Guess who is in Japan right now?

by **EWJ** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:15 am

try and find one of those bars that you pay by the hour. Beer is expensive in japan so it can save you money. They hate us though.

by **asnozz** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:14 am

man u i am so jealous, iv always wanted to Japan and Hong Kong. I am planning to do a big trip after university (so in three years). Sounds like ur having lots of fun, watch out for japanese girls they will fall for ur British charm! lol

Keep us all informed and buy as many japanese DC games as possible since they are so expensive to import to good old blighty. Heres a link to an article i found on segagaga domain ( a guy runs it who posts on www.dreamcasthistory.com) he lives in Tokyo i think and buys alot knows where to get all the rare games etc. Heres the link to the website as well as a very interesting article on retro-gaming:
http://www.segagagadomain.com/junk/retrogaming.htm
http://www.segagagadomain.com/

good luck and have fun! ......lucky bastard

......

by **Cpt. Ultimate K Prime** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:21 am

Sounds like you're having fun, DaMulder. Must be cool to visit Japan.

by **changed my mind** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:54 am

I saw the writing too
Have fun on your trip, sounds great!

by **Joey Bassist Dude** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 12:39 pm

oh my god this is awsome, im so excited for you and its made me want to go there even more, i cant wait till summer 2005 :(

hope you have an amazing time, take care!

by **extraordinarybadgrocer** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 12:52 pm

Sounds very cool, Da Mulder- looking foward to seeing the guest house pics.

by **St. Elmo's Fire** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:23 pm

Sounds cool, one day soon I may visit Japan...

by **AnimeGamer183** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:47 pm

I cant wait to go this summer... I need to escape to my favorite place... although I have never been there... XD

by **Daemos** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 3:21 pm

Lucky! Someday I hope to visit Japan.

by **St. Elmo's Fire** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:03 pm

AnimeGamer183 wrote:I cant wait to go this summer... I need to escape to my favorite place... although I have never been there... XD

You taking $5000, that's about...£2700, how long you going for?...(just so I know how much it's gonna bankraupt me if/when I go...)

by **asnozz** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:05 pm

i would take £5000 not $, since flights cost about £1200 and then u have spending money, hotels, food, transport etc

by **St. Elmo's Fire** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:15 pm

In that case, fuck that...:(

by **layolas** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:33 pm

WHOA japan? damn man thats cool. go visit some martial arts school or something and keep us all posted!
one day i will also go japan.....gonna train over there, one day.

Enjoy yourself, and try not to spend to much on cigs or sake lol

by **Peter** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:15 pm

Id be worried about going because i dont speak the language.

by **DaMulder** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 9:12 pm

Hey Ho!
I am back in the Comic Kissu (Comic Cafe)! I guess this time you can read my post and sorry about the boxes. I have some trouble getting used to this Japanese Keyboard!
So... what the hell did I do yesterday...
Oh right! I went to Asakusa which everyone of you guys will know who ever played Project Gotham Racing and if I remember correctly it was also in MSR. It`s pretty far outside of Tokyo and it mostly consists of a huge shopping complex and a temple. I went there because my Japanese language book (Japanese for Dummys - strongly recommended by me) said I could buy a camera there... Well, I did not find any camera shop at all. But at least I went to McDOnalds and I experienced my first culture shock there: Ordering was no problem as they have very usefull little menus at every counter so you can just point at things. Apart from that my Japanese is sufficient to understand generally what they asked me (and after all the questions at McD are the same in every country I suppose). So I ordered a Chicken Fillet meal and here you get the choice between fries, salad and chicken nuggets with your burger. As I was curious about the taste of the nugget sauce I chose them. Their only choice of sauces are Mustard and BBQ. I chose mustard just to realize that they taste exactly the same as in UK or Germany.
Oh yeah, note on the side: I am actually German but I live in UK for about 18 months now so I see myself as mostly European anyway. Still Jap girls dig the European charm no matter what ;)
But then, back to McD they asked me for my choice of drink and out of boredom I picked Fanta, expecting to get this orange lemonade stuff us Euros generally consider being Fanta. I was very surpised when suddenly my cup had something dark purple in it! Later that day I talked to Shin (my friend) to find out that here in Japan the standart Fanta is something with Berry! Well, it tasted good anyway and the burger was very nice as well. Much better than UK and also slightly better than Germany. This reminds me that I should maybe add that the quality of McD differs greatly between countries! UK is quite bad, Germany is quite alright (although everything has less taste) and US is really bad (from my experience). Japan is really good I must say!
After that I just wanted to exchange the rest of my cash Euros (as my parents gave me a big part of my travel budget for chistmas it is all in Euros) and I made the painfull experience that most banks simply do not exchange Euro cash! I have no idea why... I went to 4 different banks in Asakusa and Shinjuku before I found a bank that would exchange it. But it wasn`t as easy as that... They wanted my passport number and adress as as I didn`t know the adress of my Ryokan (japanese style family hotel) and didn`t carry my passport with me either I had to give them a fake adress and my German ID card number (which is totally useless to them but luckily the girl at the counter didn`t know that!). My friend was shocked that I tried to cheat a Japanese bank but then: What the hell do they want it for??? I am just exchanging one currency for another! In UK every stupid travel agency offers that service! In Germany at least every bank will do it for a certain fee and in Hong Kong the streets are acutally crowded with money exchange points (where they will rip you off like hell but hey, at least it`s convenient...).
After I changed my money I wanted a can of mountain dew. I knew it exists in Japan as I had seen it in one vending machine in Nakano-sakaue (where my Ryokan is). But the difficulty is that in Japan there is a drink vending machine (and cigarette machine for that matter) at about every 10 feet. Problem with this is that from my personal statistic only one in 35 vending machines offers Mountain Dew! So I spend about 45 minutes walking around Shinjuku before I finally found one. While I was searching I accidently went into the sex district of Shinjuku where a short overweight girl offered me a 3 hour strip show for 3500yen, not with her stripping but with an allegedly very hot 20 year old girl. (Around 20 pounds, 35 US dollars). Which is cheap I have to admit but at 1pm I am usually not in the mood for 3 hour strip shows. And I needed Mountain Dew anyway.
After I found it I sat down at the Higashi Entrance of Shinjuku Eki (East entrace, Shinjuku station) and watched some starnge people trying to get girl`s phone numbers in order to lure them into getting a beauty treatment at a beauty salon... Very strange but funny to watch as I have never seen so many guys trying so hard to get a girl`s number and failing over and over again. Out of around 25 attempts I saw 2 successes. I even took notes while I was sitting there and as I was wearing shades they didn`t even notice me at all.
Ahh... shades... I wish I could wear them right now but the weather is not on my side today... Yesterday we had 26 degrees Celsius in the afternoon and still 20 at night and now it has dropped to 10... Well, it`s just 10am now and I am still hoping for the best. The bad thing is that I cannot get into my Ryokan for the next 7 hours so even if the sun comes up I cannot just go home and drop off my jacket and get the shades... I have no idea why it is closed all day but the old lady and her nephew (around 35 years old) are very keen on it. Worst thing is that I left most of my money in the room as well. Hmm, at least I got the credit card with me and a 600 pound limit on it. Not that I could afford to reach the limit but it is good to know anyway.

Well well! I wrote a lot this time I guess. Now I want to get out and try to find a Pay-as-you-go phone with a digital camera in it. Will not be easy as I don`t know much japanese in that field of trade but I will try. Maybe I find someone with limited English knowledge.

Oh and by the way, someone asked me about cigarettes: The biggest brands here are Mild 7 and Seven Stars. Also Lucky Strikes are quite popular and of course (like in Every country of the world) you can get Marlboro and Philip Morris. Me, being a Lucks`s guy, am quite happy about their great availability!

Anyway, gotta go and after all I need to pay for the time I spend in here and my funds are very limited today (shit, I might have to use my German bank card to pick up some cash as I can`t remember my credit card`s pin number... Something with Hitler... I am sure of that... Maybe the year he came to power? Or his birthday? Shit... I can only remember that it had something to do with Nazis which is strange, considering the fact I am German but hey, PINs are always generated randomly anyway so I am lucky that at least I got some historical hint what the Pin might be!)

Well, gotta go! I will be back here soon with more! And I am also taking notes constantly so when I am back maybe I can write a huge travel diary and put it on some homepage!

See you all later!

Arigato Gozaimasu for reading!

Phil

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