Retail Recreation – RITs International Game Industry Course for 2023

The Climb

I’ll be combining Monday and Tuesday into a single blog since they were both relatively uneventful (in comparison to most of the other days on this trip).

We started Monday with a trip to Ginza, as there’s a 12-floor UNIQLO store there that we both wanted to visit. The rest of the area was super expensive (think Dior, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, etc.) so we didn’t stick around for long, but the UNIQLO store was definitely worth visiting! I got some cheap shirts (including some Splatoon 3 collaboration shirts) and a nice pair of pants that I had bought previously in a different color. The whole place felt like it was trying to be an art exhibition while also being a store, which seemed like a product of the district it was in but it was kind of neat!

We were pretty beat after travelling to Ginza as it was a pretty far trip and the pure exhaustion from just how much we had been doing for the last three weeks was finally starting to catch up to us, so we revisited the pasta place I praised before for a mix of lunch and dinner and settled in for a night of self care. I dismissed my fear of the customs officers and broke out my switch dock so that Jessica and I could take turns playing Tears of the Kingdom on the TV in our hotel room. While I’m sure we could have dragged ourselves back out for another adventure, we were both pretty beat and I don’t regret taking a night to relax and prepare ourselves for what would come tomorrow.

We woke up a bit late on Tuesday morning and headed to Tokyo Tower for the dreaded 600-step climb to the top. I was much less excited than Jessica for the trek, but it ended up being a bit easier than I expected it to be! They had signs on the way up to question you about some fun facts about the tower, which was probably the only thing that kept me going as I got a second to breathe while Jessica translated the signs. At the top of the tower was a pretty cool view and a small shrine you could pray to, and on our way back down we stopped at some Hello Kitty themed gachapon machines and I got a picture of the statue inside the tower. Pretty cool!

We decided to stop in Ueno as we were coming back from the tower, since it was already on the way and we didn’t trust ourselves to have the energy to leave the hotel again once we were back and showered. We stopped in at a merchandise store outside of the station and picked up some miscellaneous goodies, and then went to visit Book-Off (a pretty well known secondhand store) with no luck.

After that, we took a walk through the park to find a cluster of public activities that featured two more Pokemon sewer grates (YES, I did go out of my way to find more. Don’t judge me.) and I’m REALLY surprised that we didn’t visit this area during the main portion of our trip. There were two museums and a zoo, all nestled into this absolutely gorgeous park that would have been lovely to explore compared to the other somewhat depressing museum we had visited instead. But seeing Diver City instead was worth it!

As we were heading back to Asakusa, the hunger began to kick in, and we ducked into a place that had dumplings for lunch. We ordered 12 dumplings and a large helping of rice, which also came with two fried chicken nuggets and some soup, and it cost us 820 yen in total, which was barely $3 each! I will always mourn the loss of super cheap but still good food now that I am back in America.

We finally got back to our hotel and were able to clean ourselves up and sit down and organize all of our stuff to prepare for the trip home tomorrow. It was quite the daunting task, but a necessary evil that I’m very grateful I left time for. Knowing that this was our last night in Japan made me sad, but deep in my heart I was ready to go home.

Dawn of the Final Week

Yesterday was a little bit of everything, which I wasn’t sure if we were going to get again! We did some shrines, some shopping, and another very cool themed cafe.

To start the day, me and Megan had to do our laundry for the last time. The hotel that we’re staying in charges an outrageous price for laundry service, so we had to lug our stuff to a local coin laundry building and immerse ourselves in the culture. It was really cool! I was dumb enough to forget to take a picture, but they had these machines that did both the washing and the drying so you didn’t have to move your clothes between machines, which ended up working really well (despite us having to run the drying mode for an extra cycle).

Then, we headed to the Imperial Palace to walk the grounds. We weren’t able to get a ticket into the actual palace, but even just the gardens surrounding it were absolutely gorgeous. It’s really weird to see giant skyscrapers behind the small, ancient buildings nestled into the middle of the city. There’s a specific garden called Ninomaru with lots of colorful flowers and a super cool (small) waterfall that you can walk to the top of.

After the Imperial Palace we headed to Harajuku, right outside of the Meiji Shrine grounds, for lunch. We originally tried following Megan to the mall with the Sailor Moon store, assuming that there’d be some kind of food there, but we managed to lose her and ducked into a different mall instead with an entrance that I’d swear is actually just a portal to another dimension. It looks SO COOL!

The only restaurant in the mall seemed very expensive and didn’t look like they’d have anything that I would like, so at the last second me and Fabian decided to leave and head to a small gyoza place instead. I can definitely say that it was worth it – the dumplings were absolutely delicious and super cheap for how much food we got!

After lunch we travelled into Meiji Shrine, with a long shaded path leading to it and other sub shrines in the area. The shaded path was very comfortable and a welcome change from the sun beating down on us. It was pretty standard compared to all of the other shrines that we’ve visited, but I picked up a peace of mind to keep on my backpack.

After the shrine we were sent off on our own, so a group of us rushed to Shibuya PARCO to visit the Pokemon Center (my 6th) and the other Nintendo Store in Japan. I got a pack of card sleeves from the Pokemon store (no pressed coin because they didn’t have any there 🙁 ) and a Korok coin purse and a handful of gummies from the Nintendo store. I really wanted to do the shirt design lab at this Pokemon Center, but unfortunately the wait was a bit too long for me. Once we had our fill, we rushed back to Akihabara for our dinner reservation!

For dinner, we ate at the Monster Hunter Bar for Fabian’s birthday. It was a super cool Monster Hunter themed cafe with drinks and food! I personally got a couple of different drinks and a steak meal, as well as a very cute set of dango. It was the first time I’ve ever tried dango, and it was definitely a lot chewier than I expected but it was still really good! Pavel also ordered this giant beer that Fabian took a picture with for his 21st birthday that seemed as big as him and it was hilarious.

We went back to Liam and Skyler’s room to watch another movie, this time the new Dungeons and Dragons movie, but we were all so exhausted that we barely made it halfway through before we had to call it quits.

Behind again on my blog posts! It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with them but I’m trying my best. We only have two planned days left after this, which is very very sad :C but I’m happy that I’m staying a couple days after to experience a little bit more!!

The Queen of Poor Financial Decisions

So, I spent a lot of money today.

Today was our free day in Tokyo, so we decided to start the day with a quick trip to Starbucks for some drinks while we wait for the crepe place we intended to get breakfast at to open. By the time we had arrived at the crepe place I was pretty full on sugar, but luckily there was a beef skewer place just next door that was also opening, so I chose to get one of those instead. Nothing will top the beef skewer that I got at Nishiki Market, but it was still pretty good!

We also decided to visit Book-Off, a well known secondhand book/CD/video game store that held a surprising amount of Pokemon DS games. While most of them were 3DS games, I did manage to snag a copy of Pokemon Platinum for only $25 which I think is an unbelievable steal. The cartridge looks really cool too! I’m very excited to play it when I get home and see if there’s a save file on it (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they wiped it before putting it on sale). Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it and am already in bed, so here’s a picture of a really cute cat statue that I saw later in the day instead!

We then took a train to Tokyo station to find Character Street, a well known chain of shops under the station featuring a lot of popular chain stores like Disney, Pokemon, Kirby, and more. I didn’t find too many things there that I really liked, but I did get a cute cat sticker, a pressed coin from the Pokemon store, and some cute sweets from the mini Kirby cafe!

After a pit stop in the hotel to devour our goodies, we made a change to our original plan to go to Ginza and decided to stay in Akihabara and visit the Muji and Uniqlo stores here. I didn’t find anything interesting in Muji, but this Uniqlo store did have the Splatoon 3 shirts that I was looking for so I picked up two of them!

Splatoon was truly my downfall today. After visiting the Uniqlo store, I took a trip to the floor below to look at some video games and Pokemon merchandise. While none of the Pokemon merchandise caught my eye, I did see something else that made me excited… the Splatoon 3 Special Edition OLED Switch. Yes, it’s something I passed up at the beginning of my trip, but here I would be able to purchase it tax-free and save nearly $100 compared to how much it would cost in America. Cloud my judgement with the Splatoon and Splatoon 2 art books thrown in… I stood no chance. But I got a really good deal on some really amazing merchandise that I know I’ll use! So I’m happy.

After lugging all of my Splatoon merchandise home, we had to find a place for dinner. We decided to visit a sushi place that our professor had recommended us. The food itself was really good, but somehow the server or the chefs managed to forget about half of our order, so we were stuck there for over an hour. It was pretty affordable, but unfortunately I’d never go back just because of the bad experience we had.

To end the night, me and a few others decided to have a movie night in Skylar and Liam’s room and watch Bullet Train, a comedy/action movie set in a Shinkansen in Tokyo. The movie was actually really funny, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would! Tomorrow we will be going to TeamLab Planets, which I’m REALLY excited for because it’s a really iconic location with a lot of good photo ops. I think we are also visiting Diver City, which will probably have some cool merch spots! I’m sad that my time in Japan is moving so quickly, but I’m having so much fun that I don’t regret any of it.

The Grand Return to Tokyo

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.

“Fashionably” Late

Yesterday was the final day of our Game Jam with the KCG students! While we weren’t sure if we were going to get out a remotely finished product (and I think most other teams felt the same way), I’m actually really proud of what we ended up making and all of the other teams made some really awesome products too!! The whole experience was a really interesting look into how game development works and how important communication is, and it’s the first real game that I’ve worked on that wasn’t for a school project made by myself.

The game that my team chose to make was called Café Lingua! The idea was that the main character has just moved to a new country (either Japan or the U.S. based on your native language / country) and opens a cafe, but they can’t understand any of the customers that come in to order. In order to play the game, customers would order in Japanese if you’re an English speaker or vice versa, and you’d have to use trial and error to figure out what phrases match to what products you serve them in order to form bonds with your customers. It was a concept that I came up with that I really want to refine and eventually make my own project based on in the future.

Once the Game Jam was over, we said goodbye to our new friends and prepared for the rest of our day. Unfortunately, the otter cafe had slipped through the cracks and we wouldn’t be able to go, but a large group of us were very excited to head to Osaka to visit the stores there, as this would be our last chance. We got to visit the Pokemon Center there (number 5!), and one of only two Nintendo stores in Japan, the other of which we’ll visit this week in Tokyo.

While I spent a bit more money than I expected to, I’m really happy with all the stuff I got! I got a couple of stuffed animals that I’d never seen in America, some cute sticker packs, and the Splatoon 3 art book which was my personal favorite item. We also got food at this Italian place in the shopping center, which had some really good pizza. Another interesting cultural difference between America and Japan is that waiters won’t automatically come to the table and ask what you want to order— they always wait for you to call them over when you’re ready. It honestly makes more sense, but it makes some weird situations where the waiter is awkwardly side eyeing us from across the restaurant waiting for us to decide what we want.

After we had returned from Osaka, a majority of our group gathered in Pavel and Fabian’s room to take a celebratory “shot” (it was more of a third of a shot) of sake for finishing the Game Jam and having fun on our last night in Kyoto. We played Jackbox games (short assorted game packs made by the Jackbox company), specifically Quiplash and Tee K.O.. Some of the combinations we came up with were absolutely hilarious, and some of them were funny just because they didn’t make any sense. I really love the group of people that I’m with for this trip, and it’s so fun to spend time with everyone outside of the super rigid planning that we’ve had for the last week.

Today we are headed back to Tokyo for the rest of our trip. I think that this half will be a lot less structured, which I’m really excited about because it means we won’t feel like we are zooming from place to place constantly. Hopefully my blog post for today won’t be a whole day late like yesterday’s!

Before the big trip (aka official rit time)

This is gonna be a big one so buckle up!

Okay! Ready? Let’s go!

Day 1: We were gonna go to Ueno but Belle and I ended up waking up at 4am.. the time difference really hit. We were up for a while seeing if there was anything to do but nothing was open until like 930-10am. We met up with Jessica and walked around a bit. We ended up going to a Starbucks connected to the Sky Tree and getting some coffee.

After an hour, the SkyTree opened up! We ventured in and spent our WHOLE DAY there. There were so many stores and shops, as well as desserts and foods. Literally any thing you wanted to buy or eat was there.

For example there was the Kirby Cafe, Pokemon Center, Snoopy Store, Marvel Store, Hello Kitty Store, Kirby Cafe store, book stores, clothing stores from Uniqlo to lolita to Diesel, food that ranged from ramen to a cheesecake drink. It was a fun but overwhelming experience. It was like a dream but also a nightmare as I stumbled through my coin purse trying to count.

After shopping around for hours we were exhausted but we still wanted to see the view from the sky tree itself. We planned our adventure to the sky for 630pm so that we all had time to go home and take a little nap.

After we had awoken, it was time to go up! It was really cool and the elevators up to the viewing deck had different themes of the seasons. The views were really cool but sadly it was cloudy. We did see the transition from day to night time though! After this excursion, we all went home and passed out again. Also fun fact, we ended up going around the Sky Tree’s 11 anniversary! Also the top deck was Disney themed.

Ritchie really enjoying the Sky Tree and it’s views!

That was all day 1! Already so much but we continue.

day 2: We wake up once again at 4am, it’s rough but we play Zelda and try to sleep. This day we actually had a plan for breakfast! We all ( being Belle, Cam, Jessica, Liam, and myself) planned to go to Hoshino Coffee in the sky tree. We met up ( after some difficulties) and went for breakfast. We really wanted the big soufflé pancakes but those were only on holidays so we mostly just got some French toast. It was ok, I felt bad for the staff because there definitely weren’t enough seats for us.

After breakfast, we walked around the Sky Tree again! This time finding more stores and showing Cam and Liam the crazy food market and dessert options. I ended up buying some dango! It was really good and seems ritchie liked it too. It had the consistency of mochi but was sweet in flavor almost like brown sugar.

As one could guess, we did some more shopping. This time I got some baby books to practice Japanese! It was Pokémon themed how could I not?! It was funny because we also found Minecraft books and diary of a wimpy kid in Japanese. It was cool to see! After that we got some food and headed back home for our siestas for the day.

After a nap, Belle, Jess, and I went to Asakusa for ramen! It was a cute shop with mostly foreigners but it was yummy! We looked around the area and stumbled upon the Senso-ji Shrine. It was night time so the lights were all on and it was pretty empty but it was super pretty.

We saw some signs that a festival was happening and decided to check it out the next day. It was an accident that we stumbled on to one of Tokyo’s largest festivals that happens every year on this weekend.

Before we get there however, I NEED to talk about the Asakusa Don Quixote. It was CRAZY. Literally anything you could need or want was in the 4 story building. From bicycles, to chargers, to clothes, to beauty products, to food, to alcohol it was all there. It was also very cramped but cool to go through.

After Don Quixote we dispersed and went to bed.

Day 3: If you think it’s crazy now, just wait.
Belle and I woke up at a normal time today!!! Seems our bodies are finally adjusting. After being in bed for a bit we headed out back to Asakusa for the festival. At this point we thought it was gonna be a little crowded but manageable but oh boy we’re we wrong. It was around 10am when we arrived at the temple and it was already packed. We also saw a lot of girls in Kimonos and a lot of traditional clothing. We met up with Skylar and explored the area.

Ritchie having a fun time seeing and participating in the festival!

Apparently we ran into the one of the biggest festivals in Tokyo ( as I said before) but I was not expecting what I saw. There were tons of people and apparently the event draws around 1.8 millions viewers. There were little shops everywhere with food and fortunes to get. We all got our fortunes and all got normal fortunes. At least it’s not a bad one!

After that we saw and heard drums and chanting. The festival is about 3 temples and their shrines. Therefore, there were mini shrines that went around with chanting and clapping to celebrate. Accompanied with that were these carts with taiko drums from different families.

One for the many many shrines moving about the day

The crowds would shuffle around to see all the different mini shrines and drums. It was amazing and I felt so lucky to have seen it. Jessica ended up join with us at about noon for the rest of the day.

After getting a bit tired from the crowds we walked around the festival area to see all the stores. There were a lot of different stores with food, souvenirs, kimono rentals, and more. As a snack I got this 500 yen pancake with mozzarella cheese in it. It was very yummy.

We walked around a lot, bought some gifts, and once again needed a little break from the action. It had been a long day at that point of walking around and seeing so many cool things. We all went to our hotels and rested for a little while.

After a little break, Belle, Jess, and I went to this cute little American themed diner. The staff seemed so happy to see foreigners and even tried to speak English to us! It was funny to see how American culture is perceived and our food. I got Mac n cheese and it was ok. Definitely not my good ol’ box of Kraft! After dinner we did some walking to local shrines in our area and a walk down by the Sumida river. It was a nice temperature outside for a walk. We saw one temple that still have ladles and water out so we practiced cleaning our hands properly. We walked around, planned for tomorrow ( Pokemon Cafe!) and went to bed.

Wow. That was only 3 days and so much has happened. I would love to go into every detail but then this would be more like a dissertation than a blog. I’ll leave you with some more photos I took as we went around. See ya next time!

My First 36 Hours in Japan

My first two days of Japan mode have been quite the adventure! From spending 15 hours in a plane to walking four and a half miles today, it’s certainly been a lot of exploration and new experiences.

I first flew from Atlanta to Chicago, waking up at around 3:45 AM to give myself enough time at the airport for security (I sat in the airport for two hours because I got through security in fifteen minutes. Oh how I wish I had the extra hour of sleep!) Then, I met up with Jasmine and Cameron at the Chicago airport to take our 13 hour flight to Narita. While the flight was comfortable, sitting in one place for that period of time has never been good for anyone’s body, and it certainly did a number on mine. Once we were through immigration and customs in Japan, we met up with Megan and Esther to make our way to our hostel.

I’ve never stayed in a hostel before, but this is definitely a great introductory experience to them! Me and Megan are staying in a room with two twin beds (not a dormitory setting, my social battery definitely couldn’t handle it) and they are very comfortable for the price! We have a sink in our room for brushing our teeth and washing our hands, but toilets and showers are shared down the hall. The showers are very nice, but the heated toilet seats are a bit off-putting for me. Maybe with time I’d come to enjoy them…

I thoroughly enjoyed the Nintendo photo op in the visitors center at the Narita airport!

After going to bed at 8:30 PM with my brain stuck in 7:30 AM mode, I woke up at 5 AM today ready to take on the world. Megan, Jessica and I set out around 7:30 AM, excited to explore before it got too hot. While almost nothing was open, I was able to get a very delicious strawberry frappuccino from Starbucks and take in the sights while we waited for the Tokyo Skytree to open.

We spent the day shopping for cute merchandise and gifts for friends and family at the Skytree, visiting the Pokemon Store, the Kirby Cafe Store, and many other iconic character shops. Personally, I picked up a handful of stickers, a couple of blind bag figurines, and some assorted Pokemon-themed gifts. We ate lunch in the Food Marche (essentially just the most overwhelming food court I’ve ever experienced, that was also a grocery store?) where I got some chicken nuggets and a chicken skewer that had whole cloves of garlic on it, which I wasn’t aware of before buying it. As a picky eater, the food scene in Japan is somewhat terrifying, so I feel like I am justified in easing myself into it. For dessert (because how could we not get dessert with so many options) I got a strawberry skewer that was coated in sugar and some small butter castella balls. The strawberries here are delicious, and I would love to go back and get some more that aren’t lathered in sugar as it was a little overwhelming.

After a quick power nap at the hostel, we finished the day by heading back to the Skytree and going up the tower to “watch the sunset”. Unfortunately it was very overcast by the time that sunset arrived so we weren’t able to see anything, but it is a super pretty view at night! It was very crowded though.

Overall, my first 36 hours in Japan have been quite the ride! I’m constantly left in awe by how different the culture is, which I’ll likely cover in another post as I could write paragraphs about that alone and this is already a bit long. I’m exhausted by 8:30 PM once again, but so excited to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again!

Some more assorted photos from my first two days.