It’s better than wherever you chumps are :P After buying a big bag of Sanwa parts at Mak Japan, I took the family and my sister to MaiDreaming. Almost ¥10,000 but totally worth it. I think my sister enjoyed it the most.
>After buying a big bag of Sanwa parts at Mak Japan, I took the family and my sister to MaiDreaming. Almost ¥10,000 but totally worth it. I think my sister enjoyed it the most.
Ok, Japan is always a mystery to me. What is Maidreaming & what are Sanwa parts? You look like you're having a good time though
> > After buying a big bag of Sanwa parts at Mak Japan, I took the family and my sister > to MaiDreaming. Almost ¥10,000 but totally worth it. I think my sister enjoyed it the > most. > > Ok, Japan is always a mystery to me. What is Maidreaming & what are Sanwa parts? You > look like you're having a good time though
> > After buying a big bag of Sanwa parts at Mak Japan, I took the family and my sister > > to MaiDreaming. Almost ¥10,000 but totally worth it. I think my sister enjoyed it the > > most. > > Ok, Japan is always a mystery to me. What is Maidreaming & what are Sanwa parts? You > look like you're having a good time though
Sune already answered, but I'll just elaborate a bit more.
Sanwa is one of the two most reputable manufacturers of arcade controls in Japan, the other being Seimitsu. Those light-action, clicky Japanese joysticks with square gates in all the Sega cabinets? Those are Sanwa sticks. Getting new Sanwa parts in Australia is difficult and expensive, so I bought a whole lot of sticks and buttons here to take back.
Mak Japan is an arcade parts shop in Akihabara. It's upstairs opposite the Sumitomo Mitsui bank branch, and the shop is packed full of stock, racks of boards, carts and panels up to the ceiling, and hardly any space to move. I came so close to buying a CPS2 and some carts, but I had to remind myself that I really don't have the time and space for a rig like that. But Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha was so tempting!
MaiDreaming is one of Japan's premier maid café chains. Videos don't do it justice, you really have to go for the experience (if you do, make sure you go to one of the busier ones in Akihabara, they're better than the other locations in Tokyo). It's like stepping into a moe anime in real life. They talk cutesy, act hyper, and make everything a show. Even the food is cutesy. You pay a table charge of ¥1,000 per adult (no table charge for kids), adults have to order at least two things off the menu, kids have to order at least one thing off the menu, and you have a time limit of two hours. As long as you're not creepy otaku they'll make it worth your while. It's just so absurd it becomes totally awesome. They had no problem with couples, tourists, families and groups of women, but the creepy otaku who were obviously there to buy the cheapest thing on the menu and perv were clearly given minimum love. Cutesy food photo attached.
I can be where you are in less than 1.5 hours, any day of the week. I'm currently in a quite less crowded area with grass, trees, and a nice view of Mt. Fuji. But, I could be in Yokohama in 30 minutes or Tokyo in 45.
Just broke my personal record for number of consecutive days without dying!
> >>It’s better than wherever you chumps are :P > > I can be where you are in less than 1.5 hours, any day of the week. I'm currently in > a quite less crowded area with grass, trees, and a nice view of Mt. Fuji. But, I > could be in Yokohama in 30 minutes or Tokyo in 45.
I've got trees and grass here, too - it's called Yoyogi Koen
But seriously, I need to go and see that side of Japan some time. I've never been west of Tokyo except to go to Nagano and Niigata. I haven't even been to Mt Fuji. I haven't been to Hokkaido, either.
How's the weather over your way? Tokyo's been alternately beautiful and sunny, and miserable and rainy. Got some great spring weather in Nagano. Akita prefecture still had snow sitting on the ground, and it was raining all the time.
How easy is it to enjoy without speaking a word of Japanese? Sausage and ice cream in the same photo is hard to look at How far is it from where u live in Australia (flight time and such)?
> >>It’s better than wherever you chumps are :P > > I can be where you are in less than 1.5 hours, any day of the week. I'm currently in > a quite less crowded area with grass, trees, and a nice view of Mt. Fuji. But, I > could be in Yokohama in 30 minutes or Tokyo in 45.
> How easy is it to enjoy without speaking a word of Japanese? Sausage and ice cream in > the same photo is hard to look at How far is it from where u live in Australia > (flight time and such)?
Well, my wife doesn't speak much Japanese at all, so I kind of have a test case for this.
In Tokyo you can get by without much Japanese at all, as it's not too hard to find people who can at least understand a little English. If that fails, you can still buy stuff pretty easily by taking it to the counter, and order at restaurants by pointing at pictures on the menu. They'll show you the total price on a cash register or calculator if you can't understand. Trains go everywhere you need to go. If you get a JR East tourist rail pass you don't have to buy tickets for city trains on each ride, you just go to a manned gate and hold up your pass, so that minimises interaction and reading necessary to get around. The JR stations have most of the signs in Japanese, English and Korean, and the announcements on the trains are in Japanese and English. The essential phrases would be: "arigatou [gozaimasu]", "sumimasen", and "kore o kudasai".
If you go outside the big cities (e.g. Nagano, Niigata, or pretty much anywhere in Akita prefecture) it's hard to find anyone who speaks any English at all. There are places where you walk in and they're very worried about the prospect of trying to communicate, and they look visibly relieved when you tell them a Japanese menu is OK and they see you can read/speak/understand enough to get by. Actually my five-year-old got freaked out in these places. The feeling of not being able to read or understand anything and not knowing what to say really scared him. At a soba restaurant in Nagano where none of the staff spoke any English he wanted water, so I told him to say to the waitress (who was really lovely), "Sumimasen, mizu o kudasai." He just started crying. To him it's all just confusing babble.
So Tokyo is doable if you just smile and act like a naïve foreigner, but if you want to go out and explore the countryside you'll need at least some basic Japanese if you don't want to stick to overpriced stuff specifically done for overseas visitors.
It's about 7,800km from Sydney to Tokyo, and the flight generally takes between nine and ten hours gate to gate on a JAL 777-200ER.
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How far is it from where u live in Australia (flight time and such)?
