/dev/etc 19 Oct 2007 09:40 pm
a few too many photos to upload
I have about 500 more photos to upload; the past few days have been BRUTAL with the amount of stuff Japan has been showing me. Plus, I gotta’ pack to get back home. Real quick bulleted list leading up to our last day:
- Went out to Nikko, a massive temple city on a mountain. INCREDIBLE. It’s where the hear / see / speak no evil monkey caricatures came from. It’s also the site of the 3rd largest Buddha in the world. Oh! And it’s a tomb of a Shogun.
- Thursday, we got up and went our separate ways for the morning; Jess went to the Imperial Palace and I went out to Akihabara.
- Met up with Tim in Ikebukuro where we went to Namjatown, a weird “theme park” inside the only shopping mall (it’s also the only underground shopping mall) in Tokyo. It’s owned by Namco! It has two important features: Gyoza Stadium and Ice Cream City. It also has a stupid haunted forest and probably some other dumb stuff. It’s the closest to Iron Chef I’ll probably ever experience.
- Shopped around Ikebukuro a little; that place is pretty excellent. Saw some sweet guitar stores and even more enormous camera stores. I tried to buy the latest Chanbara game for PS2 but they wouldn’t sell it to me because I didn’t have my passport. Fortunately! I’ve picked up a lot of little bits of the language while I’m here, so I was able to apologize and get out while the getting was good.
- Got some donuts on the way home. They’re nothing like donuts here! They’re like what somebody who had only ever seen donuts in a movie would make. Round bread covered in strawberry frosting.
- Yesterday, Jess and I went out to Tokyo Disney Sea, which is only a 15 minute ride by train from Tokyo Station. It was pretty excellent! Kind of like a Disney version of Islands of Adventure. Saw this show there:
- On the way home, and this is REALLY IMPORTANT, I stopped in a news stand and bought a fresh copy of Weekly Famitsu. I’m really, really going to miss this place.
on 19 Oct 2007 at 11:03 pm 1.jack said …
Perhaps someday we’ll be on one of those trains, on the way to someplace weird, playing shining soul 2 on our gameboy micros.
Not to worry about the PS2 chanbaras! They have PAL versions!
I trust that ice cream city was made of real ice cream.
on 20 Oct 2007 at 6:54 am 2.mike! said …
my chanbaras have shipped, they should make their way over to floridaland shortly after you return, for some visit/borrow time.
esplain this need for a passport thing to me?
have a safe trip!
on 20 Oct 2007 at 10:14 am 3.Ben said …
They don’t honor American driving licenses here as forms of ID. And the latest Chanbara game (the remake of the second game) is rated D for some reason, when the previous versions were rated B. It’s like the ESRB, where A is for kids, B is for teens, and on up.
Also, hit up Akihabara for the last time today. Picked up 3 of the bitgen games for ya’s, Mike, as well as an additional copy of Orbital for you, Jack. I also got an extra copy of Kururin Paradise (a.k.a. Irritating Stick) for GBA for 500 yen for anybody who wants it.
Oh. And we got a purple PSP slim. It’s pretty incredible.
on 20 Oct 2007 at 12:56 pm 4.jack said …
YAY ORBITAL THANKS
Just so you guys know, there’s a village in your garage.
on 20 Oct 2007 at 4:53 pm 5.mike! said …
Super sweet, thanks for bitgens!! Awesome find on the purple PSP! can’t wait to see all pics and hear stories!