In terms of travel, Japan’s been a pipe dream for quite a while. The initial appeal in primary school was most likely gaming, because….Nintendo. Pika pika, it’s a-me, Mario etc. You know. Some of the major video game BNOCs (big name on campus, for the uninitiated) were created within these hallowed grounds, and plenty of merchandise was produced to take advantage of this popularity. Heck, Japan had its own Pokémon Centres, albeit with no Nurse Joys. Although I’m kind of glad about that fact, because I discovered this apparent fetish in Japan with maid culture, which goes from cat toys dressed in maid outfits to events where you can hire maids for a certain amount of time, like a party. Odd. Very odd. Not to mention a generally strange dynamic between standard, fairly everyday items (in a large bookshop for example, books, children’s toys, clothes) that’s suddenly mixed with far less sanitary items (at the top floor, well…uh…all adult materials, materials which a child could feasibly access for a moment if unsupervised). Pretty creepy. Pretty weeny, as Patrick Star might say. Anyway, moving on.
That interest in Japan developed in a big way after watching films like Blade Runner, which borrowed much of its iconic visual palette from the Land of the Rising Sun. Japan seemed like a world apart from the country I grew up in (admittedly, it was raining for a decent amount of time in the Blade Runner world, so there’s a strong similarity to the UK there at least), and it needed a visit. I’m not much of a travel writer, but here a few details from the trip:
Solo Traveling
Japan marked my first experience doing solo travel, and my debut began with a bulky 13-and-a-half-hour trip. Preferable to a journey where I’d have to make changes and get anxious about which gate to go to, but still pretty epic. My first flight was cancelled (great job British Airways), but my second one went quite smoothly after getting past social difficulties (where is the seatbelt? Where is the headphone plug, dammit? Cue several minutes of searching and the passenger sitting next to me politely pointing out that it was just on the side of my seat. Wonderful.
Next comes the most important decision of the flight: the movie selection. There was a decent range of foreign movies I wanted to watch, but most didn’t have subtitles, unfortunately. So long, Decision To Leave, I’ll have to get round to watching you on a streaming service. I never got round to watching Top Gun: Maverick when it came out, so I thought I’d go for that. It is about planes, after all. It was definitely better than the first one, but I’m not sure what all the hype was about at the time. It’s not terrible, but it ain’t a classic either. Similar problems with lack of a defined plot (who are ‘the enemy’ meant to be?) and difficulty to connect with characters, but there’s a powerful cameo from Val Kilmer’s Iceman, which provides the film with a decent emotional heft at points.
Following that, the second choice was The Menu. Because, you know, there was technically a menu of sorts for dinner, it’s just that this menu only had two options. The food was decent. And the film was even better. Definitely had a sprinkling of Ari Aster in there, even though he didn’t direct it. Nicolas Hoult is on good, familiar form in a performance that mirrors previous buffoonish performances from The Great and The Favourite, and Ralph Fiennes puts in a solid effort as the intimidating head chef. Then I watched the first half of Crazy Stupid Love and got bored/tired (hey, I’ve seen it already. It’s fine, but not much more than that).
The return journey was less pleasant, mostly because I’d been gifted with a window seat this time instead of the aisle seat I was granted on the way in. Cue plenty of social awkwardness when I needed to access the toilet and the other two passengers were usually either asleep or had their boards out, causing further obstruction. To poke or not to poke? I’m not great with confrontation of any kind, so I generally just waited patiently until they were awake to scuttle past. Also, the guy in front of me was a bit of an a-hole since he had his seat back the whole time apart from meals, and I was also unable to work out how to push my own seat back, so I settled for swearing at the individual in front of me in my head. No confrontation, no drama. That’ll do just fine. The whole toilet awkwardness also encouraged me to restrain from drinking too much water, which is never a good thing. Always stay hydrated, otherwise you’ll risk becoming as dehydrated as Spongebob when he’s trying to survive in Sandy’s Treedome without the good stuff.
I didn’t really sleep on the first flight, so I settled myself in for a four-film extravaganza. The first entry was Tar, which I’d been meaning to watch last year and never got round to. Cate Blanchett’s great as always, and I don’t get how she’s barely aged since the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Next up was The Woman King, another banger with a stellar performance from Viola Davis. With two good films out of the way, I thought I’d treat myself to a stinker by finally watching The Godfather Part III for the first time. Admittedly not as bad as I was expecting, but compared to the previous two, it’s admittedly hot trash. To cleanse my palette, I finished off with a stone-cold classic: The Dark Knight. Not much to be said here; a genius slice of filmmaking from a director at the top of his game. Nice. A good travel experience overall, although I’m tempted to pay that annoying extra bit of cash next time to guarantee an aisle seat on both trips.
Chopsticks
Whoa! I can use chopsticks! Not to any professional level, mind, but I can use them. I hadn’t put in too much effort before arriving in Japan, but I can actually use them to a proficient level. Not bad.
Pokémon. Many Pokémon.
I knew there was going to be a tonne of Pokémon stuff around Japan, but gosh darn there’s a lot of Pokémon stuff. I did well to come back with only a few Pokémon-related souvenirs. I visited a few Pokémon Centres, and they were all suitably nerdy. Hearing the Pokémon Center music blaring over the whole place was nostalgic as hell, and although I didn’t buy much, I sure as hell took photos of a lot of stuff. The greatest tragedy was not getting into the Pokémon café, which apparently needs to be booked 30 days in advance. DISAPPOINTING. Anyway, we had dinner somewhere else. It’s FINE. I got one of those commemorative coin things from the coin machine, so that’s uhh…something. Similar experience with the Kirby café, which was also fully booked for a month. Madness. Anyway, I spent a decent amount of time perusing shops that were chock full of Pokémon cards and those capsule machines where you put in a few coins and you get a capsule with a figurine after turning a switch (not the greatest description, but hopefully you get the idea). Sad not to see anyone in Pokémon costumes to take photos with, but it is what it is. I also couldn’t find that fabled Pikachu donut from the store Mister Donut, which I learnt was only a limited time offer. Not surprised Pikachu face, SAD Pikachu face.
Super Nintendo World. DENIED.
Universal Studios Japan was pretty fun, even if a decent amount of the rides were closed. The Jurassic Park and Jaws rides were entertaining, as well as the Harry Potter one. The Snoopy ride was kind of underwhelming, but I probably should’ve anticipated that since it’s a kid’s ride. There was a live-action show which was very entertaining too. One of the main reasons for visiting this particular Universal Studios, however, was Super Nintendo World. But alas, no dice. They did have a balloting system which initially seemed a lot more diplomatic than a first come, first served system, but I realised that the system bans you from balloting more than once on a single day with a standard studio pass, thereby forcing you to either come back the next day to spend more money, or not go back at all.
You will be mine, Super Nintendo World. Just not this time around.
Getting lost.
No, not getting lost in the positive metaphorical sense where you ‘lose’ yourself in the glory of some experience or other. Getting lost in the sense that you can’t retrace a basic 10-minute route and end up getting lost for the better part of four hours and having no coherent idea of how to use Google Maps. Anyway…I got back eventually. Nevermind.
Rain?
Pretty much all the time was spent in sunny, hot, humid weather, with the exception of a day or two. One of these days was spent looking around a nice local folk museum, which was virtually empty. One of the nice things about the general atmosphere was the quiet vibes, which also extended to the hostel system, except for a few outspoken yobs (English guys and French guys. Wow. Unexpected. Sacre bleu!). I was suitably soaked by the end of the day, but we had some high-quality sushi for dinner (just about the first time I’ve had sushi, pretty much, and I wasn’t disappointed), so that made up for it.
Deer!
We spent a day in Nara, which was easily one of my highlights. Really easy, calm atmosphere compared to the big cities, and generally very laid back. Having been used to timid deer in this country, it was odd but certainly not unwelcome to come across a whole load of deer who didn’t really give a flying one if you were just casually walking nearby. You could even buy some biscuits for 200 yen to feed them. Adorable. One did bite my coat, but that’s about it on the violence front.
Dogen!
It looked like we weren’t going to make it to one of Japan’s famous dog cafes, but we got there in the end. While I was initially thinking of going to a Shibe-only place, this one had a whole variety of fellas who were all on good form despite it being near closing time (we got there 10 minutes before the place shut). Much cute, very memorable. Which goes for the trip as a whole. Very wholesome, enjoyable and would certainly go back again.