Day 3: Akihabara
Oct. 26th, 2003 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unbibiumAfter doing some laundry and enjoying a ramen breakfast, I decided to finally buy a Japanese dictionary and a monocular.
I bought the monocular from Big Camera. After struggling in Japanese for five minutes, the clerk revealed that he spoke perfect English, and so the transaction went smoothly from there. I got a 10% discount by signing up for their Big Camera membership card. I have them my address and phone number. I wonder if I'll be getting Japanese telemarketers calling my cell phone now.
I had trouble meeting Hajime because I was waiting at a different Excelsior Caffe than he was looking for, though it was on the same corner. Excelsior rips off Starbucks' logo and its geographic saturation, but its sizes make more sense. Short, Medium, Large. They make a great Seafood Gratin Panini.
So we took the train to Akihabara and found a bunch of specialty stores, looked at manga and action-figure model kits, and video games. At one store, I rifled through a bin of old Famicom games and picked two random ones to bring home; I can use them with that pirate Famicom I bought from QVC.
We also found a specialty store that had these, uhh... I think they were comedy CD's. There were three of them, each of them had a screenshot from a Famicom game (Mario, Zelda, or Dragon Warrior), with a picture of an androgynous-looking Japanese person dressed up as the main character/ Hajime bought the Mario one, I bought the Zelda one.
After much browsing, we went back to Ikebukuro, my 'hood, and he showed me a great udon place. A great bowl of curry udon and a beer.
I have a lot of white-man guilt about two things: first, lots of signs bear English words in katakana. That's convenient for me, but it saddens me that American culture has had such a part in diluting Japanese culture. I suppose the same thing happened with Latin for a long time. I also am disappointed in myself that I'm not at least trying to speak more Japanese around Hajime. Granted, he went to high school and college in Utah, so he's practically a native speaker of English, but still, I can't help but think I'm either being rude, or missing an opportunity to practice. Of course, since my IQ drops in half when I speak Japanese, I'd probably be less fun to hang around if I made him wait for me to carefully piece together Japanese sentences.
I'm headed to my room to recharge and think of some way to spend tonight.
I bought the monocular from Big Camera. After struggling in Japanese for five minutes, the clerk revealed that he spoke perfect English, and so the transaction went smoothly from there. I got a 10% discount by signing up for their Big Camera membership card. I have them my address and phone number. I wonder if I'll be getting Japanese telemarketers calling my cell phone now.
I had trouble meeting Hajime because I was waiting at a different Excelsior Caffe than he was looking for, though it was on the same corner. Excelsior rips off Starbucks' logo and its geographic saturation, but its sizes make more sense. Short, Medium, Large. They make a great Seafood Gratin Panini.
So we took the train to Akihabara and found a bunch of specialty stores, looked at manga and action-figure model kits, and video games. At one store, I rifled through a bin of old Famicom games and picked two random ones to bring home; I can use them with that pirate Famicom I bought from QVC.
We also found a specialty store that had these, uhh... I think they were comedy CD's. There were three of them, each of them had a screenshot from a Famicom game (Mario, Zelda, or Dragon Warrior), with a picture of an androgynous-looking Japanese person dressed up as the main character/ Hajime bought the Mario one, I bought the Zelda one.
After much browsing, we went back to Ikebukuro, my 'hood, and he showed me a great udon place. A great bowl of curry udon and a beer.
I have a lot of white-man guilt about two things: first, lots of signs bear English words in katakana. That's convenient for me, but it saddens me that American culture has had such a part in diluting Japanese culture. I suppose the same thing happened with Latin for a long time. I also am disappointed in myself that I'm not at least trying to speak more Japanese around Hajime. Granted, he went to high school and college in Utah, so he's practically a native speaker of English, but still, I can't help but think I'm either being rude, or missing an opportunity to practice. Of course, since my IQ drops in half when I speak Japanese, I'd probably be less fun to hang around if I made him wait for me to carefully piece together Japanese sentences.
I'm headed to my room to recharge and think of some way to spend tonight.
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Date: 2003-10-26 07:43 am (UTC)I really, really wouldn't worry about that if I were you. Look at the way anime and manga art-styles have caught on in the last few years. Look at all the TV protagonists carrying katanas. Heck, look at all the people wearing t-shirts with Japanese characters on them - without any knowledge of what the words actually mean.
Basically, Americans like to play with Eastern culture because it's exotic to us - therefore, it must be cool. The same principle applies to the Japanese, who like to play with Western culture for similar reasons.
I once encountered a kid who had the character for "cow" tatooed on his shoulder. I spent the next twenty minutes in a closet, laughing.