Japan Feb 2012 Part 10

In my final evening in Japan I witnessed what has to be the most vapid display of television.

Holy.  I just sat there with my mouth agape.  It's amazing in it's anti-entertainment.  Look at those lack of production values.  How often the camera is off doing an Eva budget thing while people talk.  How the whole show is these girls talking about nothing at all.  They build snowmen and then look at pictures of the snowmen then the episode ends.

Sambomaster - 絶望と欲望と男の子と女の子

My 100 yen nail clippers I'd been using for the past 4 years stopped working, so I had to replace them with new ones.  The new ones are not as good as my old ones   But they do have a floral design.  But this is about my final day in Tokyo!

In the morning we woke up to remembering it was the Tokyo Marathon today.  We hoped that wasn't going to cause any problems getting to the airport.  It didn't cause any.  When we left there was still one Japanese guy desperately staying up with the 3 or 4 African runners.

The Shingawa Prince Hotel is a fairly large complex with a movie theater that's last showing is at 8pm unlike the Jeans-shop.  It also has a bowling alley and a Sega "game center".  It's more or less just 3 or 4 machines and some purikura.  We hadn't done purikura yet so we did that for the memories, and probably the only decent pictures of us together this whole trip.  They also had the wonderful smiling man from Okinawa in a whack-a-mole like game that I never have learned the name of (the man.)

 We had a couple of hours before we needed to head to Narita, but not exactly enough time/effort to haul the suitcase to somewhere interesting.  Instead we headed one station over to Oimachi.  I used my absurd upper body strength to lift the suitcase into a high locker.  My knee definitely appreciated that bit.

Back when I was a student I randomly went to Oimachi to check it out.  Hey, I could see a giant book off from the train tracks.  Then the Book Off got turned down, and Yuri's first job out of college was working in Oimachi strangely (I had dragged her there for her first visit to the area.)  It was a nice place, but the lack of delicious restaurants was ultimately why I never went back.

 We headed off to the right of the exit which turned out to be the wrong move.  We traveled down a long escalator.  We navigated back to the correct side of the station and walked down the shotengai, while I talked about what I had done the day before.  We ended up stopping at a curry place that Yuri frequented.  There was some Asian-Americans in the place that payed us no mind as much as we paid them no mind.  It was also yet another time where we entered a restaurant right before it got busy.

Afterwards we explored the Labi with no real intentions until I decided I needed to try and find more Jojo.  My one volume of Stone Ocean re-invigorated my love of the series and it wasn't like I could get more when I got back.  to complement my volume 3 I got volumes 5 and 7.  The clerks asked if I was certain with these volumes.  I said they didn't have the other volumes.  They went over and looked at the shelf.  "Oh I guess he wasn't a moron."

Right as we were heading back to the station we managed to pass the Xbox Kinect display with Xbox Kinect girl.  She looked suitably bored.

 She has a good bar close to work though.

With that we got on the Narita Express, the kind of expensive but easier way to and from Narita.  At Narita we managed to pick up some last minute souvenirs and strange flavored kit kats, because that's what Japan does.  I'd never gotten any before, so it seemed like the right play.  I enjoyed a last bowl of Udon, and then headed to the gates.  It was probably the least sad good bye Yuri and I ever had.

Of course because I had a horrible leg injury my gate was the absolute farthest one away.  I managed to switch my seat so I had more room to somewhat prop it up.  Then United pissed the entire economy class off by switching everyone's seat.  They actually gave me a whole row to myself so I could stretch my leg out.  Then a Japanese woman sat down in the same row as me.  The attendant told her to move, but she said she was more comfortable here.  That was the end of that!

Hilariously, my beloved Sony Eggos broke just about 30 minutes into the flight and far past the point where I could easily send them into Sony Japan for repairs and have Yuri mail them back to me.  I watched a lot of TV shows on the plane, and while landing started Tree of Life.  Apparently a lot of people left the theater when it was playing.  I understand that.  I'm a man that can appreciate something arty and after about 25 minutes I was still staring at the screen going, "what the hell am I watching?"  Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock were good though.

In LAX I got my body blasted with more radiation then my week in post-nuclear-meltdown Japan had exposed me to.  My arrival gate was the farthest from customs, and my depature gate was the farthest from there.  The universe loved not giving my knee a break.  The second flight had the most crying babies I think I've ever had on a flight.  It also had a hippie couple with hippie smells sitting right infront of me.  I tucked my nose into my sweater and managed to sleep through most of the flight.

Then I was back in America.

At least I was free of AKB48.

Rudie: I wish I was Glamorous!
Renfrew: I wish I was Wild Health!

The End.