At The Speed of Steve

Akihabara is the electronic district in Tokyo, known as “Electric Town”.  This weekend the gang went there in search of a fabled anime store named “Animate”.   We got off the train and got a little lost but thanks to a nice policeman we were able go in the right direction.  We were surprised that he knew actually, maybe big tough policemen here in japan also like to watch anime from time to time.  Police hang out in little stands all over Tokyo, these stands are called kobans.  They are like little police outposts scattered about the various districts of Tokyo.  Since there isn’t much crime here, they usually have very little to do and generally like talking to people (i assume out of boredom).

Anyway, once we found the place. oh man! it was big. 7 floors of anime.  That was only this one store, there were tons around it that were just as impressive.  no wonder I barely had any money after i left, there was just too much cool stuff to buy.  This is the point where I would ordinarily post pictures of all the cool stuff i bought, well too bad because most of them were gifts for people.  also my camera’s broken lol.

One thing I bought which I can tell you about is this illustration book called “Robot“, it was recommended to me by a gentleman in my dorm.  Its a full color illustration book done by famous Anime artists.   I really like it, it will make a great souvenir.  Its got about 50 pages or so of art work, when I finish reading it I will post some pictures of my favorite stuff.  not sure if i will be able to scan it or not but what ever.

After Animate we all headed to Yodobashi Camera, its an 8 floor department store style building.  Except the departments are all electronics.

it also happens to be right ontop of the train station.  Its position is surely not an accident.

This is an action shot of how crowded EACH floor is

most of the goods being sold were electronics, however heres some shots of other junk they had.

We also found the largest Television i have ever seen for sale

it was expensive, i remember it costing something like 52,000 american.

escalators out the wazoo.

here are some outdoor shots of Electric Town,  around the station and on the road we were walking

This last picture has a bit of a funny story with it.  Its from the last time we went to Akihabara, i just happened to find it.  Now if you were to guess what was inside of this store what would it be?

The Pop-Life Store

If you guessed lots of porno, hentai and crotchless panties then my friend, you must have seen something that the rest of us did not.  We went inside thinking it was another anime store or a costum shop or something… oh man were we wrong.  i’m just impressed that a porno store could be so well lit and be 4 floors high.  so was everyone else actually.  needless to say we made a hasty retreat back to the street level lolling the whole time.

This weekend was the Tokyo Game Show, a major game convention here in Japan.  Our group was lucky enough to get tickets in advance, so this Saturday the gang headed to Makuhari Messe for some much needed Nerd-Juice.  The Convention was huge, the crowds were huge, the names were huge and especially the Chocobos were huge.

Like I said, I saw all the big names there: Square Enix, Sony, Microsoft, Capcom, Nintendo, EA and more!

I was lucky enough to take a look at the new Resident Evil (here its called Biohazard but its the same thing). So for Resident Evil 5 it looks like they are going to release it for the Xbox 360 and PS3.  The game looks pretty sick, they didn’t let us take many pictures of the stand but here’s one Dan snuck in:

you can clearly see the no pictures man in the foreground…oops.

There is also a new sonic game coming out for the Wii, called Sonic and the Black Knight.  I didn’t get to try it but it looks like it might bring sonic back to what you want from it…Really fast running that you cant see whats going on.   That’s what every sonic fan desires. Also, he has a sword, lol.

There is a Kingdom Hearts game coming to the DS which i might buy as well…ah so many games so little time.  I didn’t get much of a peek at it because of the Huge line to see the Square Enix stuff but I’m sure it wont disappoint.  Plus it’s not coming out until Winter so there is still time to read up on it and see if its worth the investment.

Outside of the Square Enix booth though they were selling “potions” that had the faces of many Final Fantasy characters on it.  These “Potions” didn’t really explain what flavors they were or if they restored MP or HP and they were in regular Soda-Can form. In any case, Square Enix could piss in a can and slap Squall’s face on it, and people would still buy it in droves.  Without actually trying it, I really cannot comment on this matter and if the line wasn’t so long I probably would have bought at least one  They are just too cool:

…clearly a good marketing choice.

Now I can’t forget the main reason people (i use the term people very loosely) come to these conventions…The Booth Babes!

Although closely related, one cannot avoid the many Cosplayers that frequent these conventions.  Its always so much fun to see people dress up like your favorite characters.  The folks here in Tokyo did a fantastic job too, many of them really showed their dedication by the details in the costum.  Here’s a few that I liked the most:

There is one more that I must show you…

Dan was brave enough to take a picture with it.

We’re pretty sure it was a guy inside mostly because his Quads were very defined and muscular, also tall women are hard to find here.  We could certainly be wrong but i strongly doubt it.

Either Way…lol dan.

Norton Antivirus had a really cool display there as well

if a forty foot ultra man doesn’t scare viruses and spyware, then I don’t know what will.

ok all the video links are working now

————————————–Edit 9/17—————————————-

The group went to Mt. Fuji with the intent to make it to the top.  I really wanted to go to the top but it would have required me to sleep overnight on the mountain.  I really wasnt equiped to do such a feat, but i probably would have done it anyway if it werent for the fact that i had to be somewhere the next day.  This circumstance probably worked out in my favor because of the kind of weather one can expect on Mt. Fuji

As luck would have it though, the buses stopped running very early on the day we went, so we only got to stay on the mountain for roughly an hour and a half.  Very disappointing considering it took 2 hours to get there and then another 2 to get back home.  However, i’d do it again.  The weather that day was very cloudy and misty, but there were certain times that the weather broke.  It was beautiful regardless.  There really is no way to describe it accurately besides –At some point you should go–  that sums it up.  pictures dont do it justice but i’ll give it a shot. (also a video!)

This is Station 5 at mount Fuji, its the highest point you can reach on the mountain by car/bus.

it was a little like silent hill but still awesome

getting high —  2390 meters –or– 7841.207 feet –

Video

On the way home we took this train:

i’m not sure where thomas land is…but you do have to take this train to get there, it also happen to be on the way back to tokyo.  oh and this was starring at me for part of the trip:

Sir Topham Hat himself, kick ass.  (this was next to my seat)

The train we transfered to after thomas land let us off took us to yokohama instead of Shinjuku which is where we needed to go.   we fell asleep and needless to say woke up in a different city than we expected. eventually we made it back to tokyo but it just took longer. lucky for us yokohama is really close to tokyo so it wasnt completely a wash.

Now i know what youre thinking, “what was so important that you wouldnt spend the night at Fuji?” well this is what:

GIGA-BUDDHA

This guy is over 700 years old and weighs close to 50 tons, it has survived countless typhoons and one time a tsunami knocked it off its pedestal.  do you want to see the inside? i sure did:

video

The day after fuji me and dan went to Kamakura its a coastal city south of Tokyo. it was part of a school trip so there were lots of people there.  we saw three shrines while we where in the city, one buddhist, one shinto and another that seemed to be a mix. heres the goods:

Shinto

Video

Buddhist

The Third Shrine

as if the fish would eat that sign anyway…

This should make up for the silence.

its sunday here. i’ve given up trying to figure out what day it is back home, i have a clock that tells me the hour but not the day.  it has been three days since i landed here, the plane ride was a bitch. if anyone says a 13 hours on plane fun, you punch em square in the gut for me.  granted 13 hours on a plane may not be too bad, but figure in the 3 hour flight prior to that, the 1 hour lay over, the 3 hours prior to that in waiting and the 30 min car ride prior to that and the 1 and half bus ride after landing followed by a 45 min taxi ride to your final destination and you have just about summed up the necessary wait time to come from the east coast to Tokyo Japan (actually in Meguro City which is like a sub-city next to tokyo…whatever).

total combined travel time: 22.75 hours | 25 hours awake

today is the first day thats feeling normal so i figure i’d post here with some pictures and some adventure that has already poped up.

yesterday we went to visit the Olympic Park Stadium, its about a 15 min walk from my house.  Japan hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics and the structure still stands.

heres the backstory

We picked a rather interesting day to go though, ordinarily the structure serves as a grounds to walk about and use the various facilities for a fee. however, from time to time the area hosts different sports events. on the day we went there was a junior Judo and Badminton competition of Asia there.

I never thought i would ever go to an Olympic Stadium, especially one in Japan. also Tokyo is a Candidate city for the 2016 Summer games. Pretty cool eh?

also there was a Juggler/Unicycle/Band playing infront of one of the buildings. very classy:

Juggler video