Intercultural Tokyo Trip: Reflection

6.2.2023 - 12.2.2023 / Week 5
Sylvia Lau (0356130)

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Tokyo Trip - Reflection

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INSTRUCTION

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Reflection

It has been an amazing Tokyo Trip, as it was my first time traveling overseas without my family but with friends. During our data collection in Tokyo, we visited different places, such as Asakusa, Akihabara, Gotokuji, Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Harajuku. 

Since our group topic consisted of Gashapon, we had planned to visit Akihabara. There were lots of Gashapon machines there, and we could see them in every shop, street, and even alley. We found a Gashapon Toy Shop to experience dispensing a gashapon. The contents of the gashapon were very interesting and cute for me, as I like to collect cute and miniature things. Besides, we also visited the world's largest gashapon store in Ikebukuro, I was dazzled by the thousands of gashapon machines in that store. While dispensing a gashapon, I always pray hard just to hope I got the content that I wanted. If I got in one chance, it brightened my day and all of the sad things disappeared. If I didn't get the content I wanted, I would not give up until I got it. So, we literally spent a lot of time at the gashapon store and I did spend a lot during that day. 

During the week in Tokyo, I drew three times of Omikuji in Sensoji Temple. The first omikuji that I drew was a bad fortune, when I tied the slip at the specific zone I accidentally tear it off. Maybe because of that, I faced bad luck on the third day of the trip. I had knee pain and couldn't walk too fast. So, I couldn't focus on the visit to the museum and enjoyed the beautiful view in Roppongi. The second omikuji that I drew was bad fortune too, but this time I tied it beautifully so nothing bad happened during the following days. The third omikuji that I drew was The Best Fortune, I was so happy that I finally got good luck and hoped my leg recovered. 

My group members and I are getting to know each other more as we spent a lot of wonderful times together and experienced many different things together. I felt lucky to have a great team because they planned the trip efficiently so that we settled our data collection in two days' time, and enjoyed our free time in Tokyo. 

Overall, it was a fun and miserable trip for me, I did experience a lot on this trip, for example, learned how to travel to different places by train, some etiquette in restaurants, some Japanese language, and many other things about Japanese culture.