Kanto On Location Day 7
After an enjoyable few days of slacking off I was now back to story research. When I awoke, I headed immediately to Saitama via the Saikyo Line, which took about an hour to reach. I wandered around Omiya Station a bit and picked up some rice balls for lunch before moving on to Owada to find a good location for a character's house. I liked the look of the area across the tracks, and after walking about 5 minutes, found a huge vegetable garden that looked as though it'd be a nice spot to build a fictional house. Then I took photos of the area, timed the railroad crossing sounds, noted the train schedules and caught the next Tobu-Noda train back to Omiya. There, I bought some puchi-taiyaki (they had a branch of the same shop as at Kamata) before hopping back on the Saikyo line. We ran alongside a shinkansen/bullet train for a bit (700), it was pretty neat. The Saikyo (soon to be my most commonly-ridden train on the trip) actually turned into the Rinkai Line once it passed a certain station, so I rode the Rinkai to Odaiba for the first time. As I noted during NaNoWriMo, the Rinkai is cheaper and faster than the Yurikamome (a monorail-style train) but the Yurikamome is so much more fun, so despite having spent like 4 days in Odaiba already on this vacation alone I still hadn't ridden on the Rinkai. This was my chance, so I disembarked at Kokusai-Tenjijo station and went to tune into the last hour or so of Comiket. Coo-san seemed to have gone already, or at least she wasn't at the same table as the previous day, so I went to take photos of the cosplayers, but arrived just as Cosplay Square closed. Bugger. I ninja'd a few photos and moved on across the Yume-ohashi ("Dream Bridge") to check out the arcade awhile. While on the bridge, a foreign guy with an American accent asked me to take a picture of him with the control spire Teleport Bridge in the background. I obliged, and we separated again, photographing opposite sides of the bridge. Then I thought I too wanted a photo with the ferris wheel in the background, but I didn't want to ask, so I just set up the self-timer. The guy spotted me, though, and offered to take my picture, so that was cool.
On the other side of the bridge, I went to the Toyota Design Showcase, which was really cool. Couldn't believe I never went before! I played with the photo-printer in the Mega Web building and printed off a picture from my USB stick. After that, Tokyo Leisure Land, the big 24-hour arcade. I wandered around a bit and ran into the photo guy twice, the second time of which I was fighting a claw machine for a Kuririn plushie. He introduced himself and asked me if I wanted to go get a coffee or a drink, which I politely declined, saying I was about to meet my friends in Shibuya. Made a show of texting Mana-chan to cement my excuse, won myself a keychain (the plushie wasn't happening) and then headed out to Aomi Station to pick up the stuff I'd left there the day before. (Making sure dude wasn't following me, I'm so paranoid, lol.) I was tired, so I really did go to Shibuya, and canvassed Mandarake one more time for doujinshi. None of interest were to be found, though, so after browsing Claire's, I went to a Dotour, sat down and read through Coo-san's books and a few of my EarthBound doujins until 9:30 or so, then I moved on to my sleepy-box for the night, just across the street. This capsule was comfier than the place I'd stayed in the night before, which was great, though I wasted a fair amount of time on the computer when I ought to have been sleeping, haha. Unfortunately it was also quite noisy. The other patrons were eating/snoring/clicking away at computers and my iPod had gone dead, and my radio-pod hadn't been charged after Hikarigaoka. I had no music to drown out the background sounds, but luckily there was a headphone jack on the computer, so I tuned into Radio PSI and asked Amz to play a few EarthBound songs while I nodded off. He obliged, and I did eventually lay down and pass out, very very tired.
On the other side of the bridge, I went to the Toyota Design Showcase, which was really cool. Couldn't believe I never went before! I played with the photo-printer in the Mega Web building and printed off a picture from my USB stick. After that, Tokyo Leisure Land, the big 24-hour arcade. I wandered around a bit and ran into the photo guy twice, the second time of which I was fighting a claw machine for a Kuririn plushie. He introduced himself and asked me if I wanted to go get a coffee or a drink, which I politely declined, saying I was about to meet my friends in Shibuya. Made a show of texting Mana-chan to cement my excuse, won myself a keychain (the plushie wasn't happening) and then headed out to Aomi Station to pick up the stuff I'd left there the day before. (Making sure dude wasn't following me, I'm so paranoid, lol.) I was tired, so I really did go to Shibuya, and canvassed Mandarake one more time for doujinshi. None of interest were to be found, though, so after browsing Claire's, I went to a Dotour, sat down and read through Coo-san's books and a few of my EarthBound doujins until 9:30 or so, then I moved on to my sleepy-box for the night, just across the street. This capsule was comfier than the place I'd stayed in the night before, which was great, though I wasted a fair amount of time on the computer when I ought to have been sleeping, haha. Unfortunately it was also quite noisy. The other patrons were eating/snoring/clicking away at computers and my iPod had gone dead, and my radio-pod hadn't been charged after Hikarigaoka. I had no music to drown out the background sounds, but luckily there was a headphone jack on the computer, so I tuned into Radio PSI and asked Amz to play a few EarthBound songs while I nodded off. He obliged, and I did eventually lay down and pass out, very very tired.