The J.J. Experience

Monday, March 31, 2008

     The today started off pretty standard with everyone getting ready to head out to get lunch. With Jen and Dan found to be around, the Sannin were reunited, plus Hunter came along for the trip. The search for a suitable lunch stop was proving to be a rather long journey, and after accusing Jen of being Chicken Boo (don't worry, there was limited understanding at the time from my compadres, too), we finally reached a small ramen shop. I was particularly excited because I hadn't yet had ramen from a non-fast food source on this trip, and this was Natalie and Hunter's first time to visit a "mom-and-pop ramen shop" (copyright Natalie). As expected, the miso ramen that I bought was awesome:not only in flavor, but in its fulfilling nature! It's important to note, too, I think, that they had a water cooler there, so we were all able to get a satisfyingly amount of liquid in our systems as well.
We all destroyed our dishes and moved on. Jen and Dan went their separate ways to try and get Jen a phone and the rest of us headed to do a multitude of things, which didn't include drinking any drinks for half-robots, but which did include the following: Hunter getting passport photos for his gaijin card, Natalie's plan to reactivate her friend's Japanese phone getting rejected by the AU phone company, and me getting some new socks! That's right! I actually broke down and bought some. They're not exactly what I wanted, but they are in fact a little taller than most socks, are Converse brand (yeah yeah, I'm a sucker), and most importantly, fit. Er, well, they fit for the most part (snug)... but I didn't necessarily want to get the "king" size in case they were too big... but maybe that's a silly thing to think coming from the man who had to pay $15 more for slippers because his feet are twice the size of the members of the normal populace.
     When we returned I got a few things taken care of and then saw Matt Pollard's comment on a lower blog about some place called "J.J. Club 100", which supposedly was a place where one could play all the games they wanted for a flat rate based on time, not on amount played. Amazed at the low prices that he claimed, I looked into the place and found out there is one only two stations away, so I spread my excitement to Hunter and Natalie and urged them to join me to hunt out the place that evening. At around eight or so we got out of the DK House and headed to Minami-Urawa station.
      Lucky for us there was a small restaurant aimed at busy salarymen located in the station that we stopped at (I got some delicious tempura udon). Instead of actually being a sit down place where one orders from a waiter/waitress, the buyer walks up to these nifty vending machines that dispense tickets with your purchase on it that you give to the chefs in the restaurant. If you look at the picture, each button has a different food choice on it, and the choices are usually categorized on these things, I believe, by food type. For example, the red may be soba, the yellow udon, and the blue something else. The purple ones at the bottom are (all?) extras that you can get with your dish, including rice and a ticket that says that you want a large order. Surprisingly this place was pretty quality (six thumbs up from the travelers), so don't be afraid of these if you encounter them!
      The real adventure started when we got out of the station. Natalie and I had looked up the way to J.J. Club beforehand, and I, having studied the map, decided to lead the way out of the station and to our destination without the use of a map. The map showed us getting off in a square-like area, walking down a slanted street for a while, making a left when it ended, crossing over a river, and ending with a turn into some sort of gray block (I had no idea what it was on the map). Well, after walking down a slanted road and making a left when it ended, running into a Denny's (Denny's? seriously? out of all the breakfast diners...... but supposedly it's a lot nicer here...... in fact, at one point we wanted to stop in at one for a little while but it had a LINE [!?!?] to get in), crossing what looked like a river, and hopping on someone's porch to pose with an extremely well known pop culture idol, we reached a snag. To the left where the gray block was supposed to be there was a neighborhood. This confused me... why would they put it in the middle of a neighborhood? We thought maybe it opened up a little further down the street so we kept walking. Nope. Natalie suggested we cross the street to the city part because maybe it was over there, so we did. Nope. Thinking that we must have made a wrong turn somewhere, I shouted at some grade schools kids across the street and asked them if they knew where the J.J. Club was. To our dismay, they seemed really confused and responded with a baffling "blah blah something in Japanese jyu-go en." What? 15 yen??? I'll just leave it at that and you can infer what you want. Confused in more ways than one, we continued to walk the streets of Urawa and after a loooong, loooong journey, I decided that it would be a good idea to stop by a Sunkust (think 7-11) to ask for directions again. Surely the worker inside would know where the J.J. Club was!
      He didn't. Natalie asked where the nearest station was and the tall, lanky, strangely-colored hair employee whipped out a map, and after pausing a while to get his bearings (which included looking at the map for a little bit and then turning it upside down....................), he pointed at where we were in relation to the station.

      We were in the middle of NOWHERE. Completely off our mark. Exiting the store and trudging on to the station, I thought about what happened. The landscape and everything seemed right: the square... the slanted road... the river-looking crevice... what happened??? Well, it turns out that we exited from EAST exit, not the WEST. So instead of going Southwest, we went Northeast.
      Now I know what you're thinking. He's an Eagle Scout. How the heck did that happen. Well, guys, I never got my orienteering merit badge! Ha! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa oh man. That was embarrassing. It turned out to be a fine stroll with my companions, but I realllly frustrated Natalie because she had a map and I insisted I knew where I was going. And while it was a terribly dumb mistake to not look which exit we were going out, it IS scary how similar the layout was in the total opposite direction.
      Tired and uninspired we got on the train at the station and proceeded to go back home. Then, we noticed that the next stop was "Minami-Urawa Station". If you're really paying attention, you'll notice that this was the same station that we STARTED at. Instead of being lead back to that one, the Sunkust guy lead us allllll the way to the next station!!! Baaaaaah!
      And that's not it! When we finally arrived at Nishi-Kawaguchi station again, we were going through the exit gates and BAM!!!!!! The gates closed on us! Three white kids in the middle of the station being taken to the Smackdown Hotel by the stupid gates. Well, we had to go to the ticket adjuster and pay an extra 10-yen (give me a break) because, since we walked all the way to the next station it, it wasn't the same fee upon our return.
      And thus my adventure more or less came to an end. We returned home and slept for the next day of excitement... which I'll post about after I spend some quality time with ISIS and the COD (I have to choose Fall classes on Monday).

Until next time...!