My trip to Japan!

The trip was scheduled for 10 days, two of which we would spend entirely on the plane, thanks to the incredible distance between Rome and Tokyo.

I've never been on such a long plane journey before, so the idea of spending 14 hours on a flying metal box made me a little nervous. Luckily some delays on Italian trains to get to the airport left me with a "good memory" of home.

When I landed in Tokyo, I had a panic attack. I was on the other side of the world, I didn't speak a word of the local language, and I had my gf to care for. Furthermore, my first interaction with a member of staff at the train station had made it clear to me that they didn't speak English.

It took us forever to get out of Ikebukuro Station, but we finally reached our hotel.

To celebrate our arrival in Japan and to avoid completely wasting our day (we arrived in the early afternoon), we decided to explore the neighborhood and stumbled upon Sunshine City, a gigantic shopping mall.

The mall (which will return several times in the story) was full of life-sized Pokemon including a statue of Rowlett that looked like a tomb, only later I discovered that the owl is the symbol of the neighborhood.

We had dinner there with our first all-Japanese meal: an omurice with a hamburger.

Jet lag kept us awake at 3 AM that night.

The first real day of vacation was headed to the Asakusa district, "an area of true Japanese tradition". Our itinerary was packed, and we left very early to avoid getting stuck in the crowds of tourists.

We reached the Sensō-ji temple and, like good tourists, we took pictures with the huge red lantern located under its gate.

From the photo the area looks empty, but it was 8 AM, within two hours it was filled with tourists

Exploring the surrounding area, we found a street full of statues dedicated to Tanuki, each statue bringing with it good luck in a different area of life (work, family, health...) and the famous Sanrio store with the giant Hello Kitty at the entrance, each product bringing with it the expense of many yen.

Sanrio window signs discourage taking photos from the middle of the road, as there have been several car accidents.

In the Nakamise shopping street we tasted traditional sweet potatoes, melonpan, eel onigiri and fish-shaped sweets filled with bean paste.

The food turned out to be delicious, but also extremely sweet, the flavors were very different from what I'm used to.

In the afternoon, we had a completely different experience by visiting the Akihabara district, much more modern than the previous one. According to good old Wikipedia, Akihabara is considered the center of Japanese otaku culture, and indeed, it immediately overwhelmed us with perfectly familiar colors and sounds.

I was desperately looking for a new Game Boy Color, since I'd heard they were much cheaper in Japan, but I was proven wrong after searching all the thrift shops. (Only when I got home did I discover that in Tokyo, and especially in Akihabara, the prices for used consoles are anything but cheap!)

Despite the disappointment, visiting the Super Potato store was incredible, especially the top floor with its arcade bar made me truly nostalgic for an era I never actually experienced.

New day, new district! This time we headed to Ginza for the fish market.

We had breakfast there with the best cuts of raw tuna I've ever eaten, definitely larger and cheaper than those you find in Japanese restaurants in Italy.

We also tried octopus and eel skewers and dango, but the tuna was unbeatable.

Even though we arrived very early, the market was packed with tourists (like us after all), and we had our first fateful encounter with another Italian couple. No one said anything, but it was like the famous Spider-Man pointing Spider-Man meme.

From the market we entered the heart of Ginza and once again the scenery changed completely, the neighborhood seemed extremely serious and professional, with huge buildings full of offices.

Our next stop was Ginza Tsutaya Books, a huge bookstore where we stocked up on art books we'd never found in Italy. The store was inside a huge mall, where we also had lunch.

The restaurant, besides looking very elegant, was full of businessmen, which made us feel a little out of place, but once again the food was very good and definitely worth it.

The last events of the day were a visit to a huge stationery shop and the Ni-Tele Really Big Clock show.

The clock, designed by Hayao Miyazaki, comes to life every few hours, and its statues and mechanisms begin to move to the tune of a melody. Of course, we got the time wrong, and we had to return to see it a second time later that day...

The fourth day was entirely dedicated to a trip outside the big city, in fact we left Tokyo to head to Kamakura, to visit a complex of various temples.

I think it's important to mention that at this point of the trip I felt more safe and confident moving around by Japanese public transport than by Rome's metro.

The first site we reached was that of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, where this gigantic statue was waiting for us.

The inside of the statue is empty and accessible, but I confess it's not as exciting as it sounds.

Soon after we headed towards the countless temples around there, each shining with its own piece of history and peculiarities, but certainly the most beautiful was the Sasuke Inari Shrine: located on a mountain at the end of a long path through torii gates and covered with fox statues.

Although they were fascinating, all those fragile fox figurines constantly exposed to the elements made the collector inside me tremble.

While visiting the temples, we had a lovely interaction with a group of school children who needed to practice their English. They asked us where we were from and what our favourite anime was!

What struck me most about my day in Kamakura was the landscape. Walking among the houses near the forest reminded me a lot of the small town where my grandparents live in Italy (and where I spent many summers as a child). It was a breath of fresh air after the chaos of the city.

The fifth day started with rain...

Our first destination of the day was Shinjuku and I have mixed feelings about this district: visiting it early on a Saturday morning, with the rain and the garbagemans cleaning up the streets from the Friday night mess certainly didn't help me like it.

However, the huge augmented reality screen with the cat and Godzilla head poking out of the skyscrapers certainly made it interesting.

After some more thrift shop hunting (yes, I still hadn't given up on finding a cheap Game Boy Color), we headed to Hook, a small ramen place we'd seen recommended on Instagram reels.

Maybe it was the gloomy weather, maybe I was just recovering from the stomach ache of the day before, but I assure you that the ramen I ate at Hook was the best ramen I've had in Japan (and consequently in the world).

The day continued with a visit to Club Meteor, where the "My Famicase Exhibition" was on display, including my piece! I chatted with the organizer, Satoshi Sakagami, and bought some merchandise, but for more information, I refer you to my other page: My Famicase Exhibition!

The day ended with a tour of the vintage shops in the Koenji district, where I found many interesting books (which once again I would never have found in my country).

We didn't want to admit it, but the weight of so many early morning wake-ups and days spent walking was starting to take its toll...

The day before ended with us feeling exhausted and the thought of getting up again at dawn to reach Odaiba didn't appeal to me, but what I didn't know was that I was going to have a wonderful day!

The first place we visited on the artificial island of Odaiba was the "Small World" museum: a gigantic complex full of miniatures!

Entire worlds rebuilt down to the most minute detail, and the icing on the cake? An entire area dedicated to Neon Genesis Evangelion!

An entire NeoTokyo sinking into the ground during the first Angel's attack. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried at the sight of so much incredibleness.

The museum was sponsored by a sausage brand, and after winning a free sausage by finding all the characters hidden in the dioramas, we decided to have lunch there. A huge screen was showing a Vocaloid concert. We had finally become Japanese!🤪

The second attraction of the day was the enormous Unicorn Gundam.

To get there, we crossed a park where a marathon was taking place. It's really weird to say something like that, but it really felt like an episode of an anime.

Behind the Gundam, there is another giant shopping mall that obviously attracted us with the power of capitalism.

Odaiba is also the district where the protagonists of Digimon Adventure come from, and there are actually many places that also appear in the anime, such as the Fuji TV headquarters, with its iconic sphere!

We woke up at dawn again to reach Shibuya and in particular the "Peanuts Cafe'" where we ate some fluffy pancakes inspired by the characters of the famous cartoon.

My strawberry Snoopy pancake was way better than my girlfriend's mango Charlie Brown pancake, but she'll never admit it!

Breakfast was followed by the obligatory visit to Shibuya Crossing, which, as the name suggests, is just a huge crossing... and a trip to Shibuya 109, the shopping mall atop which Sailor Moon fought so many of her battles.

For lunch we had the viral Volcano Burger Omurice, which was worth the hour-long queue.

And we ended the day by visiting the Gotokuji Temple, dedicated to cats!

For our second day out of Tokyo we headed to Yokohama, where two museums awaited us.

The first is the Ramen Museum, a huge complex (I know I've used this expression a lot, but really, everything was huge) divided into two floors: the ground floor traces the history of ramen in various regions of Japan and houses a workshop where you can create your own personalized bowl of ramen; the much more interesting basement, on the other hand, houses a set of 20th-century Tokyo, and on every corner is a traditional ramen restaurant.

Our goal was obviously to try as many ramen as possible, but after the second bowl we had to give up!

The second one had this little spicy ball in the middle that had to be mixed into the ramen a little at a time. Convinced I was immune to Japanese spiciness, I mixed it all in at once, making the ramen extremely spicy and very difficult to finish!

The second museum was the "Doll Museum" which alternated a historical exhibition with a more recent one dedicated to magical girl toys.

It's incredible how many emotions simple pieces of plastic convey to me.

Before leaving Yokohama we visited Chinatown, where unfortunately we tasted some bao which are at the bottom of the list of things I have eaten in Japan.

This time it wasn't the early morning wake-up call that hurt, but the thought that it would be one of the last before returning to "real life".

With one last day to spare we headed to the "Fujiko f Fujio Museum", dedicated to the couple who created numerous iconic manga such as Doraemon and Kaibutsu-kun

The museum, in addition to preserving countless original manga panels, housed a collection of life-size statues of the characters and various activities/workshops for children.

Doraemon is an extremely old manga and yet its legend lives on today, seeing the museum crowded with children made me a little emotional (I'm a snowflake, I know)

The buses to get to the museum from the station were all themed!

Remember Sunshine City, the mall from day 1? At the top of the building, there's an entire aquarium full of fish and exotic animals! For our last adventure, my girlfriend and I took a romantic date to the aquarium (just like in anime! Kawaii! 🌟Sugoi!🌟)

The date ended in a Sesame Street-themed bar, the most romantic place in the world!

On the last day we left Japan with tears in our eyes and returned to Italy.

It was a wonderful holiday that I hope to repeat one day. There are still so many things to see.