Tokyo Winter Break – Day 2

Tags

Shibuya, The Lion King Musical, Tokyo, Tokyo Pokémon Center, Zoujouji

Before I go into Day 2, there’s something that’s been on my mind about the maid café.  The maids are supposed to follow orders, but at the same time, they give orders, and as patrons in the “world” of the maid café, we follow them unquestioningly.  I didn’t see anyone refuse to do the “magic” or refuse to take part in the 15-minute “Dream Time” ordered by two of the patrons. I wonder what the maids say if a customer says, “no, I don’t want to say ‘moé moé kyuuun’ at some guy’s champagne!” ^O^

Anyway…

On Day 2, Wednesday the 30th, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant.  They had a 1000 yen all-you-can-eat Japanese/Western breakfast.

Then, we hopped on the Yamanote Line to Hamamatsuchou to go to the Shiki Gekijou (四季劇場) to get tickets to see the Lion King musical.  I don’t particularly like musicals and decided to go if there were cheap tickets.  Since there were, I bought a 3000 yen ticket, though I had to sit a few rows behind where Cassie was. We got our tickets and since we had over two hours till showtime, we went to kill time at the Tokyo Pokémon Center; we had happened to see a sign for it at Hamamatsuchou Station.

The Center was jam-packed with people of all ages.  There was every kind of Pokémon merchandise available.  I was surprised to see shirts with this nice, glittery design on it.  I don’t remember at the moment what Pokémon it is, but it was cheap, large, and pretty so I got one.  I also picked up some Evie clear files (the PCFC grows!) and souvenirs for a certain Pokémon-loving friend. ^_~ (Though, once I got back to Fukuoka I learned there was a Pokémon Center in nearby Canal City Hakata. ^_^; Though it’s only about half the size of Tokyo’s.)

Now, from where we were we could see Tokyo Tower, so after the Pokémon Center we walked towards it.  On the way there, we turned onto a street with a torii.  Before reaching the shrine at the end of the street, we stopped at a Starbucks.  I’d been wanting a chai latte for a while.  (Someone got me hooked on those. LOL) As my friend checked out some Year of the Tiger goods there, a friendly barista started talking to us.  She recommended we go to either Asakusa or Meiji Jingu for New Year’s.  There were free pamphlets at the counter explaining the temple down the street; turned out it was Zoujouji (増上寺, “ji” means “temple” so I think it’s a bit redundant to say “Zoujouji Temple”).

Zoujouji with Tokyo Tower in the background. Preparations for the huge New Year's Day crowds were under way.

At Zoujouji, we got omikuji, or fortunes written on little folded pieces of paper that you draw from a box after dropping in 100 yen.  Since these mikuji also had little guardian charms attached, they cost 200 yen.  I drew a good fortune, with a charm of a bamboo rake.  The bamboo rake helps you “rake in” fortune if you keep it in your wallet.  (You better believe I put that bad boy in there! ^o^) If you draw a bad fortune, you can tie it to lines set out just for that, (some temples have small trees for this) and the temple spirits or gods will take on the burden of your bad luck. ^_^; There was a beautiful Buddha statue there, and across from it was a pine tree planted by Ulysses S. Grant.

I left the photo at full size so you can read the plaque.

Since we still had time before the show, but not too much, we stopped at Mos Burger on the way back to the theater for some quick lunch. It was pretty good.  Then, we rushed out to the theater and got there about 15 minutes before show time.

As I said, I don’t particularly like musicals, but since I did like the movie The Lion King, and that’s pretty much a musical, there wasn’t much difference when it comes to the random let’s-bust-out-in-song-and-dance-even-if-we’re-villains factor so I enjoyed it. Being familiar with the story made it pretty easy to understand in Japanese.  Actually, all the historical dramas I watch also helped, since everyone spoke to Mufasa in keigo.  The sets, costumes, and effects were incredible.  It’s been a really long time since I saw The Lion King so I don’t really know how the lyrics in Zulu and Swahili are supposed to sound (well, to say nothing of them probably being pronounced incorrectly in the original movie anyway), but my friend commented that the Japanese cast sounded funny trying to sing in African languages. They didn’t do the Mufasa/Que pasa joke with the hyenas.  When Zazu was singing in a cage and Scar told him to sing something happier, it sounded like Zazu started singing enka! The audience laughed.  I assume it must’ve been a pretty famous song. At the end, there were about 10 curtain calls!  Before leaving the theater I picked up some “crepe cookies” with the musical’s logo to be an omiyage for my kouchou-sensei. (Once back in Fukuoka, a while after I gave him the gift, he went to the shokuinshitsu to give me a 2010 calendar from Shiki Gekijou that the theater had sent him, lol. The picture for December is of Simba, Nala, and Rafiki presenting their cub.)

消火栓 (shoukasen) means "fire hydrant."

Hm, I could’ve sworn I took a picture in front of the theater, but I guess I didn’t, or I accidentally deleted it from my camera.  Oh well.  Instead, have a picture of cute chibi (samurai?) firefighters that I saw on fire hydrant covers in several places around Hamamatsuchou! I assume that under these covers is just a simple water pipe for use in case of fire.  Seems more logical than the red fire hydrants that stick out of the ground and get used by children on hot summer days to cool off.

After the show, we went to roll around Shibuya some more.  My objective was to go to Tower Records to get CDs of Russian composers, whose work isn’t available for sale in the U.S.  While the poor clerk scoured his database for the uncommon composers, I thought about buying the 3-disc Nodame Cantabile set they had, which covers all the music used in the live action drama and the movies! It was just about 4800 yen, which is pretty good for 3 discs but…I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more interested in the pretty pictures of Tamaki Hiroshi than the music itself. ^o^;;;;

Oh yeah, before going up to the 6th floor where the Classical section was, I picked up GACKT’s latest single, “Stay the Ride Alive,” his third collaboration with the Kamen Rider franchise.  It wasn’t supposed to be out until New Year’s Day, but both Tower Records and Tsutaya had it on December 30th, if not earlier, even though both stores had signs for the single that said “OUT 2010.1.1.” For buying the single, I got a free GACKT x Tower Records poster.

The closest I'll ever come to taking a photo with GACKT? *wump wump wuuummp*

Tower had heavy promotion of Michael Jackson’s This Is It going on.  There was a TV playing “Smooth Criminal” with Japanese subtitles, mega-LOL.  「アンニ大丈夫か。アンニ大丈夫か。大丈夫か、アンニ。」^O^

After Tower, we went into the nearby Tsutaya.  I picked up GACKTIONARY, a book chronicling the 10 years of GACKT’s career so far.  It had been out since mid-December; honestly I could’ve gotten it in Fukuoka, but when it came out I was like “It’ll be a while before I can read Japanese quickly enough to actually want to read this book, so why bother?” but since it was right there in front of me, fangirl collectionism won out. ^o^;;

Tsutaya had a special sign for their store this day; instead of the usual “Tsutaya” sign, the first “a” was Ayumi Hamasaki’s funky looking “A.” People were taking pictures of it, but I don’t really care for Ayu (no offense to her fans) so I didn’t.

When we were done shopping, we looked for a place to have dinner.  A restaurant with various yakiniku caught my eye.  It was actually a motsunabe place. Motsu = innards and nabe = pot.  Nabe ryouri is very popular in the winter months.  I didn’t know that motsu was innards, it was the yakiniku I’d gone for, but since they had a tabehoudai (all-you-can-eat) for the nabe, we got some.  We tried the innards; I didn’t like them so I only ate the other kinds of meat. Ironically enough, motsunabe was orginally a Fukuoka specialty. And here I went and ate some all the way in Tokyo…

~End of Day 2~

Tokyo Winter Break – Departure + Day 1

Tags

109, Akihabara, maid cafe, Sephiroth, Shibuya, Square-Enix Character Goods Show Case, Tokyo

Alright, here come the day-by-day posts. It takes me a long time to do each post, so I will only post one day at a time.  In the meantime, there’s always the summary below this post.

Before leaving, we went up to a shop in the Transit Center to get snacks for the trip.  There I found Marias, these cookies/crackers.  I had been thinking of bringing Marias as omiyage, but decided against it given how fragile they are. It was surprising to find them, and I bought a pack.  These Marias are from Portugal.

Portuguese Marias from the Fukuoka Transit Center!

We left Fukuoka around 7PM via overnight rapid bus. The bus ride took 14 hours.  The older gentleman (or as I say, that ojiichan) in the seat in front of me didn’t turn off his light until midnight, and even then, he opened the curtain! I can’t sleep sitting up or even reclining anyway, but it was somewhat annoying.  In the evening they played some boring movie, but in the morning they played 「犬と私の１０の約束」, or, Ten Promises to My Dog. It’s a cute movie; really sad.

When we got to Tokyo, we hopped on a train and went to the hotel, the Hotel Mystays Ochanomizu.  It’s really close to Akihabara Electric Town, affordable, and comfortable. We checked in, dropped our stuff in the room, and had breakfast at the nearby Spanish-themed restaurant El Chateo del Puente. I had a dish that was called…something or other manchego. (Manchego = Spanish sheep milk cheese.) I don’t remember, but it was good!

Olé!

WARNING: This post is about to get really GEEKY really fast! If you can’t handle it, go do something that proves how much of a non-geek you are.

After breakfast, we headed on a train for Shibuya to go to the Square-Enix Character Goods Show Case.  Yup, that again. I got two chibi Sephiroths, an umbrella with various Final Fantasy critters like Mog and Cactuar on it, and took a better picture of the life-size Sephiroth statue in the floor there.

I left this one at full size for your viewing pleasure. ^o^

After the SE Store, I happened to spot the Soccer Shop Kamo and went in to see what they had. ^_~

Then, we went to Harajuku to walk around and see all the people in the crazy Harajuku fashion.  There weren’t too many people in extreme clothes.  Then again, there were soooo many people there that it was hard to distinguish one for the other.  It’s the closest thing to the Castlevania boss Granfalloon that I’ve ever seen.

Next, we walked around Shibuya in search of the famous 109 (sometimes pronounced as “ichi-maru-kyuu,” meaning “one-o-nine”) building, where all the trendy girls shop. There is now a 109-2 building across the street from 109 with shops for men. Their website linked above has a few sections in English. The intersection in the photo below, like many major intersections in Japan, is a six-way crosswalk.  That is, when the lights turn red, they turn red on all sides for cars, and pedestrians cross the streets in all directions.

Shibuya 109 and the super busy intersection

We had lunch in a restaurant inside 109.  I was surprised to learn the girls who shop there eat. *rimshot* Anyway, the Italian city of Genoa is written in Japanese as ジェノバ (“jenoba”), which is the same way that Jenova (Sephiroth’s “mother”) is written, so when I saw ジェノバ風えびスパゲッティ (Genoa-style shrimp spaghetti) I had to eat it! ^o^ It was green too!

After dinner we went to Akihabara.  Akihabara is known as the tech and nerd capital of Japan.  Well, of the world really. ^o^  There’s plenty of stores for all your gamer/otaku/pervert needs.  (If you’re the only girl in the shop, you should probably leave.)

In front of Akihabara Gamers

As we walked around, we happened to see a Kotobukiya, a store that makes and sells various model kits, figurines, and other fandom goods.  I picked up a Lightning (the protagonist of Final Fantasy XIII) clear file to add to my Pretty Clear File Collection, as well as a Rosch Elixir to finally have 8 Elixirs (enough to be entered in the drawing for FFXIII stuff or a PS3).

After that, as we were walking about, there were many young women out in the streets promoting various maid cafés.  A maid café is a café where all the waitresses dress as maids, call patrons ご主人様 (goshujin-sama, meaning “Master”), and act super cutesy.  The second girl who gave us a flyer led us to the café. They serve a bit of diner type food, but also lots of sweets. My friend tells me that girls go to maid cafés because they think it’s cute and/or funny. Since I don’t know much about all the different types of maid cafés, rather than give the impression that they’re all the same, I will leave this link to a blog post on Akibanana reviewing the MaiDreamin franchise: To Akibanana!

Anyway, there was a 500 yen minimum table charge, and one drink minimum (it didn’t have to be alcoholic).  We both got parfaits.  The parfaits came with a choice of commemorative photo or game time, which I assume means the maid will play some cutesy little game with you.  You can’t take photos of the maids with your own camera, but you can buy photos that they already have printed, or get the food items that come with the chance to take a picture with the maid of your choice.

Like the maids, all the sweets were put together to be as cute as possible.  When it came time to take a picture with one of the maids, I had wanted to take a picture with one of the cooks, but I said the wrong name.  The girl who came out didn’t seem too pleased. T_T Oh well. They draw a heart and write the name of the maid over all the photos. I would put it up here if I had a scanner, but since it’s just about 2 x 3 inches, if I took a picture of it it wouldn’t come out right.

Two patrons paid for the “15 Minute Dream Time,” which included the maid bringing this to everyone’s attention, lowering the lights,  popping open a bottle of champaign, and proceeding to have everyone in the bar (maids and patrons) make the champaign more delicious with magic.  The magic consisted of putting your hands together in a heart shape and saying “moé moé kyuuun!” The maids also had patrons do this “spell” on their own drinks.

After that, we went back to the hotel.

~End of Day 1~