Dispatches from Elsewhere: Geeking out
Day 6: Japan
Hello friends from rainy Osaka! The weather continues to be damp, but we continue to be grateful for the slightly cooler weather. I'm writing again from my hotel room, this time sporting a peach-scented, unnaturally moist face mask. The salesperson told my mom that we can't wear the mask for more than ten minutes, or else some kind of reverse osmosis happens, and the mask will reabsorb all the moisture from your face until you look like dry Spongebob. Sounds pretty cursed, if you ask me.
I had milk this morning! Here are Japan's Milk 1 and Milk 2. I'd just woken up when I filmed these, so please forgive goofiness. I got bored waiting for everyone to get ready, so there is a third video about nori too.
Today was a big, geeky shopping day, and it kinda started with passing by...the Tenga shop. If you know what that is, then you'd understand my discomfort when my parents asked me why so many people were lining up to go inside. If you don't, then now you know you can experience six levels of adult toys with accompanying merch (T-shirts, bags, etc.) Since Tenga is for penis-havers, I don't really know if they have a selection for non-penis-havers despite the femmes I saw queuing up this morning.
It's a bit too awkward to explore with my parents as we're heading toward brunch. Instead, we meet up with my sister and her boyfriend and explore a local card shop. This first one has Magic, a very pleasant surprise. For cheap too! I pick up two packs to test the good luck charm B got me from the shrine he used to live in.
I'm on the hunt for Nico Minoru, one of my favourite characters in fiction, and one I wrote a whole essay about last year. She's a very rare card worth about $60, and none of my go-to card shops have her. Despite the price tag, she doesn't have any special art treatment (but we have 9384732947 Hulks) and I will never not be salty about that, but at least my wallet is grateful for it.
My sister is extremely lucky with cards, so I rub both packs on her arm and when we settle in for brunch, I ask her to open one while I grab the other. Naturally, she pulls a $24 extended art Doctor Doom, while I'm stuck with some 50 cent card celebrating Scarlet Witch and Vision's toxic love affair for the umpteenth time. Either way, I'm pretty chuffed.
Brunch is a Japanese-style western cafe called SAKImoto Bakery and Cafe, situated above Sakimoto Bakery and across from Sakimoto Coffee. It's the kind of restaurant influencers dream of with the wood/plants aesthetic and meticulously arranged food. Their base milk bread is out of this world--it's got that subtle crunch when toasted, and the warm, soft middle is almost mochi-like in texture. It has a very, very soft sweetness, and holds sweet and savoury toppings perfectly. My sister's matcha mont blanc was served as a plain piece of thick-sliced toast, sliced into a grid pattern for ease of consumption. The server then came out with a contraption for the matcha mont blanc before topping it with some powdered sugar.
It's incredible and not too sweet (highest Asian praise).
I have a Hamburg steak set where the Hokkaido milk butter on toast actually outshone everything else. The steak isn't bad, but the sauce doesn't enhance the bread, and that feels wrong.
After brunch, we send our parents off to Edion, a massive department store mostly specializing in electronics. My sister, B, and I head over to the card shops near by. I didn't expect to take long, as we found cheap packs of Magic at the first stop we made, but oh boy was I in for a ride.
Firstly, there are maids everywhere. It takes me a bit too long to notice, as I assumed that was just part of Japan being Japan, but when they start calling things out in this specific cadence of anime-esque kind of voice, I'm feeling a little uncomfortable. "Why are there so many maid cafes between the card shops?" I ask B. "Same target audience," he laughs. This is just Osaka's version of Akihabara, it seemed. That explains the massive Tenga store, I guess.
Second, Magic is apparently the most niche card game in all of Japan. We duck into 5 or 6 different stores, and I come across tons of the usual suspects in Asia: Pokemon, Yugioh, One Piece, and anime waifus. I come across trading cards with real women, so many anime girl art about three pixels away from being porn, and even Palworld the card game before finding Magic. Unless you're in the familiar territory of Pokemon and Yugioh, it's hard to put your eyes anywhere that won't make you feel like you're objectifying women.
I'm marvelling at a solitary case of Magic singles when a helpful tourist guides us to Hareruya. I'm in absolute heaven. They have a vending machine that dispenses three random packs for about $12, and it's honestly such a dope idea to avoid the classic analysis paralysis of entering a card shop. B gives it a go, and we get a pack of Origins, New Capenna, and Lorwyn Eclipsed. So fun. There is also a system where you gamble with about $100. For $100, you get 15 rare cards and a letter: B, A, or S. The letter lets you redeem a high-value card from each of the categories, with S being the most expensive and B being the least. B gambles with the lottery and gets a B card, which he trades in for an alternate art Vivi Ornitier, which Canada's largest MTG retailer sells for about $140.
I hop on one of the little computers at the store and bumble my way into ordering a Nico for myself, extremely happy when I find a single foil copy for less than any of the Canadian stores online. I buy a Hareruya deck box to keep my cardboard babies safe.
We reconvene with my parents at Edion after our far-longer-than-anticipated card shop side quest, and it is huge. And busy. We were hoping to buy new phones at this location, as there is no tax in these locations, but they're practically sold out and we're not too keen on the options available. We wander a bit--I contemplate getting new wireless earbuds, but I'm a bit discomforted by the dulcet tones of a Japanese man or woman (depending on the colour you buy) saying welcome home every time I try to listen to music.
As my sister peruses the beauty and stationary floor, I test out a bunch of foot massagers and it's awesome. They're surprisingly affordable, and I like the ones that hug and massages your whole shin. I'm seriously contemplating one that doubles as an ottoman. It's just under $450, but postage is kind of an issue. The hyper-consumerism of my trip thus far is going to my head. Not to mention...I work from home more often than not.
Eventually, I leave the beautiful cocoon of the foot massager section and head to our destination: the shops at the JR line!
So, despite going to Metrotown a lot growing up, I still have trouble navigating the lower mainland's biggest mall sometimes. Kelowna friends, hold the image of Orchard Park in your mind if you can (and count it as about 25% of Metrotown).
Now, picture 2 or 3 Metrotowns in terms of shop variety, stacked vertically, multiply by two ("Like the Twin Towers!" B quipped), then fill it with about the entire population of Vernon endlessly moving in and out, up and down, crossing from mall to station to mall. It's a wild experience and I don't really know how we get anywhere. Not for the first time, I wish I could see the blueprints and understand how it all comes together.
Eventually, we end up at our first goal: the Pokemon Centre!
Holy shit you can barely move in there. Fortunately, my mom took pictures out of boredom. Here is a series of photos from a woman who still only knows Pikachu after all these years. (I asked if she saw any other--non-Pikachu critters that she liked while she was here, and she just pointed to a sleeping Pikachu assuming it was different.)
I pick up a few things, and it's a really fun time. I love seeing which Pokemon people are buying. I remember someone holding a Spinda and saying that's a hot take, to which my sister only looks at me and says, "Says the person who likes Croagunk."
One of my highlights, besides picking up a little plush of my perfect boy, Croagunk, was talking to the very nice cashier. Despite the crowds, she was so friendly and so chill, as if we were chatting at a park on a lovely day. She counts each item out loud for us, then asks us what our favourite Pokemon are. I tell her mine is Croagunk, and she reaches into the bag to pull out my new plush with a smile behind her face mask. She asks me to repeat the English name, and she teaches me the Japanese name: Gureggru, which just sounds like frog sounds to me and I love it. (I just learned that Croagunk's Chinese name is literally just "not-nice frog")
She asks my sister the same question, and she responds with Tandemaus. We then bond over how cute Pokemon are, and how much we love the design of the shopping bags, then we are on our merry way.
We pass by the One Piece shop, then take a brief detour to the Capcom shop. I geek out a bit over the Phoenix Wright stuff, and I lowkey regret not picking up the tiny, cylindrical plush of sad disbarred dad Phoenix. I nostalgically think about how much that game once made me want to be a lawyer, admire some of the Okami 20th Anniversary merch, feel very old, then move onto the Nintendo store in search of my other perfect boy.
The Nintendo store is a lot of fun with far fewer people. Even my mom gets a kick out of the Animal Crossing stuff with their extremely aesthetic beige and mint colour palette and kitchen goods.
I'm having a great time until I choke at the Kirby towel selection. Character face towels are everywhere here, and they're really nice quality, very well-designed stuff. They're such perfect gifts for that reason.
But picking just one for myself...a Herculean task.
Eventually, I pick up a two-sided towel with two different prints featuring Kirby and Waddle Dee, a Kirby blind box, and an Animal Crossing Blindbox featuring one of six rooms you can get (manifesting Brewster's cafe with Brewster inside).
The rest of the evening is spent on accompanying folks on miscellaneous shopping side quests. Some highlights from other stores we stopped at:
- the Ghibli store is a must if you ever come across one. The towels are amazing, though I didn't pick one up. The No Face rice paddle is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.
- The Moomin store is perfect and also has great towels (stan Moomin and their queer creator)
- There is a Tom and Jerry store because that's made a big comeback somehow
- The Miffy Flower store allows you to make flower arrangements out of fake flowers and Miffy character goods and it's one of the most creative shops I've seen in a a while
- The Three Coin store does kind of live up to the hype. I get an oil bottle that I'm very excited about :)
Dinner is okonomiyaki! The restaurant is one of an entire floor of restaurants, and there are over 30 choices to pick from. To queue up, you join the line with your whole party and order while in queue. As people leave, people shuffle down the line in their seats and it's kind of incredible witnessing that level of internalized orderliness. When they sit you down, you're served basically immediately because you previously ordered, hence the speedy turnaround time.
This okonomiyaki place serves it pre-mixed with some sauce on top already. I order us two regular okonomiyaki (one seafood only and one with pork and potato), a "modern" okonomiyaki with yakisoba mixed in, and a regular yakisoba. I love yakisoba, and I loved all the big scallops and octopus that came with all the seafood options. The fried egg on each of the okonomiyaki are kind of a pleasant textural surprise.
I kind of miss how cheap Taiwan was, but despite how much more overwhelming Japan is, there is so much more to see. Also, it's confirmed after 48 hours of wondering: every character in Hana Kimi were named after train stations in Osaka. Except maybe Mizuki. God, I hate how fun Japan is/can be.
I've been writing this for like 3 hours now and I think I really ought to try to get some sleep (even though I'm also yearning to catch up on my dramas). Hopefully, tomorrow will have a bit of down time!
That's it for now! Flor, out!
P.S. if azoobus means anything to you, can you please let me know? I feel like I've been asking everyone and I feel like at least once a day, I'm wondering who you are.