{"id":3591,"date":"2018-02-27T11:06:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T11:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/?p=3591"},"modified":"2018-02-27T05:21:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T05:21:38","slug":"japan-in-pictures-2012-november-3-darts-parks-and-tokyu-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/2018\/02\/27\/japan-in-pictures-2012-november-3-darts-parks-and-tokyu-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan in Pictures 2012: November 3, Darts, Parks, and Tokyu Hands!"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we last saw their intrepid heroes, they were Out and About Near Shinjuku<\/a>. They then continued their journey towards Ikebukuro, along the way S captured the Essence of Subway:<\/p>\n

\"#capturingtheessenceofcapturingtheessenceofsubway\"<\/a>
#capturingtheessenceofcapturingtheessenceofsubway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The subway stations continued their impressively intricate maps of the subway building and surrounding area[1]:<\/p>\n

\"They<\/a>
They had these in all the subway stations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First stop was a book store, where they found this incredibly useful artifact:<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
My English Atlas of Tokyo. A lifesaver in many ways.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using this artifact, they successfully navigated around their first destination, ‘Ikebukuro’:<\/p>\n

\"Ikebukuro,<\/a>
Ikebukuro, our first destination, it will forever have a warm place in my heart.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you look closely at the map above, you can see Tokyu Hands (Tokyo HaNSu), and all of the other destinations mentioned in this post. See if you can track our heroes’ travels!<\/p>\n

After obtaining navigational aids, our intrepid heroes continued to their excuse for exploring this neighbourhood, one of the female-oriented anime stores on Otome Road, likely Lashinbang<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not finding exactly what they wanted, they wandered until they found a little park, where they spent a pleasant hour or two wandering and conversing with cats:<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A large number of people (and cats!) seemed to be living permanently in the SE end of this park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you read the sign closely, you can see that it is called: “\u6771\u6c60\u888b\u4e2d\u592e\u516c\u5712”, or “Higashiikebukuroch\u016b\u014dk\u014den”, or “Higashi Ikebukuro Central Park<\/a>“. <\/p>\n

Next up was one of the famous ‘100 Yen’ stores:<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>
In the 100Yen store, there were many examples of cuteness, such as this one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I'll<\/a>
I’ll confess that I never discovered if this was true.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Followed up by their first (of many!) arcade visit!<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An elaborate racing game in the first (of many) arcade(s) we visited.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here, you can see S proudly showing off her bullseye:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0113<\/a><\/p>\n

And with that, it was time to wander again! Our heroes encountered this odd character guarding the entrance to a different arcade. Heeding his warning, they moved on:<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>
We both found this character disturbing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And then it was time for Tokyu Hands! Possibly the most famous (at least to our heroes) of the ‘DePaTo’s (Department Stores), they encountered 6 floors of amazing sights:<\/p>\n

\"Tokyu<\/a>
Tokyu Hands! Our new favourite Department Store!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I can’t help but think of Monty Python’s “The Black Knight” when I see this.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I don’t know what game this is, but it looks like a classic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Upon reflection, this seems to be ‘Shogi<\/a>‘, and is hundreds of years old[2].)<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This was our first of many Lego experiences on this trip.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"They<\/a>
They had such a variety of phone cases at Tokyu Hands, I ended up buying too many of them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The word ‘necomini’ makes me think of cat ears, but I don’t think that’s what these are.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These were amazingly colourful little educational animal skeletons preserved in what looks like acrylic:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0130\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Stay tuned for next time, when our intrepid heroes follow some oddly dressed people into a secret hideout in a park, and discover a fabulous secret!<\/p>\n

[1]Where else do you see top view and side view maps in public?<\/p>\n

[2]In its current incarnation, Shogi is ~400-500 years old, but its ancestors go back at least a thousand years before that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we last saw their intrepid heroes, they were Out and About Near Shinjuku. They then continued their journey towards Ikebukuro, along the way S captured the Essence of Subway: The subway stations continued their impressively intricate maps of the subway building and surrounding area[1]: First stop was a book store, where they found this … Continue reading Japan in Pictures 2012: November 3, Darts, Parks, and Tokyu Hands!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3591"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3619,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions\/3619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nayrb.org\/~blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}