Saw whale meat being sold at a store in Grand Tree Musashi Kosugi

Bought a jar of peach jam to try. It's a mildly sweet peach jam.

Hell yeah, I totally recommend getting one of these passes depending on if you're taking the Seibu Railway from Seibu-Shinjuku Station or the Tobu Railway from Ikebukuro Station. 700yen for a round-trip.

Oh damn, old streets. Old charm. Old town.

Mister Daikon is not pleased by your 大根

Kawagoe is famous for making sweets out of sweet potatoes

This ghostly white flower has more swag than your dad

What? How do you expect me to say 'no' to simple shioyaki saba teishoku with a side of very sweet satsuma-imo

I'll leave you with an excited me about to enjoy my authentic satsuma-imo soft serve~

Ever since I landed in Japan, I have meticulously recorded down every single expense (or income) I've incurred in the hopes of studying the cost of living here. As you may expect, my records are not 100% accurate although I do try my best to cover all grounds. But, I believe it is at least 80% accurate. How I did it: a) for expenses that had receipts issued, I kept them and added to my Excel spreadsheet before tossing them out, b) for expenses without receipts, I made sure to record the amount spent in my phone before moving on with life, and c) for expenses which I had forgotten and wanted to backlog, I'd estimate the amount with my fuzzy memory. Situations like c) occurred rarely, maybe once or twice a month.

So, moving on to the interesting part, and probably the one you came here for, the numbers. My dormitory bill was 64,000 yen for each month, and as I chose to pay it at the convenience store or konbini, I had to pay an additional handling fee of 324 yen. I've excluded this below.

In March, I travelled in Kyushu with a group of friends for 9 or 10 days. On this trip, I spent:
17,000 yen on Accommodations
24,914 yen on Transport (Topup of IC card, bus pass, shared car rental, luggage shipping, excluding plane tickets)
19,690 yen on Food
3,620 yen on Attractions (Museum tickets, entrance fees etc)
6,305 yen on Shopping (Omiyage and anything that does not fall under the above categories)

After the trip, there was a brief period of 3 days or so which I spent in Kawasaki City, while waiting to check-in for my dormitory. During this short stay, I spent:
3,356 yen on Food
1,000 yen on Transport
3,400 yen on Shopping
Note: Hotel stay was paid for by my dad, so I did not have to spend any cash.

For the rest of March after I checked into my dormitory, I spent:
14,194 yen on Food
24,700 yen on Transport (20,880 yen went to my 3-month student commuter pass)
8,304 yen on Household Items
13,298 yen on Entertainment/Shopping

April was my first full month of dormitory living, during which I spent:
35,535 yen on Food
5,350 yen on Transport
1,312 yen on Household Items
14,331 yen on Entertainment/Shopping
I bought this pair of nice black pumps which I can bring back to Singapore for formal/office wear. I also bought some clothes and makeup which was why the spending shot up.

In May, it was:
37,828 yen on Food
3,310 yen on Transport
4,412 yen on Household Items
7,190 yen on Entertainment/Shopping
Spending on food increased a lot because there were SO MANY social lunches/dinners with my Tomodachi group, Kendo circle, SMU friends, Motosumiyoshi dormitory friends, etc.

June is ending next week. I have adjusted my spending pattern and really tried to save more money to make up for my rash behavior in the earlier months. Before buying perishable food items, I forced myself to think hard about whether I can finish using them before they go bad. Having thrown plenty of rotten foods away, my guilty conscience is on fire. Eating out too often is not only hexing on the wallet, it's also unhealthy and fat-inducing in the long run.

Leave a comment to let me know if this has been helpful for you or whoever is planning to come to Japan for exchange. Wish me luck for the rest of June~

I am really grateful for the positive outlook of things.

Before this, I had been worrying and thinking of ways to extend my Osaka trip beyond only Universal Studios Japan and a few hours walking about in the city because I didn't want to spend that little time after taking the shinkansen there and back. Then, my professor replied to my email saying that the final paper was going to be a week earlier and so I can leave for Osaka on 21st July evening, spend a whole day comfortably at USJ, spend two days in Kyoto, and finally return to Tokyo early morning on the 25th.

Been planning and researching on things I want to do there. Planning is almost as fun as going on the trip itself! (Provided that it actually happens of course)

Just as I thought summer was already here, the rainy season arrived and it rains on 3 out of 5 days on average. Temperatures have fallen back to just under 25 degrees Celsius but I am grateful for the cool weather we get to enjoy for now, reminiscent of the days back in late winter and early spring. Although there are showers, there is no thunder or lightning. The Japanese call this season tsuyu and the kanji rings a bell with me, having experienced Taiwan's 梅雨 while I was living there. The humidity in Taiwan was really extreme though -- for days, the floor in my house would not dry and it was pretty annoying because everywhere was slippery. My family and I wore house slippers made of cloth to walk around properly.

Anyway, guess what lights up this rainy season? Fireflies! I was so excited when I stumbled across travel articles suggesting places in Tokyo or Kanagawa to admire these glowing bugs. I like these ones by TokyoCheapo and Tokyo Weekender. Yesterday, Ryan, Zenia and I met at Mukogaoka-yuen station which was a 10-min walk from Noborito station on the JR Nambu Line. After having dinner consisting of burgers and nuggets (15 pieces for 390yen! Available for a limited time only! #YOLO #truefriendssharefood), we sanpo-ed to Ikuta Ryokuchi Park. The walk was relaxing with the breeze in our hair, and many shophouses lined the main road in a rustic fashion. Finally, we arrived at the walk-in entrance, afraid that the gates were closed and that our trip was in vain. To our delight, we saw a couple walking into the park via the same entrance so it seemed definitely okay to stroll right in. The path towards the Field of Fireflies or Hotaru no Sato was barely lit with occasional small street lamps illuminating the park. It felt like an adventure! We arrived at the entrance to the field, 'denoted' by a security guard at the top of the stairs leading down, and grabbed a brochure from him each before descending into more darkness. In the distance, we could hear a trumpet practicing and we mistook that for the 'festival music'. There was, in fact, no festival and it was all a very quiet affair. People kept their voices hushed as they tried to catch a glimpse of the fireflies. Although it was dark, you still had to stop somewhere and keep your eyes peeled to see the glowbugs as they flickered a lot and darted around at random. We saw them amongst the trees and the tall grass, pretty little lights appearing and disappearing as they wished.

Perhaps it was quite early in the viewing season (10-26 June for this park) or maybe the heavy rain the day before had discouraged the fireflies to come out. Either way, thrilled we were to be able to see them buzzing around with their bottoms lit. On a side note, it was also kind of creepy to walk around in the close-to-absolute darkness, especially with all the trees there. We encountered a man with long hair, whom we mistook for a woman, and he was standing all by himself. Very spooky. Also, we heard a weird noise that sounded like a human yelping, but it could have just been a frog or bird of some kind.

 Wherever shall I go next to see even MORE fireflies? ♫

That day after Kanamara Matsuri, I spent some time roaming about at Kawasaki city because I missed the place. There was a super long series of dance performances by girls, ages ranging from four to sixteen or so. Out of sheer amusement, I captured this bunch of grown men cheering and dancing very wholeheartedly to this particular performance by two scantily clad girls.

Yesterday was Friday, today is Saturday, and both days have been very much enjoyable for me. On Friday, after my Japanese orthography class in the late afternoon, I met Zenia near the station exit and we sought out matcha powder (Klins and I wanted to try making matcha ricecooker pancakes) before joining Ryan, Nam and Klins at the Nepalese restaurant. The dinner was planned as a first meetup with the Keio students who are coming to SMU for exchange the next semester. It was all very fun, the night was spent mostly teaching the Japanese students various Singlish phrases that would aid them well on their time in Singapore. Besides that, the highlight was the food. Of course, I mean, what else did you expect me to blog about?

Here is the Set B which I chose: two types of curry (I picked veggie and sagg chicken), a huge piece of Naan, some rice, and a delicious cup of mango lassi

And guess what, it was only 990yen before tax. It was very appetizing.
 Today, I went to Kagurazaka with Klins, Barbs and Jeron. Before Klins arrived, we were having sweets in a small cafe that sold taiyaki and kakigori (shaved ice). I got a sweet potato aka imo filled taiyaki at Barb's recommendation, and I was sold. The skin was crispy, the inside fluffy, the imo warm and natural, and even Klins who doesn't eat much sweet foods said it was not bad. Now that I have tempted you enough, here's what it looked like:

Later, we scouted the main street for our lunch. What I had in mind after reading up on Kagurazaka was a nice, wholesome Japanese-style teishoku at a very affordable lunchtime pricing. And true enough, Barbs managed to find one restaurant whose main dish was tori udon, or so I believe. Barbs got a cold tori udon dish, Jeron had tori-suki (hotpot), Klins ordered tori don, while I got the teishoku of the day -- salmon shioyaki. The restaurant had a very relaxing, traditional atmosphere with dimmed lighting and the servers donned yukatas. We were not let down by the food either. Everything was exquisitely delicious. Each order also came with a homemade dessert of the day. Ours was a lightly flavoured grape youkan, a thick jellied dessert. Mine was only 1000yen with tax included.

Just gaze upon the plentiful spread of side dishes

The day I am able to make my salmon this perfectly will be the day I accomplish one of my life goals

Some niku-man shop we came across selling huge buns

Yoohoo! That's how Japanese girls greet their friends sometimes. Today I'm writing about two new mobile applications that are going to be launched by San-X with the help of some game publishers. The first one was brought to my attention by Klins, and it is a puzzle game featuring the beloved gang of Sumikko Gurashi -w-

									You can join the mailing list to be kept in the loop of their updates and find out more about it here. I don't know much else about it but I'm definitely looking forward to playing it once it's launched! Edit: I found the game already launched on the Playstore but there seems to be many user complaints of poor game functionality. Also, it's not even compatible with my device wtf? Next is a some sort of collect-them-all game featuring the beary cute duo Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma, as well as their little friend: the pigchick known as Kiroiitori (aka yellow coloured bird). I'm actually looking forward to this game a bit more because it appears to be some sort of collecting game, as seen from the title -- Rilakkuma, Souvenir Collection. In the game, it looks like you can decorate your virtual room with mountains of Rilakkuma plushies, dress them up, open up mystery present boxes for new toys to expand your collection, and play a mini-game where you do some cleaning by tapping the screen and obtain coins to buy more toys?! (I guess haha.)

You can join the mailing list to be kept in the loop of their updates and find out more about it here.
I don't know much else about it but I'm definitely looking forward to playing it once it's launched!
Next is a some sort of collect-them-all game featuring the beary cute duo Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma, as well as their little friend: the pigchick known as Kiroiitori (aka yellow coloured bird). I'm actually looking forward to this game a bit more because it appears to be some sort of collecting game, as seen from the title -- Rilakkuma, Souvenir Collection. In the game, it looks like you can decorate your virtual room with mountains of Rilakkuma plushies, dress them up, open up mystery present boxes for new toys to expand your collection, and play a mini-game where you do some cleaning by tapping the screen and obtain coins to buy more toys?! (I guess haha.)

Image source

I really really hope that these games come out before I go back to Singapore, unless they will be downloadable from the Google Playstore even without a Japanese IP address. Plus, I think they're free to play. Are you looking forward to them too? :D

These 'mushroom' lollipops were selling like cray

My favourite shot in terms of colour and composition

Of course we took a picture with Hachiko, slotting ourselves in between throngs of Chinese tourists

WHAT did they do to you poor thing D;

Apparently organic gelato to top off the day