Live from the Apple Store//Ginza
Nov. 4th, 2006 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteHokay, so I actually got up early enough to take a shower and meet John so we could go to Tokyo together; we ended up heading to Akatsuka station and taking the slow Joban line train from there (it was cheaper). We split up at Ueno, with the agreement to meet back in front of the Book Garden at 7pm. In retrospect, that may have been slightly dumb; I think the Book Garden is still within the confines of the station, which means if either of us exit (from the train we take from wherever back to Ueno), we'd have to pay to get back in. So I just won't exit. I would actually go back there now, if there weren't so many hours before I had to meet him.
What happened is that all the event pages (even Sarah Brightman's own) said she'd be at the Yamano Record Store at 4-5-6 Ginza on 11/4 at 3:40pm. John and I got to Ueno at 1:02 and parted ways shortly thereafter; I headed to Hard Rock Cafe, had myself a nice relaxing lunch, bought some presents for people, and then headed out to the Tokyo Subway Line to catch the train to Ginza. It took about 10 minutes total for the train ride; I got here to Ginza at around 2:40, I'd say. I walked in the wrong direction at first (streets going in both directions were labeled Ginza 4-chome), but I eventually found the Yamano Store. They had a Sarah Brightman display all set up; huge posters and her 'Kagayakeru Diva' CD ready for sale. I noticed one of the signs had a signature on it, but I wasn't sure if it was really Sarah's (maybe from a previous event) or someone else's (graffiti). I walked in, found the floor where the Sarah Brightman CDs were, and bought up a storm. I got a dual-pack of both Eden and La Luna; I was tempted to buy the 2-disc Andrew Lloyd Webber collection, along with a few other of her albums I'm missing, but I resisted. But I did get the DIVA DVD. I tried to ask about the event, but I didn't really understand as well as I thought I did. I figured they'd just rescheduled it to a bit later.
After a half hour and not hearing anything, I walked back outside to the display and asked the guy out there. He said something that sounded like 'She'll be here in 2 hours,' bit I guess I misunderstood... I ended up going back inside, thinking I had more waiting to do, and bought 'Sounds of Death Note: The Last Name' and the Waterboys DVD. I even saw some ADORABLE cat movies, but they weren't subtitled.. :( I saw some Sailor Moon (anime, musicals, and live-action), but they were all pretty scattered and expensive. :P I didn't see any Yu-Gi-Oh, unfortunately.
Feeling stupid for essentially wandering the store, I returned to the second floor, where they were playing all of Sarah's albums and tried to ask the same girl if they had anyone who spoke English, because I didn't understand the event. She said there WAS no event, and then I distinctly heard 'sakki, owatta.' Oh, it was over a WHILE AGO!? I asked when, and she said around 2:30, Sarah came for just a short bit and then left. ;_; So I missed it.
I feel really rotten, because I really wanted to meet her... maybe with some dumb luck I can still catch her from her spots on TV that she's filming this week. At least I got a lot of media that I wanted. Yamano also accepted credit cards, so that was nice; I used them here and at Hard Rock's Gift Shop to avoid blowing all my cash and then not being able to get back home. I decided to actually enjoy the fact that I was in GINZA, of all places, so I walked around until LO AND BEHOLD, I found an Apple Store. So here I am.
It's pretty spiffy, actually; 5 floors with glass elevators and dual-language diagrams of where everything is. I found Adobe CS Premium (which I bet I could buy for Education price, but I don't want to get saddled with the Japanese version), Sims 2 for the Mac (but not a Universal Binary, alas!), and even some neat programs they don't have in the U.S. at all. I'd be tempted to buy one of the colorful iPod Nanos, except they don't come in any sizes bigger than 4GB. My Mini is 6GB and I almost always fill it to the max. And I don't want to get a boring black Nano for just an extra 2GB. It'd probably be better to wait for the next Gen, or at least figure out a better way to manage my iPod. Does anyone know of a program that lets you delete songs off the iPod without having to manually manage it every time? I notice when I delete a playlist from my iPod, all it does it erase the track listing of the playlist, not the songs themselves (even if they're not located in other playlists). I'd like to be able to drag and drop my playlists into my iPod (or the Trash) so I can always have what I want on my iPod, instead of letting my iPod pick after it runs out of space. :P
Okay 4:48pm. With 20 minutes at the max to buy a ticket back to Ueno, find my way through the station (they actually have attendants that speak Japanese and English standing in front of all the station maps!) and hop the train back, I don't really have any rush, unless there were something interesting in Ueno (two museums, but they're probably closed by now, so that's for another day). And I don't want to go back now and spend all my time hanging out in the station, so I think I'll check out the Apple store some more and then maybe wander around Ginza a bit more. It'll be nice to see when it's all lit up. They're already breaking out the Christmas decorations here. With no Thanksgiving to signal the cue, Christmas trees and lights are already everywhere, especially in downtown areas.
I guess this is another learning experience. :)
What happened is that all the event pages (even Sarah Brightman's own) said she'd be at the Yamano Record Store at 4-5-6 Ginza on 11/4 at 3:40pm. John and I got to Ueno at 1:02 and parted ways shortly thereafter; I headed to Hard Rock Cafe, had myself a nice relaxing lunch, bought some presents for people, and then headed out to the Tokyo Subway Line to catch the train to Ginza. It took about 10 minutes total for the train ride; I got here to Ginza at around 2:40, I'd say. I walked in the wrong direction at first (streets going in both directions were labeled Ginza 4-chome), but I eventually found the Yamano Store. They had a Sarah Brightman display all set up; huge posters and her 'Kagayakeru Diva' CD ready for sale. I noticed one of the signs had a signature on it, but I wasn't sure if it was really Sarah's (maybe from a previous event) or someone else's (graffiti). I walked in, found the floor where the Sarah Brightman CDs were, and bought up a storm. I got a dual-pack of both Eden and La Luna; I was tempted to buy the 2-disc Andrew Lloyd Webber collection, along with a few other of her albums I'm missing, but I resisted. But I did get the DIVA DVD. I tried to ask about the event, but I didn't really understand as well as I thought I did. I figured they'd just rescheduled it to a bit later.
After a half hour and not hearing anything, I walked back outside to the display and asked the guy out there. He said something that sounded like 'She'll be here in 2 hours,' bit I guess I misunderstood... I ended up going back inside, thinking I had more waiting to do, and bought 'Sounds of Death Note: The Last Name' and the Waterboys DVD. I even saw some ADORABLE cat movies, but they weren't subtitled.. :( I saw some Sailor Moon (anime, musicals, and live-action), but they were all pretty scattered and expensive. :P I didn't see any Yu-Gi-Oh, unfortunately.
Feeling stupid for essentially wandering the store, I returned to the second floor, where they were playing all of Sarah's albums and tried to ask the same girl if they had anyone who spoke English, because I didn't understand the event. She said there WAS no event, and then I distinctly heard 'sakki, owatta.' Oh, it was over a WHILE AGO!? I asked when, and she said around 2:30, Sarah came for just a short bit and then left. ;_; So I missed it.
I feel really rotten, because I really wanted to meet her... maybe with some dumb luck I can still catch her from her spots on TV that she's filming this week. At least I got a lot of media that I wanted. Yamano also accepted credit cards, so that was nice; I used them here and at Hard Rock's Gift Shop to avoid blowing all my cash and then not being able to get back home. I decided to actually enjoy the fact that I was in GINZA, of all places, so I walked around until LO AND BEHOLD, I found an Apple Store. So here I am.
It's pretty spiffy, actually; 5 floors with glass elevators and dual-language diagrams of where everything is. I found Adobe CS Premium (which I bet I could buy for Education price, but I don't want to get saddled with the Japanese version), Sims 2 for the Mac (but not a Universal Binary, alas!), and even some neat programs they don't have in the U.S. at all. I'd be tempted to buy one of the colorful iPod Nanos, except they don't come in any sizes bigger than 4GB. My Mini is 6GB and I almost always fill it to the max. And I don't want to get a boring black Nano for just an extra 2GB. It'd probably be better to wait for the next Gen, or at least figure out a better way to manage my iPod. Does anyone know of a program that lets you delete songs off the iPod without having to manually manage it every time? I notice when I delete a playlist from my iPod, all it does it erase the track listing of the playlist, not the songs themselves (even if they're not located in other playlists). I'd like to be able to drag and drop my playlists into my iPod (or the Trash) so I can always have what I want on my iPod, instead of letting my iPod pick after it runs out of space. :P
Okay 4:48pm. With 20 minutes at the max to buy a ticket back to Ueno, find my way through the station (they actually have attendants that speak Japanese and English standing in front of all the station maps!) and hop the train back, I don't really have any rush, unless there were something interesting in Ueno (two museums, but they're probably closed by now, so that's for another day). And I don't want to go back now and spend all my time hanging out in the station, so I think I'll check out the Apple store some more and then maybe wander around Ginza a bit more. It'll be nice to see when it's all lit up. They're already breaking out the Christmas decorations here. With no Thanksgiving to signal the cue, Christmas trees and lights are already everywhere, especially in downtown areas.
I guess this is another learning experience. :)
