The locals call it 'Akiba'

Greetings from Japan (again). My 'Net in my room still isn't hooked up yet, but I did get the complicated application sent out; hopefully work won't be necessary (I think the phone jack is round), but they have yet to email me with the status of my application.

I apologize for not having any pictures or anything up yet, but I can't really MySpace, IM, Google, or much of anything on these school-networked computers, and that includes uploading things to my LJ Scrapbook. Actually what I'm considering doing is creating a new subdomain on my site that includes pictures and journal entries I've created in iWeb when I haven't had genuine Net access to update here.

On Saturday, all the exchange students went out with their tutors (3 to each person, so 8-9 people per group). We got off our bus in Ueno, then took the train to Asakusa, the historical/nostalgic suburb. We went to the famous temple with the 'Thunder Gate' that everyone sees in pictures; we got our fortunes told and then I offered a quick prayer to one of the local Daibutsu for Scott's safe trip to Turkmenistan later this week.

Then we went to have some Okonomiyaki- I got the idea when I searched for videos and I stumbled across my Ranma collection (amazingly still on my HD). I thought of Ukyou, and how I'd never tried Okonomiyaki, and an idea was born. We went to this small place (can't remember where, but it's common for there to be great shops and things down small, narrow alleys), and we had two orders- I shared a grill with my tutor Hiroyasu. The first was an okonomiyaki of my choice, with beef and lots of vegetables. It was SO delicious, and everyone was impressed with my l33t pancake-flipping skills. I can work even without an 'American' spatula! Ukyou-sama would be proud of me (if she existed)! The second okonomiyaki was one with more liquid; you're supposed to dump the semi-dry ingredients on the oiled-up grill, make it into a donut, pour the liquid in the middle, and then fold and flatten it over and over until it's all cooked. We sprinkled cheese (Parmesean or Mozarella, I think) on top and then ate it right off the grill! It was so tasty- as was the special okonomiyaki sauce (by the way, writing messages in that stuff is HARD!).

After that we headed to Kanda and then took a short shinkansen ride to Akihabara (which the locals call 'Akiba'). The original plan was to go to a maid cafe, but we got a little turned around, so we had to stop and ask for directions at an AU kddi cell phone shop. Then when we finally got to the cafe (Japanese elevators are small!), there was a 2 hour wait, so that was out. Actually, I think that was the case for everyone who tried to go to a maid cafe, except a few people got 'maid fortunes' told by maids. Still, we saw lots of maids, cat-maids, and anime cosplayers advertising their cafes.

We went to Taito Amusement Tower, where I'd been with Pop! Japan Travel the last time I came to Japan and Akiba, but this time I had much more fun-- I got a giant Toro stuffed cat from one of the UFO catchers, and he's my new bedroom mascot slash pillow. I have the matching Pez back home in Los Angeles, and Mom has his Pez buddy, Kuro the black cat. We were going to take 'purikura' (print club) pictures; at Taito, you can also cosplay before you take pictures, but there was a super-long wait for that, too. 'Dame datta!' After that we went to Try Amusement Tower, a small hole-in-the-wall game center with something like 7 stories- I think I'd been there before and thought it was dinky, but I didn't know about the upstairs! They had a floor solely dedicated to Bemani games- including DDR 9th Mix, SuperNova! Dez was right in saying that the scoring is a lot tighter. Aside from trying to find songs I liked (I guess organization bv game isn't available anymore), it was pretty fun, and my tutors all thought I was good-- of course, until a Japanese guy came along and pwned me by playing things like Maxx 3000 and so on. :P But I still had great fun, and it was only 100 yen a play!

Most everyone else then went to a discount store, but one of my tutors went with me to Animate (I wanted to go to Tora no Ana, but we were short on time). Apparently 'for ladies' is synonymous with yaoi/shonen-ai, which, as you know, I'm not into. So I guess I'll have to go to the so-called men's store for my smutty romance fix. Actually I wouldn't mind finding some plain old GEN doujinshi...

Interesting thing I found out- yaoi is not a native Japanese word. It looks and sounds like it is, but it's not, and the average Japanese will not associate it with the abbreviation which most fans know it by: 「山なし落ちなし意味なし」 or yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi - usually translated as 'no peak, no point, no meaning.' But it can be translated other ways- like 'nothing mountain, nothing needle, nothing meant.' Thus, you get YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi and then yaoi. They do that sort of abbreviating with other words, but not those words. The joke version of the abbreviation is 'YAmete, Oshiri ga Itai!' or 'Stop it, my ass hurts!' Both of these so-called meanings make sense, but the first one only in English, and the Japanese aren't crude enough to use the second one. The term they used at all the stores I went to was Boys' Love, which encompasses shonen-ai and male smut.

I have no clue about 'yuri' (lily) though and how that came to be associated with female smut.

And that is your Japan update for today... in a few minutes I have to meet with one of my Japanese teachers to plan for the campus open house, and what we (myself, Todd, and Daniel, all of us from CSUN) will be doing to help out.