Monday March 9, 5:02 p.m.
Spent the majority of Sunday just traipsing around
Ginza. First, I went over to
The 100% Chocolate Cafe in
Kyobashi. The place is half-
Starbucks, half-
Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Since
White Day is just around the corner, I went out to get some goodies for the
juku students. I'd been wondering how the little place was gonna handle the overflow of White Day customers and their regular cocoa-sipping guests, but luckily, management had the good sense to set up the White Day wares outside, although the staff must've been pretty chilly out there. I managed to buy four cute little boxes of White Day Chocolates for the occasion for 2,000 yen altogether. I remembered from my first visit there a few years ago that we'd went to a
Subways for lunch so I repeated history.
Walking from there to
Ginza only took a couple of minutes. As usual, from around noon, the powers-that-be closed down the main road to vehicular traffic. A number of the bakeries and chocolatiers were also in the
White Day mood. I also caught a bit of
Akiba hokoten in the incongruous environment of Ginza. There was a young lady wearing something very frilly lying down on the pavement like a dead body while a grungy photographer was taking shots of her. Certainly attracted the cellphone cameras.
I searched through all of the music shops like
HMV and
Yamano Music for that elusive
"Best of The Art of Noise" disc but just couldn't find it. But I did get a good walk out of it. Outside of
Fukaya Books, a bookstore on the main
Ginza drag famous for having celeb book signings, there was a rather large crowd amassed outside. Apparently, local young
haafu tarento,
Becky, was inside doing the honours. I did have the digital camera with me but decided that waiting for several minutes for her to come out wasn't worth it so I just went over to
Shimbashi where the
Shiodome City Centre was. I found out to my disappointment, although not surprise, that the
NTV Plaza branch of my favourite hot dog place from
Coney Island,
Nathan's, was gone. Now, there might only be the one in
Shinagawa Station. I ended up sitting sipping coffee and having a couple of snacks in the nearby branch of
La Vie De France. It was pretty chilly outside and gloomy, much like the weather that has been characteristic of the past several weeks.
Took
the Oedo Line to
Shinjuku and waited for MB, The Satyr and their significant others to show up in
Wald 9. We saw
"U23D"...nope it ain't a tax form; it was the live concert coverage of the famed band with those 3D glasses. Even though I was never a fan of
Bono, I had to admit that the band gave a great concert and the 3D effect was impressive. Thankfully, Bono,
The Edge and the others didn't fall into the usual cheap 3D manipulations and start pressing their faces up at the special cameras like
Dr. Tongue. MB liked it immensely while his wife, The Sylph, ended up sleeping (!) through most of the concert, despite all the raucousness of the Brazilian audience. When The Sylph isn't impressed, she doesn't hesitate to nod off. I also had to admit it was a surreal feeling being silent witnesses to one wild concert in 3D. The movie was surprisingly quick-paced; it didn't seem all that long before the end credits started rolling up.
We met Skippy in the lobby afterwards (guess she's not a huge
U2 fan either). Her choice of restaurant for us last night was a buffet place up on the 9th floor of the
Mylord complex in
JR Shinjuku. The place was called
Platinum Buffet and had all the trimmings for a 21st-century all-you-can-eat place including chocolate fountain. I had never had the privilege of trying one of those. As buffet dinners went, 2,100 yen was a bargain and the menu was good although it will never reach the decadent heights of the late, lamented
Farm Grill. Still, I wouldn't mind giving the Platinum Buffet another shot in the near future.
Looks like the next meeting of the movie group will be when
"Watchmen" comes around later this month. We're looking forward to catching it. However, it seems as if the film will be nowhere near its graphic novel ancestor in terms of classic status. Apparently, even the audiences have come away feeling decidedly mixed and there has been a massive dropoff in viewers since it got started a couple of days ago. I'm sure
Alan Moore is cackling his
"I told you so"s.
Well, today was
Tax Day for me. I checked my numbers and then brought the completed return along with my hefty payment to the tax office. I was very glad that I had collected the paperwork when I did since there was a mammoth lineup to get the returns whereas the line to hand them in zipped by quickly. I was in and out of there within 10 minutes...noticeably lighter in the wallet, mind you.
Took the
Sobu over to
Akihabara to the
Tower Records over there. I finally succumbed and just got
The Art of Noise's first effort,
"Who's Afraid of The Art of Noise" since it had
"Beat Box" and
"Close to the Edit". It didn't stop me from combing over the other CD outlets. I had forgotten that there were a couple of
Doner Kebab places in
Akiba...if I'd remembered, I would've gone for one of those instead of doing
The Colonel again. Even though it was a Monday, the maids were out there in force giving out the flyers. I had quite a bit of time, so I was perusing the various disc shops such as
Ishimaru, Liberty and
Sale. The last place had
Season 4 of
"Doctor Who", the one with
Donna Noble. I would've loved to have gotten my hands on that one, but at
14,000 yen, that's just a little too rich for my blood....especially after my taxes.
Hit the
Sobu once more to head over to
Nakano, that other
otaku haven. Checked out
Otokichi but couldn't find the
Naoko Kawai discs I wanted and so I headed upstairs through
Broadway. The three different branches of
Recomints, another one of those discounted CD shops had a lot of their wares outside in wagons for the perusing. Ended up getting 5 CDs for 500 yen...the cheapest you can get in
The Big Sushi...one of which was an old
Jody Watley album. I also got a release by an old eclectic group called
Dip in the Pool. I'll be doing a lot of listening over the next few days.
I've got all my three in the next few hours. The Full-Timer ought to be back from her trip in
Hawaii; I've got her
White Day treat ready for her. And then I have The Bostonian for another round of presentation practice before Medicine Man is back in the saddle.