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Mar. 22nd, 2017 05:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psipsyAfter who knows how many years of dilly-dally, derailed plans, distractions, and other side quests, I finally went to Japan. I went, I saw, I had fun. And I do plan on going back. Maybe not like some of my friends who go multiple times a year, but definitely a return trip is in order.
Most of my time was in Akihabara, which is where the big otaku scene is. There's also a lot of electronics going on there. Of all the loot I bought, a solid 1/3 of it was electronics related.
I also went to Shinjuku! But the claim to fame there is how many bars and nightclubs there are, and I've never really been interested in that. I went to Ginza! There's a Canon showroom there for their latest and greatest cameras. Also a service center next door, where I managed to get a new eyecup for my camera. But Ginza had a lot of luxury stores that were too rich for my blood. A lot of those luxury stores were also in the US, where I ignore them on a regular basis in the first place.
I went to Shibuya! I was mostly passing through. It looks interesting, I'll take a closer look at this the next time I'm in Japan. I went to Nakano Broadway! You know how sometimes you'll find a comic book store in a mall? Well, Nakano Broadway is what happens when multiple comic book stores and toy stores almost completely take over a mall. I see nothing wrong with this.
I went to the maid cafes! Something would be terribly wrong if I didn't. They were definitely fun.
Something relevant to both culture and anime? Kyu-Furukawa Gardens. It's a very peaceful and dignified mansion with a very peaceful and dignified garden. It's also the setting of the "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" story.
As much as I'm an anime nerd to the bone, I also appreciate electronics. Under the train tracks, there's something of a flea market of electronics parts and old A/V equipment. Someone there was selling a Beta VCR. More than one place was selling vacuum tubes. I picked up a helluva nice digital multimeter for a price that Amazon couldn't hope to beat.
And the doujinshi! So much doujin to be had, and for much less than what it costs to get at conventions. We're talking a 3:1 ratio. That doesn't include the used shops, where the prices go under a dollar. Were I more serious about doujinshi, it would be cost-effective for me to fly to Japan for a few days, and load up.
The main flights were long. Like, 14 hours there, and 12 hours back. The connecting flights were absurdly short. Like, 30 minutes in the air. The only reason I did it that way was because if I wanted to start and finish at Dulles, which I totally could have done, the price was 2x than starting and finishing at Harrisburg. Even though the layovers were at Dulles. That doesn't make any sense to me either.
The concept of distance in Japan is astonishingly different. Here, if someone says that something is 40-50 miles away, I'm like ok, I can drive that. But where I was staying, the furthest I ventured was about 6 miles away, and it felt like it took forever to get there, even though the train systems are very efficient. And 6 miles from where I was staying, I wasn't really in Tokyo anymore. The compactness and density of Tokyo make DC/Baltimore look like the middle of Utah.
Anyway, this is just a handful of thought fragments, in no particular order.
Most of my time was in Akihabara, which is where the big otaku scene is. There's also a lot of electronics going on there. Of all the loot I bought, a solid 1/3 of it was electronics related.
I also went to Shinjuku! But the claim to fame there is how many bars and nightclubs there are, and I've never really been interested in that. I went to Ginza! There's a Canon showroom there for their latest and greatest cameras. Also a service center next door, where I managed to get a new eyecup for my camera. But Ginza had a lot of luxury stores that were too rich for my blood. A lot of those luxury stores were also in the US, where I ignore them on a regular basis in the first place.
I went to Shibuya! I was mostly passing through. It looks interesting, I'll take a closer look at this the next time I'm in Japan. I went to Nakano Broadway! You know how sometimes you'll find a comic book store in a mall? Well, Nakano Broadway is what happens when multiple comic book stores and toy stores almost completely take over a mall. I see nothing wrong with this.
I went to the maid cafes! Something would be terribly wrong if I didn't. They were definitely fun.
Something relevant to both culture and anime? Kyu-Furukawa Gardens. It's a very peaceful and dignified mansion with a very peaceful and dignified garden. It's also the setting of the "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" story.
As much as I'm an anime nerd to the bone, I also appreciate electronics. Under the train tracks, there's something of a flea market of electronics parts and old A/V equipment. Someone there was selling a Beta VCR. More than one place was selling vacuum tubes. I picked up a helluva nice digital multimeter for a price that Amazon couldn't hope to beat.
And the doujinshi! So much doujin to be had, and for much less than what it costs to get at conventions. We're talking a 3:1 ratio. That doesn't include the used shops, where the prices go under a dollar. Were I more serious about doujinshi, it would be cost-effective for me to fly to Japan for a few days, and load up.
The main flights were long. Like, 14 hours there, and 12 hours back. The connecting flights were absurdly short. Like, 30 minutes in the air. The only reason I did it that way was because if I wanted to start and finish at Dulles, which I totally could have done, the price was 2x than starting and finishing at Harrisburg. Even though the layovers were at Dulles. That doesn't make any sense to me either.
The concept of distance in Japan is astonishingly different. Here, if someone says that something is 40-50 miles away, I'm like ok, I can drive that. But where I was staying, the furthest I ventured was about 6 miles away, and it felt like it took forever to get there, even though the train systems are very efficient. And 6 miles from where I was staying, I wasn't really in Tokyo anymore. The compactness and density of Tokyo make DC/Baltimore look like the middle of Utah.
Anyway, this is just a handful of thought fragments, in no particular order.
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Date: 2017-03-22 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
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