Day 5 - Back in Fukushima, yeah!

Edit - Forgot to mention for my friends who went to the old bar that the boss has moved  close to Juso station which no one could find on the train map last night but apparently its a bit out of the way. No one knows the name of the new bar so I can`t be stuffed finding a needle in a haystack. I suppose I could go find the sister if she`s still working at the same place.....

Edit 2 - Forgot that I bframe5 actually sent me a picture of Non-chan from the snack in Yokkaichi.

Bframe5`s Love Plus Arcade pictures. Hope I didn`t sully his name.

Heading towards JR Yokkaichi.

Wouldn`t you like to live in a house like this.

Waiting for the JR train to take me to Nagoya and then to Osaka. Freaking slow as train. Kintetsu is faster but since I have my JR pass. Might consider using Kintetsu next time.

Lots of rice fields on the way to Osaka.

Note to self, find out who she is.

Back in Fukushima!!!!!

Tsukemen for lunch!!! Fucking awesome. Why don`t we have this in Melbourne!

NMB48 not that I really care. Came across it by taking a different route to Den Den Town.

Went to Nipponbashi aka Den Den Town after that. Actually tried to go to Zepp Osaka to get familiar with the route before going to a live next week but sort of got lost. Will try again tomorrow.

Went to this maid cafe for dinner. Crap service and the girls not too good but it was cheap. 1100 yen for chicken basket and ice coffee. Hurray for my katakana reading skills! Thinking of trying another maid cafe for lunch tomorrow. :)

Went to Taito Nambo for some SSF4. Went to Athena arcade before that and couldn`t even find an SF4 machine. Lots of Melty Blood and that lan like Gundam game players. Went on a tear and managed to beat B level Makoto and Ryu player. Feeling pretty good and then a B level Gen player beat me twice. I play Gen as well but don`t have much idea how to fight him. He outfootsies Abel and can easily punish a block wheel kick with c.mp hands -> fadc etc. He was outfootsieing (sp) me the whole two games and I really need to learn to option select to not let him escape as getting in is hard. Problem is, Abel`s option select are either for backdash or vertical jump and it can be very painful if you choose the wrong one. I think I needed to play like a wall and slowly push him into a corner. Right I`m C+ or CC rank. Let`s see if I can push it to B by the end of my trip. Thanks to bframe5 for registering my user name.

Another pic from Den Den Town.

The walkway from Namba station to Nipponbashi station.

Now for the exciting part. Arrived back in Fukushima around 9.45 decided to head to the bar that me and the boys went to last year. Totally forgot the bar was at the top floor and not the second. Walked into the second floor bar and I was like, wait a minute,what happened to the bar I knew. And why are there 5 chicks serving the counter? Turns out it was a snack I since the girl at the door invited me in, why the hell not.

Taked to the first girl, did introductions etc etc and turns out she stayed in Melbourne for 3 months last year! And her English is pretty good! I`m thinking the power that be must have planned this shit for me! Had and awesome time at the snack. The two ojiisan next to me were very fun to talk to. Nothing impresses Japanese like gaijin that speaks Japanese and knows a lot about Japanese entertainment. The only thing missing was karaoke which they had but there was only one screen in the middle of the bar and no one was really singing.

The boss of the place actually went to Sabah before. (its north of my hometown in Malaysia) Lots of interesting conversations including Hokuto no Ken, the customers and snack girls trying their English, Kyabakura and how Japanese entertainment is idol based. It is a joy to meet girls who are not fans of Johnnys or Korean dudes. Actually I was planning to not stay overnight in Osaka for a concert next week but after discovering this awesome snack, I`m tempted to stay overnight. Problem would be if I did a lot of shopping I would have to carry it all the way to Osaka and back to Tokyo.

English speaking girl is not working tomorrow unfortunately. There was a cute girl called Megumi (I think) who`s birthday was tomorrow. One cool dude next to me who`s name I have now forgotten gave her a shawl for a present. Should have stayed until midnight but I was shown the bill for 9000 yen after my second hour and thought that was what I owed them. Turns out its what I would have to pay for the third hour and I only had to pay 6000 yen. Why didn`t I say I would stay another hour! Fucking stupid idiot. And I should have asked whether I could take a picture!

Gah, will definitely fucking go back tomorrow. Too bad English speaking girl doesn`t yet know her work schedule for next week. If I decide to stay in Osaka Friday and Saturday next week, that would mean I have to leave all my shopping for Sunday. Hhhmm, I`ll see how much fun I have tomorrow. Question is do I go for more SF at Taito Namba or try Sega Joypolis? Need to find a nice snack to go to in Tokyo. I wonder if Iino would know any? I think instead of figures, I will be spending most of my money this trip on snacks, lol.

Day 4 - Love Plus Arcade!!!!

There is a typhoon currently sweeping through Japan which can be a good thing depending on how much wet girls struggling with their umbrellas in crazy strong winds does it for you. Just saw on the news footage from Okinawa of people crouching on the trying not to get blown away by the typhoon. Scary stuff.

Mitsushima Hikari on tv.

Yum, Unagi lunch. The set I ordered was to be eaten ochazuke style, ie scoop rice and unagi onto bowl, pour tea on it and a mix with wasabi and green onions but I found that it gets rid of the unagi taste.

The cause of Japan`s population problem. If you`ve never heard of the game, its a girlfriend sim that came out on the NDS and is very popular for some reason....

One game costs 300 yen and you get to do on a date with the girl of your choice. Do well and you might get another mini game, I mean date.

Somehow I lucked out after crashing and burning on my first date and got this fashion show mini game. :)

The game is touch screen based with two buttons on either side. There`s also a jack for using your own earphones and a card save system.

Janken game where if you win, you need to mash the right buttom quickly to hit her on the head before she can defend herself and if you lose, you need to mash the left button to defend.

Someone doing the wrong thing and whacking her even when he lost.

And your rewards are photos that you take of the girls during the game. You can crop and zoom the pictures and even put the time stamp on it. The only reason I tried this game was for research purposes.

Katsu curry with cheese.

Day 3 : Yokkaichi!

I`m pretty drunk right now so I`m going to let the pictures do the talking.

Got up in the morning, packed my bags and it was off to Tokyo to catch the shinkansen.

View from Shinkansen.

Had to stop at Nagoya and took a train to Yokkaichi.

View from outside Kintetsu station in Yokkaichi.

Another picture while waiting for bframe5.

Katsudon for lunch, yum.

We went to Nagoya for the Jump shop. Yes, its a store selling all manner of memorabilia of Jump mangas.

Who would have thought after so many years, you could find a brand new awesome quality Slam Dunk poster! The only thing missing from the poster is Haruko chan!

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. That is an actual pokemon centre in Nagoya. No idea what they actually do to the poor pokemon at this centre though.

Aarr-kun is probably kicking himself for not coming here. No sign of Team Rocket though.

The pokemon `union room`, whatever that means. Is this where little pikachu`s are created?

Picture from Sakae, the main area of Nagoya. Went with bframe to the type of shops that gyarus like to congregrate and I had a good time washing my eyes.

After that we went back to Yokkaichi for dinner at an Okinawan izakaya.

More Okinawan food. Oh yeah, they had two 15 year old girls working at the Izakaya. :) The best thing I had there was the baka umai cha-han.

After that was the highlight of the night and of my trip so far. Went to very nice snack serviced by two beautiful girls. It had karaoke and it was time to use my hiragana training and actually sing some Japanese songs and impress Japanese girls. Got to sing

1) Ohyama Yurika - Sayonara
2) Ozaki Yutaka - Oh My Little Girl (harder to sing than I thought)
3) Zone - Secret Base (one of my favourite songs ever but the speed of the song was actually a bit too fast for my inept furigana reading speed.)
4) Matsuura Aya - Watarasebashi (love this song)
5) and a couple of English songs just to keep things interesting.

Thought about singing Yamazaki Masayoshi`s One more chance, one more time but that song is pretty fast and I`m pretty sure my furigana reading can`t keep up.

Most surprising thing is the girls actually played Ryu ga gotoku! Showed them my pictures of kabukicho. It was pretty awesome to be able to discuss one of my favourite game series ever. Life cannot get better than going to a snack, singing songs and having fun conversations. Apologies for lack of pictures but I will definitely be back and hopefully won`t be too drunk to forget. Truly gave me the feeling of I need to come back and do this again next year, hopefully with much better Japanese. Just being able to finally read and sing Japanese songs was very satifying.

One of the customers was talking about this oppai bar he went to where you play strip games against the girls. You get them all the way and they will put sweets/chocolates in between squeezed boobs (he did the motion for us) or even eat the chocolate off her nipple. Sounds very exciting. We opened a new bottle of sochu and it just cost us 7000 yen for the night each. Next time will be cheaper since we have a bottle.

Day 2 - Itano Tomomi is everywhere!!

When I first came to Japan last year, it was mostly the euphoric feeling of yes, I can`t believe I`m actually in Japan! Now since I know what to expect its like the feeling I had when I went back home after my first year in Melbourne. Its like a continuation of my holiday from last year. As if I pressed paused at the end of my trip, had to deal with real life mundane stuff (work) and now I`m just continuing where I left off. Basically the excitement of the first time is no longer there.

I`m a bit concerned about coke that makes you `happy`.

Woke up in the morning around 8 and had a smoke outside watching OLs go to work. Ah, it doesn`t get better than that. Anyway off to Shinjuku for Uniqlo. Kind of lost of way in Shinjuku. I forgot to bring the map for a ramen place we went last year and I couldn`t find my way back. Went past Freshness Burger but couldn`t find my way back to it. While wandering Shinjuku trying to find that ramen place, I think I walked pass 3 Uniqlos. Ended up buying 3 shirts, two gundam and one random shirt for 1500 each. Not a bad price but the quality is a bit thin. They actually had some nice One Piece shirts but I`m not a One Piece fan. Uniqlo should have licensed Berserk or 20th Century Boys instead.

Famous arcway to kabukicho.

During my random walks, I finally ended up at Kubukicho, the real life map for Ryu ga gotoku! No idea how I completely missed it last year! Instead of random yakuza looking for fights, it was random old men trying to sell me dvds. I`m pretty sure they are not selling me hollywood dvds. I wonder if dvds are a code word for something. Unfortunately there`s a huge construction work next to theater square. Is Majima building his Kamuro Hills?Lol. The funny thing is there are an army of hosts in Kubukicho. Even the famous Shichifuku parking lot from the game was covered in host billboards. Didn`t want to take pictures cause wanted to avoid problems. So is kubukicho now the place for lonely Japanese women to go at night? Ended up eating gyudon at yoshinoya.

The very famous Don Quixote store from Ryu ga gotoku/Yakuza.

OMFG its Theature Square! Where`s the freaking phone booth to save my game?

Next stop was Shibuya, or more specifically Shibuya Kaikan, the home arcade of Shiro Abel or who is now known as Shiro Makoto. Had a nice afternoon going from rankless to DDD but I knew that the true competition only comes out in the night. Went back home around 3.30 pm and had a short nap.

At the end of the night, I ended up with a C rank and a 23-19 record.

Woke up 5ish . I had been thinking about getting  a 3DS so off to Yodobashi Akiba. Might as well get it earlier rather than later. Tried out the demo of Biohazard 3DS and well, the 3D didn`t blow me away. You had to keep it at a certain angle for the 3D to work and I found myself having to readjust all the time. So I thought better than didn`t get one. There`s no game that`s really worth getting on 3DS at the moment. The main reason to get one now for me is that flash carts for the NDS work on the 3DS and there are a lot of NDS games I want to play. On the other hand, I`ve got a lot of unplayed games on my PSP so for now, I holding out on the 3DS until LovePlus 3DS comes out. Its currently selling at 25000 yen brand new but I wonder how much second hand ones cost.

The mass of humanity at Shibuya.

Went to Shinjuku and had Burger King for dinner. Before you laugh at me for going all the way to Japan for Burger King, have a look at the burger called Meat Monster!

Its basically a double whopper plus bacon and extra piece of really juicy chicken on top. Not like the dry chicken pieces we get in Melbourne. ALl that it needs is an extra slice of bacon and an egg. Hhmmm.

True enough, the crowd at Shinjuku Kaikan at night was different. Lots of high Bs and A level players. And I got destroyed. Raped. Killed. There was a boxer and dictator that I just couldn`t beat. They just weren`t textbook flowchart. Lots of frame traps in links that I`ve never seen including from a Dee Jay player. There was an incredible Juri player who though was BB+, had an incredible 9 win streak. He had block strings, frame traps and option selects that I couldn`t believe and crazy use of ultra 1. I couldn`t even comprehend a lot of what he was doing and all I learned from the fight was unless you had a DP, don`t push buttons when Juri is doing an attack string in the corner.

I`m sleeping in a box in the wall.

Fought a 250000BP Ken. I thought this was a match up I new very well but instead I played like the noobie that I am. The best way I can describe it is its as if his Ken is freestyle instead of flowchart. His jump in so hard to anti air with Abel because he can either do normal attack jump in or tatsu. Managed to win after 5 tries but I`m pretty sure he let me win as he wanted to leave. Oh yeah, Shinbuya Kaikan is only 50 yen per play, best of three rounds and of course ashtrays everywhere. Nice old school dirty arcade.

I feel like a fucking noob. Lets not mention one A level Cammy. I don`t think Abel has an option select against her dive kicks. I didn`t see Shiro but getting trashed by A and B level players has opened my eyes to how crap I am. I remember fighting a BBB textbook flowchart boxer last year at Big Box and thought I`m not too bad. Yesterday, I saw a BB+ Juri killing people I can`t even beat.

Its still fun to watch them play. Japanese players play SF4 different from other people. It just feels more creative and I saw lots of wacky character specific option select stuff. There was a Ken c.LK, c.HP option select against Blanka`s ex rainbow ball escape on wakeup. Probably the most memorable thing I saw was after Ken`s fadc Ultra 1, lk or mk tatsu to cross over prone body, jump up and kara tatsu. Right now my aim is to get to B level. Let`s see how much SF I can get in the next two weeks plus.

Couldn`t do my blog last night cause people were hogging the pcs. Tried to do on my Galaxy S but Opera and the default web browser couldn`t type in blooger. WTF. Was too tired to wait up and for the first time ever in years, I slept before 1am.