And yet, what have I been doing for the past two days? Spending ridiculous amounts of money!!
When I first arrived in Japan, the trains were intimidating. Slowly I grew more accustomed to the system. Then, I started thinking they made traveling easy. Now I know it's too easy! "Oh, it's only an hour and a half to get to the middle of Tokyo from my place." Right! "Oh, it's twenty bucks round trip..." IT ADDS UP.
Ahh, but I never really regret it, do I? Nah.
On Saturday, I took a trip to Yokohama. The first place I went was Chinatown. It was a rad maximum stroll, let me tell you. One of the cooler places to just Enjoy the Sights. Yeah, it's just a Chinatown, but so what!!
Yokohama is also having a big 150th Anniversary celebration this year. (IIRC, it's 150 years since they opened their port to the world.) What I specifically wanted to see was the GIANT ROBOT SPIDER. Uuuunfortunately, the ticket to get in the Bayside area and see it was 2,400 yen. I gambled and lost. The spider was cool to look at and all but it wasn't worth 24 buckaroos. I also didn't get to see it move (but that was by my choice -- more on that later).
I expected the whole thing to be pretty big if I was going to pay 2,400 yen, but alas, it turned out to be rather small! I was very disappointed. It was all in Japanese, too, which I expected, and yet I still expected more.
Live and learn, right? Seems to be something I say a lot lately. O:
I thought about sticking around to see the robot move (I'd have to wait an hour), but it was getting dark, and I wanted to see the Terraced Rice Fields in the light of day, so I hauled my ass out to the Hillside area of the celebration. Another 600 yen to get in there.
Yeah the "fields" were about as big as a large bathroom. They were indeed terraced, though! I'm sure that, once again, it was more exciting for non-gaijin.
So after that rather disappointing venture squared, I worked my way to Landmark Tower, home of the fastest elevator in Japan, according to the signs. I took full advantage of my Bayside ticket and got 500 yen off the 1,000 yen ticket to the top. Whoopee.
Oh, and I found another Jump Store in the Landmark building, and bought Wanted, the book by Eiichiro Oda, which contains a couple shorts, including the second of two One Piece pilots, entitled Romance Dawn. I actually intended to go into the Pokémon Store but got distracted. And then the stores were closing. Oops! It's not like I wanted to buy a stuffed Pikachu or anything to hold at night.
Yesterday was a good deal more expensive, though, but also way more awesome! Except the view from Landmark Tower, I dunno what it'd take to top that. Tokyo Tower was cool, but it was also raining when I went there. So I didn't go all the way to the top.
Hchhhanyway, I met Matt and Tomo at Omote-Sando so Matt could take me to the Oriental Bazaar where I proceeded to buy a yukata. It is, as always, rad maximum. Before that, though, there was some sort of dance parade. I believe the name given to me was Yosakoi? Or Yasokoi. Something like that, anyway. I filmed a bit of it. Pictures didn't really do it justice. In the future, when I am not hampered by the curse of dial up, I will share it with the world. I hope the sound came out all right... The music was sweet!
After the bazaar, we worked our way to just outside Shinjuku. The Square-Enix store. I spent more money there. I bought nerdy things. O:
A plush moogle keychain, a plush slime knight, and four little Dragon Quest figures.
Japan has a TON of those little plastic figures. They're cheap and of much higher quality than I'm used to finding in America. That includes the capsule toys (for the most part). Japan also loves the random. The shelves at the SE store were lined with boxes of figures, only you don't know what's inside until you open it up. I wanted a slime. I got one (1). I think after I get back from Japan, I will write a single post to showcase all my useless swag.
I was hoping the store would have some more obscure Square-Enix merch, but it was mostly just Expensive and/or Cheap merch. It was still cool, though. Where cool = nerd-cool. Or, as I like to call it, rad maximum.
Next up was dinner Hub the English Pub. I had fish 'n' chips AND shepherd's pie. I thought it was pretty enjoyable. Then we parted ways and returned to our various places of residence.
P.S., no, I don't know where I got the phrase "rad maximum" but, yes, it is the rad maximumest.
P.P.S., I may update this post later tonight (tomorrow morning for you crazy wossnames, Amurrkens) with pictures.
P.P.P.S., and here's a picture of my swag:
The pattern underneath all that swag is my yukata.
If America had this stuff I would be constantly poor. Thank god for shitty quality American goods and far-too-expensive imported goods. Now I need to find a way to have it all on display for my enjoyment, but also hide it from visitors because this is shameful. Downright shameful.
i get drunk at the hub in kobe almost every week! i wish there was a square enix store near me... D: a lot of this touristy shit is just for tourists though. it is okay to be disappointed.
ReplyDeleteYeah but it was ~2000 yen of disappointment. ): Wouldn't be so bad if I only spent five bucks or whatever.
ReplyDeleteAt least Chinatown and Landmark Tower were awesome, though.