Once again, not a whole lot to say about these days. I didn't end up going out and doing anything exciting, although I did go into downtown Yokkaichi with Charlie for dinner last night. He took me out to a Chinese place. It helps that he speaks Chinese. There were actually a lot of Chinese people on the street there, too. It wasn't exactly a great neighborhood, but we were okay.
I did get out some to do shopping and such, but otherwise I've mostly been at home preparing to leave. I'm going to do one last bit of shopping this morning at Book Off and see if I can find a couple of good mangas with Charlie's help. I haven't bought any yet, but they've got really cheap ones, and reading will definitely help to improve my vocabulary.
After that's done, I'll get to the train station around 11:00 for the 11:13 train, and start my journey back home. It should take roughly 25 hours. That's a long trip. I've got three train rides, followed by three plane rides and a car ride before I get home. I'll be bringing my two suitcases, which each now weigh in at about 48 pounds, and my backpack, at about 25 pounds. At least the weight is a little better distributed than when I came to Charlie's house, but it'll still be a pain lugging it all around.
Okay, I'm going to finish up the last-minute packing (like with this laptop) and head out. It's been fun here in Japan. I hope to return someday. Bye!
Days 31-33: Living in Yokkaichi
The past few days have been pretty slow as far as noteworthy events go. I've been mostly spending my time at my friend Charlie's house, but I've also gone around and seen some of the local town. Charlie works during the afternoons and evenings, so I'm mostly left to my own devices. Monday was mostly spent recovering from my trip to Tokyo, but I also went out shopping for a couple things to use around the house, like soap, and some milk and cereal for some cheap breakfasts that should last all week. Later that night, we went out to a bigger shopping mall and got some more food for various meals.
My arms and shoulders were extremely sore from Saturday through Monday night, because of lugging around about 100 pounds of baggage. I didn't mention it before, but it did make Akihabara a little less enjoyable than it could have been. I mostly tried to ignore it anyway. They're still a little tight now, but it's not too bad.
On Tuesday, I sat in on one of Charlie's English lessons with a couple of small boys. He seemed like a pretty good teacher, and the kids were alright. It was pretty fun to watch. I participated a little bit, but there wasn't much for me to do. His boss wants him to teach by pure immersion, so I couldn't practice my Japanese with them, either, since I was supposed to be speaking English only. His boss was a pretty nice woman, though, and we talked for a while in both English and Japanese. She even took us out for a light lunch at the shopping mall's cafe.
After all that was over, I went to Book Off, a used book/movie/game chain, and got a couple more Japanese games: Lunar: Silver Star Story and Remember 11: The Age of Infinity, for PS and PS2, respectively. I already own Lunar in English, but it was 500 yen, so I couldn't pass that up. Remember 11 was also 500 yen, and it's a visual novel I've been playing in English with a fan translation patch, so when I saw that I could purchase it legally, I had to do that. I try to get my games legally whenever possible, but that game hadn't been possible until now.
Today, I've mostly just sat at home. Charlie went out to work around 1:30 and got back around 9:00, and in the meantime I've done a bunch of cleaning for him and played games. I doubt anything exciting will happen in the rest of tonight.
There's a chance I'll go out to see Ise Jingu before I leave, but that sort of depends. It's a 90-minute train ride to get there, which I really don't feel like doing, and it'll also cost another 4000 yen or so, which is basically the rest of my entire budget, aside from the train fares to get back to the airport and go home. I haven't decided for sure one way or the other if I'll go.
Miscellaneous stuff:
My arms and shoulders were extremely sore from Saturday through Monday night, because of lugging around about 100 pounds of baggage. I didn't mention it before, but it did make Akihabara a little less enjoyable than it could have been. I mostly tried to ignore it anyway. They're still a little tight now, but it's not too bad.
On Tuesday, I sat in on one of Charlie's English lessons with a couple of small boys. He seemed like a pretty good teacher, and the kids were alright. It was pretty fun to watch. I participated a little bit, but there wasn't much for me to do. His boss wants him to teach by pure immersion, so I couldn't practice my Japanese with them, either, since I was supposed to be speaking English only. His boss was a pretty nice woman, though, and we talked for a while in both English and Japanese. She even took us out for a light lunch at the shopping mall's cafe.
After all that was over, I went to Book Off, a used book/movie/game chain, and got a couple more Japanese games: Lunar: Silver Star Story and Remember 11: The Age of Infinity, for PS and PS2, respectively. I already own Lunar in English, but it was 500 yen, so I couldn't pass that up. Remember 11 was also 500 yen, and it's a visual novel I've been playing in English with a fan translation patch, so when I saw that I could purchase it legally, I had to do that. I try to get my games legally whenever possible, but that game hadn't been possible until now.
Today, I've mostly just sat at home. Charlie went out to work around 1:30 and got back around 9:00, and in the meantime I've done a bunch of cleaning for him and played games. I doubt anything exciting will happen in the rest of tonight.
There's a chance I'll go out to see Ise Jingu before I leave, but that sort of depends. It's a 90-minute train ride to get there, which I really don't feel like doing, and it'll also cost another 4000 yen or so, which is basically the rest of my entire budget, aside from the train fares to get back to the airport and go home. I haven't decided for sure one way or the other if I'll go.
Miscellaneous stuff:
- The cereal selection in Japan is very limited. Pretty much corn flakes (frosted or chocolate), or bran flakes.
- When you buy anything, the store clerk will almost always tape the top of the bag closed for you. This does not apply in grocery stores, because by and large you are expected to bag your own purchases there after you're done.
- When people are trying to explain something, or give a somewhat-rehearsed speech or lesson (such as in church, at school, or my host family choosing their words carefully so I could understand), they tend to stress their particles (ha, ga, wo, ni, etc.). Those come up every few words in a typical sentence, so the result is that they'll say a few words at a lower pitch, then a longer, more drawn out and higher pitched syllable for the particle, then back down and up and down and up. Lots of people do this.
- People here in Yokkaichi stare at me much more openly than they did in Izumi. This isn't exactly a big city, and foreigners are pretty rare. I haven't seen any other white people besides Charlie, so we attract a lot more attention.
Day 30: Akihabara
I'm no longer in Tokyo. I took the overnight bus back to Nagoya, then the train to Yokkaichi. But let me back up. Yesterday was a very long day. Continuing where my last post left off...
After we got cleaned up, we planned our trip to Akihabara in a little more detail, then went and got breakfast at Sukiya (すき家). It's a common chain restaurant here in Japan. I had curry rice, because it was cheap, but I soon regretted it, as the hot food was really not agreeing with my stomach at that hour. It didn't last long, though, so it was okay.
We used the Tokyo rail map we picked up the day before to find how to get to Akihabara, then went to the station and set out. We arrived probably around 11:00 or so. The first thing I noticed at the station was that all the ads were anime- or game-based. That's not common elsewhere. The second thing was a huge tower labeled SEGA, to which my friend was immediately drawn. We headed towards it and found ourselves (after a few stops) on the main street of Akihabara. Both sides were lined with shops featuring gigantic images of anime characters, many of which I recognized (and took pictures of). The main stretch of the street is probably a little over a mile long, but the shops spread into side streets, too, for roughly a square mile of solid otaku shopping, I'd guess. Except that the shops had anywhere up to 7 floors each, so multiply that by at least 4. And I covered ALL of it. Except the restaurants. And the technology shops. But I at least looked in every shop, even if I didn't go in.
The stores were divided fairly evenly among anime/manga/related media, PC and console games, and miscellaneous technology (cameras, phones, computers...). There were also lots of restaurants, including maid cafés. I didn't stop to eat, though. I'm not really interested in the maid café thing. Speaking of maids, almost every street corner had one or more girls in maid costumes or other similar attention-grabbing outfits handing out flyers or other ads for their stores.
I was sorely disappointed at the lack of true cosplayers there. I think I saw two, plus someone dressed as Saber from Fate/Stay Night to promote the store's upcoming release. I didn't recognize any but her, though.
Back to the shopping. The stores had just about anything I could have wanted to buy. I must have seen thousands each of figures, CDs, video games, mangas, light novels, doujinshi, anime magazines and so on, and hundreds of wall scrolls, visual novels, and miscellaneous other items. I ended up buying Sister Princess for Playstation, since my friend said he can let me use his Japanese PS2 back in the US since he obviously isn't using it now. I also tried to buy the Haruhi PS2 roleplaying game, but I found out too late (only after I got home) that the box only had the included figure, and not the game itself. Very disappointing. At least it wasn't too expensive. I also got a White Album Cospa t-shirt for 2/3 off, several music CDs, a Noizi Itou/Zatsuon art collection CD, and a Little Busters! Kud Wafter mini handkerchief. I planned before even coming to Japan that before I left, I'd have to find an anime handkerchief to buy and bring back. I'm satisfied with this one. Surprisingly, the only figure I bought was the one that was supposed to have the Haruhi game. There were a ton I would have wanted, but the lack of space in my suitcase and the insanely high prices on a lot of them kept me from buying any. Honestly, I could import a lot of them for the same price or cheaper in the US, if I looked around carefully.
The biggest find and purchase for me, though, was the one thing I had really hoped to be able to get in Japan: The Key 10th Anniversary Memorial Box, which includes all of their Visual Novels through Little Busters! Ecstasy (Planetarian, AIR, Kanon, CLANNAD, Tomoyo After, and LB! Ex). The reason I wanted this so bad is it's the only version available of AIR, Tomoyo After, and LB! Ex that doesn't have the adult content, and it's a collector's item besides. I'm pretty sure it has more than just the games inside, but I haven't opened it yet. I had previously found the box for sale, used, on eBay, but it was over $400! This one was 8800 yen (about $110), although it's also used. I actually asked the guy at the counter if he had the game, and he looked it up and said no, but I decided to go ahead and browse anyway, and sure enough, there it was. It was the only copy I found in all the stores I went to, so I don't think any more of them exist. I really lucked out.
A note if you're planning a trip to Akihabara. Akihabara is NOT KID-FRIENDLY. About 3 in 4 stores have adult products. Of those, I'd say about 20% have them in visually concealed areas or on separate floors. The rest are right out in the open, usually (but not always) mixed in with all the good products. You really can't avoid it here. And, as with everything else in Japan, they never actually check IDs or anything for age, even if you buy it.
Oh, so my friend had to leave around 4:00 to make it home in time to go to work the next day. I stayed by myself to finish exploring. The shops seemed to start closing up around 7:00 or 7:30, and by 9, it was basically shut down except for the big ones. That really surprised me. I had kind of figured everything would be open until midnight or later.
Since I'd seen basically everything at least once already, and run out of money to buy anything else, I decided to call it a night and go to the station. But actually, I didn't even have enough money on me to make it back to Yokkaichi anymore. I could afford the bus to Nagoya, but probably not the trains, so I needed to find an international ATM. I was also on no schedule of when I needed to be back, so rather than take the train from Akihabara to the Tokyo station (where the buses would be), I decided to walk. It took about an hour, maybe a bit more, counting stops to rest and look at maps. I didn't actually have a map besides the train system one (and I still don't), and those aren't exactly drawn with complete accuracy in mind, so I just knew I needed to go southish. The maps you see on the street in Tokyo don't put North on top, though. Generally they orient it to the direction you're facing. This is a problem when they forget to put on any indication of which way actually is North. Anyway, it was a nice little adventure, and I was fortunate that I found maps every couple blocks to help guide me. I also found an ATM that worked, after three that didn't, so I managed to get the money to make it back.
Oh, I missed one thing. In Akihabara, on my way towards Tokyo station, I encountered someone from my home college! He was one of my friends back in my first Japanese class, but he didn't come on the school trip. Talk about a small world. We met each other on the opposite side of the planet completely by chance in a fairly densely-packed area of the largest city in the world. I mean, really, what are the chances? So we talked for a while, reveling in the unlikeliness of the situation before parting ways. I'll probably see him back in the US sometime.
So yeah, eventually I made it to the station, and took the 11:20 overnight bus to Nagoya. I arrived around 5:45am, after little if any sleep, and I worked my way back through the train system to my friend's house. I've gotten pretty good at navigating Japan by myself, it seems. Which is a good thing, because I still don't have a cell phone.
After we got cleaned up, we planned our trip to Akihabara in a little more detail, then went and got breakfast at Sukiya (すき家). It's a common chain restaurant here in Japan. I had curry rice, because it was cheap, but I soon regretted it, as the hot food was really not agreeing with my stomach at that hour. It didn't last long, though, so it was okay.
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| Tokyo Station, shortly after our arrival on Saturday night. The central station of the biggest city in the world, and it's practically deserted. |
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| My capsule that I slept in. My friend had the one above mine. |
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| The view out of one of the capsule hotel windows. The window itself was wide open, and it would have been easy enough to jump or fall out. This really wasn't a great neighborhood, which was fairly obvious when we got there, but nothing happened, so it was okay. The hotel itself was also rather unappealing. |
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| The nearby park. Near the station and the hotel. It was actually kind of nice. We spent an hour or more Saturday night wandering around here before going to bed. My friend was trying to get a group of local people to invite us into a conversation, but it didn't happen. |
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| Another part of the park. |
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| A rocket park. They really need adult playgrounds. If there had been fewer people around, I probably would have gone on this one. When we saw it again in the morning, it was crawling with kids. |
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| Tokyo Sky Tree. It doesn't look that big in this picture, but we walked closer and closer, and it didn't seem to move much, so that's gotta be pretty far away. |
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| Our first open view of the main street. |
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| Looking to the right. |
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| After walking to the right quite a ways, looking across the street. |
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| Persona 4 had a huge ad campaign going here for the newest version, Persona 4 Golden. There were gigantic posters and murals everywhere. |
I was sorely disappointed at the lack of true cosplayers there. I think I saw two, plus someone dressed as Saber from Fate/Stay Night to promote the store's upcoming release. I didn't recognize any but her, though.
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| The only true cosplay I saw and recognized, and it's part of the store's advertising. Oh well. |
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| One of the side streets, and there's still this much advertising on the buildings. |
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| They close the main road down on Sundays for a good portion of the day, so people just walk everywhere freely. |
Back to the shopping. The stores had just about anything I could have wanted to buy. I must have seen thousands each of figures, CDs, video games, mangas, light novels, doujinshi, anime magazines and so on, and hundreds of wall scrolls, visual novels, and miscellaneous other items. I ended up buying Sister Princess for Playstation, since my friend said he can let me use his Japanese PS2 back in the US since he obviously isn't using it now. I also tried to buy the Haruhi PS2 roleplaying game, but I found out too late (only after I got home) that the box only had the included figure, and not the game itself. Very disappointing. At least it wasn't too expensive. I also got a White Album Cospa t-shirt for 2/3 off, several music CDs, a Noizi Itou/Zatsuon art collection CD, and a Little Busters! Kud Wafter mini handkerchief. I planned before even coming to Japan that before I left, I'd have to find an anime handkerchief to buy and bring back. I'm satisfied with this one. Surprisingly, the only figure I bought was the one that was supposed to have the Haruhi game. There were a ton I would have wanted, but the lack of space in my suitcase and the insanely high prices on a lot of them kept me from buying any. Honestly, I could import a lot of them for the same price or cheaper in the US, if I looked around carefully.
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| Here's one store that had things that would be nigh-impossible to find in the US. The entire store was packed with retro games and consoles. These are original Famicom cartridges. |
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| And here we have Super Famicom. Including Chrono Trigger over there, for a whopping 680 yen. That's pretty cheap. The store also had a guarantee that all the games and hardware worked. |
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| A portion of the Gameboy collection. |
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| Many of the stores had these sorts of labels on each floor, saying what was for sale where. This isn't the best example. |
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| There were quite a few anime card games around too (the green and yellow sign in the middle is advertising that). You could buy cards and play in a lot of the shops. |
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| In addition to the labels outside, most stores had the steps show you what was coming up on the next floor. |
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| The stairwell wall posters also gave you a hint of what to expect. |
The biggest find and purchase for me, though, was the one thing I had really hoped to be able to get in Japan: The Key 10th Anniversary Memorial Box, which includes all of their Visual Novels through Little Busters! Ecstasy (Planetarian, AIR, Kanon, CLANNAD, Tomoyo After, and LB! Ex). The reason I wanted this so bad is it's the only version available of AIR, Tomoyo After, and LB! Ex that doesn't have the adult content, and it's a collector's item besides. I'm pretty sure it has more than just the games inside, but I haven't opened it yet. I had previously found the box for sale, used, on eBay, but it was over $400! This one was 8800 yen (about $110), although it's also used. I actually asked the guy at the counter if he had the game, and he looked it up and said no, but I decided to go ahead and browse anyway, and sure enough, there it was. It was the only copy I found in all the stores I went to, so I don't think any more of them exist. I really lucked out.
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| My spoils. In the top left, the Haruhi figma (minus game :( ). The top right has music: Kyon's Sister image CD, Genesis of Aquarion opening CD, Deep Blue Sky and Pure White Wings vocal CD, Bamboo Blade OP/ED CD, Fate/Stay Night: This Illusion, and the Rewrite OST. I haven't listened to any music from Rewrite, but it's Key, and from my experience they can do no wrong when it comes to that sort of thing. On the bottom left is my t-shirt, in the middle is Sister Princess, and to the right is the Noizi Itou art collection. On the bottom is my Kud handkerchief. |
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| The big find. I can hardly believe it was actually there, but it certainly took some searching to find it. Also, this thing is HEAVY. I had to lug it around the rest of the day, and I'll have to figure out the best way to bring it back to the US. |
Oh, so my friend had to leave around 4:00 to make it home in time to go to work the next day. I stayed by myself to finish exploring. The shops seemed to start closing up around 7:00 or 7:30, and by 9, it was basically shut down except for the big ones. That really surprised me. I had kind of figured everything would be open until midnight or later.
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| Akihabara in the evening, as things start to wind down. |
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| One of the two station entrances right there by the main street. I took this one in, but not back out. |
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| Even after leaving Akihabara a good 10-minute walk behind me, I still ran into these Evangelion "Keep out" cones. |
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| A cool bridge I passed under on my walk. |
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| Another view of the two layers of bridges. |
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| These were decorations on the bridge. Pretty impressive. |
Oh, I missed one thing. In Akihabara, on my way towards Tokyo station, I encountered someone from my home college! He was one of my friends back in my first Japanese class, but he didn't come on the school trip. Talk about a small world. We met each other on the opposite side of the planet completely by chance in a fairly densely-packed area of the largest city in the world. I mean, really, what are the chances? So we talked for a while, reveling in the unlikeliness of the situation before parting ways. I'll probably see him back in the US sometime.
So yeah, eventually I made it to the station, and took the 11:20 overnight bus to Nagoya. I arrived around 5:45am, after little if any sleep, and I worked my way back through the train system to my friend's house. I've gotten pretty good at navigating Japan by myself, it seems. Which is a good thing, because I still don't have a cell phone.
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