'....It's hard to live up to the legend sometimes, you know?' "Which one?" by Rob
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 12:36 PM

Star Wars

Episode...wait a sec....

Day 5-'Mandarake is the evil which stops us!'

Dawning clear and cold after yesterdays rain, Kalin and I headed out to meet up with Colt *since it was saturday she didn't have to work*. After seeing an awesome little scooter on the corner adorned with Valentino Rossis colors and number we made it to the station and greeted Colt and headed in to Mandarake. From there our objectives were multifold. Check out the shopping (which was said to be legendary, and by the shutters on the doors I could see that it would be), do some arcade action, and then head over the Akiba to get another round in on the Macross stamp rally. Unfortunatly, the otaku that run Mandarake have the right idea and like to sleep in, thus we had arrived too early at 10:30 and had to waste about an hour and a half just walking around other stores waiting for the multi-tier mall to open properly. We decided the nearby arcades would be a good start to the day and proceeded to waste time playing the Taiko drum Master machine *songs like the Yatterman theme and Lucky Star dotted our plays* and then wasted some time getting suited up as mobile suit pilots. Chosing the Zeons over the enthusiastic Colts Federation, we strapped in for the simulator experience of our lives (Take THAT you GM bastards!). You'll just have to see the pics and video to believe me. Kalin wasted too much money on UFO catchers and we all played a bit of SF4 and Capcom vrs. Tatsunoko before going back out to check on the stores.

As the stores slowly began to un-shutter, we wandered around splitting up and attacking the various stores of our interest. The thing about Mandarake is, there's a store for EVERYTHING. No I mean it. Collect cells do you? There's a shop (or two) just for cells. Models? Gotcha covered in spades. Like die cast and tin style robots? Pick a store. Gochapon figures? No sweat. Even a store specializing in ONLY boys love doujin. This place was amazing. We wandered around for hours...and after spending lots of cash and finding a rare Mazinger Chogokin that I needed for real cheap, we took our bags and split. In search of lunch, Colt and I broke off and went to McDonalds, while Kalin went home to get foods. We would meet up again afterwards, so after getting a seat on the fourth floor (the others were already full) next to some students, I had my first teriyaki burger courtesy of Mcy-D's. Quite good I must say. After listening to the mother next to us teach her son how to say 'Kame-hame-ha' (true story) and the female students say how scared they were that Americans were next to them (it's interesting when they think you don't speak the language)...good naturedly of course...we went back to Kalins to pick up my stuff for the transfer to Colts dorm. After a relaxing bit sitting down, we transfered my stuff to Colts and then we headed back out to Akiba....

Failing our 'notice awareness' rolls landed us in Akiba at a late hour. We dashed to the Tokyo Anime Center only to be greeted by them taking in the signs and closing up. Curses! Foiled again! Dejected we went to try and find the Gundam Bar we'd heard about. Being that the Japanese can even have trouble finding things in their crazy city, all you need to do to get directions is find a nearby police booth, called a Koban, and get them to help you find your address. After breaking out the maps and magnifying glass *no...realy* he set us right and pointed us in the proper direction. Thanking him we trotted off to a small back alley in Akiba to find the 'Bar Zeon'. We did shortly find it (after taking a picture of some neat cars along the way) and settled down to the coolest bar of the week. Red walls, floors, barstools and benches with the Zeon logo littered the place, and the waitresses wore Zeon uniforms. We ordered our Gundam themed drinks at the bar which was littered with toys and other memorabilia and glanced over at the Gundam 00 playing on the big projector screen to our left. Let me tell you...the Zakerello is quite good. And not skimping on the alchohol either. After the show was done(shortly after we arrived, thankfully) one of the girls took out the DVD and asked what should be put in next, to which the bartender loudly proclaimed 'Anything but G!' Giggling like schoolgirls hipped her to the fact that even as gaijin, we DID in fact speak a bit of Japanese. After they flipped through the collection and were about to resort to 'Wing' I simply asked in Japanese if they had any 'X' to watch. Apparently suprised and impressed all at once, the bartender seconded the motion and we sat there sipping our drinks and eating our snacks with gundam X playing in the background. Wow...talk about a dream night....If I lived here I'd be in this place FAR too often....

We left the bar right at closing time (fairly early...but the themed bars do that around here) and prepped for a night in the club. Colt had arranged for us to meet another friend of his and go to an all night dance club to spend the night. See, once you miss last train, you're kinda stuck partying till dawn when the trains start up again. Oh darn. Heading to the club we stopped at a convinience store to 'start the evening off right' as he put it. The tradition apparently is to have a 'Chuhai' which is about 8-10 % alchohol drink and cug it before going in...so you don't need drinks right away. Not a bad idea as club drinks tend to be overpriced by a bit. We did this, met up with more of his friends and went to the club.

I may be Biased...but I didn't have a good time with the music. It was repetitive and droning. The conversation was great with the three of us, Colt and I trying to explain the 'Who's on first' joke *worst Idea I ever had* to someone who isn't a native English speaker. Eventualy she passed out on the table and we left the club around 6ish, carrying the poor girl back to the train station, where we boarded and shuffled her back to her place...and then went to Colts to crash for a few hours...before waking for the big day......

Tune in next time ....for the big Macross day! Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

Resistance of awsome toy stores is FUTILE!!!

Neo-Vader III

'Oh, I always take it out first. It's no good without direct contact.' by Kara
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 9:20 AM

My stomach, it is not so good this morning. To that end, I have replaced my morning caffeine shot with some calming jasmine tea. Just as long as it doesn't calm me down too much.

Once again, I am not sure if Co-Writer is going to use his space to continue detailing the Great Japan Adventure, but nonetheless I am going to be a considerate manga-ka and not take up much space. Especially considering he's going out of his way to account for my evening errands this week script-wise. Yeah, that happens sometimes ... even I have things I have to get done on weekdays. That and I'm obsessed with having things done in advance.

If you have been, I got one.

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