Last night before departure

Hey people! My apologies for the super late last post about my summer in Japan. It's WINTER in Canada now so I remembered I never updated since fall...

This was my last night in Japan and a bunch of my friends and I decided to go eat buffet. I don't know how much I ate but I know it was a lot.
I went to Shibuya with my classmate Natsuki first to watch a movie called "Time Trip App" (幕末高校生) starring Hiroshi Tamaki and Satomi Ishihara. Here's the movie's poster:

It's a pretty funny movie with a twist of history, sci-fi and comedy. I loved it! 

It took us a while to even find the cinema playing the movie because depending on the companies making the movie some theatres don't play them (apparently). 

It was on the higher floors of a building with the first floor being a Game Centre. While waiting for the movie to start, we decided to go take Purikura there and ended up being drawn in by a UFO catcher with a huge white bunny in it. The way we tried to get the toy was not even funny, we were there for literally 30 minutes and putting in coin after coin. The rabbit was hanging on a pole by one foot and it looked like it could've been easy to get it. BUT we were wrong and it took us so much time (>_<) Natsuki ended up asking the store clerk of the method to get the bunny and the guy told her to push it down instead of trying to grab it.
And here's the result of our battle.

Isn't it super cute? I love her eyes and the way she's holding her ear!! 

We ended up not having enough time to take the Purikura before the movie since we needed to eat lunch too. 

The movie was, as I said earlier, awesome and they had those posters where you can put your face in. So of course we had to do it. 

Please don't judge... Hahaha Can you find my friend? 

We went to Harajuku after that since it was close to Shibuya. It was a hot day... Too hot to be walking outside with so many people around you. That's exactly what we did at Takeshita Doori that day. It was so much fun though so it was worth it. We even found a place to take Purikura! 

I got so tan from the beach hahaha!! Wish I stayed tan like that T^T

It was time to go back near our school to meet with the others and eat!! We ended up going to a high end buffet in a shopping centre near the station. It was amazingly good and inexpensive for the rank. It's a shame I forgot where it was and what it's called but it's situated at the rooftop of one of the buildings around Sagami-Oono Station. 

I'm so happy I have so many amazing classmates who won't judge me and my weirdness. I love them.

I got called RACIST by a lady on the bus!!

Hey guys! Sorry this is kind of a little rant about what just happened today and not really about travelling, but I thought I needed to let this out or I just feel more and more uncomfortable.

I went shopping with two of friends today and we had to bus from where we live to downtown, which took around 40 mins. On our way back, we were just having a normal conversation about life and when it was more of a private subject we spoke in Chinese, just so not EVERYBODY around us knows what's going on in our lives. We were telling jokes and laughing, minding our own business. Then, I felt someone staring at me and when I looked in that direction, an African-Canadian lady in her late 50s was giving me a hateful stare. I don't know what was wrong but she just stared at me and made me really uncomfortable. Since she didn't technically do anything, I chose to ignore her. After most of the people got off, one of my friends and I were just talking so I told her about the lady who's still staring at me. After discretely making sure, my friend confirmed that I wasn't paranoid. Right after that, the lady tapped on my shoulder. I thought she was going to tell us that we were too loud but instead heard things I never want to hear again.
To sum it up, she basically said "You're stupid, you're speaking in Chinese and therefore are making racist comments about me!" "YOU'RE RACIST". Those three words made me so shocked, I was on the verge of crying. Never in my life, have I even dreamt of being called such a thing. Those simple three words were MUCH more hurtful than most things I've heard in my short life experience. Ironically, one of the other painful things I've heard was "Asian", which was a racist comment made by someone else. To be completely honest, I wouldn't have noticed her if she wasn't staring at me in the first place, mention less judge her by her colour. Extremely offended, I tried to tell her we didn't say anything about her but she would just get ruder and ruder so I raised my voice and said "Why did you call me a racist?!", making the entire bus look towards us.
The driver stopped the bus and asked if she needed to call security and before I could say anything, the lady answered NO. She then stood up and walked over to the driver in front of the bus and started rambling about how "racist" we were while the driver told her to calm down since she made her uncomfortable too. When the bus arrived at her stop, she kept on talking about it to the driver and the latter finally snapped back saying she was delaying service time.

Having lived most of my life in Canada, where multicultural elements are not anything new, I never thought something like this would happen. People in the neighbourhood are generally very nice too. It's hard for me to understand why that lady would think in such a way, but it's not completely impossible to have similar feelings sometimes.
Anyway, this rant is just to let out my inner rage. I hope this never happens to any of you awesome people.

Minnie

Summer in Japan: Super Hot Tokyo Disneyland

Hello~!!

This is a much belated post about my trip to Japan in the summer. It links up to the older posts before it so it really doesn’t matter except this is posted 2 months later… Sorry!!

Two days before I leave to come back to Canada, my friends and I decided to go to Tokyo Disneyland. Most people won’t understand this, but the way Japanese people view Disney is pretty different from the American point of view. In Japan, everybody loves Disney. When I say everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, from toddlers to people my age, to seniors. I have a feeling that Disney makes waaayy more money in Japan with DisneyStores all over the Tokyo and the huge amount of visitors everyday. Anyway, the theme park is the absolute favourite of my closest friends, naturally, we had to go there. 

I love the park myself so it was very enjoyable for me. Back when I was on exchange, I only had the opportunity to go during the winter but this time, it was in the beginning of August. Let me tell you right off the bat, the heat of summer in Japan doesn’t simply stop at “Today’s hot”, it will ring the local temperature alert for heat, Every Single Day. Minnie, being an inhabitant from the cold North felt overwhelmed, even after spending two weeks there. I never knew it would be tiring to be surrounded by a bunch of mouse ears. 

We went on a Sunday, which was the day where everybody went. By the time we started to line up for the line to go in, I was starting to sweat already… It was about 7am. When we finally started to line up for our first ride, one of my friends was already feeling lousy. Then I started to feel lousy. By noon, we were crashing dead in a restaurant with air conditioning blasting. After that, it was much better. 

Disneyland had a special corner for Summer, only in Japan, where they call it “Natsumatsuri” which translates to “Summer Festival”. They had Mickey, Minnie and all the other characters dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, and stands selling Japanese inspired food. It was awesome!! They had Okonomiyaki inspired crepes and apple ice-cream. If you wonder what kind of clothing they were wearing, check out my last post by clicking —> Here

The Sleepover triplets... We had to leave my friend's house at around 5am!! It was crazy >_<

The fourth person joined us halfway at a train station. 

Sena and I were wearing Twin outfits that day.

It was needless to say a wonderful and magical experience. I love my friends and having to leave them at the end of the day was painful!

Comment below or contact me at:

Email: liumanou@gmail.com

Youtube: Manou Liu

Instagram: @migoko2

Omatsuri: Japanese Summer festival in a Yukata ~ 鮎祭り：夏は浴衣だぞ！

Greetings~

This post is kind of late since I'm already back in Canada and the festival I went to was like last week... Time pasts too fast T_T

There are many summer festivals in Japan every year, most of them feature stands and fireworks. Lots of girls (and guys) wear the traditional Japanese Yukata, which is like a kimono but lighter and you can wear one easily alone. I've always been wanting to wear mine since I bought it last year and finally got the chance to try it on. I went to my friend Airi's house with Sena and had a sleepover since we were going to Disney Land the next day. Yes, it was two days of pain in my feet but it was so much fun!

I'm so thankful to be friends with such amazing people. And I sure wish our friendship will last for an eternity. 

If you have any questions or you just wanna talk to me, feel free to comment down below!!

Email: liumanou@gmail.com

Youtube: Manou Liu

Instagram: @migoko2