Apologies for the delay in writing the next entry, but I've been pushed and pulled from event to event and really haven't had a lot of time to think about anything. I am sitting here writing this entry IN OKAZAKI, having made the trip successfully from Tokyo. I am rather exhausted after three+ hours of train rides, too, and I have a tip that there's going to be a rather nasty honorific/humble conjugation portion of the placement exam on Thursday, so I really need to start reviewing that soon.
In the meantime, here's a recap of what happened over the last few days.
On Saturday, I met with my uncle's associates and they took me to Senso-ji temple in the Asakusa ward of Tokyo. It was amazingly huge - as in larger than anything I've ever seen - including all the temples and shrines we visited in Kamakura. I also got to enjoy a plate of the best tonkatsu I have EVER had. After touring Senso-ji, they wanted to take me to Akihabara, too, but I declined - simply because I did not want to shop when hauling around two grown Japanese men that I could tell really didn't want to be there in the first place. Finishing my outing with them early opened up a couple of options for the afternoon - unfortunately I didn't take either of them. I made the mistake of lying down and ended up passing out at 4PM, causing a rather rude awakening at 5AM the next day. Nothing a little Japanese Home Shopping Network couldn't fix though... after turning that junk on, I was out like a light again within a half hour
Now, Sunday was planned. I took the time out to check into reservations for Luida's Bar: Dragon Quest - the closest thing Square-Enix has to an amusement park in the entire world (or so I thought). Turns out that on Sundays you don't need reservations, you just show up at a particular time (they told me 11:38) and you get in. Fair enough, right? No. Something didn't smell right. In fact, it downright stunk. Gaijin sense activated.
So, with my gaijin senses tingling, I boarded a train to Roppongi not one, but TWO hours early...even though it was raining quite hard in Tokyo at the time. I don't know exactly what it was, but something was telling me this was a good idea, even if it meant I would have had to camp somewhere until the place opens. About a half hour after disembarking at Roppongi, I find Luida's Bar. Lo and behold, my gaijin sense was SPOT ON. Not only were there people already waiting, but there were A LOT of people waiting. The line stretched past the place, past the place next to it, and down a flight of stairs underneath the building. Fortunately I was one of the last lucky people to get a spot in line outside of the rain. Every single person in this line as far as I could tell had a DSi XL and a copy of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 (which doesn't mean much to a lot of you - it is a $70 Dragon Quest spinoff DS game that just came out over here, that is all you need to know), and the ones that noticed me appeared a bit confused by my presence. I think one guy even took a picture of me with his phone but I really have no idea why. Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe he was photographing the line.
In any case, at about 11:38, after approximately another hour of waiting in line and mooching on Square Enix wifi, a server comes out of the restaurant and begins a fluent Japanese barrage from the top of the stairs that I could only hear pieces of. This was partially because he was going so fast, and partially because the volume of the echo was louder than the actual speech from where I was standing. What I was able to catch is this. Basically we've been waiting in line for a SPOT to get into the bar at a specific time, not to get into the bar right now. Apparently the sooner you line up, the better slot you get. So I get to the front of the line and get asked what time I want to come back (the bar was already at capacity for the first session). I asked what the soonest available was, and was told 13:00. It was 11:45 now.
I take my ticket and start scouting around Roppongi for something to kill a couple of hours. Lo and behold, there is a McDonalds right down the street. I go inside and order a large fountain pop, which is actually refreshing since I've spent just about all morning waiting in line for a spot at Luida's. They had lots of seating upstairs so I took a seat, sipped my Coke Zero, and ran Kanji cards/played a few games on my iPhone for an hour. Then it's back to the line. I'm first this time, and out of the rain. The server from before returns to the line and hands out the faux velvet-covered menus. I take a look and choose my order.
Hmm... let's see.
Slime-shaped meat bun (check).
Goddess fruit (check).
Medal pizzas (scary, but they look tasty, check).
Fried monster mix (check).
And for drinks:
Something blue and alcoholic that didn't have a dragon quest name, and
A non alcoholic "elf potion" in an actual potion-shaped bottle.
They eventually let us in. Dragon Quest music is blaring. Two waitresses in DQ outfits are getting everything ready and I get two deer-in-headlights OMG-DON'T-MAKE-ME-SPEAK-ENGLISH expressions as I am guided to my table. The bar is standing-room-only quite literally, as there is no room for chairs. It turns out they only let 25 people in at a time and then close the bar, let 25 more in, etc. In this way only 150 or so customers can visit them each day, and they manage to fill every time due to the artificial demand (and the fact that it's Dragon Quest, which over here is like a religion).
I give my order and go to the register to pay, as that's how it's done here - and then return to my table to find one of the waitresses waiting for me. She asks me if I like DQ, to which I reply that most of the current games aren't out yet. My Japanese is still fairly broken at this time - I'm just now getting it back now a few days later - but of course I get comments about how good it is. DQVIII is my favorite game in the series, and only one of three I've actually played. Another waitress gets on a microphone and revs the crowd into a frenzy about Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 and asks them to trade items with each other if they brought their DSes. She also mentioned it was okay to take pictures anywhere in the restaurant, which was really nice as most themed places don't let you do it.
So the food comes. Most of it is fairly decent but not worth the price of admission. I had a couple of good conversations with the waitresses, one of which is trying to get on a study abroad program to the US, but otherwise, it was fairly uneventful. I'm glad I went though, if for no other reason than to be able to say I went. I then had a very nice dinner yesterday with my blue-op team and found out a few interesting things about them too. I won't go into details except to say it makes me feel a little more sane to know that other people think the same way as Lisa and I do.
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