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Thought this'd be the best place to ask: I bought a buncha books on Yahoo! Auctions for practicing reading Japanese (aiming for N2 later this year). All good except the Tears of the Kingdom Perfect Guide is... not bound? Like it's literally just a stack of individual pages, with a dust jacket that was packaged separately. Is this a thing for video games strategy guides, (some kind of poor man's way of getting it to lay flat) or was it owned by some kind of super-precise, book dissecting psychopath? It'd be pretty thick if it was bound, but it also came in two separate stacks/sections (one is more for the map/plot, the other is data on all the different items, etc) so I don't get why they didn't just do it that way.
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Jan 18, 2024 05:32
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Ethics_Gradient posted:It'd be pretty thick if it was bound, but it also came in two separate stacks/sections (one is more for the map/plot, the other is data on all the different items, etc) so I don't get why they didn't just do it that way.  Checked online and Amazon has copies, user reviews include photos. Sure looks like it should be bound.
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Jan 18, 2024 05:54
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Speaking of Jiro, my partner and I like to treat ourselves to one extremely good restaurant on our annual international trip. We’re heading to Japan this spring and we’re considering Jiros - assuming there’s some sort of way to proxy through someone in Japan to get a reservation beforehand. Does it live up to the hype or would the friendly japangoons recommend another place for a blowout dinner in/near Osaka or Tokyo? I’m unsure what to think after the movie.
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Jan 18, 2024 06:07
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I think you can only book at Jiro's if you stay at the grand hyatt or hilton. The one from Lost in Translation. Don't quote me on that, though. I do remember reading it somewhere. And you have to book way in advance.
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Jan 18, 2024 06:08
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harperdc posted:
Well, this is disturbing. Thankfully bought through a proxy service so whatever freak did this thinks I live in a warehouse in Ota-ku. I always skip the insurance because lol at return shipping to Japan on a used book, so I guess I'll just go with it. On checking the auction, I now see that they mentioned it was cut using a machine (for digitization, allegedly). That's what I get for not reading the whole thing!
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Jan 18, 2024 06:12
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Waltzing Along posted:I think you can only book at Jiro's if you stay at the grand hyatt or hilton. The one from Lost in Translation. Don't quote me on that, though. I do remember reading it somewhere. And you have to book way in advance. https://www.sushi-jiro.jp/shop-info/
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Jan 18, 2024 06:15
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I hope it was cheap.
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Jan 18, 2024 06:15
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zombienietzsche posted:Speaking of Jiro, my partner and I like to treat ourselves to one extremely good restaurant on our annual international trip. We’re heading to Japan this spring and we’re considering Jiros - assuming there’s some sort of way to proxy through someone in Japan to get a reservation beforehand. Does it live up to the hype or would the friendly japangoons recommend another place for a blowout dinner in/near Osaka or Tokyo? I’m unsure what to think after the movie. 1. From that reservation page (right there in English, even) quote:We truly thank you for your patronage to our restaurant. 2. yeah you probably already are too late, though I guess the whole "after arrival" thing means if you stay at a Very Nice Hotel they might be able to call and you will have only a couple time slots available. vvvvvv this feels like a "if you have to ask which hotels, you probably can't afford it" situation
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Jan 18, 2024 06:23
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All I see on that site is "reservations can only be made through the concierge at your hotel in Japan" - nothing mentioning any specific hotels.
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Jan 18, 2024 06:23
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Cockmaster posted:All I see on that site is "reservations can only be made through the concierge at your hotel in Japan" - nothing mentioning any specific hotels. Contact your hotel now and see if they can get a reservation for you. Good luck.
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Jan 18, 2024 06:25
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I feel instead of Jiro going to any of the 4+ rated sushi restaurants on Tabelog would be a much better experience. I've heard the experience at Jiros is not that great, especially for the price you pay.
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Jan 18, 2024 06:41
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Sushien in Ginza is my favorite Tokyo place for fancy sushi. I haven't done Jiro because lol, but I have been to a couple Michelin star places and eh. It's good, don't get me wrong, but Sushien's pretty much the same food at half the price, they speak English, and it's friendly instead of too far up its own rear end. I'm sure there are lots of other places like that, just the one I know offhand. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 07:01
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Thanks for the tips. I’ll check out Sushien! Interesting that Jiro has 3.93 on tablelog.
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Jan 18, 2024 07:16
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I just now learned there’s also an English table log, making finding >4 restaurants a lot easier.
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Jan 18, 2024 07:18
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Tabelog doesn't do score inflation, if you're new to it. Anything over a 3 is good, 3.5 is really good, and 4+ is outstanding. You can only make reservations through Japanese tabelog unless they've changed that recently. It's pretty easy to navigate via google translate though.
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Jan 18, 2024 07:44
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There's a sushi place near me that allows smoking, lol. Never stand between the denizens of Chiba and their ciggies.
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Jan 18, 2024 09:35
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Had some great ramen yesterday sitting outside a little shop in a Harajuku back street. Towards the end of our lunch a guy appeared about 3m from where we were eating and sparked up a ciggie right in front of a no smoking sign. There was a tarped-in smoking area about 6m away a bit further down the street. At least if this kinda thing is gonna happen it was on our last day! I have to admit though that I was pleasantly surprised not to be encountering much secondhand smoke on this trip at all, as my experiences with that throughout almost everywhere else in Asia have been vastly different. I mean yeah, people in Japan obviously do smoke but at least it seems that most of them will try to move away and not smash everyone else around them with it.
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Jan 18, 2024 11:12
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Re: smoker chat, there are/were some amazingly pass-ag anti smoking PSA posters that had English as well as Japanese. Yep, here they are, just GIS'd "passive aggressive Japanese smoking" and got a trove of 'em! Mister Chief posted:I hope it was cheap. Lol, nope, cost the same as a non mutillated one and some sicko actually bid against me! Thinking back on it, I had several tabs open on different auctions of the same book, and I must have unwittingly gone to this one when it came time to put in my actual bid.
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Jan 18, 2024 14:45
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Is the Sony building still a thing? I need to keep my technology cravings at a minimum.
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Jan 18, 2024 17:33
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bee posted:At least if this kinda thing is gonna happen it was on our last day! I have to admit though that I was pleasantly surprised not to be encountering much secondhand smoke on this trip at all, as my experiences with that throughout almost everywhere else in Asia have been vastly different. The public smoking has declined noticeably which is super nice. First time I went to Japan it was just like the rest of Asia, you were going to stink like a corpse in an ashtray every time you went indoors.
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Jan 18, 2024 18:19
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Grand Fromage posted:Fugu tastes like nothing, waste of money. Fugu has a bunch of different parts of it you can eat. We had fugu testicles at Sushi Owana last summer and they were quite distinct and surprisingly tasty. I'm not sure I'd pay ¥25,000 or whatever it was for another sushi omakase, but it was certainly distinct from a normal, upscale sushi place.
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Jan 18, 2024 18:51
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Sadly I have had to cancel my day trip to Fukuoka from Seoul. I'm having a predictably hard time adjusting to the time change and I don't think I'd be able to comfortably make it from my hotel to the airport and then take a flight all in the afternoon when I can barely keep myself awake by noon. It's almost 3am here now and I slept for most of the day yesterday. 20 years ago this poo poo was much easier but I ain't that young anymore.  Luckily I wasn't charged for the hotel and I paid for the flights in miles, so the cancellations didn't cost me anything. But I'm sad to be missing out on a return to Japan.
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Jan 18, 2024 18:55
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Waltzing Along posted:Everyone here goes to Jiro's whenever we are in Tokyo. We just walk in, sit down and demand omakase except with certain exceptions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF46Cel3EUo This is the worst scene ever made for television outside of the Osama Bin Laden plane pilot scene in The Newsroom
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Jan 18, 2024 19:05
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Ethics_Gradient posted:Re: smoker chat, there are/were some amazingly pass-ag anti smoking PSA posters that had English as well as Japanese. those are less anti-smoking than pro-smoking-etiquette. that's because they're put out by Japan Tabacco, the government founded tobacco corp. it's no longer a monopoly and govt only owns a third of it now, but still holds 2/3rds of the market.
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Jan 19, 2024 00:37
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Mr. Fix It posted:those are less anti-smoking than pro-smoking-etiquette. that's because they're put out by Japan Tabacco, the government founded tobacco corp. it's no longer a monopoly and govt only owns a third of it now, but still holds 2/3rds of the market. Hahaha, this makes sense and I had no idea Japan Tabacco was even a thing! I would love to see a Japanese version of Thank You For Smoking. I dug up this other one I snapped at a highway rest stop in Tohoku (go to your smoker jail) on our road trip almost ten years ago: 
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Jan 19, 2024 02:02
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Ethics_Gradient posted:Hahaha, this makes sense and I had no idea Japan Tabacco was even a thing! I would love to see a Japanese version of Thank You For Smoking. the jii-san brands like Hope and Peace, cheap Seven Stars and mainstream Mild Seven/Meivius are all Japan Tobacco brands here locally. They're strongly pivoting to e-cigs, and have other food brands here as well. Still a huge company.
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Jan 19, 2024 03:28
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I had ¥100 fugu sushi just because I could. It snapped like biting through a tendon. Didn't really care for it.
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Jan 19, 2024 05:54
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I'm looking to spend ~ 2 weeks in Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto/Hiroshima/others around end of May or early July this year. Which would be the better of the two? Everyone says July is super-hot, but I live in Austin so it's can't be worse than our endless 100+ degree heat. Is it that bad? For the record I've been to Japan a few times now, but it has always been Late Fall/Early Winter.
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Jan 19, 2024 18:50
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Japanese summer is certainly among the worst out of all summers that have been discovered. I'm sure texas is also bad but I don't know if it is as humid as japan gets. Put it this way, I don't really know what you gain by going in july. I guess maybe tourist places could be less busy?
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Jan 19, 2024 18:54
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End of May is way better than July. Even if you are accustomed to heat and humidity at home, do you spend large chunks of your day outdoors doing stuff everyday?
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Jan 19, 2024 19:03
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May for sure. You may feel confident, but Japanese July/August was much worse than summer in Las Vegas. It's humid as gently caress, you're probably outside walking most of the day, and adequate air conditioning is rare. E: May also will have fewer tourists since rainy season is around then, which is also a consideration. It's rarely like torrential downpours, just lightly raining literally all the time. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jan 19, 2024 |
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Jan 19, 2024 19:11
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I went to Tokyo this past July/August, and then Dallas the week after I got back. Dallas was worse, both sucked tho.
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Jan 19, 2024 19:21
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Summer in Tokyo sucks for more reasons than the heat. poo poo has stupid opening hours- 11am, 12pm, 1pm. What the gently caress is that? How about you adapt and have earlier summer hours to avoid the high heat.
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Jan 19, 2024 22:07
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Curious if any of you all are into heavy metal music? Roomie kind of wants to hit a record store while we're in Tokyo and just curious if you all have any recommendations?
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Jan 20, 2024 00:05
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My partner was somehow shocked to see the lawyer characters from the attorney game being used to promote anti-weed laws.
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Jan 20, 2024 00:21
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Jump once used Luffy to promote an anti-piracy campaign lol
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Jan 20, 2024 02:27
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arbybaconator posted:I'm looking to spend ~ 2 weeks in Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto/Hiroshima/others around end of May or early July this year. Which would be the better of the two? Everyone says July is super-hot, but I live in Austin so it's can't be worse than our endless 100+ degree heat. Is it that bad? I grew up in the US south, including four years in Houston. It’s pretty much the same, the weather is garbage in July — very marginally better in Japan than the South — and it is much less fun to do anything that requires being outside, but it’s also not a huge deal. The bigger issue we had is that Japan has a stupid time zone and sunrise is at like 4 loving 30 but sunset will still be at 7:00. Fix your poo poo Japan and move your time zone an hour and a half or so back.
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Jan 20, 2024 02:46
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Good Listener posted:Curious if any of you all are into heavy metal music? Roomie kind of wants to hit a record store while we're in Tokyo and just curious if you all have any recommendations? I went earlier last year disk union ROCK in TOKYO there is a 'disk union' for everything here is the rock one in shibuyu 〒150-0042, 東京都渋谷区, 宇田川町32-7 HULIC &New UDAGAWA B1F Lots of 2nd hand stuff. (which is good) This was way mroe rock than goth, which is what i was after. But this store was 1000% better than Tower Records which is 7 floors of stuff and just around the corner
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Jan 20, 2024 04:03
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Saladman posted:I grew up in the US south, including four years in Houston. It’s pretty much the same, the weather is garbage in July — very marginally better in Japan than the South — and it is much less fun to do anything that requires being outside, but it’s also not a huge deal. The bigger issue we had is that Japan has a stupid time zone and sunrise is at like 4 loving 30 but sunset will still be at 7:00. Fix your poo poo Japan and move your time zone an hour and a half or so back. Yeah, even if it's neutral versus the worst part of Texas, think about your day-to-day life in the U.S. -- going by car to different indoor locations, and everything inside is A/C -- compared with outdoor walking in Japan. Even doing daily stuff, it's so different, and that is what makes it worse.
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Jan 20, 2024 04:13
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Any recommendations for an event calendar in Tokyo? All the ones I have checked online have a lot of outdated information showing shut down events and the like.
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Jan 20, 2024 09:30
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