Merch – RITs International Game Industry Course for 2023

Merchandise Heaven

I was very excited for Sunday because I had planned my excursion today well in advance. Me and Jessica went to Yokohama, the second most populated city in Japan! We specifically came here because I had heard of a secondhand anime merchandise store that sells a lot of Pokemon plushes (and boy was I not prepared for the wallet destroyer that I walked into) but we’ll get into that later!

We were awoken Sunday morning around 10 AM by the shaking of our beds – we experienced a 4.2 earthquake that happened just 10-15 miles from our hotel! It wasn’t very strong, but it was still a bit alarming and woke both of us up for good. Just another iconic Japan experience I guess!

Yokohama was very pretty, but also super city-like and a bit overwhelming with the crowds. We went to a restaurant called Yokohama Kitchen for lunch, where I got a platter with steak, chicken, and fries that was pretty good! We then took a slight detour to a store called WEGO, which is well known for its poorly translated English shirts, though I ended up not buying anything because it was pretty expensive and didn’t have too much I was interested in. We also took a trip to a local convenience market (P.S. you can get a pack of 20 pads in Japan for ~300 yen, which is like 10 cents a pad and an INCREDIBLE deal and it made me very sad that I live in America :”) ) and an art supplies store where I picked up some washi tape.

Next was the Yokohama Pokemon Center, which did have a few things that we hadn’t seen at other Pokemon stores but nothing too crazy. We did happen to show up at the perfect time though, as we noticed a crowd was gathering at the back of the center. Lo and behold, we had walked into a Pikachu greeting where we got to see two costumed Pikachu come out and put on a show! We didn’t stay for the whole thing since we couldn’t understand any of what they were saying anyways, but I’m super happy that I got to see them again after seeing one at the Pokemon Cafe! They’re just so cute…

In the same mall on the floor below the Pokemon Center was Suragaya, the secondhand store that I had mentioned earlier. We had no idea what we were walking into. This store was kind of insane – they had walls of Pokemon stuffed animals and anime figured at INSANELY good prices. I ended up spending around $80 on plushies that would have easily cost me $200+ if I was trying to buy them in America. Absolutely no regrets (except maybe for not buying more)!

I also ended up buying a copy of Pokemon HeartGold, in the box with the Pokewalker (a very rare accessory that’s hard to find new) for $45, which is usually more than $200 in the US. SUPER COOL!! (I still have yet to buy batteries for it so I can test it, but hopefully it works, LOL!)

To end the day we decided to order pizza from Pizza Hut to see if it was any different from getting pizza in America. We tried to place an order online, but Jess accidentally set it as a carry out order instead of a delivery order, so we had to call the pizza place and attempt to communicate with them that we needed to change the address or cancel the order. It got to the point where I translated something on my phone with Google Translate and played it out loud over the speaker phone… not my proudest moment. But eventually we were able to cancel the order and reorder it properly, and it was super good!

This was definitely my favorite day in terms of buying merch. This would mark the last time I spent a lot of money on non-practical stuff for myself, which is probably a good thing because I was starting to run low! But I was very excited to visit UNIQLO on Monday, and climb Tokyo Tower on Tuesday. The trip is quickly coming to a close, but every day has something new!

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!!

The Shibuya Incident

For our free day in Tokyo, Brody and I went to Shibuya and planned to do a lot of shopping. We knew we wanted to hit the three-floored UNIQLO there, but we found so much more.

We did some research and found ourselves initially in Shibuya109, which we then realized was a female clothing store, but still thought was interesting enough to walk through because the designs and fashion were really cool. However, I didn’t come out empty handed as there was a place where I could get a very good matcha latte.

After leaving Shibuya109, we went to MAGNET, which was the male equivelent of Shibuya109 under the same company, however much smaller. Brody and I found some very expensive places, but eventually hit one of the many places I would become a costumer at: RECOfan, a record shop. Here, I bought two Studio Ghibli records as Joe Hisaishi is one of my favorite composers of all time, and they were much cheaper than if I bought them in the United States.

After that, we went towards the Parco mall which holds the famous Nintendo Store and Pokémon Center, as well as a Jump store (which covers most shonen anime). Of course, I spent some more money at these places, acquiring many stickers and even a painted manga panel, as well as some plushy gifts for my friends back at home.

Next, Brody and I went to UNIQLO, where we bought even more clothes (this being our third time to a UNIQLO in Japan). Lastly, we hit the Converse store, where we got some Japan-only kicks.

After the massacre of our wallets and the encumbrance of our spoils, we went back to Akhihabara to meet with Maddy and Esther for a hot pot dinner. It was delicious and, surprisingly, empty. It was also connected right next to our hotel, which made it convenient. We ended the night with an attempt to go to karaoke, but after Maddy’s unfortunately late birthday ruining our plan to get drinks, we abandoned the plan and called it a night.

Return to Tokyo

After an exhausting week, we were able to get up reasonably late and rest. The plan for the day was to get to Tokyo and to our hotel in Akhihabara. After a pretty quick two-and-half hour bullet train ride, we made it to Akhihabara and found our stay at the REMM Hotel, which was literally right next to the station, as well as the rest of Akhihabara. We settled in, got some food, and went to Madarake and Super Potato.

Madarake was a cool, warehouse, almost thrift-like store that had anime, games, art, manga, figurines, and just overall a lot of Japanese content, and even some Western things as well. It was really interesting, but also so much to look through in the hour we had.

Afterwards, we split up to be on our own, and some of us went to Super Potato, a retro game store. It was really cool, but also quite cramped so it was difficult to thoroughly explore their collection. Afterwards, some of us separated further and went to ANIMATE, one of the top anime stores in Akhihabara, and it had a lot of content, but not much of what I was looking for, such as stickers or apparel.

After that, we went to a few more stores, but the rain really hindered our mood to explore, so we turned in for the night. However, we had an immediate free day in Tokyo to look forward to in the morning.

Free day in Tokyo! AND KIRBY

May 30th:

This is it folks, the day I’ve been waiting for. My credit cards are not PREPARED for what I’m about to do to them today. I woke up early at 9am and secured a reservation spot for the Kirby cafe petit on character street. Character Street is an area near the Tokyo station that has all themed shops for different brands like Pokémon, Kirby, Ghibli, Shounen Jump, Snoopy, etc.. I was on a mission for the Kirby cafe petit. I got my reservation for 1:40pm.

To kill time a whole gaggle of us gamers got together to get breakfast and do some light shopping. We went to Starbucks for breakfast 1, I got a pretty good scone. Then we went to get crepes. All of these were sugary crepes but I got a tiramisu crepe. It was yummy and warm :),

After crepes we all split up while others were eating. I took a trip to the Razer store ( like the gaming peripheral brand) to see if I could get a new mouse for cheap. This was an experience to get into the store. It was in the basement ( where true gamers live) and had all green RGB LED lights. It was so funny. Also fun fact! Everything in that store was more expensive than it’s American price point! I thought that was funny.

Once everyone was done eating we starting walking to the train station when we ran into Sten! He was a bit lost and didn’t really know what to do so he tagged along with us to Tokyo station. We got on the trains and headed 2 stops up to Tokyo.

Finding Character street was an adventure in itself as it was hidden from us. I think it took about 15 minutes to find a sign pointing towards it. When we got there though, I saw the promised land. Kirby cafe petit right infront. At this point it was about 12 so we had some time before the reservation. We all split up and went to the themed stores of our choice.

I went to the Shounen Jump store first since I like their anime’s currently. I got a sticker of one of my favorite characters and some candy. After, I went to the Ghibli store and got some really heavy books, a sun catcher, and paper ball theater that I will have to build back home. My shopping bags were pretty heavy at this point so I walked around a bit with Sten and Skyler for their shopping and killed off some time. There was a Pokémon store but the line was astronomically long for check out so we left.

The time has come, Kirby Cafe time. I was ready, so ready. With the reservation we get to choose 4 sweets from the bakery, 2 take out items, and all the merch one could ever want or need. Jess and I were on one ticket so I got 3 desserts and she got 1 ( we agreed on this it’s ok). We also both got a star bread (it’s a big, like thick white bread). After we ordered our sweet we perused the store. I knew exactly what I wanted to I filled our basket pretty quick. I won’t bore you with words but I have many many photos I will show instead of the haul. Here ya go:

I felt at this moment, a tear shedding from my eye. A single tear, it has been my moment. We all exited the Kirby store and went home to eat our sweets. It was so yummy. The cheesecake was delicious and had cheese on it. The tiramisu was creamy and smooth. The Kirby car cake. Oh my. A dream come true. He was a sponge cake with some jelly and this soft pudding/jello like strawberry substance on top. It was amazing.

After consuming we went out again to Uniqlo, Muji, and other stores. I ended up at the Square Enid cafe ( creators of Kingdom hearts) and got some merch. I was so happy and I refuse to look at my credit card bills as of right now.

After shopping a bit, Cam, Liam, Belle, and I got dinner at this place our professor recommended. The food was good but the servers forgot about us. Would not go back. We also then got some donuts as a little treat. That was yummy.

After donuts we all went home and rested for a bit before movie night!!!! In Skyler and Liam’s room we watched Bullet Train ( surprisingly not available in Japan we had to VPN to America). It was a really funny movie and I would watch it again! After the movie it was about 12:30am so I went back to my room, took a shower, and went to sleep.

This was a whole day and oh my am I ready to just exist with my items. I went a bit crazy but I’m happy for it. Come back tomorrow blog for another crazy adventure. Peace ✌?