2 posts tagged “mitsuwa”

Like I said in the previous entry, Mitsuwa isn't located in Staten Island, but, really in Edgewater, NJ, which, like I also mentioned in that same previous entry, is a pretty damn nice place.

Me and David ended up meeting at the Times Square station, which, almost always has some kind of RPGish (RPGs are Role-Playing Games) music blaring in the background. Today, it was this woodwind instrument which was being played by someone who looked like a native of some kind of Central/South American country. We joked about how it sounded like a typical "Town Theme," and as per usual, we did the claw gesture and laughed about it.

From there, we made our way though Time Square's crowded streets to The Port Authority, to catch a special bus that goes straight to Mitsuwa. It cost $2. Yeah.

Essentially, Mitsuwa is a strip of Japanese stores and a supermarket. There was a store that had clothes and toys, and all this other shit, then there was a bookstore, which had lots of manga. Manga are Japanese comics. They also had magazines, novels, how-to books, because, you know, it's a bookstore. It needs to have that shit. But, yeah, back to the first store I mentioned. Oh man. They had some badass Tetsuwan Atom (Read: Astro Boy) track jackets. Yes (claw gesture). Those looked pretty rad. I so need to go back there with mad cash (the track jackets were about $70), and grab them up. Hopefully, by that time, they'll have Anime shirts in my size (they only had kid sizes). They also had katami mats, kimonos, Noh masks (demon masks), those wood slippers...anything that was random and Japanese. They also had lots and lots of toys. Man, Japanese toys make me wish I was like, 9 again.

I ended up buying a shirt with the Kanji (a type of character in the Japanese written language meant to represent a word) for "Samurai." It's a black shirt with the character in red. Yeah, it's typical, but, it's cool looking.

After that we hit the bookstore. We walked around and wondered aloud about the manga section, which we eventually stumbled upon. Manga's great. Yes, Western comics are fucking awesome, but, yeah, manga has it's own look and feel that, quite frankly, Western stuff doesn't have. I mean, I can read Y: The Last Man, DMZ, or anything else on Vertigo (they're an Independent comic company), love it, talk about it for hours, and re-read it, but, the same can go for Death Note, or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

All that was left was the supermarket. We walked around just taking it in, well, I was. Today was the day where I broke my "Mitsuwa Virginity." Okay, that was corny. I'm sorry. Eventually, we hit up the food court and I got some Katsudon (it's egg, mushrooms and a pork cutlet over a bed of rice; it's absolutely delicious), then purchased some snacks (well, I did). I got 2 instant Curry cups, these little biscuit cookies filled with chocolate, and a little bag of baked bean cakes, which were really fucking good. David got 3 bottles of Sake (pronounced sah-KAY; it's a Japanese alcohol made from rice). We had to call Jerry and ask him about the stuff.

We then basically bullshitted and filmed a new episode of David's Vlog/show, The Robot Diaries. Eventually, that'll be up.

We had an ending theme when we got back to the Times Square station in the form of this one dude, who like, is a one-man band (you know, I don't know his name...). It's him, an acoustic (guitar), and some drum pedals attached to something or other that when he moves his feet, they simulate a more full drumset. Hopefully, I explained that well.

That's...pretty much it.

[END]

Today, I am hitting up Mitsuwa, a Japanese mall that is located in Staten Island, with David (of The Robot Diaries fame).

Should be interesting.

EDIT: Actually, Mitsuwa is located in Edgewater, NJ, which is a pretty damn nice place.