I am finally in Japan!!!
The past day was pretty much spent travelling here and I didn’t bother taking any photos – mainly because I had buried my camera at the bottom of my bag. The journey wasn’t too bad. The flight was 11 hours but the entertainment system was very good – there was a choice of around 60 films. I ended up watching live action Kaiji, Rinco’s Restaurant and Wheat.
After arriving at Narita airport I took the Skyliner to Nippori then on to Shinjuku and Yotsuya. One cool thing about the Skyliner is when it was being cleaned before we boarded all of the seats suddenly started moving around – this kind of took me by surprise but then I realised it meant the seats are always facing the way the train is moving.
I got kind of lost in Shinjuku station looking for the place to buy Suica cards and ended up walking around for ages before finding it.
The next problem was finding my hotel. It was supposedly very easy to find being just 300 metres or so from Yotsuya station but theres a kind of crossroads the and I ended up walking for ages in the wrong direction before realising, only to then go back and walk in another wrong direction – this wouldn’t normally be that bad however I had two fairly heavy bags, one of which was very awkward to carry also it was incredibly hot. I almost passed out at one point but fortunately thanks to the many vending machines around I was saved by an ice cold drink.
After eventually finding the hotel I was told I couldn’t check in till 3pm, it was currently 1:30… It wasn’t so bad though as I could dump my annoying bag there.
Now that I sort of knew my way around and had 1.5 hours to kill what else could I do but go to Akihabara. There were a couple of things I wanted to buy for sure, but I decided beforehand that I wasn’t going to buy anygthing else today – Just get a feel for whats there. I didn’t want to spend ages walking around so decided to just check out Gamers.
Not buying anything turned out to be much harder than I thought as on every floor there were things that I’ve been wanting for ages but have had trouble finding online. My self control prevailed though and I only bought the two things I had been planning on – I might go back to Akihabara again tomorrow to explore more shops although I’m going to try and put of buying anything for as long as possible as I don’t want to blow all my money on the first day – I still have Comiket to think of as well.
So the two things I bought were the latest copy of Hobby Japan magazine and こっち向いて Baby/Yellow. I’ve not really heard of Hobby Japan magazine before but it seems it’s main focus is on Gundam models which not something I’m into. The reason I bought it was for the Black Rock Shooter dvd – it also came with a BRS picture/postcard type thing which is nice. I watched the dvd soon after I got back was definitely as good as I was expecting – I really love the art style.
The cd is one I’ve been looking forward to featuring new songs by supercell and kz – I hadn’t listened to the songs before buying the cd so it’s nice to finally hear them – I have it on loop while writing this post. The cd also comes with some nice artwork cards and a dvd with the videos for the songs. I also got an awesome poster with it which is basically a large version of one of the artwork cards. I’m also wondering whats the best way to bring a poster back with me – it’s rolled up at the moment but would folded be better?
It’s 8pm at the moment and considering I was ready to sleep at 5 I think I’m doing quite well – Due to the 11 hour flight and time differences I skipped out last night – as in I literally had 24 hours or so of non stop daylight, which is kind of screwing with my system so I’m probably going to go sleep now.
I will make sure I take a lot more photos from now on.
