Quadruple Friday Five 24&31-March-2023

Yep, sorry, went on holiday last week and skipped the Friday Fives.

24-March-2023

thefridayfive 

1. Forest: Do you spend a lot of time in nature? Do you want to?
I don't spend enough time in nature as I would like it. There is virtually no real forest in Macau (this is a city-city), but next best thing is Coloane island where there's some hiking trails but even recently they've started to develop the area with housing, so it will all disappear soon.

2. Cereal: What do you usually eat for breakfast?
Usually it's either some plain yoghurt with a bit of honey (or jam/sauce thingamajig for taste), OR a soft boiled egg and a very diluted coffee. Think coffee-flavored milk as opposed to coffee with a lot of milk. (So it's way more milk than coffee).

3. Flu: How do you cope with getting a minor illness?
I tough it out.

4. Worm: What sort of dirty/messy activities do you enjoy?
I don't really, but I think playing with my inks and fountain pens can be considered as potentially dirty and messy so I guess that's it?

5. Bang: What's the last celebration you went to?
Just yesterday we had a going away lunch for 2 colleagues that were retiring.


F.riday5.com

1. What would it take to get you to go Back to School, and what would you study?
Admittedly, I was a pretty good student, had a 3.8 GPA and such, but I've been disillusioned by the academic world so no, I'm not going to "seriously" study anymore.

2. What was pleasant About Last Night?
I'm kind of thinking these prompts are referring to something, but I don't get it LOL. I'll just answer as I read them. Last night after shower I just laid in bed mucking around the phone. I had sorted out the clothes that are on "The Chair" (the chair where clothes that were worn once, not dirty enough to put to wash, not clean enough to put back into the cupboard LOL) so they were now neatly on the chair as opposed to just draped over the chair LOL. It was nice to see the chair in some form of neatness.

3. With whom do you get along very well despite having almost Nothing in Common?
I dunno. I don't have beef with anyone personally. I guess my boss or my assistant.

4. What looks Pretty in Pink?
I have no idea LOL

5. What interesting sight do you see daily on The Voyage Home?
Not so much interesting, more like, "this is good!" I know this guy that has a Shiba Inu that always brings the dog out around the time I get home. Well, the dog must be 15 or so by now. Pretty touched to see the man still taking the dog out, in a doggy pram and all that. Recently there's been a few cases of animal abandonment for the worst of reasons. A family gave up a 20-year-old cat because "the cat is too long-lived, it just won't die, we don't want it anymore".... what the actual F. And here we miss our nutmeg, and our dog Menina is 18 and showing signs of old age and what I wouldn't give for my dog to be 20 and 30 and 40 IN GOOD HEALTH AND NO PAIN and you are abandoning a cat that's well has no issues? Also another 17 year old poodle that couldn't walk, exactly the same situation as our Sai-Lup.
Side note: Sai Lup Update: He's a pretty happy clam now. Butler service almost all-around. We can sort of tell what his growls, whines, and barks mean (one means water, one means he wants a change of scenery, one means he wants to eat, one means he needs the toilet, etc). Head tilt is almost gone.


31-March-2023

thefridayfive 

1 How often do you send greeting cards?
Not so much greeting cards, but I like to send postcards. Might as well share my Postcard IG here: Kat_Postcards. But it might spoil and surprise postcards I send to anyone here :-) I usually post on the IG just before I send postcards out (I can't keep track of them...)

2. What is the most creative card you’ve ever received?
A friend from Japan would use magazine cutouts and then style an envelop, or make something, or collage something out. As always, there's 2 side to that right, there's the "Oh boy it's so creative!" and there's the "is she sending me crap?" but I can appreciate creativeness :-)

3. What is the most creative card you’ve ever sent?
I'm not much for creativity. I just send store-bought cards. The most I'd do is maybe doodle in it somewhere. I also try to mix some colored was for the wax stamp, but so far it's been failed attempt after failed attempt.

4. Do you believe the days of sending post cards are behind us?
Please don't disappear! I enjoy sending postcards!

5. If you could get a post card from anywhere, where would it be?
I'm happy with postcards from anywhere!


F.riday5.com

1. What do you know about Oakland or the San Francisco Bay Area?
Absolutely nothing. LOL. Is San Francisco the hilly place where in movies they show that one slope that goes down? Has a tram? (the one example in my head is the one of Will Smith with his son.... in pursuit of happyness or something)

2. What are your feelings about Mexican food?
Yummy!

3. When you have an extended period off from work, whether you travel or not, how much planning do you do for your time?
Oh, like the upcoming week. I have a lot of ideas in my head, but I'll probably just laze it off LOL.

4. How susceptible are you to motion sickness?
As long as I'm not reading, I'm usually good in any situation. The last time I was in a ferry/jetfoil though, it was so bad that I actually had to close my eyes and try to sleep it off, but it's really rare that I'm affected.

5. When did you last try something new with your smartphone?
I don't know, with all the new apps appearing I don't even know what "trying something new" really actually means. I guess the most "tangible" thing I've tried is using the iphone's wallet function (NFC or something?)? Where there is a transport money "card" in my phone, and all I have to do is swipe my phone? Don't even need an internet connection? NFC is not used in Macau, but I tried that in Hong Kong and it's really convenient, but the conversion rate of the Hong Kong dollars within the app is exorbitant. 

2023 March - Tokyo, Japan (Day 1)

Ah... I still am undecided if I should just do the whole trip in one post or divide up the days... I'll see as I write this.

We had a super early day, we were on a red-eye flight, so landed Tokyo Haneda around 5am ish. I got the neck pillow and stuff to try to sleep but the guy next to me kept elbowing me *duh* so I didn't get much sleep. My friend and I we decided to each get an aisle seat across each other, in front rows, so we could alight sooner too, which was a good call, because the immigration wasn't really open and running until around 5.30am. So at least we were in the front of the queue.

It was my first time to the Haneda 羽田 airport so we walked around the departure terminal and it indeed was pretty neat. But everything was not opened yet, so yeah.

We then took the train (whichever variation of it) and made our way to Asakusa 浅草 to drop off our luggage and lighten the carry on bag. Since we were staying in Asakusa, so the first stop was Kaminarimon 雷門 and the shrine there.

My friend told me that the omikuji fortunes おみくじ in this shrine are usually of the bad luck variety. Well. She got a good fortune 大吉 while I got a bad one 凶 omg. She asked if I wanted to get another omikuji but I was using a "gambling mentality" (I am from a city of casinos, so of course) and decided, not to get another one there. Since this was a bad luck result, I had to tie it up to a bar thingy there.

We then stopped for a proper breakfast. At first, we wanted to go to one of those traditional uncle-era cafes, but the one famous one didn't open until noon (serving breakfast at noon?) and then I spied another cafe nearby that served these "Morning" モーニング breakfasts. Basically it's just a thick buttered toast with a coffee, and a side of salad I suppose. We didn't want just that as "slice of toast" for breakfast is like a super common thing where we come from, so we had these... pocket sandwich thingamajig.

Our next stop was to Ueno 上野, to the Ueno Toshogu Shrine 上野東照宮. I took my DSLR camera there and this just proved it's a pain. I have an old Canon DSLR that the zoom lens has called it quits, so I only have a prime lens (50mm). Things show... way tooooooo near........ It's a very good lens for portrait photos and if I want some serious shallow depth of field photos (focused on one subject and everything else blurred) but it's a sh*t lens for scenery shots, especially with my non-existent photography skills.

At this shrine, I pulled another omikuji after I bought an amulet for health (since the first omikuji I got said something about getting sick) and it was a better result of "future blessing" 末吉.

We then crossed the street to the Ameyoko アメ横 to kill some time until lunch, where my friend wanted to have a proper Monja モンジャ. Apparently the Monja I had once upon a time wasn't really a Monja. So it's like an okonomiyaki but it's way more liquid and you eat it direct from the pan.

The next stop is... Gotokuji Temple 豪徳寺... and what is it? I'll just stfu so you can *feel* the power of........ cats!

It was a fun stop here LOL

Then, we wanted to go get some specialy Shu-Cream in Totoro style. Sadly, they were sold out already (it was around 3pm). As they closed at 7pm, we asked if there's any chance they will re-stock for the afternoon, and.... Nope. Very weird business model, LOL. Anyway, somehow after some chit chatting, the staff suggested that we reserve for tomorrow, so we did just that.

eh, this shot was just because I wanted to shoot the flower, but as I had a lens cover thingamajig on my phone, it sort of enhanced the lighting and flares, so this was cool.

Final place for the day was at Meguro 中目黒 to see the cherry blossoms in night view.

My friend also had to meet up her friend there, first we had a pre-dinner drink/snack thing. Then we went to a proper restaurant of motsunabe もつ鍋. I was depleted of energy by then already (red eye flight, no rest, etc) I was practically falling asleep as they chatted. I don't think I took a photo of the motsu, but here's a shot of a horse meat sashimi I guess. They praised the goodness of it, for me, either I was so tired, or I'm just not a connoisseur for meat... so... it was.... just raw meat.
( Behind a cut for those sensitive to raw meat )

Argh... I forgot how sorting through photos and writing the codes for these can be tiring as well... LOL... so I guess I'll give myself a pause here. More later!

2023 March - Tokyo, Japan (Day 2)

Day 2. We deliberately planned for it to be NOT an early day as we had such a long day the day before. It was also some sort of Japanese public holiday, which was a boon for me, I'll explain when I reach there.

As we walked around Asakusa, there were a lot of people queueing at the shrines... so we got our reminder that it was a public holiday. People were queueing for the shrine seal stamp thing (they have like a blank book they can buy, and at different shrines they can get the Shuin 朱印)... because it was a holiday, it was a holiday limited edition Shuin. My friend would have loved to get one but she decided we shouldn't waste our time there. So we continued our way to our breakfast place.

Breakfast stop: Michelin starred Onigiri おにぎり: Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku おにぎり浅草宿六 http://onigiriyadoroku.com/english.html　
Almost other patrons (ladies) had only 1 onigiri set... we had 3 onigiris each LOL. We were eating like horses.

The chef also planned our onigiris. I mean, we chose the fillings we wanted, and the chef planned out the sequencing from the least flavourful and onwards to most flavourful.

Right after, my friend had an event to attend in Shibuya, whereas I had booked myself an ink mixing workshop at Ink Stand by Kakimori https://kakimori.com/pages/inkstand-by-kakimori, so we split ways in the underground. I then found out the line I had to go was not in that part of the underground and had to go back overground to another underground entrance.

I got slightly lost at Asakusa overground as for a moment I couldn't orientate myself according to the subway entrances. Eventually I managed and then made my way to Kuramae 蔵前 and then the 10-minute walk to the location.

The lower part of the store was still the same as I knew it, but the workshop is now located on the upper floor, and that was so cool. So the shop was like, traditional 60-70-ish stationary store, and the upper floor like a futuristic lab. They only had this ink mixing workshop on weekends and public holidays... and... it was a public holiday on this day! 

Since I managed to book online, the staff correctly assumed I could understand some Japanese, but they were nice enough to ask if I needed English instructions. Everything was simple enough that after seeing their hands-on demo, and some reading through the instruction booklet, it was easy enough to follow. So we can mix 3 colors and use a lightening agent. There was a sample of 2 colors, so mixing the third would be the surprise.

I got the first orangey color on my first try. Then I wanted a blue-ish green but not quite Tiffany blue, and after the first try I wanted it a tad more blue, so I mixed another batch. Finally I mucked around and did a purple. So I had these 4 colors and in the end I chose to buy 2 colors. We had to write down the recipe and they logged it into the system. My recipe is now valid for 3 years. So in these 3 years if I go back I can buy my own color again. This is sooooooooo cooooooooooool.

When it was all over, I had to wait an hour, so first thing I did was hunt for a public toilet. As this was a residential area, there were no malls for me to go into. I found a public park and it was the dirtiest toilet I've ever encountered in Japan, ever. Maybe because of the kids. The disabled toilet was clean though, so I disregarded the sign I just went for it. Then, I still had almost an hour to kill; but there was nothing in the area. So I went to the subway, went out 1 extra station to... forgot the name of the stop and there was a Book-Off, and I went there to hunt for some cheap deals. Got 3 CDs (Chemistry, and Yuzu)

When the time was right, I hopped right back to Kakimori to pick up my inks, and I bought some stuff too. I got another dip pen and, easily, the MOST EXPENSIVE ITEM in this trip: A glass pen.

I already have a glass pen from Germany (bought in a Christmas market in Munich). But... this Japanese glass pen is WAY MORE FINE than the one in Germany. See for yourself:

After that, the original plan was for me to go over to the Totoro cafe place from the day before, but my friend's event ended around the same time as I was done, and her location (Shibuya 渋谷) was nearer to the Totoro place (Setagaya) than I was. From Kuramae, I needed half an hour to get to Shibuya. In the time I reached Shibuya, she already managed to go to the Totoro place and get back to Shibuya, and get us both lost LOL. I suggested to meet up at a particular numbered exit; she insisted on meeting at a Bic Camera. So when I was making my way there, I shot a photo of the 109 to show her that I've arrived, and she told me to go right side. I wondered for a bit, thinking, the right side of 109 is (the now closed down) Tokyu Hands and not Bic Camera, but I went anyway. Half way there she says no, she meant, on the map, right side of the station exit. WTFLOL.

Anyway, we met up, then went to one new shopping centre that I did not catch the name of, and went to the roof to...

Totoro Shu Cream! Shiro Hige Cream Puff Factory 白髭シュークリム工房 http://www.shiro-hige.net/
Every hat depicts a different flavour. It was yum while it lasted. But was it so good that one should go queue? I don't think so. Maybe for the photo bragging rights, but for the taste itself, come on, it's not ambrosia.

Apparently my friend was going to see another friend in the same place, but on the ground floor where they had this "Japanese culinary street" claiming to serve food from different Japanese provinces. It was very... touristy-fake to me. But ohwell. No complaints. That beer ad sort of reminded me of the Leonardo DiCaprio meme, maybe from The Great Gatsby?

Passing by a Donki, my friend had to help people buy some contact lens. There was a whole new song and dance to buy contact lens with prescription now, so while I waited with nothing to do I used 500yen to exchange a 10yen cheese cake. The guy in front of him placed a 1000yen note in to the machine and the machine spat out a ticket, but since he still ahd 500yen, the machine was waiting for instruction on whether to get a second ticket or get the change. The man didn't understand and just left. So I had to get his attention to give him his change back, and then I got my ticket. While we waited for the cake/pancake/waffle cake/whatever, the man asked me in broken English "One ticket one cake?" I could only nod. What else could I say? There is another photo of me pulling at the cheesy strings but I'm lazy to hunt for that photo now LOL.

We were still in Shibuya and walked around after dinner. My friend wanted to go to this Isakaya type place that had an interior design of a Japanese primary school, just for shits and giggles. It was supposed to close at 11pm, but when we went there in 9.30pm-ish, they said they were not accepting guests already.

In the end, we went to another Yakitori place that was just above this primary school thing. We were tired and so not many photos were taken. The food was good though!

We eventually made our way back to the train station. Hachiko miraculously was sitting alone (no crowds). But it's still sad to see Hachiko. For those who didn't know, there's another statue of Hachiko reuniting with the professor in a university in Tokyo (I forget which one exactly), I've been there, it's not hard to find. So for those who wanted to know. There's a bonus statue!

Aaaaand. Day 2 is over. Check back in for more!

2023 March - Nikko, Japan (Day 3 & 4)

Our next 2 days was in Nikko and a very short Yokohama visit.

It was a boring train ride to Nikko 日光. I did try to read some, but I was really uncomfortable. As I was warned about cold weather, I was overdressed and was feeling stuffy.

Lo and behold, when we got off at Nikko... I SEE SNOW ON THE MOUNTAINTOPS... but it was hot like something else there. I had to strip. It was still early-ish and we saw there was a deal on a "Nikko Passport" so we got it. It is a 2-day passport that includes the entry for a few places. If we went to all, it would be like 6000yen, but the passport cost 2400yen for all those places. In the end we didn't visit all, but we still got a significant amount of savings. I think we visited around 4000yen worth of entry fees.

We wanted to go to a famous local restaurant for Yuba (tofu cuisine?) but it was closed. Day after public holiday maybe? Along the way we found a stall with a yuba egg roll dashimaki tamago so we had a try. Next door was another restaurant for the yuba cuisine, so in we went.

First stop: Shinkyou 神橋
Mirror shot LOL. I had to muck around on the camera for a long time to get this shot. Meanwhile my friend shot me back LOL

I don't watch much (newer) animes and shows, but I know enough. I thought this bridge looked similar enough to that of Spirited Away. Though, we mis-judged on the distance. I should have been a couple of steps nearer to the camera to take this second shot.

I was totally overheating.

We then made our way to your ryokan for the night to drop off our heavier overnight bags, and continued exploring the area. I didn't exactly keep track of all the shrines and temples we visited, but I think we did see the following:

Rinno-ji temple Sanbutsu-do
Nikko Toshogu-shrine
Futarasan-shrine
Taiyuin Temple
Kanmangafuchi & Bake jizo

One of the highlights of this place had this sculpture of a sleeping cat. I don't recall exactly what it's about, but it was the sculptor that only sculpted this with his left hand or something (his right arm got chopped off or something). The funny thing was there's an amulet with this cat that's for....... Road Safety. I was amused because... it's a sleeping cat. How can you get road safety from a sleeping cat?

This one (on the left) if you look at the direction of the pattern you'll see it's different. I couldn't show the whole shot (my 50mm prime lens camera *rolls eyes*) so apparently in the whole shrine/temple all patterns are in one particular direction, but for that one pillar it's intentionally in the other direction. It was something about not making everything perfect (intentionally including some imperfections) so that you know there's room for improvement. The perfection in the imperfection, so to say.

We tried to visit another 2 shrines but soon understood why it was a 2-day passport... things closed by 4pm LOL. We decided to quickly go see another spot before sundown as we also marked our dinner for 6pm sharp. I think the way the ryokan would do it is, the patrons would take their baths and onsen and whatnot then dress in the yukata for dinner. But not us. We made a last ditch effort to see these little statues... I think they were graves at one point in time too.

The colors are a little foggy on this one because I used the papershoot camera (yeah I took all my gadgets with me. Not doing that again)

On our way bag, an auntie walked her Shiba Inu mix but that Shiba was demented LOL. I know in general Shiba Inus are pretty cool as in they don't play with people (usually), this one was hyper and barking at us, and tried to chew my hand. Luckily I'm a dog person and I just held my hand in a fist so it couldn't close its mouth LOL LOL LOL LOL.

We rushed back to the ryokan and barely made it hahaha. The staff were sort of insinuating that "they tried to call us in the room but we were not there, you're suppoed to be here at 5.50pm!!!

Before going for our night bath, we decided to go out again for the stars. Japanese streets are so clean it's OK to lie on the ground for photo taking.

Well at least the phone camera seems to be good enough to get a starry shot.

And then it was the following day!

We started the morning with another soak in the onsen. And this time for breakfast we went in our yukatas.

Nattou 納豆? No problem. I don't mind the smell. I don't mind the taste. I eat Cheese. I eat Chinese Century (Black) Eggs. I'm fine with nattou, LOL.

So we went and visited a few more places.

There's this place with a lot of bunny statues.

This Shuin made me laugh so much.... waaaayyyy toooooo much LOL. The night before we were talking about cheesy designs usually by the older generation Chinese. Then we saw this Shuin of... basically just this bunny but in various angles to fill up the sheet of paper... and that set us off to non-stop laughter all over again.

Random shots that I didn't mark the location, but these are all Nikko.

When we checked out, I saw this cute teapot design of a cat, so just for record and reference for me.

Then we made our way back to the train station, the JR station building is somewhat special apparently.

Went to top up my Suica and saw this logo thing in the train station. It's the 3 monkeys!

And then... made our way to Imaichi 今市 but by taxi... to do something only local tourists do... picking strawberries. The strawberries were so sweet, it was surreal. They gave us each a small bowl with a bit of condensed milk, but the strawberries were so sweet there was no need to dip into the condensed milk.

There was a bit of a blunder when we got back to the Imaichi train station. My friend wanted to see a particular special train but the lady at the ticketing counter just issued us the next train ticket, so we had no time to see the train or steam engine. My friend got pretty miffed about that and was rude to me for a bit. So I just ignored her for some 20 minutes and soon she chilled and we went back to planning.

She said we'd make a detour to Yokohama to see the Cup Noodles Museum. However, by the time we arrived they had sold out their tickets for the day, so we walked further down to the red brick building.

There was a restaurant with the spiffy omurice thing where the chef would flip the omelette over his back to the rice dish.

The rain wasn't letting up but there was nothing pressing to do so we walked back to the JR station. The cable car ride was a little too expensive for the walkable distance.

So in the end we went to the Ramen Museum. Silly side-by-side to see iPhone photo and papershoot photo. Hm.... okay.

Going down to the underground of the museum is a whole replica of an old street complete with a tuck shop.

For the record, the bottle in my hand is a ginger ale, not a beer!

Taking the train back to Asakusa...

A taiyaki shop was still open so we got taiyaki for late night snacks.

Admittedly, I was a bit miffed by my friend snarking at me. Before the trip she said she has a small bag with wheels and that I could put my overnight stuff in her bag, so I didn't need to carry it around. But then on the day, she said her wooly clothes took up all the space so I have to carry my own bag. Had I known it before hand I'd have brought my own carry-on size bag with wheels. But, I was an absolute angel and I did not make a scene or start a fight. I deserve sparkly stars for that!

2023 March - Tokyo, Japan (Day 5)

ooooh.... this was a day in the place next to the happiest place on earth! (self-proclaimed)

Tokyo Disney Sea! https://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/tds/

But first, we need to head out from the hotel. And went to get some breakfast at Mister Donuts.

Slowly made our way to the Disney Resort, got a day pass ticket for the transport train outside.

And then promptly had the fright of our lives because apparently, Disney doesn't do walk-ins now. Everyone needs a pre-bought ticket. We did not pre-buy a ticket. The girl in the info centre said, no on-day tickets for sale. We stood there trying to locate some online travel agents that had immediate ticketing, but we had no luck. Suddenly though, the girl behind the counter received a call, then she said they were allowed to sell some walk in tickets. And so, that's how we got in.

Do I buy expensive kits that have absolutely no use in every day life? No. Do I put them on to take selfies? Absolutely. My cardigan is from the Duffy and Friends Line. My friend gave me a Gelatoni face mask, and since Gelatoni is a cat, I put on the Gelatoni head band, LOL.

Admittedly, we did very little planning for the park. Fast passes are non-existent now, it's all paid fast pass (WTF money suckers) and the app they had was really shitty.

So apparently, you have to pay to reserve a time slot for a ride. And say, you pay for one pass now, within one hour from now you can't buy another pass. We mucked around on the app for a long time. I used all my 5 credit cards. 2 needed pre-authorisations that went through, but when it came to actually paying for the fast pass, it couldn't go through. So we had to walk all the way back to the entrance to get a fast pass to one ride (a Toy Story one) and then we walked around the place to see.

The app annoyed me so much I needed ice cream to sooth my soul. LOL

I'm feeling a bit lazy so I'm not going to sequence the photos properly and exactly. I'll just keep them from obviously-day-time and obviously-night-time.

The parade is in the lake, so nobody can go near the parade.

Random postcard that I decided not to buy and send (sent another one) and instead, I'll keep this photo as record instead.

From some ride or another, while we were still queueing.

The Toy Story ride was pretty fun. My arm is still cramping even a week after.

Ferry rides! We went on it too when itstarted to rain rather heavily.

When we were queueing for one ride or another.

The inside of the queue; almost our turn.

My friend wanted the pop corn bucket but we didn't want plain salted popcorns. So we bought the bucket and asked to swap for another flavor; we got a ticket and went to the curry popcorn stand for curry popcorn!

In the end, we paid for 2 fast passes and managed to queue for some 3 or 4 rides/games. Wasn't too bad. Though, my friend was a scaredy cat, and I wanted to go on some more exciting rides but she was staunchly against that.

Random merch, I thought this China Mickey was cute. Didn't buy.

This was at Ariel's land. I guess, if you are going to Disney Sea, you MUST go to Ariel's something.

The night parade was... hard to understand. I understand Ariel being there. I can sort of link how Peter Pan and Wendy are in it (tieing in with Captain Hook - sea!). I don't understand why Aladdin and the Genie are part of the Disney Sea night parade. Frozen too! And Rapunzel - why? There was this other newer one of a tribe or something (I don't know the newer shows) that looked either Hawaii-ish or some sort of tropical aboriginee tribal people so yeah, okay. But the others? I don't get it.

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering "What's Duffy?" so the story is... Mickey has to go sail out (when did Mickey become a sailor? I thought that was Donald?) and Minnie was sad she couldn't join in. So she made Duffy to keep Mickey company. How the Duffy and Friends came into being is beyond my understanding as well. But anyway.

Final fireworks somewhere that we didn't notice.

And it was time to leave the over-inflated wonderland and go back to the real world where prices are more acceptable. We had Oden for dinner! It was DELICIOUS! We originally wanted to find a streetside stall place, but given it was raining and the temperatures dropped significantly, we went somewhere indoor.