Hi All -
We are a couple from Midwest USA who are visiting Japan from July 10th to August 1st. It will be my 2nd time to Japan, and my partner's first. I am including a bit from my first time in Japan, but a lot of new things as well - my first time was over 10 years ago and I was only able to spend a week, so merely scratched the surface compared to this go-around. Our itinerary has been scheduled so that we can hopefully be a part of some celebrations for different festivals going on: Mitama Matsuri in Tokyo, Gion Matsuri in Kyoto, and Tenjin Matsuri in Osaka. I have plotted most of this out on Google maps to form this itinerary that I think should work out, however, I am open to any help/suggestions I can get! One of my main concerns would be having something scheduled on a day it is closed, or having something scheduled on a bad day of the week, too late in the day, etc. and not knowing until we get there. I appreciate any assistance I can get, especially getting as close to our departure date as we are. Here is what I have planned so far (questions at the end):
​

• July 10: Leave from DFW
• July 11, Tokyo:
  • Late afternoon arrival
  • Pick up 21-day JR rail passes at HND
  • TA-Q-BIN luggage to hotel
  • Take Keikyu airport line to Higashi-Ginza station
  • Check into hotel.
  • Grab dinner around Higashi-Ginza station area
  • Stop by 100 yen store for a few things
  • Relax at hotel
• July 12, Tokyo:
  • Ghibli Museum
  • Inokashira Park
• July 13, Tokyo - Mitama Matsuri:
  • Koshikawa Korakuen Gardens
  • Yasukuni Shrine and surrounding area for Mitama matsuri
• July 14, Tokyo>Kyoto:
  • Check out & TA-Q-BIN luggage to Kyoto hotel
  • Shinkansen to Kyoto
  • Toji temple
  • Higashi Hongan-ji Temple
  • Check into hotel in Gojo station area.
• July 15, Kyoto - Gion Matsuri:
  • Rengeoin Sanjusangendo
  • Kiyomizu-dera
  • Hokan-ji
  • Yasaka Shrine
  • Gion
• July 16, Kyoto - Gion Matsuri:
  • Heian Shrine
  • Ginkakuji
  • Honen-in
  • MAYBE Anraku-ji if we think time will permit
  • MAYBE Reikan-ji if we think time will permit
  • Eikan-do (Zenrin-ji) Temple
  • Nanzen-ji Temple
  • Gion
• July 17, Kyoto - Gion Matsuri:
  • Shimogamo-jinja Shrine
  • Kyoto Imperial Palace
  • Nijo castle
  • Gion
• July 18, Kyoto:
  • Kinkaku-ji
  • Ryoan-ji
  • Ninna-ji
  • Kamigamo-jinja MAYBE
• July 19, Kyoto:
  • Tenryu-ji
  • Arashiyama bamboo forest
  • Jojakko-ji Temple
  • Gio-ji
  • Daikaku-ji
• July 20, Nara/Uji:
  • Higashimuki Shopping Street
  • Kofuku-ji MAYBE
  • Kasuga-taisha
  • Nara Park
  • Todai-ji
  • Byodoin
  • Fushimi Inari Taisha
• July 21, Kyoto:
  • Nothing planned yet
• July 22, Kyoto>Hiroshima, Miyajima:
  • Check out & TA-Q-BIN luggage to Osaka hotel
  • Shinkansen to Hiroshima
  • Atomic Bomb Dome
  • Peace Memorial Museum & Park
  • Bell of Peace
  • Take train to JR West Miyajima Ferry terminal
  • Ferry to Miyajima Island (Itsukushima)
  • Check into ryokan and eat dinner at ryokan
  • Maybe do some light exploring of the island
• July 23, Miyajima, Hiroshima>Osaka:
  • Eat breakfast and check out of ryokan
  • Itsukushima Jinja
  • Itsukushima Floating Tori Gate
  • Daishoin and some of the other places in this area
  • Pokemon Center on the way out of Hiroshima
  • Shinkansen to Osaka
  • Shinsaibashi-suji Shopping Street
  • Hozenji Temple
  • Dotonbori
  • Check into hotel in Namba area and retreive luggage
• July 24, Osaka - Tenjin Matsuri:
  • Sennichimae Doguyasuji Shopping street
  • Samuhara Shrine
  • Osaka Tenmangu
  • Pokemon Center Osaka
• July 25, Osaka - Tenjin Matsuri:
  • Shitennoji
  • Isshinji Temple
  • Abeno Harukas
  • Osaka Tenmangu again?
• July 26, Osaka>Tokyo; possibly Nagoya:
  • Check out & TA-Q-BIN luggage to Tokyo hotel
  • Shinkansen to Tokyo
  • Might stop off at Nagoya – not sure if time will allow/if the short time is worth it. If Nagoya stop happens:
    • Osu Shopping District
    • Pokemon Center Nagoya
    • Toyota Museum
  • Either do some light shopping in Ginza area, or go to Tsukiji Market – both are near the hotel.
  • Check into hotel
• July 27, Tokyo, Kamakura:
  • Hasedera
  • Kotoku-in
  • Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu
  • Maybe other temples/shrines in the area if there is time? (Sasuke Inari Shrine, Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine, Kencho-ji, Meigetsu-in, Engaku-ji)
• July 28, Tokyo:
  • Shinjuku
  • Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
  • Nakano Broadway
  • Omoide Yokocho
  • Shopping in Ikebukuro
  • Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo
• July 29, Tokyo:
  • Senso-ji
  • Kappabashi Dougu Street Ueno Park
  • Pokemon Center Sky Tree
• July 30, Tokyo:
  • Shibuya
  • Konno Hachimangu
  • Shrine Meiji Jingu
  • Harajuku
  • Yoyogi Park
• July 31, Tokyo
  • Akihabara for most of the day
  • Kanda Myojin Shrine
  • Pokemon Center Tokyo DX
  • Pokemon Store Tokyo Station
  • Tsukiji Market
• August 1, Tokyo departure – We will probably have to pay all fares on this day, I think my JR Pass will be done
  • Check out from hotel.
  • If I can TA-Q-BIN checked luggage, might bring carry on backpack with me for any last minute shopping.
  • Show up to airport a couple hours early for check in
  • HND>LAX>DFW

​

• Questions:
  • Would I receive luggage same day or next in Tokyo on the first leg? (from airport to hotel)
  • Does Pokemon Center on the way out of Hiroshima on the 23rd make sense, or should I just get this out of the way on the 22nd? If I do it on the 22nd, I assume I should wait until after the museums?
  • Do I have enough time for the stop off in Nagoya on the 26th? Should I make the effort to do this, or is it not worth it in the grand scheme of things?
  • Any recommendations for my open day in Kyoto on the 21st?
  • Do you think I will have enough time for Anraku-ji and Reikan-ji on the 16th? Should I make a great effort to make time for these two?
  • Do you think I should go to Kamigamo-jinja on the 18th?
  • Where else would you recommend that I go in Kamakura on the 30th, or do I have a full plate already with the 3 I have listed?
  • Am I able to TA-Q-BIN luggage to airport too, or do I just need to haul it with me? Good chance of having 2 checked bags each on the way back (4 total).
  • What days would you say are too packed, and what would you remove from them?
  • Any other places I should go to maximize my festival experiences? Should I try to devote more times to these areas also, as opposed to the other items on my itinerary for those days?
  • Any recommendations for doing laundry in Kyoto? It will be the only hotel we're staying at that does not have washedryer. A laundry service or something is preferable, we probably won't want to stick around and do laundry.

Hello All! I'm doing some basic polling and playtesting with an option I'm about 50/50 on for my game Project Chimera: E.C.O. currently in alpha development.
Basic information:
Players take on the role of a black ops super soldier working for a PMSC (Chimera Group International). The game heavily focuses on stealth and social objective completion over combat, ie, there is no incentive for combat, it's a way to achieve an objective, but it's the worst ROI since it is potentially lethal and consumes resources much faster than other methods and doesn't offer special rewards, also there's not really "loot" per se like in a DnD game. Loot is most likely to be information that advances the plot.
The game is crunchy, while easy to learn the core game loops (there's a 1 page overview that will get any experienced RPer able to sit for their first session and 3 points of entry: pregen, table roll/select, and full custom) it's mostly that it has lots of flexibility and character options, which is great for players that want that, but it's a known limitation it will not appeal to rules light/casual gamer preferred experiences.
The game takes place in a five minutes into the future dystopian mirror alt earth with cyberpunk and sci fi elements. Characters have access to things like advanced training, gear, bionics, psionics, super powers, feats, etc. A character's starting template doesn't restrict them, it just figures out their initial boosted areas, ie if you take the bionics aspect, your character will have more bionics than a general build character, you can still access everything else, but it's more a question of where you want the thematic focus of the character to be. All characters are baseline competent in the areas of stealth, socialization, survival and gunplay/combat (you absolutely can use HTH and melee with extensive options, but as one might expect, guns are usually more effective, though those options definitely have their place). As such consider these things to be relevant to potential players, ie if you hate stealth/social, prefer rules light casual, opinions are less relevant in this case because it's not a game built for that kind of player. The Actual Concern: Currently I'm considering removing the concept of a critical hit in combat doing double damage automatically and there's a good amount of relevant information: 1. Players have others ways to boost damage 2. This wouldn't remove the option, it just expands the option to more options. The concept works like this: Characters have 4 meta currencies, one of them is called Essence. This is a daily regen pool and is used for "enhanced performance" of some kind. Presently it can be used for things like a small bonus to a roll for a save, or gaining +1 standard action on a turn, remove a level of exhaustion, rally, etc., the point being it does have a level of utility. It might be also be used to fuel a special ability from a feat, augment a powepsionic, allow for a special application move, etc. Crits occur in combat (skills can also crit) similar to PF2e in that you can gain one on a nat 20 or if you exceed the TN by 10+ (in most cases, there are other ways to finagle this but they are niche). Essence is described in game as: Essence represents the total abstract humanity of a character as well as their general combined physical and mental well being, focus, and general willpower. It is utilized to overcome general limitations and perform above expectations. Essence is most commonly associated with the concept of the superego. The proposed change would be a character gains 1 essence (up to max pool, this can be spent immediately if it exceeds) on a crit, but double damage would cost 2 essence. A typical early level character is likely to have somewhere around 10-20 essence total in the pool (could be more or less but this is an estimated average). Some positives of this proposed change: This provides another opportunity for essence regen for players. This provides additional utility and tactical choice in combat (ie they might opt for double damage and spend the extra, bank it, apply a status effect instead, etc.), particularly because more damage is not always a preferred option. In many cases disabling an opponent quickly and without drawing attention is preferred over killing them, and in some cases capturing a target alive is the mission itself. This can open up other combat applications for essence use. Some negatives of the proposed change: Adding a player choice here can slow down combat for indecisive players. This puts more emphasis/reward on combat, which isn't really the intent of the game. Essence is easier to earn in game in other ways, but adding incentive in combat assumes that this is a reward for player behavior, when open combat is, by design, meant to be more of an "oops, we screwed up moment". With that said, characters are black ops super soldiers so the game is less about never being in combat and more about trying to stave off combat as much as possible and if you have to enter combat, doing so with control of the battlefield in a smart and tactical manner. This requires additional book keeping. Not a whole lot, we already have to track essence use, but we now have to consider that it will fluctuate more often (as part of combat). Why I'm split: The game is built and meant to be focused on providing experiences other than combat (ie the goal is to get as far away from typical game loop of "punch monster until it drops loot" as possible), but it would be fair to say it also has extremely robust options and tactical choice for combat. To be clear, the combat is highly tactical and has more moves available in and out of combat than probably any other known game on the market, but it's also not meant to appeal specifically to "combat only players" and the system design directly reflects this. Basically my design values are in a bit of conflict here. Obviously I'll play test this regardless, but I'm curious about: Are there additional reasons foagainst this? Given the premises of the game, which do you think is likely to be more fun for you specifically? For the type of gamer this game is meant to appeal to? Why?
View Poll

Hello All! I'm doing some basic polling and playtesting with an option I'm about 50/50 on for my game Project Chimera: E.C.O. currently in alpha development.
Basic information:
Players take on the role of a black ops super soldier working for a PMSC (Chimera Group International). The game heavily focuses on stealth and social objective completion over combat, ie, there is no incentive for combat, it's a way to achieve an objective, but it's the worst ROI since it is potentially lethal and consumes resources much faster than other methods and doesn't offer special rewards, also there's not really "loot" per se like in a DnD game. Loot is most likely to be information that advances the plot.
The game is crunchy, while easy to learn the core game loops (there's a 1 page overview that will get any experienced RPer able to sit for their first session and 3 points of entry: pregen, table roll/select, and full custom) it's mostly that it has lots of flexibility and character options, which is great for players that want that, but it's a known limitation it will not appeal to rules light/casual gamer preferred experiences.
The game takes place in a five minutes into the future dystopian mirror alt earth with cyberpunk and sci fi elements. Characters have access to things like advanced training, gear, bionics, psionics, super powers, feats, etc. A character's starting template doesn't restrict them, it just figures out their initial boosted areas, ie if you take the bionics aspect, your character will have more bionics than a general build character, you can still access everything else, but it's more a question of where you want the thematic focus of the character to be. All characters are baseline competent in the areas of stealth, socialization, survival and gunplay/combat (you absolutely can use HTH and melee with extensive options, but as one might expect, guns are usually more effective, though those options definitely have their place).As such consider these things to be relevant to potential players, ie if you hate stealth/social, prefer rules light casual, opinions are less relevant in this case because it's not a game built for that kind of player.
The Actual Concern:
Currently I'm considering removing the concept of a critical hit in combat doing double damage automatically and there's a good amount of relevant information:

1. Players have others ways to boost damage
2. This wouldn't remove the option, it just expands the option to more options.

​
The concept works like this:
Characters have 4 meta currencies, one of them is called Essence.
This is a daily regen pool and is used for "enhanced performance" of some kind. Presently it can be used for things like a small bonus to a roll for a save, or gaining +1 standard action on a turn, remove a level of exhaustion, rally, etc., the point being it does have a level of utility. It might be also be used to fuel a special ability from a feat, augment a powepsionic, allow for a special application move, etc.Crits occur in combat (skills can also crit) similar to PF2e in that you can gain one on a nat 20 or if you exceed the TN by 10+ (in most cases, there are other ways to finagle this but they are niche).
Essence is described in game as:
Essence represents the total abstract humanity of a character as well as their general combined physical and mental well being, focus, and general willpower. It is utilized to overcome general limitations and perform above expectaions. Essence is most commonly associated with the concept of the superego.
The proposed change would be a character gains 1 essence (up to max pool, this can be spent immediately if it exceeds) on a crit, but double damage would cost 2 essence.A typical early level character is likely to have somewhere around 10-20 essence total in the pool (could be more or less but this is an estimated average).
Some positives of this proposed change:
This provides another opportunity for essence regen for players.
This provides additional utility and tactical choice in combat (ie they might opt for double damage and spend the extra, bank it, apply a status effect instead, etc.), particularly because more damage is not always a preferred option. In many cases disabling an opponent quickly and without drawing attention is preferred over killing them, and in some cases capturing a target alive is the mission itself.
This can open up other combat applications for essence use.
Some negatives of the proposed change:
Adding a player choice here can slow down combat for indecisive players.
This puts more emphasis/reward on combat, which isn't really the intent of the game. Essence is easier to earn in game in other ways, but adding incentive in combat assumes that this is a reward for player behavior, when open combat is, by design, meant to be more of an "oops, we screwed up moment". With that said, characters are black ops super soldiers so the game is less about never being in combat and more about trying to stave off combat as much as possible and if you have to enter combat, doing so with control of the battlefield in a smart and tactical manner.
This requires additional book keeping. Not a whole lot, we already have to track essence use, but we now have to consider that it will fluctuate more often (as part of combat).
Why I'm split:
The game is built and meant to be focused on providing experiences other than combat (ie the goal is to get as far away from typical game loop of "punch monster until it drops loot" as possible), but it would be fair to say it also has extremely robust options and tactical choice for combat. To be clear, the combat is highly tactical and has more moves available in and out of combat than probably any other known game on the market, but it's also not meant to appeal specifically to "combat only players" and the system design directly reflects this.
Basically my design values are in a bit of conflict here. Obviously I'll play test this regardless, but I'm curious about:
Are there additional reasons foagainst this?
Given the premises of the game, which do you think is likely to be more fun for you specifically? For the type of gamer this game is meant to appeal to? Why?

I'm looking to get some Adilette slides for my summer holiday but I'm a bit confused about the different types. I've been told Adilette's are comfy as hell so I decided to go for them
They're occasionally going to be worn on short trips to the supermarket, but mostly going to be worn on the journey between the hotel and the beach (approx 4 - 6 min walk each way, uphill so ideally prefer something comfortable and easy to walk in that doesn't slip off my feet. I'll probably be tired after a long day at the beach so these are important to me). I don't know if I'm going to wear them on the beach itself, might grab some water shoes because it's a rocky beach, but there's a possibility that they may get wet, and they will be in contact with rocks
Out of these ones, which ones would you recommend for this purpose? Also, would appreciate if the differences between them could be explained

1. Adilette Aqua
2. Adilette Shower
3. Adilette Lites
4. Normal Adilette Slides

1 and 2 seem to be at the optimal price point, but if it's really really worth it I might see if I can stretch my budget to 3 or 4. Might be nice if you could rank your personal preferences with these slides?
Also heard that they were a little on the small side. Shall I grab them in the next size up? I'm a UK 6, shall I go for UK 7? I don't want them to come off my feet when walking but also don't want them to be too small
Thanks

I'm looking to get some Adilette slides for my summer holiday but I'm a bit confused about the different types.
They're occasionally going to be worn on short trips to the supermarket, but mostly going to be worn on the journey between the hotel and the beach (approx 4 min walk each way, slightly uphill so ideally prefer something comfortable and easy to walk in that doesn't slip off my feet). I don't know if I'm going to wear them on the beach itself, might grab some water shoes because it's a pebbly beach and I don't want rocks hurting my feet, but there's a possibility that they may get wet, and they will be in contact with rocks
Out of these ones, which ones would you recommend for this purpose? Also, would appreciate if the differences between them could be explained
1) Adilette Aqua
2) Adilette Shower
3) Adilette Lites
4) Normal Adilette Slides
1 and 2 seem to be at the optimal price point, but if it's really really worth it I might see if I can stretch my budget to 3 or 4. Might be nice if you could rank your personal preferences with these slides?
Also heard that they were a little on the small side. Shall I grab them in the next size up? I'm a UK 6, shall I go for UK 7? I don't want them to come off my feet when walking but also don't want them to be too small
Thanks

We booked 6 nights with a superhost couple months prior to our arrival. We were excited about the place as it is a rare find, in a great location and has 4.9 stars from 200+ reviews. When we arrived, our baby started having a fever in the evening. While trying to rest, we could hear the neighbours talking pretty clearly in our bedroom and realize we were dealing with paper thin walls. It was waking our baby up despite using our white noise machine.
While trying to take care of our baby throughout the night and deciding when to take her to emergency in a foreign language country, our baby was crying on and off. She was generally easy to console. The longest she cried for was about 5 minutes and the neighbours banged on our wall really loudly which scared us and got our baby even more upset. After the incident, my husband and I had a lot of anxiety and felt scared that she would cry and whenever she was crying. And on top of it, her fever was getting worse despite medication. We realize we cannot stay here and decided to leave the next morning, urgently looking for other accommodations because of the anxiety we felt.
We communicated the incident to the host and expressed that we felt unsafe and uncomfortable, and we would be checking out. I even extended an apology to her neighbour. She suggested we take our baby to the living room when she cries to let her cry it out because no neighbours would hear us there. This doesn't align our parenting style as babies will cry at night and we let her practice within reasonable time frame to console herself when she's not sick. Since she was sick, we were by her side the whole time consoling her so we were doing our best. To do what she suggested, we would need to be sleeping in the living/kitchen area on a sofa bed. The house rules does have silent hours starting from 10pm to not make any noise. But we dont consider baby crying as noise. Where we are from, her crying would not be heard through walls and noise would be from tv, music, loud bass etc.
After taking the garbage out, and taking her to emergency, I finally was able to file a ticket to airbnb. Rather than canceling using the cancel policy, which would provide us with a 50% refund for any remaining days, I tried to negotiate a refund cost of 4 nights. Host didn't respond until the next day so I reached out to airbnb for mediation.
The host sent a lengthy message saying they cannot accept it because we could still stay at her place as long as we respect her silent hours. She continued saying that the neighbours must be uncomfortable too with the crying since they have work the next day. And there is no other way of letting us know that the crying is disturbing them. Basically, as we took it, condoning the banging. No matter what I said, she didn't understand how uncomfortable we felt with the banging and insisted that we could still stay there, and offers no additional refund.
Airbnb tried to speak with the host on our behalf but they refused to alter the cost. We actually canceled the second leg of our trip and the second host at least kept it open with an option to provide us further refund despite their cancelation policy. Other companies we dealt with gave us the same thing as courtesy. I tried several times with airbnb but the host refuse to provide us additional refund. The place is not cheap and we lost so much money because of her paper thin walls. We honestly would not have booked her place if we had known that her walls are thin and our baby cries would be a disturbance to her neighbours. There are other accommodations and 4 star hotels at similar price point at the location. Finally, we just canceled so at least we got a little bit of our money refunded. If I had known this, I wouldn't have bothered asking airbnb to mediate and got an extra day of the partial refund throug cancelation policy.
With the paper thin walls, and how the wall banging was addressed, would this experience warrant a 1 star review?
Technically, they did nothing wrong because they are following the rules. She was responsive throughout and dealt with all my questions quickly. The only other thing is their place is infested with mosquitoes but mosquitoes are common where we are vacationing.
She will probably give us a 1 star review in return saying we disrespected their silent hours and left the pots by the sink even though we paid for a hefty cleaning fee.
(House rule is to leave the place like we found it. Despite wanting to take our daughter to the emergency, we tried to clean the place as best we could, took the garbage out per host request, cleaned our dishes and the only thing is that we left the pots by the sink to dry. I know these are typical things you do at an airbnb but I suspect we will get 1 star review because of it.)
After this experience, we will never use airbnb again so yes, I guess her 1 star review wouldn't matter.
But if a place doesn't meet your expectation, is there anything that can be done to get money back? Because from our experience, it seems to fall entirely under the hosts discretion. So what is the purpose of airbnb customer service?

That's the mystery of where in the world is Monotaro cleared up. But what's this I hear about poison not working on a victim? And you guys said something about one of the crime scenes possibly being fake? How interesting...
Also, don't get too ahead of yourselves, 'cuz there's a few things about the Ultimate ??? Research Lab crime scene that haven't really been explained yet. Like, for example, what exactly is that bloody Monopad, hmm? And those bloody rectangles in my beautiful crime scene picture...so mysterious.
Remember, your lives are on the line. You do you, but if you've got information about that, it's probably best to spill it!

Truth Bullets

Leaf's Monokuma File
Leaf's body was found in the Ultimate ??? Research Lab. He died from blood loss before 10 pm on Day 2.
Leaf's Autopsy
Leaf’s fatal wound was a stab wound in his right side, and it’s the only injury he sustained. Besides the blood on his clothes and on the floor around his body, Leaf’s hands were also covered in blood.
Library Crime Scene
Library Crime Scene
Discovered in the evening of Day 2. The sliding Hallway Door across from the A/V Room was open. Blood had stained a knocked-over tower of books, and one book, page-down, had blood on its pages. A trail of blood led to the Moving Bookcase.
Library Secret Door
Library Secret Door
The trail of blood continued to the Secret Door. There was also blood on the moving bookcase and on the Card Reader.
Ultimate ??? Research Lab Crime Scene
Ultimate ??? Research Lab Crime Scene
Discovered in the afternoon of Day 3, when Leaf’s Body Discovery Announcement was played.
Ultimate ??? Research Lab Wall Safe Dials
Ultimate ??? Research Lab Wall Safe Dials
Blood stained multiple sections of the large, unwieldy dials needed to open the Wall Safe. The handprints were too indistinct to compare reliably to anyone.
Bloodstained Sword
There was one sword taken from its sheath on the floor of the Ultimate ??? Research Lab. The blade is covered in dried blood, and even the handle is bloody. Due to its weight, it would have been wielded with both hands.
First Night Concert Attendees
On Day One, Melody and Kuromi held an impromptu nighttime concert in the Ultimate Pianist’s Research Lab. The concert lasted until the group went to bed. Though most attended, Roulette, Dash, Tut, and Fenrir did not. Those who attended stayed the whole time.
Masked Figure
During the search for Leaf after dinner on Day 2, Zero claimed he and Dash saw a masked figure coming up from the basement while Kuromi, Melody, and Kanata were investigating the girl’s bathroom. As they rushed to chase the masked figure back down into the basement, Dash tripped and fell down the stairs, giving him a bloody head wound. Zero checked the Library, saw the Library Crime Scene, and went back to tend to Dash until the girls found them.
Kira's Account
When she woke up on Day 3, Kira found a letter on her room floor, telling her to meet in one of the rooms in Hotel Kumasutra at 1:30 p.m. to discuss getting out without bloodshed. She went to meet the writer a little before the indicated time. However, after Tut convinced her that she was someone’s target in the hotel’s lobby, she left him there and returned to her room.
Photo Printer Ink Issue
The photo printer apparently had an ink issue today when Smile was creating a poster of photos she took of Kanata’s Get-Together. The pictures of Misao and Kanata came out fine, but the photos of Kanata, Kira, Atari, Kuromi, and Melody had a pink tint to them.
Casino Contest Setup and Rules
When Roulette proposed a friendly four-way Casino Contest at lunch on Day 3, Atari, Zero, and Star took her up on her offer. The Contest took place from 1–2 p.m., and the four were given Casino Coins to see which game paid out the best. Roulette chose MonoMono Slots, Star chose OUTLAW RUN, Zero chose TREASURE HUNTER! MONOLITH, and Atari was left with SALMON FISHING.
Under the watchful eye of Judge Monotaro, there were two rules imposed to prevent distraction: competitors could not look at any other player, or at any other player’s machine.
Bloody Knife
After lunch on Day 3, Dash found a Bloody Knife in a corner of the Ultimate Magician Research Lab.
This was the knife Melody used to attack Kuromi. She says she originally found it in the Ultimate Detective Research Lab in the morning on Day 3.
Forget-Me-Not Poison Bottle
An empty bottle of poison Kanata found beside an unconscious Tut in the Hotel Kumasutra lobby, alongside a used syringe. According to the label, the poison is 100% fatal unless cured. Victims of Forget-Me-Not Poison will go unconscious almost immediately. After 10 minutes, their eyes will be noticeably bloodshot. After 20 minutes, victims will produce tears of blood. After 30 minutes, if not cured with an antidote, the victim will die. A surviving victim of Forget-Me-Not Poison will lose their memories of the previous 24 hours.
Hotel Kumasutra Door Slam
When Kanata and Smile found an unconscious Tut in the Hotel Kumasutra lobby, they heard a nearby door slam in the hotel.
Antidote on the Table
When they carried a poisoned Tut up to the Ultimate Detective’s Research Lab to search for an antidote, Smile and Kanata fortunately found a cure-all antidote set out on the table.
Laptop
Found in the Wall Safe, without any blood on it. The first time its screen was turned on during the investigation, an “Invalid Username or Password” message was already displayed.
DVD
Found in the Wall Safe, without any blood on it. However, Monotaro took the DVD and locked himself in the A/V Room.
Missing Crossbow
During the investigation, Star finally found the missing crossbow he’d carelessly left out in the Ultimate Assassin’s Research Lab yesterday. He found it duct-taped to the back of the red-robed mannequin in that very same Research Lab.
Ultimate Assassin Research Lab Poison
During the investigation, Kanata found a full bottle of another eventually-fatal poison, set behind the mannequin in the Ultimate Assassin Research Lab.
The poison is called "Heartstopper." A victim of this poison will only feel nauseous, but after ten minutes, their heart will stop.
Blood Pack Refrigerator
During the investigation, Mecha and Kira found a refrigerator tucked away in a corner of the warehouse. Blood packs were stored in the refrigerator. It’s unknown how many were in there to begin with.
Tut's Lost Day
Due to being apparently poisoned with Forget-Me-Not Poison, Tut has lost 24 hours' worth of memories.

• After lunch on Day 2, he went down to the Basement Library and was there with Atari until about 4 pm.
  
• Atari and Tut then went up to the Ultimate Tennis Pro Research Lab. They met Misao at the door at 4 pm. Atari managed to settle the dispute with a compromise: Tut would use the Ultimate Tennis Pro Research Lab to play tennis, and Misao would use the Ultimate Prisoner Research Lab to practice tying her kimono sash.
  
• At 4:20 pm, Misao left the Ultimate Prisoner Research Lab to go back to her room, and Tut was still in the Ultimate Tennis Pro Research Lab.
  
• From 4:30 pm–6 pm, Star and Tut were together in Tut's room, and they went to dinner together.
  
• After dinner, Tut searched for Leaf outside on the grounds with Atari, Roulette, and Kira. Eventually, he split off with Atari to cover more ground.
  
• Tut participated in Star's Nighttime Training Exercise with Star, Atari, Fenrir, Kira, and Mecha.
  
• On Day 3, before lunch, Tut was seen coming down the stairs from the Second Floor, and he was one of those who followed Kuromi's blood trail to the warehouse.
  
• After lunch, about 1:25 pm, Kira encountered Tut in the lobby of Hotel Kumasutra. He apparently told her she was indeed someone's target. As Kira left, Tut told her he'd be right behind her.
  
• A little after 1:45 pm, Kanata and Smile found an unconscious, poisoned Tut in the lobby of Hotel Kumasutra. They were able to carry him up to the Ultimate Detective Research Lab and give him an antidote.
  

Melody's Confession
Melody has confessed that she attempted to kill Kuromi in the morning of Day 3. First, after convincing Kuromi to stop and take a break, she grabbed a poison that would definitely kill her intended victim from the Ultimate Detective’s Research Lab, and slipped it into Kuromi’s water. When Kuromi drank the poisoned water without incident, Melody, convinced Kuromi was the mastermind, lured her to the Ultimate Magician’s Research Lab and attacked her with a kitchen knife, cutting Kuromi’s hand badly in the process.

Cast List

• FloatingTriangles as Monokuma
  
• tyboy618 as Monotaro
  
• hinata2000100 as Chiaki Nanami Atari
  
• Duodude55 as Kokichi Oma Dash
  
• thejofy as Mukuro Ikusaba Fenrir
  
• Chespineapple as Tsumugi Shirogane Kanata
  
• lappy-486 as Sonia Nevermind Kira
  
• Makosear as Kaede Akamatsu Kuromi
  
• spaghettiyo as Kazuichi Soda Mecha
  
• LanceUppercut86 as Sayaka Maizono Melody
  
• JustADramadog as Hiyoko Saionji Misao
  
• Panos0502 as Celestia Ludenberg Roulette
  
• Pikmaster5 as Mahiru Koizumi Smile
  
• Thedeityofice as Kaito Momota Star
  
• mechamaru as Ryoma Hoshi Tut
  
• Hearter20 as Nagito Komaeda Zero
  

Reserve Course

• RSLee2
  
• Augie279
  

First thing, i have a baby (5mo) and my boyfriend is not my baby’s father. we got together while i was pregnant though. this isn’t related to the story but it’s a baseline. SO my boyfriend literally somehow makes an excuse everytime i have family in town (i’m not from where i live now) to not be here. yet he gets upset that my family doesn’t want to let him stay at their house (probably due to my last partner). so i told him he’d just have to stay around to meet them so be able to go with me to my hometown. (i usually stay with a family member, im a young mom, hotels are too expensive.) earlier today i told him my uncle is coming in town. one hr later he says he wants to clean the car he’s been using so he can give it back, and get his friend to help him. i remind him that my uncle is gonna be in town for today. than he goes off. around 12 he comes back, the car isn’t clean but he asks if i want to go swimming, just to say they won’t be there long, BECAUSE they were gonna clean the car. well two hrs later, his friends mom texted me asking if i wanted to join them all to swim and she’s watch my baby. this kinda pissed me off. like why invite me then take it back. he knows i don’t get out if the house except three days a week to work for not even five hours. it’s just this again. i don’t even want to let him know when my uncle is on the way. i just know he’d say something though. it’s just i personally text his mom and send her pictures daily but when it comes to my siblings, he doesn’t even seem to make an effort.
summary: my boyfriend never wants to meet my family yet gets upset that they don’t know him. he wants me to tell him when my uncle is over to come meet him for “just a second” (his exact words) but i don’t even want to.

Hello! I will be traveling to Japan in July and am looking for feedback on my Kobe/Hiroshima itinerary. Prior to this itinerary, we would have already stayed in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Please let me know if there is anything I should add or remove. Food recommendations are welcome :). Thank you!
Sunday, July 23: Kobe Day 1 Time TBD: Arrive in Kobe from Osaka Explore Harborland Eat and explore Chinatown Rest
Monday, July 24: Mount Rokko (would it be better to visit Arima Onsen first)? I considered hiking up, however, I'm not sure that would be great in the summer heat. 9:30 - Arrive at Nunobiki Ropeway Walk around Herb Garden, then head to the observation deck Take Rokko-Arima Ropeway Explore Arima Onsen Dinner Back to Kobe (take bus from Arima Onsen? Is there another option?)
Tuesday, July 25: Hiroshima ~11:00 AM Arrive in Hiroshima Drop off luggage Lunch Visit Shukkeien Garden ~3:00 PM check into hotel Walk around Kamiyacho Dinner
Wednesday, July 26: Peace Memorial Park Peace Memorial Park Museum Explore Peace Memorial Park Atomic Bomb Dome
Thursday, July 27: Miyajima Island ~8:00 AM: Head to Miyajimagushi Station Board the ferry Mount Misen Ropeway, then 30 min. walk to summit Possibly stop at Sanki-gongen-do Temple Mount Misen Observatory Take ropeway back to the bottom Visit Daishoin Temple or Itsukushima Shrine (are both worth it)? Dinner Depart Miyajima via ferry by 6:00 PM

I haven't been able to enjoy my 2 week study abroad trip much. Mostly because I haven't been able to actually have any downtime that isn't incredibly stressful and aggravating.
Why is my downtime aggravating, you might ask?
I'm pretty sure I have misophonia, which is an uncharacteristically intense reaction to certain noises. It's aggrivating, depressing, anxiety inducing, and straight up rage inducing. I'm in a hotel with a roommate who has allergies. Really bad allergies. He is constantly sniffling and the sound is so bad that I can't even describe what it makes me want to do. He has been like this almost the whole trip. These sniffles are super snotty and he's gotten to the point where he's so blocked up he's coughing and you can hear that his airways are not completely open. He claims that he "barely notices them" when it's obvious he can barely breathe. I want to rip my hair out. I would prefer death. It has literally made me cry uncontrollably a few times but I've always turned towards the wall so I don't look insane, because I have no good explanation to offer that was unlikely to backfire. I'm at my wit's end. I've offered him allergy pills a few times, which he has refused, and straight up told him that his sniffling is making me really nervous a few times, because I can't tell him how bad it actually is due to fear of looking crazy (likely won't believe it's a real thing), and today he just responded with "I'll be fine" when I told him it was really bothering me. That wasn't about you dude. I am literally telling you that your sniffles are fucking me up so bad that I have felt the need to say something, which I rarely can draw up the courage for. Multiple times. I put earplugs in, and eventually got up and left the room, and he seems to be completely unaware that it was because of him.
It's very evident that he is on the spectrum (as am I, but I thought I made it clear enough that it was hurting me in a way someone on the spectrum would understand), but I'm not pushing that subject as he already told me he didn't have ASD when I shared my having ASD with him. I just thought it was an explanation as to why he wasn't getting it that I've been trying to tell him it's impacting me without being a dick. If he would just go blow his nose every now and again I could probably deal with it. But no. I have to listen to a noise that brings emotions to me like someone just kicked and threatened to kill my fucking dog. Every 2 minutes. Whenever I am in my hotel room. This is uncontrollable and it is killing me. I even have a physical reaction to his sniffles where my head jerks and he has seen it many times.
I tried earplugs and music, but they don't help enough, and he sniffles like this all night long. I usually can't sleep for hours at night, and wake up feeling near-suicidal, something I thought I had left in the past. I feel dead during the day having to deal with the amount of stress this causes and not getting much of anything out of the museums we are going to, AKA the whole reason I came on this trip.
This is a psychology trip by the way. This dude is a psychology minor and seems to be clueless that these noises are impacting me when I have tried to say it as clearly as possible. If I am any harsher about it, it will be taken as rude and seen as me asking him to do something that is unreasonable (take an allergy pill or blow his nose in the bathroom from time to time) to "cater to my every whim and bend over backwards" (let's just say that with other views he has expressed, this is likely). I just wanted to enjoy this expensive as shit study abroad trip, and I have been walking through museums barely able to get anything out of them at all because this is stressing me out so much. I literally had to leave the hotel room and am sitting on the floor down the hall from the room.
Early on in the trip, he expressed political views that often go along with views that are very against my literal existence. If you live in the US especially, you probably know what I'm talking about. I have no idea why he was okay with rooming with me. He knows that in terms of the common political spectrum, he is on one end, and I am beyond the other end. I am wondering now if he is trying to make my trip miserable on purpose, but we don't talk about politics after realizing we are so far apart. There was another man who was avaliable to room with him, but apperenly that "rule" where men and women couldn't room together went out the window because that guy is rooming with his girlfriend now, so I don't know why he didn't just go with that dude as his roommate, pick a different roommate, or room by himself, as was an option. I had noticed this dude was oblivious to the fact that he was doing things that bothered other people, but didn't think I would regret it so much.
I am completely non-confrontational because I likely have borderline and when I do try to confront someone about something, I go over the top, and I really need to keep that under wraps until I can get into some appropriate therapy in order to not ruin my entire life.
I'm literally sitting on the floor. I can't go down in the lobby because I had clothes drying in the shower yesterday and tried to stay up late enough to move them when he got out of the shower, but he literally moved my partially dry clothing to be in a pile and must have been in the bathroom for an hour. I had tried to get his attention before he went into the bathroom, but convieneintly, when he has headphones in, and he isn't looking at me, he can't hear me at all, but if he is looking at me, he can hear me perfectly fine. I fell asleep. My laundry was still wet this morning and some of it still is. Let's just say I'm not comfortably dressed enough to even go sit in the lobby. I had to layer up today because of it and it was incredibly hot out, so I felt like shit all day wearing layers of damp clothing in the blazing heat.
He literally just walked past me, looked at me sitting on the floor outside the room instead of being in the room, but didn't acknowledge me, and sniffled. It was loud despite my wearing earplugs. If I do anything now I will absolutely lose my shit and I can't be risking that. I can't imagine that this isn't on purpose.
For this trip I have had to remind him to do his daily work and wake him up most days. I've started to scale this back and am no longer telling him to do the work but end up waking him up while I'm getting ready, and he usually seems annoyed when my alarm goes off if it's more than 15 minutes before we have to leave. Like, sorry I have to take a fucking shower and get dressed and brush my teeth and comb my hair and eat breakfast because my food allergies are not accomidated for? It's not like I'm waking him up obscenely early, it's usually between an hour and an hour and a half before we have to go somewhere.
I don't feel like anything I have is solid enough to report to the professor and I'd just have to spend the rest of the trip with a very angry roommate and lose my chances with a prof that would probably write me a grad school reccomendation.
I don't know what to do. I feel like my trip is ruined. There are only a few days left and I can't make up for the experiences I've lost. Ive sat out of a lot of extracurriculars because I am so exhausted and stressed, as well as that being the only time I can sit in my room without him here. Of the rest of my class, there are 2 people I regularly talk to, but they're best friends and had already had a lot of reservations to do things by themselves, which is fine with me, I'm not going to barge in on their plans or be upset about it. I've worked on myself enough to completely be able to rationalize that and feel it.
I feel like most of the class are patronizing me because I obviously have issues communicating and treating me like I'm five, and I don't know how to keep a conversation going with the people who aren't when I'm this preoccupied with anxiety.

This sub helped me out a lot so thought I'd share my experience in Japan. Hope I can bring a bit of a different perspective because unlike most of the people that seem to post here, we are definitively not early risers and rarely left the hotel before 1pm every day. Still had a great time and crowds were only an issue in a few places.
We're an early 30s Asian-American couple traveling from Germany, so we're coming at this from a bit of an in-between of Western and Eastern perspective. I have been to Japan when I was 15 with family, but remember basically nothing. It was my wife's first time. We had an absolutely wonderful time and both thought it was the best vacation we've had in years.
The trip was pretty last minute (for my standards at least). I started planning the trip from scratch (no flights, hotels or anything booked) in early April and our trip was May 18-30. We spent 5 days in Tokyo including DisneySea, 2 nights in Hakone, 3 nights in Kyoto including day trip to Nara, and 1 night in Osaka. We flew in to Tokyo Narita and flew out of Osaka Itami. We decided to fly from Osaka to Tokyo instead of bullet train back to Tokyo so we didn't have to buy JR rail pass and worry about luggage.
Tokyo

• We stayed in Ginza, which was significantly cheaper than similar hotels in Shibuya or Shinjuku. Maybe it was because I was planning such last minute, but I enjoyed the area just fine. Lots of restaurants and close to Tokyo Station which was convenient.
• Shout out to Star Club in Shinjuku. Had a wonderful Saturday night there drinking til 4am, chatting with other patrons and the super friendly bartender. Mix of locals and tourists.
• T's Tantan Ramen in Tokyo Station was one of my favorite ramen places of the trip (tied with the Michelin star one from Kyoto, but minus the wait). The bowl had a good variety of vegetable ingredients (which didn't seem that common in Japan, most ramen was just noodles and meat) which I really appreciated. Small queue but didn't wait more than 10m.
• The only restaurant reservation we made all trip was at Bon. Vegetarian multi-coursed meal. I would recommend, it was very nice, though sometimes a tad under salted for my taste. My wife loved it though. You get your own little private room to eat, even for two people, which was unexpected and very lovely.
• Asakusa has a tourist center with air conditioning, bathrooms, and an 8th floor view. Nice place for a rest
• Akihabara did nothing for us, as we're not really into anime or games. Pretty skippable if you are similar.
• I thought Ameyoko Shopping District was a disappointment. More like a flea market, it was similar to many Taiwan street/night markets that we've been to before. We also had probably our worst meal in Japan here, at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant where the food was extremely mediocre. I would have skipped this place altogether and go to Ueno Park or something instead.
• Character Street in Tokyo Station was very fun to explore, we did a lot of shopping there. Nice place to visit before taking the Shinkansen.
• We enjoyed Takeshita Street in Harajuku. As mentioned before we went at around 8pm and it wasn't too crowded.
• When planning I had thought about skipping Shibuya Scramble but I'm really glad I didn't. Something about witnessing the sheer number of people bustling about was so epic and grand. Reminded me of Saturday midnight at EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival) when the atmosphere is electric and everyone is moving from one main stage to another.
• Golden Gai was interesting to look at, but way too claustrophobic for us. Very small alleys and very small bars.
• I enjoyed Tsukiji Market a lot. This is one of the places I would agree with people here and advise you get there early. Take advantage of jet lag and get here before 7am, and it is literally a buffet of delicious fresh foods. (not much choice for vegetarians though sadly). By 8am it was starting to get REALLY crowded. I prefer picking out my sashimi this way as opposed to a restaurant tbh, you can look at many options and pick whatever looks freshest. First time eating Wagyu here, had it on a stick. Delicious. Not the cheapest, but I figured if I ate it at a restaurant I'd also be paying for table service and atmosphere. I'm not big on the "restaurant experience", I'd rather just eat my food and be on my way.
• I thought Hamarikyu Gardens was wonderful. I love city parks where there is green, peaceful nature in the fore ground, contrasted by enormous skyscrapers towering in the background. Hamarikyu Gardens fits that perfectly. Got there right when they opened after visiting Tsukiji Market and it was a perfect way to walk off the big hearty breakfast. ~1 hour at a moderate pace should do it.
• Ginza Corridor after work was very interesting to see around 5-7pm or so. Simply packed to the brim with business folks wearing suits and having a good time after their work day

DisneySea

• We checked the weather and specifically went on a rainy weekday. I highly recommend, it was not crowded at all. Almost all the rides are indoors anyway and most of the queueing is either inside or covered. We got to the park at 2pm and basically rode everything we wanted before the park closed at 9pm with time to spare.
• Popular rides still had 40m-1hour wait, but we used premier pass for Center of the Earth and Soaring. Most we ever waited was 20m for Finding Nemo (similar to Star Tours, all in Japanese but very fun). I checked the app the next day when it was sunny and saw the wait times for each attraction were 3-4x longer.
• Another thing I think the rain helped with was that the premier passes did not sell out. We were able to buy them as late as 6pm to Journey to the Center of the Earth. (Fun ride, but I can't imagine waiting 1.5 hours for it)
• I think Soaring is pretty meh, I'd probably skip it next time. I've been to the one in CA ages ago and remember thinking it was just okay too, but we had extra time so decided to try it here.
• Sinbad was excellent, the ride that most exceeded expectations. It's basically "It's A Small World" but way better animatronics and story telling.
• Indiana Jones is worse than in the one in California (less exciting, no fire effects), but the line was nonexistent so we went on it twice.
• It stopped raining at night too so we were able to catch the Believe show with no issues. It's a good show but it is very long, about 40m. Much longer than I thought. After show is over, there's only about ~1 hour before the park closes, so good time to catch a last ride at one of the popular attractions while the locals are heading home.
• I love how every restaurant has a display in front that shows you what the food will look like. They were all extremely accurate and not at all misleading!
• (not a tip but a rant, is it really necessary to have 10 thousand parking spots when the vast majority of people are going to arrive on Tokyo's world-class public transit system?)

Hakone

• Open Air Museum was really nice on a pleasant day. It's mostly outdoors. We spent a leisurely two hours there, but you could probably do it in one hour at a brisk pace.
• We left our Ryokan at 1pm to do the Hakone Loop and still completed it comfortably with plenty of time spent on shopping.
• Speaking of shopping, Cat Goods near Gora station was a wonderful little store full of cat stuff!! Our shopping list in Japan was basically to buy as much cat-themed home goods at possible, and we went crazy here. They also do tax-free! Recommend this place if cat-themed goods sounds interesting to you, the shop people were super nice!
• We stayed 2 nights 3 days in a Ryokan. I purchased Hakone free pass for 3 days, which was maybe not worth it. The first and last day we only took transport to leave Hakone to Odawara station, so I think it would have been cheaper to use the IC card to pay for it ad-hoc instead of an entire extra "free pass" day. Might be worth looking in to.
• If you have the Freepass, don't tag IC card at the stations. Show your Freepass to the attendant instead. It can't be a screenshot, they need to see the day
• Google Maps was great everywhere except Hakone. For some reason it was especially unreliable here, it led us stray a few times.
• Busses are faster for getting around, but have very little space for luggage and seemed packed with locals. If time is not an issue, I'd ride the Hakonetozan Line with your luggage, much more comfortable and more space.
• If you can spare the money, getting a private onsen was really really nice. Plus you can drink while you chill!

Kyoto

• Had an excellent time at Gion Bar M16, favorite bar experience we went to in Japan. The owner was super friendly and welcoming, and was himself a very interesting person that has lived a full life and travelled all over the world. Very interesting to talk to. He was also very knowledgeable about whiskey and drank whiskey with us while letting us try some different whiskeys and giving recs about what to buy and bring home. Also gave us lots of delicious and interesting snacks while we got drunk together. We also met a friend of the owner there who is a foreigner that has been living in Japan for 8 years, and gave us some recs.
• One of his recs was Eikan-do Temple as a less-crowded temple option. Good rec! We really enjoyed this place a lot. Probably our favorite temple out of the 5 or so we visited. They have this really extensive "shoes-off" wooden walkway on support beams. It felt like exploring a big tree house, because the wooden part went up the cliff as well. The insides areas were also very extravagant and intricate. Not so many tourists, even Sunday middle of the day. I really recommend as well!
• Another of his recs was Men-ya Inoichi (has a Michelin star). You line up when the shop opens to get a ticket, and then come back at a designated time, though there's still a wait before you actually eat. We probably waited ~50m in total, 20m at the beginning and 30m when we returned. Even then, thought it wasn't worth the time. Don't get me wrong it was very good, but IMO not significantly better than other ramen places.
• Kodai-ji Temple was a miss for us, especially after Eikan-do. Thought it wasn't that interesting, would have skipped.
• Kiyomizu-dera was indeed very nice, but very very crowded. Another place I would actually either going early or late for.
• The shopping street in front of Kiyomizu-dera was super fun to browse, but also very crowded.
• Had lunch at this tucked away Soba restaurant in an alley that was very nice, one of my favorite meals in Japan. Owner was friendly and spoke in Japanese to a translator that replayed his words in English. Noodles nice and chewy. Good experience, felt very personal!
• We visited Yasaka-jinja Shrine and Maruyama Park both in the evening and during the day, and much much prefer it when it's dark. Less crowded and there are cute little lamps that are lit up and make the whole place look magical.

Nara

• Arrived in Nara station at ~2:30pm and left at 7pm. Felt like we saw plenty.
• Nothing new to add, the bowing deer are fun to visit and feed, though they can be quite aggressive. We went on Saturday and there was large crowds of children in their school uniforms, but we didn't really mind it too much.
• Isuien Garden and Yoshikien Garden are both very nice gardens, good place to get away from crowds for some peace and quiet.

Osaka

• Didn't spend much time in Osaka, but Dontonburi was fun to walk through and shop.
• Ate at a very nice Okonomiyaki restaurant. It was our first time eating it so can't compare it to anywhere else, but the staff was super friendly and bubbly and we had an excellent time there. They also have a little dice game you can play to "gamble" on getting a drink for free, or "lose" and get the drink double sized and also pay 2x the price
• Shout out to our hotel, Hotel Royal Classic Osaka. We were only there for one night, but my god this hotel was so convenient. Directly connected to the subway station via an elevator, and also has a 24-hour FamilyMart you can enter from the lobby. It was also only 3m walking away from a airport limousine bus, which made going to the airport super easy. If we ever visit Osaka for a longer stay, we would definitely book this hotel again.

Random Tips

• The flipside to getting to a popular tourist spot early, is to get there very late. We visited Takeshita Street in Harajuku at 8pm at night and it was very comfortably not crowded. Also noticed other tourists spots tended to clear up near closing time, like Senso-Ji in Asakusa.
• As everyone says, toilets are generally as clean as you can reasonably expect, everywhere from parks to gardens to subway stations. Nastiest toilet I saw was in Don Quixote at 1am, trash everywhere.
• 7/11 seemed to have English featured more prominently on their products labels compared to other convenience store chains. All the convenience store food options seemed very similar, so I started to favor 7/11 for the language convenience. (FamilyMart had English in super tiny letters on the side of the label lol)
• In one of those small counter seating type restaurants, I saw someone take the wrong backpack when they left (didn't know it was the wrong backpack at the time ). A few minutes later, the person who's backpack was taken got up to leave, and was very confused trying to find his backpack. He spent a long 10m talking to the restaurants folks (in Japanese), before the original guy came back super apologetic. Anyway keep an eye on your stuff. I know Japan is a safe country, but accidents do happen.
• One trick we had was to tie a little charm or hair tie to the handle of our umbrella, making it less likely someone would accidentally take yours from the sea of indistinguishable white plastic umbrellas.
• Yes there's a lot of walking. My feet tend to get damp if I'm out all day and foot powder works wonders, highly recommend it. Picked up this trick while attending music festivals.
• No issues with tax refunds and customs. We packed some of our stuff in carry-on in case they inspected, but nothing happened.
• Used Ubigi esim and it was perfect. I bought 10gb and used 7gb over our trip, doing most of the navigation and planning. My wife bought 1gb and used about 700mb with just random internet surfing. I will 100% be using this service for travel to other countries in the future, not just Japan, it was so damn convenient.

Transportation

• Definitely leave extra time for navigating subway stations, those things are like enormous underground malls.
• Shinkansen app didn't work for our iphone country (Germany), but I was able to use the mobile web browser pretty easily. Great for free, last-minute rescheduling of Shinkansen tickets when we inevitably take too long shopping.
• Apple Wallet Suica / IC card worked like a charm (with AMEX and Mastercard). One thing though it that it can sometimes take up to 1 minute for the money to load onto the account, so don't wait until the very last minute and accidentally hold up the bus.
• Taxis are green when someone is in it and red when they are free (at least in Tokyo?). Confused the hell out of drunk me at 4am in the morning. I think in Kyoto it is orange instead when someone is in them, and the orange/red difference is quite hard to spot from far away.
• On that note, I had sorta assumed the metro runs all night in Tokyo, but this is definitely not the case. They stop service from about midnight to 5am, so keep an eye on the last train if you do intend to catch it. Otherwise you'll have to take a more-expensive-than-usual taxi (captive markets), but not a big deal. We thought it was typically priced in comparison to most other US and European cities.
• We had a choice between a 1 hour or 3 hour layover in Tokyo NRT and we chose 3 hour because we weren't sure how long it would take to transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 in NRT. In actuality it took less than 30m, so the 1 hour would have probably been fine. We didn't mind the extra buffer time to relax though.- Absolutely enormous plane flying between Osaka and Tokyo. Like literally it was the size of a transatlantic plane, with 10 seats in each row, for a sub 1 hour flight, completely full with business travelers (judging by their suits and brief cases).

Food

• We aren't big foodies; we like Japanese food a lot but food isn't really a top priority for us while traveling. Some of our favorite meals were from 7/11 (kelp & bonito flavoured tofu stick, sukiyaki beef over rice, fish flavored cheese snacks, grilled squid. Yum!)
• Most meals were good, if a bit straightforward. At least the places we ate at, main courses seemed to be carb heavy, with a side of meat, and little else. I know we could have gotten side dishes, but the portion sizes were too big for us to order more.
• Very few vegetables in general, and if there were some they were pickled. (Guess it makes sense for an island country). I usually bring fiber pills with me when traveling and do recommend it for Japan too.
• Wife is vegetarian, I am not. Japan is not particularly vegetarian friendly if you don't like tofu, which fortunately my wife does. Most places did have at least one tofu option, so it worked out okay for us. She doesn't follow it super strictly though. A few times she would order a dish and I would just pick out the meat from her bowl.
• Portion sizes were a LOT bigger than I thought they would be. I think maybe we are just small eaters. US and European portions are a little bit bigger I suppose, but Japanese portion sizes were too big even for us. Especially ramen! It was crazy to see folks wolf down an giant bowl of ramen, then ask for an extra helping of noodles with their remaining soup, and finish that up too.
• We only made one reservation beforehand and waited in line over 10m once. Worked out fine for us.
• Restaurants tend to do last call an hour or more before closing, so don't get there too late. Happened to us twice before we learned our lesson, got to a restaurant about one hour before the listed closing hours and they turned us away.
• The Japanese palette seems to be much more subtle than typical western palette, and notably less salty. We often find Asian food at US/German restaurants too salty or saucy. Even then, some of the food we ate was bordering on the minimum range of my taste buds to almost be bland. Just my opinion, most of it was good but sometimes the lack of salt was pretty noticeable to me. My wife tends to like things less salty than me though and she thoroughly enjoyed all of those meals no problem. Soup noodle places like ramen and udon are excluded from this, those were usually perfectly salted to my taste.
• Walking while eating seemed fine. I saw at least 3 different instances of Japanese people doing it.
• Apparently there are no laws banning public drinking in Japan. You can drink alcohol on the street no problem, but I rarely saw people doing that (unlike here in Germany where people seem to take full advantage of it and also leave trash everywhere). I did see a few groups of Japanese people doing it at night in Tokyo, usually near bus stops, and the next morning saw the empty bottles and cans. Guess there are litterers everywhere. We had a beer in the park at night, weren't loud about it and took our trash with us. That was very pleasant.

Hotels

• Hotels always have liquid or foam hand soap! I hate the bar soaps that most Western hotels provide in the room, so I usually bring my own liquid hand soap. Was totally not necessary for this trip.
• Lots of people on this sub have mentioned check-in time being very precise, as in you rarely can check in before the designated time. We didn't experience this first hand. But on the flip side, we did find out that check out time is very precise too! They start calling your room about 15-20m after your check out time. This is in contrast to most American/European hotels that we've stayed at, which are in my experience very lax about their check out times. We can often get away with leaving the room at 1-2 hours after the stated check out time (we're late risers). Not so in Japan.
• Agree with other people's advice that booking a hotel close to a big subway station is probably the most important factor. It sucks having to walk 10m to the station every single day, and it is amazing when it is close. Also being close to a 24/7 convenience store was also very nice for late night munchies.

Language

• We only knew sumimasen, konichiwa, and arigato gozaimasu and got alone just fine (lots of hand gestures!). We do know a bit of Mandarin Chinese though so that was helpful with reading signs.Some places knew Mandarin better than English and would switch to that if they thought we could speak it. Chinese tourism seems like big business (we saw a ton of Chinese tourists everywhere) so I guess it makes sense for people in tourism industry to cater towards that. Announcements (like over train stations) always went Japanese, English, often Chinese, then sometimes Korean.

Luggage Forwarding * I thought it was kind of expensive, but it does make things easier.- ○ Tokyo -> Hakone: 2310 yen- ○ Hakone to Kyoto: 2630 yen- ○ Kyoto -> Osaka: 1940 yen. * I feel like for that price you could take a taxi to and from your hotels to the train station and it wouldn't be much more work. There was plenty of space on the Shinkansen to put smaller checked luggage overhead. Then you don't have to prepack things the day before. * For the first leg Tokyo -> Hakone, we shipped two checked luggage which was about ~32 euros. After that we only shipped one, not two. * The middle ground we found was to designate one suitcase as souvenirs and dirty laundry and forwarded it every time. We would then travel with two carry-ons and one checked luggage. YMMV depending on your number of luggage and ease of carrying them.

Someone I know of because we have a mutual friend needs a hotel for the night I have it booked and all hotels are booked because of a Taylor Swift concert.
I confirmed with hotels.com I can change the name on the reservation, but it will still be linked to my hotels.com account
The customer service agent or bot did not understand what I meant when asking if I still had any liability for the room if there were to be damages or anything. The agent did say the hotel would require a credit card at check in as a deposit for damage and incidentals, and that would be provided by the person I change the reservation to, so it seems like I would be off the hook somewhat?
Anyone have any experience with anything like this?

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2021-01-15
In March 2015, we three sisters got together again as usual. However, that day was different from the usual talk and laughter. In a serious tone, my younger sister said, "The husband of the third elder sister seems to be getting progressively sicker." The second elder sister responded, "Study Buddhism, only Guan Yin Bodhisattva can cure your husband's illness."
Yes. Since my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2000, his hands and feet were shaking, and his whole body was involuntarily twitching. Although he looked around for doctors, asked for medicine everywhere, his condition worsened day after day, year after year. I had to feed him, dress him, and help him walk, as well as go to the bathroom.
Following the guidance and persuasion of my sisters, I took faith in Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door. In addition to reading Buddhism in Plain Terms, I studied Master Lu's The First Destiny Second Luck and Third Fengshui, A Guide to Reciting Little Houses, and Introduction to the Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door. I recited the Little House every day along with my daily recitation. Even though I was busy with household chores, I recited one sheet of Little House every day, and repaid all the Little Houses to my husband's karmic creditors. After 3 months, I still could not see any improvement. He still had to be fed, dressed, and supported. Due to lack of wisdom I foolishly slackened my practice, and I could only recite one sheet of Little House for 2-3 days and almost gave up practicing Buddhism.
In September 2017, I had a dream. "There are not many working blood vessels left in your husband's brain," a charitable elder kindly told me. I was awakened with a sense of urgency.
Early next morning, I told my younger sister the dream. My younger sister said, "I have just returned from the Dharma Conference, and we must follow Master Lu's teachings: chanting more Great Compassion Mantra, reciting sutras, making vows, and releasing lives. Recite the Great Compassion Mantra 49 times a day, and recite more Little Houses to pay off my brother-in-law’s debts. Let him also recite the sutra, recite Little House, make a big vow, and read the Buddhism in Plain Terms."
Soon, I had another dream. Master Lu’s Dharmakaya said to me, "Your husband's illness is very serious, so you have to recite the sutra, make a big vow, and release lives. Both you and your husband come to the Dharma Conference, and Master will definitely bless him and everything is free for you." In 2018, we were unable to attend the Dharma Conference in Singapore due to various reasons.
We were eagerly looking forward to the coming of 2019. With the financial support of my younger sister, my elder sister helped us apply for visas and buy air tickets. In October 2019, after a long bus ride of over 300 kilometers, we arrived in Malaysia by plane. The fellow practitioners took care of us all the way, and practitioners Xu, junior Zhao and my elder sister were even more considerate.
At the site of the Dharma Conference, we saw tens of thousands of Dharma practitioners under the command and arrangement of volunteer practitioners. No one was crowded and noisy. Everyone was self-aware and self-disciplined. We were very excited. There was only one voice at the Conference: I want you all to be well now! Gratitude to the Greatly Compassionate and Greatly Merciful Guan Yin Bodhisattva! Gratitude to Master Jun Hong Lu! Gratitude to fellow practitioners!
Master Lu blessed my husband and I. My body felt warm and relaxed. My husband said to himself, "I want to recite the sutra, I want to become a vegetarian, and I want to practice Citta Dharma Door following Master Lu." Ah! He made great vows at the conference！By a miracle, when he walked out of the conference hall, he pushed me and the practitioner who supported him away. He walked back to the hotel alone.
Since then, he has walked alone every day. Dharma is so incredible! Citta Dharma Door is so effective! Bodhisattva will surely bless us as long as we possess the power of vow. If people are sincere, Buddha will respond.
From the time we attended the conference to the end of the conference, in just 3 days, he dramatically changed. He seemed to be two people. In these 3 days, he got a qualitative change, a quantitative improvement, and we got the blessings of Master Lu and Guan Yin Bodhisattva. My husband was sick when he traveled abroad. After he came back he returned to normal. His hands and feet were free to move, no more shaking hands and feet, and no twitching all over. Words cannot express how excited we were. Only thanks to the Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva for rescuing and saving suffering! Gratitude to Greatly Compassionate Master Jun Hong Lu! Gratitude to Citta Dharma Door!
Now, my husband tells everyone that the Citta Dharma Door is extremely effective, Master Lu is a sage, and Master Lu is the Guan Yin Bodhisattva." He no longer needs to be supported, much less fed, and sometimes he helps me with household chores. Through his experience, he tells those who have been ill like him that with Guan Yin Bodhisattva and Master Lu, your ailments are all minor. In one year's time, he successfully transformed 8 people into practicing Citta Dharma. As part of his efforts to promote the Dharma, he also participates in outdoor activities. He strives to recite the sutras, cultivates his mind seriously, and practices sincerely.
At the beginning of this year, I had another dream: Master Lu gave my husband a prescription without words. I took the prescription to pick up the medicine and the pharmacist told me: Get home, your husband is not sick and does not need medicine. I am happy and my husband is even more excited that he is well and everything is okay. We are grateful to the selfless, altruistic and kind Master Lu! We are grateful to Guan Yin Bodhisattva for Her Great Mercy and Compassion! It is Guan Yin Bodhisattva and Master Lu who saved my husband and our family.
My husband has recited over 500 Little Houses (excluding those I recited) and released > 4,000 fish. Watching my husband get better day by day, our family is happier. Our family is forever grateful to the Master! Grateful to Bodhisattva! Citta Dharma Door is Guan Yin Bodhisattva's Dharma Door, is the Dharma Door taught by Master Lu that can cure diseases, change our destiny, save our lives, improve our quality of life, and improve our quality of existence. We vow to listen to Master Lu's words, to be obedient children of Guan Yin Bodhisattva, to strive to promote the Citta Dharma Door, to diligently cultivate ourselves, to unite fellow practitioners, to be compassionate to all sentient beings, and to never quit on the path of chanting sutras, making vows, releasing lives, and reading Buddhism in Plain Terms.
If there is anything that is not rational or in line with the truth in the presentation, I’d like to seek forgiveness from the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva, all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Dharma protectors, and Master, and I’d also like to seek correction from my fellow Buddhist practitioners.
I, not my fellow practitioners and Master, will be responsible for my own karma!
Presenter: Dharma practitioner Gou, Gratitude and Namaste!
Translator: Frank
Published: 2023-04-02
My deepest gratitude to the Greatly Compassionate and Greatly Merciful Guan Yin Bodhisattva!
My deepest gratitude to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from ten directions and three periods of time!
My deepest gratitude to the Dharma protectors!
My deepest gratitude to the selfless and beloved Master Jun Hong Lu!
My deepest gratitude to the fellow practitioners!
STATEMENT BY EDITORS AND TRANSLATOR
Story was translated by meaning, not word by word. If there is anything that is not rational or in line with the true meaning of the Chinese version, I’d like to seek forgiveness from the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva, all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Dharma protectors and Master Jun Hong Lu.
原文如下：
神奇的心灵法门让18年帕金森病患者康复——心灵法门网友反馈
2021-01-15
感恩南无大慈大悲救苦救难广大灵感观世音菩萨摩诃萨！
感恩十方三世一切诸佛菩萨！
感恩龙天护法菩萨！
感恩恩师慈父！
感恩师兄们！
2015年3月的一天，和往常一样，我们三姐妹又聚在一起了。但是这天又不同往日有说有笑，妹妹严肃地对我说：“三姐姐夫的病好像越来越重了是不。”二姐接着说：“学佛吧，现在只有观世音菩萨才能救度我们，治好你男人的病。”
是啊，自2000年我先生得了帕金森综合征以来，手抖、脚抖、全身都不由自主抽动。日复一日，年复一年，虽然四处寻医，八方问药，可先生的病越发严重。吃饭要我喂，穿衣要我帮、走路甚至上厕所都要我搀扶。
在姐妹的开导和劝说下，我开始走进了心灵法门。开始学习卢台长师父的《一命二运三风水》《小房子念诵指南》、“入门手册”，读《白话佛法》。每天做功课、念小房子。虽然家务繁忙我每天也能念诵一张小房子，并且都送给了先生的要经者。三个月过去了，可还是不见先生好转，仍然要我给他喂饭、穿衣、搀扶。因自己没有智慧，愚痴。我便松懈了学习，三天两天才能念一张小房子，差点放弃了心灵法门。
2017年9月的一天夜里我做了个梦，一个慈善的长者亲切地对我说：“你先生脑壳里的血管没有几根能用了。”我被惊醒后，顿觉情况不妙，感到事态严重。次日一大早我告诉了刚从马来西亚回国的妹妹。妹妹说：“我刚从法会现场回来，我们要按照师父的教导：狂念《大悲咒》、念经、许愿、放生。每天念《大悲咒》49遍、多念小房子还债。让姐夫也要念经、念小房子、许大愿、读《白话佛法》。”不久，我又做梦，梦中师父对我说：“你先生的病很严重，要念经许大愿、放生；你和你先生都来参加法会，师父一定给他加持、一切为你们免费。”由于种种原因，我们无缘参加2018年新加坡大法会。我们左盼右盼，到了2019年，在妹妹的资助下、姐姐帮助我们办好了签证、买好了机票。2019年10月，坐了三百多公里的长途汽车后，乘飞机到达马来西亚。一路上师兄们都很照顾我们，徐师兄、小赵师兄和我姐更是体贴入微。在法会现场，我们看到了数万名参加法会的师兄在义工师兄的指挥安排下，没有一人拥挤、没有一人喧哗。人人自觉、个个自律。我们非常激动。数万人的法会现场只有一个声音：我要你们现在就好！感恩大慈大悲观世音菩萨！感恩卢军宏台长师父！感恩师兄们！我和先生都得到了师父的加持。感到浑身发热，身心轻松。先生自语道“我要念经，我要吃素，我要跟台长师父学心灵法门。”啊！先生在法会现场发大愿了，他要紧紧跟师父学习心灵法门。吃长素、永不杀生，永不退转。奇迹发生了，当走出法会现场的时候，他推开了和我一起来搀扶他的师兄、稳稳当当走出了法会现场，回到了宾馆。第二天、第三天到法会结束，再回到家，每天都自己独立行走。佛法太不可思议了，太神奇了，心灵法门太灵验了！只要我们有愿力，菩萨一定会保佑的，人有诚心，佛有感应。
从参加法会到法会结束，短短的三天里，先生戏剧性的变化、真是判若两人。在这看似平常的三天里，我们得到了质的改变，量的提升，我们得到了师父的加持，得到了观世音菩萨的护佑。出国时病怏怏的丈夫，参加法会回来后，先生恢复正常了，手脚自如，再没有手抖、脚抖、全身都抽动了。我们激动的心情无法用言语来表述。唯有：感恩大慈大悲救苦救难观世音菩萨！感恩慈悲的卢军宏台长师父！感恩心灵法门！
现在先生逢人便说：“心灵法门真灵，台长师父真神，师父就是观世音菩萨。”我丈夫再也不用人搀扶，更不需要人喂饭了，有时还能帮助我做点家务。他以身说法，劝度那些和他过去一样生病的人，有观世音菩萨、有台长师父、你们的病都是小病，都是小事。一年时间，他成功度化八人修学心灵法门。先生也积极参加外出弘法。努力念经，认真修心，真心修行。
今年年初我又做了个梦：梦中师父给我先生开了一张无字处方。我拿着处方去捡药，药剂师告诉我：你们回家去吧，你先生没有病，不需要吃药。我高兴，先生更是兴奋，他好了，一切都好了。我们感恩无我利他仁慈大爱的师父！感恩观世音菩萨大慈大悲！是观世音菩萨和师父救了我先生，救了我们一家。
我先生自己已经念了五百多张小房子（不计算我念的）、放生了四千多条鱼。看着先生一天天好，我们家一天比一天幸福。我们家永远感恩师父！感恩菩萨妈妈！心灵法门是观世音菩萨的法门，是台长师父传授的能治病、能改运、能救命的不二法门，提高我们生活质量、提高我们生存质量。我们发愿一定听师父的话，做观世音菩萨的好孩子，努力弘扬心灵法门，努力精进、团结同修、慈悲众生，在念经、许愿、放生、读《白话佛法》的路上永不退转。
我的分享结束了，分享中如有不如理不如法的地方，请观世音菩萨妈妈慈悲原谅，请十方三世一切诸佛菩萨和龙天护法菩萨慈悲原谅，请恩师慈父慈悲原谅，请师兄们批评指正。我自己的业障自己背，不让师父背，不让师兄们背。
分享人：弟子缑三姐师兄
来自师父的博客

, I received a fishy message from WhatsApp claiming they got my number from LinkedIn trying to hire me. Something seems off but here are the messages that have been sent so far, "Skyscanner was established in Edinburgh, UK in 2003 as a British online travel agency and meta-search engine company. The workbench mainly provides traffic services for comprehensive professional services such as hotel evaluation, promotion, star rating, and ranking. The business hours of the company's workbench are from 11:00 to 23:00 every day. During this period, it only takes less than 1 hour to complete the work. Work is remote and all you need is a laptop or smartphone to work online." "You need to log in to the workbench every day and use real data to optimize the review data refresh of the hotel, so that the hotel can get a better ranking on major travel search platforms, such as TripAdvisor, Expedia, Skyscanner, increase traffic, order volume, positive reviews, etc. To advertise and acquire customers, the hotel pays through the company." "Our salary structure is basic salary plus commission. When you work for the corresponding number of days, you can get salary. You have three chances to receive salary in a month. When you work for 5 days, you will get 800USDC/USDT about 1100CAD" "In addition to this salary, there is also the commission profit for optimizing hotel data. You can earn a minimum of 50USDC/USDT and about 70CAD every day." I'm not sure if this is a good opportunity or a scam. Please help!!

As usual, before a big final, I like to get a little behind the scenes insight. Last time, I got up close and personal with the players, but as a result, a restraining order was issued, so this time, I leveled up and installed some cameras in their hotel rooms. This will give us a first-hand look at their prep for the finals.

Casp-o-vision :

Sunday, June 11th. The clock strikes 6:00AM. Norwegian music begins playing. Casper’s eyes open. “Ahhh Kongesangan,” thinks Casper, “the only choice for brushing one’s teeth”. Casper begins brushing. He is already in the bathroom, where he sleeps standing up to maximize efficiency. He brushes the right side efficiently, and does the best he can on the other. Though these teeth are mainly defensive, they are constantly improving. Casper turns to his coaches, who are sitting in the tub watching him brush. They nod and make fists, the only coaching he has ever received from them. He nods and makes a fist as well. The main coach, whose name he has never learned, hands him a plate of Fårikål, and he begins eating. “Shouldn’t I have eaten this before I brushed my teeth?” he asks, but perhaps the storyteller, like Casper’s team, did not think this through. Still though, Google is very informative. “Boy, I sure do love Oslo,” muses Casper. “And fjords.” Wow, Casper is ready for Roland Garros.

Djokocam :

Sunday June 11th. The clock strikes 6:00AM. Norwegian music begins playing. “Perhaps we should not have been roommates” thinks Novak, as he looks across the room to Casper’s bed. But Casper is not there. Djokovic stretches his impervious to cramps body. He is not in a bed, but gently relaxing on a bed of moss, which grew when he summoned it with warrior one. He eases slowly into chair pose, and a chair appears. Goran quickly sits in it. “Look at my cool new shades!” says Goran. “Very nice, Goran,” says Novak, as he closes his eyes to begin meditating. “You think we can win, Novak?” asks Goran, while swinging his legs excitedly in the chair. “Yes, Goran,” answers Novak. “Can you believe they eat snails here?” asks Goran, while pretending his hand is an airplane. “Yes, Goran,” answers Novak. “Would you ever eat a snail?” asks Goran, while pretending he is an airplane. “Yes, Goran,” answers Novak. “Wow,” says Goran. His friend Novak is so cool.
Casper emerges from the bathroom, and Djokovic heads in. There are crumbs in the sink, and Ruud’s team shake their fists and nod at him as he begins combing his hair. Novak shakes his head. He is ready for Roland Garros.

Men’s Singles Final :

There is something about Casper Ruud’s game that makes it seem like he is not doing anything special. He is ultra-consistent, and he makes the right choices in almost every situation, but his disciplined approach can make a player like Zverev or Rublev seem like they are on another level. Ruud has made two Grand Slam finals already (both last season), but was summarily written off before they began, suffering defeat at the hands of Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open, and Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros. Here again, he is being given very slim chances by most people. When you do everything right (by the book), there is a sense that you become predictable, and the greats of the game have excellent situational awareness. If they can move early to your shots, you’re not going to get many errors from them. It makes this a very uphill battle for him, because Novak Djokovic is a player that is unlikely to be rattled by the classic patterns and approaches to the game, and is one of the most consistent players the tour has ever seen. Once he gets in a rhythm, you’re playing a tennis game set to expert, so Casper will need to elevate his aggression here.
Ruud will thankfully be fresh for the finals, but after watching the Alcaraz demise it’s hard to gauge how long that will last. Him being a bit older does give him a bit more stamina and experience, and he had a fairly quick match against Zverev. He’s also done this before, so I think physically he is ready to go 5 sets. Thinking, though, isn’t it always the cause of our blunders. Zverev looked competitive in parts of their match, but he is not at the top level of the game yet. His ceiling is, but where does his ceiling lurk? Ruud is nearly robotic out there. You know he is going to execute and move the ball well and his defensive skills are solid enough to make his opponent play several shots to win a point. It’s the discipline he has that allows him to do this regardless of the stage and the opponent. Zverev, on the other hand, is very much thinking out there. When he has a setup, it’s very up in the air what he should do. He’s often creating angles and situations that he is only going to play 1-2 of per match, and it leads to errors as he second-guesses and hesitates on shots (especially rough in choosing when and when not to come to net). In truth, he could have wound up deep in the match against Casper, but when Zverev had control or time, he made a lot of unforced errors trying to crack Ruud’s defenses. Despite having a ton of experience on tour, Zverev has not really ironed out his game and since returning from injury, he hasn’t really dealt with a match where he had to play hard every point in order to win. The ability is there, but the repetition of effort is not.
Speaking of repetition of effort, it should be noted what a great adjustment Djokovic made in his semifinal match. He is very frequently a slow starter on clay, but he came out and looked to match Alcaraz’s aggression from the start. It was a very “I’m not going to miss and I want you to know that” approach, and digging in in this manner started to forced Alcaraz to come up with more and more ambitious attempts. They both have a lot of heat on their shots, but Alcaraz is certainly the one swinging harder on the average ball. He started to make errors, but it looked to me like he would wear down Djokovic’s defenses with the onslaught. There have been a number of matches this tournament where the first couple games were furiously played, and eventually one player settled into their role as a defender, or folded up and forced offense until they lost. This didn’t feel like the case here, as both of these players can legitimately expect to hit a high percentage of their shots no matter what style they proceed with. A good example is how a post-cramp, immobile and defeated Alcaraz was able to guide winners off Djokovic’s serve. Not a strategy to win the match, but something that he rarely uses in match-play yet was instantly able to do.
After losing the first set, I still like Alcaraz’s chances. It had become the best type of ATP match, one where the player who is serving doesn’t just automatically win. The great big 3 matchups featured so many breaks and yet those breaks weren’t huge cracks or fails at all, it was just that at the highest level, players can play defense and offense from everywhere on the court. They exchanged breaks late in the 2nd set, and it seemed like Alcaraz’s aggression was finally mentally wearing Djokovic down. Early in the third though, disaster struck in the way that it always seems to when a phenom plays Djokovic at a major. Carlos Alcaraz cramped. Spectacularly. His hand cramped, his calf cramped, and he looked like Medusa slid in his DMs for a moment. Big credit to Djokovic for being bigger than the moment, and coming across the net to express concern and help Alcaraz to his chair. Cramping is something that affects a lot of players on tour, but it was pretty unexpected from Alcaraz. His physical strength is off the charts, and he trains extremely hard. If some combination of nerves and over-exertion really caused this, then it’s a by-product of Djokovic being willing to go toe-to-toe with him right from the start of the match.
There are great nutritionists working on the tour, but once you actually go full-cramp, it is nearly impossible to continue playing tennis. The muscle is in pain, and doesn’t want to fully flex even if you do. In short, you’re fatigued, in pain, and weak. Alcaraz forfeited the game so he could get treatment, but with 2 full sets left against the guy who is leading the GOAT debate currently (and competing against off-tour opponents), you’re pretty much finished. Brave of Alcaraz to finish out the match, and I had some hope that the kid would go full-tank and hydrate to recover for a 4th, but it appeared the damage was irreversible. He stood in on some returns, and while this means that any poor returns leave your court position too shallow to cover both wings of the court, he did show a pretty good ability to utilize this tactic. I’d love to see him do more of this in the future, as the best returners are pretty much hugging the baseline and you need this to win with minimized effort on hardcourt and grass. I’d also add, his deep return position was allowing Djokovic to serve and volley an awful lot, and Novak really was the one scoring off the dropshot in the non-cramp sets so Alcaraz will need to work on some other strategies. A good restful win for Djokovic, and a new wrinkle to the “how high will Alcaraz rise” debate. I don’t think too many people were really expecting cramps (to my knowledge it’s the first time he’s dealt with that on tour), and he had the momentum before they occurred.
One of the best things about majors is how long the players are out there. It allows for so many deviations in strategy and planning. Dumping sets to conserve energy, planning to sprint early then take a set off, and changes in strategy (holding back a bit of pace on serves early or playing frequent dropshots to take your opponents legs) can be really effective. Djokovic got the benefit of an interesting result here. It seemed like his defense was good enough to keep Alcaraz at bay but he wasn’t able to counter-punch. If this was by design, kudos to him and his team for allowing Alcaraz to punch himself out. If it wasn’t, it has at a minimum inspired other players to dig in on defense against Carlos now that they’ve seen the gas tank actually on E, which is tremendous for the tour since we’ve seen a few top guys fold against him already. The names on the trophies are less important than creating an environment where these guys can compete at their freest, because the sport won’t continue to grow unless the product is visibly enticing to the non-tennis public.
Djokovic Ruud should be a great match, the same way Swiatek Muchova was today. Ruud has yet to win a set against Djokovic in his career, but almost every single set has been confined to a single break of serve. That’s largely what I expect here. Ruud is good enough to compete with Djokovic for 75% of the match. Similar to the CA/ND situation that caused the cramps, Ruud is good enough to play Djokovic on even terms, but not really able to get out of trouble once he’s in it. Since Djokovic’s measured approach won’t wear himself out like Alcaraz’s did, this means a long match, with a vaguely assured result. This is good for Ruud for a few reasons. One, he won’t be distracted very often. When you’re going uphill but are a great competitor like Ruud, you don’t get caught up in the “what ifs” of an L or fret changes in the scoreline, you just keep an eye on how you’re doing out there. Trying different approaches, working on the spots you’re losing ground in, and communicating with your box constructively rather than complaining are useful, and keep you in the present moment. That’s a good place to stay for Casper here, because the crowd is very likely to get behind him. Djokovic is a beloved champion, but fans want to see a long match. If Ruud was considered an even contender here, he could almost enter villain territory, as fans would not want to see a great champion dethroned. Since he’s publicly regarded as a plucky underdog, he’ll have plenty of support.
Tennis-wise, the problem here is simple. Djokovic has the best backhand in tennis, and Ruud fights his off. He can create some great angles with it, and hits passes fairly well, but it’s a safe target for Djokovic which means the majority of shots are going to go there. We all saw how devastating a weapon the dropshot and forehand inside-in became for Alcaraz when Tsitsipas attempted to camp in his backhand corner, and I fear that Ruud will have similar issues in this match. This is doubly tricky because Djokovic’s backhand dropshots are much better and much more frequently attempted down the line. Ruud served well against Zverev, but he went out wide from the duece court a lot and Zverev never really punished him for it. Djokovic ropes these shots cross-court very well and he’s good at picking a few spots to up the aggression. If Casper is forced to abandon this serve, it’s a problem because it’s generally the best way to ensure that his second shot is a forehand. He plays well behind the pattern, but great returners (and great teams hello Goran) are likely to notice any significant lean on a particular serve. The odds at -450 indicate that Ruud will be competitive (because basically everyone watching is looking to bet on Djokovic at this point), but this would be the most surprising result that has occurred in tennis in a very long time. I think Ruud wins the same set via steady play and heavy hitting that Khachanov did, but it’s hard to see Djokovic struggling with patterns and opponents that he has already figured out. Djokovic in 4.

Another itinerary advice/review post. Thank you for your help!
We are a relative large group (10) ranging in age from 6-67. Everyone has different interests, so tried to keep our itinerary open so different groups can do what makes them happy. However, I did come up with a rough itinerary and was hoping for some help/advice/critique. I feel like we don't have enough planned. Further, would greatly appreciate dining recommendations that would be good for a large group in the areas we are visiting. Thank you!
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Day 1: Arrive and take it easy
Arrive to hotel around 3:00 PM (Eiffel Tower are)
Afternoon/Evening: Late picnic lunch Champs de Mars, walk around the area/Seine. (alternatively, Hop on/Hop off bus)
Dinner: Le Septieme Vin
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Day 2: Catacombs/Montmarte/Arc de Triomphe/Champs-Elysees
Morning: Catacombs (not everyone)
Afternoon: Sacre Coeur, walk around Montmarte
Evening: Reservations at Arc de Triomphe at 5:00 PM, walk around Champs-Elysees
Lunch/Dinner?
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Day 3: Leave Paris at 1:00 PM
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Day 6: Return to Paris/Galleries Lafayette
Afternoon: Return to Paris, check in to hotel in 10th Arr
Evening: Macaron Class at Galleries Lafayette at 5:00 PM
Dinner:Ober Mamma
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Day 7: Louvre/Latin QuarteIle de la Cite
Morning: Jardin des Tuileries
Afternoon: Louvre (tickets at 1:00PM)
Lunch: Reservation at 4:30 PM at Cafe Breizh Odeon
Evening: Latin QuarteIle de la Cite
Dinner:?
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Day 8: Disneyland
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Day 9: Le Marais/Seine Dinner Cruise
Morning/Afternoon: Canal Saint-Martin, Le Marais
Evening: Dinner cruise
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Day 10: Flight leaves late in the evening. Leave to CDG around 4:00 PM

In 2004 I (m/14) went on vacation to Florida with my Dad. It was sort of a mini family reunion with my grandpas side and we were all staying in the same hotel.
One night I was wandering around the hotel trying to entertain myself since everyone else was already in their rooms. The hotel had a club/bar in the lobby and I kept eyeing it, trying to get the courage to walk in. There was no way they’d let a 14 year old in there so I decided to call it a night and head back up to my room.
I catch the elevator right as the doors are closing and there’s a middle age man already in there. He strikes up a conversation with me and I don’t remember exactly what he said but I remember saying “yeah I’m just bored. I want to go into the bar but I don’t think they’ll let me in.” The man then offers to buy me some alcohol and I agree. I have no idea why I agreed to it because I didn’t even drink at the time.
We head back down to the lobby and as we are walking out of the hotel I’m just thinking to myself “what are you doing? Why are you doing this?”. There was a gas station right across the street so I figured it wouldn’t be too dangerous but the man b-lines away from the gas station and I say “aren’t we going to the gas station?” And he says “nah there’s a liquor store right down the road”.
This practically stopped me dead in my tracks and the alarms in my head started going off and I know I have to get out of this situation. The cell phone I had at the time would play the ringtone if you held the volume button. So I pushed the volume button down and pretend I was getting a phone call from my dad. “Hello?…I’m just walking around the hotel….okay I’ll be up in a second.” The man asks if that was my parents and I said “yeah that was my dad he wants me back up in room.” I got out of there as quick as I could and I still think about what would of happened if I got into that man’s car.

I will be arriving every late the 15th and will have the 16th-19th to see the city. I have never been to New Orleans, let alone NOLA, so I am interested in seeing the big first timer things.
Some youtubing has me interested in doing a Bayou tour, maybe taking the wife out for dinner on a paddleboat, the French quarter, Jackson square, partying, etc. Given my time frame, how would you plan these days out?
Also, I am interested in hotel recommendations. More so interested in ease of accessibility to points of interest rather than luxurious stays. I see staying right in the French Quarter (but off Bourbon street) is often suggested. I know the Royal Sonesta is a popular suggestion.
Any suggestions on where to make base camp and how to plan my days?