Brian's Japan Topic

[Brianhjh]

Because random supposedly kills topics older than 15 days:


I flew from Toronto to San Francisco in a tiny little plane that was made for 50 people but had 100. It was one of the most uncomfortable experience in my life, mostly because I had the window seat and the aisle seat was occupied by a fat Mexican woman who had "Fragile" glass lamps on board with her. Trying to get out of that seat with glass lamps under the seats was nearly impossible, but I had to do it three times to go to the washroom. I also didn't have an on-plane pillow to sleep on, so I regretted not buying it in Toronto for 20 dollars.

San Francisco, it surprised me when I found that San Francisco was extremely windy. I thought all Californian cities were 30 degrees in the summer. It was much colder than Toronto because of the wind. They even sold jackets right outside the arrivals area for tourists like me who didn't bring them. I only had an hour and thirty minutes to switch to the plane departing to Nagoya. On my free time, I found the same pillow I should have bought in Toronto. Their price was 12.99. It just goes to show you every fucking thing in Canada is more expensive than the United States.

I had a seat very close to the washrooms in the plane to Nagoya. I recommend this to anyone who's boarding an international plane. It was easy for me to change contacts/take medicine etc. The 11 hour trip wasn't actually as bad as the San Francisco one as I had the pillow and I could sleep. I only slept for few hours though, most of the time, I was bored out of my mind. I took a book with me but did not read more than 20 pages. The airline food is horrible as they say, but it was much, much worse for me because I got my wisdom teeth removed very recently. I couldn't chew anything harder than a roll of bread. For Lunch, I got a salisbury steak, which was nice, but for dinner, I got a turkey sandwich. The bread was hard as hell, I couldn't even chew the thing.

Nagoya is humid and warm, I was extremely surprised to see palm trees near the airport, but the city itself doesn't have any, which was weird. Transportation is expensive in Japan. The express train that takes 10 minutes from the airport to the city centre is 12 dollars. The Nagoya station is considered to be the largest train station in the world. It is certainly huge, but most of the space is used to house the office for Central Japan Railway corp. One of the first thing you notice in Japan is how clean the streets are, and how everyone rides bikes. Because there are so many bikes, no one locks them either. The cars are very different too. I haven't seen any cars here that looks like the cars in North America. Cars in Japan are smaller and virtually rectangular, easy for cruising crowded city streets I guess.

The 60 - dollars a night hotel (part of the global comfort-inn chain) was a good hotel for the money. The air-conditioning system was nice. I just wish it has a desk for me to write something on. The toilets come with bidets, which was one of the unpleasant experience in Japan I had so far, that thing shoots everywhere. The shower was uncomfortable too, as the shower head only came up to my neck, and I'm not even tall. So I took a bath instead. Japanese bathes are about twice as short, but about 1.5 times deep, it's designed for sitting with legs crossed, I guess. After I checked into the hotel, I decided to walk around the city. I visited both Tora no Ana and Mandarake, the two largest doujin/comic chain in Japan.

Tora no Ana is freaking awesome. Imagine the largest comicbook store you've ever been to, and imagine it having 6 floors. There was a separate floor for comics, doujinshi, BL, Adult, etc. etc. I found the comics my sister wanted easily from the comics section. The doujinshi section is large, but hard to navigate. The stuff in the adult section would definitely be banned in North America. I felt awkard walking through it all. The Japanese men that are found in the Adult sections are usually smelly and looks like they haven't seen sunlight in days. Mandarake was smaller than tora no ana, it only had three floors, but much more doujins. Unlike tora no ana which displays doujins in cascade-shaped shelves with front facing the cutomer, Mandarake has huge bookshelves and just shoves doujins tightly like books. I estimate that they must have a million doujins in the store. Many of them are cheap - like 2 bucks. As a note, they have 6-7 shelves dedicated to Hitman reborn alone.

It's a common stereotype that Japanese people talk like anime characters, and that they are obsessed about manga, this is all true. I've seen more mangas in convience stores in Japan than I have in Chapters in my city. The Japanese do not distinguish mangas from other books. All bookstores in Japan have at least 40-50 percent mangas. Used book stores is a very good place to get once-popular shonen mangas. I'm tempted to buy the entire Hikaru no Go for 25 bucks. I've only been in Japan for two days, but I've seen at least 15 places that sells manga, it's everywhere. Even the supermarket that I bought food in has a sizeable corner for manga, mostly weekly shounen magazines.

The train from Nagoya to Okazaki is 6 dollars and takes 30 minutes. Okazaki is a much smaller city than Nagoya, and thus, I haven't seen really tall buildings. The food seems to be cheaper here, which is nice. My room is rather bare but has all the necessities. The air conditioning is God's gift to the Japanese people, I don't know how they survive Summer without it. It's not the temperature, it's the humidity that's annoying in Japan. I didn't bring a laptop with me, so I'm using one of the computers down stairs. Apprently everyone brought there laptops, which means I get to use these computers without other people needing to use them. The mouse is rather buggy, however.
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[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/Brianhjh/emesprani151.gif[/img] "Sarah's future makes me sad." - Benk

[TheWolfsFang]

Uhm, what percent of the manga are english? For those of us too lame to read in Jappanese.
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When all things end darkly,
That is when my bright work begins.
Death is all I know.

[Brianhjh]

... How many percent of mangas in US are in Japanese?
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[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/Brianhjh/emesprani151.gif[/img] "Sarah's future makes me sad." - Benk

[TheWolfsFang]

Ah, good point.
_________________
When all things end darkly,
That is when my bright work begins.
Death is all I know.

[London]

Is Chapters the same as Indigo?
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[i][size=9]Go Yankees![/size][/i]

[Brianhjh]

Chapters bought Indigo, or vice versa, I dunno.


Also, one thing I've noticed in Japan is that all the computers are crappy, and that game stores do not sell pc games. Everything is oriented for Wii and PS3, not computers. Also, Music CD's cost 30 dollars.
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[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/Brianhjh/emesprani151.gif[/img] "Sarah's future makes me sad." - Benk

[HerculesRockefeller]

How many black people have you seen?
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[img]http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/ac127/Ezkaton2000/THEGODDAMNHAKUMEN.jpg[/img]

[Brianhjh]

Two, so far, in 10 days, it was in a buffet.


related subject. One of the student in my class is a pulp fiction fan, and we were trying to translating pulp fiction quotations into Japanese, but didn't really work well, because with the amount of Japanese we learned (the second highest form of politeness), it sounded like this.


"Do the people of the country of "Pardon me" speak English there?"

"Pardon me?"

"English, my friend, could you speak it?"


Also, when we were translating Japanese into English, beneath a car (Jidousha or Kuruma), he put down "Dead nig[color=black]ger[/color] storage.
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[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/Brianhjh/emesprani151.gif[/img] "Sarah's future makes me sad." - Benk

[Jedi]

It sounds like you had an interesting time. I'd have loved to have gone to that Tora no Ana place. Six floors dedicated to manga! Paradise. Did you know that the meaning for Tora is tiger? Well, that's one of its meanings, I don't know if there are others...

Sorry to hear about those ghastly plane flights you had, what with teeth not long been removed. I had to have a tooth taken out recently, so I know what you went through with eating certain food stuffs. Speaking of food... what was it like in Japan?
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The Force will be with you... always.

[HerculesRockefeller]

Blian, try to wrestle the emperor.
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[img]http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/ac127/Ezkaton2000/THEGODDAMNHAKUMEN.jpg[/img]