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Macrossworldfest Japan 2004 fall


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For the very first time all 3 of the Kansai region Macrossworlders get together for some Macross item hunting!

The guilty parties are; Bariaburu Faita(Howard), Monkey-Nugget(Rob), and Renato(Renato) :p

Starting out at Umeda station we hit the various hobby shops and look at all the poor club-M kits no one wants to buy for some strange reason. <_<

At Mandarake Umeda we check out all the cute girls dressed up as Gundam seed boys. :blink:

We hit most of the main stores and then head south to Namba to do some more shopping, but since Blackaces was in town a while ago nothing worthwhile anywhere. :(

Then we finally pass by K-books. :o

Renato"I haven`t seen this place before, is it new?"

Howard"Yeah, it just opened up a couple months ago, Rob comes here every week"

Rob"Hey, Renato you can read Kanji real good, right? I need you guys to help me find some stuff to auction here"

Howard"Oh dear God, not again..."

Renato ????

And we to up to the infamous second floor.

Renato !!!!

Rob"Ok, ebay rules prohibit anything explicitly obscene, even if its censored by you or the comic so..."

Renato"Why are we looking at gay dojinshi?"

Rob"Hey, when one of these books can go for $300 you kinda have to overlook that. In the golden age of gay dojinshi a couple month back, I made enough money to pay for the hospital bills for my new baby."

Howard"That is just too wrong for words..."

Renato"Your daughter is going to curse you for bringing her into the world via gay dojinshi."

Rob"Nah, she`ll probably want me to buy her some. Anyway, start finding ones with Vash and Wolfwood"

And so after depleting the Trigun section we eventualy work our way to the Lord of the Rings section.

Rob"Ok, don`t bother with any of the ones with Hobbits, everyone knows they are gay anyway"

Rob does his impression of a gay Hobbit and Renato`s jaw just kinda goes slack. Howard having seen the routine before is only slightly shaken, reminds self to bring camera next time. Two 14 year old girls that were holding hands looking through the books nearby suddenly decide they have to be elsewhere, quickly.

Rob"So look for ones with Legolas or Aragorn. Especially if you can find them in the anime SD form."

Renato"like this one?"

Rob"Nah, more like this one, very cute"

Howard"Oh, this one is so wrong. It says "Gimli be closer to me""

And so Howard and Renato slave away finding more stuff for Rob. Eventualy we have a good sized stack.

Rob"Ok, I need to pay with my credit card and we need to make sure we have at least 3,000yen worth of stuff to use it, Howard add up all of those to make sure we have enough"

Howard"Yez, massuh"

Rob"Smartass"

Howard"Looks like we`re one short"

Rob"No prob, Renato, pick one more from... This section"

Renato"The Prince of Tennis?!"

Howard"Damn, that whole cabnet is Prince of Tennis!!"

Renato"Not just the whole cabnet, the whole row is Prince of Tennis!"

Howard"Look behind you, both rows are Prince of Tennis! I am so not every going to watch that show ever again."

And so we finally head over to the checkout counter... (to be continued, by one of the other guilty parties)

Edited by Bariaburu Faita
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Hey there.

I'm back from limbo.

OK, so you got up to the checkout part... You know, this bit of the story will remain in my nightmares for years to come.

Although I must say I am used to "japanese fun" at checkouts or reception areas and such places, so I was willing to let it all go, and that's what I would have done had I been alone (not that I would have ever wondered near that particular area alone), so I admire these guys' relentlessness. I've had "japanese fun" when dealing with the City Hall, the bank, my own relations office, and most recently the mobile phone shop (for the third time)... Dear god, it's like talking to a brick wall.

As Rob put it -- "A broken record".

We'll need to go into particular detail if the story is going to be told well, so I'll be back later when I have more time.

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Okay here it goes.... :blink:

Enter the Counter Scene. This is not a pretty part of the tale. After picking up said books and heading to the counter. 3000 yen worth of books had been obtained. All is right in the world. I walk up to the counter and place my purchases to be scanned.

(Portions roughly tranlated into Engrish)

Clerk 1- (counting books and dividing them by price) "Thank-You"

Clerk 2 - (using hand gesturesin the shape of a card) "Pointo card?"

Rob - Yep, here ya go...

Clerk 2 - "Total is 3100 Yen" (Her best effort to speak engrish, with a uncertain smile)

Rob - (proceeds to pull out credit card and hand it to the clerk ;) )

Clerk 1 & 2 - ?????? (Fumbled words, uncertain actions, ect)

Clerk 2 - "Sorry, must have 5000 yen." total (hand gestures symbolizing all?)

Rob - "What?"

Clerk 2 - Repeats frist statement.

Rob - "What?"

Clerk 2 - Repeats first statment with different hand gestures. Third Clerk joins in.

At this point Clerks 2 & 3 are trying to explain the 5000 yen rule, while Clerk 1 hovers quietly with her hands folded in front of her.

Rob - " No, no (Smile on face). Last time I came here I was told it was a 3000 yen limit to use a credit card. Now it is 5000 yen?!?!?"

Clerk 3 - "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, yes?"

(Start of a panic attack)

At this point I try to explain that I come here almost every week. And every week I use my credit card to pay. This vallant effort falls on deaf ears....I am speaking English. :(

Also normally at this point my angry American side would have showed it's ugly head...however I maintained control. :)

Enter Howard and Renato.

Renato listens to what I have to say and very politely speaks with the clerk in Japanese. She basically says the same thing again. He tries again...... The clerk gives the same response.

Enter Howard :o

Now I will let the thrid party add a bit to the tale...... :ph34r:

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I do have photographs, but it will probably be a while before I am able to post them, as I have to use my girlfriend's PC. Unless I can find a computer that doesn't have some stupid fascist firewall thing to disallow me from uploading stuff.

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What? Nah, I didn't refuse, I was just busy this weekend, and then I forgot about this thread when I posted an epic huge-ass spoiler of "Macross Zero-Five". Which no-one probably read anyway.

Where were we...? "Enter Howard"? Ah, yes.

Hmm. You must excuse my memory, but I can't recall it perfectly. Anyway, we went through a complicated (for them, apparently, yet ultimately simple to us) procedure of explaining the situation -- Rob had been buying from that shop every week since it opened. Now, you'd think that a MAN in a place like that would stand out, but this is a GAIJIN MAN we are talking about, so everybody should have recognised his face by that point. Alas, all the members of staff that day happened to be new to Rob.

So despite the fact that he had amassed a ridiculous amount on his point card they couldn't get it in their heads that he had always used the credit card to pay, always in accordance to their Y3000 limit, as he had been told. Howard tried to explain it a different way, and allegedly "slammed" (Rob's words!) his hands down on the table in desperation whilst explaining in as many different ways as possible.

Rob later on in retrospect remarked on Howard's rage, while Howard denied particularly getting angry. It was probably all tame by Western standards, but to the Japanese this could have been close to crucifixion. "You sure weren't using -desu and -masu, man." was my comment, if I recall. :)

Then it was Rob's turn to get pissed off, when he was asked if he had receipts, to which he said "Yeah, but I live an hour away. You pay my train fare I'll go get 'em right now". Tears welled up in the assistant's eyes. Rob later revealed his sweet monkey side and said "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the system". But he made it clear that he was never returning to K-Books, also he would run the name of K-Books down to the ground.

So basically it was half an hour of us three taking turns to repeat the same thing, and we'd all had enough so Rob just split the pile of books and said, "Right, forget these, I'll just take these ones here." Whilst apologising a million times, the cashier girl did her thing and one of us, I think it was Rob, asked if the Y5000 was written anywhere in print", to which one of the staff pointed to my right leg. Just in front of it, underneath the till it was written in crystal-clear Engrish.

To which of course we all said "Holy crap, if you'd just said that from the beginning....!!" More apologies ensue. At this point, Cashier Girl sheepishly asks if Rob wants to use his points. Well, since he was never going to come back, he said yeah, of course.

As we head off, the girl follows us cos Rob had forgotten his card, and it was like 73 points on it. We asked if there was anything in the store that we could buy with 73 yen, I'm betting we could have bought all the customer service trading classes these people took and still have change for the braincells of whoever put that Y5000 rule sign at the bottom of the cashier, but I do not mention this. ;) Rob tells her to keep it, "No, I cannot do that", to give it to a friend or something, "No, I cannot do that", so Rob just places it on top of a display case or something and we all leave. Apparently she follows us all the way to the exit, but I dare not look back.

Phew!

There are more adventures, involving porn, I believe, but I won't go into that now.

Now I'm starving so I'm gonna fry some rice, baby! If I printed out everything I posted today it might amount to 20 pages of crap or so!! Well, feels that way anyway....

:p

Edited by Renato
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  • 2 weeks later...
Man had to bring up the porn incident....man is nothing sacred? ;)

Rob MN

PS I have ventured back to K's Books...in disquse....where the 5000 yen sign HAS been moved to the top display along with a buch of other ALL English signs... <_<

Well, at least he said "dont go there". Now people will just have to use their imagination as to what happened.

And did you wear your monkey suit like you promised? Remember saying that they only way you would ever go back is if you were in your monkey suit and had a video camer a with you?

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sorry I got to this late

sounds like great fun Howard !

no wonder you're asking me to call you guys up when I am in town

:)

But looking at my schedule

I will not be able to go to Osaka for the rest of this year.

will be in tokyo though, next week

and in HK in december

see you in Jan'05?

:)

Noel

And keep in mind Renato and Rob wimped out and gave sanitized versions of the ordeal :ph34r:

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sorry I got to this late

sounds like great fun Howard !

no wonder you're asking me to call you guys up when I am in town

:)

But looking at my schedule

I will not be able to go to Osaka for the rest of this year.

will be in tokyo though, next week

and in HK in december

see you in Jan'05?

:)

Noel

And keep in mind Renato and Rob wimped out and gave sanitized versions of the ordeal :ph34r:

So it was the sanitized version? :blink::angry:

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PS I have ventured back to K's Books...in disquse....where the 5000 yen sign HAS been moved to the top display along with a buch of other ALL English signs... <_<

Damn, its true. I went yesterday and they have made it much harder for foreign hairy barbarians to display the volume of ignorance that we did B))

I guess some good did come out of this :lol:

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man...if this is the sanitized version...i almost don't want to know what the real version is... *shakes in fear** :ph34r:

Yeah, that involves the three of us getting into our 1/1 scale Variable Fighters and going postal, while screaming "Listen to my song!"

By the way. I uploaded the photos I took.

post-22-1100286279_thumb.jpg

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