Back to Akihabara / La Mama
To compensate for Bauhaus’s inability to get me drunk, I bought some beer at the 7-11 (Yebisu “The Hop”), and that is probably the reason why it was past twelve when I finally roused myself and got dressed.
I had reached a point in my visit where I craved the familiar, so I took the metro (ah, good old reliable metro) to Akihabara (ah, the comforting familiarity of Akihabara).
I wandered down Akihabara’s main road, and was lured into a games shop where I bought the DS puzzle game Slitherlink for a mere ¥2000. It is a game of drawing lines around numbered boxes, and I have lost hours to it already.
I made a beeline for Yodobashi, the massive electronics shop, and its food floor, where I ate a late breakfast of conveyor belt sushi. Now, I appreciate that this is a bit like saying one’s favourite restaurant is Debenhams’ cafe, but I really like this place, and I’m glad I went back.
As with wine, I don’t know enough about sushi to require real excellence — this stuff certainly seems delicious to me. The format is easy. The atmosphere is delightfully exotic — with the staff constantly shouting their irrashimasai! and their arigato gozaimashita! as customers come and go in a steady stream. I think it’s fair to say that I guzzled that sushi.
Alone, I was able to dwell longer than previously on the games displays. I think it was more active because it was a Saturday. There were enormous queues for something: I think it was release day for Super Paper Mario on the Wii. It looks surreal and post-modern…
A crowd was gathered around a man playing Forza 2 Motorsport, using a steering wheel and three screens providing a wide angle view.
I was impressed. A fourth screen showed a “TV” view, from outside the car.
I bought some capsule toys. They will do for small gifts.
Realising the time I went back to the hotel, past a post office for cash. The post office was closed, and I had to make use of the hotel’s cashier service. There’s posh.
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SlitherLink kept me in my hotel room much later than intended. Fortunately my massive sushi lunch still kept me going. I took the metro to Shibuya, and attempted to follow a tiny map with Kanji labelling to a live house named “La Mama”. To my surprise, it worked.
Shows start early, and I had already missed an act and a half. Charlie Brown and Baseball Team were performing. They were a punky, poppy sort of band, with a penchant for horizontal striped shirts and dandy hats. I liked them.
I had missed a band named Super Girl’juice. I think you’ll agree that is a terrible shame, and I squarely blame SlitherLink.
Charlie Brown and Baseball Team’s bassist’s girlfriend took the opportunity to talk to the only gaijin in the room. She was eager to tell me about her band, which she said had toured to Seattle. She was interrupted by the painfully loud punk rockabilly of Buzz House.
Three-piece bands always impress me: it takes talent to make a full sound without the crutch of both lead and rhythm guitar. Buzz House’s singer and guitarist was a hell of a showman, with his leopardskin jacket, his ridiculous bouffant, and his spectacular guitar showboating.
Finally, The Buggy House Jives, another three-piece. Two girls took rhythm duty, using a keyboard instead of a bass. A male guitarist sang and provided the main focus. This was rockabilly punk again, and while they didn’t have the swagger of Buzz House’s singer, they didn’t need it to put on a great show.
I got home and had “just one more game” of Slitherlink, meaning I didn’t get to sleep until past two, and dreamt of lines, boxes and crosses.