nachtangel

[nachtangel]

Day 1

The first day! I woke up quite early but forced myself to sleep until at least 830 so I was on Japanese time which seemed to work for the most part. I wanted to take the day slow, I had my traditional Melon pan for breakfast and after spending time in my room getting ready I headed off on the familiar route to Ikebukuro and Sunshine City. I went straight to the cat park per tradition though no cats were to be seen :( and then headed over to Sunshine City (its basically a mall mum). 

I stopped off at Starbucks to get the Sakura Latte for my morning fix. Unfortunately it didn’t actually have any coffee in it. Just warm sweet milk. It was nice I guess but not really what I was hoping for. I went up to the roof garden on the 4th floor to drink it and take in the sun. There was a group of nursery kids playing in the garden with their english teachers, who made them say hello to me, they were really cute. I sat and drank my not coffee while I took a cool time lapse (I haven’t taken much footage but I’m hoping I can put a cool video together later).

Next stop, the Pokemon centre! Nothing really caught my eye as I was trying to (at that time anyway) only buy things that were cute but also useful. I did get a little tin which had Pikachu dressed as Team Skull though which was pretty cool. I then headed over to Loft to see what new Sumikko they had but again nothing caught my eye. The main thing I wanted to find today was a holder for my Suica card (Like an Oyster card) which is what I had hoped to get in Loft but no luck so far.

I then ventured out of Sunshine and over to KBooks, a second hand anime merch store, also known as my doom. I bought a couple things but again restricted myself to things that were useful.

By this point my small red bag I had bought with me was annoying me, it was too small to access everything I needed quickly and became increasingly frustrating when paying for things. I headed back to my home for a quick snack and a change of bag.

I had planned to go straight back to Ikebukuro but at the last minute changed my mind and headed over to Nakano Broadway, a place I had found lots of cheap anime merch in before. Nakano Broadway is a long street that has a roof and then attached to it is a kind of mall complex, though its very hard to navigate and feels like a mix between Debenhams and Ikea. It was a nice train journey over there and I had a real good look around. Turns out my favourite boy from Ensemble Stars isn’t very popular in Nakano so he was much cheaper than in Ikebukuro. I ended up buying quite a few little bits and then found something I thought Izzy would want but didn’t know if she had. While I waited for her to wake up to reply to my messages I decided to go get some food.

Unfortunately it was super busy in Nakano and everywhere I wanted to go in seemed really busy. After walking up and down it twice I caved and went into McDonalds. Not exactly where I had hoped to eat on my first day but it was quick and easy to order and I did at least get a Japan exclusive, the Teriyaki burger. Something I’ve wanted to try for a very long time and it was actually really good. There were quite a few people napping in McDonalds and I was very close to joining them as my previous day was starting to catch up on me.

Izzy finally woke up (how dare she not wake up at 5am when I texted her) and let me know what she wanted, I headed back into the maze and grabbed a few extra bits and then while on the phone to her decided to head to Shibuya to the place I got my itabag from last time I was in Japan.

It was only a few stops away so I hopped on over to Shibuya and immediately regretted it. In Nakano everything was starting to close as it was around 6pm but Shibuya seemed to be waking up. I power walked to the shop I wanted to go to (amazingly I found it by memory despite only visiting once before) doing my best to weave around everyone only to get there and not really want what I saw. They were all a bit shit in colours I didn’t want so I headed back to the station only to find that in the 20mins it took to get there and come back everyone and their mother was on the train. It was busy, like the kind of busy people take pictures of. So when the next stop was Harajuku I jumped off as soon as I could.

My take it easy day had turned into heading to 4 different parts of tokyo but it was worth it in the end. I went to Wego, a shop that is famous for the heart bags to see if they had any other kind of bags I could use as an itabag, and they did! They had loads in fact and I ended up buying 3, 2 for me and 1 for Izzy. There goes my back up cash. But I had known I wanted to buy them and it would have cost a lot more to get them online. (Is what I keep telling myself, but hey at least they are useful!)

I had a quick look around Harajuku but didn’t really make it far as I was super tired by this point so I hopped back on the train and went home.

After my long day out I made up an ita bag with the charms I had bought that day and from home and that made it all worth it. I don’t really remember what I had for dinner, but it was something from the conbini.

[nachtangel]

Day 0

Travel day of hell. What a very very long day. Started off in Manchester, so my usual 30min drive to Heathrow was a 10 minute uber, 2hr10min train journey, 15 minute uber followed by a final 10 minute train journey. I had been dreading this journey for weeks, it was only once I was in London that I started to calm down. The train journey was on time and went pretty well, other than the fact I completely overheated. I got really hot and dizzy, but thankfully the train guard noticed and got me some ice which did actually help. Once I got to Heathrow getting through check in and security went pretty smoothly and I was sat in my usual food place of choice Eat. with my macbook passing the time on the phone to Izzy.

The plane journey started off not so great as we had a delay getting onto the plane (no idea why, police were involved?) so we actually took off 40mins late. I had no one next to me which was great and the food was pretty good. I broke the law and turned my phone on to take pictures.

I’m not sure if I’ll travel with Air China again, as much as I like the service and the food, they are a little behind the times with technology, i.e they fucking hate it and will send you to prison if you have anything turned on. So bringing my DS and macbook was a bit of a waste. (On the way back I did actually use my 3DS, its just phones they hate, I should have asked)

I had hoped to sleep for the majority of the flight and by some miracle I did actually fall asleep before the lights even went down to signal nap time. Alas that only lasted a couple hours at most as some dick walking up and down the aisle knocked my head and jerked me awake.

It took me 3 hours to get back to sleep. Dick.

Breakfast was okay, the tv choices were minimal compared to last time. I watched a few episodes of Community, and an episode of Project Runway and America’s next top model. That was basically it for TV I was interested in and the screen was so crap I didn’t really want my first time seeing Dr Strange being on it, so I opted for a film with Kris (previously in EXO) in it, it was so bad. I could barely read the subtitles but I didn’t need to to be able to understand what was going on and that it was really bad acting. I hope you were better in XXX with Vin Diesel Kris.

Finally time to land, woo, or not as the case may be. We started descending and everyone started looking out the window going ooo Beijing (it still looks really brown, the airport is surrounded by like wheat fields or something) and then suddenly the plane started going back up?? We then flew in a circle for about 15 minutes while I tried not to pee myself, I had prepared myself for a 10hr20 flight not a 10hr35min flight. Anyway we finally landed and only 5 minutes later than expected despite the late take off, which is pretty good.

Getting through Chinese security was scarily quiet. Last time I had to queue for a while and then join another really hectic ‘queue’ for security. This time I waltz past as there was literally no one there. No one going through international transfers and barely anyone going through security. It was really weird. Once I was through I grabbed a trolley for my hold all (Heathrow please take note, this is SO handy) had a quick look around some of the shops, failed at joining their free wifi and then got a Starbucks. Then I sat by the gate and played Civ beyond earth on my mac before we boarded the 2nd plane.

This journey was much better, I actually managed to sleep for most of it and the food was again pretty good for airplane food. We had quite a bit of turbulence (and my belt didn’t actually fit oops) but this just seemed to rock me to sleep. 3hrs later we were finally in Tokyo.

Our story does not end there though, oh no, after 2 ubers 2 trains and 2 planes I needed to get another train and ride the monorail. After getting through customs. The monorail was like a dream, I waited an extra 3 minutes to get the rapid train and grabbed a pocari sweat to try to vaguely revitalise myself. I was a dead man walking by this point. The aircon and sights of Tokyo managed to wake me a little and it wasn’t too much hassle getting to the final train (though if you’re going to have elevators please have them all the way, don’t add 8 steps for me to then fumble down with 2 suitcases).

Finally onto the Yamenote line what could go wrong? Oh yes I get on the only train to have a delay, with of course all the free wifis not actually working again. My hosts were waiting for me at Ootsuka station and didn’t seem to mind too much about me being a little late. They walked me and my suitcases back to their house, it was lovely seeing Ootsuka again, I do really like this part of Tokyo, and I remembered the way! Though it was lovely having a helping hand.

The only hiccup we had was when I slipped on the slope down to their house and later found I had grazed my knee. Nothing broken but even now when I’m writing this (Day 2) it still stings.

They left me to it saying we’d catch up tomorrow after they had gotten me a plaster to which I was very thankful. I could barely keep my eyes open but I forced myself to have a shower so I could be clean and did pop to the conbini for a snack. My final hiccup of the day where I managed to buy the one thing I really don’t like. A very fishy bento box and a cafe au lait instead of hot coco. After eating some rice I headed to bed at around midnight and promptly passed out. 30 hours (28 of that travelling) after I had set off the day before.

[nachtangel]

Saw they had cremia at Osaka Castle, couldn’t not get some after @eatyourkimchi video, it’s so good 😍😍 (at Osaka Castle)

[nachtangel]

Visiting Osaka castle, won control of the Pokémon gym for about 1 minute (at Osaka Castle)

[nachtangel]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michaela (@nachtangel)

I really liked the lavender garden, would love to come back when everything is in full bloom (at Nunobiki Herb Garden)

[nachtangel]

Enjoying herbal tea and an amazing view in Kobe 💚 (at Nunobiki Herb Garden)

[nachtangel]

I found my basket husband 💙

[nachtangel]

I’m in Hiroshima today, I visited the peace park and museum, I cried a lot for the past but even after everything that happened to this city, walking around it now, it’s just beautiful. They haven’t forgotten the past but they also haven’t let it stop them moving forward. This is one of the buildings that was left standing, barely held together, but still beautiful, still there. (at Hiroshima Peace Memorial)

[nachtangel]

Off to Hiroshima today, Sakura 555 🌸 (at Shin-Ōsaka Station)

[nachtangel]

Blossom 🌸

[nachtangel]

I made it! Idk how Kumiko & Reina walked up here with their instruments, it’s pretty steep! #響けユーフォニアム (at 宇治)

[nachtangel]

Tokyo > Osaka

[nachtangel]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Michaela (@nachtangel)

Today Loren took me to a cat cafe 😍😍 (at 猫カフェ「ニャンシー」)

[nachtangel]

Yesterday I went to Numazu the place where Love Live Sunshine is set and what a beautiful place it is. I got to see Chikas house, the beach in front of it and the shrine they use throughout the anime. It was amazing to see these places in real life but more then that I’m so glad I got to visit such an beautiful place. It was completely stunning, I will definitely be returning in future trips and honestly can i just retire there when I get to that age 😍 #ラブライブ！#lovelive (at Numazu-shi, Shizuoka, Japan)

[nachtangel]

I bought a proper Bento for the journey home but I’m not super hungry rn so I’m having mister donut middles instead www

[nachtangel]

Bye-bye Numazu~ (at Numazu Station)

[nachtangel]

I’m at the Sunshine cafe having You’s Omurice omg 😍😍😍😍 #ラブライブ！ (at Numazu-shi, Shizuoka, Japan)