Soooo I GOT ENGAGED but I am very behind on blogs so, call me if you want the deets because we won’t get to that for a while. However, yay!

Anyway…

So, day three was the first solo travel day for me, one where I know Ryan is doing a big event and I am too afraid to jinx it so I don’t text him but do think about it consistently.

Naturally, I must distract myself…so I go shopping. As it turns out, not much is open in Yokohama until 10ish, inlcuding my destination of choice, the department store inside the train station. After a Japanese man yelled at me for, I guess, looking too curiously at the door before the store was open? I get my butt to the first coffee shop I see, order an iced coffee (plain, bc of the language barrier) and sit down to listen to Lisa Rinna. (Seriously, a great book, by the way.) Lisa rambles, I listen and wonder how long I can feasibly make this singular coffee last, and when Rinna mentions living in Japan, I cackle at our similar experiences. Except—get this—she doesn’t eat fish?????????? Idk how she survived.

Alright, so after a tomato-faced, embarrassing half hour, I am back on the move, finally making it inside the department store for a day of exploring. It was that large. Well, also, I have no idea where I am, but still. I take the escalators to the top, realize that’s where the food is, and go look at the clothing.

IDK if you know this, but the sizing there is… very 90s coded to say the least, and ya girl was not about to deal with the mental load of not fitting into everything SO I mostly took pics of cool stuff/outfits, as shown below. This ended up being more of a perfume/accessories trip, lol.

Anyway after exploring quite a bit, I found the beauty floor (YAY, wasabi colored metallic nail polish) and purchased some unique birthday/zodiac perfume for me and my mom… and a few extras. I also got a look at sweet home goods and almost got scammed into getting a Lumine credit card while trying to buy tea, BUT I PERSISTED.

After a lot of shopping, I went back to the food floor(s) and stopped at French Toast Factory, a poorly named yet amazing little place with a variety of food beyond toast. The focus of my visit was a batch of soufflé pancakes, or ‘Melty Rare Cheese Pancakes’ that I was worried would be savory, but in fact were absolutely incredible. I finished out this leg with a visit to the art supply store and the cultural center on the top floor (of the dept. store?????), went back to the Pokémon store to check for Wooper, and went back to our hotel to crash.

Long day, right? No. I just talk a lot.

So, it was off to the Nissan HQ right after, where I saw some GORGEOUS cars, got a very chic purse, played with an AR car demo, and of course, ate absolute shit at a driving simulator that made me so dizzy I thought I would puke. The whole e4orce thing that they were advertising worked and all, but it fought my awful video gaming habits at every turn, and my performance was only slightly better than without.

Ryan and I met up for dinner/a performance recap, and we went to a conveyer belt sushi place which ROCKED (the ramen was very good tbh), and this is where I discovered that food is incredibly cheap in Japan, and it tastes a lot better too…shhhh….