Sunday, November 30, 2008
Back in Japan November 2008
やった！またに日本にいるよ！今から英語を使う。
It wasn't until I arrived at the hotel until I was really reminded of the overall kindness of Japanese people. A girl who was a lot smaller than me offered to pull my bag into the hotel. I was tired at the time so I didn't really think to say it wasn't necessary.
Up at the hotel room I accidentally pulled a can of beer out of the fridge so I could read the warning label behind it. Unfortunately though the reading came too late as it told me that if I took out a can I would have to pay for it. 630 yen....but hopefully since I won't drink it I won't have to pay for it.
Woke up around 6 am, had some green tea using the hot water pot. Good stuff. While my roommate Richard was taking his shower, I flipped through channels on the T.V.
Watched Pokemon News and they had a young girl as a guest who challenged one of the spokes persons to a pokemon match. It was shown on TV. Saw a Power Rangers show. The commercials are really short, have great happy jingles, and usually have an animated character or someone in a costume.
There's no fan in the bathroom but there was a heated rectangle part of the mirror so that the mirror fogs up all except for that spot.
Around 9am Richard and I went and knocked on Dan and Nick's door to head down for breakfast. Found out that if I put a special card on my pillow they won't change the sheets in order to save energy.
On the 2nd floor we met up with others. There though we split off into two groups one for the American buffet with dinosaur shaped fries and one for the Glass Court. I went to the Glass Court with Josh, Caleb and Richard. It was a mix between American and Japanese breakfast.
I had raisin toast with honey, vegetables, granola with yogurt and blueberry sauce, and carrot juice. Later on I grabbed some okayu.
Next, Square-Enix goods store. I picked up a Chocobo with a magic hat. There was a life-size Sephiroth figure inside the floor of part of the store. During the Q&A with the two guys from Square-Enix, I learned that all of the localization is done in Japan and that the first draft is done by an American. I think it'd be pretty cool to one day work at an animation or game studio in japan doing translation. Also around 800 people will work on a square-enix rpg. They gave us a cool square-enix pen as a gift aftewords.
Next was Asakusa shrine. It was really crowded. I think that's interesting considering how many of them probably live nearby yet still like to frequent the area. Seeing people wave the smoke onto themselves for good luck was a first for me. When it came time for food I chose the shiroan oobanyaki. It's like a pancake sandwich with sweet white bean paste inside. Noriko let me know what it was called. Thanks! There were so many tiny little shops. In one of them I found a small asakusa paper lamp magnet that I picked up.
The trains are great in japan. Super smooth, clean, and they have the holding handles.
Our final destination for the day was Akihabara. Tokyo's Electronics Town. We arrived around 4:00pm and decided to meet back at the stairs of the UDX building at 6:15pm. Noriko first showed us where Super Potato was. I didn't buy anything there but there are so many used games from any system you could think of and sell each system as well. I didn't buy anything there but I did see some interesting things. Super Mario World shoes, Super Mario Bros. Movie b-day hat and a giant chair made from used Famicon games. It was fun taking Dan Wilson's (DJ wheat bread) picture of him pretending to have been shot by Solid Snake from Metal Gear. Kirby was hiding behind an umbrella rack.
I helped Dan Loane (DJ white bread) figure out how to ask for a certain game he was looking for. I was happy to see that it was a success.
I still think a lot of Japan's stores add together to make giant enigma/maze. They're so tiny with many floors and tucked away. There are also times when you don't know exactly what you'll find when you enter.
Next we went to an anime store and I found some One Piece Portrait of Pirates figures. With luck the Usopp figure was given a new sale price tag as a I was looking at it. from 3,000 and change down to only 2,000 yen. I also picked up one other small One Piece figure.
When I went up to pay for it. I saw that it rang up for the 3,000 yen price and politely said that I thought it was only 2,000. The guy explained to me that it was just because that the computer pulls up the original price but that takes off the rest. I said sumimasen and such. On a side note the guy was also wearing a giant Tony Tony Chopper hat. The only other thing I picked up was a One Piece shirt on the fifth floor. Some of the t-shirts were wrapped in plastic so you couldn't hold it up to check the size or the picture on the shirt, but there were small pictures to show what was on each shirt. It's also different how they put a little piece of tape on every bag you get when you buy something.
After that store we went to another game store and entered a few arcades but I didn't really see any good UFO catchers or arcade games. Dan Loane wanted to play Dance Dance Revolution but the guy working there didn't understand until I said ダンス・ダンス・レﾎﾞルーション
We all finally met up at the stairs and then went to eat at a Soba/Udon restaurant on the 8th floor of yodobashi camera. I got kitsune udon and some oolong tea.
After that we did one more shopping run on the Toys and Games floor. I found a small yellow pikmin ぬいぐるみ(stuffed animal) and coincidentally Steve picked up one as well only he got a blue one. I also found a couple tiny One Piece toys from the story arc that I was reading on the plane. Then it was time to go home.
Before coming up to catch up on my blog I decided to grab some ほっとレモンとムスカットミントガムfrom the hotel conbini.(Hot Lemon Drink and muskat mint gum)
明日か明後日他の書き方を使うかもしれないから楽しみに！ またね！
(Tomorrow or the day after I may use a different writing style so, look forward to it! Laters!)
Day One, Saturday, Nov 29th
After arriving at the airport on the 28th, we all gathered around the waiting area for the terminal. I had some oatmeal!
With great luck I got a window seat with no one sitting next to me, so it felt like business class since I could easily stretch my feet out. I read some One Piece in Japanese, vol. 48, watched Elf, and some Japanese T.V. I also studied from some of my Japanese text books.
Before boarding the bus, I grabbed a sekihan and a mango purin jelly drink. It had a little bit of a sucralose taste but it was still pretty good. The bus was really muggy though and there wasn't a whole lot of room. This was also where taco-kun was born. A taco character with a smiley face and stick arms and legs drawn by Dan/Ian. (although Dan may have drawn most I can't remember) Anyways......
It wasn't until I arrived at the hotel until I was really reminded of the overall kindness of Japanese people. A girl who was a lot smaller than me offered to pull my bag into the hotel. I was tired at the time so I didn't really think to say it wasn't necessary.
Up at the hotel room I accidentally pulled a can of beer out of the fridge so I could read the warning label behind it. Unfortunately though the reading came too late as it told me that if I took out a can I would have to pay for it. 630 yen....but hopefully since I won't drink it I won't have to pay for it.
The group then met up and headed out to get some money and food. Some people went to a ticket noodles shop and others including myself went to a revolving sushi-ya. I sat with Josh and Ari. I really liked the spout that gave out the hot water. I had forgotten the word for check at this point but I won't forget now that it's o-kanjou.
Then came Sofmap. I saw the DSi. Pretty cool.
The shops and streets are packed with so many places and I like how store fronts are completely open. No doors! There's so many people just walking around. The first thing I bought for myself was a One Piece keychain from a Gashapon machine. 200yen. I got Brook.
I fell asleep pretty quickly that night.
写真の時間だよぉ！！
After Getting off the Plane before boarding the bus.
Josh and Caleb rockin out the taiko drum game after sushi.
Gashapon! Toy Capsule Machines!
Woke up around 6 am, had some green tea using the hot water pot. Good stuff. While my roommate Richard was taking his shower, I flipped through channels on the T.V.
Watched Pokemon News and they had a young girl as a guest who challenged one of the spokes persons to a pokemon match. It was shown on TV. Saw a Power Rangers show. The commercials are really short, have great happy jingles, and usually have an animated character or someone in a costume.
There's no fan in the bathroom but there was a heated rectangle part of the mirror so that the mirror fogs up all except for that spot.
Around 9am Richard and I went and knocked on Dan and Nick's door to head down for breakfast. Found out that if I put a special card on my pillow they won't change the sheets in order to save energy.
On the 2nd floor we met up with others. There though we split off into two groups one for the American buffet with dinosaur shaped fries and one for the Glass Court. I went to the Glass Court with Josh, Caleb and Richard. It was a mix between American and Japanese breakfast.
I had raisin toast with honey, vegetables, granola with yogurt and blueberry sauce, and carrot juice. Later on I grabbed some okayu.
Next, Square-Enix goods store. I picked up a Chocobo with a magic hat. There was a life-size Sephiroth figure inside the floor of part of the store. During the Q&A with the two guys from Square-Enix, I learned that all of the localization is done in Japan and that the first draft is done by an American. I think it'd be pretty cool to one day work at an animation or game studio in japan doing translation. Also around 800 people will work on a square-enix rpg. They gave us a cool square-enix pen as a gift aftewords.
Next was Asakusa shrine. It was really crowded. I think that's interesting considering how many of them probably live nearby yet still like to frequent the area. Seeing people wave the smoke onto themselves for good luck was a first for me. When it came time for food I chose the shiroan oobanyaki. It's like a pancake sandwich with sweet white bean paste inside. Noriko let me know what it was called. Thanks! There were so many tiny little shops. In one of them I found a small asakusa paper lamp magnet that I picked up.
The trains are great in japan. Super smooth, clean, and they have the holding handles.
Our final destination for the day was Akihabara. Tokyo's Electronics Town. We arrived around 4:00pm and decided to meet back at the stairs of the UDX building at 6:15pm. Noriko first showed us where Super Potato was. I didn't buy anything there but there are so many used games from any system you could think of and sell each system as well. I didn't buy anything there but I did see some interesting things. Super Mario World shoes, Super Mario Bros. Movie b-day hat and a giant chair made from used Famicon games. It was fun taking Dan Wilson's (DJ wheat bread) picture of him pretending to have been shot by Solid Snake from Metal Gear. Kirby was hiding behind an umbrella rack.
I helped Dan Loane (DJ white bread) figure out how to ask for a certain game he was looking for. I was happy to see that it was a success.
I still think a lot of Japan's stores add together to make giant enigma/maze. They're so tiny with many floors and tucked away. There are also times when you don't know exactly what you'll find when you enter.
Next we went to an anime store and I found some One Piece Portrait of Pirates figures. With luck the Usopp figure was given a new sale price tag as a I was looking at it. from 3,000 and change down to only 2,000 yen. I also picked up one other small One Piece figure.
When I went up to pay for it. I saw that it rang up for the 3,000 yen price and politely said that I thought it was only 2,000. The guy explained to me that it was just because that the computer pulls up the original price but that takes off the rest. I said sumimasen and such. On a side note the guy was also wearing a giant Tony Tony Chopper hat. The only other thing I picked up was a One Piece shirt on the fifth floor. Some of the t-shirts were wrapped in plastic so you couldn't hold it up to check the size or the picture on the shirt, but there were small pictures to show what was on each shirt. It's also different how they put a little piece of tape on every bag you get when you buy something.
After that store we went to another game store and entered a few arcades but I didn't really see any good UFO catchers or arcade games. Dan Loane wanted to play Dance Dance Revolution but the guy working there didn't understand until I said ダンス・ダンス・レﾎﾞルーション
We all finally met up at the stairs and then went to eat at a Soba/Udon restaurant on the 8th floor of yodobashi camera. I got kitsune udon and some oolong tea.
After that we did one more shopping run on the Toys and Games floor. I found a small yellow pikmin ぬいぐるみ(stuffed animal) and coincidentally Steve picked up one as well only he got a blue one. I also found a couple tiny One Piece toys from the story arc that I was reading on the plane. Then it was time to go home.
Before coming up to catch up on my blog I decided to grab some ほっとレモンとムスカットミントガムfrom the hotel conbini.(Hot Lemon Drink and muskat mint gum)
明日か明後日他の書き方を使うかもしれないから楽しみに！ またね！
(Tomorrow or the day after I may use a different writing style so, look forward to it! Laters!)
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