just a foreword notifying you that pepsi nex is out! i guess they are just trying to be like coke in bringing out a new zero sugar drink… tencho says it tastes sweet. i’m not up to trying it myself :p

today i set off to my next and final destination in japan – himeji. ill be studying here for quite a while and won’t be doing any major travel.

shinkansen is my vehicle of choice – also my first time on a non-hikari shinkansen. unfortunately this one seemed like it was older than hikari

ok. i found a few interesting things at tokyo station in the hour i had waiting for my shinkansen. first is this “switch”, which looks more like a dial. they are located on every shinkansen platform. now what could this be used for, i hear you asking yourself. the notice below reads that it should be used in the case of emergency to stop incoming trains. they shouldve just put a sign saying “suicide switch” or something.

speaking of suiciding – i was speaking with mao about the suicide rate in japan. he said rail services are often stopped because of such cases, often delaying whole train lines for many hours at a time. the funniest part is, if someone happens to suicide, their family is made to pay a *large* sum of money to JR to cover the loss of service. lol.

ok. there’s this tiny door, about half the height that would be required for even a japanese person to fit through. its located halfway up the stairs. and then you see these girls dressed in pink crawling out of it… only in japan! even a few of the japanese were laughing as they watched.

finally, this guy was the 駅員 in charge of this platform. he may not look it, but he is carrying a wireless microphone with the power to do a lot of stuff… like turn on all those cool sounds and boom his voice over the system. in front of him is a control panel thats opened by a digital pad, which allows him to tell the train when to go. so he stands there with his uber mic and red baton/flag thing doing these hand signals in all 4 directions to make sure the train is ready to go or something, then hes like yosh! gogogo. and the train leaves. looks like a fun job :d

himeji is nice. the house i’m staying in is huuuge (for a japanese house anyway) and i have a stable net connection and a room to myself . life is good. more to come

well there’s quite a few 百貨店 (hyakkaten) stores around in japan, selling only products that can be purchased with 100yen (for 1 or 2 items).  this works out to rougly AU$1.25.  i guess you wouldnt think that you could buy too much for that price – after all, japan is said to be a very expensive country right?

lets start with the snacks section.  there are basically every kind of lolly/chip snack you could possibly want, including prepacked dried fruit and the likes too.

i really find these ones especially interesting – they are fruit lollies… kind of gummy but they come with quite a lot of moisture inside them.  the packets are resealable, and they taste reeeeeeallly nice (until you eat too many at once, then its not so nice).  i guess when fruit is expensive and you’re after that awesome lychee flavour, this is your haven.

ramen.  what is there to say?  its cheap!  i haven’t tried any of these kinds, so i can’t vouch for their edibility(?) but they look quite good i guess ;d

dishwashing liquid for 100yen..

what happens if you’re on a low income and need to lose some weight?  water dumbbells come to mind!

…and ther’s a lot more.  so like, what’s with people saying how expensive japan is?  its really quite a cheap country (until you get on a train).  *shrug*

this is the day of the week that every otaku in japan must look forward to. it basically differs from any other day because most people have time off work or school (about the only day of the week they *may* have free) and after 1200 they close the inner roads of akiba off from cars. the result of this is a lot of people taking over the streets either performing or just… cosplaying. so you basically see about 8 huge crowds of men around a couple of girls in school/maid uniforms, or the occasional balancing juggler with kids and adults watching.

the main downfall of visiting on sunday is the crowds of people that plague the shops. moving around inside animate and other similar stores is like a nightmare where you are stuck on a kaitenzushi conveyor belt, being forced to keep moving and maybe, just maybe getting a chance to grab what you want before you are swept away. especially bad are the doujin floors, which are full of about 80 smelly men doing their best to get their latest doujin or erohon. not a sight/smell you really want to experience (unless you’re there for the merchandise i guess :p).

one thing i have been wanting to do a lot more is take pictures of the inside of shops that look really cool, or a shelf of models which own badly. unfortunately, taking photos like this is pretty much considered a crime in japan, and it really takes a lot of effort to hide a camera well enough to not be seen :p. that aside, i managed to get a few shots today, so check out the gallery for those. i guess this will be my last visit to akihabara in quite a few months, unless i get bored over the next few days ^^;

today’s fish

so we went to oosaka with the intention of visiting “one of the largest aquariums in the world”. it was pretty nice, with the main exhibition being the huge pacific ocean display in the middle of the 7 storey building, surrounded by a lot of smaller exhibitions from all over the world.

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i kind of compiled all the video footage i took and put it on gen’s space to try and own his bandwidth :p – take a look if you have a bit of spare bandwidth and time.

there was everything from dolphins to sea otters to jellyfish, and also a really cool gift shop at the end. there are these really nice pillows all over japan with a substance inside that feels reeeaaaallly soft and nice… i really want to get one sometime. they were shaped as dolphins and other sea creatures in thsi case, but i didn’t end up buying one mainly because the ones they had were quite dirty from all the kids passing by having a rub.

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we ended up eating kfc after ds was attracted to the store and wouldnt leave. i think the 11 secret ingredients didn’t quite make it through the translation to japanese correctly. not that it didn’t taste good… it was just different. not to mention the stingy chip servings (about 10 chips ^^;). if i had to say something good about it, it did taste healthier – my twister had beans and other stuff inside.

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mmm, the bakeries in japan are just too good. i can’t resist when i see one. soo much bread in my stomach .