osaka, japan

osaka was our last stop in japan. our only regret of the entire trip resides in osaka——and it was universal studios! we both unfortunately overestimated it & didn't account for the fact that we were broke teenagers in our gap years without amusement park money. it was still very magic in a way that healed the child within me (i grew up on the mario & luigi games and stocked up heavy on luigi memorabilia)....but not something i would recommend if you're trying to be cost-efficient.

other than that, we loved it. den-den town and dotonbori were definitely the highlights; though, i did make an effort to spend one day without my camera, meaning there were fewer photos in osaka than the other two locations.

japan was unforgettable. AA and i plan on returning, at some point (once we're both rich and sexy adult women, i suppose?), to see all the beautiful cities we've yet to encounter.

kyoto, japan

i cannot recommend kyoto enough if you, ever in your lifetime, get the chance to visit japan. my friend and i expected tokyo to be the highlight of the trip but were blown away by kyoto and how beautiful it was; just like tokyo, walking around and seeing everything was an event in itself. i have so many precious moments from this trip and most of them belong to kyoto.....

i spent my nineteenth birthday in kyoto and fell in love with it. we ate so much great food (to list some: i discovered my love for strawberry tanghulu and daifuku, we ate sparrow (it wasn't too good), octopus skewers (very salty), takoyaki (in my top 3 foods ever, i cannot describe my love for it), pork gyoza (that AA was craving for the whole trip), sushi that a chef gave us on-the-house after he heard we were from chicago (following with a speech on how much he loves chiacgo), and potato tornadoes at a random food market we stumbled upon outside of fushimi-inari).

many photos are from neighborhoods of kyoto that we insisted on walking the hilly paths of at 7am (when we could have just taken the train to fushimi-inari, but i don't regret it). i really appreciated the random amount of nature scattered throughout kyoto; definitely contrasted the bustling city atmosphere of tokyo...

tokyo, japan

in april of 2024, i visited japan with a friend from middle school. we were never actually friends in school.......it was only after we graduated did we start getting along! while i fawned over all the eroge/vn box sets spread throughout various surugaya and sofmap in akihabara, she obsessed pretty hard over BL drama CDs and manga (which is kinda understandable...? i've never been a huge BL person, but i think i get it...).

tokyo was a crazy culture shock for the both of us. growing up in the south suburbs of chicago, surrounded by soybean and corn fields, actually being present in a clean, walkable city with the most amazing public transportation system......we genuinely had so much fun in just walking around alone.

i'd love to visit tokyo again. we only explored shibuya, akihabara, harajuku, koganei (where we stayed), and a little bit of shinjuku at nighttime. we scraped the surface of ikebukuro and shimokitazawa, two places i'd love to visit more in-depth next time——and didn't even step foot within roppongi, ginza, nagoya, kamakura, or ueno. we only spent four days in tokyo, after all......but i can't say i'm unsatisfied with our effort.

chicago, usa

my home state (that i'm probably moved out of by the time you're reading this...). chicago is very special to me and somewhere i can see myself living when i'm older and on my own.......it embraces art and community in the same way that nyc does, only, in a severely underrated way (if you can call the third most populated city in america "underrated"?)——too many people bash on how beautiful chicago & its people are.

and maybe as an illinoishead, i just can't let go of how much i love the winters. which might be a downright crazy thing to say if you're reading this from illinois....

these photos are spread out from december of 2023 (with some photos from chriskindlmarket) & july of 2024 (where i took some photos in chinatown). but i'm hoping chicago remains a relevant part of my life for a long time. i feel like fall out boy in the way that i obsess about this city...

new york city, usa

one of my long-time online friends lives in long island. i visited her for the second time in 2023 and saw fall out boy live for the first time——it was very unforgettable! both seeing her and seeing my favorite band.......i saw my three favorite songs of theirs performed live and i just couldn't believe the stars aligned for me on that day: 7 minutes in heaven, 27, and calm before the storm.

these photos are from throughout nyc; manhattan, brooklyn, and chinatown. i've always been very in-love with this city, in the way many artists are, for that exact reason.....the way new york city embraces art and community is really unique to other cities in america. it's got a very specific iconic charm & it deserves that popularity.

i'm hoping to visit this friend again in 2025. she's one of the most important people to me and has been there for me in some pretty dark times......but, other than that, here are some photos of strangers, once again.

bali, indonesia

bali was impulsive. i was just starting my gap year and had an unshakeable urge to get the hell out of the house——to put myself out there in a way i never had before. i volunteered alongside other college students in tabanan and took various photos throughout some of the most beautiful places i've ever seen. part of me wishes i was a little more experienced with photography when i visited bali; i probably would be able to capture it way differently than i did.

these were the two weeks of my life that proved i could be a human being just like anyone else. i did so many things for the very first time in my life. i played a drinking game for the first time, went to a night club for the first time, and traveled by myself for the first time. i remember sitting on a curb at 2AM in canggu, turning to my friend and saying, "this is my first time ever going out at night with friends." she gave me a cute head tilt, and a face like :-O

bali was supposed to be a month-long endeavor. it was cut short by me getting hospitalized with bronchitis, breaking myself out of there three days early, quickly scheduling a flight home with my platelet count at 80. but it was still a success. a very unforgettable one that i'm grateful i got to document.