fulton st, G train, s. portland exit from the queensbound side.
there’s a padlocked stairwell between this one and the rest of the platform. i’ve been taking this exit for years but only recently turned my head to look behind me as i exited. i figure the closed stairs are connected, but considering the wall inside the railing doesn’t match the tiling, i can’t really map out the connection mentally.
i couldn’t get a photo of any of the bugs themselves because they would never land anywhere i could see, just kept flying over the grass, but there’s definitely a huge infestation of spotted lanternflies next to the court, near the south portland entrance.
park workers don’t seem to be fussed about it when i see them in the area, but these things are definitely killing these trees. the bugs themselves are huge and fast and almost made me eat shit flying suddenly in my face last week. they’re scattered all around the park, but there’s a huge nasty concentration of them in this patch of grass, constantly flying, that makes it unpleasant to go near and impossible to cross. i used to like to walk over to these trees and take up close pictures of the flowers. :(
who’s responsible for stuff like this? who am i supposed to call, or email? i tried looking it up but when i sent an email, i received an auto reply saying reports from nyc were not needed and wouldn’t be looked at. they’re too fast for me, and they’re impossible to stomp out in the grass anyway, so i really feel at a loss here.
my friend and i are headed to tokyo this september for their birthday, so i’m doing the itinerary. i have a pretty clear view of
what we want to see, although it could possibly use more cultural sites/activities. my blind spot, even with the transit layer turned on in google maps, is grouping neighborhoods together based on travel time.
i am a new yorker. i am no stranger to long train rides, or having to go up to go down, as it were. the difference is that here, i know the system by heart. plus, i’m not trying to cram fifty things into my day almost ever, so a 45 minute train ride feels normal at home, but multiple 45 minute train rides on vacation feels like an inefficient use of time. i am having an especially hard time with nakano, nippori, asakusa, kuramae, ueno… basically all my targets north of the imperial palace. that includes asakusabashi, which i want to visit at least for West5, but i haven’t been able to fit at all. some neighborhoods also ended up locked to specific days because of one-time events or shops that are open 4-6 days a week.
any help on making my itinerary more transit-efficient (or more efficient in general) would be beyond appreciated.
for context on my choices so far, i am a sewist and jfashion enthusiast, and my friend is a traditional artist who likes museums.
ETA: also, some edits based on suggestions so far:
days 1 and 2, weds/thursday: travel, check in at hotel in tsukiji (not far from tokyo station) at 6pm, dinner, crash.
day 3, friday: ikebukuro. sunshine city, parco, animate, yuzawaya, closet child, taberunosky. expecting jet lag despite my best efforts, so an easy first day.
day 4, saturday: harajuku: laforet, various small shops like acdc rag and milk, and shinjuku shibuya for shibuya109, shibuya parco if we are not parco’d out from ikebukuro parco, gigo shibuya, loft, and the mega donki.
day 5, sunday: day trip to kyoto. early nozomi in, late nozomi out. otoyo shrine, nijo castle, various castles and museums like the railway museum and manga museum, nomura tailor and metamorphose. all in a small range north of kyoto station. hoping the costume museum will be open by late september this is happening because we should have flown into KIX and spit our trip in half, but we didn't, and my friend really, really wants to see the otoyo shrine for personal reasons. so yes, short daytrip to kyoto, with plans to visit kyoto properly in future. yes, i have budgeted for this.
day 6, monday: oedo antique market (one-day event, can't be moved) and then rest in the hotel room for most of the day. walk around ginza a little if we get antsy. i have arthritis and i will need the rest.
day 7, tuesday: harajuku briefly for meiji jingu and the ota memorial museum of art, only open on tuesdays. then to shibuya shinjuku: bunka costume museum, shinjuku marui annex, lumine est, odakaya, hands. shinjuku is unfortunately the perfect middle point between shimokitazawa (puppy yarn for my friend’s mother, momenya makino, and an antique toy store, as well as exploring) and nakano (nakano broadway, nakano sun mall, kyle’s good finds, and a halal pizza shop that claims to have ny-style pizza). i'm not sure how to resolve this without putting one in front of shinjuku, which could mess with visiting the two small museums. is there a better day to put either one of them?
day 8, wednesday: ueno akihabara nakano sumida to visit the edo tokyo museum for a few hours and get lunch as well as visit junky style, asakusabashi for west5, and kuramae to visit mokuba and the dandelion chocolate factory (just a shop).
day 9, thursday: this is where it gets messy and possibly unrealistic. first out to sumida to visit the edo tokyo museum as soon as it opens, since it’s only open 9:30am-5:30pm. then over to kuramae to visit the mokuba showroom and dandelion chocolate factory. next is asakusa, to see the edo taito craft museum, some leather goods stores, and tokyo hobby base. after that, rush to nippori where everything closes at 6pm and where i know i want to spend a good chunk of money. finally, swing out to koto to visit cheese no koe (not skippable and best visited as close to the end as possible in the hopes of getting some cheese back to nyc) before going back to the hotel. nippori fabric town, asakusa for a small craft museum and some leather shops, and cheese no koe in koto. dassit
day 10, friday: check out of the hotel at 10:30 while holding our luggage there, and head back up to akihabara to check out 2k540 aki-oka artisan for last minute purchases and gifts. in a cab back to NRT by 2:30 for a 5:40 takeoff. the cabs are prepaid and cost less than the cabs in nyc that go a third of the distance. am now looking into skyliner just in case though.
having to write all that out really drives home how much of a mess day 9 is, especially since most of what i have planned that day closes very early, by 5:30 or 6pm. again, would love suggestions and reality checks. thank you! i've cleaned up a lot, but am still open to suggestions on better flow!
some months ago, i asked for advice on vegan and vegetarian shorthand for a printed menu. i finished this a while ago, but since i also do all the product photography and web management for the online store, i was chasing the chef for the final photos and costs until recently.
i ended up just taking everyone’s advice and using a key. hopefully it’s obvious enough for even the most impatient customer, and at least a little intuitive if they miss it.
i think i feel pretty happy with it, even if the print quality of the image on the center outside (next to the mission statement blurb) has been driving me nuts. i should also say, the color of the logo is calibrated for the office printer, which is why it’s a lighter green than any other; it looks correct when printed. the grey strokes at the top and bottom of one side are for the staff to fold it easily, and they vanish into the crease.
that said, i’ve been looking at this for so long, and i’m very open to suggestions.
something i've seen often on mercari are ladurée umbrellas, both folding and stick style. i can't find any information on whether this is a seasonal item or perennial, or what their in-store availability is either way, but i would really like to pick one or two up on my upcoming trip to tokyo. are these stocked at all, most, or select ladurée stores, if any?
i’ll be traveling to tokyo this fall, and as anyone else in this sub would, i plan on fabric and trim shopping. i’ll be going to nippori fabric town, okadaya shinjuku, and the mokuba showroom.
i have not been to japan in 20 years. i have been told by multiple sources that english is much more common in japan these days, especially in big cities like tokyo, but any small effort i can make to ease interactions behooves me as a tourist. i know very little japanese (i can count but can’t make sentences longer than four words or so, and have VERY limited vocabulary) so i have been preparing a phrase book for myself to study. i have phrases like “how much is it?” and “this many meters, please” down, as well as japanese pronunciation of fibers like wool, cotton, and linen.
for those of you who do not speak japanese fluently and have bought fabrics, trims, and notions in japan, what japanese phrases did you find yourself using the most?
there doesn’t seem to be much discussion yet on duck side of the moon, a game i really, really wanted to like. and i did, until the controls’ wonkiness outweighed the fun of the rest of the game. i understand the playable character is a duck in space, as in zero gravity, but the inability to simply float in one place without floating further up or down than i wanted, plus elevation being tied to camera angle in addition to the shoulder buttons, agitated me. it all made using the gravity tool very frustrating; depth perception felt impossible at times. loddlenaut also involved moving a character in 360 degrees, but the controls felt, well, more in control. if the duck is standing on stable ground while i gravity-grab a close object, suddenly poor doug is standing ON the object while plummeting through space. ???
and then i ran into the train tracks puzzle. and the npc refused to recognize i had completed the puzzle, so i took it apart again to trouble shoot, but the puzzle mechanic itself stopped working, even after closing and reopening the game.
has anyone else had trouble with this game on the switch, or am i uniquely cursed?
yesterday i took my second 5mg injection of tirz, my sixth injection overall. that same morning, i put on my mary janes i haven't worn in some-odd weeks, which i always leave buckled and shove onto my feet, and headed out the door. as i was walking to the train, i realized—they were flopping around pretty uncomfortably!
my feet have de-puffed so much already that when i adjusted the straps of my shoes on the train, i moved the straps over by two holes. what's more, my feet didn't swell up as i sat at a restaurant table, as they have done for so long whenever i go out to eat, so i didn't even have to loosen them again on the way home.
i'm still not feeling the full anti-inflammatory effects i see others say will hit at the 6–8wk mark, but this very small thing felt pretty big in the moment. 🥳