Quinn tapped his impatient thumbs against the steering wheel, muttering under his breath as he stared at the red light. “Call him again,” he ordered, glaring at the light intently. It was as though he believed he could manifest a faster light change, that his willpower could overwhelm the traffic control system. The whole thing’s run by computers, Milo thought as he tried to call Allen again. Unless you can glare in ones and zeroes, staring won’t be doing you any good.
“Straight to voicemail again,” he reported, pocketing his phone. “Might be a good idea to circle back.”
“No!” Quinn snapped, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “She’s here now. We need to find out where she’s going or we’re squandering an opportunity.”
“Fair enough,” Milo relented. Arguing wouldn’t do him any good; from his experience with the man, Quinn hated being questioned above all else. It was like walking on eggshells with him.
Allen had texted that the target was on 12th Avenue before going silent. She was on foot, and they hadn’t seen any busses on the way down the road. They were nearing the southern border of the Pearl District, and had no idea where she was heading from there.
It’s not a hunt, Milo considered. She didn’t sound very dressed up according to Lee’s description, and it doesn’t fit the kill pattern. What is it, then? Does she have other obligations? Does she know she’s being hunted? Is this a trap? These and countless other considerations and theories swirled in his head, but one thought kept surfacing before all others, one idea that wouldn’t stop nagging at him.
“She’s not in a disguise right now,” he muttered, looking down the street. “When she hunts, she’s dolled up, but she’s clearly not trying to be noticed, or possibly trying specifically not to be noticed. This is a different part of her life. The feeding, the pattern, it’s an event. What does she do with the rest of her time?”
“She’s going down 11th," Quinn replied.
The light turned green, and as they continued south, Milo looked towards the intersection to their left. Sure enough, the Black Widow was there, crossing the street, heading in the same direction. “We need eyes on her,” Milo said, “but we need distance. Stop at the curb. I’ll follow her on foot. You can go back and look for Allen.”
Quinn shook his head. “You’re staying with me. We don’t know where Allen is. She could’ve killed him. We need to keep our distance, but there’s strength in numbers in case she sees us coming.”
Milo shot a text off to Justin as well: Can’t find Allen. Phone off. Look between 12th and 11th. If Allen was hurt but not dead, he wasn’t going to let Quinn’s obsession get the man killed.
As he looked back at the intersection at 11th, Milo noticed the tracks through the middle of the street. “Shit, she’s taking a streetcar,” he realized, pulling the Trimet site up on his phone. The car would be there soon.
“Well let’s follow her,” Quinn replied, turning towards the curb.
“She’d spot us if we were in the car,” Milo countered, holding his phone up. “We can track the car, keep an eye on the stops and wait for her to get off.”
* * *
They continued south, past the border of the Pearl District and through downtown Portland. Finally, as the streetcar turned onto Lowell Street and came to a stop, prepared to continue up the track and begin the long trek back north, she appeared. Still with her hood up, still with her hands in her pockets and her head down. Quinn turned into an alley between two weather-beaten buildings that looked nearly as old as the city itself, then stopped the car, lowered his seat and leaned back. “Tell me when she’s out of sight,” he ordered.
“Sure,” Milo agreed, taking out his phone. he watched as she turned right, heading down Moody Avenue. Go ahead and make yourself look as little as possible, he thought. I can still see you. As he prepared to send an update text to Justin, his phone rang. “Yeah?” he answered.
“He’s alive,” Lee said quickly. Milo could hear the smile in her voice, the deep inhales of someone who’d been holding their breath for far too long. It was the sound he chased whenever he went looking into missing persons cases, whenever he got to tell someone’s mother or father that their child was alive. He was far more familiar with wails of grief or the deafening silence of anguish.
“He okay? What happened?” he asked, watching as the Black Widow continued south at the three-way intersection up ahead, down a trail. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he nodded to Quinn and opened the car door.
“Are you on speakerphone?” she asked after a brief silence.
“No,” he replied, lowering the call audio before holding the phone close to his ear.
“That’s the thing: she knew he was there,” Lee warned. “She knew we were following her. It was a trap. Allen said that she destroyed his phone and told him that we were warned not to get involved.”
“Funny, I don’t remember getting anything in the mail about that,” Milo joked. He exited the vehicle, pushing the door shut quietly.
He heard Allen mumbling something unintelligible to Lee, his voice weak and raspy. “Exactly. She told Allen that she warned Quinn to back off, but Quinn told us that she was already gone when he found the body in Bennington.”
“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind,” Milo assured. “In the meantime, your car is parked by an auto repair place by the corner of Moody and Lowell. We’re heading south from here. There’s one more streetcar heading down here, so we’ll follow her for now and meet back up here.”
“Will do. Stay safe,” Lee said.
Milo looked back at Quinn, then to the path the Black Widow had gone down. “Don’t know if that’s up to me, but I’ll do my best.”
* * *
They continued down the street, then onto the trail. To the right of it were some old train tracks, one end of the old trolley they ran north from Lake Oswego in the summertime. The path was shrouded in darkness, but before long opened onto a street. They were down at the waterfront, approaching a small side road with nothing but large office buildings and larger parking lots.
Milo and Quinn kept their distance, allowing her to nearly exit their site before continuing. It was dark and the street was poorly lit, but all she had to do was take one look back. Really rolling the dice on this one, Milo considered. There was no one else on the sidewalk, or on foot in any direction for that matter.
They passed by an office building, then another, and the road turned to the left. As they rounded the corner, Milo saw that the woman was nowhere to be found. Either she’d quickly turned the street, or she’d circled around the hotel. There seemed to be a path going down that way, a stone walkway deeper into the darkness between these buildings and the shore. “Looks like a trap,” Milo said, retrieving a small crucifix from his jacket pocket. “Shall we?”
Quinn nodded, then gestured for him to go ahead. Coward. “So where do you think she’s heading,” Quinn asked. “Is this just a trap or does she have business here?”
“Business…” Milo considered. There were only office buildings nearby, and they tended to operate mainly during the daytime. Didn’t mean there weren’t reasons for someone to be there after hours. “I think she’s heading to work,” he suggested.
“She’s going to work?” Quinn whispered.
Milo began down the path, the grip on his crucifix tightening. “If you were a vampire all of a sudden, where would you live? Can’t live on the street without being hassled by people, and you need a place to doll yourself up so you can lure unsuspecting men to their demise. You need a home- probably an apartment if you’re in the city. She has to pay rent just like everybody else, right?”
“You’d have to assume she has money, though,” Quinn countered. “Vampires always have money squared away, right?”
“Assuming she actually is a vampire,” Milo pointed, squinting his eyes and hoping to see her up ahead, “what makes you think she’s ancient? Even if she is, why would that mean that she has a lot of money? Not like she can ever go to the bank during business hours.”
“Huh,” Quinn grunted, and as Milo continued down the pitch-black path, a shiver went up his spine as he could feel Quinn’s breath against the back of his neck. “That’s good to know.”
Milo whirled around, holding his crucifix up without knowing for certain what he intended to do with it, and inhaled sharply as a knife entered the side of his chest. Quinn pulled the knife out, then pushed it into Milo’s stomach.
Milo felt the grip on his crucifix loosening, and tried to tightening his grip. His strength was leaving him. “What… the fuck…” he whispered, unable to raise his voice. He tried to breath deeply, but a sharp pain in his chest put a stop to it.
“Don’t try to talk,” Quinn ordered, twisting the knife. Milo’s body tried to let out a shriek of pain, but he could already feel his strength leaving him completely. “I think I punctured a lung. Sorry about that. Or maybe I shouldn’t be.” He pulled the knife out, reversing his grip on it, then plunged it into Milo’s shoulder. “You did trespass, after all. You’re no use to me if I can’t pluck your strings, but the others are good little marionettes. Besides, maybe she’ll start to reconsider when someone finds your body. If you’re right, they’ll go around asking questions, put some pressure on her, and she’ll finally realize that I’m a dangerous enemy to have.”
You want her to turn you, Milo realized. He tried to say as much, but no words would come out. His body was in shock, and he couldn’t get a word out. You really think she’s a vampire, and you want her to turn you.
Quinn rifled through Milo’s pockets, retrieving his phone. “Can’t have you dialing 911,” he said, slamming the phone against the ground once, then again before throwing it into the grass near the path. “If this brings you peace in your final moments,” he added, getting to his feet, “this is as much your fault as it is mine, maybe even moreso. You just shouldn’t have questioned me.” With that, he pulled the knife from Milo’s shoulder, a quiet groan all that accompanied the shooting pain, and got to his feet.
I knew you were a monster, Milo thought, watching helplessly as his vision began to blur. Quinn stepped back into the light, onto the street, and continued back the way they’d come. Streetlights in the distance became vague blobs of light surrounded by an inky blackness that seemed to dance around it. Didn’t peg you for a killer.
As warmth and light began to give way to the cold dark, a soft laugh broke the silence. “At least he’s not boring,” a woman’s voice noted. Was it distant, or was he fading from consciousness for the final time? “You seem a little lost for words, friend, but I know what’ll put a pep in your step.”
He winced as the Black Widow lifted him by the shoulders, sitting him up. She held one of her palms up, then dug into it with a fingernail, drawing blood. “Drink up. You have a long night ahead of you.”
Her bloody palm was pressed up against his mouth, and while Milo resisted as best his could, he couldn’t stop the coppery liquid from reaching his tongue. As soon as it did, something passed through him. It was a chill, but it was electric. It made him feel restless, but he couldn’t move an inch. All he could do, despite his better judgement, was continue to drink.
She held him close as he drank, one hand pressed against his mouth and the other wrapped around him in a cold, comfortable embrace. “I’m gonna tell you something that I wish I was told. When I was turned, I thought that I would rise again as a monster, but I didn’t know how it worked. When you pass- and you will- your soul will leave your body behind. You’ll go wherever souls go, and you might find peace or be reunited with your ancestors, maybe some loved ones who you’ve had the misfortune of outliving, but then something will take your place. It will grow, and it will fester, and it will take your body over. It won’t be you, of course, and you may watch from above as it terrorizes the living world, but it’ll have your memories. It’ll believe that it’s still you, but it won’t be. It’ll be something new.
“It’ll remember how you valued human life, and how you cared enough to try and stop the big bad monster from taking more.” She turned his head, and as he felt himself fading once more, she smiled. “It’ll remember how much you loved your friends and family. It will remember your values, your beliefs, your fears, but it will inherit none of them. It will watch the lives of countless innocents end by their hand, and it will not care. It will take any life I tell it to, and it will not care who.
“Sleep. Sleep for the last time. And keep an eye out for your friends; they’ll join you soon enough.”

Hello there everyone, it’s nice to meet you all! I’ve scrolled through the posts in this community and decided it may be a nice community to introduce myself in!
My names: Benny, Zyaire/Zay, L, and Luka! You can use whichever you’d like ^{^}
My pronouns are he/they + many neopronouns which are listed in my rentry (Which if you choose to chat with me, I’d be happy to share with you!)
My kintypes are; Benny/Bennett (Genshin Impact), L/Lawliet (Death Note), Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Luka Couffaine (Miraculous: Ladybug), Chat Noir (Miraculous: Ladybug), Kenny McCormick (South Park), & Lance McClain (Voltron: Legendary Defender)! I’m questioning if I am also a kintype of Diluc Ragnvindr (Genshin Impact) and Craig Tucker (South Park).
A fun fact about me is that I recall Kaeya Alberich (Genshin Impact) as my father, I can’t seem to remember who my other parent is but I do know Kaeya was my father-figure!
I’m 19, going to be 20 in about a month (little more than a month, Jul 11 is my birthday)
If you’re curious, I also identify as otherkin (Specifically vampirekin and Ghost/Spiritkin
I have Discord! If you’d like to chat then I will be happy to share my Discord with you! I hope I can meet some wonderful people!! <33

Hello everyone,
I am visiting Belgium for a week with the family (total of 3 adults and 2 kids under 5 years old). Our hotel is in the area near the Montgomery station. Our plan is not limited to Brussels, as we're interested to visit different areas of the country (recommendations are welcome :)).
Our main concern is transportation with 2 kids. I am leaning towards renting a car from the airport, and use it when visiting other cities/towns, as well as Brussels spots outside of the center. Is that a sane decision I am taking?
Also the hotel doesn't cater for parking reservations in advance. If at the same day they won't have a parking space, I will have to use a public parking nearby (I don't know how that works).
Any comments or advice are very much appreciated.

Introduction: Mexico City has been a recent interest of mine ever since the YouTube algorithm started recommending me videos on this mega city. Like most Americans, I was ignorant and incorrectly under the assumption that Mexico City was sketchy and had nothing to offer for travelers other than poverty tourism. However, after watching YouTube videos and reading more about this city, I quickly learned that Mexico City, and Mexico in general, has a very rich culture and history. It also is the biggest city in the Western Hemisphere. I was locked in this point to explore this city so close to home.Booking this trip was very random, I originally booked a vacation to go to EDC Vegas with friends (insanely fun time btw) but I wanted to extend my PTO for the rest of the week after because I was already taking a day off to rest and had the Friday off for MDW.
After exploring other options in the US like possibly other areas in the south west like Utah or Arizona I quickly realized how expensive this would be. Vegas has great prices on flights so I wanted to take advantage of that and go somewhere international, due to my recent interest with Mexico City and how it isn’t too expensive, it just made sense. I booked the flight and hotel instantly so I wouldn’t think too much about it.
I invited some other friends at first and received some maybes, ultimately I knew that this would end up being a solo trip. I have some experience with solo trips, my first one was Hiroshima while I was studying abroad in Tokyo, that trip gave me my first powerful global experience that has ultimately became my goal when i travel now. I also did Denver last summer to see a red rocks show ( stayed in a hostel which ended up being the same price as a decent hotel in CDMX 🤣). I didn’t have much of a structured plan for this trip except to see the historic district and maybe teohiucan if it wasn’t too difficult to get there.
Logistics: I stayed in a Roma Norte hotel from Tuesday Night - Sunday Morning.
Interests: architecture, food, electronic music, nature, history
Day 1: Arrival
I arrived into CDMX around 1045pm via Volaris. The Volaris experience sucks, honestly worse than Spirit lol. For about an hour we were sitting on the runway not moving without AC in the Vegas heat. Apparently this is due to them not having runway rights? Not sure about this but that’s what some googling told me.
For some reason I exchanged usd for pesos at the cash exchange counters instead of using an atm to take out pesos. Not sure why I did because I have travelled internationally and know that ATMs are usually the best options. Whatever, I just took the L there. I called an Uber to my hotel after rejecting many taxi drivers.
I arrived to my hotel hungry and looked for open places to eat that were close to the hotel. I did not want to walk too far as I heard that night time gets sketchy. I ended up finding a taco place right across the street from my hotel so I went there. The place was called Taquería LOS HUARACHINES (ROMA). Ordering was a bit tough due to the language barrier but I got 2 Al pastor tacos, a plate of carne asada with about 5 tortilla, and a Coca Cola. This was an amazing meal and exactly what I wanted. The Al pastor was incredibly juicy and probably were the best tacos I had in my life at this point. I’m currently based in Texas so I’ve had real tacos before but these were just something else. I walked back to my hotel and quickly went to bed.
Day 2: Roma Norte & La Condesa
I had no official plans for this day. I was still tired from EDC Vegas so I woke up pretty late and didn’t get out of the hotel until around 1130-12. Once I did get out, I originally just planned to walk around neighborhood and see what piqued my interest. I started with a coffee. I got an iced coffee as it was hot out, I don’t think iced coffee is a thing anywhere else besides the US so this was also a little harder to order due to language barrier. Luckily someone spoke English at the counter and helped me order.
I began to walk north, I stopped at plaza rio de janiero to smoke a cigarette (I’m not a regular smoker except on vacation and when I go to raves lol). Very cool spot. My first impression of the Roma Norte neighborhood was that it was a nicer, greener, cleaner version of nyc with a European flair.
Next, I ended up at I believe Zona Rosa? It was a pedestrian only area with a lot of shops and restaurants. I stopped in a few shops maybe looking to buy sunglasses or a shirt but ultimately did not. I continued my walk.
I saw there was some sort of park near me called Bosque de Chapultec. I decided that would be my next destination to walk to. I passed the el Angel de la indepencia which was very impressive. I finally got to the park and was wowed by how nice it was. I didn’t know it was such a big destination until I got there and saw there a bunch of museos and vendors set up. I bought a pair of sunglasses as it was bright out and walked around a bit to take it in. Finally, I decided to check out a museum. I chose Museo de Arte Moderno as I wanted to see some art. I much prefer modern art over traditional art too. I really liked this museum and connected with a lot more paintings that I thought I would. About of 1/4 of the way through I realized can use Google translate to read the descriptions for some of the paintings. I wish I took down the artists who created some of these paintings but I think I can find the artists again if I really wanted to.
I went outside to the sculpture garden and this was a little underwhelming tbh. I was also getting hangry so I went through it quick. I decided to get lunch at Los Pancheros as it was nearby and the Google reviews seemed good. I ordered Plato rachero & caldo xochitl. HUGE portions and incredibly good. I really liked the soup though, it was some sort of chicken and rice soup. It took a little bit for the check to come but it finally did and I paid and left.
I ate way too much and I had to lay down somewhere so I went back to the park and found a nice place to lay where other people were. It was some sort of fountain that I can’t find on Google maps but even though it wasn’t exactly “grand” it was very chill and everyone there just seemed relaxed lol. I laid there for about 20-30 mins until I was ready to go again. I saw on Google maps that there was a castle in the park!? I really wanted to see that. I decided to walk in that direction and also passed Lago de Chapultec. Wow that was beautiful, I wish I took my rest time there lol.
I finally got to the castle entrance but they weren’t letting people in anymore as it was too late, damn. I should’ve paid more attention to the times, I didn’t realize all the museums closed at 5. I decided to finish up my park experience and Uber to the historic center just to check it out. However Ubers were very hard to get at this time as it was rush hour and traffic was insane outside the park. I had multiple people cancel on me, I also canceled on someone after seeing how long it would take to pick me up and drop me off to the historic center. I eventually decided just to walk back. It was about an hour walk back so I had to tough it out.
Not much happened on this walk, just continued to take in the city. Stopped at glorieta de Los insugentes to take a break and smoke a cigarette. I felt a little sketched out here due to all the people constantly moving. I was a bit worried about being pick pocketed but I think it was just the tiredness making me anxious. I got out of there relatively quick and made it back to my hotel to rest before dinner.
At this point I decided I wanted to go to teohiucan the next day. I explored my options for getting there and eventually just decided on Uber because I don’t really like being in a group when going to tourist sites as I’m a bit “quirky” and like to take weird routes and repeat some areas a few times I also keep an inconsistent pace so that made the group experience out of the question. I could’ve taken the bus but did not want to deal with the stress that public transit can be in a foreign country lol. For dinner, I made a reservation at the sushi place Makoto as I wanted something other than Mexican food. Fabulous place, I ordered a glass of wine, sushi sampler, and the fatty tuna nigiri.
Day 2: Teohiucan
I woke up somewhat early for this day. I ordered an Uber and was off. It was really interesting to see Mexico City outside the nicer neighborhoods. I think this is what most Americans imagine when they hear Mexico City. It looked like the COD MW2 map Favela. I wondered what life was like in this area of Mexico City. I even saw a ski lift in use to bring people up the mountain to their house maybe?
I got dropped off at Teohiucan and entered in. I skipped breakfast because I assumed they would have something there. I was half right, they had some convenient stores. I just bought a pack of crackers and a electrolit and hoped that would get me through the whole time I was there lol.I walked around all the pyramids, I was hoping to climb them but I saw they were closed for climbing, honestly a good thing, I imagine they were getting a lot of wear and tear from that. I feel like these pyramids are underrated in terms of world wonders. They’re pretty big and the city itself was apparently one of the biggest cities in the world at the time.
My favorite part about this visit was this path that you can take that allowed you to walk on the outside of the main path. It was super peaceful and you got to see the pyramids at different angles with no people around. In terms of my favorite structure, I liked the citadel a lot due to the intricate designs on it. Some random things I liked there were the jardin and the things the vendors were selling that made the animal noises 😂 I thought it was hilarious how everyone was basically spamming it in chat. I should’ve bought one looking back
I was a little anxious about getting an Uber back but I got one relatively quick and got back to my hotel. When I got back I was very hungry and I found this place near my hotel with a deal that gave 5 al pastor tacos and a cervesa for $100 pesos. Amazing deal but then I saw the al pastor looked like it was dry and has been out for awhile. Unfortunately i felt too awkward to leave after sitting, a mistake that I learned from later if you keep reading. However the tacos were still decent. I was still pretty hungry and found a street vendor selling hamburgers, I ordered con queso and it was insanely good. I ate it in a park and then got some churros from Churrería El Moro which were also good.Again I was way too full and had to lie down. I went back to my hotel and took a nap.
When I woke up I was still full but I started experiencing the first signs of montezumas revenge. However it didn’t seem that bad and I wanted to go out for a rooftop drink. I went to Supra Roma. Great vibe. I had to stand by the bar the whole time due to not having reservations but the views were fantastic and the dj was decent too. She was playing house music. I definitely want to bring my friends here if they ever want to come to cdmx. I had 1 cocktail and 2 beers there. Was thinking about talking to people there but mostly everyone was speaking Spanish so I decided not to.
I left and was gonna call it an early night but heard some more house music being played across the street at departmento. I decided why not and paid the cover to check it out. It was ok. Dj was decent but the vibe seemed kind of “basic” other than the music. Nothing too unique about this place, just a terrace playing music with young people hanging out. I had 2 drinks and left and got a torta. I made it back to my hotel around 12am and this when things started to go south unfortunately. Montezumas revenge came back and this time even stronger than earlier. The alcohol definitely did not help. It quickly kept getting worse in terms of cramping and the ability to not go to the bathroom for more than 20 mins. I think it was the Al pastor tacos from earlier today. I did not get much sleep this night and was basically in survival mode lol luckily I had some water bottles to stay hydrated but I knew I would have to venture out to get more eventually. I basically spent the whole night on the toilet or curled up in pain.
Day 3: Recovery
I was hoping I’d feel feel better in the morning and I was somewhat correct. After 12 hours I could walk again although it was definitely difficult. I managed to make it to a farmacia where the pharmacist recommended me treda. I got that and more water + electrolit. It was around 1pm so I sat outside and drank my electrolit to see if I strong enough to do some sort of activity. After about 20 mins of sitting outside I decided I definitely could not and decided to just take the L for today so I could be full strength for tomorrow. I took my treda and was able to get some rest. When I woke up I was still feeling montezumas revenge a little bit but I knew I had to eat something. I ended up using Uber eats to get consomé de pollo from this place called Toks. It seemed like a safe option as it looked like a chain and I assumed chains usually have somewhat good hygiene standards. It ended up being way better than expected and I managed to put down most of it.
After eating, I took a walk to get more electrolit. I was still a little weak so I just went back to the hotel and went to bed. I was a bit bummed I lost a day but anytime you’re in a 3rd world country you should budget a day for stomach issues.
Day 4: Castillo De Chapultepec & Historic Center
I woke up feeling a lot better. It was actually crazy as 24 hours ago I couldn’t even walk straight. I took my treda and headed out. I was debating on if I should go back Chapultepec park to see the castle or if it would take too much time as I was planning to go to the historic center today. I decided to see the castle as I was thinking about it too much to skip it.
I took an Uber there this time and paid the admission. It was definitely worth it. The castle was so beautiful and there was so much history inside. I learned a lot about Mexican history and was able to take in some nice views of the city. My favorite part were the murals inside and the jardin. After, I walked to 7/11 to get more electrolit. I also got pringles as I was hungry but my stomach was still a little rough. From there I ubered to the historic center.
When I got to the historic center I was instantly overstimulated lol. It was a Saturday afternoon so it must’ve been the most popular day. It was a lot bigger than expected too. I didn’t really know where to start so I just started walking. My first stop was actually the adidas store as I needed to get my bearings and am a fan of adidas lol unfortunately there wasn’t much in there though that seemed exclusive. I know in Tokyo they’ll have exclusive stuff but didn’t see anything like that in Mexico City, bit disappointed but otherwise it provided a place for me to take a breath. I got out and started walking towards zocalo plaza.
Zocalo Plaza was just epic. The big Mexican flag with the cathedral behind it had so much swag for lack of a better term lmao it showed off the immense pride that Mexico has for itself. I really liked this area a lot.
I continued walking and ended up at these streets with vendors. This was even more overstimulating than the other areas. So much noise and people. I stopped in a store and got a can coke and kept on trucking along.
I decided to go to palacio de bella artes. I really liked palacio de bella artes as well. The architecture and colors were stunning. The Torre Latinoamericana building was also interesting. I decided to check out the museum inside palacio de Bella artes. At first i thought it was a bit underwhelming. I was not too big of a fan of the murals and it seemed like some areas were closed. I then came across the Dioses y Maquinas exhibit by Santiago Sierra Soler. This exhibit was an “immersive cinema installation” that told the story of the aztecs getting colonized by Spaniards. It was very powerful and really made me understand some of the politics of Mexico. Also globalism in general and how colonization impacted the world. It gave me that powerful global experience that I mentioned before. I think everyone who visits cdmx should experience this exhibit to really wrap your head around the politics of the country and how it became what it is today. When I walked out I began to see the two sides of Mexico, the native side and european side and how they interact with each other.
That exhibit made me want to learn about the Aztecs more so I ended up going to museo del templo mayor. This place was also impressive with countless exhibits about the Aztecs. It’s insane to me how there was an ancient city right under us. By the time I was done there I was getting hungry so ironically I got McDonald’s as my stomach needed something familiar. I got it to go and ate it near the palacio de bella artes. I wanted to go the sears rooftop after but couldn’t find the entrance so I just walked around the surrounding neighborhood. This part reminded me a lot of Manhattan.
I walked through the Barrio Chino and thought it was hilarious tbh. I did not see any Asian people and there wasn’t much Asian culture other than the lanterns i guess lol the restaurants also did not look too good. Cool experience nonetheless.
I ended my walk at a plaza San juan to call an Uber as it was about to start raining. I found the torre de telefons de Telmex structure also super interesting. I made it home and rested before dinner.
For dinner I went to this Argentinan steak house called Gardela. A bit risky after my stomach issues but I wanted to get a nice dinner on my last night. I got a dry aged New York strip and it did not disappoint. I ordered it medium rare but it was a bit more rare than expected. I ate it anyway and was wowed. One of the best steaks I’ve ever had. Amazing service too, can’t recommend this place enough if you want a good steak.
When I got back to my hotel I was having an internal debate if I should go out. I had an early flight and was already pretty tired and full. I decided to go out anyway as it was Saturday night and didn’t get to do anything the day before. I ended up at this techno club called yuyu. Pretty intimate spot. The techno was very good and creative. The crowd was also fun, I had a few shallow conversations with people but nothing deep. Mostly my fault though as I wasn’t making much conversation. I just drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and listened to good electronic music which is a solid night for me. I headed home around 2 and went to bed for my flight.
Closing remarks:I really enjoyed my time in Mexico City. Im not sure what my expectations were for the city but they were definitely exceeded. Definitely an underrated city as there is so much culture and history but I never here much people talk about it in the states. I will definitely be back as I feel like there’s still so much to discover and it was pretty cheap to get there and get lodging.
Not gonna lie though, I was bit nervous going solo here but once I got there most of the anxiety went away. In terms of safety, just be where you’re supposed to be (tourist areas & safe neighborhoods), keep your possessions zipped up, and don’t walk at night. I felt more sketched out in most US cities

Driving back home to Calgary from Ontario we realize the next closest gas station is closed, and we don't have enough gas to leg it to the next town, or even double back to the last town, so we're stuck in Upsala. We pull out our phones and start googling all possibilities, gas stations motels, anything at all, but nothing's open or in reach, there's one hotel in the little town, and it only a few KM away, so we drive down to see if there's any hope of anything, and what we found was just peculiar. The place is completely empty. Not one single car, except for a truck parked by the dark office. The super weird thing is, every single room, clearly has a Tv, because we see they're all turned on, we don't really register at first, we're just desperate for beds, because our vehicle is stuffed full of cargo we're bringing with us, we can barely lean the seats back, if we have to sleep at the gas station, it's going to be uncomfortable, so we leave the hotel, go back to the closed gas station and begin to resolve to our fates of crappy car sleeping, when it starts to dawn on us, there were no cars in any of the parking spaces.. but every single tv is turned on. Why is absolutely every tv on? And weirder still the casted light was eerily similar, we start joking that, oh maybe all the tvs were playing the same thing, maybe just one of those hotel default channels that show previews of movies you can rent? We're sitting ald listening to Dexter's Final Cut while we try to fall asleep, but something about the place has us just weirded out. The place is totally empty, but every tv is on, just why?
We decide we have to get another look. We'll burn more precious fuel to answer the itching questions, it's only a couple KM. So we roll up and it's the same scene, empty but we can see light casting in the windows for every unit, and again eerily similar, but wr can't see the actual screens from this angle. We go back inside the parking lott, noting the noise our muffler makes, using our phones zoom, i peek in the window and snap some pictures, as quickly as i can, and i see a man in a helmet throw up the Sig Hiel solute, and some tanks and then a wide shot of what looks like a concentration camp or army base, unable to recognize the film playing we roll down the line of units and see the exact same stuff playing on every single screen in the place, we flip around to drive back out, and see tvs on the opposite wall, because this place flips the units every other unit so the tvs are on either side of the same dividing wall, and again, same exact film, every unit, it doesn't appear to be switching content showing previews, it looks like every tv is on the same channel or playing the same content, in sync! If it's the same channel or a CCTV system, okay, fine, but why is every one of them on, if there are no cars in the whole place? Who was like, okay for our CCTV promo, lets go with soluting Nazis, or lets put all the TVs on the same channel and scare the shit out of people who get stranded here.
Now we're back at the closed gas station. In total, we've seen 4 or 5 other cars show up, check the gas pumps and either continue down the road, or double back. Now, this place is pretty dead quiet, other than the occasional semi or train, but for some reason, we've heard multiple, quickly stifled car alarms, from the direction of the hotel. At least one of them happened a few moments after one of our stranded mates in another car headed up that way, and it sounded about that far away. Just a couple quick blasts thst sounded like an alarm or a frantic honking, then silence.
What the fuck have we stumbled upon, why are all the TVs on, why the fuck are they all playing the same thing, and why is it Nazis??? I'm going to post all the photos in the comments as well. I'm hoping someone can tell what film this is and it's something benine.
If i'm still alive and not tied up with my eyelids sliced off i. Front of one of those creepy screens, i'll go try to take another look tomorrow morning, but first i need gas and to try to get a little bit of sleep for the 19 hour drive.
The extra kicker is that this gas station in the middle of nowhere, features a tesla supercharging station which is 24/7. If we only had a tesla, we'd be laughing.

Hi! First post here, not sure if this is the correct format, but I'm not too worried about it as long as this is enough information to help jog someone's memory. I remember this game really fondly, I loved playing it when I was little and I've been remembering it for years now not knowing what it was called or how to find it. I put in everything I could remember about the game, even with some help from my sister who also played the game, so I hope it's enough!
Platform: A lent PC from K12 virtual charter school- I remember this clearly. It was either Windows 7 or Windows Vista.
Genre: Point and click, from what I remember.
Estimated year of release: Sometime before 2008-2009.
Graphics/art style: Realistic, if a bit pixel art-like. This is where my memory is a bit fuzzier. I do remember the colors being dark, but I also know that I mostly remember the game taking place at night rather than day. I don't remember how the game looked in the day.
Noteable characters: Not too many characters I remember in it, if any at all. Other than yourself, being the driver whom you had to take care of, keeping up needs like sleeping and eating.
Noteable gameplay mechanics: Upkeep of needs, as mentioned previously. There were 3 needs to keep up while you drove iirc, i can remember eating, sleeping, and fuel. You would have to stop at either a hotel, a diner, or a gas stop to keep these needs up. My sister, who also played the game, says that you take pictures of animals. I don't remember this, but considering it was a game that came preinstalled on a school-lent computer and it was targeted towards kids, I wouldn't be shocked if animals were in it.
Other details: Adding onto some previous notes here, I'm guessing that the computer was on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 because I played it sometime between 2008 and 2010, from kindergarten to a bit later. It was preinstalled on a computer that my virtual charter school lent us, and the curriculum I was learning on was K12 (not the grading system, the online school). A few other details I might include is that my sister thinks that the specific car you drive was a truck, but I'm not sure. She claims to remember this because in the screen at one of the different stops (diner, hotel, or gas stop) there was a truck parked on-screen. Take this with a grain of salt, because she says it might've just been a truck in a parking spot to add to the background of the scene. I also somewhat remember a text box that would tell you when you were running low on certain needs, I think it told it to you in a conversational way, like an inner thought or sonething. Anyways, this has been bugging me for a few years now, and I figured getting this out there maybe someone else would know what I'm talking about, anyone at all or even just someone else who grew up learning with K12 :)

I haven’t ridden anything outside of Vegas since the start of the pandemic. My last park before flying out to Ohio this weekend was Knott’s in March of 2020.
I’ve taken rides on Big Apple after getting off work a few times, and I haven’t been to the adventuredome since they upped the price to $60 for a wristband. Well I finally decided to book myself a trip to Ohio to get some new credits and remind myself what a good coaster is.
I haven’t been to Kings Island since 2008, so this was a long overdue trip for me. I went over Memorial Day weekend and got a fastlane for Sunday. First impressions of the park were great. Besides the outdated front entrance, International street looked amazing as ever. Those fountains and shops lining the sides oozed charm and it really gets you excited for your day.
I’ll give a short review on each coaster in order that I rode them.
Diamondback - x12 10/10 Wow! what an amazing hyper! Every hill hit hard, and the operations were incredible too. I noticed only once on my days where the trains were stacking. My personal favorite moment was the dive into the splashdown, I flew out of my seat every time. I only noticed a rattle in the valley before the turn around and it wasn’t anything that really ruined the experience. 100% my new favorite hyper.
Mystic Timbers - x6 9/10 Rapid fire hills and transitions makes this the king of pacing in the park. Although I feel it was a little over hyped in my opinion. Everyone was telling me it was the best ride in the park, but I have to disagree. Still wickedly fun though.
Beast - x9 10/10 I sure underestimated this coaster, wow what a surprise! This thing was INCREDIBLE! Sure it lacks what a modern woodie will give you, but the Beast is one hell of an experience. I managed to stay off the wheel seats and I snagged 2 night rides which probably helped my opinion… but still. I loved the beast. It’s a classic for a reason.
Backlot Stunt Coaster - x2 7/10 Now I’ve ridden this before, I first rode it opening weekend back in 2005 as Italian Job. It’s nothing amazing, and I wish more effects were working… but it’s a still a fun ride I think everyone can enjoy. It definitely has its place in Kings Island. (I actually think this has a better launch than FoF)
Orion - x11 9/10 As a now west coast enthusiast, this is my first Giga… so I don’t have any other Gigas to compare it with. HOLY that first drop is insane!!! It truly does feel like you’re falling forever. Every element was awesome, but yeah the ride does feel a little too short. Regardless it was still amazing.
Flight Of Fear - x1 4/10 Well time for my first negative review. I’m sorry, but wow this ride is lame. The launch is cool, and the first few elements are forceful… but it just completely dies after the midcourse. It’s a rough one too. Yeah this one was a one and done for me. Even my nostalgia can’t salvage this.
Racer x4 7/10 I managed to ride both sides and I preferred the red side as I feel it was a tad smoother. It’s a fun airtime filled racing woodie, and that’s all it needs to be. I have no strong negative feelings for the ride, nor was I amazed. It’s fun though, and I’ll probably always get a ride on it when I go to KI.
Adventure Express x2 6/10 I didn’t think I’d get this one on this trip due to it being closed for the refurb, but it opened Saturday and I got a few rides in. It’s an arrow mine train, and a good one at that. It has a well paced layout with some fun head choppers and theming. If only it actually did something after the final lift tunnel.
Banshee x6 9/10 I think everyone can agree that the 90s era B&M inverts far outrank their post millennium counter parts. However banshee might be the exception because wow was this thing is crazy. While it may lack whip, it definitely doesn’t lack in force and pacing. This thing was hauling on my days and never let up. Every inversion was great, and this probably has the best first drop on any invert that I’ve ridden. Banshee is awesome.
The Bat x2 8/10 Another underrated one. The bat is just pure fun. It’s short and sweet and that’s about it. Swinging is fun, what can I say? Best suspended I’ve ridden so far.
Invertigo x2 6/10 I was expecting to dislike this ride, but nope! Thought it was good! Not best in the park or anything, but considering I was expecting this to be rough and unejoyable… I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t find it rough in the slightest, and that loop is killer! Still in the bottom half of my list but Invertigo still gets my approval.
Favorite flat ride as a bonus: Drop Tower x2
Overall I had a wonderful time at Kings Island. It has a great atmosphere, great Coaster lineup, and friendly staff. I can’t wait to come back.

Hi! I'm Dylan (they/them). I turned 24 a few months ago and am primarily looking to meet new friends and something that could develop into a long-term relationship. I currently live in Georgia, but am actively looking to move out of the south. I'm demi, like taking things slow, and am primarily aesthetically attracted to femininity or androgyny regardless of gender.
A little bit more about me:

• Physically, I'm 6'1", shaved head, pale skin, blue eyes, and a fairly slim build (albeit I gained and am currently losing some fall/winter weight). Presentation-wise I'd say I'm more "soft-masculine" I guess? My fashion is minimalist with lots of natural colors but I like to throw in more feminine accessories/earrings or painting my nails. I've tried more feminine fashion and I like it, but not all the time and not enough to wear regularly. I love colder weather since I get to wear all my favorite sweaters and scarves! I used to be a gym rat in college and I'm getting back to my old gym habits, which is really exciting.
• I'm looking into developing a more androgynous style since I think that'd be cool as fuck.
• I work as software engineer and I love programming and messing with computers. From the moment I was exposed to programming I knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. I use Arch btw.
• I love cats and sharing pictures of my sweet furry friend.
• I've been described by others as sensitive, empathetic, and thoughtful. I'm pretty introverted and shy in group situations but love having thoughtful conversations and learning about people and what they are passionate about and why. I'm very affectionate and cuddly towards people I'm close to, while being cognizant of their boundaries of course.
• My greatest passion is competitive fighting games, mainly the Guilty Gear series. Playing and studying the game, going to tournaments both local and afar, and interacting with the community bring me immense joy. Starting in late 2022 I've been traveling and taking weekend trips to bigger tournaments, and I'm always training for the next event!
• I deeply love music and play a few instruments, but I've mainly been focusing on classical guitar. Neutral Milk Hotel is my favorite band of all time, but I'm constantly exploring lots of music across pretty much every genre. I have soft spots for jazz, folk, prog/math rock, some alt rock, and psych rock though. In the classical world I tend to be drawn to the Romantic period composers. I also collect vinyl!
• Running, longboarding, or skateboarding through local parks is one of my favorite ways to spend time outdoors. I also enjoy hiking, but never really go unless it's with others.
• Huge coffee nerd and night owl. Those are probably related. Figuring out people's coffee tastes and brewing them a cup they love is really fulfilling.
• I'm vegan for the animals and I'll gladly cook badass vegan meals for people.
• I read a little bit every day. Right now I'm reading Thinking, Fast and Slow and the Dune series (really excited for the new movie!). My favorite novel is definitely The Catcher in the Rye, and I'm also a massive Tolkien nerd and read lots of philosophy and psychology, although I'm definitely a novice in the latter two fields. I'm attempting to learn Japanese as of a few days ago, too!
• Some of the non-fighting games I'm playing right now include Tears of the Kingdom, Dwarf Fortress, and Pokemon. My favorite singleplayer game is Morrowind!
• I hate cars and one of my big goals is to move out of the south and to a city where I can be car-independent.
• My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski and watching it never fails to make me smile. My favorite anime is a toss-up between Cowboy Bebop and Ping Pong the Animation. Naruto gets on the honorable mention list for how many times it's made me cry.

What I'm looking for in a romantic partner:

• Someone in roughly my age range (20-30-ish) who is passionate and caring and enjoys absurdist/dry/goofy humor interspersed with deep conversations. I tend towards identifying as sapiosexual.
• Someone who is also affectionate!
• Someone okay with monogamy. Polyamory is really cool, but not for me personally. I'm kink-friendly and a sub-leaning switch. Don't really like discussing sexual tastes in public forums otherwise.
• Someone who would be fine with long-distance if circumstances dictate that.
• Someone who is a child-free leftist.
• Someone who is alright with me being an introvert who can get overstimulated easily.
• Tobacco use is a deal-breaker for me in romantic contexts. I don't drink alcohol for physical health reasons but I have nothing against alcohol use in non-addiction contexts.

If you're interested in reaching out then I'd love to hear more about you in a message or chat!

I'm a day late posting this -- I'm sorry to have gotten off schedule! I realize there have been a lot of high-earner diaries recently, but I hope my perspective is still of interest.
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Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: $460K (mine) and $250K (husband’s). We both max out our annual withholdings. I’ve been working longer than him, and my employer offers a more generous match, which contributed significantly to my balance.
Equity: $275K. Our home is currently worth about $450K. We live in a M-HCOL area (far) outside of NYC, and our home was a fixer upper when we bought it. Honestly, it’s still a fixer, and we are saving towards a major renovation.
Cars: Maybe $15-$20k total…we drive two paid off cars. One is 13 years old, and the other is 10 years old.
Other Cash and Investments: $150K
Credit card debt: None, paid every month
Student loan debt (for what degree): $80K towards the grad degree I’m pursuing now. Since we’re saving towards the home reno, I’m financing my degree rather than paying for it outright. I know this is counterintuitive given the interest rate environment. However, the home reno has been a priority for us since we bought this home.
Daughters’ 529s: $75K
Total Net Worth: $1.145M
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I've been working in my field for 13 years and my starting salary was $40,000.
I work as a Director of Financial Planning & Analysis in a niche field. I won’t go into too many details because it’s a small world. My salary progression was as follows:
Year 1: $40,000 starting, right after recession. I had an amazing boss who mentored me and recognized my potential. After six months, I received a promotion and raise to $60,000.
Year 3: Promotion and raise to $90,000, for a role with more financial and analytical responsibility. Although I worked hard, I continued to benefit from having a boss who advocated for me. I consider this a major turning point.
Year 8: Raise to $120,000 for additional responsibilities after a coworker retired.
Year 10: Raise to $135,000
I’ve received an average of 2.5% COLA increases and now earn $145K. My boss has requested a $10,000 bonus for me this year, which I haven’t yet included because it’s still under review.
My husband earns $260,000 base salary as a VP of a large corporation (this is a very recent raise…he was at $200K previously). In addition, he can receive a performance-based bonus of 20-30%. We don’t include his bonuses in our financial planning because they are not guaranteed and because a portion is RSUs. When he receives a cash bonus, we put it towards our daughter’s college accounts and/or our home reno fund.
Education: I have a bachelors and a masters in a field unrelated to my career. My tuition was paid by scholarships/assistantships. In addition, my parents covered my living expenses during undergrad. During my first graduate degree, I worked 3 part-time jobs to cover my non-tuition expenses. I’m now enrolled in a grad program more directly related to my career. My employer encouraged me to do this program and generously allows me the time out of office. In addition, if I stay for a certain number of years, they will reimburse a portion of my tuition.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
Monthly take home: $6,300 after taxes, retirement ($1,875) and medical/dental benefits ($110– self only)
Husband’s monthly take home: $12,560 after taxes, retirement ($1,875), and medical/dental ($400 for him and our two kids)
Section Three: Expenses
Mortgage: $2,485 for principal, interest, insurance, and taxes. We refinanced to a 15-year loan at 2.3% when rates were low
Daycare: $3,510 per month (full-time for a toddler and preschooler)
Savings contribution: $3,000-$5,000
Daughters’ 529 accounts: $2,000 ($1,000 each)
Debt payments: $700 towards my student loans. This will increase once I’m done with my degree
Donations: $3,000 annually
Transit $350-400 for husband’s commute (3x/week to NYC)
Electric: $60
Wifi/Cable/Landline: $120
Cellphone: $180
Subscriptions: $59 for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Duolingo, Apple Storage, and credit monitoring
Gym membership: $149 for Pure Barre
Husband’s physical therapy: $130 (portion not covered by insurance)
Car insurance: $3,200 annually. (This seems high, considering we have good records, don’t drive much, and both cars are paid off. I need to look into this)
Life Insurance: $3,100 annually
Day 1 (Saturday):
6:00 AM: Wake up. I’m doing a modular course for my graduate degree, and the class wraps up today. I study for the exam that happens this afternoon. A little after 7, I walk to a nearby coffee shop and buy a large Americano for $4.50 including tip. When I’m back at the hotel, I pack up my room and leave a $20 tip for housekeeping. On the way out, I drop my bags at the bell stand. The hotel cost is covered by tuition.
9:00: Meet with my study team to finalize a paper and presentation that’s due today. At noon, we break for lunch (also covered by tuition). I have a salad and lots of carbonated caffeine. After lunch, we have an hour-long final exam.
2:00: Final course wrap up. It’s been an intense week-long session. I learned a lot, but am so ready to head home. I walk back to the hotel to retrieve my bags. Along the way, I stop to buy an empanada ($8 including tip). Then I call an Uber to the airport ($55 including tip). While in the Uber, I talk to my husband and daughters, who are 1.5 and almost 4. Due to the time difference, it’s their bedtime and if I don’t catch them now, I’ll lose my chance. I promise them that I’ll be home when they wake up in the morning. A lot of my classmates went to dinner together before heading to the airport. On the one hand, I have FOMO because my classmates are awesome. But on the other hand, it was really important to me to talk to my family, and I know I couldn’t have done that easily in a bustling restaurant (I’ve tried, and it was a frustrating experience for everyone!).
6:00: Arrive at the airport. I check my bag ($35). Once I’m through security, I pick up some souvenirs. My hotel wasn’t in an area with good shopping options, and the class days were pretty packed anyway. I get locally made chocolate for my husband. The girls get a small stuffed animal each, and a book to share ($70 total). Then I treat myself to crab cakes and a French 75 to celebrate the end of the week ($60 including tip).
10:00: On the flight, I read until the cabin lights go out and then try to sleep. I used to be able to sleep better on red eyes, but I wake up every 15 minutes.
Day 1 Total: $252.50
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Day 2 (Sunday):
6:00: Flight lands and I gather my bags and take the parking shuttle. Although I parked in an economy lot, the total was still $174. Ugh – this has been an expensive week.
7:45: Arrive home. The girls crawled into our bed and are snuggled up next to my husband. The toddler wakes up as I come into the room and the look on her face when she sees me is priceless. Our preschooler wakes up soon after. It’s so good to be reunited with my people! We all head downstairs and have breakfast (waffles and cereal, plus a huge pot of coffee). It’s cold and rainy today and we spend the morning watching TV together.
10:00: Our toddler falls asleep for her nap, and my husband encourages me to do the same. Our preschooler is happily entertaining herself with Legos and puzzles, so I doze for a couple hours. Around 1:00, we all have turkey sandwiches for lunch. Then, I take over kid duty so my husband can finally have some time to himself. He spends the afternoon woodworking in his basement workshop.
2:00: Our preschooler’s birthday is coming up. I buy digital invites from Etsy ($12) and send them to Staples to print ($16 with a promo). They are ready in about two hours and we pick them up. My preschooler asks for kinetic sand at Staples and I cave in and buy it for her ($11). I constantly complain about the amount of “stuff” in our house, but to be honest, I’m guilty of contributing to the clutter. When we get home, I spend the afternoon doing crafts with the girls.
5:15: We heat up some leftovers that my in-laws dropped off while I was gone. We do the girls’ bedtime routine a little early since everyone seems tired. Lights out by 8:00 for the girls. Then I catch up on work email and start making a list for the week. For the purposes of this money diary, my husband mentions that he spent $270 yesterday restocking groceries. Then I watch Succession and head to bed
Day 2 Total: $387
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Day 3 (Monday):
5:08: My alarm goes off because I typically go to Pure Barre on Monday morning. I’m still jetlagged so I decide not to go today. I hadn’t actually signed up for a class because I had a feeling this would happen.
6:30: Everyone else is still asleep, so I go downstairs to make coffee and enjoy a few quiet moments to myself. When my husband and kids wake up, we all have breakfast (frozen waffles and berries for the kids. English muffins for the adults).
8:30: Drop the kids off at daycare and then get to work. I work primarily from home, so I just have to walk upstairs to my office nook. I spend the morning prepping for an important meeting tomorrow with senior leadership. I get a reminder on our phone that our toddler has a well-child visit today…usually I sync my calendars, but I totally neglected to log this on my work calendar, and it conflicts with a meeting with our chief of staff. CRAP. I debate canceling the doctor’s appointment, but decide to keep it. Our toddler is getting vaccines today and if I don’t keep the appointment, I’m not sure when I can reschedule. I apologize profusely to our COS and ask if we can reschedule. She says not to worry, and that she appreciates the extra time in her schedule…hopefully I didn’t make a bad judgment call.
1:15: I quickly eat a turkey sandwich for lunch and then pick up our toddler from daycare for her appointment. These well visits usually take 30 minutes and are covered by insurance. As luck would have it, we spend 90 minutes waiting because they are running behind. Luckily, I have snacks and activities in my purse to occupy her. To pass the time, I browse for favors and paper goods for our older daughter’s upcoming party. I end up buying paper goods, decor, and favors ($67 from Target) and iced sugar cookies ($240 from Etsy). As I type this, I realize how bananas it is to spend that much on decorated sugar cookies. Our incomes have increased pretty dramatically in the past few years, and although we haven’t increased our fixed expenses, we’ve definitely succumbed to lifestyle inflation for one-off things like this. It’s something I need to be aware of. I’m finally home around 3:30, just in time for my next call. My husband is WFH today and takes over kid duty during this call.
5:15: It’s time to pick up our older daughter from preschool, but my call is running long so my husband picks her up. For dinner, we make salads topped with roast chicken. The toddler loves salad, but our preschooler proclaims “I don’t like green leaves – I’m not a caterpillar!”. Well, okay then.
8:30: We do the girls’ bedtime routine, and then I continue prepping for tomorrow’s meeting. I wrap up around 1:00 am. While I’m working, husband preps two meals that just need to be reheated sometime later in the week. Good night!
Day 3 Total: $307
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Day 4 (Tuesday):
7:30: Kids and I sleep in a bit this morning. My husband left home around 5:45 since he’s going into the office, so the three of us are on our own. For breakfast, the toddler has toast and berries. The preschooler has bran cereal and a frozen waffle. I eat their scraps, washed down with coffee.
9:15: I drop the kids off at daycare a little late this morning. Then I get working and practice the presentation I’m giving at 11:00
12:05: Call is over and I think it went as well as could be expected. I make myself a turkey sandwich for lunch. Then I go to the post office to mail a birth certificate request for our youngest daughter’s passport application. The cost for the birth certificate is $50. I also spend $15 at the post office to mail the envelope and buy stamps. Then it’s back to work.
5:10: Pick the girls up from school. My husband gets home around 6:45. Dinner tonight is a tofu and broccoli stir fry with rice. I don’t cook much, but I make this meal weekly and it’s everyone’s favorite. The secret is using soy sauce that is seasoned for seafood. It has a much deeper, richer flavor than standard soy sauce.
7:30: Bathtime and bed for the girls. I text with a mom from daycare whose kids are the same age as ours. We arrange a playdate for an upcoming weekend. I’m hopeful that she and I will develop a friendship – making friends is hard when you’re an adult!
9:10: I debate doing schoolwork or “work work.” Schoolwork wins tonight…I spend about two hours prepping a case study.
Day 4 Total: $65
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Day 5 (Wednesday):
5:30: Wake up and start working. I still have a lot of deliverables to catch up on. Husband leaves as usual to commute into the city.
7:00: I get an email and text message that daycare had to close today due to unforeseen circumstances. There was an issue with their plumbing that impacts the whole building. Oh no – I immediately feel a pit in my stomach. I really can’t afford this today, especially because I am out this Friday for another day of class. Although our preschooler is pretty independent, our toddler needs constant supervision. She’s always a moment away from jumping off a couch, climbing on a table, or otherwise causing herself bodily harm. My husband has multiple meetings with his division president today so he can’t realistically come home to help. Argh. I feed us all breakfast and prepare myself for a difficult day. I send my boss an email to let him know the situation, but promise to stay on top of my work after hours as needed. I also log a half day of PTO in the payroll system…I figure I can probably be about 50% productive today.
10:00: Our toddler falls asleep for a nap, so I frantically send out emails and run reports. Our preschooler watches shows on her tablet.
12:15: Toddler is up from her nap. Our poor preschooler has been on her tablet for too long and her eyes are glazed over. I decide to take the girls out for lunch to break up the day. We go to Jersey Mikes since it’s nearby and fast. The girls each have a kids meal and the toddler is delighted that it includes a kids cup. I have an Italian sub ($29). We eat outside and the preschooler hums and loudly proclaims "I love Jersey Mike's!"
1:30: We get back home and I jump on an internal call. Thankfully the girls are well behaved and don’t cause any disruptions, beyond waving hello at the start of the call.
3:00 I have another call and the girls are again on their best behavior. PTL. Maybe I’m just lucky, or maybe it’s that I bribed them with cookies.
4:45: I wrap up the workday a little early. I take the girls on a walk since the weather is nice. When we get back inside, they immediately melt down. The toddler wants to be held constantly, which is a challenge because she weighs 24 pounds. The preschooler is thrashing, spitting at me, and throwing toys. I resist a really strong urge to scream or cry or break something or hide in the bathroom – maybe all at once. Instead, I heat up one of the meals my husband made earlier this week. When our preschooler calms down, she asks if I still love her when she’s bad. She’s been asking this question a lot recently, and it makes me wonder if it’s just a phase, or if she needs more reassurance from us. Either way, it's heartbreaking to know she worries about this.
7:30: Husband had a late meeting, so he gets home later than normal. We do the girls bedtime and bathtime routines. We get another note from daycare saying that the plumbing issue is, unfortunately, still unresolved. We’ll get a tuition credit, but they will be closed another day. Husband and I talk through logistics. We agree that he’ll go into the city again tomorrow and I’ll handle the kids. His company is in the middle of a major reorg and it’s important for him to be there in person. We decide to ask his parents if they are available to help tomorrow. Between work, the kids, and my grad program, sometimes I feel like the only thing we talk about is logistics. It’s been at least 6 months since we’ve been on a date.
10:00: I catch up on work, and also prep for school this coming weekend. I go to bed a little after 1:00.
Day 5 Total: $29
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Day 6 (Thursday):
5:45: Husband is up and out of the house at his normal time. I wake up and run some financial reports while I have the chance.
7:30: Kids are awake. While they eat breakfast I pack their activity bags and snacks since we’re going to my in-laws today. They are semi-retired and often help when we have childcare hiccups. They are truly a godsend. They live about an hour away and we arrive at their house a little after 10:00. On the way, I fill my car up with gas ($52).
12:30: The girls are having a blast with my in-laws. We take a break for lunch, which is chicken nuggets and hummus for the girls. I eat their scraps and also have some Greek yogurt.
4:15: I have a full afternoon of calls, but it goes smoothly thanks to the grandparents. We leave a few minutes after 5:00 and both girls fall asleep before we reach the first traffic light. This makes for a peaceful drive home. Traffic is heavy so we get home around 6:30. I open the mail, and find a surprise medical bill for $572. This is for the toddler’s trip to the ER…14 months ago! This is the first bill we are getting and honestly it had completely slipped my mind. She had a triple infection and ended up severely dehydrated. Seeing this bill dredges up all sorts of unpleasant memories. I’m grateful we have the means to pay this without issue, and I’m grateful she is healthy. I understand it's a privilege to pay a bill like this without thinking twice.
6:45: Husband arrives home. We reheat a pasta dish he made earlier this week and have a salad on the side. The girls are beat today, so we skip bathtime and let them go straight to bed. Thankfully, daycare can reopen tomorrow. I feel like a weight’s been lifted from my shoulders, especially since I have class tomorrow.
9:00: I have a call with my school study team to work on our group project. It lasts for about an hour.
10:30: Husband and I discuss buying a swing set for our backyard. He’s narrowed it down to two choices, and they’re both awesome: three swings, a rock wall, slide, and clubhouse area. I think they both look great, so I leave the final decision in his hands. The total with shipping and tax ends up being $1760. We considered buying a pre-assembled swing set to save time, but similar models cost nearly $6K. He’s handy, so he said he’d prefer to assemble it himself.
Day 6 Total: $2,384
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Day 7 (Friday):
6:15: I have class today so I eat breakfast and get dressed early. I tend to wear a lot of athleisure when working from home. Today I put on a structured ponte dress and hastily apply Tarte makeup to give my skin some color. Every time I make the effort to get dressed, I'm reminded that I really do feel more confident when I look put together. I get to school around 9:00 for my first class.
12:00: Break in my schedule for lunch. I eat a salad and some kind of chicken dish, while catching up with classmates (covered by tuition). For dessert, I have a huge bowl of berries. Lots more coffee to keep me awake and engaged during class.
7:00: Classes are over for the day. I pay parking ($17) and am on my way. I get home at 8:30, in time to do bedtime with my girls. Husband made veggie quesadillas with black beans and guacamole, which I eat once the girls are asleep. I check my work email to make sure nothing is on fire. Then my husband and I watch an episode of “What We Do In the Shadows” and turn in for the night.
Day 7 Total: $17
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WEEKLY TOTALS
Food + Drink: $371.50
Fun / Entertainment: $2,106
Home + Health: $572
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $333
Other: $155
Weekly Total: $3,537.5
Reflections: Some of this week’s expenditures were unusual: the swing set, my travel expenses, and that old ER bill are not part of our normal recurring expenses. However, the rest of this week's spending was pretty typical. I realize a lot of this diary revolved around sorting out childcare disruptions…honestly, that takes so much mental and logistical energy on a weekly basis. Writing this diary also made me realize how little time my husband and I spend together. Often we feel like we’re in survival mode, but we need to be more intentional about prioritizing our relationship.

I just had my honeymoon (originally scheduled for Jun 2020). My wife and I are in our early thirties. It’s my wife’s first time in japan while it’s my fourth. I’ve benefitted immensely from stalking Tokyo travel reddit and would like to return the favour. I’ll provide some of my tips and observations to the end (skip to the end if the itinerary doesn’t interest you), some of which I think haven’t been mentioned before.
Thank God pretty much everything went to plan, and my wife thoroughly enjoyed the trip. We spent 12 days in Japan, most of it in Tokyo and 2 nights in Kawaguchiko. Many people were surprised to know that we’d be spending most of our trip in Tokyo, but I thought it was just fine because Tokyo had a lot to offer. My wife and I aren’t big on visiting shrines or ticking tourist hotspots off a checklist. We don’t shop much, but we did a lot of it simply because it’s Japan and we bought lots of quality-of-life items (not fashion) for ourselves and others. Given how much my wife really enjoyed the trip, I think others with similar interests could find something helpful too.
Pre-trip planning

• It was out first leisure trip in years, and my wife's first trip to Japan. I wanted to show her the best of Japan, and took months trawling through reddit posts and trip reports, watching youtube videos, and just soaking in all the things before deciding on an itinerary that I thought my wife would enjoy. It was almost exclusively planned by me, and I would consult my wife along the way.
• Other than the hotel & flights, I booked the highway express bus to Kawaguchiko one week prior.
• Decided on the airport limousine bus to bring us from the airport to the city a few days prior.
• Studio Ghibli tickets booked one month in advance. There's a good guide available on reddit already. International tickets were quickly sold out, so we used a free VPN to get onto the Japanese site which had more tickets & timings available. Simply Google translate the entire page.
• Booked a cooking class on cookly months prior.
• Did Visit Japan QR two days prior. It takes some time, so do it earlier rather than later.
• Added all places of interests in a Google list, and all food places in another Google list. I tried the custom Google maps at first but didn’t feel the UI was easy to navigate.
• Planned itinerary based on location proximity, and also highlighted parts that were interchangeable in case we wanted to switch it up (which we did).

Planning during the trip

• The Google maps foods list was always just for consideration: if we had time or were craving something. We didn't hard-code food places into our daily plans. But when food was the primary activity (e.g. visiting Tsukiji market), we'd determine to visit particular food stalls. Otherwise, just needed to do a cursory Google review check on whether a random food place is worth eating it. As a principle, we didn't want to spend time queuing >20m for food.
• I'd plan the next day's itinerary the night before, considering fatigue, interest, and proximity. I would create a brand new Google maps list for the next day, including potential food places.

Day 0 (Wed) 17 May - Arrival at Haneda Airport to hotel in Shinjuku. Arrived in Haneda late, about 11pm. Clearance was quick but baggage took 30mins. I had no choice but to cancel my airport limousine and take the metro to our hotel in Shinjuku. I tried Apple wallet’s Suica at first. It worked seamlessly but I felt that a physical metro card was just faster so I eventually switched over. We reached after midnight, so do let your hotel know in advance if you anticipate arriving at odd hours.
Day 1 (Thurs) - Shinjuku exploration. Originally planned to visit Tsukiji on day 1, but given that we arrived late the previous night, agreed with my wife to change the plan and spend the first day doing the Shinjuku itinerary.

• Walked to a popular Tsukumen place at 11. Queued for 20mins and it was an interesting experience as there were lines of people standing right behind watching you eat. Wife said it was her best Tsukumen ever!
• Sekaido for art & stationary supplies: My wife does art so it was a haven for her. We spent a few hours there!
• Tokyu Hands Shinjuku: Wanted to look at more stationary/home/fashion stuff but two floors were under renovation.
• Omoide Yokocho: A quick walkthrough of this famous street for salarymen which comes alive at night. Many tourists.

Day 2 (Fri) - Kappabashi St., Fabric Town, Akihabara

• Kappabashi Dougu Street: looked at kitchen supplies aimed to find a nice nakiri knife! (If you want to buy a knife, do research on what knife you need beforehand).
• Fabric Town: My wife just passed a seamstress exam so she eagerly anticipated visiting fabric town, we spent a few hours in Tomato.
• Akihabara (Animate, Bic Camera, Gyukatsu Don): It was drizzling the entire day so it was not the most comfortable lugging that many bags around a wet Akihabara in the evening. Wife wasn’t interested but I wanted to let her experience this unique culture. Had dinner at a popular gyukatsu don (beef cutlet that you’d have to cook yourself). It was our first time eating gyukatsu. It was so tender and juicy and mmm. But it was a long one hour wait. It was after this episode that we decided we were not going to queue this long for food again.

Day 3 (Sat) - Cooking class in Shinjuku, Shibuya

• Private cooking class in Shinjuku: Our host was great! We were invited into his cosy house and he taught us how to make Okonomiyaki, Yakisoba, and a Japanese salad. I paid careful attention to the menu beforehand as I wanted to learn dishes I could easily recreate back home (i.e. not choose dishes that depended on seasonal Japanese ingredients). My wife absolutely loved the experience of getting to know a local and understanding his life story, Japanese culture, and hearing some of his horror stories of foreign guests. We got more food recs from him to understand where the locals really ate at.
• Shibuya 109: Paid $5 for a drink to have a bird’s eye view of the Shibuya crossing. It was Saturday so the crossing was at its full force. Even if you think this is touristy, it’s amazing to see that many people like little ants crossing a street. There are several nice locations here to take some artsy shots.
• Ishibashi Music Shibuya: absolutely loved the vibe in this music store. Back home, I’d been thinking about getting a particular keyboard but never got a chance to try it. I was able to play this particular one undisturbed and feel like I could go on for hours without any pressure from staff. Bought a few Japan exclusive guitar picks as gifts.
• Shibuya Tokyu Hands: This was amazing. I thought Shinjuku Tokyu Hands was the flagship store. So I only stumbled into this because I urgently needed to pee and someone said Tokyu hands had toilets. We were confused as its name was rebranded to simply "Hands" with a new logo. If you only have time to visit one Tokyu Hands, visit the Shibuya one. Each floor had 2 sub-floors so that’s a ton of floors! Lots of quality-of-life improvements one could get from this store. My wife got a buckwheat pillow.
• Shibuya Loft: After Sekaido and Tokyu Hands, I didn't think there was much daily life products/art/stationary to look at. But Loft was very different. Similar to Tokyu hands but seems more modern and fashionable. Worth visiting together with Tokyu hands! It also had packaged food available! It was late and my wife and I concluded that we didn’t have to to explore all the floors and that we’d return to Shibuya again.

Day 4 (Sun) - Komazawa Church, Harajuku, Shibuya

• Church in Komazawa: not a tourist activity, but we linked up with some partners from our home church and attended service at a little church held in a nursery. It was an amazing and encouraging experience to hear the gospel preached in a foreign language.
• Harajuku: Way too crowded. I had anticipated this as it was a Sunday, but thought to just try. Takeshita street was so packed my wife feared there would be a stampede risk (it wasn’t that bad). We did queue 20mins for pretty tasty crepe. After checking out all the recommended streets (e.g. cat street, uru-harajuku), my wife simply felt that she couldn’t stand the Harajuku crowd and the vibes. So we decided to go back to Shibuya again!
• Shibuya JINS: I didn’t mention this but previously in Shinjuku and Shibuya, I had been checking out recommended optical shops in the vicinity for a particular style of glasses. Japanese-made glasses are highly-rated, but I couldn’t find something at the right price-point. At JINS, I found a design I liked. Though not made in Japan, it cost me less than 5000 yen. Took them 1 hour to make it. For some reason I loved the vibes at Shibuya, and I earmarked it to return again later.

Day 5 (Mon) - Tsukiji Market, Ginza Muji/Uniqlo, Tokyo station

• Tsukiji market: wanted to arrive before 8 but arrived at 8.30am.n Thankfully the crowds weren't that bad. Everything we tried was lovely. Potato/corn fishcakes, strawberry mochi, tamago, wagyu beef, uni inarisushi (my first time trying uni - wife loved it but I didn't like it), unagi. But the star was Masa burger (thanks to Paolo from Tokyo), which we waited till 11am to try. By then, the tourist buses had come and the streets were packed. But Masa burger was in a corner and we were their first customers. We tried fried codfish burger + homemade ginger ale. Both were was so well done and the fried cod was so crispy yet fresh and tender. It was also nicely completed with very refreshing salads! It was soo good we had it twice.
• Ginza Uniqlo/Muji: we wanted to take a look at some of Uniqlo’s exclusive items. Apparently they do have exclusive t-shirts for each region (e.g. Harajuku, Shibuya, Ginza), which tend to be collaborations with well-known food places in the area. However, they were always white in colour (cheap to produce) and not made-in-Japan-quality. Muji @ Ginza was a disappointment, not a lot more than the usual.
• Tokyo Station Ghibli store & Tenugui hunting: Went to Tokyo station to check out the Ghibli store and to look for a particular traditional tenugui (Japanese towels) store as my wife were hunting these down to give as gifts.
• Shinjuku Ichiran & Mister Donut: We returned to Shinjuku for Ichiran ramen, specifically at 5+pm. No crowds at all. Yummy! We then saw a Mister Donut, and recalled news in our home country that when it had its first opening in my country, people queued 5 hours for it. We thought to try it to see what the fuss was all about. Cash only, but the donuts were wonderfully textured and not too sweet. My wife doesn’t like sweet stuff, but mister donut really hit the sweet spot (no pun intended).

Day 6 (Tue) - Tokyo National Museum, Fabric town revisit, Akihabara revisit, Ochanomizu

• Tokyo National Museum: We had a good time learning about Japan’s early history, and discovered that so much that we know of Japan resulted from Chinese/korean influence.
• Fabric town & Akihabara revisit, Ochonomizu: We decided that this was likely the right time to go back for items we missed out on or didn’t have time to see. My wife went to fabric town again while I went to Akihabara’s Yodaibashi camera, which I felt to be better and with more varied things than Bic Camera. I then went to nearby Ochanomizu to look at more music and sport shops. We met up again at Shinjuku for another Gyukatsu Don before heading to mister donuts again.

Day 7 (Wed) - Shinjuku Gyoen Garden, Mori Museum, Ginza Wakamatsu, Shinjuku

• Shinjuku Gyoen Garden: lovely large garden grounds. We spent almost an hour just lying under a tree and watching clouds float by. Wife was doing some rough sketches of the garden. We had mister donuts from last night for breakfast.
• Mori Museum: Saw the exhibition of Heatherwick studios, which was inspiring and educational. Paid for the rooftop access to have a quick view of Tokyo from 50-ish floors up.
• Ginza Wakamatsu: Because of one of the Uniqlo-ginza-exclusive t-shirts, my wife was curious about this traditional Japanese dessert. So we gave it a check and realised it’s been around for more than a century. There was a short line (mainly Japanese elderly). The shop interior transported us back decades. It felt surreal eating a dessert that the Japanese ate centuries ago. Unlike modern desserts, this Japanese dessert certainly doesn’t excite and overwhelm one’s taste buds immediately. But there’s an old charm to it.
• Shinjuku Okadaya fabric: Returned to Shinjuku as my wife wanted to check out another of their famous fabric stores. Prices were more expensive than fabric town, but had somewhat different items.

Day 8 (Thurs) - Kawaguchiko

• Bus to Kawaguchiko: Packed light to Kawaguchiko, and forwarded our remaining luggage to our final hotel in Tamachi. The Shinjuku hotel staff were very helpful. I was merely inquiring on how luggage forwarding was done, but the staff picked up the phone, called my Tamachi hotel to confirm the booking, and prepared the documents for me. All I had to do was roll my luggage the next night to them and make payment. Booked a 7:45am bus to Kawaguchiko and managed to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji when we were on our way there!
• Cycling In Kawaguchiko: We lugged our bags to our ryokan and headed out again. My wife was quite hesitant about cycling overseas and I was also worried it’d tire her out too much. I debated between cycling or simply taking the sight-seeing bus. Eventually felt that it was worth trying to cycle. We unexpectedly walked by an e-bike place and decided, why not? Neither of us had tried an e-bike before and that could reduce the effort required for my wife. So we did and boy was it fun! It took a while to get used to the e-bike but it really reduced a lot of effort up the hills! I barely perspired at all thanks to the e-assist. Kawaguchiko had pretty narrow roads so it wasn’t the easiest to cycle. But I had plenty of road-cycling experience back at home so I was not daunted. We borrowed helmets from the e-bike place but saw that we were the only tourists that wore them. Yes, I'd recommend wearing helmets when cycling.
• Kubota Itchiku Art Museum: Cycled here knowing that this museum would interest my wife. It had a garden free for entry and it was really quaint, quiet, and charming! The pond had a singular vibrant-coloured Koi swimming in it. Museum entry requires tickets. I was kinda sick of museums and not interested int he subject so I told my wife I'd wait for her outside. She eventually took 45m inside and was so enthralled by it. She even bought a heavy hard-cover book of Itchiku Kubota’s kimono art :/
• Momiji Corridor: was just 50 meters away from the museum. Still beautiful with only green leaves, but I’d imagine it would be majestic in Autumn/Spring.
• Oishi Park: Many colourful flowers! It’s a pity that it had been cloudy the entire day, and Mt Fuji was not visible. That would have made the cycle perfect. Had a peach/plum ice-cream. Park was crowded with tourists.

Day 9 (Fri) - Fuji Q Highlands, Shimoyoshida Honcho St, Batting Cage
Planning for Fuji Q & Morning Jog: I didn’t plan to go to Fuji-Q highlands before the trip. Always felt it a bit of a waste to visit amusement parks overseas. That’s until I realised that Fuji Q had some of the most exciting (I mean world-record-holding) rollercoasters in the world. Maybe they don't hold the records anymore, but that intrigued me enough, because most amusement parks only had 1-2 coasters. Problem was that wife is terrified, and she said cycling on the streets of Kawaguchiko was already like a coaster ride for her. Still, I'm really thankful she encouraged me to go and said she was happy waiting and taking pictures for me. So I decided I would reach at opening time, and buy time by paying for the fast passes and try their top three coasters. The night before, we felt that we had to make decisions on our itinerary as it was our last day at Kawaguchiko. If Mt Fuji still wasn’t visible the next day, we'd go to Oshino Hakkai, if it was, we could try going to Shimoyoshida to get a nice picture.

• I took a morning jog that morning and my jaw dropped when I saw Mount Fuji towering over Kawaguchiko. I raced back to tell my wife (about 6am) and we both trekked up to a viewing spot to enjoy the view. This made it more urgent to not spend too much time at Fuji Q as we didn’t know how long Mt. Fuji would be visible for.
• Fuji-Q Highlands: Was absolutely amazing. Yes, I blew a lot of cash here buying fast passes for the three available coasters. But they were some of the craziest coasters. Took Eejanaika, Fujiyama and Takabisha. Total time it took probably a little more than 1 hour with the express passes. It was so good, but so fast that I have little memory of it, except that there was a 90 degree climb to the top for Takabisha and I had a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji while climbing to the supposed world record of 79m for Fujiyama (this was 2 days before the news reported that Fujiyama got stuck in the middle of a ride and the people in the carts had to climb down :o). Had more time to take a few other rides, and enjoyed all the Naruto statues around for fun photo-taking. What I really enjoyed about the park was that it was mostly filled with Japanese tourists; in fact, there was a Japanese school having an outing there. It was nice to see excited students running about. If I could spend the day here, I'd take the three coasters multiple times to imprint the sensations in my head. But I'm still thankful I got to try some of the world's most thrilling coasters!
• Shomoyoshida Honcho St: This destination was simply to take the famous street view of Mount Fuji with Japanese shops lined in the foreground. It’s not easy to get to, and there was quite a walk. We noticed there weren’t much people around, and most shops were closed. But when we reached the destination, there were many tourists right at the particular traffic light. So much so there was a grumpy Japanese traffic police person managing the crowd. We saw the worst of tourists that day. People were disobeying traffic laws and just running in the middle of the road just to get a shot. We chanced upon a hidden udon shop and it felt like we were transported back to the 50’s! It was super old school, people sat on raised platforms, and several elderly customers were watching the tele while eating. There was only one udon option available, with free cabbage top-ups. We learnt that the shop had been around for 73 years. We actually headed back to Fuji-Q Highlands to take a 4D 'plane ride' with Joe Hisashi music. Since my wife actually wanted to ride something, we went all the way back. Ride was very ordinary but wife actually felt terrified at times lol. Rushed back to the hotel for a private onsen booking.
• Batting Cage: I had never played baseball/softball and my home country doesn’t have a baseball culture. Yet I had seen batting cages in Japanese drama and always wanted to try. Loved it! My technique was probably pretty bad! I did well at first but as I tried faster balls, I tired out and failed to hit any haha. We ended the day eating ramen outdoors with a view of Mount Fuji.

Day 10 (Sat) - Kichijoji, Ghibli Museum, Kichijoji Jazz bar
Woke up before sunrise for a run and to attempt to catch a sunrise picture of Mount Fuji. Streets were completely empty. Even ran to the famous Kawaguchiko Lawson for a picture. Headed back for an onsen bathe (note: we never used the room's shower, and always went for an onsen bath throughout our stay in Kawaguchiko as it was just too convenient). Took a 7am bus to return to Shinjuku.

• Kichijoji: Arrived at Kichijoji at about 10am. Wife really loved the vibes there. We tried the Tsukuba suisan fish cakes which were really tasty, and my wife was intrigued that a line had formed at the adjacent store named Ozasa. Apparently they sell traditional Japanese desserts and locals would go there as early as 5am to get a ticket. So we queued 15m and managed to get three boxes worth of the snacks! Tried the Amane Taiyaki fish-shaped bean paste snacks, another traditional dessert. It was a small lovely old shop.
• Ghibli Museum: Requires a long walk through Inokashira park. Ghibli was fantastic. Many people have been saying recently that it’s over-rated, and that it doesn’t cater to foreign crowds and most things are in Japanese. We similarly struggled with that at first. But we found out that if you asked the staff, they actually had English language exhibition booklets ready for every exhibition! That was a revelation. And we managed to understand almost all the exhibitions by asking the uniformed staff (except the short film, which had minimal dialogue anyway). I mentioned this to one foreign group and they were really grateful for that. But I saw that many other foreigners that probably came earlier were just bored or simply going crazy at the Ghibli shop. My wife bought the museum book (which also has English explanations of each exhibit), and we understood Miyazaki’s vision for the museum - to make it suitable for kids and adults, with no pre-determined route, allowing for play, exploration, to help people be inspired by the artists’ process. Through that, we saw that every thing in the museum was intentionally designed, all of the exhibitions, cafe, shop, and garden. Reading that helped me appreciate and enjoy the museum much more.
• Roaming Kichijoji and Some Time Jazz bar: My wife and I split up to roam kichijoji. I checked out some sports shops and saw that their prices were lower than Ochanomizu. We reconvened for dinner at Sometime Jazz bar. I’m picking up Jazz piano but had never been to a jazz bar. Booked it one day before, but was sad that our table position only allowed us to see some of the drummer and the pianist’s expression. Still, it was a very hip place for jazz cats and we had a wonderful time. We only sat through the first half of the performance that night. Note that there are seating charges, so that + dinner added up to quite a lot. But we rationalised that this was akin to paying for a performance. Checked into our hotel in Tamachi.

Day 11 (Sun) - Tokyo Sky Tree, Shinjuku, Back to Kichijoji, Shibuya
It was a crazy day where we simply hit the places we wanted to revisit regardless of proximity. Headed to Tokyo Skytree in the morning to check out another Ghibli store in hopes of getting another Ghibli shirt; reason was because I ended up buying one at the museum and absolutely loved (made in Japan, beautiful colour, perfect fit. I hesitated at first because I couldn't try it). If you’re not going to the Ghibli museum, this is probably the best store available for Ghibli goods. Alas, the museum's items were really quite exclusive. Headed to Shinjuku to try curry udon, then to Kichijoji to try satou beef balls and dangos and to make some purchasing decisions on some sports equipment. Then we ended up at Shibuya (my favourite place!) to the mega Don Quijote and Tokyu Hands to shop for gifts for others. It was a lovely end to our trip!
Day 12 (Mon) - Back home
Best trip ever, says my wife.
Tips for travellers

• Spread out your itinerary: I originally planned to front-load all the must-see tourist stuff and leave the remaining days for shopping. But in May, Ghibli Museum was closed for two weeks so we had no choice but to schedule it at the end of the trip. That was a better arrangement. It felt that each day was distinctly different, and we could remember the highlight of each day. Also, be specific about where you want to go. Don’t simply put locations like - Visit Harajuku, or visit Shibuya crossing.
• Plan your itinerary in consideration of weekend crowds: Places like Tsujiki market, Ghibli Museum, Fuji-Q Highlands and other stuff are likely going to be very crowded on weekends. If you want to shop in Harajuku or Shibuya, try to avoid weekends. I opted to put the cooking class and ‘less-exciting’ Museums on weekends.
• Unless you'll always be in a group, use your telco’s roaming or get an e-sim: My wife and I split up on several occasions, so we already knew the pocket wifi was out of the question.
• Carry more cash than you think you need: In my experience, the cash-to-card ratio was about 40:60. Considering that all metro card top-ups require cash, you'll need quite a bit of cash! Sometimes even bigger restaurants are cash only.
• Bring foldable tote bags, and use lockers where necessary: If you’re buying stuff, packing them in tote bags makes it easier to lug around. Bigger shops will charge you for bags. If you just arrived from one area with bags and are going to explore another, use the lockers. Most metro stations likely have lockers and they are really affordable and convenient.
• Travel light by planning to do laundry: I only brought four sets of clothing, and we did laundry every 3-4 days or so. It’s really convenient, about 200 yen per 30m wash, and another 200 yen for a 1h dry. It’s worthwhile to check if your hotel has coin laundry available.
• Buy discriminately: Many people say the kind of things available at places like Don Quijote or Uniqlo are mind-blowing. Fact is, most of them are made in China or elsewhere. About 95% of the items we saw in Daiso were made in China. In fact, many items in Kappabashi street were made in China. You’re more likely to get value for money by buying a made in Japan item. Sometimes the shop will highlight if a product is Japan made. But other times, you have to scrutinise the fine print. Learn to look out for these three words in Kanji: 日本製. This is where the camera function of Google translate is immensely helpful. This was not available or widely publicised when I last visited Japan years back in 2016, so use this tech to your advantage and scrutinise the fine print!
• Plan your toilet trips if possible: If you know you’re headed to low-rise areas like Tsujiki, Fabric town where it’s just shop after shop, it’s going to be hard to find a toilet. Make sure you relieve yourself beforehand at the train station. But if you still need to go, try to find a multi-storey building and chances are, there’ll be toilets available there.
• Avoid queuing for food by timing right: In general, I found that most popular food places that required queuing had queues mainly consisting of foreigners. I wonder if this is because of the reddit/youtube/google maps review effect (not a lot of Japanese review on Google I think). So if you have to queue, there's a good chance you're competing with other foreigners. Simply put, almost all food places open at 11am, so be there at 11, or have early dinner at 5pm and perhaps you may avoid the queuing.
• Scrutinise Google maps to figure out the different train types: for daily travel, there could be local, rapid, and express trains. Local trains stop at every station. Rapid skips a few, and express trains likely only stops at key location. They make a big difference to travel time, and to your comfort. When Google maps recommends a route, scrutinise the detail to ensure what kind of train they are recommending. It gets confusing at the station as the platforms on your left and right may end up at the same location, but one could be a local train and the other an express train.
• Learn just 2 essential phrases: I know it may feel weird to some, but just learn to say thank you in Japanese (arigato gozaimasu). The other essential word is - summimasen - excuse me/sorry. Useful for if you need to exit a crowded train, or if you need to get someone’s attention. We survived with just these two phrases. As our cooking teacher told us - it’s better to say something in Japanese than say nothing at all. For the rest, you can use Google translate app’s picture function.
• Other misc tips: as mentioned, bring trash bags. Some shops explicitly tell you not to walk around and eat their food. So the solution is to finish the snack in front of the shop, and say, “summimasen, can you help me to throw this trash?” That helped us avoid carrying trash around a lot. As a traveller, you’re gonna get a lot of carbs (my curry udon meal included a bowl of udon + a bowl of rice...) and fried food. Try to go to the basements of shopping centres and get yourself some fruits to get more fiber. Also, if you exercise regularly like me, you'd be concerned about getting some exercise. I did pre-trip research on pools/gyms/parks to visit. But visited none of them. With what little hotel room space I had, I settled with a daily morning routine of 100 squats and 100 pushups. That and walking an average of 18k steps daily helped. I actually lost some weight somehow.

Observations

• Drinking culture in Japan: we saw quite a few drunk people in the streets. Some of them at the parks. I had never really seen drunkards much in my home country (it could be because I don’t stay out late). When we walked by a bar area with our cooking instructor at 10am, he told us some of the people in them had been there overnight. At Inokashira park, we saw a lady dressed in office wear face planted on the ground. Her friends tried to help carry here elsewhere but her entire body was limp and almost lifeless.
• The Japanese sleep late: when we arrived, we were still on the train to our hotel at 11:50pm. But the train was still packed with salarymen in suits and many others. In fact, it seemed the later it was, the more crowded the trains.
• Foreigner influx and how they stick out: there were way more foreigners this time than the last I visited Japan. I tended to feel very uncomfortable when large groups of foreigners were around. I had to tell myself not to be hypocritical as I was a foreigner myself. But I suppose one reason is that there were many inconsiderate foreigners. Speaking loudly, making brash comments, and just not behaving like visitors. We saw a foreign couple locked in a head-to-toe embrace on a picnic mat in a park full of families. And they chose a spot right next to the footpath. Many foreigners also leave unkind Google reviews for places just because it’s not up to their expectations. I get it, we worked for our holiday and are paying customers, and there is often an innate tendency to feel entitled or complain when something isn’t up to our expectations. But I think it helps to remember that we are like visitors in someone’s home. Be self-aware, don’t speak loudly, note the traffic customs, where to stand on the escalators, how to behave etc.
• Japanese men have great hair: the Japanese men’s hairstyle feels frozen in time. I didn’t see the typical Korean-inspired center-parted hairstyles in Asian guys nowadays. And balding men were a small minority somehow. As someone whose hairline is slowly receding, I was envious to see many Japanese men have wavy long hair deep into their 60-70s! My wife commented that the women's hairstyles were more or less the same - dyed, curled etc. But the men were rocking so many styles!
• Physical shopping still matters: as the days went by, my wife and I began to covet the "made-in-Japan" label, we realised that we hadn't done such window shopping in years since online shopping became prevalent. I also recall people commenting that you could get these goods online anyway, so why bother shopping in Japan. Well, window shopping makes comparison easy, it allows you to ask for recommendations, and enables you to know the items's size, feel, and look on you (if buying fashion items). It also makes discovery of new items possible. I'm not a huge shopper or a foodie, but in Japan, it's worth it to be one. I suppose it's a blessing in disguise that our honeymoon got delayed 3 years, as we now know our post-marriage lifestyles and the items we'd need in the kitchen/around the house.
• Reading culture in Japan: in a week when I read reports that reading had declined in my home country, I was pleasantly surprised to see many people reading hard-copy books on the train, many of them even had leather book covers. Kinokuniya was also teeming with life.
• Idealisation of Japanese culture: Japan remains my favourite country to visit as a tourist, but I've come to see that Japanese culture - like any other culture - is flawed. Yes, their service culture is impeccable, especially when you're served by middle-aged super helpful and super kind ladies. But on every Japanese trip so far, I've always had at least one unkind or impatient service encounter. On a day-to-day basis, people don't really apologise if they bump into you, and may not give up their seats for the elderly too. My cooking teacher says the Japanese are extremely polite in person but would rant and give very bad reviews anonymously at home. I've come to just enjoy their products, service, and view of certain ways-of-life as a tourist, but stop short of idealising their culture. There are kind and unkind people in every culture. That said, I would still say on average, the Japanese may be more civic-minded (i.e. simply just more self-aware of how their actions are perceived by others).

I've decided not to mention the specific food places as far as possible because I think there's more than enough recommendations available elsewhere. I also think sometimes that we get a bit fomo if we build up too many must-go spots. Enjoy your trip and the process of discovering new places! But feel free to ask me more if you like.

Hi everyone - long-time lurker but first post. Really appreciate any recs!
I’m taking my dad (mid-60s) on a ~2.5-week trip to Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Luang Prabang, and Siem Reap in late Nov/early Dec. Our hotels are already settled (Park Hyatt HCMC, Capella Hanoi, Amantaka LP, Amansara SR).
I’m seeking recommendations for amazing experiences in any of those locations. I already have a general idea of some “basic” nice experiences (e.g. getting a private speedboat for transfer to the Cu Chi Tunnels in HCMC, boat charter on the Mekong in LP, etc.), but I’d really appreciate any first-hand recs of other great FAT stuff you’ve done or of specific providers you’ve used.
Additionally, I’m having trouble finding truly outstanding guides in each of these places. I think we’d benefit from at least 1 day with a great private guide in each HCMC, Hanoi, and Angkor Wat in Siem Reap. So far, my searches have been drowned out by package tours and travel aggregator offerings. Appreciate any trusted recommendations from this group. We are particularly interested in history (e.g. historians/professors) and food (e.g. chefs), but I’m open to any recs.
Budget is quite flexible - dad is still in great health and active; really just looking to do the most awesome stuff we can while that’s the case.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

I've been to NYC a few times, but not to the area around Union Square or Irving Plaza, and not at all since, um, 2014? Maybe before that? Maybe it was 2006? It's been a while. I don't get out much.
I am driving to the city, will have a small amount of luggage and maybe a small cooler in my car. It's a long trip with more other stops planned on the way. I booked a hotel about 3 blocks away from Irving Plaza. I will either arrive in Union Square in the middle of the night to pay for 2 nights at the hotel or I'll get there mid-morning or late morning before Noon, then check-in sometime later or possibly even after the show. I haven't finalized this part yet. Partly depends on answers I get to my posts.
I hope you can help me with Parking Questions.
1) Should I find a spot on my own or is it best to use the hotel valet?
The woman at the hotel told me that I should use their valet parking rather than try to find a parking garage on my own. Problem is, I want to queue up at the theater for GA as soon as I can get there, but the hotel won't let me check into my hotel until after 3 PM. There's a chance, but no guarantee, of early check-in at 1 PM which is still later than I'm planning to get there. The time that I expect to get to town and the window for check-in are several hours apart, unless I book the hotel for the night before.
The hotel front desk person said that the local parking garages do not allow people to park for a full 24 hours. She said they may have rates for full day, but they will only allow parking for a time period that is under 24 hours as their definition of a full day stay. They aren't 24 hour access? Is this correct? Do they tow cars that haven't left or do they lock people out of the parking garages? Is that a thing? Should I listen to her or is she just trying to keep my business with the hotel?
Would you advise me to use the hotel valet parking?
Honestly, I'm not even sure I can do so before officially checking in, because their website still has the strict pandemic rules posted about not even being allowed in the building until check-in time. I will call to check on this, of course, but I want to know what you all say first.
If valet parking isn't the best possible solution or if I can't use it until 3 PM, would I be okay to search for a parking garage when I get there, with an expected stay of 24 to 30 hours?
Is my luggage likely to be safe in my car if I can't leave it at the hotel until I check-in, which might not happen until late evening, after the show?
2) Tipping? If I do use valet parking, what is the tipping expectation? I have never paid valet parking in my life, so that's a bucket list item I didn't know I needed to check off.
3) Parking apps: Are these useful, worthwhile, accurate? Should I download one? I don't live where anyone ever has to worry enough about finding parking to use an app, so this is a new thing to me.
Thanks very much, NYC!

Just got back from 10 days in Japan and wanted to type up a trip report to hopefully help others that are trying to plan a trip!
Our trip was 5/16 - 5/28 including travel days. This was my 2nd time in Japan (first time was study abroad for 5 weeks in May/June 2016), but it was my mom & sister's first time, so the goal was to include as many must-see activities as we possibly could in the short time we were there. Our days were packed to the brim however all 3 of us are fairly active and healthy so despite being absolutely exhausted by the end of each day, in retrospect we wouldn't have changed a thing in our itinerary.
That being said, our itinerary would be much too busy for the average person's first trip to Japan so keep that in mind if you use this information to plan your own trip. For example, we usually only had time to sit down and eat for one meal per day and had to eat on the go for the other meals in order to have enough time to go to all the places we wanted to go to. There was very little downtime in our trip.

Tourist Tips

• Luggage
  • We each traveled with 2 checked luggage since they were included in our flight. I had one full sized suitcase and one slightly smaller suitcase which both only had one side filled when I left the US. The plan was to fill the other half of the suitcases with souvenirs to bring home. Last time I went to Japan, it cost me ~$200 to ship two large boxes of souvenirs back home, so despite having to bring a lot of luggage this saved me a significant amount of money and I will be doing this for future trips as well.
  • Within our luggage we also packed a duffel bag to hold all our purchases on heavy shopping days and a daily backpack to hold things like our trash bag, hand towel, hand sanitizewet wipes, body wipes, small purchases, etc. My carry-on was a 40L backpack that I took with us when we stayed overnight in Kyoto.
• Money
  • I brought $400 cash to exchange at the airport. I had gotten a Charles Schwab debit card before leaving which has no foreign transaction/ATM fees so I planned to use my card for whatever purchases I could then use cash for everything else. I ended up withdrawing another ¥20000 which was just enough cash to last me the rest of our trip.
• Walking
  • Last time I went to Japan I survived wearing flat gladiator sandals basically the whole trip, but this did NOT work this time around for whatever reason (I guess we walked a lot more this time?). BRING COMFORTABLE SHOES TO WALK IN. I ended up having to buy sneakers on day 2 because I stupidly didn't think I would need them. I was more concerned about looking cute for pictures (ha) but I quickly realized that all the girls in Japan wear sneakers with their cute skirts and dresses, so I blended right in. I would also recommend bringing a second pair of shoes with you each day (in your backpack) to swap into if the shoes you are wearing start giving you blisters.
• Masking
  • We saw a lot of people not wearing masks, but the majority of people still wear masks. I would say the ratio of people wearing masks to not wearing masks was about 80:20.
• Trash
  • As many have mentioned on this subreddit, due to the lack of public trash bins I would highly recommend bringing a reusable trash bag to store your trash while you're out and about until you can find a bin. We found these cool black fabric ones with a waterproof liner on the inside that you could rinse out when it got dirty and could clip to the outside of your backpack so it wasn’t with your other belongings.
• Restrooms
  • Due to the lack of hand dryers/paper towels in bathrooms we also brought hand towels as recommended, but found ourselves just air drying our hands way more often than using the hand towels as it was often more cumbersome to remove our backpacks and fish out our hand towels to use.

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Accommodations

• Sakura Hotel Jimbocho in Tokyo
  • I stayed in this hostel when I studied abroad in college in 2016, so it holds a special place in my heart. You can get a single room here for cheap, and although the rooms are extremely small, I don’t travel to Japan to spend time in my hotel so when looking for accommodations price is my #1 factor, not comfort. Toilets and showers are shared in this hostel and the rooms are set up coming off of a square hallway with sinks/restroom facilities in the center. The facilities don’t appear to be very modern and pretty, but the water pressure of the showers is the BEST. They have other room types as well, like bunk-beds, double rooms, etc. They have a 24 hour cafe downstairs and breakfast is included in your stay. All their staff speak English & Japanese (and other languages as well). They host some cool events like language exchanges and walking/jogging groups if you are more of a social person. I really enjoy the location of this hostel. You are within walking distance from the Imperial Palace and it still feels like you are in the city without it being so loud and busy like if you were to stay in Shibuya, etc. They do have other locations if you’re looking for somewhere with more nightlife.
• The Millennials Hostel in Kyoto
  • This is a really modern looking hostel in Kyoto, 2 streets over from Pontocho. The facilities are gorgeous and look brand new. They are set up similar to a capsule style hotel with a bunch of rooms coming off a hallway. Your bed takes up your entire space, and you have about 18 inches at the foot of your bed to stand. You pull an opaque privacy screen down to make your room private - there is no door. You can control your bed’s incline and lights through an iPhone in your room. There is storage space under your bed and on a shelf above your bed. Restrooms are shared but the showers are in one room and toilets in another. There are a lot of shared common spaces including a full stocked kitchen you can cook your meals in, but we literally only stayed here to sleep so we didn’t explore those spaces. I was worried about other guests being noisy but that wasn’t the case - everyone was super respectful. The price and location was great so I would definitely come back here.

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Daily Itinerary

Day 1 & 2: Travel

• We flew out of Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Our direct flight to Narita was around $1600 after taxes, fees, and flight insurance. I had one layover the last time I flew to Japan and in the future I will only be buying a direct flight as I found this to be way easier than having a layover.
• Once we arrived in Narita we turned on our e-sim. We chose Ubigi after reading many positive reviews on this subreddit and I highly recommend them. We had some issues getting iMessage to work despite following Ubigi's instructions to a T, so we ended up just using WhatsApp to message during the trip, however, iMessage did start working later on.
• We decided against picking up our JR passes & seat reservations at the airport because the line was long and we didn't need them for another 5 days.
• Going through customs/immigration and grabbing our luggage only took about 20-30 minutes. There were many staff to guide you and we found the whole process to be really smooth.
• We exchanged our currency and went downstairs to buy our tickets for Narita Express at a ticket vending machine. We got round trip tickets for ¥3460 (keep in mind that the return ticket needs to be used within 14 days). We had purchased our Suica before leaving and put them in our iPhone wallets and they came with a balance of ¥2000 so we didn't load money onto our cards until the following day.
• We took the Narita Express to Tokyo Station then took a cab to our hostel in Jimbocho. We each traveled with 2 checked luggage, so we found the short and inexpensive taxi ride to be a better option than lugging 6 giant suitcases on local trains to get to our hostel.
• We checked into our hostel. The total price per person for 11 nights was ¥49500 (about $380).

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Day 3: Imperial Palace/Ueno

• We woke up and walked to the Imperial Palace/East Gardens. We got there right when they opened and spent about 90 minutes there. We walked back to Jimbocho to go to my favorite tempura place in Jimbocho. This place has gotten quite famous since I was last there in 2016. We were first in line at 10:45am and by the time they opened for lunch at 11:30, there was a line of 20+ people. Our lunch cost only ¥800.
• After lunch we took the train to Ueno and spent some time in the Tokyo National Museum and Ueno Park. We also visited Shinobazu No Ike Bentendo Temple which is a cool temple right inside Ueno Park. While at Ueno Station, we picked up our JR passes & seat reservation tickets and also put ¥5000 on our Suica. We really enjoyed the fact that you could charge your mobile suica at a convenience store using cash - we didn’t have to worry about finding the machines in train stations with the phone holders.
• After that we walked through Ameyoko and did some shopping - I bought a super cute used Coach purse for around $65. Ameyoko seemed to have a lot more products than when I was there in 2016… but I also had more money this time around so maybe I was just paying more attention!
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and change. We took a train to Shinjuku to go to New York Grill for our dinner reservation. New York Grill is on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt hotel in Shinjuku and the views were incredible. We got the Spring Harvest 5-course dinner which included wagyu and it was easily the best beef I have ever eaten in my life - so juicy and buttery. The cost was ¥23100 per person (~$175).
• 25,138 steps on this day.

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Day 4: Shibuya/Akihabara

• We woke up and took a train to Shibuya to see Hachiko, go to the Starbucks near Shibuya Crossing, and shop at Shibuya109 and Uniqlo. It was hard for me to find any clothing that would fit me at the stores in Shibuya109 (I am a US 8/10 which is basically considered plus size in Japan) however I was able to find a cute t-shirt at Punyu's in Shibuya109 and two dresses at Uniqlo. I also bought sneakers at the Skechers store.
• I also went to the Mega Don Quijote in Shibuya and spent about $102 on candy and snacks to bring home. Lots of fun KitKat flavors here but it was very crowded and hard to walk around with my extremely full baskets.
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and had a quick lunch via conbini.
• We took a train to Akihabara and bought some souvenirs and gachapon, and walked all the way back to Ameyoko where I spent another $90 on candy and snacks to bring home.
• We took a train back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags and change. We took a train to Ginza to go to Tempura Kondo for dinner (a Michelin starred tempura restaurant). We got the Yomogi dinner which was ¥23100 per person (¥25410 after fees, ~$195). The staff were amazing - they noticed that my sister was left-handed and set up her plates/silverware as such which was really observant. We loved the dinner, however there was WAY too much food for us; the staff recognized we were starting to get full, and asked us if we would be able to eat the next course which was ten-don. I was really concerned about being disrespectful and wasting food, so I was really glad that they noticed and asked!
• 19,445 steps on this day.

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Day 5: Asakusa/Ginza/Omoide Yokocho

• We woke up and took a train to Asakusa to see Sanja Matsuri. We shopped at the small souvenir shops on Nakamise-dori and had street food at the festival for lunch. I bought an awesome goshuincho here with a wooden cover and foxes on it.
• After being completely overstimulated, we took a train to Rikugi-en Garden to escape the crowds. This garden is a little off the beaten path, just outside the big city, but it is completely gorgeous and so worth the trip.
• After the garden, we took a train to Ginza to window shop and go to our reservation at Higashiya Ginza for wagashi & tea pairing. We had 5 wagashi paired with 5 teas that were amazing. It cost ¥4500 per person.
• After this, we walked to Mitsukoshi Ginza to explore the basement food floor and grab dinner. They start to discount the food as the stores near closing time, so going for a late dinner can save you a couple yen! After eating on their rooftop terrace which was beautiful, we walked to Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki Paris Marunouichi to grab dessert then headed back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags.
• After we ate, we took a train to Shinjuku to walk down Omoide Yokocho. We had a drink on the third floor of Bar Albatross - highly recommend! The alleyway is a lot shorter than I imagined, and very crowded as you would expect. I probably wouldn’t go back here in the future but I am glad we visited!
• 25,002 steps on this day.

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Day 6: Harajuku

• We woke up and took a train to Harajuku to visit Meiji Shrine and got our first goshuin.
• After visiting the shrine, we walked back to Takeshita-dori to get lunch at Afuri Ramen. They’re known for their ramen with yuzu in their broth and this was one of our favorite meals during our trip. We got there about 20 minutes before they opened and were ~8th in line. By the time they opened, the line was stretching around the building!
• We walked down Takeshita-dori and shopped, then went to our reservation at Mipig Cafe (mini pig cafe). This place was so cute! You can make reservations for 30 minutes or 1 hour where you sit on the floor and miniature pigs will come and sit on your lap. You weren’t allowed to pick the pigs up and the staff were super kind and handled the pigs well. A 30 minute reservation was ¥1800 per person.
• After the pigs, we walked down Omotesando and took the train to Shinjuku to get dinner on the food floor at Isetan.
• After we ate on the rooftop terrace (beautiful once again), we headed back to our hostel to drop off our shopping bags. We took the train to Shibuya to go to our reservation at Shibuya Sky. We got the package where you get an admission ticket including a 50 minute reservation for the sofa seats and a choice of a mini bottle of champagne or 2 beers per person, which cost ¥5900 per person. The views were unreal and I recommend reserving the sofa seats so you can get amazing pictures. This was a highlight of our trip.
• 21,719 steps on this day.

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Day 7: Kawaguchiko

• This was our first travel day. We woke up early to take the highway bus from Busta Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko. The bus was ¥4400 per person. We were able to get some super clear pictures of Mt. Fuji while we were on the bus and right when we arrived at the station.
• We bought the daily unlimited bus pass for ¥1500 which ended up not being worth it for us because we spent so little time seeing things on the bus route. First, we went to the Panoramic Ropeway. We got there about 15 minutes before they opened and there was already a really long line. By this time, Mt. Fuji was already completely covered in clouds but the ropeway was really cool and we still got some awesome panoramic pictures. They have a shop at the top where you can get ice cream and sit on some swings and take pictures.
• After the ropeway we took the bus back to Kawaguchiko Station to get on the train to go to Chureito Pagoda. The gnats here were INSANE. We climbed up the ~400 or so steps to the top and got some cool pictures as well as our goshuin.
• We walked back to the station and took the train to Fuji-san Station and walked ~30 minutes to Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine. The wooded walk up to the shrine is absolutely gorgeous. We got goshuin here as well.
• After the shrine, we walked and took a train back to Kawaguchiko Station to eat a conbini dinner, do last minute shopping, and catch our bus back to Tokyo.
• 19,374 steps on this day.

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Day 8: Kanazawa

• We woke up early to catch our 6:16am shinkansen to Kanazawa. Once we arrived, we bought the daily unlimited bus pass and took the bus to Omicho Market where we bought some souvenirs and food.
• We walked from Omicho Market to visit Ozaki Shrine and Oyama Shrine and got goshuin at both places. My sister realized she lost her wallet at this point, but a kind soul had turned it in to the staff at Ozaki Shrine!
• We took the bus from Oyama Shrine to Kenroku-en Garden, where we walked around, took lots of pictures, and sat down for lunch at a local restaurant.
• After lunch, we took the bus to the Higashi Chaya district where we shopped and took pictures.
• After that, we took the bus back to Kanazawa Station to catch our 5:57pm shinkansen back to Tokyo.
• 20,192 steps on this day.

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Day 9: Kyoto Day 1

• We woke up early to pack our overnight bags and catch our 6:21am shinkansen to Kyoto, where we would be staying for one night. We decided to keep our reservation at our Tokyo hostel because 1) it was super cheap and 2) we would be able to leave all our suitcases and belongings in our rooms for when we returned to Tokyo.
• When we arrived in Kyoto, we headed straight to our hostel to have them hold our bags before we could check in later that day.
• After that, we took a local bus to the Arashiyama area. It was absolutely packed with school groups and tour buses. We walked up Saga-Toriimoto Preserved Street to Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple where it was much quieter. We got goshuin and visited the small and private bamboo grove behind the temple. We walked back down Saga-Toriimoto Preserved Street towards Togetsukyo Bridge where we stopped and sat down for lunch then continued shopping along the way. I got lots of uji-matcha here.
• We walked back to Arashiyama Station and took a train to Kiyomizu-dera where we got goshuin, then walked to a small rooftop bar overlooking the Hokan-ji temple and pagoda and got awesome pictures and had dinner.
• After eating, we walked back to our hostel and checked in, then slept for the night. Our 1 night stay cost ¥5000 per person.
• 21,545 steps on this day.

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Day 10: Kyoto/Nara Day 2

• We woke up super early to check out of our hostel and head to Fushimi Inari. Our hostel held our bags while we went sightseeing for the day. We arrived around 6:45am which was so worth it - it wasn’t crowded at all and we got lots of pictures of the shrine and torii gates without any people in them. We walked for about 30 minutes up the mountain then headed back to Inari Station to head to Nara.
• Once we arrived in Nara, we spent some time with the deer then visited Todai-ji and got goshuin.
• After that, we took a train back to Fushimi Inari to visit the souvenir shops which had not opened yet when we had gotten there earlier that day. We shopped and got goshuin, then headed to Sannenzaka/Ninenzaka to shop. We visited Ryozen Kannon to get pictures (they had closed by the time we got there) and walked down Ishibei-koji Lane and Hanamikoji Street.
• After that, we walked back to our hostel to pick up our bags. We took a taxi to Kyoto Station to catch our 7:36pm shinkansen back to Tokyo.
• 27,861 steps on this day.

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Day 11: Tattoo

• My mom and I went to a tattoo shop near Shibuya to get matching tattoos on our wrists, then my mom spent the rest of the day shopping in Shibuya with my sister while I got another large tattoo on my shoulder.
• After my tattoo was finished, we all met up in Ikebukuro to get gyudon for dinner.
• 9,879 steps on this day.

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Day 12: Yokohama/Kamakura

• We woke up and took a train to Yokohama where we walked the Minato Mirai 21 area and shopped and had lunch at World Porters.
• After lunch, we took a train to Kamakura. First, we visited Hase-dera and got goshuin. I got lots of pictures of the hydrangeas even though they weren’t in full bloom yet.
• After that we walked up the road to Daibutsu and got goshuin. We walked back to Hase Station and took a train to Kamakura Station and walked the pedestrian pathway in the center of the road to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu. We got our goshuin and were able to observe a small part of a traditional Japanese wedding that was happening at the shrine, which was really cool.
• After that, we walked back to Kamakura Station and took a train back to Tokyo.
• We spent the night packing. I ended up completely filling my suitcases with my souvenirs and had to put even more in my carry-on bag.
• 21,131 steps on this day.

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Day 13: Travel

• We woke up and headed back to Senso-ji to grab our goshuin, since it was too busy when Sanja Matsuri was happening the week before.
• We took a train back to our hostel and checked out around 11am, then made our way to Tokyo Station to take the Narita Express back to the airport.
• We arrived at the airport with plenty of time before our flight so we could get last-minute souvenirs. I found a couple flavors of KitKat and Hi-Chew here that I could not find in Donki/Ameyoko - but I could not find Beni-Imo KitKat which is the flavor that I was looking for! :(
• We flew back to O’Hare and drove home from there.

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Trip Cost

• Total trip cost: ~$5462.73
  • Total spent before I left Japan (flight, JR pass, highway bus ticket, tattoo deposit, pay-ahead reservations, suica, car rental): $2562.73
  • Total I spent in Japan (souvenirs, snacks, accommodations, transportation, meals, activities/admission, reservations, tattoo): ~$2900

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Cost Breakdown

Airfare

• Total (USD): $1600

Accommodations

• Total: ¥54500
  • ¥49500 (Tokyo hostel/11 nights) + ¥5000 (Kyoto hostel/1 night)

Transportation

• Total: ~¥64470
  • ¥33610 (JR pass) + ¥4400 (highway bus) + ¥3460 (N’EX) + ¥18000 (local trains/bus) + ¥5000 (taxis - approximate)

Meals

• Total: ~¥88510
  • ¥40000 (breakfast/lunch/dinner) + ¥48510 (meal reservations)

Souvenirs

• Total: ~¥150000
  • Goshuin, charms, matcha powder, candy, jewelry, clothing, purses, shrine offerings, postcards, etc.

Activities/Admission

• Total: ~¥9800
  • Pig Cafe, tea/wagashi tasting, shrines/temples, etc.

Tattoo

• Total (USD): $604.66

I'm going to a amusement park with one of my girl best friends and I'm a guy and so I have to act like I'm gay because the price of hotels is high we will have to sleep in the same bed I don't have any sort of attraction to her and I don't know how to pretend I'm gay so if someone can like tell me how

A few weeks ago, my wife and I sat through a timeshare pitch and stayed at a 3-night hotel for like $170. Prior, I did research on the timeshare system, and some of the reading I did came from here, so I thought I’d share.
We stayed in Orlando, FL, and had a 10am appointment.
Due to some parking issues, we actually walked in at like 10:01am. There were a lot of people inside. It was a very diverse group of people two. We checked in, showed ID, and they showed us to the snacks and asked that we just wait for a moment. Then, these doors opened, and a dozen guys in suits all walked out and started finding their assigned couples. Our guy found us, made some small talk, and straight up said, “just know this is a low-pressure and laid back experience. Just enjoy your time, and if you like it, great, and if not, then no worries”.
We then went into a room with 7 other couples and watched a 25 minute presentation. It was well-done and triggered some emotions which was the point. There was some math that showed if you spent $150 per day, 14 days per year, paid a 15% sales tax, with inflation you’d spend like $90k in vacations over 25 years. I don’t know the inflation rate they used. My math at 3% showed much less, but the inflation for lodging may be higher.
Then, we went with our guy and he showed us the 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom demos. Obviously, all very nice units. At this point, it was about 11am.
Then, we went into a room with like 30+ tables and at each one was a salesperson and the prospects. It had a big built-in touch screen with Chrome or some other browser. He asked us some questions about our traveling plans and got more information. He was then like, “it doesn’t seem like you travel a lot, and if you do it seems kinda spontaneous. With kids and such, you seem to just take short trips for now. I’m not sure this program is the best fit for you”. So then he shows us this “last minute” booking thing, and I forget what it’s called. It pulls up stuff that’s available within 60 days. It had nothing to do with points, it was all cash prices. For example, he showed us that a 7-day stay near Disney was $309 for the week and it was a nice hotel. Then there was a hotel in Colorado with the same duration and price. He said that this is very popular because you can’t beat the prices. Of course, this is only available with a timeshare ownership. It actually seemed like a good deal if it weren’t for needing to purchase ownership.
We never felt any pressure at all until the very end. He showed us the last-minute bookings and would ask “is this something that looks good to you?” It’s the sales-y way of asking a question. He started asking these questions that obviously invoked a “yes”. “forget the price, would this help you achieve your dream vacation”? I knew this, working in sales, and once I sensed this, I said that we are not interested. Then, he turned to my wife and asked her a bit more point blank, “does this all sound good to you” and she just said “we aren’t interested at this time”. His whole demeanor changed, but he was still nice. But you can sense the shift from him being all likeable to him just making short comments and not acknowledging us. So he concluded the meeting and showed us to the post-presentation room, wished us well, and he was on his way.
Afterward, they asked us if he was professional, overall experience, etc. Then, the guy was like “well our last offer is this package for any 7-day stay at any of these locations for $1800, but you can open a AMEX, get interest-free for 12 months plus all these points. We declined, the guy was nice, and we were on our way.
Overall, it was fine. Only when he started asking those questions did we sense the pressure was starting to build, so we quickly shut it down. We were done in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Not purchase. No Credit card. Nothing at all. We showed ID, but at no point did we have to provide our SSN.
Honestly, I think it was worth the hassle of going to the presentation to get a good deal.

Ok so I traveled via air a lot with my two adult kids… and it seemed so easy?? Probably bc my body was 22 and I was too naive to think of everything. Anyway - I’m making list after list. We are going to Ohio for 14 days to visit family and friends most of whom have never met our son! It will be just baby and I. What are some things that I could be forgetting? I wanted to keep packing light (haha) so when I arrive I have a car to borrow, a portable swing, a travel thing that straps to a chair for meals, a pack n play and stroller. I’m getting him his own seat with the bucket seat and shipping an extra base to my daughter. We will spend 2 nights in a hotel, 4 nights Airbnb, 3 nights with friends, and the rest at my brothers. My biggest worry is sleep. He has never not slept in his crib and just being honest - I know the rules - but he would never co sleep if I even tried. Also, I HAVE to wear him through the airport or I’ll never get to the plane and he haaaates being worn. Any tips, tricks, ideas? I also purchased a microwave sterilizer bag, travel baby essentials, I’ll bathe him with me, and my daughter purchased formula, baby food, diapers and wipes so I don’t have to pack all that except for the first night.

I figured you’d all enjoy this tale, which includes a terrible faux pas by yours truly!
We were at WDW last week to see our darling daughter (who is a rooms controller at a major hotel there). We were rather cursed most of the week with nightly storms, but Saturday was looking promising. We talked about dinner plans, and Daughter managed to score three tickets for the 4 pm HDD on Saturday.
So we met up and had breakfast at Rosa Mexicano at the Dolphin (let me tell you, their buffet is INCREDIBLE!!!), then took the boat over to Epcot. We decided to head back to our room at the Wilderness Villa around 2, thinking we’d get on the resort boat circuit at Wilderness at 3–since it lands right at Fort Wilderness and Pioneer Hall, we’d be there early and have plenty of time.
Unless, of course, you discover that they’re not running the resort boat circuit these days due to construction. Oops.
Okay, still have plenty of time, so off to the car and isn’t it nice to have such a nice short drive over to Fort Wilderness? All we need to do is park, walk over to the bus stop, and we’ll still get there in plenty of time.
Unless, of course, there isn’t a parking spot to be had in the entire lot. Arrrgh.
I drop wife and daughter off by the bus stop (so at least SOMEONE will enjoy the show) and start circling. Three loops in, I’m losing hope…and then I see a cast member approaching in his cart. I flag him down.
“What can I do for you?”
I laugh. “Can you tell me where I can park?”
“You know, I came out here to check that out. NEVER seen it this full!”
He suggests I park in the grass. “Is that okay?” I ask, then say something I’m still embarrassed by. See, we have a family joke about the WDW police—we started calling them the “MoPo” years ago, and it stuck in our heads. And so, after asking my question, I added:
“I mean, I don’t want the MoPo mad at me…”
Thank god he laughed. “That would be me,” he said, “and it’s okay.”
So I parked in the grass, made it to the bus stop, and actually arrived on time, much to my family’s relief. And we had a wonderful time…
…and the Mouse smiled down at me, as the waiter nudged me and handed me a second strawberry shortcake “because you deserve it.”
Brother, you have no idea….

Hello!
My boyfriend and I have finally booked our flights to Japan after 3-4 years of planning and we are planning on being in Japan from November 10-26 of this year. Our First week will be in Osaka to Kyoto and week two will be in Hakone-Yokohama-Tokyo and, we would like to see if you have any recommendations and to see if the first week is too packed/too empty. Additionally, we are not 100% done with the places we want to go in Tokyo so its just a rough draft. Any recommendations help!:
Nov 10 - Day 1 - Friday (We land in Osaka at 8am) Osaka - Hotel Intergate Osaka Umeda -Drop off Luggage at the hotel. -Umeda Sky Building -Dotonburi -Kuromon Ichiba Market -Tsutenkaku
Nov 11 - Day 2 - Saturday Osaka - Hotel Intergate Osaka Umeda -Universal Studio IF we do half day in USJ: -Osaka Aquarium -Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel
Nov 12 - Day 3 - Sunday -Osaka - Hotel Intergate Osaka Umeda IF we did not do half day at USJ: -Osaka Aquarium -Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel
-Pokemon Center -Explore
Nov 13 - Day 4 - Monday Osaka - Hotel Intergate Osaka Umeda -Osaka Castle -Mega Don Quijote -Explore
Nov 14 - Day 5 - Tuesday Osaka → Nara → Kyoto - Hotel Intergate Osaka Umeda and Hotel Resol Kyoto Kawaramachi Sanjo -NARA Park -Check in Hotel -Kyoto tower -Fushimi Inari (want to see it at night)
Nov 15 - Day 6 - Wednesday Kyoto - Hotel Resol Kyoto Kawaramachi Sanjo -Rental Kimono Okamoto Yasaka Shrine -Yasaka jinja Shrine -Hokan-ji -My only fragrance Kyoto -Pokemon center
Nov 16 - Day 7 - Thursday Kyoto - Hotel Resol Kyoto Kawaramachi Sanjo -Kinkaku-ji -Arashiyama -Explore
Nov 17 - Day 8 - Friday Kyoto - > Hakone - Hotel Resol Kyoto Kawaramachi Sanjo and Hakone Airu -Travel to Hakone for Hot Spring: Hakone Airu -Explore
Nov 18 - Day 9 - Saturday Hakone -> Yokohama -> Minato- Hakone Airu and Tokyu Stay Shimbashi -Gundam -Pokemon Center -Shibuya crossing -Drop of bags and explore
Nov 19 - Day 10 - Sunday Minato - Tokyu Stay Shimbashi -Akihabara -Skytree -Asahi Building -Rikugien Gardens -Tokyo Dome
Nov 20 - Day 11 - Monday Minato -> DisneySea/Land - Tokyu Stay Shimbashi and Tokyo Bay Maihama -DISNEY
Nov 21 - Day 12 - Tuesday DisneySea/Land - Tokyo Bay Maihama -DISNEY
Nov 22 - Day 13 - Wednesday Tokyo DisneySea/Land - > Minato - Tokyo Bay Maihama And Tokyu Stay Shimbashi -Team Labs -Odaiba -Meiji Jingu Shrine -Cat Cafe
Nov 23 - Day 14 - Thursday Minato - Tokyu Stay Shimbashi -Pokemon Cafe -Nintendo Store -Tokyo Tower -The East Gardens of the Imperial Palace
Nov 24 - Day 15 - Friday Minato - Tokyu Stay Shimbashi -Final Fantasy Cafe -Shibuya -Shinjuku
Nov 25 - Day 16 - Saturday Minato - Tokyu Stay Shimbashi -Kirby Cafe -Ikebukuro -Explore
Nov 26 - Day 17 - Sunday Minato - Tokyu Stay Shimbashi Leave at 1 pm from HND to LAX