I'm going to ignore the pink elephant in the room right now, but I will point out the irony that after just a few adventures a lot of posts seem to accumulate on this blog, but when tons of adventures occur there are no posts at all. Just no time to write about them, you know?
Back in September, a girl in my Japanese class asked me if I was going to the Tokyo Game Show on the weekend of October 11th. At the time I wasn't very familiar with it, but I knew that it was a video game convention similar to E3 in the states. Well, I'd never been to E3 before, but I got really excited about TGS and booked tickets for overnight buses to and from Tokyo. In addition to the admission ticket, the whole trip cost around $110 just to be able to go (plus souvenirs and food). It was totally worth it.
My adventure began Friday night, the 10th, when I said goodbye to my host parents at the train station nearby to board the overnight bus. My first impression was, "they expect me to sleep here?" The seats looked comfy enough, and there was more leg room than the average economy section of an airplane, but you couldn't lean back without smacking into the person behind you. The leg room turned out to be quite limited, and between the many positions I attempted I could only sleep for maybe an hour or two at a time.
We arrived at Tokyo Station around 6 am, and I dragged myself onto the subway after buying tickets to and from my destination. It took another half hour or so to get to the station closest to TGS, and then as a pack everyone got off the train and hurried along to the convention center. Fearing that I would lose my way otherwise, I stuck with everyone until we got to the security check-in about 10 mins. later, when I realized to my dismay, "wait a minute, I haven't even eaten breakfast yet, and the show doesn't start for another 3 hours." I looked back to where I came from, understood that I didn't recognize a thing, and just decided to wait in line. So there I stood, in the rain, tired, hungry, wet, trying to hold my umbrella in one hand and play my DS in the other.
I finally made it inside around 10 and the first thing I saw was a huge sign that said Wii, and I knew I was going to love it there. Although "No Camera" signs were everywhere, people still took tons of them and would only temporarily hide them if told it was not allowed. I was careful not to stand in lines that were too long to play something, when I could otherwise go to so many more booths. My initial run through was rather quick, and then I went hunting for food. Actually, prices and lines weren't too bad, and I ate some decent curry for about $6. Cosplay pictures were only permitted outside between the numerous buildings, which helped with crowds inside but didn't remove them entirely. As expected, Japanese people are great at cosplaying, and I saw characters like Cloud and Sephiroth and Titus from Final Fantasy, Haruhi from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the character from Katamari Damacy.
I actually played a lot of cool games, especially ones that hadn't been released anywhere yet. Mirror's Edge, for example, is a PS3/XBox 360 title in first person view without a special focus on weapons, adding an interesting creative element that really requires mastering the controls. Little Big Planet was one of the most anticipated games of the year, in which you create little doll characters to solve random puzzles. In terms of anime games, I took a shot at a Bleach title for the Wii (wich had a lot of text and was kind of confusing), a Naruto game for the PS3 (which is graphically and physically the most authentic Naruto game I've played), Dragonball Infinite World for the PS2 (which goes through all of Z, GT, and the movies I think), and a weak Soul Eater game for DS. I played some Bomberman, some Need for Speed, and an odd-job game for the Wii. The last thing I played was a snowboarding game for the Wii that utilizes the balance board (no date set for a North American release at the time).
I took tons of pictures and bought some souvenirs, but I was never able to meet up with anyone. The girl in my class is a video game journalist, so I expected she would be there the two days it was open to the public in addition to the initially two press-only days, but she was in her hotel room Saturday working on a report. There was another girl from my class who went, but we didn't exchange information beforehand. This did allow me to practice Japanese with booth attendents, though, and go wherever interested me.
After staying whole day and being completely exhausted, I wandered out at closing time to hunt for dinner. There was a mall nearby, and inside I found a nice Japanese style restaurant for relatively cheap and decided to eat there. I ate a meal set that included a plate of tenpura, sushi with sashimi, miso soup, and salad for only about $12. I headed to the subway station around 6:30 and had to buy a new ticket because the one I bought earlier was from Tokyo Station (though I was later able to get my money back).
I got to Tokyo Station with a few hours to spare until my overnight bus left, so I got my bearings together and talked to Jasmin for a while as I waited. This time I was so exhausted that I slept on the bust rather well, and got home around 7 am to walk back to the house in the freezing morning weather.
Check out my Facebook pictures!
UPDATE LINKS:
Photos on Photobucket
Videos on YouTube
No comments:
Post a Comment