Angie: It was a nice relaxing day for us as we didn't do much today. The itinerary was to just explore the city, but it was raining all day today so we decided to go to the big mall about a block away. Sakuramachi plaza is the same place we ate at last night for dinner where there are sit down restaurants on the 3rd floor and a food court in the basement. The stores all closed while we were there at dinner and we had spied a few (read: anime) stores we wanted to come back and check out.
This morning we got to take our time, didn't have anywhere to be, so we got to sleep in (it was definitely cooler but I still slept without any blankets) and I had time to take a shower and do my whole curly hair routine.
Jeff: We skipped breakfast, despite it being the most important meal of the day, and grabbed lunch in the Sakuramachi mall basement. Angie went to a shop that specialized in udon (and had tempura vegetables and shrimp and stuff you can add to it), while I went to Freshness Burger (mostly out of decision paralysis). Both meals were pretty tasty, overall.
Angie: We went shopping after lunch and explored the mall. I bought an umbrella since it was going to rain all day. The one I bought is from the Kumamoto souvenir store where EVERYTHING, I mean EVERYTHING, was Kumamon. The umbrella I bought is really cute, it's plain purple when dry, but when it gets wet the raindrops collect in a material that's slightly different and holds onto the raindrops and darkens, and so the umbrella gets a design with Kumamon and sakura blossoms on it! GENIUS!
We finally hit up the anime store (it was small and more like a pop-up shop) and checked out the Ghibli store (very cute stuff, very expensive) and I couldn't resist the Bandai/Namco gachapon and UFO catcher arcade! Today I learned about Premium Gachapon. Apparently there are more complex toys and collectibles you can get and I had my eye on these ADORABLE leopard geckos with ball joints for dynamic posing. Plus they looked very real and very cute. I couldn't understand why it wasn't taking my 100 yen coins. Then we realized it only took 500 yen coins and a Premium Gachapon costs 2000 yen! That's $20! Usually these things cost about $2-$4! I think if I had $20 of 500 yen coins on me I would have bought it, but as it was I did not. Sure sure, there was a change machine up front but I decided I didn't need it. Now if it was a really cute bird? Most definitely would have sprung for it.
Speaking of learning new things, this poor girl came up to Jeff, also an English speaking tourist, who had never done gachapon before and had accidentally put her gachapon capsule into the recycle bin without taking the toy out first! This gachapon place had a really swanky way of disposing your little bauble capsule your toy comes in that is apparently new having been implemented just a few years ago. I think the girl thought it helped open your capsule? Either way, it was a lot more permanent than placing your opened capsule in a basket sitting to the side. It went inside this machine and wasn't coming out! We looked at the machine and used Google translate on all the signs but nothing really helped reveal an answer. I had the bright idea to see if the UFO arcade next door, which was also Bandai/Namco brand, might have an employee who could help. And they did! Once again, thank you Google translate, as we were able to tell the employee what happened and she was able to get the capsule back for the girl. The day was saved! Yay!! She seemed very happy and relieved to find someone who spoke English to help her.
Now that we were done putting money in machines where we were guaranteed SOMETHING, we moved next door to the UFO catchers where you were probably going to waste your money or over-pay on something but it felt like winning because those claw machines are just so darned addictive! No cute, small birds in the easier claw machines for me, but there was a really cute, sleepy Anya figure from Spy x Family. Each crane game has its own gimmick to make it so you never get the prize in one shot, oh no, you're gonna be spending at least $10 slowly nudging this prize close to a ledge or between bars just barely wide enough. Just like the rigged games at the fair, these claw machines use every trick in the book to make sure you spend more money because "it's almost there" or you "almost have it"! Turns out Jeff is pretty decent at these games. I can't aim as my depth perception is apparently bunk, but Jeff does a good job! And $23 later we were the proud owner of a new Anya figurine. Yay!
Now that we got some shopping done we went to go see the castle since it was pretty much right across the street, so we went for a walk around Kumamoto castle in the rain. It was pretty magnificent, despite being heavily damaged in the 2016 Kyushu earthquakes. We decided against doing the castle tour itself and wandered the grounds in the rain. There's a small temple on the grounds, Kato-jinja - named after the feudal lord who constructed the castle originally. It was also impacted by the earthquakes, and not every building had been restored yet. Still lovely. We bought a few charms and then headed out. (We think there was scheduled to be a wedding there soon, there were chairs under a canopy and the priest was running about and had a sake set).
Jeff: I finally caved and bought the new Zelda game, because of a deep-seated envy towards the many friends who've had the chance to play it, at the local Best Denki electronics store. About ten minutes after starting the game, several buttons on our JoyCons mysteriously died. I was able to verify that they weren't working and that it wasn't some sort of grift, so back into the rain and back to Best Denki to buy a replacement. And wouldn't you know it? The only first party Nintendo controller they had in stock was the Tears Of The Kingdom limited edition pro controller. What a shame it is!
While out buying the controller, we stopped by a Sukiya to continue our never-ending quest to find the best Gyudon chain in all of Japan. We've had the Top 3 now, with the following thoughts;
Angie: If this was an experiment and if I were a scientist, I would have totally failed and been banned from my profession. I didn't even order gyudon, I ordered the curry! It's definitely Japanese curry, which my tastebuds got tired of halfway through (now Indian curry I could eat all day), but it was slightly reminiscent of Skyline chili to me! I ordered curry with rice and cheese ("Three kinds of cheese!" the menu boasted and it was: cheddar, mozzarella, and plastic cheese). That's practically a 3-way right there! Oooh, yeah, oyster crackers would have been great! I think I'll stick to good ol' gyudon if we eat at a Matsuya/Yoshinoya/Sukiya again and leave the curry to Go Go.
Jeff: Sukiya has the greatest variety of toppings, and menu options in general, though that does prevent them from having anything truly stand out. Matsuya has vending machine-based ordering, which gives them a huge lead, but they squander it with lower quality (or, at least, lower taste) meat. Yoshinoya has the best flavor of the three, but the smallest menu. Overall, I think Yoshinoya is the top tier of the three, but I understand that I have some biases to work out.
Angie: We grabbed a couple of deserts from 7-11 and headed back to our hotel. I finally convinced Jeff that it'd be smart to pay the $25 to ship our luggage from here to Fukuoka. While that means we won't have the majority of our stuff in Beppu (our next stop), we also won't each have to lug 30+ pounds of stuff on several different trains. The process was a breeze, considering the very wonderful staffer at our hotel who filled out the forms for us. They have an English form, but I worried we might enter some data wrong and our luggage would end up in Fukushima instead of Fukuoka. We thanked him profusely for taking care of the form for us. Bon voyage my Nomatic bag! See you in Fukuoka!
Having retired to our stately hotel room, it's time for a soak in the tub then eating those snacks we bought.
Tomorrow, Beppu! Land of hot springs and hotter nightlife. Not that we'll be partaking in any nightlife. Our idea of a wacky night out on the town is desserts from the combini and watching Japanese variety shows, after all. Which we are watching a very entertaining one right now. A famous person gets dressed up in cosplay (we've had Mikasa from Attack on Titan and someone from Fairy Tale and Kisuke from Bleach) and do some sort of contest or talent, like it's the Miss America contest. Meanwhile, the panel of game show hosts (about 8 people) have to try and guess who the famous person is under all that cosplay and makeup. If they get it wrong they get blasted in the face with what looks like a fog machine mixed with a leaf blower! LOL. I must admit I'm enjoying this show a lot!
Anyway, tomorrow's blog will hopefully be written after a nice long soak in our room's personal onsen in Beppu! I can't wait!
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