Today, we moved to Hakata for the last part of this holiday. I kind of intended to visit Comiket on the 15th, but since the night before was a long one, I didn't do much other than sleeping in a bit, readying my suitcase for the trip to Hakata (we've sent it ahead with Kuroneko Yamato; saves a lot of trouble lugging the heavy bastard across the country and they'll do it for you for about €10), sorting out my fireworks-shots from the other day, send some stuff home and raid the Hanshin Department store for some Hanshin Tigers-goodies.
The Hanshin Tigers are Osaka's favourite baseball team and their fan base is said to be most fanatic, a little rowdy, but still Japanese.
Unfortunately, the Tigers can be compared to the Boston Red Sox and the Dutch Feyenoord soccer team; the Tigers lose frequently.
Despite that, the fans are loyal to their Tigers: "Win or lose, Tigers pride" is their mantra, and you'd better believe it. ;)
Anyway, the Hanshin Department store is a subsidiary of the Hanshin Electric Railway Company which owns the team, hence the name, and when the Hankyuu Department store took over Hanshin last year, there was a bit of a riot when rumours spread that Hankyuu wanted to rename the team to Hankyuu Tigers. Fortunately, this crazy plan was shot down in a matter of days, but it caused quite a stir.
It's also a bit of a gamble whether the shirts will fit or not, as the Japanese sizes differ a bit from what we're used to.
Fortunately, the Tigers Shop has unwrapped shirts for clients to try and put on. Another redeeming fact; a good portion of the Tigers' fanbase tends to be a bit on the heavy side, so the 2L-version of the shirts fit me.
I also got a phone strap, a thermo-mug and a happi coat. A happy coat? No, a happi [hap-pi] coat; a coat that's not a real coat, but more like a dress coat. It used to be worn by servants and later firemen, but nowadays it's generally worn during fetivals by street vendors (at least, that's where I see them the most), but obviously not limited to them.
Robert got a cap, a shirt and also a happi coat. Got some yaki soba on the way back to the apartment (we didn't really eat during the day, so a quick bite came in handy, especially since we knew that dinner still was a few hours away.
We also went for a small travel bag (Robert needed one for Korea) and a power cord for my Philishave. I own a rechargeable shaver, which has been with me for many years, and somehow, the batteries still last a couple of weeks before they need to be recharged.
I forgot to bring my charger cable, but I figured that I could wing it since I charged the thing just before I left, and since it's a regular power lead without special gizmo's other than a slightly smaller device plug, I would have no problem finding one here in Japan.
Wrong.
I went to Yodobashi, I went to Sofmap, I went to Joshin; no dice. And no cable either.
So, what to do; letting my beard grow? I think not.
So, what would MacGyver do? Probably cook something up with three rusty nails, a strip of cotton cloth and some barbed wire.
I on the other hand, went to Partsland in DenDen Town where I picked up a few leads with crocodile clips, a power cable with an open end and a couple of plugs which would probably fit my shaver, but since the plugs came as a set of male and female, I would have no problem hooking the clips safely to the power cable.
I'm writing this, freshly shaven. ;)
The trip to Hakata itself started uneventful, but at the end of the trip, something weird happened; our Shinkansen was delayed due to heavy weather. No slight delay either; we arrived a whopping 40 minutes late! If it were ProRail, I'd say it was the wrong kind of rain, but I digress.
Tomorrow is a-nation day; should be fun.
Cheers, K.