#been coming back to this ask for a few days now wehhh

[wormb0i]

Hello just want to say your depiction of Yuuji is so!!! Amazing!!

[ i took a while to respond to this because i just kept going back to my inbox to read it haha — thank you so much ;;;;; ! this means so much to me u have no idea... and that's so kind too THANK YOU i appreciate it uuhhgggHH i sob ]

[asterinjapan]

And then the sun sets

It’s Sunday evening as I write this, being grumpy because tomorrow I’ll have to get up at 6 to catch the train to Nippori. To catch the train to Narita. To… yeah, you get it, I need to go home tomorrow already, wehhh. Time has really flown, gosh.

Anyway, today is December 23, which is a national holiday in Japan. (Or rather – it is, but because it’s a Sunday, tomorrow is a bank holiday as well.) That’s because it’s the current Emperor’s birthday. He won’t be the current Emperor much longer, though, as I’m sure you’ve heard the news that next year, Emperor Akihito of Japan is abdicating. It’s the first time in like 2 centuries an Emperor of Japan abdicates, so it’s also the first time that we know for sure that this is the last time he’ll celebrate his birthday as the Emperor.

Why am I typing this all out, you ask? Well, because every year on his birthday, the Emperor and his family come out on the veranda of the Imperial Palace to greet the people. Normally, the Imperial Palace is off-bounds for the public, except on December 23 and January 2, the day of the Emperor’s New Year Greetings. The Emperor comes out three times in the morning of the 23rd, so when I realized this right before my trip, I immediately planned to try my luck and attend.

I got up early and made my way to Otemachi station (nearest to the palace) a little before 9, before the gates would open at 9:30. Right on time, right? Yeah, uh – no. I had to walk an entire block to find the end of the line, and it took so long to move forward that I was honestly starting to worry if I could even see the Emperor at all today, since the last appearance was at 11:40. Yeah, I know. As it turns out, this was the busiest birthday during Emperor Akihito’s reign: about 57,000 people were here, which is almost twice as many as people living in my home town, whoa. There were several security checks in place for all the obvious reasons, which while fast, still stopped the lines quite a bit. In the mean while, we were handed small Japanese flags to greet the Emperor with later.

Too bad that it started to drizzle, because the walk was actually very nice, even though incredibly slow. After all, these grounds are inaccessible the rest of the year, and there are some nice sights to be seen. The Nijubashi bridge leads to the usually forbidden Nijubashi Gate, past the Fushimi Yagura guardhouse. This guardhouse is one of the few original buildings that survived the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and the Second World War, and it’s actually originally from Kyoto. That’s right, it used to be part of Fushimi Castle, which I visited this summer (the reconstruction of it, anyway). We’re all coming full circle! The castle was dismantled in the 17th century and parts were sent out to other places, including Tokyo.

Next was the inner gate, leading to the Chowaden Reception Hall, the largest building of the actual palace. It was here that the crowd gathered, and with a minute or ten to spare, I had made it in time for the 11:40 speech. Yikes. That really was testing my luck, and I wonder how many of the thousands of people behind me eventually made it here in time too.

After a short delay, the Emperor and his family appeared, greeted by the crowd with the many, many flags. He gave a short speech and all in all, I think it was over in like, fifteen minutes. But I did see the Emperor in real life, even though it was from a distance, and I have the (blurry) pictures to prove it, haha.

Anyway, Emperor Akihito’s reign started in 1989, making him the only Emperor of Japan I’ve ever known. So it still feels pretty special to have been here, the last time of his celebrating his birthday while being the Emperor, the end of an era in sight. Literally, by the way: the Japanese calendar is currently in the 30th year of the Heisei era, and they’re frantically coming up with a new era name before the abdication in April.

 With all that said and done, the way out also took a while. We passed the Fujimi Yagura, another guard tower (Fujimi, not Fushimi – small difference) and also an original building. Fujimi means Fuji-viewing, although the current skyline of Tokyo definitely obscures the view of Fuji even if the weather had been nice today, haha.

The way out led past the Imperial Gardens, but I opted out as it was starting to rain harder and I was getting pretty hungry. I made my way into the station, but couldn’t really find what I was looking for. I refused to hang around in Tokyo station grumpily on my last day here, so instead, I took the Yamanote line to Akihabara.

I had lunch there and then sought out the nearest Big Echo karaoke building, haha. There are probably cheaper options, but I like this chain because it’s always clean and bright and they have a good song selection, which is very important.

I booked a room for myself for an hour and was very surprised when I was given a kind of performance room, with a mic stand on a stage and a big bench. Obviously I tossed all my things on the bench and rushed to the stage to belt my heart out, haha. That was a ton of fun! I actually wanted to do more than an hour, but I still wanted to go into Akihabara itself too, so an hour it was. I still got to sing my favourite songs, so all was well.

As said, I went into Akihabara next, spending a bit too much money on Christmas presents for myself since this trip is pure self-indulgence anyway. I’ve come to like Akihabara a lot more than in previous years, actually. Maybe it helps that I found stores that cater to women more than men (I guess you can tell what kind of stuff some of those stores sell, huh). Anyway, I had fun and found a taiyaki shaped like the Pokémon Magikarp, so obviously I had to try one. Mine came with chocolate filling and it was SO FULL, geesh, I almost forgot I still had to eat dinner at some point.

After all that, I went back to my hotel and arrived around 8:30. Time for the fun part: cram everything into the suitcase and see if it fits!

It takes some sitting on my trolley, but I made it fit, haha. My scale unfortunately gave out, but said it was 17 kilos before it died – which is weird, I arrived with 14. But I asked downstairs and their scale also said 17-18, so I guess that’s correct after all? Leaves me with a 5 kilo margin, so that’s fine. (I guess most of the heavier books are in my carry on, so that should help. Not with my back, but it should help with the weight at least, haha.)

 So now I’m here, updating my blog from Tokyo for what I assume is the last time this year, haha. It sure was a surprise trip, but I had a lot of fun and got to do many things, despite not feeling as well as I wanted (last summer was worse, so there’s still progress). I want to pretend it’s not over yet, so I’ll save my parting words for the update after I’m home, since I’ll be home for Christmas and all. Jetlag for Christmas! Yay. Luckily the Netherlands has two Christmas days.

 So, that’s it for now. Happy birthday to the Emperor, and good night to you all as my alarm is unforgiving, haha. Here’s fingers crossed I won’t turn it off in my sleep again, which I managed to do yesterday… Oops.

Good night and see you!