June 5, 2008
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.