#Anime Saizeriya

[anime-knockoffs]

Saizeriya from GAMERS!

Today's Anime Knockoff is this Saizeriya knockoff, Gardenia from "GAMERS!".

[zacharyja]

Thursday, May 9th, 2024

Imperial Palace and Yasukuni Shrine

This morning I woke up early and decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood, and stumbled upon a random Shinto Shrine where I decided to stop and admire the structure and architecture of the site.

Later on, after eating we made our way to the station to go to Nijubashimae Station which is a short walk from the Tokyo Imperial Palace. We then walked past the moat and outer walls of the palace and made our way down the front entrance. It was amazing to see how well the walls have held up over time and how massive of a scale everything was built up to. The palace itself was also very beautiful to look at though we could only view it from a good ways away. This palace was founded in 1437 and has been restored and renovated a few times since then. This is also the primary residence of the Emperor of Japan who serves as a token figurehead with no real power much like the King of England does today. The entire land that the palace sits on is found in the middle of a very wealthy area home to many large bank and insurance company headquarters. During the most prosperous recent times of Japan, the land was said to be worth more than the entire state of California, though they refused to sell the land and opt to keep the grounds open as a memorial of the past.

After seeing the Imperial Palace, we walked around the grounds for a while and admired everything that it had to offer, including the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace.

Once we were done viewing this area we walked over to the Yasukini Shrine, which is dedicated to the spirits of those who died fighting for the Emperor since 1853. This shrine in particular is a bit controversial, as it includes commemoration of 14 convicted Class-A war criminals. The controversial nature of this can be compared to that of confederate leader statues in the United States.

After viewing this shrine and learning more about its history we were free for the day and some friends and I decided to get some Gyūdon for lunch. The gyūdon was surprisingly tasty and paired nicely with the grape fanta. Definitely hit the spot and I was tempted to get another bowl.

After lunch we made our way to Akihabara called “Electric Town” to go to a book store called “Book Off” which sells new and used books, video games, movies and much more. Once we were done looking around there we walked through Akihabara some more, which is often considered the epicenter of modern Japanese culture, and is filled with countless electronic shops, arcades, restaurants and anime stores. It was very interesting to see everything that this place had to offer, and was a bit surprising to see how different the culture is overall.

After walking around Akihabara we went back to the hotel for a bit to rest up and get ready before our plans for the night. Some friends and I made our way to a karaoke place to spend some time hanging out and singing some songs. Karaoke was fun and we enjoyed our time, I especially enjoyed the view of Akihabara from up on the 7th floor. That also had unlimited soda, ice cream, and slushies so I had my fair share of that.

Once our time was up with karaoke we walked around Akihabara for a bit before deciding that we were hungry and so the struggle to find a restaurant that could hold 8 people began. As time went on some of the people in our group decided to go on their own so we were down to 6 which is much more manageable and settled on an italian place called “Saizeriya”. The menu was pretty extensive and extremely cheap, with personal pizzas priced at about $2.45, pasta for $2.57, and dessert for $1.93. While the food was not the greatest, it definitely was well worth much more than the price point and I was thoroughly satisfied with the quality and taste of the food. I ordered a penne arrabbiata pasta with a garlic breadstick, a drink, and doria which all came out to around $7.26, which is a steal for the amount of food I got for that price. Our food was also brought out by a robot which was a plus in the coolness department. We stayed and talked for a while at the restaurant before heading home to clock out for the night.

Academic Reflection

Visiting the Yasukuni shrine today was a bit of an odd experience, it the shrine itself felt almost too normal given the circumstances of the shrines history as well as what it stood to represent. Since we discussed this shrine in class and read about it I suppose that I sort of built up some sense of importance or stigma towards the shrine and was a bit surprised to see a general lack thereof. This also felt weird as at the previous shrines we had paid respects and even prayed as most other people who visit them do, though this was different as we did not even go up to the shrine itself and instead stayed back by the entrance gate given the circumstances. None of us really felt comfortable going up and paying respects to the spirits of people who had commit war crimes and are considered Class A war criminals. So It was a bit weird in that sense and also the groups general vibes were a bit off as we all knew the history of the shrine and i’m sure most people like myself felt a bit off about it all.

[riku-in-japan]

Day 8 Osaka

Finally a day to sleep in. Originally I had intended to visit Uji today, but in the end it did not happen. The plans will have to wait for a different year (again).

I think it was roughly 11 o'clock when we finally went outside and walked over to the Namba area (I think) to do a bit of shopping. I did find some nice anime figures, and pretty cheap too. Especially with the weak yen. I won't find (large-ish) figures at 8 euros a piece in the Netherlands.

Today was a really slow day, even though I did bring my camera, I didn't take any photos. Dinner was at the Saizeriya.

[pye-mental-health]

UPDATED ON: 13 JUL 2023

Timeline: After 6 JUL 2023 (Post-appointment)

1. Major Anxiety-issue

- Worried about friend not replying to my message before a hangout; eventually can hang out

Problem: Still obsessed over the friend for romantic relationship

- Paranoid that that friend is annoyed at me; I have a thought that he “thinks I am pushing away the boundaries of just being friends”

I have a thought that “he knows the truth about my true feelings of him”

- Paranoid/Catastrophising trip to the Philippines (>> getting hurt >> ultimately thinking that I will die there)

- Guilty/Paranoid that friends hate me for what I have been doing (in the past weeks); spending money [Salary: $~5K >> Spending: $~4K last month >> This Month: $700+]

2. Emotions

a) The lows

i) General

- Guilty feelings of past events; being overly sociable with friends online & flashbacks about the past event of meltdown

- Upset about obsessing over a friend; paranoid of being exploited by a narcissist (through assumptions only) >> searching on YouTube about it

- Guilty about socializing too much/posting too much stories/posts on Instagram

- Super Irritable to family members

- Underestimate capabilities; insecure with looks

ii) Workplace [9 July 2023]

- Annoyed by a co-worker (kind-toned but when I ask questions about new orders, places where things belong, he gets annoyed at me/criticizes me and thinks I am too clumsy) >> Me: super anxious/guilty >> Annoyed >> After work: Feel so raged; yet so hyper, happy and smiley and treated myself dinner that I ate for the day before

b) Stable?¿ Okay?¿ Happy?¿

- Laugh a lot; from videos of people arguing (usually non-comedic); Laugh like a maniac

- Feel Superior/Confident with Looks/New Personality - Savage Vibes

- Cook food

- Can do most of the household chores

- Caffeine Rush: So hyper; so elated; many ideas spark; hyper aware of surroundings

3. Actions

a. Money Spendings

- Friends (11/7): Food (Saizeriya, Hot Cheetos, Boba), Transportation

- Brother (12/7): Treated him McDonald’s Lunch

- Insufficient Octopus Money for Transport; always withdrawing money

- Bought an MTR Souvenir out of the blue

- Easily distracted; Cannot go to the main focus; Losing things easily; Forgetting things frequently

b. Social Media

- Instagram Detox

- Posted a “rage-message” on Facebook Timeline about family not understanding of my mental health

c. Projects

- Able to Design many things; Buses, trains, animating Metro maps, Singing (loving my voice); completing most of my tasks

d. Hobbies

- Singing

e. Drug Use

- Took Half Imovane pill one night; took full Imovane pill the next night alongside with Xanax to feel super relaxed

- Hyper after drinking coffee

f. Self-criticism

- After misplacing things (all the time); get frustrated

4. Sleep

- In phases:

I) When on Sleeping Aids (10pm - 3 am; awake for usually an hour while laying down in bed; back to sleep)

II) When not sedated on Sleeping Aids (Not yet experienced as of now)

Suggestions from Nurse Visit:

- Write a letter to inform airport authorities about my medication before the flight

- Write a referral to Philippine Hospitals for any urgent medications

- Prescription of sedatives to calm down my paranoia/anxiety

[thistransient]

I was blissfully unaware, until my teacher informed me recently, that a) I had made a name for myself at the song competition last semester, and b) because no one remembered my actual name apparently they've been using the song title to refer to me instead. I was a little incredulous but sure enough I turned up for a meeting today and one guy went "差不多先生!" On one hand, fame! (notoriety?) On the other hand, it translates to something like "Mr. Mediocre" (well, better than putting on airs, huh). The meeting was to discuss our drafts for the upcoming speech competition. I was extremely impressed at the lower level students who are willing to brave public speaking despite their shortcomings, I could never. (I asked the coordinator who will shepherd us at the event if anyone from our school had ever won it, she said no and I was somehow unsurprised.) I am also annoyed there is only one week left for memorising now, but I'll do it, I'll do it. There are quite a few prizes, if I manage to win anything at all I'll be very pleased already (there are 70 participant slots but it remains to be seen if scores are weighted more towards pronunciation or passionate performance... apparently props and costumes are allowed and frankly I'm inclined towards neither).

I had a somewhat monastic weekend (no Pride Parade, no language exchange) as I tried to banish my ongoing migraine, mired in an accompanying unpleasant depressive mood swing. At least vaguely cognizant that there would be an end in sight if I did something besides lay morosely in bed watching anime, I dragged myself dutifully to and fro on walks in the park and for brunch at a new place (Taiwan loves variations on the breakfast sandwich, no I was not brave enough for peanut butter + bacon + scrambled egg), all the while fantasizing about how it would be to do these things with the friend I left back in Florida. Then it dawned on me that the void in my social life these days can be filled by neither house party nor language exchange nor Thursday-night Saizeriya with the Canadian bff, no, I'm missing someone to explore with. (I have tried to take my language exchange guy exploring and he's expressed his wholehearted disinterest in such things.) I need someone to go look at (or eat) new stuff with and slowly wander around (with no pressure to make titillating bilingual conversation for 5 hours straight), just have a real good gander at our unfamiliar surrounds and occasionally say something like "Hey look at that", the appropriate response being "Oh yup, that there is definitely an item".

I contemplated how to find a suitable candidate. Ah. Yes. Clearly I should go light some incense at a temple and appeal to the gods. But which one? There are two fairly equidistant from my house. The slightly closer one? Nearer to the breakfast restaurants? Sounds auspicious, right? I decided to read the temple google reviews and do some research. Oh. I see...The closer little one is apparently a temple for angry ghosts. 

[siodium]

第六日：東京

FREE DAY WOOOO

this was my plan:

osaki (hotel) → tokyo (pokemon center DX) → akihabara (lunch and shopping) → shibuya (??? explore??)

wanted to throw ikebukuro into the mix so we could do a full circle around the yamanote line but no time

btw the hotel is super near osaki station (no kidding it’s just downstairs) so all the places i wanted to visit were convenient to travel to

had breakfast at the hotel before heading out at around 10.30 am to avoid the morning rush crowd

it was a rainy day so my camera was sleeping in my bag (pats camera) good work for the past few days

anyway my mum can’t do tech stuff at all so i had to be a human gps... was praying that my phone battery would last the whole day especially since it doesn’t seem to charge in the hotel (spoiler: it did!! had 30% left after a whole day)

first stop: tokyo station

found the pokecen without much issues!! apparently it’s one of the largest (if not the largest) pokecens in tokyo?? in other words... the best chance of finding merch

↓ this giant mewtwo tank was from the pokecen at shibuya parco (yeah we visited three pokecens in one day bc i wanted to hunt for rowlet merch) but i put the pic here to make this post more coherent

it’s super cool right?

my mum told me to pose as though pikachu was pulling me so i did the michael jackson lean but backwards

oh oh i also went to the sumikko gurashi shop at tokyo station and i wanted to buy stuff bc they had the new peach (?) series items bUT THE CROWD WAS SO SCARY TT also it was a pain to do the tax rebate (had to go elsewhere to register before shopping) so i left empty handed weh

i hope they bring the new items to sg...

next stop: akihabara

taking the train in japan was surprisingly easy?? meanwhile getting around in europe makes me wanna cry

i’ve heard ppl say the train lines in tokyo are complicated but they look fine to me?? and also the stations are close by so each stop took around 2 to 3 minutes?? nice

the reserved seating area is pink... why is it so pretty

GUESS WHERE WE WENT FOR LUNCH

obviously... if i were to pick... it would be...

M O S B U R G ✧

i mean my bro did say to try out one of the fast food places in japan (he recommended macdonalds but i didn’t want lol) to see if they were any different from the ones in sg

i didn’t think it would taste different but... the bun was sweeter than usual and the fish had a different flavour to it hmm weird

also onion rings as a side??? PLS BRING THIS TO SG

i really like the “milk tea” tho!! dunno if i ordered it correctly but it’s not sweet at all unlike the ones in sg (inb4 i ordered iced red tea with milk)

the atmosphere in mos burg was so cosy and chill... kinda gives me cafe vibes

we sat on the second floor next to the window so we could enjoy the view

after lunch i dragged my mum around to visit weeb shops (she said that when she took her eyes off me for one second i disappeared lol)

the day before i asked HF for shop recommendations bUT BECAUSE I KEPT GETTING DISTRACTED BY OTHER SHOPS i could only visit animate

i also browsed the outside of radio kaikan which i found by accident while going back to the station (didn’t have time to go in bc it was getting dark and i wanted to visit shibuya)

it wasn’t my intention to be going in and out of shops like a lost snake but... i can’t help it... every time i see weeb shit i wanna go in lol maybe it’s cuz i’m hunting for several items

a lot of the shops have multiple floors... is that how they make you exercise

i ended up climbing so many stairs without realising it cuz i was engrossed in my search

oh i did wander into the BL sections which... my mum also followed me into... as a result i couldn’t browse and had to do a quick retreat :/ so unfortunate

come to think of it i rarely saw any persona 5 merch... is it very unpopular in japan??

aaa magikarp taiyaki

actually i wanted to have taiyaki in japan but every time i find a shop... i’m always too full TT

the entrance has got cute grils on it... surreal

last stop: shibuya

when we went to shibuya it was already dark out so we went to parco and then walked around until 7.30 pm-ish before going back

wanted to see the hachiko statue and shibuya crossing but my dumbass can’t navigate to save my life

maybe next time

finally returned to osaki station at around 8 pm and had dinner at the nearby mall

picked saizeriya cuz it was inexpensive and familiar (we’re too tired to make decisions ok)

i avoid all the gratin and baked rice dishes in sg saizeriya bc they always come with a dirty dish rag smell but the ones in japan are fine

also ordered a drinks bar so we could chill and drink unlimited amounts of hot tea

even though i was tired from all the walking i didn’t immediately KO when i returned back to the hotel hmm weird

[bloodelves88]

Trip to Taipei/Hualien/Taichung/Puli, Taiwan (Part 2)

Part 1 here (Hualien). Part 3 here (Taipei). Part 4 here (Taichung/Puli). Part 5 here (Puli). Part 6 here (Puli/Taichung/Taipei).

Day 3

Morning, we had a train to catch to Taipei at 10:26am. We woke up at 8am and had breakfast at the lodging again. This time, they had a burger for us.

Also fruits and pudding. The pudding is really nice, I think it’s a piece of dragon fruit inside.

The view from outside Hualien station. 

We bought and paid for most of our train tickets and lodgings before the trip, so we had to go to the counter to get our tickets. The person at the counter said we didn’t pay for our tickets yet, which was very distressing. But apparently it’s just because the passport number entered into their system didn’t match the actual one because of website limitations or something.

We reached Taipei around 12:50pm. Our lodging this time is a hotel, right in the heart of Ximending. Ximending is known as the Akihabara of Taiwan, with video games, anime, maid cafes, butler cafes, arcades, and night life all packed into one district. It honestly felt better than the time I went to Akihabara, which I did say was rather underwhelming and overrated. Maybe it’s because the “otakuness” of Akihabara isn’t that obvious and in your face? I have no idea.

Anyway, we spent about three hours exploring the Taipei City Mall first. It’s an underground walkway right beside Taipei Main Station, and a sizeably large portion of it contains nothing but video games, figurine shops, and gachapon machine shops. 

Red, blue, and green are prevalent colors in this mall. Well, not so much green.

I have to say the gachapon machines in Taiwan are pretty badly overpriced. They didn’t even take off the Japanese Yen prices on the machines, so you could see the difference in prices. Something that was originally ¥300 (SGD$3.92) could be NT$200 (SGD$9.09). That’s just ridiculous. Some gachapon machines could go as high as NT$300 (SGD$13.29). I’m sorry but what the heck?

I bought four items here. I recently got a PlayStation 4 from a lucky draw, so I’m on a lookout for some games. Most of the games on sale here aren’t cheaper than on the PlayStation store, and I did manage to find Horizon Zero Dawn for NT$450 (SGD$19.90).

I also bought two items from the gachapon machines for NT$60 each. Here they are:

I wanted Alisaie because she’s bae, but I guess Aymeric is good too. He would be my second choice. The other possible ones are Nanamo, Kan-E Senna,  Merlwyb, and the Manderville guy. I’m quite disappointed with the quality of the keychain actually. It’s not something you��d expect out of Square Enix. It looks like a cheap knockoff since the printing is so faded and blur.

The last item I bought was a Rem figurine.

I got pretty unlucky for this one. It was those boxes where you wouldn’t know which design you would get. I think this is the worst design available. Standing on my table now, she’s looking down and her body is tilted downwards, so you can’t see her very clearly. 

I also paid too much for her. I paid NT$280, and I saw some other shops selling her for less than NT$200. Ah well.

Anyway, we spent too much time exploring and it’s now past 3pm and we haven’t had our lunch. I’ve always wanted to try a maid cafe, and since there’s maid cafes in Taiwan... why not?

I didn’t actually know where the maid cafes were, but we saw a maid walking about (to the toilet, I guess), so we followed her when she was on her way back.

We went to this maid cafe. There’s not many photos of it since they had a no photo rule, but I think it mostly applies to the maids.

The cafe has a concept of being in a train, which explains the hand grips hanging from the roof. There’s quite a few figurines standing around too.

It seems that each meal comes with soup.

I ordered omelette rice, which is obviously what you should order at a maid cafe 😆. The maid asked what I drawing I wanted on my omelette, and I asked her to decide 😅. We decided on a cat. The maid seems to make it a point to have some conversation with each customer, which isn’t really that good for me because my Mandarin isn’t that good. So, it was a little bit of an awkward and difficult situation. Not really the best environment to really enjoy a maid cafe, but I guess it would be better than in Japan. There wasn’t really anything outstanding though. You might have heard about weird chants or actions you would need to do when you got your food in maid cafes, but there was none of that here.

Anyway, there was shelf containing manga and books for people to write and draw on. Here’s some of them.

We added some stuff to the book. I drew the crab.

Some of the people writing on the books are repeat customers, constantly coming back to write on the books.

Anyway, done with lunch, and off to Ximending to find our hotel.

On the way there, we saw a rainbow. It was the brightest and boldest rainbow I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s awesome.

It’s not the faint crap you always see in Singapore. This is the real deal.

We also stopped to buy some matcha drinks. I had a matcha drink with ice cream. It’s not bad, but there was no way to eat the ice cream. I had to go back to the hotel to find a spoon.

Anyway, welcome to Ximending!

Our hotel is called ECFA Hotel Wan Nian, which is in the Wan Nian building.

Donate some blood for your waifu!

What I love about these places is they don’t shy away from such otaku and cutesy advertisements. These things would never be seen in Singapore. Singapore has to be bland and proper and boring. 

One of my friends wanted to visit the bookstore nearby, so off we went. I wasn’t very interested since it was mostly Chinese books, so I didn’t do much other than play with my phone. There was a jigsaw section and I found it interesting that they had jigsaw that wasn’t flat.

After the bookstore, we wandered around Ximending.

Then, we headed off to Animate! I’ve never been to an Animate.

There was a Mystic Messenger shelf OMG OMG.

I made away with two of the cushions. Ray and 707. Each one cost NT$500.

They even came with some bookmarks. Oh yes oh yes! I think they’re given for every NT$300 you spend.

Animate is really otaku heaven. There’s no end of the manga and merchandise you can get. Badges, figurines, files, posters, wall scrolls, keychains... almost anything you could ever want.

The King’s Avatar. Highly recommended. 

The BL section. They really don’t hide it. Some of the cover images are pretty NSFW. 

We spent a little longer than we wanted here because I decided to buy some merchandise back for some of my family. I bought two Boku no Hero Academia badges and one Haikyuu badge. It was a terrible NT$600 in total. One of the badges cost NT$400 (SGD$17.72). What the heck is the pin made of gold?

It’s about 10pm now, and we haven’t had dinner yet. Our meal times are so skewed 😅

We decided to eat at Saizeriya. We entered around 10:15pm, and they closed at 11pm. Good enough. We ordered three pizzas to share. 

Phew, what a long day. Back to the hotel to sleep.

Here are the places we visited.

The bookstore isn’t marked, and is just beside the hotel. 

End of day 3.

Part 1 here (Hualien). Part 3 here (Taipei). Part 4 here (Taichung/Puli). Part 5 here (Puli). Part 6 here (Puli/Taichung/Taipei).

[celenatriestowriteagain]

The Weekend That Was #3 (NDP Rehearsals + American Football Concert!)

Friday night

After work, K and I met up to go to Dhoby Ghaut and pick up the swimsuits I bought online. When we got there he got a call from the office that he needs to go back because he's the only one who has the key and they need to close up the office. So we went back to Telok Ayer and had dinner at Saizeriya in Chinatown. I also bought a shit ton of chocolates at Value Dollar in preparation for my trip back home. When we got home, I wasn't really sleepy yet so I bugged K to stay up and hang out with me. I didn't really do much except work on nihongo homework and do more online shopping. Good times.

Saturday

I woke up pretty late today. Upon waking up, K and I loaded up the laundry, and I opened my laptop (this is considered a rare event now). I had some motivation to work on a Skillshare class about animating SVGs! Time flew by really fast and I ended up with only 3 icons by 4pm.

Here's the actual SVG animation on codepen.

After finishing these 3 icons, K and I hung around at the pool since it's such a nice day.

Around 6pm we went out to shower and headed out to catch the last NDP rehearsal. We got there about 30 minutes early so it was just perfect because we got to pick a good spot and we didn't have to wait very long.

It was awesome! We suddenly remembered last year when we watched this from the Peninsula hotel. My mom was still living here that time.

By the time the fireworks are finished, we were famished. I wanted to try out Swee Choon Tim Sum to see if the hype is justified, so off to Jalan Besar we go. Conclusion: the hype IS justified. Everything we got was so good.

The damage for 2 people is about 30-40 sgd. It wasn't exactly cheap. When we computed it I suddenly realised that I have made it big in life because I was able to go to a restaurant and order a bunch of stuff without checking the freakin' prices. This moment is what I've been working for my entire working life. The food was all worth it.

My favorite is the mee sua kueh (1st picture on the second row above), which is basically like fried cake but made out of noodles. The crispy texture is so nice and the inside is so soft and flavorful. I can probably eat 2 plates of this, but I probably shouldn't. The sichuan wonton and salted egg custard bun were phenomenal too. I can see myself going back here.

After dinner we walked around Jalan Besar and settled on a little coffee shop. K and I ordered Japanese lattés (matcha for him, hojicha for me) and I finished the book I was reading (Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell) and started a new one (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong).

At around 11pm, we headed back home. Today was a top-notch weekend day. We need more weekends in our lives.

Sunday

Woke up late again today! Actually, K just woke me up to let me know that he's going out to get a haircut. I laid in bed for about an hour before getting my ass to the gym. I'm happy to report that I'm still 50 kg! In spite of not going to the gym for weeks and eating on slight caloric surplus. It was a good gym session because I managed to do 30 mins on the treadmill, and 10 mins workout each for my arms, abs, and thighs. At about 12:30pm, I went back up to our flat and we cooked chicken pastel. I think it turned out pretty well! But we were running out of time so after eating we immediately showered and booked a gojek to our nihongo class. The class went pretty well too. We learned 〜てあります and we taught our sensei 'weighing scale'. He also taught us ひかるスチカー which means glow-in-the-dark stickers apparently. After class I looked around for possible pasalubong. I ended up buying myself a cookie from Ben's Cookies. It was alright. Nothing worth 3 bucks.

After that, we went to Telok Ayer for the American Football concert! We were second in line lmao so uncool. But we were standing so close to the front stage so suck it, cool kids. American Football was so good! I get chills whenever I hear the lyre(?), and sometimes the transition between songs using the tambourine(?) is beautiful. The guys did look visibly tired. Turns out they've been performing for 4 nights straight in different cities before Singapore. I still consider myself lucky I got to hear Heir Apparent and Every Wave to Ever Rise live. We went home tired but happy.

[anime-knockoffs]

Saizeriya from Love Is Indivisible by Twins

Today's Anime Knockoff is this Saizeriya family restaurant knockoff, Yazerisa from "Love Is Indivisible by Twins".

[sharyjournals]

strolled around aki, went inside shops and went up each floor, it was all anime merch! my favorite part were the anime figures and boy there were tons! we were too hungry after walking around that we got too bloated eating too much at saizeriya lol. View Album

[jarigendut]

The Beauty of Japan - Day 1

Note: This post is a copy of an original post made at my old Dreamwidth account. I moved it here because that account is now defunct and I want to salvage the important posts. It is also a reminder for me to finish this series before I start another journey in two weeks!

I decide to be more positive and get out of this laziness hole. It is time to be more productive and give this blog something worth reading! With that said, there is no better story in my life except my trip to Japan. Another reason is because I also need to record that awesome experience somewhere else outside my head, so that in case I forget it like stupid hero(ine)s in TV drama get their amnesia because of some not-so-important things, the story will not be gone just like that.

This post is dedicated to the first day of our very quick trip, July 16th 2014. I went with two friends to Osaka, Kansai. We planned this trip since around a year ago. We bought the tickets on September 2013, I still had the copy on my laptop.

The trip technically started the night before. We flew in the evening to Kuala Lumpur, then took a connecting flight to Kansai International Airport from there. We arrived at morning on Japan. One of the team members had arrived in Osaka previously, so he picked us up on airport.

First thing we did was actually buying a pass for subways and buses for 11 days straight, haha. It saved our life quite much because we did not have to worry about buying and paying for tickets every time we want to take a subway train or bus. Saved us from making mistakes while buying due to the language, and saved us the time with less confusion, especially because Japanese are so accurate with their schedules.

An overnight trip undoubtedly made us very hungry, so the next thing in mind was food. We were planning to have breakfast, but it ended as a lunch. That friend who had arrived first stayed somewhere else with his brother, so they needed to pack their things to move to the new house with us. To save time we ate at a place nearby, a fast Italian food restaurant: Saizeriya.

I missed my Doria. I think I need to get one soon.

With a full stomach, we marched to our (new) place to stay. It was a small boarding house but it felt like home. The name was Yoccola Islands. I regret not taking photos with the house or the hosts because they were all kind and awesome. It matters not! For I shall return there soon and make a proper stay there! We left all our luggage there and prepared for the real adventure!

We arrived at Kyoto to check out a festival, but we did not go there straight. We took a walk around, enjoying the scenery, when we found a riverbed nearby. We decided to get down there and rest for a while, taking in the view we normally saw on anime only. To me it was very refreshing. The water was clean and cool, there were birds flying nearby, and even (high?) school kids playing very close to water. They threw stones or just splashed water to each other for fun. I was looking at the original source of everything I saw and read only. How awesome would that feel? Have fun imagining it.

Somewhere in Kyoto.

As the day shifted to afternoon, we left the riverbed. It was time to enjoy the first day of Gion Matsuri. After reading the information on Wikipedia, turned out it was not the first day, but more like the last day before the parade around town. So yeah, "first day" for me. :P It was a very interesting experience. I am not someone who often go to festival and such, and Gion Matsuri that day was especially very crowded and busy. Lots of people, lots of food, the heat of summer, the music, and the ornaments being displayed were awesome combination. We walked around, checking the floats, took photos, had shaved ice due to amazing heat of summer (and man, shaved ice could not taste better than THAT! Now I understand why it is so popular in manga and anime for summer festivals~), tried green tea ice cream (float), and just generally checking things around. We walked around for hours that my feet could no longer take.

One of the floats. The photo missed the high tip, though.

Humans. Humans everywhere. Too many humans.

Awesome event was awesome, so we kept on going until around 8 PM before we took the train home.

Beautiful, beautiful day. Too bad that a message from home ruined the spirit, with a notice that half of the students must return on Monday to re-take an exam. The teachers found out that the questions from previous group's exam were leaked to us. We closed the day begging for forgiveness from the teachers, suggesting a plan that allow us to take the exam by internet from Japan so we did not have to return. I slept with such hope hanging on the air, half knowing that it was impossible, yet still hoped for a miracle.

"If God could send me here, He would surely help me so I can stay and enjoy this trip, wouldn't He?"

One of many attempts of throwing rock into the river. HI!

[chariflare]

mundane travel wishlist inspired by jenny nicholson's mediocre things to do in disneyland video

see the pie store in sydney they used in a free! s2 end image

see the source of the thames bc i covered it in a geography project in hs

eat at mediocre japanese “italian” chain restaurant saizeriya

go to a hot topic even though it’s going to be shitty and full of 12yos who want their disgruntled parents to buy them anime merch probably

smell hollister (again)

[anime-knockoffs]

Saizeriya from Sound! Euphonium: The Movie - Our Promise: A Brand New Day

Today's Anime Knockoff is this Saizeriya casual dining knockoff, Ortensia from "Sound! Euphonium: The Movie - Our Promise: A Brand New Day".