Japan: Day Eleven

Tried to make this post yesterday but the thing wasn't cooperating for some reason.

Anyways yesterday I went to Umeda to look for the big Mandarake store. As I had been warned that it was difficult to navigate around Umeda, I took the precaution of making a map showing where the store was. Anyone familiar with my cartographic abilities or lack thereof can probably see where this was going. The map was a marked improvement over the infamous map I drew to find a concert in Toronto (which was accurately described as "a slightly bent line with a lot of words around it"), containing a big thing that said "Umeda Subway Station" with a bunch of lines coming off of it. One of the lines is marked "Big Road". The thing I didn't realize was that, unlike where I had been spending most of my time, Umeda has almost all big roads, not just one that I could use to get my bearings. It also has many subway stations in a close area, so even when I got off the subway I had no idea where I was on my map. Fortunately, I had another actual map that I eventually found myself on, but it took a lot of time to figure out where on the real map my "map" was located.

Oh and plus my whole strategy was essentially "get close enough to see it" figuring that this 7-storey building would stand out somewhat but overlooking the fact that Umeda is full of like 50-storey office buildings. So I wandered around for I dunno quite awhile looking for this place and, and this is key, ignoring everything else interesting 'cause I figured I could go back and check it out after I had found the Mandarake. I especially kept away from this big covered shopping tunnel dealie 'cause I always spend way too much time in those.

Well of course the store was actually in said big shopping tunnel. Yup. Anyways I checked it out and it was pretty good but not like so much better than the places in Den Den Town that I'm gonna go down to Umeda all that often. There was an arcade next door that had Taiko for 100 yen a play and three songs a play. I'm getting pretty decent at it. I've noticed that everyone else who plays it seems to be like under the age of 13 and that I am likely playing a children's rhythm action game but uh screw it it is just way too much fun. Anyways after that I walked home which took longer than I thought it would and ate at McDonalds on the way back.

So that was my adventure yesterday. I took some pictures and a video. Didn't buy a duffel bag because I realized I had no idea what I was doing wrt that but today I did some research so maybe I'll get one today.