Zub Tales

4am here and my body’s screwed up inner clock jolted me awake… or maybe it was Erik’s snoring. 😛

Okay, some quick notes and photos so I won’t forget:

– We’re staying at the Sunshine City Prince Hotel. Our room up on the 35th floor is small (as expected) but good otherwise. It was about a 2 hour bus ride from the airport to get here.

Our hotel room and the view from our window.

After we checked in, we were both exhausted and wanted rest, but were struck by the wandering bug and needed food badly. We headed out to the nearby Sunshine Strip, a street full of shops and entertainment.

On the way there, Erik showed me some crazy anime and manga stores. Crazy. How crazy?

Animate, as an example, is 8 floors. They had whole floors dedicated to Shonen (Boys) Manga, Shonen (Girls) manga, young Shonen manga and artbooks, videos, models/figures, soundtracks, miscellaneous goods and new releases on the main floor. Madness.

A smaller anime shop nearby. Erik browsing DVDs in Animate.

A store that just sells collectible anime phone cards.

The Sunshine Strip. I’ll get better photos of it later on… this one doesn’t do it justice. Jaws Pachinko (Japanese pinball game) Business men and young people alike kicking some Jaws ass late at night.

My first meal in the city was at a little rice and meat place in the Sunshine Strip. There was no one taking orders. You bought tickets for what you wanted from an electronic vending machine and handed it to the cooks yourself. A big bowl of rice and pork, a small salad, miso soup and a glass of water was just over 500 yen (rounded off conversion puts that at about $5 Canadian).

First meal in Japan. I look like Hell and am exhausted but thankful for the food.

In a few hours I’ll wake Erik up, we’ll grab breakfast and then head to out to Chiba for the Tokyo Game Show. I intend to shoot TONs of photos today once the sun comes up.

Hmm… my camera shoots video. I may need to record Erik’s snoring as blackmail.