Hopefully I haven’t been gone too long! This video’s 35 minutes long so grab a snack and get prepared to lock in, it’s a yap-a-thon.
Plenty happened during my course of a trip to Japan and I tried my best to summarize a lot of what’s happened here in this video! So if you gotta ask, I might be sending you this video instead.
When we first headed to Japan we took off from Tokyo after a night at the hotel nearby. I was only going with my mom this time instead of having my sister along with us like we did last time.
The purpose of the trip was to help out my grandpa more than anything but we’d still have our fun while we were there.
Anyway, at the hotel we had some overpriced fries and I think I got a burger or something for dinner while we downed some beers into the night as there wasn’t much else to do besides hangout at the restaurant the night before our flight.
The next morning we got our stuff and headed the airport, did the things we had to but with global entry it was just that much easier to get through security. So we ended up waiting awhile before boarding the plane.
We were flying with Zip Air for this flight. A 12 hour flight with 2 pre bought meals, a couple snacks, iPad, phone, airpods, earphones, neck pillow, sleeping mask: I was ready.
The flight was easier than last time; last time I just read books, and slept for most of it as the inflight wifi sucked so bad I couldn’t really do much with my phone. But this time I was prepared, with my iPad I just gamed on Bloon Tower Defense 6 the whole time. Flight was basically a breeze. I kinda forgot what my inflight meals were but I do know that I just picked whatever had the most calories which was chicken, rice, and vegetable combo or steak curry.
Once we landed in Narita we’d get our luggage shipped to our Hotel in Tokyo while we took the Shin and that’s where the story begins.
In Tokyo we explored Azabudai Hills. This was a notoriously richy area with lots of high end stores (like they’re not all over the country though) and also featured Tokyo tower and some cool art exhibits.
The main feature of the day was teamlabs borderless, but there was also a Pokemon and Anime art exhibit going on as well.
The art exhibit was cool enough, the teamlabs thing was alright. I just remember getting tired of walking around in those stuffy hallways. But yeah, projectors on walls, its as cool as it is until it gets old.
We made a couple of our own fish with paper and crayons and got to watch them swim around and I got some matcha ice cream to go with my matcha tea while there so I guess it was a win.
Oh, and before we went into teamlabs we had some Ramen. It was pretty good. I really liked the skate punk aesthetic of the reseturant and the design of the ramen bowls. I should’ve asked to buy one.
Later that night we hit up a Hambagu steak house after having gourmet sushi the night before. I kinda forgot to mention that, the fatty sushi was superb.
We left Tokyo for Shizuoka, where Mt. Fuji was located/ visible.
The idea was that my mom wanted to go to his fancy hotel that was nearby and truth be told, it wasn’t that great of an experience.
In the video I didn’t mention it but my mom and I got in a pretty heated argument while we were there to view Mt. Fuji and the vibes were awful for our whole stay there and then some.
But, regardless, the view was nice after the clouds separated so we could see Mt. Fuji in its full glory and the five course French meal we had was excellent. It was very fancy and included enough food to be satisfied by the end of it.
The next day after our stay we visited the local shrine, Kunozan-toshgu Shrine. It was a sacred space where a lot of the activities of the first emperor of Japan took place (if I’m not mistaken). To get there we took a gondola. I wasn’t expecting that at all.
They had typical shrine things but they also had a museum full of artifacts from past emperors. Sadly, I wasn’t able to take pictures of those things but they included things like various armour and weapons of all the different emperors over time and the basic everyday things of the late emperor like scissors, clocks, pens, adn brushes.
It was insightful to see. Taking it in was amazing. We stayed there for a while just reading up on everything and once we got our fill of the knowledge and fresh air of the area, we got a couple things from the gift shop and dipped.
Finally we headed to Okayama, the whole point of the trip, to visit my Grandpa.
Once we got there by shin we caught a cab and got off at the same ‘ol spot by his house. Its iconic in my mind, always a sweet reminder of my childhood.
Once we get inside we get settled down, and our luggage arrives at the door the morning after. I’m staying in the room upstairs that used to be my grandma’s room across from my grandpa’s. The room’s dusty as hell but we make do.
While staying there the goal was to clean up the house as much as possible. I was to take care of most of the outside work while my mom was to take care of a lot of the inside cleaning. My room needed a deep cleaning though so I was thoroughly on top of it.
The thing is, all that dust had my allergies acting up and I had a hard time breathing. I have a high tolerance to allergens but it was just too much. After getting all the dust shaken around I couldn’t handle it and I wasn’t feeling well so we had to get some claritin the next morning. Yeah, they have claritin over there in Japan, in fact they have a lot of brands that you’d assume was american or western only.
Anyway, we spent the days eating good food, hanging out with family (my aunt and grandpa), and cleaning up the place. Everyday after the first few days of rest and shopping around for new clothes I’d go outside and pick up weeds, rake up leaves, hack at vines, and saw trash to manageable pieces.
While I did the yardwork I also listened to the new Tyler the Creator album: Chromakopia. I absolutely love that album. I was listening to it the whole time in fact, before the flight, on the flight and while I was there. But also while I was there, Kendrick dropped GNX so I also ended up listening to that a couple times through as well ( I use couple times loosely as it might as well been over 10 times or something).
Through all this, we went and ate at the usual spots, Jolly Pasta, Coco’s, Kura Sushi. We went to Aeon Mall, the mall chain of Japan, we went to get chamen and ramen, sushi and sweets. We went out for yakiniku, we got Pokemon Mister Donuts, I tried a bunch of japnese snacks and alcoholic drinks, we did it all!
While we were there we also got new glasses since in Japan you can buy them without a prescription. They literally checked my eyes there and I got a couple new pairs and now I kinda wear them all time. I’ve given up on not using prescription eyewear these days.
Oh, I also watched Arcane season 2 while I was there and that was pretty much it.
After we said our goodbyes we left for the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto.
Months prior I did a raffle for the ability to purchase tickets for the brand new Nintendo Museum and won! So we got two tickets and headed over before we were going to leave the country.
So we shin it over there and once we got there we took some pictures outside and then headed inside for lunch since we haven’t had anything before that.
The food wasn’t anything to write home about. The lack of options was kinda lame actually since I wanted more on my burger but oh well. Also the burger was small and the fries were good. I got the fancy cheese strawberry drink and didn’t enjoy the chunks in it but it was alright I guess.
Once we got in we explored the floors of the dungeon. The top floor had all the gimmicks and gadgets collected throughout the years. They had every iteration ever of every console and multiple of each. They were displayed in giant glass walls for everyone to see. Games, old toys, hanafuda cards, anything Nintendo was there.
After we were done pursuing we headed downstairs to the other main attraction which were the attractions. They gave you ten play coins to spend on doing various tuff like playing video games, or participating in giant video games, playing with toys, or the shooting range.
We only spent 8 of our ten coins doing the 2 most expensive experiences which were the shooting range and the giant controller one.
At the shooting range I won and got clapped at along with receiving a worthless golden virtual trophy on my phone of the Nintendo Zapper.
At the giant controller attraction we played the Super Famicom where we continuously lost at Super Mario World at a pipe because my mom just continuously held down the right button instead of performing any actions. Granted when we were there she was acting a bit out of it but damn, that was embarrassing. We died like 20 times in a row while other people cleared the stage, lol.
After that since she was basically done we checked the gift shop where i got a shirt and a pin or something and we left. It was pretty nice. That night we got some room service for dinner and our time in Japan was nearly up.
Now that we were finished with the museum all there was left to do was to do a bit of sight seeing at the other sights of Kyoto. But we didn’t have much time so we just did some basic sight seeing.
We checked out Okazakinishitennocho which other than being a mouthful was a temple/shrine in seemingly downtown Kyoto. Unfortunately a lot of it was under renovation or something so I only could take a few pictures of what wasn’t covered up but it was still a cool visit.
After we checked that our we took the buses to the main shopping district where everything was very grid like. It was just as shoppy as any other place, lots of people. We checked out a couple stores but most notably we hit up the Kyoto Pokemon Center. And yeah, it’s kinda lackluster. Its smaller than the other centers and doesn’t have as much merchandise. Nothing really caught my eye so I left empty handed. The only thing they have really are limited edition Pikachu’s wearing kimonos if you’re into that kind of thing.
The other noteworthy place we visited was at one of the shopping centers they randomly had an exhibit for Urusei Yastsura. It was very random. I’ve been talking about how I wanted some Urusei Yatsura or Ranma 1/2 merch that wasn’t loud and here there was a cool little attraction to visit. Its basically a maze that appreciates the reboot of the show.
After walking through we make it to a little souvenir shop where i bought a jacket and got a couple gacha pins. And that was all she wrote! Our trip was nearly over, it was time to head to Narita for the night so that we could catch our flight the next morning.
We had one more banging dinner and breakfast at the hotel and headed to the airport.
At the airport I came across this small section of Sega/ Sonic merch and proceeded to buy a couple shirts. I didn’t think I’d find anything Sonic related as it barely seems to exist in Japan.
And after that we hopped on our flight, I played Bloons Tower Defense 6 the whole time we landed in LAX after 12 hours and boom, we’re back in the USA.
I said bye to my mom at the airport, I got picked up by my friend Juno. Felt bad for leaving her behind but its fine, we’ve already hung out afterwards.
Oh and I have way more photos and footage on my camera but I can’t get to it since I don’t know where my SD card readers are so I can’t access them.
Anyway, that was the whole trip basically! Let me know if you have any questions or what I should do the next time I go. Maybe I can bring you a souvenir, who knows? Oh, that reminds me I brought back gold flake expensive sake back. Its so good guys.
Ok, forreal though! I’ll see you guys soon, thanks for reading up, peace.
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