Tag: Train

From Sumida To Kyoto!!

On the last day of our Hostel stay, Belle and I had a biiigggg day planned. That plan being the Pokémon Cafe!!

Belle and I moved out of our hostel and dropped our luggage at the luggage holding area. From there we headed for the train station in Asakusa. We once again ran into the festival from my last post but we tried to avoid the traffic as much as possible. We went to like really small shop on Orange St that had all these old DS games for like ¥300! It was so cool. However the weather was hot, so we headed for the station to go to Nihombashi. We boarded the train without issue and got off at our stop. We arrived a bit early so we walked around Nihombashi.

Nihombashi seems to be a very business centered town so we really just saw buildings. Once 10am came around, we went to the the Pokémon Center! I spent a lot of money but it was so worth it. I got some goodies like pins, a nice shoulder bag, and a sticker! We also met up with Fabian and Pavel!

After waiting for a while in the line to check out, we went to the Pokémon Cafe! And let me tell you it was quite the experience. We ordered order food from the iPad and got it pretty fast. I ordered a soufflé pancake and a chocolate milk au lait for my first order and hot chocolate and the chocolate parfait for dessert.

We also got a dance from Pikachu!!! At the end we got some merch and headed back for Asakusa to pick up our luggage. After getting our luggage back in Sumida, we met up with Jess, Fabian, and Pavel to travel to Shinagawa for our first class meetup! Everything went pretty smoothly other than the train being busy. We arrived in Shinagawa and checked into our rooms.

After putting my stuff away it was already time to meet for class. Jas and I headed downstairs to meet everyone. As a class, we headed to the station to exchange our JR rail passes. It took a while and everyone was starving so at around 7pm we went to dinner at the hotel’s food court.

I have a side tangent though. This hotel was so extra. There were 11 IMAX theaters, 2 FLOORS of bowling, an aquarium, 7/11, multiple restaurants, many parlors, and golf simulations. It was insane. Side tangent over.

For dinner I got just a slab of pork and that was good for me. After dinner I went to 7/11 and got some ice cream and dango once more. I also saw that they had avocado Doritos and melon KitKats. I didn’t know those existed but they sure did!

After 7/11 , I went back up to my room, took a shower, and went the bed.

Next morning I got up at around 5am and decided to do laundry. The laundry was fine but the dryer was not the best. I had to use a hairdryer today my jean shorts.

After 11am checkout, Belle, Cam, Jess, Skylar, Liam, Chloe, and I went to the aquarium! It was really cool and they had capybaras! I love capybaras! They also had really cute otters that out on a little show for us. We were there for a little while then headed back to the hotel for class to meet.

We went to the rail station and went on the Sinkansen line. We waited then got on the train to Kyoto. Goodbye Tokyo! see you in a week!

The train ride was fine, it was cool to see other little towns outside of Tokyo. The ride was long but we had Zelda! After getting off the train we were greeted by KCG staff directing us to our bus for our luggage. We all packed our luggage into the bus and headed to dinner!

Dinner was at this fancy traditional Japanese restaurant where we had a 10 COURSE MEAL. It was so cool and such an experience. Pictures will be added below. I’m a very picky eater but I tried as much as I can to have a bite of everything. My favorite dish It was an amazing experience but I was so exhausted after the long day of travel and Aquarium and now so much food in my tummy so we headed to our new home for a week.

The new hotel is nice. The room is like a studio but with 2 beds. Jas and I watched some tv then went to sleep.

Okay! See you tomorrow blog!

Here are photos of Pokémon Cafe, Aquarium, Our hotel is Shinagawa, breakfast before the Shinkansen, our ride to Kyoto, the big dinner, and our new hotel.

Penguin Day!!! (+ travel to Kyoto)

For the first time, I was able to sleep in until 8! Previously, I had been waking up at 5 or earlier. We made our way to a bakery where I ate french toast and other bake goods. I also had a delicious smoothie and tried yuzu juice.

After, we checked out of our hotel and split up into groups. I was a part of a large group that went to the aquarium that was attached to the mall connected to our hotel. We were immediately welcomed by a swing boat type ride which we of course had to try.

While many of the earlier exhibits were more sparse and appeared to create a flashy vibe opposed to showcasing the animals, there were some interesting animals there.

This fish looks like he is eating sand.

Some of the later exhibits featured larger animals.

However, the most impressive exhibit by far was the penguin one (no biases here). I’ve never seen a penguin exhibit featuring different species of penguins in one exhibit space. They had King, Gentoo, African, and the rare Northern Rockhopper penguin native to only a few remote islands in the middle of the Atlantic. Truly a treat to see!

There was also an otter show where the otter did various tricks such as sorting garbage, speaking, and eating a shrimp larger than its head. However, we had to leave before seeing the penguin show in order to get to Kyoto…

I had to buy a bag from my favorite anime of all time, Pingu. A true masterpiece.

After riding the Shinkansen and playing more Hearthstone, we were greeted by KCG staff in Kyoto. They kindly guided us to a restaurant where we were treated to a traditional 10 course meal (+desert). This was a very new experience for many and not all of the food was everyone’s favorites, however, this was an amazing experience to experience the foods of a different culture. Personally, this compared to the Chinese banquet dinners that my extended family puts together for Chinese New Years so I was willing to try most foods. Familiar foods of Tempura, Sashimi and Sushi were also served following ice cream for desert. We also had the opportunity of making sushi under the direction of the head chef where I went first and had a great amount of difficulty putting on my glove (and ripped it). All things considered, I think I did a decent job.

We made our way to our hotel afterwards and am about to retire for the night as of the writing of this. Stay tuned, the Kyoto action has only just begun!

To be continued…

(Official) Day 0/1

Before meeting with the rest of the group, I went to the aquarium with Professor Jacobs and the sign language interpreters. Afterwards, I went to the building where Kojima productions is located. This was one of my top destinations, since their game Death Stranding is one of two games that makes me want to go into the game industry. Obviously I couldn’t go in but I was able to take a photo with the statue out front.

The next day I tried karaoke for the first time ever, which was on my bucket list since I love singing. It was so cool getting a private room and having drinks brought to us. I’ve always loved the idea of karaoke, but was nervous about trying it in public, usually around drunk people that I don’t know; so having a private room with someone I’m more familiar with was ideal.

Then we all took the bullet train to Kyoto where we met with employees from KCG for dinner. Unfortunately for me, I knew eating was going to be an issue because the Japanese diet consists of a lot of fish – something I am physically unable to eat; but I still had a good time getting to talk to my classmates, being in the environment, and trying new things. In the end, I just told everyone I was vegetarian.

Breaking Ground

While today started as a chill hangout with our entire group together for the first full day, it ended with a LOT of “waku waku” (the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of your heart beating intensely).

Megan, Jessica, Jasmine, Skylar, Liam and I started the day by heading to a local cafe and bakery for breakfast called City Bakery Shinagawa. I ordered the french toast which was a TOTAL score (the bacon on top was the real king of the meal), and also got a small table roll because I enjoy eating bread by itself.

After breakfast, we had a couple hours to kill before we boarded the train to Kyoto, so we decided to visit the aquarium that was connected to our hotel. Quick aside: I cannot stress enough how insane our hotel was. Connected to it was two pools (one of which was heated), an aquarium, an 80-lane bowling alley, four practice golf range simulations, 11 movie theaters (one of which was an IMAX theater), and more, not including the food court or other restaurants just around its perimeter. I wish that we had been able to stay longer to capitalize on it, because it was kind of incredible how much could be fit into one hotel complex.

I digress, back to the aquarium! I am definitely spoiled by the Georgia Aquarium, but this aquarium had a lot of really cool (albeit much too small) exhibits and some animals that I don’t think I would have seen anywhere else! Namely was the capybaras, which were SUPER cute but gave us some mean glares as we took pictures of them. We also got to watch an otter performance that was very cute!! My favorite part was when he grabbed the mic and yelled into it, because I too would do the same thing if given that power. Thankfully Jessica got a video of it as my phone was on the verge of overheating.

Otter yelling, my favorite kind of yelling.

There was also an assistant robot who could do the Ievan Polkka dance (there were a lot of popular English/TikTok songs too, but who cares about those?) and a tube where the fish could swim over you that housed a massive manta ray. A large portion of our group also went on this giant swinging ship that was right at the entrance to the aquarium, which was fun to watch!

After the aquarium, we hurried back to the hotel to get our luggage and make it to the train station in time for our train to Kyoto. Getting on and off the train in a timely manner was the most stressful part, but I played Tears of the Kingdom for the entire ride and thoroughly enjoyed it (while also stopping periodically to take videos of the scenery passing by). Once we got to Kyoto, though, the real intensity began.

After a short walk to a VERY nice restaurant, we come to realize that we’ve just walked into a very nice, very expensive ten course dinner. For anyone who’s not familiar with me (first of all hi :D), I have always been a super picky eater and the food in Japan was my biggest concern when planning for this trip due to my limited palate. All of that was completely chucked out of the window tonight as I was sitting almost directly next to the director of our entire program who planned this dinner. I think that I tried more completely new food tonight than I have in the last year.

In its entirety, we ate: some weird little beef ball, a piece of red snapper, some mixed vegetables, a whole miniature squid covered in mustard, miso soup which contained a piece of fish and some vegetables that I could have mistaken for bricks of tasteless jelly, some sashimi that consisted of tuna, salmon, and tai (AKA Red sea bream? I think?), some professionally made sushi consisting of tuna, salmon, and rice, wasabi, the weirdest egg/jelly/bean drink that was expectedly disgusting, some bacon slices that we steeped in cooking broth in a process called “shabu shabu”, a set of fried shrimp tempura and fried lotus root, another soup of indistinguishable origins, and two small ice cream scoops that were vanilla and soy milk flavored respectively. Do you see where the “waku waku” was happening? I also treated myself to a peach fruit juice that was a nice palate cleanser from all of the horrors I put my body through during dinner.

Despite my obvious reservations with the menu we were served, I am proud to say that I at least tried every single thing that we were served. While some of them were hard to swallow (literally), I am surprised at how far I was willing to push myself out of my comfort zone; I think it’s the first of a few big milestones that I will reach while being here.

Tomorrow will be another incredibly packed day, as we’ll be on a bus tour of Kyoto for almost the entire morning and afternoon. While I am looking forward to seeing the sights that the city has to offer, I could really use an extra hour of sleep.

A picture of the manta ray from the aquarium. SO CUTE!!

Traveling to Japan

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.

Wandering Oshiage -> Ueno -> Tokyo eki ☀️Day 1

05/18/2023

Last night, our little group had originally planned to visit Ueno together to karaoke, but upon waking up I had realized half the group had left to grab breakfast and so I dragged Cam along with me to Ueno to explore instead! It was our first time actually traversing the transit system and we were quite nervous/scared/anxious/confused, but we got the hang of it by the end of the day.

We are closest to Oshiage station and made our way to Ueno, where we walked through a lovely little district of very affordable products! (not the picture below, I forgot to photograph it)

I grabbed a cute little matcha latte boba (not pictured bc i forgot) as we walked around. We were stopped by a kind old lady who was conducting user research for a foreigner-friendly touch screen nearby and I was compensated with a guidebook and a panda eraser after the interview was completed.

We stopped in a building with the aim of popping in Daiso on 7F and I momentarily got distracted by a cute windbreaker that was on sale for only 1,000 jpy!!! I’m still thinking about it now as I write this, hopefully it’ll still be there by the time I go back.

Within the Daiso, we came across a Sweets Paradise collab cafe with Sixfonia. While I’m not a fan, it was really neat to see a collab cafe in person after seeing them everywhere on social media!

After our quick Ueno trip, we headed to Tokyo eki in order to finally pick up a suica card. They are only available for purchase in specific areas so it was our mission of the day to secure a card.

We must have emerged on the wrong side of the large station, because we were very clearly out of place with all the salarymen bustling around the area. We wandered the area for a short while before grabbing some food from 7-11 and a スーパー and then headed back in the station to Oshiage station.

On our way home, we happened to walk past a Detective Conan cafe! I had originally planned to go to the Ikebukuro location and didn’t realize there was one so close to my accommodation! Unfortunately, the wait for a seat was very long, and we were both tired after a day of running around so we headed home.

After a day and a half in Japan, we have still yet to eat a ‘proper’ meal. The gyudon (picture above) from 7-11 was still delicious though! Here’s hoping that I’ll be able to eat more than one meal a day tomorrow.

Traveling to & arriving ✈ Japan Day 0

05/16/2023

Arrived at my hometown’s airport at around 6:20am after having slept a maximum of 2.5 hours to meet up with Cam. After a short 2 hour flight to Chicago, we met up with Belle to board our flight to Japan via ANA together!

On our flight, I ended up swapping my aisle seat with the man behind me, who had just wanted to sit with his family (which was the seat I was in). This actually turned out amazingly for me because the seats behind me only sat 2 people, so I just had one other person to let out to use the restroom.

We were fed well on the flights, and I was so thankful for the mild yet yummy airline food since I am notoriously awful at keeping myself fed on travel days.

First meal came 2 hours into the 12 hour flight. Consisted of edamame, small salad, chicken & rice, soba(?) and we even had a small Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream as dessert.

Second meal came a few hours before our arrival, meant to be breakfast (make sure to eat the in-flight meals, as they are meant to help you adjust to the new timezone!) and consisted of ravioli, ham & corn(?) salad, and a blueberry muffin.

Arrival: 2:56pm JST

Once we arrived & got past the final security gates, the three of us met up with Megan & Esther and we set off to get our IC cards & train tickets to make our way into Tokyo. I couldn’t find where to purchase a suica card in the airport so I opted to save it for later (big mistake on my part) and instead purchased a ticket for the Narita Sky Express (Access Express) to take us to Oshiage Station, where our hostel was a 5 minute walk away.

We took a wrong turn on our way to our accommodation and ended up walking right through Skytree (which I had originally planned to properly visit a few days from now).

Once we settled into our rooms, Belle, Megan, Cam and I went out to the nearby Family Mart to grab some quick food for our first night. There, I had my first taste of extremely affordable merch in Japan as well as my first taste of giving kujis all my money.

I pulled a C tier Kanae acrylic panel (he was the only one I wanted out of everyone that was available, so my gambling had thankfully come to an end immediately) to my surprise! Out of slight embarrassment at being so excited to pull my first kuji, I made small talk with the cashier by asking “にじさんじが 人気 です か,” since they are nowhere near as known in the states.

Honorable mention to seeing そらるさん on the first magazine I laid eyes on in Japan! As someone who’s been listening to him since 2012 as an indie musician, this was so surreal and exciting to see.

I had my first Bigプッチンプリン and it was delicious! Much softer than other purin brands I’m used to, and the flavor was wonderfully light and refreshing. They forgot to give me a spoon and I spent a few minutes contemplating my existence and gathering the courage to go back in the store and ask if I could have a spoon, but I got one in the end. After this, we all went back to our rooms and slept early!

Day 0

Tues, May 16th I left Albany NY for Japan! I flew from Albany International Airport to Washington DC. where I had a short layover and then boarded the plane for Tokyo. Flight consisted of a mix of napping, listening to music, and playing Tears of the Kingdom. On the flight, I sat next to a young woman traveling to Vietnam and we chatted a bit about our travel plans which was super cool. Finally, on May 17th 3:30 pm Japan time I landed in Haneda Airport!

Once in the airport I made my way through customs without much trouble and got my luggage. My hotel is located above the JR-East Shibuya station, so I got a Suica card and headed to the Keikyu line. I took the subway to Shinagawa station where I stopped for dinner! Shinagawa station had lots of places to eat and shop, and it was super cool to see all the food stalls. The ramen stall caught my eye and I paid using an electronic machine. I was given a ticket for my order and sat at the counter where they served me. (I was too hungry and forgot to take a picture of the food :/ ) Ramen was delicious, I believe it was tonkatsu broth.

Once I finished eating, I transferred to the JR line from Shinagawa station to Shibuya. At Shibuya station I met up with Esther and we made it to our hotel (I got a little lost but made my way there eventually).

Hotel has a pretty cool view of the city, though the picture does not do it justice. Once settling in at hotel, Esther and I went to 7/11 to grab som snacks and use the atm. I got a yummy green tea drink and a pancake snack for breakfast tomorrow. Tired from all the traveling, we showered and went to bed. Very excited to explore Shibuya in the days ahead!

Day 0.5!

Leaving for Japan today! I woke up around 6am, had breakfast with my parents then headed off to Newark airport! I might have gotten a little lost finding security but we made it. I also found out that Esther was on my flight! It made the wait for boarding so much easier. We boarded the plane and took off. Here’s my breakdown of the meals ( I’ve never had meals on an airplane before):

Meal 1: ~2pm Halal butter chicken with cilantro rice and some sides like bread and veggies plus brownie brittle!

The butter chicken was good but the cilantro rice was a bit strong on cilantro ( I guess that’s the point)

I actually really liked the butter chicken though! The packaging reminded me of curry like the one my roommate makes at home

Meal 2: around 4 or5 it was turkey and Swiss on a baguette pretty mid ; came with m&ms. I got sleepy around this point but stayed up with the will to play Zelda

Meal 3 ( breakfast!): around midnight with 1:30 left in the flight they’ve given us a lot of snacks and water and the lights are starting to turn on

I’m feeling really sleepy at this point and took a 10 minute Power Nap but I had a bag of goldfish and scrambled eggs ( mid) with sausage to keep me up.

Overall pretty good except no stroopwaffel

Finally! We land! After some deplaning and customs shenanigans the gang was all together. Esther, Belle, Cam, Jas, and myself were all heading to the train station ! We got a pretty suica card and got on our respective trains. The ride was a 1hr 15 to get to our stop. The hostel we booked needed up being on the water down the street from the sky tree! It was so pretty !


We then checked into the hostel, saw our rooms and felt the exhaustion hit. Belle, Jas, Cam, and I took a quick trip to FamilyMart down the street ( it’s was so cool) and got some food and went to bed. What a crazy day.