Before I start to tell you about today, I want to apologize to my wife, who will never speak to me again after reading this. ^_^;;

After two great days in Osaka, we hit Tokyo with a heavy sigh of relief to be somewhere for a few nights. We ran out really quickly, bought most of my wife’s shopping list, came back to the room for a rest and we were off!

Where to? To the Hanazono Shrine in Shinjuku (for the otaku moment counters, this was featured in Hana no Asuka-gumi  and we’re staying in Ikebukuro, home to Durarara.) The Hanazono shrine was having a harvest festival, a festival to promote good business fortune. Bruce, myself, Rica Takashima, her friend Takami and Ana Moreno all wandered the crowded grounds, prayed to the local god, and bought things we didn’t need, then sat down to have Japanese festival food.

As we finished up our oden, yakisoba and agemono, a couple of happy drunk guys sat at our table. Minou-san and Shimpei-san and their friend were, of all things, animators. They asked why we were there and of course, we told them and they laughed and laughed and we were all friends. What an amazing conversation, everyone at the table had a little of both languages and several had a lot of both and the conversation kept switching back and forth. It was a party, let me tell you! And when the guys learned about Yuricon..you can imagine the “wow!”s that were raised on high. “Yuri saikou!” Minou-san-tachi’s animation is on Youtube, it’s freaking *adorable*. I got a pile of pictures, but am seriously too tired to even upload them.

We all parted and Rica made us play games and eat food including anzu, which is a pickled, salted apricot rolled in simple syrup, then laid on ice to solidify. It was…interesting. I played a game and won 20 wafers with custard and, by giving Takami about 10 of them, managed to make my way through them.

We parted at Shinjuku station and Bruce and I dragged our exhausted asses back to the hotel. It was a perfect evening. Thank you Rica!

On the way back, I was once again blown away by the people I have met because of Yuricon. Komatsu-san, Ana, Rica, Bruce, and so many others. Hanazono no Kami-sama, arigatou gozaimasu.

Tomorrow AM, if I have any energy at all, I’ll finally tell you the story of our wonderful days in Osaka and share some pictures.

Oh…and we found the theater Marimite is playing in here. We are considering watching it once again. ^_^

When the flight is 15 hours, one naturally watches at least a movie or two. This time I watched Red Cliff, the recent John Woo-directed spectacular about the decisive battle from the Romance of the Three Kindgoms. As you know, I am on a quest to make the story work, eventually, but only by using mass media, comics, anime and other inappropriate means. (I read the book, way back, but it’s so much more fun trying to do this the worst way possible.) The movie is totally carried by Tony Leung’s prettiness. Recommended.

I also watched a movie called Raise the Castle in which the spirits of dead samurai return to bring an old, lost castle back to life. It was an extremely clever movie, and had some fun. The first two scenes or so are dire, so just hold your nose and get past the “funny” doofus-y guy being a doofus. After that, it’s great.

Today, we head out to Osaka, with a short stop in Nagoya (not to see the castle, tough.) There’s a chance I may not be online for a few, but I’ll try to twitter. :)