The Small Eastern Experiment
#14842
i absolutely adore the thatched roofs, thanks again for the wonderful photos aery. those mountains look incredible
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#14880
i have the sudden urge to perform wet rice farming
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#15019
Tokyo post a bit later than planned but unexpected things happened this weekend. sumimasorry.

Took the earliest Kagayaki Shinkansen from Kanazawa to Tokyo on Saturday.
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When we arrived at Tokyo big station it was very not crowded and looked a lot like a western central station, sadly the weather was kinda ass but still very mild for right after/during typhoon that was apparently around Tokyo.
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Hotel view not much but tenth floor very high up
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After having checked in and dropped luggage in our rooms, we went to explore the surrounding area, namely Akasaka and Roppongi. The first shrine we saw was the Hie Temple 日枝神社. Kinda funny how it had escalators to the top of the small hill.
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In true Arysil fashion part of it was under construction
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After that we went to Roppongi hills from where we could see a pretty nice view of Tokyo and also saw the Tokyo Tower, which gave us the idea to go up there that evening.
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Atop of the tower it was very hard to get good pictures of Tokyo because of all the reflections in the windows, but I luckily got one good shot.
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When we descended down the tower, we came past a shop where they had some Hololive stuff so I had to look and found a Suisei clearfile so I bought that, which sparked a funny interaction with the store clerk.
Clerk: OOOOOOH SUISEI CHAN
Me: ichiban kawaikute ii aidoru dayone
The the clerk was pushing me and laughing in a funny manner to agree after which he started asking me a few things in japanese. Such as where Im from, if I live in Japan and if Im a student. I should have asked his LINE because he was a funny nice dude.
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The next day we started of with Akihabara. Its a fun place but definitely nothing special and not up to the hype.
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In the afternoon we decided to go to the other high place in Tokyo, being the Skytree. At the foot of the structure there was a huge square with all kinds of entertainment happening. For example a guy doing handstands on very high or antoher guy doing magic.

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Later that night i decided to walk around in the neighbourhood of the hotel a bit more. And to my surprise it was very quiet and calm while still in huge city Tokyo.
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The following day we walked around a bit in Ueno park before going to Odaiba for the Teamlab exhibition.
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Arriving in Odaiba i had to first see the big gundam man
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Then we took the monorail to Where Teamlab was. In the monorail there was a SPoon 3 ad.
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If i line up now i might get to see something during comiket
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The exhibition was an experience to say the least. It involved water a lot of light and a lot of modern very weird stuff.
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a bit of feet involved for funtime

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Then it was already nighttime when we got out, so we decided to eat something near the gundam. Which looked very good at nighttime.
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Also the funny love live nijigasaki episode 1 stairs are behind the gundam.
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Next day we first went to the oldest zoo of Japan, Ueno zoo, which is famous for its twin pandas. I wanted to see them, but the queue for that was 2 hours+ so i decided to give up on that. The zoo was really nice outside of the fact that all the living areas for the animals were very small.
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Then we went to Asakusa with the funny big balloon thing
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I asked some Japanese girls to take a picture of me and the group i was with. When they agreed we went behind one of those cardboard boards with the faces cut out to stick your face through. Me being the biggest rizzler, stuck my head in the lowest one to the ground and then they laughed a lot. Again i should have asked for their LINE but i did not.

Later that day i found the One Piece
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also really fun advertisement
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With the weather turning we decided to visit one more thing and then make our way back. We went to the 両国国技館 ryougoku kokugikan. One of the most prominent and important Sumo arenas.
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Next day we Started the day off by going to the Imperial Palace gardens, which were very very huge.
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Then we walked further north to the 武道館 budokan. Where all the other Japanese martial arts big things happen, as well as a lot of concerts and olympic games things.
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The somewhat controversial Yasukuni shrine was close by so we decided to visit that too. It has controversy around it because the shrine is used to honour fallen soldiers during a lot of wars. While this in itself isn't a bad thing i think, this did spark the controversy because prime ministers kept visiting a shrine that also honoured war criminals (included with all other soldiers who just obeyed orderds). But putting that aside, the complex was very beautiful to see.
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After this point pictures were not allowed out of respect. But it was a very serious and different atmosphere compared to other temples.
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After we ate a bit, we went inside the Tokyo war museum.
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Besides the main hall where the train and the plane was, pictures were not allowed. But to keep it brief, a lot of items were shown. In the last few halls it was filled with pictures of soldiers and also with letters to families of soldiers who got the orders to do a suicide attack. A lot of the soldiers still had a lot of regrets and apologized to their families for not having been there in the last few years. Even though i was aware of that soldiers of a country dont always have a choice but to follow orders and that they themselves arent necessarily bad. But reading these letters made me realize this again with actual proof.

On the way to the next destination i took this picture
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Then we went to the Meiji Jingu, this temple was very small but in a very big park. Also had two funny round trees
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After that we went quickly through Shinjuku just to have seen that part of Tokyo. I think it was my least favourite part, not necessarily because of that it is mostly just party places clubs etc, but because it was so dirty everywhere. Felt very different to other places in Tokyo that were fairly clean. We saw the giant 3D cat advertisement and The big godzilla head and then pretty much went back to the hotel to just relax.
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Next day we went a bit further to the outskirts of tokyo to a very small Ghibli Totoro themed cafe
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After that we went to what probably is my favourite place in Tokyo. Shibuya, while I cant really explain why, I just felt very at home and just really enjoyed the general atmosphere in Shibuya.
The funny shibuya crossing wasnt that crowded while i took the picture, but later when we went back it was almost like the pictures you see online.
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Hachiko dog
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Visited the one piece store i felt like a little kid was fun to see.


Following day we went to the National Museum of Nature and Science. While walking there we encountered a large group of i assume middle schoolers who started waving to me and yelling YOOOOOO and konnichiwa. When i waved back and yelled konnichiwa they all started going crazy and wild. Very fun interaction that they enjoyed a foreigner saying konnichiwa.
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After this I havent taken any pictures anymore of the tokyo trip, but there was one more day after this where we went up Tokyo Tower again in the hopes that the weather was clear enough to see Mount Fuji, but unfortunately we couldnt.

All in all i really enjoyed Tokyo a lot even though i haven't done all the things i wanted to. I still want to go to Enoshima aquarium and a lot of other things, but Tokyo is just too big even for a 9 day trip. So I will definitely return here one day.

以上です


oh yeah last day before we had the shinkansen home, i gave my umbrella to a maid who was flyering in akiba. next time i will rizz up more
hosimati suisei please

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#15020
arysil walking around tokyo at night and meets a certain woman and becomes a vampire. That teamlab thing was pretty neat and relaxing. The guy doing the stilt hand stand thing was giving me anxiety, how does that man even practice. Also that studio ghibli themed cafe looked so comfy. Arysil is really good at taking nice scenic pictures capturing the entire moment. Lets run into shibuya crossing while singing susume tomorrow ok!
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#15021
sora lets block traffic at shibuya crossing
hosimati suisei please

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#15030
that a6m zero :love: and that ghibli place looks really really really gezellig
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#15032
was a really gezellig spot yeah
hosimati suisei please

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#15095
finally got a chance to look at this post on a decent connection, and man i was not disappointed. seeing the juxtaposition of the more traditional architecture among skyscrapers is absolutely remarkable, especially as well-executed as it is in this city. the landscaping is incredible, something that i so rarely see done well in cities i almost completely forget about it until i see an exception. the imperial garden especially looks like a beautiful place to spend time reflecting, have a very definite soft spot for well maintained public gardens. it's hard to believe those pictures you took from high vantage points looking out into the distance and seeing nothing but the sprawling expanse of city, not once in my entire life have i seen such a thing as that and it seems truly peculiar. the zoo seemed especially pleasant to visit as well

the explanations were very much appreciated, thank you. my favorite photo is the frog fountain because i love frog statues, ESPECIALLY frog statues that spit water. also reimu spotted
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#15913
We have finally stopped being regarded and will make the concluding post about the short, but very cool nice eye opening life experience.

Having come back from Tokyo, the amount of pictures has decreased, but the ones i took are of pretty quality i like to think.


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This picture was taken on the outskirts of Kanazawa, only accesible with a very small 1 wagon tram. Even at this point it still amazed me how much trust is put in citizens following the rules. Because the fare payment is nowhere checked. You just dump some coins in a basket and that is it.



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Even though im not really fond of sushi, i couldn't have left Japan without having atleast eaten it once. So i went to the funny kaitenzushi回転寿司 which had mini shinkansens bringing your plates. The colourcoded plates made it so at payment they could quickly see how much you had to pay.


A sudden invitation to "The laughing mountains" came and i decided to just go for the fun of it. It was a really early and long day, but we had a lot of fun. It was in a very not touristic part, Natadera (Kaga Onsen) and Yunokuni no Mori. Having to get to and from the Natadera we had to go with a taxi, so we had fun little conversations with the driver. Both times we got the same one. At the Natadera we got to talk to a monk from there and he was really surprised to see people from the Netherlands who could speak Japanese. He also really liked that we called it the Laughing mountains, apparently he never heard that before.
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tiny monky
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Unfortunately The Small Eastern Experiment came to an end and we had to return. Having spend the night before having to have fully cleaned my room and packed my bags drinking and doing karaoke, the busride to Osaka went by in a blink of the eye. The one picture i took in the bus shows the not so good weather at the time. Which however did make for a nice scenery image.
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Having arrived in Osaka, we dumped our stuff in the hotel and decided to still explore a tiny bit of Osaka during the evening. I feel like Osaka is a very weird city, where all the weird things are just seen as normal. Like a hanging cow or spiderman on your roof.
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We had still a day of free time left so we decided to go to Universal Studios. I'm not really a theme park person, but the idea of going to Super Mario land was appealing so i said fuck it we ball. SADLY we didn't manage to get the extra ticket for mario land, which had to be acquired at the front gate. It was booked full sadly. But regardless it was a fun day even though it rained a Lot.
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I became a Minion.!
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And then, the day of flying home arrived. We had to check in around 1600(?) i think, so we made a small trip to a nice temple (pictures prohibited) before chilling at the airport. It had a really steep and round bridge in front of the entrance. (saw some people trip)
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Arriving at the airport, the luggage drop off queue was very long. Luckily going through the border and invalidating the residence card went way faster and smoother than when we first arrived in Japan.
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After a 3 hour flight to Taiwan and then a 17 hour flight to Amsterdam (very delayed because someone had to be put off the plane), i was back in the Netherlands.
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All in all I REALLY liked my stay in Japan. It confirmed for me that i at least want to try living there for a significant amount of time. Not sure yet if i would like to live there for the rest of my life and if i want to raise children there, but those are issues i will figure out later in life.
Did i miss anything about the Netherlands? Frankly no. But i have not been gone long enough for that to really experience that.

What do i miss about Japan, currently now (3months after coming back)?
Quite a lot. I managed to live a very quiet yet lively life there. Being surrounded by nature, but not being so far away from a city that im isolated was a really nice feeling. Another thing i miss is the convenience of the convenience store :haha: While not a necessity, it made the very small fridge not a problem.

終わり
hosimati suisei please

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#17028
current plans for reviving this thread:
- summer 2025 holiday
- hopefully move and work there around summer/fall 2025
hosimati suisei please

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