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Preface#

Last year, when I was in the second year of junior high school, I wanted to go to Japan for a vacation. Unfortunately, for various reasons, I couldn't make it.

This year, after graduating from junior high school, I didn't have any homework or online classes during the vacation, so I thought, "Can I go to Japan as a graduation trip?"

Coincidentally, there was an international conference that invited my parents to Japan, so I decided to go with them!

This time, I will stay in Japan for a total of 3 days, but:

• We will take a morning flight to Japan (which means we will have one afternoon in Japan).
• We will take an afternoon flight back to our country (which means we will have another morning in Japan).

Including the two half-days, it adds up to 4 days.

Originally, I made plans, but I realized that it was meaningless because we had to complete various procedures at the airport.

Next, let me talk about the experience in chronological order.

Day -1 (July 6th)#

Packing luggage and making a travel plan.

Some friends are going with us. They often say, "You can get a Suica card..." but I didn't understand it at first. Later, I found out that it was the Suica card that I saw.

We will depart tomorrow morning, and I am so excited that I can't sleep well at night. ||Actually, it's not that I can't sleep. We have to go to the airport at 5 in the morning, and I finally fell asleep at around 12 midnight. In fact, according to my watch, I only slept for about 4 hours in total.||

Day 0 (July 7th)#

I posted a message on my QQ space early in the morning and shared this song.

I am very grateful to those friends who didn't know about my itinerary but still gave me a thumbs-up.

At the airport, I looked for the check-in counter and spent about 40 minutes completing the check-in process.

They asked me if I needed to check my luggage, and I answered, "No." My suitcase was actually empty, just in case I bought too many things in Japan and couldn't bring them back. So I decided to bring it on the plane to save trouble.

I looked for the airport's Wi-Fi and found one labeled "Airport," but I couldn't access the internet after connecting. So I immediately disconnected to prevent it from eavesdropping on my data.

Later, I saw free Wi-Fi information on a pillar. It turned out that I didn't connect to the wrong one, but I needed to "register with real name" and bind a mobile phone number.

After going through customs, I found the boarding gate and put on my headphones to listen to music.

Some people may wonder why all the songs are sung by Rhodanthe*. ||There is no particular reason, I just randomly clicked on them.||

When boarding the plane, I took off my headphones and put them in the empty suitcase. This is a decision I regretted: the noise during takeoff was loud, and I thought it would only be noisy during takeoff, but it turned out that it was still noisy and my ears hurt after half an hour.

So I had to reluctantly take out the headphones from my suitcase and turn on the noise-canceling function. It got better. I guess it's because I haven't taken a plane for a long time.

After breakfast, I originally wanted to see if I could find Mount Fuji. But after checking the flight route on my phone, I realized that Mount Fuji was on the left side of the plane, and I was assigned to the right side by the window, so I could only see the vast sea.

Arriving at Tokyo Narita Airport, we went through the procedures and obtained Suica cards, then took the subway to the hotel. However, Narita Airport is a bit far from Tokyo, so we took the subway for an hour. To make matters worse, it was crowded, so I had to stand for over an hour. By the time we arrived at the hotel, my legs were already sore.

Today is the Tanabata Festival in Japan, and most of the pedestrians on the road were wearing perfume.

Unfortunately, it was already around 6 o'clock in the evening, and it was getting dark, so after having dinner with my friends outside, we went straight to rest. By the way, why did we choose an izakaya (Japanese pub)...

Day 1 (July 8th)#

We definitely went to Akihabara to see manga merchandise first. Even before arriving, I could feel the strong atmosphere of the otaku culture.

I heard that there are anime advertisements everywhere in JR Akihabara Station, but unfortunately, there were no posters in the Ginza Line subway that I took.

I took a look at the so-called "Genshin Street," and now it has become a deserted area with no posters left except for the "Genshin" advertisement on the upper floor in the distance (and I heard that this advertisement has been there since the game was launched and has never changed).

I went to Animate and bought more than 20 manga. I originally planned to go to Book Off, but later I found it unnecessary.

In the afternoon, we went on a pilgrimage to the holy land of "Kodoku Rock." We set off and went to Shimokitazawa. Then we followed the pre-designed route and walked slowly.

There was one time when we took the wrong subway. We ended up going around in circles, and in the end, we were too far from the hotel, so we chose to take the JR train back to the hotel.

Fortunately, Suica can be used everywhere.

Day 2 (July 9th)#

In the morning, my parents went to Akihabara to look at electronic devices, while I stayed in the hotel and checked the itinerary for the afternoon. In the afternoon, we went to the neighboring Chiba Prefecture for a pilgrimage to the holy land of "Golden Puzzle."

We took the train and left Tokyo. It was obviously much quieter. Unfortunately, the weather was not good, and it was about to rain, making it very humid.

We walked through small paths and suddenly realized that there were no mosquitoes. After checking the internet, it seems that Japan has specific measures to prevent mosquito outbreaks?

There were very few mosquitoes, and I was wearing short sleeves without a single bite.

When we returned to the hotel, we took a bus. ||I forgot to swipe my Suica card when getting on the bus, but fortunately, the bus driver manually entered the fare for me. I am really grateful for that.||

Day 3 (July 10th)#

In the morning, we went to Senso-ji Temple and Tokyo Skytree. ||Great!||

On the way, we stopped by Akihabara to buy some manga and merchandise. I saw the mini-album of a disbanded band, but since I had already listened to the digital version and the physical album was relatively expensive, I didn't buy it.

In the evening, I watched the late-night anime "The Neighbor's Alya-san Who Keeps Quietly Covering Herself in Russian." Coincidentally, the program before it on TOKYO MX was "[My Favorite Child]"¹, so I watched a complete episode of it as well, just to get to know the work.

Day 4 (July 11th)#

We returned to our country. There were significant delays at Narita Airport. Originally, the plan was to take off at 13:00, but the plane didn't arrive at Narita Airport until 12:07 (because it was raining in Nanjing), causing a delay of over an hour.

I posted a status saying "じゃあね、日本" (See you, Japan) on social media. Originally, I wanted to post a more formal "さようなら、日本" (Goodbye, Japan), but I felt that the implied meaning of "farewell" was not very auspicious. It felt like I dropped an atomic bomb and shouted:

||Ahahaha, eat this atomic bomb! Farewell, Japan!||

So I changed it to "じゃあ" (See you).

Finally, it was our turn to board the plane. This time, I knew to bring my headphones on the plane.

According to the flight route, I should have been able to see Mount Fuji and Jeju Island in South Korea. Unfortunately, due to the bad weather (it was drizzling), everything outside was white. I couldn't see anything, so I closed the window shade and went to sleep.

Because it was raining in Nanjing, the plane circled before landing.

Afterword#

It was a very interesting trip! Maybe I will go again in the future (?)