Spindle: City addresses in Japan often have three numbers at the end that may seem confusing to tourists. The first number is the district, the second a block and the third a building index. Taxi drivers usually accept just those three numbers as the endpoint, as we found out the previous day outside the supermarket.

Parcly Taxel: I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a smaller bowl than what I use back home for the same food. This is because the small bowl is optimised for rice and the average Japanese diet consumes somewhat fewer calories per day than diets elsewhere. I had conditioned myself to this diet over the past week by skipping some lunches, replacing them with bite-sized refreshments.

Twilight Sparkle: The three numbers are in fact essential for precise addressing in Japan, because most streets there don’t have names at all. In advertisements a small map of the vicinity may be provided, showing where important landmarks, train stations, etc. lie relative to the street grid and the thing being advertised. Some ponies are known to have trouble using these maps, because they concentrate only on the goal.

Rarity: Grand Base Fukuoka is a typical “city in a city” building, surrounded on all four sides by buildings of comparable height. A kōban (交番; police station) is near, as is a vending machine – in neighbourhoods this dense, there’s often at least one other vending machine in direct sight. Since Parcly was now in a big city, she and Spindle went out into the main street, then down into Tenchika (天地下／天神地下街), an underground shopping arcade.

Ocellus: These arcades are the secular evolution of the avenues of stalls positioned outside temples that cater to journeying pilgrims. Tenmangu still holds one of those old avenues, which now tend to sell food souvenirs rather than services for the weary body.

Party Favour: The modern arcades border offices and main streets and also cater to tourists. Parcly was expecting more Korean and Taiwanese tourists in the Tenchika (which has a number of offshoots, e.g. Tenjin Core) than she saw, but governmental tensions between those countries and Japan have led to a decrease in visitor counts. Cashless payment methods are widely accepted.

Lily Valley: For their lunch, the princess and her companion had a beef katsu meal. Though that katsu can be eaten straight, the usual procedure and the way they enjoyed it is to cook it on a miniature grill until lack of redness. Cabbage levels were just right this time, a far cry from the mountain of shaved leaves she got in Kumamoto.

Discord: Her afternoon walks took place in the Iwataya (岩田屋) and Mitsukoshi (三越) department stores, so close as to blend into each other like islands do in my realm. There are many, many such companies throughout Japan, with others including Daimaru (大丸), and some of the biggest chains exported themselves overseas. By poor reception or just plain chaos, however, many retreated to the home islands; Takashimaya still operates a branch in Canterlot.

Terramar: In some places the department stores looked similar to what Parcly experienced in more remote communities: individual creatures strolling by like tumbleweed and patient, waiting store clerks. Instead of just two options like I had between my father and my mother, there are literally thousands. Parcly didn’t seem very interested in all but a handful of items; her constant factor for Hick’s law must have been very large.

Octavia Melody: A classic confectionery café played host to the silky smooth windigos (Parcly being a “half-windigo” of sorts) for tea. Or rather, a sausage brioche and some coffee. Romantic Europe, with its high fashion and “refined” manners, holds sway in the minds of many Japanese ponies, an attraction dating back to the Meiji Restoration.

Dragonlord Torch: By the time their coffee hangover ended it was half past four and nearing sunset, so the two went back to the hotel to rest. In Parcly’s case this meant hopping into her bottle and wafting out in an amorphous, featureless form, aided by Spindle blowing her away from walls and objects.

Starlight Glimmer: At 7pm, a now perked-up Parcly (who turned the little filly’s tale of the windigo on its head) trotted to Canal City Hakata, home of a custom Neon Genesis Evangelion light show (Lance of Longinus included) projected on its inner walls, as well as Raumen Stadium where different ramen chains (mostly from Hakata) operate in a cluster. Parcly inserted money for a meal coupon, got seated and slurped away.

Princess Luna: Both the noodles and broth are very fattening, so Parcly took a long walk around the rest of Canal City before going back to the hotel. There she could rest and dream about the next day, and the day after, and so on until Hearth’s Warming – that coldest, coolest of holidays.

Raven Inkwell: Each paragraph in this description of Parcly’s tour of Fukuoka has been written by a different character! Yay!