had a vague goal to get out to ikea and look at a counter-height dining table I was curious about, so I headed out towards a local Full-Spec Ikea at 9:30 AM with the goal of shopping around, hitting up a local mall for the last ikkousha hakata ramen left in tokyo, and heading back in the afternoon
I realized I forgot my battery pack for my used iPhone XR, which made me fairly limited in terms of phone usage. I attempted to turn around for it a station down the line, but made a mistake and somehow ended up on another train heading in the same direction as my destination, so I spent the day mostly in airplane mode
(continued...)
on the train ride out there, I read the School Star Dream Change manga volume, which seems to be an original story that puts together a 3-character idol unit with a fairly involved female OC as the main character. it has 2 and a half arcs, with the last arc being a timeskip from middle school to high school, which really makes me wonder what the intended scope of the manga was all along.
also, the .5 arc in the middle is an introduction of the tomboy character, who pulls out the motivation "I enrolled in the sports unit to get away from my feelings of jealousy of how popular and princess-like my childhood friend (who enrolled as an idol) was, but after I saw her performing again recently, I realized that I couldn't escape that admiration and desire to be like her" and like holy shit?
I can't believe school star dream is continuing to surprise me in angles I never even expected. anyway the first arc is about how kumi hates paprika and the third arc is getting revenge on a rigged event organizer. so uh. go off
on the way to ikea from the station, I walked through an outdoor mall I enjoy with unique things like a papercraft shop and a ton of restaurants that are all named like "good spoon" and "paper moon" and stuff.
at ikea, I had a cheap cinnamon roll and ice cream, and sat on a bunch of furniture. I'm still mixed on the counter-height dining table - it comes with storage that I find useful, but I do find counter height to be a little less "relaxing". I think that's not a problem because dining tables are for eating and there are plenty of other relaxing surface in a living space. the other main issue is that all good chairs are for either dining height or bar height and if you're doing counter height, you just get terrible stools. ikea, fix this
continued walking down towards the mall with the ikkousha, and, in usual me fashion, decided to walk around the mall before getting lunch, to wait for the rush to die down (it was 1 pm. the rush will never die down in japan). I picked up a nice set of blue jewel-ish earrings and astronomy-themed shiny nail polish, so I'm hoping I can fit these with a tie-dye shirt I bought to make a nice aozora-sorta jiyuu-feeling coordination. who knows if it will work
I started feeling un-rameny, given the 30 degree heat, and wandered out to check the french toast place outside the mall. it wasn't quite right either, but I did find out that there was an sorta-denpa-feeling idol group performing, so I stuck around along with 100 others to watch for a bit. I'm not a Super Idol Person but I do like finding out if there are cool beats. it's my fault that all denpa songs have the one measure that's like holy-waltz-like and the measure that's like the fucked up progressive kick breakdown. I love those. qumali depart also had one song with like rave stabs so I hope they're having a good day.
also secretly I love when I see an idol crowd and it's like a bunch of guys in color-coded live t-shirts and like three women in full jiraikei and lolita getup outdancing all of them. go get 'em
I decided to walk back towards the station to get mac and cheese from a burger place I've frequently walked by in the past (always up for trying a new restaurant with something familiar!), only to find they didn't have that anymore, so I settled for a Spicy Taco Rice that they offered. honestly, it was neither spicy nor particularly flavorful, so it was a bit of a disappointment. I wouldn't call it "bad" so much as "I didn't think Wow! while eating it".
while I was out in this direction, I decided to stop by the retro music game paradise World Game Circus as it's only a 20 minute walk away. they're getting like a dozen more music game cabs next month! online museca! a technika/cyclon cab! mambo a go go! rerave for some reason! it's so incredibly exciting how much they consistently expand, and I gave beatmania IIDX 2nd mix a try for the first time. this thing came out in 1999! the oldest mix I played previously was like, CS 6th, and that was just for R5 memes. also, nicely, the cab here came with a "build your own sud+" setup because it's old IIDX you need it
I then hopped across the street to play like 5 rounds of Technika because I love hopping on randomizer in T3 and seeing what the game hands me. my masochism was satisfied this time with a set consisting of like, five 9s, and another set which gave me Bamboo MX which is uh. I thought it was like a 9 or a 10. it's a 12 lol
finally, on the way home, I stopped by another shopping mall because I was mentally rotating the ideal loaf of bread in my head (raisin cinnamon) and was curious about checking out a local bakery I had seen the other day. I attempted to find it through vibes alone, but I ended up going downstairs from one shopping mall and ending up in a different, larger shopping mall.
I think this is what playing Etrian Odyssey is like. I eventually did find it and there's a loaf of (non-cinnamon) raisin bread sitting on my desk waiting for me to finish typing so