So, I came back from Japan on Sunday morning. Still feeling a bit jet lagged, but I'm back at work. Anyways, I felt like sharing some of the things about Japan that I experienced while I was there. We were staying directly in Akihabara in a very nice location. We had no complaints at all about the hotel, except for our last night when someone who got the floor wrong somehow opened our door with his card late at night. Luckily I was still awake at the time, but it was a tad concerning. Anyways, here it goes.
1. The Japanese are the most polite people you will ever meet: Canadians are known for being polite. We are nowhere CLOSE to the Japanese. Everyone we dealt with was extremely friendly and if we needed help, they were more than happy to assist us. If they struggled with English, they would help direct us to someone that could help us. Tokyo is full of energy, and it was infectious.
2. English is their second language: While not everyone speaks it that well, I'd say it's comparable to how most people that live in Ontario know a basic level of French, since they are neighbours with Quebec. Almost all of the signs had English on them as well, which made everything super easy. And while we may have had to communicate more slowly or use more simple words, almost everyone understood us perfectly. This was my first time being in a country that speaks a foreign language, so I was surprised at how easy it was to get by. I know enough Japanese for basic greetings and thank yous and such, which they appreciated.
3. Their food is absolutely delicious: Even their Western style foods are better than ours! We had some of the best pizza ever there, and their KFC in Akihabara was so amazing we ate there three times. I only WISH ours tasted as good back home. Also, I normally dislike rice entirely but their rice is incredible. Also had some ramen while I was there, and it was awesome.
4. Plushies are hard to find: So, my girlfriend and her kids love plushies. Her daughter was hoping we could find a Pain and Konan (from Naruto) plushie while we were there, but we had no luck whatsoever. If we did find plushies, they weren't in specific spots. Like, we never found a floor or store that was devoted to plushies. Figures were easy to find though, and we got some really amazing figures for WAYYYY cheaper than they would be back home. I saw a Ren plushie that I wanted at one store, but it was display only.
5. Card Shops are EVERYWHERE in Akihabara: We visited some other places besides and didn't find any, but in Akihabara itself, there was sooooo many card shops. One tower we went to, I swear there was like four or five different card shops. Some of them mainly sold singles, and we would see display case after display case of cards for sale, all for very affordable prices. Since there's so many, they are constantly competing with each other, making the prices very cheap. It'd be so much cheaper to play Vanguard in Japan. What surprised me though was that most of these card shops had no playing space and only sold cards. Sadly, there's no way a store like that could thrive where I live (and I'm sure where most people live). I was almost disappointed in Card Kingdom though. I was expecting it to be a huge store, but it was just a simple outdoor shop with shelter and only one playing table (which had a Buddyfight playmat on it). Seeing Vanguard ads everywhere was pretty cool though. I mainly bought Bushiroad sleeves for like 500-700 yen a piece, since they are like $20+ back home and I have to order them online, though I did manage to find the Ren Legend Deck Carrying Case and Deck Box for sale, which I bought. I could have bought the Ren sleeves too, but I decided to go with the Blaster Dark Diablo sleeves instead. (the actual Legend Deck was sold out EVERYWHERE.)
6. Everything is so Vibrant: Everything just felt so "alive" to me when I was there. Even their ads were incredible and often funny.
7. I Never Felt Lost in the Crowd: With how many people in Tokyo there is, I was worried that I'd feel lost in the crowd of people. But that was never the case. Even the transit (which was AMAZING) didn't feel too overcrowded, with their train cars having like 10-11 cars per train and coming every few minutes.
8. Love Live is HUGE over there: Yeah, there was Love Live stuff EVERYWHERE in Akihabara. Another popular one was an anime called Yokai Watch, and Assassination Classroom, but I had never heard of either of them until we got there. Some anime stuff was next to impossible to find though.
9. MELON SODA!!!: WHY DON'T WE HAVE THIS BACK HOME?! IT'S SO GOOD!
10. Smoking is more Common, but more Regulated: So yeah, cigarettes are super easy to get a hold of in Japan. There was even vending machines that sold it, no ID required (there was also a vending machine that sold alcohol in our hotel). But, practically all of Akihabara was a no smoking zone. Some restaurants had smoking sections, but we just stayed in the non-smoking sections and were fine. When we went to Shibuya, they had rules that you couldn't smoke and walk and if you smoked you had to do so in specific designated areas near an ash tray thing.
So yeah. One funny thing that happened. We were trying to get into the Final Fantasy Cafe. The first day we went, they were sold out, and we were told to come back at around 11 in the morning the next day. We didn't have time the next few days, but we came back on my GF's birthday at 11, only to find that it was sold out entirely for the whole day again somehow. We were disappointed, and were wandering around Akihabara wondering what to do now, when I suddenly noticed a sign out of the corner of my eye. My girlfriend and her kids are huge Naruto fans, and a Naruto themed cafe had JUST opened up that day literally an hour ago, and was a limited time only thing until the end of June. We couldn't believe our luck and the timing of it all (That's where we had Ramen too).
Another crazy thing that happened was that literally a day or two after we visited Hakone, there was volcanic activity on the mountain there.
There was also some kind of Shinto festival I think going on in Akihabara the last few days we were there. We weren't sure what was going on, but there was parades in the streets and everyone was full of energy and it was incredible to watch.
So yeah. My final verdict is that Japan is the most magical and beautiful place I've ever been to, and the Japanese people are extremely lucky to live there. I can't wait until we go back again, and we were both very sad to have to leave.