Author: XSA

nothing too exciting today just changing hotels from Kanda to Ariake in preparation of comiket

Turns out carrying 3 luggages around between stations is a pain in the ass…. and I need to do it three more times!

You *can* check in to a hotel without all guests present… but be sure to have them provide their passports in advance!

Went to Tokyo Sea Life Aquarium to kill some time… They have a good number of tanks but I think in general they’re poorly decorated and have small windows for the amount of guests that were there. I took pictures of some cunny:

Wasn’t sure what to do afterwards, so went to Shibuya to look at the light novel exhibition on display. Displays are nice but as far as goods sales it’s mostly acrylic stands… so a little boring.

On my way walking over to the Iyoshi Cola I walked through the mall and to by surprise the fucking Panda Express is popping off with a line… Took a quick peek and yup they are serving chow mein and orange chicken! Yes it’s good but I wouldn’t eat that here, but I suppose if you’re a true 日本人 then eating that stuff is quite exotic!

Got the Japan Edition and some bottles of syrup to take home. Yes it’s overpriced as fuck at 800 yen for the bag of soda but whatever such is life

Couldn’t find anything I was interested in eating so I took a train to Gotenda to eat Osaka Ohsho:

The gyoza wasn’t as amazing as I remembered, but Osaka Ohsho will have a special place in my heart as being the first meal I ate in Japan when I originally landed in Osaka in 2022.

After that I just chcked in to the hotel and was thinking aout fucking everything up as far as my trip goes, like buying way too much in Akiba and not having room for more stuff later in the trip / things I’m going to buy at Comiket. For future trips I’d definitely just start out with Comiket first since I know what the limited goods I’m going to get will be. Also need to study japanese more since I keep having to play the English card and exercise more so my body doesn’t hurt lol :^)

bit late on this one but at least i don’t have to play mahjong (bad tourney edition) anymore! because i lost hell yeah

Woke up at about midnight; went to the hotel breakfast at 06:30. Didn’t bring my phone for some mindfulness shit, but they had some fun pickled items as well as a tempura and soba kitchen. It was a little expensive at 2000 yen… but whatever I didn’t really want to go grab food from 7-11.

Went to melonbooks at about 9:40… There were a whole bunch of other folks lined up and to me it seems absurd but I guess everyone else wants cunny too! I was eyeing Akagi Rio’s newest tankoubon ‘deluxe’ edition when it was announced for release a while back, so I couldn’t help myself to it. Admittedly it’s really expensive and really big but… fuck it lol

Picked up the last onahole I marked to purchase at love merci, took a look through Suruga-ya Akiba Station and Radio Kaikan and Animate; nothing too much noteworthy but there is a huge tcg scene in the Radio Kaikan building. I suppose Tokyo is a metropolis after all, so makes sense that they’d come here to play. Ended up picking up that game box I mentioned earlier cause fuck it lol

Met up with a friend who’s here for year end concerts. Originally was going to eat Tonkotsu Marugo, but he couldn’t handle the wait so we option selected into eating at Tsujita Ramen. We do have it at home but he said it’s not as good as the ones in Japan (I suppose I would hope the Japanese restaurant one is better).

Not pictured is the little slice of yuzu they give in the ramen bowl for you to squeeze on to your noodles. It’s a little different from what I’m used to at Mitsuyado Seimen where they grate the yuzu peel into your noodles, but this is pretty good as well!

Followed him around radio kaikan and don quixote and bic camera for him to buy some stuff, nothing particularly exciting, though by the end of it we were ready to get dessert! I had this on my list at the Senren Banka collab to eat a yuzu soft (a play on the company’s name, Yuzu Soft):

It’s corn flakes on the bottom, soft serve with yuzu syrup and candied yuzu peel. I quite like it a lot, but it’s really expensive at 850 yen for the little cup. Worth trying once, but probably not more than that.

Headed home to crash for the night and found the hotel cleaning staff tucked my daki in. Very good attention to detail; I wasn’t necessarily expecting them to clean or replace anything in the room, but I suppose I wouldn’t put anything away for them either even if I knew about it.

I got my e-mail back from the e-earphones store saying the earphones came in from their Sendai store, so I went out back to Akiba to pick them up. Since I was already out… I decided I’d line up at Tonkotsu Marugo again, since I’m an expert at waiting in lines! (more like I actually have nothing better to do)

I got the most expensive 特上ヒレカツ plus set menu. If I’m gonna eat something, I’m gonna get the most fancy one… Assuming it’s not that much more expensive, hehe. It’s very nice! I wouldn’t say it’s out of the world, but it’s a very well done tonkatsu. The miso soup was particularly bold.

loot today is less in quantity… but not necessarily any less cheaper :^)

OK, onto day 3! plan is to see the aquarium and shibuya for some soda and the manosaba manga advertisement in the station. cya

well technically i missed a day…….. life will go on

The last two times I’ve flown out to japan have been in the morning domestically and landing at night in Japan… I was a little worried about not adjusting properly, but I popped a melatonin pill and was able to catch about 3 hours and 1.5 hours of sleep on the plane. It wasn’t entirely restful, but I was able to get through most of the day just fine!

Normally I’d say I don’t really hate any food… but opening the package and seeing Fritos made me really disappointed… I guess I ate Fritos lol

Food was OK, I was more impressed last year with the food. Maybe the first meal is ‘breakfasty’ food (I don’t think Fritos is breakfast food though) since we took off at about 01:00… Maybe the food on the flight back would be better.

I purchased a 15 day unlimited on Ubigi but I seem to have redeemed a 14 day 30 GB sim instead… I’ll have to purchase a 3 day 1 GB at the tail end of the trip. Should be done with refreshing C107 menus by then so I think we can make the 1 GB last as long as we stick to hotel wi-fi for data heavy stuff.

Headed to Asakusa first, but nothing’s rellly open at 7:00 AM… I opted to get a gyokuro matcha latte at Starbucks (the menu explicitly says Tall, so I was rebuffed when I tried to order it as grande) and chilled until stuff started to open up. Also killed more time at the Donki until the lunch spot was open… Came across a Hina Nendoroid and was like, well, why not? It’ll be a good addition to the office desk.

Think the must-eat item is the Asakusa Menchi Menchikatsu – I was 2nd in line to pick one up and the line just kept getting longer after opening up at 10:00! It has a nice crunchy exterior yet a meaty, oily beef/pork mix inside. I could easily eat 2 but I need to save room for lunch…

Kyoto Gyukatsu! I first ate here when I went to Toronto visit for an /mjg/ meetup in 2022. Normally when you think of katsu you’d think of pork or chicken… but beef also works well with it! Normally I do like rare meat, but this is a little bit too much, so you can place your sliced meat on the little candle warmer thing with a dish on top to cook your beef more. I’d say it’s a little bit short of the Kobe beef melt in your mouth fattiness, but each bite is still nice as you can choose to dip your beef in soy sauce, gyukatsu sauce, citrus soy sauce, Kyoto curry, or my favorite, the spring egg mix.

I took the Tsukuba Express from Asakusa to Akiba – if you take metro/jr I think it’s a little messy, so this is the best ‘direct’ route to it. Except for the station exit out of the Tsukuba Express being a little bit further from JR Akiba… so got lost for a few minutes lol

Trader headquarters: Picked up a single onahole. The onaholes here are cheaper than pop life M’s, so I would get what I can here with regards to that. I did want to pick up this used to get into the series… but after thinking about it I don’t think I really want to start an eroge hardcopy collection… takes up too much space cause those boxes are big!

e-earphones! They have a few floors dedicated to different audio equipment. I specifically already knew what model of earphones I wanted so I didn’t look around too much, but they do have a section where you can try aftermarket IEM tips. I previously got large tips for some Sedna Xelastec IIs, but over time they started folding upon themselves because they are presumably too big to fit in my ear comfortably. I ended up getting some new tips by Sedna called Mythril (sp?) that have steel rings at the end of the tip to prevent it from collapsing on itself. I think it adds more soundstage by ensuring a fixed distance between the tips and the iem exist, so I went with those in the medium size. Unfortunately they did not have the blessing3 Aqua in stock, so they have to ship it from Sendai for me to pick up tomorrow. What customer service! I would like to come back again in the future to try out new tips again or pick up something fun.

Mandarake Complex: Apparently they didn’t have enough space in the original Mandarake Complex, so now they made a 2nd one! Unfortunately I didn’t find anything interesting

Lashinbang New Store: found the tashkent daki by Yuizaki Kazuya I tried to order off Yahoo Auctions before but the seller rejected my bid cause I was bidding through a proxy. Hooray

Melonbooks 1st store: Walked in and saw some c107 books, but I didn’t see anything that was like omg I need this… the fucking line to check out wrapped around the entire store so I was like nah fuck that. Go back tomorrow when maybe there’s no line

Sofmap: There’s a Majsoul collab in the 7th floor cafe but it says reservations only… They have a large collection of new and used eroge (separate floors). Cool to see, though I suppose it isn’t that different than Mandarake/Suruga-ya/Trader’s used eroge…?

Trader2: same as Trader headquarters but smaller really

Melonbooks 2nd: Nothing to really see cause they’re preparing for c107 on floors 3-5. Floors 2 eroge/h-anime is kinda bland and idk what they’re doing with this tokyo otaku store business

Pop life M’s: picked up 2 onaholes and a mini-hip

yostar official shop: pretty decently sized store in JR Akiba. I bouht some candy and a sticker of kisaki eating a crepe. No idea what I’ll do with it but it’s cute!

Akihabara figure tower: ok this is pretty cool and they have a ton of figgies but I don’t wanna deal with lugging it, buying an extra large luggage to pack it in.

space caiman: It’s an ‘art’ exhibit underneath a restaurant. Currently on display is a wani magazine event; was gonna go to get bonus shikishi with two tankoubons but one was sold out for yahiro pochi (actually signed, so it makes sense) and the reproduction shikishi for homunculus acctually doesn’t seem too high quality so I can pass.

yuzusoft shop: has a *ton* of stuff, but some of the things i wanted on their website was out of stock! can’t be helped.

noa is so short! so cute

ok i need to go eat breakfast after wasting 2 hours on mahjong!!! fuck you f***g for making me qualify i will resume later

here’s the loot i ate breakfast it was nice pickled vegetables and tempura yum shoulda brought my phone but i decided not to to be mindful lol

here’s the loot so far need to get ready for 12/27 bye

Hello I am waiting to board my flight to HND so let’s self reflect!

tfw ur childhood dream came true 3 times now

I built a new pc two weekends ago! the dram prices have been getting out of hand (if not worse now?), so I figured we might as well bite the bullet since it’s not like the next 9800x3d successor will be coming anytime soon….

r-18 legos

The motherboard/9800x3d/cooler came as a combo for about $450… it’s not cheap by previous standards but it’s a good deal now…. the SN8100 is definitely a splurge buy as I wanted to re-use my old Samsung 970s from 2019, but… it’s a two generation difference and I expect the build to last at least another 4 years, so fuck it…

i don’t actually know how to turn the lights off yet

I think in total it came out to $1800 excluding the GPU. It’s not bad but it’s definitely an unexpected expense. But did you know that a majority of Americans can’t afford a $1000 unexpected expense? I definitely don’t need a new PC as all I play right now is Mahjongers and Nightreign was running fine on my old pc, so more of a future-proof thing for when the RTX 6800 equivalent comes out later. Hooray for pissing money away frivolously!

Separately, I was supposed to be working out and exercising…. but I’d rather just roll around in my bed and check X formerly twitter for things to buy. TIme to see how punished I’m going to be when I need to walk my ass off in nippon. I had to take continuing education for my annual license requirements by year end, so I decided to take a lot of “personal development” units since the quizzes for them are generally straightforward. But really it’s all stuff I know, like how to be productive, how to concentrate, how to manage your time… but stuff I’m too lazy to actually do. Am I missing something bigger in my life to care about to get me out of living day to day by the motions? When it’s busy work time it’s like man i’m gonna be so productive in my vacation time but now that it’s here I end up doing fuck all with it. ):

I think for now let’s not worry about it as what’s done is done… let’s relax and enjoy the time! We shall see if I’m diligent enough to make a post every day this time (:

i put my itinerary here that i’m still updating if you’re curious

re:hello world

A lot of things have happened since May 2025! I think I was in Texas… finished a tax season… re-started and re-quit Old School RuneScape… went to Orlando, Florida… and done absolutely nothing productive since then! Hooray for making absolutely no progress on your goals!

I actually have a good amount of stuff I should be doing for work, but I don’t wanna… hehe… Gonna have to pump out a whole bunch of things last minute before I leave for Japan on December 24th!

I did a lot of winter cleaning for my room, so I have tons of room for new acquisitions! Not that I need more things…

M3-56 happened not too long ago, so I was checking some of the new releases out… I happened upon CADENZA (Extended Remix) and was like, damn this shit slaps, where’s it from… and it’s from IIDX! So I started playing again, hence I have the controllers out sitting on my desk now rather than making an attempt to put it away, I have a separate USB hub it’s connected to, instead of connecting it to by front PC ports, so it’s easier to keep out like this, rather than having to put it away each time I’m done!

Just some random storage cubes in front of my door. But the top section of my closet is mostly empty! Very happy with that.

I also need to stop buying onaholes… I’m not willing to throw anymore away, but they keep making new ones… what to do ;_;

DRAM for PCs have also gone up in the last month, so I pulled the trigger on buying parts for a whole ass new build… I think it’s time since most of my PC is from 2019; only yanking the RTX 4080 I have to go with a 9800X3D. I suppose I can write about that when it’s time to play legos!

Other than that, supposed to be lifting and exercising… but it’s just way more comfortable to lay in bed under a warm blanket and goof off on my phone! Very naughty. Also supposed to be on top of my Japanese reps to prepare how to speak in Japan… but it’s just way easier to goof off on the interner instead! Very naughty.

Idea is to get up to date with the stats.xlsx file for weight loss… but when I wake up I get on my computer instead of taking my pills and weighing myself and doing something productive with my life. I’m just full of failures!

Anyway, if I write daily, then maybe I can finally write a proper travel log for myself… so I guess we will start here for now!

ok bye

Hello I have missed another two days! Now on the flight back home so let’s fill in the gap…

May 17, 2025
We begin our trip through Seguin, TX to visit Burnt Bean, ZDT’s Amusement Park to ride Switchback, the largest conbini in the world, and settle in in Kemah, TX.

We arrive at Burnt Bean Co. at about 10:15 in the morning. A decent number of people in line, but nothing particularly overwhelming. The group behind us had to leave as it was getting too late for them to make their appointment in time. Too bad…

For the ordinary stuff we picked up half pound of brisket, half pound of pork ribs, one slice of bacon, a baked sweet potato, mac and cheese with hot cheeto dust (I suppose this isn’t normal), and some corn pudding. Not ordinary stuff is the Korean beef rib and Moroccan pork ribs pictured on the left. Ordinary items were nice and above average; in particular I really liked the korean beef ribs. It has the sweetness that you would expect from Korean bbq sauce, yet crispy and smoky from being smoked. Normally if you have excess fat on the back of the bone it’s just gelatinous and sad, but here it rendered well and offered some crunch while eating it off the bone. Awesome! Morroccan ribs was just ok; I didn’t feel that the spices on top complimented the smoked ribs well but it was still decent.

For dessert my brother found this ‘taco’ peach cobbler item interesting. It’s sweet and goes well with the ‘crisp’, though you can’t actually eat it like a taco. I believe the ice cream was some dulce de leche / caramel flavor – good on its own but I don’t think it necessary complements each other.

We made our way to ZDT’ Amusement Park next – it’s a little family owned amusement area on a city block, and they added a small roller coaster a few years back. It’s actually the primary reason my brother wanted to visit as the owners of the park intend to retire in the near future, so the fate of this roller coaster is uncertain and he wanted to ride it before it gets dismantled 4eva. Normally, the park is supposed to be relatively quiet, but there were hordes of band children on field trip here again. A theme we will not seem to ever escape.

The ride is compact yet manages to deliver a lot of force. It’s a little rough in some spots, but the seats allow for you to move with it so it’s bearable. Of note is the switchback element – at the ‘end’ of the ride you go up at an 87 degree angle, then return backwards to the platform. Even after riding it a few times and memorizing the layout, the forces are still impactful as you brace to anticipate the turns going backward. I enjoyed the ride a lot and hopefully the ride will have a future somewhere else if the park closes.

Next we arrived at the biggest conbini in the world in Luling, TX. It’s quite excessive for a ‘gas station’ to be this big, but apparently it does serve a purpose in the Texas area for large field trips to dump 90+ kids all at once and be able to have facilities that can attend to all of their needs. They have their own barbecue station, bakery, jerky, dessert, and miscellaneous food preparation stations inside. I was really big on Wawa while I was visiting the east coast in 2022, but I think Buc-ee’s takes the cake…!

I’m a big fan of the exclusion of Coca=cola icee as the default flavor in favor of Dr. Pepper – I don’t normally drink Dr. Pepper if available, but this definitely slaps. I also picked up a few bags of Beaver Nuggets and their brisket sandwich – obviously it’s not as good as the brisket I’ve been eating at proper restaurants, but it can definitely stand on its own.

I’ve always been curious about the wages paid at Buc-ee’s. Yes, it is good, but apparently you have to work your tail off while you’re on the clock. No goofing off on your phone on the job or you get fired!

Made it to our hotel in Kemah, TX and crashed…

May 18, 2025

Today we are visiting the Houston Space Center and the Kemah Boardwalk.

Houston has been home to the Mission Control Center for NASA for managing all space related activities, most notable would be the Apollo 11 moon landing (in during it never happened). We took a tour of the actual mission control room, a replica space shuttle, the astronaut training facility, and got to see some rockets. For the control room tour, they replay the Apollo 11 moon landing and President Nixon’s telephone call to the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Now I know where the sound sample “in the hsitory of man… all the people on this are truly one” comes from (from IIDX16 Empress Programmed World). Separately in the main exhibit halls there are actually a moon and Mars rock available for touching, apparently one of very few in the world available for the public to feel up.. We got to touch it and …. yup, they’re rocks…

I do appreciate that th overarching theme of the space center is to try to inspire kids to be interested in space to pursue a career in aeronautics – whether or not it actually works is a different question as most kids probably want to be youtubers or influencers these days, but it’s a noble cause!

Got a quick bite at Tookie’s burger – nice burger, relatively cheap prices. Not much to say.

Next we visited the Kemah Boardwalk to ride the Boardwalk Bullet. I really want to like this ride – it’s aggressive and has strong laterals, but the ride is too rough for me as it hurts when I get slammed into the sides of the seat. I tried riding in the front and riding by myself, but still had the same issues. It’s a good ride if it doesn’t hurt for you, but it’s difficult for me to enjoy the ride while bracing for and anticipating pain.

Rest of the park area has some flat rides; a particular interesting ride was a boat ride where you travel at high speeds and get splashed with water, but there’s an upcharge of $25.00 per person for that attraction. Too much for me…

May 19, 2025

Our last day in Texas! We start off in the Galveston Naval Museum to see the USS Cavalla (SS-244) and USS Stewart (DE-238).

Having been through a few submarines already (Cod, whatever the one in San Diego is, whatever the one adjacent to the USS Intrepid is) there isn’t particularly anything new that I haven’t seen before, though the Cavalla is notable for having sunk IJN CV Shoukaku and IJN DD Shimotsuki (of the Akizuki class destroyers). There’s a few recollections of the events in 1944 in the submarine, but I always like it when the display rooms for the mess halls and officer/crew quarter are presented as it was lived in when the ship was on duty. Did you know Listerine used to be a toothpaste brand?

USS Stewart would be the first destroyer we’ve visited. So far it’s just been BBs (Iowa/New Jersey) and CVs (Hornet, Intrepid, Midway), so by comparison this would be a relatively ‘small’ ship. The interior isn’t particularly any different from the other ships we’ve visited as far as the crew/officer quarters go. Main difference would be the types of armaments on display (smaller x inch guns and small AA guns) which are very obviously smaller than the 16 in. guns we see on Iowa class BBs. I don’t think it’s WWII tech, but they later armed destroyers with rocket clusters to be used for anti-submarine warfare, which would shoot into the water and only explode on impact with a submarine. Technology is so cool!

Next we ate at the Rainforest Cafe at Galveston. Overall the chain is understood to be overpriced for the decorations and less than stellar food. I ordered the grilled meat loaf, which came with sides of mashed potatoes, some fried onion things and carrots. It’s not out of the world, but I enjoyed it. For $30.00, relatively speaking, it’s not as expensive as the bbq we’ve been paing for… so I think it’s fine. Though for the actual reason we’re here… there’s a water ride at this Rainforest Cafe!

I don’t actually have pictures of it… you can think of it it as one of those Disney water rides with animatronics, though themed to the rainforest with zoo animals. It’s cute and I would say worth the $10.00 admission as long as you know what you’re getting into and like these kinds of dark rides.

Nearby is the Galveston Pleasure Pier – it actually costs $12.00 to enter the pleasure pier, which I personally feel is a little manipulative (I’m not aware of other amusement piers doing this)… but we’re here already, so fuck it. Unfortunately for my brother, the roller coaster he wanted to ride, Iron Shark, is currently down for maintenance, but he wanted to take a look anyway. I think the most interesting thing second to the Iron shark roller coaster would be the fact that they have a log flume ride on a pier. There’s already water below in the ocean… do you really need a water ride on a pier?

For our last supper, we arrive at The Pit Room. Since we can bring our leftovers home, we agreed to go overboard and picked up a lb of brisket, lb of ribs, 1.5 lbs of a dino beef rib, and .5 lb of pulled pork. The items overall are good, though they don’t particularly stand out against the rest of the bbq items we’ve had over the course of the trip. This isn’t to say it’s necessarily bad, it’s still good! Our favorite was the beef rib, there was so much intramuscular fat in it that made it almost as soft and melty as the best brisket points I’ve had, yet with the flavor found in ribs. Awesome!

Since my brother happened to pass by the Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in San Antonio and saw an Icee machien with Big Red (soda) as a flavor, we stopped by a 7-11 and QuikSTop to try to find it… and found it at the QuikStop we stopped at for gas to top off the rental. It’s nice and tastes exactly like Big Red, but since it wasn’t an Icee ™ machine and an offbrand freezoni the consistency of the ice/liquid was off and was difficult to drink about half-way through, where you have to shake and stir the drink to be able to drink it again.

Two days ago I actually broke one of the onaholes I brought… left it in the hotel trash. The other got flagged by TSA and the guy checking my luggage poked it to check what it was and was like oh…. ok… and moved on. Haha. I will need to remember to leave it in my checked luggage next time.

Not much else left to recap, so some self-reflection. I had fun! Probably be at least two years if I were to come back. Looking forward to possibly revisting Toronto for Canada’s Wonderland and Sandusky, OH for Cedar point next year to see the new rides there (AlpenFury, Top Thrill 2 and Siren’s Curse for those parks, respectively). Though Comiket 107 this winter comes first, so I shouldn’t get ahead of myself just yet.

When I returnm, to work on working out and walking, practicing nihongo and tile game – usual stuff, just actually doing it and not being glued to the etenral X (formerly Twitter), Discord, whatever the fuck refresh. Good luck!

I missed two days because I was tired after each day (but actually I was busy losing in tile game again lol)

May 15, 2025

To start the day my brother wanted to try a drink at CosMc’s. It’s an attempt by McDonald’s to separately break into the coffee market, as if it wasn’t already competitive enough. What caught our eyes were the churro and French toast themed coffee drinks. I did enjoy the popping boba add-on pictured in the bottom of the drink, though the outer ‘coating’ of the boba was still present as a ‘skin’ in the mouth. Perhaps real boba could be better here? Or maybe real America isn’t yet ready for that…

We made it to SeaWorld San Antonio! It turns out school is out for a lot of the kids now, so the park was pretty crowded with day field trips to the park. Luckily most of them were actually on kid rides.

Ride rankings:

1. Texas Stingray
2. Steel Eel
3. Great White Shark
4. Wave Breaker
5. Beach Rescue Racer

Texas Stingray is a nice GCI woodie, though I like California Great America’s Gold Striker better for having more vertical movement in it’s loops. It does have a a nice left-to-right roll in the middle of the track that I really like.

Steel Eel I thought was kinda bad at first on my first two rides – once in the middle and once in the back. It has big airtime hills, though as you enter the next hill my ass would slam hard back into the seat *each* time. Not comfortable! We ended the day at the park with a ride in the front car and the airtime hills were much more pleasant, so I can place this as 2nd.

Great White Shark is a B&M Invert batman clone, though a little shorter in some sections. Still a decent ride but not something I would spam here since we have Batman The Ride at home ™

Wave Breaker and Beach Rescue Racer are decent rides on their own, but just geared more as a ‘family’ ride for children/parents rather than extreme thrill seekers such as myself – so ranked down here.

Current ongoing event is the Seven Seas Food Festival, supposed to be an international food celebration with booths for different countries for their respective food types (but why does Japan get tacked with Korea’s bulgogi bowls and kalbi?). We had a few drinks I don’t remember, and I ate escargot on toast, Gator Kisses (bacon and jalapeno wrapped “gator bites”), jerk chicken and coconut rice roll and Jamaican bread pudding. It costs $70.00 for 10 items, though we ended up getting a few items that cost $6.00, so we might have gotten shorted instead of getting a deal… but oh well.

In all I think it’s a decent park – better roller coaster line-up but less animal exhibits than San Diego Sea World.

Following with the barbecue trend my brother picked out Curry Boys BBQ – a fusion of Thai cuisine and bbq meats. We ordered chips with queso, curry with chicken/brisket, and a yuzu cheesecake (yes yuzu is not thai but fuck it). I think the fusion works well together to bring smoked meats with the creaminess of Thai curries. Would recommend!

May 16, 2025

Fiesta Texas day! Unfortunately, again, tons of schools dumping their kids here so it was mega packed. Also, everything was running single trains and not all concession stands were open, which made getting refills for our Season Drink Bottle ™ unnecessarily time consuming.

Ride rankings:

1. Iron Rattler
2. Superman Krypton Coaster
3. Poltergeist
4. Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster
5. Dr. Diabolical’s Cliffhanger
6. Chupacabra
7. Boomerang Coast to Coaster

Iron Rattler is the second RMC conversion so it has only one inversion and a bit of an awkward middle section (presumably still trying to figure out what they can do with the conversions), but it carries its speed very well throughout the entirety of the ride and has very powerful ejector airtime at the end through the tunnel.

I’m partial to my Discovery Kingdom’s Medusa as it’s our ‘home park’, but I have to concede that Superman is better than Medusa. It has two great drops and great cobra roll, and is considerably longer than Medusa (which I think is already decently long).

Very impressed with Poltergeist, a Premier Rides “spaghetti bowl” it’s difficult to tell where exactly you’re going even though you can see the track in front of you because the different layers blend together as you’re going through it, ending in a powerful corkscrew.

Rest except for Dr. Diabolical are coasters I have at home ™ so not too much considered for them, but I don’t think too highly of Dr. Diabolical here. The elements and initial drop are pretty big but it does not carry its speed well due to the mid-course break run.

I ate a brisket baked potato and pork chop with brussel sprouts – brother didn’t like his braised beef, though he did enjoy the cooked apples.

Finished the day with a quick bite at Pinkerton’s – pleasantly impressed with chicken thigh, brisket hits (but not better than Franklin’s), and pork ribs came with a glaze that went great with it. We opted for the jalapeno cheese rice but i can’t say that it was particularly notable.

I woke up at 05:30 somehow, so we got ready and headed over to Franklin’s to line up!

We were initially planning to line up at around 08:00, but since we were awake we might as well not botch the plan.

Apparently the guy in front of us lined up at around 05:00, so we weren’t the first. People didn’t start trickling in until about 08:30 so 08:00 for weekdays is probably fine. Apparently some guy thinks it’s crazy to wait 4+ hours for food, but idk I guess I’m retarded.

Here’s the meats! 1.5 lbs of brisket (though they’re only two slices of point vs 9 slices of flat), .5 lbs of pork ribs, 3 sausages each of ‘original’ and ‘jalapeno cheese’, .25 lbs of turkey and .25 lbs of pulled pork.

Brisket > pulled pork > ribs > sausage > turkey

Brisket was everything i expected it to be and more. Spice amount was perfect (though my brother felt that there was too much pepper), melts in the mouth and great smoke amount. Usual reminder that I don’t think I was too far off from this when I smoked brisket ):

I wasn’t expecting much from the pulled work – has somewhat of a similar ‘pop’ in your mouth feel like the pork ribs from Terry Black’s yesterday. Everything else was decent-good; more to taste but obviously you primarily come here for the brisket. I should probably stop getting turkey as I just have yet to be impressed by bbq turkey by anyone at this point.

Next we headed down to Natural Bridge Caverns – there’s two caves with some very pretty rock formations. They’re formed by water dripping over limestone over many years (think probably hundreds of thousands rather than hundreds of years).

It’s a nice hike through the caves, although very humid with all of the dripping water. Would recommend for some nice views.

Next we have a small dinner at Iron Cactus along the San Antonio Riverwalk.

The salsa in the back has a little more flavor than the traditional tomato based salsa and was served at a warm temperature. For dishes we have Picadillo purses, which is like a Mexican wonton with meat/cheese inside, stuffed avocadoes, and Mexican meat loaf. I think the Mexican meat loaf was the most interesting dish – it uses mexican seasoning in the meatloaf, then instead of serving it with ketchup as you would for traditional meatloaf, it uses a tomato salsa instead – very fun!

Took a swing by the Alamo to get a quick peek at it. Not sure if we will have time to visit it during the day but it does look nice with the lighting effects.at night.

Time to sleep and visit San Antonio SeaWorld tomorrow. Hope iron stingray is good…!