Nearest popeyes chicken

Servers love to brag they make $60 an hour in tips. How’s that fair? The people at target make $15 and have to deal with the same horrific verbal abuse from Karen’s on a daily basis. And unlike servers there is actual heavy lifting involved. Yet nobody tipping target workers. Same for a worker at a fast food place like Popeyes where you get threatened to get shot if you run out of spicy chicken tendies. And what about 7-11 cashiers? $15 an hour to have guns pointed at you and be robbed of beer and cigarettes. They are more deserving of tipping than servers are.

Ill begin with saying what leads me to believe the grade of the meat being used is in decline- or blatantly spoiled. Usually after finishing food, as humans, we pick the stuff out of our teeth- so I've noticed an AWFUL smell coming from mainly chicken from any fast food chain I've been to this entire year- from Canes, Chick fil A, Jack n the Box, Chipotle, Popeyes.. The meat smells fine when its in front of me, but the second I'm done eating I have this taste in my breath, not even my tastebuds- that I just ate spoiled food. I was questioning the health of my teeth and gums, worried about cavities or if I had leftover food from the day prior or something and its not. When I buy store-bought chicken and cook it from home, I never EVER have this issue especially since I cook more than I go out to eat- plus I brush my teeth/floss 2-3x a day.
Its just coming to my attention that fast food prices are going through the roof, yet store bought food is 1/5 the price of going out to eat and on top of that we're getting old or spoiled meat, or even meat that's been frozen for 2 years before being served to customers. Idk what it is, but I think from here on out I wont be participating in that debacle. Home cooking stays winning every time. Sorry for the nonstory like post, but its a story nonetheless

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Content Warning(s): fictional child death, exclusion?
First things first, while this is not the worst horror story I've heard by far, this still was a bit of a sucky experience for me and my friend to have as our first time interacting with DnD. I hold no animosity toward anyone in this story, as we were all young and this was years ago, but rather I want to share this story to get it off my chest.
The characters:
-Me, playing a beast-master ranger with a dire wolf animal companion, first time playing Dnd
-Wizard, playing a wizard as you would guess, first time playing dnd (they/them)
-Barbarian, sibling of DM and Rogue, invited Me and Wizard to play and introduced us to the idea of DnD as a whole (they/she)
-Rogue, sibling of DM and Barbarian, "problem" in the story along with DM (he/him)
and finally
-DM, oldest sibling of Barbarian and Rogue, also is a bit of an issue in the story (they/them)
Okay so now for the story:
Barbarian, Wizard, and I were all really close friends in middle school, and one day Barbarian brought up that their siblings play Dungeons and Dragons. Wizard and I, not knowing anything about the game, were immediately super interested, and eventually Barbarian invited us over to play dnd with their family. During the time leading up to the session, both Wizard and I were super excited and we both tried to learn about the different classes and races as best we could. Both Wizard and I ended up with super basic practically self-insert characters, but we were both super happy with what we had created. The day of the session arrived and both Wizard and I were stoked to play finally, but once again, we knew literally nothing about the game.
Right off the bat, our party was placed in a relatively open area. If I’m honest I don’t remember why we were just dropped in the open, but as we were trying to figure out what to do, (probably within the first ten or so minutes of the game) Wizard walked forward into a trap that ~none~ of the party had seen and was immediately paralyzed.
Obviously, Wizard and I were very caught off guard by this, and when we asked DM what was going on they responded by saying that we “should have done a perception check”. Wizard and I were confused, as we had literally no idea what a perception check was at the time or how we were supposed to make one but both of us just accepted that we made a mistake and tried to move on. Wizard was eventually released from their paralysis and the game continued.
Eventually, the party came to a town and started to wander towards the nearest tavern to try and figure out what our quest was going to be for the session. Immediately as we walk into the city, an orphan kid (described to be no more than 5 or 6) is said to walk up to my character (and specifically only my character). Now, something about me personally is that I have a giant soft spot for children and animals, and almost every character I play shares this sensitivity. As this was my first dnd character, I shared practically every trait with my dnd character and as such I immediately felt super attached to this little kid. The kid begged for some food and without hesitation I had my character pull out her rations and hand over a portion to the kid. Suddenly, my character was ~flooded~ with a bunch of orphaned kids, all begging for food. As this happened, I turned and asked DM if we were going to a place where we could get more food and if I had enough rations between my character and her dire wolf to be able to feed all of the kids who showed up. DM said that we were going to a place where we could get food and that I did not have enough food for all of the kids, but that if everyone in the party gave up the rest of their rations that we could feed all of the kids.
I immediately turned to the party and started to ask for everyone to give up their rations and started to try and explain that we could buy more food but I was cut off by Rogue. Rogue had been getting irritated throughout this whole interaction, but apparently, this was the last straw as he narrated his character walking over to one of the children and pulling out a dagger. He said (both in-game and out-of-game) that he was going to count down from 10 and if I hadn’t left by then that he was going to kill the kid.
I immediately panicked, as I mentioned before, I have a massive soft spot for children and I was terrified that any of these fictional kids would get hurt so I tried to explain my plan to Rogue and negotiate with the DM to try and make it to where I could have my character feed all of the kids all while Rogue counted down. I remember getting physically upset as the countdown was happening, both at the prospect that Rogue would follow through with his threat and that I felt like no one was listening to me. Despite my efforts to persuade or negotiate my way into a better solution, Rogue reached the end of his countdown and turned to DM saying that he wanted to stab the kid in front of him. DM didn’t even make Rogue roll and said that Rogue killed the kid and all of the orphans scattered. I was absolutely livid at this, and I believe at this point I started to tear up and was on the verge of crying. I was visibly upset at this turn of events and had my character start to yell at Rogue. Admittedly, I probably got too upset over the turn of events at this point, but don’t worry, it gets worse.
While the exact details on how the next event happened are admittedly very fuzzy on my part (since this story was years ago) the important part is that the party ended up kidnapped and taken down into the sewers under the city. We were taken to have an audience with the leader of a secret crime syndicate that was apparently stationed in the city and quickly learned that the child of this Crime Boss was the “orphan” that Rogue had stabbed. Immediately the Crime Boss (referred to as CB for the rest of the story) asked the entire party who was responsible for killing the child. I (being admittedly still angry out of game) had my character rat out Rogue and start to explain the whole situation, only to be interrupted by Rouge saying that I had a choice of not killing the kid if I had just given up on feeding all the children. I then pointed out that I was just trying to feed all of the kids and that if everyone had just given up some of their rations we could have fed all of the children and then just bought more rations. CB then interrupted the argument and said that he had a decision about who was responsible. I admittedly was a little too proud at this moment, and I genuinely thought that Rogue was going to be punished for killing the kid. Much to my surprise, however, CB had all of the guards grab my character and tie her up in a magical rope that no one could break.
I was absolutely stunned and didn’t understand why I was being punished as DM explained that CB appreciated Rogue for killing the kid because CB couldn’t have a “weak” kid. DM also explained that my character was being punished for being “weak” and that CB was actually supposed to be the final boss of the one-shot and that we skipped straight to him through killing his kid. Back in the game, CB explained that the party could have my character back only after they did three things for him and that every hour the ropes around my character would tighten, killing my character in 24 hours if the tasks were not completed. Note, once again, this was my first ever time playing dnd and I was no older than 12 or 13 at the time. I was incredibly upset but at the time I didn’t say anything because I just thought that “this is how dnd goes” and I thought I was just being a sore loser, but now looking back I know I should have let the DM know that I was feeling upset.
Anyway, the first task given to the party was a simple riddle, specifically the one with the seed, the chicken, and the fox, where you have to get all across a gorge with various rules about what can and cannot be left alone together. I immediately spoke up because I already knew this riddle and knew how to solve it. I had my character ask CB if she was allowed to solve it. CB reluctantly agreed and I had my character explain the solution. CB said my solution was correct and then said that the other two tasks had to be performed by the party with no input from my character. I was once again upset that I couldn’t participate but convinced DM to let me control my dire wolf instead of my character.
Honestly, I don’t remember what the last two tasks were, but I do remember that my dire wolf was absolutely no help on the tasks and on top of that was completely ignored by the party members whenever I did try to help, so I was left doing literally nothing while the party was having fun solving the tasks. I started to get more and more frustrated as time went on as I really wanted to participate but knew I couldn’t do anything. Finally, the party completed both tasks with one in-game hour left before my character would die. I was really anxious at this point for the party to get back to see CB so that my character would be released, but relieved that the party had a whole hour to spare. Relieved until the NPC that was with the party suggested that the party stop for a leisurely brunch before going to get my character, that is. I was honestly on the verge of tears, frustrated, as the party narrated going inside a tavern for a leisurely brunch while my character was minutes from dying. The whole party was having fun and joking while I tried to get the party to go and save my character, but all my attempts to ask the party members out-of-game to help was met with “Oh we have plenty of time, it’ll be fine”. Finally, I got fed up and had my dire wolf burst inside the tavern (it was made to wait outside) and physically try to drag the party members outside. My dire wolf was just kicked out again and so I said that my dire would just bark and howl non-stop until the party left to go save my character. A bit annoyed, the DM relented and said that the NPC cut the brunch short and the party headed back to see CB, freeing my character only minutes before she would have died. After that, the session was practically over. I can’t imagine we played for more than half an hour after that, but despite it all, I continued to play DnD and even played with the same group a second time where I actually was able to play and help the party through things.
As I said at the beginning, I don’t think this story is the worst horror story that I’ve heard, but it definitely was a frustrating experience, especially for my first-ever dnd game. Despite it though, I’ve been playing dnd for years now and have been running my own games for about 5 years now, so at the very least I’m glad that I was able to get through this experience without a bad taste towards dnd as a whole.
TLDR; My character was taken out of commission for a majority of my first-ever dnd session all because I wanted to feed children rations.
Note: I was talking to Wizard about the whole situation right before posting this and they wanted to add a few details.
First off, Wizard said that they were teasing DM before the game, and while they didn’t think that they were being annoying, that teasing may have been the reason for their character getting immediately paralyzed (or at the very least it felt like retaliation to Wizard).
Second, not only did Wizard and I have no information on dnd, Wizard reminded me that the mechanics of the game were not explained to us at all before we started playing and both DM and Rogue would get upset at Wizard and I when we didn’t know how our characters worked.
Also, there was some issue before the game started about how my beast master ranger couldn’t have an animal companion because “only druids could have animal companions”.
Finally, Wizard mentioned that they think that DM and Rogue were hostile toward Wizard and I because they were significantly older than us and they were Barbarian’s older siblings. It is very possible that Barbarian kinda forced DM and Rogue to teach us how to play and that they were upset about it and so made their goal to mess with us. While this obviously doesn’t excuse the fact that they were unfair towards us, it might be a bit more of an explanation.
But yeah, thanks for reading I guess?

OK so there's a white chef at like Popeyes or whatever and some big black dude ordering food but he's being a bit rude ya know? So the white guy nuts in his fried chicken and them serves it to the black dude and when the black dude takes a bite he like "I know another niggas nut when I taste it" and then storms in to the kitchen and demands to speak with the chef. Then the chef awkwardly comes out and he's intimated by the black dudes presence, then the black guy is like "oh you wanna taste a real man's cum? Huh, let me show you how you serve your cum in another niggas mouth" and then he starts Nutting all over the white dudes mouth and the rest is whatever idc

Hi everyone! Just came back from my first trip to Japan. It has always been my biggest dream to visit Japan since I was a kid and I'm so glad I finally got the chance to go! The trip was actually planned by my boyfriend who booked everything for us in May, which is my birthday month.
Tips:
Make Reservations Months in Advance! We made reservations for cafes, activities, restaurants, and even trains months in advance to make sure we would be able to do everything we wanted; we were not taking any risks and we were so thankful for our reservations. Make sure to do your research about when to make reservations months in advance.
Pack and Travel Light. Japan isn't really suited for traveling with big luggage to haul around. The trains can get incredibly crowded, you’ll probably be walking around and using stairs frequently, and hotel rooms can be very small at times. I recommend bringing a small rolling luggage and a large backpack and only pack what you need. Leave some room in your luggage for souvenirs or snacks to bring back.
Get Yen immediately at the airport or at the nearest convenience store! You will definitely need yen for a good amount of places in Japan. My boyfriend and I tried to load money in our Suica but the machine we used only accepted yen. Luckily we found a nearby conbini that accepted our debit card but we couldn't use our credit cards for some reason because the atm required a pin number. I might have accepted Mastercard but we both didn't have one.
Bringing comfortable shoes is a must in Japan! I brought comfortable shoes and my feet still hurt by the third day because we were walking and standing most of the days. I also recommend buying Lion’s Foot Patch if you find it at a conbini (I think we bought them at Lawsons) as the gel patch felt so good after a long day of walking!
Plan more days to relax. Although I have no regrets doing all the fun things we planned for our trip, I do wish we had more rest days in Japan, especially when our feet were so sore and we were so sleep deprived from waking up early. I wish we would have stayed a full 2 weeks in Japan and planned relaxing things to do in between our activities like visiting an Onsen and staying in a Ryokan.
Get to popular places early! My boyfriend and I would wake up at 5am to get ready and beat the morning rush hour and to get to popular places before the crowds showed up, it definitely worked out well for us.
Use hotel luggage transport or lockers when necessary. The luggage transport was especially useful when traveling long distances and carrying luggage through the trains would just be a hassle. All we had to do was just talk to our hotel clerk and give him the information for our next hotel we would be sending it to, and the clerk did the rest of the work. The luggage would usually arrive 2 days after we sent it. For the rest of the time, we just used lockers at train stations to store our luggage as we went sightseeing.
Trip Report:
Sunday May 14: Arrival and TokyoDisney
Arrival at Narita Airport
Arrival was simple, fast, and easy. For immigration and customs, we just had to scan our QR codes and passport and also take a picture.
Yen situation
As we arrived at Disney by bus, we wanted to use the coin lockers to store our luggage. The lockers only took suica (maybe yen too) so we tried to buy a suica but the machines only took yen (it didn't look like it took foreign cards). We tried walking to 7/11but it was closed so we ended up just walking to our hotel to drop off luggage. We ended up spending more than an hour walking everywhere and only had 2 hours for Disney.)
Tokyo Disney
The only ride we had time for was the beauty and the beast ride and it was amazing! We loved our experience inside the castle and we were amazed how fluid the animatronics were. If I could recommend one ride in Disney it would be this one. We did have time to go on one more ride so we went on the Monsters Inc ride which was just a shooter game and was just okay.
Monday May 15: Tokyo- DisneySea
Before we went to disneysea, we wanted to try some convenience store food so we went to Lawsons and Family Mart. The convenience store food was delicious! The onigiri tastes better than the ones in the US, the chicken in the hot food section was so juicy and delicious! Definitely recommend eating the hot foods and drinks. We tried getting money out of the ATM with our Visa credit cards but it didnt work so we used our debit card because the atm required a pin number.
Tokyo Disneysea
We arrived at Disneysea almost an hour early and we still had to wait in line. After the gates opened, we went straight to Journey to the Center of the Earth, but it broke down before we were able to ride it. The staff did offer us a fast pass to use for the ride later when it would be fixed. When the ride was working again, we headed back, used the fast pass and immediately got on the ride. It was a fun. fast, and short ride. All the rides at disneysea are pretty short and are moderately thrilling. Afterwards, we went to the submarine ride, 20,000 leagues under the sea, which was a unique experience and a very chill ride. Next was the Indiana jones ride; it was fun and a much better ride than the one in california. Then we went to Tower of terror which wasn't too scary. We also went to Soaring which actually has really long lines and wait time but it was a cool experience. The ride with the longest line was probably toy story mania; we decided not to go on the ride because of the long lines and we've been to the one in california. Kings triton castle was the most beautiful area to look at and explore, our favorite part of the area was exploring ariel's trinket room. Lots of rides were closed the day we went so we didnt get to ride on the spirits roller coaster, autopia, and explorers. My favorite food i tried there was the Ukiwa bun.
We also got to eat at Magellan which is one of the more expensive dining options. We didn't make a reservation until that very same day but we luckily able to reserve a spot in the morning. The food was tasty and it was my first time going to a fancier kind of restaurant that offered 3 course meal that were all tiny portions. I got the cheaper option (around $40 or $60, i cant remember) and it was very delicious. My boyfriend got the most expensive option (around $100) and it tasted terrible! I wouldnt recommend getting the most expensive option there.
Tuesday May 16: Tokyo-Harajuku
Harajuku
We took the trains to get to Harajuku and it was a little overwhelming trying to figure out how to find our train the first few times but, after a while, it became a very easy process. We used google maps to find the trains we needed to take. Then at the train stations, we looked for signs with the name of the train line we needed and followed the arrows and asked for directions when we needed extra help. Then we used our suica card to tap into the specific station we needed to be at to find our train. Next we looked for the PLATFORM NUMBER our train would be arriving at and followed the signs for that number. Once at the platform, we confirmed if we were at the right place by making sure the ARRIVAL TIME, PLATFORM NUMBER, and TRAIN LINE on the digital signs matched the one from our google maps. Make sure to follow train etiquette by stepping to the side to let people out of the train and putting your backpack in front of you if the train is really crowded.
At Harajuku station, we put our luggage in coin lockers for the day so we could explore. We went to a conbini, grabbed some food for breakfast and went to Yoyogi park to eat since nothing was open at 7am. After eating, we went to Meiji shrine for a bit, which is also near yoyogi park, and then headed back to harajuku so we wouldn't be late for our mipig reservations.
Mipig cafe was our favorite cafe and one of our favorite experiences in japan! The pigs were so loving and friendly, they came right up to us and laid on our laps after the staff put some blankets on us. They were adorable and as many as 2-3 pigs would come up to us and sit on our laps. Some pigs would even get aggressive with other piggies if you gave one too much attention. Some pigs started chewing on my dress so I had to get another blanket to hide my dress from being eaten.
After Mipig, we wanted to get some food. We tried Marian crepes, candied strawberries, and some small cafes. We visited Anakuma cafe and it was definitely an interesting experience. A bear hand would come out of hole in the wall and give us candy and a coin to put in a gacha machine and it would also play rock paper scissor with us.
Next stop was Hedgehog cafe which i wouldnt recommend only because I learned later that hedgehogs are nocturnal and they were sleeping most of the time we were there. We ended up leaving early because there was not much to do as we felt bad disturbing the little guys.
Afterwards we visited the Kiddyland store and I enjoyed the studio ghibli section but they also had kirby, pokemon, and sanrio merchandise.
Teamlabs
Next we took a train to team labs, we got there early but we had to wait until it was closer to our reservation time before we could line up. After getting inside we had to put our shoes and backpacks in lockers so we could go through the water exhibition first. They offer shorts if you are wearing dresses as some of the exhibitions have mirror floors. I wasnt too into the water exhibition but I did like the lights exhibition and flower exhibition the best. Overall it was a cool experience and I got some amazing photos out of it.
Shibuya sky
Lastly we went to shibuya sky. We also couldn't get inside until our reservation time started. The elevator ride up was pretty cool as they played a video on the ceiling. They have some restaurants and cafes near the top, I wish I came earlier to try them but we were so tired I didnt want to stay too long. The top of shibuya sky was outside and it was cold (i wish i brought a sweater) but it was incredibly beautiful, especially at night. It's a nice place to relax and look at views. This was probably my favorite sky building out of the three i went (shibuya sky, umeda sky, and tokyo skytree).
Wednesday May 17: Nagoya-Ghibli Park
Ghibli park
We left early morning to get on the train and avoid morning rush hour. We ended up taking the Nozomi train to Nagoya. We bought our shinkansen tickets at the JR ticket booth. We recommend reserving seats as its only a couple yen more and gives you peace of mind knowing you get to choose your seats. We also grabbed some ekibens which were delicious, my favorite was the blue one with mt. fuji on it. Next we had to take a bus to ghibli park which was actually very hard to find. We had to ask for help to find it. To pay for the bus, you can use a suica card or yen to pay as you board the bus.
We arrived super early, and put some of our bags in the lockers. We went to lawsons nearby and bought a ghibli park book which features the exhibitions inside. We walked around the park a bit before we were allowed to start lining up for our reservation times. There are also no trash cans at ghibli park so make sure you bring a trash bag with you to take all your trash back with you.
Around 12pm we went inside and went straight to the first exhibition (Becoming characters in Memorable Ghibli scenes) and there was already a line to get in. Once we got in we took pictures with Noface from spirited away, ponyo, princess mononoke scene, and many more movie scenes.
The next exhibition we went to was the food exhibition (Delicious! Animating Memorable Meals). You can't take pictures in that area but it was cool to be able to interact in the kitchen spaces from your favorite movie scenes. Also, in the end of this exhibition, you can take pictures with totoro and the cat bus!
We visited the ghibli store next because I heard the lines can get rather long at the end of the day and I bought some merchandise from there.
Afterwards, we took pictures at the central staircase, the castle in the sky scene, and the scene with Yubaba.
Next, we took the elevator down to the bottom floor and took pictures in the arietty scenes, it was cool feeling so tiny while everything was supersized!
Lastly we went to the bakery to get some sandwiches. Unfortunately, the food does sell out and there were not a lot of choices left by the time we got there. The food we got was okay but nothing special.
Osaka: Ichiran ramen
After Ghibli park we took the train to Osaka. In Osaka, we lined up to get into Ichiran ramen. We ordered our ramen through a vending machine and it gave us our ticket to give to our server. We were seated in these small cubicle areas but we were also able to close the partition in between us so my boyfriend and I could share our table space together. I thought it was a unique dining experience; it was cool not having to say a single word to our server, and the food was also delicious too.
Thursday May 18: Osaka-Universal Studios Japan
Got to USJ an hour before it opened and there were still super long lines! As the gates opened up, we ran to nintendoland to make sure we got in. We went to toadstool cafe to get ticket reservations but they didn't open until 9am so we decided to take the single rider line for the mario kart ride, it was a bad idea. For some reason the single rider line still took us 30 minutes to complete and it felt like it was going slower than the regular lines. The mario kart ride was cool, it used like a VR headset and you were able to shoot shells at others but I really didn't understand what was going on.
Toadstool cafe
We went back to toadstool but all the tickets were gone, I tried talking to one of the workers if they would offer tickets later but I don't think he understood what i was saying. He actually just let me in the line after I asked a few times if they had anymore tickets for the afternoon. After waiting in line and ordering, we grabbed our drinks and table number and sat down at our table. The drinks were delicious! Definitely recommend. We also ordered some kind of mushroom pesto soup and it was bomb! We recommend that too since they don't offer it in the California Universal. We also got peaches cake for like $30 which is supposed to be for 4 people but just the 2 of us ate it. It was light and fluffy and we recommend getting it as they also dont offer it in the California Universal. The staff also came by and offered to take pics of us which was so nice.
Next we bought the limited edition wrist bands and started playing some of the mini games. We played about 3 games before we decided to leave nintendo land and check out the other areas because we also bought a reserved time to get back into nintendoland to use our fastpass for the yoshi ride.
We had a fastpass for the Jurassic park ride so we went on that next. Make sure you are prepared to get wet cause you will get soaked at the end. Then we went to Hogwarts and watched some of the shows they offered and grabbed a meatpie. We didn't stay long here as we have already been to Hogwarts in california. Next we got in line for the mario strawberry shortcake pancake and it was delicious light and fluffy! I think we also had a fastpass ride for jaws and that ride was actually really cooler than I expected . The next fastpass ride was for despicable me ride so we did that one too and it was actually better than the california version. And lastly we went back to nintendoland to use our reservation time and our fastpass for the yoshi ride. It was a cute slow ride but it had nice views of the park. I enjoyed it even though it was a kiddy ride. Lastly, we had the yakisoba shells and melon lassi and both were delicious
By this time our feet were so sore from walking for days so we left early to go rest at our hotel. I ended up being so sore and tired I just knocked out early. My boyfriend bought Lions Foot Patches from Lawson and put them on my feet while i slept. They felt so nice and cool on my feet. I recommed getting those foot patches while you're in japan.
We woke up for a late dinner and got some nearby mcdonalds. I'm not a fan of mcdonalds in the US but i wanted to try japan's mcdonalds to see if its better. I honestly didn't like the Japan Mcdonalds either even though it does taste different, I'm not sure what the hype is about with the japanese mcdonalds. I found that japan's convenience store chicken was much juicer and tasted better than the mcdonalds chicken.
Friday May 19: Kyoto-Fushimi Inari Taisha, Nishiki market, Ninenzaka
Fushimi inari taisha shrine
We got to the shrine early, maybe around 7am,and it was not very crowded but there were still people there. It was raining a bit so luckily i brought my umbrella, unfortunately my boyfriend did not, this would haunt him later. We took a picture of a map to see which way to go to reach the top as there are different routes you can take. It was a gradual climb up but my boyfriend really struggled as his feet still hurt from the days before. The gates were beautiful and there were so many areas to look at and explore as we climbed. Unfortunately my boyfriend was tired and we were in a time crunch so we didn't explore every area but I wish I could have because this was the most beautiful place I had visited in Japan. As we neared the top it started to rain more heavily and my boyfriend ended up getting soaked. The top of the shrine was anticlimactic, but we took our picture and headed back down. On our way we stopped by the little stores and bought an umbrella for my boyfriend which we were thankful they had some. As we went down the steps in the rain, my boyfriend accidentally slipped and fell on his back pretty badly. He ended up with a deep gash on his finger as the blood gushed all over the floor. Luckily I had some tissues to wrap up his finger. We headed back down the mountain and bought some bandaids at a conbini store. We also bought some strawberry daifuku at a small little shop and it was the best daifuku I ate in Japan. The mochi was a great consistency and the strawberry was the juiciest strawberry i ever had. I wish i had bought more from there.
Nishiki market
We went to Nishiki market around 11am and it was super crowded while the path was so small and narrow. We literally had to push through the crowds at times because there were so many people, it was not a fun time for me. I also ended up losing my suica card somewhere around there. I'm also not the biggest fan of seafood but my boyfriend is so he ended up eating most of the food. We ended up not staying long for all those reasons and ended up going to a nearby store that sold all kinds of different food which I liked a lot better because there weren't crowds of people there.
Ninenzaka
Next we walked to Ninenzaka which was like a 30 minute walk. It was still raining so we were just looking for a place to stop and eat for a bit. We went to Kudamono cafe and got the cloud dessert. It was pretty good and fluffy and the dessert looked so pretty. Afterwards, we had room for more dessert so we tried Meccha cafe. We ordered the matcha tiramisu and the parfait. The matcha tiramisu was probably the best dessert i had in Japan, I definitely recommend getting it! We also visited Donguri and bought more totoro merchandise. At this point, my boyfriend was so tired and soaked from the rain we decided to go back to the hotel. We took the bus this time and it was packed! We had to push people just to get out.
Saturday May 20: Kyoto, Nara, Osaka
Kyoto:
Arashiyama bamboo forest
We got to the bamboo forest early at 7am, there were a few people there but not too many like later in the day. I recommend going super early to beat the crowds. The bamboo forest was super short but it was still a cool area to check out and plus there are many things to do around the area. We walked to a nearby park next to a big river and the views were absolutely gorgeous! Kyoto is really breathtaking. After walking a while and checking out the scenery we headed back to the bamboo forest to board the Sagano Romantic Train.
Sagano Romantic Train
We had reserved seats for the Sagano Romantic Train and the views from the train were amazing! Get there early because you might have to do some minor paperwork stuff to print out your ticket if you reserved in advance. The reserved seating we had was in a train with no glass windows so you can just feel the air rushing through your hair as the train moves. Truly it was a memorable and fun experience with a lot of breathtaking nature views. After coming back to our initial departure spot on the train, we left for Monkey Park.
Monkey Park
We rushed over to Monkey park and by this time the streets of kyoto became much crowded as we had to dodge pedestrians left and right. We paid a fee to get into the monkey park and hiked our way up to the park, there were a couple benches to take rest if needed. At the top, you can see monkeys running around and playing with one another. We went inside a little building where you can buy food for the monkeys and feed them through windows covered with a mesh net. We didnt stay long as we had a full schedule planned for the day so we left to go catch a train to Nara but we did eat some amazing street food on the way. I don't know why but the street food in Kyoto was so delicious, the best I had in Japan probably.
Nara:
Nakatanidou
We arrived at Nara from the trains and went straight to Nakatanidou for some mochi and it was packed with people! It was even hard trying to get a space to watch them make the mochis. It was cool to experience the mochi making and to taste the mochi but I probably wouldn't go back there again because of the crowds.
Nara Park
After the mochis, we walked to Nara park and it was amazing! There were so many deers and they were so friendly and polite! This was my favorite part of nara for sure. For a few yen, we bought some crackers and found some deers that would bow everytime they wanted a cracker, it was too cute. The deers were literally everywhere, on the streets and even at temples.
Shrines
There were lots of shrines around the area but we came pretty late so most of them were closing up but the ones we did see were pretty neat to look at. We also ate some udon at a little restaurant next to a small lake, the views of the lake were amazing from inside the restaurant.
Osaka:
After Nara, we came back to Osaka and the streets were so crowded at night. I tried shopping at don quixote but there were just to many people to weave through that I just decide to give up and try a 10 yen cheese bread near the store. The line was kind of long but I decided to try it out, it was actually really big, not that good, and made my stomach hurt. I would not be getting that again haha
Matsusakagyu Yakiniku Restaurant
My boyfriend had reserved this place for Thursday but we were so tired that day that we decided to cancel our reservation. We decided to try to go in person on this day to see if we could get in. We were lucky that they had a spot available and we ordered a platter of A5 wagyu beef for more than $100 US dollar. Im not really a meat person but the beef was very tender and delicious and the service was very good. They took pictures of me and my boyfriend and gave me free ice cream for my birthday.
Sunday May 21: Tokyo-Joypolis, Akihabara, skytree
Joypolis
The next morning we took the Nozumi back to Tokyo and headed straight to joypolis. We got tickets that allowed us to go on pretty much any ride there. Joypolis was small but had some interesting and unique rides and attractions. My favorite was the rhythm rollercoaster where you play rhythm games on a small roller coaster. We also played a VR Laser tag which was actually pretty fun even though I dont really play VR. There was an Attack on Titan walkthrough attraction that was completely in Japanese so I didnt understand any of it but it had some very cool props inside. The other interesting attraction was a scary house, where you have to get into these lockers and a girl comes and bangs on them and then the lockers flip you back horizontally. It wasnt that scary but it was pretty unique.
Akihabara
Next we went to Akihabara just to check out but we were actually super tired so we didnt stay long. We went to a couple stores but to be honest it was actually kind of boring as I am no longer as into anime as I was when I was a kid so we ended leaving akihabara fairly quickly.
Tokyo Skytree
Instead of going to akihabara I kind of wish I just went to the tokyo skytree shopping area because there was so much cool things to do there! They have a pokemon center, a kirby cafe, studio ghibli shop, and so many stores to shop or restaurants to eat at! We also went to the top of skytree but it honestly wasnt worth the money as the very top didnt have that much stuff and we just had to wait in these super long lines to get both up and down the skytree. After the skytree, we found a yakitori spot and ate some beef skewers which were delicious. We wished we went restaurant hopping more as there were just so many places to eat in this area.
Monday May 22: Ueno Park and Departure
Ueno park
Before we left to the airport, we visited Ueno park which was only a few blocks away from our hotel. It had a beautiful lake which was covered with some sort of lily pads. The park was pretty big and it was nice just walking around the area.
Life Mart
We decided to stop at Life Mart to get some food before we left to the airport. The Meat was so delicious and was so cheap, and it had different options from conbinis. We took train back to Narita Airport, this train I think you have to reserve in advance.
Narita airport
Going back through immigrations and customs and tsa was super easy and fast. We recommended getting lunch or snack early because there were pretty long lines as our departure time approached.
We also bought Tokyo Banana for souvenir snacks to bring back to our families, its very delicious!
For pictures of my trip you can take a look at my Instagram: martha_o93
https://www.instagram.com/martha_o93/
In the end, visiting Japan was better than I could ever imagine and I just cant wait to go back! Please let me know what your favorite parts of Japan are and what other areas in Japan I must check out!

My name is Axel, as most of you know. The shop is closed permanently, which is good because all of my recent efforts have been focused on finding Selene. There have been signs and I am certain she still exists in this reality, but I am starting to wonder if I even want to find her. Because of everything that happened, she is really all that is left for me. She is the only one with answers.
But if none of that makes sense, go here. You have some catching up to do.
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We left off with us prior baristas agreeing to follow Em and her father to the city they called home. A city called Fraeria. Usually the supernatural activity surrounding the Drowsy Spectre only occurred at night, so I was a bit confused when Em asked us to arrive in the parking lot during the day. At around 4pm we gathered outside the shop. I had expected Amber to be there for some reason, ready to impart some sort of cryptic wisdom in return for buying a candle. She wasn't there, though, and her car was absent too. Whatever Selene did with those marks seemed to have scared everyone and everything away.
Silence demanded to come along. The black snake had to see Em's father, she had closure to achieve and I think a bit of revenge perhaps. There wasn't much a small reptile like her could do, especially since she'd been turned into a non-venomous species. That wasn't for me to question. Silence had been a snake so long that she couldn't even remember who she was before; who was I to refuse her the possibility of some answers?
Anyway, we were in the parking lot. Em's father refused to give us his actual name, so we came to know him as Guide. It seems creatures of his kind prefer titles that describe their purpose, not the names given at their creation or birth. We didn't speak much before Guide led us into the forest surrounding the cafe, but it was a very long walk ahead and eventually Barrow approached me.
"Did you bring the doll?"
I didn't see a reason to be dishonest. "It is gone."
"What?"
"That wish you had me make? It caused this." I showed him my wrist. "My wish to end it burned the doll to a crisp."
"Interesting." He then fell behind a bit, lost in thought.
We stopped to eat at some point when it got dark. Seeing as one of the main rules of the cafe was to not be outside at night, I was a bit nervous. Nomic ended up tagging along, enticed by the healing of his mind. Guide did not promise anything, but he certainly did suggest that it was possible in the magical city he was leading us to. Our party included Em, Barrow, Nomic, myself, and Guide.
"We cannot stop for long." Guide stated after summoning a fire with the clap of his hands. "Even my power will not protect you from everything this strange forest harbors."
"So it is even strange to you?" Barrow asked.
Guide laughed. "I may wander it, but that does not mean I have a clue what it is. My people are not of this world, but can be brought here through this forest. Where I am from, we are called Elwae. It is your people that have given us strange titles from your children's tales."
"Wait, so Em is not a pixie?" I asked.
"You decide what is in a name. She is to you whatever you call her. A flower, or a stone." He eyed the darkening forest. "I am curious; what has become of your giant?"
"We have not seen him since the teeth got him." Em answered.
I recalled Tall Ben asking for help. Maybe if I would have accepted, he would be here to assist us in this time of trouble. "Maybe they ate him up. The tooth plague killed Heartmin. Might've taken longer, but I don't see why it couldn't chew him up too."
"I thought he was more resilient. The giant would have been a proper ally in darker hours yet to come."
Ominous. "What do you mean by that?"
He chose not to answer. Instead, he produced some fish from his bag. He passed it to Em, who then placed it over the fire. "There is food if you are hungry."
"No strings?"
Em looked at Barrow. "Why do you think he gave it to me first?"
He accepted this before taking one of her wooden plates.
I was not satisfied with the lack of answer. "Guide, what did you mean by that?"
"There are birthing pains here. Something draws near and this issue of ours is merely a symptom." He grinned. "It would have been much easier for you if you would have let me turn you into some rodent, yeah? I little bird, perhaps." That's what Selene called me. How did he know that? "Do you still have that one little trouble maker? The snake, that is. Oh, and that lizard too. I do hope they've adjusted well."
"They are free now."
"Are they? I've watched closely. So far I've not seen them leave your apartment. I could change them back, you know, for a price."
He wanted a deal. "I'm not playing this game!"
A hand rested on my knee. "You okay man?" It was Nomic; he looked concerned. "Your face is all red."
It was then I realized that no one else had commented on our conversation, or even taken notice. Had it been in my head? Guide gave me a knowing smirk and invaded my thoughts once again. "Just between us. Think on it."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired." I lied to Nomic. Em's father would be trouble, it seemed. That wasn't much of a surprise.
A little voice tickled my ear. "Kill him." I couldn't answer discretely enough to not be noticed. Silence spoke once more with a long hiss. "Hurt him."
I gently place a hand on my shoulder, comforting the snake underneath my coat. It was still cold around my neck of the woods and Silence always got... irritated at such temperatures. This area shouldn't have been that cold, though, but I could only blame that on the unnatural forest we found ourselves in. As night grew later, it only got worse. The fire was going strong, despite its unnatural creation. There was no time to sleep, it seemed, as after only roughly two hours of sitting Guide demanded we all prepare to move again. To my comfort, the forest was not silent. Crickets chirped despite the cold weather and even bats could be heard squeaking overhead. Other than the company, everything seemed completely normal about the forest that surrounded the cafe. I assumed this was because we entered it during the day and not when the sun set but, if that was the case, then how could it possibly lead us to this supernatural civilization that Guide and Em were from?
Those questions were answered when we saw the first teeth. They were stuck in a tree that bled sap. At our approach, the teeth wiggled but could not make the tree move towards us. I feared that because they were there, that may mean that the rest of our troublesome neighbors might also make an appearance.
"Is she a friend?" A little voice whispered to me along the way. Silence slithered closer to my ear. "The spider-woman?"
I glanced behind us and saw a face in the trees. It was a familiar one and, for anyone other than me, might deceive a lonely man into becoming a meal. I had already fallen to her whims once, but this was not the same. Her eyes gazed with fear at our guide, Em's father, and she beckoned me closer. I fell discretely to the back of the line, just near enough for her to climb overhead. Ramata was her name, as some of you might remember.
I saw her full glory. The head and torso of a woman, but with many legs sprouting from under her shoulders. There were far more than eight, as a normal spider would have, instead boasting more than a dozen. They each ended with black hands full of sharp nails. She moved with complete silence, not even disturbing Guide. If I did not trust her intentions due to our prior history, I would have fled into the dark full of the most potent terror.
She came lower, just barely in the aura of our flashlights. I was happy to see that the teeth had not infected her. Yet, at least. A few steps behind Nomic, I fell behind as far as I felt comfortable.
"I assume you will hold true to your word?"
"I will. We are friends, my love." She whispered. Her voice was the wind, so slight and discrete; just for me. "You saved my children."
None of the others had noticed, but I kept my voice as low as I could regardless. "Then why are you stalking us?"
"That man's people come from a different world, one who shall bring forth a being that shall determine the fate of all things. My web stretches to many places, dear one. I have heard many things from those that wander into my traps." She waited, expecting me to have something to say. I didn't. "But there is tell that a human shall write about such things and influence the destiny of that world with mere words."
"You came here only to tell me that?"
I didn't intend to offend her, but she was far too cryptic for any use. "Destiny doesn't mean peace, young love. It is destined that all things will one day die. It may be in your power to halt this being from gaining the might to direct fate. Do not speak to the voice in the light, do not speak with the devil that is called Elidian."
"I am pretty tired of speaking with devils. It seems I've made deals with far too many."
"But this one will not come to strike a deal. Your heart; he will play it like a stringed instrument, and you will be inspired as any writer is. Do not listen." Her all too human eyes flickered towards Em's father. "And do not be mistaken; your guide has no intention of letting you return home."
"I know."
Suddenly she went silent, her face vanishing into the darkness. Ramata came bringing only questions, ones that I could not bring to anyone in our company. I did not trust Barrow anymore and could hardly trust Em with her father around. Nomic wouldn't have anything valuable to say considering he didn't even know who he was. That left Silence, who had decided to live up to her name and not answer anything I sent her way.
The insects had gone quiet. That was when I registered that Ramata wasn't being cryptic in her departure;
She had fled.
Em's father must have caught on as well, because he halted the journey. "Don't make a sound."
He did not turn off the flashlight, so I assumed it was safe to scan the trees. There sounded like a strong breeze to my left, approaching from the distance. But... the trees were swaying. I could hear leaves being picked up and thrashed about by the gust.
Then we all saw it. White dots crawling along the floor, carried on the backs of a living horde. Insects, rodents; an amalgamation of predators and prey driven on by their parasites. I grabbed Em, who was nearest, in a desperate bid to survive. These things hunted by sound and touch; we had once chance. I took my coat, wrapped it around her, and covered her completely. There was a nearby tree just wide enough for us to hide behind and I had only seconds to reach it.
That sound still echoes in my mind. Not one of the animals cried out, not one. But they got closer and I could hear tiny footsteps on the ground, I could feel the ground tremble with the sheer number of legs that the stampede boasted.
I thanked whatever god was listening that I wore gloves that day, because my hand was still out when the plague struck. It was a sparrow that smacked into it, slamming into the ground. The creature was surely crushed underneath the combined might of the horde. I could feel thousands of tiny legs crawl all over me and could only pray that they did not approach my exposed face.
Em was covered, I was not.
Something landed on me, something rather large but with many legs. It was not swept away immediately.
It crawled and clicked as it searched out flesh it surely sensed. Was it my breathing, was it my own trembling teeth?
You know how you can anticipate touch? Feel it before it happens? I knew it was going to reach me. I was going to die. I felt the tickle, the tiny sensation of an insect gripping onto a tiny pore. When it did, I felt something try to bite down on the bit of my exposed neck.
With only one option, I took a risk and grabbed the insect before the teeth on it could multiply using my own flesh. I saw a massive centipede covered in wiggled teeth from all manner of creatures. When I dropped it, it vanished into the sea of infected forest life. It seemed the hive mind was loose because none of them came for me.
And then it was over. We stayed in place to let those that fell behind catch up. Once the horde of teeth and meat was gone, I quickly checked my own neck. Em, sensing safety, assisted me and I nearly cheered when she swore I had no teeth on my neck. A tiny little red mark, a gentle cut, was the only evidence I had been bitten. Was that enough? Was I infected? Even now, I do not know.
Nomic and Em's father had the wisdom to cover up and hide. I was relieved to see that, regardless of how impossible it seemed, we had all escaped the tooth plague without infection. A minute or two after, the sounds of the natural forest returned.
"We need to move." Em's father was the first to break the silence. "No more speaking until I say."
Eventually we stopped to rest. This time, Guide told us that sleeping for a few hours would be possible. "We have crossed the threshold into the realm of the Elwae. Sleep easy tonight."
But I was the last to fall asleep. That was thanks to his constant gaze that never wavered from my face. Eventually I heard his voice once more, his mouth moved, but no one stirred. "You brought one of them with you, I see. The quiet snake. If I am honest, I do not even remember her name." He laughed at the fate he delivered to her. "Keep her. I am very curious to see what she plans to accomplish."
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Our journey from then on was uneventful. We got maybe four or five hours of sleep, which was surprisingly not interrupted. I don't know if Barrow sleeps, though. I was the first one to wake up and even found that Em's father had fallen asleep. Barrow, however, arrived before the others woke up. He had been in the woods relieving himself. He had been gone for quite a while though.
During the early morning hours the woods were quite peaceful and pleasant to traverse. I did notice the occasional rodent with white marks on its body, sick with the plague that I somehow unleashed. There were some on the plants as well and, despite Guide's confidence that they were completely safe, he gave the plagued portions of the woods a wide pass.
But then we came to a treeline. It was the end of the haunted woods that separated the cafe from the many strange worlds beyond. A rolling field separated us from a city that was surprisingly modern. Skyscrapers of foreign design rose high into the sky. There were streets below with regular traffic, but everything was designed with a certain lack of color. Every structure was metallic or concrete. The City Fraeria was not the nature-haven I expected. I thought of elves from Lord of the Rings, or Fae Forests with entire kingdoms being carved from the wood of ancient trees. Instead Em's people lived in a place not entirely different from us, but with far more of a sleek taste. The buildings were very... sharp. Human skyscrapers are usually built with an antenna of some kind on top. Instead these seemed like knives meant to not just scrape the sky, but cut them open with surgical precision.
"That is not what I expected." Nomic confessed. "Why is there an entire metropolis in the middle of the woods?"
"It was all a forest once." Guide replied. "All of your cities. We only had the heart not to destroy the rest." He certainly wasn't wrong. "Come. We seek an audience with the Eilin Hae. Only with his permission can we go to the fountain of life. This is his city, we are his people, and it is that light that powers this place. He will need convincing."
Guide looked at me. "I don't have anything for him. He's your leader, that is up to you."
"I think you will be surprised, Mr. White. Eilin Hae finds worth deep in the soul. Come; every second wasted is a risk I am not willing to take."
We crossed the fields of fine grass, passing into a realm that wasn't quite the same as the one we had come from. It was like a mirror but with small mistakes in the design. The broken stripes on the road were yellow instead of white, the green traffic lights were purple instead for no particular reason. There were shops along the sidewalks and people that looked as human as myself went about their business. Everyone was generally taller, however, which made me quite confused as to why Em was so small. She took giant potions, after all, to make herself capable of blending in with humans.
That was a sensitive question to ask, however, and I wasn't going to be the one to voice it despite my curiosities. We were ticking bombs, capable of dying if the ritual that we were marked for was attempted again.
"We are missing someone." Em's father announced, halting the journey.
It was only then that any of us noticed Barrow's absence. I had been walking in the back and hadn't even noticed his departure. "Could he have been... snatched?"
"No. That is not how things are done here." Our guide scanned the nearby alleys. "Where has he gone? Tell me now." Seeing as, so far as I know, none of us had any idea, his demand was met with silence. "This is not a place for a human to wander. No matter, he will turn up if he wishes to ever make it home. Only the Elwae can find this place, and only an Elwae can navigate our side of the forest."
Our journey continued, but I approached Em. "Where did he go?"
She was his closest friend, but even she was unaware. "This place really isn't safe. It is hardly the place for him to wander off on his own."
"Will he be fine?"
"He better be. We don't have time to go looking for him, but..." She glanced at her father. "Maybe we should? We must see the Eilin Hae in his tower. I told Barrow about that and while he might not know his way around the city, the tower can't be missed."
Em sounded like she was trying to convince herself. I didn't like it, especially considering the fact that my burned wrist was thanks to Barrow's wish. He was up to something and my ability to trust him was waning. But, if I am honest, at the moment my mind was greatly preoccupied with the strange city and had no room to worry about Barrow's antics.
There was a massive building near the center of the city. It rose as high into the sky as the others, even taller than those around it, but the length and width were impressive too. This dwarfed even the greatest of our structures and it seemed to be our destination. Guide led us up the steps towards the front door and was stopped by professionally dressed security personnel. Again, this place was not very different from our own world.
After a short, hushed discussion, we were granted entry. We were each given a green wristband, very similar to the pink ones given to guests at hospitals, and ferried inside. The sideways glances we received within were far sharper than I had seen outside. We were not welcome in the city, but much less in the heart of their home, whatever "they" were. I counted myself lucky to discover that they had elevators. Of course, that seems obvious to assume, but we had walked all the way to the building instead of driving. That took a while and made me nervous seeing as Em's father didn't seem to have a limit to his endurance. Guide pressed the top button of the elevator and so began our long ascent to the highest floor.
The design was the same even inside the building, right down to the interior of the elevator. Dark metal, trimmed occasionally with wood. It wasn't iron, obviously, otherwise Em's father would be in incredible pain. There wasn't a single scratch on any of the polished metal; it was like a dark mirror wherever I looked.
The lights shined with a hint of emerald green, as if to mimic the natural sheen trees made when the sun poured from their canopy. Finally the elevator doors opened into a short hallway. That hall had double doors that a well-dressed man opened at our approach. We had to show our wristbands, let the barcode be scanned, and only when each of us passed were we able to enter.
What we found inside was not meant for human eyes.
Have you ever driven up to a crossroads and stopped, but when you stare ahead it seems like everything is sort of... zooming out? Or sometimes in, I guess. Within the room was what amounted to a portal of sorts. I could circle the center of the room as much as I wanted, but if I got closer it just... kept going. I barely made a dent in the distance that separates me from the brilliant green eye that watched us. It was celestial in size, my mind knew that, dwarfing even our own planet. But how could that fit in a room?
This being was nearly identical to the terrible Eye of Gold and Crimson that I had spoken with all those months ago. It was garbed in a storm that could not be measured, arcs of emerald lightning flashed but seemed as tiny things from such a distance. But it did not speak with the mouths of discarded flesh like the Eye of Gold. Instead, there was a woman sitting between us and the nigh-infinite walk to the eye. She got up from the floor and turned to greet us.
"I am The Eilin Hae." She said.
Or he, I guess? They had all referred to The Eilin Hae as a man. Being in the presence of what amounted to a god did not have the effect one may have expected. She was... a person. In appearance, that is. I anticipated a powerful voice, one that would inspire me to bend a knee and hide my face. But, as far as intimidation, I felt as if I was meeting the CEO of some business.
"My lady." Our guide bowed. We followed suit, but the pronoun he used further confused me. "A forbidden ritual has latched itself onto my daughter and these common people with me. We ask to visit the Infinite Sight."
When she stepped forward, she was no longer drowned by the green eye's countenance. It was only then that I saw her eyes burned with a similar light. When she spoke, that same glow was escaping from the depths of her throat, as if some great emerald fire burned at her core. That fixed my mind's mistake in relating her to a person. Those eyes... I felt like staring into them would burn mine out, blind me like the sun itself. But blind more than just my vision, blind my spirit and will entirely.
"Even if I accepted, your daughter is not human. Who is to say if the Infinite Sight has seen her? It belongs to wyr only."
"Even we were once wyr, my lady, were we not?"
She considered this. "An interesting thought. What reason would I allow this? What will you offer me in return?" The Eilin Hae's gaze abandoned Guide and fell to Nomic. "What can a lost man offer when he doesn't know his own name?" Then Em. "Or a girl who has no people?"
Then finally, she looked upon me. "But this is interesting." Then she came closer. She wore long robes of dark gray. Stitches of deep green made patterns all over her garb, an outfit of a deeply religious zealot. Every step seemed sacred, with the potential to bring any of us to our end. I did not know the meaning of the title "god" until I faced that gaze. But it was not hers, it belonged instead to the endless power that spoke through her.
"One that doesn't know his name, one that doesn't know her people, and one that I do not know. What sort of company have you brought me, Eruli?" I didn't remember falling to my knees, but there I was. She knelt to meet my gaze. "You know things, things you shouldn't know. There are machines that rely on the tiniest piece to run at all. If that tiny piece is removed, it falls apart."
Her hands were warm, she took mine and held them. "You have seen the abomination? The Eye of Two Colors?" I nodded, my tongue tied up in my mouth. "There is one that shall bear that golden gaze but, unlike my emerald eyes, that power will be at their command. I am simply the devout of the Eye of the Wilds."
"What do you want?" I finally asked.
She smiled. "That you keep your word. Write."
For reasons I still don't know, I found myself crying. Write? Write?! I keep being told to do that, and I am writing, but I know they weren't talking about this series of updates. There was something more and no one wanted to give me answers. "You... you aren't the first to ask. Write what?"
"You will know very soon. The Infinite Sight will allow you to see." She stood. "He is permitted to go. The others have nothing worth offering, so they may leave."
That wasn't enough of an answer for me. Waiting was done; I came here to fix my arm and find answers, to start my search for Selene. Cryptic instructions would not do. But Em's Father, who the Eilin Hae had called Eruli, clenched his fist. He barely held himself back, struggling to remain on his knees. "But... but my daughter will-"
"We all go, or I won't." I bargained my own importance. I could choose not to write whatever it was they found so important. "I won't go to the light."
Eilin Hae stared at me for a time before she finally spoke. "What is most curious about you, Axel White, is that you deem yourself a Fatewriter of more than just the story alloted to you. How is it your right to judge the fate of these with you?"
"How is it yours?"
"A wise answer. This is your bargain, I will accept."
Ramata had warned me not to listen to the devil that would come for me. She hadn't begged anything of me, however, so I accepted the deal. "Then I will go, but they will come with me."
She nodded and her eyes began to burn with further brilliance. The green wristbands we wore glowed in response. "And there is evidence of my permission. You may-"
Suddenly we were all knocked to the ground, the entire building shook as if it caught in a whirlwind. Even the Eilin Hae fell, striking the hardwood floor with a thud. She quickly recovered. "You brought it here!"
Before we could ask her what, the top of the building was peeled away. There were cloudy, gray skies on the horizon but above us was a black abyss. Deep in that darkness was a golden gaze, wreathed in a terrible storm, burning with a crimson glow. The Eye of Gold and Crimson had arrived.
"Leave!" Eilin Hae roared.
Flesh fell in squishing lumps. It looked like... chicken, blended with bloody ground beef. In mere seconds those clumps shaped themselves into poor imitations of living creatures. Those limbs were meant to be legs, but they barely supported the misshapen figure that tried to balance on them. More formed. Some had giant mouths, much like I had seen before, and others eyes or ears. There were no speeches this time, though. Instead the mouths simply babbled nonsense as they charged. We had only seconds to process this before the first abomination got its limbs around a nearby security personnel. The wad of flesh ripped off pieces of the Elwae with ease and, by merely touching the detached flesh, turned it into a mush that it threw to the side.
It took only moments to reduce him to a lump of flesh, only a gurgled cry later and he was gone.
Em's father grabbed my arm firmly, revealing that I was the only one stuck in place. So mesmerizing was the impossible sight that I had forgotten about my own life, which was clearly in peril. Even without the minions of the Eye of Gold, I would die. The building was coming down!
Against all my instincts, I followed Em's father and the others into a deathbox that was the elevator. It was the only way down, aside from jumping. Every time it shook, I was certain we were dead. Every shutter brought a prayer to my lips, but I didn't know what I was even praying to. Something listened, however, as the doors finally opened to a chaotic ground floor.
The front doors were shattered and there was no longer any security at the door. The city was full of screams. Cars were wrecked all along the full streets and fires burned everywhere.
Over the chaos, Em's father took charge. "Leave! We leave the city!" He put his hands in front of him and grasped at air, then pulled the empty space in front of him apart. As if tearing the fabric of reality, he ripped open a hole in the air. A boom, like thunder exploding just overhead, nearly burst my eardrums. Nomic and I were knocked to the ground, but Em seemed more ready.
I couldn't hear anymore, but I could see that Em was fighting her father. All my ears could do was ring. He grabbed her by the collar, ignored her scratching and fighting, and threw her into the hole. She went flying and I lost sight of her. Em's father then dragged me to my feet and I was shoved inside, followed by Nomic.
Just as my hearing was coming back, the hole slammed in on itself and shattered my senses once more. But when I came to, I realized that Em's father had not come along. We were back in the woods, who knows how far away from the city, and we no longer had our guide. Em screamed at the air.
My hearing was coming back again. "What... what happened?"
"He's still there." Em began to cry. "He is still in the city. You can't use your own portal... there isn't a way for him to follow."
"We don't have Barrow either." Nomic rubbed his ears hard. "We have to go back."
"How? I can't open portals."
"Portals? I didn't even know portals existed until today! You know more than the rest of us. If you can't do that... then we walk. That is how we got there, after all." I answered.
She shook her head. "Only pixies know the way."
This mission was about more than saving myself. I needed to find Selene and that meant I needed to be alive. "Your father himself said y'all aren't pixies. He called himself an Elwae. You aren't a pixie and you aren't a human, you are an Elwae like the rest of them. You can do this. Take us back."
"How?"
"I don't care how!" I snapped. I know, bad timing, but is there a good time to break? "Do something, quit asking for guidance! We. Don't. Know! Barrow is still there and we are still marked! I only have more questions, no answers!" We still had our wristbands. "This is our key. We go back and you'll lead us to the light under the city."
"I don't know if I can." Lifted her hands, her fear driving her defensive stance. "I've never gone to the city on my own."
"Did you take any potions with you?"
Em's eyes widened slightly. That was answer enough. "No more pretending. You can't hang inbetween, you'll take your true form. Like your father said, you are not a pixie."
"Then why am I small?!" She screamed, hands in her hair. "Why aren't I like anyone else?!"
"I DON'T KNOW! You are part Elwae, so start walking!" I looked to Nomic, who was still rubbing his ears. It was only then that I realized my own aggression. Taking a deep breath usually helps; it did not fail me. "Look, we don't have a choice. If you can't take us there, you can't take us home either. Just... just start walking. That is a good place to begin."
She didn't seem to like it, but there wasn't anything else to try. Em led us into the forest in a random direction. We had only two hopes; that her blood would lead her, or that luck would be on our side.
---------------------------------------
There is far more to tell, obviously, but that seems like a good stopping point. Kinda shitty, I know, but you'll get the rest in time. I've got a plane to catch; there was a 4chan post about a strange blue mark on some guy's wrist. Could be nothing, but I managed to set up a meeting. Writing time is up and I'll be back in a few days. This could be the one, guys.
Sorry to keep everyone waiting this long. When I am finished writing, you'll understand. Until then, be safe. There is a terrible eye on us all.

Tonight I write this in bed while laugh-crying at my predicament and waiting for my meds to kick in. I hope I can complete this before the stronger stuff kicks in, so please forgive me ify spelling or grammar degrades as this goes on.
Now let me paint a background for you. I'm a Pharmacy Technician in my late 30s who has a decade of experience. I have spent the last half of that time trapped in my job without a meaningful vacation with my wife mostly due to the big C as a primary reason for the drought. In that time, I have puttered away poring pills and building medication packs for the community. My job is making sure every pill for every patient is dosed correctly and taken at the right time. After all, the difference between medicine and poison is: dosage.
This goes for myself as well, I would put my own compliance package as a medium difficulty due to the wide variety I take. Migraines, Chronic Kidney Disease, and Mental Health are just a few conditions to name so a missed or double dose has the potential to cause quite a problem with compounding interest if it isn't corrected immediately. Having made this mistake to myself in my youth, I have very uncomfortable memories to remind me why compliance packaging done by our dispensary is built and scrutinized so thoroughly.
With the seriousness of my job in one hand, and the seriousness of my conditions in the other hand, surely I would take my own compliance packaging the most serious of all. Right?
...Right?
Well, it would seem that even a Pharmacy Tech has that annoying flaw that all professionals seems to have. A high standard for quality control for everyone... But themselves... Because Today, I was an extra special case of fucked up!
When I built my second pack for the trip, I made a mistake. I didn't put in my propranolol in at all. This is a cornerstone treatment to PREVENT MIGRAINES. Considering it's the only teal colored tablet in my packt, let alone blue or green in shading, a rational person would think that such a striking omission would be noticed.
Again, I am my own special case of dumbass. I do as many others do, just blindly take pills without much thought. So clearly because I'm writing this, I found out the hard way on the first day. Right?
...Right...?
Again, Technician Dumbass over here didn't pay attention. I decided to attribute my migraine from traveling up and down rough roads and roaming in and out of storms in top of eating foods I'm not used to, all classic migraine triggers that can break through my prevention routine. It's a sad fact but very few gets 100% prevention efficacy so this theroy is very plausible. So by day two or three I would be suspicious of an unresolved migraine or SEE THE MISSING PILL. RIght?
RIGHT???
NOPE! Pharm McDumbass me missed it, AGAIN. How could this happen? My heart should be doing the headless chicken dance from withdrawal by now. Well, yes it absolutely did! In what possible reality could I not notice such a profound symptom?
Because to fight the migrane, I take ever increasing amounts of caffeine! So my McBrain determined that to be why it was weird. Again, perfectly reasonable assumption! Surely however with both my head and heart getting progressively worse to the point where I am having anxiety, heart palpitations, a resting heart rate of 90-110, a throbbing arterial pulse from neck to temple, and now hallucinations I would by now at least seek professional medical help. RIGHT??
RIGHT?????
NOPE! Of course not! This is isn't only a TIFU story, it's a TWIFU story! This Week I Fucked Up! I didn't see anyone because as I said, I'm traveling! I'm in bumfuck nowhere and the nearest ER is a six hour drive away! Yet with my heart wanting to exit my chest and bitch-slap me back to reality, one would assume that I'd at least make sure I didn't miss any doses, to look in my box and notice a very easy to see error. Right?
Ri- OF COURSE NOT!
I had an asthma attack on day four so I took a hit off my rescue inhaler on top of 400mg if caffeine in 4 hours. So yeah, my lizard brain saw my heart flipping around like a fish in desert sand as perfectly reasonable!
By day FIVE I FINALLY DECIDED TO LOOK AT MY PILLS!
DAY
FIVE
I looked at my pills in hand, then at the remaining slots, then back at my hand,and back at the slots. Nope! No Propranolol!
Samuel L Jackson, eat your heart out because the F-Bomb parade I issued in that moment of pain-indiced hysteria was absolutely legendary. It was there, in that moment, did I realize that 5 days of my vacation was crippled by my failure to be a professional to myself, and pay attention.
TLDR: I managed to count to potato with my pills for almost a week and make a third of my vacation a pain-indiced hallucination to forget.

Original itinerary here for reference. We planned this trip primarily with Halal food in mind, along with regular sight-seeing locations + shopping for Switch games, clothes, and souvenirs
Overall notes / Takeaways * I rate our trip a 9/10. It was a great time with the authentic halal Japanese food, seeing all the cool sights & places, and experiencing a very nice environment + culture.

• The amount of researching / pre-planning can be a double-edged sword. Things that were unexpected were some of the best experiences. At the same time, if we tightened our itinerary and squared away some details better: we could have saved some cash, lessened on-the-spot deliberations / route planning; and perhaps, squeezed a few more places to visit.
  
• This is where the 1 point ding comes in, especially not realizing until after-the-fact that the 14 day JR Pass was not cost efficient for us, especially with our hotel locations utilizing local lines + purchasing two separate pieces of luggage whereas instead, we should have just brought them from home. (If we had our luggage situation better planned, we would have shopped a bit differently.) This 1 point ding is not a deal breaker at all, and we’re still super happy with the trip.
  
• For our trip with the Halal dietary restriction, it would have been helpful to pickup a sim card for a Japanese phone # to make some reservations ourselves and taxi’ing around in Kyoto when we got tired of walking around. At the end of some of the shopping trips, the 10-15 minute walk back to the hotels were very tiring, and the cost estimates on Google didn’t seem too expensive for short trips.
  

First part of the trip - East side of Tokyo: Asakusa FRI 5/5 Arrival HND arrival was around 2pm, and we got to the hotel around 6:30pm. From there: We were able to start off our trip with Ramen for dinner @ Ayam-ya Halal Ramen Tokyo –> Senjo-jii and Nakamise Street at night (which was not crowded at all at night)

• Airport sidenotes: If you do the JapanWeb form online, make sure to complete it all the way until you get the QR code. I had started the day prior, but didn’t realized I left it incomplete. So we had to step out of line to manually hand-write. Also, we didn’t realize there’s two sets of lines / forms: the first for customs entry and second for customs declarations.
  
• SAT May 6: Edo Castle Ruins –> Tokyo Station (Ghibli, JUMP, Pokemon stores which were all super packed with long lines) –> (walked to Ginza and attempted late lunch at Ginza Tendon Itsuki, but line was too long and we went to MOS burger instead) → Tokyo Skytree Mall (first Takoyaki for my wife here! Some souvenir shopping here) –> Akihabara at night for videogame/anime trinket shopping → Antep Kebab Akihabara for dinner
  
• Sun May 7: Ueno Park –> Akihabara again –> Sushi lunch @ Sushiken Asakusa –> (skip daytime Senso-jii due to rain, and instead return to hotel) –> Yakiniku @ Wagyu Yakiniku Panga –> Rescue Cat Cafe Asakusa Nekoen
  
• Mon May 8: Early AM laundry @ hotel (only did this once), chill (play some Switch games) & Depart hotel (decided against baggage transport this time) –> Tokyo Station and some Ekiben from Ekibenya Matsuri –> Shinkansen
  

Notable Highlights Part 1:

• Ueno Park was our favorite part from this portion of the trip - even though it was raining, there were so many unexpected sights! We thought Edo Castle Ruins would be closer to like how Ueno Park was.
  
• Getting lucky at the halal yakiniku place for dinner without a reservation! Being there at open and the rain may have helped.
  

Notable Mid-light:

• Going to Akibahara twice since the first time where second trip ended up mostly window shopping. The first night, I tried using Google Translate photos on the rows of Switch videogames. This was not efficient, and after the first night, learned it was better to physically and manually go through each game and ask the cashiers if they had specific games with photos/screenshots instead.
  
• We went to different stores each day, and it was really only the first night where we actually bought stuff. I did not find collector Switch steelbooks which I was specifically keeping an eye out for. We didn’t find much luck anime trinkets we wanted here, and instead found those at the next part of our trip.
  
• Notable Low-light: Even though the mall was fun for shopping and there was a festival ongoing, we were unable to reserve actual Tokyo Skytree Towers tickets. This stung a bit since this was after missing lunch at our original place. IIRC, I got stuck on the mobile webpage where it asked for a phone # that needed to be a JP #...although checking now, it doesn’t seem to ask for it.
  

Second part of the trip: Kyoto * Mon May 8 continued: Hotel arrival around 4pm –> Downtown Kyoto shopping (Surugaya) and clothes @ Coco → 7/11 dinner (taxi here would have been really helpful to go to once of the local restaurants, as I started getting foot pains)

• Tues May 9: Gion & Nanzaka, light street food for lunch, including better street Takoyaki –>(skip Philosopher's Path and Central Kyoto area) –> went straight to Kinkakuji –> Downtown Kyoto (luggage, insole, not much luck at more games/anime trinkets at this time) –> South Asian @ MABRUR for early dinner –> called it an early afternoon due to fatigue/foot pain (finally installed the insoles this night with borrowed scissors from front desk)
  
• Wed May 10: Bus to Arashiyama –> Bamboo Forest –> (Missed the Sagano train, did not appear open) –> chill at the Katsura riverside instead → Japanese curry @ Yosiya –> Monkey Forest Hike –> (skip boat ride due to closure / high water levels) –> Fushimi Inari –> chill at Kamo River on our return to hotel –> called it an early afternoon with private onsen reservation waiting for us at hotel
  
• Thurs May 11: chill (play more switch games) and pack in the AM (we used luggage transfer this time) → Ramen @ Ayam Ya Karasuma Kyoto prior to Kyoto departure (which turned out to be her favorite meal from this whole trip) –> Back to Shinkansen
  

Notable Highlights Part 2: * Experiencing all the nature on WED was our favorite part of this portion, especially the rivers! We did not realize the “20 minute walk” would end up a 45 minute hike as we were not prepared, but it was a very fun going up and taking breaks at all the stops.

• We did not expect downtown Kyoto to be as lively and cool at night as we saw it, since we mostly researched the traditional parts of this city beforehand; and we did not expect Kyoto to be where we’d get a lot of our shopping done. The Surugaya here had the most Switch games I purchased at best prices (and the anime bins for trinkets as souvenirs, my wife had a lot of fun here); Gion had a lot of other souvenirs; and downtown had a lot of clothes.
  
• Notable Low-light*: fatigue and foot pain at the end of those days when we did a lot of shopping, especially traveling between different stores (not all of which didn’t have what we were looking for, like the extra Bookoffs and Lashingbangs we visited). Some benches really would have helped. We did buy Dr. Schwartz insoles and cooling pads for our feets at the pharmacy stores here, which helped with some exhaustion, but not all.
  

Last part of the trip: Shibuya/Shinjuku * Thurs May 11 continued: Reach Shibuya @ 6:30pm → Shibuya Scramble once –> Walk to Yakiniku @ GYUMON –> back to Shibuya Scramble and see Hachiko + Tower Record –> grab Chestnuts –> Starbucks at night with upper view of Shibuya crossing

• Fri May 12: Diet Building Observatory (no luck with viewing Mt. Fuji due to clouds, even on the Shinkansen rides) –> Ramen @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae –> Friday Congregational Prayer @ Tokyo Camii Center –> Harajuku & Takeshita Street (heavy snack with fried cheese stick + cotton candy) → back to Shibuya Crossing → Shibuya Mega Don Quijote (lots of shopping here) –> (missed the Pokemon Center) → picked up some takehome kebab from near Shibuya crossing → back to the hotel early afternoon/night due to rain and bags full of purchases
  
• SAT May 13: Shinjuku Bookoff (notable for large inventory, but not too cheap compared to Surugaya Kyoto) –> Omoide Ally short walk –> Godzilla @ Toho –> Kabukicho short walk (was looking for the large entrance side, but did not find) –> Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden (just the north part, mainly the Botanical Garden) –> Ramen @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae –> Nakano Broadway –> Golden Gai (was super crowded, left halfway) –> Uniqlo –> Shinjuku Don Quijote (mainly for luggage scale that we missed) –> Surugaya –> Subway for dinner since we were not able to get in Zen restaurant for vegetarian or seafood okonomiyaki
  
• Sun May 14: Tokyo Tower (one of the only reservations we made) –> Tsujiki Outer Market for light lunch (we ate only at places with small/no lines, everywhere else was packed) –> Odaiba & Diver City Mall + Gundam Base + Gundam Unicorn –> skip lunch for some crepes and banana smoothie, even though there were halal meat places around → (skip teamLabs that we didn’t end up reserving for) → Surugaya Shinjuku (last shot at games/trinkets) –> last Ramen @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae –> sad walk back to hotel, but also relief knowing that we’ll be done with all the walking soon.
  
• Mon May 15: finish packing –> taxi to airport (through Booking.com where we made hotel bookings) –> kebab lunch @ Mrs. Istanbul (had to utilize bus transfer between terminals after luggage dropoff) → final souvenir snack shopping inside airport → Depart back home to LAX!
  

Notable Highlights Part 3:

• The Ramen with the Fried Chicken @ Honolu Shinjukugyoenmae was my favorite meal, especially coming back to it so many times!
  
• Friday congregational prayer at Tokyo Camii Center: the sermon was done in 4 different languages (Arabic first, then Japanese, then Melay I think, then English) - that impressed me along with its architecture. It was such a peaceful and familiar experience in a new environment. They gave out some food after (rice+natto I believe plus sesame ball sweets I believe), although we passed since we were still full.
  
• Shibuya Scramble was always fun to walk across! Busiest crosswalk in the world!
  
• Tower Tokyo tour was the nicest tower experience that I’ve had (they served us Lemonade!) and my wife got to take a photo with the Tokyo Tower Mascot, Noppon.
  
• Mega Don Quijote at Shibuya to finish up the bulk of our shopping, especially on souvenirs! Especially picking up Zelda Tears of Kingdom at release day!
  
• Gundam Base & live Gundan Unicorn transformation @ Odaiba Diver City! My wife went into it mostly blind, and was very impressed.
  

Noteable Mid-light: Harajuka and Takeshita street were cool to window browse, but we didn’t find anything we actually wanted to purchase here. It made me realize, like our second time at Akihabara, that window shopping isn’t as fun as actual shopping. -Aside from the Gundam @ Odaiba, we didn’t get too excited about anything else here. If we visited here first / sooner, we may have had a better time (along with keeping an eye out for more Gundam merch earlier throughout the trip). There was a nearby amusement center that was on our original plan to visit too. But at this point, I think we ran out of gas.
Notable Low-light: * The last hotel for me, especially with its location being furthest out from nearest station and not being as nice as the first two hotel.

• The Subway sandwiches (shrimp and tuna respectively) were pretty sad on SAT, although the potato fries they gave were okay (we forgot to ask for ketchup). There was another halal yakiniku place nearby that we stopped by in front of, but decided against it as we wanted something quicker / more casual.
  
• Though not part of the actual trip, on upon LAX arrival: the lack of cleanliness, customer service and organization were immediately noticeable, which reflected on how nice Tokyo & Kyoto were!
  

Other notes

• Biggest shoutout to my wife for being with me and her patience, especially while Switch game hunting and being chaotic while planning!
  
• Hotels: all our hotels were listed as 3 star hotels. We learned that every minute walk closer to the nearest station(s) really makes a difference – i.e. a 5 min walk back to the hotel wasn’t as bad as a 7-8 minute walk, and 10-12 minute walks back where the worst. We did keep an eye on square footage for the rooms (wanted to avoid less than 150 feet² for 2 people). We averaged around $95 USD per night.
  
• Henna Tokyo Hotel - Asakusa was a very nice hotel, especially with the animated front desk and great first time with bidets and warm toilet seats which the other hotels did not have. 183 feet² which felt small but sufficient.
  
• Second hotel - Kyomachiya Ryokan Sakura Urushitei in Kyoto - was a bit further from local bus points, but this was also a very nice hotel, especially as a Ryokan with great customer service and hidden shelve compartments in the room. We also did not expect a 2nd floor for the private garden view, which was also very nice. 156 feet² would have been small by itself, but pretty sure this does not account for the 2nd floor.
  
• Our last hotel, Cloud Himalaya felt like a re-designed local apartment, so it didn’t feel as nice, but it was the most spacious @ 291 feet². It was the furthest away from the local stops/stations. It was a low-light for me, especially compared to the first two hotels. My wife thought it was okay though: she thought it was comfy and the space inside the room made up for it.
  
• -Local Transportation: We only got on the wrong train once, and it was on our first night when leaving HND airport. For the rest of the trip, we didn’t have much issues. The learning curve for us was short to navigate the trains with GoogleMap, by looking at train departure times on our phone directions and platform # to match info listed on the electronic train station boards that have or switch into English.
  
• Even if we took an extra min or two to verify the train/bus to take, and we missed a train that was right in front of us, the trains were frequent enough such that it wasn’t a long delay – usually 5-8 mins at most. Having very little reservations in our itinerary helped in this aspect.
  
• The GoogleMaps LIVE view on directions was a useful feature in finding bus stops, especially in Kyoto and Shibuya/Shinjuku.
  
• Phone Plan: We decided against one Ubigi and one Airalo data plan and just got two Ubigi data plans. Overall, we used only 4-5 GBs each out of the 10 GBs available. Ubigi worked well throughout the 10 days. As noted earlier, having a JP phone # would have been helpful.
  
• Flights: standard flight experience with Delta - around $750 USD roundtrip for each of us. The lack of space didn’t bother us too much except when fumbling around with the meal trays. We requested special accommodations for Halal food on the HND inbound flight, and they provided vegan food which we didn’t enjoy that much (i.e. PICKLE SANDWICH!).
  
• On the return flight to LAX, we did not put in any special accommodations and had a better time with their regular vegetarian food (although the pasta salad was very creamy and the Hagan Dazs they gave were slightly melted).
  
• Language: We were able to get away with just using from sumimasen and arigato for the most part, and used English/non-verbal language most of the trip otherwise.
  

*more review/input on food commented in original plan here