Hindsight

Last night, before heading to my guest bedroom at Shinji’s, I wrote back to my friend Adam, who happened to be staying the night at an internet cafe in Osaka.

Adam and I never met in person – he contacted me by way of the Kanno Project about five years ago. We kept in touch on a thread: sometimes we would write and not hear from each other for six months. Then, suddenly, an e-mail would pop up and we’d correspond.

We managed to meet for the first time at Shin Osaka station this morning. Tokyo bound, we chatted about our enthusiasm for Kanno’s work, games and the Japan “experience” as it were – I told him about working as an assistant teacher and he told me of his experiences thus far. The shinkansen ride didn’t seem like 3 hours – we kept talking about all sorts of things.

After checking in to my hotel at Minami Senjuu we made our way to Akihabara.

Apparently my enthusiasm for the place has remained the same. It was Adam’s first time to mecca.

Quite a few stores were pushing Tokyo Battle Zero One this time around.

Adam, like myself, was in the search for games and some related items. We went to Sofmap, Yamagiwa Soft and Asobit City to cover most of our “needs” – I also bought a few games that friends wanted me to find.

Like last time, the searching was fun – it was nice to find the software and think, “They are going to get a kick out of this once I hand it to them”. It’s grand being the “item hunter” of sorts.

Asobit City’s PC software/hardware floor had a small area dedicated to computer audio and music composition. In a corner of the floor was an obscure collection of music books for themes from games and anime. Adam was enlightened to find sheet music for both old and recent game titles. He picked up a few books: Final Fantasy themes, Studio Ghibli themes, and another book that I can’t recall at the moment.

I was happy to see him so excited, to find things that he had probably had in his mind yet could never acquire (for obvious, geographical reasons). Today was his day it seemed.

I roamed one of the TRADER stores in search of other used games. Managed to find some software here and at Sofmap, of course.

Today’s pace seemed rapid. One store to the next, a fulfilling yet quick lunch at a Kyushu-style ramen joint in the middle of Akihabara. A fast dinner at McDonald’s in Ikebukuro followed by another fast romp, this time to an internet cafe to notify friends of my latest explorations.

It was a blast. That really is the only way I can describe it. It was my first time to meet Adam offline and I found him to be an awesome Tokyo companion today. Tomorrow we’re going to check out Shibuya, Harajuku and some other possible places, at least until the evening when he will meet up with his other friends. After that, I may get the chance to catch up with some others in the area.