Random Observation/Comment #24: Japanese does not have an equivalent to “Bless you”.Well then, how do they stop the Buddha from escaping? Maybe only possessed white ghosts have these escaping souls.
The dark gray clouds were not a friendly welcome to another day of bike riding.I did not have trees to protect me this time.Tall concrete buildings should have more overhangs.I had 5 train stops to figure out where I would go for the day before my choices simply expired (I could always take a train backwards, but I would have gone too far).Procrastination is a terrible thing, but it made my choice for me.Yodabashi Umeda was still largely unexplored and it was conveniently next to the observatory and a large number of train stations.I’ve found that Yodabashi Umeda is for the tech junkies, while DEN DEN town is more for the nerds who are buying these things.Nothing in DEN DEN Town is polished or setup nicely, but it’s just cheap and better for those who are looking for the best deals.
I spent an hour taking pictures and looking at all of the gadgets Japan’s best electronics mall had to offer.I finally took a picture of the 103” Viera scaled with a 65” TV – yes, it’s enormous (that’s what she said – wow that was relieving).Be sure to stop by the 7th floor of sweets and try the Mochi Ice cream – it’s heavenly.
After all 8 floors, I decided to walk down Tenjimbashisuji6-chome with all the little outlets on the side (this was of course after I saw that it was raining again).Luckily, I was side-tracked by HEP-5’s large Ferris wheel embedded into the mall.This place was extremely overpriced, but there were a few new styles to observe and absorb into my fashion arsenal.I tried on a lot of clothes and acted like a rich American ready to spend obscene amounts of money on overpriced items.(This may be true in real life, but I don’t think I normally act this way.)There was this one shirt that fit very well, but it was 8000 yen ><.This place is mostly for the fashion trendy and you can probably stay there “window shopping” as much as OPM.Luckily, I walked out of there empty handed (or else I wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere else that day).The money was used in a much more effective way.
It was my first real sushi experience in Japan.The rotating conveyer belt of sushi was absolutely delicious.I took sequential pictures of every dish I ate, slowly piling up to 1100 yen.I don’t think I could have found this deal anywhere else because they weren’t just serving shitty California rolls (although I do like them on occasion).They were serving the really exotic and good stuff that would cost much more than 135 yen per plate.Anything that looked fresh and cool, I grabbed it off the conveyer belt.It was such a happy lunch.I was a kid in a candy story.Well actually, I was Clemens in a sushi conveyer-belt restaurant (this makes a vivid enough picture for those who know me).
This was my third week in Japan and I had not been to an onsen yet – today was the day to rectify the situation.Before I explain why, please trust me when I say that you have to go to Spa World at least once if you’re in Osaka.This place was an awesome way to spend 6 hours for about 3500 yen. The ticket costs 2700 for three hours, but you can print out the 700 yen discount coupon from their website (If you can’t print the coupon, try a copy-and-paste of the URL to a new window)!There are weekend and midnight surcharges so it makes me wonder if you could stay all night at the spa and sleep on the couches.
A comment on Japan’s automation of entrance fees and utilization of vending machines: I think they’ve worked out a wonderful method of trusting customers to be able to enter money into a machine and receive a ticket (I mean, monkeys can do it – no, for serious, there are videos of monkeys actually putting money into vending machines in Minoh).With money out of the way, the front desk is only used for quick questions and handing out wristbands (so much for our work force knowing simple math).These wristbands are used as the sole means of monetary exchange in the economy of Spa World.They basically created their own economic system by giving everyone waterproof identifiers (worn like watches) so people would not need to carry around money.In fact, this accessory is probably going to be the only thing you’ll be wearing (not joking, it’s a European Spa – I’m glad they chose green (joking)).
To pay for food at any of the restaurants or convenience stores, just give them your room number and they enter everything into the computer system.If you want drinks from the vending machines, you can use your wristwatch to get coins from a machine – these values will be logged into the server.
Yes, they probably use a type of RFID that can be hacked, but how will you hack something without clothes, let alone any form of electronics (cameras and phones are prohibited).So their solution to whoever brought up, “what if they hack the system and distribute their spending across multiple person_ids so no one would trace them?” was probably “they’re naked – the end.”Besides, it would be much easier to just put a sticker over your wristband when the people mark down the numbers.Someone going through all this trouble to weasel 2000 yen really has a better way of spending their time.But, these are, of course, the thoughts that go through my mind – 1) this is how the system works, quickly followed by 2) how do I work my way around it? And finally, 3) how do I break it?
Just like the capsule hotel, you have to take off your shoes in spa world and store them into a locker.You get to choose your own other locker to keep all of your stuff (and when I mean all, I mean you won’t even have to worry about wearing underwear). There is so much more to write – I will explain the European spa of Spa World tomorrow.
~See Lemons Enjoy the Onsens
You can eat so much food for US$10.00? What a good deal. Enjoy.