A sad shopping failure

I spent 2 hours walking around the Animate shop and other anime stores in Kanazawa today and spent all of 600 yen. And that was on a set of School Rumble figures I bought because I was ticked at not buying anything else.

What gives?

I think a lot of what was on display was for shows I’m not particularly interested in or have even heard of. Amy also says that this location has only been open for a few weeks so they might have stock issues…

All I can say is, thank goodness I found that anime figurine shop in Osaka! :)

One of the more interesting stores in the building was a doll parts shop. Doll heads, bodies, wigs, outfits… all in pieces you can buy to form your own creation. If I was a local I would definitely give it a shot. The dolls they had on display were beautiful, if a bit goth-like and creepy. (Some of the make up jobs on the dolls were Blade Runner-lite. Not the kind of thing I see sold in Canada.)

I’m going to go back to Kanazawa later in the week and I’ll pop in again to see if they have anything new. I guess for now I will be content with my Osaka purchases and the Totoro music figurine I bought at a craft village.

I actually just went online to check out travelling around in Tokyo for the day since I have about 6 hours to kill between my flight from Komatsu and the one I’m taking to get home. There’s an airport limo shuttle that runs from the Narita airport to various Tokyo destinations… and one of them is Akihabara…

Should I do it? Heh heh. I think I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t. Or at least go back to the Nakano Broadway building where I bought all of my figures last time. But Akihabara is choice number 1 right now.

Now I am off to bed at the absurdly early hour of 11 pm since I have to get up at the even more absurdly early hour of 5:30 am because I am going back to Kyoto for the day. I am going to go to the Kyoto International Manga Museum, which is conveniently located across from Nijo Castle, another hot destination point. I’m not sure what else I’ll have time to do while I’m there.

Starbucks and nabe

Today we headed into Kanazawa to meet up with some of Amy’s friends at Starbucks (I had the sakura cake) and to go to a late evening enkai. During our exploring we found the new location of the Animate store there. It’s conveniently located just up the street from the old location. :) This is the store where I dropped most of my money on the last trip and where I bought most of the random anime merchandise I brought back. I’m going to be a bit better this time around, but it’s still going to be fun. They take Visa. :)

Part of the danger is not only is it just the Animate store, but now it’s in a four story building that’s filled with anime, manga, model/figure parts and Lolita Goth clothes. There’s even a cafe that I’m going to have to visit. I’m going to have a lot of fun exploring the building, though it’s up in the air right now which day I will be going back to shop. Today was just a quick pass through. :) They had some beautiful figures though.

The enkai was fun and I was happy to discover that while I am absolutely crap at remembering Japanese phrases to speak I’m better at figuring out what people are talking about. Well, the really simple conversations they’re polite enough to have around the chick who only speaks English, anyway. :) I got a little impromtu lesson on pronunciation and phrases.

The food was interesting. I was happy it started out with sashimi, battered chicken and roast potatoes because I have a fish aversion and that was what was served for the last two courses. We had nabe that basically had a fish chucked into it which I tried to avoid. I was served some of the veggies that were in the nabe and towards the end of the evening they brought out a big bowl of rice, eggs in a bowl and some chopped onions. (I think they were green onions, anyway.) This was all stirred into the leftover broth and fish left in the nabe pot and I ate some of that once it was checked for fish chunks. :) It was surprisingly tasty! (I had a horror movie moment when I witnessed someone eating a fish eye. Way to combine two of my least favorite things: fish and gross things happening to eyes. Uh!)

All in all an enjoyable evening meeting some friendly Japanese people and watching them interact. The night was capped by watching a drunk man yell at a parked cab while we were waiting to pull into traffic. Our cab driver was laughing at him. It was all quite amusing. I think someone said that he didn’t like the company of the cab that was taking his verbal abuse.

And I still have shopping at Animate to look forward to and another trip to Kyoto on Tuesday. I found out they have a manga museum that opened a couple of years ago and I’m going to try to go.

Normally this would be a practical joke

I mentioned in my last post that one of the souvenirs I got in Kyoto was a small container of candied sakura blossoms. I figured I’d give them a try today and…

I was rather disgustingly reminded that sugar and salt look really really similar. Blech!

Amy doesn’t know why the store was selling salted cherry blossoms, but figured it was a cooking ingredient.

I’m just glad I tried them before giving them to someone as a gift. Amy spit it out when she tried it… I actually swallowed the bit I ate and it took a good two hours to clear the taste.

Beware snack buying in foreign countries!!

Just eat your souvenirs

This blogging while on vacation thing is always harder than I think it will be.  By the time I have time to write I’m wiped and ready for bed.

As you probably know, right now Japan is entering Sakura season.  I had the chance to see some cherry blossom trees in bloom while in Kyoto (they look especially nice next to the plum trees which are more of a pink/purple colour) and they’re beautiful.  I didn’t feel like *too* much of a tourist when I saw all of the Japanese people taking the same kinds of pictures that I did.  Far away, close up, posing in front of the trees…

It’s also the time when sakura snacks hit the market.  The omiage shops are all starting to sell sakura flavoured treats and the sakura Kit kats have appeared in the stores.

That’s what people are getting for souvenirs this trip.  Sakura Kit Kat bars, which are very tasty – cherry flavoured, and very sweet.  I’ve also bought candied sakura blossoms (I’m pretty sure that’s what they are) and today we were in a craft village and I bought some sakura mochi-type treats.   The omiage counters lure people in with free samples and it’s hard to say no to buying things when you know how good they are.  :)

So, sakura treats for everyone!  And Meiji Black chocolate bars.  If you ever have a chance to eat a Meiji Black, go for it.  It’s a very smooth dark chocolate.  I’ve seen other Meiji products around (like on Amazon) but so far I’ve only been able to get the black bars from Japan.  I even asked for some for my Christmas present this year.

I haven’t been able to do the anime junk shopping that I got in last trip so far, but I still have time!  I’ve resisted buying manga so far (and it’s been hard to not even pick anything up) and I might buy one or two but that’s all.  I did find a wee shop in Osaka that sold anime figures and bought some sets…. Okay, I bought a bunch.  :)  I was really happy to see that they had the Maison Ikkoku set I passed up last trip due to the cost and regretted afterwards.  And these were cheaper!  Only 1650 yen, which is so much cheaper than at home.  And the store guy gave me a discount!  And when I went back to the store a couple of hours later to buy more I got another discount!

Heh.

(BTW, omiage = souvenirs.  I think I spelled it wrong, though.  Please forgive me.)

I made it… eventually

Yes! I am writing from Daishoji, where the weather is slightly colder than I had thought it would be but still damn better than Toronto.

My flight here wasn’t bad. I had a newer plane which meant I got to pick the movies I wanted to watch (Beowolf and Gone Baby, Gone) and the food was only kind of nasty for one meal. (Meal two was sandwiches and I skipped whatever they were giving out at the end of the flight. It smelled nasty, though.)

Getting through customs was a breeze and the fingerprinting (to my semi-disappointment) was just pressing my two index fingers down on a computer pad. The customs agent teased me about travelling alone while my picture was taken. I’m sure it was horrible on his end, but I almost expected to be handed a print club sticker because of the jolly border on the side of the screen that I could see. That would have been kind of awesome. Customs print club stickers…

My trauma came when I got to the area where you caught connecting domestic flights. My (once a day) flight to Komatsu from the Narita airport was cancelled! I was a tad upset *cough* but the kind woman at ANA airlines took very good care of me. Probably because she thought I would collapse in a puddle of tears if she didn’t. :) I did tell her that I had just gotten off the flight from Canada and it was about four in the morning for me, and I was trying to stay calm… She was trying to get me to pick a flight for the next day but when I kept saying that I had to ask Amy first she went off and borrowed a co-worker’s cell phone and called her for me. That was a bit above and beyond, I though. I was turning around to look at the payphones when I was saying it, so all I really wanted was someone to show me how to use them…. Anyway, I eventually made my way to the airport shuttle where we drove for an hour to get to the Haneda Airport, which I was somewhat familiar with from my last trip. I got booked into the airport hotel and I was wondering how long it would take me to get there in the morning… but there’s a door leading from the hotel lobby into the airport. It took me about two minutes. :)

(BTW, there was incredible soundproofing on the room. I could see planes parked outside my window, but didn’t know they were also taking off close by until the next morning and saw one fly past. Cool.)

My flight to Komatsu was crowded but FAST and I was at Amy’s by 11:30. Finally!

Right now it’s 6am and we’re just getting ready for an overnight trip to Kyoto and Nara with dinner at a Goth restaurant in Osaka thrown in for good measure. I’m off to shower! I’ll report in about my trip whenever I can.

Later!

Getting ready to go

People keep asking me if I’ve packed yet.  No.  I don’t pack in stages.  I need my stuff, thanks.  Tonight I am packing… or I will pack soon since I’ve finished my laundry and I’m done shopping for things like new sneakers and granola bars.  My Nano is charging, songs are loaded and my trip books are still in the bag from when I bought them.

I admit I’m an overpacker, though.  I’m one of those people that thinks if I leave something behind I’m going to need it desperately while I’m away.  I never do, I just like to be safe.  :)

Up until yesterday, I had NO prep done for my trip, other than buying the Nano a couple of months ago (rationale: longer battery life than my shuffle) and some books last week.  Not proper trip books, though.  About half of them are keepers which means I’m going to have to haul them home once I’ve read them.  Diana Wynne Jones has a new book out!  How could I abandon it in a foreign country?  Yesterday I finally bought some yen.  I now have 80,000 yen which sounds like sooo much money until you do the math (it’s about $830 Canadian).  I went shopping for crap last night after work.  Today I did laundry.

I think I just haven’t had the time to really build up excitement for going to Japan.  I only asked Amy if I could go visit at Christmas, then after I found out a good time for her and asked for the time off I realized that I was going away during our fiscal year end at the hospital.  Oops.  Yes, the accounts keeper, bill payer and book buyer for the library is skipping off from work during the only time of the year that I HAVE to do my job within a certain time frame.  Fortunately my boss was still cool with me going, and I’ve been working like a dog the past few weeks to make sure that not only are the invoices all completed, but all books have been bought and received.  For everyone.  I also buy books for several departments in the hospital so I sent around a heads up that if they wanted me to buy them stuff before year end they had to do it NOW!!!  (Of course one person decided to just give me the subjects of books that she wanted instead of actual titles so I had to fit in attempting collection development for a library I don’t work in.  Fun.  I think I did a good job, but it would have been nice to have the time to do it properly.)

So now I’m getting ready to pack (and dig out my passport) and hopefully somewhere in there it starts to sink in that I’m going Back To Japan!!  Where apparently I’ll be fingerprinted for the first time in my life.  Huh. 

I will most likely post when I arrive (I’m flying to Tokyo then switching planes to get to Komatsu) since I am under orders from my boss to email as soon as I arrive safely.  She had her “mom” voice on so I don’t think I have a choice there.  I’m going to try to blog a little more while I’m there since last time I think I mostly stuck to emailing people.  Pictures will come after.

Okay, I think I’m starting to get excited now….

I’m also wondering if I’ll get to fly on the Pokemon plane this time too.  That was completely awesome.

(Today’s theme: brackets)

Fall in Love Like a Comic 2

The latter half of last week had been a wee bit crappy (I wanted to shout “F–K!!!” a lot), but instead of regaling you with a rather personal story I will substitute a review of a rather crappy manga.  Hmm.  Actually, that may be harsh.  I think I will say that it disappointed me greatly and so I am kind of bitter towards it.  :)

As I was sorting my new manga on Tuesday night and adding it all to my list, I came across Fall in Love Like a Comic and King of the Lamp.  Both got chucked into my trade-in box without the honour of being added to my holdings list, even if only temporarily.

(I have only read these once, and it was when they first came out.  I’m not rereading them – I’d rather use the time to read something new – so forgive any errors in my vague plot recap.)

Fall in Love Like a Comic  – here I fell victim to my two volume rule.  The first wasn’t bad.  Teenage girl is secretly a manga artist, decides she has to fall in love to add depth to her work (or her editor suggests it) and picks an appropriately hot guy.  The hot guy has also been in training to be the perfect guy, so he’s kind of boring.  But!   I liked the first volume enough to give the second a chance.  It was one of those titles that I’m not thrilled with but think will probably get better.  (S.A. for example.  Volume three is much better than the first because aside from any interesting plot or character developments they at least stopped recapping the S.A. members at the start of every chapter!) 

Where was I?

Oh, volume 2.   The reason this is getting tossed on my next trade in trip to the comic store.  The story itself started out shallow, but fine.  Girl continues to write manga, boy kisses her to make her blush… One of her stories was getting turned into a television drama, and the boyfriend got cast as the lead (because he’s perfect, don’t forget).  There is some angst when the girl finally clues in to the fact that he is going to be kissing someone else during the filming.  The last bit of the story is what I got so disgusted about.  When I describe why I hated the volume so much to people I tend to use the phrase, “bad cheese injected with super sweet syrup.”  Basically the girl gets stuffed into a poofy wedding dress, plunked in a church and in a grand gesture in front of all of their friends, the perfect boyfriend has a ceremony where he vows to marry her someday. 

Oh, please!

I know it doesn’t sound so bad, but good grief it was over the top.  Cheesy overdramatic gestures like that tend to make me roll my eyes anyway, but this one made me slam the book shut and regret my lost money and my two volume rule.  After that there was a short story about a perfect 5 year old kindergarten boy (their son) and just when I had made a vow to stop reading the book entirely (it was about half way through) it switched into drawing tips from the manga artist.  I have no idea if that was what filled the rest of the volume and I don’t particularly care.  I’m never going back to check. 

I think I was also annoyed by the fact that the reason he loved her was because she was very passionate about something.  Really?  That was it?  What if he had wandered by the track and saw some random girl trying really really hard to break a high jump record or something?  Would she have been good enough? 

I guess I’ll say that if you don’t mind shallow characters who never gain any depth, you like cheesy wedding dress scenes in your manga, or you like drawing manga and want some pointers, I would say go ahead and get this.  Otherwise, steer clear.

(I’ll try to do King of the Lamp soon.)

** I wrote the above review last Friday.  On Saturday I had a mom and her little girl come through my cash with some manga.  Pokemon, some other kid title and this volume.  I had a huge internal debate in my head while doing the transaction.  Did the mom know that this was rated older teen?  Did she care?  The little girl looked about 9 but I decided if I did point it out I was probably just being a jerk.  Telling her it was really bad wasn’t even an option, since nine year olds probably would like this book.  (And I do realize that not everyone shares my opinion on what is and isn’t good.)  :)

The little girl and I had this weird little staring match going on the whole time, too.  I know I was debating whether or not I had the right to attempt to ruin her manga purchasing fun, but I have no idea why she was staring at me…. 

So, yeah.  I don’t know if parents would appreciate a random cashier pointing out the age appropriateness of a title.  Would they get offended, thinking I thought they weren’t paying proper attention to what their kids read?  Would they be happy to know that there are ratings on the book if they didn’t already?  I know I pretty much always read “older” books growing up, and my parents didn’t care much about what I was reading.  (In a good way, though.  My dad started borrowing my books when I was in my teens, so it’s not like he didn’t know what was on my shelves.)

I think I tend to side with the kids.  Forgive me parents, if that’s wrong.

An evening of maintenance

Tonight I picked up all the scattered piles of manga around the apartment and did an update to my manga list.  For the first time since October.  Ouch.  It’s still not complete though.  I have a lot of books lent out right now.

I also poked around on Amazon checking for release dates for manga I collect.  I’ll update my Not Yet Published page later, but I was happy to see that a couple of titles like Nana and Baby & Me are moving from their former 5-ish month release schedule to every couple of months.  Yay!  More Baby & Me.  (Okay, okay.  The last Nana got me a bit choked up.  It was the letter.  Now I want to read volume 10.)

And for the many people who have contacted me over the past year or so asking about Kamichama Karin Chu, Del Rey will be releasing the first volume in the Summer.  Go Del Rey!

More about my new manga soon.  My eyes are burnt out from staring at Amazon for hours too long.  :)