Don't you want the treasure box? Probably filled with goodies! aka Tokyo Game Show 2008

So I went to Tokyo this last weekend. Talk about an adventure! Some of you probably already know that... my plan was to go to the Tokyo Game Show! Color me excited! It was certainly the experience. Extremely busy, as in... SO MANY PEOPLE that you get in a crowd and you absolutely cannot MOVE and you're just getting pushed along with the mob. Crazy. But overall, it was a ton of fun, even though it was tiring.

The weekend started off on Friday night after archery club (oh yeah, did I tell everything that I joined the archery club? It's pretty awesome). I met up with my friend Michelle at school around 8:30 and then we were off for Hirakata station. The bus we were taking was leaving from Osaka, so we had to get there first, which means a stop at Kyobashi, and from there, the Osaka Loop Line would take us to the central Osaka station. Though as it turned out, it took us much less time than we actually thought it would, so we were waaaaay, way early. As in, the bus started loading at 12:10 and we were there around... 9:30. Well, crap, now what? So we ended up walking around and looking for a place to get a snack, so we ended up finding a 'Heart-In' convenience store and I bought some more delicious CCLemon. Then, we simply waited on a stoop. It actually turned out rather funny because these two random english (and by that I mean one was American and one was Canadian) guys walked by and randomly started talking to us and basically invited us to a nearby bar with them, though we had to refuse because obviously, we were leaving fairly soon.

But anyway, on the bus. It was actually decently comfortable on it, though like anything else where you have to sit in a chair for 8 hours straight, it doesn't stay that comfortable. Though I was able to get some good sleep and surprisingly, wasn't all that tired by the time we got to Tokyo. So we got there, went to the station nearby and figured out what station it was that we needed to get to, and then were off! On the way there, we even passed by Tokyo Disneyland, and I wanted to go sooo bad, ahaha. You could tell right away by the architecture and stuff. It was pretty awesome.

So we get there, and suddenly... you just know that you're in the right place. There's people everywhere, and then there were guides telling us which way to go to get to the convention center. Then, unfortunately, starts the really long line-waiting time, where we spent time right after buying our tickets, spent time waiting to get our bags searched, spent time waiting under a big awning, spent time walking around the ENTIRE COMPLEX in the rain, and then spent time right outside the doors. It was a lot of waiting. But... as soon as you go in... you know that it's worth it. It was like stepping into another world!!! There were these huge stations and lit-up screens and signs and adorable anime and game posters everywhere... when you step in, you just get so overwhelmed and you're like, AH I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO GO. So you just start walking around and staring at all the colors and then you see... a giant chocobo balloon. And you know it's the Square Enix pavillion. And you go there... right away.

Then you see awesomely amazing things like the Chrono Trigger DS place with all the original framed artwork to look at, a giant TV screen showing previews for things like the new Chocobo DS game and all the Final Fantasy XIII games, and then you walk around to the other side where you get a ticket to play Final Fantasy Dissidia later in the day which is right next to an ENORMOUS sign for this aforementioned game with all the characters that have been introduced so far, and then you see a small window showing various merchandise you can buy in the Square Enix store... It's possibly even MORE overwhelming. Seriously. Then you realize that there's THREE MORE ROOMS FULL OF STANDS AND PAVILLIONS.

Needless to say, there were a lot of things to look at and do. I found the Marvelous Entertainment pavillion and ended up waiting in line to play the new Wii Rune Factory game since the line was short and I really wanted to play it, ahaha. It was pretty much hilarious. The Japanese assistant was trying to tell me how to do a bunch of the stuff by pointing, though it was a good thing I was watching the people before me because I had a better idea of what to do. It was really humorous all around though. I definitely can't wait for the game to come out. Should be awessssome~!

In-between the different buildings/rooms was where all the cosplayers gathered, and there were some pretty much a-mazing cosplayers, let me just say. It was so much fun going around and being like OMG I KNOW THIS GAME! Then I have to gather the courage up to ask to take their picture, which can be hard enough when you're in America, but even worse when you have to ask in Japanese through what you hope is the right way to say it and gesturing to your camera. Luckily, they were all pretty nice and understood quickly, ahaha.

When it finally came time for my Dissidia ticket to come into use, I went back to the Square Enix pavillion to wait in line, where they gave me this random sheet telling me a bunch of buttons and actions I could do, most of which I couldn't read, but oh well. We waited in this small area right behind the Closed Mega Theater, which I really wish I would have gotten a ticket for, but we forgot to in all the excitement, and then right as soon as the movie for it was about to start, they took us back outside where the PSPs were waiting. I ended up playing as Zidane, since he hasn't been in a game since FFIX and I love him, though I really wanted to play as Butz, because Butz is seriously awesome. All the characters were available though, unfortunately. It was pretty fun playing, though, ahaha, I found out I wasn't using the right control stick to move, which was why I couldn't seem to get out of the one spot I was in. One of the helpers came around and showed me. It's not my fault I've never played a PSP before! But I ended up fighting Tidus, Onion Knight, Squall, and then finally, Kuja, who was somehow ridiculously harder than all the rest.

After that, Michelle and I met up again (which was good, because for a while I was afraid we were would never find each other again!), and we walked around a bit more. We were both absolutely bushed, but we didn't want to leave, lol. We finally decided to head out, whereupon started our trying to get to Narita and failing miserably adventure where we got lost going out the wrong doors of the convention center, then getting lost on the train system. Probably the only reason we were able to get out of THAT pickle was because this random salaryman saw us looking really confused and came over to help us. But we finally made it, and from there, we had really nice directions to the hostel we were staying at because there were pictures and everything on the website to help you!

The hostel ended up being really nice, better than most, even. And we were the only girls even staying there, which meant that we had the entire room all to ourselves. Quite nice. So we got some good sleep that night, were able to take showers and eat and everything, it was very nice. And all for only 3,000 yen! What a deal!

The next day, we decided to hit up Akihabara, which is an area full with electronic and otaku stores and is pretty much famous in Japan, so we started on a train that we thought would take us to the Chiba/Tokyo area... and we went for a long time. The train became rather sparse. It looked like we were out in the boonies of Japan (which is even weirder because the Japanese boonies look pretty much exactly like the midwest of the United States - coming home much?), but finally we were like... ok, seriously, where are we? We asked one of the other ladies on the train, and it turned out that we went in exactly the OPPOSITE direction of where we needed to go. SUCK! So we got off at the next stop, which also happened to be the LAST stop. After looking around, we found out that the train we were on was going to start going the other way now and go back the way we needed to go, but not for like... half an hour. You see, in the boonies, trains only come about every half an hour to forty-five minutes. Just. Great. So we decided to eat the food that we'd gotten at the convini before we left Narita and just kinda chill on the train until it finally left again. Talk about a long train ride. I think we spent roughly 2 hours or so on the same train all morning. It's rather funny, actually.

But anyway, we finally made it to Chiba, where we took a train there leading straight to Akihabara. And... it was really busy there too! Not nearly as busy as the gameshow, but still quite busy. It was quite fun though! There were tons... TONS of different stores there, spanning multiple streets. A lot of them were just PC parts stores, which weren't exactly the most interesting, but there were quite a few fun stores to go to. We found an animate! store, which are always fun, and then the Gamers store (the store branch whose mascot is Dijiko from Digi Charat), and we also found this friggin' sweet used game store and a bunch of cosplay shops (though you have to get careful with those, because for some reason, they always sell cosplay stuff in the same stores as the more... er... risque stuff, I'll just leave it at that). I ended up buying this manga called Hetalia: Axis Powers.... which... ok, it's seriously the most hilarious and cracked up manga ever. It personifies the different countries of the world during the World War II era, so the main characters are the Axis Powers - Italy, Germany and Japan, and then you have the Allied Powers, led by America, who is this cute, blonde, glasses guy who's always eating hamburgers. It's seriously crack. And positively adorable too. I can't get enough of it! Which is good because even though there's only one actual volume of the manga out, they're making an anime for it, and there's really adorable merchandise for it, much of which I bought including a pasta bowl (Italy is obsessed with pasta), an adorable hand towel, and a small charm, which is one of those where you buy it in a box and don't know who you're getting. I ended up getting America. How fitting! LOL But it was so fun, and both Michelle and I were always like OMG THEY HAVE MORE HETALIA STUFF. It's addicting.

Hmm, well, I've rambled on quite a bit now. We stayed in Akihabara until about 10:30 or so, and then made our way back to Tokyo Station, since our bus to get home started boarding at 11:10. For some reason, I had a much harder time sleeping on the way home than I had on the way there, which was annoying because then you just lay there really uncomfortable for a long time, but it also didn't seem to take as long. We made it into Kyoto around 6:30'ish, but since we weren't sure if we could find our way to the Keihan Kyoto station from our drop-off point, we decided to just go all the way to Osaka. So, at the end of the day (er, well... beginning), I ended up getting back into Hirakata around 7:45. It was a long trip, though seriously fun. I'm definitely glad that Michelle and I met on that random Asuka trip so we could go, because it's something I'll probably never get to do again.
I have quite a number of pictures, so it might take me a while to upload them all. Hopefully, I will get them up soon!

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