OOooh, cool! I’ll defo consider it then. Thanks for sharing!
Osaka defo has more night life, but most daytime museums and businesses close between 4-6pm. I think it’s just a Japan thing.
I shall back your conspiracy theory 
because I suspect the same thing with mine I think at the beginning it lasted 4-ish days, but that would be my dream nowadays sometimes it only lasts 2 days and sometimes 3, but it’s not like before. My conspiracy theory is that everything became worse when they introduced their subscription model, in order to incentivise you to subscribe 
I can’t prove it, though, but that’s my suspicion, because things got only worse after that
The funny thing is that the screen of my watch sometimes doesn’t even react to my fingers or even register them
That’s not something I would consider at least for now
I like your answer. I’ve heard of this brand but never tried their shoes before. I think I’ll give them a try at some point, but I fail to feel or see all the cushioning they implement just by trying to get a feel for it with my hands You make a lot of good points 
I had a good experience with Acis (they do have good cushioning), but the cushioning also wears out a little bit quickly with time. The other good experience would be Skechers, but they also wear out on the inside (a little bit slower?) with time.
I think I’m trying to look for two things (which are usually my other problems with shoes ):
- a middle ground between it providing stability and not feeling like I’m wearing weights in my shoes
- the cushioning not getting worse, once I carry some weight
Oh, the adventures one goes through in life when looking for good shoes
Oh, God. This will be a nightmare for me What kind of noise-canceling headphones do you use?
Is it an e-SIM or a physical one?
Oh, I’m relieved now
I see, I see. This makes a lot of sense now. I thought they were jealous of our opening times or something
How long does it usually take to travel between Kyoto and Osaka?
Are these names written there? and may I ask for what purpose?
I’m assuming those are prayers?
A Sakura for your vocal cords to recover 
Could you please ask them if it’s ok for me to take the swords away with me after drinking thhe tea? 
I’ll keep them safe with me
The sunset is really nice 
Did you ask for her blessing? 
Extra Sakura for your vocal cords to heal
After reading like 75% of her study log and knowing you, I wouldn’t be surprised if the word “chaos” is the one chosen to describe either of you especially it being self-chosen
That doesn’t sound quite optimistic
Here’s a Sakura to change your mind
Thank you for the information
Right now, AirPods Pro 3, but I find Sony WF-1000 have better noise cancelling ones, they’re just pretty umcomfortable to sleep in 
eSIMs all the way! I’ll get another one next week too btw ^^
Of course, depends on where in Osaka and where in Kyoto, but central station to central station with JR lines, something like 30 minutes, with the first and the last 10 minutes being the suburbs of a given town ^^
thaaat i would probably have to call the local guide @queenofthegods on, I wonder
does she look like she’s in the mood to bless anyone. xddddd
I really hope I’m wrong though, I’d love to be proven wrong ^^
May 12th, 2026
- 45 reviews on WaniKani
- 30 reviews on Bunpro
- 2 lessons on Bunpro
- 11 min of Kanji Learner’s Course
- Book: 都市伝説解体センター 断篇集 痕p21->p25
I’m a bit worried that my reading comprehension for this book is pretty much nowhere, I might be reading too little from it at the time to be able to remember the context from the previous side of the stories
I most likely should just play the video game instead and only then read the book, but for now I don’t have it in Japan ^^
Life
The cleanest bus stop be like:
Today early in the morning (just in case Enigma, less than 6 hours sleep tonight xdd) I had a flight to Sapporo, and the airport in Niigata really is just adorable C:
It’s so tiny, there’s like two gates, and they didn’t throw out my 200ml bottle of SPF filter, so hey C:
A lot of things in the region, the Shinkansen, the airlines, the buses, take over the name of “とき”, and so I flew with とき today ^^
I flew above the exact same coast where Queenofthegods took me with a car yesterday for a scenic road, just right at the coast, before starting to see Sinnoh and Mt. Coronet C:
Fortunately, it’s not so cold in Sapporo, it’s the climate of a mountain retreat - pretty chilly in the shadow with hugely intense sun intensity making you sweat from heat ^^
Good they let me keep the SPF xdddd
And, yep, flying squirrels, new IC card - get!
And there I have found, the Canada of Japan xddd
There is an internet treasure I really adore and put in my garden of thoughts, it’s this song called シャクシャイン by the old 水曜日のカンパネラ
KOM-I is cut from the same cloth as me and Hank Green (and probably queenofthegods xdddd)
I found this one a decade ago and alongside the 北国ゆらゆら manga, I’ve been using it to radicalize myself to like Sapporo before I even arrived here for the first time xddd
It’s probably the greenest and prettiest part of the year in 北海道 right now ^^
And it used to be an olympic city, so olympic rings, of course!
The Museum of Modern Art had an exhibition on craft and industrial Pokemon, so I decided to come and see what the craic is all about ^^
Here’s probably all of the context of the exhibit that you need to know before seeing the pictures ^^
Aaand, the pics!
Really cool either way ^^
Today specifically was meant to be an internal day, as I had laundry to make, suitcase to repack and pick up from ヤマトTransport, but everything went fine, so mom, I’m big! C:
And while waiting for the laundry, had some エビ ラーメン today ^^
Getting darker…
I found a public Sapporo library and that was the section of language learning from it ^^
And as I was walking north of the station, I found one bookshop with reeeally good prices on manga sets (haven’t bought any yet, beating myself up for it now!) where the owner had a cat and the cat was watching over the cash register ^^
Tower…
And also, one crazy thing: the Sapporo station underground pass goes for multiple kilometers underground and you can pick any exit. I imagine they made it to avoid snow or rain by walking underground, but that was very nifty of them!
Anyway, walked 45k steps today, I’m whelmed by Sapporo, hoping for a few adventures tomorrow too!
See you tomorrow! ^^
These are omikuji, or fortune telling papers. Whether they’re good or bad, people tend to leave them behind, althought you definitely want to make sure to leave bad luck ones behind. Luck is supposedly cyclical, so you’ll get every type eventually. They usually have special fortunes about work, lost items, love life, etc.
Prayers are usually on boards called ema. They usually have a painting on one side and the wish with the wisher’s name and location on the other.
That looks fantastic! It must have been a lot of fun to see where you’d been but with a fresh perspective.
Could you drop a link? I absolutely need to add it to my places to visit!
Wow, you didn’t waste any time, jumping right in to the deep end of the next city. I’ll have to try following your example.
I had looked at the map just a bit, puzzling over how one might get from Niigata to Sapporo (or vice-versa) by rail, deciding that it was unpossible without backtracking all the way to Omiya, which seemed like a non-starter.
So I guess that means looking at alternatives, such as going by air, by sea, or maybe by hiking through brown bear territory.
The cyrillic on the domestic air terminal signage was a nice touch.
Yeah, no, when I visited Otaru a few years back, I could not see Russia in the distance, even from atop the hill where the ‘herring mansion’ sits, even if I squinted my eyes a bit and pretended really hard, it was just not happening, and so I suppose that Niigata is even farther away, but a glance at the map shows that from either place it’s almost ‘in the neighborhood’.
I neeeeed a fancy pokemon sculpture in my house.
Yes, these are mostly names or companies. These are people who have donated to the shrine itself. Right now they are fixing the roof, hence why Bidoof has no pictures of the shrine itself (it’s beautiful but covered in scaffolding right now) and if you donated to the roof reconstruction project you got to write your name on one of the beams. My work bestie did that and I have the roof reconstruction goshuin.
These are fortunes actually! If you get bad luck you are supposed to tie it up and leave it at the shrine. You can also tie your fortunes there if you don’t want to take them home, no matter what level of luck they are. Prayers are written on 絵馬, which are pieces of wood hung in another part of the shrine.
Fun fact but in most stores in Japan they don’t even have knives on display, just pieces of cardboard with a picture of the knife that you take to the counter(for safety reasons). So, having two katanas out in the open like this is quite shocking. That said, this town does have two villages of bear hunters so we even have guns around so perhaps we have a different idea of safety lol (however, knives are generally not on the shelves in the stores in this town either).
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this style of talking highlighted as a good thing like this. Thank you
Well, sort of. This is the southern boundary of the northernmost district. Still more than 20km to the Yamagata border.
I taught almost every child aged 7 to 19 in the district and am the only white lady for 40km around, plus I’ve been in the local magazine and TV channel a couple times, so you could say I’m famous XD.
Well, that’s what EmilyDubious/Mama Goblin calls it so who am I to question the queen herself 
My disembodied arms hahahahahaha
Thank you!!! I felt like I was meeting a celebrity! I’m glad we vibed so well.
If anyone wants to learn about Japan’s endless stamp rallies, visit every Aeon in the prefecture, and go through a car wash, hit me up XD
Thank you again for coming Bidoof!
Interesting options. The whole in-ear headphones doesn’t go well with me (due to pressure-related things) Maybe I’ll need to think of a good solution or look for places better isolated
I tried once to test sleeping with the normal earplugs and that wasn’t a nice experience (it didn’t last that long )
This will be wild
I thought you’d be back in Germany by then I don’t have any experience with e-SIMs, but maybe that’s something to think about
Wow. That’s faster than I thought Those trains are really fast
This Sakura will help you find your way back
You need to sleep more
I can’t believe what I’m hearing 
May I ask what kind of SPF do you usually use?
This is really cute
What a scene
I’m nt sure if these are tasty
Nice Eiffel Tower they have there Is it possible to go up to the top of the tower?
These are really cute
Out of curiosity, is it generally easy to find such washing machine places or are there only a few of them out there, per se?
Another weird question: are there a lot of stray cats in Japan? and could they just be found anywhere, per se?
The tower is really beautiful at night
Make sure to get enough rest 
Sakura for you
Indeed. Only take 
Thank you very much for your detailed answer and continuous help I really appreciate it a lot
Thank you a lot for your answer This makes sense to show who supported them
Always after the goshuin hunt
Thank you again for your answer I’m afraid if I ever visited there, the place will be loaded with all my bad luck so it might be better to stay away
I love this fun fact.
“Safety”
Totally understandable. Out of curiosity, could you buy a katana in Japan and bring it back abroad?
This is for your eyes only: I apologize for all the notifications you got, get and will get from me regarding your study log I’m making my way through it and almost at 90% or so I apologize again and shall gift you this Sakura as an apology
Here you go!
Also has pictures all over the reviews with this cat ^^
I’ve bought a few mangas from that place today because I’m growing a little averse to Book-Off because… it’s too expensive xddd
This one was significantly cheaper, I bought some newer manga plus うみねこ volume for 200-300 a volume, pretty sweet C:
ONLY HITS NO SKIPS
EVERY DAY IS FUN and i love when friends make the days fun too C:
The local level of celebrity that @Shannon-8 has been showing with her Japanese friend recently, omg
It was me who met up with a celebrity, not you xddd
But damn, I need to step up my media presence game 
Funnily enough I’m the opposite, my ears feel weird with pressure and they pop unless I have noise-cancelling headphones that self-regulate themselves for the pressure and then they don’t pop when you’re in the air with an airplane xddd
Nope, although the way back is going to be filled with a bit less adventures per-day basis, there should still be something fun here and there ^^
Cheapest SPF50 from dm xddd
Yes it is, and I have plans to climb it on my last day ^^
There’s a lot of them, Japanese flats are small and often don’t have washing machines, so people just use those machines for laundry instead ^^
Same in all of the south/east/southeast Asian countries I’ve visited ^^
Yes, but this is also a question to @queenofthegods as she adopted one of the stray cats recently! Any cool stories related to them? C:
Probably in oversized/dangerous baggage and I wonder if any sort of a license would be necessary as well, but you know, technically everything can be brought over ^^
literally the second person after queenofthegods omg (better start marking a location on google maps where we’re supposed to be meeting after im back to germany, anywhere is fine) xddd
May 13th, 2026
- 10 reviews on WaniKani
- 30 reviews on Bunpro
- 2 lessons on Bunpro
- 11 min of Kanji Learner’s Course
- Book: イジメ返しp0->p12
- Escape room: くらやみ遊園地パラノマサイト
- Training: Curling with an instructor
I actually got a little burned out of romance tropes in japanese stuff for a bit, so I wonder if at any point should I just grind some of the vocab and try to get into horror, I already love Corpse Party and horror movies, so why not get into this genre a bit more
I found this book through looking through ジュニア文庫 books - the ones I’ve been borrowing from Japanese-German center in Berlin, the いちご publisher mostly does books about love and relationships, but they also have a black spine label that seems to be horror for 13 year olds, this is exactly what I’m looking for, thank you xdddd
Life
札幌, first and last full day in the town ^^
The voice is like, 60% back, I have the functional frequencies in English/German/Polish, modulate okay-ish, but Japanese frequency set and modulations are still not there and I’m not going for karaoke tomorrow or the day after tomorrow xdd
But man, I was so happy to see the voice at least be functional today C:
One of the reasons why I wanted to visit Sapporo in the first place is that I was really yearning for ice skating and I couldn’t find it outside of the season in Berlin, but Sapporo apparently did, except thAT THE RINK IS IN RENOVATION RIGHT NOW AAAAA xdddd
But Sapporo claims to be the city of sport and I can absolutely see it, there are groups and equipment everywhere throughout the city and I do endorse it ^^
And since I already had a craving for ice, right next to the ice skating hall there was another one…
A CURLING HALL
So, just because I still wanted to do something ice today, I booked a lesson with an instructor for one sheet for one hour today… in Japanese xddd
And as it turns out, I did really well, both at the reception hall, talking to people, talking to the instructor and having classes, so hey, my Japanese is usable and I’m really happy about it C:
The one on the right I even didn’t cheat and that was a legitimate throw, so wooo C:
For those who don’t know, the shoes left and right in curling behave a bit differently between sides, the left one is a little more slippery, and the right one is a bit more frictiony, so it was a bit confusing at first to go on ice, but by the end me and the instructor played a mock game and I only lost 3:2, so I’m THAT good at curling after the first session xddd
Adding this to my long list of winter sports I actually did for some reason and I really enjoy xdddd
Today unfortunately the weather was not so great and it actually was COLD, I was grateful for the underground tunnel in the town, but I still walked out for a bit ^^
someone call @Enigmaxprincex something something xddd
I stumbled upon the Sapporo university and I went around a few faculties today, looked up at their events and their programs and damn, that’s really cool C:
I even had a lunch at their mensa today, really good prices! ^^
The temperature dropped to 12 by 6pm and only kept going down…
I went to a Paranormasight escape room in くらやみ遊園地! Yes, it was in Japanese only, I ran out of time at 3/5 puzzles and was extended time to do the fourth puzzle, but unfortunately didn’t manage to beat the game ^^
Still, it had autoscrolling text and the fact I was able to follow it and follow the hints was really cool! It’s just that the escape room required a decent amount of knowledge about Japanese culture in addition to the language, and sliding through ouija board with japanese kanji on it has been a little hard xddd
ALSO OH MY LORD I MET THE MAN THE LEGEND aaaaaaAAAAAA IM SO HAPPYYYYY ドンペンさま :DDDDDDDD
And at 9pm, made it for an evening showing at the new aquarium in Sapporo, AOAO, only been around for a year and a bit. It’s not that big, but makes up for it with the SPECTACLE
They also had a lot of books with pictures and I ended up checking a few of them, plus the manga, that was fun C:
Aaand to celebrate today, went to do some しゃぶしゃぶ！ A lot of food, veeeery good, I went with a 食べ放題 because I had a lot of calories to refill and I definitely feel refilled!
I got the JR Hokkaido Furano area pass for the next four days as my final hurrah in Japan and I’m starting the first trip tomorrow morning! Should be fun too~
So, see you tomorrow! C:
Thank you!!!
Food for the soul~
Cuurious about what part of the city you stayed in. I’ve been attempting to familiarize myself with the different wards / neighborhoods, but still have a lot to figure out. The general grid layout helps, though, as do the rivers.
So, just anyone can eat in the university dining room(s)? Did you go there accompanied by a student, or go solo? You seem to be more adventurous and outgoing than I typically am, LOL…
The sad truth is that if my ears feel totally isolated from my surroundings, I would start getting dizzy and lose my balance The same thing applies if a lot of pressure was applied to my eardrums
How life can be sometimes
ooooh, I’m already excited to see where this journey leads Fun is always there wherever you go so don’t stress too much about it
I can’t afford such luxury, due to all the problems I have but they do have lots of interesting products, though.
I shall wait for that then and work on my patience
Interesting. That’s something good to know and keep in mind, for sure. Appreciate the insight
Summoning her the right way
I would love to get some insight from those who live in Japan or who might even tried that
I would assume it’ll be troublesome and not worth it, but who knows
That message was meant for queenofgods I already apologized to you before when I made my way through you study log and presented you with a lot of questions but I can apologize again, for sure
Here’s a Sakura for you for being kind and patient with me and answering all my weird questions
I don’t know if there’s a place that can handle us both, but I’ll be down for it at some point
I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought that you’re trying to meet all the possible WK people like queenofgods is trying to collect all the shrine stamps I’m sorry for that please don’t kick me out
Here’s a Sakura to bring it back to 100%
Always succeeding at finding the ice in nice 
Ok, I’ll see myself out
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I’m dying of happiness
Thank you for sharing this portion of joy
Wait, they have a manga about the aquarium? 
A Sakura to help you rest well and recover
There are some, but not a lot. Stray cats in Japan are seen as rodents so there are signs everywhere saying to not feed them and people put out bottles full of water because supposedly that keeps them away. In the Japanese mind, don’t feed the strays=no babies instead of, ya know, just TNRing them being the solution (there are TNR programs). For a country so obsessed with cats, they treat stray cats quite badly. Stray cats are more of a thing in rural areas and if there’s a kind person like my neighbor who feeds them, you can end up with quite a few. That said, out of the several females who get pregnant 3 times a year, there is maybe 1-2 kittens that survive each year. It’s a hard life for a stray cat, even if there is someone who feeds you.
Sorry for the downer 
My cat, Obaachan, is the matriarch of a cat colony at my former neighbor’s house. I took her because after her health significantly declined for about a year, she walked into my house one day and didn’t want to leave, so I took her with me when I moved since I was planning to get a cat anyway. The neighbor takes decent care of them but they have no vet care so the cats have various diseases like chronic respiratory infections, ringworm, and of course constant pregnancy often with closely related cats. Like Orange Boy, Obaachan’s grandson, has a disfigured tail and I suspect that is due to his father and grandfather likely being the same cat. He is also very dumb, but he is orange, so that is another probable cause. However, outside of that he has grown up to be a beefy boy. Japanese strays are also usually not friendly like they would be in Turkey for example. Obaachan is an exceptionally friendly stray cat but that is because she originally belonged to an old lady in the village and was later rescued by my neighbor’s daughter, so she used to be a house cat for at least some portion of her life. Some of the other cats did warm up to me, but only me, and it took quite a while. Lots of treats and a lot of time is the solution.
Ahh that’s amazing!! Especially because it wasn’t necessarily something you had planned for! You probably wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it without Japanese!!
HUH, you can just do that??? sick
I don’t think I have a student in Sapporo friend, but if you know any, would love to make them too ^^
By myself.
…yep? And I thought that was universal, I ate at a canteen in Warsaw University of Technology when I was in middle school, I ate at a canteen in Sevilla completely randomly as an adult xddd
I am legitimately tempted to participate in even more book clubs now to become closer friends with people sO THAT WHEN I GET TO MEET THEM WE’RE GOOD FRIENDS ALREADY xddd
Even with the Google Maps takeout functionality, it feels like they changed the format of the data recently and the visualizer tools don’t work yet, I’m not pulling out Python on this holiday, I’m sorry xddd
May 12th, 13th and 14th respectively ^^
I’m taking it as a compliment C:
May 14th, 2026
- 27 reviews on WaniKani
- 27 reviews on Bunpro
- 2 lessons on Bunpro
- 11 min of Kanji Learner’s Course
- Book: イジメ返しp12->p51
- Podcast: 1h of Bite Size Japanese
- Manga: もしあなたの大切な人が薬物を使ったら。。。
This イジメ返し book feels pretty easy to binge, but my retention of sentences is pretty weak between paragraphs. I don’t feel like going back so I like making up stories in my head about what happened up until this point, and whether it’s what actually happened or not, who knows ^^
Also, bought Biohazard: Requiem (FOR 6000円!) for Switch 2 today and found a really weird manga in a book tree in 千歳 today, I thought it was a little culty at first, but it seems to have been released by the government health agencies to help people with families with people who have taken drugs. It does a little of harm reduction, after the manga comic there is a Q&A with questions such as “m-my family member took drugs once!!! does it mean they’re an addict now!!!”, and I found it pretty cute
I sat down on a bench and binged the whole manga and I decided to leave it in the tree, because I genuinely see how someone already in Japan could make a better use of this manga than me, but it was fun to read ^^
Life
Another beautiful day in 北海道!
As my first trip with the Sapporo-Furano pass, I decided to go over to 小樽, and let me tell you, going a few kilometers right next to the coastline is beautiful!
A very excited woman sat right next to me with a fancier Sony camera than mine and once I noticed that she was sad that she’s not at the window, we decided to change seats and her shutter started going click, click, click, click, click, click ^^
She was a foreigner, we chatted a bit and took a few of the same shots when we arrived, friend~
So, 小樽! The birthplace of rail in 北海道! There were a lot of western sponsors highlighted in the town, with their steam clocks, their buildings, their statues and so on ^^
something something dropping one sakura for our prince ^^
As I was walking through it, the city looked incredibly photogenic, so of course I needed to highlight it ^^
Also, they’ve locked a collaboration with local Vtubers, @javerend has some competition ^^
Very cute town either way ^^
In the strict city center, there is a museum of music boxes, and decided to give them a visit too! A lot of leitmotifs you’re certainly familiar with ^^
And aaahhh so pretty
With those lighting conditions it just feels like banger photo after banger photo ^^
Ironically, my favorite part of the whole city was how open they were for the culture of Russia and collaboration cities. Just a disclaimer, even though I hate the large scale invasion of Ukraine, I’d love to hike through Kamchatka one day starting with 稚内 in the north of 北海道 and I wish nothing but the best to our Russian sisters and brothers ^^
So then, to test the ticket in the opposite direction, I went to 千歳! City unfortunately known mostly for the fact there is an airport right next to it ^^
…and this is when the weather started seriously breaking down, by which I mean, the temperature dropped by almost 10 degrees within like an hour or two.
千歳 is definitely more of a town for people to live in rather than engage with art or culture in it, I haven’t seen that many posters for activities happening in the town as I walked ^^
And yeah, as the temperature dropped to EIGHT POINT FOUR WTF i realized i’m completely underdressed and decided to speed up my step xdd
After walking through most of the things labelled as yellow on Google Maps, I set my way to an Aeon Mall, after queenofthegods recommended for me to check them out xdd
phone pic xdddd
It was the first time I saw one of those! Tons of shops! All sorts of different themes! I looked at back numbers of magazines, played in the arcade, did window shopping for some of the clothes, gasped at asparagus being in high regard outside of Germany, I’d give it a strong 7/10 I’d say C:
Oh, and hey, some stats about 千歳 town!
And then went back to 札幌 to finish the day and eee, drowned in the doujin section of Norbesa shopping mall, I got a few written smut stories too xddddd
Today, decided to head to 居酒屋 to have a dinner! It was a bit weird to see everyone else drink and me only ウーロン茶, but damn, this was THE ONLY place in Japan I found so far that had ACTUALLY SPICY FOOD (and I was so happy about it xddd)
Tomorrow, we’re going to the middle of 北海道 and I won’t be sleeping in 札幌 tomorrow! Let’s see what tomorrow brings ^^
See you tomorrow!
As intended 
dang i can’t believe they have a mosaic of me, how do they know what I look like?
CHUNITHM MY BELOVED
And a Hibike song I see ^^ Nice
Also the food looks yummmyyy