Late update because these past few months have been BUSY!! I dunno where to start! I did a lot of travelling, a lot of conventions, and have been working on a lot of different projects. Rather than doing a May & June combined update (Which would be very long…) I’m gonna update in three different posts; One to talk about Singapore and Osaka, one to talk about Dokomi and Qcon, and one to talk about the many projects I am currently working on! There is. So, so, so much I am working on.

Anyways!! Let’s talk about my time in Singapore and Osaka!

In May, I got to visit Singapore for the first time ever! It was never really a country I had planned to visit, but I love travelling and visiting new places so I was really excited to go. I was going to be tabling at Doujima, Singapore’s biggest convention! It’s entirely doujin goods/artists.

When going, I was surprised to notice just how many of my mutuals either were Singaporean or would be travelling to Doujima too! So I had lots of friends around me!

The trek to Singapore from Ireland was pretty long. I had to travel to Dublin first to the airport, then catch a flight from Dublin to Munich, then from Munich to Singapore.

We arrived at our hotel at like 5pm? And planned to go for a quick nap before heading out for the evening… But I just kinda passed out after all the travelling hahaha. I woke up at 1am and was like well I may as well just wait until the morning.

The view from our hotel window was so nice! I was so in awe in the taxi on the way to the hotel over the scale of the buildings… I’ve been to Tokyo twice but still always feel like city views like this aren’t even real. It’s so hard for my brain to process it.

The next morning, we head out to explore the city a bit!

Haji Lane was super close to our hotel, so we went there first. There are so many little photo booth spots in Singapore, they were so fun. We ended up going to a lot of them lol

We decided to walk from our hotel to Chinatown so we could see some sights and snoop around along the way! However. Our Irish bodies were not used to the heat and humidity. It was like. Always around 30°. A the humidity in Singapore is CRAZY… I’ll never complain about Japanese summer humidity again. Baby stuff compared to Singapore lol. And our Singaporean friends told us we were lucky, we apparently went during the coolest summer months. Right after we left, the temperatures rose even higher, too. So while we were walking we kept having to stop in malls and convenience stores to cool down. We just started using the bus after this which was great!! Public transport is so good in Singapore!

We visited a Buddhist Temple when we got to the Chinatown area! We weren’t allowed photos in some areas, but it was very beautiful. It was so ornate. There was a service going on while we were there, monks were chanting sutras.

We had a couple of days before the con to explore the city so we tried out all the hawker centres and just spent some time being tourists! Our hotel had a pool so we’d spend the hottest hours of the day there swimming!

On Friday, we set up for the con! Set up was really late in the evening – from 8pm until 12am if I remember correctly. So we swam in the morning then spent the day exploring the shopping mall which the convention centre was connected to.

It was like 1:30am when we got back to our hotel after setting up and we were so hungry but luckily in Singapore things are open so late! It’s my absolute favourite thing about being in Asian countries, things are open so late. Everything shuts down at 6pm where I’m from, then maybe 9pm-10pm for restaurants, so unless you wanna go to a pub there’s nothing really to do at night.

We were able to get this lovely Chinese meal at almost 2am… Life can be so beautiful.

Doujima itself was so much fun! The skill level of the artists there was absolutely insane compared to at home, I felt a bit underprepared, but it went well! I was so happy I got my Ooe doujin complete because I met so many Ooe fans at the con! All my months of drawing merch nobody in Ireland cares about paid off lol. All the artists and attendees were very kind, I was gifted so many things.

It was my first time ever tabling outside of Europe, but I felt really welcomed! All the customers I had were so enthusiastic and friendly and were really happy to see niche things they like and chat with me! All the other artists were so friendly too, I had so much fun meeting my mutuals T__T

I didn’t take many pics at the con I was busy busy… living in the moment. You just gotta trust me it was very fun!

I’d really really love to do Doujima again! I really want to visit Malaysia and Indonesia next time and maybe do Comifuro as well, but the currency conversion from SGD to GBP is not great… I had to price my work really low, so covering costs was a bit difficult. So I won’t go again next year, but I want to save and go the year after and make it a holiday and see more of Asia! I wish it was something I could go to every year, but travelling to Asia from Ireland is so ridiculously expensive cries…

Monday was our last full day in Singapore, and we decided to spend it at the aquarium!

In the evening, we went to Lau Pa Sat to finally visit the famous Satay Street. A very touristy day for our last day! We met with some friends from the US and ate a lot of Satay and chatted until way too late.

By the time we got back to our hotel, we packed our suitcases and didn’t have time to sleep at all before heading to the airport to catch our next flight.

From Singapore to Osaka, flights were ridiculously cheap, so we HAD to visit Japan while in Asia… My girlfriend’s best friend moved to Tokyo recently and we wanted to visit her, so she booked a week off to spend with us in Osaka!

It was only one 7 hour flight from Singapore to Osaka, and the flight only cost £150 !! Compared to the 14 hour, 2 flight, £1,200 trip from Ireland to Tokyo it was great.

We planned to nap once we got to the hotel and then start fresh the next day; we hadn’t slept in 36 hours. But well. I love going to Japan so much and hate to waste any time I spend there, so we ended up going out anyways lol.

I was really lucky that the day after we landed in Osaka, the Hashihime Collab Café began! I’ve been really really into ADELTA’s works since reading Ooe last May, so I was really happy I could catch an event! I managed to reserve a table for myself and my girlfriend, thanks to our friend in Tokyo letting us use her phone number.

I booked our table online and was able to choose a character to sit at the booth with me (they would be displayed on an LED screen). I chose Kawase for myself since he is my favourite LI, and Hakase for my girlfriend since he is my other favourite and my gf hasn’t played the game yet!

We queued up outside the café a couple of minutes before it opened and had to show our passports to validate our identities. When we were allowed in, we weren’t shown to our seats and they didn’t have our names on them, so we had to figure our which seats we were at… A lot of people chose Kawase, but my gf Sarah was the only person who chose Hakase so we were able to find our spot!

The café was totally empty aside from us who booked seats to be seated with a character, I guess those are the most popular spots.

We were able to order via a QR code for both the food and the merch, and then pay at the end. Which was dangerous… We could just keep buying stuff…

I was hoping to order Kawase’s menu item – which was a beef stew – but they didn’t have it available at the Osaka location, nor did they have the Frog Man ice cream! I ended up getting Tamamori’s omurice dish. Hanazawa’s dish looked a little more appealing, but he is one of my least fav characters so I went with Tamamori’s instead. I did get Kawase’s drink though, which was a lemon cola!

I had so much trouble eating the omelette because I hate eggs. I should have just gotten Hanazawa’s dish. I tried to eat the egg but I couldn’t take it any more and started just started trying to swallow it without tasting it, which made me feel sick for the rest of the day LMAO. I dunno why I did that. Autism makes me a pretty picky eater. I’m lucky I’m not a “chicken nuggets and chips” level picky eater, I eat pretty well, but when I don’t like a food I can’t force myself to like it, I get physically ill from it… Damn you Tamamori..!!!!!!

The café was in DenDen Town, so we pretty much spent our day wandering around and browsing the otaku stores! I was very strong and didn’t buy too much, wanting to save my money for the café. Until we went to Toranoana and found Ooe doujinshi…

In general, I didn’t have much luck figure hunting or eroge shopping on this trip? Which was good for my wallet, this was mostly a “hanging out with friends” trip and I didn’t intend to shop much anyway since my suitcase was full of my con display stuff and stock from doujima. But still! Last time I was in Osaka I found a lot of figures on my wishlist and a tonne of eroge so I was a little disappointed!

Still had loads of fun browsing the shops though!

In Animate, we were 3 weeks too early for the Ooe Gratte collab unfortunately. There were remnants of an “Ask and You Will Receive” collab though! All the merch and coasters were sold out, but we got to have yaoi drinks. Successful fujo day out.

The next day, our friend living in Tokyo came and we spent a few days together! Eating good food, exploring the city, going to karaoke, playing in Arcades, going to purikura… All that good stuff. I love love love how much there is to do in Japan that doesn’t involve drinking, even late at night.

We visited Osaka castle for the first time! It was very pretty and the weather was great, walking through the grounds was so pleasant.

We also went to a maid café for the first time! Every time I’ve been to Japan I’ve been too nervous to go to a maid café, since my Japanese is pretty limited. But it was so much fun, I can see how people get addicted to them! I wish I had been going to them this whole time! I’ll definitely be doing it again next time I go to Japan.

Our maid was named Chocolet and her English was great too, so we were all able to talk with her! The food was really good too! I usually have low expectations for collab cafés etc but all of our food was nice.

Other than those points, we kinda just spent our days hanging out and having fun together. It was so nice! We spent a bit more time looking through the otaku shops in DenDen town and went to Umeda too.

We had a side mission for a friend to get the elusive Chained Kong for him in Mandarake.

The staff found it pretty funny this was the only thing I was looking for. The staff member who found it for me went to the back, then came out and held him out in his hand proudly and said “KORA!!” rolling his R.

[NSFW IMAGE BELOW]

Some various other pics I have.

Our original flight home was cancelled and changed, so we had an extra day in Osaka. Which worked out, because it meant we could attend Nippombashi Street Festa! I had my Shimbashi and Tamamori cosplays with me from Doujima (though I never ended up wearing them), so I was able to participate and cosplay!

I decided to wear my Tamamori cosplay since it was pretty warm.

To paricipate in the event, we had to buy wristbands in DenDen Town. Then to cosplay, I had to get changed in a designated area. Visitors aren’t allowed to get into cosplay and travel to the event in cosplay; you need to gt changed there, and then change back before leaving.

The changing room was in a nearby shopping centre! It was really easy to locate. I thought there would be makeshift tents/curtains to change in, but nope it was just one big room with tape on the floor to section out zones for people to get changed! We were all just sitting on the floor changing and putting on makeup, it was a pretty funny image. Everyone in their wig caps, binders, corsets, tights dolling ourselves up with tiny compact mirrors on the floor.

I found out my contacts had dried out in my bag so unfortunately I didn’t have them for my cosplay and had to be brown eyed Tamamori.

Last time I was in Tokyo, there was a cosplay event on in Sunshine City. I couldn’t really ask people for photos though; I’m sure some cosplayers would be okay with it, but generally you don’t really ask for photos. Especially since I wasn’t participating in cosplay myself at that time. At Nippombashi Street Festa though, photography was encouraged, so I got a lot of photos!

The event was really chill and fun, people were selling beer and food on the streets and people were just hanging out around the streets in cosplay. It was nice how many people of different ages were attending! Whenever I’m in Japan, I always see women who seem 40 and above still indulging in hobbies and cosplay. I saw a mother cosplaying Makima with her two very young children as Pochita and Reze, and an older man who appeared to be in his 60s cosplaying Lupin III. You love to see it..!! I will also be an otaku forever! The Touhou meetup was absolutely huge. I think it was specifically a crossplay Touhou meet, it was entirely men cosplaying Touhou. I also saw someone cosplaying from Boogiepop Phantom!! My fav anime ever!! Their cosplay was clearly handmade with love! I was too shy to ask for a pic though.

The event was such a nice way to end our trip, it was really fun just walking around the streets and checking out everyone’s cosplays.

When in Japan, myself, Sarah, and our friend Sommer all bought a disposable camera each to take photos of our trip through different POVS! Unfortunately Sarah didn’t get hers digitally, and Sommer still hasn’t gotten hers developed so I only have mine for now…. But they turned out cute!

End…! For now.

I’d say this blog post is already rly long so I’ll leave it there for now. I miss being in Japan so much already. :”) I’m hoping to sell at an Ooe doujin event in August and attend Mirai, so fingers crossed that happens? But I’m gonna have to work very hard to save up for my flights so wish me luck!! I’m locking in this month so I can make it happen!

Thank you if you read this far! I’ll try get the 2nd and 3rd parts of my May/June update written soon..!!