Tag: Food

Food in Day 10: Downtown Tokyo, Harajuku, and Shibuya

The first thing we did after having breakfast was go to the Tokyo Imperial Palace. We walked around, observing the architecture, gardens, and koi fish before we went to Harajuku to visit the Meiji Shrine and have a lunch break. After that, the class split up, and Brody, Vincent, Maddy, and I went back to Shibuya. We visited a record shop before Maddy and I split off to look around in Shibuya 109 before we reconvened, had dinner, and went back to the hotel for yet another late-night meeting.

Guess what I got for breakfast?

Wow! You got it! I got McDonald’s again! This time around, I got the red pepper Shaka Shaka chicken with fries and an iced latte. The seasoning that came with the Shaka Shaka chicken was super good. It was just a tad spicy, and it was very flavorful. I put a little bit of the seasoning on my fries as well because it was so good. The latte was also good because it was less bitter and not hot coffee.

In Harajuku, we found this unique Pink Panther food court that had a stage for performances. During performances, photos and videos were not allowed, but because we went to eat in between performances, I was able to take pictures. I got a tornado potato and a Korean hot dog with cheese on the top and a hot dog on the bottom. I was not a big fan of the potato tornado. It was incredibly messy to eat, and it was mildly sweet when I was expecting a salty potato treat. Thankfully, the Korean corn dog was incredibly good, and I would highly recommend anyone who likes corn dogs to try it out. It was major upgrade from just a regular American corn dog. This may even ruin them for you as it did with me.

In Shibuya, after a lot of walking to find somewhere to eat, we finally out this barbeque place. Honestly, it was not the best considering the price. It was very tasty, but I’ve had the same amount of tasty but with more food for a lesser price on this trip, so I didn’t see it as worth the price. Vincent may fight me about that though.

Afterwards, we rushed back to have our meeting and get as much sleep as we could before our long trip to Odaiba tomorrow.

Food in Day 6: The Game Jam

Today was the official first day of the game jam! I was put in charge of designing and creating the art for the UI. For the concept behind our game, we decided to go with Belle’s idea, which was to create a game based off of moving to a foreign country and opening a bakery. The point is to get better and better at determining the orders of the customers, who are giving you their orders in their native language. This is pretty much the only thing we did today.

For food, I started out the day with the provided sandwich of the day, which was a fried chicken sandwich. Although I am unsure of all of the ingredients in the sandwich, it was good! I also picked out another croissant because I enjoyed all the other ones I’ve had so much, some penne pasta with ham and zucchini, and fried salmon. All of the food was super good, but I had to rush a bit because I went to breakfast late. I did have a cup of apple juice which was refreshing paired with all the fried foods I was eating and a cappuccino to help me power through the rest of the game jam.

For lunch, we were given a variety of rice balls and other snacks. I honestly forgot which rice balls I had chosen to eat, but I do remember that one of them had a very strong fishy taste, so I was unable to finish it. I do remember picking out an egg folded into an omelet, and it was sweeter than any egg I had ever had before. While the sweetness bothers my fellow RIT teammates, I quite liked the subtly sweet egg.

For dinner, we were given these bento boxes filled with an assortment of food. Included was rice, shrimp tempura, pickled veggies, salad, cooked veggies, fried chicken, a piece of waffle, and a hamburg steak. I enjoyed almost every aspect of this meal that I was able to eat. However, I did not like the hamburg steak. To me, it tasted like an unseasoned meatball with gravy on top. Everything else (except for the salad and pickled vegetables because I could not eat them) were delicious and a good source of fuel to help me power through the last hour or two that we had of the game jam for that day.

The next day marked our last day of the game jam and our last full day in Kyoto. Although I was excited to see how completed our project would be, it was a little bittersweet as I was not quite ready to say goodbye to the beautiful scenery in Kyoto.

Food in Day 5: Free Day and Meeting KCG

Today was our free day! A small group of us decided to go to TOEI Kyoto Studio Park to see the life-sized Eva-01 attraction. After that, Brody, Vincent, and I went to UNIQLO and did some shopping before we headed out to KCG to meet the students we would be having the game jam with. I was on team 3 with Bella and Liam from RIT and Naoki, Tamura, and Ryuki from KCG.

In terms of the important stuff, for breakfast, we had finally graduated from the boxed lunches and were free to pick out our own food! They gave us our sandwich of the day, which seemed to be prosciutto with onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and mustard. Sadly, I was not a fan of the sandwich, but that is because I am not a fan of mustard. I also had bok choy, a croissant, sausage, carrots, and fried fish. All of the things I had hand-picked for myself were delicious. I also had a latte to give me a jump start to the day.

For lunch at TOEI Studio Park, I ordered a meal off of the special Evangelion menu. The meal was based off of the character Mari Illustrious Makinami, and all of the other meals on that special menu were based off of different characters. It was some kind of soup along with a variety of pickled and steamed vegetables. Sadly, I had a rough time eating some of the vegetables due to my allergies, but the soup was nice and relaxing to have as a break from a day of walking.

For dinner, I had pizza and snack provided by KCG at the welcome event. I picked out seafood pizza, cheese pizza, chicken nuggets, potato sticks, and a bowl of a variety of snacky items. The seafood pizza was better than I was expecting. I have had seafood pizza in the U.S, and I remember it being too salty to enjoy. This pizza, however, was not too salty. It was actually quite good. The cheese pizza was cheese pizza: always a good and safe choice. The chicken nuggets were chicken nuggets: always a good and safe choice. By the time I got around to the potato sticks, they were cold, so I did not particularly enjoy them that much. This may be because they were sitting out for a bit before I ate them, but they were reminiscent of slightly soggy hashbrowns. However, the snacks were in fact snacking, so overall, it was a good way to end the day.

It was nice getting to know my teammates better before the game jam started! tomorrow would be the start of the game jam, so I headed to bed early(-ish) to be prepared for all the brain power I’d be using the next day.

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.

Food in Day 9: Second Free Day

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.

That was a good way to end our last free day.

CyberConnect 2 !

To start off the rainy morning, the group headed to Unreal Fest! Unreal Fest was held in a venue in Akihabara not far from the hotel, so despite the typhoon weather, the walk wasn’t bad at all. Once inside, we were able to wander the game showcase area to playtest tons of cool projects. One of my favorites was a cinematic, journey-inspired sea life game where you played as various sea creatures. Starting off as a small fish, you soon transitioned to a dolphin, a large school of fish, and more as you swam through beautiful oceans with an amazing orchestral soundtrack. Another favorite of mine that I saw was a small puzzle game called On The Rocks. I believe this was the result of a game jam, and it involved using pinball-like mechanics to transport a marble into a glass at the bottom of the level. What made it so interesting, however, was the various movement mechanics that were derived from simple just tilting paddles. It was also a very fun experience that I definitely think had potential to be developed further.

After Unreal Fest we had some free time, so Esther, Vincent, Brody, and I got some udon for lunch nearby and then went for some final shopping in Akihabara. I went back to a store I had visited a few days prior to get a gift for a friend and found something called a “Zeldabox” from the 2003 Wind Waker release and it was such a good find.

Inside is 2 small figures, a Wind Waker guidebook, a poster, and a cd with select songs from the franchise :0

I was also so excited to find a 1999 copy of Majora’s Mask for the N64 for relatively cheap.

Finally, we concluded our final day in Tokyo with a visit to Cyber Connect 2’s Tokyo studio. Cyber Connect 2 is responsible for the development of popular anime games such as the Naruto, Demon Slayer, and Jojo games. We got a tour of the studio where we could see the workspace layout and artists and designers at work. Cyber Connect is known for its gorgeous animation work and translating the art styles of manga and anime into games.

Instagram Day

This day was special: it was where most of my pictures were taken. Our first destination was the Diver City Mall where we saw the large gundam statue. After some lunch, a minute amount of shopping, and a slightly underwhelming gundam transformation, we found our way towards the Museum of Science and Technology.

Fabian and I at the Gundam statue

The Museum of Science and Technology had some fascinating exhibits, like a robot that replicated your facial and arm movements, a depressing and interactive viewing of our world in the future, and a guided learning experience about iPS cells and stealing kidneys from pigs. A lot of it was actually really interesting and I enjoyed walking around the various exhibits.

Next, we made our way to teamLabs, which was an artistic experience based on room-to-room art exhibits. Unfortunately, we were split in two. But, It was truly insanity some of the sights I saw.

One of the many pictures at teamLabs I took

After teamLabs, Maddy and I went back to Akhihabara to get some Chinese food. I had mapo tofu for the first time and it was one of the most delicious dishes I had during the trip. However, it was a rough realization when I started thinking about how it was one of my last in these remaining days of the trip.

Actually Doing Game Industry Things

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!

Escaping the country with illegal goods

Flight home 🙁

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.

Last full day in Japan :(

June 2nd: Today’s the last full day in Japan :(. While I’m sad to be leaving, I’m happy to go be in my own bed and be a hermit for a bit. Our plans for this day were to go to Unreal Fest and visit the CyberConnect2 studio. We all met up around 10am to walk to UnrealFest which was also in Akihabara .

UnrealFest was a little underwhelming compared to the size of GDC but it was cool. A lot of cool indie games. A small of group of us even went to a panel but it was all inJapanese so we only got the broad strokes.


At about 12:30, the event was kicking people out to go eat lunch. It was pouring rain ( thanks typhoon) so we wanted some warm food. Belle, Skyler, Pavel, Fabian, and I ended up going to this really good wagyu place where you grill your own steak. It was delicious and not too expensive.


We had about an hour before we had to meet up back at the hotel so Skyler and I went back to the arcade. We did not win anything but we did get some yummy taiyaki. So I had a good time.


We met up at the hotel to say goodbye to Toshi sensei and to thank him for joining us on the trip. Afterwards we went to the CyberConnect2 office to tour the studio and see their properties.

I don’t have any photos but the studio was really cool and seems to have some big games in the works. I did get a cool stamp though!!! It was nice to see what studios look like in Japan in comparison to the studios we have in the US. I’m also still surprised how common it is to smoke cigarettes in Japan, the studio had a smoking room for itself!

After our tour we were sent free for dinner. The school trip is officially over. Brody, Vincent, Esther, Maddi, Jas, Jess, and I grabbed dinner at Royal Host. It’s like a family establishment. All of us pretty much got steak and bread.

Here’s some puffy buns.
After dinner I wanted crepes, so I got crepes. It was pouring rain like hard so I ran with my crepe into the station and found my way home. I immediately ate and took a hot shower. I also took my down time to start packing and planning the route to the airport for Liam and I tomorrow.

At around 10pm, most of us gathered to say goodbye, say some nice things, exchange hugs, cry a bit, and finish the DND movie. It was an emotional night but I’m so glad to have made so many friends and memories on this trip. I’ll get emotional in my next post though.

See you later for my last post about going back to NJ. ✌?