First up is the following. This was in the capsule machine at Akihabara. It struck me as a bit odd. Unfortunately Mel missed it, so I post it here for your enjoyment.
On the way ti Kiddy Land I saw this delightful sign. Fcuk. It's French. Or something....There was so many damn floors to Kiddy Land. I think it was like 5 or something. We skipped the Snoopy/Peanuts floor because we had no interest. The rest are mixed in the following pics. I think we started on the ground floor. Well, I'm more than pretty sure that's what we did. We then traipsed up to the top floor and worked back down (skipping said Snoopy area).
Here is a gorgeous, beautiful Dragon Quest display. These are all pvc figures and carried a hefty price tag.
Here's some plushies. One of my major goals for our Japan trip was to acquire a slime plushy. I've been seeing the things in magazines and such since I was a young tyke playing the original games in the mid eighties. The biggest one was 3000 yen or around $35 dollars. I walked out with the small blue one and the small metal one. That was about $20. However, they look really nice on the shelf next to my Cthulhu hand puppet.
So, here's a bunch of Kirbys. There's also some Windwaker Links.
They had a giant Mario, but it wasn't for sale.
They had shelves of Yoshis and Toads, but not a single 1up mushroom. How strange a request is that? Just a single 1up? Nope, nothing. They didn't have star power stars either. The only way to get those was crane machines in other districts (that I sucked/failed at).
It's a good thing this giant Yoshi wasn't for sale. If he was, I might have bought him. A month's salary? A pittance for such an amazing stuffy!! :D
I don't know what's up with these bears. They're mildly interesting though.
Floor shot. 1st floor, I think.
Pokemon section.
Here's some Transformer models. These aren't the regular toys, they're much more detailed. Hence the glass case around them .
Apparently Hello Kitty went Goth. I missed that news announcement. Maybe she's Emo? I read about that.
These face banks are kinda creepy. Not to say I don't want one because I totally do.
You may have seen those edamame peapods that have the cute little things that pop out? Well here's a cuter, plushy version.
Apparently cute soy beans plushy things are everywhere (and maybe carry samurai swords now).
Here's a giant rack of socks. The first picture sucked! However, as I captured the second one, Mel happened to be turning the storm trooper socks towards the camera. A lucky coincidence.
The Square Soft display! Here you can have expensive models of all your favorite Final Fantasy characters. Final Fantasy 7 & 9 characters dominate the display.
We found some Star Wars goodies. The pics should speak for themselves.
Giant Stitch.
Here's some stuff. Apparently there was also a mirror behind the stuff that captured me.
Well, you can't really tell, but these are puzzles. It's all clear, colored plastic. You have a difficult, mind-numbing time putting them together and then they look pretty with light shining through them.
Here's a super tattooed Barbie. I'd never seen one of those before.
Nightmare before Christmas?
So, here's a shitty Gizmo plushy.
If that Gizmo would've looked anything like this Mogwi, I would've bought him on the spot. Price be damned!!
Here's some other Gremlins goodies. They actually had a Gremlins section. Here in Korea they've never heard of Gremlins, but in Japan it rates a section. Interesting.
There was a lot of these creepy dolls. I didn't catch the brand. We have Captain Jack from Pirates and Sith Anakin from Star Wars. There's also Rei and Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Well, my bad. Later in the shelves I discovered that tattoo Barbie is actually supposed to be Goldie Hawn. Who knew?!
More crazy dolls (including Edward Scissorhands!).
These are paper-craft. You buy a little pack of paper tubes. Following the instructions, you get one of these.
Disney stuff.
Random, cool, PVC monsters and such.
So, we found Nano blocks all over Japan. These things are just like Legos, except tinier. A nano block 1x1 is about 1/4 the size of a Lego 1x1. So picture one of those little flat Lego 1x1s... that's a nano block 4x4. These blocks are expensive. They're probably also way too easy to lose/choke on. I bet the vacuum has no problem with them though.
It's a giant Sully!!
Popples never died in Japan!
Nor did My Little Pony!
I don't know what they are, but they're cute, right?
More paper-craft. This time it's in Disney shapes.
I <3 Sully!
The Hello Kitty floor!
That stuffed ferret melted my little, black heart.
Ugh! Yep, these too are still around in Japan!
Cute food stuffs!
Sesame Street reminds me that the rest of the world is somewhat aware of American pop culture even if Korea isn't.
That was some stuff from Spirited Away. There were lots of things from Miyazaki's movies.So, that was our trip to Japan. It was a good time. We're currently thinking about our next trip. It may be some time before we get around to it, but we're really excited! What is it? Well, I'll save that for another blog.....
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Just kidding! So, what we'd like to do is head up to Beijing. We'll spend a day or whatever and check out the Great Wall. Then we'll hop the Trans Siberian Railroad up to Moscow. We'll spend a few days there and then head on. We'll take the TSR from Moscow to London!! The cool factor is that you can buy a special ticket that let's you get off and spend a few days where ever you like along the way. It would be a great opportunity to see a great big chunk of the world. It's relatively cheap too. The train ticket from Beijing to Moscow would probably be under $500 a piece. If you think about the distance covered and all the countries you can visit then it's really a bargain.
Well, that's it for this evening...
Aaron
