Fun with Rika in Ueno and entering the Nerd Zone (Akihabara)

Today I met Rika, the Kanda University student who contacted me about my Language Exchange ad on the wall. :) We went to Ueno, to the Ameyoko street market! It was really fun, and there were so many stores that I got lost a little. We saw some stores selling cheap World Cup team-looking t-shirts and many things for foreigners. For instance, I have seen maybe two people in Japan wearing shirts with actual Japanese writing on them. Almost every shirt is in English, however many errors there may be. But shirts with Japanese on them are usually for foreigners, and there were some in the Ameyoko street market.

We saw a temple in the middle of Ueno and decided to visit it. We each said a prayer, tossed a coin in, and then came out. The man taking our picture gave me a souvenir Japanese fan. :)

Our lunch, omg so good. Mine was only 350-en!

I bought pineapple, mmmm, so delicious! Only 100 en. :D




After hanging around in Ueno, visiting the stores, and eating lunch, Rika and I walked the 15-ish minutes to Akihabara. Akihabara distinguishes itself not just by featuring tons of electronics and manga, but also by having SO MANY MEN. It's like women were rare there, almost. A lot of guys stared me down while I was there, maybe because of my dress. Rika said that when Japanese otaku (anime nerd) guys don't have girlfriends, they play videogames a lot (a LOT) and replace real women with looking at scantily-clad manga girls. Akihabara was very good evidence of that. Do you see any girls in this video, other than Rika and me?

We watched a grown man pay out a ton of money on one of those crane games just to try to win a box of candy that would be very cheap at any supermarket. He kept losing, and he kept paying more and money. Kind of sad. There were so many things you could win from these machines, and rarely were they worth the money people paid!

In the arcade, I saw a guy with a blue wig wearing an anime suit. Of course I wanted to get a picture with him and he was happy to oblige. :D

There were "maid cafes" where the waitresses all wear sexy maid outfits and pretend to be your grateful, subservient, and loving wife. This is another thing that otaku boys and men like. If you want to take a picture of the maids, you have to pay $5. You can pay $30 to have them accompany you for shopping times. Learning about that made me a little uncomfortable... Speaking of uncomfortable, Rika explained to me why the extremely young girls are featured in humiliating circumstances or erotic positions/clothing with their underwear showing in Japan, especially in Akihabara. Apparently that is what the men want to see, and it is legal to see that as long as they don't act on it with real children. (She said the drawings were often middle school and high school girls.) I personally wonder where the line is drawn between these things and child porn, which is strictly illegal in Japan.

The Americans in Akihabara were SO SO SOOOO nerdy, it was almost a little embarrassing. I'm actually nerdy too but I don't explode with it in public. Can't say the same for the white, English-speaking people I saw today! Here's a cool picture of the buildings and signs in Akihabara.

Really awkward bib...

...and a funny fake dollar. Click to see full-size. :)

I was delighted to hear the Po Pi Po song in a store in Akihabara. :) And see the pedo-bear, which is apparently a normal character here with no sexual connotation! But the store employee knew that it is also called "pedo-bear" so he probably knew about the connotation too. Then again, it was positioned right next to a wall of porn DVDs featuring very young-looking girls.

We heard "I Know You Want Me" and "Sexy Bitch" in a store today, haha.

Ah yes... I know someone who will like to see this.

Here is our "purikura" from Akihabara. Purikura is something only girls do in Japan, where they all get together and take pictures whenever they go out or do something fun. The purikura booth makes you look extra-white and then you can edit in makeup or whatever else you want. Good thing I'm already really white. (Rika and I had a conversation about skin color; she said she was jealous of my whiteness and she covered up her arms today even though it was REALLY hot. I told her about tanning in the US and she was surprised. She also said black people in Japan are considered somewhat scary, haha. I told her that black people in the US are usually very nice, although there are all kinds of people in the US.) But for the purikura, I was a spaz this time because apparently editing and photos are timed. I didn't realize we had to be fast. :) It was really fun and I look forward to doing it again.

I made tacos for the family tonight. Couldn't find corn tortillas, refried beans, or cilantro anywhere but I made homemade guacamole and spent an hour preparing and grilling the chicken! I thought they were really good but I'm not sure if my host family liked them as much as I did. :D I ate two!

Right now my host brother is brushing his teeth in my bed...anyway, I had a really great time with Rika today and I successfully made tacos! I was also able to study some of the kanji for my first final exam on Tuesday. That means that my trip is halfway over...

I wish I could gather up all of my friends from UNC, put Japanese into their heads via osmosis, and we could all live in Tokyo forever. We could have epic adventures every weekend and work hard during the week to pay our rents. But maybe we could get a big apartment and just cram 7 people in it or something. :) Yesterday I looked at job listings in Tokyo and there were so many positions for native English speakers. I do hope I can do something with my major, Environmental Health Science, here someday. But I think I would be willing to come here just to teach English or have some other kind of job for a year or two or five. Maybe I'll raise a herd of Shiba Inu dogs here. :D That's a funny sentence because "inu" means dog in Japanese, so I'll raise Shiba dog dogs.

Anyway, bed time, I'm going to bed slightly earlier than usual tonight (11:45pm, insanity). My friends all go to sleep at like 9 or 10.