Japan April 16th (Day 16) Kyoto/Tokyo: Sickness, shopping, Yaoi, Yuri, Saki, Women’s Only and stationary!

Okay, Linda is about to kick my butt because I was supposed to be asleep 20 minutes ago but I can get in this short blog before I sleep and leave for the airport. I worked on a longer blog about what happened in detail on the 15th but it is not quite done and there are no pictures. So I chose pictures and short over historical, detailed and will post that post when I recover and have time to edit and resize pictures (we took over 300 pictures on April 15th! – we are going into 4000 pictures for this trip – so while we do get “good” shots we also are going shutter crazy!)

I got up today and was pretty dodgy but got to the station (checked the comments – thanks again, though I am 4 day behind in replying! – will get to it, promise!). Oh, all post cards are away, last batch went two or three days ago, I think it was over 50 in total so I hope you are getting them and they are reaching you at the “right” time. A thanks for reading. Blogging keeps me going, Linda said (at another time), that I choose interaction with people over my own health, that is how important it is to me.

Anyway, turned out that the train tickets were NOT quite what was quoted in the JR website (try twice the price) but we went on the Nozami, the elite of the Shinkensen and was in Tokyo in two hours. But 40 minutes to Tokyo I was already going, “Once I drink more liquids I will feel better” or “Once I get something to eat” – which meant I planned to go to bed….bahahahaha – time to go back to K-books and Animate to do some anime and stationary shopping! Last chance!
We stashed the bags and headed to Otome Road, stopping at Wendy’s as Linda was hungry. Well, it was super hot and in 10 minutes I couldn’t lift my head, my fingertips were blue/purple and not BOTH arms were green, starting at the open vein spots but spreading out and down from then. It is pretty freaky and goes under “not a good sign” since my right arm seems that way permanently right now (two days). The heat just makes me translucent girl.

We headed on to K-Books and they brought down the post cards for me from the second floor and some of the notebooks and I have to say Linda did a great score last time – as no pics of girls in underwear hanging off each other (that went out as a postcard – a request). But notepaper and postcards of both boy/boy love (Yuri) and I managed to find and score (after much looking) some girl with girl postcards (some of which are a bit more subtle). Wooh hoo – going home happy if Canada Customs doesn’t confiscate it all.
Anyway, the prices were to die for 100 yen for two cards. But then it was on to Animate which I find kinda rude and the stuff that was out on display in other store is behind cases here. I learned there must be about 1 million closeted lesbians in Tokyo because ALL the series I got elsewhere in Japan from Venus Versus Virus to Strawberry Panic were ALL gone. It might be nine floors but getting some stuff at Animate in the Yuri Line (girl with girl attraction – hey we ALL like to see ourselves reflected in literature!) was hard.

Okay, side note, my MAJOR score at K-books was asking about Strawberry Panic, which I do everywhere but get nowhere only this time a guy speaking NO English pulls out three CD case holders with the characters from strawberry panic, at a totally reasonable price. I am so excited I say, “Gomemasai!” which means sorry and I freak and am like “Eei!, Arigato! Arigato!” so I bought all three eventually! Oh, yeah! Maybe I can find someone with other strawberry panic stuff and trade (do I sound like an Otaku? Oh yeah!)

Oh, about that book I was searching for and I picked up on my “I’m sick but I’m going anyway until I pass out” day (that would be yesterday?), I found this book by artist Hana, she is female and for SOME REASON, her animation work just sort of “speaks” to me. I can’t quite figure out what it is? Any help? Oh yeah, the boy/boy love pack in the corner is for girls to ‘dab the sweat off your nose” – gotta love this country – they don’t put toilet paper in public toilets but you can get little blot papers for your nose sweat, in Yaoi love scenes! Since I don’t sweat there either – a good buy for me.

Also, here is another page from inside, and I am sure I actually saw this after the sword dance at Nikko on April 2nd. Or was that just part of the dreams I keep having about the shrine maidens (Linda knows my fantasies are just that – humorous and healthy fantasies!). Anyway, you can see why I might have wanted 178 PAGES of this artist?

Back to the store Animate, where after a LOT of searching I found a yuri/lesbian mug – woo hoo! I am not sure how that is going to go down with the home care people but now, with the skull mug and this one I have some things that represent….well me – the gothy, anime, lesbo globetrotting risk-taker.

I also got this jigsaw which is only 108 pieces but I feel might have some enjoyment to put together AGAIN and again. This time Linda tried to help me get the pervy four naked girls grabbing breast jigsaw at the front in the counter only you could only get it with an animate CARD by collecting points. Oh suck! I instead increased my schoolgirl collection by getting some more note paper from Saint Marie, the private school girl anime which started the whole girl/girl schoolgirl love craze – it is from about four to five years ago. I was lucky to get it as I said, everything YURI/lesbian is sold OUT! Try to get some “Girl meets Girl” stuff – HA! I also got these school girl cells as part of my attempt to decorate my walls with a total fantasy delusional life in which I constantly go to school and fall in love and have anguish over whether to give chocolates to the girl I crush on instead of MY life of oxygen concentrators, heart problems and hospital beds. If you don’t like your reality, make your own!

Talk about combining your fantasy and reality I got an….anime icepack. Yup, I now have a ice breakpack which has a girl with a sword on the front – how cool is that. But on the other hand, would I ever dare use it: choice between using and thus destroying girl with sword ice pack or brain damage…….UGGGG, hard choice!

We continued on to Tokyo Hands to find these AMAZING cards – I wanted so many of them but found we had…..oh the bitter pill….RUN OUT OF MONEY. So I could only buy these two – one you write the message on the fan and then send it AS the card – how cool is that! So we headed one stop over and managed in rush hour to get on the legendary “Women Only” car – pretty cool huh! I mean, any Tokyo guy who touches a north American woman is an idiot. And while I am against sexual predators, I admit that when guys grab women’s butts in Japan and then get red faced doesn’t mean she deserves it but imagine him trying that on a North American woman and getting a knee in the groin and car keys going for his eye balls – and this is why Japanese men actually don’t try to pick up western women – they find us unpredictable and kinda scary.

At home I slept, or rather semi-coma with oxygen and was woken by heart erratic two hours later. We packed for tomorrow but took time to go up to the 45th floor and have drinks together (hey, this is a VACATION right?), so this is our farewell to Tokyo and Japan drink. You can see a bit of the Tokyo tower in this skyline picture.
As for the Sake? Well it is so freaking beautiful that we are keeping the bottle until we return home. I am not sure when we will open it. Linda told the women this was our FIRST sake to drink and what should she buy and this was the little bottle the multi-generation sake seller picked for us. It sure is pretty. Well, I have to go because I need 9 hours sleep if I am not going to go into serious problems on that plane (me and awake for 14 straight hours – yeah, not a great plan when I can’t manage me doing that for six hours today!).

Wish me luck and thank you for sharing this journey (And my little anime and lesbian/yuri obsessions – and yaoi!). Will join you on the other side, when I can type again!. Thank you again.