(Krispy Kreme, Tokyo Shinjuku : That’s a 30-minute line of people lined up to buy Krispy Kremes)
After some time, and being a little sick, and wanting to spend more time in culturally-rich Kansai, that I would cut down my time in Tokyo, down from 3 days to just little over one day (and one night). In that time, sightseeing and cultural activities (frex, I love to visit the Edo Museum, it’s probably one of the coolest historic museums on the planet) kinda go out the window in a mad dash of meeting friends and doing shopping.

With no other real plans, I went over to Akiba to check out some electronic dictionaries. Orie is going back to school (in America!) for a little bit, and needed one. Interesting thing is that the prices rarely change over the years (even when I was pricing them about 13 years ago!), but the functions keep inproving. After a lot of waffling and comparing definitions in Japanese and English for accuracy, I settled on the Casio XD-GW9600

Walked around Akihabara, visited some old haunts, namely the Yellow Submarine RPG shop there. By the time I left, the employees were walking me to the elevator bowing on their hands and knees at my passing. I figure two more trips like this and they’ll know me by name, even if I come to the store only once every few years. :-)

I hit up Kinokuniya as well, picking up a few Japanese language books. Unfortunately, there’s very few books that are written specifically at my level, so one of these days I’m going to have to break down and simply start reading Japanese novels and the like exclusively. But currently I just don’t have the patience.  I saw that Kodansha released the Advanced Grammar Dictionary, the long-awaited 3rd book of the set (Beginner and Inetermediate guides are shit-hot) that began some 13 years ago or so. It’s a solid, and I started cutting through it on the train.

Did a lot of walking around, visitng spots that have a lot of memories for me from back when I was a student in Tokyo 12-13 years ago, then living in the area 10 years ago. Certain smells, turning certain corners, seeing certain buildings, feeling a certain breeze on the bridge over the Shinjuku south exit train tracks… send me spiralling into a vortex of memories. Mostly good, some bittersweet.

A lot of what I found fun to do in Tokyo sucks now with the passing of my friend Satoru three years ago. It’s just not the same alone. There’s not much for me in Tokyo other than a little shopping and some minor sightseeing; I simply don’t get “Into the Scene” as much as I used to when Satoru was alive and we used to tear up the city long into the night.

Ate a crepe, one of those from a stand run by gangsters (blueberry and whipped cream). It was yakuzalicious.

At night, I got Eikichi after work and we hit up one of my favorite Japanese restaurants, “Tambo” (”Rice Paddy”). It’s kind of a rice specialty place, and the owners have their own ricefield in the boonies where they harvest the rice that is eventually sold in the store. That’s crazy-eclectic. Had a classic tekka-don style fish bowl with miso soup and sides, which then became an ochazuke (rice in a tea soup). Dee-licious. After that, we hiked it back past Akihabara to Kinshicho, where his apartment is. We talked for a long while, read manga, played PS3 (Yakuza/Ryuu Ga Gotoku: Kenzan, Metal Gear Solid, etc), watched some anime, and slept together in a 6-ricemat apartment where 4 of the ricemats are taken up by manga, figures, anime DVD and games. I slept on a bed of ricemat and manga, with a towel for a pillow, holding an airsoft replica firearm, mmmmm otaku life.

I found out Eikichi didn’t have Persona 4 yet. For that, I called him a traitor to his culture. But we agreed that it’s probably best to wait for it to come down in price a little, it’s still pretty high even in used stores.

Ahh, my cold was also starting to ramp up, so I ended up wearing a mask most of the day. In Japan they wear them not to “protect from pollution” as is commonly perceived, but rather sick people wear them so that they don’t spread germs to others out of politeness when they cough on the densely-packed trains and subways. This pic is for Daniel, who inquired into my “Dragonball Gangster Cut”: