well technically i missed a day…….. life will go on
The last two times I’ve flown out to japan have been in the morning domestically and landing at night in Japan… I was a little worried about not adjusting properly, but I popped a melatonin pill and was able to catch about 3 hours and 1.5 hours of sleep on the plane. It wasn’t entirely restful, but I was able to get through most of the day just fine!
Normally I’d say I don’t really hate any food… but opening the package and seeing Fritos made me really disappointed… I guess I ate Fritos lol
Food was OK, I was more impressed last year with the food. Maybe the first meal is ‘breakfasty’ food (I don’t think Fritos is breakfast food though) since we took off at about 01:00… Maybe the food on the flight back would be better.
I purchased a 15 day unlimited on Ubigi but I seem to have redeemed a 14 day 30 GB sim instead… I’ll have to purchase a 3 day 1 GB at the tail end of the trip. Should be done with refreshing C107 menus by then so I think we can make the 1 GB last as long as we stick to hotel wi-fi for data heavy stuff.
Headed to Asakusa first, but nothing’s rellly open at 7:00 AM… I opted to get a gyokuro matcha latte at Starbucks (the menu explicitly says Tall, so I was rebuffed when I tried to order it as grande) and chilled until stuff started to open up. Also killed more time at the Donki until the lunch spot was open… Came across a Hina Nendoroid and was like, well, why not? It’ll be a good addition to the office desk.
Think the must-eat item is the Asakusa Menchi Menchikatsu – I was 2nd in line to pick one up and the line just kept getting longer after opening up at 10:00! It has a nice crunchy exterior yet a meaty, oily beef/pork mix inside. I could easily eat 2 but I need to save room for lunch…
Kyoto Gyukatsu! I first ate here when I went to Toronto visit for an /mjg/ meetup in 2022. Normally when you think of katsu you’d think of pork or chicken… but beef also works well with it! Normally I do like rare meat, but this is a little bit too much, so you can place your sliced meat on the little candle warmer thing with a dish on top to cook your beef more. I’d say it’s a little bit short of the Kobe beef melt in your mouth fattiness, but each bite is still nice as you can choose to dip your beef in soy sauce, gyukatsu sauce, citrus soy sauce, Kyoto curry, or my favorite, the spring egg mix.
I took the Tsukuba Express from Asakusa to Akiba – if you take metro/jr I think it’s a little messy, so this is the best ‘direct’ route to it. Except for the station exit out of the Tsukuba Express being a little bit further from JR Akiba… so got lost for a few minutes lol
Trader headquarters: Picked up a single onahole. The onaholes here are cheaper than pop life M’s, so I would get what I can here with regards to that. I did want to pick up this used to get into the series… but after thinking about it I don’t think I really want to start an eroge hardcopy collection… takes up too much space cause those boxes are big!
e-earphones! They have a few floors dedicated to different audio equipment. I specifically already knew what model of earphones I wanted so I didn’t look around too much, but they do have a section where you can try aftermarket IEM tips. I previously got large tips for some Sedna Xelastec IIs, but over time they started folding upon themselves because they are presumably too big to fit in my ear comfortably. I ended up getting some new tips by Sedna called Mythril (sp?) that have steel rings at the end of the tip to prevent it from collapsing on itself. I think it adds more soundstage by ensuring a fixed distance between the tips and the iem exist, so I went with those in the medium size. Unfortunately they did not have the blessing3 Aqua in stock, so they have to ship it from Sendai for me to pick up tomorrow. What customer service! I would like to come back again in the future to try out new tips again or pick up something fun.
Mandarake Complex: Apparently they didn’t have enough space in the original Mandarake Complex, so now they made a 2nd one! Unfortunately I didn’t find anything interesting
Lashinbang New Store: found the tashkent daki by Yuizaki Kazuya I tried to order off Yahoo Auctions before but the seller rejected my bid cause I was bidding through a proxy. Hooray
Melonbooks 1st store: Walked in and saw some c107 books, but I didn’t see anything that was like omg I need this… the fucking line to check out wrapped around the entire store so I was like nah fuck that. Go back tomorrow when maybe there’s no line
Sofmap: There’s a Majsoul collab in the 7th floor cafe but it says reservations only… They have a large collection of new and used eroge (separate floors). Cool to see, though I suppose it isn’t that different than Mandarake/Suruga-ya/Trader’s used eroge…?
Trader2: same as Trader headquarters but smaller really
Melonbooks 2nd: Nothing to really see cause they’re preparing for c107 on floors 3-5. Floors 2 eroge/h-anime is kinda bland and idk what they’re doing with this tokyo otaku store business
Pop life M’s: picked up 2 onaholes and a mini-hip
yostar official shop: pretty decently sized store in JR Akiba. I bouht some candy and a sticker of kisaki eating a crepe. No idea what I’ll do with it but it’s cute!
Akihabara figure tower: ok this is pretty cool and they have a ton of figgies but I don’t wanna deal with lugging it, buying an extra large luggage to pack it in.
space caiman: It’s an ‘art’ exhibit underneath a restaurant. Currently on display is a wani magazine event; was gonna go to get bonus shikishi with two tankoubons but one was sold out for yahiro pochi (actually signed, so it makes sense) and the reproduction shikishi for homunculus acctually doesn’t seem too high quality so I can pass.
yuzusoft shop: has a *ton* of stuff, but some of the things i wanted on their website was out of stock! can’t be helped.
noa is so short! so cute
ok i need to go eat breakfast after wasting 2 hours on mahjong!!! fuck you f***g for making me qualify i will resume later
here’s the loot i ate breakfast it was nice pickled vegetables and tempura yum shoulda brought my phone but i decided not to to be mindful lol
here’s the loot so far need to get ready for 12/27 bye
