03/18/2002 - Recently, a friend of a friend of mine went to Japan for Spring break. I realize that it is a week after the fact, but here is his *cough*(ripped off)*cough* story.
SQUIRLE
3-11-02
So, I was in Japan. Yeah.
Japan, well Tokyo at least, I didn't see much outside of that, I must say, is kinda like America, but just a little bit skewed. Houses look like houses, factories look like factories, apartments look like apartments. But the houses have Japanese shingles instead of typical American ones. And the buildings all have big neon signs, but in kanji. Just lots of little things like that that add up.
It was really cool, though. They have much anime and electronic stuff crammed into tiny spaces in towns like Akihabara. There are millions and millions of dollars of electronics stuffed in little back allies between the big shops of Akihabara, and I got a really cool little mp3 player for about $130, 'cause it was last year's model. I said hell with it, I'll take last year's model for about $70 off. I haven't gotten it to work yet, though, as the Liquid Audio software I need to install in order to send mp3s to the player isn't wanting to install.
I did get a bunch of manga, as the stuff is freaking cheep over there. I bought the two big Trigun volumes and the six little Trigun Maximum volumes for less than what it would cost me to buy three of them over here. Granted they're in Japanese, but so what? It's still freaking cool. And I found out that Yukito Kishiru has renewed the Gunnm (a.k.a. Battle Angle Alita) series, which in my opinion is the coolest freaking manga series ever, and I got the first two collected volumes, which is all that's out so far. It's pretty spiffy, but I can't figure out when in the series it takes place, since it definitely takes place before the afterward, but it seems to even take place in the middle of the old series.
Other than manga, I bought a bunch of these little figurine dolls of anime characters, Trigun, Bebop and Love Hina, that you can get for a buck out of these little vending machines. I found out it's hard to get good Anime stuff in Japan that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. So I mainly held out with manga, those figures, and that mp3 player, 'cause I had money to splurge on something big, and that was cool.
I ate a lot of sushi, but most of it was crappy junky sushi from the local convenience store, 'cause it was really cheap. We also went out to a little ramen booth one night, and I must say that compared to instant Cup 'o Ramen, the real thing kicks soo much ass. It was really good, and I slurped up the entire bowel, excepting some spinach and the seaweed squares they put in there. And pocky. I ate lots of pocky. It was my breakfast almost every morning, because it cost a buck a box, and I could eat one of the bags for breakfast, and the other for lunch, 'cause we usually only ate breakfast and dinner.
The hotel wasn't bad, if you knew what you were in for. What you were in for was a tinsy room, about 5 feet by 9 feet, but almost 10 feet tall. The bed took up half the room width wise, and almost all of it length wise. There was virtually no padding on the bed, and the pillow was filled with rice. There were two showers on the first floor, that weren't open past ten o'clock. There were a few perks, there was a TV in every room, and one of my travel partners brought a VCR and taped many hours of Japanese television. Also it was fairly close to the Minowa train station, which was only a buck ride away from Ueno, which three or four different train lines converged at, and only a buck and a half away from the major shopping center that is Akihabara.
Well, that's all the time I have for tonight, hope you enjoyed this brief but interesting look into my week in a foreign land. Toodles.
Mmm... ripped off goodness...
