Click here to see all of the pictures I took on this day.
When we woke up this Saturday morning and saw that it was cloudy, we decided to go ahead and go to the Tokyo Game Show in the nearby town of Chiba.
Tokyo Game Show (TGS) is an annual expo where all of the video game manufacturers and developers showcase their upcoming products to the media and -- for the final two days -- to any fans who want to pay the 1000 Yen admission fee. There are closed screenings of footage from upcoming projects, demos to play, etc. I have always wanted to attend, and it just so happened to be taking place while were were visiting Japan.
We bought a ticket for a JR train that would take us to Makuhari-Messe (the convention center where the event was being held). On our way there, I noticed the route seemed a bit strange, so I asked a Japanese girl and her mother if we were on the right one. They indicated that we were, but seemed to be trying to tell us something else. Noticing this, another Japanese girl told us that we would have to change trains at a particular station. She and her French boyfriend were on their way to TGS as well, so we just stuck with them all the way there.
When we got to Chiba, immediately after exiting the station we became part of the longest queue I have ever seen. However, it was moving at a fast pace (actually faster than we would have liked to walk some of the time). We walked up stairs, rounded corners, came back down the same stairs, and all in a design created by the staff to make sure a massive mob didn't just overwhelm the ticket gate. Every so often there were men shouting into megaphones, thanking us for staying in line and appreciating our patience.
Eventually -- after easily walking about a mile -- we arrived at a spot where the line broke into about a dozen smaller lines side-by-side and our walk slowed to a crawl. Almost immediately it started sprinkling. Erin and I had not brought our umbrella, but luckily it didn't sprinkle much or for long, and actually cooled us down a bit, as it was very muggy and warm in spite of it having been overcast all day so far.
Eventually we got our tickets and made our way inside. A sign seemed to be indicating that you weren't supposed to take pictures, so I put my camera in my backpack. Then I saw everyone taking pictures anyway, so I got it out again.
Never in my life have I been in a place that was so crowded. Words can hardly describe it. We walked around and saw a few games we wanted to see, but it was hot and we could barely move in a direction the crowd wasn't already going. I took pictures of a couple people in costumes, walked through a fantastic gallery of Chrono Trigger artwork that Akira Toriyama (my favorite artist) had done, bought some gifts, and left.
We went to a nearby mall to find somewhere to eat. To Erin's excitement, there was a Tony Roma's restaurant: A place we've never eaten at while in America, but that Erin didn't want to pass up now. Inside it was indistinguishable from an American steak house in every respect except for one Asahi Beer sign. Also, it was the first time I have had to eat sitting next to smokers in years.
Erin got a hamburger. I got a hamburger steak with rice. While they did seem to be Japanese approximations of American food (my hamburger steak tasted an awful lot like meatloaf and I got the smallest portion of french fries I've ever seen), it was close enough, and Erin got full for the first time since we came here.
Heading back to the train station, we decided it was early enough that we should visit the Tokyo Sea Life Park. It was one stop past Tokyo Disney on the same line we were riding back on, anyway.
We had bought so much stuff at TGS that we decided to stash our backpack in a "koin rokka" (coin locker) while we visited the aquarium.
The aquarium was very stylishly designed and had huge tanks of tuna, a large penguin habitat, and many other exhibits. We were finished visiting just as they were closing (5 PM). There is an incredibly large ferris wheel nearby (one rotation takes 15 minutes) that we had planned to ride, but it was farther away than the train station and our feet were really worn out at this point, so we collected our backpack and headed back to the train station.
As we walked from Shinjuku station to our hotel we were stopped by a small parade of activists protesting the death penalty. Japan has been recently putting to death many criminals who have been on death row for years, and it has caused a bit of a public uprising against it.
We stopped by the AM/PM where Erin ordered spaghetti with mozzarella and tomato sauce and I ordered a strange sort of burger-type thing in which the "bun" was actually two formed patties of rice and the meat was like yakitori beef. They were both excellent.
Then we watched a goofy TV movie we had been seeing advertised everywhere called "Bloody Monday" which co-starred a guy who looked just like Christopher Walken if he were Japanese, and went to bed.
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