I planned this day to be a relaxing and recoving day which was needed after traveling to Hiroshima the day before. I spent the day shopping with a small group of other students. I used this day to buy gifts for my friends and family as well. When I found out I was going to Japan, I knew I wanted to grab a few games due to the price difference and the abundance of games there. I found a few Pokémon switch titles for around $10 each – which ended up being the only games I wound up getting.
My friend asked for an interesting thing from Japan, so I found a bag that is in the shape of a fish for her. The group I shopped with got lunch before heading back to the hotel. After meeting the entire group in the lobby, we all left for KCG, where we got a tour of the newest building for their college. We then got to meet the other students we would work with for the game jam.
Today was the day we said by to Kyoto and bullet trained back to Tokyo. It was really sad leaving Kyoto because we did so much there together, but I was reallly excited for Tokyo. We bussed to the train station in the morning and then rode the bullet train for about 2.5 hrs to Akihabara. After getting there we walked literally 30 seconds to our hotel, which was connected to the train station. This hotel was located in the perfect spot possible. There were so many cool places right next to it. We had a little bit to set our things down and eat before we met up outside the hotel to go to Mandarake, a second-hand anime/games/comics/manga/NSFW store, and Super Potato, a retro games store. Both of these stores were really cool. Mandarake was a bit overwhelming and we didn’t have all that much time in there, but I wish I had gone back later because it was super cool. One of the floors had straight up hentai though which was a bit odd.
Super Potato was also sick and had lots of cool little nick nacks, not to mention the immense amount of old games. I bought lots of candy there. After Super Potato we were pretty much free to do whatever for the day, so I went shopping with some others. I got some really cool HxH figures I had never seen before at this small little figure store next to Super Potato. After that we looked up the best anime stores nearby and decided on a place called Animate. It was like a 5 minute walk and was absolutely loaded with stuff, but not stuff I really wanted. It was really interesting because they didn’t have any figures or shirts really, but a lot of anime school supplies, stickers, and keychains. Unfortunately there was ZERO AoT merch, which I still can’t wrap my head around.
After Animate we went to this really cool store called Volks Hobby Shop, which did have figures. There was some really cool stuff there, even though most of it was outside my price range for a single statue. I did find this really unique figure series for Jujutsu Kaisen, and ended up getting the Sukuna one. They were like old button-eyed doll versions of all the characters, detailed with stitches and everything. I also got a funny Gojo figure sitting in a chair, he looks stupid :). After shopping we dumped our stuff at the hotel, chilled for like an hour, and then went to this sushi place that Toshi-sensei recommended. It was soooo good. I got some grilled fish, octopus, scallops, and fried diced squid. One of my favorite meals of the trip to be honest.
For day 2 of the game jam, I work up at a decent time and grabbed some breakfast. Got my carbs for the day. After eating, the RIT students packed onto the bus and headed to KCG. For the final day of the jam we only had 3 more hours of work. I was done with my portion for the jam and helped Fabian with GitHub stuff. We did some pair git hub work and finished out our side of the project. Around noon we had omurice for lunch! Omurice is a Japanese dish that has typically fried rice topped with an omelet and maybe curry sauce. It was quite yummy in my tummy.
Once our 3 hours of time was up, we did presentations of our games. I think everyone did really well and a lot of interesting ideas came out of the theme. To reiterate, the theme was collaboration across cultures. Our game was about 2 aliens that meet on a deserted planet and had to work together to survive. One character was strong and one was smart. It was a 2D coop puzzle game.
Once our presentations ended everyone got a big round of applause and we cleaned up. After some time of socializing with the students and eating snacks, we left KCG. We didn’t have a bus back to our hotel so we had to figure that part out. We took the weirdest way to our hotel through many trains and stops. Thanks to Toshi sensei for dealing with us!
After having some time to relax, a large group of us went to Osaka! Osaka is another large city about 30 minutes by bullet train from Kyoto. We walked to Kyoto station, got out tickets, and headed to Osaka. Our plan was to go to all the character shops in this mall since it had a Pokémon center, nintendo store, capcom store, one piece store, etc etc. Osaka was described to us as the closest to NYC that Japan can get. It was weird but if you removed all the Japanese from signs and told me I was in NYC I’d believe you. However, there was this really pretty building with greenery.
Across that little bridge was this giant mall that had all our stores on the 13th floor. Once we got up there it was insanity. Literally crazy. I went to the Nintendo Store first and got some Kirby merch and some Zelda candy. They had some really cool statues in the store though!
After walking around like a bewildered child, I checked out the Pokémon center! This must be a new one cause the statue was of the new legendaries in the series. I didn’t plan on getting anything but I found these really cute stickers and they had pins of my favorite Pokémon so I had to.
I checked out and the gang walked around for a bit waiting for all of us to quench the thirst for merchandise. We gathered everyone and split up again for food! I wasn’t super hungry so I opted for a fancy cake. I was so excited to eat it but they didn’t give me any utensils and I couldn’t find them anywhere. So I sadly had to carry my delicious snack home to wait. While waiting for people, I did get this eclair knockoff from 7-11. It was the size of a breadstick that had a chocolate covering and a single bit of whipped cream inside. 6/10 tasted like an ok Swiss roll.
After everyone finished eating we headed back to Osaka main station to head home for our last night in Kyoto. We got on the bullet train and headed back. The ride was once again uneventful.
We got off the train and walked to a family mart so I could buy an ice cream to get a wooden spoon to use for my dessert that I still have not eaten. I got my wooden spoon and we went to the hotel to pack then hang out. I also ate my dessert! It was really really yummy. It was like a tiramisu layered cake. It had a lot of cocoa powder on top though. 8/10
As a greater group, we decided to get some sake and have all of us ( who are legal to) have a shot and try it. We’re in Japan anyway! Honestly it wasn’t too bad in my opinion, kinda good actually.
we played some games and around 1 we all went to sleep to get ready for the next days adventure.
That’s about it for this one but I’ll catch ya soon! Bye bye!
Before going to Kyoto, I knew that I wanted to go to Fushimi Inari before without the crowds. Inspired from a video from the YouTube channel Tokyo Lens, I decided to go at night. I set my alarm for 3:15 in the morning and silently made my way out of the hotel. The walk to Fushimi Inari took about 20 minutes plus 10 minutes of me getting lost wandering around a random neighborhood. The area at night was eerily silent but really pretty. The entire time I saw one maybe two people. With the solitude and silence combined with the iconic torii gates, for a little while, it felt like I was in a whole different world.
I reached the top of Mt. Inari around the same time the sun came up, however, there is no view from the top. The only good view is from approximately halfway. I highly recommend this to anyone willing to get up early as it was for sure worth going. I was worried that it would be a little dark, however, there was often too many lampposts for many of the photos at night to turn out well. The only thing that was a little scary were the wild monkeys roaming around at night.
4 am approx.6 am approx.
I also saw some wildlife.
Other highlights
This is the link to a google photos album of my journey: https://photos.app.goo.gl/skTohPGDtuGQYGSFA
After getting back around 7 and having breakfast at 8, I went back for a nap before going shopping.
Kat and I became fishmongers at Don Quixote
After, we went over to KCG and toured their facilities. They were pretty nice and had some elements that I wish RIT had such as the private rooms and easily accessible power outlets.
lastly, we started the pizza party with the KCG students to kick off the game jam. They were all very fun to be around, except the guy who made me eat three spoonfuls of wasabi…
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.
Today we had some free time where we were able to go explore Kyoto independently from a big group. I had learned about a Neon Genesis Evangelion exhibit at the Toei Studio Park in Kyoto. As a big Evangelion fan I was so excited and this was genuinely an experience I was so grateful to have gotten the chance to have.
The exhibit featured a life-sized model of Eva Unit-01 that you could take pictures with, go on top of, and even go on the hand. I got pictures with my favorite characters 😀 and even stood on the model’s hand. They incorporated a lot of elements from the series and it was such a fun experience.
Before leaving the park, we had a quick lunch break and I ordered the Misato Katsuragi curry ramen 🙂
We ended the night with a kickoff for the RIT x KCG game jam where we got to officially meet our teammates and start planning ideas. I am looking forward to working with everyone in the days to come.
My Game Jam Team! (From left to right) Back Row: Me, Megan, Reo | Front Row: Fabian, Shoma
Today was the final day of the game jam :(. We bussed over to KCG at around 9:30am and had about 3 hours to finish up our games. The plan for the day was to finish the games, eat breakfast/lunch, and then present our games to two special guests: Akira Thompson and Yuya Shiotani! The first 3 hours were very hectic and disorganized. Fabian was grinding out the animations in record time, which was super impressive, and I was frantically trying to learn how to impliment some of the sound effects into Unreal. The member who was supposed to impliment the sound effects said that he didn’t know how to do it for some of them, and needed help. So I offered to try to do the ones he couldn’t figure out, which took like 2 hours. Unfortunately we didn’t get them in the game because Shoma and Reo where trying to finish the coding and didn’t want us to push anything and possible cause problems.
After frantically finishing our game we ate yummy omorice for brunch. Omorice is basically just an omolet on top of rice with some sauce, which tasted a lot like curry sauce to me. It was scrumdidlyumptious. After eating we all got set up really quickly to present our games to Akira and Yuya. Every game had some really cool and fun ideas to them, regardless of the finish/polish that was reached. Most games, including ours, where not finished, but the special guests still gave great feedback and insight into our little 14hr projects. Overall the jam was super fun and unique, and I think I will remember the experience for a good long while. It was wonderful spending time with the KCG students and meeting all the really nice staff!
After heading back to our hotel I chilled for a bit and then went to get dinner with Maddy, Esther, and Vincent. A lot of the others went to Osaka which sounded cool, but I was too exhausted to do that. We went over to Aeon mall’s food court for dinner and got ramen, which was very yummy and inexpensive as per usual for Japan. On our way back we saw Sten coming back from a dinner party with he KCG staff and talked to him for a bit. Once we headed back inside the Osaka peeps got back and we all hung out again to play Jackbox. Some really funny moments came out of that session and I think it was a great bonding moment for all of us.
On Friday, we had a free day until 4 PM, as that’s when we would have our first introduction to the KCG students. Brody, Esther, Maddy, and I wanted to go to the Toei Studio Park, where there was a big Evangelion attraction. We asked others if they wanted to come, and Sten ended up straggling along.
We got the park and went straight to the attraction, which was a large statue that you could take pictures with, and even enter and go up towards the top. After a couple photos, we entered and explored the inside, which had cut-outs of many of the characters and a pilot-aptitude test in the form of a multiple-choice personality quiz.
Standing in the hand of the Evangelion attraction
Afterwards, we explored the park a little more, going to get some Evangelion-themed ramen, and going around the many stores. It was getting around 2pm and was a 50 minute journey back, so we left the park and hopped on the train. Once we got to the station, Brody, Esther, and I saw that the AEON Mall was right across the street. The thing about AEON Mall was that there was a very special store in there: a UNIQLO. Sten and Maddy went back to rest as we went into the mall with only the intention to look. How wrong our intentions were. After seeing how cheap the clothes were compared to their US prices, and the different and more diverse designs, we found ourselves on a shopping spree.
Our spree, however, was cut short by time, and it was starting to approach 4 PM. We rushed back and got ready for the bus ride to KCG. Our introduction started with a tour of their newly-built building, which had a minimalistic design to it that I really loved. It was not a very large building, but the facilities were luxurious, especially the teacher’s lounge and garden.
Part of the garden outside of the teacher’s lounge
After our quick tour, we met with the KCG students and shared some Japanese pizza with them. My teammates were really nice, and with the help of one of the translators, Quan, we were able to get along quite well.
We went back to the hotel and some of us got together for a small group hangout, but with the early morning and day-full game jam the next day, it didn’t have its full rager potential.
Todays the day!!! The day of wearing Kimonos!! I was so excited since I made the reservation two days in advance and I even woke up buzzing with excitement. At around 7:05am, Belle, Chloe, and I headed out to the Kiyomizu-dera area ( this is the place with the old looking pretty streets and temple that looks over Kyoto). Our reservation was at 8am and we ended up getting there at around 7:45am. We walked around for a bit then headed in. We were greeting by this middle aged Japanese lady that spoke pretty good English! Being the try hard student I am, I tried to speak Japanese the entire time we were there, the women there said I had a good accent!
We all chose our kimonos, belts, and accessories and the women there got to work. I never realized how many layers a kimono had but there was alot. There was a white under cover, a lot of straps to tie it together, towels to keep the shape firm, the actual designed kimono cover, the belt, and accessories. Overall it took 30 minutes to get dressed and about 15 minutes for them to do our hair. It was a really fun experience as I tried to speak through it.
Once we got out we headed towards Kiyomizu-dera to take so many photos. The plan was to go early to miss the crowds but the crowd was still there. We took some photos at the top then headed down the hill. A lot of other foreigners asked to take photos with us which was kinda weird but we said no. Here’s some photos though of the temple with us in it!
We headed down the hill to the shopping area. Belle and Chloe got some goods from the stores and we took photos along the way as we could. It did get crowded fast but we managed. The worst part of the kimonos were the shoes. The shoes are basically wedged flip flops that were a little too small and you had to wear socks with a little cut for the flip flop. Here’s a photo of what it kind of looked like.
We walked around a while. I headed to the Ghibli and freaked out for a bit ( as in I bought a cute mug with Spirited Away and sat next to JiJi from Kiki’s Delivery Service). After our shopping was over we went to a couple other area for photos then headed back to the kimono shop to get undressed. We were lucky it was cloudy in the morning but the afternoon started to get really warm, especially in all those layers.
After we got back in our regular clothes, we took a walk to the Pokémon Center of Kyoto. I already went earlier in the week so I won’t go into much detail there. And No I didn’t spend more money at the center this time I held back. After the Pokémon center we went exploring near Nishiki market and all it’s cool stores. We went to the otter café but it was full sadly but we explored instead! We saw a sticker store that was really cool. It kind of reminded me of Zumiez at home. We also went through some anime stores with many many figures and a thrift store that was too expensive to be thrift. We had to be back to our hotel at 4pm for our next schedule event so I grabbed a cream puff ( shuu-cream in Japanese) and we all headed to the station.
We made it home just in time for our class time and got on the bus to KCG. We were going to a pizza party and meeting the student we were going to be working with! We arrived at the school and got a tour of the grad program and meet our teammates.
Tangent time: we got pizza from a popular chain around here called pizza-la. To be honest it was really sweet and didn’t sit well in my tummy but it’s ok. There was only 1 plain pizza though the others were overly topped for my taste. There was chicken nuggets though! Ok tangent over.
We met with our groups, hung out for a bit, then headed home. We got a nice group pic on the bus ride home though!
After wards us RIT kids went to family mart for some snacks and drinks and played jackbox party pack together since it was an early night. That was pretty much my free day! I keep forgetting to take pictures of my merch but think of it as a surprise for my last post when I show everything I’ve gotten ( cause I’m not done yet we have a whole week in the anime fans center of the world Akihabara)
We woke up super early today and meditated with a monk at his shrine. Something that surprised me was that if you get distracted or your back begins to hurt, you bring your hands together, bow to the monk, and he hit you with a rod. My back did begin to hurt – I also thought, “When’s the next time I can get hit by a monk?”, so I gave this method a try – it shockingly helped. While it was hard to focus occasionally, it was a cool experience.
Afterwards we visited one of my favorite shrines, the one with all of the statues in it. I couldn’t take pictures due to it being a sacred site, but nevertheless I loved the visual and the story behind it; where the emperor wanted to show his strength and security so he created this temple.
We also got to walk around a small marketplace with incredible views – at the base of the shrine where the people jumped off and survived – and got to have make tea at a tea ceremony. I piqued my interest how strong the tea was. Apparently it’s made with either less water or more tea and is very caffeinated.
Afterwards, Megan and I went to the Pokémon center where they had Pikachu wearing a kimono greeting the customers and where I spent a surprisingly small amount of money. Later that night we met up at Round1 for bowling and I got two strikes.
