DEEPLY MISCELLANEOUS HIGHLIGHTS FROM MY TRIP TO JAPAN

Overview

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Toyko

The Imperial Gardens. A river in a grassy area with many trees, a large stone wall sits on the other side of the water. A busy city corner with many tall buildings lit up with various ads. A building whose sides are entirely made of glass, with an layered outcropping of plantlife on top of it. A large gundam robot standing in from of a mall. This is where I was for most of my trip! I adored Tokyo, it was nonstop fascinating things to discover and check out. I went a ton of places; Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ueno, Akihabara, Odaiba... I went to 7 art museums too, haha. Favorite parts were the Museum of Contemporary Art & getting tipsy in a tiny bar in the gay district with my friends - we stumbled across it as sanctuary from downpour & it was perfect. X
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Sendai

A 330ft tall statue of the bodhisattva Byakue Kannon. She is dressed in robes and has one hand raised. Sendai was mostly a hub to go to other places, like Matsushima. We played Mario Party w/ folks at our hostel, socializing with hostel folks is always a good time!! X
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Morioka

Dozens of small bowls stacked on top of each other. An unlucky many-hour delay to our bullet train meant we were only here for a bit. Very beautiful views; also, we did an udon eating challenge. I ate 43 bowls, my friend ate nearly 80 somehow! X
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Aomori

A room with roses stuck out of the ground, with artificial animal heads adorning the walls. Three childlike figures lay face down reading books in the center. A large wooden structure, about 3 stories tall, consisting of 6 support logs and floors made of smaller logs tied together. A two headed dog statue with 6 legs and two tails. It also is concave, such that you can sit in it. Stopped here for a day, went on a guided tour of the Sannai-Maruyama Site with folks in the JET program. Also went to one of the best art museums I've been to, the Aomori Museum of Art X
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Hakodate

An arial view of a star-shaped park in the center of a city. The fort is flanked by artificial rivers on all sides. From atop a mountain, you can see into the distance the bright lights of a city flanked by ocean. A zip car is visible travelling up the mountain. A nice seaside town, structured in a Western style cause it was the first port opened to foreign trade. Has one of the best night views in Japan, I got to ride a cable car up a mountain for it! X
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Matsushima

An archipelago of around 260 islands; took a boat tour, then checked out some cool sites nearby. X

🐧 Don Quijote 🐧

A cramped and bright store, filled to the brim with various merchandise and ads. A chair hangs from the ceiling upside down.

The first store I wandered into was a Don Quijote, which was immediate sensory overload. And also gave me a kinda skewed idea of what other stores in Japan would be like. Blaring music, videos playing everywhere, and a labyrinthian structure had me stumbling around looking for sunscreen for nearly two hours.

The same store, focused on various mario cups and items. The store seems to go on forever in the background.

One of my friends also told me about this enamel repairing toothpaste only available in Japan, and I looked for that too, but I couldn't read the differences on any of the tubes, so I gave up on that.

A penguin in a santa hat pointing at himself in another image.

That's me!

A pink penguin in a santa hat with a heart on her chest pointing at Mario themed soap dispensers.

That's Mario!

Lucky Pierrot

The front of a Lucky Pierrot. The sign shows a clown holding a burger, and is adorned by many large ice cream cones. Adjacent to the eatery is another covered in moss.

Lucky Pierrot is this weird chain in Hakodate that serves "American style" hamburgers. And let me tell you, Japanese-style American food is bizarre. Like, french fries served out of a cup that you eat with a fork. Or neat fushion foods like Pork Cutlet burgers.

The inside of the eatery, which looks like a diner. There are giant ice cream gones flanked by statues of angels praying.

Each of the 17 different restaurants have a different theme, and the one we ate at, of course, had an angel theme. The walls were filled to the brim with paintings of angels. A ruler for measuring your height, featuring a clown with very very tall legs, and a very short clown. An add for a burger called 'LET EAT MEAT HAM BURGER'. A sewer grate of a church, a seagull, and the text 'Hakodate'. A statue of a clown. One of its pupils is shaped like a start. It has a frilly neck piece, polkadotted clothes, and long orange hair. A gigantic statue of a burger. The bottom bun is larger, and can be used as a place to sit. An arial view of a different Lucky Pierrot on a street corner.

Other shops

Rows of plush Kirby dolls. Giant inflatable Kirbys hang from the ceiling, along with many fake plants.

This was a tourist-y shop near Ueno, with HUGE displays for a bunch of different franchises. I tend to not get franchise-y trinkets for myself, but the raw amount of Kirby was pretty snazzy.

An empty store containing audio products. The floor says 'The Real American Hi-Fi'.

A huge electric goods store, it had at least 6 stories if I recall correctly. Not as wild as Don Quijote, but still BLAHHH advertisements in your face everywhere.

A series of arcade cabinents, flanked by artificial vines.

A really cool retro games store my friend brought me to in Akihabara. We tried to find Umineko merch but to no avail throughout Akihabara. Though the sidequest I succeeded at was that I went to a gay store near Ueno to buy furry doujin, just to say I did so, basically.

A sign that says 'Freak's Store. The facade of a store called 'We Are The Farm'. An italian restaurant named 'Butter'. A large checkerboard blue and white bear plush. A bottle depicting a lot of text, and an anime girl with long pink pigtails and elf ears holding a fork and smiling at the viewer. A keychain of a pomeranian with the text 'I want to look like this'.

I found him

A towering all-white sculpture of a dog with a droopy snout emerging from the ground. Everything beneath it's front arms and torso is cut off by the ground.

Aomori-ken by Yoshitomo Nara at the Aomori Museum of Art

I saw this dog on tumblr years ago. I didn't know he would be here!!! But then I saw him!!!!!!!!




this one over here by Tomoko Konoike ---> A small two headed dog statue with lots of tiny birds painted on it.