a simple post to pass the time

hi blog!
i went to the mall today. the new facebook is really bad at uploading photos, and this is enough to make me frustrated. so i am going to talk about it while the website decides if it wants to upload my photos, or if it wants me to go to photobucket. okay. so the mall is 40 minutes away along a windy road that goes through some mountains and bumpy tunnels. my plan was to go to mcdonalds because my body and mind need chemically induced nostalgia from time to time. okay! the photos are up. lets get some more on there. here we go.
i walked around a bit before i was hungry enough to eat. clothes are either normal and super expensive or very flimsy and cheap, and they are all way too small for me. i think everything i bought is a size too small, so i will have to stretch everything out. here is the mcdonalds meal i got. the new york burger's time had passed, to my surprise, and now the hawaiian burger was available. the hawaiian burger is a big burger with bbq sauce, mayo, lettuce, cheese, bacon, and a huge fried egg thing. look!

was there a tomato too? very likely. it tasted ok, not as special as the texas burger from a few weeks ago, but i was satisfied. then i walked around the mall some more and got an idea of what i wanted to buy. there were 3 levels and the building is very long. it reminds me so much of the palisades mall at home. i went in one electronics store because i was wondering how much a decent video camera costs. answer: too much. but i did stumble upon this wonderful experience, which i somehow missed the first time i went into this electronics store. are you interested in buying a gundam model kit? the pieces snap together and there is no glue necessary. maybe you will have to draw little lines with a black pen or paint some pieces with a special marker but you will have fun making a model of a robot at 1/100 of the robot scale. the only problem is first you have to choose one.

not an easy thing to do. i think i stood here for a good 15 minutes just looking at different boxes and realizing that i don't even know any of these robots, half of them are from the newer tv shows that i have never seen. some were cool looking. maybe i will buy a few before i come home as a gift to myself. okay what next? oh yeah. so the japanese, as you probably already know, don't speak english. but they like to pretend they do, while giving off this vibe of "it's complete b.s. and we don't take it seriously at all, so thanks for trying, but we got this". want some evidence? here are two, the best two, stores in the mall with ridiculous, stupid names. the first might not get to you like it does some people.

so it's called Spicy Marmalade. no big deal right? it sells lady clothes. can marmalade even be spicy? what is marmalade? isnt it like jam? it has to be sweet then. so this is really just confusing nonsense. okay. i get it. nothing to get alarmed about, move along. you think everything is going to be okay, until you get up to the third floor and you see this utter monster staring back at you.

WHAT IN THE. okay. take a breath. i know, it's difficult. imagine if you had to live here and teach these people how to speak english. try to imagine that for a second. i know right? okay. so. this store, like it or not, and there is no way you can like it at all, is called Starvations. it sells childrens clothing, more like toddler clothing, in only bright neon and pastel colors. it is one of the worst things that has ever existed. i cannot imagine the process that led some unfortunate person to pick this name. did they have a dictionary? i hope not. were they picking random words out of a hat? did it sound cool? was a mistake made? did they think it meant something else? nobody will ever know. okay. calm down. there are more photos to see. like this one.

a nice stage performance with songs and dancing, featuring a giant vegetable costume, for kids. this was nice. there were so many little kids in this mall. there is an entire childrens arcade on the top floor, with blacklight ball pits. i think a lot of the young parents take their young kids here for entertainment, and the mall provides. this vegetable performance was good because it gave me a chance to get maybe the best photo i have ever taken, from inside an elevator as i was about to go downstairs and leave the mall. check this out.

at first only the baby was in the photo, looking down at the show from the same angle that i got the last shot at. but then mom walked into the frame and i dont know, i think she might have made it a better shot? more composition and elements. nobody will ever know. so around this time i bought the one too-small shirt that i had my eye on and exited the mall. i decided to drive a little further north towards takamatsu city, because i had never been beyond the mall/airport area. i saw a sign for a tunnel straight ahead after a while so i turned around, but there was a videogame store i like to go to called Geo (pronounced gay-oh) connected to a grand opening clothing store called jumble or something. i liked their style, a lot of the clothes seemed used or handmade or just weird and cool, so i got some pants and shirts there. i think i found the best, most perfect shirt i have ever found. you will know about it eventually, but not now. my plan was to drive back and stop at the mall again for dinner. now, don't be fooled into going to the hamburger restaurant.

actually, maybe you should check it out. it's not really hamburger per se, since hamburger as we understand it includes bread and is like a sandwich. this is more accurately called hambaagoo, because it is just the meat, in a skillet, with other things around it, and rice on the side. japanese people love this. here you can see all of the plastic display dishes, and the crazy (racist?) mascot who is holding a big skewered beef patty in a pike. i don't know about him. well, i already ate a hamburger today, a real one, and i didn't want to go to the italian buffet with the chocolate fountain, because who does that? so i waited for a half hour to get into this wonderful establishment.

this is called kaiten sushi. it is a restaurant where sushis come by on little plates that are on a little track that circulates throughout the place. you just pick up a plate and if it is a good place like this, every plate is a little more than a dollar. you can get all kinds of eel, tuna, and different types of fish! and there is tea in a little cup, and a spigot of hot water. here you see some little plastic tops to keep the fish fresh as it circulates. i had to wait a half hour to be seated! but it was so worth it. okay, i am going to spoil the mystery for you right now. don't be devastated, this is about the industry.

so they have a little machine to form the rice into perfectly shaped sushi carriers. this is okay, we have to not be upset about this. yes, you used to make this shape with 2 fingers and the palm of your hand. but that era has passed. this is post-fordist sushi construction. why is this ok? because it allows for this to be possible, and eaten.

this is fresh bacon and mayonnaise sushi. i think the bacon has been cured, because it looks mad raw. this tastes like pure butter, and it is the most devilish, amazing concoction i have ever experienced. if you didnt notice, the hawaiian burger had 2 bacon pieces sticking out of the bottom, so today was a very good day for my bacon intake. that's it! i hope you had fun learning about and looking at my day.
great!