#basically gachapon but you have to eat a lot of sushi

[monoxidecahedron]

there are still two kura revolving sushi bars in ace attorney LA and when they do a crossover with pink princess maya eats like 30 plates of sushi singlehandedly and makes phoenix join her trying to get the keychain she wants

[happysandwichparty-blog]

Japan - Day 7 (Ikebukuro)

Starting out the day I didn’t honestly know a whole lot about Ikebukuro and how long we would be there. I just knew there were two places on my must to visit list there and that’s why we were going.

(Few pictures today!)

I woke up feeling like crap. The Gyoen Gardens adventure from the previous day was hitting my allergies hard. I wasn’t even sure how long I was going to make it before having to come back and sleep.

We got rolling a little bit later in the day, despite getting up at 4:30AM, we didn’t head out until about 9:30AM. It was the usual train rides - Ginza to Ueno, and the JR Yamanote over to Ikebukro. No rush hour today, we left too late - YAY!

Upon getting off the train our first stop was the Kit-Kat Chocolatory. We did take a little detour to get there. The store is in a department store attached to the train station but I seem to have a problem finding entrances from the train station so we exit and came back in through and outside entrance.

On our trek to find the store however we ended up in a grocery store in the station, the food there looked AMAZING! Wouldn’t it be great to be able to just get off the train, pick up your meal, and then walk home? One can dream. That will never be a reality in Arizona.

I digress, we eventually found the sweets area! More amazing cakes here, seriously ive never seen such beautiful little cakes. There were also many traditional Japanese sweet/dessert options to choose from.

Eventually we did find the Kit-Kat store! You aren’t going to find bags of Kit-Kats here, if you want those, hit up a convenience or grocery store! These are gourmet Kit-Kats in fancy boxes that you’d give as a gift. I picked up a box for my mom since they had special mothers day gift boxes. Mothers day is a little ways out, but it’s not like they will go bad in that time, plus we grabbed her a bag of matcha Kit-Kats to give her right away.

After the Chocolatory we wandered around to waste a bit of time in the station area. There was a restaurant I wanted to go to that opened at 11:00AM and was said to get busy very quickly so we were hitting it up right at opening time.

You may have see video’s of this place floating around on social media, it’s called Kura Zushi. Basically it’s a revolving sushi bar, which you can also order from, and you use your empty plates to play a gachapon game!

When we arrived (exactly at 11:00AM), there were already about 4 groups waiting. You walk up to the machine and get a ticket for your group. The machine is completely in Japanese, no English, as is the ticket. The staff is willing to help you get a ticket if needed, or you can just let someone go in front of your and watch. It was actually simple. Green button, party number, and then tap the final two buttons, done! - you now have a ticket!

They will call your number in Japanese so make sure you are paying attention. Basic understanding of numbers will probably do you good in Japan anyway.

On to the food! The sushi was very good for only being about $1 per plate.

They have some unique combinations - salmon with cheese? Surprisingly amazing.

We stuffed our faces, much more than we normally would. We have some revolving bars back home and it’s surprising if we eat more than 8 plates. Today we ate 16. Really I wanted a gatchapon and it took 5 plates to try your luck.

Spoilers. 3 tries. We did not win. The guy next to us won on his first try though, not fair! We do have a small vlog we filmed of this place so hopefully ill edit that and get it up pretty quick (i’ll link it here once finished).

One last thing about restaurants in general, many places have a pot of powdered matcha sitting on the table, cups, and a hot water dispenser so you can make your own tea! Surprisingly I actually like green tea, I don’t like many other teas.

This places is very convenient, when you are done you tap the check button on the tablet at your table, they come check your plate count, and you head off to pay up front!

After stuffing our faces we decided it was time to walk a bunch! Good plan. We were walking over to Sunshine City, which is a shopping mall. On the way we stopped at Round One and a few other game locations. There were a bunch. I found the Neko Atsume machine and again failed horribly. I also tried a Disney plush machine, had better luck but still didn't win anything.

We were once again off to Sunshine City. It’s a very traditional mall that we are all used to, and it was pretty nice! They had a fun water feature in the main atrium.

Our main goal here was to find the Pokemon Center! We did take a detour into the Disney Store though. Again, I wanted to buy so many things, but I will wait until we are at the Disney Resort. SOON!

After Disney we head up to the Pokemon Center. It was pretty busy, but all of the staff were super friendly and polite and did everything they could to make people feel welcome. We did end up buying quite a few things. I picked up 3 or 4 items for my Twitch giveaway, and also a few for myself! Included were a cute mug, a Ditto shirt tank top combo, and some socks.

Two side notes. Everyone in Japan has adorable phone wallet cases. They are everywhere and it’s making me really want one, the ones for sale at the Pokemon Center were super cute. Second, no one has face plates for the regular New 3DS, which is making me sad. Yodobashi is the only place and the selection was not great.

I digress, we went to purchase all of our items and it turns out there was some deal on socks! Who knew! I ended up getting a 3rd pair for free.

As mentioned the staff were great. They went out of their way to make customers feel welcome, they brought a basket of socks to the register for me to pick the 3rd pair instead of making me run through the store to find them. They make sure my items were double bagged so nothing would break, and they even offered me as many special decorative extra bags as I wanted in case I was getting gifts for people. I left very happy.

On the way out there were more Gachapon and penny presses. I did press a penny, which were provided in the machine, brand new and shiny! And of course another gachapon.

On our way out we stopped at Axes Femme. We visit their store in Shinjuku but it was small, this one was large! I did end up purchasing 3 items, mostly for work. This is a good store if you still like that lolita style, but want to be able to tone it down for real world situations.

After this we left Sunshine City and head across the street to the Animate. Which apparently had moved and was no longer an Animate. We still went inside because now there were 4 floors hat were cosplay stores.

This was a unique experience as a cosplayer. There were full costumes for sale, which wasn’t the awesome part to me actually, since I just make my own. It was the wide selection of wigs, contacts, props, shoes, glove, makeup and god knows what else that was all in one store easily accessible! Those small things are sometimes the hardest part of cosplay in the States because they are hard to get,you have to make them! Hell they had a prop violin you could buy!

Anyway! After having a moment we left to find the new Animate. Ikebukuro was bustling, it was a very fun area with a lot to do. There were a lot of teenagers and young adults around having a good time. It felt a lot like a less over the top Akihabara. I think I may actually like Ikebukuro a bit more.

We found the Animate! Which felt like it catered more to Women than the other one we went to. The whole area did really, a ton of women and girls around and a lot of people dressed up in alternative fashions. What I would have expected in Akihabara we actaully saw here.

We did not buy anything at the Animate but I did actually see things I liked in this ones. I think the thing holding us back from buying anything is that Idol anime and sports anime are super popular right now so it’s almost all you see. Neither of us are into those so we are left stranding. You wont find anything for older anime, if you do its in some corner and no one cares. It’s definitely what is popular now, which is understandable.

After leaving the Animate we head back to the station to head back to Asakusa. On the way in we ran into Ikefukuro, and owl statue, that like Hachiko is a place where a lot of locals wait when meeting up with someone.

We took the usual route home, JR to Ueno, Ginza to Asakusa. Upon getting off at Asakusa we found ourselves in a grocery and sweets store we hadn’t seen yet. We took this opporunity to get something sweet and yummy!

We spent much of the evening being lazy before going out to grab some food. We picked KFC because KFC is a suprisingly big deal in Japan (seriously they eat it as their Christmas meal), so I wanted to see what the differences were.

First major difference, no mashed potatoes. WHAT. Now I don’t really eat KFC at home, but mashed potatoes are a pretty big staple when it comes to fried chicken, at least in my opinion. Instead they have Coloneling Potatoes. Which are kind of just potato wedges in  unique shape, they were actually pretty good.

The chicken itself was good quality, seemed better than home. The one difference with the chicken was the breading was lighter, it wasn’t as ticket and crunchy, which I honestly think was better, it wasn’t overbearing. The final difference on the food we tried was the biscuit, the honey was more like a maple syrup, still good though!

After dinner we ate our desserts and then I rolled off into bed at my allergies were starting to bother me again.

My sleeping area is starting to become a fortress of shopping bags from everything we’ve purchased. By the time we finish Disney I don’t think i’ll be able to get in my bed!

[jenesys-energy-ph-blog]

DAY 2 by Alyssa Nifas

I woke up in Japan!

The call time is a bit early but that does not stop us from being so excited! We went down and we had our temperatures checked and then we had our breakfast. The hotel serves a breakfast buffet and they have really tasty food! I tried a lot and everything tasted amazing! I got so full and so my energy was at high levels.

After breakfast, we went back to our rooms to finish preparing for the day and then we went down to meet the others and then we had a little practice for our cultural presentation. We practiced outside the hotel, specifically in the parking lot. The sun was up high but it was still very cold! Our group practiced our folk dance and the other practiced a song presentation. After some time we then went back inside and prepared for departure to the Edo Tokyo Museum.

While the other participants from other countries are still to arrive in Japan, we, together with delegates from Vietnam and Timor Leste, got the chance to visit a museum in Tokyo before the program officially starts. We rode a bus to the museum with the delegates from Timor Leste. I was so glad to have met such lovely and friendly people. They shared a lot about their country and also listened to what we had to share about the Philippines as well. I was able to learn about their country even in just a short ride to the museum.

Edo Tokyo Museum shows a lot about the history of Japan. “Edo” is actually the former name of Tokyo. We went around, learned a lot and of course took a lot of photos. It was amazing how some parts of the museum are really interactive. You get to really experience the culture even only inside the museum!

After walking around, we were able to get some souvenirs in the shop and some pamphlets. I also got my first stamp from Japan! I bought a billfold in the museum’s souvenir shop. (It’s for immediate use because believe it or not, I forgot to bring a wallet to Japan!)

After the Museum tour, we were taken to a nearby restaurant where we were served great Japanese food! They served us a meal with salmon, chicken, rice and miso soup. We then walked around after eating. We went inside a konbini, and I was able to buy a Shonen Jump. (it’s all in Japanese but my favorite manga is in it so why not)

We then rode the bus again, now to Tower Hall Funabori for the orientation. All the participants from groups A-J composed of 10 countries. The Philippine delegation was split into 2 groups (B and C). I was part of the C group. Groups B and C are groups composed of participants from Cambodia, Thailand, and Philippines. Groups A, B, and C are to visit Akita Prefecture. Other groups are to visit other parts of Japan: Groups D, E, F, G are to visit Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Shiga, Group H to Kumamoto, and Groups I and J to Chiba.

They provided us with participant’s handbook, a basic Nihongo translation guidebook, ID, and a JENESYS pin! The program officially started!

After the program, we went down to the first floor of the hall as we wait for the bus to take us to the place where we will have our dinner. In our bus, our coordinators were talking about how we will have our dinner. They gave us pamphlets for the layout of the diner and told us that we will be given a 1000 yen card that we can use to pay for our dinner. The place has different restaurants in it, we are allowed to choose what we want to eat just as long as it is below 1000yen.

We decided to get Japanese noodles plus unlimited drinks. I ordered the Shoyu Ramen and tried the infamous Melon Soda! My tummy was really happy that time! After eating, I went back to the drinks area and tried Calpis! I loved it! I loved everything! I was not able to spend all 1000 yen for the dinner but I was so satisfied!

As we were walking out, back to the bus, I saw a sushi restaurant with conveyor belt! I seriously prayed that we could try that some time. (unfortunately, we weren’t able to)

After dinner, we went back to the hotel to put down our big luggages to send to Akita via a courier. We are to ride a Shinkansen Train the next day and it will be a hassle to bring huge luggages. After sending our luggages, we are finally free!

The program already ended for that day, meaning we can go out! Yes, we were allowed to go out after the daily activities, it’s just that we have to be back to the hotel by 11pm. At first we planned to go to Shibuya, but given the fact that we were in Urayasu, Chiba, going to Shibuya would take so long that we would not make it to the curfew. So we decided to go to the Aeon Mall near the hotel instead. It was a regular mall, with almost anything you need. I went around with some of my batchmates at first, but to be able to shop, we had to go around to where we want. I was shopped for some stationery and finally tried the gachapon machines! But after I paid for the stationery, I lost my batchmates.

I was panicking because I cannot contact them, firstly, we can’t communicate through phones, and there is also no internet in the mall! I went around to look for them, sadly, I still can’t find them. The store was about to close as it was already around 10 in the evening. I think I went in and out the mall for like 3 times, and I was standing in the entrance/exit for so long, then walking back and forth.

After some time, I decided to go back to the Hotel on my own. Good thing it was just nearby and I can walk to it. As I was walking back to the Hotel, I visited the tax free shop I spotted along the way. I just got curious on what it might have inside. But I was only able to buy strawberry kitkats. I then walked and then entered the 7 eleven. I bought more snacks and some Osomatsu merch! I really like anime (and ofc Osomatsu) and so I was so glad to find some in a 7 eleven store! I am finally near the hotel! But I saw the Family Mart nearby, so I also went there and got more snacks again! So I basically went on a Konbini-hopping by myself! I then returned to our room, only to find out that my roommates are still not there. I got some rest and waited for them. A few minutes later, they arrived and were really glad that I was there already.

Alyssa Nifas is a 5th year Industrial Engineering student at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. She is very interested on learning about grand innovations in technology, efficient business processes, and good management of the workforce.  She also hopes to be able to contribute in the development of different industries based in the Philippines. Apart from her engineering studies, she also enjoys drawing artworks inspired mostly by the Japanese culture.