ご無沙汰ですorz

Dear diary,
My current trip to Japan has been way more tiring and busy than I'd ever imagined beforehand so that's why I've been neglecting to update the recent events. But somehow I expected I might not be able to update this blog daily like earlier because of our schedule but still it took me as a bit of a surprise.

In a nutshell I met some Minami's friends in Osaka and we went to Umeda sky building with them. I couldn't go to JUOLA's university because he was sick the day I was supposed to go there and time was running up already. I also went to Kyoto to see a few sights, Fushimi Inari being the most important one. But I saw less sights in Kyoto than I'd planned because of the awful weather and really tiring Fushimi Inari tour, we had to climb around the mountain path for 3-4 hours.
After Kyoto we checked out from our Osaka's apartment and headed over to Hiroshima, in where we saw the atom bomb sights including A-bomb dome, museum, park and children memorial. The museum itself was really moving and thought provoking, a really important experience overall. And before Beppu we did a short day trip in Fukuoka, nothing much to say about that than there were people preparing for the Yamakasa festival which meant people walking on the street wearing only a shirt and fundoshi.
Now that we arrived to Beppu on yesterday we have just been on a "more relaxed vacation" having no other plans to just go to some onsen occasionally and just relax. We are going to be around Beppu till 14th morning when we will travel all the way from here to Tokyo.

Day 5: Visit to Kyoto's Hanazono university with Imai sensei.

Today on the 5th day of travel me and Kake (Joni and Jenni wanted to stay together at the apartment) went to Kyoto's Hanazono university to meet Imai-sensei which I met in Desucon 2009 and 2010. We were in Kyoto's Emmachi station around 14:45 and soon Imai came to meet us. At first we Kake tried to withdraw some money out of his credit card's debit account but unfortunately it can't be done here in Japan. So after that we went to Hanazono university and Imai showed us some videos his students had made from their 2009 and 2010 Desucon trips. Hanazono's university looked really modern and clinical, like some kinda modern hospital. After looking some DVDs we tried to search for the students who were in Desucon but apparently they got scared of us and ran away or something lol. So we went to Imai's home and he phoned some of his students. We cooked some okonomiyaki and soon 3 of his (former) students arrived to his house: Chaba, Rei and Miyuki. We watched some anime from Imai's video projector and ate a lot of good okonomiyaki, I also had a couple of chuhais too. Around 21:00 it was time to head back to Noda, Rei and Miyuki walked with us to the bus station and I encouraged them to come to Finland again someday. ^^ Then we said also goodbye to Imai but I'm meeting him at Desucon 2011 because apparently he's coming there then too. After I arrived to our apartment I did some laundry and now it's time to get some sleep.

Tomorrow I'll go to JUOLA's campus area to meet some of his fellow schoolmates. I'm looking forward on getting some new friends and contacts there!

Day 4: Umi ga suki!

On the 4th day we went to a big beach party arranged by JUOLA's Japanese friend Tomo. We went to the Nikinohama beach and there were a bunch of people grilling hamburgers already. We drank and ate a lot and I also went swimming for the first time in this summer, the water had some seaweed floating around but was otherwise nice. I also did some sumo wrestling at the beach with JUOLA and Joni for the lolz but unfortunately lost to both of em. I also enjoyed talking to different Japanese people in Japanese and I must say the people in Osaka are really nice, one of the greatest people I've met! Kake and Joni both drank a lot and both also passed out for a while to the party place. We finally went back to our apartment around 22:00.

Day 2&3: Namba (with JUOLA)

So on the 2nd day in Osaka we first met up with our friend Hiro and headed over to Namba, we were about to spend the day in that area. We went to eat lunch at Yoshinoya and the gyuudon of Yoshinoya was as great as always! Then we killed some time in arcade and I went to Denden town's hoppy shop Vanilla before it was time to meet up with JUOLA and Robert. Then we sat together in a cafe for some time and did all the introductions between each other, after a while it was time to visit the infamous military/nazi store JUOLA told us about. We went to the Shinsaibashi shopping street and the store was somewhere around there, Kake bought a whip from there lol.
Then it was time to get some beer and food so we went to Shaky's pizza restaurant, it had 60 minutes all you can drink buffet and 2 hour pizza buffet. Then some more JUOLA's schoolmates joined our group and there was more than 10 people from at least 8 different nationalities in our group. We had a great time at Shaky's and made a quite lot of noise there too. Kake even broke his whip because they decided to have some kind of "whipping endurance contest" in the middle of Shaky's, people were watching em goin at it and I was kinda embarrassed because of them to be honest. ^^; Then me, Joni and Jenni decided to leave back to our apartment and Kake stayed with the rest of the guys. On the way back we went to arcade because I wanted to play some pop'n music and on the way there were met some Saudi-Arabian guy who asked if we are from Finland and are we playing in a band.
So we went back to our apartment and Kake was still somewhere on the next day's morning. Later I heard he had lost his memory due drinking and he actually woke up from a park in Izumi (JUOLA's neighbourhood) all alone and with JUOLA's bag with him. He finally found JUOLA's apartment and stayed there for some time before coming back to our apartment, what a crazy guy he is.

On the 3rd day (yesterday) I went alone to Denden town and did some sightseeing and shopping there. I bought some anim related goods like Fate/Stay Night's Saber bath towel and K-On! folding fan. When I got hungry I decided to go to a maid cafe and it was a fun experience though way too expensive, I almost felt I got robbed back there. The maids sang an introduction song when I got seated down and some maids came to chat with me. I ordered omurice and when I got it, one of the maids wrote my name and drew a cat and pawns to my omurice with ketchup. After that I had no daily budget left so I headed back to our apartment and there was Hiro waiting for me with Joni and Jenni. Hiro left quite soon after that and Kake finally came back. I fell asleep way too early, around 21:30 and woke up a couple of hours ago around 2:30. When I'm writing this the time's around 5:00 and I'm not feeling sleepy anymore, I guess the jetlag is quite bad for me this time... Today we're going to the big beach party arranged by some Japanese schoolmate of JUOLA, I'm looking forward on that!

Day 1: arrival and meetup with Jonas

I arrived to Kansai airport and got pretty fast through all the checks and got my luggage. Then I headed over to Noda station first and trie to call to my landlord so I could get keys to the apartment. Well it turned out the apartment would be ready by 14:00 and the time was 11:30 currently so I headed over to Osaka station and tried to look for a coin locker. Of course all the big lockers were already reserved so I travelled farther to Shin-Osaka but couldn't find any lockers there. So I just went and sat down to one of the sofas in the lobby aread there and waited for time to pass. By this time I was getting worried about my fellow travellers because I hadn't heard anything from em and their mobile phones were turned off. Well when I went back to Noda they were already waiting for me there and their told me their mobile phones aren't working here in Japan. And I heard some bad news for starters; they had lost their JR passes somewhere in China and one of the three travellers have had stomach pains for 4 days so we had to look for a doctor.
We met our landlord Masa and headed to our apartment. The apartment is really small for us 4 but otherwise clean and in a good place. Masa tried to look for an english speaking doctor but we couldn't find one so we decided we're gonna go to a Japanese speaking doctor the next day with Hiro acting as a translator there. We hanged around a bit in our apartment and I went to shower, and around 17:30 it was time to head over to Osaka/Umeda to meet Jonas.
I arrived to Osaka station's Central north exit and there I met Jonas, we were about to head over to an arcade for some rhythm game action. Turns out Jonas had a poor sense of direction and we ended up wandering around Umeda for some time before we finally found Loft department store and next to it was the arcade. I played some beatmaniaIIDX, pop'n music and taiko no tatsujin and I pretty much sucked in all of em like usually on the first days of arrival. After arcade we went to a cafe and from there to Loft mall. On the 5th floor of Loft there was all kinda crazy character/party goods and we had a fun time browsing through all the weird stuff there. Then after that we went to meet Jonas'es girlfriend Minami and all 3 of us went to eat some okonomiyaki, Minami knew a famous okonomiyaki place near Osaka station. The okonomiyaki there was heavenly good, one of the best I've had! After eating okonomiyaki it was time to head back over to our apartment to get some sleep.
Today we're meeting with Hiro and Antti and we are going to Namba to browse around and some drinking.

Prelude: epic failing

So I started my journey by going to my friend's birthday party&midsummer celebration to Kokkola which is around 250 kilometers from my home. I had a great time with bunch of friends there and was about to go to Helsinki with one of my friends' car ride. On the way to Kokkola from Helsinki one of the tires in their car had broken down and they had to struggle the rest of the trip with a spare wheel. But they got a proper replacement tire in Kokkola thanks to our host friend's father.

So we headed towards Helsinki yesterday when after 100 kilometers of driving we noticed ANOTHER tire had broken down. So we had to change the car's spare wheel with the broken one and try to manage with that setup. But as somehow expected, all the tires of that car were on the verge of breaking down so of course the third wheel started to act up too and our trip came to a halt. We had to leave our car somewhere between Seinäjoki and Jalasjärvi. Then our friend picked us and we tried to board the last train bound from Seinäjoki to Helsinki BUT of course it was already fully booked by that time. So what we decided to do was to head over to our friend's place (who lives near Seinäjoki) and sleep the night over there, he got us a deal for a set of wheels with a fairly cheap price.
So today we woke up, got the spare set of tires and headed over to the place we had left the car to change the tires. The tires were luckily a match (they were previously from a different car than the one we had) and we finally could continue towards Helsinki. I finally arrived to my ex apartment in Helsinki and tomorrow I'm gonna go buy some souvenirs. Then the day after tomorrow it's finally time to fly to Japan!

This was also blogged by our driver Drasa, from the staff of Desucon (in Finnish)

A new beginning 新しい旅

So a lot of things have happened since my last trip to Japan, mainly the surgery operation because of my spinal disc herniation and all the rehabilitation that's been related to it. But on a positive note I just ordered a flight ticket to Japan and this marks the start of a new journey!
This time there is gonna be 3 fellow Finns from my hometown Oulu travelling along with me: Joni, his girlfriend Jenni and Kake. They are spending whole June in China from where they will travel by a ferry from Shangai to Osaka. My flight arrives to Osaka's Kansai International airport on the 1st of July at 08:55 and my flight back to Finland departs from Tokyo Narita airport on the 27th of July at 12:00. We've ordered a 7 day Japan Rail Pass between 8th-14th of July and our travel plan is as follows:
- Osaka 1st-7th July
- Kyoto 8th-9th July
- Hiroshima 10th July
- Kyuushu (Beppu and/or Fukuoka) 11th-13th July
- Tokyo 14th-27th July

This time my aim is to see other parts of Japan too besides Tokyo which include Kyoto's most famous sightseeing spots, Hiroshima's peace memorial park and the famous atom bomb museum. Also I'm really looking forward to experincing the beaches of Japan, lots of different onsens and at least one 'traditional summer festival' (夏祭り).
Originally I was planning for stay all the way till around 17th-19th August because of the coming Comic Market 78 (in August 13-15th). But since I didn't have enough funds for it, I settled for the same time as my friends are staying in Japan. Even then I have 3½ weeks to make the summer of 2010 one of the most memorable ever!

Day 15: Back to Finland.

I woke up at 7:00 and we checked out from the hotel at 8:00. The weather was very cloudy and it somehow fit the depressing leaving day. The walk from hotel to train station and from station to another was hell and I almost lost a feeling of my right arm while carrying all the heavy luggage. The airport hassle went pretty smoothly as expected from Narita and we were on the airport right on time. The plane ride was boring, I watched some Family Guy and listened to the music I bought from Tokyo. We arrived to Helsinki around 15:15, got our luggage and then we finally were back to Helsinki. It's tuesday the 12nd, 7:35 as I'm writing this and I still have to go back to Oulu by train. My train leaves at 9:30 and I'm supposed to be back in Oulu at 15:15. Then my journey will finally be over...

Day 14: The last day

At the beginning of our last trip I went to Harajuku to buy the last souvenirs I still had to buy for my friends. Takeshita street was as annoying as ever but I managed to buy the things I needed. After that I wanted to check if there were anything interesting at Yoyogi park so I headed over there and bought some takoyaki on the way. I the famous rockabilly group there and sat down at the bench near them to have some takoyaki for lunch. Takoyaki was okay, nothing too special and after I eating I walked around the yoyogi park. There were some actors rehearsing around the park and it was kinda interesting to see em do that. Then it was time to leave Harajuku and go to Akihabara one last time. I went to the arcade at first and met Laggy there by chance. Then I decided it was finally time to enter one of those famous maid cafes with Laggy. We tried to go to Nagomi and @home cafes first but those were full so we went to a cafe called Popopure. I ordered a "traditional maid cafe dish" called omurice and it was surprisingly good, reminded me of risotto. And of course I took a pic with one of the maids there, it's so hilarious I have to scan it asap. :D Then it was time for some last minute shopping around Akiba and before going back I went to play some arcade games one last time. I finally managed to clear the Area 88 game too, cost me 4 credits and totally worth it. On my way back to hotel I bought some melonsoda and candy as a souvenir for myself and then it was time to get some sleep at hotel because the following day was gonna be rough: going back to the airport with all the stuff I had with me...

Day 13: Goi, Chiba.

The 2nd last day of our trip we went to pay a visit to our friend Qward's hometown area which was a place called Goi in Chiba. We took a bit under 2 hour train ride there and arrived to Goi station around 13:00. From there Qward drove us to his home with his car and we greeted his mother and little sister there. Of course the first thing we did was to go to the local arcade so we drove there from Qward's house. The arcade was decent at best and after a little while we decided to head back to Qward's house to grab something to eat. We went to a local chinese restaurant and the food there was really good! After eating it was time to check the local DVD/anime/manga store and after that it was time to get some alcohol for the night. So we drove to the local liqueur store where Qward bought some good brand sake and then we bought some beverages from a local supermarket and convini. The night was pretty awesome, we drank a lot and talked at Qward's room and at the end of the night we all were really drunk. So we left back to station all pretty wasted and we were shouting some stupid things on the way, and of course we acted like we were "FROM AMERICA" ^^; . Laggy felt at the half way of the train ride but at the end we arrived back to our hotel safely. Tomorrow was the last day of our trip and I wanted to make most of it...

Day 12: Government Building, Asakusa, onsen etc

At the beginning of day 12 we finally decided it was time to go to that Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building we were trying to enter for some while. So we finally got inside and rose up all the way to the 45th floor of the building, at 205 meters. The views from the top were astonishing and at that time I just kept thinking my existence feels very small. So we took many many photos from there and went to both two observation towers it had. After taking photos etc it was time to go sightseeing and souvenir shopping to Asakusa's famous temple area. Asakusa area made me feel a bit nostalgic because I stayed 1½ weeks there last year and we entered the Sensō-ji temple area. From there we all bought some nice souvenirs for our parents and took some good photos of the temple area. After shopping and sightseeing we went to relax at some local onsen near there, the 41C water of the rotenburo felt really good. After onsen it was time to end the day traditionally by going to Akihabara and from there back to hotel.

Day 11: Ueno and Kouenji

I went to stroll around Ueno park area which was really nice. There was also some yoyo performer named Naoto doing a show and apparently he had won last year's yoyo world championship in California. I ate some kitsune udon at some old famous soba restaurant in Ueno's ameyoko and later on I went to hunt some used records from Kouenji. Kouenji's record stores didn't have so good selection this time but I found the best arcade so far from Kouenji, the beatmaniaIIDX machine was top-notch and only 100y/play. After arcade I went to Shinjuku's disk union chuuko center where I found several cheap records and wasted the rest of my day budget there. After that it was time to go back to hotel.

ps. I finally fixed my WLAN problem, turns out it was the stupid Sygate firewall blocking the WLAN connection. Uninstalled it and everything works normally now, even with my integrated WLAN adapter

Day 10: Ikebukuro and GUHROOVY

I did some laundry at the morning and after that me and Laggy decided to go and check out the anime stores of Ikebukuro. So we left hotel around 12:00 and went to Ikebukuro with Yamanote. Ikebukuro had a nice atmosphere in it and we found some pretty good anime stores from the other side of Sunshine road. Then from Ikebukuro we finally went to Shibuya's GUHROOVY and this time it was open. I met DJ CHUCKY there who was a man of few words, the selection of GUHROOVY was brief as the last time too but it was nice to visit that store just for the novelty of it. I found the famires where we ate a year ago with JUOLA, Qward and mFX so me and Laggy grabbed something to eat there. After eating it was time to end this day traditionally with Akiba too.

Day 9: Hanging around with Tay

I promised to meet Tay at 14:00 in Shinjuku's south exit and there he was with his girlfriend. He showed me one good arcade nearby where I showed off my beatmaniaIIDX and pop'n music skills and from Shinjuku we decided to go to Yokohama station to grab some food. We went to some soba restaurant and I had katsudon there which was good. We talked about lots of different stuff with Tay while eating and after we ate it was time to head for Sakuragicho station. The view from Sakuragicho was something I had never seen and it was simply amazing, I took some really nice pictures there. Then Tay wanted to go see Avatar movie with his GF so we headed back to Shinjuku where we parted ways. After that it was time to end the day traditionally with some browsing around Akihabara.

Day 8: Washinomiya and drinking with Hiro part 2

At 8:30 in the morning of the day 8 we left hotel and took a JR train to Kuki from Ueno. We arrived to Kuki around 10:00 and there Sano was already waiting for us with his car. Our first stop was a local cosplay event where we took a lot of pictures of cute cosplayers. We also got some pretty priceless reactions from some cosplayers when we told we came all the way from Finland. ^^
After taking a lot of pics at cosplay event we went eat some ramen at a good local ramen restaurant. I have to say it wasn't so great as other Japanese cuisines but it was still eatable. From there we continued to our main destination, which was the famous Washinomiya temple (lately known for Lucky Star boom). On our way to Washnomiya we saw pretty funky itasha cars and around Washinomiya there were a really lot of those kinda cars around. Washinomiya was pretty crowded when we entered there and there were a lot of food stalls too selling different types of Japanese snacks. I took a lot of pictures from the temple area too and tasted some of the snacks they were selling (like yakiniku and some taiyaki). Then it was already time to go back because we wanted to meet Hiro one last time before he leaves back to Kyoto. We took a train which was really crowded from Kuki to Shinjuku. At Shinjuku we met Hiro and he had a Japanese of friend with him called Teruo. We also met a girl from Belgium called Binni and all 6 of us went to cafe at first and then to izakaya for eating and drinking. After izakaya Binni parted ways with us because she had to wake up early to switch her place of staying and Kohfel wanted to go back to hotel too. So the rest 4 of us went to karaoke for one hour to sing some Japanese songs. I sung a lot of eastern youth and when I found THE inazuma sentai's ouenka I went totally mad while singing it, I was screaming and jumping all around the place. =D After an hour of some awesome karaoke action it was time to say final goodbyes to Hiro and go back to hotel to get some sleep.

Day 7: Harajuku with Hiro

It was time to meet Hiro at 14:00 but first we decided to go to Akiba because I wanted to check out some stores I didn't have time to go before. We left our hotel around 11:00 and browsed thru 3 different stores in Akiba. Akiba was super crowded because it was Sunday, and I thought it's not so good idea to go there on a Sunday. Around 15:00 we arrived to Harajuku and it was even more crowded because people were going to the Meiji temple to say new year's first prayers. We finally met Hiro and went to grab some burger from Freshness burger, it was okay but still nothing like you can get from Finnish grill stalls. After we had ate some burgers we went to Yoyogi park to see some street performers but unfortunately there were none because it was already getting dark and it's winter. So we left from Yoyogi park to the nearby Takeshita street to look for some souvenirs for my friends and for LEMONed shop. I didn't find much anything after all but it was still really nice to go to hide's LEMONed shop again! From LEMONed we went to some cafe to relax a bit and in cafe decided to head for Shinjuku to get wasted there.
Hiro wanted to check in at his hotel because he was carrying all his luggage the whole day so first we went to Shinjuku Washinton Hotel and we found a liqueur store nearby that hotel. So we bought some drinks and drank em at the corner of some skyscraper building. Then we went to some izakaya to get something to eat and some more drinks. Hiro was one of the most nicest guys I've met in Japan and we left back to our hotel around 23:00 slightly drunk. We didn't know whether we'd meet again because Hiro was gonna go back to his hometown in Kyoto the day after tomorrow so we already said goobyes. But luckily tomorrow we met him again which I'm gonna tell more about in Day 8 section :)

Day 6: Failure orz

So we tried to go to GUHROOVY store in Shibuya but of course it was closed until 5th January, which we found out at the front door of GUHROOVY. So I decided to do some used CD shopping at Shibuya's RECOfan and after that it was time for some midday arcade action. Then we left from Shibuya to Shinjuku and tried to enter the famous Tokyo Government Metropolitan Building but it was closed too, until 3th Jan. And yes, we found that out too from the front gate of the building. I didn't want our trip to Shinjuku go completely to waste so I went to check out the used CD shelves of disk union's Punk market and heavy metal section. From heavy metal section I finally found X Japan's VANISHING VISION which cost me 2457 yens (about 20 euros). =D
After two miserable failures we went to our 3rd destionation, Nakano Broadway. I tried to look for the Mitsuoboshi curry restaurant which I got recommended by a friend of mine but couldn't find it. So we went to grab some ramen which was a bit expensive but delicious. After getting something to eat we browsed thru Nakano broadway's Mandarake stores and I bought a taiyaki from some snack stand by Nakano broadway's 3rd floor. I have to say I liked taiyaki and will probably buy it again. :)
After Nakano the day ended with me going to Akihabara to buy a Wireless LAN USB adapter for my laptop since the build-in adapter won't work with our hotel's WLAN connection. And I also bought a pillow (yes, an anime pillow which has Toradora!'s Taiga printed on it) because our hotel's pillows aren't that good.

When I came back to hotel I found out the problem isn't on the WLAN adapter but somewhere in the laptop itself. In other words: the USB adapter I bought is useless. I really hope today (3rd) would be a better day...

Day 5: evening at Akiba

I had a bit of a hangover from last night's partying and I finally woke up around 16:00. After waking up I headed to Akiba where I was planning to search for a good mouse pad. I browsed thru some places but couldn't find one after all and I was getting hungry so I went to grab some gyuudon at Yoshinoya. Gyuudon was great as always! After eating searched some more shops in hopes of finding a mouse pad but no luck there. And the time was about to hit 20:00 so I gave up for the day and decided to go to HEY for some shmup action this time. I found After Burner II and Area 88 machines to where I wasted some 100 yen coins and before I headed back to hotel I played some Taiko no tatsujin and beatmaniaIIDX.

Day 4: last day of Comiket77 and New Year's Eve party at Shibuya

We left our hotel same time as the last two days too and headed over to the last (and the most important) day of Comiket77. I bought a "traditional" plain onigiri from convini as a breakfast and I have to say I still hate seaweed. We rode with the usual JR-yurikamome lines and arrived to C77 bit after 10 o'clock. between 10:00-15:00 I was running from one place to another doing various purchases and at 15:00 I went to see if Rubicon Hearts would have any their doujins left. We'll as expected their doujin had been sold out already but there was a sample copy on the table which I browsed thru. I talked with one of the circle's staff members and asked if I could buy that doujin anywhere before 11th January. She replied that I should follow their twitter site for updates of the selling places and she also told how that doujin isn't sold in any of the usual places. I left the circle's table with mixed feeling because the Kyoto, haru. doujin they were selling was really amazing. But then the staff member ran to me and said how she was able to sell one copy of that doujin for 2000 yen price because I live so far away and I'm leaving back relatively soon. So now I'm a proud owner of the Kyoto, haru. doujin. ^^

I wasted about 20'000 yens for the last day of Comiket and after C77 ended we headed back to hotel. Around 18:30 we headed over to Shibuya where our friend Qward was waiting with his friends. There were 4 of em in total: Qward, mFX (which I met last year too), yuzuki and yuzuki's friend Shiba. At first we all tried to go eat some ramen but the ramen place I got recommended for was full so we decided to get some yakiniku instead. At yakiniku restaurant we ate lots of good grilled meat and talked some stuff about ourselves. When we were done eating it was time for some arcade action because me and Laggy wanted to show off our Bemani skills to the new audience. We spent a little over an hour at Game Kaikan Monaco and bit before 23:00 o'clock we headed to an american pub called Kong where Qward had reserved a 2 hour nomihoudai (all you can drink buffet) for us. The rest of the night went pretty smoothly and quoting from one of the The Fast Show sketches I'd say "and I was really, really drunk". We had to wait for the first train to ride there which was not until 4:00 in the morning. So half of us passed out around 2:00 but somehow that's okay to sleep in pubs at Japan which I found weird. We were back at hotel around 5:20 and I passed out almost immediately after arriving back.