japan log, april 3rd to april 16th

will try to update every couple of days but no guarantees last updated: april 15

pre-trip

family vacation isnt that so fun!!

i am typing this in advance because i will probably be twiddling my thumbs at the airport finally writing out my rebellion post that i know all of you have been dying to read. it will be very boring in there!!! i think the flight is like 10-12h and all i have is my sketchbook and some movies to pass the time. i might even download some ladybug fanfics or something. ohh i could read the entirety of “the inner game of tennis” nvm ill just do that good shit. update i downloaded all of blue box and frieren i cant wait to read for 14 hours straight

april 3-5

2h drive, 5h waiting in sfo, 12h flight, 3h waiting in haneda airport (cool airport except for these “ai master” banners everywhere), 1h bus drive, 1h in security check, 1h waiting for room to be ready, WOohoo we’re finally at our stateroom ok im reading the rest of blue box for the next 12 hours

april 6

this trip is a cruise from the bottom to the top of japan with a sidetrip to south korea for 14 days. day 1-3 is travel and then day 4 is nagasaki. gonna be honest i have no idea what to expect because my parents planned this so hopefully its fun. past vacations had me going to like 20 different churches in random countries and being very bored (i was also like 12 at the time all i wantrd to do was play video games and osu i didnt gaf about travel when i was that young lol). the airport adventure was neat, theres a lottttt of pokemon everywhere even on the safety videos. i also spent my first yen on habanero chips and a minecraft gachapon. i got the allay aka low roll kill yourself roll but its ok. kinda dope they even got a minecraft machine there when everything else is like one piece and shin-chan. there was actually a tim-tam? gachapon for some reason i shouldve played that lowkey. the tim-tam keychain wouldve been elite

i cant believe theres public bidets in the airport. they got a pressure level 1-5 (3 was powerful for me) and a BUTT DRYER like WHAT?? actual life changing moment when my ass got assulted on two fronts

i shouldve downloaded more manga while i had the chance; reading blue box and then reflecting on it while being at the top of the deck of the ship at night is some crazy #vibe i also dont have internet for a while because idek if theres gonna be more free wifi spots outside of the airport. first time in a while where i havent been able to check discord maybe itll be good for me. then again im still on The Phone 24/7 but strictly for reading purposes. FFS THERES A BASKETBALL COURT I GUESS IM PRACTICING BALL FOR 2 WEEKS

my camera roll is fucked its like a 1:10 ratio of actual pictures to blue box panels (hina)

april 7

i slept from 1-6 cuz i was cranking manga and blue box after dinner. visiting nagasaki today its gonna be an emotional one (peace museum, ground zero) gonna try to download beck while at land aswell i havent thought about that series in years it might be peak. i also need something more lighthearted after madoka different story destroyed me

nagasaki was fun. i found wifi and the tour was mosty history focused so we visited a dejima (manmade island), the peace park, the atomic bomb museum, and the glover garden. i cba to post pictures when i cant see the preview so youll have to wait on that. highlights include being in a 4 tatami wide room, eating a full course japanese meal, and eating a castella ice cream sandwich (it sucked) i also got #rocked by another public bidet and it wasnt even my fault because i set the water pressure to level 1 this time. i bought a little castella keychain guy from the dejima shop and a world peace shirt from the museum. powerful stuff reading the testimony from the atomic bomb survivors, very heavy. drink of the day: aquarius; very light, taste and look reminds me of white gatorade. very refreshing on a hot day

april 8

drink of the day: pocari sweat; looks like aquarius, not as sweet as aquarius but still very good. mine was kinda lukewarm so maybe ill chug my water and then put in pocari sweat into my flask

busan highlights: jalgachi fish market, camellia park, and getting lost in a back alley market. definitely the most tiring day so far just because theres so many damn people doing the same tour as us that the venues just get swamped with buses and people after like 10 minutes. seafood market is sensory overload on its own though; shit is so crazy seeing live fish everywhere, some old lady chopping up fish parts like she dgaf, the water splashing everywhere, the SMELL, and the general noise is a one of a kind experience you wont really get anywhere else. maybe if ur in another third world asian country you can capture the magic (my parents said the filipino seafood markets was much dirtier than this one).

bought this epic shinchan reusable bag, a shin ramyun pin, a snoopy pin and another little epic hearts guy pin for 8 bucks in total. i was able to kinda recreate the famous cookiezi eating a cookie picture except my coordinates were totally wrong and the angle was a bit off, but not bad for trying to take a pic in rush hour in a crosswalk in inner busan. i found these squid game cookies to do the picture with which was just hilarious. the fucking box cover has low res jpeg cookies on the front and they were 3 bucks for 12. i wish they were any good but its ok. feels just like the philippines in the alley markets because theres random cars and motorbikes that just go through and the pedestrians have to lock in to not get freaking run over.

april 9

drink of the day: “sports drink” with a d-price logo on it i have no clue what the japanese says on the bottle. the aftertaste is worse than the other two drinks, def not the best drink ive had so far. still tastes like white gatorade

sakaiminato! ive never heard of this city before but this is def my favorite so far. we got a castle, we got a river boat ride thing, and we got the adachi museum, an art and japanese garden combo thing. i think it helps that everything was way less crowded. got a lot of great photos on the river and atop the castle. seeing a legit japanese garden is pretty insane. its not just the design of the garden, but also the scale. this thing is like 3-4 miles long with some mountain waterfalls taken into account, and built around them. eyecandy wherever you look. on the art museum side, i really fw yokoyama taikan and his works. its all flowers, trees, and cliffside/beach environments, and you know im a sucker for all of that. theres also a great side exhibition called “pictures for children” with some realllyyyy good works. the list of artists are: Hayashi Yoshio, Suzuki Toshio, Takei Takeo, Kawakami Shiro, Kurosaki Yoshisuke, and Iguchi Bunshu. i bought two prints from yoshio’s collection; apples and night owl. gonna be good collections to the wall

april 10

drink(s) of the day: some mango orange juice thing, kirin loves sports, mitsuya cider. all really great drinks! tje mango orange thing has some sour to balance the kinda thick mango juice aspect, the kirin loves sport drinks is the lightest gatorade tasting thing by far and its quite soft, and mitsuya cider is just great gingerale.

kyoto from the maizuru port takes around 2 hours one way. saw 2 different japanese gardens, a castle, and a shinto temple. probably the best part was walking around in a popup japanese handcraft market right next to the temple. felt like a convention almost with how many people there were at the little market and just the variety of random shit people made and were willing to sell. did you know kyoto has a law that bans construction of buildings higher than a certain height? seeing 0 skyscrapers in a major city like kyoto was kinda refreshing. of course the buildings were still maxxing out at like 3-4 stories but still. also saw high walkways in place of crosswalks in big ass intersections. shit reminded me of madoka when madoka [redacted] and then sayka fell asleep lololol. found a nice shop with 3d wood postcards for stupid cheap considering it comes with that rough texturing that feels really cool.

maizuru high school brass band was fucking dope af i dont remember any of the tracks except for the ymca cover and then they waved goodbye for an extra 20 minutes that was awesome. there was a crew of like 15 people clapping and waving blue flags around. there was also a purple mascot named mayumaro clapping his hands. apparently hes the the kyoto prefecture mascot. being that high up watchjng a brass band was pretty fucking cool, i was mosty watching the drummer the whole time because i could see everythijg from the top down so it was really fucking sick seeing fills and rolls and stuff like that. sidenote: the percussionist on the cowbell was fucking killing it highkey. having a classic drummer in a band setting really elevates it for me.

april 11

drink of the day: body mainte. IT FUCKING SUCKS guys this is the first bad drink ive had and its a heart breaking experience. its faint gatorade but the aftertaste is super bitter to me i dont know why. at least the logo is cool

shirakawa-go: the town higurashi is based off. firstly the drive when you get near this place is insane. straight out of a video game when you exit the tunnel and get hit with snowy mountains on both sides. i didnt even think i would see snow on this trip like my eyes were kinda tweaking. anyways yes higurashi based its setting off shirakawa-go. i geniunely didnt know this so imagine my surprise when i walk near the first soveniur shop and i see a poster of SHION and the 07th expansion logo. i look closer and theres art and signed merch of the creator himself like what? i look even closer and theres HIGURASHI GACHAPON? like this has to be the only place in the universe where you can find a minecraft gachapon and fucking higurashi in the same block of machines. this was also an on-your-own thing so like after the shuttle gets you there you can do whatever until the shuttle picks you back up. instead of history of the town and historical buildings we just went around all of the village looking for all of the higurashi merch that we could. i picked up a nice rika fortune charm thing and a miku keychain blind box. i was gonna get a higurashi shirt but lord knows im not reading that shit for a long while so i went for a peanuts x shirakawa-go t-shirt; kinda clean #nocap. i finally had my first ramen meal in japan at this hole in the wall restaurant and it was pretty fucking good. on the down low the noodles were a bit overdone; i think their udon omega clears their ramen. however it was 1100 yen and it came with a mini pork rice bowl so im not gonna complain THAT much when its a super steal with self service. sidenote this village has crazy weather. felt like 80/90f while theres just big ass snow patches around me idk if ive ever experienced that before

i dont know if all of the ports are gonna have a band when we sail away but today at kanazawa port we had the k-swing jazz collective and it was pretty elite. i even have voice memo recordings from the deck and it doesnt even sound that bad i think. ill upload em to discord when i get a chance; you can hear me and my sister throughout some parts of it. this recording is a real bootleg btw theres boat horn sounds and crowd sounds and wind sounds and me sounds and random port noises its pretty fuckjng awesome. anyways this set was way more polished than yesterday’s high school band but in particular part 2/3 11:30 onwards when the crescendo builds i got genuine chills. like i almost teared up i had to cover my mouth when i was hearing what i heard. i fucking love live music man i dont hear it often but when i feel it im freaking emotional man. there were some passengers that were like 20 minutes late so the set got delayed so fuck those two in particular for lowkey fuckin up the flow of the set.

april 12

drink of the day: mets litchi soda i wish the taste wasnt as litchi as it was but otherwise pretty good. weird request i know

chill day in sakata, not a very long tour compared to the earlier days. i had the opportunity to walk into the 1.5 tatami room and had some street car ramen which was quite good. it was a shame that it was quite salty so i couldnt finish off the broth, but the noodles were a great texture and the pork was tasty. ken domon’s photography museum was also very cool. some of these shots are crazy ngl. hes getting these stills in front of riot police or in abandoned houses thst shouldnt have families living in them but there are. grabbed a tiny sunflower postcard from his museum and had it packaged in this adversting paper that had “the eyes” on it. was really funny because ive seen this “the eyes” concept with pro sports people but edited with mrekk’s eyes instead. very esoteric reference right there i know. the real highlight was getting to shop in a muji. its like uniqlo but cheap and also theres stationery stuff for cheap. shit is soooo cheap i got like 4 shirts 2 pants a sweatshirt and a pajama set for like 90 bucks. holy shit 90 bucks. awesome. also grabbed a small sketchbook and some lead.

when we were waiting to embark we got an annoucement that we WERENT going to stop in akita due to rain and high wind. kinda sad but we didnt have a tour planned there so i guess lucky for us in a way.

april 13

yeah they werent lying i tried going up on the deck its a real piece of shit up there

a real do nothing day where i reaaaaally didnt do shit. no manga backloaded so i decided to start reading the inner game of tennis. otherwise 0

april 14

drink(s) of the day: sports up, kirin milk and choco chocolate milk thing, miu fruit juice water thing?

aomori was our last stop before we went back to tokyo and at this point the weather had kinda gone to shit. no more sun and late cherry blossoms just clouds and rain. if you looked outside during the bus ride it would look like an early winters day except not as cold. saw this unbelivably huge buddha statue and visited this tiny pottery shop. we also visited our last japanese garden and got jumpscared when the store had studio ghibli posters all over it. turns out this garden was the inspiration for the protagonists house in the secret life of arriety. there was even a little ponyo doodle signed by miyazaki himself and a photo of him in 2008. i tried finding the exact location but the shopkeeper said it was a 10 minute drive from here, crushing that dream. there was also an aomori festival museum, which housed all of the festival floats and stuff like that. the floats themselves were insanely detailed and really fucking sick to look at. there were also some smaller exhibits that had spare parts of some of the floats. had a selfie with a giant hand and a giant foot. awesome.

april 15

read norwegian wood and had an out of body experience thinking about it during dinner you can read my short ramble on da blog