(no subject)
So I walked to the shopping mall last night. Right at the entrance was a Starbucks, of course -_-;; I saw a sign for some company whose name I forget, but their logo looked like the bastard child of Donald Duck and a peacock. And there's a store that I think is a pawn shop or something called Hard Off, and I thought that was funny.
As for the mall itself, it was pretty much like an American mall, with a big department store on each end, with several smaller stores in the middle, mostly shishi clothing stores. And a food court of course. And then of course it had all the Japanese hightech flashiness such as big tv screens everywhere and holographic displays and other bright flashy stuff that gets your attention. I went in a multimedia store and cried again. I shouldn't make a habit out of going in those places or I'll slowly torture myself to death. I went in a toy store and spent what felt like hours staring at the mecha models. I think I'm gonna go buy one today just to have something to do. Actually, no. I have to go to the bank and cash some travelers checks. I don't have enough money for a good model. I want that Zeta-Gundam Perfect Grade kit. The one that transforms and everything. That'll keep me busy for a day or two at least, probably more if I try to do a nice job on it. Mmm...I'm starting to like that idea. Then I went in a book store and found the manga section, and just fell to my knees. I asked someone if they had anything by Rumiko Takahashi, but all they had was Inuyasha. Lots of Inuyasha. Not that I don't love Inuyasha; it just isn't what I was looking for. I was trying to find volume two of One Pound Gospel, but they didn't have anything like that of course. Just lots of newer stuff. I wanted to look at the shoujo manga, but there were some girls there looking at them and I didn't want to repeat that previous embarassment. But who cares if it's "shoujo" manga dammit? How do I explain to them that in America otaku read this stuff? "Oh I just don't know what to do! I still have strong feelings for Tanaka-sensei, but Ryoji has been so nice to me lately even though I thought I hated him. Maybe he's not such a bad guy afterall! Or maybe it's just because it's my time of the month... At any rate I can't even begin to worry about college entrance exams with all this going on!" It's great! Only because it stars cute manga girls though. Still, I prefer more serious and more sci-fi or historically-based stuff.
Today kinda sucked. We got our class assignments, and I knew two of the people in my class by name because I had talked to them before and they both live in the same dorm as me. But then this guy who I knew didn't know a word of Japanese, because I sat next to him in the placement test, and he just wrote his name on his paper and then turned it in. That's when I realized something was wrong. Turned out we were in the lowest class. It sucked. We spent all day learning fucking hiragana. Hello! I should be learning at least 2nd grade level kanji. Fortunately they have placement tests at the end of every week, and it's usually quite easy to get bumped up a level. And also I'm at least not the only person in the wrong class. This guy Hiroki...his dad's Japanese, but he doesn't know that much himself. But at least he certainly knows enough to be in a higher level class, especially since he had already been in the school for 3 months! He's quite an intersting character. He came in wearing a leather jacket, hugeass parachute pants, and one of those teddybear hats like Lain wears. His head is shaved, he has one of those goat beards (and it's redish in color), glasses, and big stretched earlobe piercings. He was rather disruptive in class sometimes, and a lot of people were annoyed by him quite a bit. I talked to him during lunch though, and even though he's not a very good role model, he is definitely good people and I like him. He does smoke, though not much. And he doesn't do any other drugs. Very social-consious and smart. His thing is electronic music. I listened to some of the stuff he's working on on his MD player. Very professional stuff. At any rate, he was cool, and also quite annoyed by being in the lower class, although the teacher might just bump him up to the next class just to get rid of him. Maybe I'll hang around with him sometime, especially since he's already been here awhile and knows stuff. I need to find some cute girls. Oh, and have I talked about how cool Japanese cell phones are? I mean, last time I was here they were also very cool, but American ones have almost caught up to those. But of course Japanese phones are still several steps ahead. Very thin...almost half as thick as my sister's Nokia that she's all pressed about. The cases themselves are very stylish, and come in a huge variety. They all have backlit color LCD's that're very sharp and easy on the eyes. They have e-mail, instant messaging, and the one this one guy showed me had bust-a-moove on it, in full color and whatnot, with a high score list. Some of them have a little camera on them and you can take pictures to print on photo stickers...that stuff is kinda gimmicky, but you know those school girls like that stuff. Anyways, I could go on and on about it. Just years ahead of the US. Oh, and cheap as hell too. Anyways I think I'll shut up now.
As for the mall itself, it was pretty much like an American mall, with a big department store on each end, with several smaller stores in the middle, mostly shishi clothing stores. And a food court of course. And then of course it had all the Japanese hightech flashiness such as big tv screens everywhere and holographic displays and other bright flashy stuff that gets your attention. I went in a multimedia store and cried again. I shouldn't make a habit out of going in those places or I'll slowly torture myself to death. I went in a toy store and spent what felt like hours staring at the mecha models. I think I'm gonna go buy one today just to have something to do. Actually, no. I have to go to the bank and cash some travelers checks. I don't have enough money for a good model. I want that Zeta-Gundam Perfect Grade kit. The one that transforms and everything. That'll keep me busy for a day or two at least, probably more if I try to do a nice job on it. Mmm...I'm starting to like that idea. Then I went in a book store and found the manga section, and just fell to my knees. I asked someone if they had anything by Rumiko Takahashi, but all they had was Inuyasha. Lots of Inuyasha. Not that I don't love Inuyasha; it just isn't what I was looking for. I was trying to find volume two of One Pound Gospel, but they didn't have anything like that of course. Just lots of newer stuff. I wanted to look at the shoujo manga, but there were some girls there looking at them and I didn't want to repeat that previous embarassment. But who cares if it's "shoujo" manga dammit? How do I explain to them that in America otaku read this stuff? "Oh I just don't know what to do! I still have strong feelings for Tanaka-sensei, but Ryoji has been so nice to me lately even though I thought I hated him. Maybe he's not such a bad guy afterall! Or maybe it's just because it's my time of the month... At any rate I can't even begin to worry about college entrance exams with all this going on!" It's great! Only because it stars cute manga girls though. Still, I prefer more serious and more sci-fi or historically-based stuff.
Today kinda sucked. We got our class assignments, and I knew two of the people in my class by name because I had talked to them before and they both live in the same dorm as me. But then this guy who I knew didn't know a word of Japanese, because I sat next to him in the placement test, and he just wrote his name on his paper and then turned it in. That's when I realized something was wrong. Turned out we were in the lowest class. It sucked. We spent all day learning fucking hiragana. Hello! I should be learning at least 2nd grade level kanji. Fortunately they have placement tests at the end of every week, and it's usually quite easy to get bumped up a level. And also I'm at least not the only person in the wrong class. This guy Hiroki...his dad's Japanese, but he doesn't know that much himself. But at least he certainly knows enough to be in a higher level class, especially since he had already been in the school for 3 months! He's quite an intersting character. He came in wearing a leather jacket, hugeass parachute pants, and one of those teddybear hats like Lain wears. His head is shaved, he has one of those goat beards (and it's redish in color), glasses, and big stretched earlobe piercings. He was rather disruptive in class sometimes, and a lot of people were annoyed by him quite a bit. I talked to him during lunch though, and even though he's not a very good role model, he is definitely good people and I like him. He does smoke, though not much. And he doesn't do any other drugs. Very social-consious and smart. His thing is electronic music. I listened to some of the stuff he's working on on his MD player. Very professional stuff. At any rate, he was cool, and also quite annoyed by being in the lower class, although the teacher might just bump him up to the next class just to get rid of him. Maybe I'll hang around with him sometime, especially since he's already been here awhile and knows stuff. I need to find some cute girls. Oh, and have I talked about how cool Japanese cell phones are? I mean, last time I was here they were also very cool, but American ones have almost caught up to those. But of course Japanese phones are still several steps ahead. Very thin...almost half as thick as my sister's Nokia that she's all pressed about. The cases themselves are very stylish, and come in a huge variety. They all have backlit color LCD's that're very sharp and easy on the eyes. They have e-mail, instant messaging, and the one this one guy showed me had bust-a-moove on it, in full color and whatnot, with a high score list. Some of them have a little camera on them and you can take pictures to print on photo stickers...that stuff is kinda gimmicky, but you know those school girls like that stuff. Anyways, I could go on and on about it. Just years ahead of the US. Oh, and cheap as hell too. Anyways I think I'll shut up now.