Teaching Adventures of Reika

Random adventures of an Asian American English teacher in Japan. Anime. Games. Music. Culture. Sights. The things that happen around my travels as an educator.

[teacher-reika]

Went to Animate Ikebukuro after the YYH cafe and was surprised to see a ZZZ pop-up collab going on. I hadn't kept up with in-person events for Hoyo games so it was unexpected. At first I saw the pink logo and was like, "That's the ZZZ logo isn't it?" and I kept staring at it in disbelief. Then I turned my head and saw the real obvious giant bangboo in the store. XD

They have an Angels of Delusion collab with Sanrio happening although a lot of the merch for Sunna and Aria are already sold out. Most of what's left is Kitty and a bangboo. There was a few things of Nangong, but yeah that's about it. I didn't want to go deal with the crowd around the actual Angels of Delusion display, so just the giant bangboo.

[teacher-reika]

Here's the merch. The Hiei tapestry is very long! There wasn't a good way to photograph it really nicely.

My Koenma and Youko Kurama luck though! I'm glad I got some Hiei luck with the blind cheki style photo cards and the screenshot cards you get for spending money. I got all of the hard bromides though so that I could have the art without worrying about the blind draw.

You get a lunch mat for each entree, and a coaster for each drink. The rules said like 2 of each item you can order per person though so people don't like eat all their food.

Also, just love that it's Taisho era clothes. That early 20th century Asia time period is a favorite of mine for aesthetics that I feel like many in the West don't know a lot about or appreciate enough. I love the fusion fashion of the time as people tried to figure out the world. Usually for both China and Japan there was some really interesting cultural shifts happening, so love the art for this cafe. <3

[teacher-reika]

Yu Yu Hakusho Retro Parlor Cafe

Just opened yesterday on Valentine's, but I had a dentist appointment so I went today. Small cafe, but the food was pretty good. I like the plastic decorations better since you can keep them while the cracker cookie things at other places can break.

I got a bunch of Youko Kurama for the blind reward things, which is cool because I like foxes and Youko, but was hoping for more Hiei. Got Hiei's coaster though, so that's yay. I'll post what I bought later when I get home.

The hallway photo I didn't get it when I came in and when I was leaving there was a line of people there and I didn't want to be a bother with getting the perfect shot. Just wanted to show what the decor was. The tapestries themselves they're selling and you can check the website to see what it looks like.

[teacher-reika]

Came into Tokyo today for this pop up. They're out of the coasters, so sad. I wish it wasn't mostly acrylic stands. I got the mini clear file thing (forgot what they call them). It's so cute because it makes me imagine a Tower Records opening in Makai.

[teacher-reika]

This was from January 1, 2022. I went to do my hatsumoude at a local shrine and with my omamori they gave me chopsticks and a mask. It was pretty cool. Like the idea was that using the chopsticks would help with your health for the New Year and such.

[teacher-reika]

Back in Summer 2021 in Marugame Station I saw these displays in the display case on the way to the platforms. Apparently these art pieces were all made by a local day care in Marugame City and I just had to take pictures because it was amazing.

[teacher-reika]

For awhile for the 25th-30th anniversary celebrations for Yu Yu Hakusho, they were releasing mobile batteries and I tried to get all of the ones with Hiei on them and some of the Kurama ones. A couple of them have now since gotten some water damage unfortunately, so I'm sad about that. Typhoons be crazy sometimes with how it gets water into places, so I had to toss them. Teh sad, but safety hazard. It's also too much of a risk to get the cover off too or I'd have kept them. But they're all also very cool so I'm happy to have had them. They're just useful to have in general in case of emergency because you need your phone in survival situations.

[teacher-reika]

This is from a few year's back when I was teaching Halloween lessons for work in 2021. Kids tend to get scared of normal Halloween decorations so I tried to like bring plush dolls that were less scary and more friendly figures for them. The Pikachus are dressable Pikachus I got from Pokemon Centers when they were selling them and the clothes are actually Build-A-Bear costumes I put them in. We're not technically supposed to have copyrighted characters in our lessons, but I made an exception for having a friendly figure that could lessen the otherwise fearful atmosphere of Halloween and kind of just up the fun part of it because I had kids literally too terrified to step into the door of the the classroom and wanted to cry because they had trauma over Halloween. It was something they could hug for comfort during the lesson too. I got some copyright friendly just cute smiley ghosts from tee turtle a few years later that I use more now and are smaller than these Pikachus so easier to transport, but at the time these just worked for what I needed them more and to add to a more friendly fun Halloween for the kids. There's also Bungo Stray Dogs' Akutagawa Ryunosuke's Rashomon Black Beast form plush doll, a Domo Kun that I brought with me from the US from that one time Target randomly had Domo Kun Halloween, and Jack Skellington. The Domo Kun I felt was an interesting bit of cultural exchange talk I could have with the kids because they probably don't know that a Japanese mascot of there's randomly got popular overseas one Halloween. I bandaged Jack up as a mummy because I didn't have one at the time and I had monsters to do in a Summer School lesson once that had a mummy and I didn't have a doll of that.

The cat hat and headbands and the black cat puppet were all Daiso items. I wish Daiso would bring back more hand puppets. They're such a useful win for teaching these lessons. Christmas too. I got some more pricey Halloween puppets last year from I believe it was Kaldi and I used those ones this year to kind of just bring up the fun. One of the kids that didn't have a costume opted to manipulate the Dracula hand puppet and so I pretended it was biting me sometimes.

[teacher-reika]

This was back in 2021, but I really liked Tokyo Bananas as a gift to bring back to friends back home as a trend my friend did for me when she went to Japan. They taste alright too in general, but I usually like the other non-banana flavors. I was kind of excited to see this at my local 7-11 at the time because OMG Pokemon collab. XD But yeah, I got both to try out and they were tasty.

[teacher-reika]

Went to TeamLab Planets with friends that are visiting Japan today. Really amazing experience. I loved the water area and the forest the most.

The room with the light up fish was fascinating. It was like interactive, but you're like standing in water. If you try to scoop the fish they can turn into flowers and you can disperse the flowers too.

In forest they had an extinct animal catching game and that was really fun. We couldn't stay to catch all of them, but I got like 58 different species though.

[teacher-reika]

This was Golden Week in 2021. It was still pandemic times in Japan, but I needed to get out of my home so I did a staycation at JR Clement by Takamatsu station. I got a room with some nice views of the Seto Inland Sea and sometimes went out of my room to go look around at the port and places I hadn't really explored before. A lot of the time I still spent inside the room because it was pandemic times, but I needed to not be at my own home for a little while because we'd been locked inside for so long. So I still stayed inside, but changed up the scenery by doing it somewhere else.

[teacher-reika]

This was four years ago now because I'm quite bad at uploading to tumblr, but these are shots from the Yadon Pokemon pop up shop that was in Takamatsu in 2021 at Kawaramachi Flag. This fall they're going to open an actual center in the shoutengai in Marugame Machi Green, so that's exciting. Kagawa is probably one of the places that really goes hard for their Pokemon Ambassador and I'm so here for it. I've since moved to Chiba prefecture, but I still think of Yadon/Slowpoke as the governor now and when I first moved to Kagawa, I didn't like that Pokemon so much but the way the prefecture used them to advertise, they really grew on me and I quite like them now.

I need to probably go back to visit maybe for a couple of days at the end of the year so that I can get the Yadon merch I couldn't get before I left, but also to check out the new Pokemon Center.

[teacher-reika]

This is from back in August when Lawson's had their FFXIV collab and the King Porxie mount. All this in one day to try and for the mount. This is one porxie's worth of stuff.

The Moogle PonPon tea was just black tea, but my FC and I were joking about what that name means and where it comes from. One person though maybe the Moogles squeeze their poms to make it. I was thinking it might be made out of the corpses of Great King Moogle Mog every time an adventurer defeats him.

[teacher-reika]

I had Halloween lessons last month and went to go teach at the island school. These were taken on the ferry back the morning after lessons as I didn't have to rush or do anything the rest of the day so I didn't feel like napping on the ferry. Usually on the way I take a nap because I'll be working late later.

Apparently there's an anime that takes place in the city around where that classroom is in Tonosho called Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san and for tourism purposes they now have it all over the gift shop, plastered onto the ferry, and a little anime tour guide thinger on the actual ferry for otaku to look at so they can visit. I'm so behind on my watching because I'm busy, so that was an interesting surprise to run into while on a business trip.

I like looking out the window though. The water of the Setouchi is so pretty. Not as pretty as like, Hawaii or something, but it's pretty nice. I think one of these days for summer I should try to take a short vaycay trip on one of the islands. Even Shodoshima has some resorts and I was thinking about it a bit when I had a week off, but it's so pricey I would have to save up in advance rather than have an emergency PV request because I was too burnt out and really needed a break. Some of the resorts though look really nice, but also some of the shuttles were down because of pandemic reasons so when this is all over I should really plan a proper vaycay.

[teacher-reika]

Last weekend I watched all of Trese. Later in the week I had a business trip in Tokushima and saw this real life bar and couldn't help, but think about Trese and the Diabolical. Needed to take a photo of it. Menu seems to be normal Western style dinner fare and with alcohol. Photos I saw online look kind of like a fancy interior, but location is in a semi-dead shoutengai like most shopping areas in the inaka. I suppose there could be some youkai about. XD

[teacher-reika]

Random Minor Japan Appreciation #4

Formatting on mobile's probably wrong, but whatever. Haven't done much since it's pandemic times, but today I'm taking a walk by the pier and going to the lighthouse. On the way I needed to stop to use the toilet and it's just on average most Japanese rest stops I've been to have normal bathrooms. I mean, normal as in the same as you'd find in a department store or a house. I have been surprised a number of times. The one I went to today has a warmed seat but it's is basically a park toilet.

The one at the parking lot of the ropeway station to Unpenji was too. It had automated sink faucets even.

It's a small but meaningful kind of appreciation though because back home parks usually are super dirty with those metal toilets and someone probably pooped on the seat. They smell terribly and they have none of the luxuries of your home toilet. There are still some places with crap toilets, but nicer public restrooms more frequently is definitely something I enjoy. Plus side of the pandemic is that more provide actual soap too. I think previously they thought if you had a washlet you don't need soap or something so I used to carry my own soap. Now it's provided everywhere.

[teacher-reika]

Botchan Train in Matsuyama - March 2018

Covered in Matsuyama and was heading back to Takamatsu the next day, but first I decided to be a nerdy tourist because the weather was great and the sakura were blooming. The train pic was because I'm basically a huge nerd. It's the Botchan train that runs as a special tram around the city for a Meiji experience. It's named after a Natsume Souseki book, and since I love Bungo Stray Dogs these days it pleases me greatly.