Hiroshima Trip, Day 2

The next day started out with a breakfast buffet at the hotel. These places usually get a lot of international guests, so their breakfast items skew a bit more western than is usual for places in Japan. I took advantage of the circumstance to have my first bowl of cereal since mid-September. It had been so long!

One of the many memorials for the bomb victims.

Most of the day was focused on highly depressing World War II A-bomb exhibitions. We went to a number of museums and peace memorials and talked with an A-bomb survivor who was just a little girl 2.4 kilometers away from the bomb when it went off. We also heard a talk from Dr. Robert Jacobs of the Hiroshima Peace Institute about the history and development of nuclear weapons.

I don't really want to spend too much time on this, because while Hiroshima is certainly a historic site and host to one of the most tragic losses of civilian life in modern history,  I could only take so much of it. Walking from exhibit to exhibit displaying videos of dying Japanese children with radiation burns and maggots in their wounds and wax models of mothers and babies with their skin melting off of them was just emotionally draining. Everyone in the group was just shambling along with these glum looks on their faces. I guess I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn about this event right where it happened, but planning all of that for the same day within the span of just a few hours probably wasn't the best way to go about educating us.

Moving on.

Where are all the buildings? I forgot land could be green...

Late in the day we headed to our final destination: the island of Miyajima. I have to say, the Miyajima visit has to be my favorite thing I've done since coming to Japan. I'll get more into it in a future post, as we spent all of our third day there. We took a train from our Hiroshima hotel and crossed the water on a ferryboat. When we finally arrived, we were met by a place completely different from anywhere we had gone before. The island was very rural and covered in lush greenery. The island is famous for its giant red tori gate sticking out of the water, and its enormous population of adorable sika deer. These deer were everywhere, and unlike the skittish deer from back in the States, these ones would come right up to you and let you pet them. They just walked the streets alongside the visitors. There were a lot of incredible things on this island, but for whatever reason, the deer stood out to me the most.

I still can't believe the view we had from our room.

We checked into our traditional tatami-matted rooms in groups of five. It was indeed a lot of people to a room, but the rooms were actually rather spacious, so it wasn't a problem. Of course students were divvied up by gender, and there are only five guys in our program, so we were all in the same room. We dropped off our stuff and used the remaining time before dinner to walk the streets and check out the shops. They had those katana-hilted umbrellas for the equivalent of like $10. I really wanted to pick one up, but I never got around to it. Ah, well.

We headed back to the hotel after a while, changed into our (provided) yukata, and had a traditional fixed-menu Kaiseki-style Japanese dinner. There were too many dishes to count. There was some pretty weird stuff on my plates, but I made a point of trying everything. I remember there was tuna, squid, salmon, oysters, miso, rice, fruit, custard, a fish's face, lots of veggies I didn't recognize, tempura, aaand . . . other things I can't remember. I tried a fish eye, and yep, that was pretty weird.

The deer! They were everywhere!

After dinner, pretty much everyone headed over to the hotel's public baths for a relaxing way to wind down after the long day. The public nudity thing is still a bit weird as a foreigner, but I'm getting used to it. Note that these were indeed divided by gender.

Everyone eventually headed up to their rooms and stayed up way too late before finally calling it a night.

Hiroshima Trip, Day 1

Side view of the Shinkansen. It makes Speedy Gonzales
look like regular Gonzales!

Okay, so I'm just going to stop making promises about new posts at this point because I never seem to deliver on them. However! This most recent outing is most definitely worth cataloguing. I'd say it's my favorite thing I've done here so far. And to think I almost didn't make it!

The evening before the three-day trip was set to begin, I suddenly came down with a fever of a little over 100 degrees and threw up about eight times over the course of the night. Not fun. My host family had been dealing with the same bug since a day or two before, but they seemed to be getting over it pretty fast, so I figured I'd just  wear a face mask (that's what people do when they get sick here), take some medication, and go, hoping for the best.

We planned our invasion for hours before
finally deciding to enter via the front door.

Saturday was pretty rough, but we didn't actually do all that much. Most of the day was spent on the Shinkansen, which is the Japanese bullet train. The ride was about four hours, but it really didn't feel that long. The train was so comfortable; there was plenty of leg room, no seat belts, seats that leaned back surprisingly far, and you could get up and walk around whenever. It was pretty much the opposite of an airliner.

Once we arrived, we took a tram to our hotel to check into our rooms and drop off our luggage. I was in a two-person room with one of the other guys. Next, we met up with our tour guide, Ms. Yukiko Uehira (who I have to say, was the most awesome tour guide I've had in years). She looked to be in her 50s, but had dry sense of humor uncharacteristic of her age. She actually seemed to fit in with the students better than the staff, much to our delight.

Uehira-san took us on a tour of the Hiroshima Peace park, which was built in remembrance of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. People regularly bring strings of 1,000 paper cranes to the memorial of a young girl who died of leukemia following the spread of radiation from the bomb. Large plexiglass cases contain over 10 million cranes people have folded as a symbol of respect for those who died. There's actually art within the cases made by arranging the many cranes and using their colors like pixels to form pictures.

"So we'e gonna take some soba noodles, put 'em on a crepe
thing, throw some bacon on 'em, toss an egg in there, put
some veggies in for good measure,  then cover it
in sauce. Sound good?" "Um...yes."

Hirosima Castle was up next. This is an actual ancient Japanese castle. Of course it doesn't have to defend its walls much these days, but it was still incredible to enter and ascend to the top. The architecture is just so different from anything back home.

That night we went out for dinner at one of Hiroshima's okonomiyaki restaurants. As for what okonomiyaki is, I'm just going to have to rely on the picture, because I don't really know how describe it other than a cooked pile of awesome stuff. Supposedly Hiroshima has the best okonomiyaki in Japan, and I have to say, it really was delicious. I had been avoiding food for the earlier part of the day due to my stomach bug, but I decided to indulge in dinner and cross my fingers, hoping not to see that food again until it had been thoroughly digested. (Great success on that front, by the way. I was pretty much better by that night.)

We walked around town a bit after dinner on our way back to the hotel. The amount of Christmas lights in Hiroshima is absurd. Everything is covered in twinkling lights and hollow light sculptures line the streets. It was absolutely surreal; I felt like I was in a dream.

And soon I was after snuggling into bed for a good night's rest.

Halloween Festivities at Tokyo Disney Sea

"So you're studying in a foreign country, and you decide to go to . . . Disneyland. How exotic." No, Snarky Hypothetical Voice, I went to Disney Sea. Totally different. Kind of.

"This is Halloween. This is Halloween.
Pumpkins scream in the dead of night!"

This was actually what I did for Halloween, and I had an awesome time. A friend and I went to Tokyo Disney Sea's Halloween festival and indulged in all kinds of spooky decorations, fun rides, elaborate shows, and expensive food.

I should probably explain what Disney Sea is first, as I didn't really know until the day before I went. Much like how California's Disneyland is actually two parks (Disneyland and California Adventure), and Florida's Disney World is four parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios), Tokyo's Disneyland is two parks: Disneyland and Disney Sea. From the maps of each I saw, Disneyland looked to be essentially a copy pasta of the Anaheim and Orlando parks, but Disney Sea looked completely different. So we ended up going to Disney Sea.

Very well-designed park overall. Each area
had a unique atmosphere.

The whole park has a strong water focus. It's not actually a waterpark, but there are a lot of harbor, waterfront, and ship motifs. Most of the park is centered around a large lake that plays host to a variety of elaborate water shows. There was actually an "American Waterfront" section of the park, where I found my first sandwich since coming to Japan. (Thinking of you guys, HSU sandwich crew!) There were a few attractions from other Disney parks--Tower of Terror, for example. That was actually kind of amusing. The ones back in the States have a Twilight Zone theme, but seeing as Twilight Zone isn't really a thing over here, there's a completely different backstory to the ride involving some sort of Egyptian artefact's curse, I think. It was all in Japanese, so it was kind of hard to parse out what was going on.

O_O

Anyway, for the most part, though, the rides were unique to the park, or at least unknown to me. There was an Indiana Jones ride based around the new movie. Fortunately no part of it incorporated Shia LaBouf. There was a coaster that stood out, since Disney parks don't generally do much with coasters, as well as a Journey to the Center of the Earth ride, that took us through a large volcano at the center of the park.

Japan's food continued to be good here, though because of the exchange rate and the fact that it was a Disney park, there were pretty much two compounded levels of price hiking. I definitely saw a soda for about the equivalent of $7.

The decorations were probably the best part though. I'm a total sucker for Halloween--it's my favorite holiday--so to get to be in the midst of such elaborate Halloween festivities was pretty surreal. The entire park was dressed in orange, black, and purple decorations, Jack-o'-Lanterns lined the walkways, gravestones and ghosts appeared on signs around the park, and the streetlights were decorated in a manner which had each bulb replaced with a full-size pumpkin. So cool. The evening's fireworks show was also set to Halloween music and featured some orange and green Jack-o'-Lantern-shaped fireworks.

This globe gave me some perspective on just how far away
I am. I had to walk almost all the way around to find home :(

It was nice to have some down time too, though. There was a big ship permanently docked as a part of the park. We headed up to the deck, hung out by the prow, and just took in the lights. It was really nice...

All in all an excellent way to spend Halloween. There weren't that many costumes though. Halloween is still a relatively new holiday over here, so it's still gaining traction. We saw a few people dressed up, but not many. Trick-or-Treating doesn't happen much over here either. Though toward the end of the night park staff began handing out candy to the guests. I said "trick or treat" before the man handed me mine, so I'm gonna count that.

These lights were so cool!

One more post to come. The Sophia Festival was this past weekend, and I want to convey just how awesome that was. Until next time!

Super Potato Adventure Excursion Crazy Fun Time GO!

I'll take that one, and that one, and that one . . . and that one.

Okay, this is getting kind of ridiculous. This place needs some TLC, and I feel like giving it. I'm going to reach way back into the archives of my memory and devote this post to Super Potato. It was some time ago now that I went, but that place really deserves a mention.

It's ostensibly a retro gaming shop in Akihabara, but it's more like a retro gaming museum. The entire place is stuffed floor to ceiling with games, systems, and merchandise ranging from modern items to those from the '80s. The store itself is rather inconspicuous, tucked away on an upper floor of some alleyway building. Actually, it's more like it's tucked away on a few upper floors of a building.

Maybe I should go back for that Famicom...

The store itself is divided into three floors, the lowest of which is devoted to NES, SNES, N64, and PS1 era merch. There was a Virtual Boy kiosk set up, and I got to play some Wario game (which seems to be just about the only Virtual Boy game anyone knows). I can see how using one of those things for more than about 5 minutes could result in eye failure and permanent insanity. There was also a shelf completely packed with original Famicoms. They were only like 3,000 yen, and I almost bought one. There was a sealed Japanese copy of Smash Bros. 64 that was calling my name too. This whole store was pretty much filled with collectors items I wanted but had no practical use for. I actually got out of there only about 1,000 yen lighter and one nifty deck of official Zelda playing cards heavier.

The next floor was more familiar to me, as it was stocked with Gameboy, Gamecube, and PS2 items. There was a Pokemon Gold/Silver special edition Gameboy Color for about $30 my friends had to pry me away from. If there's something I've taken from all of this exposure to Japan's games, it's that their boxes are way cooler than ours. Pretty much system for system up until the last generation, where packages finally became somewhat uniform between regions, the Japanese game boxes are just way cooler than ours. They're generally smaller, thinner, and more dense with artwork.

Of course they had a boxed copy of 1994's
Super Metroid. What store wouldn't?
(Every other store)

The final floor was interesting, but nothing too special. It was packed with arcade machines, but also cigarette smoke. I walked around and checked out some of the machines before I felt my lungs start to give out. It would have been more interesting if every other building in Akihabara didn't already have like three arcades in it.

It's hard to explain just how ridiculous this place was, but I'll let some photos do the rest of the talking for me.

I feel bad about not updating for so long, so I actually have a few more posts ready to go up right now. I'm going to wait a day or so between each of them though, because I'm a tease like that. See you in a day or two (for real this time).

Week . . . 4? 5? 6?: The I Don't Know How Much More Milage I Can Get Out of this Title Format

So this is why they say it's so hard to keep blogs going.

Full size model of the Laputan robot from
Castle in the Sky.

I really don't have much time to write tonight--I'm sorry, I'm sorry!--but I told a friend I'd at least post something, so here we go. Did you see my nifty little link to my photo gallery over on the right? I put that up a bit ago. Until I figure out how to integrate a slideshow into Blogger, that'll be the way to keep up with my photos (or Google+ or Spacebook, of course).

Can't see him too well, but the guy in the
white wolf mask was awesome.

I went to the Studio Ghibli Museum with the group last week. That was pretty spectacular. The whole building looks like it's straight out of one of his movies. Photos weren't allowed inside, so the only pics I have are of the building and the surrounding area. The inside was packed with sketches, paintings, models, and all kinds of phenomenal art. I even got to see a Studio Ghibli short film made exclusively for the museum. Pretty much heaven on Earth for a Ghibli buff like myself. I took home a few nifty trinkets from the gift shop, which I'll snap some pictures of soon.

Okay, I have a Japanese test tomorrow morning and a paper due tonight, but I'll regale you with one more tale. Yesterday I went to the Kawagoe Festival, where I learned how amazing street vendor food can be and how terrifying crowds can be. The big attraction is these large parade float-like vehicles pulled along by 30 or so people tugging two big ropes. When two of the vehicles met, the riders would have some sort of Shinto-style dance competition, before one float trudged away the victor. At least, that's about how much I got out of it. It was a lot of fun, though the crowds were so dense that sometimes you just had to let them push you along in a direction. Just because you want to go right doesn't mean you're gonna go right.

I'm actually going to be getting paid to write for the CIEE blog, so I'll likely repost that material here when I write it, or just provide a straight link to my posts. Either way, financial incentive means you're going to keep seeing posts from me. I'll try to have the next one done in the next few days.

Oh, and I suppose it's worth noting I'm dating someone now. So that's fun.

Laters!

Week 3: The Reunion

Oh, hello there. I didn't hear you come in. I've missed you. Care to catch up?

Despite approximately a week of absence, there really isn't all that much to report. Things are starting to become routine over here, as odd as that seems. Waking up at 7 a.m., eating soup, rice, and fish for breakfast, taking the train to school, studying all sorts of things, then taking the train back home—it's life these days. Or at least, that's what it's been for the past week or so.

Er. Mah. Gerd.

I did head over to the Pokemon Center with a group of friends, however, and that was quite the experience. A whole store packed with every sort of Pokemon merchandise imaginable: toys, cards, plushies, food, school supplies, models, clothes, phone charms, games, dishes, you name it. It was awesome. I bought like five phone charms, a chibi Lugia plushie, a compilation of concept art, two folders, a figurine, and some stickers. Once again, Black and White 2 were right in front of my nose, but I was holding out for the English versions (which are out now, by the way. Waiting on Amazon as I type.)

Classes are quite good. My comparative literature class on detective fiction probably takes the cake. It's just so interesting! We're studying Edgar Allan Poe's short mystery bender at the moment. So far we've read The Murders on Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter, and The Raven (the last of which isn't really a mystery—but whatever.)

I'm also really enjoying my linguistics class. It's all about nit-picky language minutia, which is completely my thing. Unfortunately, the professor has this vocal tic where he draws out most of his vouls into "uuuuuuum's" or "eeeeeeeeer's" or "aaaaaaaaaah's." In a class all about the sounds we make,  it's rather maddening.

View of the city from the 17th floor of Building 2.

My sociology class is super interesting as well. It's really strange to see how different the Japanese value system is from the American value system. In America we value individualism and rebellion, but here those things are seen as kind of immature, as conformity and group wellbeing are kind of at the center of everything. I'm still trying to figure out if I agree with that perspective.

My Japanese class is going quite well too. It's a good mix of old and new to me. I know a decent amount of the grammar we're learning, but I don't know quite a bit of the vocabulary and kanji, so I'm picking those up. (I'm pretty sure I know more than 100 kanji now. Woo!)

There was a baseball game that some of the CIEE kids went to as well, but I passed on that one. Talking to some of them now, though, I'm kind of wishing I hadn't. Not that many of them are actually into baseball, but they said it was a great time. Apparently everyone got free jerseys too. I want more free stuff...

Oh yes...

Speaking of (not) free stuff, my TV/monitor thing I ordered a while back showed up today. Playstation-branded 24" 3DHD screen a-go-go! PS3 is now up and running as well. So many things I want to play! Resident Evil 6, Borderlands 2, Dishonored—but NO! WHAT'S THIS!? PSN won't take my credit or debit cards! Shut up and take my money, PSN! I'm trying to figure out what the deal is. It seems that some places will take my cards but others are complaining about my billing address being wrong. (Which it's not.) *sigh*

Anyway, oh what else? I shuffled my room around. I now have three bed pads snugly stacked over in the corner as opposed to my one in the middle of the room I had before. My desk changed spots and my shelves got scooted over to make room for the bed. My clothes have been relegated to the closet at this point. (What an idea!) My PS3 and TV are now at my desk and the room is slowly starting to fill up with gaming memorabilia.  It doesn't sound like much, but moving around, sleeping, and lounging are all a lot easier now. This is starting to resemble home more and more.

They were surprisingly organized for such little kids.

I went to my imouto's undoukai this past weekend. I'm not entirely sure how that translates to English—like sports festival, athletic meet, or something. It was basically a bunch of kindergarteners and their parents doing joint games and relay races and such. It was cute.

Okay, I think that's enough for now. Writing this blog was my excuse to put off doing homework, but I think I should probably get to that now.

See you next week-ish or so, maybe, I think!

Days 11, 12, & 13: The Recap

Did I say daily updates? I meant the other thing.

Checked out the kendo club, which was terrifyingly intense.

Anyway, not much happened on Thursday. It was a free day, so I hung out with a friend in Shibuya.

Friday, as the first day of classes, was much more eventful. It was only kind of a real class day though. It's supposed to be a day for "shopping" for classes, so students can attend any class without registering to see if it's to their liking. Only a few of the classes I want to check out meet on Fridays though, so I just went to three classes that day.

The first was my Japanese 150 class. This is the one I was placed into based on the results of my language placement test. I'm actually quite happy with the results. This is a class between Japanese 1 and Japanese 2. We reviewed some of the material we should already know for the class, and I knew most of it, but it looked like the later stuff would be new to me. I'm pretty sure this is the best one for me.

Tori are so cool! Plus lots of great stonework on display.

The second class I attended was "Comparative Literature." I figured it would be a comparison of Japanese and English literature, and I almost didn't go because I had started to lean toward another class. I am so glad I went. What the basic class listing didn't have was the full title: "Comparative Literature 344: The Development of Crime and Detective Fiction." Hey, why don't you take this moment to guess what one of my favorite things is? It looks like the whole class will be on detective fiction from around the world, and I am PSYCHED. The professor seemed like a great guy too. I am so ready for this class.

The third class was . . . I think Contemporary Society in Japan. It's a sociology class. Unlike my other classes, which have around 15 people in them, this one is more like 100. The teacher lectured for about 90 minutes at sonic boom-inducing speeds, then turned us free. The first meeting of this class was fairly forgettable, but it sounds like the material we cover will be interesting. Plus, a number of my friends are in that class.

Just one of the many temples we saw today.

On Saturday the group headed to Kamukura Town to check out some tori, shrines, and ancient Japanese architecture. I was late getting there due to a missed train, but I caught up with the group in time for an awesome traditional fixed-meal-style lunch of rice, salmon, tuna, tempura, salad, and a number of other delicious items. After lunch we headed around town to check out some of the more interesting spots. The Totoro store was of particular interest. The entire store was devoted to Miyazaki films and merchandise (though items from Howl's Moving Castle were conspicuously absent). We also stopped for some ice cream. It's amazing; green tea ice cream is a pain to find in the States, but it's like vanilla to them here. It's everywhere!

We continued on to see more shrines, and a giant Buddha. The day ended at the beach, where a few of us ventured into the tides to cool off.

School's now started, so these updates will likely become less frequent. I'll probably post once a week, or more often if something particularly awesome inspires a post. Until next time!

Day 10: The School Visit

This is part of the program I'd been dreading since before I took off. I was told a few days before boarding the plane that everyone would be visiting a Japanese elementary school and doing short activities with the kids of our choice. I got assigned to the second grade class. I couldn't imagine the second graders would speak much English—and my Japanese still isn't good enough to effectively communicate with people on the fly—so coming up with an appropriate activity was somewhat confounding.

O_O

The visit was spectacular. We received a welcome fit for royalty. The entire school gathered in the gym to greet us, bearing flower archways for us to pass through as hundreds of children bathed us in song. We made our way onto the front stage, where we witnessed an amazing taiko drumming performance, followed by another song. Two young representatives of the school then greeted us in English and Japanese to which two of our students responded in Japanese and English. Children from each grade level then took our hands and led us to our respective classrooms.

Japanese elementary schools are amazing—and huge. This one was five floors, and each floor stretched far and wide. None of the classrooms were completely divided either, there were classroom-sized alcoves branching off from the main hallways, but there were no doors to them. Each only had three walls as well. One side of the classroom was completely open to the hallway, so they really weren't very separated at all.

Cranking up the adorable factor to 11.

The students were studying Japanese, kanji, calligraphy, math, and what I guess translates as socioeconomics. I joined my class just as they were preparing for lunch. The students actually served each other, donning white chef clothes and filling up trays with rice, fish, pears, vegetables, and milk. Everyone was very polite, so no one would start eating until everyone had been served. One student then lead the class' "itadakimasu" (customary to say before eating to show appreciation for food) and everyone dug in. Even then, though, there was a required three minutes of silence before people could converse during lunch. Once we were all finished, another student lead the class' "gochisousamadeshita" (said at the end of a meal to show appreciation for food). These 7-year-old children were all so polite and well behaved. It was startling.

This is just a small part of the outside area.
This school is huge!

We then went outside for lunch break and played Sprint-For-Like-15-Minutes tag, which had me and the rest of the foreign participants gasping for air and begging for water by break's end.

We went back inside and another CIEE student and I lead our classes in a game of Four Corners—which I hadn't played since elementary school. It went surprisingly well, considering I had trouble explaining the rules in Japanese.

We finally said our goodbyes to the students, and headed up to the roof to see the pool (this place has a 5th-floor rooftop pool!) and watch the children depart from above.

It was such a special opportunity to be a part of a foreign elementary school for a day and see how another part of the world does things—and the welcome ceremony had me tearing up. I'm so thankful to have been a part of this.

My elementary school didn't have a rooftop pool...

I headed out to Harajuku with some friends that night for some food and fun, but this post has already gone on long enough. I'm thinking these will probably become less regular once classes start and my days become even more busy. I'll likely switch to a weekly format at some point. For now, though, expect daily updates.

Oh, and this is for you guys, Aislyn and Pat.

Day 9: The Escape

Not much to report from today. Lots more orientations, plus lunch.

I was getting kind of tired of the all-out assault on the senses that is metropolitan Tokyo, so a friend and I headed out to find some greenery today. There are actually some really nice parks here, if you can ignore the noisy trains barreling past every few minutes and the relentless mosquitoes. We just kind of stumbled onto this place and explored from there. It makes me think there are probably a number of these places if you just know where to look. Google Maps, ho!

Tomorrow we're all headed to an elementary school to do some activities with the kids. I'm with the second graders, so I'm thinking I'll play 4 Corners with them. Do they already have that in Japan?

The last time I saw this much green in one place, I was drinking Melon Soda.

Not sure what all of these are trying to convey, but most of them look really unhappy.

Where's a Portal Gun when you need it? 

Holy snap, trees!

And wide open spaces? I thought there was a law against that in Tokyo.

Super peaceful way to wind down the day.

How can I get one of these in my room?

We walked by a fitness club on our way through here. The Japanese like their tennis.

Baseball is pretty much the biggest thing since sliced squid gonads here.

Day 8: The [REDACTED]

Today was a good day, but one I'm going to keep to myself . . .

Here are some pictures of Akihabara though.

So many Gundam models at this place. They were pretty cheap too.

Figures were everywhere. Some I recognized, most I didn't.

The entire third floor of this huge store was covered with these things. Good luck
finding something like this in the States.

An obscene amount of decent anime and manga, and a decent amount of obscene anime and manga.

You could barely see the walls in this place, there were so many posters.

I really wanted shreddin' Jack Skellington, but it in was one of those rigged crane games.

More Dragon Ball. It's like air to these people.

Some sort of, like, arcade Pokemon battle arena game? This guy would alternate
mashing these two buttons at supersonic speed to do . . . something.

This one's for you, Richard.

Day 7: The Swag

Oh yes, this just happened.

Today I went to the Tokyo Game Show with a few friends from the group. That place was insane—so many people, so many games, so much swag! This was the first game con I've ever been to, so it was pretty overwhelming. There were lights and signs everywhere, blasting music, character costumes, and people yelling through microphones and handing me stuff . . . now that I read that again, it sounds just like the rest of Japan.

Anyway, I got to play a bunch of unreleased games that I'm dying to pick up. I got to check out Metal Gear Rising at the Konami booth, which was spectacular. I played a bit of Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney, which was pretty much impossible without knowing the language. "Solve these word puzzles! Cross examine this witness!" "Umm, watashi no Nihongo wa chotto warui desu..." The game looks like it's going to be fantastic, though, and it's awesome to get to say I played it.

It wouldn't be a con without booth babes.

I got to get my hands on a Wii U for the first time as well. I played against one of my friends in the Wii U version of Tekken. The system was pretty cool, Tekken less so, but that's just a preference issue.

I didn't actually play them, but I got to see quite a bit of Project X Zone, the Sega/Capcom/Namco Bandai crossover mash-up game which looks like an insane mess of crazy and awesome. Who doesn't want to see Resident Evil's Jill Valentine duke it out with .hack's Kite? Nobody, that's who. I also saw some of Professor Layon 6. (We don't even have 5 in the States yet. What's up with that?) I also saw some of Ace Attorney 5, Resident Evil 6, and a bunch of other stuff that's slipping my mind right now.

I had so much swag that I couldn't fit it all in my
swag bag. It's pretty much the best problem to have.

Let's see, what else did I do? I picked up a bunch of awesome junk from the Square Enix Booth's store. I got a Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance wall scroll, a plush Kingdom Hearts Meow Wow, a Keyblade keychain, a chibi Cloud figure with his motorcycle, and a deck of Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary playing cards—plus all the free stuff people just kept handing out (except for this one staffer who was being really stingy with the Metal Gear swag).

I got to try takoyaki for the first time today (that's balls of fried octopus for those of you not in the know). It was so good! It actually tastes kind of like pasta. We got dinner out at an udon place tonight, which was also quite good.

It's late and I'm exhausted, so I'm gonna wrap this one up early and put down some pictures to fill space instead. Do note that the center was rather dim, so a lot of the pictures are a bit blurry or poorly lit.

Still questioning if this actually happened or if it was just some sort of fried octopus-induced hallucination.

So much Metal Gear at the Konami booth.

The Level 5 booth had some of the coolest stuff at the show.

Pretty much nothing here I wasn't interested in.

Pfft, yellow Chocobos can't fly; only black ones can do that. Get it together, Square.

Some good ol' fashion Kingdom Hearts cosplay. These girls were super nice too!

Hard to see, but some really cool Kingdom Hearts figures.

The new Professor Layon has me super excited.

I still can't stand most of Evangelion