Until yesterday, for an entire month of being in Japan I had been to a whopping three arcades. Three. Its not that I’m even that into video games, but I was really excited to come to Japan to find out what kind of crazy nontraditional arcade games they have (I love all those drum/guitar/dancing games). At JCMU there is one television, which is generally monopolized by a group of about 7 guys who are always playing video games. So far I’ve been the only girl brave enough to attempt to enter this sacred space during video game time, and as of yesterday I now have a way to steal it away myself. A bunch of us went to Omihachiman (Grand Rapids’ sister city!) to go to a store called Bookoff, a (supposedly) huge store filled with used books, used video games, and an arcade. Well, we got off the train at Omihachiman and just started walking. The three or so people in the group that had actually been to the store had only come by bike, so they weren’t sure where to go. So the group of us just starts wandering in a direction that they thought was “the right way”. Eventually we were heading farther and farther from civilization, so I just decided to assume my navigator roll once again, and asked someone where the store was. They pointed us in the correct direction, but half of the guys decided to wander off in their own direction……which was completely opposite from the actual store. After walking in the direction pointed out to me for about a minute, we could see the sign for the store several blocks away across some fields.

So naturally after all that work we get there and……no arcade. This is apparently the wrong Bookoff. Well, asking one of the store clerks on how to get to the ‘other’ Bookoff, he informed us that without a car it would be ????????, which roughly translates to “we aren’t going to the other Bookoff on this trip”. Ah well. I did however pick up a used copy of Resident Evil 4 (called Biohazard in Japan), which is just about the most fun video game ever made. I split the cost with someone else so that we could both play it. After going to the bookstore, we stopped at a Japanese KFC, which really isn’t very different from a US KFC, its just more expensive. And they have no mashed potatoes. Or biscuits. After KFC, we wandered over to a small arcade which advertised in large letters on the side of the building “200 of arcade! corected by action!”, which despite it being three stories tall, only the bottom floor had actual arcade games. Luckily though, it had GuitarFreaks, so I was content. Was able to beat all the guys who tried to play against me….quite badly too. That’s always enjoyable.

Getting back to JCMU around 8:30pm, I (was a bad student and) rushed through my homework just so that I could play a little Resident Evil 4. I was a bit disappointed to find that the English dialogue on the US version is the original dialogue, and that the characters don’t talk in Japanese….bummer. Two hours later it was 1:15am so I figured I should probably go to sleep. Its probably a good thing that I’m only partial to a few video games, otherwise I would have already spent all my extra cash on all the different video games and systems that you can buy here. As it is I’m eyeing the Japanese PSP, with its Japanese-exclusive white case…….