WHEEL SAINT continues.
The main streets in Tokyo or even Kyoto could, depending on the area, be confused for the main streets of any world city. I saw most of the same brands. Occasionally, I would see a brand that was not one of those and my Eldest and I would enter in reverence.
There was a store called Don Quixote for some reason, and language is a poor tool to contain it. It's sort of like a discount store. Not a dollar store. Maybe, like… five hundred yen store. But that doesn't really fence the entire concept in. At the entrance, these motherfuckers are putting bricks of mozzarella inside waffles that are shaped like ten yen coins. We'd just emerged from Dipper Dan, a place that sells rich crepes and sodas, so we were already roiled within and didn't think one of these would help the situation. We checked out the floor, which has a little bit of everything, including a vending machine you can use to print your own Hanko, which is a custom stamp that you use to sign important documents in Japan. The Eldest thought it would be funny to make a stamp that said "Vegetables" and in around ten minutes, a completely custom Hanko from a custom material with a custom case was dispensed.
We went to the second floor to see what was up, and there was more stuff. There was a floor with fresh produce and a floor with health supplements and one of the floors was a pharmacy also. We'd gotten to the fourth floor by this time, and it was the first opportunity we'd had to see the map. There were six more floors, two below and four above, but I genuinely think that if we'd gone to the eighth floor we would have seen a different map, one that went to sixteen, and aside from a short stutter to load the next chunk I believe it would have gone on this way forever.
So that's the main streets. What I found very quickly is that if you ever deviate from those main streets, very quickly you break into Shenmue.
Thick cable trunks and small alleys. Konbini. Gashopon. Fuckin'… cats. This was in both Tokyo and Kyoto. Where I live, for the most part, houses go over here and stores go over here. Once you get into these backstreets, it's the place Yu Suzuki was trying to tell people about with such affection. I have that affection now, too. This was where we found all our favorite places: it's konbini by an apartment by a restaurant by a house by game developer by a doctor's office by, improbably, another konbini. It was as though the world were being displayed at a greater pixel density. It's an impossible place and your eyes never rest. My gaze lit on everything, gently, briefly, like a moth.
(CW)TB out.
