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.

I will be flying into Haneda airport from Hawaii May 19th arriving around 529pm Tokyo time for my first ever Asian trip and my dream country to visit Japan being an anime otaku nerd as a 29 year old American growing up admiring Japanese culture and food.
I will be staying in Tokyo APA Hotel & Resort Ryogoku Eki Tower but haven’t booked my accommodation yet for either Osaka or Kyoto but wouldn’t mind suggestions or advice on where to stay at.
I was originally going to plan to do May 20th to the 24th in Tokyo then take the bullet train to Kyoto and experience the Kansei region to see Kyoto Osaka and Nara from the 24th to the 27th since my flight going back to the U.S. is the 28th was going to head back to Tokyo on the 27th.
For my first leg 20th to the 24th what would the top 5 things or most important things I need to do or see in Tokyo ? Also how do I go about seeing MT Fuji or the most cost effective way to see it ?
Also the same question for the 24th to the 27th should I stay in Kyoto or Osaka?
I understand I won’t be able to do everything and I’m ok with that but I just don’t want fomo on mandatory or required things to see or go too while In Japan. Please and thank you.

Damaged goods -2

Date [standardized human time] January 19, 2137
Weather: Drop nominal
Package status: N/A
User: Lt. Netal Itenka….
Current objective: Secure package …. Ammunition count: 15/45 Load: APA Flechette
“Humanity is not a predator species. They are a parasitic species. To any who is not under their influence I beg of you, recognize their food source. Your economies. Your land. It is obvious to anyone who is willing to see.” The broadcast system boomed out
“Can someone shut that thing up?” I hissed to my squad members. The push to the city was a cakewalk, but our nerves were tense. Something was wrong. There were not enough defenders in this city, where we would have usually needed to fight block by block, we walked at a combat pace through.
“No can do.” Lee replied, checking his holopad. His deep southern tinted tone stuck in my mind as he talked.“It is linked up to the EBS around here. If we shut it off the civvies are blind as bats.”
I winced at that response. If I had to hear any more of that squid’s ramblings I would shoot myself before any of them got to me in combat.
A sly male voice caught my mind before a bullet did. “We are getting some strange readings on tac scan. You sure we aren’t deploying any nanos in the ao?”
“Negative, what do you see?” I quietly requested from my scanner operator
“Just that. Drones.” He replied in a confused tone. “Must be a sensor glitch or somethin’.. I would not trust anything that comes out of my mouth from now on, okay?”
“Copy.” I firmly replied back. The grip I had on my rifle tightening as my brain processed the multitude of oddities into a paranoid feeling.
“The building our target is housed in is just ahead. Freya, Hark, June, I want you on the roof of that residential tower.” I pointed to the tall apartment complex building with my index and middle finger
“Sam, Lee, with me.” I completed my order.
The steps up to the complex were guarded, yet in a way that my mind could not help but question. As we barreled up the stone steps the one thing that became apparent in my mind is that this had to be some kind of farce. The Kolshians were on the backfoot but not this much, especially for a high priority asset in the center of an urban block.
We stacked up on the side of the main entry door, and I felt the signaling pat on my pack to tell me that my team behind me was ready. With that I willed all my strength into my legs and kicked against the door. Slamming it inwards and allowing us to spill inside, rifles up. We were met with the horse coughs of flechette rifle fire as we entered, and I saw Sam split to the floor in a sharp motion.
The pillars that decorated the lobby provided adequate cover for us as the fire continued. On the pillar opposite to me Lee had dragged Sam's body behind cover, although it was not for an altruistic reason. His vest had a collection of various grenades that would be useful for later. Sam detached a cylinder shaped grenade with a white stripe going down its center and pulled the pin. Using his jointed arm to chuck the object downrange.
With a pop the lobby turned into a smokey haze, allowing us to push upwards. The defenders coughed and hacked at the smoke, a side effect which we had been using to our advantage for some time now. With a burst of rifle fire we put our assailants down. Causing the lobby to return to its silent empty state, with only the sound of the announcement to keep our ears occupied.
“We hope that this can make the predators realize their flaws before society itself collapses.” The Kolshian waxed “For the betterment of the federation.”“What the hell is he talking about?” Lee questioned as we moved further into the building
Our radios crackled with panicked voices on all channels“Whu- Gas! Gas!” One voice broke through
I quickly thumbed for my radio “This is leftenant Netal, there is an unknown chemical threat in the ao. I repeat, chemical threat in the ao.” After my report I quickly went to feel for my mask, and found its comforting curvature in the spot it had been stashed. I slipped the garment over my face and secured the straps, and the comforting sound of air recycling quickly filled my ears
FirstNext

Hi all :) I put together a ton of my thoughts on ERAS here. Happy to answer questions!
Tiffany
______________________________________
The purpose of your MyERAS Application (often called the ERAS CV) is to highlight your experiences in a way that’s attractive to programs. This isn’t achieved through an endless series of bullet points or short, 1st person paragraphs. Instead, you’ll need to craft detailed, impactful, and strategic entries. To do so, we’ll consider the ERAS CV from a rhetorical perspective grounded in audience analysis (i.e., how program directors read).
Below, we’ll explain the main components of the MyERAS Application along with best practices. They may go against advice you’ve read elsewhere, but they are all backed by years of experience–and successful matches!

MyERAS Application CV: Understanding Your Reader

Before we dive in…did you know applicants cannot upload PDF CVs into the ERAS system? Instead, you’ll fill in a series of fields within ERAS, adding details for each experience (dates, location, title, responsibilities, etc.). The output is a document that’s uniform in formatting for everyone, making it easy for programs to evaluate.
Take a moment and think about the last part of the previous sentence: make it easy for programs to evaluate your CV. To get it right, we can look toward research about the way people read.

Skimming the CV

A series of studies by Dr. Ziming Liu and others discovered that the majority of readers rely on skimming when they first encounter a piece of writing. Think about it…when you have to read something, is your first instinct to read straight through? Or do you skim/scroll a bit through the document to “get a feel” for what’s to come–and whether or not you want to continue reading?
When we skim, our brains are actively trying to identify key pieces of information. Poor formatting, overly complex phrasing, and “walls” of text make it difficult to do this. And when something you have to do is unnecessarily difficult, you enjoy it less.
Submitting a CV that’s difficult to skim is likely to annoy program directors, who will then review your CV in a less-than-ideal mind frame. At worst, they’ll decide your CV isn’t interesting enough to bother reading it more closely. Keep in mind these decisions aren’t calculated, it’s just how the brain processes text.
Now that we’ve established a framework for how your CV is likely to be read, here are best practices you can rely on to build an easy-to-read CV.

MyERAS Application CV Experience Descriptions – Best Practices

Formatting

There aren’t a lot of formatting options for this section of ERAS. Nonetheless, you can take advantage of white space, indenting, and bullet points to ensure a smooth reading experience.
White space is used in 2 ways: to visually separate text and to offer the eyes a rest.
Indenting is a visual cue denoting a higher level of detail.
Bullets indicate where new ideas begin.
Take a look at these 2 experience descriptions (scroll halfway).
The one on the left requires a slower reading to ascertain what’s being conveyed.
The one on the right is easy to skim and assess.
We recommend never using 1st-person, narrative paragraphs in the CV. They are even harder to skim than a list of bullets.

Word Choices

When it comes to creating bullet points, aim for concrete word choices and straightforward phrasing. This maximizes readability and impact.
Here are a few examples:
USMLE Peer Tutor
Wordy: Offered ongoing guidance and encouragement while fostering student growth and success in their journey towards achieving exam success.
Concise: Shared effective study strategies for USMLE exams and offered encouragement.
Hands-on Internship
Wordy: Evaluated, diagnosed, and provided treatment across various departments, adapting to the unique care requirements, whether it be in follow-up clinics, outpatient settings, inpatient care, or the emergency department.
Concise: Evaluated, diagnosed, and provided tailored treatment modalities in outpatient, inpatient, and emergency settings.
Vice President: Student Interest Group
Wordy: Periodically conducted surveys to gather students’ opinions on various topics and presented their feedback during curriculum committee meetings.
Concise: Conducted student surveys to gather opinions and presented results during curriculum committee meetings.
Here are 2 last tips for the experiences section:

• Implement “breaks” within a long series of bullets by using 1-2 descriptive sentences as headers for groups of similar bullets.
• The Position/Title section of each experience description serves as the headliner and is a chance to catch program directors’ attention. Be creative and descriptive here! Don’t write “Extern.” Write “Internal Medicine: Hands-on Externship.” Don’t write “Volunteer.” Write “Community Volunteer: Preventative Education.”

Supplemental Information

The supplemental information sections in the MyERAS Application emerged from a separate “Supplemental Application” document. It was tested across a number of specialties for 2 match cycles (2021 & 2022), and the feedback was positive. Now, the best elements from the Supplemental Application are embedded in the main application, and research and AAMC data confirms they are important to programs.
This section offers five options:

• Rural
• Rural or Suburban
• Suburban
• Suburban or Urban
• Urban
• No Preference

Choosing “No preference” is the smartest choice for anyone applying broadly. If you are applying primarily to programs in just one setting, though, indicating your preference makes sense.
Your explanation in either case should be genuine and speak to your experiences, goals, or values. Avoid vague responses and include details where possible.

Meaningful Experiences

In this section, you’ll consider your 10 experiences and select 3 of them as “most meaningful.” These will be the first 3 experiences presented on your CV—so your choices are quite important.
The biggest mistake applicants make here is writing entries discussing what they learned or did. The ERAS instructions for this section are clear: “The [meaningful experiences] should not describe what you did in the experience or list a set of skills that you developed or demonstrated.” Instead, write your meaningful experience sections based on how the experience made you feel, how it influenced your path, and/or the impact it had on your values.
Ineffective meaningful experience entry: I learned how to triage incoming patients and pay attention to non-verbal cues. Additionally, working alongside a multidisciplinary team strengthened my communication skills.
Effective meaningful experience entry: Encountering undereducated and uninsured patients was a poignant reminder of the disparities in healthcare. It prompted me to authentically engage with patients and their families and instilled a deep sense of empathy.

Geographic Preferences

The geographic preference section offers three options:

• Select up to 3 regional preferences and explain your interest.
• Choose “No geographic preference.”
• “Opt out,” not selecting anything at all.

Statistically, applicants who select geographic preferences receive more interview invitations than those who don’t.
The strongest responses in this section highlight a unique and/or notable connection to the area: close family ties, previous experience living in the area, hometowns, etc.
If you don’t have a reason to choose any specific regions, plot out your programs on a map to see where they are most concentrated and base your selections on that. Your explanation can include things like the region’s climate being similar to “home,” family/friends who frequently visit the area, a longstanding desire to live in the region, etc.

Setting Preferences

The settings preferences section offers five options ranging from strong preference for urban to strong preference for rural with the midline response being “No preference.”
Choosing “No preference” is the smartest choice for anyone applying broadly. If you are applying primarily to programs in just one setting, though, indicating your preference makes sense.
Your explanation in either case should be genuine and speak to your experiences, goals, and/or values. Avoid vague responses and include details where possible.

Impactful Experience

This one should be named “Hardship Experience,” because that’s what it’s for. If you’ve gone through something difficult that’s directly impacted your journey toward matching, this is the place to discuss it.
This section can be used to explain an attempt, a gap, or any other irregularity in your application—as long as a hardship is involved. It can also be used to describe a difficult upbringing, dealing with loss, helping care for a sick family member, etc.
Tip: This section is optional, and programs don’t expect all applicants to complete it. Not everyone has experienced a relevant hardship, and some who have would rather not share.

Writing your MyERAS Application

Creating your experience entries takes time. Plan for several dedicated sessions of writing, and start with a “brain dump” to capture as many ideas as possible. From there, focus on 1 entry at a time and revise until your content is detailed yet easy to skim and assess.
​

Hey all :) I put together a ton of my thoughts on the ERAS application. Happy to answer questions!
- Tiffany
The purpose of your MyERAS Application (often called the ERAS CV) is to highlight your experiences in a way that’s attractive to programs. This isn’t achieved through an endless series of bullet points or short, 1st person paragraphs. Instead, you’ll need to craft detailed, impactful, and strategic entries. To do so, we’ll consider the ERAS CV from a rhetorical perspective grounded in audience analysis (i.e., how program directors read).
Below, we’ll explain the main components of the MyERAS Application along with best practices. They may go against advice you’ve read elsewhere, but they are all backed by years of experience–and successful matches!

MyERAS Application CV: Understanding Your Reader

Before we dive in…did you know applicants cannot upload PDF CVs into the ERAS system? Instead, you’ll fill in a series of fields within ERAS, adding details for each experience (dates, location, title, responsibilities, etc.). The output is a document that’s uniform in formatting for everyone, making it easy for programs to evaluate.
Take a moment and think about the last part of the previous sentence: make it easy for programs to evaluate your CV. To get it right, we can look toward research about the way people read.

Skimming the CV

A series of studies by Dr. Ziming Liu and others discovered that the majority of readers rely on skimming when they first encounter a piece of writing. Think about it…when you have to read something, is your first instinct to read straight through? Or do you skim/scroll a bit through the document to “get a feel” for what’s to come–and whether or not you want to continue reading?
When we skim, our brains are actively trying to identify key pieces of information. Poor formatting, overly complex phrasing, and “walls” of text make it difficult to do this. And when something you have to do is unnecessarily difficult, you enjoy it less.
Submitting a CV that’s difficult to skim is likely to annoy program directors, who will then review your CV in a less-than-ideal mind frame. At worst, they’ll decide your CV isn’t interesting enough to bother reading it more closely. Keep in mind these decisions aren’t calculated, it’s just how the brain processes text.
Now that we’ve established a framework for how your CV is likely to be read, here are best practices you can rely on to build an easy-to-read CV.

MyERAS Application CV Experience Descriptions – Best Practices

Formatting

There aren’t a lot of formatting options for this section of ERAS. Nonetheless, you can take advantage of white space, indenting, and bullet points to ensure a smooth reading experience.
White space is used in 2 ways: to visually separate text and to offer the eyes a rest.
Indenting is a visual cue denoting a higher level of detail.
Bullets indicate where new ideas begin.
Take a look at these 2 experience descriptions (via the Class Act blog)
The one on the left requires a slower reading to ascertain what’s being conveyed.
The one on the right is easy to skim and assess.
We recommend never using 1st-person, narrative paragraphs in the CV*.* They are even harder to skim than a list of bullets.

Word Choices

When it comes to creating bullet points, aim for concrete word choices and straightforward phrasing. This maximizes readability and impact.
Here are a few examples:
USMLE Peer Tutor
Wordy: Offered ongoing guidance and encouragement while fostering student growth and success in their journey towards achieving exam success.
Concise: Shared effective study strategies for USMLE exams and offered encouragement.
Hands-on Internship
Wordy: Evaluated, diagnosed, and provided treatment across various departments, adapting to the unique care requirements, whether it be in follow-up clinics, outpatient settings, inpatient care, or the emergency department.
Concise: Evaluated, diagnosed, and provided tailored treatment modalities in outpatient, inpatient, and emergency settings.
Vice President: Student Interest Group
Wordy: Periodically conducted surveys to gather students’ opinions on various topics and presented their feedback during curriculum committee meetings.
Concise: Conducted student surveys to gather opinions and presented results during curriculum committee meetings.
Here are 2 last tips for the experiences section:

• Implement “breaks” within a long series of bullets by using 1-2 descriptive sentences as headers for groups of similar bullets.
• The Position/Title section of each experience description serves as the headliner and is a chance to catch program directors’ attention. Be creative and descriptive here! Don’t write “Extern.” Write “Internal Medicine: Hands-on Externship.” Don’t write “Volunteer.” Write “Community Volunteer: Preventative Education.”

Supplemental Information

The supplemental information sections in the MyERAS Application emerged from a separate “Supplemental Application” document. It was tested across a number of specialties for 2 match cycles (2021 & 2022), and the feedback was positive. Now, the best elements from the Supplemental Application are embedded in the main application, and research and AAMC data confirms they are important to programs.
This section offers five options:

• Rural
• Rural or Suburban
• Suburban
• Suburban or Urban
• Urban
• No Preference

Choosing “No preference” is the smartest choice for anyone applying broadly. If you are applying primarily to programs in just one setting, though, indicating your preference makes sense.
Your explanation in either case should be genuine and speak to your experiences, goals, or values. Avoid vague responses and include details where possible.

Meaningful Experiences

In this section, you’ll consider your 10 experiences and select 3 of them as “most meaningful.” These will be the first 3 experiences presented on your CV—so your choices are quite important.
The biggest mistake applicants make here is writing entries discussing what they learned or did. The ERAS instructions for this section are clear: “The [meaningful experiences] should not describe what you did in the experience or list a set of skills that you developed or demonstrated.” Instead, write your meaningful experience sections based on how the experience made you feel, how it influenced your path, and/or the impact it had on your values.
Ineffective meaningful experience entry*: I learned how to triage incoming patients and pay attention to non-verbal cues. Additionally, working alongside a multidisciplinary team strengthened my communication skills.*
Effective meaningful experience entry*: Encountering undereducated and uninsured patients was a poignant reminder of the disparities in healthcare. It prompted me to authentically engage with patients and their families and instilled a deep sense of empathy.*

Geographic Preferences

The geographic preference section offers three options:

• Select up to 3 regional preferences and explain your interest.
• Choose “No geographic preference.”
• “Opt out,” not selecting anything at all.

Statistically, applicants who select geographic preferences receive more interview invitations than those who don’t.
The strongest responses in this section highlight a unique and/or notable connection to the area: close family ties, previous experience living in the area, hometowns, etc.
If you don’t have a reason to choose any specific regions, plot out your programs on a map to see where they are most concentrated and base your selections on that. Your explanation can include things like the region’s climate being similar to “home,” family/friends who frequently visit the area, a longstanding desire to live in the region, etc.

Setting Preferences

The settings preferences section offers five options ranging from strong preference for urban to strong preference for rural with the midline response being “No preference.”
Choosing “No preference” is the smartest choice for anyone applying broadly. If you are applying primarily to programs in just one setting, though, indicating your preference makes sense.
Your explanation in either case should be genuine and speak to your experiences, goals, and/or values. Avoid vague responses and include details where possible.

Impactful Experience

This one should be named “Hardship Experience,” because that’s what it’s for. If you’ve gone through something difficult that’s directly impacted your journey toward matching, this is the place to discuss it.
This section can be used to explain an attempt, a gap, or any other irregularity in your application—as long as a hardship is involved. It can also be used to describe a difficult upbringing, dealing with loss, helping care for a sick family member, etc.
Tip: This section is optional, and programs don’t expect all applicants to complete it. Not everyone has experienced a relevant hardship, and some who have would rather not share.

Writing your MyERAS Application

Creating your experience entries takes time. Plan for several dedicated sessions of writing, and start with a “brain dump” to capture as many ideas as possible. From there, focus on 1 entry at a time and revise until your content is detailed yet easy to skim and assess.
​

Konteksnya di Indonesia ya karena kalau semisal pasar atau kondisi luar negeri mungkin berbeda
Pertanyaannyabisa dijawab sebagian atau seluruhnya dan tidak harus per bullet poin alias bisa digabung

1. Konten jenis apa yang kalian produksi? Apakah gambar, video, artikel, novel, komik, streams, podcast, atau apa?
2. Platform apa yang kalian gunakan untuk mengembangkan konten-konten kalian?
3. Pertanyaan untuk nomor 1 dan 2: how did you end up making those kinds of contents and choosing a particular platform? Apakah sejak awal kalian mengembangkan konten tersebut memang untuk dimonetisasi atau ya awalnya kalian suka aja tapi lama kelamaan justru jadi berkembang.
4. Bagaimana prosesnya mulai dari mencari ide untuk suatu konten, memproduksinya, memasarkannya hingga memonetisasinya/mengkomersialkannya?
5. Do you have a main job? If so, bagaimana caranya membagi waktu antara pekerjaan utama dan proses content creation kalian hingga konten-konten kalian menghasilkan?
6. Apakah income yang diperoleh itu adalah murni dari ads platform tersebut? Ataukah terdapat sumber lain yg berkaitan dgn marketing, seperti endorse, link affiliate shoppee, tokped, etc? Kl iya, how do you "market" yourself sampai bisa di-approach oleh brand2 tersebut, dan bagaimana prosesnya sampai deal?
7. Selain konten yang dibikin, apakah kalian juga memproduksi serta menjual barang dan jasa lain seperti merch, photobook, course, template, tutorial , konsultasi, etc? Dibandingkan dengan ads dan affiliate, bagaimana performance dari penjualan barang dan jasa tersebut, dan apakah worth it at all untuk memproduksinya?
8. Apa hal-hal yang dapat kalian sarankan untuk lakukan atau hindari bagi mereka yang berminat untuk menjadikan content creation sebagai salah satu sumber penghasilan?

After spending the most amazing time in Japan, I am now back to Australia. I’ve been pretty active on this group and used a lot of suggestions during my trip. Time for me to share some insights for future travellers.
1) FLIGHT: I flew through china eastern. Not a great experience since I requested vegan food and it was served to me only on one flight. But the air hostess was pretty understanding and gave me the crew food. The only positive is if you’re wanting a budget trip this is a good option. I got a return trip for only $677 AUD.
2) WIFI:I used Ninja wifi since I got 20% off on their website. Pretty good network throughout Japan. Just that it doesn’t work well in bullet trains. Make sure you carry extra power bank or hire one from them coz pocket wifi discharges pretty fast.
3) HOTEL:I stayed at APA hotels throughout my stay in Tokyo and Osaka. Pretty good rates. Small rooms but you’ll get all facilities. Our hotel in Osaka also had sento (public bath) with hot water Jacuzzi. Trust me it’s the best thing you can have after a tiring day. Staying in business hotels reduces expenses significantly.
4) STAY AREA:We stayed at Kaminarimon (Asakusa) in Tokyo which is a great area to live in. A little cheaper than central Tokyo and very close to Sensoji temple, Nakamise shopping street, Tokyo sky tree and Ueno park (through a train via Ginza line). We stayed just outside Shin-Osaka station in Osaka. Very convenient if you are travelling via Shinkansen (bullet train).
5) FOOD: Food in general is pretty cheap in Japan but if you want to further save money try and buy prepackaged food at places like seven eleven, Lawson and convenience stores. Even coffee (hot or cold) can be bought from there and it’s much cheaper than cafes and tastes good. If you like having fruits and veggies, try buying them in supermarkets. Pretty cheap and fresh. We even bought snacks from there and ate them throughout our journey.
6) PUBLIC TRANSPORT: public transport is pretty good in Japan and can be a bit confusing initially but you’ll get a hang in a day or two. Google maps is your best guide and there are signs everywhere on stations. Bullet train experience is a must do and in order to make it cheaper we bought the Hokuriru arch pass (cheaper than JR pass). It doesn’t let you take a direct train from Tokyo to Osaka but takes you to Tsurunga station and from there you can catch Thunder bird to Osaka (all included in the pass). Took a little more time but we were able to see the Japanese alps on the way and trust me they are not to miss! This pass also covers your expenses via JR line travel in Tokyo, Osaka, Nara and Kyoto and we used it to travel all over Kyoto, Osaka and Nara. This pass also included our journey to and from airport in Narita express and we were able to comfortably travel in reserved seats.
For all other forms of travel we used Suica card. They say there is shortage but we got the card right at the Narita terminal 2 station. They take 500 yen deposit and on the last day when you give your suica back, they will refund you.
7) Sakura: Sakura is all a luck game and despite the full bloom estimated on the day we reached Tokyo, it didn’t happen. We only saw a few trees. Luckily, the full bloom day happened on our last day in Japan and it was the best experience. We saw lines of Sakura at Sumida river, Sumida park and Ueno park. Tip, try and find smaller parks in residential areas to see Sakura in peace. We went to Nakaoe park in Osaka and we saw no tourists and only locals there. We took so many photos and felt so peaceful.
8) Odaiba: I hadn’t heard much about Odaiba before my travel and a local suggested me to go there. It is a man made area in Tokyo and trust me it is magnificent. They have driverless trains that take you there and try and sit on the first compartment. The views are fabulous. It’s a rich area of Tokyo and is built amazingly well.
9) Shopping: Ginza, Umeda and Nakamise street were the best areas of shopping for us. Surprisingly we shopped a lot at Nara too and it was much cheaper than Tokyo. Try mega dunki in Shibuya since it has a lot of cheaper options.
These are all the tips of the top of my head. If you need more info DM me and I will be happy to help.

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Flew out from Toronto to Tokyo on November 2nd, flew back on November 26th.
To say this was a packed trip would be an understatement, but we planned it to be that way. We don’t do “sitting still” all that well on vacation and this was our first trip over so we wanted to experience as much as possible.
Overall had a fantastic experience, when we go again we will spend less time doing touristy things in Tokyo, slow it down, and do more small town things.
Day 0-Arrived 9pm local time at Narita, long customs line, barely got the last train out of the terminal. Got to Tokyo station then to Hammamatschuo station area
Day 1-Minato city area. Stayed at Hotel Tavinos Hamamatsucho. Good enough hotel, great location. Saw Miyazaki/Ghibli statue. Walked to Imperial palace, wasn’t open. Walked to Pokemon center. Walked back to Minato area. Nap. Saw Tokyo tower, Zozoji temple, shrine of 100 steps (Atago Jinju) and Karaoke all around the Minato area, did this last half as a guided tour through Airbnb experiences. Absolute blast.
Day 2-Coffee and pooted around Hamamatscucho area. Got on monorail to Haneda. Flight down to Kagoshima. Checked into hotel at JR Kyushu Kagoshima. Fantastic hotel, great location. Did the Ferris wheel and arcade at Taito Station in the mall by the Kagoshima station.
Day 3- Set out early to Kagoshima Port, hopped on Sakurajima ferry (very easy, grab a street car from station, walk 10 minutes or so). Ferry was fantastic views and easy. Tsukiyomi shrine for views. Walked down to visitors center. Did the foot bath for a bit and saw the Geo park. Hopped on the bus to tour the island. Got up closer to Sakurajima, stopped for photos. Started to drizzle so we headed back to ferry. Had ice cream with sweet potatoes and ash at ferry port, at Minato Cafe excellent coffee, food looked excellent as well but we had eaten earlier at Lawson. Hopped back on ferry and toured the Kagoshima aquarium upon arrival, went from aquarium to tour the various side streets near Tenmonkan park and Chuo park. Had dinner at Aji No Tonkatsu Maruichi, owner was fantastic. Headed back to hotel and crashed out after getting JR Passes for the next day(jet lag hit)
Day 4-checked out of hotel and bullet train to Kumamoto. Walked from station to Kumamoto castle. Had lunch at Aeon mall near Kumamoto castle, place was called RHC and was PHENOMENAL. Very healthy more western style but the coffee and food was fantastic. Walked over after lunch to tour Kumamoto castle. Hopped on bus back to station to grab bags and go to ferry at Kumamoto>Shimabara port. Ferry to Shimabara. At Shimabara port walked to Shimabara Toyota rent a car and got our car rental. Stunning drive to Unzen. Stopped at hotel for the night (Unzenonsen Azumaen). Private onsen room with a view. Food was fantastic (kaiseki dinner) service was phenomenal. Our favorite place of the trip by far. The price was higher but the value was absolutely there.
Day 5-Drove up to the Unzen cable car. Words can’t describe the views up at the peak of the Unzen area. Came back down to Unzen and saw Unzen Jigoku, the Unzensan Manmyo Temple, the visitors center and lunch at Bunnoji. Took a little trip down to Obamacho. Had a foot bath at Hot foot 105. Walked around Obamacho, had great gelato and back to the hotel after a bit. Beautiful scenery, amazing people, great vibes and a fantastic scenic drive.
Day 6-Headed out to Izahaya to return the car at Izahaya. Train from Izahaya to Nagasaki. Stayed at Candeo Nagasaki right at Chinatown, absolutely excellent stay at a good value. Walked to Oura church area. Fantastic views all around. Walked back to Chinatown and taxi to Atomic Bomb museum. Walked the museum and grounds, very well done museum and beautiful area. Walked back to hotel and had hamburg steak and curry at a local restaurant (will find the name). Excellent food and service. Back to hotel for bed since it’s later out.
Day 7- Travel day to Fukuoka. Stayed at HafH Fukuoka. Do NOT recommend. Good location but the bed is SO uncomfortable. Did Canal City, Hakata station Christmas decorations.
Day 8-made our way to Ohori park, stunning area, had coffee nearby. Walked over to bus and bus to Fukuoka tower. Very enjoyable little tower with seaside views, mountains, and cityscape. Walked down to beach after and had Italian at a restaurant called Mamma Mia. Pretty decent! Walked back to Ohori, train from Ohori to Hakata. Food tour later on in the day. Had Hakata style ramen and Okonomiyaki at a street food stall guided with an Airbnb Experience.
Day 9- left Fukuoka early. Train to Hiroshima. Hiroshima station dropped off bags and walked to Atom Bomb dome. Perused the park and took it all in for a bit. Walked over to Hiroshima castle. Back on the train after that, stopped over at Himeji. Himeji castle was beautiful. Walked around the grounds and were lucky there was a 30th anniversary celebration. Really neat to see the traditional celebration happen on the grounds. Only a brief stop and it was getting dark so we made it back to the station and onwards to Kyoto. Stay was at Sakura adult terrace. Nice location, great lobby, room was pretty cramped, still very enjoyable stay (especially compared to our place in Fukuoka).
Day 10- slower day, pooted around the mall, got the IC card finally at the Kyoto station, had lunch. Made our way out to Kiyomizu dera. Enjoyed the first half, had a panic attack with the crowds in the upper half. Cut through a beautiful cemetery on the way out, and had Coco’s Curry heading back to hotel.
Day 11- Day trip to Nara. Really really enjoyed Nara. Straight to Todaiji temple, absolutely awe inspiring area. Walked all around the temple area for a while and found a small Okonomiyaki spot. Omitsu Okonomiyaki. Fantastic gem. Walked through the nearby Mochiidono shopping street. Headed back to the station and onto Kyoto.
Day 12-Got started to Osaka for day trip. Umeda area was really cool. Saw Pokemon center. Walked over to Osaka Castle and did the tour, pretty busy but the views were really wild. Walked over to Dotonbori as it got darker.
Day 13-Walked to top of Fushimi inari, had spectacular views. Did laundry. Saw Tofukuji lit up at night.
Day 14- travel day to Nagano/Yudanaka. Beautiful views through the mist and rain all through the Japanese alps. Went via Kanazawa randomly, but it added to the overall beauty of the train journey. Main goal was to get checked at Hotel Yudanaka
Day 15- Yudanaka honpon purin for breakfast and late start bus to Jigokaedani park. Unbelievable experience to get up close and personal with the monkeys. Stuck around there for quite a while and had lunch at Enza cafe. The food was phenomenal. Bus back to Yudanaka. Did the whole public onsen experience, was odd but neat. Dinner out later at night.
Day 16- Yudanaka to APA Ueno Tokyo. Mostly a travel day but walked around Ueno park and saw a couple of the shrines.
Day 17- Last minute decision to take bullet train out to Fuji. Rented bikes for ¥100 for the day and went down to Niihama park on bike. Walked along the seawall, tons of beautiful views of both Fuji and the sea. Got on a bus to head to Shiraito falls. Gobsmacked by the outstanding beauty of the falls and Fuji views. Bus back to Fuji, walked around Fuji a while then back on the train to Ueno.
Day 18-Walked from Ueno to Skytree. Really enjoyed the views and sights. Stopped by Sensoji temple noped out of there before it was too busy (was 9am and it was still busy). Got to top of Skytree view and it was nice, nuts how big of a city Tokyo is. Had Kura sushi near the Skytree which was fun. Skytree walked back to Ueno. Visited Don Quixote in Ameyoko. Had dinner at Everyone’s Cafe in Ueno park. Pooofy pancakes.
Day 19-Day 19: Tokyo! Shibuya/Shinjuku. Lots of fall color. Woke up and walked to Cafe Lapin. Took the subway to Yoyogi Park. Visited Neko Neko Inn and a local art shop. Around the park and ended up at another cafe for lunch called Verve Cafe and had the best Nitro Lattes! The sandwiches were also good. Walked around the rose garden. Had to stop and see cats at the mocha cat cafe in Shibuya. Went to Shibuya crossing, saw hachi statue, and stopped by shibuya sky but was too crowded so we left. Headed to Shinjuku to go to the observatory at the government building but still too crowded so we left and went to Chuo Park and saw the Christmas decorations. Walked to the sumitomo building and enjoyed all the Christmas decorations. Walked to shinjuku station area to see the giant cat billboard. Caught a quick train to akihabara browsed a few stores for anime stuff, but didn’t find much we wanted. Still enjoyed the experience.
Day 20-Tokyo/Roppongi-Azabu Juban. Train ride out to Azabu Juban near Roppongi for sailor moon scavenger hunt. Had excellent coffee and breakfast at Verve Coffee roasters. Walked around and found the station from sailor moon. Found the park from sailor moon, and the statue and shrine as well! Found a beautiful hidden park (Arisugawa-no-miya) in the hills of Roppongi. Like a forest in the middle of Tokyo. Lunch out near the park and had curry. Walked over to Shibuya. Made it to Daikanyamacho neighborhood within Shibuya, was adorable but not quite what we were looking for (very gentrified and no parks or anything interesting), moved on. Got to Meguro sky park and it was stunning out, walked around for a bit. Walked over to dinner at a vegan restaurant nearby. Got out of the Meguro area and came back to Asakusa/Sumida area for night views and played at the park.
Day 21-Tokyo Ikebukuro-Day 21,.Woke up and headed to ikebukuro. Saw a Frank Lloyd Wright building. Had coffee at a zen garden Bozu’n (only open a couple days a month!) Lunch at a Hawaiian Mexican place, Aloha Amigo! Found the sunshine city mall. Train to Ochanomizu, music instrument souvenirs for family.
Day 22-Went out to Shimokitazawa. Had breakfast at Brooklyn roasters. Went to Vintage Vanguard. Walked around and did some thrift shopping. Pretty tired at this point went back to hotel to start packing.
Day 23- Went to Ueno zoo after checking out of hotel. Saw the panda twins. Saw the temple in Ueno park. Headed to airport.
Day 24-plane time, landed back home Sunday 11/26/2023.

The following two codes are for python 3.9 on a Windows 10 computer.
Within the code, {YourUsername} must be replaced with your actual username.
~~~~~~
Code 1:
The following code does the following: Runs through all the stocks in the S&P 500 Gets 6 month chart, 1 year chart, 2.5 year chart, and 5 year chart. Gets regression line for all chart Calculates the percent chance for the closing price of the last business day to the current close price. Saves graphs only for stocks where the percent change (regarding the bullet point above) is 2.5 or more, or -2.5 or less, and is opposite the direction of the regression like for the 6 month chart.
import yfinance as yf import os import pandas as pd import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import seaborn as sns from datetime import datetime, timedelta from pytz import timezone import warnings import time import numpy as np import matplotlib from scipy.stats import linregress import shutil

Path to the directory to be cleared

graph_directory = r'C:\Users{Your username}\Desktop\PYTHON CODES\graphs'

Clear the directory before running the code

shutil.rmtree(graph_directory, ignore_errors=True) os.makedirs(graph_directory)
matplotlib.use('Agg') warnings.simplefilter(action='ignore', category=FutureWarning)
est = timezone('America/New_York')
tickerSymbols = ['MSFT', 'AAPL', 'NVDA', 'AMZN', 'GOOG', 'META', 'BRK-B', 'LLY', 'TSLA', 'AVGO', 'V', 'JPM', 'UNH', 'WMT', 'MA', 'XOM', 'JNJ', 'PG', 'HD', 'MRK', 'COST', 'ABBV', 'ORCL', 'CVX', 'AMD', 'CRM', 'BAC', 'KO', 'NFLX', 'ADBE', 'ACN', 'PEP', 'TMO', 'LIN', 'MCD', 'ABT', 'CSCO', 'DIS', 'TMUS', 'WFC', 'DHR', 'INTU', 'INTC', 'QCOM', 'VZ', 'IBM', 'GE', 'CMCSA', 'AMAT', 'UBER', 'CAT', 'NKE', 'NOW', 'PFE', 'UNP', 'AXP', 'AMGN', 'TXN', 'PM', 'MS', 'SPGI', 'ISRG', 'SYK', 'LOW', 'COP', 'HON', 'GS', 'UPS', 'PLD', 'BA', 'BKNG', 'LRCX', 'BLK', 'ELV', 'T', 'RTX', 'NEE', 'SCHW', 'MDT', 'ETN', 'TJX', 'PGR', 'VRTX', 'SBUX', 'C', 'REGN', 'ADP', 'BMY', 'CB', 'LMT', 'DE', 'CI', 'MMC', 'MDLZ', 'ABNB', 'BSX', 'CVS', 'MU', 'ADI', 'GILD', 'FI', 'KLAC', 'ZTS', 'PANW', 'BX', 'AMT', 'SNPS', 'ANET', 'WM', 'EQIX', 'HCA', 'CDNS', 'SHW', 'CME', 'ITW', 'ICE', 'CSX', 'GD', 'SO', 'MAR', 'CMG', 'MO', 'DUK', 'BDX', 'CL', 'MCO', 'TGT', 'SLB', 'NOC', 'PH', 'MCK', 'TDG', 'EOG', 'PSX', 'APH', 'USB', 'MPC', 'CTAS', 'TT', 'PYPL', 'ECL', 'AON', 'ORLY', 'NXPI', 'FDX', 'EMR', 'ROP', 'NSC', 'PNC', 'RSG', 'PCAR', 'MNST', 'FCX', 'LULU', 'ADSK', 'MSI', 'PXD', 'WELL', 'AJG', 'OXY', 'EW', 'FTNT', 'APD', 'COF', 'HLT', 'MMM', 'TRV', 'MET', 'PSA', 'ROST', 'CPRT', 'SPG', 'CARR', 'AIG', 'DHI', 'VLO', 'ODFL', 'IDXX', 'AZO', 'GWW', 'F', 'COR', 'CCI', 'TFC', 'AFL', 'NUE', 'HES', 'GM', 'SRE', 'STZ', 'MSCI', 'IQV', 'PAYX', 'DXCM', 'MCHP', 'URI', 'TEL', 'O', 'HUM', 'KHC', 'CHTR', 'AEP', 'CNC', 'BK', 'CEG', 'WMB', 'OKE', 'KDP', 'AMP', 'DLR', 'ALL', 'FAST', 'LVS', 'AME', 'KMB', 'LHX', 'GEHC', 'SYY', 'D', 'JCI', 'CTSH', 'HSY', 'DOW', 'PRU', 'YUM', 'A', 'CTVA', 'KMI', 'LEN', 'EA', 'FIS', 'OTIS', 'CMI', 'GIS', 'MRNA', 'KVUE', 'IR', 'PCG', 'NEM', 'EXC', 'IT', 'VRSK', 'EL', 'KR', 'CSGP', 'MPWR', 'GPN', 'VMC', 'PWR', 'PPG', 'MLM', 'CDW', 'EFX', 'XEL', 'NDAQ', 'ACGL', 'ON', 'BIIB', 'LYB', 'ROK', 'FICO', 'DLTR', 'FANG', 'HAL', 'RCL', 'VICI', 'DG', 'DFS', 'ED', 'XYL', 'PEG', 'FTV', 'BKR', 'ANSS', 'EXR', 'DD', 'HPQ', 'HIG', 'WTW', 'ADM', 'DVN', 'GLW', 'BF-B', 'CBRE', 'RMD', 'HWM', 'ZBH', 'WST', 'DAL', 'ULTA', 'CAH', 'TSCO', 'KEYS', 'EIX', 'MTD', 'GRMN', 'TTWO', 'AVB', 'WEC', 'TROW', 'RJF', 'WAB', 'CHD', 'WY', 'ALGN', 'NVR', 'BRO', 'MOH', 'BR', 'STE', 'BLDR', 'AWK', 'SBAC', 'DOV', 'MTB', 'EQR', 'EBAY', 'FITB', 'PHM', 'DTE', 'STT', 'JBHT', 'LYV', 'IRM', 'WRB', 'ETR', 'TRGP', 'PTC', 'BAX', 'APTV', 'FE', 'VLTO', 'ARE', 'ILMN', 'WBD', 'CBOE', 'GPC', 'ROL', 'ES', 'STLD', 'IFF', 'TDY', 'INVH', 'FLT', 'AXON', 'DRI', 'LUV', 'BALL', 'VRSN', 'PPL', 'HPE', 'HUBB', 'WAT', 'CTRA', 'COO', 'K', 'CCL', 'CLX', 'PFG', 'AEE', 'WBA', 'HBAN', 'J', 'STX', 'TYL', 'LH', 'WDC', 'MKC', 'NTAP', 'IEX', 'HOLX', 'EXPE', 'JBL', 'VTR', 'CINF', 'FDS', 'CNP', 'OMC', 'EPAM', 'EXPD', 'AVY', 'LDOS', 'ATO', 'RF', 'CMS', 'NTRS', 'L', 'HRL', 'SWKS', 'TXT', 'MAS', 'BBY', 'SYF', 'AKAM', 'EQT', 'CE', 'VTRS', 'EG', 'ENPH', 'PKG', 'NDSN', 'TSN', 'CF', 'TER', 'TRMB', 'FSLR', 'DPZ', 'POOL', 'UAL', 'LW', 'MAA', 'ESS', 'MGM', 'HST', 'CFG', 'SNA', 'BEN', 'ALB', 'ZBRA', 'DGX', 'GEN', 'LKQ', 'MRO', 'SWK', 'BG', 'INCY', 'CAG', 'AMCR', 'SJM', 'KEY', 'TAP', 'KIM', 'RVTY', 'PODD', 'JKHY', 'CRL', 'PNR', 'CPB', 'LNT', 'IPG', 'GL', 'IP', 'AOS', 'JNPR', 'UDR', 'WYNN', 'NI', 'NRG', 'EVRG', 'KMX', 'HII', 'ALLE', 'WRK', 'TECH', 'REG', 'TFX', 'DAY', 'TPR', 'DVA', 'FFIV', 'QRVO', 'AES', 'BBWI', 'PAYC', 'CTLT', 'HSIC', 'MOS', 'UHS', 'BXP', 'EMN', 'CPT', 'MTCH', 'AAL', 'BIO', 'AIZ', 'PEAK', 'APA', 'CZR', 'ETSY', 'CHRW', 'RHI', 'FRT', 'MKTX', 'PNW', 'RL', 'MHK', 'XRAY', 'BWA', 'GNRC', 'IVZ', 'HAS', 'NCLH', 'PARA', 'FOXA', 'FMC', 'CMA', 'VFC', 'WHR', 'ZION', 'NWS']
current_date_est = datetime.now(est)
directory = r'C:\Users{YourUsername\Desktop\PYTHON CODES\data' if not os.path.exists(directory): os.makedirs(directory)
percent_changes = {}
for tickerSymbol in tickerSymbols: max_retries = 10 retries = 0 while retries < max_retries: try: # Adjusting end date to ensure up-to-date information data = yf.download(tickerSymbol, end=current_date_est + timedelta(days=1))

 if not data.empty: close_values = data['Close'] previous_close = close_values.iloc[-2] last_close = close_values.iloc[-1] percent_change = ((last_close - previous_close) / previous_close) * 100 percent_changes[tickerSymbol] = percent_change break except Exception as e: print(f"Failed to download data for {tickerSymbol}. Retrying ({retries+1}/{max_retries})...") retries += 1 time.sleep(1) else: print(f"Failed to download data for {tickerSymbol} after {max_retries} retries.") 

percent_changes_df = pd.DataFrame(percent_changes.items(), columns=['Ticker', 'Percent Change'])
filepath_greater_to_lesser = os.path.join(directory, f"PC - G to L.csv") filepath_lesser_to_greater = os.path.join(directory, f"PC - L to G.csv")
greater_to_lesser_df = percent_changes_df[percent_changes_df['Percent Change'] > 2.5] lesser_to_greater_df = percent_changes_df[percent_changes_df['Percent Change'] < -2.5]
greater_to_lesser_df = greater_to_lesser_df.sort_values(by='Percent Change', ascending=False) lesser_to_greater_df = lesser_to_greater_df.sort_values(by='Percent Change')
greater_to_lesser_df.to_csv(filepath_greater_to_lesser, index=False) lesser_to_greater_df.to_csv(filepath_lesser_to_greater, index=False)
print(f"Percent changes for {current_date_est} saved to:") print(f"- {filepath_greater_to_lesser}") print(f"- {filepath_lesser_to_greater}")
graph_directory = r'C:\Users{Your username}\Desktop\PYTHON CODES\graphs'
if not os.path.exists(graph_directory): os.makedirs(graph_directory)
def plot_and_save_graph(data, ticker_symbol, date_range, axes, percent_change_df): # Convert 'Date' column to datetime objects data['Date'] = pd.to_datetime(data['Date'])

data['NumericDate'] = pd.to_numeric(data['Date']) sns.lineplot(x='Date', y='Close', data=data, ax=axes, color='blue') slope, intercept, _, _, _ = linregress(data['NumericDate'], data['Close']) regression_line = slope * data['NumericDate'] + intercept axes.plot(data['Date'], regression_line, color='red', linestyle='--') axes.set_title(f'{ticker_symbol} Closing Price with Regression Line ({date_range})') axes.set_ylabel('Closing Price') axes.tick_params(axis='x', rotation=45) # Set x-axis ticks to show only the first and last dates first_date = data['Date'].iloc[0] last_date = data['Date'].iloc[-1] axes.set_xticks([first_date, last_date]) percent_change = percent_change_df[percent_change_df['Ticker'] == ticker_symbol]['Percent Change'].values[0] axes.text(0.5, 0.95, f'Percent Change: {percent_change:.2f}%', ha='center', va='center', transform=axes.transAxes, fontsize=16, bbox=dict(facecolor='white', alpha=0.5)) 

date_ranges = [('6 months', timedelta(days=180)), ('1 year', timedelta(days=365)), ('2.5 years', timedelta(days=2.5365)), ('5 years', timedelta(days=5365))]

Adjusting end date of data retrieval to be the current date

end_date = current_date_est for tickerSymbol in tickerSymbols: if tickerSymbol in greater_to_lesser_df['Ticker'].values or tickerSymbol in lesser_to_greater_df['Ticker'].values: fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, figsize=(15, 10)) axes = axes.flatten()

 should_save_graph = False for i, (date_range, delta) in enumerate(date_ranges): start_date = current_date_est - delta data = yf.download(tickerSymbol, start=start_date, end=end_date + timedelta(days=1)) # Adjusting end date if not data.empty: data.reset_index(inplace=True) plot_and_save_graph(data, tickerSymbol, date_range, axes[i], percent_changes_df) # Check if previous to last data point and regression line have opposite signs for 6-month data if date_range == '6 months': prev_to_last_close = data['Close'].iloc[-2] last_close = data['Close'].iloc[-1] slope, _, _, _, _ = linregress(data['NumericDate'], data['Close']) if (last_close - prev_to_last_close) * slope < 0: should_save_graph = True if should_save_graph: plt.tight_layout() plt.savefig(os.path.join(graph_directory, f"{tickerSymbol}.png")) plt.close(fig) 

Code 2:
The following code does the following: Lets you input a stock Lets you put in the stock price you bought a stock or option at. Lets you put in the date in which you bought the stock or option at. Outputs the 6 month chart, 1 year chart, 2.5 year chart, and 5 year chart for the stock. Tells you, on the charts, the percent change from when you bought the stock or option to the current closing price.
import yfinance as yf import os import pandas as pd import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import seaborn as sns from datetime import datetime, timedelta from pytz import timezone import warnings import time import numpy as np import matplotlib from scipy.stats import linregress import shutil

Path to the directory to be cleared

graph_directory = r'C:\Users{YourUsername}\Desktop\PYTHON CODES\current'

Clear the directory before running the code

shutil.rmtree(graph_directory, ignore_errors=True) os.makedirs(graph_directory)
matplotlib.use('Agg') warnings.simplefilter(action='ignore', category=FutureWarning)
est = timezone('America/New_York')
current_date_est = datetime.now(est)
directory = r'C:\Users{YourUsername}\Desktop\PYTHON CODES\data' if not os.path.exists(directory): os.makedirs(directory)
percent_changes = {}

Prompt the user to input the ticker symbol

tickerSymbol = input("Enter the ticker symbol: ")
max_retries = 10 retries = 0 while retries < max_retries: try: # Adjusting end date to ensure up-to-date information data = yf.download(tickerSymbol, end=current_date_est + timedelta(days=1))

 if not data.empty: close_values = data['Close'] previous_close = close_values.iloc[-2] last_close = close_values.iloc[-1] # Prompt the user to input the Open Trade Price open_trade_price = float(input("Enter the Open Trade Price: ")) # Calculate percent change from Open Trade Price to last closing price percent_change = ((last_close - open_trade_price) / open_trade_price) * 100 percent_changes[tickerSymbol] = percent_change break except Exception as e: print(f"Failed to download data for {tickerSymbol}. Retrying ({retries+1}/{max_retries})...") retries += 1 time.sleep(1) 

else: print(f"Failed to download data for {tickerSymbol} after {max_retries} retries.")
percent_changes_df = pd.DataFrame(percent_changes.items(), columns=['Ticker', 'Percent Change'])
filepath_greater_to_lesser = os.path.join(directory, f"PC - G to L.csv") filepath_lesser_to_greater = os.path.join(directory, f"PC - L to G.csv")
greater_to_lesser_df = percent_changes_df[percent_changes_df['Percent Change'] > 2.5] lesser_to_greater_df = percent_changes_df[percent_changes_df['Percent Change'] < -2.5]
greater_to_lesser_df = greater_to_lesser_df.sort_values(by='Percent Change', ascending=False) lesser_to_greater_df = lesser_to_greater_df.sort_values(by='Percent Change')
greater_to_lesser_df.to_csv(filepath_greater_to_lesser, index=False) lesser_to_greater_df.to_csv(filepath_lesser_to_greater, index=False)
print(f"Percent changes for {current_date_est} saved to:") print(f"- {filepath_greater_to_lesser}") print(f"- {filepath_lesser_to_greater}")
graph_directory = r'C:\Users{YourUsername}\Desktop\PYTHON CODES\current'
if not os.path.exists(graph_directory): os.makedirs(graph_directory)
def plot_and_save_graph(data, ticker_symbol, date_range, axes, percent_change_df, open_trade_date): # Convert 'Date' column to datetime objects data['Date'] = pd.to_datetime(data['Date'])

data['NumericDate'] = pd.to_numeric(data['Date']) sns.lineplot(x='Date', y='Close', data=data, ax=axes, color='blue', label='Closing Price') slope, intercept, _, _, _ = linregress(data['NumericDate'], data['Close']) regression_line = slope * data['NumericDate'] + intercept axes.plot(data['Date'], regression_line, color='red', linestyle='--', label='Regression Line') axes.set_title(f'{ticker_symbol} Closing Price with Regression Line ({date_range})') axes.set_ylabel('Closing Price') axes.tick_params(axis='x', rotation=45) # Set x-axis ticks to show only the first and last dates first_date = data['Date'].iloc[0] last_date = data['Date'].iloc[-1] axes.set_xticks([first_date, open_trade_date, last_date]) percent_change = percent_change_df[percent_change_df['Ticker'] == ticker_symbol]['Percent Change'].values[0] axes.text(0.5, 0.95, f'Percent Change: {percent_change:.2f}%', ha='center', va='center', transform=axes.transAxes, fontsize=16, bbox=dict(facecolor='white', alpha=0.5)) # Add vertical line for the trade open date axes.axvline(x=open_trade_date, color='green', linestyle='--', label='Trade Open Date') # Show legend axes.legend() 

date_ranges = [('6 months', timedelta(days=180)), ('1 year', timedelta(days=365)), ('2.5 years', timedelta(days=2.5365)), ('5 years', timedelta(days=5365))]

Adjusting end date of data retrieval to be the current date

end_date = current_date_est

Prompt the user to input the trade open date

open_trade_date_str = input("Enter the trade open date in format dd-mm-yy: ") open_trade_date = datetime.strptime(open_trade_date_str, '%d-%m-%y')
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, figsize=(15, 10)) axes = axes.flatten() should_save_graph = False for i, (date_range, delta) in enumerate(date_ranges): start_date = current_date_est - delta data = yf.download(tickerSymbol, start=start_date, end=end_date + timedelta(days=1)) # Adjusting end date if not data.empty: data.reset_index(inplace=True) plot_and_save_graph(data, tickerSymbol, date_range, axes[i], percent_changes_df, open_trade_date) should_save_graph = True
if should_save_graph: plt.tight_layout() plt.savefig(os.path.join(graph_directory, f"{tickerSymbol}.png")) plt.close(fig)

Before you say anything like its dumb This is mostly just me putting parts together (Fictional scenario) and wondering of it will work. Here is what I want to do. Here is the car that is going to be modded I will send it to Hennessy and get them to make it 1000hp then I don't know if I can do this or not because of the mods from Hennessy but I will then send it to Armor max and have them put light armoring on it. (it will add about 4-6 hundred pounds) From there I will get all the LED parts and then try to assemble it at home if I can't due to the mods then I will send it to a mechanic to be installed. After all of the lights are installed I will then send it to wrapped or to get a new paint job. Then it will be completed. Please tell me what you think and if you think that it can be done. If you are wondering why I would put armor in it think. How many FAST dodge charges are bullet resistant?
Links
The car https://www.dodge.com/bmo.charger.html#/build/exterio30301/CUD202304LDDT48E/2DD/APA,PX8,X9,ESJ,DFE,TYS,WHP,W8,SCG,NEP,M17,MES,XS9,M8C,XSQ,AY1,AMN,GWA,CHG,UAQ,M17,27D,3EJ
Hennessy Mod https://www.hennesseyperformance.com/vehicles/charger-hellcat-upgrades/
Armoring https://armormax.com/armored-cars/dodge-charger-hellcat/
Ultimate glow bundle https://rgbhalokits.com/products/ultimate-pack?currency=USD&variant=42072023498988&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=83f1cbd2af15&utm_source=google%20ads&utm_medium=cpc&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsvPVzoXghAMVzk5HAR3ogA0cEAQYBSABEgK2nPD_BwE
Rear light color change https://rgbhalokits.com/products/dodge-charger-multicolor-nova-series-prismatic-led-tail-lights-2015-2023
RGB headlights https://rgbhalokits.com/products/dodge-charger-multicolor-headlights-2015-2023?_pos=2&_sid=4c5af948c&_ss=r&variant=44019169198316
Hellcat glow https://rgbhalokits.com/products/srt-hellcat-led-emblem-badge-rgbw-flow-series?_pos=1&_sid=4c5af948c&_ss=r&variant=42924634800364
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All feedback is appreciated good or bad.

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Memory transcription subject: Nicholas Dean, Alliance General
Date [standardized human time]: November 25, 2137
(60 years since the great war)
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Looking through the one way mirror, I saw one of the two aliens. It was short and of similar height to the Zeitans, but instead of being completely bald with an oversized head, it was covered in white-yellowish wool and of ‘Normal’ proportions
The cell that the creature was in had been completely remodeled to the best of our abilities with the hopes of putting the prisoner in a comfortable space, but a cell was a cell nonetheless, and the prisoner was no stupid animal
Looking to my side, I saw our interrogation officer, Maria, she could be either your sunshine or your worst nightmare. The enclave logo was shown proudly on the face of her mask, and the full suit she wore prevented both any possibility of identification and the spread of any disease the alien might carry. She even wore a fake chest piece under her clothes to make her bust slightly bigger. That might sound like something stupid, but more often than not, it helped her get the information she wanted
The usual belt full of interrogation tools was now mostly empty, she only carried a simple black .45 cal pistol with the enclave emblem in it. She also carried a extendable baton and a taser. No knife, tongs or any other interrogation item, we didn’t want our prisoner to feel so pressured
Outside of the cell though, two powered armored units stood guard. Both with APA-01 models and with miniguns in their hands, said miniguns were belt fed to a giant boxy backpack that they carried with ease thanks to the power armor
“Go on” I said, getting a nod from Maria. She approached the door before grabbing a nearby plastic bag. With the items secured in hand, she scanned her ID keycard before the heavy gate opened
“Hello!” Maria spoke in a prepared cheerful way as she entered the cell before closing the door behind herself. The alien tensed when the door opened, but relaxed slightly at the voice of Maria
“H-hello Sarah” The alien spoke while naming the false name Maria used with him
“How are you today?” Maria asked before sitting in a near chair. For anyone looking, they might think she was very careless, but if you looked carefully, you could notice how she was always barely out of reach of the alien, and her hand loomed always near one of her weapons discreetly “I brought you some mutfruit!” She spoke excitedly. In reality those fruits had been given to her the moment she was about to enter the room
“T-thanks” The alien spoke while grabbing the paper bag before looking inside it. For some reason, the alien knew english, but that wasn’t his only language as it was known how he bleated when he was alone
“Can you tell me more about your people? I am personally interested” Maria asked, curious
“Sure, but before that, were there any other survivors?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, but the medics have been very busy recently, so I suppose that if there was one, he’s in critical condition. You were incredibly lucky to survive!” Maria stated in a comforting way. Truth was that there was another survivor, but he isn’t waking up, so it’s up to debate on what to do with him. Study him, leave him be in hopes of him recovering, or dissect him. “Don’t worry, if I learn something, I will tell you, okay?” She spoke like she was telling a secret
With a nod, soon the alien and Maria began to talk about the outer galaxy and his people. God, it was a fucking mess. The more they talked, the more my head hurt
Suddenly, I was brought out of my thoughts as a currier brought me a letter from the command room informing me that every team had established itself and were waiting for orders. With a nod, I informed some of the typewriters present that I was needed somewhere else
After walking the way to the elevator, I waited until the doors opened to walk out. Eventually reaching the command room, I saw several operators sending and receiving messages
“Here, sir” One of the operators handed me a folder full of documents explaining the situation of every team
Reading over them, I learned that the DC team had established themselves in the capitol building and were using the Washington Memorial as an antenna to relay back here. On the way there, they flew over an old aircraft carrier which still contained several old planes that might work. Unfortunately, the ship was stuck inland
It was an interesting idea and perhaps in the future we could get some people into fixing the planes. Vertibirds were incredibly useful in this wasteland, but they weren’t very good at aerial combat with other vehicles
The team at Miami established themselves in the Burlingame Island near the port; it was an easily defensible position with one bridge connecting to the mainland. It wasn’t irradiated, was close to the Miami main port that apparently had a lot of ships, even military ships, and lastly, it was close enough to a massive RobCo factory that was very suspicious in the tax documents
The team sent to Pittsburg… Well, they didn’t find Pittsburg, they found hell on earth. The incredible factories were still operational, but they were all occupied by a bunch of lunatics and mutant-made abominations. The whole place needed to be purged; the only exception being a small group of ‘Normal’ survivors that helped the troops after they were ambushed by the lunatics. And if that wasn’t enough, the whole place was filled with radiation and toxic air
Meanwhile in Boston, the troops had settled up in an airport near the objective. The problem was the constant raids of a nearby group of raiders that thought the place was theirs. As soon as their base was confirmed, a group of power armored soldiers solved the problem while also securing a massive stock of m42 ammunition that will no doubt be useful in the near future. Hellfire was noted to be incredibly useful with such pests as raiders, not only was it a ‘power armor-cracker’, but the psychological factor on untrained opponents was no joke
Lastly, and one of the most interesting cases of all teams, was with the last team sent to the border between Nevada and California where a huge ‘black hole’ appeared in the tax files. There was something there, but no record survived, and it wasn’t due to the documents being left behind in Appalachia, but something deliberate. The team sent there was the biggest one because not only were they there to check on the possible target, or whatever the fuck it was, they also had the target of a nearby nuclear silo with several nuclear misiles that malfunctioned during the great war and weren’t launched and a nearby pre-war military vault. The army usually didn’t have many vaults, and so those vaults that were found were usually filled to the brim with pre-war equipment. The problem was that we couldn't find the contents anywhere, so it could be anything from simple bullets to a government archive bunker
But if that wasn’t enough, Las Vegas was still habitable! According to the report, radiation levels were so low that the geiger counter had problems catching any radioactive signal. This was huge news, perhaps a nearby vault had caused that, perhaps there was hope for America after all
As such, they had established a base in the south part of the city as the center of the city was already inhabited and, according to the vertibirds scanners, it said that the surrounding area to this ‘hole’ and the nuclear silos were too unstable to fly over, as such, they would have to go walking or by land, thus they were requesting us to send some vehicles for the task. The vault, meanwhile, was in the other side of this ‘black-hole’, so it was a 3 for 1
If it was so unstable that not even vertibirds could fly over it, that meant that shit hit the fan over there. Perhaps chinese bombs had struck over there. No, that couldn’t be, radiation levels would be an all time high. But it was Las Vegas, it should have been bombed to oblivion. There is definitely a vault over there that has cleaned radiation, it must have been
Signing some documents accepting the request, I also added another message for the base in Las Vegas. They had to search every vault to find whatever had cleaned the place, because I was sure no G.E.C.K. was capable of cleaning radiation as deep as that
The last problem was one that every team had in common, well, every team with the exception of the one at Las Vegas: Civilians
It was bound to happen eventually, desperate refugees searching for shelter. But we never expected the amount of people that would turn up to each team. Boston was the biggest problem in terms of numbers of civilians arriving at the airport. Miami was full of mutated man-eating creatures that preyed on basically anything that had meat in it, meanwhile Pittsburg was full of raiders that enslaved everyone that didn't join them or met their ‘standards’
The only exception was the team at Las Vegas who barely found anyone, and those that they found had already established themselves. It was somewhat expected as Las Vegas was in the middle of a fucking desert. The moment supplies were cut off, everyone that didn’t have a farm or enough supplies to last would either die or be forced elsewere
Signing more documents, I allowed the teams to build civilian outposts near their base. It was better in the long run if people trusted you, and it was going to be useful when the aliens arrived
Some groups had to be purged though, raiders and mutant monsters were the most immediate threat. If we wanted to establish ourselves in those territories, we would have to do some cleaning, but to do that without abandoning the Alliance to their luck, we needed robots and recruits, and by getting the trust and will of the people, we could get both without shedding too much blood
Finishing the signing of documents, I handed the closed papers to the courier that would pass the documents to the radio operators. Unfortunately, due to the lack of a reliable system, the messages would have to be sent uncoded, as such we depended on sending the message freely to be intercepted in morse. Fortunately, barely no one on the wasteland knew morse, and those who knew would find the message encrypted, but as always, people would crack the message, so we couldn’t send anything vital, only a bunch of orders vague enough to be understandable
After making sure everything was in order, I signaled to a nearby Assaultron to pick up the orders to be sent. Meanwhile, I walked back to the interrogation room where Maria was still interacting with the alien. It was fascinating sometimes how simple questions gave out such important information. After all, the best way to keep a jailed bird is to make it believe that there is no jail
After some time, Maria said her goodbyes to the alien before walking out. Once outside she handed me her folder
Looking at the contents, I found descriptions of aliens and rough sketches that Maria had drawn under the gaze of the alien following his descriptions
Of course there weren't over 300 drawings, only maybe 7 or 8, but that was because she had asked for the closest aliens to earth, one drawing matched, for example, the remains of a giant exquisitely feathered bird called Krakotl, another matched the small rodent images that our ancestors found in crashed Zetan ships. But the one that caught my attention the most was a giant lizard. I mean, it said that it was as tall as a man in power armor, or even taller!
To be honest, it looked like a deathclaw from the records of Appalachia, well, it was similar to a more ‘humanized’ version of a deathclaw. Arxur was the name of the species
So these folks were our problem huh? Apparently they are like raiders but worse, as they eat those who they raid. I guess that if the only experience with an intelligent carnivorous species is this… That would explain why the alien is so afraid of us, poor bastard thinks we are going to eat him
Shaking my head, I give my congratulations to Maria before leaving the room as I had to inform the president and secretary of defense about this
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Memory transcription subject: Connor Hoove, Nova-Enclave Mechanized Infantry
Date [standardized human time]: November 26, 2137
(60 years since the great war)
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Marching through the deserted streets of the once great city of Miami, we found nothing but plants and ruins. Surprisingly, there were very few mutant creatures, even fewer monstrosities that dared to attack us, ghouls mostly
Nothing that our machine guns couldn’t handle, and even if they got too close, their rotten hands wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on us thanks to our power armors
Our destiny was a close one, the Miami RobCo factory. Approaching, we soon were able to see the tall building in the distance through the overhead highways that littered the area
“Raiders” Stella, one of the soldiers of our platoon pointed at a group of spikes with severed heads stuck in them
“Watch out for hostiles" I spoke through the radio. All of the platoon were wearing power armor, half of us were wearing APA power armor while the other half were wearing T-51. Our roles were divided: if we found hostiles with kinetics, T-51 squad would take the lead, if the enemy was using laser or plasma, APA power armor squad would take the lead, the only exceptions were two soldiers that wore Hellfire power armor
Marching through the desolated street, we were soon alerted that we had been found thanks to the sound of a bullet impacting a soldier in T-51 and the following bang of the bullet leaving the rifle. The bullet itself bounced off harmlessly proving the utility of power armor, but the fact that we received the bullet before the bang meant that the sniper was a good one and was pretty far away
“Sniper, take cover!” The soldier that got shot screamed as we all ducked into cover. Power armor will tank the bullets easily as long as it isn’t an anti material rifle, but we don’t have to risk it so frivolously
“Did you see where it came from” I asked through the radio
“I saw his flash at the church at three-o'clock” The soldier explained
“Fuck, 51 squad pop some smoke to re-group and draw his fire, APA and hellfire with me, we will go through the buildings to get to him” I spoke receiving the voices of my soldiers accepting my orders
Grabbing a small cylinder, I twisted the top part with the strength granted by the power armor, and soon enough, smoke began to flow in great quantities. Several other soldiers did the same, and very quickly the street we were in was engulfed in smoke. Using the smart map in the power armor system, we got into one of the backstreets where we reunited
The six of us marched in silence through destroyed buildings and back streets until we reached the church. The whole place was built out of stone and held up in pretty good shape. When we reached the main door, we found it locked, but because it was made out of wood and was fixed with junk, I ordered hellfire to burn the door down
The incinerator’s Mk2 did a pretty good job against the door with its blue flames, and soon enough, the hellfire operators kicked down the doors which crumbled under their own weight. Gunfire was heard from the inside as bullets were unable to pierce the armor, bouncing off in many directions, meanwhile, the hellfire operators raised their incinerators and flames began consuming everything that was made out of wood, cloth or flesh
“We are getting into the church, squad 51 reunite with us outside and secure the area, over” I spoke through the radio
“Roger that, over” With that response, we pushed forward
Screams of fear and pain were heard and we took it as our cue to enter the building. The sealed suits allowed us to breathe in the oxygen-deprived area, and our cooling systems were working overtime to prevent us from collapsing due to the extreme heat
Shapes ran everywhere in pain or desperation, and those that ran towards the main doors were met with both kinetic and laser fire. The rest either died or ran to the tower where air flowed freely
“With me” I said, raising my arm. The flashlights hidden and integrated in our glass eye holes allowed us to walk through the smoke and fire without the hellfire advanced systems, but even so, I had to advert my eyes from the fire around us to prevent any damage
When we reached the tower section, we saw the door locked, but unlike before, the door simply collapsed after tearing off the exposed hinges. When the way was opened again, two shapes faced us
The first shape was one of a raider dressed in colorful colors, like he was a clown of sorts, the second one dressed in the same way, he even had his face painted!
“We surr-!” One of the shapes screamed, but his voice and life was cut short when everyone present filled them with lead. One of the laser-wielding rifles soldier accidentally hit exposed meat of one of the raiders causing his body to crumble as a pile of glowing ash
I was tempting of simply ordering the hellfire operators to burn the whole tower, but it might give us a head start as to where go after this, so eventually I had to order them to ‘holster’ their incinerators, and to use their machine guns
Walking up the wooden stairs we were met with no resistance from the raiders, and soon enough we were almost at the top. Gunfire was heard as the raiders shot blindly through the floor, and such response was met in kind by our own kinetic machine guns
It wasn’t until the click of the empty mags of our machine guns that all fire was silenced. With one last push up, we found the whole place as a mess of bodies
“Please, merc-” Well, a survivor… Unholstering my 10mm pistol, I shot him before he could plead, and soon enough, everybody was double-tapped. We didn’t have time to deal with prisoners
“Put out the fires under us and burn the bodies, this place is useful” I stated before placing my hand over my neck to press the radio button
“The tower is secure, clean up any scum left behind and secure the building over” I spoke through the radio
“Roger that” Was the response
Looking around, I found what I supposed was the rifle that was used against us, an SVD. 7.62x54 mm. This is a strange view, a soviet rifle in american soil, and it wasn’t a cheap chinese copycat, it was well made even after years of use
Searching in the bodies, I found the shooter with some magazines in his pants, some full, others empty, but I didn’t have to worry as 7.62x54 mm ammo was the same we used for our kinetic guns, so it wouldn’t be very hard to maintain
Aiming down sights, I scanned the factory keeping a mental note of everything interesting. I also saw some colorful-looking raiders looking back at me through their own binoculars from the RobCo factory, some even waved!
“Everything's clear” The radio in my helmet spoke
“Good, let’s keep our pace” I returned through the radio. Leaving the church, we reunited in the street before continuing our pace. I wished we had some vehicles, but the PA were so heavy that we would need several trucks to transport ourselves, making us a bigger target
Eventually, we reached the factory, and soon enough, gunfire rang from the raiders that lived there trying to spook us off. Lead flew in all directions and I could see the sparks of the bullets impacting with our power armor, and as expected, the only thing that they achieved was a massage for us, but with the amount of lead flying in our directions, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had heavy machinery and god forbid AT weapons, as such we needed a cover to cross the street without worry of having some psycho shooting a fatman in our general direction
“This is Poseidon 1-1 to Stalker, the factory is compromised. Raiders emplaced there have access to heavy machine guns over” I spoke through long range “To get to the building we must pass through a long flat, I request for smoke artillery in this position” I spoke as I checked the map to send the coordinates
“Roger that Poseidon 1-1, we are sending some rounds, please stand by” A woman spoke through the radio
As asked, we took cover while we waited. Bullets flew over us until we suddenly heard the whistle of the artillery before watching something crashing down in the long parking lot between us and them. Soon more shots came filling the area with a thick blanket of smoke
“Good hits Stalker, we are advancing over” I spoke when the rounds stopped
“Roger that, good luck, over”
Dashing through the smoke, we used the holographic map in our helmets to not get lost and get separated, eventually we arrived at the wall of the factory, then we only had to follow it until we reached the door
One of the hellfire operators peaked the door, incinerator in hand, before letting the weapon do its job as I was able to hear several screams on the other side. Following swiftly, we marched forward through the corridors cleaning them of raider scum
“ROCKET!” One of my soldiers screamed through the radio before we all heard an explosion. Turning to see where the shot came from, I saw a hole in the wall with a raider painted with multiple colors carrying an empty rocket launcher was standing, although he didn’t stand there for too long as every weapon we had was pointed at him before transforming the man into wall paint
“Rimmy is down!” Another cry came through the radio, looking at the direction where the rocket landed I saw one of the T-51 lying in the floor with a hole the size of my fist through the chest
Two other soldiers grabbed him before dragging him into a recently cleaned room. Once inside, one APA operator opened the valve on the back. Inside there wasn’t a body anymore, just goo, red goo. I wanted to puke, but I couldn’t
“This is Poseidon 1-1 to Stalker, Poseidon 1-4 is KIA, I repeat, Poseidon 1-4 is KIA over” I spoke through the radio
“This is Stalker, roger that, we’ll send someone for him, start KIA procedures over” The radio spoke calmly. With a nod, the soldier closed the hydraulics of the power armor before locking it and removing the energy cell, that caused a relay beacon to appear in the radio, an encrypted radio signal that only we could understand
Once everything was done, we got out of the room and followed the other units that had advanced, hellfire was proving its worth as the fire didn’t expand easily, something useful. It also made the few remaining stragglers run away in fear of being burned alive, and those who preferred to just blow their own heads out with their weapons rather than suffer the pain
Half an hour later, the factory had been cleaned of scum. Hellfire was suffocating the fires they had started while the rest stationed themselves in the entrances preventing more raiders to return
“Poseidon 1-1 to Stalker, the objective has been secured, waiting for reinforcements over” I spoke through the radio overlooking the city around us. From up here, I saw something interesting docked in the port
“This is Stalker, request received, sending reinforcements, ETA 10 minutes, over”
“Stalker, I think I can see a giant settlement in the docks. I can also see what looks like a pre-war warship, almost as big as the cruise ships. A battleship perhaps?”
“This is Overlord 1-1 to Poseidon 1-1, we’ll check it on our way there over”
“Roger that Overlord, over”

Preparation

I'm honestly a terrible planner, but in the months leading up to our trip, I passively watched YouTube videos and read posts in JapanTravel, which I'm sure helped on some level. My itinerary was very loose: I picked one neighbourhood/attraction to go to each day and then played the rest by ear. We prefer organic exploration at a relaxed pace rather than going off a stringent checklist, so this worked out quite well for us.
Both my partner and I had different personal goals as well. I wanted to buy specific stationery products, while he wanted to buy a second-hand Vita (and then that stretched to a PSP, Gameboy Colour, and a New 2DS XL for myself). We both share a mild interest in anime (really just One Piece) and some Japanese video games.

General Thoughts & Advice

• Late Novembeearly December was a good time for travel. It may have been good luck, but most days were sunny and clear, and it was relatively quiet during our first five days in Tokyo. Temps were mild in the beginning, but later in the month we had to start piling layers on. On our last two days of the trip, it was noticeably much busier.
• I would recommend booking certain activities and tourist attractions well in advance, particularly theme parks like Universal Studios or unique museum experiences like TeamLabs. These were places I'd planned to go to, but when I went to book tickets a few weeks ahead, they were all unavailable. Securing Disneyland/Sea tickets, on the other hand, wasn't an issue.
• You don't have to book a shinkansen too far in advance. It's pretty easy to do from a major station, such as Tokyo or Kyoto Station, and there will be plenty of seats available if you book it the day before. But do what's most convenient for you.
• If you're staying somewhere for one or two nights, it's worth using a luggage forwarding service to get your big luggage to the next accommodation you're staying at after, and just bringing light luggage with your overnight essentials to your short stay. You don't want to be handling heavy, chunky baggage while trying to fight your way in and out of packed transport. All our hotels provided this service.
• Wear supportive shoes, you'll be walking a lot.
• Cash is absolutely essential in Japan, as you'll be needing it to top up your IC card, pay for coin lockers (which mostly only take ¥100 coins), ticket machines at restaurants, small family businesses, etc. Always have cash and coins in your wallet so you're prepared for these occasions.
• Coming from Australia, we were surprised to find the coffee in Japan was... not excellent. To be fair, I'll acknowledge that Japan has a preference for black coffee, whereas in Australia your typical coffee order is a shot of espresso with steamed and textured milk. You really had to go out of your way to find a decent latte or cappuccino, because most of the chains we went to did not know how to steam milk and there was barely a hint of coffee taste. That said, some top-tier gems we found were Blue Bottle and Vermillion in Kyoto, and Ginza Café and Glitch Coffee in Tokyo. (I also developed a soft spot for Tully's among the big coffee chains.)

Onto the Trip Report...

So sorry this is absurdly long. Restaurants, cafés and eateries will be bolded and italicised.
Day 1 - Nov 30: Tokyo
Arrived at Haneda airport at 8pm. Not much time difference between Australia and Japan so we were awake the whole flight and just went to bed as normal when we got to our hotel. We stayed at APA Hotel Hanzomon-Hirakawacho, which looked and felt very budget, but was conveniently located. Very small room and the cleaning service could honestly be better.
Day 2 - Dec 1: Shibuya and Shinjuku
We had Shibuya Sky booked for (what I thought was) the early afternoon, so we did some exploring at Shinjuku in the late morning. Had the most delicious tonkotsu ramen ever in a small corner restaurant down a set of stairs called Ikkakuya. They served me green tea in a glass so big I thought it was a pitcher and tried to pour it into a smaller glass (and got it everywhere, that was embarrassing). We also experienced our first Don Quijote and fell in love.
Then we made our way over to Shibuya. Walked through the crossing and had a quick look around before we went to Shibuya Scramble Square. Turns out I'd actually booked Shibuya Sky for around noon and the staff got a bit stern with us for missing our arranged slot, but they let us up anyway. The view of the city was honestly mind-boggling, it seems to stretch on forever. After that, we visited the Mugiwara Store, Mandarake and Loft, got some crepes from Dipper Dan, and then grabbed some light dinner from a conbini on the way back to the hotel.
Day 3 - Dec 2: Akihabara
We weren't expecting to find any good deals on second-hand consoles here, but we enjoyed having a look around nonetheless. We went to Lashinbang, Super Potato, Mandarake, Hard Off and pretty much any figurine store we walked by. I ended up buying a couple of One Piece figurines, but I later realised that there's One Piece merch literally. Everywhere. It's a big deal in Japan. Definitely could've saved a little bit of money buying them somewhere else.
We had lunch at C&C Curry Shop, which was quite good. We also went to Honey Toast for an afternoon coffee/sweet based on a recommendation I saw online, but it was just okay. Icecream, whipped cream and honey on toast can only be so good. Dinner was at Matsuya which is known for gyudon, but I had a hamburger steak which was very delicious and comforting.
Day 4 - Dec 3: Ginza
After exploring Itoya and Ancora, we went to the Tsukiji Fish Market around lunch time and it was absolutely jam packed. Every restaurant and stall had a long line. I had some tuna sashimi, and some grilled eel and scallops, only because the lines for those places weren't as long, but eating food in a busy street market is very stressful and hard to enjoy, so we moved on.
We later went to a café I bookmarked called Glitch Coffee. There was a bit of a line as the place is only small and they have specialty beans that they walk every customer through, but since we had yet to have a decent coffee in Japan at that stage, we were willing to wait. A nice Japanese man talked to us while were waiting in line, apparently he was a regular and he hyped it up for us. It was pretty good but quite expensive, especially for the small serving sizes. I'd only recommend it mostly to enthusiasts and fans of pourover as that's their specialty, though the lattes were good but had fewer options of beans. We paid about ¥1000 each for our drinks, but the prices apparently go up to around ¥3500 for a single drink.
Later that evening, we dropped off our things at the hotel and walked to Tokyo Garden Terrace Kioicho where we found a restaurant called "Handmade soba noodles restaurant SOBA Shiki." It looked expensive on the inside with wooden latticework partitioning each table, but the food was reasonably priced and quite good. Light but delicious!
Day 5 - Dec 4: Harajuku and Shinjuku
Harajuku didn't have too much to offer us, so this day felt like a bit of a wash. The main strip seems mostly catered to children, with crepes, candy, toys and cutesy accessories making up most of what was on offer. We didn't see any tantalising restaurant options either, so we tried Mos Burger. I had the Mos cheeseburger, and the cheese was like molten lava while everything else was very greasy. Meh.
We walked through Yoyogi Park to get back to Shinjuku. Because it was early, we managed to slip into Ichiran before a long line could form out the door. The ordering process is very efficient and foreigner-friendly, although the ticket machine did initially trip us up, but I can see why it's popular with tourists. Food isn't bad either.
Day 6 - Dec 5: Nikko
It was a little bit stressful figuring out the logistics of getting here, especially as our accommodation was about an extra hour train ride away from the attractions, but we used a luggage forwarding service to send our big suitcases to our Kyoto hotel the morning we checked out, and just packed a night's worth of stuff with us to take to Nikko. We got a bit confused having to transfer between a standard train line and the JR line, so although I wanted to maximise our time in Nikko by getting there early, we ended up arriving at noon. We put our things in the coin lockers at Tobu-Nikko Station then set off to explore.
The only thing we had time for was the Toshogu Shrine, but at the very least it was a surprisingly large area with several points of interest, each with their own entrance fees. It was a bit overcast and drizzly, but if anything that made it more beautiful. We walked back to the station and had an early dinner at Ranburu Restaurant—which seemed to be one of the few places open at that time—where I had a decent tempura udon. And then we hopped on the train to Kinugawakoen to get to reach our ryokan, Kinugawa Onsen Hana no Yado Matsuya.
For the price, it was a lovely stay with a view of the river right outside our window. We booked a private onsen as we were checking in. I don't think it was real hot spring water unfortunately, but it was nonetheless relaxing. Would definitely recommend staying here, and I wished I'd given Nikko at least another day.
Day 7 - Dec 6: Kyoto
We'd prebooked our shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto at 11.30am, so we had to check out early to get to Tokyo Station an hour before departure. And good thing we did because we were scrambling to figure out how to get our tickets off Klook and where to actually get on.
With 10 minutes to spare, we made it onto the platform and enjoyed our first shinkansen experience. It's very clean and spacious inside. The seat in front of you can recline all the way back without getting in your way, and there's a hook over the seat to hang up something like a coat or a bag. We enjoyed a peaceful trip with a surprisingly good view of Mt Fuji a short distance out of Tokyo. If anything, I wish the bullet train wouldn't be so efficient so we could stay on longer!
We got to Tokyo Station a little before our check-in time so we had a look around at the shops, then made our way to Kiyomizugojo Station. A short walk took us to our hotel at Sotetsu Fresa Inn, which compared to our Tokyo accommodation, was so much cleaner and more spacious. However their amenities were in one tiny room with not very many microwaves or washing machines, which were usually taken. Outside of that, we were very pleased with this hotel.
Since we had time, we walked through some backstreets to get to the Kyoto Traveler's Factory, where I did some more stationery shopping. On the way, we passed through plenty of shops and restaurants that caught our eye, as well as the Nishiki Market and a shopping district. We noted them to return to another day.
For dinner we went to Nakau, a fast food restaurant near our hotel, and grabbed some chicken donburi that were pretty good.
Day 8 - Dec 7: Sannenzaka/Ninenzaka and Nishiki Market
It took us about 30 minutes to walk to Sannenzaka from our hotel. Initially it didn't seem too busy until we got onto the main street, where crowds were teeming. It could be a little annoying getting around, but for the most part we were able to browse the food and souvenir stores without too much hassle. We tried dango, camembert dorayaki and matcha madeleines. The dango was delicious warm and freshly made, and the camembert dorayaki was underrated. I can't believe people weren't lining up to try one of these!
We bought some presents to bring back home for Christmas, and then crested the hill to the pagoda, where there was a great view of the city. When we walked back down, we found a steampunk cafe called Punk a Vapore on the perimeter. It was small but cosy inside with nice decor, and you were given a bell to call for the barista when you were ready to order. It took a while to get our order, but the barista obviously put a lot of care into preparing our drinks and food. It was a nice little break from the crowds outside.
In the evening, we went to the Nishiki Market for some street food. We got there around 6-7pm but it wasn't too busy, and a lot of places were closing up shop for the day. The only part that was bustling was the food alley. I had some tuna sushi and tempura, which was decent. Then we stepped stumbled into the massive Teramachi and Shinkyogoku shopping arcades adjacent. We wanted to explore it fully, but my feet and back were killing me, so we had to call it quits early and come back another time.
Day 9 - Dec 8: Central Kyoto
We planned to go to Osaka on this day, but because we woke up late, we figured we'd just explore on foot and see where our curiosity leads us. We walked to a large department store called Takashimaya and made one of the best discoveries of our trip: on the basement floor was a food market filled with ready-to-eat food of every variety, things like bento, katsu, confectionery, baked goods, sushi, etc. Apparently these places are called "depachika" in Japanese. We bought some things from one of the bakeries, and my favourite thing I had was an earl grey melonpan. I loved it so much we came back on two other occasions to have it again.
The rest of the day we just walked around and did a bit of shopping, nothing especially exciting. We had dinner at a ramen restaurant called Ichiryu Manbai and ordered some tsukumen, which was delicious, although the broth cooled very quickly. Probably why this is more of a summer dish.
Day 10 - Dec 9: Osaka
We got off at Nipponbashi Station and briefly passed through Kuramon Market, then stopped for lunch at a gyudon restaurant called Chikara Meshi that was pretty good. Then we kept making our way to Denden Town to see if we could get lucky and find some Vitas. We read online that there might be a good chance of getting one here, but if that were ever the case, they've been picked clean. We tried all the electronic stores but came up empty.
As it got a bit later, we walked to Shinsekai and had a look at the colourful restaurants and shops in the low light of the early evening. Then we hopped on a train to Dotonbori. It was extremely crowded, but nothing I wasn't expecting, and I still thought it was worth the brief walk around the canal. Probably even better if you can book a gondola tour. We found a bar off the main drag and ate some yummy tapas for dinner, then headed back to Kyoto.
Day 11 - Dec 10: Katsura
One of the days I'd accounted for in my original itinerary plan was supposed to go to Universal Studios, but since I didn't book it in time, we missed out, leaving us with another open day where I had no substitute plans. Since it was a Sunday and likely to be very busy if we went anywhere too touristy, I let my partner decide what he wanted to do, so he took us into the middle of nowhere for a riveting day of Hard Off bargain hunting.
But first, we spent the morning just exploring nearby our hotel and came upon two really fantastic places. The first was Blue Bottle Coffee, which was hands down the best coffee we had in Japan. I'd highly recommend checking it out if you happen to be near one. And then just across the street was a restaurant called Hamburg Conel, which as the name implies, specialises in hamburger steaks. It was surprisingly affordable, given how lovely the interior of the restaurant was, and the generous lunch set that includes a soup, side of bread or rice, and of course the hamburger steak with your chosen sauce, with the option to add on discounted drinks and dessert. It was lovely, would definitely recommend this place to anyone in the Kiyamachi area.
After that, we set off to Katsura Station and walked to the nearest Hard Off, which was about a 20 minute walk away. It was situated in a quiet industrial district, but it turned out to be a gem of a location, and my partner became the proud owner of a Vita and a PSP that were in pretty decent condition.
Day 12 - Dec 11: Nara
We basically just came for the deer, so after visiting Nara Park and buying some souvenirs, we felt like we'd done everything we wanted to do here. Google won't show me the name of this place, but we had lunch at a low-carb restaurant that basically served thin cuts of meat on a big platter-like plate with a side of salad, but I can't not eat carbs, so I got their curry udon instead. While it was still early, my partner wanted to check the local Hard Off which was quite a walk away from the station. They were pretty well stocked with handheld consoles.
Back in Kyoto, dinner was at Joys Table near our accommodation. I'm not sure what I'd describe the cuisine as, but I had a béchamel pasta and my partner had a grill set that came with thick-cut bacon, pork sausage, a hamburger steak, and some sides of rice, salad and a demi-glace sauce. The food was great, but unfortunately the smell clung to our clothes, so our wardrobe for that day had to be retired to the laundry pile.
Day 13 - Dec 12: Kobe
Our stamina and our energy was honestly shot at this point so we again woke up quite late and weren't able to take advantage of a full day. I know it's kinda shocking but we didn't come here for melt-in-your-mouth high grade steak. We came for stationery! Or at least that's why I wanted to go. We visited Nagasawa where I gave up hope on finding an affordable glass dip pen and settled on a Pilot Iro-utsushi instead. Spent the rest of the day looking around the Sannomiya area. We had lunch in a restaurant near the station's exit. I can't seem to find the name of the place on Google Maps, but it was right outside the west exit of Kobe-Sannomiya Station, near a donut shop, up a set of stairs. There was a ticket machine with no English menu but they had pictures, so we ordered with our eyes, and I had the most decadently delicious black pepper pork rice bowl. So fucking good, and the place was empty! Can't believe it was being slept on.
The area was also pretty nice so it would've been good to spend a bit more time here but alas.
Day 14 - Dec 13: Arashiyama
I think one of my favourite days of the entire trip was visiting Arashiyama. I read some suggestions online to avoid this place because there are better bamboo groves, which sure, but that's not all there is to appreciate here. The tourists were packed into the one little iconic strip of bamboo trees, but the nearby park was practically empty, despite being worthy of exploration in its own right. We walked down to the riverside and rented one of the rowboats, which was a lot of fun!
We got off on the other side of the river and had lunch at an udon restaurant, then had an uji matcha icecream. We then went up to the Monkey Park nearby. There's something comical about walking towards the peak where the cute monkeys are while a voice over a loudspeaker tells you not to look them directly in the eyes or else. Aside from getting to see them up close, there was another great vista of the city from the top.
We walked back over the bridge to check out the souvenirs and snacks, then headed back to the hotel. Dinner was at some ramen restaurant I can't for the life of me recall, but according to my notes it was basic anyway.
Day 15 - Dec 14: Fushimi Inari and Kyoto Tower
We spent our final day in Kyoto at Fushimi Inari. Like a lot of the other heavy tourist destinations we'd been to in Kyoto, it was completely inundated with people taking selfies at the first tori gate at bottom. But as you climbed higher, the crowds dispersed. I actually didn't know Fushimi Inari was on the side of a mountain and I wasn't keen on the 40 minute round trip to the peak and back, but my partner was game for it, so I trudged along. There were a lot of clustered mini shrines on the ascent, as well as several rest stops where you could drink tea and recuperate your strength.
I needed an energy boost so on a whim I stopped in a cafe called Vermillion, which was a blessing of a find. They served fantastic coffee! Then we needed to refuel our bellies so we caught a train to Tofukiji Station and walked 15 minutes to the closest Coco Ichibanya, which we were keen to try. Japanese curry never disappoints and we were very satisfied, especially with how customisable everything is.
We walked over to the nearby Kyoto Station to book our shinkansen tickets for the next day, then had a look in Yodobashi Camera. Felt too full for dinner and we had some snacks in the mini fridge at the hotel that needed polishing off anyway.
Day 16 - Dec 15: Hakone
Getting onto the shinkansen was completely stress-free this time, though I was disappointed to realise it would be our last one, since there was a cheap local train direct from Odawara to Tokyo Station. We caught a bus from Odawara Station to our accommodation at Mount View Hakone Ryokan, which took over an hour due to the traffic.
While checking in we booked a private onsen to enjoy before our kaiseki at 6pm. Our room didn't have its own bathroom, only a toilet and sink. So we had to take advantage of the shower in the private onsen on both nights. The kaiseki was quite good, despite the small portion sizes I found it very filling. Also the private onsen had genuine hot spring water and a nice view of some bamboo trees, which combined with the drizzly weather, felt lovely.
Day 17 - Dec 16: Hakone Open-Air Museum and Chusiji Falls
We took a bus from our accommodation to Gora Station and walked to the Hakone Open-Air Museum in the morning. It was nice viewing the artwork with a beautiful mountainous backdrop. We had their all-you-can-eat buffet for ¥2200 per person, and they had a good variety of options, including curry, ramen, soba, fried chicken, grilled fish, pizza, etc.
We still had some daylight to burn so we walked to Chusiji Falls, which I won't claim is the most impressive waterfall to ever exist. There was a hiking trail nearby to the top of Mt Sengen. It was a roll-up-your-pants type of hike, but all that there was at the top was a grassy clearing. We quickly made our way down before it got too dark, and made the pleasant walk back to the bus stop in the light rain.
Day 18 - Dec 17: Odawara, Fujisawa and Tokyo
We caught the bus back to Odawara Station from our ryokan, then made a few stops on our way to Ginza so my partner could look in the Hard Offs. The first was a 30 minute walk from Kozu Station, where I got a New 2DS XL in white and lilac in very good condition. Then we caught the next train to Fujisawa, where we had a late lunch at a ramen restaurant called Ohana. Not bad but a little heavy on the garlic. The Hard Off here had less electronic goods, but it was also a Hobby Off and Off House rolled into one, with a Book Off in a separate building two blocks north-east.
We got to our hotel in Tokyo, Hotel Sunroute Ginza, at around 5-6pm.
Day 19 - Dec 18: DisneySea
Our first ever Disney park! We got to the park gates at around 8.15am and got in at about 9am. I didn't understand how to use the Tokyo Disney Resort app at first, so it didn't occur to me that you could book a free Priority Pass for certain rides every two hours. Also I would have been willing to pay for Premier Access for certain rides like Soaring and Tower of Terror. We spent a lot of the day waiting in line, but I didn't mind it as much as I thought I would. We still managed to walk around and check out the park, grab popcorn and churros, watch some of the harbour shows, and sit down and eat dinner, as well as get on 6 rides throughout the day. It was fun and magical, but I would definitely do many things different to maximise my time if I could do it over again.
Day 20 - Dec 19: Shibuya
Our final night staying in our hotel, so we spent this day doing our last-minute shopping for souvenirs and Christmas gifts. We went to the Traveler's Factory in Tokyo Station, then Loft and Don Quijote at Shibuya.
Day 21 - Dec 20: Mori Art Museum and Skytree Town
Our flight home wasn't until 10pm that night, but our hotel graciously let us leave our luggage in the lobby while we spent our final moments looking around Tokyo. We went to the Mori Art Museum, which I thought would be more like an actual museum with a public gallery, but instead it's more of an exhibition space with a hefty entry fee. We also went to Tokyo Tower, then to the Skytree Town to look at all the shops. At around 7pm we made our way to the Haneda Airport and bid sayonara to this lovely country!

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/gYQbe3X
All prices are shipped and PayPal F&F. G&S is fine but you cover the fee.
Group A: $200 for the two items remaining.
Adding more information because I'm dumb and forgot to include it earlier. Also reduced prices.
Howa 1500 LA stainless prefit barrel. Lightweight profile, weighs 3 lbs 3 oz with the APA Lil Bastard brake. Shoulder is a little small for a suppressor but works fine with a brake. 22" 1/7" twist so it'll stabilize whatever you what to push through it. Threaded 5/8"- 24. Has custom chamber so if you reload you can seat your bullets further out for more case capacity. Can include COAL and jump measurements for the bullets I've ran. This is a McGowen prefit with a Howage barrel nut, so you set your own headspace. Nothing wrong with this barrel, just trying to clear stuff out I don't need. - $200
Warne 7651-20 MOA scope base for LA Howa 1500/Weatherby Vanguard. - Included with the barrel
MDT metal AICS-LA STD 5 round mags for .30-06 class cartridges. One shows more wear than the other, both function fine. - $80 for the pair. SOLD
Group B: $900
Athlon Ares ETR 4.5-30x56mm APLR5 MOA. Great condition, slight signs of usage, glass is good. Comes with original box/manual, sunshade, scope coat, Butler Creek Element scope caps, Warne Skyline Precision 7821 medium mount, Warne RDS mount, MKM throw lever. Will prefer to sell as a set, originally paid $1300 for just the scope and mount. - $1000 REDUCED TO $900
Individual:
MDT 10" ARCA rail, MLOK attachment. Good condition, slight usage marks. - $40
MDT AICS-SA hybrid 10 round mag. Used very little. - $35 SOLD
Vortex Solo monocular 10x36. Bought as factory refurbished a few years ago, still has full warranty, has a little defect in sight picture on the lower left side. - $50 SOLD
Burris 536 prism sight. Catch and release from GAFS. Was planning on putting it on my 45-70, but it has too short of eye relief for my setup. Glass and illumination is good. - $175
Aero Ultralight 30mm mount. Mounted once, used very little. - $35 SOLD

Blaine landed on the blue planet Hadtha, swooping in behind Narah as James followed him up. They walked up to the small cottage on the Tarta Ranch and Moisture Farm, and Narah smiled and hugged her father as she walked inside. James smiled and repeated the gesture, looking at the old General with a far away look in her eyes, before following Narah inside. Blaine sat down on the front porch, a sixpack of beer and his pipe in much evidence, and waved Mordecai over.
Mordecai nodded, held up one finger, and walked back inside. Returning shortly with a cold glass of laskange juice and vodka, a favorite drink of his that seemed very close to a Mango Fritz, he sat down and looked across the Tarta pens. The tarta, slightly bigger than Norwegian Giant rabbits with the same body plan, and having ears like a mouse and a tail like a hare, ran around and munched on the grasses that grew up there.
Blaine cracked a beer and cleared his throat.
“Da, a long time ago, you asked about what happened during the Third World War of Earth. Do you still want to know what happened?” Blaine said, his hands folded under his heavily scarred face, holding the beer between them.
“You are really willing to talk about it?” Mordecai Sihn said, sitting up in his large plush chair, and putting down his laskange juice and vodka.
“I figure it’s time. Vaalor has decided to make me an outcast… I wouldn’t have stopped here, if that wasn’t so.” Blaine said, nodding with his eyes closed against Hadtha’s bright starlight, as the tarta ran around in the small paddocks in front of the old Vaalorian’s farmhouse.
“You have my undivided attention, son.” Mordecai said, leaning forwards and staring intently at Blaine’s tired face.
“When I was a young man, I joined the militia of the United States of America. This was after I had failed in my attempts to join the military. It was shaping up to be an uneventful career…”
Blaine’s voice washed over the aged Vaalorian, and the man saw in his imagination, the events that Blaine described. And they were dark. Oh, so dark!
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The young man stretched and groaned, as he pulled himself from his slumber. Standing quietly, he walked to the kitchen, and started a cup of coffee. Then, he heard it. Screaming. Like someone was being murdered on his front lawn.
Blaine ran outside, and watched as parachutes floated down in the darkness of the early fall morning. Turning to where he presumed the scream to have come from, he saw a soldier pull their bayonet from his neighbor’s chest, and drew the pistol he wore with his sleepwear, shooting the soldier in his stomach.
Running back inside his house, he quickly grabbed his rifle and car keys, and let his dog out. Houdini seemed to understand the urgency of the situation, and didn’t argue for the first time in several days. They ran back to his truck, and Blaine jammed the keys into the truck’s ignition, quickly starting the truck.
He thanked God and his Ancestors that he’d replaced the battery the week before, and the engine roared to life. Houdini whined piteously from the back seat of the large vehicle, as Blaine slammed it into gear and tore out of his driveway, spitting gravel and drifting sideways as he accelerated out of the small parking space.
As he accelerated, a paratrooper dropped into the road a mere ten feet in front of him, and the truck bucked as he drove over the unfortunate soldier. Driving like he’d never done before, Blaine narrowly avoided the Chinese type 98 heavy tank that tried to block the roadway. Bullets perforated the thin metal of the truck’s cab, and paratroopers floated down in the hundreds all around him.
Ducking instinctively, Blaine drove the large vehicle towards the location of a small mountainside campground he often frequented for training. A helicopter thundered overhead from the nearby Tillamook Army Airbase, shredding a tank that was just in front of him on the roadway. Blaine shoved his hand into the center console of the truck, and pulled out a neckerchief with the American Flag as its main pattern, unfurling it in the nick of time, as the helicopter swung around for another pass. Swinging his arm wildly out the window and screaming at the top of his lungs, he flew at pace around the burning hulk of armor in the roadway.
The helicopter continued to follow him for a few more minutes, destroying two more vehicles before peeling off to head back to the small town Blaine had just left. Blaine cussed, angry at the situation and just a little bit panicky, as he always was when bullets were aimed at him.
“Fuck! Those are fucking Chinese troops!” He said, as he passed the last burning tank on the way into the mountains. Houdini whined at him trying to convey something, Blaine couldn’t tell.
Red and blue lights filled his periphery, and the truck suddenly was slammed from the side, spinning wildly. Coming to a stop facing the way he’d been coming from, he looked around at the cop running up to his door, holding a gun. Blaine didn’t think, and didn’t hesitate. He pulled his gun and fired in one motion, painting the air with the police officer’s brains. As the pink mist swept away, Blaine climbed out of the immovable vehicle.
“Fuck… BLAAARGH! HUUUHHHH! Fuck… Son of a bitch!” He cursed, turning back to the ruined vehicle after he unloaded his previous meal across the ground.
He grabbed the go-bag from the back of his truck, and let Houdini jump out on shaking legs, before turning and looking again at the fallen cop. He looked at the rifle, and was enraged at the fact that a collaborator was more heavily armed than him. Seeing the man’s nameplate, he became violently so.
“Chen…. I shoulda fuckin known!” He said. “Of course they’d infiltrate the positions of command and control!”
At that moment, a ten-ton five-by-five Army truck from the fifties pulled up next to him. Blaine whirled on his heel with his gun raised, and the man behind the wheel raised his hands.
“Whoa! American!” He said, looking at Blaine critically. “Why’d you shoot the cop?” He added.
“Fucker’s a Chicom collaborator!” Blaine said, face screwed up in pure fury.
“I’m not. Marcus Caine. Get in, and let’s get out of here!” Marcus said, thumbing over his shoulder at the double-deuce-and-a-half’s bed.
Blaine obliged him, and Marcus slammed the accelerator to the floor, pouring black diesel smoke from the exhaust pipe. Houdini had barely been able to get in before the truck took off underneath them, and was very unhappy with all the haste. He growled and sulked to the front of the large truck, and laid down next to some ammunition crates.
“Got any ideas?” Marcus said, over his shoulder. “Oh, and I didn’t catch your name, kid!”
“Kid… Ha! That’s rich! My name is Blaine, Marcus. Blaine Price. Keep on this road. I’ll tell yeh when teh turn orff…” Blaine said.
“Alright. You don’t sound like you’re from around here. Too southern.” Marcus said. “Where're you from, if I might ask?”
“Arkansas. And California.” Blaine said, keeping his eyes ahead on the road. “Take that road.” He added, pointing to the right.
“Hang on!” Marcus shouted, gritting his teeth and veritably drifting the gigantic truck around the corner. “See that Duece? Know how to operate it?” He added, indicating a fifty caliber machine gun on the truckbed floor.
“Gimme a few minutes, and I will…” Blaine said, before rigging the gun to the post behind the large truck cab.
After the gun was secured and a box of ammo was rigged to its side, Blaine hunched back down next to the back window of the cab.
“The next dirt road going into the mountains. It’s around this bend.. Slow down or we’ll miss it!” He said, pointing to the right again.
“This one?” Marcus said, slowing down and turning.
“Yep. Go all the way to the back. We’ll have full advantage of being able to see, without being seen.” Blaine said, nodding.
Marcus tore up the old Bureau of Land Management gravel road, as they climbed the mountainside switchbacks. The sun was rising as they crested the hill, and the crisp air bit at Blaine’s exposed skin. He breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that they were not joined by any other people. Jumping down from the Deuce-and-a-half, He reached up and helped Houdini down, before grabbing his gear. Turning around, he almost ran into the Colt forty-five pointed directly at his face.
“Nothing personal, Blaine. But I have to know where your allegiances lie. I didn’t survive Bosnia by trusting just anyone.” Marcus said from behind the pistol.
“My dog, my country, and my momma. And if you keep that gun in my face, you’ll find out what I mean by that.” Blaine said, without even flinching.
A subtle warning growl issued from off to their right, and Marcus turned to look, momentarily taking his eyes off of Blaine. Blaine didn’t hesitate, and neatly disarmed Marcus while deftly avoiding the shot as he did. Marcus looked around, stunned.
“Fuck. That was good. Where were you trained, kid?” Marcus said, raising his hands slowly and looking directly at the now intensely growling dog.
“APA militia. Commodore, Blaine Price of the 713th Volunteer Sharpshooters. Who are you, exactly?” Blaine snarled, stuffing the pistol into his camo pants next to his own pistol.
“As I said before, Marcus Caine. Gunnery Sergeant First Class, United States Marine Corps. 0113 Bravo. And if you intend to keep that pistol, you’d better use it, boy. Nobody takes a Marine’s gun and lives.” Marcus said, with a deadly stare.
“Ah. Well… That explains a lot. I was trained by a Marine, Gunny. If you so much as twitch wrong, He’ll rip your nuts off before he dies.” Blaine said, indicating the growling canine.
Unloading the pistol and dropping the magazine on the ground, he handed back the pistol. Houdini sat down, but didn’t stop growling menacingly every now and again. Marcus took the hint, and stuck the pistol into his waistband. As he went to pick up the magazine, Houdini stood up again and the hair raised along his spine in a sharp ridge.
Marcus stopped mid-stoop, and slowly stood up again. “Alright, I get it. I’m not trying to hurt him, bud. I just had to be sure, ok?” He said to the snarling canine.
“Just leave it lie, for now. I’ll hand it back to you when I’m satisfied.” Blaine said.
“Ok. What is that gonna take?” Marcus said, taking his spare magazine and placing it into the receiver, but not racking the slide, as it was still tucked in his waistband.
Houdini sat back down, and lifted one ear, not taking his eyes off of Marcus for a second’s breadth. Blaine didn’t hear him, however. He was looking past Marcus into the bush, and suddenly drew his own pistol and fired. Marcus had his pistol in his hand and the slide racked before he realized that the smoke cloud that surrounded him was not meant for him.
Turning on his toe, Marcus dropped to one knee and sighted at what Blaine was shooting at, uncertainly. Suddenly, a bush flopped sideways from the trees directly behind Marcus, gurgling.
“Fuck… Nice shot, kid!” Marcus said, standing and shoving the pistol back into his waistband while flicking the hammer safety on.
“I ain’tcha kid, Gunny. And so we’re clear, if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.” Blaine said, as Marcus turned back and saw that Blaine had already holstered his pistol, and the barrel was still smoking.
What he finally noticed at that point, was that it wasn’t a modern firearm, but an antique single action revolver. Marcus was inwardly shocked at that revelation. The man in front of him had taken down a gillie-suited soldier with nothing more than an antique! What’s more, he’d been quicker on the draw than Marcus had, with a twelve inch barrel none-the-less!
“That’s honest, kid.” Marcus said, stunned. “Sorry. It’s force of habit.” He added, realizing he’d let slip again. “Nice piece.”
“Bought it two years ago. Let’s find out what’s going on, shall we?” Blaine said, gesturing to the dead soldier on the ground.
They walked over, and were shocked to find a man of middle-eastern descent dead on the ground. Rifling through the dead soldier’s pockets, Marcus found several documents written in a few different languages. None of which he spoke. Blaine found a Chinese flag tucked into the man’s shirt pocket, and was impressed to see that his round had punched a hole straight through the fabric and out the man’s back, leaving a perfect set of perforations that were lightly coated in bloody splash-back.
A map, a compass, two days Chinese rations, and a Sig knockoff as well as a real DVG sniper rifle was also recovered. Several objectives were marked off on the map, and the man had obviously gotten dropped far from his intended dropzone.

More than happy to bundle!! * wish list: * b2525/b50c25 elders * q2525 fixerailway * red asylum, tattered field jacket * What I got: * weps * a ss+s bear arm * a ss+s deathclaw * apa+s chainsaw * a50c25 elder * aa50vhc25 elder * aa25dwa25 handmade * aa15rl 2* m79 nade launcher legacy * aae25 lmg * bpa15v chainsaw * bpa+s drill * b2525 gamma * b2525 fixer * b50c25 fixer x2 * b50c25 handmade * be25 elder * be 2* bpp 20% explosive legacy * be25 single action revolver * be15v 10mm sub * be25 assault rifle * Be15c fixer * be ghost mini * b50c15c fixer * b2515rl assault rifle * b2515v lmg * b2550break * b25dwa25 laser pistol * b50vhc25 bolt action pistol * b50c50 handmade * exe/e25 mini gun * fe 2* bpr 20% explosive legacy * i ss+s assaultron blade * q50vhc25 pump shotgun * q25dwa25 handmade * q50L25 radium rifle * q50L15RL railway * q50c25 50 cal * q50c15c cryo * j50c25 elder * jug50c25 handmade * jug2515rl handmade * ts2515rl flamer * v2515rl 10mm sub * v2515rl submachine * armour * ass/25%fire/awr USA LL * ass/7led/fdc excavator LL * ass/+s/cav fsa LA * bols/i/wwr raider RA * bols/+p/sent heavy robot RL * bols/ap/wwr t45 LL * bols/+s/sent usa LL fsa painted legacy * bols/+s/awr trapper LA * bols/ap/jwr marine LL * bols/ap/sneak chest * bols/25%cryo/awr t-45 LA * bols/+s/wwr t51b RA * cham/ap/fdc combat LL * oe/+i/jwr usa RL * oe/ap/sent t-45 LL * oe/ap/cav trapper RL * oe/ap/fdc t45 torso * oe/7led/cav metal LA * oe/25%fire/cav usa LL * oe/+s/awr t45 LA * uny/+c/wwr combat LL * uny/+i/awr trapper RL * uny/+s/awr combat RL * van/+L/sent fsa LL * van/+i/cav sturdy combat LL * van/ap/awr fsa RL * van/ap/sent sturdy leather LL * van/ap/fdc sturdy combat RA * aids * ash heap #1 2k * ash heap #2 2k * cran bog 1.8k * mire #2 4k * grognak 4 900 * grognak 6 1200 * grognak 10 2300 * us covert #1 1000 * us covert #2 1700 * us covert #8 900 * us covert #9 1200 * us covert # 1000 * live and love #8 500 * guns and bullets #3 500 * energy bobbles 300 * explosive bobbles 400 * big gun bobbles 250 * leader bobbles 600 * overdrive 2k * Misc items * Edwin’s diary * epr flamer mod * apparel * forest asylum * responder set

Intro
Winter is coming and there is not a better time to assess what your wardrobe should look like for the upcoming months. Who wants to go buy anything while it is freezing outside and listen to the same three songs on repeat while on the inside. The champions of our beloved game are thinking the same, as every year they gather the best of the best the game has to offer to pick out what they think are their best outfits, and to give their judgement on the latest line of fashion the champions got in the preceding year. After all, what is Worlds if not a large fashion gathering for a month to show off the best designs Riot has to offer. And I am here to give you the annual fun facts about skins at the event (2022 edition, 2021 edition).
From all around the world, our teams of fashion designers have competed over the course of 113 matches, and have given their approval of 278 outfits across 89 champions. This is much more comparable to Worlds 2021 (91 champs and 304 skins) than Worlds 2022 (109 champs and 362 skins), when you factor in that less games were played this year. Most popular tier of skins were Epic skins at 153. 43 skins were higher tier, 25 legendaries, 17 mythic and 1 special skin in Neo PAX Sivir (no ultimates this year). The rest (82) were split between 33 for superior (975RP), 15 deluxe (750RP), 7 classic (520RP) and 27 base skins.
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Popularity Contest (Which skins were the most popular?)

1. iG Kai'Sa - 41 (41% WR)
2. Cosmic Dusk Xayah - 33 (73% WR)
3. Empyrean K'Sante - 31 (52% WR)
4. Classic Azir - 29 (45% WR)
5. Cosmic Dawn Rakan - 28 (64% WR)
6. God Staff Jax - 27 (52% WR)
7. Super Galaxy Rumble - 24 (67% WR)
8. Battle Queen Rell - 24 (50% WR)
9. Mecha Aatrox - 21 (38% WR)
10. Nightbringer Aphelios - 20 (55% WR)

iG Kai'Sa takes the cake as the most played skin not only at this World Championship, but at any of the three tourneys I tracked. The dominance displayed by the top two skins would have even increased if it was not for the playoff meta shift in the bot lane, making Kai'Sa and Xayah less attractive as picks so the leaderboard stagnated, but iG Kai'Sa was on pace to have 50% presence overall. Empyrean K'Sante completes the podium as a "rookie" skin (only one in the top 10), far outshining the two other K'Sante skins available even if they were much more equal during play-ins. All of the other skins were very much signature skins for their respective champions, and all but one of these skins were for a champion in the top 15 in terms of pick numbers. No duplicates this time around, as the meta shift also meant that many champions could not rack up as many picks to push their second skin into the top ten, with Rell being the closest one having her base skin at number 13.
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Biggest Wardrobe (Which champions used the most skins?)

1. Kai'Sa - 8 (58 games - iG, K/DA, K/DA ALL OUT, Inkshadow, Arcade, Prestige K/DA, Bullet Angel, Lagoon Dragon)
2. Akali - 7 (13 games - Prestige K/DA, Star Guardian, DRX, K/DA, K/DA ALL OUT, PROJECT, Classic)
3. Renekton - 7 (39 games - Dawnbringer, PROJECT, Rune Wars, Blackfrost, Scorched Earth, Renektoy, Hextech)
4. Jarvan IV - 7 (41 games - SSG, Warring Kingdoms, Nightbringer, Worlds 2021, FNC, Commando, Darkforge)
5. Orianna - 7 (43 games - Classic, Bladecraft, Star Guardian, Pool Party, Dark Star, Winter Wonder, Gothic)
6. Syndra - 6 (24 games - Classic, Atlantean, Prestige Star Guardian, Withered Rose, Snow Day, Spirit Blossom)
7. Nautilus - 6 (25 games - Subterranean, Worldbreaker, Classic, AstroNautilus, Shan Hai Scrolls, Cosmic Paladin)
8. Sejuani - 6 (26 games - Bear Cavalry, Beast Hunter, Poro Ridedr, Firecracker, PROJECT, Dawnchaser)
9. Vi - 6 (28 games - Arcane, PROJECT, Classic, Neon Strike, Officer, Demon)
10. Xayah - 6 (47 games - Cosmic Dusk, SSG, Arcana, Broken Covenant, Star Guardian, Sweetheart)
11. Rakan - 6 (49 games - Cosmic Dawn, iG, Sweetheart, Broken Covenant, Classic, Arcana)

Look, it's Kai'Sa again. The luxury of being the most picked champion at the tournament means that you can take all the accolades with pure numbers. Still, some of the fashion designers did not take the liking to the sleek look of her eSports skin, so she managed to try out 7 more of her outfits. Real surprise on this list is Akali, who even manages a place better this year despite seeing play in 20 less games (ties are broken by playing less games played). Seven skins in 13 games is extreme diversity compared to many other champions, and her most popular skin was DRX at 5 appearances (skins are surted by time of appearance and not games played). Only other repeat top 10 champion is Jarvan IV, who again scores highly and is the only champion to see a place on this list in all three years. Some shoutouts in this category are Yone, Sivir, Varus and Poppy who had 5 skins with less than 10 games played, and Lux who in her 4 games always wore a different outfit.
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Jack of All Skins (Which champions used the most of their skin collection?)
Lux using 4 skins in 4 games is nice and all, but she is not really struggling to find what to wear, and in the end, she still has whopping 16 skins not tried out this year. So who used the most of their skin collection? This category favors newer champions as they have less skins to go through, so it should not be a surprise to see Bel'Veth, K'Sante, Milio, Nilah and Rell using all of their skins as they were played at the tournament compared to someone like Akshan. Rell is not really a new champion anymore, but with only one post launch skin, she may as well be in the context of this category. Champions with one outfit gathering up dust in the closet are Aphelios (Lunar Beast), Ornn (Space Groove), Renata Glasc (La Ilusion), Taliyah (Star Guardian), Yone (Inkshadow) and Zeri (Classic), all newer champions outside of Taliyah, who had 5 skins present this year, same as Yone. Gwen, Ivern, and Kalista had two skins missing the show (and Vex, but she only had one game and with three skins, she is certain to have only two left). List of champions to show more than half of their inventory (outside of those mentioned already) include Azir, Neeko, Sylas, Rakan, Kai'Sa, Nautilus, Xayah, Maokai, Orianna and Vi.
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One Skin Ponies (Which champions had one dominant skin choice?)

1. Rumble - Super Galaxy (24/24, 100%)
2. Jax - God Staff (27/31, 87%)
3. Azir - Classic (29/34, 85%)
4. Aphelios - Nightbringer (20/26, 77%)
5. K'Sante - Empyrean (31/41, 76%)
6. Jayce - Resistance (17/24, 71%)
7. Kai'Sa - iG (41/58, 71%)
8. Xayah - Cosmic Dusk (33/47, 70%)
9. Aatrox - Mecha (21/33, 63%)
10. Lee Sin - Muay Thai (14/23, 61%)

Champions on this list needed to have at least 8 picks to qualify, and the shown skins are those that managed to have at least 60% pick rate on those champions. Having said that, the dominance of Super Galaxy Rumble over the competing Rumble skins is staggering but not too surprising considering the difference it makes on his rig. A legendary skin that is soon to count his years in double digits is still miles better than anything his even older base model can support. God Staff Jax and Classic Azir score extremely highly here as well, whre both of them discarded their previous competing outfit (Nemesis and Worlds 2022) in favor of a more unified look. Aphelios and K'Sante surprised me a bit here. Aphelios was one of the most balanced champions in terms of skin usage in the last two years, seeing play in all of his forms previously, and yet his release skin dominated this year for no reason I can think of. For K'Sante, his three outfits looked to be very even coming out of the play in stage, but with the swiss stage higher rated fashion designers pretty much exclusively used his Empyrean skin. Some of the skins fell as time went on. Cosmic Dusk Xayah, Cosmic Dawn Rakan and Marauder Alistar for example, had extreme dominance early on but saw more of their other skins used in the latter stages, with Rakan and Alistar's skins falling to just over 50% skin usage while Xayah still managed to stay in the top 10.
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Skin Universe Battle (Which skin universes were the most popular?)

1. Event Horizon - 86 games, 7 skins (Cosmic dominance with Xayah and Rakan skins leading the charge, while Orianna is the only Dark Star member)
2. iG - 50 games, 3 skins (carried by Kai'Sa, though Rakan pulled his weight and LeBlanc was there as well)
3. Empyrean - 41 games, 5 skins (K'Sante's two skins made all but three of the appearances of this skin line, as Zac, Jax and Vex made a single cameo each)
4. Chaos and Order - 35 games, 6 skins (three skins for either side, and while Garen was picked more by Adam compared to Darius, Aphelios and Jarvan IV far outnumbered Renekton and Yone for the Nightbringer dominance)
5. Snowdown - 33 games, 11 skins (very balanced skin line, as Orianna, Neeko and Bard lead with 5 appearances each)
6. PROJECT - 33 games, 7 skins (Renekton and Vi lead the way with 12 and 11 picks respectively)
7. Immortal Journey - 32 games, 4 skins (Jax is considered a part of this skin line so he carries them pretty much alone, Zeri being the only one being used more than once)
8. Star Guardian - 27 games, 9 skins (despite being Rell's least popular skin, here she leads with 11 appearances)
9. Wonders of the World - 26 games, 3 skins (Lee Sin with his martial arts and Sejuani riding a bear)
10. Toy Box - 24 games, 5 skins (Renekton and Alistar make up the majority here)
11. Super Galaxy - 24 games, 1 skin (*insert heroic quote here*)
12. Battle Queen - 24 games, 1 skin (Rell is the only one to who up, not only in terms of skins but in terms of champions as well)
13. Mecha - 22 games, 2 skins (entirely carried by Aatrox, Kha'Zix had his failed cameo)
14. Eclipse - 20 games, 7 skins (Elderwood Ahri was in 7 games)
15. Trick-or-Treat - 20 games, 3 skins (Maokai and Neeko had 9 appearances each)

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Fresh Content (Ranking the skins and skinlines from this year)

1. Empyrean K'Sante - 31
2. Crystalis Motus Taliyah - 12
3. Broken Covenant Rakan - 8
4. Nightbringer Jarvan IV - 8
5. Prestige Empyrean K'Sante - 7

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1. Empyrean - 41 games, 5 skins
2. DRX - 17 games, 6 skins
3. Crystalis Motus - 17 games, 2 skins
4. Chaos and Order - 13 games, 2 skins
5. Cosmic 2023 - 12 games, 3 skins
6. Broken Covenant - 12 games, 3 skins
7. La Ilusion - 10 games, 3 skins

Quick everyone, act surprised! If it was not obvious who the star of the show was, it is now. Empyrean K'Sante utterly dominated the year and is the only reason this year is even competitive in terms of skins. Only Crystalis Motus Taliyah and Bewitching Neeko topped their skin catalogs. Other skins such as the DRX crew, Nightbringer Jarvan IV, Dawnbringer Renekton, Cosmic Matriarch Bel'Veth, Cosmic Paladin Nautilus, Broken Covenant Rakan and Prestige La Ilusion Renata Glasc only managed to be another one in the list of available skins, no dominance there. On the other hand, 9 skin lines failed to see any of their creations on the Rift (compared to 4 last year), while another 4 only saw them once, a big step back in terms of diversity.
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Skin to win? Pay to lose? (Skins with abnormal win rate)
This is some really noisy data to be real (but is this even data analysis or pure entertainment), and this year has been particularly difficult to find some real outliers. So many popular champions kept their skins at close win rates like Neeko or Rell, it was fairly hard to pick out what was abnormal. But still, here are the ten skins that caught my eye:

• Lunar Eclipse Aatrox (5W/7G (71%) with, 11W/26G (42%) without) - Preferred by one fashion designer, with good results compared to the more popular Mecha variant. I wonder if he made it far this year...
• DRX Caitlyn (3W/5G (60%) with, 0W/4G (0%) without) - Is DRX Caitlyn pay to win, or is Arcane Caitlyn pay to lose? I look on the bright side
• La Ilusion Gnar (5W/5G (100%) with, 3W/7G (42%) without) - Not a very popular pick, but his newest outfit yielded the best win percentage
• Cosmic Paladin Nautilus (5W/6G (83%) with, 7W/20G (35%) without) - Nautilus death fund was very much stopped by the power of cosmos (and ranged supports), but this skin went undefeated until its last appearance in the quarterfinals
• Fright Night Renata Glasc (8W/8G (100%) with, 6W/9G (67%) without) - Is it skin to win if your other skins have good win rate? It is if you go undefeated over 8 games
• Bear Cavalry Sejuani (8W/11G (73%) with, 6W/15G (31%) without) - Bear Bristle (Bearstle...? no) was not only popular this year but also very strong
• Freljord Taliyah (4W/7G (57%) with, 2W/16G (12%) without) - Again, is Freljord pay to win or is Crystalis Motus pay to lose if it lost all but one of its twelve games (thank you Blaber)? Other skins went 1 out of 4 so perhaps Freljord is the one out of line
• Arctic Ops Varus (4W/4G (100%) with, 1W/4G (25%) without) - Late arrival to the fashion show, but one that is definitely prepared for the winter with those clothes. Another skin that is the favorite of a single fashion designer, who found great success with it
• Neon Strike Vi (1W/7L (14%) with, 9W/21G (43%) without) - Vi did not find many wins this year, but Neon Strike was certainly the worst, needing to wait until semifinals to find its only victory
• Withered Rose Zeri (0W/4L (0%) with, 6W/9G (67%) without) - There is too much positivity in this section. This overdressed skin had no right to be on this fashion show, and Zeri was much better off with her simpler outfits, even if her latest skin brought a gun to a sword universe

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Fashion Taste (Player's signature skins)
Who are the most influential fashion designers from this year, and what outfits should you keep an eye on if you want to stay trendy and cool? Find out here as we go through most influential choices one by one:

• Aatrox: Mecha Aatrox was certainly favored by most players, including but not limited to TheShy, Bin and apaMEN. But two of our best fashionistas used other skins, 369 started with Prestige Blood Moon and then switched to the Fishtrox (Seahunter Aatrox) for playoffs, while the new king of the top lane Zeus used Lunar Eclipse exclusively
• Jarvan IV: Bunch of different choices. JunJia used SSG, Levi used Warring Kingdoms, Tarzan and Razork used Commando, BeanJ and Blaber used Nightbringer (and Worlds 2021 once), Oner, Kanavi, XUN and Canyon used FNC, and Elyoya used the last two. No logic I can see here, it is a mess
• Lee Sin: It is always interesting to see what the pro junglers use on what is probably their most played champion. Levi, Tarzan and Oner liked Storm Dragon, while BeanJ, Sheo, Canyon, Razork and Kanavi went oldschool with Muay Thai. Peanut and Pyosik were the odd men out, using God Fist and Playmaker once respectively
• Maokai: More junglers huh. JunJia, Gemini and XUN used the Halloween spirit, Yike, Contractz and Levi went to space, Sheo, Harp and Steal are probably cat people, while Weiwei was versatile and used all three skins hinted at here
• Nautilus: A split here between the two stages of the tournament. Subterranean was used mostly by play in supports, while Shan Hai Scrolls was used by Delight, Mikyx and Trymbi. Lehends (and Zven) brought success with Cosmic Paladin skin
• Rakan: Most players used the popular Cosmic Dawn Rakan, including MISSING and Keria. But others like CoreJJ, Hang, IgNar and Hylissang used Broken Covenant, Ceos, Trymbi used iG, while Delight chose Arcana, going undefeated in the three games he was let to play the champion. Players did not seem to intentionally match their Rakan and Xayah skins, yes, Cosmic was very popular together but they were popular in general and were taken separately many times, and there was no matching in their other skinlines like Arcana, Sweetheart and Broken Covenant despite both skins seeing play
• Rell: One of the very few popular flex picks that we can look if the different roles have different tastes. In the jungle, Sheo is the only one to use Star Guardian, Oner and Peanut chose Battle Queen while Weiwei mostly used base version. On the support side, Star Guardian enjoyers only used that skin (Kellin, Bie, CoreJJ). Others like Trymbi, ON and Woody used both Battle Queen and Classic in different games. ShiauC and Palette used only Battle Queen, while Delight only used the base skin. So supports used Star Guardian more and in general those that like it did not swap it, while, the base and release skin were more interchangeable for some players, especially for supports
• Renata Glasc: Now it is a streak of support champions. Keria brought terror with his Fright Night, but he was not alone in his choice as ON also used Fright Night. Keria's lane opponent in the finals Crips took her newest prestige look before reverting to the base look in later stages
• Renekton: A signature top lane champion is sure to have some consistency, surely? Not really. Consistent ones were: BrokenBlade used Renektoy, Fudge went for Hextech, Kiin used Rune Wars and Oscarinin and Zika chose PROJECT. Other players usually swapped at some point: Adam used Dawnbringer at first, before going for Blackfrost, Sparda started on PROJECT and swapped to Scroched Earth, Bin did Blackfrost to PROJECT to Renektoy and back to PROJECT and Blackfrost for the end, a full circle
• Zeri: Crownie used Immortal Journey, Berserker, Noah, Slayder and Aiming took Ocean Song, while Light and Elk took the Withered Rose variant. Ruler is the only one to swap, going from Immortal Journey to Withered Rose to lose his last two games on it
• Adam: Wait, he is not a champion! He is one in our hearts. But if you want to be like Adam, it is not gonna come cheap. He uses legendary skins on G, D and S parts of GODS, while he saves a bit of money on O by using Dragonslayer Olaf instead of the legendary Brolaf skin.
• World champions and their skins: There were 10 previous world champions present at the tournament, and yet, their opportunity to use or play against their own skin was limited. ShowMaker, Scout and TheShy's champion were not even picked, while Canyon and Crisp's were picked once and it was not in their games. Faker has three skins but also did not see any of his skins in game, Zed was never played, Syndra's skin was not used at all and Ryze was only picked once, and not in his game. He did not even face Easyhoon's Azir skin despite the skin actually being picked at the tournament. CoreJJ did not face his skin nor did he use it, choosing Broken Covenant in his Rakan games. That leaves Ruler, Pyosik and Deft, who both played their own skin once, Ruler losing his semifinal match while the other two won in the swiss stage. As a honorable mention, JunJia won against Oddie when he picked JieJie's EDG Viego, Faker had to face Zeka's DRX Akali twice (Chovy and knight) and both Gumayusi and Keria took Beryl's DRX Ashe as their Ashe skin of choice
• T1: A quick glance at what T1 used on their favorite champions. Faker, obviously, used classic skins all the way on any champion (Orianna, Sylas, Azir, Ahri and Akali). But his teammates did not copy him, in fact, not a single classic skin was used by any of his teammates (EDIT: this is actually wrong, Gumayusi used Classic Nilah once). Zeus used Dawnbringer Yone, Lunar Eclipse Aatrox and Resistance Jayce as his favorites. Oner got FNC Jarvan IV, Battle Queen Rell and Storm Dragon Lee Sin as repeat choices. Gumayusi's signature skins were Arctic Ops Varus, Cosmic Dusk Xayah and Marauder Kalista, while his lane partner Keria showed off Fright Night Renata Glasc, Arcana Tahm Kench, DRX Ashe and Snow Day Bard.
• Demon King's Influence: Faker's teammates may not use classic skins, but that does not mean his choice of classic skin does not influence others. Last year I noted that mid laners hold the majority of base skin picks, even if you remove Faker's games entirely. The pattern has repeated again this year, mid laners are by far the biggest users of base skins, followed by supports and the other three roles far behind more or less equally matched. Mid laners used classic skins in 66 games (51 if you count out Faker), supports score is at 28, while junglers, top and bot laners are at 9, 5 and 4 respectively. So, who picks base skins? Top laners have a short list, 2 games of Licorice's K'Sante, 1 game each for BrokenBlade's K'Sante and Yone and Dhokla's Ornn, all western players. Junglers are short as well, Elyoya's Bel'Veth once, Sheo's Vi twice, and Rell 6 times for Yike, Canyon and Weiwei. And bot laners it is four unique choices, Yeon's Aphelios, Hans Sama's Ezreal, Gumayusi's Nilah and Light's Varus. None of these players swapped skins on these champions, though obviously used skins on every other champion, sop they still played with skins most of the time. Support is where it gets more interesting, with 28 games there are still players who used base skins on particular champions like Rell, but two players have more interesting choices. ON used base skins 5 times on 3 champions (Braum, Milio and Rell) and used other skins 12 times on 11 champions, while Crisp played base skin in 12 of his 20 games played, choosing that look every time on his Heimerdinger, Milio and Senna, while he switched from Prestige La Ilusion to base Renata Glasc when the elimination rounds started. He used skins on Leona, Ashe, Bard and Lux. Faker is not a support, but Beryl does use plenty of base skins in his own games, so perhaps he has managed to have the same type of influence Faker has in his own role, though it is weaker. Mid laners are of course the most interesting, as some are true connoisseurs of base skins. Of those who can compete with Crisp we have Gloryy (6/10 games, 4 champs), nuc (11/19 games, 4 champs), Bdd (8/12 games, 4 champs) and Caps (6/9 games, 5 champs). Champions who used base skins the most are Azir, Rell, Orianna, Neeko, Syndra, Milio and Nautilus, further enhancing the idea that base skins are much more popular for mid and supports.

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Outro
That is all I had planned for this post. Perhaps there is potential to see if there is anything to be said about combining the data I have on all three Worlds so far, to be made into a different post, or maybe I will manage to create something to track the skin usage across the domestic leagues as well for next year. All that is certain is that this Worlds has been enjoyable to witness T1 prove themselves on top of the fashion world and Faker further cement his legacy as the best fashion critic of all time as he has not only managed to get four trophies, but influence the clothing choices of so many mid lane champions world wide.