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tammaiyaAnother random cultural point: it is a common misconception that portions in Japan are tiny. NOT TRUE. Every meal I've bought here has been ENORMOUS. Just for the record.
You may recall that my laptop died on Saturday night. Well, I was woken up at about 10.40 by my parents ringing my mobile in response to the email I'd sent them, telling me that yes I had to get a new laptop but I had to pay for it myself. (Fair enough, they're paying for my textbooks and bedding and stuff.) I was a bit like groooooan I don't want to go out todaaaaaaaaay about it, and when my laptop booted up I brightened up and was like, victory! I don't have to go to Akihabara with immediate urgency!
Then it died again, and I just gave up. Fucking blue screen of death. At least, after taking![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_leareth's advice and having a bath, the callous blisters on my little toes were mostly gone, so that was something.
I was sort of intending to go to the co-op, get some notepaper, and go back to my dorm to do some homework before I went to Akihabara, but the co-op was closed and once I'd walked all the way to the combini next to the station I was like, fuck it, I'm not walking all the way back! EVEN THOUGH I'M COLD. Whatever, I bought pizaman and milk tea for lunch, a notebook, glue and scissors (so I could cut out my photo and stick it to the dorm application), high chew as a jelly bean substitute in case of hypos, more dessert pocky, and cheese. There was cheese and I wanted it, preciousss. It kind of made me giggle a bit, though, because a. it said cambembert on the box, but, Japan, I'm sorry to tell you that it is in fact BRIE (not that I object, brie is my favourite kind of cheese) and b. the wheel is cut up into tiny, INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED wedges. That's just so... so fundamentally Japanese. XD
Anyway, to get out to Akihabara from my university, I have to catch 3 trains; Tama to Musashi Sakai, Musashi Sakai to Shinjuku, Shinjuku to Akihabara. Or, in terms of train lines, Tamagawa -> Chuuou Rapid -> Chuuou Soubu local. The annoying thing is, the Chuuou Soubu line stops one station before Musashi Sakai. ><
This takes around 1 hr 30 minutes to achieve, and is a little on the expensive side. I think I made it more expensive by leaving Shinjuku station in search of a bank. I'd looked it up on the internet the night before after my failure at finding an international ATM, and apparently the Citibank on the 19th floor of some building or other around the south exit of the station had them and was open 24/7. So I went to find it. Initially I was under the impression that it was actually within the station, but not so much. When I asked directions, the girl at the info desk told me to go out the south exit, it was on the 19th floor, etc etc... but I missed something important around the middle.
It seems once people here decide you can speak Japanese, they don't pull out any stops? Mostly I don't have a problem with people speaking natural speed to me, but this time it tripped me up. Nevertheless, I still managed to find *A* bank (although not Citibank) that had international ATMs, so I'm going to chalk that one up as a success.
What was not so successful was getting back into the station. My pasmo card didn't have enough left on it, and I couldn't find any machines. Eventually I just ninja'd my way through, which makes me feel a little guilty but I'M SORRY, JAPAN, I DIDN'T WANT TO BE STUCK OUTSIDE SHINJUKU STATION.
Then I had a moment of mental blank, for some reason forgot which district I was trying to go to, and almost got on a train to Ikebukuro. I think maybe because people have mentioned Ikebukuro to me several times in the last few days. XD; But I actually got on the train-- which I didn't like, btw, it had next to no seats on it, what is UP with that?-- and I'm just lucky it was waiting at the station for a few minutes, because I was standing on it, and then I was like, hey. Wait a second. Wasn't I going to AKIHABARA? ... crap! I mean, it wouldn't have been a HUGE drama, because I could have taken the yamanote line to get to Akihabara from Ikebukuro, but still, it would have been majorly annoying and time-consuming.
Eventually, though, I got on the right train-- the Chuuou Soubu line-- and headed off towards Akihabara. It was quite far, but the seats were heated and I had my DS, so I quite enjoyed the train ride.
It was not so much fun times at Akihabara, though, because I STILL couldn't find a pasmo machine. There were Suica machines, and some machines will take both Suica and Pasmo cards, but these ones WOULDN'T. So I still essentially had no ticket. Eventually I just shiftily ninja'd my way through the gates again.
(Random interlude. I went to the bathroom before I left the station, and you know what I don't get? Japanese toilets. On the one hand there are the toilets that play music and spray water at you in Shinjuku station, and on the other hand, there are hole-in-the-ground toilets. Which are ceramic and flush and are thus a billion times nicer than the hole-in-the-ground toilets I remember from China 15 years ago, but are still HOLES IN THE GROUND. There must be some kind of benefit I just don't properly appreciate, though, because the bathroom in Akihabara had both western style and hole-in-the-ground style toilets and I saw one woman go into the latter when there were plenty of the former vacant. *shrug*)
Immediately outside the station-- there are three exits at Akihabara, and I took the "Electric City" exit-- there were a bunch of girls in maid cafe outfits handing out pamphlets. Naturally, I took a photo:
And then, at the end of the street, there was a multistorey building devoted to cosplay costumes, from what I could tell of a mostly dubious nature. You could see the costumes in the windows of each floor, and on one side of the building there was an advertisment about all the kinds of outfit they had; I tried to take a photo but you can't really see that clearly. Anyway.
Buying a laptop is usually something you want to take your time and think about and look around, but it was kind of urgent, I had no real idea where things were and it was already 3pm, so in the end I went into the first electronics store I found (Softmap), hung around there eyeing off the various second hand computers for a while (I almost had a heart attack at first because I misread the price tags and mentally added a zero, and was like, oh my GOD, isn't that like FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?! ... Oh, hang on.) I asked the shop assistants about inbuilt microphones, and they took me to like, the cheapest computer in the store-- I think they misunderstood and thought the ONLY thing I wanted was an inbuilt mic. XD; I was actually asking if a specific laptop I was looking at had one. (Which it does, as well as a lot of other things like tv tuner and webcam.) I was like, uh, no thanks, I was actually more interested in THIS one back over here, and pointed out the laptop I'd been thinking about.
Again, by the way, with the assumption of fluent Japanese. I'm quite proud of myself for not flailing. But it's interesting, because there's a stereotype that Japanese people don't expect foreigners to speak Japanese and will praise you if you say barely anything at all. That's only happened to me once (clothes shop in Shinjuku); both the shop assistant in Akihabara and the info desk lady in Shinjuku spoke totally naturally, aside from (in the computer store's case) occasionally rewording things when I gave a blank expression. I'm not sure what it says... it's just interesting, is all.
So. I decided on the laptop, I opted to pay extra for 3 years warranty, and then I wandered around for about 10 minutes while they prepared it for me to take, during which time I discovered a Book Off which also apparently had video games and was like 8 floors, but unfortunately wasn't going to open for about another week. Although I did find a second hand game shop on the same street. Odin Sphere is still moderately expensive. And FFXII international seems to be quite rare; they had two copies of the ordinary version, but none of the remake, which is the same as the game store I'd been to in Shinjuku.
The laptop, with all its bits and pieces, was rather heavy. It itself is about 3kg, since it has a 17" screen, and then there's the manual, the remote, the AC pack, etc. Nevertheless, I figured I was IN Akihabara already, and it had taken some effort to get there, so I may as well actually look around. This was at around 6.30pm on a sunday, but everything was still open.
That's one thing I love about Japan, btw. It can be 10 at night, and you can still do your shopping.
Anyway, OBVIOUSLY for me this meant hitting up the video game shops. I went into this one kind of huge one, where I actually saw FFXII International Zodiac Job Version-- for 5~6000 yen-- but I forced myself to stop and think, do you need it? Are you going to play it if you get it right now, or can you wait and buy it later when you're not already playing heaps of other things? I know it was hard to find and Akihabara is far from Fuchuu, but CAN IT WAIT?
Stop and record the moment, people, I actually exercised some self-restraint!
So I left the store without buying anything, and promptly went to another store and bought the May Dengeki. WHATEVER, OKAY, IT WAS ONLY LIKE 500 YEN and it had ToA and ToD remake in it! And I didn't buy the other FFIV game guide or the FF 20th anniversary character guide! D: Also, now I have the gaiden about Anise being Dist's only friend and it is BEAUTIFUL.
On a different yet related note, though, I see Code Geass everywhere right now and I am SO SICK OF IT, OMG. ><
Photos of the magazine shop and Akihabara in general:
After that I went home, which was a more frustrating process than it had to be. I managed to recharge my pasmo card, finally, and put 5000 yen on it because I was sick of it running out, and then I hopped on the Soubu line. I realised I could change to the Chuuou rapid line at the next station (Ochanomizu), thereby avoiding Shinjuku entirely and staying on the same train for most of the journey, and I thought I was pretty clever until I actually DID this and had to stand, holding my laptop, the whole damn way. AUUUGH, KUYASHII. Why didn't I just stay on the Soubu line? It would have taken longer, but I could have sat down and played my DS and been happy! ;___; Although, I wouldn't have seen a poodle in a travel cage if I hadn't changed trains when I did... which was interesting, BUT.
Then when I got to Musashi Sakai I didn't swipe my card properly going out and the gates going to the Tamagawa platform wouldn't let me in, because I hadn't swiped my card going OUT yet. >< Annooooying.
But I got back to Fuchuu-shi eventually, and grabbed a niku iri udon bentou from the place near the station on my way back to campus. After all that I went home, curled up in bed with my new laptop to set things up on it, and did some homework which turned out to be wholly unnecessary because we did it all in class the next day, but that's a whole different story.
You may recall that my laptop died on Saturday night. Well, I was woken up at about 10.40 by my parents ringing my mobile in response to the email I'd sent them, telling me that yes I had to get a new laptop but I had to pay for it myself. (Fair enough, they're paying for my textbooks and bedding and stuff.) I was a bit like groooooan I don't want to go out todaaaaaaaaay about it, and when my laptop booted up I brightened up and was like, victory! I don't have to go to Akihabara with immediate urgency!
Then it died again, and I just gave up. Fucking blue screen of death. At least, after taking
_leareth's advice and having a bath, the callous blisters on my little toes were mostly gone, so that was something.I was sort of intending to go to the co-op, get some notepaper, and go back to my dorm to do some homework before I went to Akihabara, but the co-op was closed and once I'd walked all the way to the combini next to the station I was like, fuck it, I'm not walking all the way back! EVEN THOUGH I'M COLD. Whatever, I bought pizaman and milk tea for lunch, a notebook, glue and scissors (so I could cut out my photo and stick it to the dorm application), high chew as a jelly bean substitute in case of hypos, more dessert pocky, and cheese. There was cheese and I wanted it, preciousss. It kind of made me giggle a bit, though, because a. it said cambembert on the box, but, Japan, I'm sorry to tell you that it is in fact BRIE (not that I object, brie is my favourite kind of cheese) and b. the wheel is cut up into tiny, INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED wedges. That's just so... so fundamentally Japanese. XD
Anyway, to get out to Akihabara from my university, I have to catch 3 trains; Tama to Musashi Sakai, Musashi Sakai to Shinjuku, Shinjuku to Akihabara. Or, in terms of train lines, Tamagawa -> Chuuou Rapid -> Chuuou Soubu local. The annoying thing is, the Chuuou Soubu line stops one station before Musashi Sakai. ><
This takes around 1 hr 30 minutes to achieve, and is a little on the expensive side. I think I made it more expensive by leaving Shinjuku station in search of a bank. I'd looked it up on the internet the night before after my failure at finding an international ATM, and apparently the Citibank on the 19th floor of some building or other around the south exit of the station had them and was open 24/7. So I went to find it. Initially I was under the impression that it was actually within the station, but not so much. When I asked directions, the girl at the info desk told me to go out the south exit, it was on the 19th floor, etc etc... but I missed something important around the middle.
It seems once people here decide you can speak Japanese, they don't pull out any stops? Mostly I don't have a problem with people speaking natural speed to me, but this time it tripped me up. Nevertheless, I still managed to find *A* bank (although not Citibank) that had international ATMs, so I'm going to chalk that one up as a success.
What was not so successful was getting back into the station. My pasmo card didn't have enough left on it, and I couldn't find any machines. Eventually I just ninja'd my way through, which makes me feel a little guilty but I'M SORRY, JAPAN, I DIDN'T WANT TO BE STUCK OUTSIDE SHINJUKU STATION.
Then I had a moment of mental blank, for some reason forgot which district I was trying to go to, and almost got on a train to Ikebukuro. I think maybe because people have mentioned Ikebukuro to me several times in the last few days. XD; But I actually got on the train-- which I didn't like, btw, it had next to no seats on it, what is UP with that?-- and I'm just lucky it was waiting at the station for a few minutes, because I was standing on it, and then I was like, hey. Wait a second. Wasn't I going to AKIHABARA? ... crap! I mean, it wouldn't have been a HUGE drama, because I could have taken the yamanote line to get to Akihabara from Ikebukuro, but still, it would have been majorly annoying and time-consuming.
Eventually, though, I got on the right train-- the Chuuou Soubu line-- and headed off towards Akihabara. It was quite far, but the seats were heated and I had my DS, so I quite enjoyed the train ride.
It was not so much fun times at Akihabara, though, because I STILL couldn't find a pasmo machine. There were Suica machines, and some machines will take both Suica and Pasmo cards, but these ones WOULDN'T. So I still essentially had no ticket. Eventually I just shiftily ninja'd my way through the gates again.
(Random interlude. I went to the bathroom before I left the station, and you know what I don't get? Japanese toilets. On the one hand there are the toilets that play music and spray water at you in Shinjuku station, and on the other hand, there are hole-in-the-ground toilets. Which are ceramic and flush and are thus a billion times nicer than the hole-in-the-ground toilets I remember from China 15 years ago, but are still HOLES IN THE GROUND. There must be some kind of benefit I just don't properly appreciate, though, because the bathroom in Akihabara had both western style and hole-in-the-ground style toilets and I saw one woman go into the latter when there were plenty of the former vacant. *shrug*)
Immediately outside the station-- there are three exits at Akihabara, and I took the "Electric City" exit-- there were a bunch of girls in maid cafe outfits handing out pamphlets. Naturally, I took a photo:
And then, at the end of the street, there was a multistorey building devoted to cosplay costumes, from what I could tell of a mostly dubious nature. You could see the costumes in the windows of each floor, and on one side of the building there was an advertisment about all the kinds of outfit they had; I tried to take a photo but you can't really see that clearly. Anyway.
Buying a laptop is usually something you want to take your time and think about and look around, but it was kind of urgent, I had no real idea where things were and it was already 3pm, so in the end I went into the first electronics store I found (Softmap), hung around there eyeing off the various second hand computers for a while (I almost had a heart attack at first because I misread the price tags and mentally added a zero, and was like, oh my GOD, isn't that like FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?! ... Oh, hang on.) I asked the shop assistants about inbuilt microphones, and they took me to like, the cheapest computer in the store-- I think they misunderstood and thought the ONLY thing I wanted was an inbuilt mic. XD; I was actually asking if a specific laptop I was looking at had one. (Which it does, as well as a lot of other things like tv tuner and webcam.) I was like, uh, no thanks, I was actually more interested in THIS one back over here, and pointed out the laptop I'd been thinking about.
Again, by the way, with the assumption of fluent Japanese. I'm quite proud of myself for not flailing. But it's interesting, because there's a stereotype that Japanese people don't expect foreigners to speak Japanese and will praise you if you say barely anything at all. That's only happened to me once (clothes shop in Shinjuku); both the shop assistant in Akihabara and the info desk lady in Shinjuku spoke totally naturally, aside from (in the computer store's case) occasionally rewording things when I gave a blank expression. I'm not sure what it says... it's just interesting, is all.
So. I decided on the laptop, I opted to pay extra for 3 years warranty, and then I wandered around for about 10 minutes while they prepared it for me to take, during which time I discovered a Book Off which also apparently had video games and was like 8 floors, but unfortunately wasn't going to open for about another week. Although I did find a second hand game shop on the same street. Odin Sphere is still moderately expensive. And FFXII international seems to be quite rare; they had two copies of the ordinary version, but none of the remake, which is the same as the game store I'd been to in Shinjuku.
The laptop, with all its bits and pieces, was rather heavy. It itself is about 3kg, since it has a 17" screen, and then there's the manual, the remote, the AC pack, etc. Nevertheless, I figured I was IN Akihabara already, and it had taken some effort to get there, so I may as well actually look around. This was at around 6.30pm on a sunday, but everything was still open.
That's one thing I love about Japan, btw. It can be 10 at night, and you can still do your shopping.
Anyway, OBVIOUSLY for me this meant hitting up the video game shops. I went into this one kind of huge one, where I actually saw FFXII International Zodiac Job Version-- for 5~6000 yen-- but I forced myself to stop and think, do you need it? Are you going to play it if you get it right now, or can you wait and buy it later when you're not already playing heaps of other things? I know it was hard to find and Akihabara is far from Fuchuu, but CAN IT WAIT?
Stop and record the moment, people, I actually exercised some self-restraint!
So I left the store without buying anything, and promptly went to another store and bought the May Dengeki. WHATEVER, OKAY, IT WAS ONLY LIKE 500 YEN and it had ToA and ToD remake in it! And I didn't buy the other FFIV game guide or the FF 20th anniversary character guide! D: Also, now I have the gaiden about Anise being Dist's only friend and it is BEAUTIFUL.
On a different yet related note, though, I see Code Geass everywhere right now and I am SO SICK OF IT, OMG. ><
Photos of the magazine shop and Akihabara in general:
After that I went home, which was a more frustrating process than it had to be. I managed to recharge my pasmo card, finally, and put 5000 yen on it because I was sick of it running out, and then I hopped on the Soubu line. I realised I could change to the Chuuou rapid line at the next station (Ochanomizu), thereby avoiding Shinjuku entirely and staying on the same train for most of the journey, and I thought I was pretty clever until I actually DID this and had to stand, holding my laptop, the whole damn way. AUUUGH, KUYASHII. Why didn't I just stay on the Soubu line? It would have taken longer, but I could have sat down and played my DS and been happy! ;___; Although, I wouldn't have seen a poodle in a travel cage if I hadn't changed trains when I did... which was interesting, BUT.
Then when I got to Musashi Sakai I didn't swipe my card properly going out and the gates going to the Tamagawa platform wouldn't let me in, because I hadn't swiped my card going OUT yet. >< Annooooying.
But I got back to Fuchuu-shi eventually, and grabbed a niku iri udon bentou from the place near the station on my way back to campus. After all that I went home, curled up in bed with my new laptop to set things up on it, and did some homework which turned out to be wholly unnecessary because we did it all in class the next day, but that's a whole different story.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 04:47 am (UTC)Aww. ♥ That's adorable.
Japan sounds really interesting. (Huge bookshops and video games shops! *drool*). The train system sounds both wonderful and confusing. I wish I had access to a decent train system. And congrats about your continuing success with communicating in Japanese.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 01:15 am (UTC)I wish I had access to a decent public service system of ANY DESCRIPTION back in Canberra, for serious. >< But thanks! ♥