Y'all don't wanna see my plane pic, I had like 3 hours of sleep before I got on and was Tired (TM). Thankfully, the flight felt really short! As in I straight up lost track of time cuz I was sleeping or reading fics on my phone and then when I checked how much time was left, we were less than 30 minutes from landing. Whoops.

Got picked up by my mom's friend, which was very gracious of them. The price was that I had to dredge up all of my first grade level Mandarin (with added Google translate help) to make conversation, cuz she knew no English and I knew even less Japanese than during my weeb years. BUT WE GOT THROUGH.

After getting picked up, seriously they were so nice about picking me up considering it was during rush hour on a Friday, we went to dinner! Pics incoming.

Don't ask my for certain what any of this was, I could hazard guesses but all detailed description passed right over my head, cuz again, first grade level Mandarin. Twas really tasty though! And really freaking filling, holy crap. I forgot to take pics of the 4 other items that came out, but I was so full by the end. orz

HAVE FUUUN

Then they tried to drive me to my friend's place and we got lost, The End.

No but really, thank God for Google maps, cuz the road to the apartment was kinda squirmy but we eventually got to the apartment. Then it was relaxing and sleeping time to get ready for the next day!

wildmichimon: I WILL <3

Anyway I lied to myself, cuz my body absolutely did not sleep enough. It woke up at 3 am despite going to bed exhausted and I made the terrible decision to check my phone, so no more sleep for me!!

Saturday was hanging out with a college friend and doing Anime/Pokemon nerd shit, aka going to the Animate store and (one of the many) Pokemon Centers + Pikachu Sweets Cafe.

Hang on, I just realized I never took pics of the random Pokemon and anime merch I got cuz I am weak

japaaaaan!!

Whooooo

timepiecery: ofthreekingdoms: \o/!

ohhhh that eggplant tho

thankyoukindly: IT WAS ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD AND REFRESHING, slightly pickled and sweet, perfect appetizer

apparently it's a seasonal thing so I'm glad I was able to get it, even though it's not my usual thing

The Animate store! It wasn't actually on my list of places to go cuz ngl I don't usually go for official merch. But I was in Ikebukuro and my friend was willing to check the place out, so in we went.

It was a generally short excursion, as I wasn't super active in any fandom, so it was mostly just browsing through all of the series that I straight up had no idea existed.

BUT IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I SAW THIS, IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD 2023:


Frigging Hitman Reborn

Ngl they had some cute shit but also what are you doing back here.


There was also a pop up store somewhere in the city which I didn't have time to go into but may in the future, cuz it's got Llama's Boy, Dino.

Fandoms I noticed off the top of my head: Twisted Wonderland, Genshin Impact, all the Shounen Jumps, Minecraft, Internet Celebrities (I don't know), and anime Harry Potter (I don't know). Demon Slayer gets a shout out cuz this piece of merch made me laugh.

Okay, updates on that will continue later today, cuz I'm heading into Tokyo DisneySea. On the one day that it's raining this whole freaking week. Pray for me. :')

Have fun!!

EAT GOOD FOOD AT DISNEYSEA

officialbizness: I will~! <3

AnruiK: I WOULD EAT ALL THE THINGS BUT I FORGOT TO STOCK UP ON CASH, SO NOW I GOTTA ACTUALLY BE DISCERNING

RIP

Safe travels and have a lot of fun! It sounds like you are already having an experience haha!

kagaminokakera: My socks are wet cuz I didn't waterproof my shoes well enough But otherwise, this has been a chill journey so far (other than pain cuz I never exercise)

Anyway, I'm in a fifty minute line for Toy Mania so let's see how much I can upload in that time.

So we left off at the official merch part of the Animate store. I ended up buying a pouch with Tengen's swords from Demon Slayer, because I gotta rep my (cosplay) husband. o/

Anyway, I'm in a fifty minute line for Toy Mania so let's see how much I can upload in that time.

So we left off at the official merch part of the Animate store. I ended up buying a pouch with Tengen's swords from Demon Slayer, because I gotta rep my (cosplay) husband. o/

Diff levels had diff focuses/specialities, so when I saw one that said it was for Music, I was like "oh this is one I'm not gonna buy anything at, but let's check what they got!"

Friends, I was a fool for saying that out loud for the universe to hear. Less than ten steps into that level, I encountered this freaking stand.

LOL

I FORGOT THAT TECHNICALLY NIJISANJI PEOPLE ACTUALLY SING, Llama has only ever shown me their chaotic gaming clips, sob.

So yeah, I immediately messaged Llama and ended up getting the two boys we cosplay Sonny and Uki. :')

Another stretch of waiting so back to uploading pics.

After finishing up at Animate and holding off on buying anything else (I will be going back another day to look for Twisted Wonderland stuff for friends), it was on to the main reason I wanted to go to Ikebukuro:

The Pokemon Sweets Cafe

Did I think the food was gonna be good? No, not really. Did I care? Also no, not really. It's Pikachu.

Got an ice cream float, with a Pikachu cookie nestled in vanilla soft serve, on top of ice that basically took up 70% of the cup, and what tasted like some mango-pineapple mix of juice and Sprite plus some jellies at the bottom. Overall not bad but again: 70% ice.

Also got a Pikachu waffle which I didn't care for (twas floppy and the honey flavoring was a bit too artificially sweet). Cute but would not get again.

Have more pics of the walls and me.

chuuu ;o;

Pikachu is love, Pikachu is life.

Cuuuuuute

oh no wet socks are the worst! I will def keep that in mind when I go to Japan to have my shoes waterproof. glad it has been chill and I hope it gets eve. better. (oh mood on pain ahaha)

also all of this aaaa cute

pikas!!!

kagaminokakera: IT RAINS A LOT HERE also I forgot to say this before, but it's really freaking humid. I knew that logically, but I've not been in Japan in the summer and forgot how hot one can get. So now I need to go buy some t-shirts cuz I saw 72 degrees and thought "Imma be cold". Nope!!!! :|

canuckleheaded: rileyboi: I love the Pikas T^T

Which is an excellent segueway into my next stop: The Pokemon Center

If you haven't caught on by now that I love Pikachu kinda a lot, please know that the Pokemon Center was an Exercise In Restraint. Japan has so much cute official merch, Murrica needs to step the frick up.

haahahahaha yeh humidity is a thing in Japan. I forgot too ahaa. I also forgot how humid it was in Vietnam and suffered all the same lol but damn that's so much rain then ahah xD

I was on the verge of buying all the things, but settled for just getting a face towel (their little faaaceeeeees), a Pikachu stamp (I justified it by saying I should use it for grading papers), and Pikachu stickers (stickers).

The other things were stuff I bought at the Pokemon Sweets Cafe, a straw with Pikachu attachment and a cute lil grocery tote bag.

so much cute !

i did not realize i had been murdering you also with cute with all my pikachu rt

i will remember this

Here are things I didn't buy but was tempted by

The last one was especially hard to resist, I literally was holding onto it up until close to the pay counter, sigh.

all the cute pikachu things!!!

Aaand here are pics I took while in that area:

The building also had a One Piece store and a Ghibli store, which I didn't take too many pics of. Plus bonus croc slide!

GIANT TOTORO

After that was helping my friend move some stuff from his place to Shimokitazawa, which apparently has good curry, so we got that (it was indeed really good) plus chocolate cake with caramel lava.

A productive day!

Sunday was going to a flower park! Specifically Ashikaga Flower Park. Which was a 3 hour one way trip from where I was. Welp.

Thankfully, I was going with the friend from before and his (very lovely) girlfriend! So I didn't have to think about what trains to take cuz God knows I would have found a way to get lost (we'll come back to that in a bit).

Decided to try to dress cute (a hot mistake but ehhh whatever) and off to the park! Gonna just post a bunch of flower pics now.

It was rose season at the park, but Ashikaga is actually know for its many Wisteria trellises. Unfortunately, the wisteria was pretty much all gone by the time I arrived in Japan, so there were whole areas that were just hanging green stems bereft of flowers.

looks so good

wow so pretty!!!

Sorry, I went to go take a pic of my purchases and then got distracted by everything.

Anyway, this is why pretty much all of their merch is Wisteria themed! I got Wisteria ice cream (floral and nice sweetness), Wisteria cider (kinda grape-y, bit weird), Wisteria printed fan (pretty and useful for this weather),

Wisteria tea (cuz I can't resist tea), Wisteria room mist (smelled really nice), and Wisteria patterned stole (for mom). They threw in some gift package with Wisteria facial mist and something else that is doubtless Wisteria scented.

I wasn't kidding about most (pretty much all) of their merch being Wisteria. :x

There was also this gorgeous stained glass Wisteria umbrella that I couldn't justify buying cuz it would absolutely break in my luggage going back home.

That was pretty much the whole day, we got back with enough time to eat at this one burger place (BBC?) whose owner is a skater, and his decor was pretty eccentric. I got a loco moco with orange sauce and it was so good. +_+b

Oh shoot, I didn't realize I missed some replies uhh
AnruiK: I appreciate all your Pikachu retweets but also /flips you off lovingly
canuckleheaded: ALL THE CUTE PIKACHU AND TOTORO THINGS which I can't shove into my luggage, alas

I RT THEM FOR ME i did not realize i got you in the afterburner

oh the flipping off is for the future, cuz I know you're gonna internally cackle while doing that

nah im just glad you suffer with me

OKAY THAT WAS THE END OF THE SECOND DAY my main complaints were ow all the walking (I do very little of it at home, so I'm in all of the pain) and also oof it humid and I was the fool who didn't bring regular t shirts instead of a bunch of tanktops + camisoles.

OH I FORGOT TO SAY the end of the day was A Trial for me, cuz guess who was so tired that she fell asleep before her stop, which kicked off a whole host "I am lost oh God oh God" problems? I got back to the place nearly a whole hour after I should have cuz I am that directionally challenged. Bless Google Maps, I would be dead without it.

But otherwise, we had a good time that day sniffing all of the flowers and hanging out with each other <3

ALL THE WALKING

YourOverlord: HOW DID YOU SURVIVE ALL THE WALKING, CUZ I DON'T THINK I'LL BE ABLE TO ;_;

THAT'S MY SECRET CAP

I DIDN'T

srsly though, did like 12-14k steps a day. My Garmin has such unrealistic expectations of me.

YourOverlord: s o b

I don't have a thing to measure my steps but I'm sure it's going to be much worse when I go to Kyoto.

THIRD FULL DAY was hanging with a friend I made last time when I was in Japan and whom I kept in partial contact on Facebook. Communication was filled with us apologizing to each other in our respective languages cuz i knew barely any Japanese and she knew very spotty amounts of English (still very good for a person who's self-taught). :')

We went to an art exhibit at the National Art Center in Tokyo, which was on love, with art sent over from the Louvre. Exciting!

God, sorry, the past few days have WIPED ME OUT so I couldn't stay awake long enough to update this. LET'S TRY AGAIN WHILE I'M ON THE TRAIN.

So the exhibit focused on 3 different versions of love: "Romantic" , religious, and familial.

The romantic had a lot of art from Greek/Roman mythology, which was the most interesting part for me. So lots of Aphrodite/winged babies, dudes kidnapping and/or stalking women, ladies seducing men with at least one titty out (usually both), the gods and other such powerful beings being absolute dicks, the usual.

The plaques were also written by a person who prob had too much Wattpad reading in their life. There was a bit that said something along the lines of "his strong hands gripping her soft, supple body" and I really didn't like that!

The next two sections I can't remember much of what the plaques said, but I distinctly remember cringing away from some of it in a "okay you're technically right but you really didn't have to say it that way". Couldn't take pics here so my memory is hazy, plus not Greek mythology.

The religious section was pretty much only focused on Christianity, cuz the exhibit was Very Western. Predictably, there was a lot of Jesus and Jesus-adjacent people, like Mary Magdalene (they had at least 3 paintings with her in it).

The familial still had a lot of Christian themes, cuz I remember one artwork was based on the prodigal son. Also memorably one painting of a father who was imprisoned and starved, so he had to breastfeed from his grown daughter (who snuck in) as his last meal. Thank you, plaque, for explaining wtf was happening there.

The exhibit only had one room we could take pics at, but here we are, in full "gotta bare my chest for max appeal"

Dante's Inferno painting, watching two people who committed adultery and were murdered

Genuinely can't remember what this one was, but I had to take a pic cuz it reminded me of AI art

Psyche and Cupid! I'm basic and like this myth the most.

The rest of the time with her was just wandering around Tokyo and talking about the buildings/architecture of the place, which was pretty chill (albeit a bit hard on my legs)

Gonna make a new Plurk for my next few days cuz uhh that's when I went a bit overboard on taking pics and I need a fresh post for them all.

Click here for part 2 of Tokyo o/