So I googled Osaka Catholic archdiocese to find where the nearest church would be, and found that the nearest happened to be in Nipponbashi… where Den Den Town is (Osaka’s “electric town”, Akiba, or otaku nerd district O_o). So I set out to try to find the church and attend the English mass there. (and nerd out in between of course).

According to the news, there was a typhoon coming from the south and heading upward (this is Japan for sure!). Which means rain, and as expected, it was raining on Sunday…and man it was coming down =X Ryan and I skyped back and forth and decided to wait out until the rain dissipated a little. As soon as it did an hour later, we met up and headed to the train station. So this time on the train, from riding the Midosuji subway we had to get off at Dobutsuen-mae station (in front of the zoo), and switch to the Sakaisuji line and then get off at Nipponbashi. The transfer station was pretty close, and so was our stop shortly after getting on Sakaisuji line. But once we got off at Nipponbashi, came the challenge of actually finding the place T__T

Prior I had taken a picture of the map they had on their website, but they had no directions from the train station just says get off at Nipponbashi station and 10 minute walk =X Ryan and I tried to find our way, we passed by a really huge area with old style buildings and a thick wall running along it, which could possibly be a Buddhist temple, monastery or some rich person’s house? At some point we found the Den Den Town area, we stopped by a 7-11 to ask the lady where she might point us out according to the map. They tried matching it with the map from a book they had in the store, the book was old so it probably didn’t have the place name labels up to date, and they didn’t know of any Catholic church nearby (I expected). But according to the map and her we had to cross through some narrow streets. It was kinda tricky, cause these narrow streets (you can find in any district) they don’t have names and they’re also awkwardly arranged.

Well we got lost T__T so we went to a car dealership place nearby and asked the guy there showing him the map on my not-so-practical lcd screen of my camera. He sketched out on a map of our current location and Sakaisuji street, and at Den Den Town - 3 (the third traffic light) we just make a right and should run into it. So Ryan and I headed to find the Den Den Town -3 while passing by a few anime stores and a computer cafe, on the turn we found the place to be oddly familiar… All I remember from the appearance of the building was that it was a white sign on a brown building… (which didn’t help at all of course T__T) On the way we passed by a maid cafe called “Poco Lv 1″ Kinda amusing how there’s a maid cafe just down the street from the church O_o. “Only in Japan” I guess.

But somewhere past this beef bowl place we finally found it. It was then that we realized that we had passed that area before, but easily missed the church –;. Well It didn’t stand out too much, since it was a regular building, unless you looked up at the sign. We walked in and the hallway was pretty dark, except for a few lights that turned on automatically. At the back was the elevator we had to take up to the chapel. And the chapel was empty??? Okays, we were there a little bit early, so we waited out near the backwater stairs watching the rain fall. When it became 5 a couple Filipinos showed up. I thought that mass was earlier but later the priest also came (also Filipino) and said mass would start half an hour later. There were a total of maybe 3-5 other people at the mass, well it was an English language mass so I guess the number would definitely be smaller. Mass was just as I’d expect since a Catholic mass is pretty structured, there isn’t too much differences. The only differences were the song set (every church has a different song set anyway, but what’s with the high notes? T__T) and that we bow instead of handshake when we wish peace to our neighbors (I was just about to stick my hand out when I saw everyone stay where they were bowing to everyone). After mass, I talked with the priest, Father Consulta, and we introduced ourselves to them. There was also a nice Filipina lady and a man from Australia, one of the people who did the readings. Overall, they were seemed pretty kewl.

Ryan and I ate at a ramen place for dinner in the Den Den Town area. Yay my first time having ramen in Japan =) The waitress there overheard us speaking English, so she nicely came over to help us out. We weren’t sure what to get, but chose the top ones in the menu. Found out later the one I had was pork bone soy sauce ramen… was soo good ^_^ Later we checked out a few of the stores. The first was the Joshin Gundam’s store, which was pretty EPIC. So much Gundam merchandise like the apparel, they even had manjuu (red bean filled cakes) with the Gundam’s logo in omiyage-type boxes. We took the escalator to the second floor which had nothing but gunpla (model kits) and figures. They probably had every gunpla released there, since Ryan recognized some of the same ones he used to have. There was also a section with different airbrushes, decals, paints, and every other tool you would need for gunpla. In the back was a big lcd screen playing an episode of Gundam 00 (on it’s second season). I’m not a fan of gundam, but I can imagine some of my friends going crazy in this place. The next place was a model store, aisles and aisles of glass cases with anime and video game figures. There was an interesting system too, to get the model you want you’d, write down it’s labeled number on a piece of paper (pencils and papers provided near the cases) and you’d show it to the store clerk. I’d imagine the “regulars” do some mass shopping =X anyways, I was trying all over AX to find a Minoru nendoroid puchi (the only male character in Lucky Star, who also has the same name as its voice actor =P ) and there he was! along with Kyon who has a little video camera included =P It’s funny how the male characters are way cheaper than the popular female ones. Anyway I jumped ship and asked the store clerk for them. We went up a few floors, still nothing but figures, one floor had the gachapon type of little figures and another floor had Western comic and entertainment ones. Ryan was really amazed at the figurines of the hollywood actors. Next store we checked out was a doujinshi specialized store called Melon Books. Near the entrance they had a space set aside that seems to be used for special events (like autograph signings and whatnot). There was also a small tv playing the caramell dansen and two anime characters doing the dance. Walking in, they had a few merchandise, but the store primarily sold books. One section had all the weekly/monthly publications (Japan has a load of different anime publication series). The shelves near the front had all age doujinshi comics (fan-made/independent comics) and just walk past that was a pretty big section of ero doujinshi (adult oriented fan-made comics). It was pretty empty except for 1 or 2 guys, well I think it’s pretty embarrassing to be in that section –; Along the wall they had doujinshi games (some shooters like Touhou or visual novel/dating sim types) and doujinshi original soundtracks on cd. After that we checked out a dvd/cd store which had videogames on the first floor, up one floor was older generation videogames, then another floor up was dvds, and another floor music cds. Most of these stores seem to always have narrow escalators and to go back down there’s either another escalator or a set of stairs in the back.

Anyway, I had this plan to purchase a playstation 3 when I would come to Japan. Yes, also planned. AND yup I have a “things I want to do in Japan” list =).

You see, I’m a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series and I have this super autographed copy of MGS4…but of no means to play it. I have not played it yet ._.; (except for the demo back at E4all) I decided it was best to get a ps3 here since I was gonna leave America in a few months. I didn’t want to wait a whole year to miss out on mgs4 T__T Then I’d just sell it or somehow mail it back in US. I was hoping to get a used one, and the store there had the 40gb model for 32k yen (the regular price is 40k yen). Anyway I wanted to ask about the refund policy, but how to in Japanese… hmmm… T___T (my memory of Japanese 321 don’t fail me!) For some reason I couldn’t find the word in my DS Sonomama Kanji Rakubiki Jiten. So as I asked the guy normally and then I’d say 「何と言うか」”Nan to iu ka” and make hand motions hoping the guy would fill me in, but of course that would end in FAIL since a refund cant be described that way –; So I had to ask the guy in a situation like “say if I were to buy this, and bring it home and open it, to find it already broken, can I return it?” Then he says that I can return it up to one week, and they’ll replace it. I asked about money and he utters 返済 surely I scribbled the word in my DS (yea I had it out in front of him lol) and it was in the dictionary as “refund”. I say YES and he says the refund can only be done within a week as well. In case, Ryan suggested I get his name, so he wrote his name on a note, in case the ps3 doesn’t work I can mention his name if I come by. So I purchased the ps3. At the moment I wasn’t really feeling the excitement of having a ps3, but realizing that it felt a bit frustrating, but a relief to finally get the communication across. Communication is really taken for granted huh?

I thought I got the silver ps3, but I ended up with the white one, well whatever it will match the wii =)

Ryan helped carry it back on the train ride home and then…the DREADED MARCH IN THE RAIN back home. It practically POURED by the time we got off the train station! So Ryan helped carry it and halfway we parted since I live much farther away. I lugged the heavy “ps3 grill” back home (thankfully covered in a big plastic bag and I had my umbrella too).

Looks like it survived!