Books, book, books

Let's talk about books.
I'm a big fan of reading. I find that I am transported to the world described in the story much more thoroughly than whilst watching films. I'm not reading the words on the page anymore, I'm actually there seeing everything happen. Until there is a typo. It feels like:

* * * TYPO * * *

Have you ever done that? Come across a spelling mistake in a book? I find it very jarring. I am yanked out of that world instantly and find myself looking a page. I wonder if that's why some people don't enjoy reading? Maybe it feels like hitting a typo... all... the ... time. If you never get into the flow I can see that reading a whole book would seem like a drag.

We've recently had a bit of a clear out. Our shelves were full, no, our whole house was full. of stuff. so we had to get rid of the things we weren't using and that meant a lot of books. Mainly books that we had read and probably wouldn't read again, or about things in which we are no longer interested.

It's sad parting with books. But many are hopefully finding new homes. We sent some to Amazon's trade-in programme and got some gift cards. Some went to charity and I gave a few to people at my work. The rest went to our local recycling centre where they will either be rescued or pulped to make more books.

Japan musings: Akihabara

Time for another post about Japan! This time Akihabara.

Akihabara was another place high on our list of places to visit. This part of town is known for its electronic shops and is without a doubt anime capital of the world. Our host laughed at us for wanted to go there as he thought it was pretty geeky and full of maid cafes. He was right. But we loved it anyway.

We wandered around the arcades playing on 'UFO catchers' and I had a go on Dance Dance Revolution. Then we hit up the anime shops. It's a while since we were super into the animes but we found plenty to look at and buy. I found a few pockets of Studio Ghibli merchandise which was nice since we didn't get to go to the museum (booo!).

We visited Manadrake which is generally seen as a bit of a mecca for the anime geeks. It has 7 floors! Though like a lot of places in Japan it was only a very small section of the building and the stair case was on the outside. There was a doll section with some extremely pricey specimens.

I bought my new 'polaroid' camera in one of the big electronics shops. It was probably the first time that I've ever been able to do tax-free shopping! In some of the big shops in London there are counters where you don't pay VAT  (or get the VAT back) if you are from outside the EU. It's only 5% in Japan but here in the UK its 20%.

We were given a lot of flyers for maid cafes, but we didn't go to any. Instead we settled on Mister Dount, they had Halloween x Hello Kitty doughnuts! Awesome.

As it got dark all the lights came on and it looked completely different to in the day. Less pastel and more neon, but still super cool.