Tokyo: events, events!

I have returned once again!

Today, I shall begin the task of tackling my travel backlog. Let us return to last November for a moment, and take a look at what I did in Tokyo on the 9th and the 10th. This will include both the events I went to as well as my first experience with night buses and a cabin hotel.

My trip began on the 8th, as night buses tend to be the cheapest mode of transport available. I travelled by Sakura Kanko (さくら観光), a round trip from Kanazawa to Tokyo costing about ¥10 000. (For reference, a one-way train trip would be about ¥14 000 as far as I know.) This company's buses have four seats in one row, two on each side of the aisle, meaning that you'll be sitting next to someone by default. I'm the kind of person who finds it hard to sleep on vehicles and/or in a small space, let alone when trying to not accidentally punch a stranger, so not much sleep was had on the way to Tokyo. (More sleep was had on the way back as I was quite exhausted at that point.) I've used this company three times so far, and I'd say it's a good option as long as you're fine with sitting next to a stranger - unless you're travelling with a friend. The company has a waiting room in Shinjuku, Tokyo, which is a short walk away from the station. If you're early enough, you can grab a chair and ask about the wi-fi. Sakura Kanko also doesn't seem to ask for tickets, though I tend to have some sort of payment verification with me just in case!

Ikebukuro early in the morning.

My main purpose for visiting Tokyo was Tales of Fanfesta in Namco Namja Town, Ikebukuro. In practice, it meant that Namja Town, an amusement park inside Sunshine City, had a bunch of Tales-themed gyoza and ice cream that came with cards, as well as a Tales garaponia, a type of a raffle with prizes such as microfiber cloths and postcards. Tales of Fanfesta is not the only special event Namja Town hosts; at the moment, they have both an Otomate and a Hoozuki no Reitetsu event. During Tales of Fanfesta, the other event was Danganronpa.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World cardboard cut-outs.

Lulu (Tales of Xillia 2) ice cream.

Kratos Aurion (Tales of Symphonia) gyoza.

Yuri Lowell (Tales of Vesperia) ice cream.

Surprisingly enough, I gained a new friend thanks to the event! A Japanese Tales fan came to talk to me upon noticing that I was eating a theme gyoza all by myself. We talked a bit about e.g. Tales and cosplay, and Ayako even saw me off to Ikebukuro Station as I had to leave. We've since exchanged quite a few e-mails, and also met a second time during Comiket. I'm really glad we happened to meet in Namja Town! I've met few Japanese with interestes similar to mine, and talking with Ayako is also very useful in the sense that she doesn't speak English - leaving me no choice but to somehow say what I want in Japanese!

After Tales of Fanfesta, I spent about 40 minutes in a train, heading for a certain university festival. Why? Because Morikubo Showtarou, a voice actor, was to have a talk show there, and I had a ticket! It felt rather weird going all the way there from central Tokyo, especially since I didn't see any other foreigners around, but I definitely wanted to seize the chance to see one of my favourite voice actors. There was a lot I didn't quite catch, but fun was had regardless!

Waiting for the talk show to begin.

My accommodation of choice was First Cabin Akihabara, a couple of minutes away from Akihabara Station by foot. I doubt I'd be able to sleep peacefully in a capsule, so I decided to try something between that and an actual room! A regular cabin is the size of a wide single bed, high enough to stand in, and has a locker in it. However, the lockers are not big enough for something like a small suitcase, and the cabins cannot be locked. At first this made me nervous but after three stays, I still have both the items I've kept in the locker and the ones I've kept elsewhere in the cabin. Only the people staying at the cabin can access the floors, and only the floor of their cabin. Women have one floor, along with their own elevator, and men have two.

One of the cabins.

The cabin "doors" aren't great against noises but in general, the loudest noises to be heard around the cabins are opening/closing suitcases and doors. Noises from the bathroom are muted quite well by the wall. At least for women, there's a powder room with eight sinks or so, and the floors also have coin-operated laundry machines. There's a larger bathroom on the first floor; I've never used it, though. Overall, the hotel is very clean and modern, and I definitely recommend it should you need to stay in Akihabara for a night or two! However, if you're with friends, you might want to consider going elsewhere if you're not willing to either remain silent or talk in a separate room meant for talking/calling.

On Sunday, I visited two exhibitions in Akihabara: Tales of Viva Festival in Kotobukiya and a BlazBlue museum at Gamers. Tales of Viva Festival was very colourful and pleasant to look at. The BlazBlue museum had less to show but was worth taking a look nevertheless. Photographing was not allowed in the latter, so seeing a bit of Tales of Viva Festival will have to suffice.

Kotobukiya before opening.

A general view of Viva Tales of Festival.

Tales drawings by different artists.

Plenty of rubber straps!

Badges and clear files.

Colette Brunel (Tales of Symphonia) figure.

Zelos Wilder (Tales of Symphonia) dream cushion.

After the event roll, I headed back to Ikebukuro to find out that the main store of Animate, one of my favourite merchandise chains, had moved. Whereas I had regarded the previous one large compared to other Animates, the new one made it look quite small! I also tried out the Animate Café Caravan which was selling Free! drinks at the time of my visit. I quite liked the Rin drink I bought.

Captain Levi kindly suggests that you use the stairs rather than the elevator.

Animate Café Caravan.

Rin drink & coaster.

The old Animate main store.

From Ikebukuro, I headed to Shinjuku and maneuvered my way to Square Enix Artnia which had replaced the previous Square Enix Showcase. Although I liked the café, I prefer the Showcase to Artnia. There's no winning Sephiroth-in-the-floor, and I would've loved to see Genesis' costume again after having actually played Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Artnia also doesn't have that much merchandise for sale, and the beautiful merchandise statues were nowhere to be seen.

A parfait in Square Enix Artnia.

With Shinjuku, my trip drew to a close as I arrived at the bus waiting room, sitting there for a couple of hours before it was time to return to Kanazawa. Not a whole lot of stores are open once it gets late, so I'm very grateful that there is a waiting room. It's not that big, though, so you might not find a seat unless you're there by 9 PM or so; depends on the day, I suppose.

And that's what my first trip during my exchange was like! Next up in the travel backlog, Christmas in Sapporo!

Sakigake

By this point, everyone must've noticed that I'm terrible at regularly writing on a blog. But without letting that be a hindrance, I'll finally talk about the dormitory I live in!

Kanazawa University has several dormitories. The one I live in is called Sakigake, located at the edge of the campus. Instead of the regular apartment houses, Sakigake consists of five separate two-story houses, three for women and two for men. Each of these houses has two or three units, and each unit consists of eight rooms. Three of the rooms are downstairs, five are upstairs. Both floors have their own WC and bathroom, whereas the kitchen and the laundry machine are downstairs. As far as I know, there are two types of unit layouts. The biggest difference seems to be the size of the kitchen. The unit I live is one of the ones with a larger kitchen.

先魁, Sakigake. Entrance of the exchange hall, the common space of the dormitory.

Each unit has two Japanese students acting as resident advisors (RA). The other people in my unit come from Ireland, Belarus, Indonesia, China, and Taiwan. My Belorussian roommate has already moved out, and my Indonesian roommate is moving this weekend. One of the two RAs will also be leaving soon due to graduating. I'm looking forward to seeing where our roommates come from!

My room. Laundry is hung in front of the window. There's a closet to the right, accommodating e.g. my clothes, suitcases, and whatever food doesn't need to be in the fridge.

In general, all of my roommates are very nice people. I've heard that some units have people who don't really clean up or take the trash out when they're supposed to but in our unit, that only occasionally happens simply because someone forgets it was their turn. The only actual problem I've had here is soundproofing. To put it simply, the soundproofing is terrible. I live downstairs right next to the kitchen table, which means I can basically hear everything from the kitchen. Coming from a very quiet apartment house, it took a while to get used to people simply talking in the kitchen. By now, I'm capable of mostly ignoring the sounds of daily life. However, we did have some problems with keeping quiet between 23 o'clock and 7 o'clock... But luckily, they became pretty rare after I was annoyed enough to let everyone know how I feel about not being able to sleep properly.

Preparing hot pot for a quadruple birthday.

I considered moving upstairs for the spring semester to reduce noise but in the end, I decided not to do so. The process would've been a bother, and I didn't quite fancy the thought of moving because others have occasional trouble with keeping quiet. This room does also have its good points. Hearing everything can definitely be an unnecessary annoyance, but it's also pretty convenient to be able to tell whether anyone's using a certain domestic appliance without even leaving my room. I also consider this a good experience in the sense that I'm forced to learn to tolerate different kinds of things, such as people having friends over way more often than I ever would. I'm also positive that I'll appreciate going back to living alone in Finland quite a bit more after living in a unit for ten months.

Dishes prepared by my Chinese and Taiwanese roommates for a Chinese cuisine evening!

Despite me loving to complain about differing sounds habits, I do want to emphasise that my roommates are, all in all, easy to get along with. Whenever I've requested anyone to be quiet, usually after they've forgotten what time it is, they've done so. I heard that some of the people previously living in this unit didn't listen to such requests at all, so I'm definitely happy that my roommates are considerate enough to listen! I'm also aware that rather than just some of them being more social than others, I'm probably used to a more quiet environment. As I said, my apartment in Finland is very quiet, and I've also noted some smaller habits which make some people louder than others. The way you walk and close doors can make all the difference when it's night-time!

A morning view from my window.

Garbage disposal in Japan is a world of its own. Certain types of trash are taken out on certain days, apparently even in certain types of bags. Here in Sakigake, the pattern goes like this: combustible & compostable trash on Mondays and Thursdays, glass on Wednesdays, and non-combustible & recyclable (practically PET bottles and tins) on Fridays. The list for different types of waste is longer, but I'm not too knowledgeable on the rest since I haven't needed those rules for now. Though I do know that if you're throwing away something especially large, whatever the size limit is, you need to separately arrange a pick-up and pay for it. The trash here is taken out in the morning between 8:00 and 8:30 o'clock; in practice, before 10 o'clock seems to be enough. The garbage station is located behind the exchange hall, the common space at the gate of the dormitory, and is locked whenever it's not trash time.

Watching a film outside the exchange hall.

As a Finn, I'm not used to taking out certain types of trash on certain days, but it works quite nicely once you get used to it. Separating combustible and non-combustible trash was news to me, whereas it initially felt strange to throw cardboard and paper in with the combustible waste instead of recycling them. We'll see whether I'll have the opposite problem when returning to Finland!

A flock of crows on the dormitory yard.

For a couple of more details, I'll finish with the fridge and the utility fees. First, the fridge. It's a pretty normal fridge, smaller than the one I have in Finland but still quite a regular size. But. It's for eight people. Apparently many of the other units have purchased a second fridge, or even have three, but we only have one. We also have no TV. I don't mind us not buying either of those things since I'd rather not pay for them, but the size of the fridge does get rather annoying from time to time. However, we should be getting a new fridge soon-ish. I'm not certain if we can keep them both but if I heard a kitchen conversation correctly, we can. That would be pretty convenient!

A small guest!

Second, the utility fees. Everyone pays for the electricity in their own room, and the electricity in the common areas along with water and gas fees are divided between the residents. Makes sense. What I somewhat dislike is that the common utility fees seem to usually be more than what we pay along rent each month, so I might prefer the monthly utility fee being raised a bit rather than paying the extra every few months. I don't know what the fees are like for other units, though, but I'd assume that few – if any – spend less than they pay.

A winter view from my window.

Well then, that's about it for now! I still ought to catch up with my travel logs here, so it's likely that the next entries will revolve around Tokyo, Hokkaido, and Okinawa. None of them will be up right away, but let's say I won't take a sudden four-month break from blogging this time!