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Okayama City
My first time in Okayama was by chance. I was riding the shinkansen and needed to get off at Okayama station in order to board yet another shinkansen. Since I had thought about visiting Okayama before, I pondered the idea of exiting the station, staying overnight in Okayama and doing a lot of sightseeing the following day.
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Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine
In Kyoto, there’s a shrine that’s super popular, open 24 hours and free. It’s popular thanks to its many tori. Chances are high you’ve come across photos of famous instagrammers in front of the famed red gates (tori) before.
Nothing wrong with that but it does make Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine rather crowded.
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Nanzoin Temple: Banned to Foreigners
Yes, you read that title correctly. The funny thing about it is that I had no flipping clue it was banned to foreigners until long after I had visited it but after learning about it, I now understand why some of the temple personnel looked so off (cold, uninviting, mean and judgmental). Fortunately, I encountered two staff members that weren’t like that but that’s just two out of their many staff members!
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Bizarre Japan
The West has a bad habit of making Japan appear bizarre. And I get it. It’s because Japan is quite different from the West.
Different language(s). Different food(s). Different custom(s).
But when you really think about it, no one country is ever more bizarre than the other simply because every country is bizarre. It all comes down to one’s perspective. For example, Americans wouldn’t find Canada to be all that bizarre and vice versa, right?
So, what is bizarre about Japan? I don’t know for sure but allow me to share my bizarre encounters in Japan.
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Anime Expo 2019
Anime Expo 2019 is done and over with but I still have a few things to say about the event. The event was a hot mess. If you heard it was bad in 2017, well, 2019 definitely outdid Anime Expo 2017 in the crap department. I think it’s safe to say that many attendees thought AX2019 would at least be like AX2018 or better. 2018 was the year AX decided to implement a new badge system where you “clock in” and “clock out” of AX related buildings. Bag checks existed and yes, the lines were long but there were multiple lines so it wasn’t too bad. If I managed to visit the JW Marriot AND the LA Convention Center, it really wasn’t all that bad when you think how this year, I couldn’t even imagine to visit a non-LA Convention Center building simply out of fear that I’d have to get in a ginormous line yet again only to get into another line to attend a panel or whatever it is that I want to attend. This year sucked and I knew beforehand based on people’s rants on social media on how they had to wait at least 3 hours before they could get inside the LA Convention Center. Others waited 4-5 hours on Day 1 and all I can say is that is insanity.