Week 12: A Little Bit of Everything

June 14th, 2026

My weeks usually start pretty slow, but this one started especially slow. I was feeling a little down, so I took it pretty easy on Monday and Tuesday. I did take a walk in a park on Tuesday, but not for too long because it started to get really humid. I watched the Nintendo Direct Tuesday night with Yoshio and Etsuko. There were a few interesting things, but no big news for me except for the massive news of DELTARUNE Chapter 5 coming out in like a week and a half. I’m extremely excited for that.

On Wednesday, I planned to go to out to lunch with Yoshio to a cafe I had been telling him about called cafe cour. I went after I got my residence card (because it was right near the municipal building), during my second week in Japan, so it was one of the earliest restaurant experiences I had here, and I loved their french toast. I went back one more time a few weeks later, as well. Unfortunately, I learned right before we left that it permanently closed a few weeks ago. That was a real bummer.

The cafe we ended up going to was one I had gone to that's right next to the park, and it was really great. I had chicken and pancakes, and the chicken was buttermilk fried chicken just how I like it. The pancakes were great too and I haven’t had pancakes since I’ve been here, so they were especially nice. Yoshio got a jerk chicken platter with a chai latte and said they were great. I will definitely be going back there.

After lunch we decided to take a walk around the park to continue our date. The sun came out for the first time in a few days, and it was beautiful weather. We walked around the garden area, saw lots of birds, and even saw a snake, which Yoshio said he had never seen in Tokyo before. I had only been to the park a few times before but it’s a really nice area to walk through and is great to get away from the city for a bit.

That night, after multiple reschedules, I was finally able to meet up with my friends Yuichiro and Yasuo for dinner and karaoke. Last spring, they came to Rowan for a 1 month English program, and my friend Ethan and I got paired with Yuichiro for a language exchange partnership. After we hung out a few times, Yasuo joined because he’s friends with Yuichiro. Then, a few months later, Ethan and I were able to go out to dinner with them in Kinshicho when we were in Japan.

This week we had our reunion, also in Kinshicho. We got Indian food and went to karaoke. The karaoke place had a special discount going on for students, where you can do 3 hours of karaoke for 700 yen each (less than 5 dollars). Crazy deal. We had so much fun. I tried some Japanese songs and they tried some English songs (maybe 5 each), but we mostly stuck to our native languages and shared songs that the others might not have known. Really fun time, and I’m excited to go out with them again soon. Plus, it felt especially nice to speak nearly all Japanese to them and feel how much I’ve improved since last year.

Thursday was mostly a work day until the evening, when I went to see Masayoshi Takanaka (again) and Anri. Takanaka’s set was mostly a trimmed down version of his last set, but was still really fun. It was my first time seeing Anri though, and she was amazing. Such a fun sound, great band, beautiful voice, and it was fun to see the drummer I met at the jazz club a few weeks ago, Kenny, on the big stage.

On Friday morning, it was time for my next trip: a 2 day trip to Nikko. Nikko is a town and national park about 2 hours north of Tokyo that's known for onsens, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, forests, and shrines. I got to see all of those things!

But the trip didn’t start so smooth. The way to get there from my place is to take a local train to a few stations away, and then a limited express train to Nikko. But when I went to go buy the limited express tickets at the counter, I was told the next two trains were fully booked, and the next one I could buy was in an hour and a half. I was surprised, because I have taken this line to get to Ashikaga before, and they weren’t close to full either direction. It was pretty disappointing, because my plans were pretty far apart from each other, and this would pretty significantly cut out things I wanted to do. At least I could still get there at all—was able to make it there around 12:30.

I had a quick lunch and proceeded to Kegon falls, a 300 foot tall waterfall in the national park. It was really beautiful from the top, but you could pay to go down an elevator to an observation deck near the bottom to get a better view. I did that, and it was very worth it. You could see the entire waterfall, including its offshoots, and the river it provides water to.

After looking at the falls for a bit, I went not too far away to the source of the waterfall, Lake Chuzenji. It’s surrounded by mountains, including Mt. Nantai, an 8,000 foot active volcano (that hasn’t erupted in thousands of years) that has become a religious pilgrimage. I absolutely did not climb it. But the lake was nice!

I walked around the lake for a while, jumping around the rocky coastline and saying hi to fishermen before getting turned away by a worker at a dock. There was a way to walk under the dock to continue my walk, but apparently I wasn’t allowed to do that, so I had to leave. I was bummed cause I was really enjoying it, but I figured I would just go check in to my hotel and do something up there before it gets dark.

Unfortunately, because the buses and trains run so rarely (sometimes less than 1 an hour), it took an extra two hours to get to my hotel, meaning I wouldn’t be able to go out that night. I was pretty disappointed at the time, because I was unable to do a lot of what I wanted to do that day, and spent over double the time waiting for transport than seeing the falls and lake. But eventually I made it to the hotel after dark and decided to relax in the hotel’s onsen. It was much needed and helped me chill out for the night. It wasn’t a natural onsen, essentially just a hot tub, but they had an outside one which was nice in the cool and rainy weather. Turns out it's also a lot more relaxing when you aren't worried about covering a tattoo the whole time.

In the morning, after checking out of my hotel, I went to a nearby river which was one of the few rivers I found where you could actually go down to the water. At first, I saw a staircase going down and it was blocked off, and assumed this meant I couldn't go down (I later found out this staircase led to nothing, which is probably the reason it was blocked off). After reading the reviews on Google, though, I saw one of them mentioned that the path was overgrown, and that didn’t sound like a staircase, so I kept looking and found the real path across the street. I went down the path to the rocks below and jumped around them for a bit (frog-like), before just sitting and enjoying the surroundings. It was really peaceful. There was nobody else around, just the sound of the water crashing down and the scenery of a river between the mountains. Very relaxing start to the day.

I took a bus to the area that the rest of my plans were, and went to a nearby cafe run by two older ladies. They were very sweet, and the cafe was adorable, feeling like a well lived in home. I decided to have chicken curry and a chocolate lava cake. The curry was amazing. It was a bit thinner than usual, so it was almost in between a curry and soup curry, and had a really nice flavor. It’s either my favorite or second favorite Japanese curry I've had (possibly right behind the one in Shimokitazawa where it’s the only thing on the menu). And the lava cake was lovely. This was a standout meal for my entire Japan stay so far.

Across the street was the Nikko Botanical Gardens, but it was cash only and I spent exactly how much cash I had at the cafe, so I had to go to an ATM about 20 minutes away. When I got there, though, I realized I was closer to my next location, so I decided to go there, and would go back to the gardens if I had time (spoiler: I did not).

The place I did end up going to was Toshogu shrine, easily the coolest shrine I’ve been to in Japan. It’s dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the third of the three unifiers of Japan and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, and he’s also buried there. It’s the most ornate shrine I’ve ever seen, with beautiful carvings on every building, including the famous 3 wise monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil), which I only learned after the fact actually originate from this carving.

Another famous carving is the sleeping cat above the gate to the inner shrine. It also has a few interesting historical reasonings behind it: some say it’s for protection, as nobody could enter the inner shrine except Ieyasu’s family, not even a mouse (hence the cat guard). Others say it represents peace, because on the other side there are birds, which are safe because the cat is asleep. Personally, I think it’s there because sleeping cats are really cute.

Overall, the shrine was absolutely beautiful and I’m glad I went as it was one of my favorite places I’ve been to yet. So much history and beauty. On the way out, though, there was an gachapon machine exclusive to the temple for a little picture and stand, and I wanted the sleeping cat one, so I tried it 6 times and didn’t get the cat. I’ve spent 25 dollars in worse ways, I think.

It was finally time to go home, as the botanical garden closed at 4pm and it was just around that time. After leaving the shrine, though, I was stopped by a few Japanese people and asked if I spoke English, and then asked if I could help them. They brought me to an American woman who was freaked out because she lost her group and was worried they left without her. Her phone was at 1% and she was alone, so I understand her anxiety. I gave her my portable charger and told the rest of the people I’d help her out, and they were very thankful. We walked around for a bit to try to find anyone from her group or the tour bus. While we were walking, I tried to calm her down so I asked when she got to Japan, and she said she left Philly 2 days ago. So I said wow, I’m from just outside of Philly! And it turns out she actually has friends/family in my hometown. What a crazy coincidence! It will probably be the only crazy coincidence in this story.

After 20-30 minutes of walking around, someone from her tour spotted us and she was able to get back to the bus safely. I was glad to have helped her out, but it was now time to go home for real. I hopped on the bus to go to Nikko station and who else is on the bus but two of the Japanese girls who asked me to help the woman. I told them we found her friend and they were so glad and appreciative and both gave me gifts! One is a lemon cake and another is a famous snack from Aomori, Choco-Qsuke. They were only on the bus for one stop, so we only got to say a few words and wave goodbye, but it was another lovely coincidence and was such a nice experience. If that wasn’t rewarding enough, there was a rainbow on the train ride home. Sometimes the universe really does reward you for things.

I finally got home around 7:30, and had a nice relaxing evening to finish off Saturday. Sunday, for once, was actually a laundry, schoolwork and blogwriting day like I intend for it to be, so that’s a success. I also got to see the neighbor cat twice, and got the closest I have yet to it. It sniffed my hand and play bit my finger. Wasn’t able to pet it yet, but that’s pretty big progress! Overall, a very successful week!

Even though I wasn’t able to do a lot of the things I wanted to do in Nikko, I still saw amazing sights and had a really good trip. At least I can chill for a while until my next trip in *checks notes* 5 days?! I really need to get better at planning.

For more pictures of the lakes, rivers, mountains, and shrine, click here. It was really beautiful scenery.

Until then. Have a lovely day.
-Dan