Japan 2012 Travel Diary, Day 10

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The first full day in Osaka was set as a half nerd/half not-nerd shopping day. Osaka houses the west-coast equivalent of Akihabara, Nipponbashi or Den Den Town, so we had planned to head over there in the morning and then jump over to the Dotonburi shopping district in the afternoon. To make things more time-efficient, I used Sebaattori’s excellent blog entry on retrogaming in Osaka as a base and headed to the Ebisucho Station via the Sakaisuji line, exit 1-B, and found Super Potato two meters to the right of the exit once we got out onto the street. We ended up crossing over the other side to check out the Sofmap over there only to realise the Sofmap on the same side of the street as Super Potato (and our other destination, Game Tanteidan) was where we needed to go.

Before going on, I have to say that Nipponbashi is a completely different beast than Akiba. Where Akiba is gaudy but full of life, Nipponbashi is gritty, grimy and dark; Wifey commented the same, and where in Akiba she felt pretty comfortable and found the spectacle entertaining, she felt a bit uncomfortable in comparison in Nipponbashi. We started off hunting for LDs in a store on the corner before starting the nerd run, and once again inadvertently walked into the porn section on the second floor (which felt a little more seedy than the other accidental walk-ins). Exiting, we headed to Sofmap and found their retro collection was located across 6 bins (3 x 3 – so two rows), where the whole thing was a bit of a mess. Games in there were certainly cheap enough (I grabbed Virtua Cop 2 for only ¥50), but it was a lot of effort for comparably little return time-wise, so we left after grabbing the above and headed to Game Tanteidan (or to use Sebaattori’s translation, Game Detectives).

The store isn’t massive, but the selection is fantastic and pricing wasn’t too shabby either considering we were shopping in an urban area – on the whole, it was probably 10% to 20% cheaper than Akiba, though in some instances it was also more expensive (consistently inconsistent then!). The bottom floor is where the hardware is (they had a set of boxed Virtual On Twin Sicks for the Saturn for only ¥960!!), as well as most of the software. The Famicom selection is extensive, but being conscious of time I wasn’t in a position to go through everything individually, and instead prioritised the Saturn and DC, and checked out a couple of Super Famicom games and some Mega CD titles. Upstairs is dedicated to MSX, collectible cards, game music and art books (and probably guide books as well). Up here I was fortunate enough to find a copy of the Phantasy Star Compendium art book for around ¥3500 and snapped it up, then grabbed some titles from downstairs on the way out, with my amazing and patient wife helping by holding onto games while I shopped (and by now I’m sure you’ve noticed that Wifey being amazing and patient has been a continuing motif throughout this entire trip!).

I was debating whether to go to Super Potato as I heard the prices there were really expensive, but Wifey said I should still go in, and as always she was right 🙂 We skipped the bottom floor as per Sebaattori’s advice and went straight to the second floor where the retro love is. Since the shelves weren’t quite as packed as Game Detectives, more games were facing with the label-side visible rather than the spine, so it made it faster than relying on my not-so-speedy ability to read Japanese to trawl though carts 🙂 I ended up buying some more gear from there, as price-wide they were often similar to Game Detectives, with some titles more expensive and some gear cheaper (they had piles of Model 1 Mega Drives for around ¥1500 a pop which was pretty cool, and Saturns for ¥3500), but of course the selection was a bit different which was great. We passed a couple of other gaijin in the shop taking turns playing Super Mario Kart which was pretty awesome too.

Where this Super Potato really came into its own were some readily accessible premium titles I was after – I snapped up Radiant Silvergun for a shade under ¥8000, Asuka 120% Final Burning Fest. for under ¥5000 (closer to ¥4500 I think) and a few other titles I hadn’t seen elsewhere (like Dead of Alive on the PSone for a cheap price too). Wifey, again being amazing, pointed me in the direction of the bargain bins towards the back where I snapped up a whole heap of goodies for ¥50-¥200, including a boxed Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon and some loose Sonic carts for the Game Gear, Godzilla Generations and a few other DC games and a DC lightgun as well.

After exiting Super Potato, we headed back to Ebisucho Station and took the Sakaisuji Line up to the next stop (Nipponbashi) and jammed the nerd stuff into a coin locker (note to all tourists – coin lockers are amazing and should be utilised to reduce shopping fatigue!), then walked out and passed a couple of dodgy looking pachinko parlours (pachinko is huge in Osaka) before arriving at the start of Dotonburi, which signalled the end of nerd shopping and the start of food and Wifey-friendly shopping!

The general perception is that in Osaka you eat and drink your fill when you’re out, and the proliferation of so many places to grab a bite down this street was impressive and set your belly rumbling. We passed all manner of cuisine, but being Osaka we knew we had one destination – takoyaki.

We ended up stopping off at a place with an impressive line-up considering the time of day (close to 3pm if memory serves), so I jumped in and managed to order a small selection of takoyaki to share with Wifey. As much as I enjoyed the goodies from the night before, I’m pretty confident that these topped them and were mouth-burningly delicious. With our belated lunch sorted out, it was time to work off all that yummy batter with more shopping.

Doutonburi is a long and densely-packed open-air mall, with shops initially sitting along the main street when you enter it from where we came from. As we progressed though, the foodie haunts gave way to all manner of shops and amusement centres, and these eventually gave way to labyrinths of other enclosed strip malls spidering off the main street. The scale really was impressive and we barely scratched the surface, instead prioritising a visit to H&M across a bridge that showed off some amazing views of the concrete jungle that is Osaka (no H&M locally and the EU sizes meant it wasn’t too tricky to work out what to buy).

As the afternoon wore on, the middle and high school students hit the pavement and Doutonburi became alive with a sea of people. Apart from catching up and going shopping they were also checking out some live performances on one of the bridges that lead over to H&M and all manner of other gear was happening in the area. We ended up doing some shopping and purchasing around this part of Doutonburi, and I have to take this spot to give huge credit to the incredible pride the Japanese guys put into looking the part when they head out. I felt comparatively under-dressed sporting jeans and a t-shirt (the humidity meant I couldn’t layer stuff otherwise I would have become a sweaty gaijin, which isn’t a good look!), but it was great to see pride in appearance and passion in the stores with guys out shopping in force. There was also an abundance of headwear that I picked up while we were over there (one of the catches with being a ranga with a thinning hairline means hats are a bit of a necessity these days!), and they’ve certainly been put to use as the Australian summer kicked in locally.

After finishing up there we wandered our way to the nearby Tokyu Hands department store at Wifey’s very sensible insistence (passing a Konami fitness club on the way!).

I didn’t know much at all about Tokyu Hands before we visited, but I cam away really impressed with it! It’s a multi-story department store with a tip towards the more affordable end of the spectrum, and while we were there we bought a couple of souvenirs and a lightweight piece of luggage to accommodate all the crap we had bought to date (I can’t recall the cost, but it was incredibly lightweight and strong, with four wheels on the base for easy movement and was extremely good value). The only trick with purchasing the luggage was that I got my Japanese mixed up, but between my command of the language and a touch of English, everything got sorted out and after 5-10 minutes a staff member brought out a fresh, new piece of luggage from the storage area out the back. With the new luggage in hand, we headed back via the train station to grab the nerd haul from the coin locker to take home with us. Turns out it all fit quite nicely inside the new piece of baggage too and made it very easy to take all our shopping back to our hotel!

We dropped our collective haul off at the hotel before hitting the Universal City Walk again for dinner (yes, we were being a bit lazy by relying on going somewhere so close to the hotel rather than exploring more of Osaka at night!), settling for Mos Burger as Wifey was interested in more comfort food as she continued to fight off her cold, and then picked up a banana and strawberry crepe from the crepe stand and more drinks from Starbucks (being the manly-man I am, I continued my addiction to their mango passion iced tea, while Wifey grabbed a mocha espresso to warm up) to finish off at our hotel.

Osaka continued to gel with us after a day of shopping – while not as clean as the other cities we visited, the place was full of life and everyone seemed to be milling about with purpose. The nerd run to Nipponbashi blew a reasonable wad of cash, but it was so much fun and while you’re paying a bit extra for the convenience, when you’re strapped for time it’s a pretty good compromise in my opinion. Time’s the central key point here I guess – there was so much more to explore in Osaka and we only touched on Nipponbashi, Doutonburi and the immediate surrounds of our hotel during the day. We also needed bigger gaijin appetites to take advantage of all the amazing street food, and that’s not even counting the copious flow of cheap and tasty beer on offer either!! I have a feeling we’d have trouble keeping up with the locals, but I’m sure if Wifey and I get back to Osaka in the future we’ll be ready to give it another crack!

To view all posts on the Japan 2012 Travel Diary, just use the 2012 Japan Trip tag, as the whole series will be added to it over time.

Japan 2012 Travel Diary, Day 7

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Day two in Kyoto continued the cultural expeditions. We started off by heading to Kyoto Station and jumping on the tourist bus to visit the Ginkakuji Temple – the place was absolutely mind-blowing and picturesque, and the grounds were much bigger than we had anticipated.

At this stage in the trip my prosthesis had started causing me some grief due to all the walking/getting lost/exploring, so we decided to cut the walk around the temple grounds short and get started on the Philosopher’s Path. When my brother Tank and his wife visited earlier in the year during the cherry blossom viewing season the place looked beautiful, so it was awesome to get a chance to see it in autumn when the leaves were changing colour. As the rain and clouds had cleared up, it was also nice and sunny out (though a bit chilly since the humidity had gone with the cloud cover), so we made our way leisurely down the path, stopping to take photos, and at one point we dropped into a neighbourhood tea and coffee place for a couple of cake sets (Wifey has the cheesecake and coffee, while I enjoyed a green tea rolled cake with fresh cream and stuffed with red beans paste with a cup of tea).

The real magic though happened at the end of the trail. As part of my Shenmue obsession I found a small deserted park with some play equipment at the end of the street, and so I asked myself – “What would Ryo Hazuki do in this situation?”. That’s right, he’d take the time to work on his moves. So, announcing to nobody in particular “Let’s get sweaty”, I decided to get my karate on and run through a couple of techniques, with the ever-patient Wifey indulging the experience by snapping some photos. Not having trained over the last 18+ months due to some health concerns my form was pretty rubbish, but the experience was worth it 🙂

After making an arse of myself in public (again), we finished off the Philosopher’s Park walk to wander down along the backstreets of Kyoto to either grab a bus or walk to a nearby precinct some fellow martial artists had recommended I check out whilst in Kyoto. We ended up walking the whole way (probably about 40 minutes since we were taking our time), with Wifey’s iPhone (still on iOS5 and therefore still with the native Google Maps app) taking care of tracking our way thanks to a cached map of this area in Kyoto, because even with no mobile data, the GPS still kicked in. This eventually lead us to our next destination, the Kyoto Handicraft Centre.

On account of some renovations, the bottom floor of the building was unavailable, which meant the usually-extensive selection on the street level of this complex was not available (the bottom floor of the neighbouring building was the acting substitute, but it was much smaller than the original one). Unperturbed we headed up a few floors to check out things, and were greeted by a large range of regional crafts, including ceramics, lacquerware, dolls, display swords (not suitable for training in kenjutsu or iaido) and one large iaito. Since I had already picked up a small wakizashi-sized iaito in Suidobashi I wasn’t specifically looking for another one, but was curious to see what was there just in case 😉 Looking at the lovely iaoto, due to the size of the sword it wasn’t appropriate to bring back since it wouldn’t fit in the suitcase, but it did look nice 🙂 For those keen on bringing something back, the display sword sets started around ¥8,000 and topped out around ¥13,000; the iaito was around the ¥84,000 mark.

While we were down this end of Kyoto, we also wandered across the road (literally) to visit Tozando, a specialist store for iaito, kendo equipment (shinai and protective gear), kobudo equipment, general training garments (including protector pads and mitts) and on the second floor they had an array of stunning swords and armour, including original antiques from various eras in Japan’s history. For those interested in bringing back an antique sword, you’re looking at investing a huge chunk of cash (and apparently it can be tricky bringing them out of the country as antique swords are considered part of Japan’s history and are thus treated as national treasures), but for the rest of us, simply walking through this area is an amazing experience. Luckily for Wifey, they have the unintended presence of girlfriend/wife/”I dragged along my other half” seats in front of a TV playing a documentary on the second floor that houses their mini-museum of antique pieces, so she sat there while I gushed. Tozando did have some very nice wakizashi iaito, but at this stage I was happy with my purchase from Suidobashi and decided to leave it be. If ever I came back to Japan and was heading to Kyoto though, I suspect I’d probably hit Tozando for another iaito – they’ve had some great reviews amongst other iaido practitioners and the gear looked really nice.

After wandering to the end of the street and grabbing a subway train back to Karasuma-Oike, we stopped off for a quick bite at Caffe Excelsior – I grabbed a beef stew wrap (literally, beef stew goodies/gravy inside a wholemeal wrap lightly toasted) and Wifey enjoyed a Paris Sandwich, which was a delightful roll filled with chicken, a yummy white sauce with fresh mushrooms, and melted Camembert cheese. Next on the list for Day 2 was a short meander up Karasuma-dori to visit another spot of hallowed ground – the Kyoto Manga Museum.

Given anime and manga fanboyisms seem happy to collocate themselves in a gamer’s psyche (I was a gaming nerd before I jumped aboard the anime and manga nerd train in the early-mid 90s), it probably isn’t too surprising this visit was another unforgettable experience. The museum is actually housed within an old Kyoto primary school that was vacated in the mid-90s, and contains an enormous collection of manga in serialised book format, manga in magazine format, displays, artwork and miniature exhibitions. The cool thing is that almost all the manga in book format can be taken off the shelves and read, with the majority of the available books the resulting donation of a commercial manga library run for many years when the owner closed up his business. This means when you’re picking up a copy of Ranma 1/2 or Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon (which I did!), you’re enjoying the same book that was originally printed when the title was released, and the same book has also been through the hands of so many other readers. It’s not just a piece of cultural history, it’s equally a tangible piece of social history as well. The museum actually offers pre-paid passes during the year so if you want to drop in on a regular basis (such as after school or work) to have a read before going home, you can do so and treat it as a reference library of manga.

One of the permanent exhibitions is a room that houses manga in chronological order, from the 50s onwards. Walking around this meant you were also able to see how the magazines have changed, alongside the stylistic evolution of manga over the years. I held original copies of Ranma 1/2, 3×3 Eyes, Berserk, Urusei Yatsura, Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon, Kare Kano, Astro Boy, Ghost in the Shell, You’re Under Arrest, Rurouni Kenshin, the list goes on and on and on. As hyperbolic as this whole thing is, there was a bit of magic nerd in the air that day.

As an extra bonus, the museum’s current special exhibition was one focused on acclaimed anime studio Gainax, who have carved a delightful spot in my nerd heart for the likes of Kare Kano, FLCL, Nadia, Abenobashi and of course, Eva. The exhibition ran over two of their gallery spaces, the focus being to recreate the working studio environment to give visitors an insight to how they create their anime productions from start to finish. This means we’re seeing representations of the staff brainstorming, going through concept phases, animation checks, keyframing, colouring and compositing (showing both the traditional cel methods and contemporary digital methods), recording (dialogue, music and foley) and celebrating the end product (with various members of the studio looking suitably drunk!). This meant I was able to walk through and look at original sketches, keyframes and cells from some of my favourite series’, which is an experience I never thought I would have.

The only disappointing thing was that the museum hadn’t produced a publication to coincide with the Gainax exhibition I could take home with me, but they did have some awesome Astro Boy memorial coins that I picked up 🙂

After finishing up at the museum we went back to Kyoto Station to sort out our Shinkansen tickets for the next leg(s) of the trip, then it was time to hit the tourist buses again to visit Gion!

For those unaware, Gion is the traditional quarter of Kyoto and houses some (ultra expensive) restaurants serving up some amazing cuisine among a variety of traditionally-styled houses and buildings. It’s also the spot where most Westerners would look at and associate with “traditional” conceptions of Japan. One of the reason’s it’s also popular is because it is where you can often spot geisha walking to and from businesses and occasions where their expertise and skills are requested. On the night we were there, Wifey and I happened to catch a glimpse of someone coasting along in their full attire – I think she was a maiko, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to discern from appearance alone if they were an apprentice or a qualified geisha. Regardless, I’ve never seen anyone in traditional geta move across the slippery surface with such poise and speed, so that was cool to see in motion.

Given the cost of eating (and not being as comfortable in my spoken Japanese as I would have liked), the trip to Gion was more about getting a glimpse of the area and walking around. By far my favourite part of the evening though was walking past a middle aged Japanese man having a heated conversation with the person he was standing with about foreigners visiting Gion. Given this was the first and only time I heard a local grumble about foreigners, I was pretty surprised – while a lot of the tourists we saw were reasonably well behaved, there were plenty who could do with brushing up on their manners and learning how to go with the flow a bit better, especially when the human sea phenomenon kicks in.

After enjoying the wander, we went back up the hill to catch the bus back to Kyoto Station, where we grabbed a delicious meal of tonkatsu in all its delightful glory. Bellies full, it was back to the hotel to consolidate our luggage and get ready for the next step of the journey – Hiroshima.

To view all posts on the Japan 2012 Travel Diary, just use the 2012 Japan Trip tag, as the whole series will be added to it over time.

Japan 2012 Travel Diary, Day 3

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Thursday started off on a sour note – a combination of late night, rich food and left-over jet lag kept Wifey and I in bed for half the day nursing some unintended nausea. Once we got over this setback, it was go-time again! First stop was heading out to Suidobashi, near Tokyo Dome City, to go budo shopping.

Having studied karate for a number of years with some limited experience in kobudo, I was keen on bringing something back that was practical as well as being a momento from the trip. Following some advice from Sensei Chris Gillies (of Soukoban) and using Google Maps, I found a couple of places opposite Tokyo Dome City to check out. One of the bigger stores were closed up from 2pm onwards so we missed it by the time we got there (my Japanese wasn’t clever enough to ascertain why), but we ended up walking down a bit closer to the Suidobashi Station and happened upon the legendary Suidobashi budo shop run by a now-elderly couple after decades of service in the area (it was also incidentally the store I wanted to visit after reading up on it online).

While my command of Japanese was poor, with some discussion I was able to explain what I was after (a shorter, wakizashi-sized iaito, since I wasn’t confident of squeezing a fuller-sized iaito in our luggage). This done, the sword was bought, wrapped in a purple slip and boxed up and ready to go. Full of gratitude (which I offered profusely, as it was an amazing experience), we jumped back on the train to head to Akabanebashi for the next stop – Tokyo Tower!

As a comfortably-nerdy anime fanboy, visiting Tokyo Tower was a bit of a pilgrimage – it’s been a focal point of so much anime, from Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, X, and has also found its way into a handful of game titles (the most memorable to me being the Tokyo Tower-inspired level in VF3). By the time we made it down to Tokyo Tower it was starting to get dark, and combined with a clear sky, it was an amazing sight to behold as evening gave way to dusk, and then eventually dusk gave way to night.

After navigating back to the first floor (we came up the street ramp which was actually the second floor) and paying the admission price, we headed up to the main observation deck for an amazing night-time view of Tokyo. The night was capped off by a trip to the food court for some ramen to nurse our slightly wonky stomachs before heading back to the hotel.

While it certainly wasn’t the day we had originally planned, the end result was still amazing 🙂

To view all posts on the Japan 2012 Travel Diary, just use the 2012 Japan Trip tag, as the whole series will be added to it over time.