It’s been quite a while since the last episode of Travel diaryfor this I want to apologize. There are so many things to do and the time available is always less, damn adulthood. But let’s get back to us: we were left with the last “useful” day of our stay in Tokyo, given that the next day we were supposed to leave for Haneda to catch the flight that would take us home.
For our last day in Japan we decided to split the groupso that everyone could spend the last twenty-four hours in the place that best suited them, and in this case have more than one Ninja WiFi at our disposal was definitely indispensable. There is Luca who decided to head alone towards KamakuraMastro remained at Ikebukuro together with Kurama, but the latter was not feeling very well and decided to rest in the apartment. Personally, I would have liked to take a trip to Odaiba And Akihabara for the last purchases and Sciascillo was inclined to come with me. However, there was a big, very big problem to solve before leaving home.
From the evening before and for half the morning I arranged as many purchases as possible inside the suitcases and after that the PG Unicorn he filled half of it himself there were really too many GUNPLA still left without a safe home that would have kept them until Italy: more than one dozen of boxes. There were two alternatives: buy a suitcase as Kurama and Mastro had done the day before, or send everything and get rid of the thought. However, faced with the cost imposed by ITA to check in a suitcase on the day of departure, I had no choice: three hundred euros was really too many.
Sciasci and I then looked for the nearest post office and there, unfortunately, we spent the rest of the morning thereuntil lunchtime.
Believe me, it was enough. traumatic And expensive. Compared to ten years ago, the postal system has become even more complicated and I had to follow a rather annoying procedure because I had to declare each individual kit inside the package, only to be told by the employee that I would have to do it all over again to divide the contents into two different boxes, as there were none large enough to contain all the kits. As if that were not enough, I then had to repeat the process over and over again because the kind lady (who obviously only spoke Japanese) forgot to tell me every time what I had to do: insert the name of each product on the tabletthen also the relative value. This is why we wasted so much time, and more than once I thought about throwing in the towel and looking for another solution.
Moral of the story: I spent a shitload of money and wasted a morningprobably more shipping than kits themselves. Try to never find yourself having to ship your purchases to Italy.
Also because once you arrive — while I already found myself in a situation that was anything but pleasant — BaSS had to collect the packages and pay 75 euros in customs duties. As if that were not enough, once I returned home I sadly discovered that almost all the kits were irreparably damaged by the waterwhich had somehow entered the boxes through the opening that the kind gentlemen at Italian customs had provided for the packages.
But let’s put aside the boundless hatred for Italian post offices and customs and let’s go back in our minds to our trip to Japan. Sciasci continued to make fun of me the whole time and after leaving the post office we decided to take a trip to the blessed Sunshine City of Ikebukuro to pay a visit to the Pokemon Center with an attached pastry shop and various other shops in the shopping centre, and then have lunch with a curry not excessively good, worse than what was eaten in the previous days and even worse than what can be cooked in Italy with the appropriate stock cubes.
We took it for the first and last timeIkebus for the station — a very small, very red bus with the sound effects of Sover Mario when you insert the coins to make the ticket — and we decided to spend the rest of the day at Akihabara. After Sciasci spent about half an hour trying to understand because the Suica got stuck in the vending machine* I took a very quick tour of the store Tamashii Nations to catch up on something I had left behind on the first day, and then continue exploring the streets of the neighborhood that we hadn’t seen yet this year.
*In essence, Sciasci threw in the machine all the pennies he had to get rid of it before returning to Italy, including a commemorative coin from the Pokémon Center that brought the entire Japanese train system to a standstilland forced a human employee to come out of a foot-wide hole to apologize for something he certainly hadn’t done and return all the coins he inserted, including the Pokémon one.
Since my money was almost gone, I took one last look at the Gundam Shop unofficial to imprint it in my memory and I accompanied Sciasci on his “retro hunt”, in search of consoles and games from times gone by.
The rest of the day at Akiba we passed it by taking a new tour of the Radio Kaikanwhere I bought a brand new pair of wire cutters GodHand and where Sciasci has recovered a beautiful PSP Go white. We continued the exploration finding a blessed Hard Off and a Surugaya where he could recover some junk technology and where I took a look (and that’s it) to some other GUNPLAand once we finished our round of shopping we headed home to drop everything off and rest for a bit.
Returning to Ikebukurohowever, we have made the sad decision to enter the Donki near the station to get some souvenirs to take back to Italy but above all a load of snacks to take home Bass for the usual video on the YouTube channel. There were so many, so many people, so many that the sumimasen They were flying like shuriken. And at this very moment it happened one of the most tragicomic moments of the entire holiday. I separate from Sciascillo for a moment and he, to reach me, tries to cross a corridor, blocked by a girl intent on choosing who knows what from the shelves. “Sumimasen…” — Sciasci begins. “Sumimasen.” he repeats. But nothing, the girl didn’t move. “Sumimasen!” for the third and final time, in vain. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!!” he exclaims impatiently. At which the girl, despite her Asian features, turns to Sciascillo and says sorry: “SORRY, SORRY!” in perfect Italian. Needless to say, I laughed and made fun of him until yesterday for this gigantic embarrassment, but it was one of the funniest moments of the entire trip.
The last evening all together we decided to go eat in the dirtiest and most shady place we could findfinding a place that looked as shabby as could be, where they made an excellent okonomiyaki. We climbed some stairs to enter, then went down again to a sort of basement, with walls that had an unwelcoming color and where those present (all very drunk) could smoke freely, to the delight of some of us. Not knowing how to prepare onokomiyaki, one of the waiters offered to show us by preparing one of our dishes. Our most atrocious memory of this trip dates back to this very moment: while he was kneading the vegetables in the bowl, an unidentified piece of salad and sauce fell out flew onto the tatami floorThe waiter looked at us for a moment, then pick it up and put it back in the bowl and carry on as if nothing had happenedsmiling too. Our chorus of was of no use “NOOOO!!!” in a vile attempt to prevent him.
Since for some of us (Master) the okonomiyaki was “too healthy” we looked for a place that served food suitable for children, and the hamburger chain Wendy’s it was just right for us, given the collaboration with Persona 3 Reload and related gadgets. The trauma caused by Koromaru At Tokyo Tower, however, it was still terribly cool and not all of us felt like ordering something.
The next day, the day of departure, we headed to the station full of suitcases to get to the airport. Here too I had the chance to continue with the purchases, since I would no longer have to stuff them in my luggage: for this reason I took home two more model kits of Gundam paid even less due to airport duty free, as well as the exclusive stuffed animals of Pikachu to the damn vending machine that is only found in Haneda, which we stumbled upon by the skin of our teeth before the plane took off.
With a double layer of sadness and unspeakable tiredness we returned to Italy. The magic is over for this year too, but we are already thinking about the next trip, which could happen even sooner than you can imagine.
I thank all those who have followed our misadventures and have waited until now to read the conclusion. Please know that we also plan to publish a series of videos on our channelas soon as someone I know he’ll remember to finish editing the episodes. But they’ll come eventually and they’ll be a lot of fun.
#Sumimasen