Current location:	Asakusa, Tokyo
Current mood:	exhausted

Day Two, Tokyo Game Show (Special Guest Appearance by Adam Sessler. No, seriously.)
So today was a busy day.

For one, it started with my main Mini DV camera acting up. Andrew and I worked on that thing for about an hour trying to get it to just film without eating tapes. We finally figured out that all we had to do was fast forward past the place where the camera ate the tape. Meh, whatever.

We walked down to the train station, past a sumo stadium. There's wrestling matches today and tomorrow. But we don't really have the time or the spare cash to see it all, unfortunately. That reminds me, I don't think I said it yesterday, but we didn't exchange all of our cash when we arrived in Tokyo, only very little when we were in Dallas. We have to wait until Monday to go to a bank to exchange more currency. But at least that keeps me from spending all of the money within the first few days.

We rode the trains pretty far, and then decided that we could just walk to the Makuhari Messe convention stadium. We were so wrong. We ended up walking several miles and nearly getting lost along the way. Such a tiring trip! Of course, once we found the place, we knew we were in the right spot. There was a huge line of people around the stadium trying to buy tickets to get inside. Andrew and I decided to walk in on the second floor, since we were already on an above-ground walkway. We found that we could just purchase our entrance tickets at a booth inside... NO LINES! We quickly grabbed up tickets.

Before we entered, we went inside a little convenience store just inside the door. I brushed against someone walking past and outside the door... and it was only after Andrew made mention that I noticed, "Hey... that's Adam Sessler, isn't it?" And sure enough, he and his little balding head were now sitting outside the little store at a table. He was sitting with some woman who looked like Morgan Webb from a distance, but we decided it wasn't her when we got a little closer. I said to Andrew, "Do you think it'd be bad for us to talk to him?" Andrew said, "I dunno, but I'm gonna go say hi."

So then Andrew walks up to Adam Sessler. He asked if it was actually him, just to be kind, and Adam nodded. Andrew was trying to talk just briefly, when Adam stopped him and said, "This is kind of a bad moment." So Andrew apologized and walked away. Yep, we got brushed off by Adam Sessler. Chances are, he really was having a bad moment. He and the lady he was with certainly weren't smiling. They weren't even talking or looking at each other. But still... with no real explanation, I can't say it really helped my image of him. So now I don't really know what to think.

But the day got better! Soon afterwards, we walked outside in the direction of the entrance, and I saw a man sitting on some steps outside another convenience store. He was wearing a Pop Japan Travel T-Shirt. I decided I wanted to talk to him. He was a very friendly man! I told him that I had basically made my travel plans around the Pop Japan Travel schedule. He sounded very eager to hear about where we came from and was also very eager to explain more about Pop Japan Travel. He gave me his business card, and I gave him mine. He sounded very interested in MarzGurl Productions! He said that the company that runs PJT would surely contact me because they're always interested in trying something new, and he thought that maybe together we could arrange a good way to film the next PJT trip. It all sounds very promising! I hope I hear from them soon after I get back!

Anyway, I bet you're wondering about the Tokyo Game Show itself, aren't you? Well, we got in the actual entrance line. It wasn't all that long, and what little waiting I did was quickly spent because the line was constantly moving. The place is very well organized! It feels so free, yet no one gets in anyone's way. So, anyway, the entrance to the Tokyo Game Show was massive and noisy. So amazing! We were greeted with a huge Koei entrance. Seems like there's a ton of Dynasty Warriors-esque games, even turned into multiplayer online Mah Jong games. Kinda weird.

Among some of the coolest things I saw was the new Phoenix Wright 4 game (I forget the full length original Japanese title) staring a whole new young lawyer. It had cute little chibi information displayed with Phoenix and Maya talking back and forth to each other. They were showing that the T-shirt for the game was being sold somewhere, but for the life of me, I could never find it, not even at the Capcom T-shirt sale booth. I wanted that shirt so bad, and I would have paid the 3500 yen on the spot!

There was sadly no Wii to be seen on the convention floor. In fact, Nintendo didn't even have their own booth! But it seemed that every single game company had some games they were producing for the Wii, so there was actually Wii stuff to be seen everywhere. The closest I got to the Wii was watching a few booth babes demonstrate a Sonic and a Bleach game. The sonic game looked pretty fun. You force Sonic to jump by swinging the head of the controller up. Of course, the game itself looked pretty weird at first. It's like suddenly Sonic is almost super realistic looking. He's trying to save this VERY real-looking young woman from Eggman. Kinda strange looking. But that Bleach game seemed intriguing. The graphics weren't the most awesome (the thing was cel shaded, after all), but I liked that it one hand you held the joystick part of the controller to move your character and in the other hand you swing the joystick to attack. Swinging in different ways allowed you to pull off different moves.

Along that same note, there was a large section for Naruto games. Guess what? Only CHILDREN were there! Yep. Children. And their mommies and daddies. But there's a Naruto fighter with pretty good graphics coming out on the DS. Also, I caught a glimpse of a new Naruto game for the Wii. This one looks like it'll run about the same as that Bleach fighter, swinging the controller to make attacks.

There were so many games I saw, and I don't really know what to tell all of you without being specifically asked about certain things! I mean, I saw the Square-Enix booth. Over saturated with Final Fantasy, of course. There were two pretty cool statues of Sora, one from KH and the other from KHII. I found the Konami/Bemani booth. There's a brand new Pop'n Music (one that I actually played just the other day at the arcade), a new Beatmania/IIDX (the 14th... I think...?), Guitar Freaks V.3, Drum Mania V.3, and Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova. Of course, I went for a free round on SuperNova. I did better than those other guys who tried it. Geez, I was hoping to get whooped up on while playing DDR over here! It hasn't happened yet. There's also a new fighting game coming out called RFC - Real Fighting Championship. You get to make a fighter and play against other people online. I got a free bag from this booth by punching a cardboard fighter on a target on his chest for 30 seconds to see how many punches I could throw in. I did pretty decently for being a woman, with over 150 punches. But Andrew got over 200!

So anyway, we spent several, several hours in that place, getting our 1200 yen's worth. We were so tired! Our feet already hurt by then from nonstop walking and standing all day long. But then we had to ride the train home.

Busy commuter train!

I don't think it would have been that busy if it hadn't been for the Tokyo Game Show, though. But we were stuck in it just the same. We ended up standing for a long time in the train, riding back to our station. We finally got off at our station and walked back to the hostel. It was only about 6:30 PM, and Andrew and I were planning on eating out at a restaurant with some okonomiyaki. But we decided we needed a little bit of sleep first. We were so exhausted! But then I found myself waking up at 11:30 PM. I was pretty upset, but I realized that I wouldn't be able to enjoy doing anything else if I hadn't caught up on some sleep.

And that just leads me down here to the computer. Anyway, I think we're going to save our trip to Mt. Fuji for Monday. Tomorrow we may go and rent some cheap bicycles for about 200 yen for 24 hours just to go exploring.

I hope everyone is doing well! I'll update again tomorrow!