Early morning, we woke up and headed over to Grace and Vrendy’s house so we could leave the car in their garage and they could give us a lift to the airport. We stopped at McDonalds on Queen for breakfast. Franklin ordered one packet of mayo. That is it. Just mayo on an order. He thought it was funny. After breakfast we headed to TD Bank which could not exchange our $100 Canadian into Yen. Eventually we finally got to the Airport. We checked in and made our way through customs. We got through pretty quickly and had time to spare. The sitting area was very nice, so we both worked on our laptops waiting for the plane. Then we started to board the plane. Dana went to the bathroom quickly as Franklin was waiting for her at the front of the line for her. He was thinking it was about to be a Home Alone movie. (Just joking, he wouldn’t leave her behind). We boarded the plane. Our seats were by an emergency door. With this came both good and bad. The good was extended leg room. The bad was no real trays or places to put stuff. The take off was smooth, there was limited turbulence throughout and a good landing. Overall a good experience. They served us 3 meals. The first was chicken and rice, the second was a tuna wrap and the third was breakfast, noodles. Since it was a long flight, we watched 3 episodes of the handmaids tale after Dana finished work. Yes, she worked on the plane. Employee of the month! We finally landed in Tokyo. We actually landed 1 hour early which was awesome.
It is now 3pm in the afternoon, we are in the airport and need to head towards Osaka. After being lost for a minute or two (maybe 10 minutes) we found our way to buy tickets for the bullet train. We walked over and walked for it. Since we purchased assigned seats, we had to find where we were sitting. We were located at cart 4. The train was lovely. Super fast, fixed up nicely and one thing we noticed was that there was constant flow of police walking inside the train. We traveled what would have taken a car 11 hours, in 2.5 hours. It had AC which was wonderful. You will learn a lot about the heat during this trip and as you read more about the journey below.. It is defiantly a reoccurring theme. After a ridiculous long day of traveling we were tired. We still needed to walk to our hotel. Along the way we started to notice all of the vending machines, 7-11s, etc. It was hot but this heat we were experiencing was nothing compared to what was to come later in the trip. We just didn’t realize it yet. (We haven’t even got to the first hotel room and I mentioned the heat twice… you get the point).
We finally get to our hotel and go to check in where we realized that we were actually a day late. When we went to book, we didn’t account for the time change properly. We got our key to room 203, went up the elevator and put down all of our stuff. The room was small. There was a bathroom which had a bidet (they all do. I mean across the country. Every toilet has one. Lots of them have even heated seats), a bed that took up most of the room, a small desk and mini fridge. Something else cool was this hotel offered free robes, frabreeze, shampoos and soaps, etc. We were hungry and went across the street to a family mart (which is basically like 7-11) to grab some dinner. We brought back water, coke, chips, a bun that had cheese and bacon, an egg sandwich and some smoked cheese. It sounds like a lot of food but it was all munchy food for the most part. We ate our snacks and went to sleep.
You know how above we mentioned that we were off by a day? That meant after the super long day of travel from the 13 hour plane ride and 3 hours of trains, we had to go to Dreamworks as that was the day we picked for our tickets. We got up early and went for breakfast across the street from the hotel. This place and many later have a tablet ordering system similar to McDonalds. Franklin got a beef dish that tasted so good that he offered Dana some to try. Dana’s response was “mmm this is really good”. This would be one of two times this day that she would mention good meat. One might say she was converting over?
We walked to the train station and got tickets for Universal Studios. After a short 20 minute trip, we were there. When we got out of the train and were walking around Universal Studio Street (I think this is what is called). Either way it was a street filled with stores of merch from all sorts of characters prior to going into the park. We walked past them and lined up to get inside. This is when we noticed all the umbrellas (thankfully Dana was smart and brought hers) as well as fans. So many fans. If we had only fans, we would have been much better off. After about an hour, we made our way in. The start of the park is big streets filled with shops, and food that was all themed. Super Mario was everywhere! There was Harry Potter sections, Hello Kitty, Snoopy and more. We made our way past the shops to the main pathway. The park had a pathway that went around connecting all the different theme parks. The two were interested in was Super Mario and Harry Potter. We headed over to Super Mario, waited in line only to be told that we needed a timed entry ticket (that we didn’t have). So we got one (it was part of our pass) and then had to walk to the back of the line. We were both dying from heat at this point so we decided to go get some drinks. We got a frozen mango on a stick. It was so fresh and cold. We also got an ice melon drink. It was amazing too. After sitting down (Franklin might have died temporally on that bench), we headed back in line to go see Super Mario World. We started walking through and got to the outside of Peaches Castle. Outside of the castle, Dana went and bought the Super Mario band. This band connected with the universal app so when you go through Super Mario World, you could collect coins and stamps to complete a stamp book. There was also some pipes just outside of the castle that allowed for some awesome photo opportunities. We finally went inside Peaches Castle and there were framed photos as if it was right out of N64 Mario. On the other side was something hard to describe other than Magical. A full world of moving creatures all from the Super Mario universe. It was epic. You could go and hit blocks with the Mario bracelet and hear coins, there was the jumping match game that is inside the game, there was Goombas and Shells moving around. Just so well done. Dana went and punched all the musical notes, Franklin hit the coin blocks. It was a ton of fun. Also hot… So we walked over to Bowsers Castle. It was epic. The entire Castle, outside and inside was themed incredibly well. Every fine detail. The walls, the doors, the lights, there were books that all had game related titles that were cool like “How to grow a prana planet, etc. It was amazing. This castle was also air conditioned. It allowed us to get a break for an hour and half. It was nice break from the sun. By the end of the line, lots of people were sitting on the rails, or on the floor. One lady even brought a stool. We finally made our way to the front of the line and went into a room where we put on our Mario Helmets. Around the room were suits for each racer in glass cases. It looked really fancy. We finally made our way to the carts. You put on a helmet and using AR, you look around with your head and have to shoot enemies and other carts. All of this adds up to your wrist band for stamps and coins. When you get out of the ride, you are inside of the Mario shop. We spent some money here getting all kinds of cool things. After this we went and checked out the Donkey Kong area. This was themed very similar to the game. There was a spot were you beat drums. Franklin did that as Dana recorded.
At this point we were hungry and wanted a place to sit down and relax. We went to the one place in the Mario world that had service for food. They were fully booked for the entire day. We headed out of Super Mario World and towards a place called Grille. We struggled to find it and almost opted to just stop and eat at this really old school looking diner. Dana noticed Grille across the street so we went and lined up. After making our own reservations, we had an hour to wait. We walked around a bunch of the shops. It was mostly just looking for nice places with AC to cool off and survive long enough to get to the next store. The time came and we went for lunch. It was an Italian place. We order a Meatball Pizza and tomatoes and cheese to share. Remember above when I said that Dana would like meat twice in the same day? Well, when the Pizza came, Dana started taking the meatballs off the pizza. Franklin tasted part of one and told her to try it. Dana liked the meatballs as well. They were pretty massive. She had a couple on her pizza and enjoyed it. The food was very good.
After lunch we went to the land of Hogwarts. The first thing you see before going in is Ron’s blue car smashed up. Lots were jumping on the hood as if the car just hit them. The best I could do was to get Dana to stand next to it for a photo. Then we continued our journey into the Harry Potter theme park. There was the Hogwarts express which was massive. It looked amazing. Then just past that was all the shops. They all had fake snow on the roofs, and all were as if it was just straight out of the movie or books. A store for wands. A store of wizard gear, etc. It was amazing. We walked to the end of the Hogwarts theme park. We almost went into the Castle ride but it was an hour wait and we both were exhausted at this point. Dana made the decision to head back to the hotel. We staged our way through the subway, and the 10 minute walk from the subway to our hotel, to finally get back where we took nice cold showers to cool off. We both wanted to get food but needed up falling asleep early. This just meant that the following day would start early of course :)
It is day 3, and 1am in the morning. We are both wide awake and hungry. Dana found a place to eat that would later become a life changing experience. We started walking towards it. Only a 30 minute walk. Doable. Especially at this hour when the sun is not fighting our mental sanity. We headed over to what can be described as a mall. You go from the outside and just walk in. No doors. Just a bunch of shops on either side of the walking path. Very little was open of course because of the time at night but it was fun to window shop and take in the experience. We finally made it to our either late dinner or very early breakfast (I will let you decided). It was a Ramen place. You walk in and order on a machine. You then walk across a tight path way and sit at a bar like sitting arrangement. Above the bar is a jug of water and there were some sauces. We talked and were texting friends and family back home, where it was day time for them. Eventually the Ramen came. One sip after another, after another. It was insanely good. The best Ramen either of us have ever had. It was epic to say the least. The broth was flavourful. The noodles. It was truly a life changing experience. Who knew that Ramen could be that good? That great? We got vending machine ice cream on the way back. Yes you heard that right.
I guess now is a good time to explain the vending machine and GATCHA culture. There is vending machines everywhere! I mean everywhere. You can get drinks like Coke or Water. You can get coffee and juices. And as mentioned just prior, ice cream. There is also a ton of GATCHA machined everywhere. With just 100 YEN you can have little knick nack toys in nearly any brand you would want. Dana did get a Harry Potter one for Ellie with the condition that she would keep it if it was Snape. It was Snape.
Anyways, we walked back to the hotel and we are there around 3 am after our fun outing. The smart thing would be to go to sleep so we can be rested for later in the day. Nope. We stayed up till 4. Dana was working and Franklin was playing phone games. We went to sleep for 2-3 hours and for a second time, started our day again.
Our first stop? Osaka Castle. We headed there early morning. It was a 10 minute walk from hotel to the subway which took us to another subway which took us to a 10 minute walk to the castle. At this point, we were nearly pros at the subways. Language barrier and all. (Okay maybe not pros but Franklin wasn’t asking random people for help anymore. He did that a lot the first couple of days). We were outside of the Castle ad talked to Grace and Vrendy. We showed them what it looked like from the outside. It looked amazing. We bought our tickets and made our way into the Castle. Each floor told a continuous story about how the Castle was made, how the wars were fought, etc. The one take away as I write this a day later, they fought in the Winter. If it was summer, surely they would have all had heat stroke and not fought at all. In all seriousness, it was a cool story about a guy who was born, and worked his way up the ranks. Eventually held a massive party only to take over the land from everyone. At the top of the castle was a nice sight seeing area that overlooked the city. It was amazing. We decided to check out the gift shop, rest up a bit.
We tried to book lunch reservations ahead of time for the Kirby Cafe but that didn’t work. After multiple failed attempts we left the Castle and headed over to Kirby Cafe, It was an hour walk that turned into 2 hours and Dana dying from heat at least once or twice. We stopped in convince stores to get some air. A lot of the city is a “walkable” city where you basically walk from one thing to the next. It is wild seeing people in suits and walking around like nothing. We had a countdown to get there. Finally we get to a mall like building. It is 9 floors and each floor has all kinds of shops. This building is connected to other buildings that are similar. It was an insanely big shopping mall. After a bit of searching, we found the Kirby Cafe. We couldn’t book reservations because we needed a local phone number. The lady who worked there was nice enough to provide us her own personal number so we could have lunch. While waiting the hour to sit down and eat, we checked out the Pokemon Center that was on the same floor. The lineup was insanely large to pay. We just looked around. We also checked out and bought some cool stuff from the Kirby Cafe Shop. Just when we thought we explored everything on the floor, there was another massive area. Here is where we bought another travel bag for all the things we purchased that would not fit into our backpacks.
We headed back towards the Kirby Cafe. When you go to sit-down there is a cool photo ops with the sign and a massive spoon. We then ordered our food. You can only order once and they had a time limit of how long you could sit-down for. Dana ordered a pizza. Franklin ordered a burger that Dana showed some interest in but wasn’t sure what it was. Luckily she didn’t order it as it was a fish meal. We also got a dessert. Overall the meal was subpar. The pizza was described as an attempt of cowabunga pizza but not good. The fish burger was not great either. The dessert was okay at best. After lunch we walked down from floor to floor.
Since the Kirby Cafe was on floor 9, we had the opportunity to work our way down. Floor 8 was interesting. They had a whole Le Creuset Store. There was an orange pot that glimmered. We saw the exclusive Pokemon themed cookware and a bunch of Japan exclusive things. We purchased the Red chopsticks to go with our collection. The shopping centre was massive. We went into some clothing stores and just random stores. Lot of GATCHA stores. We purchased a ton of clothes from Uniqo. We continued to walk around the mall.
Part of our plans was to go to the Temple that was nearby and then head back. Sometime while shopping, we realized we were in the same spot we were in at 1am. Just now everything was opened and it was really busy. We started heading towards the Temple. We both were exhausted and needed a break from the heat and our feet. We stopped at a McDonalds. We went upstairs and got a table. Franklin went back down to get food. We had fries, the shrimp and avocado burger, and a chocolate shake. You can guess who ate what. After sitting in AC for a while, we finally headed towards the Temple.
It was an interesting Temple. Just in the middle of a very busy place is a calm and peaceful place where people go to pray. One guy was even praying to a cat that was there. We decided to shop around a little longer since we both weren’t hungry at this point. McDonalds ruined dinner.
We stopped in a camera store. At least that is what the name of it sai on the outside. We walked around and thought of it similar to Best Buy. At least to start. Then slowly we realized the difference between our electronic store and the one we were in. They had an insane selection. Did you need a shaver? They had 100 to pick from. Go to the next floor and there were 200 fridges, 200 stoves. Every model, brand you can think of. Each floor had thousands of options for enarly everything. Floor 6 was amazing. What made it so amazing you might ask? The selection of Only Fan Models. (I took some time to ensure the wording on that last sentence lol). We bought fans. We were in business! We also checked out the video game floor. Eventually we decided to leave and head back to the hotel. We were over 25,000 steps at this point, had no sleep and was suffering from heat. We got back to the hotel. Took some cold showers and went to sleep at more of a normal time, so we could have a good nights rest, right? (This is foreshadowing things to come on the next day).
Before we left for Japan, Franklin told Ellie that he would have his phone sit so if she called and it was an emergency, he would answer. Even in the middle of the night. At 3:30 am Franklin got the emergency call. It was Ellie. She wanted to video chat just to show all the candy she got. The conversation went roughly like this; “Hey Ellie is everything okay?”, “Yes, why?”, “It is 3:30am”, “Oh I am sorry I forgot. Anyways look at my candy”. Dana ended up waking up because of Franklin and Ellie talking. We finally went back to sleep for a few hours.
Dana found a place for breakfast. It was an American Hawaiian Breakfast place. It is the only restaurant I have ever seen where the photo ads show less food than the actual order. Dana had a dozen scrambled eggs in her plate along side a waffle. Franklin had a waffle with an insane amount of whip-cream and mango on it. We also ordered a shared bowl that had oats, a frozen blueberry paste and mangos and bananas. It was amazing. The food was so good. After breakfast we headed back to the hotel to grab our things and head towards the bullet train. Dana was working during our journey back to Tokyo. Franklin spent his time writing everything you see above.
We are going towards our hotel in Tokyo. Just this time more prepared. We have fans. We have a pool at the hotel, or at least we thought (foreshadowing). And we understand the public transit system. We went from train to train and finally found our new hotel.
APA Hotel & Resort Ryogoku Eki Tower is a really tall tower located right next to a sumo wrestling arena. We get inside and we check in through some machines on the side. The machine glitched out and told us to check in at the desk. We tried but they directed us back to the machines to try again. We then had to wait for the elevators. There are 32 floors. One set of 3 elevators goes from floor 1-16 and the other set is 17-32. You need to wait for your side. When I say wait, I mean really wait. They are super slow, and always packed. There is no options for stairs. Then you finally get to the room which has terrible AC, and cardboard for pillows. The halls are boiling. To get to the convience store located in the building takes forever because of the elevators. The laundry room is overcrowded and to top it off, the pool that they advertise is not included. Terrible hotel experience.
Now we need to talk about the pool experience. We made our way to the rooftop pool. It is an odd shaped pool. The water is crystal clear and overlooks the city. The combination of heat + a cold water pool and nice scenery was amazing, until it wasn't. We both were just swimming around, when we read a sign that said you had to pay. We both had different takes on what this actually meant. About an hour into our swim, a lady from the hotel came to ask if we had reserved the pool. Of course we hadn't. We were told it was $25 per person, every 60 minutes of swimming. That is an expensive swim. We left the completely empty pool (that likely is never used). Unfornatly they advertised something that was not available or part of our stay. We were directed down to the basement spa. The spa was a public area separated by male and female where you bathed, not swam.
Later that we went to sleep. The bed is located up against a wall. Dana slept on the outside so she could go to the bathroom easier in the middle of the night. Franklin was up against the wall. During the night Franklin was having a dream where he was in a fight. During the fight he kicked his leg out and into the wall. When you are fighting, of course it will hurt. So he didn't think he was having a dream until he kicked it a second time and realized what he had done. His foot was really bruised for the remainder of the trip. The best reason for the kick was "Everybody was kung fu fighting". It might very well be true...
The next morning we got up early (we got up early everyday on this trip) and headed over to Miraikan, the Science and Technology Museum. We had to line up outside to buy our tickets. Dana went over and got an icey drink while Franklin was getting the tickets. We also purchased tickets for an extra show called Play Dome 02 Space Explorers ISS: Advanced. The show had a set time and we were hugry. So we went inside and went up the escalators up to the top of the building where the cafe was. Dana ordered a salad and fries. Franklin ordered a Hotdog that had shrimp on it with a side of chips. There was also a "Drink Bar" which had refillable sodas. There was also a water station, which we learned throughout the trip was pretty normal in different eating areas. You need to get up and fill up your own glass of water. Anyways, while eating Dana noticed a large robot statue. It was a Gundam and behind it was a mall. We figured we would go check that out after we go through the Miraikan.
After lunch we walked around the top floor. The conference rooms were all named after different planets. Dana wanted to get into Uranus but we had to settle with Neptune. Then we headed towards our show, the Space Explorers ISS: Advanced. We first waited in line. A lady came by and gave us a device that would translate the show into English for us. Eventually we were allowed in. We had assigned seats that we had to find. When we walked in, it was a really fancy globe. Our seats were in the front right. The best way to describe the screen is as a poor man Vegas sphere. We moved the seats all the way back, almost as if we were laying down and waited for the show to start. They kept playing "do not record" and "do not kick the seat in front of you" messages while waiting for everyone to sit down. The show was really neat. It was about the ISS. At the end of the show, the credits said it was made in Canada. Yes, we went all the way to Japan to see something that was made in Canada.
We headed down a floor and entered the exhibits. The first thing we noticed was how interactive everything was in the museum. It was not your traditional museum. We stood in line about 10 minutes for a walk in movie. We had no idea what to expect. It was a little "room" (sort of) with a curved wall with a projector facing it. There was 2 chairs on the other side and a button to start watching. We had some choices what to learn about. We choice cell research, which turned out to mostly be propaganda about giving blood. The room was cool though. An oval with 2 black sheets, making a very small foot print movie theater style room. When we exited, the other side had all sorts of information about the human body. There was even a camera that tracked your body movements and you could point to a body part and it would provide you more information. We moved on towards a sustainable planet section where they had some really cool animations showing how the creation of a single product spans multiple steps and travels around the world. The coolest part for this floor though had to be the more science and space stuff. There was a pod replica from the ISS that you could walk in, there were little displays show how they bring up fish and reproduce them in space, a section with little balls that represented the dangers in society and a section with a full 360 led panel that displayed space related items. In the middle was all sorts of cool demos about the movement of light, the universe through time and even a spot to talk to an AI model.
It was incredible! We both agreed this was the coolest museum we have ever been too and even ready to walk across to see the Gundam, until we realized there was a whole floor with more things to see and do. Thankfully we didn't skip this floor. When we walked in there was a huge sign about Quantum Computing in the distance. Exciting. The first thing you get to look at is robots. There was a humanoid however it was unfornately not working at the time. Then there was a creepy baby robot. You went in front of the camera and could wwave and interact with the baby. They also had a whole display for Lovots and Aibos. We will discuss Lovots more below, so for now I will explain the Aibos. The Aibos is a robotic dog from Sony that is small and moves around like an actual dog. It has a charging base and is pretty cool. Kids were all around this dog, trying to pet it. After the robot section was some screens with morphing characters, objects items, that went from one to the other. It was all AI Generated. The Quantum Room had a lineup for an interactive thing you needed to ay extra for. The next room still int he Quatum section went through the history of Quantum Computers. They even used little Legos to create demonstrations for scale and size.
The last thing I will mention about the museum is the with big Earth. They have a huge planet hanging from the ceiling. You were able to see it from every floor. It was amazing. We took photos at eye level, as well as directly under it looking up. After the museum we headed over to the Gundam statue. It is a massive robot that is 65 feet tall. We saw it during the day as well as at night. During the day you could see all the details that they added to make it look as good as it did. At night, when it was dark, they had the Gundam light up. It was aboslutely incredible. There was also a set of stairs that light up at night and matched the statue. During the day, there was a music band playing. It seemed to be a place where a lot of people hungout and just had fun.
Behind the Gundam statue was the mall. We kind of just went around different floors and had fun looking at all the random things that they had. On this trip, McDonalds seemed to always be our resting location. They had AC and no one bothered us. While we were in the mall and it was getting late, we decided to get some dinner. This is when we came across a Sushi place. As we walked past the tables, we noticed that some had their plates stacked extremely high. This was an AYCE Sushi place. We weren't super hungry so we ordered indivual items. This Sushi place was a Sushi Train, well sort of... They had a little train and went back and forth delvering your meal. The train looked like the Bullet Train that we took earlier in the week. The food was amazing and the idea of a Sushi Train just makes so much sense. It was an amazing experience. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to rest up and get ready for the next day.
Once again, we got up early. It was a very productive morning. We went down to the basement of the hotel and did laundry. Well that was the idea until we realized all the machines were taken. Then Dana went into the Womans Bathing area and found a machine that cost more but was not in use. She put in all the clothes which gave us an hour and a half before we had to leave to get our rings made (more on that later). We went up to the second floor and got breakfast. Well it was actually ice cream because it was hot haha. Franklin needed to record his weekly AI News Sunday video and we thought it would be a good idea to go to the roof/pool room to record. When we got up there, the door was locked. So now we decided to go back to the room. Franklin got onto the wrong elvator, the door closed and Dana and Franklin were on different floors. When you got onto the elvator, it required you to tap your room card and then the floor number. Dana had the card, Franklin didn't. Franklin could only get to floor 18. He needed to get to floor 17. He waited for someone to tap their card and then he pressed the number behind them. He got to floor 18, then went to the other side of the elavator and went down to floor 17. Dana and Franklin were texting laughing while this was happening. Dana was still waiting for the elavator on the roof. The worst part about this experience? Franklin had his ice cream and no spoon. Dana had it. The hotel was hot and the ice cream was melting! They eventually agreed to meet down on the second floor where they would eat. Dana recorded Franklin in the hotel lobby/public spots for his video. We got our laundry and headed back to the room where we layed it all out. We were now ready to start our day outside of the hotel at least.
We had an appointment for 10:30 however on the way we saw an Apple store. We went inside to get some air. Franklin was looking at the Vision Pro when an employee came up to him to ask if he wanted to give it a try. He of course said sure and then realized he was filling out a whole form. Our appointment was only 4-5 minutes from the Apple store, so we had maybe 10 minutes. Dana sat and watched Franklin test it out. The vision pro was really cool. After cutting the demo brief, we headed off to our 10:30 appointment. Unfornately we were already running late and turned the wrong way/got a little lost on the way there. After being 10 minutes late we arrived.
We were making our own rings! For real this time. I didn't mention it prior but we went to a ring shop where you get to pick out your own ring material, the style and the finish and then you use tools to build your own rings. After going through the whole process we got a grand total of just over $2,000. We decided to spend that kind of money
thai I have been! We went to a Thai restaurant earlier today and there was a mystery meet that neither of us could figure out what it was. It was a really awesome flavor! I didn't like the texture too much but I figured I could eat it and I did eat a little bit
old temple
dana shoes
sushi train
Lovot
Mango
Tech area
Weird Vending corner
goldfish museum art
old temple today cant go in
pizza