寺町通、新京極通Teramachi, Shinkyōgoku

Who wants to go shopping?

買い物に行きたい人は誰？

Classes were over quickly for me, today. I was done by lunch. But I don't yet have a key to the house, and my host father wouldn't be home until around 4. I had to do something, right? So instead of taking the subway all the way back to Okubo Station, I only went as far as Karasuma Oike. I proceeded to walk down Oike to Teramachi street.

今日は授業は早く終わった。昼ご飯まで終わった。でも、家の鍵がないし、ホストのお父さんは４時ごろ家に帰る。何かしなきゃね。だから、地下鉄で大久保駅に行かなかった。烏丸御池で電車を降りて、御池通を歩いた、寺町通まで。

Teramachi is... interesting. It's called a street, and marked as such on maps. But in reality, it's a shopping mall. It and its neighbor, Shinkyōgoku, are home to dozens upon dozens of shops, some that are well known (Kinokuniya, anyone?) but many more that aren't.

寺町は面白かった。通って言うし、地図でも「寺町通」と言います。そうだけど、寺町はショッピングセンターだ。寺町と隣の新京極には、店がいくつもある。この店の中で、人気な店がある（たとえば、紀伊国屋書店）けど、たいていの店は人気じゃない。

I had three main objectives. The first, to find Nanoha StrikerS DVDs. The second, to find the Nanoha Force manga. The third, to track down a game store and buy a dōjin game called Touhou Sky Fight.

目的が三つあった。一つ、魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerSのDVDを見つける。二つ、魔法戦記リリカルなのはForceのマンガを見つける。三つ、ゲームの店を見つけて、東方スカイファイトという同人ゲームを買う。

The first was only a partial success. I mean, I've already seen the entire series, so it was low priority to begin with, and I did find some of the DVDs. But they didn't have the first DVD, and I didn't feel like getting any of the other ones. The fact that they were nearly 6000 yen didn't help.

一つのは、ミスじゃないけど、勝利もない。まあ、もうシリーズをぜんぶ見たから、最初から低順位だし、小さいマンガの店にDVDを見つけた。でも、第一のDVDがない。そして、僕は他のを買いたくない。というのは、DVDは六千円くらいだ。

The second was possibly the easiest. Kinokuniya is a bookstore after all.

二つのは一番簡単だ。紀伊国屋書店は書店でしょね。

The third was also a success, although it took nearly an hour of searching through Teramachi and Shinkyōgoku to find a decent game store. After the ridiculous price tag on the DVDs, it was nice to get two Touhou games for less money than it would take to buy one game in the U.S.

三つのも勝利けど、ゲームの店の見つけるために寺町通と新京極通を探さなきゃだめで、一時間くらいかかった。でも、そのDVDは高すぎるの後で、二つの東方ゲームを買えるのはいいね。

So yeah, I went shopping today. And I had way too much fun in the process.

買い物に行った。それは楽しすぎた。