Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Random pics from today and leftovers from Shinjuku
Fast food Ramen shop was damn speedy and pretty tasty, but completely unfufilling, hunger-wise.
Silent Hill Arcade!!!
The nightmare never ends if you run away!
Anime CPR
Shinjuku Station. People stand in lines marked on the ground. When the train comes, they stand OUT OF THE WAY of people stepping out; the lines form an alley for those coming off to exit out of. :O :O :O Also the trains make adorable chimey tunes to indicate which station they're at, and it makes me happy.
Two "We're Too Big For This" photos:
Also, all fast food-type stores seems to have at least two floors: the bottom is for ordering, the others are for eating. It must be weird to work in a cubicle all day, then go eat dinner in a cubicle.
Cardcrusher! (this thing is for dispensing of the plastic bubbles from toy... er... dispensers)
Cool stuff:
If I see that cherub one more time...
Godzilla statue in Ginza... ironically, it was kind of small.
Cool ads that were in the trains.
This is delicious pie, you must eat it.
TERRORIST BABY SIGHTED.
:(
Which brings me to the subject of the homeless people here. They're not like the hobos in America. They're quiet and polite, don't bother you or beg. None that we've met thus far, have begged anyone for money or food. They just sit quietly on their cardboard bed, stink, and read mangas nicely to themselves. We passed one old fellow who was shuffling down the block (smiling politely at us), when we saw his back, we were astounded at the length of his hair. His matted dredlock-chunks of hair went down past his knee. We figured he'd been homeless more than 30 years. o_o I can't even imagine that. Some have very long nails and very dark skin from being outside all day, all night. It's weird that they have a sense of dignity and quietness about them. I feel terrible that I feel bad for them, and not American hobos. :(
uh... this got serious.
Fix'd
Also: HOLY CRAP WHY AM I EATING SO MANY KIT-KATS?
Silent Hill Arcade!!!
The nightmare never ends if you run away!
Anime CPR
Shinjuku Station. People stand in lines marked on the ground. When the train comes, they stand OUT OF THE WAY of people stepping out; the lines form an alley for those coming off to exit out of. :O :O :O Also the trains make adorable chimey tunes to indicate which station they're at, and it makes me happy.
Two "We're Too Big For This" photos:
Also, all fast food-type stores seems to have at least two floors: the bottom is for ordering, the others are for eating. It must be weird to work in a cubicle all day, then go eat dinner in a cubicle.Cardcrusher! (this thing is for dispensing of the plastic bubbles from toy... er... dispensers)
Cool stuff:
If I see that cherub one more time...
Godzilla statue in Ginza... ironically, it was kind of small.
Cool ads that were in the trains.
This is delicious pie, you must eat it.
TERRORIST BABY SIGHTED.
:(Which brings me to the subject of the homeless people here. They're not like the hobos in America. They're quiet and polite, don't bother you or beg. None that we've met thus far, have begged anyone for money or food. They just sit quietly on their cardboard bed, stink, and read mangas nicely to themselves. We passed one old fellow who was shuffling down the block (smiling politely at us), when we saw his back, we were astounded at the length of his hair. His matted dredlock-chunks of hair went down past his knee. We figured he'd been homeless more than 30 years. o_o I can't even imagine that. Some have very long nails and very dark skin from being outside all day, all night. It's weird that they have a sense of dignity and quietness about them. I feel terrible that I feel bad for them, and not American hobos. :(
uh... this got serious.
Fix'dAlso: HOLY CRAP WHY AM I EATING SO MANY KIT-KATS?
Monday, May 19, 2008
Two videos from Akibahara
Everything, and I mean everything opens at 10am in Japan. There are few exceptions (11am mostly,) but everything important opens at 10. This was the epic line in front of Big Apple, a 5-7 story Pachinko Parlor. They line up hours before it opens in order to get the machines with the best odds. There is also a lottery held to determine the line order, if you believe it. Most people in the line earn a living playing Pachinko all day, knowing what machine will pay out.
We took this video for my folks, because I recognized the music and thought they would too. :) (I apologize for Michael's schizophrenic camerawork XD)
This is Pop N' Music. You hit 5, 7 or 9 buttons in correspondence to the scrolling commands on the screen (like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, all other rhythm-based games ever) and it's fairly obnoxious and it doesn't really feel like you're making music, like it claims. The Japanese arcade-goers play it on Extreme or Challenge mode, with all 9 buttons and it made our heads explode.
Food (will be updated)
Food, so far, is nom nom. I have discovered that I bloody love ramen.
Here's some pix from inside the smallest ramen shop in the whole world.
My camera was in the front corner of the store, against the wall.
That's the ramen bar, and the kitchen, that's it. Shop ends.
It was pretty good and cheap ramen though :D
This is a Crunky ice cream pop. We bought Crunky candy later, and it's basically like a Crunch bar, except they're little individual morsels and the chocolate is darker, I think.
We got this at HALC, but it sadly didn't taste as pretty as it looked. It didn't SUCK, though.
Aforementioned orange eggs (DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MONITER):
See that, above the yellow comparison pineapples? Those are supposed to be eggs.
Natto. Do not eat.
More pictures in time :)
Here's some pix from inside the smallest ramen shop in the whole world.
My camera was in the front corner of the store, against the wall.
That's the ramen bar, and the kitchen, that's it. Shop ends.
It was pretty good and cheap ramen though :D
This is a Crunky ice cream pop. We bought Crunky candy later, and it's basically like a Crunch bar, except they're little individual morsels and the chocolate is darker, I think.
We got this at HALC, but it sadly didn't taste as pretty as it looked. It didn't SUCK, though.Aforementioned orange eggs (DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MONITER):
See that, above the yellow comparison pineapples? Those are supposed to be eggs.
Natto. Do not eat.More pictures in time :)
Yoyogi Videos
The crazy dancey lady in Yoyogi Park.
And this was the steel drum girl band struggling to be heard amidst the Jrock.
A percussion-based gang, off the band-road.
Shibuya
was pretty disappointing... really. Consumerist to the brim... even the back-alley streets had designer-esque clothing stores about them. We passed by Prada, Gucci, Louis Vitton, etc etc. There were astounding amounts of white people (lots with small children) roaming around this area as well. Which makes one wonder why they left America for a highly westernized part of an otherwise quirky and uniquely beautiful country like Japan? Strange, silly people.
"Where are the cosplayers? ;-;" we thought. We'll probably go back later to Shibuya/Harajuku to find them.
There were two stores of interest- well.. Condomania wasn't that interesting. It was very very VERY small and gimmicky.
However Kiddie Land was a diamond in the rough. Japanese toys and knick-knacky wonders in the midst of boring designer-brand shit was refreshing.
and it was buzzing
Yes, they are tit-cookies.
In hindsight, I should've taken a video clip of a wall full of humping USB dogs. But you'll hafta take my word on it that they were humping USB dogs.
Arcade games aren't just for adults! They start em young in Japan. This beauty was the Pokemon arcade machine. Prepare yo ass for closeups.
Japanese kids are so damn lucky.
Which brings me to the goddamn coolest thing I've ever seen.
MARIO BOARD GAMES!
This one is sort of like Labyrinth, with a ball you control in a maze.
I would guess it's like Jenga, but the back of the box made it seem not-like-Jenga.
Oh, I forgot the other store of interest which we randomly stumbled into, and I had my hopes up that we'd find it at some point...
The T-Shirt in a Tube shop! :D (It's actually called UT)
I was very happy to get an authentic 1500yen (15 buck) t-shirt with something like a pile of cartoon pig zombie ghosts on it. (8D sweeeet) They have hundreds of different Tshirts all year, apparently, always 1500yen and usually pretty cool.
But then, Shibuya got really really cool. Yoyogi Park is beautiful. No park like that could exist in America.
why do I make so many fricken DERP faces? :B
Also Yoyogi Park is home to some crazy crap, aside from beautiful crap.
There's an entire walkway in the park where bands play, in a row, in one mess of sound. There's random musicians, dancers, artists and one guy practicing nunchaku all through the park as well.
I didn't get a good pic of these guys but they were all "american-style rock n' rollers," meaning they looked like Fonzie with huge pompadours.
And this was a girl band whom played steeldrums among the throngs of jrock on the music-block. Maybe videos later. There was also a crazy lady judo-dancing (?) in the park.
And we stopped at an extremely small and very crowded NewsDay (7-11) and found some real-live Calorie Mate (as made famous in Metal Gear 3: Snake Eater) but I thought the place was pic-worthy :x
In hindsight, not a bad day, just not what we were expecting at all. We didn't see any wacky cosplayers, and no streets and streets of awesome shops. But goddamnit, it was lovely in a different way.
"Where are the cosplayers? ;-;" we thought. We'll probably go back later to Shibuya/Harajuku to find them.
There were two stores of interest- well.. Condomania wasn't that interesting. It was very very VERY small and gimmicky.
However Kiddie Land was a diamond in the rough. Japanese toys and knick-knacky wonders in the midst of boring designer-brand shit was refreshing.
and it was buzzing
Yes, they are tit-cookies.
In hindsight, I should've taken a video clip of a wall full of humping USB dogs. But you'll hafta take my word on it that they were humping USB dogs.
Arcade games aren't just for adults! They start em young in Japan. This beauty was the Pokemon arcade machine. Prepare yo ass for closeups.
Japanese kids are so damn lucky.
Which brings me to the goddamn coolest thing I've ever seen.
MARIO BOARD GAMES!
This one is sort of like Labyrinth, with a ball you control in a maze.
I would guess it's like Jenga, but the back of the box made it seem not-like-Jenga.
Oh, I forgot the other store of interest which we randomly stumbled into, and I had my hopes up that we'd find it at some point...
The T-Shirt in a Tube shop! :D (It's actually called UT)
I was very happy to get an authentic 1500yen (15 buck) t-shirt with something like a pile of cartoon pig zombie ghosts on it. (8D sweeeet) They have hundreds of different Tshirts all year, apparently, always 1500yen and usually pretty cool.
But then, Shibuya got really really cool. Yoyogi Park is beautiful. No park like that could exist in America.
why do I make so many fricken DERP faces? :B
Also Yoyogi Park is home to some crazy crap, aside from beautiful crap.
There's an entire walkway in the park where bands play, in a row, in one mess of sound. There's random musicians, dancers, artists and one guy practicing nunchaku all through the park as well.
I didn't get a good pic of these guys but they were all "american-style rock n' rollers," meaning they looked like Fonzie with huge pompadours.
And this was a girl band whom played steeldrums among the throngs of jrock on the music-block. Maybe videos later. There was also a crazy lady judo-dancing (?) in the park.And we stopped at an extremely small and very crowded NewsDay (7-11) and found some real-live Calorie Mate (as made famous in Metal Gear 3: Snake Eater) but I thought the place was pic-worthy :x
In hindsight, not a bad day, just not what we were expecting at all. We didn't see any wacky cosplayers, and no streets and streets of awesome shops. But goddamnit, it was lovely in a different way.
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