Day Seven: Kobe-Osaka-Kobe-Tokyo

So today was another travel day, and Dad had some loose ends to wrap up at his conference, leaving me with a short period of time to do some stuff. I decided to jet on back to Osaka to take more pictures, see more crap I didn't see, and otherwise get my nerd on.

Breakfast was (dismissive wanking motion). Well, breakfast was breakfast. But we packed, got everything in order pretty well. I have SO much crap I didn't need, from a portable umbrella to a huge bag of bandaids that I debated jettisoning some stuff, but decided it could all fit.

Dad went to his meeting, and the plan was to meet back in the lobby by 3, hopefully Dad could wrap up his thing early, and we can swing by Kyoto, pick up some things at this awesome store I found for mom and Kelly, then hit the Shinkasen from Kyoto Station to Tokyo, hoping we get in early enough to check in and avoid the rush hour crush. At least, that was the plan.

I got to Osaka crazy early with a specific address in mind... "Super Potato". Universal consensus declares it the greatest retro gaming resale shop on the planet. And I had a souvenir in mind.

I got to Shin-Osaka station, rolled on up to the subway, confidently got my ticket for "K18" on the Brown Line, the closest one to the legendary "Den Den Town" and away I went. Only to find it closed. ARRRRGHHHH!!!! I pace around, looking at stores that WERE open anxiously waiting for Super Potato to open at 10.

Borrrrring....

"Oh thank you lord, for the bounty of which I'm about to receive."

And when it did open, it was everything that was promised. Wii, PS3, PSP, and XBox games were all downstairs. Interestingly, Xbox (as an American brand) is considered inferior and quarantined in the corner like a bad delivery of tuna.

(Falls to floor, crying)

(Craps pants)

Upstairs, on a floor obviously not designed for people taller than 5'5", was HUNDREDS of old systems... GameBoys, "Game and Watch" which was Nintendo's original portable system and never released in the US (retailing for 19800 yen... damn), Sega Dreamcast, TurboGrafix, I could go on and on. But I was after an original maroon and cream colored Famicom from Nintendo... the system that singlehandedly revived the video game genre after Atari imploded. Later released as the "Super NES", it's the system I grew up on and learned to love video games on.

And the cheapest (working) one was 12300 yen. I'm nostalgic, but not $130 kind of nostalgic. However, there was a Super Famicom (the Japanese version of the Super Nintendo) going for 3200 yen. It was like 100 yen less than some other ones in a stack and I asked why. Apparently, it didn't have an "Ha-chee Adapteru" (AC Adapter). Well, hell, you can find that anywhere. But I remembered reading a board about Den Den that recommended haggling on used equipment. Except my language skills aren't that strong.

I got a pen out and wrote "3000?" and the guy, looking like he didn't give a rat's ass, he just wanted to go back to playing whatever that super complicated J-RPG was in the corner nodded yes, took my money (along with another 1000 yen for the Japanese version of Mario Kart) and I was the proud owner of a piece of Den Den Town...

Purchase in hand, I went out to see what else was around...

There were shops full of parts from "God Knows Where"

And store after store of the most soul-crushing pornography you could ever hope to never watch.

So the next two stores I went into, one just said "Manga and Anime" and had Eminem blaring from the speakers overhead. I walked in, just to check it out, and the three girls at the counter looked up at me in complete shock. They were dressed in Schoolgirl outfits, except with short skirts and thigh high stripper boots. One anxiously explained that I had to be a "memberu" to be in there. And as a causcasian, I was CLEARLY not welcome. On the way out, I figured out why. Behind frosted glass was some cartoons, moaning, and the distinct smell of a Vegas Porn shop. (Ewwww...) Yeah, I totally walked into the wrong place. And I got my first taste of racial discrimination, which is always fun.

Safely away from that, I went into this brightly lit toy shop. I started snapping pictures, happy as a clam, when a guy in a security uniform told me "no kamera". So I put that away... I started climbing the levels of a six story toy store, and came across R/C Cars, Train Sets (their were a bunch of old business guys hanging out, smoking and drinking coffee, chatting with the counter guy in the train department. It was cool, like an hangout for old nerds)

I made it to the fourth floor, which was model cars, planes, boats and stuff. There was a BEAUTIFUL three foot long recreation of the Yamamoto Battleship from WII, and right next to it was...

A model of the Prinz Eugen. I started to get all excited, because I knew exactly what that was. It was in the same battlegroup as the Bismark and seriously harrassed British and Soviet troop carriers all over until it was surrendered to the British in Copenhagen, sailed by the Americans (with a crew that included my grandfather) to the South Pacific, where they used it to test Nuclear Weapons on. The cool thing is... it survived two of them.

Anyway, seeing my grandfather's ship, I immediately blurted out "Awesome!" and a clerk came out of nowhere to ask me if he could help. I just motioned and explained "Iie (No)... Ship... Ojiisan (grandfather)" He nodded and smiled, but it immediately occurred to me: Did I just accidentally say my grandfather was a Nazi sailor?

I then started to correct myself and possibly pull out my American Passport to prove "something" but I was stopped again by this question:

In the Japanese Culture, which is worse?

- A military that systematically executed 10 million Jews, Gays, Communists, Gypsies, and Political Prisoners. And these were their friends...

OR

-A military that ignited two miniature suns over this guy's country, vaporizing the towns below. And some members of the this military privately admit they did it for shits and giggles and to justify the billion dollar cost of developing it.

I decided to be ambiguous and leave it at that. Mostly I just wanted him to go away so I could quietly sneak a picture in and leave it at that. Man, I wish I had 135 bucks. That would be fun to put together... provided I could read the Japanese instructions.

"Nice haircut, fatass"

I don't speak Japanese, but I think these signs (which were all over, BTW) were for a chat line for "otaku" (Japanese nerds) to talk to girls.
My Digital Image tutor is a Gundam addict. When I told him I was going to Japan, he asked for a shirt and he could pay me back later. Problem was, I'm conserving cash and the cheapest shirt was 3500 yen, so i did get him some reminders that I was there. Anyway, this was a five story store of nothing but Gundam stuff.

(Confession: I honestly don't know anything about this or who Prince Zeon is. But the models WERE cool as all hell.)

I also walked around the Dotonburi, which is the big food part of town...

"I wonder what they sell here..."

Man, it smelled good. But I was still full of "hushed browns" from this morning.

Then I made my way to "America Maru" or "American Circle", which is where the hipsters of Osaka hang out and pretend to be us.

"Where is your gut? Your NASCAR gear? No, no, no, no.. You're doing it all wrong!"

"What in the hell do you call an Asian person pretending to be a White person pretending to be a Black person?"

"Our government strictly prohibits any private ownership of firearms, so this will have to do. This is tough, right?"

Of course you know THESE assholes would be here.

"Dear Japan, we eventually got wise to the fact this was a prank Australia played on the rest of the world. Immediately burn these, they make you look like you have the cankles of a hippopotamus."

"Man, I'm so bored of Shopping malls every five feet here..."

I got hungry around the station before I went home, so I looked for the longest line coming in, and found these...

SQUID BALLS!

Turned out to be delicious. Think a really nice dumpling/hush puppie hybrid with diced squid and scallions, covered in mayo and that sweet/smokey BBQ sauce that's everywhere in the Kansai region. Washed it down with Peach Iced Tea and I was on my way.

I was walking back to the shuttle for the hotel when this caught my eye. I sniffed around making sure there weren't a bunch of nerds "polishing their sword" (which is what it's called here) and...

I found Kobe's Brainstorm! Japan has a ton of manga and whatnot, but this is literally the only Western Comic Book store in the Kansai. People come in from Kyoto to pick up comics every week. Problem is, Diamond screws him over too, so delivery is spotty.

He specializes in toys, and apparently, there's an Anime Brian Urlacher doll...

Well, I made it back early, Dad was stuck in the meeting from Hell till 5:30, so we scrapped the Kyoto stop. Good thing we did, because we just made the last Shinkasen to Tokyo.

We're both tired, crabby (I got frustrated finding my way through the Shimbashi station on our way to the hotel, Dad keeps getting irritaed because I have the sniffles) and really just need to brush our teeth and put our jammies on. Tomorrow we do some Tokyo sight seeing and hit the Akihabara, Nerd Capital of the World.

And I've had THIS stuck in my head all day...