Gotta Catch ‘Em All!

It’s funny that for all the kanji, finance formulas, business terms and economic concepts I can’t remember for a test, I can still sing you every word of the Pokémon theme song from WB, although I probably won’t unless you’re singing it with me. Know why I can still remember it? Because it was an epic song, that’s why. It shaped the lives of every 6 to 10 year old tuning in every week day at 3 p.m. I was one of these 6 to 10 year olds. I still am.

As soon as I heard that this place actually existed in real life, I started planning my trip to the Pokémon Center. This was long before I even came to Japan, which is already Mecca for a nerdy-girl like me. I was hesitant in telling these plans to my friends, but they were almost just as excited to hear that there was such a place, and agreed to accompany me there on my second weekend in Japan. I’d never have guessed I could go there so soon.

We worked to map out our route, with some help from Asami, who knew the general area, and Mayu, who had been there a few weeks prior and sent some souvenirs home to me.

We set out Saturday after lunch to the station, then took the Keihan train to Kyobashi station, where we switched to the Osaka loop line. I was a little nervous about changing trains because we had to find the other station, but it was straight across from the first. We got on the loop line with no problems, and headed for Umeda.

What we didn’t do beforehand was figure out which exit we needed to leave from Umeda (Osaka) station. We knew we needed to walk by a giant mall with a ferris wheel on top, which we thought would be easy to find, so we weaved in and out through the exits until we came out with that building on our right. There was an underground tunnel that looked as if it headed to another station, so we avoided that and took a side street. (We should have taken the tunnel.)

Luckily, keeping the ferris wheel to our right, we happened upon the sign for the Umeda Sky Building, where the Pokémon Center was. The Sky Building lived up to its name – it was enormous. We found out later that we could have gone up in it and taken a glass escalator up the last few floors. We will be going back.

I ran down the stairs and in front of the entrance to the store, holding my arms wide to look like a complete and utter fool while Cailyn took my picture. I didn’t care that I looked silly – I was too excited. We crossed through the gateway into pure nerdy-goodness, reminding each other to breathe.

Through the sea of little children, we fought our way over to the plushies, action figures, folders, pens, pencils, glasses, lunchboxes, shirts, postcards, posters, toothbrushes, DS styluses, cookies, candy, cereal, games and DVDs. I reminded myself several times that I couldn’t spend my whole trip budget right here and that I wouldn’t be able to carry EVERYTHING in the store back to the dorm. I could sure try, but my arms would hurt the next day.

I’m kidding. I ended up buying a few things for myself, but mostly souvenirs for my fellow nerds back home. However, my bag was a lot bigger than Cailyn’s.

After the Pokémon Center, we went to the Hep5 mall, the one with the ferris wheel on top. There were so many people there. Everyone wants to go shopping on Saturday night. We ate at a Japanese Italian restaurant, which was playing techno music, MTV on the television and the waitresses were dressed in soccer jerseys. Hmm. What was awesome was the marble bar where we sat with all different colored marbles. I ordered a pizza which was a little sweeter than I was expecting. It was still good.

We then found our way to Sega Joypolis, which was just like Namco Wonderland except we had a little more time to wander around. Brittany and I played the Taiko Drum Master game (we even found a song we knew!!) and then the three of us used the Purikura machine again. And had more crepes.

After that, we headed home because it was already getting dark and we knew better than to wait too late to figure out the trains back home. We needed some sleep too, because tomorrow would be another big day – Brittany and I would meet our host families!