A Short Visit to Akihabara

Note: I had originally posted this elsewhere but I suspect that site deletes blog posts after they're a year old.  Thus I've reposted it here...

I usually don't go to Akihabara when I'm in Tokyo.  Shinjuku, Shibuya, Odaiba, a whole pile of other places...and wherever I end up drinking with friends take precedence over Akihabara.  I think the last time I was there was back in 2005.

For starters...one doesn't go to Akihabara for food.  I paid ¥800 for a less than happy meal of katsu-curry.  The curry was basically reheated stuff scooped out of what looked to be 5kg plastic bags.  The rice was passable but the tonkatsu was pretty thin by my standards.  For the same price I got a much more interesting meal (duck on rice with salad, soup, and mango juice) in Ikebukuro at a Thai restaurant named Pirabukao which is housed in a hut.

The other thing is that I kind of took the long way around to getting there.  I took a JR train from Shin Nihonbashi station to Tokyo station and then the Yamanote line to Akihabara.  I could've walked to Tokyo station.

As for Akihabara itself...it's there.  Big deal, eh?  I cruised through a number of stores just to see if anything caught my eye.  I really had only two things on my mind: one, visit the two Volks shops, and two, find a drugstore.  Yes, finding a drugstore in Akiba can be a bit of challenge.  The Volks hobby shop was what it was but their doll showroom was a touch more interesting than their showroom in Sendai.

Given that I had no real plan of attack, I managed to get myself comfortably disorientated but not lost.  I passed through the areas with plenty of little electronics shops, the obligatory pachinko and slot shops; the maid cafes, the Gundam Cafe which is next to the AKB48 Cafe, and the big name chain stores.

My haul...hardly anything.  Figures...zero.  Goods...three folders.  Memories...well, at least I now know which part of Akihabara is a bit of a menagerie.  It's the block where one will find the hedgehog, cat, and owl cafes!  (^o^)

Fun in auction land

A short while ago I mentioned my initial reactions to the online auction site I've been spending a fair bit of time on.  Recently I came across this gem:

Yes, you're looking at a blurry picutre of a clothing item.  If I recall correctly, the auction title was 服 (fuku), "clothing" in English.  Yes, the auction's starting bid amount was ¥99,999,999.  I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this auction was.  Perhaps the seller was trying to see if they could break the site.  Or perhaps they were waiting to see if the apparent lack of common sense would earn them a sharp reprimand from the powers that be.  Either that or it was some weird money laundering scheme....

This year can't end soon enough...

I was planning to wake up on Tuesday and phone home to wish my mother a happy birthday.  Around midnight I was alerted to an e-mail.  I checked it and read it to find out that a relative had passed away earlier in the day.  Aye...I most definitely won't be sending out "nengajo" (New Year's greeting cards) this year....

Nonetheless, I did make the phone call...after sussing out that I hadn't really reactivated my Skype credit when I had called a North American toll-free number back in September!  😆 

Oh...so where did November go?

It seems to have gone past rather quickly.   I intended to put up a post per month but it appears that November got away before I could peg anything on it....

Anyways, here I am at the start of December.  In a short while we'll be heading into the year-end party season, followed by New Years, and then the New Years party season.  Oh yeah, there's a friend's birthday in there somewhere too.

Last weekend was proceeded by a holiday on Thursday.  So I booked Friday and Saturday off and headed down to Tokyo.  The original goal was to take in a concert on Thursday night and then hook up with friends.  Things changed when I was asked if I'd like to attend a concert on Friday night.  So I ended up spending a bit more than I had expected to.  I'll go into details in a later post...if I get around to writing one up.

Upon my return home on Sunday evening, I dropped my stuff off at home,  took a nap, and then went out for dinner.  The next night I headed down to the local AEON Cinema to take in a movie.  The movie in question being "Chef".  It's a few years old and it was being screened as part of the company's "Past Works" program.

When I arrived at the ticket counter of the theatre I was greeted by a radically different sight.  The ticket counter is no more.  It has been replaced by several machines.  So the movie going experience in Japan is finally catching up to that in North America.  Or perhaps I should rephrase that as "the movie going experience in rural Japan".  I found it a touch ironic that the machine required a bit of coaxing to make it through a ticket purchase process.  It probably took as long as it took when one was dealing with a person.

Anyways, the movie was a good one.  I enjoyed the music and the story.  I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about trying to remember who the actors were.  Which is a bit of a contrast to one of the movies whose trailer was screened, the latest version of "Murder on the Orient Express"..... 

A Short Post

I was awoken this morning about 2 am by my iPhone going off with a klaxon sound.  Another J-Alert message.  As I turned to check my phone I groggily thought to myself, "What have the North Koreans done this time?".  As it turned out, the alert was a mudslide warning.  Our region was experiencing heavy rains thanks to Typhoon No. 21 which was skirting the eastern coast of Honshu in the vicinity of Fukushima and southern Miyagi prefectures.  These heavy rains had in turned increased the odds of mudslides taking place in the mountainous areas on the outskirts of town.

I checked the news at lunchtime and read an article about yesterday's general election.  Prime Minister Abe's side had won a "super majority" of two thirds of the seats in the lower house of Japan's Diet.  Ah...landslide...mudslide...interesting coincidence....

One more thing....Happy Halloween.  A bit early but heck, Halloween decorations have been up in stores since mid-September over here.  The stickers featured in the photo below are imports from Canada, courtesy of my mother and sister. (^_^)

Psst! Wanna buy some rice paddy fish?

Last month I unfortunately (from the perspective of my attempt to cut back spending) registered an account on the Yahoo! Japan auction website.  After a month I've built up the will power not to hit the button on everything that tickles my fancy.  I've resorted to using the button instead.  After all, I just want to see what prices people are willing to pay for some of the stuff that gets flogged on the site.

One auction I didn't bid on was one for a pair of fish.  Live fish.  Specifically, rice paddy fish, which are known as "medaka".  Okay.  That took me a few seconds to get over my initial disbelief.  I checked the description of the "product" and it stated that the fish were six months-old.  I see.  So someone really was selling live fish on an auction site.

A bit more checking revealed that there is a fair amount of interest in breeding these fish.  The goal is to breed more colourful varieties.  Some breeds are in the "glowfish" branch of fish keeping.  Myself, I haven't kept fish in a home aquarium since my early university days.  So the idea of "glowfish" was a bit too newfangled for me to wrap my mind around.  I don't believe the fish actually glow in dark.  Instead, they're one of several bright neon-like colours which do not occur naturally on fish.  As a fish, it may be okay to bright coloured if you're swimming around a coral reef but probably not very advantageous in a rice paddy.

-*-

...Yes.  For ¥2000, plus delivery charges, you too could take a chance on getting a pair of live fish delivered to your home.  I don't think you'd get any compensation if one or both were to die in transit.

Makes Me Feel Old....

I took my car in for its biannual car inspection.  It's a government requirement and most people view it as a means to try and get older cars off the road (the inspection costs increase as ones car ages).  Anyways, I opted to get a courtesy car this time and has handed the keys to a Daihatsu Move Canbus...well, actually I was handed the remote key that unlocks the door.  There's no physical metal key attached to the unit.

When the fellow from the dealership walked me through how to start up the car and use the remote control I felt a bit out of place.  The car's engine is started with the press of a button: put pressure on the brake pedal and push the "Start" button (gosh...writing that makes this sound like a review of the latest version of Microsoft Windows).  I commented to the fellow "Sorry if I sound like some old man trying to get my head around the car...".

I sussed out on the weekend when I got a ride up to Yamagata why I've recently heard so many car engines being started up when the light goes green at intersections.  Most new cars have an auto-idling feature.  Once the on-board computer senses the car is stopped and the brakes are engaged, it shuts the engine off.  The courtesy car I got has the same feature.  I've noticed it's quite sensitive.  The computer won't shut the engine off until one has come to a complete stop and stepped on the brake pedal firmly.  Interesting....

Postscript:  A photo of the above mentioned Daihatsu Move Canbus.