Evas of unusual size? I don’t believe they exist…

Sometimes I think about the amount of humanity’s plastic that goes into Japanese figures. I think about what it means that businesses in multi-story buildings can exist on selling these things. I wonder what nomadic savanna people from 200,000 years ago would think if dropped into such a shop. BTW I have that Ayanami you see on the right side of the second shelf from the top. :

Six floors of this stuff. It was surprising to get into the figure shops and then realize that there isn’t really anything out now that I even want. I haven’t watched a new anime in who knows how long. Any of the games I like don’t have figures. Comics I like aren’t even of the right aesthetic to warrant figures. So I just kept an eye out for cheap Eva merchandise and kept going.

I walked around Akihabara all day. Again, it was surreal to be back, and it was surreal how little luster was left for me. It was nice to wander in and out of game, figure, and music shops, but in general I just felt like getting my merchandise and getting out of there. I wanted to go back to the apartment and just hang out with Roko. I wanted to escape the throngs of nerds, the walls of attractive but shallow poster-advertising, the drizzle, the unfriendly cash machines. One of the main attractions of Tokyo is the availability of merchandise. If you want obscure comics, hobby equipment, or entomology samples, Tokyo is the place. It’s distilled consumerism. Once you’ve bought all that crap and you just want to relax, though, the city stops being so appealing. When I got frustrated at the train ticket machines that don’t take the new 1000 yen bills, I had to make change by buying from a random machine. I ended up with Ikinari Happy Bell. :

One of Roko’s regrets about the USA is that you don’t come across desserts like this very often. One of my own regrets is that you don’t come across plastic food displays. I’ve seen approximately one plastic food display stateside.

In the interest of catching up with the present, I’m posting more than one photo in a day!!

I missed the shot of several people taking cell-phone photos of the giraffe, but here’s one person capturing two lazy hippos.

The zoo had a monorail connecting its two main sections. We chose to walk instead.

Here’s a photograph of the polar bear exhibit at the zoo.

Something about this scene struck me. A young couple sitting together, both e-mailing on their cell phones. The little kid walking into the frame was a bonus. I have no idea what he is doing with his hands.

This is just in honor of the newest version of [Mac OS X][1]. [1]: http://apple.com/macosx