01/10/2026: September Recap

 Hello! I've decided to start up a journal keeping track of things I've been doing. I'll update this semi-infrequently but I'll try for at least once a month! I'll show and tell about things I've done, drawn and projects I'm working on! Let's talk about September!

 September has been a super rainy month here in Japan. But it's my first time being in Japan in September in a decade! So it's been quite nostalgic...

 This was just one week of rain but Tokyo had 34 consecutive days of rain. A new record!

Whenever it wasn't too rainy I tried going out and exploring a little bit. Most notably I went to the Todoroki Ravine in Southern Tokyo! I've been meaning to go for a while but it was closed when I first moved here. It's super cool! Just a sudden crevice that's got a nice stream and a bunch of greenery right in the middle of a regular Tokyo suburb. Since it was still late Summer and thanks to the rain everything was super green and covered in moss, it felt really magical! There was no railing though along the stream and it was quite busy so it was 少し怖い. There was also a shrine at the top of a hill within it. It's stereotypical to say but it felt like it was from a Ghibli movie.

 I also explored some more of the backstreets around the ward I live in. Tokyo suburbs often have these like park walkways that weave between streets and houses with a whole variety of things within them and they can be pretty long too! I discovered one I didn't know about and walked along it a good way.

 

I also turned 25 this month! My first time celebrating my birthday in Japan! I always think back to the first time I came here around now because I first came in 2014 with my family pretty much the day after my 13th birthday. So as of writing this 12 years ago I was in Japan for the first time still! I was working this year but I went out to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate with friends! I wanted to taste the fake Australian food... But I also got my first street pass on this day so a good present!

My birthday also marked the start of Silver Week. You may have heard of Golden Week which happens in May. But Silver Week only happens every now and then and it's when the days of September's public holidays line up to create 3 consecutive public holidays, plus a weekend making a total of 5 days off! I planned to go to Tokyo Game Show but unfortunately a typhoon hit and it was raining the entire time so the event was cancelled sadly. I did end up going game hunting with some friends on the Autumnal Equinox day though in Yokohama and Kawasaki so that was fun!

Art wise, I've been in a bit of a funk and haven't done too much this month unfortunately. Just a few illustrations and I bought Aseprite so I've tried my hand at making a few sprites but I still have a long way to go and pixel art is scary to me. I have started work on a new video though! It's been a while so I feel pretty rusty and I'm not super happy with it so far, so it might still be a while off. I've mainly been focusing on Japanese study recently and probably will for the next few months until the JLPT in December. I'm aiming for N2 this time. So I've been listening to more Japanese and started reading Kiki's Delivery Service or 魔女の宅急便.

I also played a lot of games this month. I beat 6 and I'm part way through Final Fantasy V. I started off finishing Dragon Quest X Offline, which carried over from last month, and I played it entirely in Japanese! A good feat for myself. I then mainly played some shorter games like Wario Land 1, Sonic CD, Rhythm Heaven for the DS and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. But my standout game would be Fire Emblem Awakening. The September birthday and Japan nostalgia got to me with this one! I got this back on my birthday in 2014, the same time as when I first came to Japan and it was my first Fire Emblem game! I remember playing it for the entire 8-hour flight over. And I loved it! However, I never actually beat it, I would always lose steam around the Valm arc so this time I blazed through it in just over a week and it was super fun and nostalgic!

That's all for now! It actually turned out to be quite a big update so if I do enough I might do more than one post next month! But for now thanks for reading and またね！