Adorable Exotic Petshop!

I saw this pet shop for exotic animals on the way to the FLOPPY concert last night (still too tired to blog about it!), omg.

Giant Nan!

Ok, not much going on other than drawing a lot and walking a lot, but here's some of the little delights I've found! I'm starting to become a regular at this restaurant called Asian Dining Lama. For only 780 yen (680 if it's the curry of the day) you get a salad, a bowl of curry, a drink and refillable nan or rice. You're sure to leave full, and it tastes pretty good, and it's run by an Indian (I think) so I can kind of relax in there. And the nan is gigantic! (My hand is in the pic for scale.)


Maybe it's cause I've been living in expensive-food-Perth, but I love it! They also have one of those challenges where if you can finish eating a massive dish of curry you get it for free, but I don't think I could handle that with my tiny stomach.

I also went to Takadanobaba and saw the coolest little bar ever, there were old-school figurines in the window, bizarre tribal statues out front, garlic hanging all over the walls and their idea of Christmas decorating is this:


They serve champloo apparently. I'm intrigued.

Haven't posted in a while due to having to do boring stuff like work, job searching, opening a bank account, etc. I did however really enjoy Nakano Broadway Arcade, so I took another trip to explore. I find this place a lot more interesting than the famed Otome Road - many more otaku & old school toy shops, which I found by accident as I went there looking for the tin toy shop and shop that sells things people forgot on the train, which I read about on the net but couldn't find. :( Still it's the most fun shopping location I've found so far (aside from Harajuku maybe) and it's a short bus ride from home.


I also went with my ex-classmate to see the Howl's Moving Castle-style Ghibli clock in Shiodome - we got there right about noon, when it went off, moving its turrets and waving its arms, with little mechanical people working inside. We also went to Harajuku, where I found a T-shirt with Pedo Bear on it. o_o

Yes, I know, the bear was originally 2ch's Kuma, and it wasn't till later that it became famous as Pedo Bear, but nonetheless, priceless.

I can't get to the books!

AWWW

Oh, something I forgot to mention in the previous post - this is the cutest bottle of Absolut Vodka you've ever seen.

They also had Jack Daniel's whiskey and a bunch of others. This at my local convenience store! For approx. 250 yen.

I ate Char Zaku's head

Today I met up with an old primary school classmate from Perth who's been living in Tokyo for a while. He taught me how to use the train passes and stuff, and showed me where to get formal clothes in Shinjuku. I got a pair of business pants, will go to Shibuya for an interview-worthy bag one of these days.

AND WE WENT TO THE GUNDAM CAFE.

This is what it looks like in the daytime.

And this is what it looks like at night:

I got Char Zaku ice cream, which was a red ball of ice cream with silver ball thingies in it covered in orange sauce, and chunks of something black which made it look more like a Zaku head. I have no idea what was in it but it was quite good. Fruity. There was a giant Gundam RX-78 model in an alcove near the ceiling, display cases filled with masterfully built plastic models and signed plaques - the only one I recognized was Tomino's in the middle - I'm not yet Gunota enough. :(

The coolest thing by far, though, was the toilets. The men's side was apparently Earth Federation themed, and lucky me, the women's side was ZEON! When you enter, you push a glowing red button and there's an alarm and the light pulsates, and the lid of the toilet opens! It flushes after you get up and the lid closes too, but considering how Japanese toilets normally behave I guess it's not that much of an eye-opener. Nonetheless the toilet was a very exciting experience for this shameless otaku.

ALSO - at the arcade I played the Gundam cockpit game, Senjou no Kizuna! I had no idea what I was doing after I got my pilot card (on the side of Zeon of course) so I just pressed random buttons, wondering why I couldn't fire. I started turning left and right and jumping randomly, which must have made me look like a spastic ballerina, and I got killed once.. but once I figured out how to fire and use my melee attack I realized that the other five or so people in the game were total n00bs too, and I went psycho on them. I must've been pretty annoying because I think I knocked this guy down five times with melee attacks, then finished him with my bazooka. I was cackling with glee, hopefully they couldn't hear me through the mic. >> I think everyone in the game was confused - the only people who got kills were me - 2 and another guy - 3. The game has a panoramic view so it made me a bit nauseous but it was so much fun! Arrrrrgh!

Shopping for important stuff, Sugamo

Yesterday, we went to Sugamo - the so-called "grey ghetto" which is supposed to be a sort of mecca for people over 60.

Happily my mother was drawn to every clothes shop there and pointed out the retro cafes and enka CD shops that lined the main shopping street, Jizoudoori. We saw some Buddhist shrines/statues, an outdoor performance of some sort of Japanese folktales, and a chrysanthemum ikebana contest, and the shopping stalls nearby were glorious. There's so much selection in Japan for clothes, bags, accessories, etc. that you feel like you own something unique - in Perth there's so little choice that you double up with other people a lot - same shirt, bag, etc. The prices were so much better, too. We bought some 100 yen toe-less socks and these finger-puppet gloves (for a second cousin).

The famed red undies that give their wearers energy were there, which I didn't buy as they too were for the over-60 bracket. Also I went into a McDonald's to see if it was true that the

meal sizes were written in kanji...but they weren't. Disappoint. D:

We also went to the Electric Town in Akihabara to buy a transformer for my laptop.

The first guy we found said "Nuhh it should work without one! Everyone else will say the same thing!" but the second guy, an old man wearing a Chinese name tag tucked away in a little stall who was some kind of transformer guru, tested out one of his step-ups with my laptop and it charged! I semi-dropped it on the way home but thankfully it worked. It feels about as heavy as a gold bar.

I HAVE ARRIVED

I finally have internet access, so here's my first report on Japan!

I am so glad I've done this before. It's easy to forget just how incredibly overwhelming and stressful Tokyo can be. You are bombarded with imagery, ads, and intriguing little details which are great if you're as curious and city-loving as I am but it tires you out fast. Taking the train home we had to change lines about three times, which is hard if you're not used to it because there are many railway companies in the same station (or in separate stations in the same area) with separate ticket machines for each one, not to mention having to line up for them and figure out where you're going quickly because you'll hold everyone up if you stop moving. I retreated to the safety of the wall a lot to get out of the flow of people and figure out which line/direction we had to take next.

In the first photo we're at the platform to take the train out of Narita airport into Tokyo proper. I was kinda disappointed that the exchange rate at Narita was so bad (72 yen to the Aussie dollar). I'm being careful not to spend much.

After dropping by our home stay family's place to drop off luggage we went to Shinjuku (second photo) to buy an adapter for my laptop's plug. I thought I wouldn't need a transformer because my AC adapter can take Japan's voltage but it turned out to be too weak and my laptop wouldn't charge.

The people here are so fashionable that people watching is great fun too. Also the fact that people are everywhere. If I see some particularly notable characters I'll mention them.

The first day we didn't do a lot except that little bit of shopping and meeting the family at their house in Saginomiya, Nakano. They're very nice and hospitable, and used to foreigners. It's a relaxed environment, something I've never actually experienced in Tokyo before. They can all speak English (!) and they've got this adorable cockerspaniel Jey.

That's the first day, I'm dead tired so I'll write about the second day (today) tomorrow.