OK it’s been 3 weeks since i landed back in America and i haven’t done anything useful so let’s set everything straight so we can make some progress!
The five things I want/need to focus on in my life are (in order):
My Health
My Job
日本語 / cunny
mahjong
iidx
Maybe 4/5 can be swapped depending on mood cause mahjong is kind of a shit game… but…
My Health
Being healthy is good for you! Living longer means I can continue to jack off to cunny into my old age (bro’s talking like he’s not already old lol), not be in pain while you’re travelling in Japan because I’m out of shape, and if a cute 2d girl were to walk up to me and say “onii-chan… manhandle me tonight…♡ ” I’d want to be physically able to do so all night long… instead of being out of breath only a minute in!
More practically speaking… I’ve read a few articles about Magnus Carlsen being very fit to that he can last longer while playing chess… so I’d probably gain some benefit somewhere in my other activities by not being a fat shit in terms of everything else… and I also don’t like being a fat ass when I’m wearing my cute anime girl clothes… it’d be cooler if I wasn’t…
My Job
This is how I get money to pay for everything… Do the damn work instead of putting it off later and being like oh fuck I shouldn’t have goofed off earlier on my phone… How are you gonna make the case to become manager if all you do is goof off???
Japanese / Cunny
I like cunny… the method to consume cunny involves knowing Japanese… (this excuse works for doujinshi/eroge but not for figgies lol) My Japanese is currently serviceable but it could be better… So let’s sit down, get caught up on Anki reps, then you can set aside time to work on grammar… Maybe we can take N3/N2 as proof you know something? At the very least I’ll need to work on grammar output to pass that instead of skating by on reading only. I’d say the ideal level would be where I’m comfortable reading things natively without missing context and actually being able to speak to people in Japan… but baby steps first…
Mahjong
I want to fulfill my dream of becoming a 鳳凰 player some day… Maybe not this year as I’m pretty far behind in 三段 right now… but maybe something realistic like 五段 by year end could be possible…?
IIDX
I want to fulfill my dream of becoming a 皆伝 player some day… Maybe not this year as I’m pretty far behind in 七段 right now… but maybe something realistic like 九段 by year end could be possible…?
So long term goals… we can put it like this:
Reach 160 lbs body weight (estimated weight to not have a belly hanging out)
Become a Senior Manager (assuming the job literally doesn’t kill me before that, this is at least 8 years out. so 2033/2034 at the earliest)
Pass JLPT N1 (Not necessarily aiming for this, but it’s at least concrete for now. Being able to say i can read x or y is not a concrete tangible goal)
Reach 七段/鳳凰 in 天鳳. Maybe in 3-4 years? Could be sooner but I’d rather get #1-3 in order first
Reach 皆伝 in IIDX DP. Maybe in 3-4 years? Could be sooner but I’d rather get #1-3 in order first
Now… extrapolate to year end goals…
Reach 200 lbs body weight (currently at 226 this morning. That’s about .5 lbs per week)
idk how to put this out concretely since I’m not getting promoted for another 2 years at least lol idk do your job
Take (pass?) JLPT N3 in July/December (not necessarily aiming for this… but I shouldn’t be that far from N3…?)
Reach 五段 in 天鳳
Reach 九段 in IIDX DP
Tax season is starting up so now let’s focus on daily/weekly goals to get to the year end goals… we can adjust later once we get more free time…
Be Active – take a walk 3 times a day for 30 minutes and lift 4 times a week.
Find the courage to put my damn phone away while I work. Maybe measure this as ‘during working hours how many times did I check my phone to look at something dumb, find a baseline and reduce it’
Reduce the number of outstanding Anki vocabulary cards for review per day by at least 100 (this number is currently at 2000 lol). Once complete, spend 30 minutes reading/practicing Japanese grammar.
Play one hanchan (client of your choice) and write one review log once a day. I believe self review is fundamental to improving myself as a player but I’m too lazy to do it (as you can see, a recurring theme in my life).
Play one hour of IIDX three times a week
OK… make a sheet and let’s track it! If I actually did those things every day/week, 3-6 months out there’s no way there wouldn’t be some sort of measurable progress by then… right? I think instead of using Excel I’ll need to use google sheets so I can edit it on my phone, and not just my home PC… ok let’s set that up and then I need to catch up on work that I’ve been neglecting lol
if we use 5 block theory we have 12m 78m 89p 2234s 68s 7z… we have sanshoku 6789 possible so 89p is better than 12m. since we don’t have a fixed pair yet we can keep the 2234s aryanmen shape and maybe catch the dora later… so let’s break the weakest block 12m
i don’t actually like 4p that much here since we’re furiten on 3p draw. so i’d probably do 4p here instead of chun. i think cutting 9p seems too tan yao brained personally… but maybe tan yao brain is good?
since we have WAY too many blocks here (0m)(9m)(34p)(8p)(35s)(78s)(22z)(4z)(77z), let’s cut the more dangerous useless tiles first. if you know you’re gonna toss out two tiles eventually, if someone were to call riichi the next turn, which tile would you rather be holding?
think this is a little too early to chii since it’s a good block, but on the other hand even if we can use 0m it only turns our hand from 1000 to 2000…. id say its ok
think it wants to sakigiri the 6p now before toimen’s hand advances further before his chin itsu advances further. if he pons 6p his hand is kinda ruined anyway. the next two differences are the same tile
the snakes diverge here in their approach and i think you have a good case of either one of sakigiri vs dora upgrade.
hand is worth 39 without kan, 52 with kan and flipping dora turns it to mangan – looking at other players discards i think we’re pretty ahead in terms of shanten… let’s get more points!
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
from a purely efficiency standpoint the 1s does nothing since if we draw 3s we can toss 7s… so maybe we can hold the 8m for a 7m upgrade
you need value here as 4th in s2 and open tanyao for 1k doesn’t get us anywhere… even the aggressive open snake is 50/50 on it (the right most bar)
tossing 4s let’s you pivot to toitoi tanyao for more value. but both end up dealing in anyway…
CHIITOI BROS????????????????????????????????? that’s like our fastest ticket to a mangan hand here… haneman on riichi tsumo…
i think this makes sense if you think you can catch the 6s but you just have more options for improvement drawing 34s here or be able to utilize 0s with ankou if you draw it here
bot wants keiten since you need every point you can get… you’re gonna cut 1m anyway but 5s is a little giri giri so its either/or since u end up drawing it
alright what’s our plan to get out of here…. point gap is 14800 so we need a direct mangan on kamicha… im liking some sort of chanta or hon itsu… 5m is neither of those… whereas we have a shot at honitsu with the 45s block…
i think you’re thinking chiitoi here… probably ok…
kinda cooked honestly but how do you use the 9s anyway idk
actually trying to think about why bot would wait dama on this… my only argument would be even if you hit kamicha with mangan you need uradora 2 to make a swing out of 4th… if we wait for someone else to call riichi then we can make the direct mangan hit on kamicha lock in a placement change to 3rd. it’s pretty far but so is hitting uradora 2 with this hand
congratulations your stats for this round puts you at a houou level player!!! good job
uh…. do we have a use case for 2z here? 9s lets us use 78s for dora but if you see it as sakigiri i think its fine
useless terminal is better than useless wind
i dont think our hand is that much better if we pon……….? we lose our 9s acceptance
we killed out 123 sanshoku acceptance! for what!!!!!!!!!!!
lock the souzu to sanshoku 123s since 5s draw furitens us anyway. so sakigiri 4s. it’s useless now.
i dont think we need to be tricky here. just take the wider wait. it’s turn 3. plus the xia pon destroys its ura rate if you wanna get extremely technical.
we have a safer tile to drop than 9s that still keeps us 2shanten… we don’t have to die just yet if we can help it… and you died….
uhhhh you wanted to break furiten on 1s? but you’re also furiten on 1m…. so that doesnt make sense…
i pass both tiles are equally useless
can we do chi 678m dump 99s for tanyao instead? i dont think we have to rely on haitei/houtei here
bot wants to chi dump 99s for the last two tiles. we’ll still be tenpai tossing safe tiles whereas if we leave it as is we could draw 2 risky tiles. i think you were fixating haitei which is an out
seat wind > valueless wind. both are once cut so you can’t defend yourself there
floating 3p is kinda useless. you’re not getting san an kou here either with 2 1p and 1 2p cut. 7p/9p for dora usage is what it values here
gg dude the bot likes you! i think if you persevere you will see results
I’m on team useless terminal is better than useless guest wind… which is it? I guess 3z is safer to keep for later, technically speaking
uh…………….. sakigiri? I guess if we draw 7s 1355678s is better than 135567s and let’s us use the 50s pair… ok
I guess we didn’t need to greed hon itsu and 1s is dead… I think maybe if I had a better fixed pair it’d be fine but I suppose we can’t rely on getting 7z here. so I bricked my hand by moving to hon itsu. Not that I would get 4p7p anyway lol
m-muh 3p acceptance…. ok…
I was scared of toimen being tenpai so I went for the 2m cut… 7p cut lets us take tenpai on 234m34s so… ok fine… alternatively, if toimen needed 7p he already had TWO chances to call chii…
TRUE
this would have actually saved my bacon so many times over… lol
I got overly fixated on getting the 345s sanshoku in… chun would come out later somehow but I felt it was locked and didn’t want to get into atozuke here. But at least I’d be tenpai!
pon and then 2s/5s for keiten attempt? I REALLY don’t want to cut 8m here but I suppose I could get a chance if I make the call here. 2s/5s are pretty safe here so it’s probably worth a shot
I think both 1s and 9s are superfluous… like if I draw 2s I cut 1s and if i draw 7s i cut 9s… the result is also the same if I draw 5s (134568s vs 345689s)… I’m too stupid to understand the nuance on this one lol
tan yao brain not taking in 79s kanchan. OK. but what if I draw 7p, huh???????
I guess we technically have 5 blocks already (455m, 99m, 56p, 24s, 33z)… but it’s not like haku is really doing me any favors either…? ok after thinking about it 3m draw furitens me so ok fine
furiten 1m
this is interesting that naga thinks 4m is safer than 9m… the only reason I really picked 9m is because every other tile is bad and keeps me in tanyao if my draws improve if i catch 3s or something to move into tenpai. so, only from a pure offensive point of view did i opt for 9m. let’s call it…… dumb luck?
terminal < value honor
terminal < value honor
sakigiri mainly…. MAYBE you can draw 68p to upgrade but can I just draw 459s instead?
(change of pov)
toimen made the first move of his unraveling here. why would you cut dora here?????????????????????????????? just fold you’re so far in the lead man
I was thinking I could fill in the 246p really easily… I think this makes more sense lol
might actually be retarded????????? lol I think i overfixated in the 456 sanshoku and missed the 1shanten here
cause this could have been tsumo tan dora 2000 all instead of tenpai… haha…
(change of pov)
2nd move of toimen’s undoing. why the FUCK would you toss live dora into two riichis. (i’m just mad it wasn’t my riichi he dealt into tbh)
worthless honor < terminal
thank god for houtei or we’d go to west 1!
think the biggest bonehead mistake was not taking the 23455588m shape on south 2. let’s continue to work to improve
i was second guessing myself here after as toimen would tsumogiri drop 3p the turn after but kamicha would drop 5m a little bit later. both felt loose honestly even though 4p is ponned by shimocha
I was thinking iipeikou chance if I draw another 2s… since I already cut the 7s 8s has no value anymore… right? or wrong? lol
I figured I would just take the 1shanten chiitoi vs 2/3shanten normal hand? if I cut 4m I’m still MINIMUM 2shanten on 35678m3p14s… I think I’m missing the san/suu an kou potential here for mangan+ and settling for a 1600 point hand. ok I guess that makes sense in that regard
I suppose 9p is a better chiitoi wait than 4m23s. it’s also sotogawa to my 7p. OK
lone terminal < value honor
I should have fixed the 3p earlier. even if I draw 369p it does nothing so let’s keep the 1z genbutsu earlier
terminal < value honor
my reasoning here is both 5z and 7z are useless, so I want to retain the safer one……. even if I draw 5z pair I’d be kinda sad soooooooooooooooo indifferent to me? on the other hand it does put me at 4 pairs for chiitoi so maybe I shouldn’t think like that and I need to abandon this genbutsu holding mindset
lone terminal < once cut seat wind
I was like let me cut my 8m before it’s too late… but his pond suggesting manzu honitsu should mean you SHOULDN’T do that… it’s not like my hand is going anywhere and I should have folded way earlier lol
letting go of pei here is kinda dumb in hindsight lol what am I winning with this dogshit
trying to fold… My reasoning for 8p being the discard is 3 6p cut and shimocha already chii’d 978p so he’s out of upper manzu. but the BETTER way to approach this is the only way to be tenpai on 4p is 4p tanki since I have the 5p kabe in my hand, so that is a better way out here
I was like… I can still accept 7s in 3556s… but 5567899s would be a way stronger 1shanten shape than 3556799s… OK
I was thinking I didn’t need another pair so i can fill in the 1356s shape…. I think keeping the additional pair to expand the pinzu side is better now
i guess 133s is better than 99s. ok
i REALLY don’t want to atozuke dora honor… lol
I guess I don’t have enough fixed blocks yet to cut lone stuff yet
i guess we can fix itsu over breaking lone tiles still here
valueless guest wind < terminal. but my idea is ton still gives me pinfu so MUH SAFE TILE…
i’m not riiching this bro sorry it’s 5200 yasume 7700 takame im good with that this late in the game. plus i can upgrade to sanshoku on 7s :^)
i wanted the 9p to try to fix the sanshoku on 69m but we can just take tanyao to be safer here. we don’t need more points here in south 3 so we should just be wide for tenpai. plus i destroy my 3m acceptance for riichi nomi
discard inside out – but what if i draw 5s???????????
getting mixed messages on if i should atozuke dora yakuhai or not :^)
ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh close enough i think i could settle for tan dora here. potential for tanpin sanshoku dora is there but it feels so distant
TRUE
trying to fold to shimocha while somewhat keeping a hand here. i didn’t get the feeling that anyone else was tenpai just yet
): i guess there’s no real improvement anyway…
I guess we should save the pei for later. it doesn’t seem like it but 9p can become live if shimocha draws 14s
idk maybe i can get lucky to move into tenpai off 7m here later. it’s not like i would toss 56p ANYWAY to anything here so i’m for it. thanks kagashi for backing me up
I’m not that scared of haku here…. maybe I should be? lol
I would have ippatsumo’d 5p…. but really riichi here is kinda wild lol. I guess this way if anyone else cuts it I can ron since if I drop 5p it’s pretty bad myself
Idk i dont think they’re that different…..? sanshoku i guess but thats so far
i didn’t want to fully fold yet but 5m nakasuji is better for sure
is my hand more or less alive if i cut 5m?
oops lol
i didn’t like 25m suji anymore after 6m pon so i went with 8s suji on 5s. as expected naga does think 3m suji is more dangerous than 8s and i do have somewhat ‘valid’ fear of 5m to kamicha
uhhh……. muh chiitoi… both are pretty useless though
lets me utilize 7m tenpai if i keep 9m. whereas 2m does nothing for me really
i’d end up drawing 8m dora after this lol fuck
this was kinda boneheaded and for some reason i was like why is this hand worth 7700??? it already looks like honitsu ANYWAY which would be 7700 and i can fold out 3p to the end so yeah bad move on my part. i just saw tenpai and was like SURE!
Well I was putting this off for a bit but I should get this done at some point… Not that I’m doing anything important anyway… Probably abbreviated at this point since I put it off for so long lol
january 8, 2026
had a nice breakfast
Not sure how you’re supposed to eat the grated yam. I kinda put some in my rice and added soy sauce… probably not correct? I know it’s been put in kishimen in Nagoya but here…? IDK i think there was enough stuff in the miso soup.
Took the bus down to Togendai Station to take the pirate ship to Motohakone. When I mentioned pirate ship my friend was imagining something a little more… ragged? lol but it’s a full fledged transport ship. I did note that the Hakone peace shrine didn’t have a line for it… the reason being…
It’s closed to visitors! On fucking New Year’s! Couldn’t you people choose a better time to fix the bridge? Maybe it wasn’t planned… but this is the best we could do for our instagram shot.
Prayed at Hakone Shrine. I think the hatsumode crowd has died down at this point.
hOw MaNy PiCtUreS oF mOuNt FuJi Do YoU nEeD
Took the ship back to Togendai Station to take the ropeway up to Owakudani. Unfrotauntely it’s really windy and really cold up here, so we didn’t want to stay for too long… but we got the prize…!
yes it’s just a god damn egg get over myself
On the ride back to the hotel we passed by the grass fields. It’s a landmark, apparently, so I think we’re just in the wrong season… probably looks better than a field of brown lol
And… dinner! I missed the plate of raw shrimp and uni and fish… sorry…
and the next day’s breakfast
It was nice. Overall for the ryokan trip… I enjoyed it, but I don’t think I’d shell out all this money again for it. Worth crossing off the bucket list, but real talk… just stay at a Dormy Inn. I do appreciate that they have a low room count, so apart from dinner time, it really feels like you’re the only person at the resort. I think maybe if I think more highly of kaiseki dinners, or if it was out of the world I could see it being worth it, but it’s just very good and we can better deploy the funds used elsewhere.
thank you hoshino resorts i hope you find my feedback useful and actionable
january 9, 2026
After getting our last baths in and packing up, we took the bus back to Hakone-Yumoto station. We got on relatively early on the bus route so we didn’t have trouble with luggage, but it got a little ギリギリ towards the end after everyone else on the route got on…
Since we had some time to kill until our reservation for the Romancecar, ate some street food in the area! The hakone stamped manjuu is only 80￥ and is really cute. I also picked this mentai mayonaise fish cake and some black sesame dango. While walking further I noticed a sign that said Hakone Pizza and we hadn’t had lunch yet… so why not?
I would note however that this place specifically tries to recreate Italian pizzas faithfully with a wooden oven and therefore is NOT an actual representation of traditional “Japanese” pizza as we know it (a la Domino’s, Pizza-la, etc.) It was a nice change in pace from all the Japanese food we ate.
And in the station, a hakone pudding milkshake! There were these nice and thick gooey bits in the shake (presumably, pudding) that go well with the drink, though I got some on my jacket trying to shake the drink to make it more easily able to drink from.
After touching down in our hotel in Ikebukuro, I had to dash on back to Akiba to pick up some figgies. Amiami resumed international shipping to the USA for their stuff, except for R-18 stuff… so I had to cancel my existing pre-order for Fraise and take matters into my own hands.
The luggage suitcase itself costs about 6000￥, and the additional luggage fee flying on ANA is 20000￥, so ~$170 in total. I think after paying for the figgies tax free and dodging 15% “tariffs” I come out a little ahead vs shipping it through proxy, so if I miss pre-orders going forward it’s not the end of the world, assuming I come back to Japan annually for Comiket. Plus, I can still pack in other things with the suitcase… which will save my ass later…
shigure will be on the left… soon… one of these days…
For dinner we had Sushiro. I had kaiten sushi on my list for before I left… so here we are…
I didn’t take a picture of it, but at other Sushiro’s I’ve been to so far, they’ve only had a little tablet for you to place orders from. The one in Ikebukuro had big ass full screen touch TVs at the side to order off of now – These things are amazing for getting you to order more as they scroll their entire menu by you as you’re eating. How can Kura sushi compete? Not that I’d ever eat Kura in Nippon since we have Kura at home…
January 10, 2026
with my partner sleeping in I head over to Sunshine City to buy tea from Lupicia!
I bought like 22 bags of tea. The lady probably thinks I’m weird cause I wanted 8 bags of a certain flavor but all I said was 八 of x flavor instead of 八つ of x flavor. I don’t know anything after 一つ or 二つ or 三つ ok? sheesh
As a bonus have a picture of some fujos lining up for animate and k-books
It’s like me lining up for melonbooks… I get it…
After beating my partner’s ass awake (not literally) we stop by Shinjuku melonbooks and Osaka Osho for lunch
After getting a few books, a short ride to Nakano to visit Mandarake Honten. They do have a lot of stuff, but I only end up picking up 4 tankoubons I don’t really need. The soft serve store in the basement is popping off like I expected and I get imo and milk tea flavored soft serve:
They make a very big deal about not choosing the order your flavor is in. Given the high volume of people they deal with… Good move!
We goofed off a little more in Akiba before heading back to Ikebukuro. Here’s a pic of my stats in MFG that I took:
sex with grim aloe
Since MFG just queues you on wheover’s trying to queue at the time, rather than by rank/skill… I’d say on average the player base is at a silver-gold room level, since I’m overperforming pretty hard. I do like the game though since the hand win cut-ins and model animations are top notch, so I can see myself playing this a lot along with IIDX when I need time to kill in the future.
Mitsuyado Seimen for dinner! Apparently this is the first time my friend had tsukemen and he seems to like it!
January 11, 2026
Last day in Japan… I initially planned to ride Thunder Dolphin at Tokyo Dome City but it ended up being closed for the whole day due to strong winds… lol
So we get to ride Tokyo Dome City’s other roller coaster, Back Daaan. There’s a Love Live event going on at Tokyo Dome City, so instead of the normal pv and music, we get to listen to Snow halation instead! (I noted that the h is lower case per the image)
I think if you like Love Live you’ll probably like this more, but they had to disable the rest of the ride’s music and animations since they don’t go with Snow halation. Overall I’d say the original is better, but if you like Snow halation then this is for you!
Ate some pasta at the nearby Food Stadium while waiting to see if Thunder Dolphin would re-open. It didn’t.
And lastly, a walk through Korakuen nearby while waiting to see if Thunder Dolphin would re-open. It didn’t.
Lo and behold, I go to Akiba again… I saw on some X (formerly Twitter) posts that there’s a newly stocked section at the Yostar official store… and I manage to pick it up what I’ve been looking for this entire trip!
Along the way I also ran into a youtuber I happened to watch. I was really excited too, as I heard his voice in passing while he was talking for his video and I was like wait I know who that is lol.
Lotteria is having a strawberry fair, so I pick up a sukiyaki burger and the strawberry items. It’s… alright? Not amazing, but good. We have a strawberry pie, strawberry parfait, and strawberry churros. My friend noted at this point that I really like strawberries.
80 kilograms of cunny goods
Checked in at Haneda with my goodies. I learned that if you’re flying ANA, you can actually check in at any point after their check in counter opens (at about 06:45), rather than the 3 hours before your flight that I’m used to. I take advantage of this to use the Haneda Airport onsen, which is a little pricy at 4800￥, but it’s nice to be able to relax and be fresh for your flight…!
Looking for dinner I find a Torikai Sohonke in the airport garden, so I opt to get the chicken side dishes this time, rather than the cochin chicken oyakodon. It’s nice!
Starting to think ANA airline food isn’t as good as I remember my last flight’s food to be… Or I’m just spoiled by real Japanese food at this point.
and the last boss of my cunny trip is… US CBP! I pass through without paying any additional fees and mention God Bless America to my agent, to which he responds positively. God Bless America
closing thoughts as this will no longer be a travel blog
I’d like to come back again next year with my friend. Having a teammate for Comiket is overpowered…!
actually need to work on how to speak and listen to Japanese, rather than just reading it… If it’s a line I’m not expecting or haven’t heard before having to go すみません、もう一度？feels bad or worse play the ENGLISH PLEASE card
After perusing several arcades and their game selections, IIDX and MFG are the only arcade games for me. Might as well get better at those in my off-time, no matter how much I actually hate them sometimes… I wish I could like Ongeki more but the whole card gacha system feels bad on paper and I don’t wanna spend more money rolling on stuff than I need to
yeah right he hates rolling lmao
actually work out so your back doesn’t hurt and you can carry luggage suitcases more easily. lifting 23 kg shouldn’t be difficult for a man
I realized I never took pictures of the onigiri place called Onimaru in Osu…. here’s two I ate for breakfast
I like the one on the left the most, it has some chicken shit on top with some egg salad and a shiso leaf in between. My brother hates shiso leaf, but I think it adds a nice accent to the food.
Made it to Nagoya station while struggling with some bags in time… Since I wasn’t rejected at the shinkansen gate this time, I was finally able to get my ekiben for the trip!
For getting a shinkansen seat view of Mt. Fuji, it seems you need to pick the side that has two seats. I took a few pictures of it because it’s supposed to be hype, but I already saw Mt. Fuji very clearly last year, so how many pictures of Mt. Fuji do you really need…? I could be spoiled though…
soooooooooooo lucky
I was freaking out about whether or not we’d have luggage space on the bus from Hakone-Yumoto to the hotel since as we were getting off at Odawara from the Shinkansen, in my mind, every one of these fuckers getting off the train are going to their ryokan too in Hakone… but my fears were unfounded as the bus we took was practically empty! I do think I start to worry a little too much when my plans start to get de-railed, so we should try to relax and just let things happen… even if they don’t always go right it’s not the end of the world.
Made it to the hotel after walking uphill on a relatively steep hill. Maybe there’s an easier way to get up there I missed… lol
The room is really nice! I mainly wanted this place for the private onsen here. It’s just a little square with hot water, technically, but when the water is being refilled you can really smell the sulfur of the water! It’s nice to be able to use an onsen without anyone else around, though we did use the main bath without anyone around either. I know when I checked earlier there was only one room left at the hotel, but maybe it’s more empty than I thought…?
It’s nice to be able to finally sleep in my own bed again. We were sharing the same bed since last week in two different hotels, and our last hotel had a smaller bed than the first one… so it was a little ギリギリ, but we did ok!
Here is dinner! I was a little worried since there were a few bad reviews of this place, but I think it was quite good. I wouldn’t say it blew me away by any means, but it’s definitely a solid meal and each bite is unique. I don’t know if I could keep eating multiple course meals like this, though. Generally I prefer to just have like a one dish specialty from a restaurant and maybe a fun side dish and have at it, as I think the multiple course little bit of food in a dish is somewhat pretentious. It was a good call to not make any fancy restaurant reservations for this trip in hindsight. Probably the most fun thing was the conger eel and burdock fried in the tofu – I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it! The main dish was a bowl of rice and beef, mixed in with vegetables – the vegetables complemented the base rice without the overuse of sauce that one would normally see at a gyudon place like Yoshinoya or something.
And lastly here’s the really stupid thing I wanted to do. Bathe next to my daki!
beware of feet
There’s another mjg tourney going on, so I was playing in the bath… hopefully my skin doesn’t fall off from bathing in the acidic water for so long! Today we are going to visit Motohakone to look at the Shrine and balk at the line for the famous peace torii, then eat an Owakudani hard-boiled egg! It’s probably just a hard-boiled egg at the end of the day… but let’s be excited for being touristy!
Good morning! Waiting for friend to wake up so I have some time to kill.
Yesterday we went to Okagean! It seems to be a more upscale Komeda’s Coffee, serving actual food instead of just breakfast bread and sandwiches… I opted to get an oden set and a warabimochi latte. I think warabimochi can sub in for boba pretty well… Maybe this could catch on in the west if someone picks up the idea.
Mustard is quite strong as a condiment, so I’d just go with the dark sauce… I want to say it’s something like hoisin sauce but I’m not 100% sure. It was ok, for some reason I thought it’d be miso oden but it’s a good snack to get started for the day.
For our last day in Nagoya, we chose to visit the Toyota Commemorative Museum! Note that this is not the car museum located elsewhere in Nagoya… This foucses more on the production of textiles and automobiles, rather than showcasing specific vehicles, as Toyota initially started out as a textile company, then branched off into automobiles in the 1930s. When you start to see all of the machinery and technology in play when processing cotton back then… It makes sense that the mechanical engineering knowledge can be applied quite well towards making cars. Unfortunately I’m not an engineer so a lot of the details are lost on me on how the machines work… but at least they look cool!
We head back to Nagoya Station soon after to eat miso nikomi udon at Yamamotoya Honten. The soup is quite rich in miso flavor, but the udon noodles are a little bit tougher than I would like… It’s still a really good dish and worth trying. I opted for cochin chicken as my meat. I think you could go without any meat if you’re on a budget, but I’m not… I was also curious with the tofu – It’s ok. Just focus on the udon here.
My brother wanted to pick up some jp Nintendie points for him…. what the heck is wrong with these denominations???
I asked the sofmap employee in a different section of the store if they had any 10000 yen cards and she must have thought I was a retard or something. lol
I didn’t know it until I scheduled this trip… but Cafe Stella by Yuzusoft has the background CGs taken of places in Nagoya. I only played like 2 hours so I know the main CG of Nagoya Station…
This is on the east side of the station, about where you can come out from the Higashiyama line:
Cool! There’s a few other places in the reddit post I linked, but I’m not too familiar with those… but this is good enough for me!
For my last meal in Nagoya, my friend hates eating chicken off the bone, so I had to go to Tebasaku Musume Osu myself…
First, the restaurant makes you specifically order 1 drink per person. The cheapest drinks start at 400 yen, so it’s kind of a racket… but it’s ok, I’m on vacation, but I could see this turning off regular visitors.
In any case… the presentation for this is nice with the plastic tags for each wing indicating the flavor. I like mayonnaise so I would say I like the mentaiko and mayo garlic ones the most. I probably shouldn’t have eaten the yamitsuki and super yamitsuki ones… I’m not particularly big on spicy food relying on chili pepper, so it ruined my palatte for a bit. It’s definitely expensive for what you get, but it’s a fun experience for every bite to be a different flavor!
demolished those wings…. hehe
I finished the night by doing an additional round of the mandarake and lashinbang nearby, and actually ended up picking uip some stuff from each… good call, even though I felt beforehand I wouldn’t find anything.
shoutouts to homeboy for getting two grim aloe omikuji cards… so now I can have one! hooray
Now onto the most expensive part of the trip… two nights at Kai Sengokuhara in Hakone! I’m a little scared of being disappointed, but hopefully it should be fun doing nothing at all in a ryokan…!
Janaury 3rd we open with a trip to Atsuta Jingu for rhatsumode – It’s supposed to be the most important shrine in Nagoya, housing the deity Amaterasu and one of the three sacred treasures, the Kusanagi no Tsurugi. Unfortunately, almost no one has ever seen the sword since it’s such an important item… but it probably exists there… right?
Admittedly it’s a little expensive to visit for hatsumode… You have to pay 1000 yen to pray at the main shrine (most people just pray a little distance away to save 1000 yen), pay 800 yen to visit the treasure warehouse, then 400 yen to visit the Kusanagi sword exhibit. The treasure warehouse mostly houses some documents, and given my inability to read anything in Japanese in there I’m just looking at a bunch of old scriptures. I’m sure they’re really important though. I can better relate iwth the Kusanagi exhibit though, as they have on display a good number of blades that are entrusted to the shrine for ceremonial purposes.
We head over at about 11:00 to Atsuta Houraiken, one of the restaurants that lay claim to having founded the hitsumabushi eel dish. Unfortunately, the queue to enter the restaurant was alread yat 14:50 at that time, so I was a little blindsided by the fact so many people had already come in advance to claim a spot, but no matter, we must eat here… So we head back to Osu to kill some time at the arcade until our time to eat arrices.
Our side dish is some fried eel bones. It only costs 400 yen and I was curious, so it’s hard to go wrong,.. It’s kind of like eating potato chips, but a little harder to bite through. You can probably skip it… We also have a tamagoyaki with eel mixed in. Also a banger, but maybe not necessary when it costs 1200 yen. The hitsumabushi itself is awesome – eel is the best I’ve eaten, and I prefer eating it with wasabi over eating it as an ochazuke over eating it plain. They do have a number of chain stores in the area, but since I’m in Nagoya, it makes the most sense to eat at the honten, even if it takes 3 hours to wait!
nice suu an kou bro
We didn’t have anything else planned, but after eating so much at 16:00 we weren’t sure if we’d be able to eat dinner… but my friend got hungry at 20:00, so it was time to eat miso katsu at Yabaton!
I do think the red miso sauce poured onto the katsu is definitely really good – I don’t think I can quite make a comparison against eating curry with tonkatsu as the flavor is quite different… but it’s good! They also have a few stores in Tokyo so you don’t necessarily need to eat this in Nagoya… but after seeing just about every Yabaton store have a line during dinner time, I figured we couldn’t go wrong eating here.
Also swung by the local Matsuzakaya department store food paradise floor to pick up some Tochiotome strawberries. This variety is tochiotome from Tochigi prefecture – I suppose they are ok letting other people grow their variety of strawberries (these are from Aichi). It seems like they discount their fruits at night, so for me it’s a good deal to pick these up for 2160 yen instead of 3960 yen, so I feel like I won here! They do taste better than the strawberries we have at our American grocery stores (maybe about 30-40% better, if I had to approximate). I wouldn’t eat these regularly… but it’s worth trying for sure!
The next morning we stopped by Komeda’s coffee to have proper ogura toast! Our hotel breakfast buffet has a station for it…. but I need a professional to help prepare the toast for me: Here it is:
The azuki paste is ver wet and easily spreadable compared to our hotel’s azuki paste… so this spread on very easily! The butter and azuki complement each other very well on the fluffy yet crisp toast. Highly recommend! It’s also cheap with this and the coffee set for only 540 yen.
First up today is Inuyama Castle! I don’t personally know too much about it… but it’s an original castle, versus those that have been destroyed and rebuilt, so it carries a lot of significant historical value. One must note however that the castle has extremely steep steps, so it is definitely not ADA compliant. The top tower offers some nice view of the nearby river and town. The area outside of the castle also features many chain ropes for presumably what should be long lines. I think it’s nice to see, but I couldn’t imagine having to wait to get into the castle… that would simply be too much.
Next up in Inuyama is the Meiji Mura museum! A while ago some dudes were noticing that a lot of the old buildings from the Meiji era were being destroyed and was like, damn we should try to preserve these buildings before they’re all gone, so they set aside some space here to relocate all of these buildings for historical preservation. I like that most of the buildings are furnished such that they seem like they could be in use as of today while being accurate to the time of when the building was dated, making it feel very alive. Unfortunately my friend slipped on some steps and sprained his foot so we had to cut the visit here short, but this was definitely an unexpected surprise! Do be prepared to walk a lot though as the area is very open and spacious.
Killed the rest of the night back at home eating mickey D’s and goofing off at the arcade… seems like my friend can walk a little bit but not too much so we will just play mahjong fight girl at the arcade all today today (1/5/26)! cya
