Enma's Adventures
This blog post will not be split per day and will only have two sections.
Split-up
In the meantime, I was walking around in Osaka (大阪), until my hotel room was ready.
The way to get in the room is pretty smart.
There was a large padlock protected by a 4-digits code on the door, but it didn't lock the door itself, rather the key, which was inside the padlock !
- Input the code
- Open the padlock and take the key
- Open the door, open your mind, never know what you might find
Ahem... I couldn't resist quoting Open the Door by Venjent, teehee !
I bought enough for dinner, and breakfast for the next day.
It was absolutely not time to eat dinner, since it was past midnight already, but I warmed up my bento (弁当), which just means "boxed lunch", in the microwave anyway, and started chowing it down like a starved beast.
Yes, it's Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) again, but the bento (弁当) version !
The green melon milk I bought the evening prior, was absolutely disgusting.
I thought it'd pair well with the melonpan (メロンパン) since both are melon.
How naive of me...
After that disastrous melon breakfast, it was time to board the shinkansen (新幹線) and go back to Tokyo !
Then the Yamanote Line (JY) back to Akihabara (秋葉原) my beloved !
That day, I didn't have any hotel room booked, since I was planning on sleeping in a Kaikatsu Club (快活CLUB), so I just put my belongings in a coin locker until around 22:00.
Gozu walking down street, under the rain, with a menacing presence, ready to silence his enemies.
By the looks of the interior, they were probably in some kind of 2D cafe.
Can you guess where I was in the meantime ? The answer is ...
GAMBLING IN AKIBA GUILD (アキバギルド) !
I kept playing for some time, almost until closing time, and left with $3800 on my account.
The next day, Mezu and Gozu flew back to their home countries.
No matter how long you stay in vacation, it'll always feel short after you left...
o7
Solo
I booked another Japanese-style hotel room, for myself, this time in the Kami-ikebukuro (上池袋) district, which was a 15-minutes walk away from Ikebukuro station (池袋駅)
Note: Ikebukuro is written 池袋, the kanji 駅 means “station” and is pronounced “eki”
After leaving my annoying suitcase at the hotel, I could finally walk around, hands-free !
The mission for a few days has been to find a new sling bag, because the one I had was damaged.
I was walking around with a sling bag in a plastic bag, because it contained all my important belongings, such as my passport and my wallet.
See that yellow plastic bag on the first picture above ? That was it.
I had found a good one in a Don Quijote (ドン・キホーテ), also known as Donki (ドンキ) store in Osaka.
Although, I ended up not buying it, since it didn't fit all my requirements.
It was the perfect size, but didn't have enough pockets.
The contents of my sling bag is worse than a woman's handbag.
I had a PS2 8MB Memory Card from my childhood in that sling bag, and when I showed it to Mezu a few days prior, while we were still in Osaka, he asked me:
Why do you even have this on you ?
It was legit hilarious, I have a lot of gadgets, tools and other things in it, that any other person could judge unnecessary, especially when travelling thousands of kilometers away from home.
But there are some things I always have on my person, even if they're useless, kinda like "good luck charms".
After leaving my luggage at the hotel I roamed around and found an arcade center with an Initial D racing game !
I absolutely had to play it ! But I couldn't play it that day...
I went to get dinner, and by the time I came back, it was already closed...
That thing was amazing, just looking at the picture makes me want to eat it again...
The next day, I walked around Akihabara, trying to find shops that sell sling bags.
I followed the train tracks in the direction of Okachimachi (御徒町) and at some point, found some kind of tunnel mall, located below the tracks with lots of various shops.
The reason it is called Aki-Oka is probably because it is located between the Akihabara and Okachimachi.
Sadly, there weren't any cheap sling bags that fit my requirements in that mall.
The only bag shop I found only had Gucci, Louis Vuitton and other garbage luxury brands.
So I decided to take a train from Okachimachi to Ueno (上野), which was only one stop, since I already walked from Akihabara to Okachimachi.
Once there, I walked to two different Donki stores, which sadly didn't have any good sling bags.
So, the mission is not over yet, I took a train from Ueno to Shinjuku (新宿), which this time, was pretty far from Ueno.
Once there, I tried three different stores, but these stores didn't have the perfect sling bag...
But before I reached the third Donki store in Shinjuku, I decided to take a break and eat dinner.
It was gyudon (牛丼) with a raw egg again, but this time, not at Sukiya (すき家) but a similar chain.
The third store had quite an interesting selection of sling bags, but not exactly what I was looking for.
So I decided to not lose hope, and try one last store before going back to the hotel.
Good thing I did, because I ended up finding what I was looking for, in that fourth store, which was in Shin-Okubo (新大久保) rather than Shinjuku itself.
Satisfied with my purchase, I decided to head home for the day.
On my way to Shin-Okubo station (新大久保駅), I found this 2D cafe which is a 5-minute walk away from the station.
As you might've guessed, I wanted to indulge in a 2D cake so I went in, but it was sold out.
I tried going there on three different occasions, but it was sold out every time, so I gave up on eating a 2D cake...
If I ever go back to Japan, this will be one of my main missions, even if I have to line up 1 or 2 hours before opening time.
Today is a big day, I woke up early-ish, around 10:30, to go to the Sagamihara Vending Machine Museum which was in a used tire shop.
The route to get there was quite tricky, I had to go from:
- Ikebukuro to Shinjuku
- Shinjuku to Machida (町田)
- Machida to Sagamihara (相模原)
- From Sagahamihara station (相模原駅), take a bus to Sagamiharajosuijo (相模原浄水場)
- Walk from Sagamiharajosuijo bus stop to the Used Tire Mart store
Finding the correct bus stop was quite a challenge, especially since I can't read Japanese yet.
Luckily, our good ol' comrade ChatGPT ended up saving me some time and guide me to the correct bus stop.
Otherwise I would've walked there, which would have taken me over an hour of walking, compared to 15 minutes of bus ride.
I expected to be the only nerd interested about old and unusual vending machines, but surprisingly not.
There were a dozen Japanese tourists, and zero foreigners aside from me.
It was an interesting experience, and some unusual products sold in the vending machines.
I bought ramen (ラーメン), oden (おでん) and an overprice water bottle from the vending machines.
The price of plastic water bottles in a konbini (コンビニ) usually range from 100 yen, to around 170 yen, depending on the brand, for a bottle of 500 ml.
This one is 250 yen for 290 ml, which is absolutely insane !
I bought it anyway because it was in a metallic bottle, and because mizu (水) isn't really a brand name, it just means water.
I kept it as a souvenir after drinking it, just like the metallic Red Bull bottle from last year.
Honestly, I was pretty surprised by the quality of the ramen.
It's obviously not as good as restaurant ramen prepared by a chef, but I'd still give it a solid 7/10.
The oden too, especially since it was my first time eating oden, I'd give it a 8/10.
Omikuji (おみくじ) fortunes are usually sold at temples or shrines, so I wasn't expecting to find a vending machine selling them.
I got one for the memes, even if I couldn't read it, and I threw it away anyway, even if I angered some gods.
It's probably just generic bullshit like "you will have good luck in life" typical horoscope shit.
I am not afraid of mere gods, I am the King of Hell.
Come at me fools.
After that, I managed to return to the hotel room early enough, to have time to eat, and go play the Initial D game at the arcade.
It only cost me 100 yen to play, and I ended up playing two races and giving up, because I sucked so bad.
The next day, I went to Gotanda (五反田), which is where Pocketpair's headquarters were located.
For those of you who don't know, Pocketpair is the developer of one of my favorite games of all times: Craftopia.
After that, I returned to Akihabara, roaming around without a goal, and didn't do much.
It was a very dull day, until I fell sick for some reason, probably because of that damn egg sandwich I ate that evening.
Maybe the egg sandwich was just the final nail in the coffin ?
I did live a pretty chaotic lifestyle with all the junk food and sweets from konbini.
That night, was an awful night, I woke up in the middle of the night, at 02:00, with a fever, stomachache, headache, and I vomitted twice, which looked like an omelet on a frying pan.
I did feel slightly better after vomitting, and managed to go back to sleep.
I wanted to wake up early that day to go the beach, which was pretty far from my hotel, so I woke up around 10:30, still feeling like shit, slightly dizzy, so I gave up, and went back to sleep, until around 14:00.
Here we are now, outside, sick, but at least I had enough sleep, so let's go to the beach !
Man, I love simple Torii (鳥居) gates like this one, they're just so beautiful !
Even in Craftopia, the game I mentioned earlier, the entrance of my first base has a Torii gate.
Like two days prior, I had quite a tricky itinerary to take, to reach the beach.
The beach is located in Kugenuma (鵠沼) which is ~70 minutes by train, going from Ikebukuro:
- Ikebukuro to Shinjuku
- Shinjuku to Fujisawa (藤沢)
- Fujisawa to Kugenuma-Kaigan Station (鵠沼海岸駅)
- 10-min walk to the beach
But when all was said and done, we finally reached a point where we can see the sea.
Since I departed and arrived pretty late, I couldn't swim.
Well, I could if I wanted, but the nearby facility, with the coin lockers and showers, closed 10 minutes after I arrived.
So I could swim, but with no coin lockers and showers available to store my belongings and take a shower.
At least I had enough beach and swimming experiences in Busan, where Gozu was my coin locker, and the hotel was 5 minutes away so we didn't have to worry about facilities closing at fucking 17:00.
There weren't even any onsen (温泉) bathhouses nearby !
Basically I came there for nothing, aside from the view, and to breathe some fresh sea air, lol.
Worth it ? Who knows, now time to go back home.
On the way back home, the second local train, that went from Fujisawa to Shinjuku, was packed to the brim.
There was no place to sit, I was sick, on a 40~50 minute train ride, do you see where this is going ?
Along the way, I started getting dizzy, unfortunately, the distance between each train stop was very long.
It felt even longer since I was sick, holding on to not vomit and/or pass out in the train.
The next train stop would be Yamato (大和), I was hoping some seats would free up so I could sit down and relax.
I was grabbing the pole with all the strength I had left, fighting my own body, trying to not puke or pass out, fighting to stay conscious.
The air started feeling heavier, and it was getting harder to breathe.
When the train FUCKING FINALLY arrived at Yamato, and the doors opened, I didn't care if seats freed up or not, I got out of the train, I needed air, I needed to breathe, and some place to sit.
Luckily this station had a waiting room with many chairs, and it was empty, since the other people were boarding the train I just came out of.
I just sat there, and waited there for the next train, for ~20 minutes, which would probably be packed as well, but not a big deal since I got some time to sit and relax.
The next day, I received an e-mail, which would make me go to Akihabara.
I finally own both volumes of the Japanese edition of Monster Girl Encyclopedia (魔物娘図鑑)
I found and bought the second volume in a Surugaya store in Akihabara for 4950 yen a few days prior, but couldn't find the first volume anywhere...
So I ordered the first volume from the Surugaya website for 1320 yen, which was a challenge for someone who can't read Japanese, but my favorite AI agent, Kimi Code helped me order it.
I could either get delivered at the hotel, or pick-up at a selected store, so I chose the latter, and I picked a store in Akihabara.
The aforementioned e-mail was from Surugaya telling me that my package was ready and to come pick it up.
Nice!
Sadly though, I recently learned that the English edition of the first volume features full-color illustrations, while the the original Japanese edition, illustrations are in black-and-white...
Still, the original is the original. I wouldn't trade it for anything... though I might just have to get the English editions of both volumes as well.
Then bought a figure of Tanya Degurechaff from Youjo Senki, or Saga of Tanya the Evil. I got there pretty late, around 19:50, and by the time I checked out, the store was closing.
The following day I went to a cat cafe, but pictures speak louder than words, so here, CATS !
Sadly, the cats there weren't as friendly and playful as the ones we saw in Seoul.
Over the next few days, I had nothing left to do, so I just scoured all of Akihabara, multiple times, to find spots that were shown in Steins;Gate.
The reason I wrote "maybe?" on the annotation above, is that this building is not located at the place Okabe Rintarou points to.
In the first episode, Okabe Rintarou gives a set of instructions on how to reach the Future Gadget Lab, but if you follow his instructions, you'll be in another other street, facing another building.
By following these instructions, you will arrive at the following building:
This image was taken from the following Reddit post.
So I decided to slightly tweak Okarin's instructions, or rather, interpret them differently.
Most people interpret "going down" as following the Chuo Dori starting from the station, but what if "going down" actually meant "going south" ?
Since the station is south of the Suehirouchou (末広町) intersection, going south would mean following the Chuo Dori coming from Ueno, so "turn left" would have you go the opposite direction, since you are coming from the north rather than from the south.
After checking on Google Maps, I notice that I went in the second alley before the traffic light, and not the first, my mistake...
You have to admit, that the building I saw, looks more structurally coherent when compared to anime footage: protruding mailboxes on the left wall, staircases on the left, a store to the right, compared to the picture I took from Reddit, even my instructions are slightly wrong, because of the second alley mistake.
I have been to both locations, but I only took the picture of the altered location.
Here is a low-resolution a screenshot of Organic Maps, the maps app I use, to download save entire map regions for offline usage, showing the two map points with the same green and red lines as the Google Maps screenshot above.
Let's continue the comparison between IRL and Anime locations.
No more pictures to compare with anime footage.
For the last few days, I just continued wandering around, without a goal, aside from wasting time, waiting for my return flight out of this country.
By this time, I was mostly healed of my cold and/or food poisoning symptoms, aside from a cough, so I went to Ueno Park (上野公園), twice.
The second time, I went there in the early afternoon, laid down on the grass, and took a nap.
Note: Ueno is written 上野, the kanjis 公園 mean “park” and are pronounced “ko en”
I would have loved to buy a painting from the hard-working old man, but my suitcase was full of shit already.
It couldn't fit any more junk, but I still wanted to buy some wasabi (わさび).
So I bought some at the 7-Eleven near the station.
Tiny figure of Umaru from Himouto! Umaru-chan
I bought that figure on the very last day, and took that picture at the airport.
It was finally time to get out of this country.