chidade.net

Early wake up to get on a train for Kamiooka, my old stomping ground. Arrived earlier than expected, curse my Type A-ness. Still, it was good to wander around Yokohama for the first time in a year. Aah, the More’s Building. How often I’ve emptied my wallet there. Check out the old arcade, nothing worth trying to win this morning. I totally own at the UFO catchers.

Anyway, onto Kamiooka. Oh gods, my old eikaiwa *shudder* Quick, look away! Don’t make eye contact! Yay! T & M! Reunion! Have an ice kohii at there place because even at 10.30am, the sweat is already running down my back in torrents. Damn tsuyu.

Hadn’t really looked at the Lonely Planet’s pages on Kamakura. It’s so close to Kamiooka, I’d been there before during the 10 months I lived here, but unfortunately my camera was stolen soon after and I wanted to get more photos again. T & M wanted to go along because apparently the hydrangeas are in bloom all over Kamakura at the moment. That’s….such a Japanese reason to go somewhere XD

But anyway, I basically thought that all there was to see was the Daibutsu, or Giant Buddha. It’s about 800 years old and quite spectacular. It used to be housed within a temple but a tsunami had washed away the building, leaving only the temple. It must’ve been a heck of a tsunami. Kamakura is on the shore but the Daibutsu is still about a kilometre away from the beach with big hills in the way.

I knew that there were more temples around Kamakura, but I didn’t think they were going to be that special. I had been to the main one at the top of the shopping street which was quite nice but….you know…..just another temple. T had some ideas about where to take me in Kamakura though and I was happy to let him lead. I just wanted to have photos of the Daibutsu and the rest was up to them.

First, to the most famous hydrangea temple in Kamakura, Hase-dera. Heh, they’d never mention that in the Lonely Planet. No, all that they say about this place is that “it has the largest wooden statue in Japan carved in 912″ - feh! How is that important compared to the hydrangeas?! There were hundreds of small statues of Jizo which were very cool. I took a couple of shots which I’m proud of. May submit one to Metropolis. It also has an impressive view over the bay.

It was CRAWLING with people all over Kamakura, but particularly in Hase-dera. M said that there had been a special on the television about Kamakura’s hydrangeas, and since it was a sunny Saturday, absolutely everyone in the Kanagawa and Tokyo region wanted to see them today *rolls eyes* So there was a 40 minute wait to go for a walk along this Hydrangea Path within the temple grounds. It wasn’t the ONLY place you could see them, mind you. They were growing out of cracks in the pavement! So we decided to skip it and move on the Daibutsu.

Daibutsu, photos photos photos - finally saw a squirrel! I seriously need to smuggle some into Australia. Okay, photos done, NEXT!

T said he wanted to take me to Zeniarai Benten, so off we went - got lost - got lost again - gave up an caught a bus to the station - had lunch - revived - then got proper directions - and finally we walked up this hill to find a great big tunnel bored into the rock with a torii gate outlining it.

This shrine has now been added to Chidade’s Awesome List™.

First cool part is the tunnel in the rock. When you walk out to the other side, there are many red torii gates to walk through, like Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, although not as beautiful. The shrine is in a tiny little gully that is almost completely closed off by hills all the way around. There are two ways to get in: the tunnel, and a back entrance if you climb the stairs over a smaller hill. So the surrounded and hidden feeling to the place is another cool factor.

Finally, you go into a cave carved into the side of the hill where a natural spring wells. And there……you wash your money. Zeni-arai means “coin washing” but these days people seem to wash paper notes. Out of greed? I don’t know but I washed 1000 yen. T & M told me to keep it in my wallet and never spend it, like a lucky charm to make me rich, but I’ve read other sources that say the idea is to spend money that has been washed in the springs and it will return two-fold. I think I’ll just keep it as a souvenir.

Such a unique tradition - washing your money in the spring to bring fortune. And the Lonely Planet never mentioned this! Zeniarai Benten is listed on their map but not described. Odd, given it’s uniqueness and apparently it’s the second-most visited shrine in Kamakura (awesome link found via Frangipani).

Anyway, Zeniarai Benten: now on my awesome list, along with Nijo-jo in Kyoto, Gyokusendo Cave in Okinawa, Zuigudo underneath Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, Takeshita-dori in Harajuku and all of Akihabara, heh. Hmm, maybe I should set up a page of these places.

The next place we visited was just a short walk away from Zeniarai Benten if you take the back route. It’s called the Sasuke Inari Shrine. Cool, because it does the multiple torii gates thing, has dozens of statues of foxes (because Inari is a god of foxes, among other things), has a cool name, but mainly because, despite being less than 50km from Tokyo, it really seems like you’ve founded a hidden little shrine in the middle of the forest, untouched and unvisited for years. Completely not the case, but the atmosphere is like that.

After that, we headed back to T & M’s for a much needed shower before off to the izakaya for a massive party. About 6 old students, 2 old friends and assorted were there. To summarise the night, I’m going to borrow Circus Girl’s blogging style again:

To the station! I need to pick up S and his mystery friend! You! It’s you! *glomp* I’ll be right back, I need to find S, T keeps me company, he never arrives, never answers my texts, eventually call him and find out he’s already at the izakaya, WTF? Well at least I can make a grand entrance now with all the other guests there, get cheered, take a bow “You bastard, you never emailed me”, debates on email, shut up and order a drink! I’ll have a sour, a sour what, uhhhhh, apple? Yes, Apple Sour, “Minna san! Omiyage desu!”, yaaaaay, boomerang makes me an accessory, canned kangaroo! No really! I think we should open it right now, muaahahahahaa they totally fell for it! Wow, M-chan’s English is awesome now! So is S’s! Heh, so the new gf is a Hong Kong expat too, eh? I detect a fetish. Beer! I don’t drink beer? BUT I’LL DRINK THIS BEER! Wheee, room is kind of spinning, I can haz foowd now pwease? TUNA!!! where’s the salmon? “It’s fish but it doesn’t taste like it”, “K, I’m probably drunk enough now”, mmm, cheezy, what, it’s over already? BUT WE JUST GOT HERE!! Okay, back for some drunken Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Buh-bye some people, I’ll see you in a month! Bottle shop stopover, beer beer beer, girly drink, H lives in that big building? Really? Can I see? Get taken up to the viewing platform, “YOKOHAMA I MISSED YOU!!”, wow don’t want to drop my camera down there O_o, okay, onto T & M’s place, photo slideshow time! Man, I should really do this on my Wii too, catching up, drinking coke and vodka, what a combo, getting pretty woozy now, how did I get so drunk so quickly? *glomps Canadian*, why is the Billy Banks exercise DVD playing? More gossip, YAY! A’s here! Omiyage! “Sorry, I’m a bit drunk”, catching up, ok, so this is how you play Rayman, I love that song, um, are you ok? Sleepy? “Where’s he going to sleep?” (With me!!!) “He should be on the floor in the hallway” (?!) “and A can share with you” (No, he can sleep with me, really!) “Ok, we’ll set up a futon in the lounge room” (Awwww) Brush teeth, “Oyasumi“, unconsciousness.

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wii-kend (noun)

A weekend devoted exclusively towards playing a Nintendo Wii.

Well…a weekend and a bit more.

I’ve been excited about the Nintendo Wii ever since I heard about the controller over a year ago. And even though I pledged never to call the Wii the Wii again, I’ve kinda been “Wiiiiiiiii”-ing a lot ever since last Wednesday night when the midnight launch was on.

Chadstone! Fashion Capital of Australia! And apparently, the biggest official launch site in Melbourne, which seems strange, as I would have expected a shop in the city to have big official festivities. Meanwhile in Sydney, at the same time, a single gamer waited alone in Bondi Junction, surely the New South Welsh equivalent of Chadstone, whilst the big launch party happened somewhere else in Sydney’s CBD…

Well, at least Matt managed to get first in line.

Anyway!

We arrived at 8.30pm since the doors to the shop were going to open at 9pm to hand out tickets. There was already a small crowd of people, including a family at the front of the line that came complete with camping chairs. Their young son was still in his school uniform, so the theory went that they picked him up from school and came straight over to line up. Apparently they had even ordered pizzas for delivery to their seats.

By 9pm, the queue was outside the doors and into the carpark.

By 9.20, the doors were finally opened and I managed to get number 29 in line.

My adopted onee-san came along with me, although I’m really not sure why. She’s not a gamer or a geek in any way. In fact, she freaks out at the idea of going into Akihabara, where she says “it stinks like otaku“. She also came along to the Melbourne eGames Expo a few weeks back. All this it seems, to take photos of Australian otaku and show them to her friends back home. The friends all seem to be amazed by the fact that there are Australian gamers and geeks. I think she regretted going to both eGames and the midnight launch of the Wii. She seemed really bored. But what could I do? I warned her plenty of times about how boring it would be for her.

Luckily, once I received my ticket and paid for everything, we were allowed to wander around. Outside the shop they had a few consoles set up to play on, but I figured I better get onee-san out of there for a break and we went to grab coffee and cake.

Mmmm, death by chocolate. And a much needed hit of caffeine. The cake arrived in a slightly unexpected way though. Maybe they were trying to tell me something at 11pm.

Some time-killing phone calls to Bondi Junction, where Matt and I were basically trying to out-geek each other, and I decide it’s time to head back to the action at 11.30pm.

There was quite a long line now. It seems that the first 100 people received blue tickets (which included me) and everyone after that had purple tickets. The queue was going to the doors even after I had picked up the console and went home. I wonder if they managed to serve everyone?

Music was booming and there were a few competitions going. A Wii Tennis tournament was well underway. Someone had dressed up as Princess Peach, complete with a papier mache turtle missile. There were plenty of fake moustaches around. A huge Link statue - which apparently they were going to give away to the best cosplayer, but since there was only one, they decided to give it to that first-in-line family. Someone will be rich from eBay now.

People were lining up for collection at last. We were handed party poppers, hehe. Then, the countdown! I was promptly hit in the back by an exploding popper. It fucking hurt. But no matter! Because I’m about to get my Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

All up, I ordered the console which came with Wii Sports, the Wii Play pack that has an extra controller (known as Hajimete no Wii in Japan), The Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess (of course! The shop had about 5 times more copies of Zelda than any other game for sale on the night) and Rayman: Raving Rabbids which I knew I would buy after seeing the comical series of teaser trailers. Here was a game that brought back memories of Sam and Max, The Neverhood and other nonsensical PC games. I had high hopes for this game.

Finally picked up my goodies and got out of there at about 1am. 29th in line and I still couldn’t get my stuff for about 40 minutes! The staff were apparently on 18 hour shifts or something ridiculous. And apparently not getting paid any more for it! Stupid industrial relations laws! *shakes fists*

Anyway.

Two things I am unhappy about with the Wii - it is region locked. Utter stupidity. The Nintendo DS was region free and sold like hotcakes. While I was in Japan, there was a point where the DS had actually sold out - I’m sure this was in part due to people importing because of the larger colour choices and games. Surely Nintendo could’ve used the same approach for the Wii? Region Free = Awesome.

Second bitch: The price of games! AUD$110 is recommended retail price! What?! Are you insane?! JBHiFi, however was selling them for AUD$79 so I managed to get a price match. Honestly though, what bastardry. $110?! Unbelievable. With the console and the games, I paid AUD$740. That put a dent in my account, but not as much as the PS3 will next year, I’m sure.

Anyway, I’ve now had about 5 days to play around with it. It also seems to have the Rovers’ stamp of approval. Especially Rayman, which was as ridiculous and humorous as was expected. In fact, I played so much that I had sore arms and shoulders for days! Note to any potential Wii owners: stretch before you play. It’s really a workout.

Haven’t really had a chance to get into Zelda yet, but I will this week.

One great thing about this console is that it’s great for parties. I’ve already taken it to two and people had heaps of fun with it. Even the non-gamers, which is exactly what Nintendo were aiming for in the design on this console.

Mission Accomplished, Miyamoto-san.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

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I waited until after E3 to write about Wii because there was a rumour going around that it was all a huge viral marketing hoax, and not the real name of Nintendo’s next-gen console, codenamed Revolution.

But, alas, no big joke was unveiled at E3 and Kotaku posted that the Wii trademark was found. So it seems that we’re stuck with the worst game console name known to mankind. No really, it can’t be any worse than Wii. Even ‘Rotted Warts’ sounds better than the name ‘Wii’.

So, on that note, I will hereby always call Nintendo’s next-gen console ‘Revolution’ and now let’s never speak of it again.

It is looking sweet as, though. The last few days I’ve been glued to YouTube and the gaming sites for E3 goodness and while the PS3 will also be a must-buy for me, it didn’t quite give the warm-in-the-pants feeling that this video did:

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