No Maps for These Territories

Today Yuzo and I explore Akihabara, otherwise known as nerd heaven.  It’s full of some insanely weird stuff.  Then we head off to Odaiba with Kevin, which is an entirely man-made island in Tokyo, covered with shops and bizarre amusement parks.  Full album is here.

First things first.  A fat ass bowl of ramen, of course.  I could seriously eat ramen every day for a year and not get tired of it.

A DVD shop selling mostly weird softcore porn, but the outside is all covered with handwritten signs about their wares.

A costume shop in Akihabara.  I wonder if these guys get these for their girlfriends, or just dress up their Realdolls at home in them.

This mousepad is actually pretty awesome.  I think I’d get in trouble for displaying it at work though.

Maid themed cookies that come in extra fancy boxes.  I assume people collect these instead of eating them.

A copy of FINAL FANTASY VII in Super Potato, the retro gaming heaven shop in Akihabara.  Oh, my favorite Final Fantasy.  How I wish they would remake you on PS3.

The manga reading section at Super Potato.

Plus all the retro games you could shake a stick at.

And a big ass Mario.

Wow, the creepy Idol game, where you train young girls to be super stars, is apparently available on Xbox here.  Not in the US!

What in the world would you use this four bladed Klingon knife for?

I found it!  The pervert holy grail, the used panties.  Plus pictures of the girls that theoretically wore them.  Yeah, right.  They had about five security cameras and signs saying “No Pictures”, but I couldn’t resist.

The train station to Odaiba.

Kind of empty tonight!

The Rainbow bridge over the bay.

Aww yeah, it’s Joypolis.  Several stories of completely batshit gaming action.

Trap!  Let’s soend every day happy.

What’s in muscle park, you might ask?   Let me tell you.

Pitching baseballs at numbers!

Sucking up balls with weird ass basket backpacks!

Ninja training!

Battling with sawblades on sticks?

Hell of a view back from Odiaba toward the mainland.

Stop making polar bears cry with your awful pollution, humans!

That’s a UFO machine, where you can win pints of ice cream.  Joypolis is weird.

On this game, you run on a real treadmill, and try to win olympic games like hurdles and long jump.

Pictures don’t do this one justice.  It’s a 30 foot “half pipe” where you strap yourself to huge mechanical skateboards and try to get points by doing the most flips.

Heading back home into the concrete jungle.  Good night.

Short picture day today.  Working again with Range and Yuzo in Shinjuku.  Pretty much just worked all day, got some ramen, came home at night and hung out in the Beer and Coffee pub down the street.

Corner ramen joint in Shinjuku.  I love that you sit about two feet from where they make your dish, and watch them toss in the miso ball, and cook the noodles and what not.

Preparing the happy.

Yuzo and Range drinking a cold one and waiting.

Look at that.  Perfect little egg, pile of pork, delicious broth.  I love ramen more than a fat kid loves cake.

Victory.

This is the hand drier at work.  There’s absolutely no paper towels anywhere in Japan, either they expect you to have a handkerchief and dry your own hands, or they provide one of these high tech bastards to blow the water off your hands into the trough below.

The japanese-style toilet at work.

That button on the right does exactly what you think it does.  High pressure bum blasting.  Still haven’t tried it. 

Our new friends from the hostel.  Rob is on the left and unable to make a normal face at any time.

As you can see here.  Also, Swedish people are apparently beer thieves.

Rob with his handy reference material.  So far, I don’t think it’s working out too well though.