Japanese subway groping

For those asking 'Please make me an itinerary' / 'hidden gems?' / 'what should my budget be?'

2024.05.21 04:31 kmrbtravel For those asking 'Please make me an itinerary' / 'hidden gems?' / 'what should my budget be?'

One of the hardest questions to answer on this subreddit is when people ask what their itinerary should be, followed by questions on what an appropriate budget would be, and then suggestions on hidden gems.
The TL;DR is that all three questions need more details if you want them to be answered.
"But kmrbtravel!" you say, "I need an itinerary if I want a budget, and a budget if I want to make an itinerary! It's all so overwhelming, and I don't know where to start! Oh but I also want to find places that have little to no tourists and are your secret hidden gems, just for that variety!"
I'm hoping this post will be a good starting point for the people above but also to let people know that for the vast majority of us, the 'basic' things recommended on Google and YouTube will be perfect! Travelling Japan is fun because there are so many things to be distracted by, and you will be spending a lot of your time wandering and trying things out, even without a detailed itinerary.

About Me

I write this spiel every time, but I'm a 25F solo traveller with friends I stay with in Japan. Played a Japanese martial art for years, and I visit Japan 3-4x every year (usually 1-2 weeks in April, 1 week in September, 1-2 weeks in late Oct/early Nov, and 1 month in December).
I'm currently on a mission to visit all 47 prefectures across Japan, and I'm at 9 right now (Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo, Shimane, Mie, Hiroshima, Okayama, Hyogo, and most recently Nagoya). You can read about my biggest and craziest trip here (especially if you're looking for suggestions outside of Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka!)
I speak and understand very basic and noob Japanese. Enough for me to get around, barely enough for me to talk to random obaasans in the onsen who are curious about my travels. I can read hiragana/katakana, and kanji still eludes me (but we'll get there!)
One thing to note about me is that I'm mostly temple/shrine oriented when I travel Japan, so I personally cannot answer questions regarding things like museums/amusement parks/etc.

What Makes Planning a Japan Trip So Hard? (And why is it harder for us to answer your questions?)

Out of any other country that I've visited, I genuinely believe that Japan has the most variety in terms of what you can do and see and can cater wildly to different kinds of people, which sometimes makes it very difficult for us to give you detailed answers. While we all have the same goal of 'exploring Japan,' I personally want to give the best answers possible. I will have different suggestions (and routes!) depending on if you can walk 30,000 steps/day, if you have young kids, if you like anime, if you like martial arts, if you like nature and hiking, if you like shrines/temples, if you don't mind crowds, if you want to just do what everyone else is doing, if you want to do more traditional things, etc. etc. This is why general questions on 'what should my itinerary be' can never fully be answered. We are not mind readers, but we're happy to help with more information.
'They all sound good to me though, and that's why I can't choose!'
Unfortunately, the reality is that you will have to choose by some point. Japan is so much fun because there is an endless amount of things to do, and you have to pick what sounds the most entertaining to you. After 9 prefectures and multiple visits to Japan, I have very, very little things that I personally didn't enjoy. We do not know who you are, and we do not know your preferences. You need to either pick for us, or give us that guidance so we can suggest appropriate itineraries for you.
In harsher terms, for the vast majority of us, an AI-made itinerary, or suggestions from Google or YouTube will satisfy your trip. What us humans can do on Reddit, is to give you specific suggestions, but we cannot give specific suggestions if you do not provide us with (somewhat) specific questions.

1. The Budget Question

I have travelled Japan with less than ¥2000/day, and have travelled with more than ¥20,000/day. The great thing about Japan is that you have the option to do both. Are you broke after plane tickets + hotels? No worries, there are tons of free sightseeing options and you can konbini or street food breakfast/lunch/dinner for very little. Do you want to splurge because this is your 'once-in-a-lifetime-trip?' Don't worry! There are tons of ways for you to sink your money in.
But to be more helpful, I'll break it down just a bit further. After hotels/planes, these are the biggest money sinks:
I'm probably forgetting things (and will update as I remember them), but Japan is REALLY good at chipping away at your wallet little bits at a time. It's not like Europe or North America where your cost is just expensive food + an expensive experience. Japan is a lot of cheap, little things that adds up quickly.
Some prices are baked in/unchanging (e.g. TeamLabs tickets or Shinkansen tickets), but many of those 'smaller things that adds up' can be quite random. I always add up my expected costs, subtract it from my total budget, and divide the remainder with the days I will be in Japan for.

2. The Itinerary Question

There are tons of great itineraries on YouTube and Google and I promise you, most of them are good enough for you to just copy/paste and experience. Use us for specific questions you may have in regards to them (e.g. I'm planning on going to xyz on abc dates, is there anything to keep in mind?) (and then we can inform you of any closures, tips, tricks, etc.).
As someone who travels a lot, I want to point out that hotspots are hot for a reason and the ones in Japan are all worth going to unless you can somehow tell it's not going to be your thing (and that's ok!) or you have a serious aversion to crowds.
How one makes an itinerary is always varied, but as someone who's good at going with the flow when travelling (and often plans very last minute), this is how I usually rumble:
0. BRING AN EMPTY SUITCASE: I usually have a slightly smaller suitcase inside of my big suitcase, and the smaller suitcase has all of my clothes + shoes. If you do this, please cover or cushion the wheels of your smaller suitcase inside. I have no idea what happens in the cargo, but I've smashed the wheels of two small suitcases (even though they were fine when they're not inside the larger suitcase). I usually just put some shoes/scarves/dark hoodies for cushioning.
My itinerary recommendations are nothing special as I literally pick things off Google. But hotspots are hot for a reason, and these were some of my favourites for Tokyo and Kyoto!

3. The 'Hidden Gem' Question

If this is your first trip to Japan, you don't need hidden gems (unless they're food-specific). The major sightseeing attractions are popular for a reason and will be more than enough unless you're literally here for months.
Secondly, and more importantly, I've realized that 'hidden gems' are pretty personal to an individual's tastes. For example, I revealed a few of my hidden gem shrines and temples a few months ago, and immediately got immediately told that it's not actually very great. Well yeah, but that's why it was a hidden gem for me, because I loved it. We will not know what a 'hidden gem' means for you unless you specify the type. Are we looking for hidden gems that are about food? Temples? Specific anime references?
I can promise you that 99% of places worth going to are already spread across social media, and they're popular for good reasons. I personally don't think it's worth travelling far or trying spend so much time and effort looking for that 1%, especially on a first trip.
Lastly, I personally do not reveal my hidden gems unless I know you in person or it's a small business that may appreciate more support. While you may disagree, I think overtourism/overcrowding is pretty real in Japan right now, and I'm hesitant to put smaller places up on public platforms.
With that being said though, for tourists who have already been to Japan and want 'hidden gems' beyond Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka, I highly recommend the Kyushu/Chugoku region trip that I did back in January. I don't have specific itinerary 'hidden gems' but I definitely have 'hidden prefectures' that I loved (and even preferred) to Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka! (They're not actually hidden, just less visited compared to the trifecta).
Full itinerary/trip report here.
My itinerary for these prefectures are nothing special and none of them are 'hidden gems' as they're literally the most popular attractions for each place. But a. I think this proves that the 'top search' on Google is perfectly fine (because that's what I did, and I had an amazing time), and b. the popular attractions are very much worth going to.
There is a special promotion for foreign tourists that lets you take the bus to and from Shimane to Hiroshima for only 1000 yen, and the bus is only around 3 hrs from Izumo to Hiroshima! You can either start in Kyoto and move down, or start in Hiroshima and move up. I did all in 6 days which I do NOT recommend because I had to rush / clocked 30k+ steps in every day / thought I was going to die by the last day / was in a new prefecture every day.
  1. Kyoto → Osaka → Kobe → Himeji → Okayama → Izumo → Hiroshima
  2. Hiroshima → Izumo → Okayama → Himeji → Kobe → Osaka → Kyoto
Other prefectures nearby that are worth checking out are Nara and Mie.

Thanks for reading!

If you made it to the end, thanks for reading and I hope this was helpful. I definitely don't know everything about Japan and tons of people have amazing tips (that I still learn from every day). This was hopefully to help address some of the more common issues / repeated questions that people had. The TLDR is really just that we need specifics on who YOU are for us to answer your questions better, especially if you're looking for 'hidden gems' that are specific to your interests.
Have an amazing trip, everyone!
submitted by kmrbtravel to JapanTravelTips [link] [comments]

2024.05.21 01:05 0fiuco travel report: 18 Days off the beaten Path in Honshu and Kyushu

period: april 28th to May 14th 2024.
Nights spent in: Tokyo - Sendai - Fukushima - Koriyama - Nagoya - Hakata ( Fukuoka ).
If it's really off the beaten path or not you'll decide, some destinations visited are really particular, other are way more popular even if usually not what you'll visit in your first trip to Japan. let's say i've been to japan last summer and did all the usual things one do the first time he's there, probably even something more: Tokyo - Kyoto - Osaka - Nara - Nikko, Fukuoka, Matsumoto, Himeji, Miyajima. pretty much what almost anyone does for their first time if they have the opportunity.
Given the weak Yen and having still some time ( and money ) i could spend i decided to come back less than a year later, this time at the end of April up until half may in order to explore less popular destinations. I'll avoid to provide the usual tips anyone provide, like how to move from narita, how to get a Suica or how to book a train seat, how to operate a toilet and such things.
SOME TIPS
Concerning Suica: contrary to what most people suggest, i didn't buy one neither last summer or this time and frankly i've never missed not having it. I use my mastercard credit card, most places in japan accept it with zero problems and for the rest you can get Yen at any ATM machine that you can find in any combini with it and pay cash wich japanese still very much use
Concerning the period of the year: last year i went in August. I can confirm that moving around in April/May is so incredibly much better. The heat in august is some day even unbearable. This time the weather was mostly fine, got only one day of rain even if the temperatures were still a bit on the cold side overall. Unfortunately this year Sakura came early and I missed it by a week or two. But still apart from the cherry trees all the plants were blossoming and it was so nice to see flowers everywhere compared to the pain of the humidity and the torment of cicadas you have during summer.
Concerning golden week: one of the two weeks i was there was the golden week. I didn't book anything in advance but, maybe because of the fact i was moving off the beaten path, i almost never had problems booking trains or hotels during golden week ( i said almost, more details later ). Cant tell what's the effect when trying to book hotels in places like Kyoto.
concerning planning: my usual planning method goes the following: i book the plane, obviously. I buy JRP ( yes i still bought it even after the price increase ) and i book two days of hotels. The rest of my trip i have an idea of what i want to do and where i want to go but i book hotels and such, while going along. This gives me the flexibility to change my itinerary or react to bad weather ( last summer i run away from a typhoon with this trick ) or unexpected problems ( last summer i got food poisoning and i had to delay my program booking an hotel for three more days than expected: had i booked all nights in advance it would have been a huge problem ). I only book hotels using the booking website app and i can only say good things about it. I travel alone, maybe for couples or families this isn't as easy as it was for me.
Warning: I like to walk and I walk a lot. So if you need tips to move around, I’m not probably the right person because what you might want to do using a bus or a taxi I would probably do by walking. I’ve walked on average of 20 km a day and probably more and if a place is like 3-4 km from where I am I walk there without even looking if there’s a better option with a bus or something else.
I will give a vote to the places I’ve visited according to two parameters:
How off the beaten path it really is, judging by how many foreign tourists I met there. And an overall vote telling how worthy I feel the place is to visit. To make it short I will call them “OTBP VOTE and OVERALL VOTE”

SO LET'S START WITH THE ACTUAL TRIP REPORT:
Day 1: landing in Tokyo at midday in Narita. After finishing all the immigration process i moved to my hotel. This time i decided to book it for two nights in Omiya/Saitama. The place is less than half an hour from Tokyo Station and was the opportunity to see something different. I haven't seen much of the place but the area around the station was very lively, lots of restaurant and lots of people moving around. It was full of decoration with squirrells and a football team, i guess they were either promoting it or they won something cause decorations were everywhere, honestly didn't ask about. Well apart from checking in, recovering from the flight, looking for something to eat and checking a bit the areai didn't do much.
day 2: in the morning i took the train to Ashikaga Flower Park. I've seen picture of it online and according to the informations i gathered i might have been late for the sakura but the Wisteria were in full bloom and they had a lot of them in this park.
So i took the train, it was around an hour ride and Omiya was strategically on the way. I realized my trip plan was proably a good one when, once reached the Ashikaga flower park station ( there's a train station dedicated to this park ) all the people on the train got off. A little walk, ticket and i was in. The place, given the right time of the year, was AMAZING, UNBELIEVABLE. I can't begin to tell you how cool and how huge the wisteria plants were. they were in full bloom, and was something out of this world, it looked like something you see in the movie avatar. Like three or four wisterias as big as a basketball field if not even more, of different colours and kinds, plus a lot more of regular sized wisterias and a lot more flower plants of all kinds. Had to say, for some reason with all the flowers the air wasn’t at all full of their scent. I even got a wisteria flavoured ice cream, wich was probably a wisteria coloured ice cream cause it didn’t have any real particular taste. The place was packed with Japanese people and foreigners like me you could count them on the fingers of one hand. I arrived there early, so by early afternoon I was satisfied with my visit and moved away. A quick check on my train app and google maps and realized I could reach Kawagoe from there fairly easily.
ASHIKAGA FLOWER PARK OTBP: 9 OVERALL: 10
When I was on the train it stopped at the Tochigi station, it looked nice from the train so I decided to jump off and check the area a bit, because sometime I do that kind of things, and the idea wasn’t bad at all: the town itself doesn’t look anything special but there’s a canal wich was very picturesque, plus it was fully decorated with paper carps because of the time of the year and Japanese people were doing boat rides on the river on traditional little boats while singing songs. I won't say to go there specifically to see the place, but if you're on that train route or still around it, it might be worth a stop. So, once I finished checking the area I jump back on the train and finally reached Kawagoe.
TOCHIGI: OTBP: 10 OVERALL: 6 ½
Kawagoe is a small place north of Tokyo, not very far, wich is know for a small neighbourhood with old Edo houses. That neighbourhood is more far from the station that I expected, but still nice and worth a check. There’s a very cool bell tower there and one of the coolest Starbucks I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t spend a whole day in Kawagoe if you ask me but If you’re in Tokyo and have an half day available that you don't know how to spend I’d say it’s totally worth a train ride. Had my dinner there and then moved back to Omiya where I would spend my last night.
KAWAGOE: OTBP: 7 OVERALL: 7
Day 3: woke up early, jumped on the train and moved to Sendai where I had planned to stay the next three nights. Once again Omiya was a good choice cause I could take the shinkansen right from there without having to move back to Tokyo.
Arrived in Sendai, left my luggage in the hotel where I couldn’t check in cause it was still to early and hopped on a local train in direction of Matsushima. By midday I was already in Matsushima. This is another very famous destination for Japanese people, one of the most known panoramas in japan. Have to say, the town is a typical sea town, definitely welcoming. I had one of the best Sushi I ever had in japan in a local restaurant ( check matsushima sushi kou if interested ). Visited Zuiganji temple and then walked a bit on the coast, crossed the Fukuurabashi bridge, the long red bridge that you probably have seen in some picture, and walked around Fukuurajima. Here you can have a walk around the island it’s not small but is small enough that you can walk it all fairly quickly and it has some nice spots to discover. You have to pay a small fee to cross the bridge. Then went back, checked the Godaido of Zuiganji and it’s worth mentioning that when walking along the coast I’ve stumbled across a couple of signs giving instructions on what to do in case of a tsunami and what happened back in 2011, wich I didn’t even think about up until that moment and suddenly the memories went back to what happened there more than 10 years ago. Last thing, my advice is to walk down to Oshima island. This little island is less crowded, you can reach it crossing a little red bridge and honestly to me it’s the best spot to admire Matsushima. I didn’t went for the ferry ride across the bay cause the weather wasn’t very good and I was starting to be a little short on time, so I moved back to Sendai.
MATSUSHIMA: OTBP: 9 OVERALL: 8 ½
Once back in Sendai, I went to see the sunset from the panoramic floor of the AER building near the station, wich is totally free even if finding the right elevator that takes you up might be a bit tricky, but the view is totally worth it, you can even see in the distance the big white shape of the dai-kannon and from the other side of the floor you can easily see the sea.
Talking about Sendai, I didn’t dedicate to the city the time that should have been necessary because I was always on day trips and I spend there mostly the late evenings, but my impression is that Sendai is a very nice city that should appear more often in peoples itineraries. The city is particularly vibrant and alive, lot of young people, lot of things to see and do, a covered shopping street that is almost endless full of restaurants and shops, way more green than many other Japanese cities. I’d recommend anyone who had the time and the opportunity to spend a little time here. Also it has a very distinctive identity and everything proudly revolves around the image of its founder Date Masamune who is everywhere in senday, even the penguin of the local DonQuishotte mall was dressed up as Date Masamune.
So after the panorama, I went in the hotel, finally checked in and then moved back to look for food. Walked down what I think is called ichibancho street, wich as I said before is an endless downtown road full of shops and restaurant and stopped to have a try at the most famous local dish, Gyutan, wich is grilled cow tongue. Never had tongue in my life and have to admit it, it’s not bad at all, I quite enjoyed it. Had a little more walk around then called it a day.
SENDAI: OTBP: 7 ½ OVERALL: 9
Day 4: today trip is to Hiraizumi, a UNESCO world heritage site, where you can admire some historically significant buddhist sites. You had to catch a coincidence in Ichinoseki but the whole ride is pretty straight forward and doesn’t really take much time. At 9 am I was already ready to explore. As I sad I’m a walker, so I walked the walk from the station to the Chuson Ji temple wich is around 2 km and I totally recommend it cause the town is quite nice to walk through, very small village, very cozy and intimate. Chuson Ji it’s a very beautiful complex to explore, it’s inside a forest, kinda reminds a bit of Nikko atmosphere if you’ve been there even if the buildings aren’t as spectacular. The whole wood was full of blossoming plants and here and there I was able to spot some late cherry tree still full of flowers, giving me an hint to what sakura must really be.
You stumble in the temple buildings one after another while you go deep into the wood. I reach the main building and there’s a ceremony in progress. I discovered later that the next day was planned the Fujiwara festival where all people dress up like in Edo period and do a parade in the city. The day I was there instead the children parade was planned, so it was full of kids dressed up and judging by how proud and elegant their parents were I tend to think it was a pretty big thing for them. I enjoy the situation for a while, then went back to exploring, till I reached the main attraction of the temple wich is the Konjikido, a golden pavilion that dates back to the XII century wich is amazing to see in person.
Once I finished exploring the whole Chuson Ji complex I went looking for a restaurant and had a nice ramen set, because the visit took the whole morning, then moved to the second stop wich was Motsuji Temple: as much as Chuson Ji impressed me, Motsu-ji disappointed me. The thing is, you pay to enter and in the end what you see is a place mostly empty, where the only building there are reconstructions and most places are just a bunch of rocks with signs saying “here once was this building” “here once was that building” and the main thing you’ll see there is a pond whose importance is that it dates back to the time when Japanese gardens were kinda dull compared to what they’ll become centuries later. So it’s kinda a pond that you would completely ignore in a different context. I mean, I totally get the historical importance of this place, but, honestly from the ignorant eyes of a tourist it’s really nothing you would invest your time visiting, according to my opinion.
Another place that would have been worth visiting was Takkoku-no Iwaya Bishamondo, but isn’t really that easy to reach, it’s a bit far to walk to and I was once again out of time, therefore I decided to skip it and went back to the station and to sendai where I again went to look for something to eat and had a little night stroll, nothing worth mentioning.
HIRAIZUMI: OTBP: 9 OVERALL: 8
Day 5: today I decided to go to Kakunodate. The town is a easily reachable by train from sendai but a bit far compared to the day before. Went off the station and once again started walking. The place is known mainly for its many samurai houses, all indications point to them so it’s not possible to miss them. The town itself for the little I’ve seen doesn’t really seem to offer much apart from that but the samurai distict it’s nice. Many of the houses have been converted into small museums, that you can visit paying a small fee. I entered one of them, there was a little tour showing the history of the city and the history of the family of samurai living there. Among the things you could do you had the chance even to hold a real katana ( it felt quite a clumsy and top heavy sword compared to what I had imagined ). In fairness, to my taste, there isn’t much to do apart from visiting the samurai district, yes you can visit the local museum, do some craft shopping ( I bought a very nice box made of cherry bark there wich is a typical local craft ) therefore after a late lunch I was back to Sendai. In my opinion if you want to see a Samurai district you can also go to Kanazawa and there’s much more to see there overall compared to Kakunodate, but if you like the atmosphere of a smaller village instead of a big city and you like something more “off the beaten path” then I’d say go to kakunodate.
KAKUNODATE: OTBP: 8 ½ OVERALL: 6 ½
Given i was back to sendai relatively early, that gave me the opportunity to walk ( yes I walked even there ) to see the dai-kannon. The walk was nice, it took me through some very quiet neighbourhood that you wouldn’t normally visit. When I reached the statue It was too late to go inside it but I still had a good view of it. That is a quite impressive sight, you almost have difficulty to grasp the actual size of it. The area around the statue has really nothing to offer, therefore my honest suggestion is take a ride with the sightseeing bus and use that to reach it and once you’re finished with the statue move to a more interesting spot.
And this was my last day in Sendai. My plan at this point was to book two nights at Koriyama but probably because of the golden week I wasn’t able to find a hotel to my liking there therefore I decided to book one night in Fukushima and the next night in Koriyama. These were the two more expensive nights of all my trip and still ended up spending only around 70 € a night.
Day 6: plan for the day: leave the luggage in the hotel, visit Yamadera, go back to sendai, pick up the luggage and move to fukushima to spend the night. Yamadera is truly easy to reach from Sendai and a very recommended destination if you happen to be in Sendai. The place is mostly known for a temple that is reachable walking an abundant number of steps up a hillside. You reach the town, wich Is a very little and cozy village in the mountains west from Sendai and the temple is very close to the station so it’s not possible to miss it. You can tell the whole village revolves around the temple but it still maintain an authentic spirit. Lots of restaurants and little shops to visit on the road that brings to the temple. The temple itself is very “vertical” : sets of stone stairs will lead you up the side of the hills, till you reach the main building and a couple of satellite building where you’ll be rewarded by an amazing view on the village below. If you don’t mind stairs you’ll be rewarded with a very relaxing atmosphere. Here too given the latitude and the altitude I’ve been able to enjoy a couple of late blossoming cherry trees. The weather was amazing that day and all the gardens where full of flowers, this made the whole trip particularly enjoyable. Luckly I’m an early bird because later in the day the place was really packed with visitors. Once I was finished I had a nice set of Yamagata Dashi Soba in a typical restaurant with Tatamis low tables and a beautiful view on the river that cuts in half the village.
YAMADERA: OTBP: 10 OVERALL 9
After a late lunch I jumped back to the train, went back to sendai to pickup the luggage and moved to the next stop, Fukushima. Here I had the first disappointment of my trip. As my usual I booked a hotel that was close to the main train station, wich is usally the place where you want to be. I had a walk around there and the impression I got from Fukushima was that the place was miserable, a place that has really nothing much to offer to a tourist and not even to a citizen because compared to all the other places I’ve been in japan the impression was that even the locals weren’t as lively and enjoying life that much. I hope I’m not offending anyone and for sure I can’t give a proper review of the place after just an evening spent there, but the impression I got was of one of those town, that you can find in every country you'll visit, where young people can’t wait to get old enough to run away from.
FUKUSHIMA: OTBP: 9 ½ OVERALL: 4
DAY 7: wake up in fukushima, move to Koriyama, leave the luggage at the hotel, and then visit Ouchi-Juku and Aizu Wakamatsu. If you’re wondering, the thing is doable but you need to move early. Once you reach Koriyama you take the local train for Aizu Wakamatsu. There you jump on another local train, wich isn’t entirely operated by JR so you’ll have to pay a ticket, to Yunokami Onsen station where you end up in one of the coolest train stations in japan because it’s built in the style of a traditional house with wooden interiors and a straw roof, and it has a feet onsen right outside where you can wait the train while bathing your feet in thermal water, how cool is that?
From here you take a bus and reach Ouchi Juku. On paper it sounds harder than it actually is but you have to plan your trip properly. Ouchi Juku is a post town all made of traditional houses that reminds you a bit of Shirakawa Go, I frankly don’t know how it isn’t more popular among foreigners cause it’s truly a one of a kind place. Most probably is because it’s so off the beaten path and hard to reach. Still it’s extremely popular among Japanese people because the place was crowded and, when I left, the car traffic was stuck by how many people where trying to reach the place by car. I have to tell you in all honestly the place is probably a bit too touristy because there’s not a single house that isn’t turned into a gift shop or a restaurant. But still the place is so charming and picturesque that is totally worth a visit, plus the surrounding woods, mountains and rice field really act like a frame around the most beautiful picture. So I spend the morning here and around 2 pm I move back to Aizu, because there are really not many bus runs in the evening taking you back to Yunokami Onsen and you better reach the place early.
OUCHI JUKU: OTBP: 10 OVERALL: 9
That gives me the opportunity to visit Aizu Wakamatsu. Ive heard about the city for its castle and for the legend of the Byakko Tai. I get off to Aizu Wakamatsu main station and walk across town till I reach the castle. Keep in mind it’s Saturday and along the whole walk I might have crossed three people. The city was deserted and one thing I’ve learned is, if people on a Saturday evening flee a city like that, then there isn’t much to do or see there, and that’s the impression I got, kinda like Fukushima, probably even worse. Still, I reached the castle: the park is very nice, the castle is a beautiful Japanese castle but, to my understanding it’s a modern reconstruction cause the original castle was lost during the Meiji restoration as Aizu was one of the spots that rised against the emperor. At least around the castle there were now many people. From the castle, wich I didn’t visit inside, I went back to the train station, this time I reached Nanukamachi station and I have to admit it the area there seemed more alive and interesting to stroll around than the area around main Aizu station, therefore maybe I just walked across the wrong part of the town, I honestly can’t tell.
AIZU: OTBP: 9 OVERALL: 6
From Aizu I finally moved by train to Koriyama. I really didn’t spend enough time there to have a proper opinion but the impression I got was of a laid back place, more relaxing than sendai and definitely more alive than fukushima. If I had more time I’d probably give it a shot for a day visit, it might be a surprise.

DAY 8: by this day I ended up with a terrible sore throath that I had to endure almost till my last day in japan. I never had a fever but there was definitely something going around, I kept hearing many Japanese people coughing on trains all around japan so there was definitely something going around, maybe it’s just the season changing, it happens during this season all the times to have some cold or cough. Anyway, the day I had to wake up early and move from Koriyama to Nagoya by Shinkansen, wich was a considerably long trip but at least it gave me the opportunity to take probably the best picture I’ve ever take of mount fuji, from the train. Once in Nagoya I left the luggage in the hotel ( wich, thanks probably to the fact that the golden week just ended, I happened to book for 4 nights for a whopping 25€ a night wich was a total steal even for current Japanese standard prices ). There I immediately jumped on another train and went to visit Inuyama.
The area around Nagoya is a bit tricky cause it’s full of railroads operated by a company that is not JR wich are not covered by the JR Pass but there’s a JR station a bit to the north of Inuyama that will do the job. The place is totally recommended for three reason: it’s overall nice, with the Kiso river cutting it, the castle is one of the few original ones and even if small is considered a national treasure and the whole area around the castle is very nice and worthy to spend some time on. So I visited the castle, the view from the top floor is awesome and in a clear day you can easily spot the skyline of Nagoya. Outside the castle there’s an edo style street full of shops, restaurants and street food that is nice to explore, totally recommended a walk there.
INUYAMA: OTBP: 8 ½ OVERALL: 10
Coming back to Nagoya I just had energy to look for food then I went back to my hotel for a good night of sleep.
DAY 9: a day trip from Nagoya to Ise. The trip isn’t that easy, you got to take a couple of trains if you move only by JR ( and a couple of stops of one of them aren’t even JR operated wich is a little confusing honestly ) and you end up in Iseshi station. From there I moved to Ise Jingu Geku, wich is the outer sanctuary and from there you can take a bus ( guess what, I walked instead ) to the main Ise sanctuary. If you don’t know Ise Jingu is the most sacred place in the Shinto religion and is regularly visited even by the emperor given his role in the Shinto religion. Inside the main temple one of the most sacred relics of Shinto religion is preserved.
Well, being totally honest here’s my impressions of Ise: it’s not simple to reach. The city itself, for what I’ve seen, looks like it has seen better days, meaning it looks like it’s falling apart. And the temples, there’s really not that much to see: they are in a forest, and the temples are not that spectacular, plus the most interesting parts are forbidden to visit. You can go to Atsuta Jingu without moving out from Nagoya and have a fairly realistic impression of what you would see in Ise without all the issues. I know people will attack me for what I’m saying, but that is what I’ve got from it. The most fun part was the edo style neighborhood that you can find right before entering the main Isu complex, wich looks almost like a theme park. I don’t say don’t go there, I say if you are, as you are probably, on borrowed time, with lots of places you want to visit and too few days to see them all, if Ise is in your list you might want to use the day to see something else.
ISE: OTBP: 6 ½ OVERALL: 6 ½
DAY 10: I decided to spend the day in Nagoya and take a look of the city, thanks also to the weather that was a bit rainy and really not inviting for another day trip. What I’ve seen in a day is the samurai exposition in Marunouchi. It’s free and it’s totally worth it, lots of beautiful samurai armours and swords. There’s another exposition that opened not many years ago that you can go nto too far but I didn’t visit so I can’t tell about that. From here I went to Nagoya castle. You pay to enter the complex but currently the Castle is under restoration and you can see it from outside ( it’s very impressive, Nagoya and Osaka castles are massive ) but not visit from inside. But the Honmaru Palace right beside it is open and totally worth a visit. From here took the subway ( yeah today I didn’t walk much so I got a subway day pass ) to the Osu Shotengai Shopping District, wich is the usual kind of covered shopping streets nest you can find in all the Japanese cities, and then moved again to Atsuta Jingu Shrine that, as I said, to me is a completely valid alternative to visiting Ise. The day went by without even noticing and I couldn’t see all the other places I had picked, like the Toyota museum, the tokugawa museum or the science museum, but that’s what you get when you only have one day dedicated to visit a city as big as Nagoya. Still I had time to get an impression of the city and I honestly don’t get the bad reputation it has among foreigners, the city looked to me quite interesting, nice, full of things to see and the people felt particularly laid back compared to cities like Tokyo or Osaka, it’s probably the place where I’ve seen the biggest number of tanned Japanese in all the country. To me Nagoya is totally worth at least two or three days dedicated only to visiting the city.
NAGOYA: OTBP: 5 OVERALL: 9
DAY 11: my original plan was to walk the Nakasendo from Magome to Tsumago. But the weather that day was kinda shit, I wasn’t feeling particularly In the mood of a walk because of my throath and I was starting to feel a bit tired, so I improvised and went for a day in Takayama and Gero Onsen. Takayama is pretty famous. I went there around 20 years ago and I remembered it as a very nice place. Getting back now, with all the Japanese places I’ve seen so far, I would say this: the train trip to Takayama is Spectacular, is a truly feast for the eyes. The town itself, it left me a little disappointed. The Edo style streets that its famous for, I’ve seen so many of them at that point around japan that it didn’t really leave a significant impression on me. And it was honestly smaller than I remembered it. Plus the weather, as I said, didn’t help. So overall the reality didn’t stand up to my memories and my expectations. Plus most of the houses there have now been turned in cheap souvenir shops with nothing giving you an authentic feeling. Don’t know, probably I wasn’t really in the mood that day.
TAKAYAMA: OTBP: 2 OVERALL: 6 ½
I took the opportunity on the way back to stop at Gero Onsen. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to actually stop for an onsen cause overall the whole day wasn’t planned and I mainly improvised. Still the town is very nice and probably, having no expectations or no knowledge of it, even more worth visiting than Takayama. Had a nice walk around the town, and at least had the opportunity to “feel” the thermal water cause there’s plenty of fountains with hot spring water where you can rest your feet or your hands. It was enough to make me aware that a proper onsen there must be a very enjoyable experience.
GERO ONSENS: OTBP: 8 OVERALL: 8
And after this I went to Nagoya where I spent my last night in the city.

DAY 12: moving to Fukuoka ( Hakata ). I booked a hotel near Hakata station so I jumped on the shinkansen and moved there. The ride was as confortable as any shinkansen ride can be and I reached the place sooner than I imagined. First thing was a good look of the city from the panoramic floor in the station. Then had a walk to the Canal City mall wich is a very weirdly and interesting designed mall that is a very popular location in town. Had a walk from there to Nakasu island where I got a quick dinner considering it was already time, and had another walk around the area wich unfortunately will turn out to be my only experience of Fukuoka. I’ll spend here three nights but the following days will be so full that won’t give me any chance to visit the town more, so in the end I don’t really have an opinion on Fukuoka if not that I should probably have spent more time there, but unfortunately the days you have are numbered and there’s so much to see that you have to give up something here and there, so i won't even give a vote to the city.
DAY 13: Destination is Kagoshima that it’s easily reachable by train. I went there with no real expectation and I was totally blown away. Something clicked and I instantly liked the town, I must say that probably the fact that one of the most beautiful girls I’ve seen in japan out of the blue started a conversation with me on the train probably helped a lot in putting me in a good mood.
From the station I walked downtown till the coast. On the way I stopped shopping a bit, found a local market where local artisans that day were exposing their crafts wich I liked a lot and went to the top floor of the Centerrace Mall to get a panoramic view of the city with an amazing view on Sakurajima volcano. If you don’t know it’s the symbol of the city and it’s said to be almost always active, the whole day I’ve been there he kept puffing little clouds of smoke from time to time, it was very cool. So, once reached the cost I walked ( you should know it by now ) till I reached Sengan-En wich is the garden and the palace of a local lord and it’s very beautiful, totally worth a visit, also compared to many other places in japan, this is more modern and therefore more unique both in the architecture of the palace and the style of the garden. I’d say if you are in Kagoshima you won’t regret visiting it ( maybe don’t do like me and take a bus cause it’s more than 6 km from the station ). After visiting Sengan En I went back to the ferries and took a ferry to Sakurajima. The ferry is very cheap, 200 yen, and quick to reach it’s destination, but on Sakurajima there’s really not much to do if you don’t plan to use a bus or some other kind of transportation. Since it was already evening, I had nothing planned and I had to go back to Hakata, I just took the time to have a walk on the Lava Trail wich is a walk in a natural park that has grown over an old lava flow, wich is a quite unique thing that I enjoyed more than I expected. Then I went back to Kagoshima, had dinner and moved back to Hakata. I have to say I really enjoyed Kagoshima, the city has a unique vibe, very laid back, the people seemed to be relaxed and happy and were much more open toward foreigners than anywhere I’ve experienced. If I’ll ever be back in japan I’ll surely manage to spend some more time in Kagoshima. I took the train and I was back in hakata at around midnight so I went straight to bed in hotel
KAGOSHIMA: OTBP: 10 OVERALL: 10
Day 14: Nagasaki. Another fairly easy destination to reach from Fukuoka. The city itself is very narrow and develops around its river. As a tourist I was immediately attracted to its atomic bomb museum, wich is north from the station. I went there, you don’t say, by foot.
And later, once I’ve done with the atomic bomb part, the Nagasaki near the sea.
And here starts the tale of the two Nagasaki, because it feels like two different places in one. The north part, wich I didn’t enjoy much, felt a bit neglected and it’s mostly houses where people live. And it’s the part where you’ll see more tourists because as I said all the atomic spots are there.
On the other hand the south part near the city was to me much more alive and full of life, I’m no expert but that’s probably where the locals like to spend their free time and on the other hand you’ll see way less tourists here.
Back to the morning, I did what most tourists do, and visited the atomic bomb museum, the peace park, the ipocenter, and went also to see the half standing torii that is one of the few authentic places left as testament of the bombing, around the city. Talking about the museum, I’ve been to both thins and Hiroshima and, even if Hiroshima is bigger and with much more to see, I would suggest if one has the opportunity to visit also the Nagasaki one, it absolutely has its own legs to stand on. On a side note, out of 10 visitors, 9 were foreigners, I guess Japanese already know their history and don’t feel the need to visit such a place on a nice Sunday morning.
The peace park it’s a park, there you can see the famous statue wich is one of the main symbols of Nagasaki and that, if you ask me, is one of the ugliest statues you can find in the world, but still if you’re in Nagasaki you probably don’t want to miss it.
After lunch I moved to the sea side, here I’ve seen DeiJima wich is the former artificial island where the Portuguese were segregated centuries ago, very interesting place, kinda like a mix of an open air museum and a theme park, felt a little bit plastic but still worth some of your time.
Then had a walk to the near seaside park wich is a very nice and relaxing place where flocks of eagles fly so low over your head that if you rise your hand you can almost touch them, and pretty much ended the day there before having to go back to Fukuoka.
NAGASAKI: OTBP: 5 OVERALL: 7 ½

Day 15 – 16 - 17: my last full days in japan. I was in need of some rest at this point and I needed to move closer to Narita where I had booked my flight for day 18, so i spent more than half of day 15 to transfer from Hakata to Tokyo. I booked my last hotel for three nights near Otsuka station, wich if you ask me is a nice spot to stay in Tokyo. When I arrived in the evening there was a rose festival and all around the station there were roses bushes in flower and there were people singing and the whole station looked alive but also quiet, if you like a place to stay In Tokyo that it’s not chaotic like Shinjuku or Shibuya I’d recommend Otsuka.
The last days aren’t really worth mentioning, I’ve spent most of the time shopping for souvenirs, and recovering for all the travel i did the two weeks before. I explored a couple of places worth mentioning that not everyone ever goes to in Tokyo, like Nakano Broadway ( a weird shopping district that feels like a little Akiabara ), Nippori where there’s a little known street nice for shopping, or Chiba where there’s one of the biggest mall in japan but apart from that nothing much that you can read in the report of anyone who have been to Tokyo.
And with this, I think I can conclude my report. If you want me to upload some picture and you have a site to suggest me where it’s easy to upload and you don’t have to make an account let me know and if there’s enough interest I will oblige as soon as I’ve finished downloading all the pictures from my phone.
submitted by 0fiuco to JapanTravel [link] [comments]

2024.05.20 23:55 MPZ1968 I Made A Deal With An Old Man In A Food Court Bathroom (Part 23)

“Hi, Guys”, Edgar said, in that same nasal tone, waving at us palm open once again.
The tape holding his cheap sunglasses together was orange.
Did you catch that reference. If so, good for you.
Anyway, I assume he wore sunglasses not only trying to make himself look cool, but also to hide the fact that his eyes blinked sideways, remember?
He wore a blue pilot’s uniform, complete with the hat,
“Dude! Are you fucking kidding me?”, Derek said.
“I don’t think so, Dude!”, Corey responded.
“I’m not too sure about this, Bob!”, I said.
“Don’t worry, Boys! He’s been playing a flight simulator game on what he calls his TRS-80 computer, for quite some time now. He’ll be fine.”, Bob replied.
“A Flight Simulator Game?”, we all said shockingly in unison, including Tony.
“Doesn’t he need a Pilot’s license or something?” I asked.
“Boys, Boys, I assure you, that if any complications arise, I will handle the situation! I AM the devil! I can do that! Besides, finding a licensed pilot, and negotiating a deal, would take far too much time! Time… we do not have! So, Edgar is our only option.” Bob said.
We all half heartedly waved back, nervously smiling, “Hi, Edgar!”, we all said in unison once again. Tony just said “Hi!”
Derek, Corey, Ricky, Stephen and I were all taken back by the fact that the “person” that tried to kill us, was apparently the pilot of our new plane, with absolutely no formal training, just a video game, and not even a good one, compared to todays standards.
I knew my bandmates were already dead, but I was pretty sure they didn’t want to die again, now or any other time before, even if they’d all come back to life.
“Come on up, Guys! We’ll be taking off soon!”, Edgar said.
“Boys, up we go!”, Bob said, moving his arm in a presenting fashion toward the stairs.
“Once we enter, put the stairs in their proper place and take the bus back to the house!” Bob said to the old man.
“Yes, Boss!”, he said.
“Wait! My accordion!”, Tony said, as he stepped back onto the bus to get it.
“That was close! I almost forgot it again!, he said.
“Cool, Man! That way you can jam with us!”, I commented
“I’d like that”, Tony said smiling.
Nervously, we all then began the ascend into the plane.
Bob went first, then Derek, then Corey, then Ricky, then Stephen, then me, and last was Tony.
“Who’s Edgar?”, I heard Tony ask from behind me.
If you remember, Tony had never met Edgar before.
“Long story short, Dude!”, I answered, slightly turning around but still walking up the stairs, “He recorded our album, played keyboards on it, put backmasking bullshit on the tapes, turned into a demon, and tried to kill us!”
“Dang!”, is all Tony said.
We reached the top of the stairs.
Bob shook Edgar’s hand, stepping inside.
Edgar then raised his hand to high five each one of us.
We all high fived him, nervously smiling, as we stepped onto the plane as well.
“Hi, Pilot Guy!”, we heard Tony say, stepping onto the plane. “I’m Tony! I’m their bodyguard!”
“Wonderful!”, Edgar replied.
“Have a look around, Guys! I’ll let you know when we’re taking off. I have to contact the tower to get clearance or something, I think. This is my first time ever flying a real plane. I’m kinda nervous.”, he said.
That did not help the situation AT ALL!
“Boys, right this way!”, Bob said, pushing a curtain open that lead into the fuselage, or the main body section of the plane.
“You see Boys! I have taken the liberty of dividing the fuselage into three separate sections. First is what I like to call… your “Hangout” section.
The room was filled with luxurious high-end furniture, tables and chairs.
A huge 85 inch flat screen television hung to your left, on the same wall the curtain was on when you first walked in, with both Atari, and Nintendo NES game systems hooked up to it, with a huge stack of games, for each console, next to them, and a Gothic Victorian style chair sat to the right of the curtain.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Flat screens didn’t come out until 1997! So how did you have one back then!”, and my answer to that would be… I don’t know. But, Bob is the devil, so…
Anyway, There was a fully stocked coffee bar, and a fully stocked beer on tap station, with six of the best beers the 80’s had to offer, as well as a stack of red Solo cups on the left side, and a make your own SUBWAY sub and sandwich station, all on the left side wall, six pinball machines sat vertically along the wall in front of you when you first walked in, with one wooden door in the middle of them.
Large couches sat on the wall to your right. In between them were two vending machines, one was a cigarette vending machine, but the other was something I had never seen before.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the machine on the right.
“Oh! That is a marijuana vending machine, same design as the cigarette machine, only with joints already rolled, in packs of 20. I created it myself!”, Bob answered.
There were ashtrays on the tables, with lighters on the tables next to each one.
“Everything on this plane is free, Boys! If you run out of something, wait 5 seconds, human time, and what ever you ran out of will automatically fill back up.”, he told us, “Here you can drink, smoke, party, play games, and have a grand ole time.
“Free weed, Dude! We won’t need Randy anymore!”, Derek said to Corey.
“Yeah! No more Randy!”, Corey replied, laughing.
“Beyond that door there, is the second section, what I like to call… your sleeping/entertainment section.”, Bob said, “Here, let me show you, Boys!”
Tony laid his accordion on the couch on the right.
We all then walked over to the door, and Bob opened it.
Inside was a long hallway that stretched the entire length of the room, with another wooden door at the end.
There were 3 wooden doors on each side, a small nameplate was positioned at eye level, on the right side of each door, with the name of each one of us, on each plate, so six small rooms occupied this space
“Here you can sleep, in your own room, Boys! or “entertain” the ladies!”
“We don’t need to sleep!”, Derek said.
“Well, four of you don’t, one of you doesn’t have to sleep if he doesn’t want to, only one of you has to sleep, and if he doesn’t want to, I’m sure Mr. Hard-Sell here could help him out with that. It’s mostly for entertainment purposes.”, Bob said.
“Huh?”, Tony said.
“Girls!”, Corey responded, moving his hands in a curving fashion, up and down, “You know… Girls!” He emphasized the word girls when he said it the last time.
“Oh! I like girls! They’re pretty!”, Tony said.
“Anyway, each room is equipped with a bunk style bed. After all, that is all you will need.”
“What’s behind that door?”, Stephen asked, pointing to the door at the end of the hallway.
We all then began walking down the hallway to the door.
Bob then opened it.
Just like in the room that should have been the bathroom in the house, this room had what?
That’s right!… Our Gear!
Well, not OUR gear, but new gear.
A brand new Yamaha Drum kit, as well as a brand new set of Warmie Promark LA Special drum sticks, just like Bobby Blotzer from RATT used, sat in front of 5 Marshall stacks which sat against the far wall.
The drums were designed with flames, with the band name printed on the bass drum, written in flames as well.
They were obviously for Stephen.
That wall had no door this time, but there was a little room, maybe 3x3, that sat on the left side of the stacks and the drum kit. Bob said that was the bathroom, or lavatory, as he put it.
Anyway, There were 3 ESP guitars, with straps, on stands, just like George Lynch from Dokken played, to the right of the drums. Bob said those were mine. One had flames, one had a coffee cup design, and the other was leopard print.
There were 3 Les Paul Standards, also with straps, on stands, just like Kirk Hammett played, next to mine on the right, those were Ricky’s. One had a broken glass design, one was white with some kind of Japanese insignia, and one had the label of a Budweiser bottle on it.
There were 3 Ibanez Thunderbird Basses, again with straps, on stands, just like Nikki Sixx from… if you don’t know what band Nikki Sixx plays with, you’re probably too young to appreciate this story.
Anyway, they were to the left of the drums, the basses had no designs, they were black, red, and dark blue. Those were obviously Derek’s.
There were 4 Shure Cardioid Condensed Microphones, just like Lenny Kilister from Motörhead used, sitting in front of the drums. One of those were Corey’s and the rest were for Derek, Ricky, and I to use for backing vocals.
A brand new MRX Analog Chorus pedal, just like Eddie Ojeda from Twisted Sister used, sat in front of each set of guitars.
All the plug-ins were neatly piled in front of each instrument.
There was no keyboard, like Edgar played on the album, which was odd to me.
”You see, Boys! As your manager, i have been offered very lucrative endorsement contracts from each of these fine companies, on your behalf of course. When we get back from the tour, I will present the contracts to you for your signing.
All the companies have agreed to let you try out their products first, before making any decisions!”
Derek yelled out, “EVERYBODY!”,
The rest of us screamed, “ROCK AND ROLL!”, and began celebrating, and high-fiving each other, including Tony.
“Also, I contacted a sandwich company called, SUBWAY, and offered you, Tony, as being their official spokesperson. They said that your size would not be a very good image for their company, but after agreeing to supply the CEO with a lifetime supply of Kit Kat candy bars, She agreed.
Your contract is very lucrative as well.
Now, Boys! We’ll be taking off soon. Let’s head back to the front, shall we?”, Bob said.
We all began walking back, Bob closing each door behind us.
We arrived back at the “Hangout” section, and began indulging in all the incentives.
Do I really have to tell you who went where, you get the idea, Right?
Anyway, after getting our incentives and taking a seat at the table, we all began talking, as Bob stood in front of the TV.
In midst of conversation, we heard, “Daddy, Where are you!”, a soft woman’s voice said from behind the curtain.
We all stopped talking and looked in that direction.
The curtain slowly began to open, revealing a long red haired woman standing there seductively.
She had bright green eyes, pouty lips, and was very well endowed.
She wore a skin tight, low cut stewardesses top, with a low cut skirt, and what appeared to be 6 inch stiletto heels on her feet.
Her left leg was positioned in front of her right leg, with her knee bent, with only the toes of her heels touching the floor.
She was holding the curtain open with both hands, and leaning in toward the room, with her head tilted to the side.
She looked like a Rock Goddess.
“Ah! There you are!”, Bob said to her, “Right on time!”
“Boys! I’d like you to meet Rebecca. She will be your stewardess for todays flight, and every flight there after.
If you need anything, outside of these incentives, food and beverage wise, Rebecca will go to the kitchen area, which is right behind that curtain, and prepare it for you.
A steak, a hamburger, a glass of soda, or a cup of tea.
The kitchen area, as well as the Cockpit, which lies just beyond the kitchen, are both off limits to all of you.
“I don’t drink tea! I’m still mad at the British!”, Tony said.
I snickered.
The rest of the guys, including Bob, just looked at him funny.
If you don’t get it, you probably never will.
Anyway, Bob then continued, “Rebecca will also be your nurse, she has a totally different outfit for that, just in case any, accidents may occur.
Say Hi, Rebecca”, Bob said.
“Hi, Boys!”, she said seductively.
Bob then looked at her hard faced, then turned back to us.
“Like I said, Boys! Everything on this plane is free, except for her, not even for a price. Do you understand?”
Before we could answered, we all heard Rebecca say seductively, “Aw, Daddy! But they’re so cute!”
“ENOUGH!”, Bob bellowed at her, “Go tell Edgar we’re ready!”
“Yes, Daddy!”, she said saddened, and slowly turned to go back through the curtain.
“Dude! That’s the Devils Daughter! We’ve heard songs about her.”, Derek said, laughing.
Bob looked at Derek more intensely then he looked at Rebecca.
“I’m just kidding, Man! We ain’t heard shit. Right, Core?”, Derek said nervously.
“Yeah, Man! Nothing!”, Corey said, shaking his head.
Everyone else had their eyes fixated on Bob.
I, however, couldn’t take my eyes off of Rebecca.
Not because she was incredibly gorgeous, even though she really wasn’t my type.
No!
It was because something didn’t seem right to me. Something that told me, she was different than your average sexy, voluptuous, naughty stewardess.
And my assessment was correct.
When she fully turned around, to go back behind the curtain, I saw what the difference was.
She had a tail.
It was waving excitedly behind her.
submitted by MPZ1968 to TheMindOfMikey [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 22:40 Acceptable_Tie_3927 Are we being scammed big time?

Maybe I'm not normal (well, I watch GBC eps 3 times: MTL, fan sub 1, fan sub 2, like Tomo watches Granma's Investigations thrice...) but someting has been buggging me for the last two eps. (*)
Are we being scammed big time? I mean GBC is about an indie band of angry rocker girls, who are fighting to be able to shove their pinky in the face of "the establishment". Meanwhile GBC anime is made by Studio Toei, a big name with Universal's music label backing it and preparations have been going on for over 3 years (e.g. auditions for real-life Togenäshi Togeäri band members). Plus a dozen commissioned songs were recorded for the project and it's advertised all over Tokyo subway lines and Shibuya giant LCD walls 1984 style.
That sounds like Establishment is pouring lots of money into an anarchist project. I see few possible explanations for such illogial phenomena:
  1. Everything according to plan. We are living in orwellian virtual reality, believing an establishment-funded franchise with a strong anti-establishment theme to be real. That would explain deliberate lack of anglo-sphere stream licensing, since japanese audiences are less likely to make a fuss about such contradiction vs the individualist, non-conformal west.
  2. GBC anime is the new Kemono Friends, where director was given a heavily manufactured but possibly already failing Intellectual Property package - which he and colleagues turned into a CGI goldmine despite all odds, by pouring their creative minds, soul and sweat into it.
(Should that be the case, we'll be able to say hours after last ep of s1 airs, from a tweet announcing summary firing of anime director for a severe indiscretion, like failing to greet production committe chairman's nephew upon graduation from kindergarten... As whole creative crew resigns in solidarity, tycoons will use the rookie seiyuu / band girls for PR shield against otaku backslash, resulting in an ever bigger scandal, which shelves GBC franchise for 4 years and then result in an s2 which real fans refuse to watch...)
  1. Do you have any other, hopefully less cynical theories?
(*) As to why the latest 2 eps made me question things, those gave slight hints that somebody in the creative process doesn't really care about project's integrity / suspension of disbelief. The ad hoc choice of band name from a T-shirt, possibly printed by an already copyrighted or trademarked entity, doesn't even sound realistic in-story. Not much thought was poured into that sub-plot? Animator also seemingly started to use hand-downs from Oshi no Ko mega-project (notice how Iseri Nina now wears "Baking Soda" style t-shirt and beret hat just like Arima Kana does.) The thought of Kadokawa behind GBC makes me shiver.
submitted by Acceptable_Tie_3927 to girlsbandcry [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 20:10 teiteiteinaba [TOMT] [MUSIC VIDEO] zombie heartbreak j-rock song??? ~2020

hi i don't really use reddit so i apologize if this post doesn't have detail or is formatted incorrectly. around 2020 i found this music video on youtube where a guy gets bitten by a zombie and is looking for his wife/girlfriend/fiancé. he's on a subway and is confronted by police which he bites and turns to zombies, and is spurred to fight on by a picture of his wife(?). i don't remember it perfectly since i have really bad memory but he eventually pins down his wife and the police catch up to him then i think he kills himself??? i don't know
i don't remember much about the lyrics since obviously i cannot speak japanese but the backgrounds were real life and the rest was animated. when i was watching it off the time it was exploding in views and has at least a couple million
submitted by teiteiteinaba to tipofmytongue [link] [comments]

2024.05.19 18:38 promisinghikikomori [PC] [Flash] point and click Japanese horror game with female mc

3rd Person perspective The text was all in Japanese or Chinese, I couldn't read. The art was neither anime nor too realistic, just sprites of 3D-looking characters. Setting: Subway or scifi, I don't know. Main character was all alone or the only one alive. If she walked over a certain area, she'd get whipped in the back by a tail or tentacle hanging from the ceiling. Gameplay: you could click to make the main character move around and collect things like access cards. She walked at a pretty calm pace. I think you could even grab a pistol with limited ammo at some point
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2024.05.18 21:41 MisterAmmosart Trip Report: 05/05 - 05/17. Mainly Tokyo. IIDX traveling in Kanto. Long post.

Freshly back and awake after a twelve day stint for my first time there. I knew that I wanted to go in general, and while I didn't have a firm itinerary planned out, there was one main goal that I had in terms of sites within the country. The main video game that I play is Beatmania IIDX, and it has internal trophies which are represented as badges. Your profile allows you to assign up to five of them as visible when you start a new round, and there are badges to earn for playing at least one round in every prefecture in Japan, as well as every subregion. Getting the Kanto badge meant that I needed to play at least one round in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, and Chiba. After five days, I had that complete, and now I have a permanent record of this trip within the game itself. There was also a time-limited event to earn points in IIDX in order to exchange them for goods, such as a hat, or a towel, or a new account card and a poster, and I managed to get that taken care of in somewhat dramatic fashion. I did some other things too.
Primary general points
· Getting Suica set on the phone and using it was generally painless. There were only two times where I needed to summon the help of a resident JR employee to clear up an issue with the gate not reading the card for some reason.
· Most vocal interaction which I had was the opposite of painless, because I continuously kept trying to speak Japanese and failing, and most people would realize that I was completely failing at it and responded with English (some with full on sentences, others with just a few words). There were a few rare times that I was able to express my intent in Japanese, receive a response, understand the response, and reply as necessary, but that was rare. Once English was invoked, I would stay with it, because that's what they were expecting. I've been self-studying the language for more than twenty years in varying degrees of intensity, and while my reading comprehesion seemed sufficient enough for this trip, and while I didn't expect my speaking to be as good because I don't have any opportunity to practice speaking, I came away bitterly disappointed in my vocal and speaking comprehension in terms of my interaction with people there. Even within the trip I could at least overhear common chitchat better, but any time I needed to converse with someone for some reason, I usually needed to have things repeated several times and broken down before I finally realized what was being said.
· You are going to be asked about separately buying a bag with every non-food purchase. Accept or immediately present one that you are carrying to indicate how your purchase shall be bagged.
· I never once had my passport requested for presentation.
· Only once did a person volutnarily reach out to address me, and it was just to ask me where I was from in English. Otherwise, everyone left me alone the entire time.
· Weather through the period was ideal. Mid to upper 70F/25C range and only a few days where it was rainy, and even then it wasn't a downpour. A while ago I personally resolved to only wear suits in public and I purchased a new pair of Mephisto shoes after hearing reports of the extensive walking causing problems for traveller's feet and shoes. My attire help up well; there were only a few times that I needed to avoid sunlight to not get too hot, and I have no issues to report from the shoes.
· I only got X'd out of a restaurant one time, and I think it's only because I wandered into it before it was ready for service. Otherwise, I never once waited in line for food, I never once went to restaurant more than once, and all food was acceptably priced for the portion and excellent for the quality.
For these per-day recounts, I wrote them contemporaneously at the end of each day, so you'll need to forgive me for some writing being in present tense and other writing being in past tense.
Day 1 - Travel, Sugamo, Ikebukuro
Non stop flight from Chicago OHare to Haneda. 12 hours. Good thing I usually don't watch movies, because that just means that all I needed to do was binge a few to make the trip go by.
Pre-trip research led me to choose APA Sugamo as my home base for the visit, and I think that it was a very fortuitious choice. I'll have more to say about it later.
Some awkward encounters happened right away upon checking in here. I was at the nearby Family Mart to buy some things and I didn’t catch that he was making sure I wanted a bag until he repeated it five times. Yes, I’ll take it. Before getting there I was coming down to ground level after checking into my room, and when that person saw that I would have been the only other person going down to the ground, they ducked right back out. I was warned on both of these kinds of things happening, so I guess it’s good to have that immediately out of the way. It would turn out that people deliberately avoiding me was rare throughout the trip.
Despite not sleeping on the trip, I had freshly arrived and had no sense of being tired, so once I had my stuff down, I went off to Ikebukuro right away. No picture or video truly conveys how crowded these areas can get. It can only be experienced in person to be understood.
I soon found Round One Ikebukruo and went right in. So dense and loud. It’s entirely alien to me to see no less than ten IIDX machines in operation and all of them in use. I dumped the money into random tickets, as I foresaw doing, but now I have to wonder if that was the right thing to do, or if it’s tied to that location. I guess I’ll find out.
The forecast is for rain so I need to be in a hurry to figure out where I’m going to go. There might be only one day left for me to get my time limited toys.
Day 2 - Kawasaki, Kanagawa - Utsunomiya, Tochigi - Oomiya, Saitama
My body decided that it only needed four hours of sleep this morning. Without doing more research, I somehow decided to assume that more of the Round One locations were close to 24 hours of operation much like Ikebukuro. Answer: no. I hopped on the train early and went to Shibuya first, but it was very quiet, so I decided to get some of the travels out of the way today and headed south to Kawasaki. I still needed to dawdle for a while until Silk Hat opened at 900AM, and when I finally was able to get inside, I was only able to verify that their store had several allotments of the campaign goods and all allotments were out. Played one round on a monitor that was surprisingly blurry, and I don’t know why that would be the case with a lightning model, but it was, so that was enough.
After doing all of that, I resolved to try to go to Chiba and Ibaraki afterwards. I figured that with Kanagawa and Tokyo likely all out, going to the outskirts would make more sense. However, there was an injury on one of the rails that threw everything off normal, and the train I found myself riding was bound for Utsunomiya instead. Seeing as how I was going to go there eventually, I rolled with it.
It doesn’t take too long to move away from Tokyo metropolitan area before you encounter more forest like areas and rice paddy fields. Halfway through the trip I noticed that two older women suddenly hopped off while the train was waiting to go to the next stop, and I followed them when I realized they found the express line. Utsunomiya has a substantial size to its area and buildings but it was very quiet on the streets there in midday. Walked a mile to Sega GIGO, found that they didn’t even have the goods tracker up. All out. Interesting buliding for it having several neon signs, all vintage and authentic at that. Getting to there from the south meant cutting through Saitama, so I knew I had enough time to make one last attempt there. Research shown two stores being near Oomiya station, so that’s where I ended up. Taito Station was immediately visible upon exit, and they have two IIDX machines specifically with 20 gram springs, which is closer to my home setup and that much lighter than standard 50 gram springs. The final hour drew near and I made one last visit to that city’s Round One. Unlike nearly every other place I went to so far, it only had one IIDX machine. However, and maybe because of that, their goods listing didn’t show everything as out. One painful language exchange later, I was able to discern that what I wanted was available. When you spend more than 3000 yen in a single credit, the game wants to verify if you really want to proceed. It does it again at 6000 and 9000. Yes, I really do. But, having made that money dump I was able to get my hands on the e-amuse card and poster with fifteen minutes left before the deadline. Mission complete. By this point in the day it was exceedingly difficult to even look at the screen so I was ready to come home, but not before getting some goods at the Oomiya Book Off and redeeming what I could for points at Round One Ikebukuro. By the end of the day the only thing that I could tolerate doing was to buy some chicken and nigiri from the nearby train station. Good enough. At that point in the day my body felt like it wants to rock back and forth after all the train riding done today. But, it ended up being worthwhile after all.
One nostalgic feeling I had the most strongly in the day was at the Utsunomiya location where the smell of it triggered past buried memories of yesteryear. I think I want to attribute it to the stronger second hand cigarette smell but I’m not sure - all the same I felt its presence strongly there. Also, I don’t see Oomiya (or really Saitama itself) mentioned as a fun place to go, but it might serve as an acceptable alternative to Ikebukuro, only not as massive in scale of human quantity. Depending on how the trip goes in total I may end up back there for IIDX playing, at least if I don’t find any other place that has 20G springs.
Day 3 - Akihabara
With the travels out of the way, it was time to keep things more regionalized and stick to one area, and there is shopping that needs to be done, so it was off to Akihabara and to see how much of other posted tales hold true. The answer is that it is a lot of it. Kotobukiya can stand to open sooner than noon. Super Potato is indeed priced for a market which wants to snap up anything cheap - I at least found Xi for under 500 and felt that it would have been a bit silly to buy only that, but it didn’t make spending 2000 on one single issue of Arcadia any better. I had no idea that Hey Arcade was right next to both of them; while it was assuredly nice to be there and see the row of Cave shooters among everything else, something got messed up with my registration of my new eamuse card with everything else, so that quickly added to my stress. Having to carry around a few hundred dollars worth of crap with every step didn’t help matters. At least I was able to help a person recover their lost phone by applying a bit of logic to the situation and deducing it to belong to the only person there who looked French, as it was on the Lock Screen. They were relieved, yes. Then, rain came, and it was more than I was anticipating, and I left the umbrella at the room, particularly since I knew I’d be shopping this day. It also turns out to have not mattered much, because I went to visit Bic Camera so that I could get myself a hair trimmer while here, and that turned into me finding a bunch of Kit Kats available, so that meant a second bag. The wind kicked out the rain and my umbrella. In trying to get as many gifts secured as possible, I found some gachapon, but it needed 100Y coins, and I didn’t need paper money in the trip yet. After fighting with maps, I found an ATM to get cash, and got the gachapon. I came home late with feeling rather crushed about the day in that I couldn’t take pictures very well with having to juggle weather and bagging considerations. There were some nice parts of the experience to be sure but between that and more gawking at Super Potato pricing ($135 for PS3 Caladrius? $6000 for Pulstar?) and seeing similar markups on other goods, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that there is a reputation that this area carries and the pricing is there to go with it.
Day 4 - Laundry Day. Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku
I was so drained at the end of Day 3 that I fell asleep on the bed immediately after ending the night call, which meant that I woke up at 0200AM to a room that was fully lit. This meant that I needed to look up how to resolve my eamuse problem or else I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I did both. Awake at 0800AM meant that I had time to do laundry while I figured out what to do with the rest of the day. This meant that I was able to get more of Sugamo in pictures, and it was nice to be able to walk among the actual residences, and do other things like come across a school as it was actually in session. With them being close by and all in succession, I figured to get Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku visited. It turns out to have been a good day for it, as the temperature was perfectly cool and no rain came, and the sun came out only for a little bit. Shibuya somehow doesn’t seem quite as large in scope in person but the crowds were definitely there, and it is much more hilly than I anticipated as well. After wandering around and not seeing any arcade for a bit, I came across a series of coffee and cookie shops and remained strong to not indulge. It was there while looking at a Disney store (which gets tourists to take pictures of it for some reason) that the song Alone Again came on through the nearby public speakers. What timing. It drove me to finally get a treat for myself, and the frozen latte (black sesame and houji) and croissant (dark chocolate filing) were certainly good, it ended up costing more than the dinner I’d have later this day. I found a seclusion with a garbage can to eat the food and not carry the trash around, then an arcade soon after, and it was time to determine if I could fix the problem. Just like an easy click, it was. New to trash. Old to new. Done. Why did it have to be this way. Harajuku came next, and the environment there was distinct. This one in particular felt like it was an extended carnival atmosphere with the single tight knit market street and emphasis on fashion. A conversation with a freelance artist in the subway actually went well enough that I didn’t feel dumb. The same sensation carried to Shinjuku as well, only it was more spread out. Kabuki street was interesting to see in person, and I didn’t get any unseemly vibes from the place. Maybe it’s different later at night. A return home at a reasonable time allowed me to go down Sugamo’s market street a bit; most of it was closed, but it was interesting to come across the few remaining stores that were open by 0800PM, and more so the one that wasn’t. Coming back to the hotel I found a 24 hour ramen shop with nobody inside. The chef didn’t want to speak and only pointed to the ordering kiosk when I addressed her. The food came through a slot in the obscured window. At least her thank you as I left was a bit more warm, and the food was certainly delicious. To match with the matcha dessert that I bought from Sugamo station, I swung by a 7Eleven to get a drink, and found a milk tea for cheaper than a vending machine. The overhead music in the store was an instrumental version of Alone Again.
Day 5. Ibaraki - Mount Tsukuba, Miraidaira. Kashiwa, Chiba. Akihabara 2.
Awake at 0500AM on my own and knowing the current forecast meant that my envisioned plan for the day was quickly realized. Reaching the Tsukuba Express starting point from Akihabara needs you to get very far down into the ground before getting out into sunlight. I was on the ride early enough to see schoolchildren going about their commute, some of them being no older than ten and going about it unaccompanied. The people of Tsukuba seemed to be particularly helpful and cheerful that day, even despite my Suica issues at the gate. I didn’t ask his name at the counter but the man at the service desk was eager to speak with me about my career and what I was doing there. One asked where I was from on the way up to the summit and another caught my cable car ticket on the way down. There had to have been a few of them who saw my doing this climb in my business attire and thinking me to be a complete idiot if not outright mocking them for doing it that way while they employed the use of dual walking sticks and the like. I know I read some reports of the home stretch being difficult, but it did get pretty close to being an actual rock climb instead of a trail hike for that part of it. A quick stop to Miraidaira on the way back to get the Ibaraki play. The way the town center greets you upon leaving the rail gate struck me as incredible, as well as for how quiet it was. It was like walking onto a movie set. I did find the sweet shop after the play, and that was another painful interaction yet again. Oh well. Two quick stops down Tsukuba Express and one across from Tobu Urban Park line was enough to have a toe in Chiba, and I didn’t even need to leave the physical building of the train station to get to the basement level to find a machine for a play. Thank you, Kashiwa, you were great. Gunma is all that’s left. The descent from Tsukuba did take some earnest exertion, and after doing that the two stops, that put me back in Akihabara about when I anticipated; what I failed to anticipate is how much that place seems to drain on me. I think I just need to eat at an actual dinner time. Once I got back to Sugamo and had food it was a bit better, but while in Akihabara and being around that environment, and not finding things on a shopping list, I found myself just standing still and watching life pass me by. I hemmed and hawed a while for a maid girl’s hour of service for chitchat, but eventually I talked myself out of it because I just didn’t want potential trouble, just like her name. Komaru. I thought about doing this once just to say that I did, but I ultimately decided against it. You cannot go to this place with the expectation that you will find anything unless it is advertised and new. If you are looking for anything used, don’t count on it being there. You also cannot go there without having a strong resolve to not engage with the touts, because it becomes disheartening to see them do their job and blankly stare at the world when they're forced to stand out there and do nothing. Back to Sugamo to find a place that advertised Wagyu but the price they wanted was more than I wanted to spend. The ramen and seaweed & rice servings were fine, but they advertised endless drink and I didn’t receive that. All for $20? No, son. I did better than that elsewhere, I’ll know better now. Long day.
Day 6 - Tokyo Flea Market, Nakano Broadway, Ueno.
The weather couldn’t have been better for this weekend. I’ve read reports that the flea market held near the horse race track will be arbitrarily cancelled regardless of what is reported on the website, but my gut instinct told me that it would occur today, and it did. Turns out that a flea market is a flea market which is a flea market, no matter where it happens. Same allotment of clothes and stuff that few people really want to buy, although I was able to find myself some neckties at least. I probably overpaid based on what I saw later in the route, but that’s fine. They look nice. I settled on some shot glasses for a gift as well, but I’m surprised that I can’t ind something ornate that isn’t part of a sake set. Seated in the shade with a chocolate churro while rap music played in the background - it’s like I never left home. A woman came to sit across from me for the sake of sitting down; she was from Holland and today’s her last day in the country. Her husband came with food eventually. She had three weeks here and went to several places (allegedly, she didn’t list them out) and I asked her about Nakano Broadway. She didn’t make it there. It’s a good thing that I did - this is probably the kind of environment and market that people expect of Akihabara now, and maybe that’s how Aki was years ago, but it’s different from this. What’s more interesting is that Mandarake has a larger presence here than in Akihabara (so it seems to me), and their stores had floor after floor of any and every kind of pop culture product that’s been made in the past sixty years at least. Buttress that with extensive watch and jewelry stores and a slender arcade in the basement, and it’s a very well centralized microcosm of the country’s economy on the whole. I actually made a point to have dinner earlier than usual this time and found a place to serve some deep fried pork cuts served with rice and soup on the side. It was enough, and very well made. The day had not ended and my bag was heavy with several books purchased there, so I reported back to base briefly and decided to try visiting somewhere else, and settled on Ueno. Just as I arrived, a festival was underway where local teams of people made an elaborate show of carrying a home made shrine to a temple. Streets were officially blocked by police to allow the procession. In following the line I came up against makeshift food and amusement stands with the traditional toy gun shooting and goldfish catching. It appears that this is an official “start of summer” festival and I was able to watch it all happen in front of me. That was the good part of the day.
Day 7 - Tachikawa / Kunitachi. Shinjuku 2.
One of the games that I've never played is Beatmania III The Final. I've played some BM3 7th Mix years ago, but not The Final. I found a location that has one - World Game Circus in Tachikawa. In looking around that area before the trip, I saw that there was a nearby shinkansen museum, and not much else, so I figured that going to both places would make that walk worthwhile. Turns out that it wasn’t a museum in the proper sense of a dedicated building. Rather, it was a bullet train engine car on the side of a building that was unrelated, and that was it. A cute interaction happened here - when I approached the car, I heard some children running around inside, so I approached cautiously without knowing if I was encroaching upon someone else's alloted time or something. Once the children saw me, they gave a hearty irrashaimase as I entered, and the boy stamped a paper and presented it to me. Perfect. Despite it not being a typical musem, the card did have some interesting content, and it's good to see some kind of commemoration for their achievements and progression in that industry regardless. They have a lot to be proud about there. Off to WGC. Maps wasn’t lying about the walk taking twenty minutes. It's a good thing that I looked it up on streetview beforehand, because I otherwise would have walked right past it without knowing it was there. Then there it was, and there I confronted a past that I couldn’t visit again. Sure, I got to play BM3 The Final at last, but my timing was off, my hands were off, there wasn’t much I could do. Along with that I can say that I’ve played on a Beatmania II cabinet, and that was better than 5th Style at least. But that was it, that was all I could stand to do. It was right there and I couldn’t bear to put up with it more than a few rounds at best. Dream big, because only disappointment follows if your smaller dreams ever are fulfilled. I don’t know why finding IKEA back in Shinjuku was so difficult, but it took a while. I bought a bag, and then I bought a bag because the other bag was at the end of the register, which makes sense. I did feed myself before getting back to the Taito station to play some songs, but it still wasn’t good enough. All thumbs. Ended the day with laundry since the timing worked. Speaking of making dreams big, it’s time to cross another one off the list tomorrow. I can’t wait.
Day 8 - Takasaki, Gunma. Oomiya, Saitama 2.
It’s a good thing that I only needed to get to Ikebukuro to transfer over to the next stop, because that’s where that particular run ended for some reason. I wonder what was up. Speaking of things getting messed up on trains, I managed to find my way on a train that needed a separate ticket, which I didn't have. The conductor found me right away and had me disembark at Uraja for me to wait for the proper transfer. The weather forecast said there’d be rain, and the travel forecast said it would take two hours to get there, and neither lied. I feel like I had more people staring at me in Gunma than other places. I will say that I found the Takasaki station area to be rather charming, with the stores that it had inside and the emphasis on the music culture there. It’s one thing to offer a piano to the public to play, but it’s another to have a public willing to use it. This location had both. Having what was essentially a Bic Camera built into the facility was a nice touch too. The Leisure Land arcade was sandwiched between other floors that had its own offering of gaming stuff, so that was an unexpected bit of a fun thing to look through. The area was clean and sparsely populated, and it wasn’t picked clean of all matter of things that would normally get snapped up, so that was interesting. Finally, I made it over to the machine. They had separate fans for each location. I got the songs and then the medals came, and that’s that. Kantou Seiou. I would have stayed a bit longer but I wanted to have the medals show up right away, and my internet wasn’t cooperating, so that’s all I could do. I think there was an Internet cafe that I could have used in the facility, but I didn’t want to deal with an awkward conversation. I did get some Lawson on the way out, as well as some trinkets from the local Gunma-chan store as well as some mini croissants and some macademia cookie things. More vocal awkwardness. Omiya was one of the stops on the way back, and I found a place to serve omrice, so that’s another one off the list. No shoes allowed inside. The value wasn’t there but the service was good enough, as was the flavor. The machines with the 20G springs are indeed legit. Back home in time for some McDonalds, and that’s another food-checklist item marked off. Takoyaki mayo dipping sauce - somehow it’s both salty and sweet. While returning to the hotel, I did happen to encounter an argument amongst two teenaged locals where the guy ended up half-heartedly kicking the girl and getting her to cry. I wonder what their argument was about. I didn’t play hero, but someone else did so enough to prevent an escalation and called the police over.
Day 9 - Sugamo, Tokyo Sky Tree, Akihabara 3, Kanda
Up early enough to decide that I should at least visit the Sky Tree while I'm there just to say that I did, and that I should visit the Sugamo street market upon its open since it was right there in front of me. I'm glad to have done so. With everything open, this felt more like what one would think to expect from a flea market environment that's operated and supported by the local populace. Small stores were open both sides of the street that go on for many blocks, and some tents and tables were set up to sell second hand goods as well. I was able to find someone selling a US Morgan dollar and he wanted only 2000Y for it, so that was an easy buy. If I would have known better to anticipate this area, I wouldn't have felt compelled to buy kitchy tourist crap that is expected as gifts elsewhere. If you are looking for a place to idly shop around that doesn't get extremely crowded and has an authentic local feel to it, consider making a point to come here. Off to Sky Tree. Getting the combo ticket for the second deck was worth it just for the lack of crowds on the upper area. If you're going to come here, consider getting a phone selfie stick or something of the kind so that you can take pictures against the windows without the structure scaffolding obstructing your view. On the subject of shopping again, this might be another area to consider visiting just for the sake of the specialty stores to be found here, such as those for chopsticks or hairpins. To close out the day, my wife reminded me to look for something from the Square Enix cafe, so that meant swinging by Akihabara yet again. Since it is within a walkway, it was a bit of a pain to find this place even with using maps, but I eventually found it and got what she wanted to find. Played some IIDX at Game Panic, which was surprisingly small and the one machine that was avaialble to play had some 2P turntable issues, so that didn't last all that long. Dinner was at a nearby place that specalized in tofu, so that was a good ramen serving with that infused. For the evening, I wandered south to Kanda to get night pictures, and found it to feel pretty similar to Ueno.
Day 10 - Ginza, Tokyo, Kanda & Akihabara 4
Launrdry in the morning. I also wanted to say that I went to Ginza in my time here, and I didn't research anywhere to go to keep it a surprise. It was a bit warmer and sunnier than usual that day, and I stuck to the main road for most of the walk, so I can't say that I found too many points of the interest along the path that I walked starting from Yurakucho station and heading out that way. High class store for high class people, and that's too rich for my peasant blood. Similarly for Tokyo proper itself, I suppose I'd have to needed to wander far away from the Yamanote vicinity to find points of interest there, as I didn't encounter anything that was remarkably distinctive here in comparison to other areas that I have previously seen. Continuing north across Nihonbashi brought me to Kanda and eventually to Akihabara yet again, as if it was a magnet that pulled me inside every time. For the sake of trying a different place I chose to play some IIDX at the Leisure Land arcade there, and I'm glad to have done that, as those machines were probably in the best coniditon that I encountered within that area. Dinner was at Tenkaippin, which I didn't realize until after I placed the order was cash only. The clerk didn't request it beforehand but I voluntarily left my passport there to show that I would return, and promptly went to the same ATM that I had found days prior in order to get the cash to pay for the bill.
Day 11 - Haneda T3, Nishi Nippori, Nippori, Uguisuidani, Otsuka, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukruo, home.
The end. I resolved to take the subway over to Haneda today to get the one luggage over there and stored, and it’s a good thing that I did - there’s no easy solution for getting over there without encountering a crowd. If anything I wonder if Yamanote is actually better. Regardless, I got that much done. With the day left to go, I ventured to Nishi Nippori and I needed to summon the map several times to make sure I found the location, as it was as obscure as it could get. Just a sign on the ground for the third floor, a stairway that led to the back, an elevator that had no decoration, a single room that housed everything. Arcade PCB kits on shelves, joystick panels in exposed boxes, nicotine odor from years past - it was like I was transported to 1995 upon entry, beyond the fact that the games weren’t as old. Most of them, they did have a lot going for SF3 3rd yet. I was able to take care of some game business in a hurry since I was the only one there. It was a very pleasant respite for play in comparison to most of the other sessions. The region itself felt much the same as this arcade - old and well worn, as in well lived. Venturing south to Nippori led me to stumble upon a shrine and cemetery just by following some stairs. Usuigudani was cleaner but mostly had hotels as points of interest. Back home to buy some mochi while mochi was for sale in midday. Then to Otsuka, thinking that I would wander to Ikebukuro, but I ended up wandering back to Sugamo instead. Whoops. Meal at Sugamo, then back out to return to Shibuya and Shinjuku at night to catch evening shots, when I hadn’t done so before at these places. Good thing I did that to get Golden Gai area shots at night. With the night winding down, I decided to have one last IIDX play at Round 1 in Ikebukuro to symbolically end where I started.
Ending arcade comments
· Although the upkeep is generally better and more consistent than the US, some machines will have hardware issues here too. I was surprised by the blurriness with some of the LM IIDX machines.
· Densha De Go on the propert large cabinet is nice but quickly becomes very expensive.
· Bombergirl is OK enough and having the dedicated detonator button that pops up for hitting the base is a cute touch.
· Chase Chase Jokers feels rather clunky and I'm not sure what the game is trying to do. Interesting side screen concept at least.
· Nostalgia is delightful and would probably find a small fanbase worldwide if it had more exposure.
· Favorite IIDX locations are Taito Station in Oomiya for the light keys and Leisure Land Akihabara for the high quality of the LMs there. Honorable mention goes to the Game Versus loctation in Nishi Nihonbashi, but that might not be worth it for a dedicated trip unless you go there first thing in the morning.
Ending overall comments
This was a life altering trip for me, as would be expected. While I'm glad to have made the journey, as to be expected, I will only want to return after making an extensive redoubled effort into speaking and hearing comprehension, because I know that I came across like a blubbering idiot so many times, and it's truly aggravating because I generally know what I want to say and most of the words that are used to say it, but it just doesn't come out of my mouth properly when it needs to be done.
I welcome any questions you may have, as that will help for me to recall the memories and have me write them down.
submitted by MisterAmmosart to JapanTravel [link] [comments]

2024.05.17 14:24 stubbynubb 10 days in Kyoto and Tokyo - February 2024 trip report and full expense breakdown

This sub has been a huge help in my itinerary preparation and general whatever questions so I thought why not return the favor.. 3 months later. Welp, better late than never!
This trip report will be done chronologically, detailing our mistakes as we went (especially on day 1). And I'll probably be sprinkling in some tips and learnings here and there.
Travel dates
February 18 to 22 – Kyoto February 22 to 27 – Tokyo
Day 1
After landing at Narita airport, we were able to breeze through the immigration and customs lines, mainly because of the Japan web QR codes and maybe also partly because we had a morning flight. First things that I wanted to get in order ASAP were:
  1. Cash - Took us a while to find an ATM in the airport, but did find one in the lower floor and withdrew just a tad over 20k JPY (a mistake).
  2. Yamato Transport - After getting cash, I wanted to buy and load my Suica card first but it turns out there aren't any nearby the arrival area. Since Yamato is inside the airport, I just decided to do that first. Paid 5260 JPY in total for 2 luggages sent to our Kyoto hotel. Not sure if it's a measurement error or a done deliberately, but the Tokyo (NRT) to Kyoto fee was much more expensive than our Kyoto to Tokyo luggage fee.
  3. Suica - Finally found a JR East office that sells the 10 year Suica cards. Bought two, one for me and my partner. Initial load was 1500 JPY, so I deposited 500 each so each card ended up costing 2000 JPY. After sorting all that out, I topped up our Suica cards at a 7-Eleven store. But since I did a rookie mistake of only withdrawing 20k JPY, I was only able to load 5k for each card. I call this a mistake because the foreign exchange and withdraw transaction fees where I'm from are WILD so I should, as much as possible, minimize the amount of withdrawals that I do.
Next task was to buy tickets for the Narita Express bound for Tokyo station. It wasn't difficult to get one, but turns out that I selected the unreserved seats option when I got my ticket. All of the seats in the NEX are supposedly reserved os I'm not sure why that was even an option. Luckily, I asked a guard about my ticket, at that time just making 1000% sure we're in the right place. He found out that I had an unreserved ticket so he taught me how to change to a reserved one in the kiosk near the tracks. So big thanks to that guy.
Slept the entire way from NRT to Tokyo station. Tokyo station wasn’t as bad as I expected. After just following the signs leading to Tokaido Sanyo shinkansen, managed to find ourselves in the right floor and right gate. I tried to redeem our reserved tickets, but somehow couldn’t get it to work. Turns out that this is not an isolated issue and people on Reddit are also complaining about this. Apparently all you need to do is just let the gate machine scan your QR code and then it spits out a ticket for you. The conductor asked me to insert my 2 tickets from the NEX too, probably to ‘end’ the trip.
While waiting for our 1 PM train, we bought some ekibens and water. Got pork cutlet and unagi. Around 12:50 we decided to go up and wait for the train there. Turns out the train was the one waiting for us. Apparently you can already board a shinkansen 20 minutes before departure.. when the clock struck 1 PM, the train immediately left the station.
Ate and then slept for quite a bit at the train. We had premium or business class style seats, so it was pretty comfortable. I wasn’t really feeling well, so I had a hard time resting. Asked my partner to wake me up if she sees Mt. Fuji, but Fuji-san was shy that day.
Arrived at the specified time, as usual when it comes to Japanese standards. Looked for signs leading to the Subway and Karasuma line, as that will be our next train going to the hotel. Managed to find it quite easily. Metros and subways are really just about following instructions, turns out. Shocker. As we arrived at the exit gate leading to the subways, we didn’t know what to do again so asked for help from the gate conductors. They just took our ticket and scanned our qr codes and then let us pass.
Found the entrance gate to the Karasuma line and tapped our Suicas. We were able to go inside without any problems. Couple minutes later, we arrived at Shijo station and tried to exit when for some reason it wouldn’t accept our cards. Obviously I have no idea again what happened here. A concerned citizen pointed us to the fare change booth, but it only ended up recharging my card another 1k yen. After a couple more failures, just decided to call for help using the help desk/kiosk thing. The attendant asked me to scan my card and then he opened the gate. We stayed at THE GENERAL KYOTO Shijo Shinmachi for our Kyoto leg, which was pretty close from the station. After taking a little rest, we went to Nishiki market even though most of the stalls are already closed. We weren't very hungry due to sleep deprivation so we just bought strawberry daifukus. Wanted to check the good coffee place nearby (WEEKENDERS) even though I had an inkling it was already closed, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were still open and accepting orders at 1 minute before their closing time. The coffee was amazing, of course. We left shortly after finishing our cups and headed to a nearby Lawson to top up our cards again, withdraw additional cash, and buy some snacks.
Day 2 - Temple hopping, Pontocho
Started our day at 9:30 AM. First stop was Shijo station, just to have my partner's Suica card fixed. The station staff was really efficient and was able to fix the card in no time, probably because they get idiots like us everyday. Unfortunately, it rained the moment we got out of the station, which lasted the entire day. We had our minds set to our itinerary, so we had a quick Daiso run for some face towels and umbrella. After our first ever Japan bus ride, which turned out to be the wrong bus, we were finally able to ride the correct bus for Kiyomizudera. We hiked to the top with a shit ton of people and elementary school kids who were on a field trip. We didn’t really mind the crowd – explored, took some photos, and paid 400 JPY to enter the temple premises. After circling the entire perimeter of the temple, we went down to the next temple in our itinerary, Kodaiji. Bought a snoopy ice cream on the way down and this pickled cucumber on stick which we found absolutely disgusting, to say the least.
To reach Kodaiji, we passed through Gion street, which had lots of cute distractions everywhere. Entered a ring making store, but didn’t buy anything. Saw the second Ghibli merch store and got some souvenirs this time. Reached Kodaiji but decided not to go inside anyway lol. We went to Maruyama Park instead and enjoyed spending time petting and taking pictures of the most obese cats we've ever seen in our lives.
We had more temples that we were supposed to visit in our itinerary, but at this point with the rain and all we just decided to fuck it and skip them. Went to Ichizawa Shinzaburo Hanpu, an old canvas bag shop that only has this one store in Kyoto. A bit pricey, but it's even more expensive on their online store so I took my sweetest time to find one that I really liked before I pulled the trigger.
At this point, we haven't had a proper meal ever since we set foot in Japan. So we took a bus to the nearest Ichiran and got the ramen bowl with soft-boiled egg add-on. It was good, but nothing life changing. As we were in the area, we walked to WEEKENDERS (again), and ordered pourover and iced latte. Everything was amazing. On the way to Pontocho, we passed by our first Donki and ate our first famichiki. That thing is insanely good and one of my biggest regrets is not eating more of it. Strolled by Pontocho alley, didn't eat at any of the restaurants. We didn't have any winter clothes at all, so we went to UNIQLO and GU for some heattechs and outerwears. Before ending our day, we paid another visit to 7-Eleven for snacks/dinner. I think it was probably around this time that I fell in love with the salmon onigiri.
Our Yamato transport luggages arrived in the afternoon that day, so were only able to collect it when we returned to the hotel at night.
Day 3 - Fushimi Inari, Higashiyama
Arrived at the starting area of the Fushimi Inari hike 30 minutes past 12. Was wearing my newly bought long coat today and a pair of loafers. Definitely the exact opposite of clothes you’d want to wear for this kind of activity. Still, we managed to finish the entire Fushimi Inari loop, but not without sweating loads.
At the end of the hike, we went inside this cozy coffee shop by the river (Vermillion Cafe). Ordered hot coffee and bread. Place was nice but was more amazed with the Japanese cashier's fluent English. Didn’t stay for long, and then continued on our way and stumbled upon this chonky tuxedo cat. Or it could’ve been the other way around…
Anyway, after those events, we finally arrived at the end road. Plenty of food stalls everywhere, so we tried some takoyaki, chicken skewers, and karaage. Probably liked the takoyaki the most, but then again, none of them were life changing good.
After Inari, we were kind of at a loss on what to do next. We weren’t really hungry because of all the snacks, and the supposed next stop on our itinerary is already closed because of our late start. So I figured to go to Arabica instead, and found one in Higashiyama. Boarded the train to Kyoto and then a bus to the area. Turns out that this Arabica spot is the one that’s famous for the Yasaka pagoda background. Took some pics, bought coffee, which was terrible at first but got better as it mixed, then took more pics. Fair warning if you're lactose intolerant, you might want to stay away from Arabica's coffee..
Again, we didn’t know what to do after our coffee stop. We just mindlessly strolled for a while, until finally setting our sights on Gion. Noticed that there’s a gyukatsu place on the way, so we decided to eat there for dinner.
Day 4 - Arashiyama, Kinkakuji
Started the day with a fun 15km run along Kamo river. Really had a blast running there, as the riverbank never seemed to end.
Had a long bus ride to Arashiyama, where we visited the bamboo forest and monkey park. It rained again, but at this point we've had enough rains that it didn't really matter anymore. Mount Arashi looked amazing across the Oi river, especially with the fog caused by the rain.
For lunch, we had a reservation at Unagi Hirokawa, which is also located in the vicinity. A little pricey, but the meal was superb.
Shortly thereafter, we left for Kodaiji temple. We arrived just before closing time so we just kinda sped up going around the temple. It probably would've looked much better if we went there in the morning or early afternoon. Didn't do much afterwards, just random strolls along Gion and Shijo, visiting a couple boutique stores and had takeout Mos to eat at the hotel.
Day 5 - Kyoto → Tokyo
Our last day in Kyoto. Checked out of our hotel and grabbed our last cup of coffee at Weekenders before going to the station and ride the Shinkansen to Tokyo.
Tokyo felt much colder than Kyoto for some reason. Maybe it had to do with the wind. We were freezing when we arrived outside Tokyo station. Anyway, we took the city bus from the station to Hamacho hotel, where we'll be staying at for 5 days in Tokyo.
After settling ourselves in, we strolled around the neighborhood and stopped by Single O for coffee. Walked a bit more afterwards to explore the nearby stations. Realized it was getting too cold so we decided to take a quick trip to Ginza to buy gloves and leggings.
Pretty uneventful day overall, but we were pretty tired from all the travelling so it felt nice to have a slow, easy day.
Day 6 - Shinjuku, Shibuya
Our first taste of rain in Tokyo. And what better way to spend a rainy day than to visit the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.. But yeah, that's exactly what we did. It was freezing cold, but we had fun seeing the plum and early cherry blossoms at the garden.
We were supposed to visit Meiji Jingu and Yoyogi afterwards, but we were short of time so we went directly to the Harajuku area instead. Ate some crepes, strolled a couple blocks, and off we went to Shibuya crossing. After a couple pictures, we then went to Shibuya Sky for our scheduled visit.
Since it rained all day, we weren't allowed to go to the open/rooftop area of Shibuya Sky. We didn't get a nice view either because of all clouds and rain, so pretty unfortunate overall. But we still had fun looking at the streets below. Had a late lunch/early dinner at Tonkatsu Maisen Omotesando, which was also our first meal of the day. We didn't plan to go at this restaurant at all but I'm so glad we did because it was amazing. Their tonkatsu was something else, plus the unlimited rice, which was a welcome surprise.
If it isn't obvious by now, we're huge suckers for good coffee so we went to Koffee Mameya after our meal. There was a short line (around 5 PM) so we had to wait for a while before getting our turn at the table. This never came up on my research for some reason, but I was surprised to find out that they don't carry their own beans, and they actually only make the pourovers for you using beans from other roasteries. Both of us had a light roast (forgot which roastery) which was pretty good, but didn't really make me salivate enough to buy the beans.
Checked a couple more stores around the area. Didn't really like anything so we left and went to the ASICS RUN store in Marunouchi and bought my first pair of Superblasts. Then, we left for the hotel shortly afterwards.
Day 7 - Ueno, Asakusa
Had my morning run at the Sumida riverside, just a few blocks away from our hotel. Not as nice as Kamo river, but it was good enough for me, as someone who lives in a place with barely any running routes.
We tried this bakery beside our hotel called Boulangerie Django, somewhat European inspired but the food and bread were really good. We didn't really have much of a choice though since the aroma of the breads just draws you in when you pass by the place. Afterwards, we bought coffee to-go at Single O, which is at the other side of the street. The weather today was perfect. Sunny with some clouds. We visited Ueno zoo, even though it wasn't in our itinerary. Initial plan was stroll around Ueno park and visit the museums, but for some reason we wanted to look at some animals that day, so we did. Didn't know what else to do at Ueno afterwards so we headed to Asakusa for food.
At Asakusa, we had croquette for snacks, street izakaya for late lunch, and unagi onigiri, and cremia for more snacks. It was nice, but at the same time the place felt very congested.
Before going back to our hotel, we paid a quick visit to Akihabara just to have an idea of what the place is like. We ended up spending quite some time here, visiting a couple anime stores and claw machines. Left the place around 10 PM and arrived at the hotel at 10:30 PM.
Day 8 - Chuo area
Ran again, this time at the Imperial Palace. I think I did around 2 loops. Had a ton of fun running here, plenty of other runners as well so you could easily just latch on to their pace and cruise the entire time. It also rained again after I finished my run.
Went to Tsukiji Market first thing for snacks. Then we walked to Hamarikyu Gardens for more plum and cherry blossom spotting. Kinda wish we just skipped this since it felt pretty much just like our Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden trip with the rain. There weren't any stations nearby either, so we had to walk to our next destination, which was Ginza Steak.
Ginza Steak has set menus, but I'm pretty sure everyone's just after the unlimited wagyu beef. I think I had at least 6 servings. The person beside me, who was already there before we arrived, probably had like 20 servings. Funnily enough he struck a conversation with us just out of fun, so I told him that I think he's a very big eater. He laughed and thank me for the compliment. He was there with his daughter, who was celebrating her birthday. In the end, all of us at the table sang happy birthday for her. Such a fun moment.
We went to Glitch Coffee after our meal, then lined up for almost 2 hours just to get inside. Turns out their other branch was under construction so everyone flocked to the Ginza branch. It was 100% worth the wait though because this was the best cup of coffee we've ever had in our lives. I ended up buying 2 bags of beans from this roaster. Shopped at UNIQLO then had a small meal at TORIGIN. Bought souvenirs at Don Quixote before going back to the hotel.
Day 9 - teamLAB Borderless, Shibuya
Our last day today. First thing we did was go to teamLAB Borderless at Azabudai hills for our reservation. We didn't expect to have as much fun as we did here.
We wanted to eat ramen so we looked for one near Omotesando. Stumbled upon Oreryu Shio, supposedly a big ramen chain in Japan. Their serving was much larger than Ichiran's. Taste-wise though, I think we preferred Ichiran more.
We didn't have much planned for this last day, as we wanted to keep it open to allow us to visit places that we liked or wanted to visit again. We spent our last half day in Shibuya, doing vintage stores crawl and revisiting Takeshita street. Also did some last minute shopping at Loft Shibuya and spent all of our coins in a gachapon place near Shibuya crossing. Crossed the Shibuya crossing one last time and then we went back home to pack and rest.
Day 10 - Flight back home Our flight was at 8:00 in the morning, so there was no room to do anything else before leaving. Since we stayed in Hamacho, the T-CAT was just a few blocks away from us. We took a taxi to T-CAT, then boarded the bus to Narita. Arrived around 6 AM, which was plenty enough time for us to go through all of the stuff in the airport plus buy additional souvenir snacks.
And as promised, here's the expense breakdown of our trip: https://imgur.com/a/PCckaO1
Edit: Formatting
submitted by stubbynubb to JapanTravel [link] [comments]

2024.05.16 17:34 kinky-kid-7777 He touched her inappropriately and I didn’t do anything

The crowd was on the escalator. Front of me guy and next to him a girl. A man from my side saw a small gap which that guy in front of me had left. He stood there. Very close to the girl. Could see putting his hand on the escalator’s railing just to touch her hand but didn’t. By then she moved forward and all of us. On the next escalator, I saw him standing right behind her so close. On purpose I chose to go on that particular escalator. Reached the point where he was and stood right behind her. So close I was touching him and his bag. To make him feel what he was trying to do. I guess he sensed it. Right then we are going to move forward and he just swiftly gets ahead of her while very slightly touching her ass and grinning. I felt anger at him and wanted to push him down and punch him or slap him. But I didn’t.
Reason? I felt like looking at a mirror. The guy who wants to have sex with women so he would try to seduce them by any means. This used to happen 6 years back when I was full of pornography materials in my head with videos of groping where Japanese women are submitting to men who want to have sex with them. Even though not touching anyone, I was ogling and checking out women in metro with lustful eyes till a few days back. Only shifting my gaze if she is clearly not giving into checking me out in return or show me any sign that she’s uncomfortable. I couldn’t do anything to the guy because I was guilty and I was feeling like a hypocrite to punish someone for something I have been doing on a borderline. It was as if I could see how I am going to turn out probably if not take a hold of myself. Just imagining that what if my sister or my dear friends or my future wife is facing such thing.
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2024.05.16 04:39 Gyro_Armadillo JICA eyes more railway, social development projects in PHL - BusinessWorld Online

JICA eyes more railway, social development projects in PHL - BusinessWorld Online
THE JAPAN International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is looking to fund more railway infrastructure and social development initiatives in the Philippines this year.
“For this year, actually we have many, many pipeline projects here, but it’s a little bit early for me to say the actual number because we need some more consultation with our Japanese parliament, taxpayers, and the Japanese government,” JICA Chief Representative in the Philippines Takema Sakamoto told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of an event late on Tuesday.
“Last year, size-wise, I signed roughly ¥300 billion (around P110 billion)… and I hope we can maintain the same size or level for that.”
Official development assistance (ODA) from foreign lenders helps the Philippine government fund major infrastructure and social development initiatives amid limited fiscal space.
This year, JICA will continue supporting the Philippines’ railway projects to encourage the public’s shift to mass transportation, Mr. Sakamoto said.
JICA will also continue funding the construction of roads and bridges in the country.
In March, the Philippine government and JICA signed two loan commitments totaling ¥250 billion to fund the ongoing construction of the Metro Manila Subway and a road project that involves building the longest tunnel in the country.
JICA also recently partnered with Japanese firms Sumitomo Corp. and Hankyu Corp. to support the operations and maintenance of Light Rail Transit Line 1.
For this year, the agency is looking to fund social development initiatives, particularly in health and water sanitation, Mr. Sakamoto said.
JICA is also planning to fund initiatives to promote peace in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
In particular, JICA will continue supporting BARMM’s infrastructure development, job creation, skills training, as well as governance and capacity development, Mr. Sakamoto said.
The Bangsamoro peace process is not just for the Bangsamoro area’s development, but for the entire Philippines’ development,” he said. “A safer and secure situation in the [Bangsamoro] is a prerequisite for the invitation of more investments and so on.”
BARMM is currently preparing for its first-ever parliamentary elections next year.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sakamoto said challenges to project implementation in the Philippines include slow permitting process and delayed payments to project contractors.
“Commitment is already enough. [However], we need actual action on the ground to keep the promise, and not to change the rule in the middle,” Mr. Sakamoto said.
Government-issued orders like Executive Order (EO) No. 59 and Administrative Order (AO) No. 19 should address bottlenecks in planning for infrastructure projects and boost investor confidence in the country, he added.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. recently issued EO 59 to fast-track the approval of key infrastructure project proposals, while an interagency committee was formed under AO 19 to streamline land acquisition for railway projects.
“As such, the government of the Philippines is doing their best to alleviate those hurdles or obstacles,” Mr. Sakamoto said. “I hope we can see a dramatic, speedier implementation on the ground this year.”
Japan was the country’s second-largest source of ODA in 2022, accounting for 30.75% or $9.96 billion of the total, according to data from the National Economic and Development Authority.
submitted by Gyro_Armadillo to Philippines [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 09:09 LucarioOfLegends [100 Girlfriends] No, body swapping is not an excuse to bypass consent.

100 Girlfriends is a series that I think is pretty neat, considering its been my hyperfixation for the past couple of years. It's very much a solid riff at the genre of harem romcoms and takes at lot of time to actually break down each member of its cast and really ask how their character quirks really affect them, eventually transforming into world's weirdest group dynamic, where more attention is given towards how each girl interacts with each other as the cast expands ever further. Though that doesn't stop the showcases of sheer love and dedication that Rentarou is willing to convey every time he gets the spotlight. Also its funny as hell.
Hardly means its perfect though, as people have pointed out the many flaws of the story, including its pacing, the questionable nature of its relationships due to the age gaps and familial relations, as well as a general dislike of the whole 100 soulmates plot device. I'd love to discuss and refute these point in a later post (particularly the last one boy do I have counterarguments to certain objections) but this prelude is long enough as is, so let's get talking about the main subject of this rant: Chapter 119 aka Fondle Festival 2.
Momiji Momi is the 15th girlfriend introduced, and she has a naturally contentious main quirk. She is a training masseuse with a fascination for soft things, a fascination that spreads specifically to the body parts of others. This results in a penchant towards groping both the girls and Rentarou alike, usually with no direct ask to do so from Momiji.
This is a questionable trait and runs the natural risk of turning her into a Mineta, but a few different factors keep it decently justifiable. The main point here is she is constantly giving out massages to Rentarou's Family and others, usually before any sort of inappropriate gropage. Hell, her first interaction was Rentarou finding her after massaging the school's entire tennis team, who had literally collapsed from the sheer pleasure and relief of the massage, and in her introduction to the group proper she straight up offers to massage the rest of the cast first and foremost, and only after is the cast willing to offer up their bodies for feeling up. It takes on a sort of transactional exchange, the cast gets free massages from Momiji, and Momiji gets to indulge in her urge to touch where she wants (sans probably the d and the v). And the entire cast seems pretty fine with it, not really reacting after a while most of the time.
Momiji also isn't just focused on the fanservice bits; her penchant for soft things stretches to bouncy house, hot buns, bread dough, and Nami boob mouse pads. Even just looking at the human body she is interested is far from boobs and butts, going to cheeks, stomachs, hands, arms, and backs. While she still is there to highlight the goods when the time comes, Momiji comes off much more than a character exclusively meant to justify fanservice, even if she is debatably the simplest and flattest girl of the main cast so far.
Enter Fondle Festival 2, generally considered one of the series few actual misses chapter wise alongside the obnoxious introductory chapters of Chiyo as well as Beef Tongue, which I could write an entire other rant about so help me god. But Fondle Festival 2 has its status for a reason, as it very much murks up the ideas of consent.
To keep things brief, Momiji ends up swapping bodies with Rentarou through the powers of a convenient drug brewed up by resident ridiculous scenario causer Kusuri, and immediately goes to grope the boobs of every single girl on the rooftop with her new boy hands without the girls realizing its Momiji for a significant amount of time and absolutely without them giving a clear thumbs up.
Consent is a bit of a grey area in 100 Girlfriends more generally, mainly because as a gag series it does have a status quo that it needs to maintain for its cast. Usually most characters are pretty good about their ridiculous demands in terms of directly asking about it, but no matter how many times the characters say no or tell them to stop, such questions and actions will of course continue in the next chapter simply due to wanting to be able to pull out those traits for jokes again. Momiji herself is a perpetrator considering how often her groping is considered a gag in a panel even if it is making the characters uncomfortable, though she is far from the worst offender (looking at you Hahari). For the most part characters are willing to call out stuff that is actively bad and say in pretty uncertain terms that its terrible, but this stuff still does happen due to the nature of the genre and how characters are defined.
In the context of Fondle Festival 2, the girls in question are...mostly okay with it? They acknowledge that this is a weird situation and bunch actually take advantage of said situation to fulfill their less than kosher desires, and by the end its revealed that basically all of them caught onto what had happened and were totally taking advantage of it.
The problems start with only most of the girlfriends being okay with it. Uto completely breaks her chuuni bard persona and is left frozen in shock at such an event, unclear if she was okay with it. Several girls try to get Momiji to stop and get an unwanted grope because of it, and Mimimi straight up slaps Momiji (who Mimimi assumed was Rentarou) and insinuates for them to stop, but Momiji continues undetered. Multiple girls very clearly and explicitly give a sign that they are not okay with this and they need to stop, yet Momiji continues to make them feel uncomfortable.
My largest problem, however, is when you realize that Momiji is using Rentarou's body for this. Rentarou is a bastion of chastity in essentially every regard, going to frankly ridiculous length to prevent any sexual advances from the girls or himself. He straight up does not allow himself to think of the girls in a sexual if he can allow it, as he sees it as demeaning of the girls themselves and that would be a failure on his part. Is it a kind of ridiculous belief? Yes. Is it still his own belief that he holds up to the best of his ability? Also yes, and that needs to be respected.
Fondle Festival 2, in my humble opinion, does not respect that belief in a really frustrating way. I can't say for certain what good body swapping etiquette is, but I don't imagine that going off in someone else body and doing something that stands directly against their characterization, especially since Rentarou was knocked out for most of this, and Momiji even ends up groping Rentarou/her own chest, which makes this even murkier.
Momiji does end up getting some level of comeuppance by the end of the chapter through a taste of her own medicine and she fully apologizes to the girls about the whole incident in the bonus page of the chapter, but I'd argue the damage has been done and it doesn't stop the gross feeling I got when reading the chapter, either the original japanese raws or the translated version.
While I can shrug off a lot about this series, this flagrant ignoring of both the girls and Rentarou in this situation for the sake of a bit did not jive with me. Consent is important y'all.
submitted by LucarioOfLegends to CharacterRant [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 00:42 KaleidoArachnid I just realized that I never experienced Tales of Hearts in English

I am referring to the Japanese only DS game that stars Kohaku because sometimes I like to play the game on long subway rides, but I cannot understand the dialogue since again it’s all in Japanese.
submitted by KaleidoArachnid to tales [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 19:26 Fickle-Lavishness-41 My experience with SM Global Package in Japan for Taemin

Hi everyone!
I wanted to give a detailed review of my experience with sm global package for taemin’s metamorph concert in tokyo at the nippon budokan. I am months delayed in posting this (thanks to grad school) but I initially wrote it out of post-concert depression prior to returning to the states back in March.
buying the global package, twin ver:
the package was announced sometime in december 2023 if im not mistaken and I stayed up until midnight (pst) on 1/22 to book a twin package for ‘course c’ which was 2N3D (sunday concert 3/10) for my friend and I. The packages that included all three nights (5D3N) of the show sold out the quickest, but there were still packages available for individual show days. As a tip to make things easier, make sure to have your friends’ passport info to input in advance so the booking goes easier if you are booking a twin package. If you are the one making the booking, make sure to have the global package app downloaded as they will send you notifications along the way about day of show schedule, merch preorder, etc. They ask that you relay this info to your partner when you purchase a twin package, as you are the primary reservation holder. You also cannot split the cost while booking, it must go on one card through paypal. When booking, you have the option to request extending your stay at the hotel through sm c&c, but since we were planning to go to Kyoto after the concert, we just checked out the day after the concert as planned. Also we didn’t have any ACE memberships, but if I remember correctly, you can enter that info to get an exclusive MD benefit.
merch preorder:
Prior to arriving in Japan, we got a notification at around 6pm pst on 2/28 (11 days prior to the show) with our exclusive merch preorder links which went live at midnight that same night. The prices were in yen and you pay using paypal. I had no problem getting the MD I wanted, however since there were limits on the amount of MD you could purchase (including the 2 different pins, which were 1 per order) I had to ask my friend if I could purchase an additional pin through his MD preorder link since there were 2 different pins in this specific concert MD. The day of the show (3/10) at around 10am, we picked up the MD we preordered with ease and pulled our concert seat tickets and received our global package exclusive gift (a mag safe wallet) and let the staff know which transports we would be taking (round trip bus or one way to/from the venue). I was a ljttle disappointed in the global package benefit MD as I had seen what the metamorph show in Korea had received (I think it was a handwritten letter from Taemin and a little lego figurine of him 🤧). Everything was smooth and efficient. Even after the concert, I was able to get into the MD line to purchase more, even though most of the MD was sold out.
checking in/out of the hotel & hotel review:
We stayed at the Hotel Monterey Hanzomon which was really close to the venue and across the street from the Hanzomon subway line, so it was very accessible by public transit. My friend and I both flew into Haneda and it took a little less than an hour to get to the hotel from the airport via public transit, but after a 12.5 hour long flight it was exhausting. When I asked the people at the airport if there was an airport limousine to the area, they said it wouldn’t take me close enough to the hotel and recommended I take the subway. We had met a few people in line for the MD pickup who said that we (allegedly) had a nicer hotel than those who did the NCT 127 global package for their Tokyo dome show (same weekend) but all in all, Hanzomon was an economy hotel with nothing to write home about. I will say the breakfast buffet included was really nice and I’m glad we didn’t skip out on it. When we checked in the day before the show, we just showed our passports and checked in like any other hotel. In the lobby there was a whiteboard with all of the concert info (opening times for md pickup, bus schedules, and concert schedule) displayed in english, korean, chinese, and japanese. I was a little bummed to find out that the concert (which took place in the middle of the afternoon) was only going to be an hour and a half maximum, even though NCT’s concert was almost 4 hours (!!!) in length.
day of show:
We had breakfast in the lobby around 8:30/9ish then after that we got to the sm desk at 9:45am to pick up our md and pick our tickets for the show (thanks to the tip from another fan on reddit, well worth getting there a little before the booth opened). I did notice the ACE membership MD benefits were nice, but neither me nor my friend have any fanclub memberships. It was relatively straightforward, they checked our passports and handed us a lanyard that acted as our bus pass and then one person per twin package picks the pair of tickets at random (in sets of 2 so you sit with your friend) and we got seats in section A3 (floor) which were great. They asked us if we wanted a seat on the bus ride round trip or one way and we originally said only one ride to the venue, but my friend decided to take the bus back too once we got to the venue so we notified the SM staff and they added us to the roster for the ride back easily. When we got to the venue (an hour and a half-ish before doors) they escorted us to the front and we were let in immediately. The efficiency was incredible. They didn’t check my bag prior to entering like how they would for a concert in the US so I didn’t bring a water bottle into the venue but thankfully they had vending machines inside and concessions on the top levels of the venue. We also went to a booth upstairs to pair our lightsticks for the show, since the Japanese Shinee Lightstick app is only available for Japanese phones, so we showed our ticket locations and they were able to calibrate. The show was short yet sweet, we did not see anyone ejected for taking photos/videos but we were too scared to risk it. If you are caught filming or taking photos they will make you delete the photos/videos and kick you out with no sign of return, but I think because it was the last day and we were in the middle of a crowd, it was a little easier to get away with. There was a sadness in the air because it was Taemin’s last concert as a soloist under SM, but overall the show was incredible. One thing of note though is Japanese audiences are very quiet, they tend to clap rather than scream in between songs and there were times where you could hear someone from the rafters sneeze and it would resonate, so be prepared for that cultural difference. We still screamed when it felt appropriate to do so and the fanchants were loud but it was definitely strange to be golf clapping in between songs, especially in comparison to shows in the US where fans are barking 💀. It was nice to be able to hear Taemin speak uninterrupted during the ments, without pick-me fans interjecting their screams. He spoke exclusively in Japanese and there was no translator so we were left to guess what he was saying. A K-fan next to us was live Papago-ing his ments to Korean and I would peek and read what the translation was. Also shout out to this lovely K-shawol because she let my friend borrow one of her lightsticks! Once the show ended, everyone queued up to leave the venue in an orderly fashion and we cleaned up any trash we saw and we went out to the MD booth to buy any last minute MDs before going to the bus. On the bus, they gave us each a (unthemed) bag with some strawberry cookies and a waterbottle and we had a fun time air-dropping photos and videos from the show with other (braver) global package attendees. Everyone we met was so lovely and everything about the global package went very smoothly and efficiently.
edit: I forgot to mention that Japanese fans who had floor seats (most likely ACE club membership) received some sort of paper goods (postcard, photocard, folder etc.) upon entering the venue, a benefit that global package members did not receive. I only saw it because I went upstairs to the main entrance to sync my lightstick. I was too afraid to ask about the benefits, but I think it also might have had to do with which company you bought your ticket from (?) or where you preordered the album from (?)
closing thoughts:
the day after the show, we took advantage of the free breakfast and checked out with ease. The SM C&C staff left the whiteboard in the lobby and left a nice note for us and we wrote our thank yous on there. Overall, the package cost was $1559 for 2 people ($779 ea, 2 twin beds for 2N3D) and even though it was pricey it was so worth the convenience of not having to try to buy tickets locally, which I heard sold out entirely during fan club presale. Please note that this cost did not include airfare or transit to/from the airport. The concert coincided with my spring break and Taemin is one of my ults, I just wrote a paper on him for grad school so it was a no brainer, I had to be there no matter what lol. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of theming (I heard the concerts in Korea come with themed rooms, themed snacks, etc) and the lack of transportation to and from the airport (which I heard is sometimes an option for shows in Korea and would have been a great benefit). But otherwise the hotel was clean and convenient (a little small, but that’s how it is normally in an economy hotel in Japan), breakfast was good, SM staff were helpful and nice, and we made some new Shawol friends in the meantime :)
overall, I would absolutely book with global package again, but I would definitely want to see a show in Korea to compare the benefits. It was an unforgettable experience to be apart of the pearl aqua ocean 💎
if you have any questions ask away! prior to booking this package, I took the advice of another fan under a different thread, and it was really helpful so I wanted to offer any insight based off my experience.
submitted by Fickle-Lavishness-41 to kpopthoughts [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 00:14 EPMelodicAudit I think I (a foreigner) just got groped on the subway

I tried to post this in japan but automod took it down and the mods haven’t gotten back to me yet. So, this is probably the more appropriate subreddit. For clarification, this happened yesterday night.
I (26F) am traveling with my family in Japan. We were on a very crowded subway train cart on the 丸ノ内線 (Marunouchi Line) in Tokyo around 21:30. This is my third time in Japan and l've taken the subway and public transport many times, but this was a first.
I'm still sort of processing it, but I didn't quite realize what happened until I got off the subway cart. I just don't know if this is common, and l've never been groped before so l didn't realize what was happening until my brain was like wait, that was someone's hand/fingers groping the back of my thigh/butt on the subway car....
Just, uh, yeahh. Maybe it's just Tokyo? It's my first time in this city and I have always been in the Kansai region during my previous visits. Never ever have I had issues there.
I still feel it (and a little disgusted/shocked) and I want to know if anyone else has experienced something like this as some form of "I'm not crazy to have experienced this in 2024."
EDIT: Of course being 外人 doesn’t make any difference, I just didn’t know what to do once I fully processed what had happened.
EDIT 2:
Thank you all for your validating responses and those of you who also shared your experiences. I wanted to add a little more information for those who may want to use this post for reference.
First, yes, I know there are women-only cars, and I have used them in the past. They are great and I recommend them for gals to use if they would like a safe space. However, their times can be limited (for instance on the particular line I took, it said designated train cars were women-only before 9:30 during rush hour, and didn’t see any indication it was women-only in the late evening). Furthermore, I’m also traveling with my dad and brother. I’d prefer to stick with them so we don’t get separated, especially during more busy times since men aren’t allowed in the cars during women-only times. (Though young children, 12 and under are acceptable in women-only cars.)
Second, I truly appreciate those who gave advice. From what I gathered, yelling:
“chikan” 痴漢 (groper) “hentai” 変態 (pervert) or “yamero” やめる (stop)
while also clearly indicating who it is (if possible), maybe grabbing their hand and raising it, and making a fuss can get the behavior to stop immediately and provide intervention. Although, it can be hard to identity someone in a packed car (for instance I was groped from behind and I was carrying my backpack in front of me because of the limited space on the train) so I probably should have grabbed their hand first to help identify who it was and then yelled and make a loud fuss. Further, grabbing the culprit/assaulter and taking them to the police at the next stop will ensure they get in trouble for their behavior. They may go willingly after you’ve publicly shamed them and made a fuss. However, try to not physically assault or instigate a physical fight with the assaulter as it could result you landing in jail. I could argue depending on the circumstance they may “deserve it,” but it is probably best to not escalate the situation in a harmful way.
submitted by EPMelodicAudit to JapanTravel [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:27 georgecscott_2022 "Is 'Amazing Japan' just a facade now? As inbound tourism rapidly expands, here's what foreigners dislike about Japan, as told by them."

According to statistics from the government tourism bureau, the number of foreign visitors to Japan exceeded 3 million for the first time in a single month in March 2024. Against the backdrop of a weakening yen, which is driving up demand for affordable Japan among inbound tourists, what is the impression of Japan among foreigners?
First, I asked a straightforward question to an American man who has lived in Japan for over 30 years: "What do you dislike about Japan?"
He began by praising aspects of living in Japan, highlighting the sense of security and tranquility that comes with it, mentioning the rarity of serious crimes and the freedom from worrying about entering unsafe areas late at night. He also appreciated the relaxed atmosphere that allows leaving a laptop unattended at a café when going to place an order. However, he pointed out a significant downside of living in Japan: becoming accustomed to life there may lead to naivety and excessive trust in human goodness when returning or visiting foreign countries, potentially making one overly passive.
Another American man echoed similar sentiments when asked the same question. He pointed out unique sexual crimes such as groping and the scandalous behavior of certain politicians, like the panty thief lawmaker (such as Takeru Ōgi, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party). These, he stated, clearly constitute negative aspects of life in Japan.
Furthermore, this American expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of housing in Japan, noting the common lack of proper insulation, resulting in uncomfortably cold conditions inside apartments during winter. He also criticized Japan's work culture, stating that his tolerance for the oppressive labor culture has diminished over the years. He emphasized the superficial nature of Japan's corporate culture, where appearances are prioritized over genuine integrity and where the process of decision-making tends to be slow.
In summary, it's often said that Japan's corporate culture is formalistic, emphasizing surface appearances and preserving decorum. This American man appears exhausted by Japan's business culture, highlighting its rigidity and the time-consuming nature of decision-making processes.
A French woman who has been living in Japan for three years remarked, "The cute, anime-like outfits worn by young Japanese women are amusing and certainly characteristic of Japan... However, I've noticed a lot of foreign 'otaku'-like men visiting Japan recently, and they uncomfortably stare at these cute-looking Japanese women on trains and such. Because the women appear so passive, it makes me want to say, 'Be careful!'"
Regarding Japan's business culture, she expressed confusion, stating, "You have to read between the lines, and that's bothersome. Because people who can't express themselves directly make it difficult to gauge whether I've said or done something wrong or offended them."
Furthermore, when asked the same question, another American man responded, "What I dislike most is that in Japan, you can't just live. In reality, while living in Japan, you're always expected to speak positively about life in Japan, and you realize that Japanese people expect you to say, 'Japan is wonderful!' It feels like being trapped in a cult."
Additionally, it has been observed that many foreigners have felt a sense of discrimination in the way they are treated or handled by the police, and some foreign residents in Japan have expressed a belief that Japanese people tend to discriminate based on race or skin color.
ALL About News
submitted by georgecscott_2022 to JapanNow [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 12:24 FFS41 WWYD?

Quick! Bitches! For various reasons I have a completely clear day today & it’s gonna be awesome out. I’m in Manhattan, West side but will travel via MTA. What should I do today? Bonus points if you can incorporate shopping for comfy sandals & getting a gel mani somewhere….
Editing to update you amazing bitches on what I did! Started w a Japanese gel mani at QQ on 43rd, turned out nicely (thanks to Ivy!). Went up to eat lunch at Claire’s Kitchen Cafe (Healthy Chicken Quinoa Bowl was delish as was my unsweetened iced matcha latte - people who work there are awesome too). Then I set out on a comfort-shoe ramble - hit Shoe-Inn, all the others mentioned here & more. Who knew the UES was comfort shoe heaven? Found nothing tho, lol. Made my way down Lex, shopping & window shopping, skipped Bloomingdales in favor of Saks Off 5th. Nothing for me there either. At this point I was cranky and had logged over 19k steps so I took the subway home. My dog was crossing her legs so it’s good I got here! Bitches, ty! I have so many amazing suggestions for other days off where I’m solo (often solo!) - looking forward to exploring all these ideas!
submitted by FFS41 to NYCbitcheswithtaste [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 08:39 wowelephants My three week experience in Japan - from the perspective of a Vietnamese-Canadian gay solo traveller who loves shopping

Just came back a few days ago from a 3 week trip to Japan. Here was my experience:
To preface:
General overview:
Day 1-3: Tokyo - I landed right on Pride weekend! It was fantastic. I knew only 1 person in Tokyo and I had some friends randomly also in Tokyo the same time I was. We went out for a drag brunch, one of the first of its kind in Japan as it's still a very new concept for the country. Performers were great though. Went to the Shinjuku gay district and had a blast discovering all these cool bars all with different vibes. It's also a great place to meet locals, tourists and immigrants (not just immigrants from Western countries, but from other Asian countries like China, Vietnam, Korea etc. who now live in Japan). There was also a festival for Pride in Yoyogi park and it was crowded and fun. Great to see Tokyo really embracing Pride.
Day 4-10: Based myself in Osaka but went exploring with my Setouchi JR West Pass throughout the week I was in Osaka. Went to Hiroshima and Miyajima Island, Nagoya so I can make my way to Ghibli Park (not a part of JR West so I paid out of pocket for that), and went to Kyoto twice. Overall, I really liked Osaka. I love big cities that are lively and noisy. I don't mind the crowds when I am also shopping in the Dotonbori area. The best part was cutting my day short in Kyoto because I was feeling sick, and then discovering that there was an exclusive Sailor Moon Museum happening in Namba and deciding to get tickets for that. Best unplanned experience that was actually better than Ghibli Park. Also, shopped on Orange Street, one of the best places for fashion lovers. Osaka castle was great but the line up to get in the castle was way too long and the day was super hot. Got to a see a high school Kendo tournament going on though so that was a neat experience!
Day 11-12: Flew to Sapporo from Osaka. It was cold. Windy on the first day. Rainy on the second day. Overall, just cold. Not Canadian Winter cold, but I wish I had a warmer jacket cold. It was the few places that had cherry blossoms left. The Sapporo Beer Museum was really neat and I liked learning about the history of such an iconic brand.
Day 13-21: Back to Tokyo. I am a remote worker and my job doesn't care where I work so I took the opportunity to save some vacation days for a future trip, and just work remotely while exploring Tokyo and surrounding areas. Went to Mt. Fuji for a day and back, did not get to see the mountain as it was really rainy and foggy that day. Wento the lucky cat shrine and it was cute but also busy for such a small shrine thanks to TikTok. Went out to the gay bars two more times and had a blast and met some new people (locals and tourists) who I still keep in contact with on social media. Got a tattoo at one point - LOVE IT. The artist was amazing and so gentle, I hardly felt anything. Did some more shopping in Ginza, Shibuya, Shinjuku and my favourite place - Harajuku! Overall, I really enjoyed Tokyo and my Japan trip as this was my first time.
Time and weather:
Getting around:
Eating:
As much as I loved having a list of some places to eat at, I abandoned it and didn't really care anymore. From high-end restaurants, cafes, local places and even fast-food, everything was delicious. I stopped caring about where I ate, and just took a walk down any street and when I saw a menu I liked, I just went in. Honestly, even Denny's in Japan was amazing (it's a different menu and not like Denny's in Canada).
Shopping experience:
Loved shopping in Japan. I brought one large suitcase that was empty, put a smaller suitcase inside of it and then had my backpack and carry on suitcase. The yen was weaker than CAD, plus if you spend over 5,500 yen, and show them your passport, you'll get the tax off and some stores offer additional discounts for foreign passport holders.
Brands I bought:
A personal view:
I really like Japan and I would go again, but now that I've experienced it, I now know what I like and don't like. As much as everyone raves about Kyoto, I honestly didn't care for it. Inari shrine was great, the climb to the top was great exercise and most people give up not even halfway up so it gets less and less busy. I also like Nishiki market as I love street food in Vietnam so that type of vibe of just trying everything was a great experience. But honestly, Kyoto was a tourist trap (as with most places). Gion district was cute but you definitely won't find locals hanging there unless they work there. The street will be quiet for 10 minutes, then the next set of tour buses will come, 8 taxis will come and the whole experience walking through the street is kind of ruined. Also, it just felt a bit like...Disneyland. Everything was catered to tourists. I'm not someone who even seeks out places where locals are so you can meet locals as I don't really care that much if I meet a tourist or a local, if it happens it happens, but I'm not obsessed with it. But I somehow just got this feeling that Gion has been warped into a thing for tourists who are sold an "authentic, cultural experience". It reminds me of tourist traps in Vietnam, and maybe I only have this view because I've experienced Vietnam too. Perhaps a non-Asian tourist won't see this and to each their own of course. It didn't really help that there were signs saying don't take photos on private streets, and tourists would stand in front of those signs and start taking photos...
Another take is that the Japan that's shown to you on TV shows, dramas and the news is not the Japan you'll experience (unless you're always a part of a tour group). The media portrays Japan as a nation that is ONLY Japanese people, and that you will only meet Japanese people serving you and that despite a low birth rate, immigration is just not a thing in Japan. This is false. I can't count the number of times where I'll order food, have the cashier speak to me in English and Japanese (because I don't know Japanese), sit down and then hear the cashier and other staff speak Vietnamese. It dawned on me that pretty much all the food service staff were Vietnamese in Osaka and Tokyo. Probably more in other areas if I paid attention more. I started speaking Vietnamese back to them and they were surprised that I knew they were Viet. We made some pleasant conversation and for the most part they liked that someone acknowledged that they were Vietnamese. However, one time, one girl told me not to speak Viet to her or she'll get in trouble. The staff are allowed to speak Vietnamese to each other but not to the customer because the boss didn't want people to know that they weren't being served by Japanese people. Some places were more obvious such as people from Nepal, India or Pakistan working there but spoke perfect Japanese. Some places clearly only hired Vietnamese people because they can pass as Japanese. This was more shocking to me than any culture shock I could have experienced as a Canadian.
I think there's a sense of Japan being a rich nation, aligned with the US, that it's better than places like Vietnam. But after spending some time in both countries, I saw that even buildings were built in a similar way. Narrow staircases, no baseboards, sometimes low ceilings, and businesses stacked on top of each. I loved Japan and like I said, I would go again. But I think I would stick to just to Tokyo and Osaka next time. Both are also very touristy but not in a way that it's disguised as anything else. Osaka Dotonbori is a place to shop. People know that. It's extremely crowded, but you're there to shop, not for a cultural experience. If I were to go elsewhere, I would try Okinawa and maybe a rural experience too. But other than that, I'm someone who goes for the shopping and eating experience and the nightlife. I know some people might not agree with my take, as most subs about traveling to Japan always seem to be finding an authentic Japanese experience. But being able to realize that some people serving you aren't Japanese and that most experiences are waterdown and overpriced tourist experiences, you quickly realize that authentic Japanese experiences (as with any country popular with tourists) are hard to come by.
Edit: I replaced the term expat with immigrant for sensitivity.
Edit 2:
Just to provide more details on my experience that contrasts a lot of what you may find on Reddit.
Cleanliness:
Yes, parts of Tokyo and Japan itself is clean. But I have seen some parts of Toyko with garbage on the ground. Osaka is more obviously dirty if you want to put it that way. More garbage on the street, especially at night. My local friend told me that Japanese people are just good at hiding their litter and when they think no one is watching, they do litter.
Homelessness:
I saw homelessness. In Asakusa where my hotel was, there was one homeless lady on the main street near Don Quitos. I also some when you are walking to Shibuya Scramble Square. It's a big city, I'm sure homelessness is an issue there. I saw a TikTok while I was there about homeless runway children in the Shibuya and Shinjuku area.
Shyness/Attitude:
I was always told that many Japanese wouldn't really want to make small talk with you. But honestly it really depends. I had pink hair and had my nails done with a cute fun design on them. So many cashiers, retail people etc. wanted to compliment my nails and tell me how cute they were. Even leaving Japan, as I was going through security, the security lady complimented my nails as I was placing my liquids and computers in a bin. I also carried around a Sailor Moon tote bag I got from the museum and strangers on the street were stopping me to compliment it. I'm a man and I have my nails done, pink hair and a Sailor Moon tote bag. If you give them a reason to talk to you, they will.
Weak yen:
The best part about clubbing is going to the 7-11 near the gay district alleys, buying cheap alcohol, drinking it with your newly made friends, and then going back into the club to dance some more before doing it again 20 minutes later. Alcohol is so cheap there! 450 yen for a can of Jack Daniels and Coke...that's like $2-3 Canadian. We Canadians usually pay $6 or $8 for a can!
More on fashion:
I tried my best to avoid buying brands I could get in North America but sometimes the exchange rate and no tax was too good. Commes Des Garcon Play sneakers in Canada are $200 before tax. Found a design that isn't available in Canada, no tax and the conversion made them $160. Had to get them. Bought a Dior cardholder that's $480 before tax in Canada. No tax and converted price in Japan turned out to be $390. I say definitely look for the Japanese brands you can't get back home because you'll come back with more unique pieces (even if it's a popular, mass product in Japan) but also if you have your eye on designer pieces, chances are the piece is cheaper in Japan. The only thing I found that Hermes and Chanel were the same price or more expensive in Japan. But other brands like Gucci, Dior, Prada, Burberry and Louis Vuitton were cheaper.
Even Uniqlo is cheaper. The viral bag that people like is $25 in Canada. In Japan it's $13. There was a Golden Week sale that made the bags $8 each.
I did avoid some brands like A.P.C or Diesel (which is everywhere in Japan) because despite it being cheaper, I know when there's a sale on SSENSE it's even cheaper than what you could get in Japan.
submitted by wowelephants to JapanTravel [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 02:39 Pure-Boysenberry8535 US Navy Captain Joseph O'Callahan: Chaplain and Medal of Honor Recipient #shorts #history #military

US Navy Captain Joseph O'Callahan: Chaplain and Medal of Honor Recipient #shorts #history #military
Medal of Honor Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as chaplain on board the U.S.S. Franklin when that vessel was fiercely attacked by enemy Japanese aircraft during offensive operations near Kobe, Japan, on 19 March 1945. A valiant and forceful leader, calmly braving the perilous barriers of flame and twisted metal to aid his men and his ship, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan groped his way through smoke-filled corridors to the open flight deck and into the midst of violently exploding bombs, shells, rockets, and other armament. With the ship rocked by incessant explosions, with debris and fragments raining down and fires raging in ever-increasing fury, he ministered to the wounded and dying, comforting and encouraging men of all faiths; he organized and led firefighting crews into the blazing inferno on the flight deck; he directed the jettisoning of live ammunition and the flooding of the magazine; he manned a hose to cool hot, armed bombs rolling dangerously on the listing deck, continuing his efforts, despite searing, suffocating smoke which forced men to fall back gasping and imperiled others who replaced them. Serving with courage, fortitude, and deep spiritual strength, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan inspired the gallant officers and men of the Franklin to fight heroically and with profound faith in the face of almost certain death and to return their stricken ship to port.
Photos Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
🎵 Music by https://pixabay.com/users/alex_makemusic-24186663/
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Copyright © 2024 Duty & Valor. All rights reserved.

podcast #war #stories

submitted by Pure-Boysenberry8535 to MedalOfHonorHeroes [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 19:04 RemyRatio Lot of tidbits from behind the scene: Leave It All Behind

F.HERO - คุย KA PID นึก KA POM
Pid, the bassist of Bodyslam hosts his own talk show and F.HERO is his guest today. They spent an hour talking about LIAB behind the scene. A lot of beans spilled:
submitted by RemyRatio to BABYMETAL [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 09:44 Goldskin All the tips I gathered while I was in Japan

Here's a collection of tips and recommendations based on my travel experiences in Japan. I hope these tips will help! For more context: I was a solo traveler, with a backpack and stayed for about 28 days.
Edit: Just a clarification; it's a list based on my experience, so some of the stuff might not be accurate. But again, it's just here to help!

Preparation:

Packing:

When you fly in

Theme Parks:

Visiting a theme park in Japan is highly recommended as it provides a wonderful break from traditional sightseeing and was a highlight of my trip.

Onsen

I was totally lost when I entered my first onsen, so I will share a tiny guide

Food

Shops and souvenirs:

I recommend to buy at the end of your trip, otherwise, you will carry everything. Also it's important that, if you see something that you really like, don't tell yourself that you will find that exact same thing at another place.

Random tips

Let me know what are your toughts!
submitted by Goldskin to JapanTravelTips [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 06:02 LucyAriaRose I (26F) kicked my soon to be ex-friend (25F) out of my house (aka the Kendall chronicles)

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/Uncle-Barnacle. She posted in EntitledPeople.
Thanks to u/No-Mechanic-3048 for the rec!
Trigger Warnings: animal abuse; sexual harassment;
Mood Spoiler: Good ending for OOP
Original Post: January 27, 2024
As the title says, last week I kicked what I thought was a good friend out of my house because I can no longer handle her antics. Just wanna write it here just to destress and deal with the grief of losing a friend.
Kendall (25F) and I met in university in 2016, we studied different majors but were from the same department so we share many classes together and bonded over our passion for gaming and memes.
Upon graduation, Kendall moved back to her hometown due to covid and found a job there, we kept in touch online through Instagram.
About 3 years later, Kendall told me she found a better paying job in the city I so she's planning to move out from her parents place. When I asked her about her plans on her accomodations she replied with "That's the thing, I was going to ask if you have an extra bedroom that I could move into"
For context, I have inherited an apartment from my late grandfather which is a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath near the city center last year January and I currently live alone there since it is closer to my workplace and it has all the convenience of public transport.
After some thinking I thought that there's no harm in living with Kendall since I considered us as close friends. We discussed the terms and ofc the rent. A week later Kendall moved into my apartment. It was great at first, my home felt more lively than usual and the thought of going home to a close friend warmed my heart and gave me a sense of security. Things were okay for awhile and then sh*t goes downhill super quick.
Kendall started complaining about many things at home, about her work, her savings and how she feels homesick. At first I was very accommodating, thinking maybe she just needs time to get used to the city life. I offered as much help as I can, even to the point of if she's low on money I don't mind voiding a month's rent if it meant I could help her to achieve financial stability.
I taught her how I save money, how I live off with my then low salary with several commitments like my car, my dog and a student loan. I grew up where my parents expect me to be independent so I told her things I'd do when I'm low on cash, how to get freelance jobs etc but she always seem to have excuses for every suggestion I have. Finding a freelance job is too hard, or how she couldn't let go of her premium junk food, that she isn't willing to cook or meal prep, and I eventually decided to leave it as it is.
And after two months of living together, I realised Kendall started treating me as some kind of competition. She would constantly ask me things like how much money I make a month, how many job hoppings did that take. Anything that she thinks she's better than me, she'll definitely pop that question. She boasts about how she is loyal to her "sh#tty paying company" and how I would never be able to move up the corporate ladder as she called me "an industry frog" 🐸.
She once snooped my savings balance and asked how tf did I have so much saved up with commitments etc (mind you she didn't have a lot of commitments since her parents paid off her student loans and fully paid off a brand new car for her) and maybe I should stop collecting rent from her. I got mad, and told her if she isn't happy living with me maybe she should move out. Queue crocodile tears as she said it was a joke I didn't have to take her seriously she begged for forgiveness and promised to never snoop my personal items and details again. I let it go once, but she kept bringing things up like, "well you have the cash and a credit card" everytime I told her I rather stay home because I no longer have the budget to go out and "have fun". Comments like these became more frequent when I got a new job 6 months ago.
On top of that, she doesn't clean up after herself, tried to flirt with my boyfriend and at times parked in my parking space when our initial agreement was that she has to find her own parking space if she's moving in with her own car because my apartment only has one parking lot per unit.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when I caught her kicking my dog in his abdomen when I got home from work. I yelled at her and rushed to check my dog, luckily he was fine but I still rushed him to the vet for safety measures. I got home and she sneered that it was just a dog and as a friend I shouldn't treat her like that. I asked why she'd kicked my dog and she didn't answer me, she shrugged and tried to escape into her room.
At this point it was already about a year since Kendall moved in with me. I lost my cool and told her off, bringing up her problems and how I tried to be nice and accommodating. Then I told her I'm giving her a week to move out and that from then on I rather we keep our relationship casual or we don't ever talk at all. Kendall cried and begged me to not kick her out but soon it turned into her screaming back at me, calling me a bad friend because apparently in her words, I "didn't tell her off on how badly she was behaving" (like wtf?!). There was a lot of back and forth which I don't remember what I said, but I remember eventually calling her an entitled brat. She cried again saying it was uncalled for and stormed off to her room.
The next day I was bombarded with texts from other uni friends, some calling me selfish and others sympathize with me. Apparently, Kendall posted our argument on Facebook and Instagram, painting me to be the bad guy. I was upset at first but I decided that after Kendall moved out we would no longer be friends as well as those who took her side of the story and condemned me.
Last week, Kendall left, and I have changed the locks on my apartment. I curled up in bed and cried myself out, probably from the sadness of losing a friend or maybe I am finally letting out all the frustrations.
I am definitely still griefing about this loss of a friend as I've had many good times with Kendall. For now I wanna focus on myself and hopefully I eventually get over this.
Edit: The whole "teasing" that I have more money than Kendall gotten worse when I told her I was given an offer by an MNC as a Senior Designer, and I disclosed her the offered salary (as we always did, like I know how much she earns too) which was about 50% more than hers. That was dumb on my part, I now understand why my parents told me to never disclose/discuss salaries the moment I started working
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: Kendall should eat a whole bag of dicks. You did well looking out for yourself, and your dog.
OOP: Yea but it took me a year to see how my "friend" didn't treat me like one ☹️
Commenter: Per your post, I would think that Kendall is a user rather than an actual friend. You will need time to heal. I recommend that you seek short-term psychological counseling to help - and maybe find out how to more effectively set and enforce personal boundaries.
OOP: Im planning to look into those as well, if I could afford them. But for the time being I'll try to find comfort in spending time with doggo, my bf and drowning in my hobbies :))
Commenter: If I were you, I'd be telling everyone she was hurting your dog - that would probably swing some opinions real quick
OOP: I did but some still called me an AH for kicking a poor girl who has travelled far from her hometown out in a big city 😒 I got off fine but why can't she?
Commenter: Also, time to step back for just a moment. Your so-called friend had No Student Loans and a Brand New Car. She has parents who can help her out. They created this puppy- kicking monster; they can deal with her. You gave her plenty of opps to play nice.
You don't owe her squat!!! Hold your head high! You're a wonderful person
OOP: Yet I don't understand where her money went, her wallets are always empty near the end of the month. She once showed me her savings balance, which was two digits, she was asking if I could lend her money. Luckily I didn't lend her any, but that's probably why she was angry at me for a week lmao
Commenter: This type hates being told no. They often seek revenge. If they put a fraction of that energy into working for what they wanted? They’d be in great shape. May you think of her no more & enjoy your life!
OOP: Exactly what I thought, there were so many other things and ways she could have work around to be stable financially, it's true I probably didn't have to collect rent from her but I was glad I did, even if it wasn't a year's worth. I spent so much for that thorough checkup of my boii after she kicked him :((
Commenter: I would have thrown her out on her ass the second I saw her kick my dog. That is completely unacceptable. She's lucky you gave her a week.
OOP: It ain't easy out in the city where I'm from, but she moved out in a couple of days after asked her to move out, last I heard one of our uni friends who called me an AH allowed her to crash at their place while she finds her own place to rent. I wish them good luck for sure they gonna end up like me
Commenter: Change your accounts so all paper work is clear so she cannot pretend to be you. Social security office visit to be sure no new accounts have been opened in your name is mandatory to cleanse sociopath vibe from your life.
OOP: Oh no worries about that, where I'm from to make most accounts would need my fingerprints and my physical id which neither have been missing, but thanks for the heads up on that! I've never considered from this angle
OOP originally paid the dog tax but has since deleted the picture.
Commenter: Anyone who could harm such a sweet boi would instantly be dead to me. For this alone, you are absolutely in the right!
OOP: I was really worried, but luckily the vet said he's as fit as a fiddle and as sturdy as ever
(to a different comment) From the checkups and with my vet's assurance, it seems like I caught her hurting my dog for the first time. He has never shown any sign of nervousness or anxiety near Kendall up till the day she kicked him, then again I didn't have cameras installed at home so I'm not sure if she has every attempted anything prior to this.
The most important thing is my ol'boy is still healthy and happy, with a tiny bruise which dissipated after a few days
Update Post 1: February 14, 2024 (3 weeks later)
Hello everyone, I'm here with some updates about me and my doggo as well as my now ex-friend, Kendall.
Let's start off with the update about myself. I've been doing well and surprisingly as some of you mentioned previously, I had gotten over the lost of this friendship rather quickly. My boyfriend planned a trip to a pet friendly beachfront hotel and I spent a few days with just my boyfriend and doggo. We played in the sea water and I watched my dog played in the sand. Overall had a great time and we even had grilled fish together while watching the sun set. (Doggo had a deboned fish fillet)
I am also grateful for my friends who stood by my side regarding this issue, they check in on me from time to time and sent me funny content to watch during my free time. Some of them even told me their stories about Kendall and their discontentment with her behavior, which I will list some below.
Friend A: Kendall ridiculed Friend A several times because Friend A earned less than Kendall despite he has worked a year longer than Kendall.
Friend B: Kendall trash talked Friend B's company via instagram just because Kendall flunked her interview with said company with flying colors.
Friend C: Kendall always demands Friend C to be her personal driver during our college days. If Friend C refuses, Kendall will guilt trip her.
Friend D: Ruined Friend D's assignment by 'pranking' him. She actually formatted his laptop when the project was due in two weeks. When confronted, all Kendall said was 'oopsies'.
There are many more but these are the more icky ones I've heard from my friends.
And now with that out of the way, here is today's main course:-- after I kicked Kendall out of my house, one of my uni friends, let's call her Anne, stood by Kendall's version of events and has allowed Kendall to move in with her instead. Anne called me out of the blue this afternoon and her first question to me was: "How on earth did you managed to put up with Kendall for a year? She's driving me crazy!!" Long story short, whatever Kendall did when she's living with me, she now does it to Anne. Snooping Anne's personal items, leaving dirty laundry around...generally being a prick in the butt. Anne told me she's planning to force Kendall out of her house too. I didn't comment much since Anne were among those who called me a cruel person, but now it has came back to bite her.
But wait, that's not all, according to Anne, Kendall lost her job because she tried to ask for a 100% increment and assaulted her supervisor when the increment request was turned down two weeks ago. She was immediately escorted out of the office building by security. And she just texted me 20mins ago saying she needed a favour from me that she wants a job at my workplace.
I replied stating there isn't any vacancy. Tbh even if there is I wouldn't hire her lmaoo.
So yea, I hope this is the last time I will hear from Kendall and I'll only update if somehow , something interesting happened that involves Kendall 🤣
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: "Anne told me she's planning to force Kendall out of her house too." How in the ever loving world did you not reply, "Wouldn't that be cruel though?"
OOP: I went with a sarcastic tone of, "Oh wow really? What happened?" 🤣
Commenter: Bet Kendall applies to the company and uses OP as a reference anyway.
OOP: Regarding this I have no worries about it since hr has to wait for me to filter through candidates for my department before sending out an email invite for job interviews. I'll make sure to shred Kendall's if I see hers
Commenter: What about the other departments??
OOP: She only has skills for my dept, sadly. I'm working in an advertising agency it's either graphic designer or motion designer, Kendall can't for the love of God make good designs. She would only want my department. Even if she tried, I doubt she could get into my company since one of the requirements is to be able to converse in basic japanese and you are tested during the interview plus you would need to show the certification of JLPT.
Thanks for giving this advice guys, but no worries I doubt Kendall would be able to pass the first screening :D
Commenter: I can imagine her turning up on your door step wanting a place to stay do you have a camera doorbell. just in case she will be getting desperate for friends and a place to stay now people are realising how crazy she is.
OOP: I have set up a new doorbell cam, I live in an apartment and there's plenty of cameras in the lift and corridor. Plus, I wouldn't be that afraid of her appearing at my door step since the security would call me to verify if I have visitors. A simple "no" would render her plans useless.
Commenter: Please keep us posted if anything happens with Kendall going forward. This is too funny and she’s too crazy for this to be the end of it.
OOP: Man I can't believe I was crying over the loss of this friendship. Rn I'm laughing at everything she has done or tried to do to people.
Commenter: Shouldn't she have been arrested for the assault? [at work]
OOP: Maybe her employer didn't press charges? Idk
Commenter: How many days she stay with Anne?
OOP: I think it's about or almost a month? She moved in quite quickly with Anne after I told her she had a week to leave.
Update Post 2: May 5, 2024 (3+ months from OG post)
At this point I wonder if I should change the title to "The Kendall Chronicles" 🤣
Hello everyone, it's been about two months since I kicked my now ex friend, Kendall out of my home. For those who has read my story before, just wanna let you guys know doggo and I are well fed and happy.
If you guys remember last time, Anne, one of my friends who sided with Kendall, told me about all the horrible things that has happened while having Kendall as a roommate. Ho boy, Anne had to call the cops to evict Kendall.
I happen to meet Anne at a pet friendly cafe to enjoy a good book yesterday while my doggo gets to enjoy playing at the doggy daycare-ish kinda area. I did wonder if it was intentional on her side since all my friends know I love this cafe in particular. Anne greeted me and asked if she could sit and have a chat with me. We started out with some small talk but the moment she brought up about her evicting Kendall, I just sat there and listened.
I gave Anne a smile and prodded her lightly with a comment I borrowed from the previous comment on reddit, "Oh, so you're gonna really kick her out then? I remember someone last told me it was cruel to kick a friend out of their homes." Anne stuttered for awhile before saying how I should have made a post to counteclarify Kendall's social media claims about me. I simply told her neither have I the energy to do so nor I have the need to. Which in turn, landed us in some brief awkward silence before I asked what she needed from me. Anne told me she wanted someone to vent to about Kendall and didn't know who to turn to.
Anne told me she filed a police report against Kendall; for theft and destruction of property, and ultimately Anne needed the assistance of police officers to evict Kendall from her home. She is also in the midst of filing a restraining order as she mentioned Kendall looked completely psycho at that moment. Unlike me, Anne lives in landed property so I guess she'd be a lot more worried about Kendall coming back to find her.
Kendall apparently stole Anne's debit card and spent a whopping 2k$ in total. Anne only found out about the missing money when she found her debit card missing from her wallet. She checked the bank statements only to find that 2k$ went to clothes, expensive meals and clubbing activities. At this point, one might ask, how did Anne know it was Kendall that spent that money? Well, the answer presented itself when Kendall came home screaming at Anne for terminating her debit card. According to Anne, Kendall was shouting every insult in the book while flailing her arms around with Anne's debit card in hand which Kendall proceeded with slamming the card on the table before storming off into her room.
That was the first time Anne felt afraid of another person much less a friend. Since then, Kendall made Anne's life hell on earth. Kendall would leech off Anne's groceries, judges her choice of snacks, body shames Anne etc. Kendall also attempted to seduce Anne's boyfriend. She once kissed Anne's boyfriend, (let's call him Jason) on the cheek and giggled before running straight for her room during movie night. In another instance she groped Jason's manhood right in front of Anne but later claimed that she was drunk and thought what she touched was a couch pillow. The worst thing that Kendall did was throwing herself onto Jason and saying she has a fever and later guided Jason's hand to feel her breast in which Anne walked in at the same time Jason's hand was under Kendall's shirt. These incidents has since cause a strain between the three and Jason felt awkward to the point where he told Anne he would stop visiting her house unless Kendall moves out. Anne cried for a bit when she reached this part.
Anne then told Kendall to move out, and gave her a week to do so. Kendall then cried and ran out of the house only to come back later in the evening to lock herself in her room. Anne presumed that Kendall is packing her stuff and she decided to ignore Kendall for the time being. The next morning Anne woke up to the sound of some grunts and broken ceramics. She rushed out to her yard to see an unhinged Kendall swinging a rod against everything she could hit, a tree, flower pots, even the grass on the ground. This led Anne to immediately lock her doors and call the police fearing for her own safety. The police arrived and handled the situation swiftly and they took Kendall away. There were still a lot of screaming and shouting. Anne said she's not sure if Kendall is being locked up or has anyone who would've posted bail for her.
While I guess it was kinda nice sipping tea about Kendall but at how Anne described Kendall is behaving, I wonder if she'd actually needed professional help. I can't help but feel sad for her condition despite we have gone no contact for two months.
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: And why is this still your problem , Anne made her choice , why you still talk to her, she not a good friend , she is like Kendall, a two face snake.
OOP: I have went no contact since Anne's last call two months ago but I believed she went to my favourite cafe spot to try to bump into me and well I have a hard time turning others down so I decided to serve myself some Kendall tea I guess
After this I would probably not want to hear anything about Kendall, Anne or anybody that decided to take in Kendall
Commenter: What about Anne's bf ? He's not naive to the point of having his hand led under shirt iniit
OOP: Anne only told me about the things Kendall did to Jason, maybe she did mention his reaction but I just don't remember the entire thing she told me (I have bad memory)
The gist of it is that these "interactions" had affected their relationship. She didn't further elaborate I didn't probe.
Commenter: While these stories are interesting to read, I wonder how true they actually are. If her parents were so wealthy and paid for her education and car, then at what point has anyone called them and informed them to her behavior? I’m not buying it
OOP: I never had her parents' contact so it didn't really cross my mind to call her parents. While it is hard to believe, it is true, some of us had long severed ties with Kendall since her incident with me.
Kendall also didn't say much about her parents. For all I know was that she moved out of her parents' place because she wanted a better paying job.
submitted by LucyAriaRose to BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

2024.05.10 13:37 DJ_CLARKO Here’s A Monkey Punch interview from May 1996. Might be a bit hard to read but you should be able to see it if you zoom in

submitted by DJ_CLARKO to lupinthe3rd [link] [comments]

http://activeproperty.pl/