🛍️ 📚 - 買い物とか本屋とか

Today, I went shopping at the shin-osaka mall, took the shinkansen to Hirosham, got a massage from a very kind masseuse, and explore the area around our hotel in Hiroshima a bit.

This morning, Will and I went to Mister Donut to try out some of their American inspired Donuts. Mister Donut is an American company but there is actually only one operating location in the United States! When talking to my Japanese friend Mahkun, he said he thought Mister Donut was very American and commonplace in the United States. It's interesting how the food representing your home country can be so disconected from the original country! The donut I had was called Golden Chocolate and was very delicious. It was soft and slightly sweet and I prefered it to American donuts. I don't like overly sweet things, so I've really been enjoying how Japan's food is just-sweet-enough instead of in-your-face-sweet like most of America's sweets.

After grabbing some breakfast, we headed to the Pokemon Center in the mall where I spent way too much money on gifts for others and myself 😅 I think I may end up needing to mail back some of the pokemon plushes because they take up so much space!! Today was not as hectic as yesterday since today is a weekday. It's easy to forget what day it is when you're traveling, but I don't plan on visiting malls on the weekend for the remainder of the trip 😤

After waiting in the long as hell line to checkout of the Pokemon Center, I took a look at the Men's clothing section. I generally don't find expensive brands in America too interesting but I feel that the attention to detail and textures on Japanese high-end clothing was mesmerizing. I really wanted to buy cute jackets and bags but they were very very expensive. If I had more room in my luggage MAYBE I would get one or two things 👀 I absolutely love the shoulder bags that are popular in Japan. In America, shoulder bags are primarily marketed towards women and the shoulder bags that exist for men usually look like camping or combat pouches that lack style. Even the shoulder bag I brought to Japan from America actually came from the womans section. I think American's don't wear bags as much because they don't look very stylish, but if we had bags similar to Japan's bags I think that many people would wear them!!

One of the reasons I became interested in Japanese culture is that Japanese design is so well thought out but also so simple. In my opinion, American design tends to add too many flairs and loud patterns but Japanese clothing uses very muted colors and has very subtle contrasts. Their bags, shoes, jackets, jeans, etc all make me go 「へーーーー、すご！」in my head. I love the subtle contrasts and the textures feel much better than American clothing I'm used to. It's hard to explain this as one of the reasons I'm interested in the culture when talking in Japanese. I need to work on this so I can better communicate what I find insteresting in their culture!

After keeping myself from buying anything else, we headed to Hiroshima. Upon arriving, my friends suggested we go get a massage. I had a really cool and wholesome experience at the massage place but I think I will explain that in a separate section.

I explored the shops along the Hiroshima mall and tried out some red bean fish called taiyaki, and some other foods that looked new to myself. I then found my friends at a gatcha game store (they have a serious gatcha game gambling problem, they've spent a lot of time in gatcha game arcades) and we checked out an anime figure/bookstore.

It was cool to see so many Japanese books! In America, finding a book written in japanese is rare and also very expensive to order. I wanted to buy so many books but books are heavy and I don't want to have to carry them for the rest of my trip 😭 So, I just got a couple copies of a series reccomended to learners called よつば＆！ and the first three copies of Spy Family to read while on trains 😎 In the words of Anya, ワクワク！Read more