I can has manga? Yay!
Wednesday, 12/26/2007 - Thursday, 12/27/2007
I finished packing @ 9:30 Christmas night, so I stayed up all night cleaning my apartment in the hope that I would sleep on the plane. My cunning plan didn't work, but I did come home to a nice clean apartment, yay!
My plane was supposed to depart at 11am and arrive at Narita before 3:30pm on 12/27. wednesday_10_00 had been re-routed and was now scheduled to arrive at Narita @ 3, so I got very excited, thinking I would get to go into Tokyo and start shopping with w_10_00 and spacealien_vamp. Alas, it was not to be. My flight was officially delayed by an hour, and the boarding time kept creeping forward until we departed 90 minutes late. During flight, the revised arrival time turned into a moving target, and I wound up landing @ 5:30pm, waiting forever in immigration, and finally catching a bus for Ikebukuro at 6:30. No first-night shopping for me. :-(
After checking into the fabulous connecting double rooms at the hotel (with their fangirly view of Otome Road), I went out to grab a bite from a conbini. I immediately crossed paths with spacealien_vamp , wednesday_10_00 , and sara_tanaquil , who had finished their first night shopping (*pout*) and were now conbini-hopping in search of the elusive konbu onigiri. I think we spent the rest of our waking hours strategizing Comiket on wednesday_10_00 's computer, but I can't really remember the order of things at all.
Friday, 12/28/2007
Everybody unslumbered ridiculously early, there was conbini food for breakfast (courtesy of the Family Mart just off the front lobby of the Prince hotel), more Comiket strategizing to kill time, and then the shopping began. I managed to acquire most of my shopping list from K-Books immediately and received a free deck of porn cards (yay!) for spending more than 3000 yen.
We must have gone on to K-books doujin and Mandarake as well, but...I really can't remember the order of things at all.
After lunch at an Italian restaurant in Sunshine City, where we were served sitcom-style by a very inexperienced and error-prone waitress, we ordered a modem from the hotel for internet research. While wednesday_10_00 headed off to Chiba for dinner with her former class, spacealien_vamp painstakingly took screencaps of the Comiket catalog list we had composed and the corresponding maps, then pasted them into a Word document which she emailed to herself so we could print them out using the printer in the hotel lobby. In the process, we had this conversation 5 times in a row:
after seeing the resized image in Photoshop: "That font is awfully small. It's impossible to read."
"Her resolution is really high. It will be fine."
after seeing the resized image pasted into the Word doc: "This is really small. I don't think it's going to work."
"Word is scaled down. It will be fine when it prints out."
Not quote list funny, I know, but FIVE TIMES IN A ROW! That's comedy.
Saturday, 12/29/2007
Comiket: day one. During our planning session, we had discovered almost everything we wanted to buy at Comiket was on Sunday, the second day. There was some discussion of skipping the first day when we realized that there was absolutely NOTHING we wanted on the third day, so we decided to treat the first day as a practice run for sara_tanaquil and myself, who were not experienced attendees. Our targets on day one were Phoenix Wright and Odoru Daisousasen doujinshi, and then the commercial booths. We came, we saw, we conquered the dj floor, then we were nearly crushed to death on our totally unnecessary outing to the commercial booths. We won't be doing that again unless K-Books is handing out porn cards at a future Comiket.
We left Tokyo Big Sight fairly early in the afternoon and went for lunch at Shakey's Pizza. Afterwards, wednesday_10_00 once again headed to Chiba to meet with her other former class for dinner and (not) karaoke while the rest of us lingered over our first-day purchases in the hotel rooms. At which point I decided I had better buy some of this fabulous Phoenix Wright doujinshi just in case I started playing the game and fell in love with MitsuNaru. So we headed over to K-Books doujin, where sara_tanaquil and I searched for the books she had just bought at comiket, plus more by the same circle. And there was much rejoicing (amid some self-ridicule for buying used books I could have purchased new and for cheap that morning). Bonus: another pack of K-Books porn cards. Yay!
After shopping, the three of us headed back to Sunshine City's Quooze for dinner, where I -- yes, I -- chose the Mexican restaurant. (Frufru drinks, yay!)
Sunday, 12/30/2007
9 hours later, I started vomiting and...ummm...other stuff that happens when one has food poisoning. Between bouts, i would diligently attempt to clean the bathroom, until I finally gave up and asked someone to call housekeeping. The whole thing can't have gone on for more than four or five hours (I think it was 3ish when I first woke up and everyone was supposed to leave for Comiket @ 7am?), but it felt like an eternity. Of course, there was no way I was going to be able to attend Comiket that day. I was feeling very sorry for myself when everyone left.
Okay, it sucks to be sick on vacation. It was painful and embarrassing, and I was extremely vexed to miss THE big event around which we had scheduled our visit. BUT...it also sucks to be on your vacation listening to someone puke up her guts and generally render one of two shared bathrooms unusable. My friends were gracious and generous and very kind during the entire episode. And they also nabbed Comiket goodies for me. (OMG! More Masa and Kai in Hana to Ryuu 18! Yay!) I thank you and hope I will have a chance to repay you in some way.
Monday, 12/31/2007
Another day in bed, resting, while the healthier members of the unibrain went shopping in Akihabara and beyond. My big trip was down the corridor to the vending machines for a melon soda in my nightgown and bare feet. It exhausted me. Later that evening, we went down to the super-benri conbini to pick up soba before we watched Kouhaku and generally marvelled at the REALLY big dresses and the unfairness of the White team's win (GAAAACKKKKKKT!).
Tuesday, 1/1/2008
Did I spend a third day in bed? Say it ain't so. There may have been a trip to Animate or something. I know there was a late evening journey in which we kidnapped sara_tanaquil and activated our rail passes at Tokyo station and went to Shinjuku to discover that Kinokuniya was closed on New Year's day. Then, after spacealien_vamp went to bed at 9:30 -- a sign of sadder things to come -- the remainder of the unibrain invented The Best Card Game EVER: BL Fish.
To play BL Fish, you need at least three players and one deck of BL porn cards. Deal 5 cards to each player, gawk at the cards for 5 minutes, then discard any pairs in your hand. The player to the dealer's left begins play by asking any other player for a card...except, instead of asking for a particular rank or suit, you ask for a BL cliche. For example: "Do you have a megane-kun?" If the requestee's hand doesn't include the scene specified, the requester fishes a card from the remaining deck. Only pairs (matching ranks) can be discarded from one's hand, so getting the scene you asked for doesn't necessarily reduce the number of cards in your hand. Play continues until one player has matched all the cards in their hand, at which point the game is scored (pairs minus cards remaining in hand)...though no one really cares about the score. I could play this game FOREVER.
Wednesday, 1/2/2008
spacealien_vamp woke up with a fever and felt faint when she got out of bed. This was supposed to be Tokyo Disneyland day, but since everyone in the group had been to Tokyo Disneyland before (some many, many times before), we decided it didn't make sense to go if we all couldn't go together. The only problem was my brother had asked me to bring him "trading pins" as a souvenir. I know very little about Disney collectibles, but I know that I owe my brother more than I can ever repay, so I had to go to Disneyland despite having been warned that trading pins were not a "thing" at Tokyo Disneyland.
I was hoping to find something suitable at the "Bon Voyage" store outside the park. When I asked a clerk if they had any pins, I was shown a meager selection of four pins: 3 birth month pins featuring the UFO-catcher dolls from Toy Story and one Tokyo Disney Sea pin. I received a positive answer when i asked if there were more pins inside the park, so I steeled myself to buy a 5800 yen ticket to go shopping. Wheeee. And, oh dear lord, what a nightmare that was. First, I bypassed a line of visitors 30 deep who were waiting for the opportunity to snap photographs next to the Disneyfied kadomatsu at the park entrance. Then I went into the Grand Emporium, which was so busy I couldn't find a clerk to ask about pins. I had to wiggle through crowds of shoppers 5 deep to get up to the tiny hanging collectibles on the walls, most of which turned out to be jewelry or cell phone straps. I found three more birth month pins featuring those UFO dolls, plus a pin celebrating the opening of the toy store at the park. Whatever. At least that one had the name of Tokyo Disneyland on it. I bought all four pins and escaped into the fresh air. I didn't know what else to do to find pins, but rather than leave the park, I decided to go on at least one ride: Pirates of the Caribbean. It turns out there's a gift shop just to the left of the ride's exit, and I ducked in there on the chance that they would have ... PINS! Yay! The whole of the shop was filled with PotC-themed Disney pins, which would have made me a lot happier if JUST ONE had the name of Tokyo Disneyland on it. The store did, however, have a small paper sign propped up on a counter informing customers in Japanese and English that Tokyo Disneyland does not allow pin trading. Which may explain the absence of anything that I would assume to be an official trading pin. I picked up a random assortment of Disney characters in pirate gear and left the park. Someday my pins will come.
That night for dinner, w_10_00, stanaquil and I went out to a nearby Indian restaurant recommended by the hotel's concierge. Delicious!
p.s. While I had been Disneying, wednesday_10_00 and sara_tanaquil had gone to Kinokuniya and found Kono BL ga yabai! 2008, a book ranking the "best" BL manga and novels published between 10/2006-9/2007. The number 2 manga became Wednesday's shopping quest when she discovered that none of the stores along Otome Road had a copy in stock.
Thursday, 1/3/2008
After dividing up our belongings between Stuff To Stay In Tokyo and Stuff To Go To Moriyama, sara_tanaquil and I went to the Ikebukuro post office to mail a small package for a friend of mine and try out the supposedly international ATM. There was much success with the first errand and much failure with the latter. We also paid a stealth visit to Animate to pick up omiyage for friends back home. At last, the unibrain checked our bags at the bell desk, checked out of the hotel, and ... went shopping at Mandarake in Nakano. Manga quest? NO MANGA FOR YOU, wednesday_10_00! Then it was back to Ikebukuro for the travellin' bags and off to Tokyo station to catch a Hikari to Maibara and a shorter train hop into Moriyama. We trudged uphill* in the snow* barefoot* carrying enormous bags of lead* and beverages before we reached spacealien_vamp's apartment and promptly spread out futons and porn everywhere. Then we slept. Yay!
* Some portions of this account may be exaggerated due to travel fatigue.
Friday, 1/4/2008
BEST DAY EVER. Sky: slightly overcast. Feet cold.
Saturday, 1/5/2008
Saturday was dedicated to lazing about reading BL and watching the first half of the HanaKimi drama and eating the great potato feast of 2008. What? You want to know what happened on Friday? Okay, let's start over.
Friday, 1/4/2008
BEST DAY EVER. After a staggered breakfast, we went shopping for groceries and girl stuff and books. No luck finding the quest manga at the first bookstore we tried. (NO MANGA FOR YOU, wednesday_10_00!) Then we went to heaven a video/games/manga rental/used store to rent the last 12 episodes of Kyo Kara Maoh! The four of us spent the rest of the day cozily occupying spacealien_vamp's bed while she simultranslated the DVDs for me us. My friends are the best friends in the world. 本当にありがとう！ It was clear to all of us that addressing someone as "otouto no otomodachi" or "Shibuya no niisan" was the same as saying "I love you, huggy bunny, don't ever leave me." So why do the dj-ka pair Murata with Josak when it's supposed to be ShouKen 4ever?
Saturday, 1/5/2008
Saturday was dedicated to pimping manga at each other and watching the first half of the HanaKimi drama and eating the great potato feast of 2008. (Cheesy potato casserole is the best food ever. Why doesn't it have a hit theme song, like cheesy toast does?) We also witnessed sara_tanaquil in her uphill battle to keep spacealien_vamp's sink dish-free. (Sara has Flylady disease. Invite her to your home!) Oh, and NO MANGA FOR YOU, wednesday_10_00!
Sunday, 1/6/2008
On Sunday we went to Animate in Kyoto (yay!) to meet up with gnine (yay!) and eat okonomiyaki (yay!) and sing karaoke (...) and eat ice cream parfait (yay!). Also, quest manga for everyone! (Yay!) And I bought KKM 2.3.1-4 at Book Off outside the subway. Now I only needed to find the final DVD.
Monday, 1/7/2008
Even though I had been re-energized by all the manga pimping and was looking forward to returning to Ikebukuro to buy the dozen or so handwritten titles that had become my new list, I was very sad to part from spacealien_vamp (who was probably thrilled at the prospect of getting her floor and refrigerator back and not having to listen to the cheesy toast anthem anymore). Carrying wednesday_10_00's titanium-stuffed* pillow in my duffel, I trudged uphill* over splintered boards* in bare feet* 'til we reached our train. This time, we decided to go to Kyoto to catch the Shinkansen. We missed the first train by less than a minute, and probably would have made it if I had hopped into the smoking car. Oops.
* It's all true, every word.
I begin to think the hotel knew why were there, since our new room also looked out on Otome Road. Or else, you know, that's the side of the building with all the quad and triple rooms. Then wednesday_10_00, who secretly likes doing her taxes more than shopping, left for Chiba again. sara_tanaquil and I rested for a bit before heading off to K-Books. And Mandarake. And K-Books anime-kan. And Animate. Later, we visited Tora no Ana, where I was disappointed in the selection of consignment doujinshi for the laydeez and Sara was infected by a BL software virus. Must...have...porny...game! After buying Ryuu no Yuigon 12 for everyone (yay!), we headed to Mandarake to look for a used copy of the game. Then K-Books anime-kan, where we discovered that it was on their most-wanted trade-ins list. After resting for 5 minutes in our hotel room, we raced over to Animate (again!) to see if they had a copy. Must...have...porny...game!
Sara then negotiated a Japanese conversation with the concierge to locate an okonomiyaki restaurant (which was less osusume and more chikai than the Indian place, but still oishii) where wednesday_10_00 eventually met up with us for a late dinner followed by crepes followed by ... UFO catchers! Wednesday's skill at these machines is a testament to her sadly misspent youth; she walked away with a cute penguin (my penguin prince!) and 801-chan!
Then followed an orgy of packing accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Except for me, since I bought a third of what the others did. Neener.
Tuesday, 1/8/2008
Last day. *sniffle* More packing, followed by the ritualistic Weighing of the Suitcases. Since my large suitcase was 1.5 kg or so over 50lbs, even i had to shift some weight; I will let the others tell their survival stories of keeping their seriously overweight bags to less than 70lbs. We once again checked our bags with the bell captain, checked out of the hotel, and headed off for a final round of cultural activities shopping...during which I failed to look for KKM doujinshi because I am THAT stupid.
After shopping, we ate our final conbini lunch in the lobby of the hotel (where you are not supposed eat, according to microscopic stickers I didn't see until after we were done), then one by one, members of our party were sucked back to various shops for TRULY last-minute cuteness before we reclaimed our luggage, shoved in the new stuff, and boarded the bus for the airport. From which we saw the Diet Building. Maybe. And Disneyland. Definitely.
Sara and I (terminal 1) were separated from w_10_00 (terminal 2), but I still had one final adventure ahead of me. We had deliberately booked seats next to one another on the same flight to SFO, but when I had checked in 2 weeks ago for the flight to Japan, my return seat was mysteriously listed as "N/A." Now I had to see what had happened to it. I scanned my passport in, and found myself booked 4 rows away from Sara in the middlest seat of the middle aisle. Uso! Fortunately, the staff at the counter were able to shuffle seats and put me back where I had first made my reservation: in the window seat next to Sara. YAY! She read manga to me and played Phoenix Wright with me until we were both too tired to keep our eyes open, then we were tragically separated at the luggage carousel.
Normally, leaving Japan makes me very sad. This was the first time since my very first trip in 2000 that I had company all the way home. My friends made this least heart-wrenching departure I'll ever know. Yay!
Book total: 68 (59 manga, 4 novels, 3 art books, one BL guide, one Christmas gift)
I finished packing @ 9:30 Christmas night, so I stayed up all night cleaning my apartment in the hope that I would sleep on the plane. My cunning plan didn't work, but I did come home to a nice clean apartment, yay!
My plane was supposed to depart at 11am and arrive at Narita before 3:30pm on 12/27. wednesday_10_00 had been re-routed and was now scheduled to arrive at Narita @ 3, so I got very excited, thinking I would get to go into Tokyo and start shopping with w_10_00 and spacealien_vamp. Alas, it was not to be. My flight was officially delayed by an hour, and the boarding time kept creeping forward until we departed 90 minutes late. During flight, the revised arrival time turned into a moving target, and I wound up landing @ 5:30pm, waiting forever in immigration, and finally catching a bus for Ikebukuro at 6:30. No first-night shopping for me. :-(
After checking into the fabulous connecting double rooms at the hotel (with their fangirly view of Otome Road), I went out to grab a bite from a conbini. I immediately crossed paths with spacealien_vamp , wednesday_10_00 , and sara_tanaquil , who had finished their first night shopping (*pout*) and were now conbini-hopping in search of the elusive konbu onigiri. I think we spent the rest of our waking hours strategizing Comiket on wednesday_10_00 's computer, but I can't really remember the order of things at all.
Friday, 12/28/2007
Everybody unslumbered ridiculously early, there was conbini food for breakfast (courtesy of the Family Mart just off the front lobby of the Prince hotel), more Comiket strategizing to kill time, and then the shopping began. I managed to acquire most of my shopping list from K-Books immediately and received a free deck of porn cards (yay!) for spending more than 3000 yen.
We must have gone on to K-books doujin and Mandarake as well, but...I really can't remember the order of things at all.
After lunch at an Italian restaurant in Sunshine City, where we were served sitcom-style by a very inexperienced and error-prone waitress, we ordered a modem from the hotel for internet research. While wednesday_10_00 headed off to Chiba for dinner with her former class, spacealien_vamp painstakingly took screencaps of the Comiket catalog list we had composed and the corresponding maps, then pasted them into a Word document which she emailed to herself so we could print them out using the printer in the hotel lobby. In the process, we had this conversation 5 times in a row:
after seeing the resized image in Photoshop: "That font is awfully small. It's impossible to read."
"Her resolution is really high. It will be fine."
after seeing the resized image pasted into the Word doc: "This is really small. I don't think it's going to work."
"Word is scaled down. It will be fine when it prints out."
Not quote list funny, I know, but FIVE TIMES IN A ROW! That's comedy.
Saturday, 12/29/2007
Comiket: day one. During our planning session, we had discovered almost everything we wanted to buy at Comiket was on Sunday, the second day. There was some discussion of skipping the first day when we realized that there was absolutely NOTHING we wanted on the third day, so we decided to treat the first day as a practice run for sara_tanaquil and myself, who were not experienced attendees. Our targets on day one were Phoenix Wright and Odoru Daisousasen doujinshi, and then the commercial booths. We came, we saw, we conquered the dj floor, then we were nearly crushed to death on our totally unnecessary outing to the commercial booths. We won't be doing that again unless K-Books is handing out porn cards at a future Comiket.
We left Tokyo Big Sight fairly early in the afternoon and went for lunch at Shakey's Pizza. Afterwards, wednesday_10_00 once again headed to Chiba to meet with her other former class for dinner and (not) karaoke while the rest of us lingered over our first-day purchases in the hotel rooms. At which point I decided I had better buy some of this fabulous Phoenix Wright doujinshi just in case I started playing the game and fell in love with MitsuNaru. So we headed over to K-Books doujin, where sara_tanaquil and I searched for the books she had just bought at comiket, plus more by the same circle. And there was much rejoicing (amid some self-ridicule for buying used books I could have purchased new and for cheap that morning). Bonus: another pack of K-Books porn cards. Yay!
After shopping, the three of us headed back to Sunshine City's Quooze for dinner, where I -- yes, I -- chose the Mexican restaurant. (Frufru drinks, yay!)
Sunday, 12/30/2007
9 hours later, I started vomiting and...ummm...other stuff that happens when one has food poisoning. Between bouts, i would diligently attempt to clean the bathroom, until I finally gave up and asked someone to call housekeeping. The whole thing can't have gone on for more than four or five hours (I think it was 3ish when I first woke up and everyone was supposed to leave for Comiket @ 7am?), but it felt like an eternity. Of course, there was no way I was going to be able to attend Comiket that day. I was feeling very sorry for myself when everyone left.
Okay, it sucks to be sick on vacation. It was painful and embarrassing, and I was extremely vexed to miss THE big event around which we had scheduled our visit. BUT...it also sucks to be on your vacation listening to someone puke up her guts and generally render one of two shared bathrooms unusable. My friends were gracious and generous and very kind during the entire episode. And they also nabbed Comiket goodies for me. (OMG! More Masa and Kai in Hana to Ryuu 18! Yay!) I thank you and hope I will have a chance to repay you in some way.
Monday, 12/31/2007
Another day in bed, resting, while the healthier members of the unibrain went shopping in Akihabara and beyond. My big trip was down the corridor to the vending machines for a melon soda in my nightgown and bare feet. It exhausted me. Later that evening, we went down to the super-benri conbini to pick up soba before we watched Kouhaku and generally marvelled at the REALLY big dresses and the unfairness of the White team's win (GAAAACKKKKKKT!).
Tuesday, 1/1/2008
Did I spend a third day in bed? Say it ain't so. There may have been a trip to Animate or something. I know there was a late evening journey in which we kidnapped sara_tanaquil and activated our rail passes at Tokyo station and went to Shinjuku to discover that Kinokuniya was closed on New Year's day. Then, after spacealien_vamp went to bed at 9:30 -- a sign of sadder things to come -- the remainder of the unibrain invented The Best Card Game EVER: BL Fish.
To play BL Fish, you need at least three players and one deck of BL porn cards. Deal 5 cards to each player, gawk at the cards for 5 minutes, then discard any pairs in your hand. The player to the dealer's left begins play by asking any other player for a card...except, instead of asking for a particular rank or suit, you ask for a BL cliche. For example: "Do you have a megane-kun?" If the requestee's hand doesn't include the scene specified, the requester fishes a card from the remaining deck. Only pairs (matching ranks) can be discarded from one's hand, so getting the scene you asked for doesn't necessarily reduce the number of cards in your hand. Play continues until one player has matched all the cards in their hand, at which point the game is scored (pairs minus cards remaining in hand)...though no one really cares about the score. I could play this game FOREVER.
Wednesday, 1/2/2008
spacealien_vamp woke up with a fever and felt faint when she got out of bed. This was supposed to be Tokyo Disneyland day, but since everyone in the group had been to Tokyo Disneyland before (some many, many times before), we decided it didn't make sense to go if we all couldn't go together. The only problem was my brother had asked me to bring him "trading pins" as a souvenir. I know very little about Disney collectibles, but I know that I owe my brother more than I can ever repay, so I had to go to Disneyland despite having been warned that trading pins were not a "thing" at Tokyo Disneyland.
I was hoping to find something suitable at the "Bon Voyage" store outside the park. When I asked a clerk if they had any pins, I was shown a meager selection of four pins: 3 birth month pins featuring the UFO-catcher dolls from Toy Story and one Tokyo Disney Sea pin. I received a positive answer when i asked if there were more pins inside the park, so I steeled myself to buy a 5800 yen ticket to go shopping. Wheeee. And, oh dear lord, what a nightmare that was. First, I bypassed a line of visitors 30 deep who were waiting for the opportunity to snap photographs next to the Disneyfied kadomatsu at the park entrance. Then I went into the Grand Emporium, which was so busy I couldn't find a clerk to ask about pins. I had to wiggle through crowds of shoppers 5 deep to get up to the tiny hanging collectibles on the walls, most of which turned out to be jewelry or cell phone straps. I found three more birth month pins featuring those UFO dolls, plus a pin celebrating the opening of the toy store at the park. Whatever. At least that one had the name of Tokyo Disneyland on it. I bought all four pins and escaped into the fresh air. I didn't know what else to do to find pins, but rather than leave the park, I decided to go on at least one ride: Pirates of the Caribbean. It turns out there's a gift shop just to the left of the ride's exit, and I ducked in there on the chance that they would have ... PINS! Yay! The whole of the shop was filled with PotC-themed Disney pins, which would have made me a lot happier if JUST ONE had the name of Tokyo Disneyland on it. The store did, however, have a small paper sign propped up on a counter informing customers in Japanese and English that Tokyo Disneyland does not allow pin trading. Which may explain the absence of anything that I would assume to be an official trading pin. I picked up a random assortment of Disney characters in pirate gear and left the park. Someday my pins will come.
That night for dinner, w_10_00, stanaquil and I went out to a nearby Indian restaurant recommended by the hotel's concierge. Delicious!
p.s. While I had been Disneying, wednesday_10_00 and sara_tanaquil had gone to Kinokuniya and found Kono BL ga yabai! 2008, a book ranking the "best" BL manga and novels published between 10/2006-9/2007. The number 2 manga became Wednesday's shopping quest when she discovered that none of the stores along Otome Road had a copy in stock.
Thursday, 1/3/2008
After dividing up our belongings between Stuff To Stay In Tokyo and Stuff To Go To Moriyama, sara_tanaquil and I went to the Ikebukuro post office to mail a small package for a friend of mine and try out the supposedly international ATM. There was much success with the first errand and much failure with the latter. We also paid a stealth visit to Animate to pick up omiyage for friends back home. At last, the unibrain checked our bags at the bell desk, checked out of the hotel, and ... went shopping at Mandarake in Nakano. Manga quest? NO MANGA FOR YOU, wednesday_10_00! Then it was back to Ikebukuro for the travellin' bags and off to Tokyo station to catch a Hikari to Maibara and a shorter train hop into Moriyama. We trudged uphill* in the snow* barefoot* carrying enormous bags of lead* and beverages before we reached spacealien_vamp's apartment and promptly spread out futons and porn everywhere. Then we slept. Yay!
* Some portions of this account may be exaggerated due to travel fatigue.
Friday, 1/4/2008
BEST DAY EVER. Sky: slightly overcast. Feet cold.
Saturday, 1/5/2008
Saturday was dedicated to lazing about reading BL and watching the first half of the HanaKimi drama and eating the great potato feast of 2008. What? You want to know what happened on Friday? Okay, let's start over.
Friday, 1/4/2008
BEST DAY EVER. After a staggered breakfast, we went shopping for groceries and girl stuff and books. No luck finding the quest manga at the first bookstore we tried. (NO MANGA FOR YOU, wednesday_10_00!) Then we went to heaven a video/games/manga rental/used store to rent the last 12 episodes of Kyo Kara Maoh! The four of us spent the rest of the day cozily occupying spacealien_vamp's bed while she simultranslated the DVDs for me us. My friends are the best friends in the world. 本当にありがとう！ It was clear to all of us that addressing someone as "otouto no otomodachi" or "Shibuya no niisan" was the same as saying "I love you, huggy bunny, don't ever leave me." So why do the dj-ka pair Murata with Josak when it's supposed to be ShouKen 4ever?
Saturday, 1/5/2008
Saturday was dedicated to pimping manga at each other and watching the first half of the HanaKimi drama and eating the great potato feast of 2008. (Cheesy potato casserole is the best food ever. Why doesn't it have a hit theme song, like cheesy toast does?) We also witnessed sara_tanaquil in her uphill battle to keep spacealien_vamp's sink dish-free. (Sara has Flylady disease. Invite her to your home!) Oh, and NO MANGA FOR YOU, wednesday_10_00!
Sunday, 1/6/2008
On Sunday we went to Animate in Kyoto (yay!) to meet up with gnine (yay!) and eat okonomiyaki (yay!) and sing karaoke (...) and eat ice cream parfait (yay!). Also, quest manga for everyone! (Yay!) And I bought KKM 2.3.1-4 at Book Off outside the subway. Now I only needed to find the final DVD.
Monday, 1/7/2008
Even though I had been re-energized by all the manga pimping and was looking forward to returning to Ikebukuro to buy the dozen or so handwritten titles that had become my new list, I was very sad to part from spacealien_vamp (who was probably thrilled at the prospect of getting her floor and refrigerator back and not having to listen to the cheesy toast anthem anymore). Carrying wednesday_10_00's titanium-stuffed* pillow in my duffel, I trudged uphill* over splintered boards* in bare feet* 'til we reached our train. This time, we decided to go to Kyoto to catch the Shinkansen. We missed the first train by less than a minute, and probably would have made it if I had hopped into the smoking car. Oops.
* It's all true, every word.
I begin to think the hotel knew why were there, since our new room also looked out on Otome Road. Or else, you know, that's the side of the building with all the quad and triple rooms. Then wednesday_10_00, who secretly likes doing her taxes more than shopping, left for Chiba again. sara_tanaquil and I rested for a bit before heading off to K-Books. And Mandarake. And K-Books anime-kan. And Animate. Later, we visited Tora no Ana, where I was disappointed in the selection of consignment doujinshi for the laydeez and Sara was infected by a BL software virus. Must...have...porny...game! After buying Ryuu no Yuigon 12 for everyone (yay!), we headed to Mandarake to look for a used copy of the game. Then K-Books anime-kan, where we discovered that it was on their most-wanted trade-ins list. After resting for 5 minutes in our hotel room, we raced over to Animate (again!) to see if they had a copy. Must...have...porny...game!
Sara then negotiated a Japanese conversation with the concierge to locate an okonomiyaki restaurant (which was less osusume and more chikai than the Indian place, but still oishii) where wednesday_10_00 eventually met up with us for a late dinner followed by crepes followed by ... UFO catchers! Wednesday's skill at these machines is a testament to her sadly misspent youth; she walked away with a cute penguin (my penguin prince!) and 801-chan!
Then followed an orgy of packing accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Except for me, since I bought a third of what the others did. Neener.
Tuesday, 1/8/2008
Last day. *sniffle* More packing, followed by the ritualistic Weighing of the Suitcases. Since my large suitcase was 1.5 kg or so over 50lbs, even i had to shift some weight; I will let the others tell their survival stories of keeping their seriously overweight bags to less than 70lbs. We once again checked our bags with the bell captain, checked out of the hotel, and headed off for a final round of cultural activities shopping...during which I failed to look for KKM doujinshi because I am THAT stupid.
After shopping, we ate our final conbini lunch in the lobby of the hotel (where you are not supposed eat, according to microscopic stickers I didn't see until after we were done), then one by one, members of our party were sucked back to various shops for TRULY last-minute cuteness before we reclaimed our luggage, shoved in the new stuff, and boarded the bus for the airport. From which we saw the Diet Building. Maybe. And Disneyland. Definitely.
Sara and I (terminal 1) were separated from w_10_00 (terminal 2), but I still had one final adventure ahead of me. We had deliberately booked seats next to one another on the same flight to SFO, but when I had checked in 2 weeks ago for the flight to Japan, my return seat was mysteriously listed as "N/A." Now I had to see what had happened to it. I scanned my passport in, and found myself booked 4 rows away from Sara in the middlest seat of the middle aisle. Uso! Fortunately, the staff at the counter were able to shuffle seats and put me back where I had first made my reservation: in the window seat next to Sara. YAY! She read manga to me and played Phoenix Wright with me until we were both too tired to keep our eyes open, then we were tragically separated at the luggage carousel.
Normally, leaving Japan makes me very sad. This was the first time since my very first trip in 2000 that I had company all the way home. My friends made this least heart-wrenching departure I'll ever know. Yay!
Book total: 68 (59 manga, 4 novels, 3 art books, one BL guide, one Christmas gift)