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.