Japan, Depression, What is Life?

I hope future me will thank me for writing this Japan Blog.

Hi everyone, it’s November 10th, 2025. Just two days ago, I was hit by one of the most severe depressions I’ve ever experienced 😔. Interestingly, the previous weekend was one of the most uplifting of 2025 for me ✨. However, life’s unpredictability was starkly evident as a distressing incident abruptly overshadowed this joy upon my return from a vacation 😞. I won’t delve into the details here, as this is a public space and I’d rather not have three lawyers discussing it with me 😉.

Regardless, I’m determined to kick off my Japan Blog 🇯🇵, even though I can’t predict when I’ll finish it ⏳. The truth is, I’m a bit lazy 😅, and most of the stories have already slipped my mind 🧠💭. But I’m not giving up on sharing my experiences with you 💪!

Perfect, so to improve my written English ✍️, I’ve set up Grammarly, which somehow increases the entire mood of this blog 📝. But, I’ll stay genuine, so I won’t use the generative AI tools after both of those sentences are CORRECTED significantly by Grammarly 😒.

How it all began 🌟

Japan’s already been on my bucket list of things I should do before I die ✅📋. Why? When I was in undergrad 🎓, I interned at a Japanese company, which led me to this moment where I feel like I should visit Japan 🏢➡️✈️. I know it’s cool; I love the culture 🏯, anime 📺, and everything about it. Including watching and reading 変態 👀. Yes.

Trust me, the above picture was 11-year-old me, and I already watched Hunter x Hunter before then 🎣. Proof: trust me, bro.

Where to start? 🤔

So at the end of September, I was beginning to think about where to go. Travelling has been one of my favorite ways to relieve stress 🧳✨. More importantly, I need to solo travel because I don’t like travelling with someone else 🏆🧍. I wanna do things that people would judge me for 🤭. I also want to go to restaurants that people might find uninteresting 🍜🥢. 💀 And I know I would go to places that people will ponder, “Why would you go travelling and visit these kinds of places?”.

I decided to take leave from 29th October to 3rd of November 📅✈️.

The First Night: Akihabara 🗼🎮

I arrived in Tokyo at around 5:22 PM 🕔. The weather was still bright 🌆, and there were indeed some funny conversations while I was on the airplane ✈️. Like, I was getting ID checked because I brought Anya Melfissa’s plushies 🦉, which the stewardess thought I was under 20. Apparently, the drinking age was 20 🍶. I stuttered when they asked for my age, I answered 21, even though I’m already 23 😒😅.

I landed in Haneda, purposely because it’s closer to the city 🚆, and I don’t want to spend much time commuting 🚋. I took the monorail, and the first thing I did after arriving was check into the hotel 🏨. There were some cultures that I realized are powerful in Japan 🇯🇵:

• People are very strict about letting passengers get off trains first 🚉🚶.
• People wear their bags at the front when it’s crowded 🎒➡️🧑.
• They optimized even the nichest things, like assigning the best car to each train at each station 🚞👌.

I met my friend there, let’s call him Egg 🥚, and we walked around the electronics stores there 💻🛍️. Because I was so hungry, I bought two pieces of bread 🍞🍞. After that, we had ramen for dinner 🍜. Then we went to the Asakusa Temple, the Sensoji 🛕. One cool thing is these paper lamps, which I thought were prayers and mantras 🏮🙏. But it turned out to be a bunch of brand sponsors! 💸😂

I took a picture of the Skytree while walking there 📸🌆. Then I visited Egg’s apartment 🥚🏠, and he told me about his crush, which he confused with their relationship, lol 😂💞. Going home, I bought some 18++ Doujin in a very complete shop 🍑📚, and the genres were just put randomly lol. I spent almost an hour or two there, I feel like ⏳. Then I slept at 2 AM after showering in the Ofuro! 🚿🛁

By the time I’m writing this blog, Ofuro is just OK 😅. But back then, it was so surreal because going to a public bath had always been on my bucket list ✅🛀. Seeing people naked, to be precise 👀.

The Second Day: Tokyo Station, Fish Market, Tokyo Tower, Sunset in Odaiba, and Crazy Bar 🌅🏙️🗼

I didn’t plan anything today 🤷. I was trying to go around on my own, wandering solo through Tokyo 🎒. I woke up very early, at 8 AM ⏰. Went to poop and shower 🚿💩. A twenty-minute ride took me to the imperial palace 👑🏯. I expected to explore there on my own, but that later turned out to be a fatal mistake 😳. I didn’t get to see the inside because I didn’t realize there were specific timed-entry batches you had to book in advance 😅. Anyway, the outside is still lovely 🍃🏰.

But it wasn’t until the very last day that I realized I should’ve booked a half-day trip to go inside 🗓️🤦. After that, I visited Tokyo Station 🚉. I’d heard from people and seen pictures that the station was supposed to be fancy 💫. There should be some shopping places, restaurants, and cool shops there 🛍️🍜. I went to the Hololive shop, but the queue was just crazy—like seriously, they gave queuing tickets, and I had to wait about 80 minutes to get in! 😵‍💫🕒 Bruh. So I just skipped it entirely.

But aside from that, I saw some official anime shops 🎭✨. I also decided to get Tokyo Banana bread, but the fried one this time 🍌🍞. I tried speaking Japanese (thanks, GPT, for the translation! 🙏), and it worked—I managed to buy myself some bread!

I think it had some red bean paste and banana cream inside, and the outside was just fried oats 😋. From there, I took a bus to the Tsukiji Fish Market 🦐🚌. Because I was so hungry, going to a place where I could eat fresh seafood sounded like a very bright idea 🐟✨.

There, I saw someone selling King Crab Legs 🦀. For context, about 3 days earlier, I ate at a big all-you-can-eat restaurant with unlimited King Crab, which cost about 1,500,000 IDR! 💸

Food there, honestly, costs about the same as in Hong Kong, though I didn’t feel like eating all that much on this trip 🍱🤔. So I just got a cup of Tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette). I didn’t like it! It tasted too sweet for me 🍳😖. I also got myself two fresh oysters—one from Miyagi and one from Hyogo 🦪🦪. They were really fresh and delicious! By the time I left, it was already about 1:00 PM ⏳. Next up: Tokyo Tower! 🗼

Something weird happened here. The ticket was ummm. Sold out for the next 2 hours. AHHAHAHA.

Okay, so I had no choice but to wait there or get the premium ticket, which cost about twice as much!

Lucky me, the tour was … privately for me! Gawd. I don’t even remember the tour guide’s name.

But trust me, it was one of the most special days I’ve ever had in my life.

• The guide was so cheerful, I flexed a little bit of my Japanese, and the tour guide ended up speaking Japanese for the entire tour. I was so stupid. 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲 You know this moment when you are too deep into lying about something and you won’t bother stopping and pretend to know what they’re talking about.
  • Because if I were to stop them, they’d be like “WTF is wrong with this guy, why flex too much if you don’t actually understand.” LMAOOO
• Everyone was looking at me because I got to skip all the queues!!!!! LOL

By the time I was out of the tower, it was already 3:30 PM. So, I was thinking about getting a good view of the sunset!

Anyway, I also bought a small omamori to remember my trip to Japan. Until this very second, as I write this blog post, I still have it hanging on my phone.

It took me about 2 hours commuting to my next destination, which is a small area called Odaiba!

The sunset there was very, very, very pretty! 🌇🌅✨ After that, I had myself a chicken sandwich 🥪🐔 because I hadn’t had any proper meal today. I went back to my hotel 🏨 and had a breakdown 😭 because everyone in my office was looking for me! 🕵️‍♂️ The reason was that it was one of the busiest times of the year 📈. Lol, and they thought I took leave purposely to avoid working on a very busy day 😆🚫💻. But no, I planned this trip a long, long time ago! 📆✈️

So to summarize, basically, I feel like I look like an “asshole” 🙃💩 because I have this pre-approved leave right in the middle of when I am supposed to be on this business trip 🚗💼

This is really frustrating because:

• I already had approved leave and booked flights and hotels. ✅✈️🏨
• It’s a grueling schedule. 😵‍💫📅
• Caught between legitimate vacation plans and this sudden business demand. ⚖️⏰
• I felt guilty as fuck. 😣

I genuinely cried because I felt like I couldn’t handle life anymore at that point 😢🥲. So what I did was very basic: I cried in the toilet for an hour 🚽😭. I discovered in life that I was trying to min-max everything that I do 🧠📊. Everything that I did until this very point in my life had to have a purpose 🎯.

• I was learning languages not for fun anymore, but for meaning. 🈴🗣️
• I was streaming myself to get productive and popular. 🎥🌟
• I never rest; I was trying to optimize myself too hard. 🏃‍♂️💨

I never enjoyed trips without my brain demanding returns on investment 🤔💸. Well, the truth is, life is just being human 🧑‍🤝‍🧑. Productivity is optional, which makes you better. 🌱

And that was that. After that breakdown, I found myself more relaxed 😌, visited Shinjuku 🗼🌃, went around 🚶‍♂️, and finally hit the bar at about 10 PM, staying until 5 AM!

Okay fuck it. I was trying so hard to avoid talking about this, but I went to a Gay Bar 🏳️‍🌈🍹. I won’t deny nor confirm the allegations about my sexual orientation 🤐. Anyway, it was so fun and funny 😂. I met Pole, Melty-San, Onohi-Chan, Sora-Chan, a couple from Florida 🇺🇸, and an open-source Linux developer there.

The entrance fee was about 3,000 yen 💴, and a free-flow drink was included. Melty-San, the bartender 🍸, made me this delicious milk-alcohol drink 🥛🍸.

The Third Day: The Black Egg 🥚

In the morning, we travelled to the Hakone Shrine 🚐⛩️. By “We”, I mean I booked a tour 🚐, and the guide was this Chinese guy named Leo 🇨🇳 who, to be honest, had barely understandable English 🇬🇧❓. The pickup point was at this at BEAMS, North Exit Tokyo Station. I tried the Amazake 🍶 and Warabimochi 🍡 there. Me being me, I’ve taken another reading at the shrine 🧧⛩️. It was nothing special in particular 😅.

I was so sleepy because I barely slept 🥱💤. I didn’t have a proper sleep at the bar, and I immediately showered after coming back to my hotel last night, and it’s already time for the tour van to pick me up 🚐. The good thing is I didn’t spend much time sitting doing nothing in the car because I slept the entire trip 😴.

After the Hakone Shrine, we rode the pirate ship and took the cable car to the top of that area. The red leaf 🍁 that I expected to see when coming to Japan 🇯🇵 was not really visible during my visit ~🍂~.

Lol, after that, I went to Owakudani, a volcanic valley 🌋, but it’s just some gimmicky place with a black egg 🥚⚫ (which tastes just like a regular egg) lol. Every food was marketed as “black” there. I also don’t understand why. 🤔

Chicken eggs are boiled in the area’s natural hot springs, which turns their shells black due to a chemical reaction with iron and sulfur in the water. 💧🔥🥚

Why are they special? 🤨

• They can only be found at Owakudani, an active volcanic valley in Hakone, Japan. 🌋
• Local legend claims that eating one of these eggs will add seven years to your life. 🎂⏳
• Despite the black shell, the inside of the egg is white and tastes similar to a regular boiled egg. ⚪🥚

Oh, when you bought these packs of eggs, they gave you packs of 4 🛍️🥚🥚🥚🥚. So the tour guide told us that one egg will add seven years, right? So now my lifespan has an extra 28 years. Lol. 🤣🕰️

Actually, at Owakudani, I found some Hongkongers 🇭🇰 with whom I can flex my Cantonese 🗣️.

The last stop for the day was Enoshima 🌊🏝️. (not Enoshima island, because that would be Eno-island-island) AHAHHA 😂. We didn’t have much time here because the tour was already running late ⏲️. Anyways, I managed to get to the highest viewing point there 👀⛰️, which I speedrunned because I don’t want the tour to leave me. I bought two pairs of chopsticks. Initially, I wanted them to carve my name, but since the bus is leaving no later than 10 minutes 🚨🚌, I cancelled my plan ❌.

At night, I spend time walking around again in Akihabara 🏮🎌. I bought some crazy perfume, which is targeted at people with a smell fetish 😳🧴. I bought the:

• pussy smell; 🍑

• Jirai Kei’s girl smell; and 👧

• cute girl smell after doing exercise. 👧💦

I hate to say this, but I’m familiar with some of these smells, and I can confirm they are accurate! 👃✅🤔Before ending the day, I went to GoGo Curry and found myself a meta. Just dump all your coins into the machine!

The Fourth Day: Shibuya and WTF, Hock.

I was terribly hungry the next morning, knowing for a fact that I barely had any proper meals yesterday (again) 🥲. So the first thing that I did that morning was to eat. I ordered an Oyakodon set meal. The weather was delightful, and I slept until 9 AM that day. The plan was for me to walk into Meiji Jingu from the North entrance and exit at Shibuya. The area itself is huge. I visited the park and saw more red leaves 🍁.

Then I went to Takeshita Street, bought some cool dresses there, and my favorite place was ACDC RAG. Then I visited Shibuya 109, and… yeah. The title is WTF because I literally spent 6 hours just shopping at Shibuya 🛍️.

Okay, then, I went to a photo shoot studio and had my eyebrows eradicated from the universe. The makeup artist was Uran-San, and the photographer was Bunako-San. The reasons are:

• I love dresses and fashion.
• It’s Halloween 🎃.
• I wanna have more private conversations with locals.
• It was raining and would rain more!

So I walked to Shibuya for Halloween. The rain was intense, but Uran-San was so lovely that they gave me an umbrella ☔. I banged my phone on the side of the road (my Android phone) and cracked the entire screen lol.

After the session, I went to eat a good Taiwanese-Japanese Fusion Cold Noodle 🍜. On the way home, I was exhausted and did some laundry. The funny thing is, someone inserted too many coins in the drying machine, so the number got up to 150 minutes. AHHAHAA. It was so hilarious 😂.

The Fifth Day: Fuji and Memory 🍂

This is my favorite day during the trip in Japan. I would dare to say this one is the most memorable, too! Woke up at 6 AM and immediately rushed to Tokyo Station for my tour. I got picked up by this friendly auntie 许谨-导游. Actually, in the morning I met Leo again lol, even though the pickup place was different (this time it’s at a very discoverable spot near Tokyo Station). Today, I’m refreshed because I slept enough. But I have to bear seeing my face, which looks like a lesbian’s after the eyebrow shave (It was very feminine that I might want to fuck myself).

The first destination for today was the fifth (last) station of Mount Fuji, which was the highest point you can reach while taking a train. The view there is stunning and chilly! By chilly, I mean like 好撚dllmonl79 cold. I went around and got myself a matcha and Mount Fuji bread right after.

I felt a bit bad this time because I was the last one to get on the bus AHAHAH. But everything was fine, I was late for about 3 minutes, but that obviously didn’t give a good impression to my tourmates. The driver today was really handsome tho. HAHAHA.

Oh, unlike the previous tour, where I got to sleep, today was so different. 许-导, the tour guide, YAPPPEEED A FUCKING LOT. 🥲 Not saying that it was bad. But she’s explaining everything in Chinese, while there’s a Filipino couple who didn’t understand Chinese at all. I felt bad for them lol. The problem was that the English Yap was just a summary of the Chinese Yap, omitting details and extra information. So if she yaps for 30 minutes, the English yap was only 2 minutes.

The rest of the tour fellows are Singaporeans and Taiwanese, Lol. Next destination was 大石公园. It was gorgeous, it has so many flowers!

I still remember some yaps:

• Expensive fruits are bananas because they don’t grow in Japan.
• Watermelons, as well, because I think it was perceived as a luxury gift.
• The locals like to eat grapes, and the grapes here are relatively cheaper because they’re grown locally here.
• You guys are super lucky: the gods are happy you’re coming, the weather is perfect, and the Fuji is visible all day! This moment is scarce and only happens once in a while, especially during Autumn.

From her recommendations, I got a box of high-quality Shine Muscat and its ice cream! I also befriended our fellow tourmate, a Singaporean couple. I have never been this grateful as my Chinese skills are eventually put to good use. (btw, his girlfriend cannot speak Chinese).

Coming back from the park, I realized I forgot to bring my Lightning cable head to charge my phone. :D So I had to set my phone to airplane mode. Anyway, the next stop was 忍野八海. Literally means the eight seas in Oshino, which are just the eight springs found there. On the way here, I noticed some of the Konbini actually had a rather brown color instead of their usual color. I thought that in touristy places, it’s a special case. But it was not until the tour guide told us that brown meant a private party had bought the franchise for that convenience store.

There are amazing foods that I tried here:

• Tofu with spicy miso paste
• A5 wagyu skewers
• 草餅 (Kusa-mochi), it’s like grilled/baked flat round mochi-ish with red bean inside

While buying food there, I met this girl working part-time at a stall. She’s from Oceania-Pacific and studies at a nearby university. Around there, I also found a Lawson, which saved my phone battery, ahahah.

After that, we stopped at a duck feeding place. It was weird, but the view there is amazing! On the way home, I spent time at an Illumination event and met several friends back from Uni. I had a steak dinner this time! Another stupid thing was that I was deliberately picking up cool leaves. To see it being crushed inside my bag. I’m a moron. Anyways, it wasn’t until this very moment that I realized: I might want to get a coin wallet asap.

At night, I found a friendly fellow Hongkonger with whom I spent time at the hotel lounge, talking about life. He was working as a translator in Japan, iirc.

The Sixth Day: Chill Ikebukuro 💓

The tour from the day before overwhelmed me a lot. The first thing I did was to fix my phone. I got charged 2000 HKD, which is about 5,000,000 IDR. I’m crying HAHAHAH. But anyway, the phone is unusable. So I had no choice, while waiting, I enjoyed Hinoya Curry, a recommendation from a fellow traveler I met while packing up my things at the hotel the other day.

I strolled around Akihabara again until it was about time to pick up my phone, then returned to the shop and headed directly to Ikebukuro! Again, a day spent just walking around, seeing Manga, Doujin, and Merchandise. One Japanese thing that I learnt was:

Me:「すみません、男の子の同人誌がありますか？」 -> Hello, do you have manga on femboys?

店員さん:「年制とか一般とか？」-> Adult or general?

Me: (？？？何それ？？？) -> WTFFF DOES THAT MEAN (I DON’T UNDERSTAND JAPANESE)

私:「…年制です」-> PICKED ONE RANDOMLY

The night was pretty chill, and I was thinking of adding a cherry on the tip of my tour. So I decided to get a 3-hour food tour in Shinjuku. It was really worth the experience. I met fellow travelers from around the world: Venezuelans, Americans, Australians, Germans, and many more. One worked as a pilot, engineer, businessman, you mention. We stopped to eat at:

• Izakaya (Sushi, Fish Karaage, The Overflowing Sake, Sashimi)
• The Niimura pork steak
• The Okinawa cold noodle
• Taiyaki

Coming back home, I also stopped at a convenience store, a rather big one, to shop for some things. One funny thing is that my shoes are smelly, so I decided to buy a carbon stick. But it turned out that when you pay with the tax-free tag, it’s sealed and supposed to be opened outside of Japan…. But screw it, I opened the bag anyway.

The Final Day: The Roast Beef 🐄

Last day here, I showered early, bought a Pokemon luggage (my stuff doesn’t fit!), and got an early lunch at the Roast Beef place recommended by the Hongkonger I talked with at the lounge the other day.

After that, I headed to Haneda and just flew ~! Not really, though, I was surprised they have a food court with authentic Japanese food there. So I bought myself another Wagyu skewer and Okonomiyaki!

Memorable Thoughts

Super Good Toilet Bidet

I found that bidets in Japan are super cool; they are warm and have many mysterious buttons. But I have to admit that almost every toilet in Japan that I visited is just poop friendly. I mean, like in an emergency, if I classify the toilet as Yes or No. All of them are yes.

Had a free drink at the hotel, but only drank once.

I stayed at the Anshin Oyado Akihabara, which serves drinks from 11-5 AM, but I didn’t drink at all! Only a cup, and it was Japanese Sake. That’s it.

Ochazuke

But I tried Ochazuke several times because it’s just comfort food. It’s one of the first foods that my Japanese teacher gave me while I was studying Japanese about 15 months ago in Indonesia.

Understand Fashions

I now know some of the good Japanese fashion brands and their substyles. I really like Jirai Kei, Traditional Kei, and Decora. The good thing about Japan is that people don’t really give a fuck about what you wear! It’s more of a display to see what others can express.

Japan Tax Free

Apparently, if you spend more than 5,500 Yen, or if a designated place allows you to shop without a minimum purchase, you can apply for a tax-free shop (only for tourists), which saves me a ton!

AI at Akihabara Posters

I saw some posters in Akihabara that are using AI, but no one seems to bat an eye!

Washing Your Soul

In almost all shrines and temples in Japan, there is a washing well. So the order was left hand, right hand, face, and rinse your mouth. At precisely this well was my first time doing it, and there was a very friendly Japanese auntie who taught me how to do it.

まず左手からね

そう、それから右手も洗って

口はね、手に水を取ってすすぐのよ。柄杓に直接口つけないでね〜

日本語は上手ですね。

My go-to sentences were:

• 昔は日本に留学したかったけど、香港のオファーの方が良かった。

• Mukashi wa Nihon ni ryuugaku shitakatta kedo, Honkon no ofaa no hou ga yokatta.

• 感じがいい, 素敵, 美味しい, 旨い

Trash Bins

Trash cans are rare, almost non-existent in the streets, and also trash sorting is just pain….