Tokyo: Day 2
Friday night
We ended our Friday with a dinner and a drink near our hotel. After walking up and down the main road of our hotel, we settled on a diner-like establishment directly across the street for some sweet & sour pork, and gigantic fried shrimp. The food was pretty good, but what was most interesting was the mockery we experienced from a group sitting next to us. Nothing major or threatening, but one of the guys clearly made a couple of cracks about us that he seemed to think were pretty funny. We weren't sure exactly why, but it of course led to paranoia about customs (are we too loud? should my jacket not be on the back of my chair? am I eating my rice wrong?). It was pretty uncomfortable in a general sense, and also in the sense that there was no way for us to react in any suitable way. We are strangers in a strange land, and sometimes that means having to take some lumps, even in 2010. Le sigh.
From there we lifted our spirits with spirits. I was in the mood for some sake ("sa-kay", not "sock-ee", for those following at home). Sake didn't happen, but "Japanese spirits" were available at the Wired Cafe (no relation to the magazine, or actually being wired in any sense other than having electricity). Amber had a lovely tea-based concoction, and I had a recommended something, based on my mentioning liking gin. It tasted like a big glass of ice water with a pinch of gin in it; light enough to not be boozy, but obvious enough to ruin what might have been a nice glass of water. It wasn't bad, but I'm still jonesing for some sake.
Saturday
Today was the day for Akihabara, aka Electric Town. It was as neon-insane as I had expected and hoped. We started with the most immediate and immediately attractive venue, a Sega game center. We elevated to the top floor and worked our way down.
Since it's a Sega-specific center, they're of course pushing their own games, thus an entire floor dedicated to the latest Virtua Fighter. I became mesmerized by a corner of another floor with 4 huge game-pods that you climb into to drive ... something. There were two lever-controls for steering, and most of the entire inside was a screen; it was clearly an immersive experience. I wanted in.
I jumped into pod #4 with a fistful of 100 yen coins (100 yen = ~$1), sat down, and put in the first of the 3 coins. The coin was immediately rejected. Like a retarded monkey, I repeated this about 7 or 8 times with the same results. I popped out of the pod to seek help. I asked a helpless otaku what to do, and while he spoke no English and didn't really help (but I'm with you, brother!), he did manage to steer us towards another game-like machine near the pods that we had dismissed earlier. It turns out that that machine is a kind of registrator for all of the pods, which are also all connected to play together. I had stumbled on a complicated - but awesome - Gundam game.
How it works (that is, how I think it works): you first "register" yourself with a pilots card, which prints out a physical card with your name on it. You use your pilot card when you want to play the game (the pod). The cards cost 300 yen; the actual gameplays are 500 yen per. I had already invested in a card and quite a bit of time, so I was moving ahead with the $8 game at this point. I'm not even into Gundam (though I am a bit fascinated by it), but I was excited to get this thing started.
Once I got my (awesome) pilot card printed - with my name on it - I hit pod #4 again, dropped in 5 100 yen coins and got the party started. Over the next 2 minutes, I proceeded to "navigate" - in the loosest possible sense of that word - a series of Japanese menu screens. I picked a Gundam (I think), I picked a pilot avatar (I think), I selected some weaponry, armor, and upgrades (I think), a difficulty level (I think), and a map (I think). I was finally dumped into the game, which played exactly how you might expect a Gundam-sized version of Team Fortress to play. The controls were pretty fun, and the fully-engrossing video was very disorienting; I felt pretty gross after the second and final round. But it was a well-spent $8, if just for the early Saturday observation of otaku in their element (and feeling at home, in an otherworldly way).
On the way out of the Sega center, we stopped to play a neat-looking bongo game, Taiko no Tatsujin, that Dan had mentioned and I that I instantly recognized. Again alien menu screens, but we got going in a 2-player game. Much fun was had all around. I'm not sure I'd splurge to buy it for the Wii, but I can definitely see the appeal.
That was it for games for the time being. We made our way into one of the electronics stores, Laox, and perused the seven varied floors of cameras, computers, and then food, and souvenirs. We met a young employee who spoke terrific English; she had been an exchange student in NY for the last year. The 'tourist-y' feeling started setting in a bit, so we hit the pavement.
As we made our way back to the main drag and waited to cross the street, I noticed a big pachinko parlor, Big Apple, and wanted to run in to see it firsthand. Again, as nutty as I would've thought, but more so because a) the volume level of the space is about 10% higher than the human pain threshold, between music and someone yelling into a mic, and b) we could not understand one iota of what was before us. I absolutely had to play the game, and in a very rapid whirl of sitting down, shelling out 1000 yen, having an employee put a card of some type into the machine, pressing a bunch of unknown buttons, watching some metal balls pile up, and my turning and holding a big knob, I "played" pachinko. And again, on paper it sounds like I blew a bunch of money on nothing, but it was a well-spent experience (for me).
A quick lunch stop for bad western food (never again), and we were back on the street. Amber has a gene in her DNA that prevents her from walking by any opportunity for crepes without buying one, so we grabbed one from a Crazy Crepes window front. At this point we were looking for a specific game center recommended in a guidebook, but were having no luck. In retrospect, it looks like we did actually stumble on a second game store that I had hoped to find, Super Potato. I'm not entirely sure, but what we did enter was an amazing throwback, filled with gaming systems from the last 20 years. It was one of those "I want to spend a lot of money here but I wouldn't know where to start" moments.
Because of the uncomfortably cold winds, strolling Akihabara was more strenuous than we would have liked. So we ditched hunting for the game center, and moved went to Plan B: split Akihabara, hit the rails, and make a few individual stops for inconveniently siloed points of interest.
Three stops down was Yurakucho, and the Muji store. It's 3 floors compared to the NYC's singular floor, and a few times bigger on each. Full clothing departments, an eyeglasses shop, a huge housewares department, home furniture - it was awesome. When we move to Tokyo, Muji will furnish our home completely.
Then it was back on the JR to find a toy store mecca one stop away at Shimbashi station. Unfortunately, this turned into one of those classic Tokyo experiences where the train station and your destination are 2 blocks away, but there is no possible easy way to get there without ripping your hair out. We were on the wrong road and we knew it, but the wrong road was filled with delightful restaurants and cafes and at this point we needed a break. Another amazing Japanese coffee later and I was emboldened. As soon as we left the cafe, I grabbed the first person I saw and asked him where this f***ing Hakuhinkan Toy Park was. Good fortunes shone upon us; he spoke great English and was walking in the same direction. (And for the record, we weren't complete morons about the location. Where it was and where our guidebook said it was were worlds apart. A strike against an otherwise useful book.)
The Hakuhinkan Toy Park was something else. Several floors of seriously fun and interesting stuff that kept us both pretty engaged on every floor, even the younger-aimed toys. Eco-friendly wooden blocks for babies, and wind-up battery-free electronics for tots? Super dope.
We left Hakuhinkan with the intent of going home, but a funny thing happened: we realized we were in the high-class shopping district of Ginza, and one of us got a second wind. We strolled a bit, and watched the beautiful Japanese shop along their beautiful street in their beautiful shops. We were still crashing pretty hard though, and had to call it a day.
The night was slated for the one and only tour group event Amber and I planned on involving ourselves in, the Izakaya experience. Izakaya is basically an all-you-can-eat-and-drink dining hall where Japanese usually go after work or university to unwind. We hit up a place in the center of Shibuya, with most of the group that had been going to the Auto Salon.
For 2 hours, we drank ourselves silly and ate some unexpectedly good buffet-ish food. We saw some seriously drunk Japanese guys yelling and stumbling around. But the best part was being in the center of Shibuya in the middle of a hopping Saturday night.
We ended our Friday with a dinner and a drink near our hotel. After walking up and down the main road of our hotel, we settled on a diner-like establishment directly across the street for some sweet & sour pork, and gigantic fried shrimp. The food was pretty good, but what was most interesting was the mockery we experienced from a group sitting next to us. Nothing major or threatening, but one of the guys clearly made a couple of cracks about us that he seemed to think were pretty funny. We weren't sure exactly why, but it of course led to paranoia about customs (are we too loud? should my jacket not be on the back of my chair? am I eating my rice wrong?). It was pretty uncomfortable in a general sense, and also in the sense that there was no way for us to react in any suitable way. We are strangers in a strange land, and sometimes that means having to take some lumps, even in 2010. Le sigh.
From there we lifted our spirits with spirits. I was in the mood for some sake ("sa-kay", not "sock-ee", for those following at home). Sake didn't happen, but "Japanese spirits" were available at the Wired Cafe (no relation to the magazine, or actually being wired in any sense other than having electricity). Amber had a lovely tea-based concoction, and I had a recommended something, based on my mentioning liking gin. It tasted like a big glass of ice water with a pinch of gin in it; light enough to not be boozy, but obvious enough to ruin what might have been a nice glass of water. It wasn't bad, but I'm still jonesing for some sake.
Saturday
Today was the day for Akihabara, aka Electric Town. It was as neon-insane as I had expected and hoped. We started with the most immediate and immediately attractive venue, a Sega game center. We elevated to the top floor and worked our way down.
Since it's a Sega-specific center, they're of course pushing their own games, thus an entire floor dedicated to the latest Virtua Fighter. I became mesmerized by a corner of another floor with 4 huge game-pods that you climb into to drive ... something. There were two lever-controls for steering, and most of the entire inside was a screen; it was clearly an immersive experience. I wanted in.
I jumped into pod #4 with a fistful of 100 yen coins (100 yen = ~$1), sat down, and put in the first of the 3 coins. The coin was immediately rejected. Like a retarded monkey, I repeated this about 7 or 8 times with the same results. I popped out of the pod to seek help. I asked a helpless otaku what to do, and while he spoke no English and didn't really help (but I'm with you, brother!), he did manage to steer us towards another game-like machine near the pods that we had dismissed earlier. It turns out that that machine is a kind of registrator for all of the pods, which are also all connected to play together. I had stumbled on a complicated - but awesome - Gundam game.
How it works (that is, how I think it works): you first "register" yourself with a pilots card, which prints out a physical card with your name on it. You use your pilot card when you want to play the game (the pod). The cards cost 300 yen; the actual gameplays are 500 yen per. I had already invested in a card and quite a bit of time, so I was moving ahead with the $8 game at this point. I'm not even into Gundam (though I am a bit fascinated by it), but I was excited to get this thing started.Once I got my (awesome) pilot card printed - with my name on it - I hit pod #4 again, dropped in 5 100 yen coins and got the party started. Over the next 2 minutes, I proceeded to "navigate" - in the loosest possible sense of that word - a series of Japanese menu screens. I picked a Gundam (I think), I picked a pilot avatar (I think), I selected some weaponry, armor, and upgrades (I think), a difficulty level (I think), and a map (I think). I was finally dumped into the game, which played exactly how you might expect a Gundam-sized version of Team Fortress to play. The controls were pretty fun, and the fully-engrossing video was very disorienting; I felt pretty gross after the second and final round. But it was a well-spent $8, if just for the early Saturday observation of otaku in their element (and feeling at home, in an otherworldly way).
On the way out of the Sega center, we stopped to play a neat-looking bongo game, Taiko no Tatsujin, that Dan had mentioned and I that I instantly recognized. Again alien menu screens, but we got going in a 2-player game. Much fun was had all around. I'm not sure I'd splurge to buy it for the Wii, but I can definitely see the appeal.That was it for games for the time being. We made our way into one of the electronics stores, Laox, and perused the seven varied floors of cameras, computers, and then food, and souvenirs. We met a young employee who spoke terrific English; she had been an exchange student in NY for the last year. The 'tourist-y' feeling started setting in a bit, so we hit the pavement.
As we made our way back to the main drag and waited to cross the street, I noticed a big pachinko parlor, Big Apple, and wanted to run in to see it firsthand. Again, as nutty as I would've thought, but more so because a) the volume level of the space is about 10% higher than the human pain threshold, between music and someone yelling into a mic, and b) we could not understand one iota of what was before us. I absolutely had to play the game, and in a very rapid whirl of sitting down, shelling out 1000 yen, having an employee put a card of some type into the machine, pressing a bunch of unknown buttons, watching some metal balls pile up, and my turning and holding a big knob, I "played" pachinko. And again, on paper it sounds like I blew a bunch of money on nothing, but it was a well-spent experience (for me).
A quick lunch stop for bad western food (never again), and we were back on the street. Amber has a gene in her DNA that prevents her from walking by any opportunity for crepes without buying one, so we grabbed one from a Crazy Crepes window front. At this point we were looking for a specific game center recommended in a guidebook, but were having no luck. In retrospect, it looks like we did actually stumble on a second game store that I had hoped to find, Super Potato. I'm not entirely sure, but what we did enter was an amazing throwback, filled with gaming systems from the last 20 years. It was one of those "I want to spend a lot of money here but I wouldn't know where to start" moments.Because of the uncomfortably cold winds, strolling Akihabara was more strenuous than we would have liked. So we ditched hunting for the game center, and moved went to Plan B: split Akihabara, hit the rails, and make a few individual stops for inconveniently siloed points of interest.
Three stops down was Yurakucho, and the Muji store. It's 3 floors compared to the NYC's singular floor, and a few times bigger on each. Full clothing departments, an eyeglasses shop, a huge housewares department, home furniture - it was awesome. When we move to Tokyo, Muji will furnish our home completely.
Then it was back on the JR to find a toy store mecca one stop away at Shimbashi station. Unfortunately, this turned into one of those classic Tokyo experiences where the train station and your destination are 2 blocks away, but there is no possible easy way to get there without ripping your hair out. We were on the wrong road and we knew it, but the wrong road was filled with delightful restaurants and cafes and at this point we needed a break. Another amazing Japanese coffee later and I was emboldened. As soon as we left the cafe, I grabbed the first person I saw and asked him where this f***ing Hakuhinkan Toy Park was. Good fortunes shone upon us; he spoke great English and was walking in the same direction. (And for the record, we weren't complete morons about the location. Where it was and where our guidebook said it was were worlds apart. A strike against an otherwise useful book.)
The Hakuhinkan Toy Park was something else. Several floors of seriously fun and interesting stuff that kept us both pretty engaged on every floor, even the younger-aimed toys. Eco-friendly wooden blocks for babies, and wind-up battery-free electronics for tots? Super dope.
We left Hakuhinkan with the intent of going home, but a funny thing happened: we realized we were in the high-class shopping district of Ginza, and one of us got a second wind. We strolled a bit, and watched the beautiful Japanese shop along their beautiful street in their beautiful shops. We were still crashing pretty hard though, and had to call it a day.The night was slated for the one and only tour group event Amber and I planned on involving ourselves in, the Izakaya experience. Izakaya is basically an all-you-can-eat-and-drink dining hall where Japanese usually go after work or university to unwind. We hit up a place in the center of Shibuya, with most of the group that had been going to the Auto Salon.
For 2 hours, we drank ourselves silly and ate some unexpectedly good buffet-ish food. We saw some seriously drunk Japanese guys yelling and stumbling around. But the best part was being in the center of Shibuya in the middle of a hopping Saturday night.
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