Welcome back to my 2023 Japan Adventure blog series!
Last time, we enjoyed the guided excursion into Akita that was provided by our cruise
line, Silversea. This time, I'll share our subsequent self-guided exploration
of the area.
Wednesday 23 March 2023 - Akita Exploration
I was way into Pokémon GO at this time (I played the whole way 'round
Japan, getting lots of new PokéStops!), so I was stoked to find this
vending machine holding a promotional event! 🤩
Inside the
Akita Port Tower Selion, there was a scale model of the tower! The real thing is the
tallest building in the northern Tohoku region 🤯
From the observation deck at the top of the tower, we could see our
ship! 🛳️
Our home at sea for two weeks, the Silver Muse, in Akita!
At a Selion restaurant, we got to try an Akita specialty:
kiritanpo
(きりたんぽ) 🤤
These naturally vegan snacks were made with pounded rice and slathered
in white miso! YUM!
Next we visited the Selion Rista, which is a sort of indoor botanical
garden and recreation space located right next to the tower.
We were late for most of the flowers (they seem to bloom very early
since they're indoors!) but there were still a few beautiful displays
like this 🌼
A view from the upper level of all the lovely greenery! There
weren't many people, so we nearly had it all to ourselves.
I enjoyed my walk through this quiet and refreshing space 🌳
Here's another one of those artistic manhole covers that I enjoyed
spotting all over Japan! This one is from 秋田土崎港 (Tsuchizaki-Minato, Akita).
With our last bit of time before all aboard, we enjoyed a seaside stroll
back to the ship, along a pathway studded with various statues and
monuments.
I couldn't find any information online about these monuments, but they
are easy to find in person, since this area is part of the walking path
from the cruise terminal to the tower 🚶♀️
Akita's epic farewell performance featured namahage taiko drummers!
The view of the area as dusk fell was magical ✨
The tower is regularly lit up at night. We got to see the green version!
The grand finale, set off as we cruised out of port, was a fireworks
display! 🎆
After an excellent day exploring, it was time for dinner!
Getting dressed up for dinner was a hassle, but the result was fun!
Vegan pizza! 🍕 If I could do this cruise again, I'd order this more often!
After dinner, we enjoyed dessert from the Arts Café and did the daily
crossword puzzle before heading back to our cabin to rest up for our next
stop: Aomori! I'll share more about it next time, so please look forward to
it. Until then, may you be happy, healthy, and safe 💖
Spring has sprung here at Studio Mikarts! In fact, today promises to be more
like summer, hot and cloudless ☀️ Thank you for taking some time to catch up
with me this fine day! Here's what I got up to in March.
Patreon Rewards
I decided to delay sending Patreon rewards, since I was very close to reaching
a nice, reward-worthy stage in my onomatopoeia bees illustration. I just need
to finish cleaning up these lines and they will be sent as postcards to all my
Pen Pals and Writers! Here's the last round of work I did on it as of today:
Patreon is the best way you can support my creative work. If you love what I
do,
please sign up
for as little as $5 USD a month 🥰
deviantART
The piece I'd like to feature this time is the chibi caricature I created of
my friend's OC, Kara Di'ren. I don't chibify humans as often as other animals,
so this was fun practice!
Did you know you can commission me for your own chibi caricature? I can
chibify pretty much any animal, real or imagined! Just
click here
to learn more.
Livestreaming
I kicked off March with a special event: a Suikoden launch party! It was part
of the Suikoden Day celebration of the
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster release. Suikoden is my favorite game
ever, so I had the best time during the launch party 🥳 Day one was fan art,
day two was Suikoden I, and day three was Suikoden II.
Twitch is another platform where you can support my creative work.
Please subscribe here!
Charity Fundraising
Our charity of the month was
Animal Alliance Asia
and in March, thanks to a big turnout for the Suikoden launch party, we set a
new unique viewers record of 53!!!
✨🎊5️⃣3️⃣🎊✨
My donation formula is $0.10 USD per unique viewer, min $10, max $100, so that
meant a $10 donation to Animal Alliance Asia 💸
Thank you to everyone who joined me in March and helped make my livestreams
more meaningful 💚 I hope you'll
join me
again this month, too!
Gryphia Progress
Last month, I continued to work through the second draft of chapter two of my
fantasy novel. I didn't make much forward progress but I came up with some
excellent ideas that will affect the entire story and required further
revision of chapter one to incorporate.
This project is purposefully slow-going and I am really excited to continue
working on it every day so that I can one day share it with the world 😄
Other News: Media Cull & Reorganization
As a way to earn some money for future travel adventures, I undertook a
massive cull of my media collection! This included my books, games, music, and
video. A nice side-effect was getting to reorganize what I kept ✨
My otome and CD shelves, with Kiki 🐈
My Harry Potter & Co. and Tolkien shelves, with Aoife 🐕
It was great to earn some money and make some space by selling things that I
no longer wanted. It also meant that the things I kept get to
shine all the brighter!
🌟🌟🌟🌟
And that's it for this roundup. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading
until the end! Until next time, may you stay happy, healthy, and safe ❤️
Welcome to the next entry in my Japan Adventure series! These posts recap the
days my husband and I spent in 2023, cruising around mainland Japan, and our
time in Osaka before and after ✨
Last time, we departed from Niigata and sailed to Akita! A lot happened during our
single day in the prefecture, so this post will focus only on the guided
excursions that were organized by Silversea. Let's go!
Wednesday 23 March 2023 - Akita Excursions
As became my wont, I took another photo of the beautiful morning sea 💙
"Welcome to Akita" at the Akita Cruise Terminal!
This unmissable landmark is
Akita Port Tower Selion
😮 More about it in the next installment 😉
Our ship was welcomed with an awesome performance of traditional music
💖
A delegation of stylish and friendly "Akita Tourism Ladies" greeted us,
too 🖤
It wouldn't be a trip to Akita without meeting some of the namesake dogs
🐶✨
A huge theme in this area is the namahage 👹 In front of two massive
namahage statues, this sign states their
UNESCO designation as intangible cultural heritage. Also captured in this photo was something I loved seeing all over
Akita: wind turbines!
Our first destination was the Mt. Kanpu "Panorama Sky Park" Rotating
Observation Deck (寒風山回転展望台) in Oga. We took a tour bus up the mountain.
At the top of the observatory, you can sit and literally watch the world
go by, as the seats revolve around the room 😮 There are several maps
which point out visible landmarks. This was one of the few opportunities
I had during this trip to simply sit and sketch the scenery 🖊️✨
There was much more to see inside the observatory, which is also a
museum. These included a huge kokeshi doll, a dugout canoe, and this 3D
map of the area!
I loved this adorable sculpture outside the building. It's called
Namahage-kun (ナマハゲ君) which in this case can be translated to
something like Little Namahage.
The museum helpfully offers an English information pamphlet ✨
There were tons of cool exhibits, including this room with screens
displaying a variety of videos, installed in these wooden posts 🤯
Part of the museum included a namahage experience inside a traditional
thatch-roof house!
We were offered tablets that let you choose your language and read about
the experience before it unfolds. This is an incredible feature!
An exhilarating and unforgettable experience 👹✨ I highly recommend it
if you get a chance to visit the Namahage Museum!
I learned that the straw that falls from the namahage's traditional
coats after their visit is considered lucky for study if you tie it
around your head 🤓✨
My husband, Sean, posing with some namahage 👹
And my pose!
One of the most breathtaking exhibits was this room full of namahage!
At the shrine shop, they had namahage masks you could don for photos!
Namahage Sean 👹✨
I adore the lion-dogs (こまいぬ) at Shinto shrines. Today I learned the
Japanese name for them means Ancient Korean Dog 🤯
That's it for this post but not for our adventures in Akita! I'll be back soon
with part 2, including our self-guided exploration of Akita Port Tower Selion.
Please look forward to it and, until next time, stay happy, healthy, and
safe~❤️
