Pizza

Saturday was a cool day. We had an all-day gaming event, and after that people said there was this cool little Burmese restaurant. So we went. I hardly even knew there was such a thing as "Burmese cuisine", but apparently even people from Burma do eat, so there we went. It was a couple of minutes away from Takadanobaba station, and apparently it is a Burmese restaurant heaven, as there is at least 3-4 more in the vicinity. It was a first time I've been to that station, but seeing how there's over a hundred stations in Tokyo and I don't get out all that much, it's nothing to be surprised about.

The restaurant was small, but kind of cozy. Dalmatian feel, almost. We ordered a bunch of different things and split it between the six of us, so we had a lot of variety in our dinner. But I was particularly impressed by two things. One was a drink, and was listed on the menu as "Grass Jelly". (I actually wrote "Glass Jelly" first, then corrected it, and it's not even the first time I did it; I have no idea why. I guess I'm becoming more Japanese by the minute.) Anyway, Grass Jelly (and again I had to actively control my fingers to keep them away from the L key) looks like water with bits of black jelly suspended in it. It tastes very sweet, and the closest thing to compare with would be the Icelandic lichen syrup. But without the whole coughing crap.

The other thing was tea leaf salad. Yummy! Don't ask me to describe how it tasted like, I just can't. There was a lot of things in it: peanuts, sesame seeds, rice vinegar, probably oil, and several varieties of green. I totally enjoyed it.

Speaking of restaurants, I have to make a presentation for my Japanese class, and I'm doing one on sarma. Like a real scientist, I have to cover my bases, and so I think I'll be going tomorrow (or some time soon if I don't get a table) to a Croatian restaurant. Err, make that "the" Croatian restaurant - since there's just the one in Japan. Sarma should be a bit pricey, but I miss it, and it's not that different from some other restaurants I've been to (like, oh, I don't know, Burmese). Good thing is, I actually managed to save some little money, and also I'll be getting my part-time job salary from next month, so it should be all good. I don't even spend that much on the dentist as I thought I would.

The dentists scare me, in couple of different ways. First, I was scared of the prices - I am going to a hi-tech private dentist, and they said there's a lot of work to be done in my mouth, so I was afraid I'm going to leave a lot of money there. But it turns out that I was wrong about that - the dentist turned out to be not only quite skilled, but also very cheap in comparison to back home. So now I'm scared about getting a nerve pulled, which is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I'm pretty nervous about that. I hope I don't lose my nerve, and get a nervous breakdown. Waiting for something like that is quite a nerve-wrenching experience, you know?

Okay, enough of that. While on the topic of money and work in mouth - last week I was at a gaming till rather late, and then decided to walk back home from Shibuya rather than brave the overcrowded last trains. It's just two stations, which translates to about... oh, maybe 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, I never measured. Anyway, I was passing the Love Hotel Hill (actually, the Japanese name is Hill where the Road Starts, or something like that, but it's universally called LHH by the gaijin population, I believe), and I got offered マッサージとブロージョッブ by a party previously unknown to me. That's a first. Wasn't even very expensive, I think. If I understood her correctly, it was actually about the same price as StarCraft: the Boardgame: Brood War expansion. But I had a book to go home to, so I did not partake of the services.

But was I tempted? Hell, it's like finding a piece of American pizza lying on the ground just inside Disneyland.

I mean, it's pizza!

But, on the other hand, it's full of fat, probably with germs on it, and you have to pay the considerable entrance fee to get to it.

And then you start thinking about Prosciutto Speciale back home... :(

Lost in Shibuya

So, two other guys in my class happen to live in the same dorm as I do: the tall Argentine and the hip Canadian. The Argentine is a source of constant amusement due to his slick look and fixation on neckties. The Canadian is a potential gaming partner.

So, we got together on Friday night, the hip Canadian and I, to try to play a game. My new Galaxy Trucker, for those in the know. Since the rooms are way too small, and since the common room was being used by the laptopped people, he said he's pretty sure we could play in Starbucks. "They don't care what you do, as long as you get something to drink." Despite my reservations about the table size and boardgaming in a public venue, we went out.

He said you can walk to Shibuya in about 15 minutes, so we did. It was a nice walk. We looked at our options, and finally did settle at a Starbucks outside table. I got a cuppa sencha, since I don't like coffee, but even sencha tasted funny. The table was round and hardly big enough for two players, but we managed - once the funny Dutch guy we met there stopped talking about kidney stones. He's also from our dorm, and he was coming back from his gym, and we spent a bemused time listening to him, and giving him layman medical advice. Just goes to show you can never know what your day will be like. But he's cool.

We got one round done, then headed back, and then went to his room after all and went on to play the other two rounds. The consensus was, needs more players.

This was just the preamble. The next day, I was in Shibuya, and I thought it might be a good idea to return home on foot. You know, reinforce the learned data. So I started out, uh-huh, remember this shop, yep, this was the corner, then under this overpass --

This doesn't look quite like I remember. Similar, but - was it really where we crossed?

Must be. Don't know how it could be anything else.

Okay. Yes, the street here was like that...

Wait - I don't remember this! I'm sure I would have remembered this!

Let's ask someone. "Excuse me, sorry, I think I may have gotten lost, so could you please tell me which way is Inokashira Line Komaba Todaimae Station?" "Eh? It's very far! Walking? Very far, you sure? Okay, that way, then turn right, then after turn left, very far..."

Oops.

So, I start walking where she pointed. Five minutes later, I check with a salaryman, but he has no clue. Then I ask a passing couple, and they also give me the "very far" routine, and wonder if I might be better off by retracing my steps to Shibuya. I assure them it's good exercise for me, and press on.

Five more minutes later, I ask a girl, and she says it's complicated to explain, but very close.

Huh? What did I miss? Did I sleepwalk for half an hour? No, just turns out that people have different concepts of "long walks". It actually does turn to be not that very far, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The girl gives up on explaining, and takes me three blocks back where she came from, in order to explain better. In the meantime, we figure out we go to the same uni (No way! Really?), and exchange keitai emails. Her instructions prove to be very correct and very precise (third bus stop, across from 7-11, there is a sobaya there, narrow street just after, then just straight) - I couldn't miss if I wanted to. If you're reading, ever, thanks!

Altogether, my return home lasted 1:20 instead of 0:20. Not bad.

Today I was again in Shibuya. I was in Ginza before that, so I saw some really expensive places, but I also saw some rather normal, yet interesting-looking places - such as a dark, almost sinister, Mexican restaurant with an oldsmobile for a cash register. In Shibuya I found some interesting stores, some decidedly interesting stores, and an extremely strange gambling machine.

The story is, I went into another arcade, but this one catered more to the gamblers than to gamers. The first floor was filled with the grabby machines, I have no clue what they're normally called, but if you're good with cranes, you can get a toy or an ice cream or a box or whatever is inside. There was also some purikura booths, and a taiko playing game. That one looked extremely fun, especially when a really good dude started beating the hell out of them. He hardly missed a beat at difficulty 9/10. Props, man, major props.

The third floor had horse races. No, really. Horse races. There's a fake 5m by 2m hippodrome, with robotic horseys and jockeys, a huge big screen where the computer animated recreation of the race was running, and many many seats for people to bet. Some seats were just next to the hippodrome, while others were hi-tech super-comfortable recliners, but all had race monitors and betting interfaces.

The fourth floor had simulated football betting, and also some normal arcade games, like Tekken 6 (6?!? Already?!?), and the aforementioned collectible card video games.

But the main shock was on the second floor: gambling devices of a decidedly Rube Goldbergian nature. I can't even describe them - but there are photos of posters in the gallery. I was totally fascinated, because I could not for the life of me figure out the specifics of the game. The basics are easy though: coin-tokens go in, coin-tokens go out. If more goes out than in, you're good.

In the end, I returned home by train. I figured my next attempt should be from the dorm side.