Riding the Tokyo Metro! 
July 4, 2025
Riding the metro here is fun and efficient! We use it almost every day to get around. The metro system in Tokyo is HUGE!! There's 13 different subway lines and 285 different stations!! Its hard to keep track of it sometimes 😅 but we figure it out every time!
Look at the metro map! Isn't it ENOURMOUS??
But...using the subway is easy peasy! All you need is a Suica card - it's like a PRESTO card and you can have it on your phone! After you have it set up and you loaded money on it, you're good to go. You just tap it at the gate and you're in!
The seats on the subway train are super comfortable and clean! When we get to sit, we like to pass the time by reading. Its also very quiet on the train, its so peaceful! It makes going from one place to the next easy and breezy.
Sometimes we have to change subway lines to get to where we want to go. Whenever we go around the stations we see how BIIIIIG the stations can get! Its SO easy to get lost if you're not careful!!
Now for Xuxu's favorite part - some of the stations have ink stamps! They have little stations set up next to the gate and you can go there and STAMP to show that you've been to the station! I'll try to take a photo of a station and add it to the blog later!!
Xuxu has been going around and adding station stamps to his notebook, take a look!
I'll write more soon, thanks for reading!
PS: The post icon here was made by Yusuke Kamiyamane! Check out his website to see his other icons!
Books We're Reading 
June 30, 2025
Xuxu and Nuggy have been reading a lot more since we got here! It's a good way to pass time as we're riding on the subway or winding down at home after a whole day of adventures around Tokyo. Nuggy is reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki and Xuxu is reading Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes!
Butter is about a woman serial killer who lures her victims in with her delicious home cooking. It’s inspired by a true story :ooo and full of twists, turns, and yummy food! Nuggy likes that it takes place in Tokyo! It’s cool to read a book that takes place where you are right now, it’s almost like you’re part of the book! But don’t worry, she’s not afraid of serial killers coming after her 😂
Don Quixote is about an old man who reads a lot of books about knights, SO MANY BOOKS about knights that he goes CRAZY and starts thinking he's a knight, and goes off on silly adventures all across Spain. It's also a SUPER OLD and SUPER LONG book...it was written in the 1600s and is over A THOUSAND pages long! Xuxu doesn't think he'll finish it before the trip is over...but he's still making good progress every day!
Just a quick post about what we're reading - reading is a lot of fun and I hope you always find time to read!
CDs in Japan ✮⋆˙💿༘⋆｡˚
June 18, 2025
Japan is the absolute BEST place to go CD shopping! No matter what artist or genre you like, you're gonna find it in Japan for sure. People in Japan still buy a lot of music CDs, more than in any other country in the world, so companies make special Japan edition CDs, and there's LOTS of music stores that are TOTALLY packed with all kinds of CDs! Xuxu has been to many music stores around the globe, and he can tell you that the best CD stores are in Japan.
Here's some CDs xuxu got recently at a secondhand CD store called Disc Union. It's in Shinjuku, which is one of the biggest shopping areas in all of Tokyo! What do you notice that's different about these CDs?
Both CDs have a little cardboard slip that tells you the band and the album name in Japanese. Sometimes they have a little extra info on them if its a special release! On one of the CDs (the bottom one with the white cover) it talks about New Order reuniting, and how this is a commemorative release since they're coming back to Japan for the first time in years.
The white CD is a super special one! When the band released their new single, they made a special Japan edition of the single that not only included the single, but also FOUR MORE songs that the band played live! You can only find this version in Japan! Xuxu was so lucky to get it!
On the back the little slips tell you the song titles in Japanese. It's so convenient if you can only speak Japanese but still want to enjoy the music!
The fun's not over yet! Look inside - the CDs have their standard booklets, as well as a second booklet in Japanese! But they're not just translations of the standard booklet...they have stories about the band, its so useful if you're checking out the band for the first time and want to know more about them!
There's no other country that sells CDs like Japan does, which is what makes Japan such a COOL place to go just for getting CDs!
I'll write more adventures soon! Thanks for reading!
Gachapon 
June 14, 2025
Today we went to a Gachapon arcade. Imagine an arcade, but instead of games, they're machines with mini prizes :o Each machine has its own theme and set of prizes - usually a set has around 4 or 5 different prizes. The sets are super random and there's so so many!
Check out what a gacha machine looks like! Xuxu likes the gacha that are mini copies of real things, and Nuggy likes the gacha that are cute!
We both like to go through all of the machines to see what they have, and we never ever know what to expect. It's always a lot of fun when we find a machine with COOL prizes, then we scramble to find the coins in our coin purses to put into the machine. After we put in the coins, its sooo exciting to turn the knob to see what gacha we get. Its kind of like buying a pack of Pokemon cards and seeing what cards you got!
Here's a pic of some of Xuxu's gachapon scores! One is a mini otamatone that plays a song, and the other is a mini Japan Rail book. I really like them both, but the book is super cool because it has ALL of the pages! I can't wait to go out and get more cool gachas, they're one of my favorite things to get in Japan.
That's all for now! Stay tuned for more adventures!
Our First Post 
June 12, 2025
When we saw Neocities, we both thought "Wow! This is like the websites of our childhood!!" It gave us a whooshy wave of nostalgia, and it made us happy that websites like this still exist. We're gonna blog here about our adventures in Japan. Xuxu will be writing and Nuggy will be building the website.
On Wednesday we went to the Ramen Bowl exhibition. It's an art gallery in a modern building inside of a park. It looked like a special place even from far away (it was a collaboration between a fashion designer and an architect :o), and the park was very nice and well-kept too. It was raining a lot when we went so we didn't get to see a lot of the park, but they had umbrella storage at the entrance so that our soaking wet umbrellas wouldn't drip all over the gallery! A lot of places have umbrella storage in Japan and it's super convenient.
The exhibit was super cool! It talked about the history of ramen, how it's made, and how special ramen bowls are. There was a biiiiig collection of ramen bowls from all over Japan! They were all different colours and patterns, they were very unique. Another part of the exhibit showed bowls made by designers from all over the world, and the last part of the exhibit showed the region of Japan that's known for making ramen bowls. Xuxu didn't think he'd ever want a ramen bowl...but he does now!
That's all I'll write for now. I can't wait to share more of my adventures and recommendations soon!