Well today I had a day off and I decided to go shopping. I did not originally intend to document my trip, but I saw so many things the 4 color rebellion readers might be interested in that I started clicking away with my camera phone. The pictures aren’t the best quality, but then again, neither is my reporting. Now when I left to go shopping my goal was to pick up a new pair of jeans. I wound up not getting the jeans but rather watching ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and buying Nintendo Toys. The first place of note was a used bookstore known as Book Off. This store is in the same chain as my personal favorite store in the world, the used hardware store, ‘Hard Off’.

Now this, Book Off, is mainly a used Book and CD shop, but the top floor has lots of secondhand games. And something you should know about Japan is that they take REALLY good care of their things, so a used game is almost always in mint condition. I mean how many times in America will you find a complete, mint, boxed Super Scope 6?

It came with a mint copy of Yoshi’s Safari. All for the equivalent of US$15. That is awesome! Almost as awesome as the games I found next…

Yup, original Virtual Boy games for $7-$9 each. I really makes me with I had brought my Virtual Boy to Japan. It also made me wish the system hadn’t been the horrible failure it was, but that is neither here nor there. This store had tons of other great stuff. Thousands of original Famicom and Super Famicom games, A Famicom Disk System, a sign saying the Gameboy Advance Micro was sold out, an in box Power Pad, and a 64DD. I wanted to get picture of these things, but after taking the picture of the Virtual Boy games the store manager started looking at me very suspiciously. So I moved on. Outside a store called ‘Sony Plaza’ there was capsule toy vending machine selling Nintendo toys. Read that again. Outside Sony Plaza…

As you can see, each of these toys costs 200 yen (about $1.80), a bit steep, but man, are they cool. I had to have one. I am not sure if it is luck or not, but I only had enough change for one. Had I had more change I fear I would have bought them all. Here is what the one I bought looked like.

It looked exactly like a little Gameboy. Every detail was perfect. It came with 2 cables that fit it perfectly and would allow it to ‘link’ to one of the other toys. This particular one also came with a tiny Gameboy camera and the Dr. Mario ‘Game Pak’. Here is a close-up of the back; you can see how small this sucker really is.

In retrospect I really wish I had picked up more of these. After Kiddy Land I went to see a movie. In the lobby of the theater, I found this machine:

I knew when I saw it, that this would be the only Nintendo DS watch keychain I would ever need. This machine was only 100 yen (About 85-90 cents depending on the exchange rate) I put in my one remaining 100 yen coin. And, of course, didn’t get it. I got an eraser. Mind you it is the coolest eraser I have ever owned, but I wanted the keychain. Perhaps someday… Anyway here is my cool eraser.

The DS game itself was the eraser. But I have to tell you I would never actually use an eraser as cool as that for such a menial task as correcting my countless spelling errors. No, I put it back in its case.

And ends my shopping report for the city of Kokura, perhaps next time I go shopping I will do another report. Until then this in Vinnk saying ‘Always have lot’s of pocket change on you, you never know when something cool, though totally useless is going to come along.’