Day 8: Shinjuku (once again)
The way back to our hotel was thankfully relatively easily. Here’s what hotel room #6 (I think) looked like…
It was very nice, and in fact the most spacious of all the rooms I would stay in. Plus, it really was nice to get away from room #5. It was also the only hotel I would stay at while in Japan that had a Bible in the room!
But the rest was brief. It was mostly just to grab our room keys (by this point they were finally ready) and put our stuff away. Even though it was raining out, it wasn’t really too bad, just a light drizzle, and I was hungry, as was Joe and June, so we all went out once again.
Here’s a pair of mannequins in front of some club that we passed on the way to grub…
After a nice meal of soba noodles for all of us, we walked around the area a bit. Here’s a Hello Kitty store we stopped by, primarily to see if there was Chococat goods….
Not a trace. It would seem he’s been erased from the Hello Kitty continuum/canon. Strange… And no, they had no Hello Kitty vibrators for sale. Anyway, upstairs was a video store, full of Japanese offerings, like animu…
… And American as well, like Same Jackson. So Snakes on a Plane is called Snake Flight in Japan…
Even in Japan, you just can’t get away from the Hoff…
And above the video store was a book store, that offered mostly manga….
Phoenix Wright was in full effect, with tons of comics based on the game….
This cover looked might awesome….
…. Unfortunately, I had no idea what the interiors were like. And that’s the thing; there were mountains and mountains of awesome looking manga, but I had no way to check it out since everything was shrink-wrapped! I guess people in Japan know exactly what they are looking for… but about first time readers, those who aren’t sure of something? Anyway, its always said that Japanese comics cover a variety of subject matter, and its true. Everything from bondage to hot dog eating….
I think I’ve seen this before, in the States. Anyhow, really nice covers….
There were loads of art books based on video games too. Here we have ones for Senko No Ronde, Darkstalkers, and Persona 3, each of which I got…
… But would later lose somewhere along the line, during yet another hotel switch (along with some other stuff, mostly presents for other people, which I’m still pretty pissed about). I also got this book featuring girls combines with machines… but instead of WWII machinery, a lot of it is totally mundane crap, like refrigerators. Thankfully I didn’t loose that one…
Afterwards we decided to check out a corner store that Keith and Anney had stumbled across the previous day. And it lived up to the hype…
… That there is a Pac Man themed ski mask! At this point, Joe and June were getting tired, but I still had some energy in me, so I decided to check out the Taito center across the street to see if they had anything good.
Their UFO catchers had lots of, surprise, bear related prizes (they simply love bears in Japan). Aside from Relax Bear, they some based on Gloomy Bear, and the old guy with tank treads too…
I forget who he is, but he’s darn cute!
You had Super Mario stuff too…
Plus at least one redemption machine that was Ghost ‘N Ghouls themed!
As for games, it had pretty much all the titles I had become accustomed to seeing (Virtua Fighter 5, that Virtual On-esque Gundam game, Aracana Heart, various card/video game hybrids), though it did also have this Lupin typing game….
Which utilized Dreamcast keyboards!
They also had the Typing of the Dead, that everyone knows and loves. Eventually, even I ran out of steam, and then it was time to head back to the hotel. And I love how rain always makes any nighttime city shots look that much better….
Once in my room, I kicked back and, naturally, watched some TV. Japanese game shows are the best; they’re so high concept. This one quiz show offered contestants two possible answers out of a set of six (I believe they were world plays of some sort), but instead of sticking someone behind a podium and giving them a buzzer like they do in American, here we have people walking on some path high in the sky, with the city below, and the answers are presented as blocks on each side, and they have to use lightsaber-esque batons to swipe the correct answers….
The special effects were simply amazing. The blue screen effects were so extensive that when they zoomed in on contestant’s faces, the background would blur! Oh, and here’s some infomercial on something about back care. We have some young alien girl that plucked regular human from his sleep in the back and hitting him in the back with a hammer to magically cure his back pain…
At this particular hotel, they had an American movie channel, but they were running some Sandra Bullock festival. I used to have such a crush on her… till she started doing so many shitty romantic comedies. So yeah, I never stayed on that channel for very long (I only tuned in from time to time to see if it was playing the one Bullock movie that I totally love: Demolition Man). Eventually I grew bored and hungry, so I went out again to nab some onigiri and swing by the outdoor arcade nearby, which was actually connected to a batting cage that had other machines in the lobby, Played a few rounds of DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou, but that was it, since I knew that I had to get early the next day to move out yet again…
