Japan Day 3 Part2: More Wanderings

Blind is back! Or, maybe not because I was never gone, but meh...

Anywho, that game store Allan mentioned was neato. If you guys want or NEED something from there speak now or forever hold your peace! Ended up not buying the N64 expansion card they had (we have a video of this) because Rice King said I could have his when we go home. Now I don't get to say I had to go all the way to Japan to get one!

After that place we wandered outside and bumped into a store selling lab equipment. We didn't go in, but I figure I'll force the issue next time because it looks cool. Their window had a display of ancient oscilloscopes from the 50s and 60s. Those weren't for sale. Not surprising, considering the value science geeks place on those things! There was another store selling bags of electronic components. We saw things like USB controllers and RS232 ports with controllers. Those were just the ones we could recognize. The packaging, consisting of Ziplock bags and cardbard cards, was all in Japanese and mostly made absolutely no sense. What this all proves, is half the neat stuff in Akihabara is to be found on the ghetto-looking side streets.

We had been thinking of going to Ueno today but held off because of the possibility of rain (most of the stuff there involves going outside a lot). Since it wasn't raining and we were tired of Akihabara, we went to Ueno Park. The train station there is weird, with all sorts of low arches you can smash your head on (they're labelled as such). The park is cool: very scenic, with lots of trees making canopies over the paths. We almost got smashed a few times by these huge black birds that tend to swoop low because they're just not scared of people anymore. They look, and mostly sound, like crows.

The highlight of the place was the Chinese acrobats. We don't know they're really from China, especially since the announcer lady spoke Japanese, but the routines they had were in the style of the acrobats we saw in Hangzhou last year. The girl in the first picture, with the silverware on her head, was the most impressive. The first time we saw her, she flipped that spoon onto the bowls and can perfectly, from her leg, while balancing the unicycle with her other foot. INSANE! There was also a guy balancing a huge vase on his head while dancing, a dancing clown with a baton, and a super-flexible girl who could balance four towers of glassware on various parts of herself while standing on her hands.

The picture with the wishing cards was a shrine where they have a flame that's been kept lit since the end of WWII. It was from a house that caught fire when the Americans used an a-bomb on Nagasaki. A bit eerie that was! There was a more standard, and very scenic, Shinto shrine too. Pics from that didn't make the post so they'll make the net when we get home (why free blogging services sometimes suck...).




The dogs were a WTF moment for us. We saw that cart shoot across the square in the park with the dogs in it. When it stopped a lady took one of the dogs with her but the other remained. We dunno what was going on and we're probably not going to find out unless somebody with more of a clue reads this!














The pic of me looking dumb (I always look dumb in pics) is from a walkway in Shinjuku. We'd decided we were going back to Rakeru by then. That walkway had a nice view. Dunno why RK posted a pic of me screwing up the view. lol








Rakeru continues to be awesome. Now we like to act like we know something nobody else does, because that place is just classy, and not too expensive ($30-35 on average for the two of us). You can see RK with one of the waitresses. He decided he was going to talk to her more in Japanese (can you blame him?). He did ok with that, especially when we let her find phrases in the phrasebook that were hard to make simpler. Couldn't get her to teach RK more Japanese or show us around though. We hope she's not in too much trouble for the twenty minutes she spent talking to us! :D

It didn't really rain until we got home today! We win! As an added bonus, the "Asahi Draft" doesn't taste much different from the more-expensive "Asahi Extra Dry" so we get cheap beer from the machine ($2.40/500 mL). Win!