Intermixi TGS Tour - Day 5

Our plans for Day 5 in Tokyo were relatively light. Since, well, all of us on the trip were gamers and Square-Enix fans, our intrepid leader Aka-san decided to take us through Shinjuku to the Square-Enix Show Case store.

Since it had been a while since Aka-san had last been to the store, we took our time wandering through Shinjuku as Aka-san got his bearings. This worked out well, as we could take in the sights of this particular district as we walked.

We made it to the Square-Enix Show Case store and we were let loose inside. There were lots of items, paraphernalia, character goods, etc. from all the different games and products that Square-Enix has worked on.

Once we were done at the store, and had taken our mandatory group photo (pictured above with bonus attendee), we all broke off to do our own things for the rest of the day and night. Myself, Travis and X went off first to the Nakano Broadway. The Nakano Broadway is a huge, multi-level shopping center that has stores of all kinds and persuasions. We spent our time there getting gifts and souvenirs for people back home and then we returned back to our hotel.

That evening, the three of us took a stroll around the city and walked our way from the Shinagawa Prince Hotel towards the Tokyo Tower. We did not make it all the way to the tower, but instead opted to photograph the tower from various points along our walk. All of the pictures from this day can be seen here.

Testing Out a New Blogger Template

Found out about a new Blogger Template Designer from Blogger in Draft. Trying it out to see how I might be able to utilize it to personalize my blog a little bit more. So far, I like it but personally I would love it if I could upload my own background image as opposed to using the stock images that Blogger has available to you. I would guess that it is a copyright issue that Blogger doesn't want to get involved in, i.e., if they were to let their users upload whatever they wanted as backgrounds. Hopefully, something can be done to add that functionality. Other than that, there's a new "Pages" gadget that I have the ability to add, so that I could add separate pages to the blog. I could probably use it to separate content, maybe having a page for Travel, Games, Randomness, etc. Still not sure if I'll add it or not, but it is a thought.

If anyone is still reading this blog, I wouldn't mind some comments to see what you think of the new design and if you would be interested in seeing separate pages for things. This is still a work in progress, so advice/comments are appreciated.

Intermixi TGS Tour - Day 4

This was the day I had been waiting for. This was the event that really spurred me to go back to Japan. I have had the great pleasure of attending the Tokyo International Anime Fair on my previous trip, but I grew up with a gaming controller in my hand (Atari 2600, Commodore 64, NES, SNES, Apple IIGS, Playstation, Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox, PSP, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, various PC configurations) and the chance to go to the Tokyo Game Show was too great an opportunity to miss!

I cannot tell you how many people were there, but I know it was a lot. We arrived there around 9:00 am; the doors opened at 10:00 am; and after we split up to see all the show had to offer, we met back up at the end of the day around 4:00 pm. Six wonderful hours surrounded by games! You can see the full set of pictures here, and shown below are just a few of the sights from the show.

Intermixi TGS Tour - Day 3

I will start off by making a quick comment. In linking to my Flickr page, I've noticed an inconsistency in how I am numbering the days of this trip. That is because when I took pictures and posted them to Flickr, I didn't count any travel days. So I lost 3 days on my 10-day trip traveling between Narita and LA and when riding the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka. So, when I say it's Day 3 on my blog but link to Day 2 on my Flickr, I'm not crazy. On with the tour!

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Ah, Akihabara. Day 3 say us scheduled for a half-day tour of Akihabara, an electronics/gaming/anime/etc. district in Tokyo. This guided tour would be a little different in that we would be lead off the main roads towards the back alleys where some of the older stores are and where people can find the better deals and harder to find items.

The tour started off with us going through a collection of electronics shops and up a stairwell, where a small shrine had been placed. If I remember the explanation our guide gave to us, I think the shrine was a small replica of one that used to exist in this district and was dedicated to Akiba. From there, we briefly went along the main road before turning off towards the back streets.

On the main street, you'll see people trying to hawk their goods or hand out flyers for restaurants, cafes, etc. Most of these cafes are themed, so you'll see people dressed as maids or in some other fantastic outfits.

Of course, once you move off the main streets you see a different side of Akihabara. Our guide showed us a bunch of older stores, from when this area was known as "Electric Town" and sold items such as radios, vacuum tubes, televisions, cameras ... pretty much all your general electronics. As we continued through the alleyways and back streets, we were treated to more and more specialty shops that sold anything and everything you might be interested in, especially if it was technology or electronics.

After we finished being led around the lesser-known areas of Akihabara, we were left to do our own exploring. Pretty much everyone left to shop; I was able lucky enough to find things that friends had asked me to look for, and since it was a few months before Christmas I was able to do some holiday shopping as well.

Overall, it was a full day even though it may not have sounded like it. Since I was more focused on shopping, I don't have many pictures from the area but you can check out what I have here.

Intermixi TGS Tour - Days 1 and 2

(continuing on from my post a while ago regarding my vacation last)

As much fun as it had been visiting Ammy and spending time in Los Angeles, it was time for the real part of my vacation. Once again, I was going off to the Land of the Rising Sun courtesy of the fine folks, and a very good friend and person, who run Intermixi Tours. On this trip, I was scheduled to stay in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, for a total of 10 days. The tour was going to visit many various locales, but the real treat for me was that we would get a day to spend at the Tokyo Game Show. I've been a big gamer, from my early youth through adulthood, and this was something I absolutely had to do.

So, Ammy dropped me off at LA International Airport and I met some of the others from the group. There was our venerable leader, Aka-san. My friend and coworker, Travis (whose pictures can be found here). Then two others, Kristian and Henry. We all piled on to a Singapore Airlines flight bound from LA to Narita and after about 11 hours of flying we landed safely in Japan. At the airport we met the rest of the people on the tour: Greg, Matt, Randy, and one of my best friends and roommate, X. At this point, a lot of us were tired from the travel (we had left in the afternoon from LA; it was already evening the next day in Japan) so we all boarded a bus that took us to our hotel in Tokyo, the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. Day 1 pretty much encompassed all of our traveling, so I wanted a good night's rest for all that we would do on Day 2 and through the rest of the trip.

The agenda for Day 2 (our first real day in Japan) consisted of a kind-of cultural tour, as we traveled to the Tokyo Imperial Palace, Sensō-ji (金龍山浅草寺), the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, then we wandered through Kabukichō and encountered a takoyaki restaurant, and finally we finished our day in Harajuku.

Below are some more pictures from all of these places, and you can find the entire set here. I didn't take any pictures in Harajuku this time, mainly because it's how I remember it from last time.

No love for Intermixi.

I would also like to point out a little adventure some of us had after-hours (i.e., not exactly scheduled by the tour). See, a small group of us (myself, Travis, X, Greg and Matt) went with our leader, Aka-san, out on the town looking for a club that Aka-san wanted to show us. Along the way, our leader received a call from some friends of his; people he used to live with when he lived in Yokohama, I think. Anyway, we meet up with one of them, Jack, and we get lead to a building that houses a bunch of private, little recording studios. It seems that Aka-san used to live with some members of a band, named MAry Ann, and we had just been invited to a private jam/practice session they were having. It was an amazing experience to listen to these very talented musicians play some songs for us, and my only regret was that I stupidly left all of my recording devices (both cameras and my iPhone) in the hotel room so I couldn't take pictures or anything! Luckily, I found some pictures that are up on Intermixi's official Flickr page for the tour.

Wow, it's been 3 months already?!

Oops! There went my personal goal of keeping this blog updated more often. I have some things I still need to talk about from last year, and I will try to complete all of that by the end of this coming weekend. Because next week, if you try to get a hold of me it will be similar to this ...