of us that were legal, that is). it’s hard to say which i preferred between friday and today, but they both definitely give the other a run for its money.

i look forward to tomorrow because i actually get to sleep in oh my GOD. it’ll be a travel day, so not too much on the agenda, and after the brutal nonstop pace of kyoto i can’t wait to have more breathing room in akihabara.