July 22: The Briefest Among Akibae
Today I got up and got my standard breakfast/lunch of bananas, carrots, grapefruit, curry korokke and milk from Yokosan. While eating I voice chatted with Mom and Jiuna for a while before playing a bit of StarCraft with Kevin and Vincent.
After StarCraft I took my HST ballot to the post office in Yokochuu and sent it back to Canada, where Mom will mail it for me. I actually managed to conduct myself almost entirely in utterly horrid Japanese, which I was quite proud of, until I realized I was misremembering the last syllable in the verb "to send". This, of course, meant that the attendant knew what I wanted anyways, and I was not the least bit coherent. Oh well, if somehow my vote ends up in Nairobi as a result, I hope they are holding a referendum, so it at least gets used. I also negotiated the ATM (lol in English haha), and Japan really is like something out of the Jetsons sometimes. I tried to use my debit card, but it wouldn't eat it and started flashing the PASSBOOK slot. Incredulous, I took out my passbook (it's an account of my transaction history and account information and stuff), and put the ENTIRE BOOK into the ATM, which of course worked perfectly. I understand that paper is lower tech than a magnetic stripe card, but somehow it is absolutely shocking to me that an ATM ate A BOOK, READ IT (yeah, yeah it probably scanned the barcode on the back whatever) and then WROTE IN IT (in the right place no less!).
I hopped on a Limited Express for Shinagawa, and read my vocab charts the whole way. The lady beside me was quite-obviously-trying-to-subtly look at my vocab sheets, and later on she started writing kanji on her knee with a finger. For some reason seemed to think it was still necessary to keep up the appearance that she was not actually looking even while doing this. Really, lady I'm studying JAPANESE. I know what you're doing!!! ;D For now, the cultural differences are adorable, but I'm unfortunately relatively certain that on at least one occasion, I will find such behaviour incredibly frustrating. >_<
From Shinagawa I went to Shibuya station by Yamanote Line, and there I went to the Tokyu in the station's "FOOD SHOW!" or whatever it was called. There I purchased some kind of manju that came in a sexy brown box that's delightfully textured and weighted, and also only about 1100円. Perfect! I actually bought two, because I am going to give one to Kabutoya-san, since he was the one who asked, and tried to stop me from giving Nishino-san anything using that as an argument. I thought about it, and maybe that meant that I was supposed to be thanking Kabutoya-san instead, so I decided to play it safe and get two lol.
I looked around FOOD SHOW! a bit, and it was extremely crowded, as it was quite near supper time by that point. I saw many things that I would love to eat, but I was very hungry, having my last eaten meal being fruit and two korokke at 11am. This meant that eating something like the tomato bocconcini salad would be rather unwise due to potential acidic repercussions. I elected to head to Akiba without eating, and once there went straight for Chez Streep presents Stochastic Maid Curry, where I did not actually eat curry. They have been advertising "sauce katsu-don", so I decided to have it today, since last time the full MEGA katsu curry proved difficult to vanquish. It was pretty darn good (not highbrow cuisine by any means though), and the MEGA size is 100円 cheaper than MEGA kastu curry, and it was the perfect amount! The "sauce" is just some kind of thin brown sauce they douse the katsu in, so that its coating is a bit of a similar texture to Mom's Balsamic Chicken. I'd recommend it to anyone who happens to find themselves in Akiba and looking for a cheap, quick meal.
After eating I headed to HEY! to get my ass whooped at 3rd Strike, and to mega-fail at Mushihime. >_< I guess I'm a little glad I didn't have much time in Akiba today, because I appeared to suck more terribly than usual at my favourite games. D: I did get to stage 5 once on MAX mode in Mushihimesama, but it was a messy affair, and I did not best my previous personal highscore.
I was quite happy to break for a bit and watch someone who was doing pretty damn good at Original Mode MAX, though he was dying quite a bit due to over-aggression. He at least showed me how you're *supposed* to play Mushihime once you stop being a total scrub like me haha. I had previously been quite puzzled by why some people get glowing auras on their bullets and I don't. I surmised from watching him play that the aura appears when you get your combo counter to a certain level (I think it might be 10000 and 50000, though there might be extra zeroes there), and the aura is associated with a bullet speed-up effect. You apparently get MASSIVE points for sticking your face into enemies' faces while they're trying to kill you, as he was doing this quite often and there were gigantic amounts of gold point crystals flying everywhere. He had my stage 5 personal best beaten by the end of stage 2, which stung quite badly until I realized that he wasn't actually a white guy haha (that's MY gimmick!). I seriously thought he was until he got up to leave, when I saw his face and was then reminded that I was in the Mothership of the Pasty Nerds. >_<
After dying horribly some more, I called it quits and rode the trains/buses home to my dorm. Nothing much of note occurred, except for a woman and her friend sitting behind me on the bus speaking a back-and-forth English/Japanese mixture that was really fun to eavesdrop on haha. The one who was using more English looked like she might be half-African American/half-Japanese, as she had very unique facial features and very natural sounding Japanese and English.
Back at my dorm I made the mistake of checking Shoryuken and TL before going to bed, and thus I'm writing this blog up WAAAY too late, as not only did Huk get sent out as the ace in oGs vs Prime.WE in StarCraft II, and not only did he also manage to win two games and thus take the match for oGs, Capcom ALSO announced Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, featuring Strider Hiryu! Euuuggghhhh... All great news, but now I am going to feel absolutely horrid tomorrow... >_<
Night!
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