Robot Claw

That’s the Hayabusa bullet train I boarded this morning and rode north to the city of Sendai. I was in a reservation-only ‘green car’ seat and as always the ride was very comfy.

Hayabusa Shinkansen are the fastest trains in Japan and it only took 80 minutes (with two stops) to travel the 300 km from Ueno to Sendai. I ate my hog cutlet sandwich and tried not to nap.

The train only had a single green car, and one benefit of riding in it (in addition to comfier seats) is that an attendant brings a cart through to sell snacks. This no longer exists on the western trains out of Tokyo – instead you order on an app and the food is delivered – so I’m glad I was able to get this photo of a dying service. She had all manner of items for sale including ice cream, and walked through three times during my portion of the trip. Naturally she stopped and bowed to the car every time she left.

I’m in Sendai two nights, although I don’t actually have any plans here! My hotel is comfy and well-located adjacent to the station, which is convenient because Sendai on this trip is a stopping point between two other destinations, one west and one northeast. You’ll learn about both the next two days.

So as it turns out after arriving I wandered around the CBD and somehow stumbled into an otaku area with game and hobby shops aplenty. Naturally this suited me fine 🙂

And yes, the above is an actual limited burger offered at Burger King here right now. I’ve always wanted to try one of their burgers with rice instead of a burger bun, but I’ll be giving this one a pass!

I spent a few hours in stores and game centers, somehow managing not to buy anything aside from stamps and postcards. I found an interesting building with a variety of shops in it including a good Volks store (they mostly sell model kits) which had an impressive display of painted models on display. The one shown above is only about 2 inches high; I wonder if the painter used a microscope? I’m not joking, they sell them at Volks to be used for fine detail painting and the teeth and fingernails were so tiny they seemed impossible to paint!

The same building had book stores, anime stores, a game center with retro candy shop and – a rare sight in Tokyo now – old Japanese-style toilets! I recall the first few times we visited these were occasionally unavoidable, but it seems Japan has mostly now transitioned to western style privies.

In one store I found this absolutely amazing hoodie that can be completely zipped closed so the wearer appears to be Alien Metron from Ultraman. At ¥16000 (~$110) it’s a considered purchase so I ask you to consider and leave me a comment: should I go back tomorrow and buy this? I may never see it again, so if you read this more than 24 hours from now it may be too late…

Sunset from my room was pretty, but now it’s dark and time for bed. I’ll get an early start tomorrow since my destination is about 90 minutes away by slow mountain train. It promises to be a memorable day.

Look at that sun! When I went to bed last night it was raining heavily and today I woke up to this. However all wasn’t perfect since it was a taxing 76% humidity (according to my phone) and even a short walk outside in the heat was sweaty.

It was another day of shopping for me. I’m front-loading the shopping since tomorrow I leave for ‘parts unknown’ for a week. Today I went to Nakano Broadway, one of my favourite shopping destinations in the world.

As usual I had as much fun perusing the stuff I didn’t buy – such as this Close Encounters action figure (from 1977!) – that I didn’t even know existed, or this nearly $4000 Gyaos toy (from Gamera) from the 1960s:

I bought many things – including a grail item or two – which I’ll blog when I get home, and overall it was a very successful shopping day. In fact both of these first two days of this Japan trip have, and I daresay if I was to go home now I’d return with a bounty comparable to entire previous trips to Japan 🙂

Maybe I’ve just reached maximum level as far as Japan shopping is concerned…

There’s a couple of arcades in Nakano mall, and one of them has a Gunpla recycling box in it. The idea is you put empty runners (the leftover frames when you build a model kit) in the box, and they are recycled by Bandai.

I’ve seen these for years and always wondered if people used them, but just after I took this photo an attendant came and emptied it, which I watched in fascination. She opened the box and pulled out a massive amount of empty runners, which she loaded into bags.

Look at it all! I wonder how much is Gundam and how much came from other model kits? I’m impressed (although not surprised considering Japan) that there didn’t seem to be any other waste in the box: people only used it for its intended purpose. It makes me wish I could recycle mine as well!

It was very humid when I left Nakano, and since I had a few mundane things to buy to prepare for my odyssey ‘up north’ I wandered around Ueno taking care of that. Crowds were thick and I definitely wasn’t the only one happy the rains were gone.

Tomorrow it’s time for the bullet train, which is always an adventure. Seven nights await in locations new to me. It’s going to be fun!

I noticed the above magnet on the inside of my room door:

I recall the first earthquake I ever felt in Japan was when I was staying in this very hotel about six years ago. Afterwards I went down and asked at the front desk what happened and they just smiled at me 🙂

Today I shopped in Ikebukuro, which has become a traditional ‘first day’ experience these past four or five Japan trips. It started raining and I bought an umbrella, but by lunch the rain had become torrential and shopping became a bit of a challenge!

I bought many things, but they can wait for future posts. I also put a bunch of money into crane games and gacha machines, and the above was my first win (it only cost ¥100). I think it’s a stuffed oyster and I hate it, but if anyone wants it let me know.

And if you’re wondering why I even won it, as I walked past the machine I saw one of them was within an atom or two of falling and knew I could easily win it… so I did!

I had dinner at Sushiro. Once again I had ‘hamburger steak sushi’ which KLS thinks is an abomination but I think is delicious! By this point I was extremely tired, sore from carrying heavy shopping bags, and my shoes were saturated. It was time for a bath, to do the laundry, and for an early bed to catch up on the sleep lost last night!

The flight was tiring and uncomfortable, but the most notable was that ANA now uses Pokémon for their safety videos 🙂

The fruit meals were up to their usual standards, especially the super fresh watermelon and strawberries. I was given two on the flight, each more or less the same.

And then I was in Japan! The above is my hotel room view of Ueno station. I’ve stayed in this hotel before, albeit not since Covid. The entire room is smaller than my bathroom at the Sheraton but I’ll be comfortable here.

I went and ate my favourite meal at an ungodly hour, then spent a bit of time unpacking. I didn’t get to sleep until after 1 am.

But now I’m up heading out to see what’s going on in Tokyo (I’m sitting on a Yamanote line train as I write this). I look tired don’t I? Maybe that’s because I am 🙂