This AM was the wife’s turn to geek out. We headed to the Ginza to hit up Itoya, a stationery, pens, etc store. I adored Itoya, because it had chairs. There is nowhere to *sit* in this city and standing around is just not something I can do for more than a moment or two.
After we spent too much on paper goods, we headed down to Hibiya to find another Inari shrine. On the way there, we found a different shrine, and while my wife went through the steps of ablution and prayer, a woman came up behind her and filmed her. Bruce and I watched, laughing. We all bowed and went our separate ways, smiling. I took a picture of the woman filming the wife – and also people taking pictures of some cat on a pole that some guy randomly walked up, lifted the cat onto the pole, then walked away. People flocked to the pole to take photos for some reason then, about 15 minutes later, the guy reappeared, took the cat down and walked away. It was “life in the big city” bizarre.
I left the wife and Bruce at Ikebukuro and headed over to Akihabara to have dinner with Rob Pereyda from Crunchyroll, translator extraordinaire Mari Morimoto and Erik Ko of Udon. Dinner was superb – I am so going to try and find a recipe for the tofu cream cheese croquettes – but after it was over….karaoke. Rob sang me a song from Rose of Versailles, I murdered “Alsatia” from Rin and Erik and Mari both sang really well. Thanks to Rob for being a great host and a good singer. :-)
I really need to come back next lifetime with an entirely different set of attributes – good feet, no jet lag, ability to drink and to sing.
Tomorrow the sixth volume of Sasamekikoto comes out. I’m on a mission.
I’ll be on the same mission as you tomorrow night – I was hoping Toranoana Ikebukuro might put it on the shelves early, but no luck (they don’t even have this month’s Yuri Hime releases on display yet – not that I have high hopes for them quality-wise, but there’s a principle at stake here).
It was great reading about your trip to Takarazuka because I’m in Tokyo with an Italian friend who’s a huge, huge fan of Wao Youka (ex star of Cosmos Troupe). We went to see Dietrich in Aoyama today, which even if it wasn’t Takarazuka still gave me a taste of why Wao fangirls are so obsessed (we turned up three hours early for irimachi, and my friend being the only blue-eyed Westerner in the fanclub immediately became a minor celebrity in her own right!).
We’re off to Kamakura tomorrow for a combination of normal persons’ sightseeing and Aoi Hana ground-worshipping, so chances are I won’t bump into you lurking around the Media Factory shelves in some dodgy manga store – still, I hope you two enjoy the rest of your holiday :)
Sorry, all I saw was Itoya and everything went blank for a few minutes. That’s one of my favorite stores ever. I really like the annex building that has the calligraphy supplies, too. Gives me the warm fuzzies just thinking about it. Mmmm… brushes and paperweights and hanshi oh my!
Kyukyodo is also pretty cool, just a few blocks away from Itoya on the Ginza. It has a smaller selection, but more traditional stuff in the office supplies vein.
When I was there, they had a really cool calligraphy exhibit on the 3rd floor, IIRC. I don’t know if it was a permanent thing or not.
Stay hydrated and pace yourself. And of course, have lots more fun.