The Old School Otaku Lounge

YAY, today is Saturday, which marks the beginning of Golden Week. Today we will take a train to Numazu, the town to the east of here. We've never been there. Mayu wants to see the Kiddy Land store there. Obviously it'll be small compared to the huge Harajuku one, but we love stores like that. There was a Kiddy Land in Himeji when we lived there, too (probably still there). We'll just wander around the station area and see what's around there. I think I've found a plastic model shop there.

Then either Sunday or Monday, we will take the train to Shizuoka for the first time. I'm excited to visit the Shizuoka Hobby Square just south of the station! Also somewhat in the area is what looks like an incredibly impressive plastic model shop, called Rainbow Ten! We'll also take a day to relax and hang out at the Internet/manga cafe we still have a bunch of coupons for, and maybe play some billiards there. Now that we have Internet access at home at last, I don't forsee us going there very often anymore.

I'll work for Tuesday and Wednesday, and then right after work on Wednesday we're off to go spend the rest of Golden Week at the family's place in Nagano-ken. My daughter's birthday is on May 5th, Children's Day! I bought a bunch of Uglydoll merchandise on my trip back to America in March for her birthday, but I've recently started to find the dolls here in town at a few specialty shops. She's nuts for Uglydolls and she is always asking me their names. So as a father, I have to keep on top of all that. But honestly, I love them just as much as she does, if not more.

Happy Golden Week.

Make sure to get us some photos/videos!

I took a couple of videos of my long weekend in Nagano-ken. I'll have to upload them to my YouTube channel sometime soon. In Shizuoka-ken where I live, we are already on the verge of summer. However in Nagano where the in-laws live, the sakura were still on the trees and the blossoms were falling. There are actually two types of sakura, the typical blossoms with the 5 petals and the puffy kinds that bloom a bit later. We visited one place up in the mountains that had the sakura in full bloom, so that was nice.

I thought of BikeLover since he says he often goes up to Shirakabako, the lake in the mountain highlands of Nagano. It suddenly rained hard up there, and it even hailed. Then suddenly it became clear and we could see Mt. Fuji all the way from Nagano-ken. But then it started raining again after that. I saw a lot of bikers that day, and I felt sorry for them being pelted by hail and rain up there.

Here is a video of the cherry blossoms in Tateshina, Nagano-ken:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQLFwK4MhCg

Here is a view of the great park we visited near the in-laws' house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zb91NUhsIM

Very nice.