June 30, 2008

7:40 PM

Childhood

It was my last day in Japan. There was still some time before the bus to the airport arrived, so me and my mum went walking around Ginza. We ended up at some eight-storey toy shop. I wouldn't exactly call it huge, or big at all, but at least it was tall. Anyway, while looking at the random stuff they had, I came across some puzzle they had on display. Its shaped like a big piece of chocolate, and it was separated into many pieces. The objective was to fit all the pieces back together to form the big rectangle of chocolate.

I fiddled around with it for a few seconds, then gave up and left it there for someone else to play. As I was walking off, the small kid went straight to the puzzle. The situation seemed interesting, so I hung around a bit to watch.

While attempting to fit the pieces, he was grabbing one piece at a time, trying to fit it in... nope? Then he dumps the piece and tries another, all at lightning speed. Jeez, like.. whats the rush in the first place? People normally take their time enjoying puzzles, while this kid goes berserk on it.

In about half a minute, he completed it. With that sense of accomplishment, he said, in a not particularly loud, though hardly soft voice, "dekita!", which means in english, "I did it!". He turned around and looked at me with these wide, excited, accomplished eyes. It was then that I had this sudden realisation, sadness and pity for the kid. Those eyes were just yelling, "Haha, I did it! Praise me!".

Often in Japan, rich parents send their kids to countless classes, tuitions, and cram schools, teaching them how to calculate the product of two 20 digit numbers, how to solve puzzles in seconds, how to play a full repertoire of music at age 4, and so on. I mean, its great right? Who wouldn't want their kids to be number one?

Hmmm, do they ask their kids what they THEMSELVES want? "Daddy daddy, I wanna be the world's greatest human calculator!" Yeah, right.

"Mummy, can I go out to play with my friends today?"
"I'm sorry honey, you have your superduperultrafreakyhypermegacombo class today, remember? Class is more important. You can play with your friends another day."

Mmmm.. take away their childhood. What the use of having a few blurry memories of playing around, anyway? Its not going to help them survive when they become adults. Lets just start pumping info into their heads from day one. That way, they'll grow up nicely, get a prestigious degree, get a good paying job, and live happy.

What happens when you pump something too full? Pump balloon.. pump balloon.. pump balloon.. POP!!! 'Man goes on a stabbing spree in Shibuya'.

Kids are kids. Let them live like kids. The only time when a person is truly free in the space of their whole lifetime.

Pick up girlfriends with, "Hey, I can recite Pi to a million digits!".. nope. =|
Well, at least they'd be able to get high school girls for 500,000 yen a pop. If they live to see that day, anyway.

June 29, 2008

12:36 AM

Natural Disaster

I spilled a cup of chocolate milk in my room.. =( All over the table, some got on the couch too. =( My mum would have probably screwed me over for bringing drinks and stuff into the room, so I sneakily cleaned up the room myself. Needless to say, its a lot less fun spilling stuff in real life than in anime.

The couch is white, and when it gets wet, it turns this shade of brown-ish-or-so. The chocolate milk has the same colour, so I have no idea that by cleaning it, if its actually getting cleaned, or I'm just spreading the damage.

The spill was quite a lot, so I was expecting the books that were lying underneath to totally die. Luckily one pile had an exam pad underneath which was empty, so it didn't matter. The second pile had a relatively full exam pad, which more or less died. T_T The third pile was the chem textbook. I thought it wouldn't matter, since I hardly care about chem anyway. Unfortunately, the chem textbook suffered minimal damage. What the heck, its like the thing has a curse or something. No matter how much you try to destroy or get rid of it, it'll still come back and haunt you for the rest of your life until you die.

My school diary had some choco milk stains at the bottom, since it was standing upright (note that it has been sitting on my table ever since I got it. I never found a time to get rid of it. Now, opportunity calls..). While I was cleaning the stain off the bottom of the front cover, bits of the cover was tearing off. Even normal paper doesn't do that unless you clean it quite a number of times. Nothing but the best quality, huh?

June 27, 2008

7:26 PM

Must-watch

For Pokemon fans:


For music / star wars fans:


For Haruhi / hmmmm... fans:


For those with too many brain cells:

June 25, 2008

9:39 PM

zzzZzzZzzzzzzz

My sleep is messed up.. Recently, I CANNOT fall asleep at night for some reason. That means rolling about for like 6 hours. So I end up taking giant naps in the afternoon. T_T

June 22, 2008

10:25 PM

mmm

Just read a giant chunk of Bokurano from start to the current chapter. Looks like the chapters for each fight is getting longer and longer.. go read if you have time.

June 19, 2008

7:28 PM

Peeekchureeess

Alright! Finally done uploading all the Japan pics. You can find them all here!

12:57 AM

priceless

Bert. BACKKKKKK!! says:
and how do you say females in jap
[Kinky] says:
onna
Bert. BACKKKKKK!! says:
ooh
Bert. BACKKKKKK!! says:
so its otaku and onna?

June 16, 2008

3:41 AM

Delayz?

Haha, still haven't got the pictures up yet. Picasa doesn't seem to be working. That aside, I've gone crazy with the DS these past few days. Completed The World Ends With You, Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk: Room 215. Played a few other games too, but they're still in progress.

June 9, 2008

10:58 PM

Day 8

Day 8 (Saturday)

Finally, the day to return. My mum woke me up at around 11. She was packing all my stuff into whatever luggage was around. It was no easy feat, I'd say. Miraculously, she got it into the 2 bags of luggage, my backpack, and 2 more plastic bags which we would hand-carry onto the plane.

Leaving the hotel at 1, we went around Ginza area. Went to a toy shop, which she said was supposed to be the largest in Japan, though I hardly believe so at all. It was around the size of an Animate outlet. Nothing interesting there to buy, we went to some restaurant for lunch. I didn't order anything though, since I had breakfast so late. I ate a piece of tempura and the miso soup from her set meal, thats all.

After that, went to the Don.K! 'amusement discount store' to see if there was any last minute items to get. Up till this point, I still don't understand why the store is called 'amusement discount'. First of all, there isn't any amusement at all. Its just a shop selling items! Why would there be any amusement. Secondly, it might be a convenience store, but theres hardly any discount in the items. The 1 GB microSD card was selling there at 2000+ yen, while you can easily get one at Akihabara for 500 yen. And considering that Japan is the land of hentai, porn, sex, etc, you'd expect to at least see something of that sorts here too. I found a nice corner where they were selling pocket pussies. Didn't say anything to my mum about it.

They had a section dedicated to high-class items. You know.. Hermes, Chanel, LV. The handbags and stuff. Selling at the usual exorbitant prices. Its pretty common to see 6 digits. They sold used ones too. The most impressive one(in terms of price) was a handbag, brand new, unused I think, going for a price of a million yen. 1 million yen roughly equals S$13000. Paying hundreds of dollars is still ok in my opinion if you're those filthy-rich class, paying thousands I somewhat don't understand, but paying tens of thousands? Thats way beyond me. A lot of high school girls carry these branded bags too. Imagine the number of times they'd have to whore themselves out for a bag that price.

At around 3.30, the limo bus arrived, which took us straight to Narita airport. Waited around half an hour just to get the luggage checked-in. Stupid check-in staff. Ate my last ebi filet-o set meal at the Macdonalds at the airport. Then it was into the plane, heading back to Singapore.

The guy in the seat in front of me was an idiot. Ummm... balding indian? He sat down. Shortly after, I felt my stuff getting pushed out from below the seat. He put his baggage under his seat, which was supposed to go under the seat at the FRONT. There was even a metal bar under the seat to show you weren't meant to put your baggage under your own seat. I tried telling him that his stuff was meant to go in front, but he insisted that it went under his own seat. I told him there was a metal bar there to stop you. He then said that you're supposed to push the metal bar up a bit to put your stuff below. What an idiot. I told him one more time to move his stuff in front, then sat back down into my seat. I saw him talking to the guy beside him, who was asking like what that was about. Indian baldie then made some hand gesture which suggested 'dunno wad he wants'. Stupidity and sheer cheek has no limits. Still he didn't move his things. I had to get one of the flight attendants to confirm that the baggage goes in the front, before he finally moved it.

He has a horrible head. Not only did he have a giant balding patch, it had huge amounts of dandruff in it too. I pity the pillow he was using. He also had the habit of grabbing a few strands of his hair and twirling it round and round. After he was done, you could see a curly bunch of hair in the middle of his balding patch. Disgusting.

Other than that, the flight was pretty uneventful. I fell asleep for a while, before waking up and not being able to go back to sleep.

Finally arriving back in Singapore, I had this feeling of relief. As if I was glad to be back, which in reality I am. Its kinda weird.. this was the first time I've ever been happy to be in Singapore. The taxi driver driving us back was malay, but he spoke english. And I understood every single word. I was glad to be able to communicate once again. It was like knowing that you're home, knowing the language, culture and all. Strange, I actually missed home.

Arriving back home at 3 am, we unpacked my stuff. Seems like I had more stuff that I thought I did. The final display of UFO catcher prizes was impressive to say the least. Along with the other souvenirs and clothings too. Currently, my room has a corner dedicated to all of these items, until I can actually find some space to put them.

June 7, 2008

1:01 AM

Day 7

Headed to Toshimaen station for the Niwa-no-yu onsen. I couldn't find it on the map at the station even for the sake of elune. So, I just headed toward the general direction and hoped to find it along the way. Needless to say, I got hopelessly lost. Hoping to regain some sense of direction, I tried finding my way back to the station. While doing that, I found some street signs saying I was in the 3rd district of Nerima. The address I was trying to go to was 3-25-1, Mukoyama, Nerima-ku. So I thought I was pretty close by. I finally arrived at 3-25-1, only to find out that it was a residential building. After being stunned around there for like 5 minutes, not knowing where to go, I just wandered around further.

I wandered.. and wandered.. and saw a sign saying Mukoyama, and below was an address. I finally realised the problem, that the address before was 3-25-1 Nerima, not 3-25-1 Mukoyama, which I was headed to. So eventually, I found my way there. Not without an hour or two of walking (I didn't count, only knew that I arrived at the station around 11.30 to 12, and found the onsen at 1.30-2).

The last onsen I'll be going to for quite some time, Toshimaen Niwanoyu, the entrance fee was 2250 yen. They had separate male and female baths, and also had a mixed bath (which required swimsuits). For the separate baths, they had a clear water bath, a brownish bath with a water ma, and an opaque yellowish bath, an outdoors bath, and 3 outdoor vase-tubs. I suppose the brownish bath was copper, and the yellowish one was sulphur. I went into all of them. Surprisingly, the water seemed less hot than the first ever one at Asakusa, even though the temperatures were more or less the same. Maybe I'm developing onsen heat resistance? =S I noticed the guys in the onsen were staring at me somewhat more than they would at other people. Happened at the Ooedo onsen too. Is my body fun to look at? I don't really want to know.

The mixed area was more or less a swimming pool, except you weren't allowed to swim in it. It had water jets at certain areas for body massage, neck massage, whatever you can think of. One of the jets, if you faced towards it, it'd be shooting water at your balls. Not very massaggy at all. They also had a dead sea pool, which we all know contains lots of salt and makes you float. I entered it and various parts of my body were stinging. A soak in the pool would definitely notify you of any cuts or brises on your body. When I returned to the hotel, I noticed a scab-mark on my right cheek. I'm guessing it was a combination of the sulphur bath and dead sea pool that caused it.

Finally getting out, I went to the second floor, hoping there was something of interest there. Basically, there were relaxing areas, massage chairs (300yen for a few minutes), massage services, dining areas, and a souvenir shop. Nothing of particular interest. I was intending to go to the relaxing area, but considering the time lost when I myself got lost as well, I didn't really have the luxury of time to hang around. I got a pack of souvenir biscuits from the souvenir shop and headed out.

Compared to the journey before, the journey back to the station was COMPARATIVELY SHORT. There, I realised that when I was heading towards the onsen, I could have just have had a 5 minutes walk the opposite direction, straight to the onsen.

The next stop was Nakano, which I heard that there would be some nice anime shops there. But I think I alighted at the wrong station. There were like 5 stations for Nakano. North, south, east, west, and center. I alighted at the center station, thinking it would be the right one. Guess not. I wandered around. Nothing but neighbourhood areas. This time, my legs were really dying. I already walked like crazy at noon, and I was walking even more now. Practically nothing of interest in sight. I was just hoping for a train station. I didn't even walk a straight path. It was turning here and there, towards the general direction which seemed more like a town area. This lasted for hours. I finally came across a street sign which pointed the way to Shinjuku. After walking a distance in that direction, another street sign said I was just 4 km away from Shinjuku. Yea, going around Nakano in circles until I reached 4 km from Shinjuku. My poor legs. Luckily(if I could even say that), I found a Keio line train station, which brought me straight to Shinjuku.

I was still missing one of the UFO catcher Haruhi figurines, and since Shinjuku had a number of arcades, I went arcade hunting on my already dead legs. I searched from around 5.30 or 6 until 9, stopping only for dinner, and got 2 nice shirts along the way. None of the arcades had that figurine. All worn-out and depressed, I just decided to go back to Akihabara, which had an arcade with the figurine, just that I couldn't win it the last time I went. (This was on Friday. That crazy-man stabbing incident happened 2 days later at that area. Lucky me.)

I found the arcade. Even the surrounding arcades in that area didn't have it. Only this one had it. This was the arcade I won 3 of those Haruhi figurines consecutively from. Seemed like they decided to make them harder to catch, so much so that it literally is Impossible to catch all at. First of all, the UFO catcher arms were so weak you can't even lift the item up at all. The way I won the figurines was to slowly drag them into the chute. Now, the decided to move the platform lower, which the figurines were sitting on, so that there was a small barrier between the platforms and the chute. This meant that the dragging method was obsolete.

I spent hours walking looking for that last figurine. Since I finally found it, I just decided to go for it anyway, hoping that there'd be a SLIGHT chance of one of the other methods working. On around the 2000 yen mark, I tried turning the figurine around and tipping it into the chute. I turned it 45 degrees, then the arcade guy said something in Japanese which was too fast for me to understand (I assumed he wanted to move the figurine so it was 'easier to catch'). He opened the case, and MOVED THE FIGURINE BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL POSITION. That just goes to show the guys manning the arcade know nuts about catching stuff from UFO machines. Used around 5000 yen, still couldn't get it. I tried getting talking to the guy to move the figurine to a better position. All he did was move it closer by less than a centimeter towards the barrier which separated the platform from the chute. Sureeeee, like moving it closer to the barrier would help anyway. I tried asking again to make it easier, but he again said stuff in speedy Japanese, through my psychic abilities I translate as 'These are Haruhi figurines we're talking about. They shouldn't be so easy to catch'. Just because I managed to catch 3, doesn't mean that other people would even be able to catch one. Catching 3 didn't mean it had been easy for me to catch either. Gave up after that. Not worth pouring any more cash into that black hole. I'd be better off ordering it off the internet. In this whole trip, this was the only thing I couldn't catch. You can't catch things that are meant to be impossible to catch anyway.

June 6, 2008

1:02 AM

oh

Oh, they sell cosplay stuff too. In fact, one of the UFO catchers had goth loli dresses as prizes. Seems like anything goes into UFO catchers. Eventually, they'll have used panties as prizes. =S

Anyway, back to the point. The stuff there were pretty much typical. Almost all of them were for girls. There were tons of dresses on display, in the shops that sold them. Some dresses sold for as little as 2000 yen, but they weren't anime or manga exclusive. Some rarer ones were more expensive. I saw a brand new dress outfit for some new anime, selling for 60000+ yen. They sell cosplay outfits for guys too, but in lesser quantity, like just a small section. I noted that they sold the shinigami outfits from Bleach. Saw it in more than one shop, so I assume it isn't exclusive. The outfit cost around 10000 yen, approx S$130. I would have liked a shinigami outfit, but not enough to pay 10000 yen for it.

Some shops also sell airguns. They come with ball pellets to shoot. One of them came with what looked like real bullets. Don't ask me... maybe they were replicas? The guns looked like the real deal. In fact, they just might be. Not sure if Japan has laws on carrying real firearms. They had removable magazines which looked authentic. Protective glasses and scopes were sold as well. The scopes ranged(haha?) from iron sights to sniper scopes, the ginormous ones. Considering their prices, I think they work fairly well too.

Well, thats all for now. Will post more when I remember.

June 5, 2008

9:55 PM

Day 6

12:24 AM

Day 5

Day 5 (Wednesday)

Woke up at 12pm, had cheesecake and a cold apple tea for breakfast, and headed to train station to Ikebukuro.



I expected it to be more like an Akihabara than a Shibuya, but I guess things don't always turn out how you expect them to be. I strolled around.. entered a few departmental stores here and there. What I've learnt, is that departmental stores in Japan only exist for the needs of the higher class people. Not just the items for sale, the design of the place is all posche (however you spell that) as well. But either way, I somehow managed to buy 3 t-shirts cheaply (1300 yen each) at one of the departmental stores.



Before that, I remember paying a visit to another of the arcades. No, I'm not addicted to UFO catchers. I'm just immensely fascinated. I managed to get the 2nd 'He is My Master' figurine after 24 tries. Thats 2000 yen, since it was 500 yen for 6 tries. I had a few 500 yen coins leftover, so I looked around the arcade a bit more. Found a machine with a minature 'classic piano'. It was standing quite tall, and the box flap was reachable by the catcher, so I wanted to try out the technique where you stick one of the catcher's arms into the box flap. I got really close, but the arm didn't exactly go all the way in. When the catcher came back up, the box wobbled around a bit. That gave me an idea to wobble the box until gravity dropped it into the chute. Next try, it wobbled more, but not just enough. Third try, I got the arm right to the edge of the box and pushed. When the catcher went back up, the box toppled into the chute. *victory* That cost a total of 1000 yen, including the tries I made for it before going for the figurine. Considering that that piano is a less souped-up version of the Sony minature piano that plays itself, 1000 yen seems really worth it. I wonder if I'm causing losses for the game shops...



Had lunch at Macs again. I ordered the ebi (prawn) filet-o set. Yes, thats what they call it. Ebi filet-o. Not filet-o-ebi, but ebi filet-o. Not filet-o-fish, but fish filet-o. Does it even make sense? Why are they including the 'o' at the back? Did they just adapt it from the filet-o-fish, and thought that filet-o is 1 word? Someone HAS to complain to Macs international and revoke Japan's license. Well, not really anyway. Cause the ebi filet-o was heaven. I've never ever tasted something as good in my whole life.



Basically all I did was wander around Ikebukuro. I stumbled across this park. The feeling was.. very different. Its like, before it was all crowds and lights and tall buildings, but here its just peaceful and quiet. Some people sat at the sides, having their take-away tea, a pair of young and old salarymen sitting on two spring-riders (those horses with springs underneath so you can wobble on them) having a chat, a pair of middle-aged ladies sitting on a bench smoking (=/), a pair of children playing ball with their mothers standing around talking, and a guy sitting alone playing, or practicing, on a guitar. This is one part of Japan I would have never got to see if I just went on some tour, where they only bring you to the hyped-up, famous places in Japan. This park, its almost nostalgic to me, even though I've never been there before. Its not something that can be fully described in words.



I branched off from the park, while on the road there was a large gate open, so I went in. There were people walking out, who looked around their 20s. The architecture was very different, as if like a campus of sorts. I realised a very short while later that I wandered into Rikkyo University. Oh well. I looked around, snapped pics here and there, and exited relatively quick before any trouble found me.



Back onto the same road, I walked further down and found myself in the residential area of the city. The sight of the area was refresing, as with the park, to know that places like these also exist within all the busyness of Tokyo. There was this brown cat on someone's balcony. It had a bell, so I assumed it belonged to them. I followed the road here and there, zig-zag zig-zag, and around 5 minutes later, I passed a parking space. There, I saw a brown cat. Either I walked in 1 round, or there are many brown cats in that neigbourhood.



I wandered around enough, and planned to head back to the station. But that usually leads me to walk around yet again a bit more. I passed by a ramen store. Sitting at the entrance is... guess what.. a brown cat. I wanted to take a picture, but I stopped too suddenly and scared the cat into an alley. There was a black cat there too. So, what do all these cats have to do with anything? Well, nothing really.. I just found them interesting.



By now, you should know that I'm attracted to game arcades, or more specifically, UFO catchers, the same way flies are attracted to... food? I went into one of them, I think it was newly opened. The staff were AWFULLY polite, and they looked like they were having some promotion. They gave me a tiny piece of paper but I didn't bother with it since I couldn't read it 100%. I found this machine with a giant plush hamster, balanced on a platform and a horizontal rod. It looked way too cute, so I went for it. 3 tries later, it toppled off. Off, but not down. It was so fat it got stuck between the rod and the glass panel. I thought it still counted as a win so I approached one of the staff for assistance. After hearing them speak so fast and not understanding at all, they pointed to a sign that showed that the prize had to drop all the way down to count. Sad. I tried again, using the catcher's arm to push the fat thing down. 3 more tries later, I was fitting the thing into a plastic bag they provided. 1000 yen, not bad at all.

Before that, somewhere between breakfast and up till this point, I entered another one of the arcades and played one of the catchers for tiny hamsters stuffies. I got quite a few for 1700 yen, plus some green ball-things and a red ball-thing, and a sparkly silver heart. My best was 7 items at one go. Overall, I got 20 items.



Finally reaching the station, I decided to go to Akihabara to see what it was like at night. The first shop I entered looked like it was selling the typical anime stuff. I looked around.. meh.. yea.. ok.. and noticed the stairs to the 2nd floor stating no one below 18 and under. Bingo! I threw away all dignity and went up. Strangely, no one stopped me when I thought they would. Most people say I don't look 18. But anyway, I am. Not right now, but this year. They don't even check for IDs. I couldn't produce one even if I wanted to, since this is Japan, not Singapore.


So heading to the 2nd floor, the stairwell was filled with posters of girls and tits. Look to the left, tits. Look to the right, tits. Close your eyes, you'd probably be thinking of tits in your mind either way. Its not just the 2nd floor, they have 3rd, 4th and 5th floors as well. All stuffed full of porn. All genres as well. Underage kids, lesbian, solo, tranny, piss, shit. I am not kidding. 5 floors of porn. I seriously think that even if you have a lifetime and more, you couldn't go through all the shop's contents.



Before you say my maths sucks, yes, its 5 floors of porn. Theres a basement too. There, they sell anime porn, aka hentai. Everything above ground floor is real life porn. Everything below ground floor is hentai. They have games, novels, short comics, and synthetic pussy. Those don't come cheap either, averaging around 5000-6000 yen. As for the paper items, I found one of them similar to the style of shonen jump, with lots of stories or chapters in one bundle. Those average around 300-600 yen. For something around three-quarters as thick as a dictionary, its definitely the thing to go for. Imagine the number of days that material could last for. Worth every single yen. No.. I didn't buy it in the end. The cover page and thickness of the book is hardly subtle at all.



After that... guess what? ANOTHER ARCADE!!!!! This time, I got a Ryoko figurine set, from Suzumiya Haruhi. This one took around 2500 yen. It was on two rubber bars which crossed and were tied to the two horizontal bars. I had to slowly turn the box around so I could use the arms to push it off the rubber bars and down the chute. Took a heck lot of tries.



Now, recall all the stuff I got. 3 t-shirts, a 'He is My Master' figurine, a 'classic piano', a giant hamster, lots of tiny stuffies, and a 'Suzumiya Haruhi' figurine. Now imagine the pain I went through carrying all that back to the hotel.




Loot of the day


P.S. In case you people don't know. In Japan, the prizes in UFO catchers are win-only. They aren't for sale anywhere else. They're exclusively made as prizes for UFO catchers.

June 3, 2008

11:55 PM

Day 4

Day 4 (Tuesday)


I slept in until 2pm since I was really, really tired. Raining, and with the temperature near freezing point, I skipped breakfast and headed straight to the train station to get to Shibuya.


Alighting at Shibuya station, I wandered around for a bit. Checked out the nearby Tokyu department store, all levels of it. Nothing appeared interesting at all. Wandered around a bit more to finally find the famous Hachiko statue. Snapped a few pics, and went on my way.


Doggy-doggy

If I remembered correctly, Shibuya was often termed the place to go for clothing. So, my objective was to find some clothing. I had no idea where to start, so I just headed in some random direction. Mind you, with rain + freezing weather + no clear destination in sight, its really a torture and kinda depressing walking around. I gave up the search for a while to have lunch at a nearby KFC. Comparing the service and food portions of Singapore's and Japan's KFC is like comparing the nearest speed bump to Mt. Fuji. One interesting thing I noted in the fast-food restaurant was that there were two separate areas, one for smoking and another for non-smoking. Another more interesting thing is the number of seats at each side is roughly the same. Does this possibly mean that the ratio of smokers to non-smokers in Japan is roughly 1:1?

After lunch, I go back out into the wilderness to continue my search. Another games arcade lured me in. This time, I played the UFO catcher and got a nice 'He is My Master' figurine for 6 tries, equating to 1000 yen.


The figurine's size relative to a DS


I wasted 2000 yen trying for the second figurine though. After that, I eventually arrived back at the station. This time, I headed in another direction. After a long search, I finally found a relatively decent men's clothing shop. Bought a black singlet and white shirt that came as a set.






Having being done with Shibuya, I can pretty much conclude that either Shibuya isn't the place to go for clothing, or that I'm very bad at spotting clothes shops. Before I left though, I found another of the UFO arcades. One of the machines had some red remote-controlled car as a prize. It'd make a nice item for my brother, so I tried it. A plastic hoop was stuck to the box, and hung over the prize chute on a metal rod. The objective was to get the hoop off the metal rod so the prize will drop. I spent 2500 yen on it but couldn't get it. The coin machine changes 1000 yen at once, so I had a 500 yen coin left. I looked around a bit more and found another machine with a Lexus remote-controlled car. This machine was different. The UFO catcher was a long bar with two arms hanging downwards. You move the catcher's arms one at a time, so that when the catcher dips down, the arms will catch under the prize. The box was above 3 horizontal bars, so you had to slide the prize into the chute. Since I had the 500 yen coin left, I thought I'd give it a go. 3 tries, the first 2 didn't really make it. But the 3rd try, I got the two arms really close to the box, so when the arms went down, they caught the box firmly and slid it nicely into the chute. My UFO catcher skills are levelling up. =)


Remote-controlled car size relative to a DS


Next, I took the train one stop to Harajuku again for a better look this time. Back at the main Harajuku street stretch, I branched out abit. Girls clothing.. girls clothing.. and saw some interesting 'UFO catcher' machines. The first one was basically the fishing game most of us used to play. You start the machine and the board starts to spiral. The fish on the board open and close their mouths, while you try to fish them out. This machine literally had the actual fishing game machine inside, and the UFO catcher was the fishing line. If you fish the right fish, you win the prize. Near impossible. The second one, inside the machine is a board with metal half-rings sticking out. The UFO catcher is a chain with a dangling hook at the end. If you manage to hook a ring, you win. The dangling hook shakes and turns when you move the catcher. Another near impossible game, I tried it out anyway: it was 200 yen for 3 tries. Didn't make it for all 3. Oh well.


Went down a basement to a mens clothing shop called Harada's. Saw some relatively interesting clothes too. They had One Piece t-shirts from Cospa. =/ They also had some shirts which looked more for girls. But they looked interesting either way, and I tried a few of them. Didn't suit my taste. One shirt said 'The Music is My Weapon'. The english wasn't broken enough to warrant buying. I finally came across the right one after a bit more looking.


"The water was very nearly to the top of them"

So far, the clothes were ok.. but I was looking for something which was like, uniquely Japanese. Something which you probably won't find elsewhere. I found another basement shop, named 'Yellow House'. They sold all those JRock and Punk outfits. I doubt I'd be wearing them a whole lot, but I'd probably regret not at least getting something like this, so I went in.



The shop was really small, but even more surprising was that the owner was an old lady. She even spoke english. You'd never think that someone like her would ever be involved in this line of fashion. Furthermore, she resembles my Japanese teacher in pretty much every way possible. Her way of speech, her speaking, age, height, and flat-out interesting in her own way. She seemed awfully knowlegdable in the clothing, pointing out how this goes with this and that, what would fit, what won't fit.. all those. Every inch of the shop not used in displaying clothes was covered with pictures, signatures and messages. This includes the ceiling as well. Anyway, I saw a jacket and some pants I quite liked. I tried it out a bit, she gave me a bit of help here and there, with some explanations off the side, and I eventually got them. Total of 22700 yen excluding tax. Crazy price but I felt it was worth it in a way.

Some time between entering the shop and leaving, the old lady told me that all the clothes here were designed by her, and were designed for many of the JRock bands themselves, including Dir en Grey, L'arc-en-ceil, Miyavi.. All those pictures around were of her and the various members in her shop. Some of the clothings on sale were exact copies of the outfits worn by the bands on stage. The shop had been around for 26 years. For a shop that small, I never thought the old lady had such an influence in today's culture.



The jacket @ 9900 yen



Pants @ 12800 yen



The back


With that said, I have no idea where I could wear this around in Singapore without getting stares. Probably at those cosplay conventions, I suppose?

Getting back to the hotel, my mum was looking through all the stuff I got today. Saw the prizes from the UFO catchers, she was like 'oooh, ok'. Looked at the shirts and said 'looks nice'. Came to the jacket and pants and she said 'What??'. 3 times, each with a pause between and the shocked face. Partially because of the cost too. She said the clothes were weird. It might not mean much, but this coming from her, 'weird' means a lot. It kinda leaves bad taste, with me wondering if I should have and bought it at all, making me seem to feel bad for buying it in the first place. I'm not too sure, but I ask myself, "Which would I regret more? Buying it or not buying it?". I think I would have really regreted not getting it. The old lady accepts the style and even goes designing the clothes, while my mum, whos a lot younger, doesn't accept it. Does speak a lot about people and society. Anyway, after this, I gotta slow down on cash use a bit. Still have 4 days and 60000 yen to go.

1:21 AM

:P

Day 3 (Tuesday)

Destination: To Ooedo Onsen Monogatari

So I was planning on going there straight. I took the Yurikamome line train to Tokyo Telecom Center Station. Coming out, I saw a nice giant fountain, so I walked there to take a few pics. After that, I saw the famous rectangular building with a hole in the middle, with a ball there. So I strayed further from the original destination. Then I noticed this place called 'Miraikan'. Sounded familiar.. I went closer and realised that that was the place I visited on the tour 3 years ago: the ASIMO building. I did what I always regretted not doing that last time -- get souvenirs.

Destination: Ooedo Onsen Monogatari

Basically an onsen theme park set in the Edo time period. Pay the entrance fee, pick your choice of yukata, and go to the changing room to change into your yukata. Walk out and you'll find yourself in a remake of an Edo town at night (the ceiling is black, duh). Theres food, games, and entertainment here. Korean food, Japanese food. Theres those Japanese festival games too, like throwing shurikens, darts, balls, and cork-shooting guns. 378yen per game. Some souvenir shops around.. or get a caricature of yourself. Alternatively, go for a relaxing hand or foot or body massage. At a price, of course. Naturally, all these come later. Onsen first!

The baths are split as usual. In the men's section, theres a total of 5 indoor baths, and 2 outdoor baths. The temperature averages 40 degrees celcius, and you can actually see the steam coming out. Change in the changing room, from your yukata to your birthday suit. Enter the onsen, rinse your body abit, and choose your bath! Theres a lot of people here compared to the Asakusa Kannon Onsen, with lots of families coming here. Old guys, fathers, and their kids. Apparently the onsen experience is a natural family event in Japan.

This time, I managed to soak my whole body into the water. I can understand how its so relaxing, but sometimes the water just feels way too hot to enter fully.. dunno why. Hopping from bath to bath is fun! Enter this bath for 5min.. get out and enter another one... get out and go out to the outdoor bath.. then go in again... wheeeeeeeee! Overall, the onsen experience ownsss. I guess it would be better if the heat didn't all rush to your head and cause difficultly breathing. But thats how hot water is..

Went for the bath a first time, went back to the Edo town for lunch and stuff, tried out the foot baths (not particularly exciting), then went back to the baths for a second time. Finally left the place at 3pm.

Destination: Ginza

Since it was that late already, I decided to forget about Shibuya and Harajuku (2nd visit) for today. My legs were still dying from the day before. Went to the Ginza area to see the Apple and Sony buildings.

Apple: Not much to comment about the stuff for sale. Just ipods and macs. They have this cool elevator thats automatic. Automatic in that it moves by itself, you don't have to press the button. Theres no button to press anyway.

Sony: Not much stuff of my interest either. But they had a dancing music player. It rolls about and has these 2 flaps that open and close while it plays your music. Adds an edge to it. They also had some interesting steps leading to the basement that played a note while you walk on the steps.. so you can play a scale by walking the whole flight of stairs.

Ate ramen at some random ramen shop, and went back to hotel, dying..

June 2, 2008

11:30 PM

^______^

Day 2

Got up at 7am (6am Singapore time), ate the crappy hotel breakfast.

Destination: Hanazono Shrine

I went to the JR Shimbashi station (Yamanote line) and took the train all the way to Shinjuku station. Hardly knowing the place at all, I somehow managed to make my way to the destination without much problem. Am I good or what?
The shrine was relatively small, and the flea market was kinda sad, with old guys attempting to sell their junk. 5 minutes spent there and I'm off again.
On the way back to the station, the UFO catchers at some random arcade stole my money and gave me 2 'cat hands' back. Nya nya!

Destination: Sennoji

The temple that put Asakusa on the map, this temple is HUGE. I've been here once, but that wasn't on a Sunday. Imagine: any other day -- deserted / Sunday -- angry mob. Yes, today was a Sunday. The flea market they have here shouldn't even be called a flea market, more of a giant regional event instead. Souvenirs, food, SWORDs, toys, name it they have it.
The weapons selection include REAL katanas, nodachis, shurikens, spears, flails, nunchakus, tonfas, and daggers. No kidding. Some of these weapons look awfully vicious too. Anyway, I have finally had the honour of holding and unshealthing a real katana. I can die without regrets now. But for obivous reasons, I shall not. On the way, I tried those fortune telling things (shake a container of sticks until 1 falls out) for 100 yen. I got good fortune. =)

Destination: Asakusa Kannon Onsen

The building with the ivy - took me some time find to it. Paid the entrance fee, got a towel, and started screwing up onsen ettiquette. Luckily, the old man running the onsen was really helpful and directed me on the process.
When they say the water is hot, they DO mean it. I only managed to stick half my body into the water. Anymore was too much. At the time I went, there were only middle-old age guys. Probably the typical type of crowd at that onsen. One of them had a giant back tottoo which yelled out yakuza all over. Or so I think.. I didn't take my specs into the bath. He was ok though.
Know how in those Japanese tour shows, where people go sightseeing throughout Japan.. they always enter some onsen and say stuff like hothothot or the way the onsen water makes their skin smooth. I guess I can believe that now, though I suspect the reason for the smoothness is because of the water burning off your sense of touch, rather than the water's healing properties.


Destination: Asakusa - Harajuku





I was hopelessly lost on my way back to the station, but that allowed me to come across the most ownage shop. A shop dedicated to weapons, mostly Japanese swords. The best part was that they sold katana parts separately, so you could practically make your own katana.


Most of the parts only cost 100yen each, making a full set of katana parts cost just around 1500 yen. Thats S$20 for real sword. You can't bring swords back to Singapore though, so I just bought the handles instead.


Pick'n'Dip


Steel blade for 1000 yen


Now everyone can be ninjas


The treasure trove


Those shurikens are sharp. Their prices too.

Destination: Harajuku


It took around 1 hour of taking the train and stumbling around to finally reach Harajuku at 5pm. I thought there would no longer be anyone there, but I couldn't be more wrong.

Went to the famous cosplay bridge. Saw many random-style cosplayers, some people giving free hugs, a guy crossplaying in a pink gothic-style dress.. yep, thats pretty much about it.


Typical scene


Typical squat down gathering


The good stuff


Those 2 don't look very Japanese..


Shes the man!



Wish you didn't see that?


I went in the Yoyogi park next to the bridge, and unwittingly ended up in some forest temple. Bought one of those iconic charms. I got the one for good mind and body.



Entrance to Yoyogi park



Just a small portion of the entire park





For the memories



Giant crossroad




The forest temple

Walking ALL the way back through the whole park to Harajuku, dinner was at McDonalds. Ordering my meal was the first time I spoke in Japanese in this trip. Its extremely basic Japanese, but I'm sooo happy she (the cashier) understood me. =) On a random note, the enthusiasm she put into her job was mind-blowing.

The meal portion looked awfully small, but its actually tricksy. The fry pack contained 89 fries, compared to Singapore's average of 73. The drink is still way too small though, like kid's size.



Macs in the main stretch of Harajuku



The 'Happi Setto'. Told you I'd find it.


The value meal that cost 590 yen. (Fillet o' Fish not in picture)




Fillet o' Fish japan wrapper.

After dinner, with my feet aching, and my shoulder dying from all the stuff I bought, I slowly make my way back to the hotel...

(GAH I CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO ADD ANY MORE PICS RIGHT NOW. TOO TIRED. WILL ADD PICS WHEN I GET BACK. FOR NOW, IT'LL BE TEXT)

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