Trip to Japan recap! (Part 4 - Otaku and miscellaneous, Food and Drink and Lychee)
http://utsukushiishoujomangas.tumblr.com/post/164067970528/trip-to-japan-recap-part-1-the-shoujo-stuffs
http://utsukushiishoujomangas.tumblr.com/post/164134921428/trip-to-japan-recap-part-2-kyoto-and-nara
Part 3 (Himeji, Hakone, Tokyo):
http://utsukushiishoujomangas.tumblr.com/post/164334394698/trip-to-japan-recap-part-3-himeji-hakone-and
In this post I’ll just put the remaining interesting miscellaneous pictures (food and drink, non-shoujo otaku/pop culture, and lychee stuff - my favourite fruit ^^).
Haikyuu! standees on sale! 8D
Wall ad for the Haikyuu! stage play in Shibuya station.
Apparently they had a Hanasaku Iroha train tie-in and even made a model for it.
For all you Persona 5 lovers out there, our airbnb apartment was in Sangen-jaya, the real-life neighborhood on which Persona 5′s Yangen-jaya is based on (san meaning 3 in Japanese and yon meaning 4 lol). 8D
There was an event in Ikebukuro’s Animate (manga/anime/otaku-stuff chain store) celebrating Final Fantasy’s 30th Anniversary. Here’s a large Tonberry plush:
Instant Mabo Curry pack from the Tales of Series ^^
Still in Ikebukuro, my sister and I booked a time slot for the Swallowtail butler cafe. I was the only male client in the cafe for almost the whole duration of our stay (you have to book a timeslot in advance and the 2 person ones go out fast). I personally find Akihabara’s maid cafes tacky, but the Swallowtail butler cafe had more an atmosphere of a fancy restaurant. The food and decor are European-style. The service is excellent (you ring a bell to call your waiter to refill your cup of tea!? and the waiters come to the side of the table and bow after every time they service your needs). Alas, no pictures are allowed once inside the cafe proper.
We went to a Pokemon Center (Pokemon merch store) in Sunshine City (a skyscraper complex in Ikebukuro with a shopping mall, a small museum, a planetarium, an aquarium, a hotel, a theatre, and a theme park - Namja Town) situated in Ikebukuro (again) and there was some sort of event with a gigantic inflated Exeggutor.
We also went to arcades (in Ikebukuro). Taiko games are fun. I really enjoyed drumming to Koi by Hoshino Gen, a hugely popular Japanese song (as of writing). It’s also the theme song for the drama adaptatio of Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu, an ongoing Josei manga series by Umino Tsunami.
Crane-games at the arcade. These are hard. The cranes are so weak they have a hard time picking anything heavier than a tiny plush.
They had meat chunk plushies LOL! This totally reminded me of Shibata from Dame na Watashi ni Koishite Kudasai xD
I then went and took purikura (photo booth stickers photos, you can’t possibly not know this if you’ve read shoujo manga for any amount of time lol) with my sister (solo guys weren’t allowed lol). xD
I found it pretty fun (even if I look horrible with the filters as a guy); definitely go try it out if you’re ever in Japan~
Bento box sold at Shinagawa station (pics taken in the Shinkansen). Major train stations all have stores selling bento box meals for Japanese businessmen short on time.
I looove Japanese-style pork cutlet. *_*
Steak Doria (Japanese-style rice gratin) in a restaurant near Futako-tamagawa station, Tokyo.
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Matcha tea and accompanying sweet in a small shop near the exit of Kinkaku-ji temple.
A Kyoto-style set meal in a restaurant in Kyoto station.
Bento box sold in a supermarket we ate for breakfast. While not obviously high-end cuisine, I was surprise to find out how good these tasted for the price paid.
And the meal wouldn’t be complete without soy sauce, here in a cute little fish disposable container.
Delicious tonkatsu pork cutlet set meal.
Sweets offered to us by the hotel staff at Hakone.
I don’t understand why there’s no “seaweed” flavour potato chips sold overseas (where I live). These are sooo good and tasty .>.<
Here’s the washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine) dinner we were served in our room by our Hakone hotel.
We also had a traditional breakfast in the morning.
Back in Tokyo we went to Genki sushi in Shibuya, a conveyor sushi restaurant but with a twist: instead of having a selection of fresh sushi rolling around up for grabs, each seat has a tablet on which you can select the fish you want. And then the sushi plate would come up to you on any of 3 rail levels. Other than that perk, it was very tasty and cheap (~1000 to 1500 yen can easily fill you).
No trip to Japan would be complete without a ramen meal. So here’s one of the two I had, with a side of nice gyoza dumplings.
Another cheap tonkatsu meal from a restaurant in sangen-jaya.
The restaurant featured a ticket vending machine more commonly seen in ramen restaurant in which you order what you want on the machine and hand it over to the staff once you take a seat. Very convenient if you don’t know the language (if there is an English option on the machine, that is).
Kiwi Fanta (with added vitamin E) from a vending machine. This has a pretty snazzy taste, I think I prefer it to the classic orange Fanta. But you know, it’s not available where I live. :/
Now THIS drink is special. It’s basically your ubiquitous Japanese melon soda, but you have to shake it (very counter-intuitive for a drink in a can lol) or else it’s just some weird-tasting slime. The drink has a very fuzzy flavour.
I thought I had more pictures of vending machine drinks (vending machines in Japan have a very large variety of drinks and it’s well-known that Japan has a diverse selection of flavours when it comes to drinks), but apparently not.
Raspberry-lychee ice cream. Absolutely heavenly ^o^
This actually tastes better than it sounds lol :3
Creamy lychee ice cream. I preferred the other one to this. :D
And the best for last, the lychee lipstick. I wonder how a lychee-flavoured kiss tastes like *_*
Hope you all enjoyed these posts (I know I did writing them lol). Writing these posts from home make me want to go back already :s
I might do a final (very short) post of the shoujo-related loot I got from Japan…
