✈️ Blogue

Japanventure: Day Eight Highlights: - got our butts out of Keiko's apartment in time 🕙 - had breakfast at Cafe Bleu again - buttered toast and eggy omelette was as satisfying as ever - burrito bought more dates ♥️ - rescued from gaijin incompetence at shinkansen ticket purchase machine by kindly multilingual attendant - had some not half-bad yakitori in a box - nice lady went out of her way to let us know the empty train we were trying to board was out of commission - successfully navigated three (+ unexpected one extra) transfers to Yudanaka station 🚇Shibuya➡️Omiya➡️Nagano➡️!!!➡️Yudanaka🚇 - Kokuya provided free ride from station to the ryokan - Takumi-san aka 👼🏻angel-san gave us a small tour of the ryokan, led us to our room, explained the locations of baths, bath items, and arranged our meal times and travel to the Snow Monkey park the next day all while serving us delicious chilled mochi bean paste dessert and hot tea - absolutely mind-blowing thousand-course kaiseki, presented and explained thoroughly by Takumi - delicious red trout sashimi - amazing eel - nice huge fish on stick - refreshing fruit juice dessert - adorable futon layout/room décor in general - "Greg I can't move" "I need to fart my brains out, goodbye" - beautiful and welcomingly lit storefronts down Shibu Onsen road - made watercolor postcards - the burrito made a demon Momo - extreme water pressure at the onsen bath - melted into human puddles in the indoor hot spring - sprawled out on futons Lowlights: - many hours of travel time - needed an extra transfer bc the working unlimited nonexpress train stopped just short of Yudanaka - much stairs - unable to bathe before putting on yukatas - sleepless night

Japanventure: Day Seven Highlights: - potato-ed in bed until noon - had delicious yakitori (liver included) at Torikake - burrito got vape merch @ Vape Studio for his vapers - shoveled a strawberry shaved ice mountain into my mouth @ Ice Monster - scoped out Rainbow Karaoke and its awesome NY themed interior decór - popped in&out of air conditioned 109Men's - found yummy discounted dates @ Tokyu Foodshow and window shopped their umeboshi - bought the 👌 🍑 - took a break at home base - filled up for dinner with some truly fine tuna, salmon, and eel sushi at Genki Sushi, our ever-dependable sushi supplier - bought pretty tasty grapefruit sour and gin&tonic and got a free karaoke room for an hour @ Rainbow Karaoke in Modi - sang ourselves hoarse w/ mediocre covers of Animals, Trap Queen, Love Yourself, My Heart Will Go On, A Whole New World, Hey Ya!, The Hills, and Work From Home - had dates & a sweetass peach back at apartment - packed in prep for the move-out Lowlights: - inhaled carcinogens on the smoking-allowed floor of Torikake - ate more shaved ice than I needed to today

Lowlights: - sugar overdose - gassy

Lowlights: - Maruetsu peach was hairy and not as sweet 🙃 - didn’t get my Half-Pipe adrenaline kicks, goodbye Joypolis

Japanventure: Day Four Highlights: - rest day in Shibuya! - washed off the hair oil ✨ - purchased "perfect sunscreen" and synthetic hair oil - painful pleasure in every bite of the bony unagi @ Matsukawa (rice was 👌 as always) - shopped until we dropped 😲 : Tokyu Department Store ➡️ Zara ➡️ Seibu ➡️ Forever 21 ➡️ Shibuya 109 ➡️ Adidas ➡️ H&M ➡️Uniqlo - rainy weather kept us cool and department store hopping kept us dry - streets of Ebisu were refreshingly empty of people but full of food smells - resisted the enticing ice bears - finally tasted the famous AFURI tsukemen 👍👍👍 and the Chashu pork + other pork sent me to heaven + no line/wait bonus for fooding at odd hours (~4:30 PM) - sugar rush stop @ Cha-Nabe Café: Matcha chocolate fondue and matcha ice cream mochi parfait was un-boh-lievable. Indescribable. Hnngh. So guilty but no regrets at all! - taking an early shower and doing potato things to unwind for the rest of the night Lowlights: - smol bladder problems before the sun rose - discovered that my hair was actually straw in oil blankets pretending to be hair

Japanventure: Day Three Highlights: - heavenly 🍑 (see Day Two) - only 3 stops from Shibuya ➡️ Shinjuku - photogenic Suica penguins - bougie and breezy Takashimaya Times Square - tatami seating on the 14th floor - pipin' hot eggy chicken over rice @ mizutaki genkai on said floor - picturesque Shinjuku Gyoen Park filled with yelling cicadas & ravens, hungry fish and Pokémon trainers - chatting with a nice Australian couple in line for Umegaoka sushi - yummy eel, shrimp, crab, tuna and white fish sushi set - next level Beard Papa matcha and tart fruit creme puff filling - so delicious Lowlights: - sweltering weather 🔥 - bites swelling up in the heat and somehow simultaneously itching and stinging per step - tired legs and slight headache

Lowlights: - murder scene in the sheets - mosquito bites 💉