2016 Japan Diaries (Archive) (Patreon)

Below is an archive of my text blog from my old defunct Tumblr of my trip to Japan in December 2016. I'm backing it up here to give you some context for my upcoming vlogs because in some ways what I'm going to talk about will be reflecting on my original writing as well. It's going to be a very long post, I originally broke it up into 3 different posts covering a few days each.

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Japan Diary Day 1 & 2

For the first time in my life I got to go overseas and visit Japan, the country that has influenced so much of my life in one way or another. This post is going to be an old school online journal entry chronicling my week there, so if you’re interested in reading all about the trip, check out the rest of the post below the cut!

Day 1: December 20/21st, Arrival

In the week leading up to the trip, I was feeling pretty terrible. Things on YouTube have been looking bleak and I haven’t been doing well financially since Chaz left in August. I was almost feeling like I should try and get a refund and not go because I was so stressed out. But I worked really really hard to get to go, I saved up and I had already bought the ticket, so I decided I wouldn’t punish myself for things going badly and instead celebrate surviving this hard year and even surviving the last ten. I gave myself a small allowance out of my savings to spend while I was there so that I wouldn’t have to worry about over-spending and I bought myself a bunch of cheap cute clothes to wear for the trip. Then I packed up, hopped on a plane, and flew across the sea. 

When I landed in Tokyo, I went through immigration and then went to go collect my checked bag to go through customs. To my surprise there was a lady waiting there for me at the carrousel. Apparently there was some kind of delay out of LAX and my bag hadn’t made it to Tokyo. It was going to arrive within the next two days and then they were going to mail it to where I would be staying in Osaka. This was a bit of a bummer because it meant not only would I have to wear the same outfit for half the week, but my laptop charger was also in there so I wouldn’t be able to use my computer for very long, and worst of all the cam corder I brought was in there, so I wouldn’t get to make a video about any of the stuff I was doing like I planned. Normally this sort of thing would really stress me out, but I told myself I’m only gonna be here like this once, I don’t wanna spend half the trip upset, so I’m gonna treat it like an adventure instead of a problem and make the best of it. 

At this point I had been awake for more than 24 hours though and I still had a connecting flight to Osaka. That’s the thing about traveling, it’s really brutal on you physically, especially if you have trouble sleeping on planes like I do. So at that point I kinda just curled up on the floor of my terminal in a ball and slept for like an hour.

But the next thing I knew I was there at Kansai Airport and I was getting picked up by my boyfriend Chaz. It was sooo good to see him, he’s been studying abroad there for 5 months and before that he was in Florida for a month, so it had been a looong time. It was late at night, my flight had been delayed so I arrived in Osaka at midnight and everything in the airport was closed, including a Pokemon Center shop. We hopped on a train to get us at least as far as the end of the line, but it was dubious how we were going to get to Chaz’s apartment at that point because the trains would stop running altogether soon and we had a long way to go.

The rules on the train. Don’t be an asshole like this Imakuni? wannabe.

We got about as far as Namba before we were out of options, so we ended up hiring a taxi to get us there for about ¥8,800.

The apartment in which Chaz lived for the past 5 months.

We reached Chaz’s apartment at two in the morning, and I had a bath and went promptly to sleep.

Day 2: December 22nd, Exploring Kaidashin-Machi

Since my luggage had everything I needed in it to be a human being with basic hygiene, we set out early the next day to go buy some basic toiletries and necessities for me. 

 Chaz’s neighborhood garden.

A crossing sign. Must be 1m 30cm to roll this up.

There were bottles like this everywhere. Good place to start rolling.

Our first stop along the way was a 7/11, so I could use the ATM and get some yen to spend.

The display at 7/11 for Nanako’s Animal Crossing DLC.

After, we set off toward a secondhand shop called Book Off. I was hoping I might be able to find some clothes or something so I wouldn’t be stuck in the same sweatshirt and leggings for four days, since my suitcase wasn’t supposed to arrive until Christmas eve.

Along the way we found an interior design store called Tama Home.

It was a bit of a trek, but I didn’t mind. It was an opportunity to see all the sights in a Japanese town.

Hohoho…

One of the places we passed was a KFC. In the 70′s, KFC started this aggressive advertising campaign in Japan in order to kind of embed itself in the popular consciousness as a major Christmas tradition. It was so successful that in some parts of Japan you have to reserve your Christmas bucket of chicken a month in advance. As outsiders looking in, from a place where KFC is just greasy fast food, we found this amusing, so we decided we would definitely try to get ourselves some chicken from this place on Christmas eve.

Another place we passed, “American food,” complete with stolen logo.

Eventually we arrived at Book Off, which was on the second floor of a building that also had a Daiso, which is like a dollar store. Even though we initially went to try to find clothes, I was quickly distracted by the mountains and mountains of TOYS and GAMES they had there. Rows upon rows of used anime figures, some in boxes, some loose. An isle of almost entirely just Pokemon boardgames.

Japanese version of Master Trainer, and “Family Ponjyan” or Mahjong.

What appears to be a Game of Life sort of thing?

It was extremely tempting to pick up some of these, especially the Life one, but they were in huuuge boxes that would be difficult to get home, and since this was a secondhand store, they were likely to be missing pieces.

I did however, find this lovingly tucked away among the boardgames. Remember those pocket playsets called “Pokemon House” or “Pokemon Mate”? Well this is like a big giant playset that those little ones can connect to. Apparently there were several of these things and none of them were released stateside, but they tend to be quite sought after by Pokemon House collectors. Finding a rare piece of gen 1 merch in the wild like this was too much for me to resist, and at ¥750 I couldn’t say no. After we got it back we opened it up to discover that although it has all of its accessories, it was missing all of the mini Pokemon figures it was supposed to come with and the play mat, so I imagine this set, even though it has the original box, probably isn’t as valuable as I initially thought. Still a neat find for so cheap though.

Another odd Book Off find. Japanese Sham Wow.

When we finally tired of looking at toys, we scurried over to the games section, where they had quite a selection of old and recent games at great prices. I found a boxed copy of Pokemon Emerald for only ¥1250, and a copy of Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire for only ¥250. I mean I know that the Japanese version isn’t rare but c’mon, ¥250!? There were loose GBA and GameBoy games as well, so I snagged a Sapphire cart, Koro Koro Kirby, and a funny shaped Tamagotchi game that I might cover in a video someday.

The spoils.

By this point we had kind of given up on our mission of buying what we set out to buy and resolved to just head to Life, a grocery store, at the end of our walk. So instead we kept on down the road toward a bookstore called Tsutaya, which I kept incorrectly calling “Tetsudaya.” It was kind of like a Barns and Noble in that it had more than just books, it even had a game section. Apparently the PS3 and PS4 aren’t region locked (what!?) so I went ahead and bought an Idol Master game for PS3, some Animal Crossing Amiibo cards and a copy of Christmas and Chill. We also bought each other Christmas gifts here, I got him a Monster Hunter art book and he got me a Sailor Moon one.

Near the checkout at Tsutaya.

It was now the afternoon and we were hungry, so we went next door to the McDonalds. In Japan a lot of places like McDonalds and Starbucks are two stories, and I’m not sure why we don’t do that here? Anyway, I ordered a fillet of fish sandwich and holy shit it was SO GOOD. I guess because the ingredients would be fresher when you don’t have to truck them in from across the United States, the fast food in Japan is a lot less greasy and gross compared to their American counterparts. It especially went well with melon soda, a Japanese drink. And get this, chicken nuggets? They’re a side in Japan. Which means you can get them in place of fries for the same price. That’s like twice as much food as a normal combo.

We were pretty shopped out by now. Even though the stuff at Book Off was a steal, Tsutaya was pretty pricey, so we lugged our treasures back towards Life.

There was this giant manekineko outside a restaurant on the way back.

Life was on the first floor of this big building that had an Edion on top, which was like an electronics store. We decided to check that out before we bought any groceries.

A big Yokai Watch display at Edion. There was also one at Tsutaya.

An entire row of JUST GFGs. I guess they’re still really popular over there.

They had this robot servant named Pepper for sale. Like science fiction!

One of these things is not like the other.

Finally, we headed downstairs to Life and picked up some basic things like pajamas, soap, etc. It was a normal grocery store, but the workers all wore these cute uniforms with hats, ascots and aprons. I couldn’t get a picture without straight up photographing a stranger, but it made me wish more places gave you cute outfits like those to wear at work.

Past check out, there were Yokai Watch arcade machines. Always in use.

The highlight of our trip to Life though, was this vending machine that served hot drinks in paper cups. I remembered a machine like this being featured in an Azumanga Diaoh strip, and I’ve always wanted to try it out. I got way too excited about it. They had banana hot coco though!

This is a pic from a later day. Put the money in…

Select your drink…

Wait for the countdown…

Voila! A door opens and your hot drink is ready!

We got some food to heat up later and went back to Chaz’s apartment for the night. We tried to watch Netflix because I wanted to show him all the funny stuff I had watched while he was away, but we were on Japan servers so the selection was totally different. They did have Ranma ½ though, and since that’s one of my all time favs, we took full advantage and watched it well into the night.

That’s all for this post, but let me know if you’d like to see more! Because I couldn’t film anything, I took a lot of pictures and it’s fun to share my trip with all of you. Hope you all had happy holidays, see you in 2017!

Japan Diary Day 3 & 4

A few weeks ago I posted about my first two days in Japan, and today I’m going to write an old school style journal entry about my next couple days of the trip. Today we’re going to Hirakata and Nara to see all the deer! It’s time for Christmas eve.

Day 3: December 23rd, Hirakata Station

Though Chaz was my gracious host for the trip, his apartment lacked certain comforts that made it kind of hard for two people to live in. When it was just him and he was only planning to live there for a few months, he mostly got secondhand furniture. But after 5 months it was deteriorating quite a bit, especially his futon, which was more or less just a pile of rags on the floor. It was honestly really hard to sleep on, so I decided even though it was just for a few days, it was really necessary for me to get us a proper bedspread and trash can so I could enjoy my time there to the fullest. 

Our first stop was back at Edion, so I could get us a trashcan and some kind of storage for my things, since I still didn’t have luggage. I found a nice basket for about ¥500 and a trash can for around ¥1200. From there we headed off down towards Kansai Gaidai to take the bus to Hirakata Station.

A tanuki statue outside a restaurant, next to a gorilla riding an SUV.

A charming little street in Kaidashin-Machi.

We hopped on the bus and rode it a little ways to Hirakata Station. When we got there we had McDonalds again, because it tastes really good there, okay?

A Yokai Watch banner outside the McDonalds. They had Yokai Watch toys.

From the second floor of the McDonalds there was a walkway straight into the Aeon mall. Right away, I came face to face with my weakness: crane games.

I blew ¥1500 on that machine, but when I was making progress an employee came over and swapped the Pichu and Mew for me and from there on out it was hopeless. They were also playing the PenPinappleApplePen song on monitors the whole time. That guy was everywhere. He was in TV adverts and on the radio and everything.

Chaz attempted a different machine where you scooped up a bunch of tickets and only some of the tickets had letters on them that matched up to prizes. After about ¥1000, he finally found an E ticket, which was like a curry packet or something. He decided to keep the ticket instead of trading it in.

Then we headed up a floor and tried to figure out what size sheets and everything we’d need. Futons aren’t really sized like beds and neither of us had shopped for this sort of thing before, but we eventually worked out two futon covers, two pillow cases, a new pillow for me, a huge sheet and a huge comforter for about ¥13,000. I know, kind of a lot to spend on something for only a few days, but I slept a lot better after that and we managed to take the comforter home with us, which was the expensive part.

When we got back we cleaned everything up and assembled our new bedspread. At this point my luggage still had another day to go before I’d be reunited with it, so I changed into pajamas and Chaz took my only outfit down to the laundromat. I promptly fell asleep while he was gone and got in a good 12 hours. 

Day 4: December 24th, The Deer of Nara and Todaiji Temple

The next morning we got an early start back down to the bus stop outside of Kansai Gaidai to Hirakata. My luggage would be delivered that evening and we needed to be home by 4 to receive it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to see all I wanted to see if we were just stuck home all day waiting for it. So we decided we could fit in a visit to Kyoto if we were careful with our time. We stopped at a 7/11 along the way to pick up some breakfast and snacks for the trip. I got a yogurt (with a straw?), some granola bars, a rice ball, and a cheeseburger. I hadn’t eaten beef in nearly 10 years, but it was all they served on the flight over anyway so I figured why not, as long as I was in Japan, just let myself eat beef for the week. Japan probably has a different agricultural system than the US anyway, right?

When we reached Hirakata, we visited the Starbucks there and got some seasonal drinks (white chocolate matcha latte, mmm!) as we ate our breakfast. Then it was time to get on the express train toward Tambabashi. We joked on the way that I aught to change my name to Tambabashi Hirosaka. At home in Portland, I ride the light rail all the time, so I expected to have no trouble riding the trains in Japan too, but it was just at such a speed that it made me super motion sick when we were still in the city. Once we got out to the country side and I could look out at all the fields it got better. After switching trains at Tambabashi, it wasn’t long before we arrived at the station at Nara Park. 

Pretty much as soon as we got out of the station, there were already deer waiting for us and all the other tourists to come by and feed them shika senbei.

There were carts all over where people were selling them, so we bought a little stack. Shika senbei are like these rice crackers. I don’t know if humans ever eat them, but the deer really love them.

The deer approach…

I’m surrounded!

Help!!

One of the deer followed me all the way across the block, ramming into my butt when I ran out of shika senbei. The male deer have their antlers regularly clipped so that they don’t become too dangerous, since they can hurt people or damage property when they become aggressive during mating season. Supposedly this doesn’t hurt them though, and it’s similar to clipping nails.

After I had had my fun feeding the deer, we continued down the road toward Todaiji Temple.

A deer politely waits to cross the street.

The deer along this road were a lot more aggressive than those hanging out at the park. Chaz tried to feed some, but they chased him around and bit his legs until he didn’t have any shika senbei left.

That greedy face of victory…

At that point we decided we were all done with the deer, so we poked around in some shops to find souvenirs for ourselves and our friends. Chaz and I travel a lot, so we try to get magnets for the fridge from everywhere we go. We found a really cute wooden one with a deer on it and continued onward toward Todaiji.

The giant entrance gate for Todaiji Temple.

Inside the gate, there were even MORE deer, and I swear these ones had been trained by people to bow to visitors before taking shika senbei. I guess you can train deer kind of like dogs, they’ll do anything for food. The deer have lived in Nara Park for thousands of years alongside humans, so that’s a lot of time to learn. My mom actually told me that my grandparents visited Nara in the 60′s, since my grandpa was a nuclear physicist and worked on the reactors. So my ancestors fed the ancestors of these deer too!

The deer are still wild animals though…

Once inside Todaiji proper, which was guarded by a single deer in the gate greeting people, there was a place to burn incense, which I tried because why not? You’re supposed to pray too, but I didn’t know what to pray for or who I was praying to exactly.

The temple itself was huge, and it has to be, because it houses the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world.

It’s about 15 meters, or 49 feet tall!

One of the pillars had a hole in it that was the size of the statue’s nostril. It’s said that you have to be able to fit through this hole to climb inside the statue to clean it. There were a bunch of kids lined up to try to see if they’d fit, but Chaz was the only adult gutsy enough to embarrass himself trying.

He fits! Barely.

The inside of the temple was kind of like hallway that just revolved around the Buddha. There were other statues there too, and even a model of the temple itself, documenting all the changes to it and the grounds throughout history. On the way out the back door, there were several souvenir stands with various charms you could buy. I got one for traffic safety, and Chaz got one to help him find a job (since he had to quit his job to go to Japan). He got one almost immediately after he got back so I guess the charm worked! There was a second giftshop down this hallway that had regular souvenirs, and I was surprised to find that Meowth is apparently the official ambassador of Nara!

The spoils from Nara.

A tall and mysterious structure out on the grounds.

There wasn’t much to see outside the main temple itself inside Todaiji, so we headed back out to the streets of Nara to visit some of the other smaller shrines there.

A common thing at these shrines was that you dropped some yen into these little grates as a donation, and then you could fill out a tag to hang at the shrine as a prayer. It operated on the honors system, but if you’re going to believe that your prayer would mean anything, it’s probably best that you’ve put some yen behind it. I filled one out for my wish for the new year, and then we washed our hands in ice cold water using this big ladle thing.

Bobtail-san lives at the shrine.

We headed down the hill deeper into the shrine and may have even crossed into a couple different shrines, it’s kind of hard to tell. There were just small shrines all over the place. Eventually we found one at the bottom of the hill where Chaz got to donate some yen and ring a bell.

There were some zodiac animals nearby too.

By now it was getting to be later in the afternoon, so we took some backstreets to loop back toward Nara Station and end our excursion.

A pretty pond we passed on the way back.

The deer showed up in smaller numbers the further you got from the station, and as we made our way back we stumbled into this plaza with a huge concentration of them.

Deer crossing.

Most everyone was looking at the ground to feed the deer, but when we looked up we noticed a single tree was sprouting persimmons!

I posed for one final picture with Deer-san, whom I did not feed.

Near the station itself there were these narrow crowded streets lined with shops. It was almost too crowded for comfort, I got a bit anxious, but I wanted to see all Nara had to offer before we went home.

Even in a community based society, there are those who go against the grain.

We didn’t buy anything here, so we just got on a train and headed back to Hirakata. What we did buy once we were there though, was some Takoyaki! I had yet to try any, so I was pretty excited about it. It tasted good, really strongly of tuna thanks to the dried tuna flakes on top.

Takoyaki: much tastier than it looks.

We made good time getting home, and we only had to kill a little bit of time watching Ranma ½ before my luggage finally arrived! At this point I was suuuper eager to charge my computer, since it had been dead for a couple of days, so I enjoyed my renewed access to the net until nightfall. 

At around 7pm, we set out for KFC to get us some Christmas Eve chicken. When we got there there was already a line, and a worker informed us that they were out of original and crispy chicken, but that they would have more in an hour. The only other option was teriyaki (which I’m pretty sure is not on the menu in the states), so we headed back to Book Off to kill some time and try to find a big suitcase that we planned to mail back some of our stuff in. The plan was to try to mail it back by boat, so we could ship it to ourselves super cheap and have our bigger belongings home in around 3 months. We found a really nice metal suitcase that was more like a crate with wheels than anything else and looked around at the games and movies for a while. We debated buying an American movie dubbed in Japanese just to watch for the novelty of it, but we couldn’t find any we liked. We were really hoping for Austin Powers: Goldmember, so we could see what they did with the scenes where Beyonce speaks Japanese, but alas it wasn’t there.

After we had killed an hour, we rolled our giant suitcase back to KFC and got in line. The line was pretty long, but it actually went by fairly quickly, and when Chaz placed our order they handed him our food when he paid, they were just that quick. Eager to dig in to our Christmas meals, we took a quick pitstop at Life to buy some champagne and cake, and then hurried home.

Chaz had also found a non-alcoholic Pokemon champagne a while ago, so we cracked into that as well. It had the gen 4 starters on it for some reason? Even though it was from this year?

The KFC was SO GOOD. It wasn’t as greasy as its American counterpart, and we had ourselves a nice Christmas feast and promptly fell asleep, buzzed and happy.

That’s all for today! Sorry this one took so long for me to write, having Chaz home again has sort of messed with my schedule, and I’ve been trying to get work done on my videos when I can so this has been sort of on the back burner. Still I really like writing these, so more will come soon. I’d like to finish documenting my trip while it’s all still fresh in my brain anyway.

Japan Diary Day 5 & 6

My old school online journal continues with more of my adventures in Japan! This post will cover Christmas day and my journey to the Pokemon Center in Osaka!

Day 5: December 25th, Pokemon Center and Namba

Now that my luggage and I were on the same continent, I was very eager to wash my hair. I have colored hair which is hard to maintain, it fades really fast, so I have to use special shampoo to keep it from washing out. Because I was separated from my toiletries, I had gone several days at this point without washing it and was feeling extra grimy. I gave it a through shampoo, and let me tell you, Japanese bathrooms are interesting. At least in small apartments, the entire room is basically the shower, you’re not really supposed to use a shower curtain cause the sink kind of hangs over the tub. The way a Japanese bath works is that you use a bucket and a stool and wash your body and hair using the shower head, and water is just supposed to get everywhere, all over the sink and toilet and everything. In bigger houses, the sink and toilet are in a completely different room. Then you fill up the tub once you’re all clean and have a soak. But since Chaz and I are American barbarians and Chaz didn’t have a bucket or anything, I just took a normal shower standing in the tub and washed my hair and got out. 

In Japan, women dress REALLY nicely, all the time. They wear heels and makeup pretty much everywhere they go. I used to think that the outfits that girls wore in shoujo manga were a bit over the top and just fantasy, but no, women really dress that fancy in every day life there. So I, with no makeup and no clothes and greasy hair, was feeling like a real gremlin at this point, and wanted to look nice and wear the cute outfits I had bought for the trip. I gave my hair a good blow dry, did my makeup, and put on a cute minidress, some thigh high socks, my nice new coat, a scarf, and my black ankle boots. I also brought a bright red hat in case it got too cold. Cause y’know, Christmas.

By the time I was finally all ready it was about noon. The plan today was to hit the Pokemon Center in Osaka and then go explore Namba. We set out the same way toward Kansai Gaidai, but we walked a little extra further today instead of getting on the bus right away and had breakfast at, you guessed it, a McDonalds. 

Photo of the stairs in the McDonalds, for evidence.

This McDonalds had some artsy poetry inside.

The reason we walked all this way today, was so that we could go to a nearby mini mall and get some crepes. Another common trope from the shoujo manga I read growing up, I wanted to eat a romantic crepe with my boyfriend in Japan. So we did.

I got a warm custard one, and Chaz got banana chocolate and whipped cream. Mine kind of melted, and they were both REALLY rich, but super sweet and delicious.

The high chairs in the food court had Pokemon on them.

When I had finally abandoned what was left my crepe, we walked the rest of the way to Hirakata Station and and hopped on the train to Osaka proper to visit the Pokemon Center. Apparently the big city of Osaka is called Osaka, but it’s also the name of the providence, so it’s kind of like New York City, New York. It’s just Osaka, Osaka.

On the train over, I started getting nervous for some reason. I had wanted to visit a real Pokemon Center for so long, ever since I had first heard that they opened one in New York at least 15 years ago, and I was worried it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. It was just a store, I knew that, I had been to the miniature ones they set up for Worlds for two years in a row now, and I knew it would be crowded because they always are. But it still just meant so much to me to go and I didn’t want to waste this one opportunity. I finally had my camera with me but I was worried I wouldn’t get to enjoy it if I was just looking at it all through my camcorder screen. But if I didn’t film anything, I wouldn’t have the materials to make a video about it if I really wanted to. So Chaz, to set my mind at ease, told me he would just record everything so that I would have it if I wanted it later, and that way I could just focus on enjoying the store the best I could. Before I knew it we were there, and we were walking out of the station towards Osaka Station City, a big ginormous mall that had multiple wings and at least a dozen floors, if not more.

Christmas decorations at Osaka Station City.

Our first stop, to get it over and done with, was the Pokemon Center. It was a few floors up, but it occupied an entire floor practically.

Right inside were these giant statues of Solgaleo and Lunala.

It was SO crowded. I had a shopping list in my head of things I knew I wanted to look for, but it was hard to keep track of and take in all the sights and sounds and make sure I saw all there was to see. It was totally overwhelming. Kids, adults, just a complete mishmash of merchandise everywhere, and it was all brand new stuff, so the things I knew existed were already booted off the shelves for the next round of items. I wanted to try to find some GEM figures, but all they had was Nurse Joy, for example. I think what made it all worse was just that most of the shelves were only about chest high, so it was impossible to see what was on them if there was anybody standing in front of them, and there always were. So I just tried to roll with it. I picked up some of the home-ware items that I knew would be hard to find online, like oven mitts, beach towels, that sort of thing. They had some super cute Alolan designed bedsheets, but they were only for twin sized beds. I made sure to find some exclusive Osaka items too, like a little keychain charm that had a Slowpoke posing in an Osakan backdrop. The one item I’m the most happy with is this Christmas 2016 exclusive mug with Delibird on it. It felt fitting for Christmas Day.

The only photo of the merch I got, the rest is on film. Look at that price tag tho

The big bummer turned out to be the Alolan T-shirts. They had one of the Alolan Exeggutor design hanging on a hanger, but when I took it to the register they told me that I couldn’t buy that specific one, I had to buy a grab bag of a random shirt and just HOPE it was that one. I don’t know how you’re supposed to ever get the shirt you want, they’re $20 a pop and you don’t get to see what you’re buying until you open it. I can imagine the good shirts are going to be super expensive to buy online, and right now they’re ungooglable too, which doesn’t make me optimistic that I’ll ever get the Exeggutor one. The one I ended up with was a Type: Null shirt that I didn’t even know was in the game.

Past checkout was an area with a bunch of Pokemon arcade games (Pokken, Ga-Ole, etc) and this cute display with my buddy Meowth on top. Though it was kind of a lot to take in, I’m still glad I got to go and see it all in person, and get some treasures to take home for myself and my friends to enjoy.

On the way out, a Santa-Chu even showed up!

It was a big emotional drain on me though, since I’m only the biggest Pokemon fan on the planet, so I had to have a quick rest after that. We sat on a bench for a little while on another floor, and then we went and grabbed some Starbucks in another Tsutaya. This time I ordered my favorite, iced soy vanilla latte, half-caf. Or rather Chaz ordered it for me, my Japanese isn’t that good.

The view from where we drank our coffee, Osaka, Osaka.

I still did want to get in some shopping and take home some Japan fashions, but I had spent a LOT at the Pokemon Center, so all I could afford was Forever 21. I was quite relieved that they did at least have different clothes there than they did at the one in Portland. I got a sweater with a tiger on it and a nice brown jumper.

At last it was time to move on and head to Namba, which Chaz had been talking up all week. I had gotten to see a little of it, but it was late at night when everything was closed and we were trying to get home from the airport, so I was excited to see what Chaz had dubbed “weeb street” during the day.

On the way back to the trains, we passed Dairy on Ice.

And some street performers!

At this point it was getting colder, so I finally put on my bright red hat. Surprisingly up til this point I hadn’t gotten many stares, even though I was a blue-haired foreigner wandering around areas that didn’t get many of those, but once I put on that hat suddenly everyone was looking at me. I guess loud colors aren’t an everyday occurrence?

It was a quick ride over to Namba, at least from what I remember. I was already pretty tired at this point, so it was nice to have a little break and get some time off of my feet.

If I thought Osaka Station City was crowded, Namba was on another level. I guess in Japan, Christmas is more of a retail-based holiday than a religious one, so a lot of people just go shopping on Christmas Day. It was quite bustling and busy everywhere we went.

A rock climbing wall built into the side of a high rise! We must be in Namba.

Aion Pachinko. Pay-to-win!

A rare surviving Tower Records, spotted in the wild.

The main event was visiting Game Taito Station, a huge 6 story arcade. The first floor was completely made up of crane games, it was crazy. There were a few that were really promising that we thought we could win, but we only actually won one of them, this Pikachu game with a bunch of bars stacked across it.

This was the only photo we managed to get, they don’t want you taking pictures in there so they asked us to stop. We worked out a strategy of using the claw to push the Pikachu through the bars and after about ¥1,000 we got him!

There was also a machine I noticed where you could win pillows of the PPAP guy. The rest of the arcade wasn’t really anything for me. The second floor was all competitive fighting games and horse racing sims where a bunch of old men were sitting in there smoking and gambling, and then the third floor was like music games and there were SO many and it was SO loud I couldn’t stand to be up there. Then the next floors were like kids games and the top floor was all card games. So I used the rest room in there and then it was off to see all the anime and gaming shops. 

We stopped at a Super Potato, which was a claustrophobic used game store with a ton of retro stuff. The prices were pretty high on everything, but I did manage to find a new face plate for my New 3DS so I picked it up. I was really hoping to find more of them while I was there, since the model of 3DS I have is the one they released in Japan with changeable faceplates, but everywhere I looked I couldn’t find any that weren’t the ugly ones with Mario’s face on them. At last I found one with stars on it here at the Potato, but I had no luck tracking down any of the Kirby or Pokemon ones, not even at the Pokemon Center.

Santa Snake outside of the Super Potato. There was a Rudolph Mario too.

Then we went down the street with a ton of anime shops. We looked in a bunch of them trying to find Christmas presents for the few we hadn’t found anything for yet, but I was so bushed at this point from the several long days of traveling and walking that it was all kind of a blur. I remember we found the same Pikachu plush that we won at the arcade for ¥1,400, so we felt good about ourselves, and I did actually find the Ash GEM figure I wanted, but I was SUPER out of money and it was like ¥8,800 so there was no way I could afford it.

These Red figures weren’t at the Pokemon Center either, though they were advertised there. We were so broke and so beat that we left all these shops empty handed and staggered our tired bodies back to the train station to return to Hirakata and Kadashin-Machi.

But this jam packed day wasn’t over yet. We still had to get dinner! So we decided on some authentic Japanese sushi, conveyor style. We actually eat sushi quite a lot at home, so this wasn’t really new for me, but what was neat about this place was A) the fish was fresher and yummier and B) there were these monitors you could order stuff from. If you ate 6 plates worth of sushi, you could put them in this slot and you had a chance to win gacha prizes. From everyone eating around us, it seemed like the chances of winning were pretty low, and we could hear people losing. But I ate about 12 plates (wowee what a glutton) and I won both times! Granted what I did win was like a roll of One Piece decorative tape both times, but it was still neat to be the only one winning in the whole place. 

Day 6: December 26th, Purikura

This next day was a day to rest up and finish up all that was left to do in Kaidashin-Machi before we headed out to stay at a ryokan. For me, I just had a couple things left that I wanted to do, and one of them was find a Farfetch’d in Pokemon Go. But we also had some errands to run. So with our Pocket Wi-Fi in tow, we headed on foot towards Life for some breakfast and hot chocolate, to Edion to get some last minute milage out of their display massage chairs, and then the post office to see about mailing that giant suitcase we bought.

The journey was mostly fruitless. Though I did get enough Christmas Pikachu’s to finally evolve one into a Christmas Raichu in Pokemon Go, there were no Farfetch’d to be found, and the post office informed us that the suitcase was too big and would have to be mailed by EMS, which would cost hundreds of dollars. So we wheeled it back home without mailing it cause fuck that, and then we did one last round of some of the thrift stores in the area. One of the closest ones to Chaz’s apartment was this place called Treasure Planet. It mostly had oodles and oodles of anime figures, and none that I was particularly interested in, but locked away behind a glass case up front was a selection of Sailor Moon items. The ones I was most interested in were the Proplica compacts and actual make up items, but I really couldn’t afford it at this point. Chaz being the big ol’ sweetheart that he is, offered to split the cost of this really pretty Crystal Star Compact with me. It’s one of my favorite souvenirs from the trip. ♥

From there it was time to head back down to Hirakata Station so Chaz could go pay some bills and we could get in a little last minute fun. The last time we were down here at the Aeon mall, I was still an unwashed troll, so now that I looked like an actual human I was pretty excited to try Purikura, which is a type of photo booth that has “beauty” features. Mostly it just enhances your eyes and airbrushes your skin and such, but it also has this kind of silly uncanny valley effect where you end up looking like an alien no matter what you do. There were some Purikura machines over near the claw machines we played at before, so we popped our last ¥100 coins in and gave it a whirl.

The annoying thing about it was that there were all these menus where you were supposed to put in your name and edit the photos, but they all had timers on it for some reason. Why put a time limit just to type in your name? I guess in case you mess up you’ll have to do it all over again and take more pictures? Anyway I wasn’t sure what to put under name, so I started to type in Egg, since Chaz jokes that I should change my name to Tamago instead (it’s kind of a long story) but I accidentally hit H and then the time was up so my name ended up being EGGH.

Look at Chaz’s beautiful face.

By the time Chaz finished his errands and we were done playing around with Purikura it was time for lunch. The trade off for having McDonalds practically every day since I got to Japan was that I had to agree to at least try donburi today, which was fine. I’m a pretty picky eater so I usually go for safe foods that I know will fill me up and I can finish, since if I don’t eat enough I get migraines (yay). But I did at least want to try SOME real Japanese food while I was there. Chaz kept talking up this place called Sukiya which has yummy and cheap donburi, so we headed a couple streets over to eat there. They also had Pokemon Sun & Moon toys in their kids meals! I ordered a beef bowl with a mountain of cheese on top. It was really rich and not really my thing, but I’m glad I tried it. The problem I kept having was whenever I needed to put my chopsticks down, without even thinking about it I’d just stick them in the bowl, which is bad table manners. You’re supposed to lay your chopsticks flat across the top of the bowl, not leave them sitting in it when you’re not done eating. It’s a hard thing to learn when that’s so not a big deal in America.

Still tired from the day before and still needing to get a LOT of packing done, we headed back to the apartment and spent the rest of the day getting ready to vacate the place the next morning. Chaz took a bunch of things down to various thrift stores to try to lighten our load and get rid of some of the furniture he’d accrued, but Book Off closed early that day and he had to lug all the stuff all the way back to the apartment. We bought some re-heatable dinner from Life and played suitcase tetris, trying to figure out how we were going to get everything home without being able to mail anything like we planed. 

Since we were pretty broke at this point and really tired, we had limited options for our evening entertainment, but we did manage to get out and visit a nearby Sega arcade. We turned a chunk of what was left of our cash into ¥100 coins and had a ball. I got to try Ga-Ole, which is a lot like Pokemon Tretta and the other similar games, where you’re supposed to go buy packs of these plastic Pokemon chips to use on the machine to battle with. You can also catch Pokemon in the game and turn them into pucks by putting an extra ¥100 in the machine. I knew it was a bit of a rip off but I went ahead and got a Pikachu puck anyway. It’s a really simple game, but it can even link up with those Z-Ring bracelet toys that sync to your games. I also tried this Dragon Quest scanning game, which was slightly more fun. It’s basically like Dragon Warrior Monsters except again, they get more yen out of you by making you pay for these cards with QR codes on them.

Being a sucker for claw machines it was hard to ignore the selection here, but I did my best to refrain. When I was having trouble deciding what to play, Chaz went over to this Harry Potter one that had chibi plush keychains of Harry, Ron and Hermione and won me a Hermione on a single ¥100 coin! Then we went over to the other room, which had a bunch of slot machines and rhythm games. I tried a Urusei Yatsura one, but I’ve never played slots in real life before (just at the Game Corner, ho ho) and I didn’t really get how it worked. It was pretty dull and I couldn’t collect my payout, it just kept spending it. Eventually I just had to abandon the machine and my money along with it. So let it be known kids, gambling in real life is really boring.

The highlight of the night were the rhythm games. First we tried the Project Diva one. I’m not really a big Vocaloid fan, but I do like some of the old school songs that were popular on YouTube back in my day, so it was kind of fun to get to play Just Be Friends in a rhythm game. There was this one game that was suuuper popular there where there were these wall mounted screens with circles you had to slap with your hands to the beat. The guys that were playing it were really serious about it, they played all night without taking a break and they had to wear gloves to keep themselves from getting friction burns. Then we played Taiko Master, which is a game based around hitting plastic Taiko drums. The music selection was really broad, they had everything from MegaMan and Monster Hunter songs to Wada Kouji’s Butterfly. They even had a Japanese version of Let It Go from Frozen, which does not make for a super interesting play btw. Even though I was pretty bad at it I had a blast, we marathoned a ton of Pokemon songs and played until we were super sweaty and tired and ready to call it a day.

Whew this ended up being an extra long post, thanks for reading it all! The next one will be the last two days of the trip and so will conclude my Japan Diary. I hope you’ll come back and join me as we journey out to a ryokan and enjoy a traditional Japanese style inn (and outdoor onsen!) 

Japan Diary Days 7 & 8

This post will conclude my coverage of my visit to Japan at the end of 2016! It took me over a month to get all these out, so I apologize for the delays, but I’ve had a lot of fun writing about it since I was unable to vlog most of it like I had planned. Today’s post will wrap everything up with our trip to a ryokan and onsen, so click below the cut to read all about it! 

Day 7: December 27th, Traveling to Fushioukaku

The morning of the 27th was spent waiting for various services to be shut off in Chaz’s apartment so we could move out, the gas, power, water, returning the keys, that sort of thing. Then we hoisted our four enormous suitcases down the stairs and set off toward Hirakata one last time to board the train to Ikeda to stay at a ryokan, or Japanese style inn, called Fushioukaku. 

Our original plan for getting the majority of our large items home was to mail them cheaply via boat, which Chaz’s classmates where he was studying abroad had done. But we had so very much stuff between the two of us that each bag weighed nearly 50lbs, which pushed the weight limit, and apparently the turn radius of each bag was too wide as well. So we were left with the prospect of paying hundreds of dollars to send them home via EMS, or wheeling them with us all the way to Fushioukaku and subsequently the airport to get them home. I was not thrilled with either idea honestly, because the trip to Fushioukaku ended up requiring switching trains multiple times, going between subways and regular rails and crossing all the way across multiple levels of massive train stations with our huge bags in tow. But neither of us really had the money at that point to even think about getting a taxi to get us all the way to Ikeda, so we were left with no choice but to drag 100lbs worth of luggage each for at least a mile of walking distance and several train rides. It was not a fun time. My legs ended up very badly bruised from trying to jostle the bags in and out of train cars and up and down stairs, and it took the entire day just to get to Ikeda. 

We did see this interesting sight though: double decker trains!

Fortunately when we finally reached the station there, there was a shuttle waiting for us to take us up the mountain to the inn itself. By the way, Fushioukaku apparently means “Immortal King’s Palace,” which is silly over-the-top prestigious. I mean it was a nice place don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t a palace by any means. 

When we arrived, we checked in and the staff took our things up to our room for us. I was not used to the level of hospitality involved in a ryokan. In American hotels mostly you’re given high levels of privacy, to the point where you rarely even see the staff and the cleaning service comes in when you’re not even there. Here the staff was involved in every aspect of the stay, from getting us settled into our rooms, explaining the various features of our suite (use slippers only when not walking on tatami), and even making us tea.

Then once we were settled in and warmed up, they had me go pick out a yukata to rent. They let me pick the sash too, but they also criticized my choice at first, saying the two fabrics I picked didn’t look good together. Well excuuusse me, they both had sakura patterns, I thought they looked nice.

They then helped me put on the yukata, which was a level of awkward I was unprepared for. They had me take off my pants but leave my shirt on, but it was waaay too hot to be wearing long sleeves under the robe, so I had to try to take it off myself after she left without disturbing the yukata, which was like some Houdini bullshit to pull off.

Our beautiful tatami room, don’t mind the gremlin.

Eventually though, both Chaz and I were comfortable in our yukata and we were left alone for a few minutes to enjoy the suite, complete with awesome massage chair and Japanese television.

They came back in eventually when it was time for dinner. It was a multiple course meal they had prepared for us, complete with rice, shabu-shabu, and several other raw things we unfamiliar with and weren’t sure how to eat.

Chaz kept asking the hostess on my behalf in Japanese how the various dishes worked, and she got pretty annoyed with our ignorance. But it was very tasty once we figured it out. It came with some nice sake, and Chaz ordered a beer that I split with him. I’m not usually a fan of Japanese beers, they’re a little too skunky for my tastes, but this one, Asahi, was pretty good. There was also some DELICIOUS New York style steak that they served us, and oh my GOD I had forgotten how much I love steak. If I was gonna ruin my 10-year-streak of no beef at least it was super worth it.

Once we were finished with dinner, they came in, cleared our plates, moved the table and set up our futons. Then we were finally left alone for the night.

One of the features of the room was a proper Japanese style bath, with a separate room for the shower and an actual outdoor tub, set up on the balcony with a screen around it. It was December so it was freeeezing cold, but I was glad to get some practice in bathing the Japanese way so that I hopefully wouldn’t make a fool of myself at the onsen the next day. 

Day 8: December 28th, Outdoor Onsen and Going Home

Part of the reason we picked Fushioukaku to stay at was its outdoor baths. One of the very few winter-Japan-things (besides kotatsu) I really wanted to try was bathing in a hot spring, and most onsen in Japan are indoor, not out. I’m pretty sure the ones here at Fushioukaku weren’t natural, but they were outdoor, so I was excited to give it a go. I chickened out on our first day there, but this was my last chance to do it maybe ever in my life so dammit I was gonna try.

First we got ourselves up early to get some nice breakfast down at the buffet, and to our surprise, snow was falling outside the window.

I’m sure you can’t see it, but this was supposed to be a picture of the snow.

We didn’t have a ton of time before we were supposed to check out and head to the airport, but we did have about an hour, so I gathered up my courage and headed to the onsen. I was nervous about it for a couple of reasons, the first of which being I would have to do something in Japan without Chaz and not have anyone who could translate for me if I needed help, and second I would have to be naked in public, which isn’t something I think most Americans are used to. I haven’t even used a locker room since high school.

I couldn’t get any pictures of any of this on account of all the naked people, so I’ll do my best to explain with just text. First there was a little hallway you went down that split off into rooms for men and women, which were covered by long curtains. There was a little placard on the wall explaining in English that you’re supposed to rinse your body using a station outside of the public bath first, then you can get in and soak if you want, and then you can get out again and actually clean yourself, you just have to rinse thoroughly because you’re not supposed to get any soap inside the baths themselves. You also aren’t supposed to wear any kind of clothes, no underwear or swim trunks or anything.

Beyond the curtain was a little locker type room where you could take off your clothes and such. There were women sitting in front of mirrors drying their hair, and there were even scales where you could weigh yourself. I hesitated here because I wasn’t really sure if I could just use any locker or if I was supposed to bring a towel in with me or leave it in here, but eventually I got undressed and went into the bath room with a towel.

That was the wrong decision apparently, because no one else had brought towels in with them, so I left it hanging by the door. I quickly sat down at one of the stations and rinsed myself off, and I could tell people were already staring at me. I have no idea why honestly, I mean I wasn’t the only foreigner at the inn and I had seen one leaving before me, and there’s nothing weird about my body I’m pretty sure. I mean I hope not. I could only assume I was just doing something wrong again already, so I did it as quickly as I could and got into one of the baths as deep as I could where no one could oogle me anymore. 

So far I was still inside, but then I noticed through the window that there were more baths outside, and there was only like one other woman out there using them. So I got up and toddled my way to the door as quickly as I could. Again once I was out there I just hid in the bath as soon as possible, but soon the only other woman there left and I had a little bit of privacy.

I wondered why nobody else was out here, because it was so beautiful. There were several different baths, some in more natural shapes surrounded by rocks and others that looked more like pools with places to sit. There were trees and flowers and a beautiful view of the mountains. The indoor portion was so crowded, why did they all prefer that to this? Now that I had some privacy I felt comfortable washing, so I got out and headed to one of the outdoor sinks. You’re supposed to soap yourself up with the stuff they provide, which was actually some nice quality, and then fill up a wooden bucket with water from the tap to rinse yourself off afterwards. So I fill up my bucket while I’m lathering, and then when I go to rinse, I realize what I had poured was ICE COLD. So I thought “huh, I must have just set the faucet wrong” and made sure to set it as hot as it would go. But still, all I got was freezing water. So I’m sitting here covered in suds, not allowed to go rinse in the hot water of the baths, and too embarrassed to go back inside and use the normal water. I suddenly understand why no one is out here. This must be where you’re supposed to bathe in hot weather, not when it had just snowed that morning. So I took a deep breath and dunked the bucket of ice water all over me, filled it up again and repeated until I was sud-free. Anyone who was watching me through the window must have thought I was either crazy or stupid, and I guess they were right. As soon as I was acceptable levels of clean to get back in the hot water, I jumped in and stayed there for as long as I could.

Once the “holy shit I’m an idiot” panic had worn off, I could just sit out there and enjoy the warm bath and the beautiful scenery. It was extremely relaxing and refreshing to just breathe in the cold fresh air and let the warmth soak into my body, maybe even more so after shocking my system with an unexpected ice bucket challenge. Eventually I got warm enough again than I started to sweat a little and I was nervous I’d lose track of time, since I had to get to the airport still, so I got myself out, went back inside, pulled my lonely towel from its place near the door and went back into the locker room to get dressed again. As embarrassing and uncomfortable as parts of the experience were, the memory of how relaxing sitting in that tub surrounded by nature was got me through a 10 hour flight and then some. I reunited with Chaz and we went back to our room to get the rest of our stuff to check out.

We took the shuttle back down the mountain, but at this point I was not about to repeat yesterday’s misery by trying to haul our stuff all the way from Ikeda to KIX. So Chaz and I split the faire for a taxi and began our journey home not with luggage struggles but with naps on the car ride over.

We ended up arriving at the airport super early, so early in fact that we had to wait to even check our bags for the flight.

Beware of the elevator crabs.

RING RING RING, RING RING RING, PHONE CALL! PHONE CALL!

By the time we were unencumbered by our 200lbs of luggage, most of our wait was already over, but there was still time to stop by the Kansai International Pokemon Center that was closed when I had initially arrived.

Christmas is over, Spring is on its way!

Travel-face posing with the KIX Poke-Center mascot, Pilot-Chu!

An adorable display on one of the shelves.

To my surprise, the KIX Pokemon Center has its own unique Pikachu plush, so I guess all the international airports in Japan do, though there wasn’t time to stop at the one at Narita on the way back. We got some very last minute gifts for our friends here and I tried my luck with the shirts again and got two more bags, which I vowed not to open until I got home to prevent myself from buying even more. Sadly it was just another Type: Null and a Sandygast, which was at least pretty cute.

All in all, though many things about this trip did not go as planned, I’m proud of myself for weathering it in stride and managing to enjoy myself to the fullest. It was a wonderful way to celebrate all that I’d overcome in the past year, from career ups and downs to a long distance relationship to all of my personal growth and hard work getting there. I pushed myself past my fears, got myself across the world, and made sure I got to do all I wanted to do in the short time I had, obstacles and all. And together Chaz and I celebrated as we closed a difficult, amazing, wonderful, and rough chapter of our lives and looked forward to beginning the next, which promised to be just as hard but just as rewarding. Thanks for sharing this journey with me and I hope you enjoyed seeing it through my eyes as much as I enjoyed living it.