wow. i can’t believe it came to a rearing conclusion. it was way harder to say goodbye than i thought it would be. i was able to see a bunch of people off which was nice, but i still felt like it wasn’t enough. i lived and traveled with these people for two weeks. we know the weirdest most insignificant details about each other, yet half of us don’t know our favorite colors. i wanna say that we became like a family, but if that’s the case we were a pretty dysfunctional family. but i wouldn’t have changed a thing.
i mostly just kicked about all day, saying goodbyes here and there, wandered around various stores, ate lunch at a decent hour. nothing much to really report. and then me, katherine, sten, and sj were off to the airport. we all conveniently had the same flight, so we were able to cop a ride paid for by rit. sweet!
once we were at the airport it was checking in, checking bags, going through security, waiting at the gate. all the classic and standard airport procedures. but eventually it was time to board the plane, and it really hit me that i was going home. my time in japan had come to a close before i could even fully process that i had gotten used to it. but then i was sat in my seat, where the next thirteen hours of my life would take place.
while on the flight i watched some movies, was able to fall asleep, and also read to pass the time. once i finally landed it was breezy going through customs, and after a slight mishap while trying to get my luggage, finally, i was back. i waited for my mom to pick me up outside of atl airport for maybe five minutes before i saw her pull up. of course we had a forty minute drive back to our house, but that didn’t matter. as sad as i was about leaving japan, i’m just going to use it as motivation and fuel so that i have to go back someday.
i can’t believe all that i saw, all that i experienced! and i’m so glad i got to share it with the group of people i did. this trip was absolutely amazing, and i know i’m going to look back on it fondly.
The majority of Friday I spent at Unreal Fest before going with the group Cyber Connect 2. I am really interested in the development and the technology behind video games; I even enjoy watching GDC talks and the making of documentaries in my free time. I got to see how they used motion capture technology to make a mesh follow movement live from a camera reference – I even got to try the headset on. They also let me use the sphere that takes a bunch of pictures at once and turns your face into a mesh for a video game character.
We met as a group in the hotel lobby before making our way to Cyber Connect 2. I’ve never gotten to tour a studio of any kind before, so this was a very cool experience. After this tour, we were free to do as we wished since this was the last scheduled day of the trip. I ended up on the same plane as both Professor Jacobs and Professor Sten, as well as another student so I spent my last day hanging around the hotel with them, mostly trying my luck at the arcade machines; which I did win a prize.
I was fortunate enough to not have anyone sitting next to me on any of my four flights. This was by far the longest plane ride I’ve ever experienced, and I was pleasantly surprised that we got three meals, free headphones, and access to hundreds of free movies.
While I was glad to be home, I found myself already missing the group of students, professors, and the KCG professors, I spent almost everyday with. I am beyond grateful to have gotten this experience and I can already see the short-term effects from this trip: greater confidence, better problem-solving, etc. But I am almost more excited to see how it will impact my life long-term. Thank you for this amazing trip!
June 3rd: the day we say goodbye. After saying one last goodbye to the remaining students in Japan in the hotel lobby, Maddy and I braved the train system together with our heavy bags and heavier hearts. Luckily, our two head working together helped us get to the airport without too much struggle (ignoring how laborious lugging our bags around was). We were also able to get through immigration, security, and on our plane without any issues.
However, Maddy only had about an hour and a half layover, and I had about two, proving to be an issue when we got to immigration in the U.S. Thankfully, we had just enough time to get to our respective gates before boarding started, but the anxiety while waiting in the long, snake-like line was overwhelming. Now we know in case we ever travel outside of the country by plane ever again: if you have a layover in the United States, make sure it’s at least three hours long. Although we made it on our planes, we were both cutting it real close, and I would much rather have way too much time to spend in an airport than cut it that close ever again.
I made it back to Rochester with all of my bags, got picked up by my friend, took a pit stop at Chipotle, and then went home.
This was my last meal in Japan. I decided to get tempura on rice at the airport. It came with egg tempura, shrimp tempura, and various vegetable tempuras. It was super yummy! I kinda of scarfed it down to make sure Maddy would have enough time to eat before the flight, so it’s hard to say more than that, but I thought it was really good.
On the plane, I got some pasta with a piece of bread, red bean mochi, and vegetables. I really like the pasta. It was very flavorful, and I liked not being allergic to something that I eat on the plane. I could not eat the vegetables because there were peas included. The bread was bread. Bread is always solid; a safe choice. The red bean mochi was really good, but the texture made me feel nauseous since Iw as already feeling lightly nauseous because I get motion sickness, so I did not finish the mochi. However, I know if I were on solid lad, I would have greatly enjoyed it.
For a mid-flight snack, I was given a ham and cheese sandwich with some snacks. I pocketed the snacks for later, but the ham and cheese sandwich was… a ham and cheese sandwich. Not much to say about it. Just a plain ham and cheese sandwich. I would’ve preferred it with mayo, but I was thankful to be getting any food in the first place.
For breakfast, I was given an omelet with a sausage and a piece of potato. The omelet was okay. It was cold by the time they got to me, so it felt kind of gross to eat. The sausage was better tasting cold. The potato thing was worse. This was probably the sketchiest plane meal I had on this trip, but once again, I was just thankful to not be allergic to it at all.
That marks the end of the trip! It was honestly such an amazing experience, and I am very grateful to have been able to go. Now, I’ve been back in the U.S. for a few days, and the jet lag coming back to the U.S. is way worse than it was when going to Japan. Take that warning as you will.
By the next morning, a melancholic mood had spread throughout the group as people slowly left for the airport. Sten and I spent the early afternoon doing some last-minute shopping at Mandarake. was staying in Japan for a few extra days. I waved farewell to everyone who left with Sten and Steve and then took my bags to my hotel nearby in Akihabara. Because I had to wait to check in, I went to a nearby 9-story tall bookstore and was impressed at their selection of 3D books. I bought some books there and the best clear file.
After returning and checking in, I went to see the Gridman Universe movie in the Japanese cinema. This was an interesting experience because each seat was in its own cubicle and the trailers before the movie were mixed in Japanese and English. The movie was also completely in Japanese and I was able to understand the gist of most of it.
I walked around Akihabara at night and went to the Kanda Myojin shrine. This was a really beautiful night. Also, I was surprised to still see the maids on the street at 12 to 1 in the morning.
The next day I went with my dad to Mt. Takao where there were many shrines along the way. There was also a monkey park along the way where we watched a feeding.
The view from the top of Mt. Takao. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Fuji
Later that night, I went for a walk around Roppongi and found a Harry Potter themed hallway. Apparently, there was a Harry Potter cafe in the area.
The next day, I went with my dad to the airport. My dad, who is a pilot, and I went with the crew bus to the airport and I was able to look up front and see my Dad do the preflight checks with the other pilots. This was a fun experience as I’ve only flown with my dad on his trips once before this was my first time getting a detailed tour of the cockpit.
The American Airlines crew busCaptain Dittmar and Co-Pilot Dittmar
What a trip! This was an incredible experience and I look forward to more travels in the future!
Sadly, the trip is finally coming to its conclusion. I loved Japan and definitely did not want to leave, but after the amount of excitement from the past 2 weeks, I wasn’t entirely dreading getting to go back home.
Thankfully, Esther was on the same flight as me! The two of us headed to Haneda airport around 11 am in preparation for our 3pm flight from Tokyo to Washington DC. We had to do a bit of waiting around at the airport for baggage check to open, but once we were through security and had checked our (very heavy and merch-filled) luggage, we could relax a bit.
The flight itself went very smoothly and I was able to get some cool pics of clouds and mountains 🙂
We landed in DC after 13 hours of sleeping and listening to music. Unfortunately our layover did not leave us with a lot of time to get through customs and recheck our luggage and we thought we were going to miss our connecting flight. Thankful, Esther was able to make her flight to Rochester on time and I successfully made my flight to Albany! Crisis averted.
I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again, but I can’t wait to go back to Japan! It was definitely the experience of a lifetime and one of my favorite places I’ve ever visited.
June 3rd: Finally it’s time to go home. Liam and I were on the same flight so we planned the whole day out. We both checked out around 10:30am and left our luggage at the hotel for a bit to do some final shopping.
We went to BookOff first where Liam got a book for his Mom and I found 2 DS games ( Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers Of Time/Darkness) for like 990 yen!!! In the US these games are worth like $300. Since I’ve come home I have played them and I realized DS games don’t have language options so the whole game is in Japanese… the summer of immersion!
After BookOff we walked to 2 other stores where Liam was looking for gifts. We ended up walking to Ueno and walking through a popular street so that was cool! After shopping it was about 12 and we took the train back to Akihabara. This is where we found out our JR passes as well weren’t working through the scanner.
We also saw some ads for the new Spiderverse movie on the trains! We grabbed our luggage and headed back to the station to head to Narita airport. We took the train to Nippori then transferred to the Skyliner straight to Narita Airport. It was about an hour train ride.
Once we arrived at the airport we took a walk around. This airport is crazy it’s like a mall plus an airport. We saw a Marvel pop up store, Lego store, Gucci, Versace, Chanel, and many other high end stores plus souvenir stores. We went to McDonalds for our last meal in Japan. I got some nuggets and Liam got a shrimp burger.
After eating, we attempted to find where security and bag check was. I was nervous because of my tax free goods but it ended up not mattering in the long run. We checked out bags, saw some Pokémon, went through security ( which was very relaxed compared to the rush in the US with shoes and putting things in Bins), and looked for our gate.
On the way to our gate we saw a store with Pokémon merch, Ghibli merch, some gunpla, and souvenirs. I had some extra yen so I got some sake KitKats, a magnet for my parents, a snow globe for my grandmother, and a crystal puzzle of JiJi from KiKi’s delivery service! We also stopped by a vending machine to get so much apple juice before leaving the country.
We sat at the gate for about an hour before boarding the plane. We were lucky that the storm was south of Narita so we had no delays. I was surprised that the bathroom in the airport ( I only know the women’s room) had a little holder in the stall for a baby and a sink with handrails. It was really interesting to see that.
We got on the plane and while Liam and I weren’t next to each other, we were the same row at least. The flight was about 12 hours so we got a couple meals. Most of the flight I watched movies like Le Mis, Soul, and Spiderverse. Meal 1 was some chicken and rice with chocolate chip mochi as a dessert. I skipped the middle meal as I was trying to nap, and breakfast was an omelet with tomato sauce, a sausage, and hashbrown. Meals were overall ok.
We landed in the states to see Newark NJ, what a grey city. We deplaned and headed to customs with took FOREVER. I don’t understand how you can have 9 booths to move people through and only have 3 open for a couple planes worth of people. It took probably an hour to get through customs and to get our bags. It was about 5pm EST and we left Japan at 5pm JST which was fun.
Liam and I split at baggage check as my parents were in the airport looking for me. I grabbed my bags ( all safe and sound ) and headed to meet my parents. I gave them a hug and we headed back to my hometown.
I got home, had a pork roll and egg on an English muffin, took a quick shower, and passed out. Since then my sleep schedule has been messed up and I’ve been trying to fix it. I’ve also been telling stories of my trip to my friends and parents.
Overall this trip has been a life changing experience for me and I’m so happy to have been able to experience everything with a fantastic group of people. I will always look back on this trip with pride, joy, and happiness. It has even inspired me to apply to the Fullbright program and have to chance to live in Japan for 10 months for research.
Thank you everyone for making this trip amazing. Love you all!!!
Finally, the day had come: the flight home. Brody and I didn’t have a flight until 6:42 PM, later delayed to 7:05 PM. We left the hotel at checkout time, around 11 AM, and we said a hearty goodbye to those who were there. Brody and I were comfortable with the idea of getting to the airport and chilling out for 5 hours, so that’s what we did. We took a train back to Narita-Tokyo and went to the check-in station for Singapore Airlines – our airliner.
However, we did not expect them to open at 3:40 PM, 3 hours from our arrival time. So, we got our last Japanese McDonalds, where I had a crazy good chicken-teriyaki burger and shaka shaka chicken. I sat and caught up on some Star Wars comics as Brody read some manga until 3:40 PM, where we rushed to drop our massive amounts of clothes and merchandise we had bought during our stay. We made it past the very lax security and to the gate, where we would sit for another three hours with a small gyoza break somewhere in there.
Finally, we boarded our flight and prepared for a 10 hour flight, in which I watched an anime called Forest of Piano. The flight was long, but I was able to get some sleep to help me out with the inevitable jet lag back home. After a not-so-bad 10 hours, we landed at 12:40 PM at LAX. My father picked us up as Brody and I went back to stay the night at his place, Brody meeting some of my relatives for an excellent Mexican dinner.
Brody and I going through the over-hyped US customs
Brody and I got back to my dads house after dinner and binge-watched three episodes of the latest season os Succession (crazy good show, I would recommend it any day) before passing out from our exhaustive day of travel, only to wake up to another full day of travel from LAX to ROC, where we would be taking different flights with different layovers.
Japan was one of the best experiences of my life and I’m grateful to both Professor Jacobs and Professor McKinzie for allowing me to join them on their expedition abroad, and I am thankful to have met all of my fellow students on this trip and gotten to know them. To those who graduated: good luck on your future endeavors! To those who did not: I look forward to seeing you this upcoming year, where we can brag loudly about our fantastic summer trip.
Today was our final goodbye :(. We pretty much had to get to the airport on our own since everyone had different flights, but it wasn’t bad at all. Me and Vincent had the same flight so we just took this train that goes directly to Narita. It was really easy and quick. Unfortunately our genius plan of getting to the airport early did not end up being great. This is because Singapore Airlines didn’t open their desk for giving them our checked bags until 3pm, we got there at 12pm. So we had a few hours to kill until we could ditch our bags and go to the airport.
So we did what every good american does and got McDonalds :). I finally tried the samurai burger, it was really good! After sitting next to the desk for 3 hours we were finally able to get in line to deposit our bags. Once we got rid of our checked bags we headed to our gate. The customs were super easy to get through, they didn’t even ask us abour the tax-free stuff we bought, which was the only thing I was really worried about. We got to our gate pretty easily and then waited to board our flight. I think I preffered ANA on the flight to Japan because their seats were nicer and I liked the food better. It was still a really good flying experience though.
After landing in LAX we got our checked bags and then Vincent’s dad picked us up. They were letting me stay with them overnight which was super helpful. Once we got to his place we watched an episode of Succession and then took a well deserved nap. After the nap we had dinner reservations with Vincent’s family, who were all really really nice. Some of them had actually just gotten back to Japan recently, so we got to compare experiences. We ate at this super good mexican food place, which was a nice change of palette from Japan. After dinner we went home, watched more Succession, then went to bed for the night. In the morning we loaded up our bags and went out to get pho for breakfast. It was, as expected, very good. After pho we went to the aiport, which is where Vincent and I were to part ways, since we didn’t have the same flight this time. I checked my bag and then headed to my gate to wait for my flight. I got some starbucks becuase I was hungry and then we took off for Rochester! This trip was amazing and easily the best 2 week period of my life. I can, with a full chest, say that it changed my life. Thank you Steve, KCG, Sten, and everyone else who made this trip possible. I will never forget it.
My trip from the US to Japan was a chaotic and anxious time, but was fun nonetheless. The trip started in Sacramento, CA at 5am PST, when I left my house to go to the airport. My flight began boarding around 7am and took off at 7:30am, bound for LAX. I arrived in LAX at 9:00am in the American Airlines terminal and no clue how to get to the international terminal. After asking one of the staff at the terminal how to get to the terminal I boarded a shuttle and arrived within a few minutes. Then I scurried off to Starbucks for breakfast and then metup with Vincent, who would be flying with me, at our gate. The 10hr flight straight over the ocean to Japan took off at 12:45pm on ANA.
This was by far the best airline experience I have ever had. Not only was the staff insanely nice and helpful, but they also offered us water and tea on a regular basis. The flight included 2 free meals that were so delicious. For the first meal, I chose the seafood option, which was a mix of various fish topped with rice. There was a salad on the side, as well as some meat and a piece of bread with butter. For the second meal, I chose the beef pasta option, which was a thick tube pasta topped with really yummy beef sauce. The sides for this one were a mayonnaise pasta salad and some seaweed. For desert we got a Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream. The rest of the flight consisted of either sleeping or playing Tears of the Kingdom. The seats were comfortable and there was a flipable table to eat on. They even gave us a blanket and pillow! Overall 10/10 plane experience.
Upon arriving in Japan we had to get through customs, which was a mess. I have never been out of the US so I didn’t know how customs worked. This caused some confusion when one of the airport staff asked me if I needed immigration documentation, which I took as documents for moving to Japan, so I said I didn’t need them. As it turns out I did. They were just the documents required for entering the country. This meant that I had to leave the line and fill out the docs, then re-enter and get everything checked. After getting through customs, which took longer than it should have, we made our way to the train station. This is were the chaos really ensued. We didn’t know how to get tickets into the train station or for our train, but we eventually figured it out. Unfortunately the train that should have taken us directly into shinagawa stopped for some reason or another, meaning we had to take the train to Tokyo Station and then cab to our hotel. This caused us to arrive at the hotel later than the intended time of 6pm JST, so we had to hurry to the Shinagawa station to get out JR rail pass for the trip.
My journey started in San Francisco where my flight to Haneda airport started at 12 pm. The flight was overall pretty smooth with the exception of having the middle seat… At least I bought the wifi which was definitely worth the $18 for the whole flight. The flight was filled with me starting Honkai: Star Rail and competitive games of Hearthstone.
Upon arriving, I successfully navigated the train system to get to the hotel I booked (since I got to Tokyo early). However, I took the wrong exit out of the station and ended up in the backstreets of Roppongi where I wandered through a park. It would have been a much more welcome experience had it not been raining…
The next day, I went to Asakusa where apparently the Sanja Matsuri (festival) was happening. Supposedly, this is one of the largest festivals in Tokyo! I met with Belle and Megan who happened to be visiting on the same day. Jessica joined us later. I also got a drew a fortune in which I got a regular one. The festival was busy at first, however, by 2 pm the crowd became unbearable and we decided to split up.
Later that day I met with my dad who was on a layover and we went to the Rainbow Bridge (which there were no rainbows to be found. What a scam!). However, walking across the bay to Daiba was really pretty at night. However, the bridge was very windy and there was a lot of walking involved so by the time I got back we were exhausted. Next time I would like to take one of those ferries on the water.
From here, you can see both Tokyo Tower and the Tokyo Skytree if you look closely.
The next morning my dad and I went to the Tsukiji fish market and had sushi for breakfast. However, the restaurant was really crowded and busy in the morning so I didn’t get any good pictures. For a Sunday, where the fish market was supposed to be closed, there were still many shops open and people moving about. I did also find a sushi vending machine… Not sure how good it would be though…
My dad and I said our goodbyes and I went to drop off my bags at the hotel. Later that day we went to a hololive event in Akihabara.
Lastly, the day ends with us exchanging our train ticket vouchers and having a meal at the food court at the hotel where I got one of my favorite foods, Kitsune Udon (udon with sweet fried tofu). I can’t wait for what’s to come!
