Hello, Magical Forest at Opportunity Village in Las Vegas, Nevada

by   •   Las Vegas
 

I used to hate the winter when I was younger.

Snow would always be a hassle because my parents bought an impractically large single-family house with a gigantic driveway, so I would have to shovel the driveway. During a snowstorm, I would often have to shovel multiple times a day in multiple different passes so that the snow wouldn’t freeze onto the steep driveway, otherwise my parents’ sedans wouldn’t be able to make it up and into the garage.

Driving in the snow was a nightmare. My parents didn’t do proper routine maintenance on their vehicles because they wanted to save money, which I’m pretty sure meant that their tires were either perpetually in need of replacement or possibly the wrong type of tires for winter driving. There were a few instances of very near misses of their small cars losing traction and nearly causing a collision.

I was always very cold in the winter. I have a pretty low body fat percentage, so I don’t have much insulation to keep myself warm. My parents kept the thermostat in the low 60s°F to save money on heating. When I told my parents that I was cold, they would tell me to toughen up. Instead of buying me an effectively functional winter coat, they treated me like a fashion accessory and dressed me up in impractical designer coats because they were obsessed with showing off brand names.

… Then I grew up.

I moved out, got my own job, bought my own clothes, and purchased my own pickup truck. Over time, living my own adult life made me realize that winter isn’t actually too bad.

During my road trip across the United States, I actually particularly enjoyed the time I spent in the snowier regions. I think back fondly to the snowy hikes I did in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming; and I remember how cozy I felt when I got snowed in a few times in Colorado and Utah so I spent the entire day in my warm hotel room with the curtains open, watching the snow fall while a video of a fireplace was playing on the TV.

It doesn’t snow very often in Las Vegas, and in the very rare scenario that it does, it basically never accumulates. I can drive up to Mt. Charleston to see piled-up snow during the winter, which is about 45 minutes away from the Strip, but I can’t really get snowed in down in the Valley. However, it still gets cold, and the community still likes to celebrate the holidays in their own, dry way.

To get into the holiday spirit, I decided to check out Magical Forest at Opportunity Village, an annual winter celebration with Christmas lights, trees, and activities. I knew that this was a yearly recurring thing for a while, but I had never taken the time to head on over before now. I was already looking for some holiday-themed places to visit soon; when I saw that Magical Forest distributing discounted US$17.99 tickets on Groupon (down from the standard US$25.00 full-price admission), I decided to redeem the deal and finally check it out.

I showed up right when they opened at 5:30 PM PST because I thought that would be when they were least busy. I figured that, after getting off work, people would need time to commute back home, gather up their families, and drive over to the venue, which would mean that most people would show up later on in the evening.

My logic might have been sound on a weekday, but I forgot that today is Sunday. It was absolutely packed at 5:30 PM, and there was a long line stretching deep into the parking lot consisting of visitors waiting to get through the security checkpoint.

I heard that one of the prime attractions at Magical Forest is the train. Unfortunately, I had unlucky timing, because the train was apparently suffering from technical difficulties and was not in operation.

After what I think was about a ten to fifteen minute wait, I made it through security and entered the park.

For my first activity, I took a right turn directly into the forest where all the decorated Christmas trees were.

Right at the beginning, there was a “Southern Lights Fire Station” that had a small indoor section with some firefighting equipment on display, as well as a raffle for a fire- and rescue-themed toy car. It seemed like this was the only hybrid indoor-outdoor display throughout the forest.

Right outside was a railroad crossing for the Forest Express. I imagine this is the train that was out of service, as disclosed by the sign near the box office.

I continued deeper into the forest. It seemed like a majority of the displays were sponsored, so there were a lot of logos and advertisements integrated into the decorations. (These are some examples of ones where it was either more subtle, or the branding was posted off to the side instead of front-and-center.)

As I walked even deeper, I started hearing some live music. Because of the curvy nature of the winding path, I was able to see that there was something happening on the other side of some trees, but couldn’t quite reach it yet.

I think this is one of the most comically prominent examples of the embedded advertising.

After doing a few more loops and turns, I made it to the Castle Stage, which is from which I was previously hearing the live music. It seemed like it was mostly just younger teens who were preforming, likely as volunteers or as part of a community program. The frequency with which they sang the notes in tune was questionably lacking, but they all seemed to be having a great time and putting in fantastic effort.

I stuck around to listen to the music for a little bit, then continued on my way on the forest path.

As I was approaching the end of the forest, I came across the Cookie Factory. The line was quite long, so I decided against trying a cookie.

Instead, I continued down the path towards the exit. On my way out, I saw a Disney-themed display, which made me wonder what the likelihood was that this was a properly-licensed display (microscopically low), and whether the very commercial nature of the entire Magical Forest would prompt Disney to actually notice and take some form of action (also still very low).

After exiting the forest, I walked out into the park to check out some more of the attractions. The first one I saw straight ahead was the Avalanche Slide.

Again, the line was ridiculously long so I did not participate, but I’m not really sure if I would’ve even wanted to participate at all to begin with, even if there was no wait. I’m always hesitant to slide down slides because I can’t get the image out of my head that the butt of my pants is basically being used as a cleaning rag to wipe down the surface of the slide as I’m descending…

Nestled under the height of the slide was Frost Bites. At the box office, I received a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for some hot chocolate, but I ended up not using it because I didn’t want to be double-fisting two cups of hot chocolate and occupying both my hands (because I went to this alone), thus preventing myself from taking more photographs.

In the far corner of the park was Santa’s Brewhouse, Reindeer Games, and Beer Garden. This was a 21+ area that had an additional checkpoint by the entrance with a security guard that was distributing special, age-gated credentials. I don’t drink alcohol and I didn’t feel like playing a solo game of cornhole or foosball, so I just snapped a picture from the outside and didn’t go in.

The southern side of the park had a funnel cake truck, a diner, a holiday market, and a row of holiday vendors.

At the end of the lane was a decorated fire truck from the Clark County Fire Department, along with a short row of children who wanted a tour of the inside.

In the activity area, there were some family-friendly games, like mini-golf.

This area also had Cheyenne’s Enchanted Carousel.

For those who wanted to warm up and go indoors, Camelot Hall was set up inside a multipurpose room in a nearby building that housed an arts and crafts station and some concessions.

At this point, it seemed like I had seen everything in the park, so I circled back towards the entrance/exit.

Before leaving, I peeked inside the Holiday Shoppe, which was basically just a regular souvenir store.

Right in front of the exit, there was a donation booth themed as a wishing well.

By the time I was leaving, the park was significantly less busy. I guess that makes sense, because parents probably want to get their kids in bed before it gets too late, so they likely prefer to come earlier on in the evening and leave before it becomes nighttime. If I had known that, I would’ve shown up about two hours later, and I probably would’ve had a much more peaceful experience compared to feeling like I’m trekking inside a gigantic crowd of crying children like I did today.

With that being said, I still enjoyed my visit to Magical Forest at Opportunity Village. I’m not someone who really celebrates holidays, and I usually treat every day like a regular day, so seeing festive things like a seasonal winter event once in a while helps keep things fresh and different.

I think a big part of the allure of Magical Forest is participating in the various different activities, all of which are very family-oriented. If you just want to sightsee the lights and decorations, then going alone is fine and you’ll be able to see a lot of lights in a high-density space, but you wouldn’t be getting maximum value out of your ticket. I would probably only fully recommend this for people with children who want to spend time together as a family and try everything out hands-on.

 

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Hello, All Nippon Airways flight 6 from Narita to Los Angeles

by   •   Flights, Highlights
 

For the past two and a half weeks, I have been blogging daily about my visit to Tokyo, Japan to share my thoughts and photographs from various activities I did during my trip.

In case you missed the context of it, I decided to go to Japan because I had some friends I trust who were also going to be in Japan during some of the days that overlapped with my itinerary, so even though I was basically going on a solo trip, I wouldn’t entirely be alone because I would have people to meet up with on a case-by-case basis upon my arrival.

I had a chance to travel under this structure before, but I opted not to do so because I wasn’t sure I could go to a country that doesn’t speak English and be able to get the most out of my vacation. However, after going to Vietnam and having the trip turn out to be a success, I had more confidence to go to Japan and manage just fine on my own. Thus, I seized this opportunity.

If you haven’t been keeping up with my blog since late November, you’re in luck—with this blog post being the concluding post of the “Japan series,” I figured I’d give a preliminary table of contents here in case you want to do some chronological reading prior to this blog post about my flight back to the United States.

(Just to clarify, this is chronological on the basis of when I published the blog posts; I didn’t necessarily do the tourist activities in this order, and I sometimes scrambled up the ordering intentionally so that there would be more variety in the flow of blog posts, e.g., so there wouldn’t be back-to-back museums or back-to-back parks.)

The final verdict from the trip is that I loved it. Tokyo quickly became my second favorite city of all time, only losing first place to Las Vegas, which is literally the city I voluntarily picked as my home and isn’t really a fair comparison.

Everything just makes sense in Tokyo. I love going outside and walking around in big cities, and I like being able to blend in with a crowd and feel like I am just one regular person who is a component of a larger, bustling society. With that perspective in mind, I’m sure it’s easy to tell why I call Las Vegas home and why I decided to live on the Las Vegas Strip. Tokyo reminds me a lot of the Las Vegas Strip, but instead of being composed of degenerate drunk gamblers, Tokyo gives off a well-educated and professional vibe.

All of Tokyo feels highly efficient and optimized. The culture emphasizes the importance of not causing a disruption to others, so you can generally go about your life uninterrupted and gain full benefits from the various systems that are put into place. For example, the public transit system is highly reliable and makes it very easy to get around without a vehicle. Everything is highly intuitive and orderly, so as long as you’re paying attention, you should generally be able to pick up on things and fit in fairly easily.

Everyone I met in Japan was very kind and considerate. Being of Korean ethnicity, I was always told growing up that Japan is supposed to be my “enemy” because of the two countries’ past history, and I was always warned how Japanese people would be racist against me. I’m not necessarily trying dismiss the struggles and hardships that older Korean people faced, but on this trip, I personally found out first-hand that all the Korean people in my life were horrifically wrong about Japan. Although I am thoroughly an American, I am still visually Korean; even then, every single Japanese person I encountered was still very welcoming and respectful.

The food literally everywhere in Japan is just categorically better than the food in the United States. I’m sure a lot of it just has to do with personal preferences, especially considering that Japanese is my favorite cuisine, but even the worst possible food in Japan was above average to American standards, and the average in Japan was on par with some of the best restaurants I’ve been to in the United States. One of my friends who was with me in Japan said that one of her favorite snacks in Japan is to get an egg sandwich and freshly-heated chicken filet from 7-Eleven and combine the two; I tried this, and it was quite literally better than any chicken sandwich I remember ever having in the United States.

Within days of arriving in Tokyo, I was already looking up long-term housing options for my next trip. Because of my loyalty to Marriott, I stayed at the AC Hotel Ginza this time around, but that ended up being pretty pricey. I was willing to spend the extra money because I felt like I would be able to rely on the staff in case something went wrong, but then I realized that I can basically rely on literally anyone in Japan because of how willing everyone is to help out someone in need. I am looking forward to my next visit to Tokyo, and the next time I go, I’m hoping I can find a good serviced apartment so I can stay for longer without having to check out with a very expensive lodging bill.

 
So with that trip summary out of the way, here is an overview of the flight I took back to the United States. I opted for All Nippon Airways flight 6, cross-listed as United Airlines flight 7946, from Narita International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport.

As a side note, I intentionally booked two different airlines of the same alliance—United Airlines on the way out and All Nippon Airways on the way back—so I could experience two different long-haul business class flights serviced by two different carriers. I flew in and out of Narita International Airport because flights to Haneda International Airport were more expensive enough that it wasn’t worth the time savings on the shorter train ride. I flew from and to Los Angeles International Airport because Harry Reid International Airport back at home didn’t have any non-stops to Tokyo.

On the way to Narita International Airport, the timing didn’t quite work out for me to take the Keisei Narita Skyaccess line back to the airport like I took on my way to Ginza, so I instead rode the Asakusa line, which became the Keisei line. Although it took about half an hour longer, I’m glad I got the experience, because this line went through and had stops in the less populated areas between Tokyo and Narita, so I got a glimpse at what “country life” is like in Japan.

Upon arrival, I had a smooth entry into the airport. The lines at both immigration and security were short and quick, and I cleared both without incident.

After arriving at Satellite 5 of Terminal 1, I found an escalator to the upper floor with the airline lounges.

As part of my ticket, I was able to enjoy the ANA Lounge prior to departure. It wasn’t too busy when I arrived, though it did fill up pretty quickly over the next couple hours.

In addition to a standard buffet area that you’d expect to see in an airport lounge, the ANA Lounge also had a noodle bar. I ordered a nice, warm bowl of ramen.

After eating a decent amount of food and getting a good chunk of work done in the lounge, my departure time was approaching, so I headed down to my boarding gate.

After a short additional wait for the pre-boarding passengers, I was able to embark our Boeing 787-9.

Unfortunately, this plane had the older staggered configuration, so I wasn’t able to try ANA’s new The Room seats. If I wanted to fly in The Room, I would’ve had to take a layover in San Francisco first and pay a higher fare on the ticket. Even though I visited and spent time with friends in Los Angeles prior to my departure, it still technically counted as a “layover” from Las Vegas; I didn’t want to then take yet again another layover before flying across the ocean, so I just settled with the staggered business class seats.

With that being said, I was able to secure what is, in my opinion, the best seat of the aircraft: 13K. This seat is the last row of the business class cabin, so it has the most privacy, as nobody is behind you staring at the back of your head. Excluding during takeoff and landing, there is a curtain that blocks the pathway to the premium economy cabin, which adds to the privacy. This segment of the cabin only has six rows of seats, while the front segment has seven, which means there are fewer passengers in this cluster, thus adding to the feeling of peace.

The seat itself is an “inside” seat, meaning the table separates the seat from the aisle; these configurations alternate, so an even-numbered row would have the seat closer to the aisle, creating less distance from those walking by. It is situated on top of the wings for a more stable ride, and it is close to the engines so the engine noise can act as white noise and drown out any potential disruptive passengers. Some people say they don’t like the wing acting as an obstruction in their photographs, but I don’t mind; in fact, I personally like having the wing there, because I take horizontal photos, so I think the wing just adds an artistic element to the picture.

Here is what the rest of the cabin looks like. From this wide shot, you can tell what I mean by a seat being an “inside” seat, and how the seats and tables alternate depending on what row you’re in.

After boarding the flight and settling in, I took out my laptop and squeezed in even more work; I had been spending a lot of time out and about being a tourist, and I hadn’t been getting as much work done as I wanted to over the prior two weeks, so I had a decent chunk to catch up on.

After about half an hour, the boarding process was complete and I stowed my laptop away in the overhead bin to prepare for take-off. During that time, the sun had set and it was already pretty dark outside.

I was not aware of this, but I found out that ANA has a partnership with Pokémon and integrates Pokémon’s intellectual property into their safety videos. This was fun to see, as Pokémon is one of the franchises that I’m actually pretty familiar with because I grew up playing early-generation Pokémon games and watching the cartoons.

As part of the safety video, there was a note about how, if an emergency evacuation ever becomes necessary, photography is prohibited during the process. It might not necessarily be the case this instance, but really specific warnings or rules like this are often rooted in real-life events. It amuses me to think that there is technically a non-zero chance that someone forgot to get off the plane in an emergency because they were too busy taking pictures of everyone else deplaning instead.

After getting airborne, we received our amuse-bouche—pastrami chicken, cheese, and olive in a bowl, accompanied by two black sesame and walnut pistachio sticks. For my beverage, I ordered ANA’s original aromatic kabosu drink.

While waiting for meal service to begin, I also ordered a cup of ANA’s original Shizuoka-cha green tea matcha blend.

After a little while, the first dish of meal service was served—the “selection of morsels.” This consisted of barracuda sushi, herring sushi, vinegar-pickled ginger, fig with sesame cream, and smoked scallop.

Next was the first of two tidbits, marinated grilled mackerel in soy-based sauce with eggplant, green onion, and chili pepper.

The second tidbit was savory steamed egg custard with snow crab meat.

For my beverage to go along with my meal, I ordered some sugar-free cola. They brought out a regular Pepsi rather than a Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Max, which wasn’t to my preference, but wasn’t that big of a deal. The design on the can was unique and did not resemble anything I had seen in the United States before.

Afterwards was the main entrée, beef sukiyaki, served with a side of steamed rice, miso soup, and Japanese pickles.

For dessert, we had three options, two of which included a cheese plate or a fruit bowl. The one I decided on was chestnut mousse with cream and coffee jelly. This also came with a small square of white chocolate.

Although the portion sizes were relatively small, it still ended up being a fairly hearty-feeling meal considering how much food I had already eaten at the lounge. After relaxing for a bit and letting my stomach digest, I got tired enough to lean back and go to sleep for the night.

… Or so I thought.

Usually, long-haul flights will wake you up with about two hours left to go so that they can serve breakfast before landing. However, for some reason, this flight woke me up with a little over three hours prior to arrival. I technically could’ve just kept sleeping, but the cabin lights illuminating and the flight attendants moving around was enough of a distraction that I couldn’t stay asleep.

Eventually, the pilot made an announcement that the second meal service will be beginning earlier than normal due to some expected turbulence coming up about an hour before landing. Reasonably, they didn’t want a bunch of plates, cups, and silverware out on the tables during rough air. Although grumpy from early rising, the rationale was reasonable, so I switched my seat from bed mode to relax mode and waited for breakfast.

My meal this time came out all at once, instead of as separate courses. For breakfast, my main dish was grilled salmon with sake lees and steamed rice with a side of steamed chicken and marinated mizuna greens in sesame sauce, miso soup, and Japanese pickles.

In addition to some plain water, my flight attendant also brought me ANA’s original “Coffee Journal in the Sky.” I’m not enough of an enthusiast to know whether or not this was any special kind of coffee, but I did appreciate that I was able to try all of ANA’s signature beverages on the flight.

For the sake of getting some more value out of my flight, I asked for a second breakfast—negi miso ramen from Megumino, Hokkaido. This was a special soup blend containing medium-thick noodles, onions, sesame paste, and ginger. It was served warm and not hot, so I was able to enjoy it without worrying too much about temperature. This was filling and rounded out my breakfast well.

After finishing all my food, I reclined back and waited for the severe turbulence to begin.

… It never came.

Better safe than sorry though, I guess.

After about nine hours, we made it to Los Angeles airspace. Our runway was longitudinal going westbound, so we had to fly east out to the San Gabriel Valley first before looping around back to LAX. This allowed me to get a nice view of downtown Los Angeles during our descent.

After just shy of nine and a half hours of travel time, we pulled into our gate.

While the aircraft was preparing to deplane, an arrival video played on the screens, and I was welcomed back home to the United States by Pikachu.

After a very brief wait, I deplaned to the familiar sight of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport.

I don’t know if this observation was exacerbated by having just arrived from a country that is so accommodating as Japan, but I began seeing Terminal B at LAX with a different perspective and noticed how tricky it might be to foreigners. I noticed that everything was written in only English, which I found to be comparable to if I had landed in Japan and all the signs were in only Japanese. That would’ve obviously been a tremendous struggle for me, which implies that foreign tourists entering the United States are actually facing that struggle as a very real scenario.

I’m enrolled in Global Entry, which is a very convenient service for United States citizens that allows me to re-enter the country very quickly by just looking at a few identity-verifying cameras and walking through without any questioning. This is only for people who have enrolled in the service, passed a background check, and attended an in-person interview.

Unfortunately, non-English-speaking foreigners who had stood in the same line as me were getting rejected at the checkpoint over and over again, presumably because they were following everyone else around them and ended up in the wrong line without even realizing it. If having a bunch of common translations is not feasible, then I think it would still be nice to at least have some visual representation on where people are supposed to go upon arrival, e.g., mark the Global Entry line with a gigantic American flag, and then put a sign next to it with a picture of a bunch of different flags of other large countries across the world and draw an arrow to the other checkpoint.

I fly with only a carry-on bag, so I didn’t have to wait for luggage. This meant I was able to get off the plane and make it outside in a matter of only several minutes.

I like walking and getting blood circulation back in my legs after a flight, so I walked around half a mile from Terminal B to the end of Terminal 7 and called rideshare service to whisk me away from the airport. As a secondary reason, I like getting picked up at Terminal 7 instead of Terminal B so that I don’t have to sit in the car in traffic in the LAX horseshoe, and my driver can just take the East Way shortcut from Terminal 1 to Terminal 6 to come get me instead, upon which we can immediately leave airport property and be on our way.

I don’t think I have much more to add beyond the general overview I gave at the top of this blog post, in addition to the various thoughts and comments I shared throughout my 16 previous blog posts. I am very glad I decided to take this trip to Tokyo, and I will definitely be taking such an opportunity again if something comparable were to ever arise in the future.

In addition to revisiting Japan, I have two more countries on my near-future “want to go” list: Singapore and Taiwan. For a long time, Antarctica was the only place outside of the United States that I really wanted to visit, but with these successful Vietnam and Japan trips, I am much more inclined to expand my tourism into more areas of Asia.

 

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Hello, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo, Japan

by   •   Tourism
 

While I visited Yoyogi Park much earlier on during my two-week trip to Japan, I noticed while using Google Maps to navigate that there appeared to be another park not too far away called the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Shinjuku City. As I mentioned a bunch of times before in my nature-related blog posts from Tokyo, I really enjoy the fact that there are so many serene oases in the middle of a dense city of concrete and steel, so I decided to stop by the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden during one of my free mornings.

The entrance to the garden was unique in that it basically resembled a train station. Usually, there is a collection of ticket booths and/or kiosks where you can either purchase admission or redeem a barcode that you receive through email after an online order. However, at the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, although there was a traditional ticket counter off to the side, the primary entrance consisted of a bunch of lanes through which you could use your transportation card to get in.

I conveniently had a Welcome Suica card, so I scanned that and was able to get in without any wait. I was automatically charged 500円, which was helpful because I loaded my Welcome Suica card with the maximum allowable funds upon arrival and still had a decently high balance nearing the end of my trip, so I was looking for ways to spend the money so it wouldn’t go to waste after I left Japan.

The special feature on rotation during my visit was a floral arrangement. There were a bunch of little huts that housed a wide variety of flowers in a diverse collection of shapes and sizes.

Although I got a few good close-up shots, there were so many people hovered around all the flower arrangements that it was difficult to get some clear photos without having someone else’s body or camera phone in frame. This was overwhelming the most popular area in the garden, which makes sense because I imagine the locals who were visiting had already seen the rest of the garden and were primarily interested in the new sections.

After entering the deeper sections of the park, I stayed along the western side and explored the denser and more foresty areas first.

I eventually popped out at 上の池, or Kami-no-ike, which translates to the Upper Pond. I looped around this small body of water a couple times and got some photographs from various different angles and vantage points.

At the end of one of the paths running alongside the forest and connecting to the pond was 森の家, or the Forest House.

That was a rest house that also doubled up as a small museum.

Further east was 旧御凉亭, or the Kyū-Goryōtei, which roughly translates to the Old Imperial Cooling Pavilion and is also commonly referred to as the Taiwan Pavilion.

After departing the pavilion, I circled around and captured more photographs of more small bodies of water. Although there wasn’t an endless flow of water from one side of the park to the other, all the ponds were situated close enough that it felt like it extended from the west edge to the east end.

From there, I began heading closer to the center of the park to take a break.

I already mentioned this before in previous blog posts, but one of the things I really like about tourist activities in Japan, especially outdoor ones on large plots of land, is how well-integrated rest areas are in the exploration experience.

I imagine this is likely because Japan has a relatively high ratio of elderly people in their population so they have to accommodate people who might not have as much energy or stamina as young adults, but even for someone like me who can hike for several miles at a time, it’s still nice to have a place to rest up and catch up on some emails and messages after an hour or two of walking.

Instead of going to a regular rest house, I decided to take my break at this café in the center of the property.

This was my snack of choice—a matcha and red bean dessert in between two fluffy pancakes.

This was as delicious as I expected. The various different flavors combined with and complemented each other well, with none of them being too distinct nor overpowering any other flavors. The texture was pleasant and fun, with the distinct cold ice cream adding depth to the otherwise warmer bun. It had a perfect level of sweetness such that it enhanced the overall flavor profile but did not overwhelm any of the individual flavors.

In the United States, I’m generally avoidant of going to random cafés in the middle of tourist hotspots because the food items they serve are usually overpriced and are just microwaved or otherwise reheated versions of mass-produced generic foods of mediocre quality. However, my luck has been much better in Japan, because it seems like all these spots have actual kitchens with skilled staff who prepare the food well, so I have been having a good time stopping by these cafés and trying out their signature items wherever I go.

After finishing my food, I trekked back out and walked over to the on-site greenhouse.

There were a lot of “no photography” signs inside the greenhouse, but those signs also included a clarification that the prohibition on photography was specifically for professional photographers using professional equipment to photograph models. Other people were taking pictures inside with their phones, so I figured that my still frames of the vegetation wouldn’t be an issue.

After doing a full loop throughout the greenhouse, I headed back outdoors to check out the pre-war greenhouse remains and the smaller greenhouses off to the side in a blocked-off area.

Just down the path was 管理事務所, or Kanri-Jimusho, which translates to the Management Office.

At this point, I noticed that I was nearing the gate through which I had entered, but there was still a section of the park I hadn’t yet seen. I retraced my steps and went backwards to the eastern side of the park, and in the process, ran into 新宿御苑ミュージアム, or the Shinjuku Gyoen Museum. It was relatively small in size, but still had some nice things to look at inside.

The southeast corner of the park was home to プラタナス並木, or the Puratanasu Namiki, which roughly translates to Platanus Row Road. As you can likely tell by the name, this was a walking path hugged by two rows of Platanus trees, one on either side.

Also in this area was 整形式庭園, or Seikeishiki Teien, which translates to the Formal Garden. Because this was at the far edge of the garden, the buildings were peeking through, which made for some nice photographs that showed the contrast between the lush green trees of the garden and the tall manufactured buildings of the city.

After confirming that I had seen everything notable in the garden, I cut across through the center to make my way back to the exit. On the way, I saw what was probably the most unique-looking Starbucks I’d ever seen. I don’t go to Starbucks too often, but I figured it would be fun to grab a drink on the way out so that I can say I’ve been to Starbucks in Japan and compare it to the United States; unfortunately, the line was literally over 40 people long, and I didn’t feel like waiting, so I decided to pass.

Because I decided to just keep my United States sleep schedule in Japan considering that I tend to go to sleep fairly late while at home, I ended up waking up very early in Japan. I arrived at the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden early in the morning, right around when it opened, so it wasn’t too busy for most of my stay.

However, when I was done seeing everything and was getting ready to leave, it was in the late morning and approaching the afternoon, which meant much more people had arrived by then. It appeared like the garden was a hotspot for picnics, as a lot of families had set up blankets on the lawn to enjoy a meal while sitting in nature.

Although all these parks fit the generic “nature retreat inside a busy city” archetype, they all had their on unique identities. Compared to the other two major ones I went to—Yoyogi Park and the Imperial Palace—the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden seemed to be the smallest in area, but felt the largest. I imagine this was because I didn’t fully get to see all of Yoyogi Park and Meiji Jingū because I was just following my friends around for that, and a big portion of the Imperial Palace grounds were not accessible to the public.

Overall, I had a nice morning at the garden as a refreshing start to my day. According to my fitness tracker, this also served as good exercise, as my thorough meandering and navigating through the park ended up netting me just shy of five miles’ worth of steps.

 

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Hello, Sushi Iso in Nakano City, Tokyo, Japan

by   •   Food
 

During one of the days I was in Tokyo, I met up with some of my friends, one of whom has lived in Japan for a while now and speaks Japanese fairly well. We went together to a more “hidden” sushi restaurant that doesn’t cater as hard to tourists—it is called 磯, which translates to Iso. This was basically my opportunity to try a much more authentic Japanese dining experience that I otherwise might not have been able to uncover on my own as an English-speaker.

As you’ll quickly see, I am very glad I went to Sushi Iso, and I consider this omakase meal to be one of the prime highlights of my entire trip.

 
The meal started with a small bowl of shirasu no okizuke, which is soy-marinated baby sardines.

This was my first time ever having baby sardines, and it was a very interesting texture. They were very small, and the way they were prepared made it so they separated from each other fairly easily and had a bit of sliminess to them, but the individual sardines were still large enough that I could get a few bites in of the soft body of the fish before it was ready to swallow.

Next was otsumami, which is a collection of small appetizers.

The left-most appetizer in the photograph is a few pieces of a fish and cucumber roll, though I don’t remember exactly what kind of fish it was. In the center is komochi konbu, which is herring roe on kelp; this was particularly fun to eat due to the texture. All the way to the right is hotaru ika, which is firefly squid; I especially liked the flavor combination of the chewy squid along with the rich and creamy innards.

Next was a scallop on seaweed. The scallop was very tender, and the seaweed was mild enough that it complemented the scallop’s flavor without overpowering it.

That was followed by seiko gani zushi, which is female Japanese snow crab pressed sushi, a very seasonal dish and one that is very tedious to prepare.

This had all the components of the snow crab—the unspawned eggs layered on top of the rice, the regular meat on top of that, and the crab innards off to the side. The pressed sushi piece also had some salmon roe as a topping to add a bit more pop to the texture (literally).

Next was basically a build-your-own negitoro hand roll bowl. A “do it yourself” kind of interactive experience with your meal is very rare in omakase (at least from the Japanese restaurants in the United States that I’ve been to in the past), so I thought this was a fun way to make the dinner more interesting.

Up next was shirako, or milt, which is fish sperm sac. Shirako is my second-favorite dish at sushi restaurants, only behind uni, which is sea urchin. Thus, I was pretty excited when I noticed that our chef was preparing shirako. This one was served with some sliced lightly-pickled cucumber and radish inside a ponzu sauce mixture.

This would have been my favorite dish of the meal, if it wasn’t for the oyster that you’ll see later.

After the intense creaminess of the shirako, we toned it down a bit with some shiromi sashimi, which is raw white-fleshed fish (I don’t remember specifically which type of white-fleshed fish it was). It was cut very thin, but when rolled up around some of the greens with which it was served, it was bunched up enough that it had a nice bite to it while mixing well with the greens.

Next was literally the best oyster I have ever had in my entire life. It was insanely large and fleshy, and had the perfect texture combination of tender and chewy. It had the strongest oyster flavor I’ve ever tasted, yet it had absolutely no gaminess that is often associated with highly intense animal meats. It was prepared perfectly, with the salt extracting and enhancing all the oyster flavor, and the juices tasting pure and clean.

I rate this oyster a 9.9/10, and that is coming from someone who considers a food rated 5/10 to be good enough for me to happily eat on a routine basis as one of my regular meals. Functionally, you could say that this oyster got a 9.9/9.9, because I’m one of those types of people who doesn’t give 10/10s simply off the principals that (1) the world is constantly evolving and improving, and (2) there is so much out there I don’t know about, even about my own self and my own preferences, that I am unwilling to declare something as unimprovably perfect.

After successfully recovering from the utter shock that was eating the most delicious oyster in existence to my knowledge, we went on to another amazing dish. I forgot specifically what type of fish this was, but I believe this was either chin or shoulder meat of the fish. With that being said, this was so amazingly fatty that, if the chef didn’t clarify otherwise, I would’ve assumed this was from the fish’s belly. This was as if I was eating the fish equivalent of Japanese A5 wagyu beef.

From here, we started the nigiri service phase of the omakase.

The shrimp nigiri also came with the shrimp head, which I perched atop the nigiri for the photograph. I believe this was kuruma ebi, which is Japanese tiger prawn. I usually prefer sweet shrimp (ama ebi) or peony shrimp (botan ebi), but this tiger prawn had an incredible fun texture to it when I bit into it, and I liked it just as much as the other premium shrimp cuts.

Nigiri service concluded with some eel.

At the beginning of nigiri service, we received miso soup to go along with our sushi. I liked this miso soup in particular because it had a clam in it, which added an element to the flavor profile that I liked.

For dessert, we received some unbelievably sweet pear and melon. This was easily on par with some of the best fruit I’ve ever had.

To complement the sweet fruit, we also received a small cup of mild green tea to go along with our dessert.

As is expected from a traditional Japanese omakase experience, we were seated bar-side, close enough so we could watch the chefs preparing our dishes while we ate.

This was a relatively small restaurant, and the only other dining area apart from the sushi bar was a small table nestled in the corner near the door.

Sushi Iso easily joins the top of the tier list as one of my favorite restaurants of all time. All the food was delicious and very high in quality, and the small plates that we were served prior to nigiri service were unique and uncommon relative to what I’m used to having at Japanese restaurants in the United States.

Another interesting element to this was the price. Something of this caliber could easily have a starting cost of about US$200.00 in the United States, and it could still be justified at the US$250.00 or US$300.00 price point simply because of how great the meal is. With that being said, this was only ~US$70.00 per person at Sushi Iso.

(I don’t have the exact price in Japanese yen because my friend paid for the meal and the chef just wrote the total price on a piece of paper instead of giving an itemized receipt, but when I saw the grand total, I thought it was suspiciously low, so I converted it to USD on my phone and saw that each person’s meal was right around $70.)

This was the favorite meal I had throughout my entire two-week stay in Tokyo. If you are in Tokyo and it is within reason to travel to Nakano City, I highly recommend this restaurant.

 

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Hello, Small Worlds in Koto City, Tokyo, Japan

by   •   Tourism
 

Later on towards the tail end of my two-week visit to Tokyo, I noticed that I did a lot of activities in the cities north and northwest of where I was staying in Ginza, but I hadn’t really spent much time adventuring south. In response to that realization, I decided to spend a day adventuring to Koto City, during which I stopped by Small Worlds to check out their miniature museum.

As you can probably speculate from its name, Small Worlds is a museum filled with small worlds built from miniature models of real-world scenes. In other words, it’s basically a museum filled with massive-scale, professionally-designed dioramas. This is what I assumed as well, on my way there, I had a bit of an … incident.

A lot of websites have AI integration now, and although it can be convenient sometimes, it’s not quite at a stage of development yet where it is particularly reliable all of the time. To get to Small Worlds from Ginza, I took the Yurakucho Line to Toyosu Station and walked the rest of the way there. While on the train, I did some further research about what I was going to see at Small Worlds, when I came across an AI summary that made it seem like Small Worlds was actually an amusement park.

At that point, I was obviously very confused. I had gotten on the train expecting to look at advanced dioramas, but was then convinced that I was going to a theme park. I then wondered whether the “Small” part of “Small Worlds” meant that I was the small thing, and that I was going to a place where everything was disproportionately large and it was the exact opposite of what I had mentally pictured.

Upon arriving at the museum, I found out that my original expectation of what Small Worlds is was correct, and that I had just gotten trolled by AI.

The museum was divided into multiple different sections, with each section following a certain theme. The first area by the entrance was the Space Center.

The Space Center had a simulated rocket launch that happened once every half hour. I was lucky enough with my timing that the launch happened only a few minutes after my arrival, so I got to see it without having to come back and time it.

Next was the Global Village.

After that was the Creators Gallery.

In between two main exhibits, there was a miniature display and a wall full of screens. I didn’t realize this, but apparently, there were small hidden cameras placed inside some of the dioramas with live feeds going to these TVs. I guess a bunch of people probably saw me getting really close and scrunching my nose and squinting to see the miniature models better, without realizing that someone else is getting a nice close-up shot of my face.

Opposite of the screen was a model of Kansai International Airport. There was an “airport lounge” behind it, and the area was built with a bunch of runways and planes driving around the airport. This section had little openings in the runways which were accessible by tunnels; if you get on your hands and knees and crawl your way through the tunnel, you can pop your head out through these holes to get a more close-up view of the aircraft models.

If I remember correctly, these are more of the miniature displays that were in between the primary exhibit areas.

Similar to the Tokyo City View, Small Worlds also had a section featuring Evangelion. They had an Evangelion Hangar, which I imagine means that the robots are like aircraft and are stored in areas where they can be launched.

There was also an Evangelion Tokyo-III area; I’m not sure how this was different than the city of Tokyo and what connection it had with Evangelion, but I am guessing that it has something to do with the lore of the anime.

At the end of Gallery A on the third floor was the creative studio and workshop area. It was too late in the day for me to be able to start my own miniature model project in the workshop, but I did still get to see some of the staff members working on building some models.

In addition to this, there was also a 3D figure studio (not pictured) that I didn’t fully participate in. They had a section where you could get a free 3D model of your body, but if you wanted to turn it into an actual physical figure, it required extra payment. I got the virtual 3D model done, and it was actually quite impressively accurate; I’ve gotten 3D body models done before, and the one here at Small Worlds was overwhelmingly the most accurate and high-detail.

Gallery B was downstairs on the second floor. This was a substantially smaller gallery, with most of the exhibits just being one-off items in small glass enclosures.

Instead, the second floor was primarily occupied by the museum café. It was quite large, and because it had its own little stage and screen, my guess is that this area served as a hybrid of both the café and as a presentation room in which people can host meetings and special events.

To get the full Small Worlds experience, I ordered a small meal off their menu—a two-sauce omurice. The egg was tender and delicious, but I wasn’t really a fan of either of the two sauces—the brown sauce tasted too much like generic steak sauce, and I thought the white sauce had too much creaminess without there being sufficient underlying flavor to support it.

With that being said, I still thought it was quite tasty overall, especially compared to something you might find in a museum café in the United States.

It was particularly fun taking photographs at Small Worlds. It was as if I was doing tilt shift photography, except everything was already small so I didn’t have to use any special lenses or do any intensive after-the-fact editing.

My admission ticket was 3,200円, which is right around US$20. This is pretty pricey compared to Japanese standards, but is at a reasonable pricepoint for the United States, and actually pretty cheap compared to what you might find for something of this caliber in a major city in the United States.

I’m glad I found out about this and spend a couple hours checking it out. I haven’t really come across anything similar to this in the United States (and upon doing some additional research after-the-fact, it seems like there are only a handful of full-blown dedicated miniature museums in the United States, many of which are in relatively smaller cities), so it was a pleasant and novel experience for me.

 

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Hello, Art Aquarium Museum Ginza in Chuo City, Tokyo, Japan

by   •   Tourism
 

While browsing for more activities in Ginza within quick walking distance from my hotel that I can do to fill a few-hour mid-day break during my trip to Tokyo, Japan, I came across アートアクアリウム美術館, which is the Art Aquarium Museum Ginza. Admission was 3,000円, which was right around US$20.00—reasonable for United States standards for a tourist activity like this, but a bit pricey compared to other tourist activities in Japan. With that being said, I browsed some other people’s photographs and I thought it looked unique and interesting, so I figured it was still worth it to check it out.

The premise of this museum is to make art using goldfish. Each art piece had one or more live goldfish (or other kinds of small fish) inside, contributing a very uncommon “alive” element to each display that other art museums don’t really have.

With that being said, I feel like I’d be at least a little bit remiss not to point out the fact these small fish still count as live animals. Although I am not entirely opposed to integrating animals into human-made and designed-for-humans entertainment like circuses, zoos, and aquariums (and in this case, art museums), I think it comes with a reasonable ethical and moral consideration for such animals.

Many of the exhibits on display at the Art Aquarium Museum Ginza were the equivalent of very large fish tanks, which weren’t materially different than any residential fish tank that someone may keep in their home to house pet fish. However, some of them were extremely small, overcrowded, or both, as you will see in some of my photographs. Compounding on the problem was the fact that many of these goldfish, albeit small, were still fairly large compared to a household goldfish you’d find at the pet store.

I thought this museum was visually stunning and I enjoyed my time visiting. However, I do feel the need to provide a general warning that those who are passionate about animal rights might find some of the habitats upsetting, and if you are someone who votes with your wallet, this may be a spot you pass on in order to not spend your money with a company that may conduct business practices that may not be in alignment with your standards.

 
Upon entering the museum, the first display was 手毬リウム, or the “Temari-rium,” a play on words combining “temari” (a traditional Japanese ball-shaped toy) and “-rium” (a Latin prefix meaning “a place,” similar to how it’s used in the words “terrarium” or “auditorium”).

The bottom part of each temari was embroidered and sewn with thread and fabric. Each temari had a different design, with a fish swimming around inside.

On the opposite side of the wall of temari was some other non-fish art pieces.

The next area was 金魚の石庭, or the goldfish rock garden. According to the signs, this was made in collaboration with the architect Kengo Kuma and was a modernized reimagination of the karesansui, the traditional Japanese rock garden.

The next section, 新金魚品評, or “A Show of Kingyo,” was a collection of miniature glass fish tanks decorated as if they were little dioramas. Each tank had somewhat of a theme to it, and it seemed like they tried to match the kind of fish in the tank to the objects that were placed in and around the tank.

My favorite part about this exhibit was how you could see the fish from all angles, including from the top when they would occasionally peek their heads up.

Behind the large array of tanks was NEO花魁, or the “NEO Oiran,” the aquarium’s signature art piece.

Around the corner was 金魚の参道, or the goldfish path, an aisle wrapped with vertical water-filled pipes containing goldfish swimming vertically up and down.

At the end of the goldfish path was 金魚の湧泉, or the goldfish spring. It’s difficult to do this art piece justice with just still photographs because of the light show on the multi-faceted reflective structure on the top and the white smoke coming from the bottom. The best I could do was to capture it from three different angles at three different points of the rotating light display.

I don’t quite remember what this was, and I don’t think this was a named art piece; I believe it was just a projection on the wall, but it was visually unique enough that I still decided to capture a picture of it.

This is 金魚の石灯籠, or the goldfish stone lantern. Behind it is 金魚の滝, or the goldfish waterfall.

This is 猪目リウム, or the “Inome-rium.” The “-rium” suffix doesn’t quite work as well in this situation as it did in the “temari-rium,” but the “Inome” represents a heart-shaped traditional Japanese pattern that symbolizes warding off evil and attracting good luck.

Behind the goldfish waterfall was 金魚の回廊, or the goldfish corridor. This was similar to the goldfish path, but more colorful. The goldfish corridor also integrated mirrors and used angles to make the pillars look taller than they actually were.

Down the corridor, the next room was 九谷金魚品評, which roughly translates to the “Kutani goldfish evaluation.” I didn’t really understand what this name symbolized, but the display had ceramics crafted in a traditional Japanese style, three of which were uncovered and housed swimming goldfish.

Lining the wall opposite to the ceramics was 金魚蒐集, or the goldfish collection. This was similar to the Temari-rium, but with each orb being fully transparent and having environmental elements inside the tank. According to the information provided, this selection was dedicated to showcasing rarer fish breeds.

Also around this area was a display of crystalware.

The next exhibit was 花魁花舞, or the Oiran flower dance. This was basically a collection of miniature NEO Oirans from before, but with flowers hanging overhead and adorning the pedestals holding each tank.

That was followed by 天空リウム, or the “Tenku-rium.” This art piece consisted of a large tank in the middle with what appeared to be flower pedals blooming on top, surrounded by smaller tanks, all containing a varying number of goldfish.

At the end of all the exhibits, there was a hallway with lanterns hanging overhead that led patrons to the art gallery and gift shop.

One side of the art gallery had 歌川国芳コレクション, or the Ukiyoe Collection by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Perpendicular to this was コラボアート, or the collaboration art.

Past the art gallery was the gift shop. It was still November when I went to the Art Aquarium Museum Ginza, so they still had some Hello Kitty collaboration materials set up in celebration of Hello Kitty’s birthday month.

As part of my admission ticket, I received a small container of FLOR gelato. I was given a selection of available flavors, and I ended up picking pear because it’s not common to find pear-flavored sweets in the United States. This wasn’t quite as delicious as some of the fresh sweets I had at Japanese restaurants, but it was still much better than something you’d expect in a pre-packaged container.

The introduction to this blog post pretty much covers most of my thoughts on the Art Aquarium Museum Ginza. As long as you feel properly informed about the relatively high pricepoint of admission and the potentially questionable animal ethics pertaining to some of the enclosures, this is a very unique and one-of-a-kind tourist hotspot with thoughtful and well-polished presentation that I think is worth considering for a visit if you’re in the area.

 

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