Banking on Book Off

Finally got around to selling a bunch ton of stuff at Book Off on Kearny Mesa Rd today just as it started raining.

What’s Book Off? Imagine Music Trader, Japanese style. But in addition to CDs and DVDs, Book Off also deals with magazines, books and video games. You’ll even find American comics and anime collectibles too.

I first discovered Book Off during my trip to Japan (Oct. 2008). I knew to keep an eye out for this chain to get good deals on gentle used media. Ironically, when we were first hit Akihabara one of the first stores we stumbled into, and I subsequently emptied of most of their Hikaru Utada CDs, turned out to be a Book Off.

Recently, the chain hit Stateside, with locations in L.A., Costa Mesa, NYC and Honolulu. To date, I’ve been stopped into the San Diego location to browse about a half a dozen times and have sold items twice now.

Just like Music Trader, this store isn’t doing you any favors buying your items for pennies on the dollar. But in these trying times if you need the money, or in my case, really really need to free up space in your place to make room for a new addition, it’s a great opportunity.

Picked up $56 and some change for my swag, then blew half that in the store. Easy come, easy go I guess. Basically, I was banking on Book Off to take stuff off my hands that I wouldn’t be able to as easily eBay or Craigslist. At least now I have more room in the condo.

Now to assemble the new crib and find some matching dressers for my little girl!

Osaka and kuidore

The first city the wife and I explored during our trip to Japan was Osaka…

Osaka, we initially learned from chef, author and Travel Channel badass, Tony Bourdain, is the land of kuidore, which can loosely be translated to mean “eat oneself into ruin”. So of course, we had to eat there to believe it. And eat (and eat) we did.

We arrived at Kansai International Airport at 3pm on a Friday and took a train from the airport into Osaka. Let me say that I was damn confused looking at the subway line map. Despite countless hours of preparation, reviewing subway/train maps and routes to and from Kansai Airport, still didn’t prepare me enough and I was completely overwhelmed. I found that there are multiple ways to depart Kansai (car, ferry, bus) with the most convenient and inexpensive being by rail.

So naturally, being the incessant planner that I am, knowing full well I would get lost otherwise, I planned several routes to depart Kansai by train to reach Osaka. I knew that the trains were one level up from the international arrival gates (I still confirmed with the airport info desk). Too bad none of my planning included memorizing the kanji for the stations I needed.

After a lot of stressful perspiration and staring at the map, I gave up and went into the adjacent JR rail office.
I asked in my broken Japanese to buy tickets to Osaka. The polite JR rail employee ignored my butchering of the Japanese language, took my credit card and issued me tickets to Osaka Tennoji Station. We hopped on the train and rode into Osaka Tennoji after about an hour.

When we arrived in Osaka Tennoji, I knew we needed to transfer to another line to reach one of two stations that were in proximity to our hotel, Minami-morimachi Station (南森町) or Osaka Temmangu Station. Since I asked the JR office for help earlier, I still didn’t learn how to properly read the rail maps. My guidebooks only offered the theory behind using the rail machines, not any practical examples.

I told a random Japanese woman on the platform “JR Temmangu station ikitai desu” and followed that up with a terribly phrased question like “doko densha?” This was my feeble attempt to state that “I wanted to go to JR Temmangu Station” and ask “Where train?”

Thankfully, it was enough for this kindhearted woman to understand and she pointed across the platform. When I gave her a bewildered look, she motioned for us to follow her. She led us into an elevator and walked us across to the stairway to the platform for the JR Osaka Loop that she indicated earlier. She then tried to tell me that we would need to change trains at Kyobashi Station and transfer to the JR Gakkentoshi Line to reach Osakatemmangu. Evidently, the station is referred to as Osaka Temmangu and Osakatemmangu. Go figure!

Armed with that knowledge, we bowed “arigato gozaimasu” to our new best friend in Osaka and set off. By some small miracle I understood enough of our benevolent friend’s Japanese instructions to get off at the right station and transfer successfully to the line that stopped at Osakatemmangu. Yay! Score one for my 2 week crash refresher course in Japanese.

From Osakatemmangu, It was a rush to reach the hotel as the sky was overcast with dark clouds with little trace of the sun during most of our initial train ride from Kansai Airport. Luckily, I reviewed the sunset timetables ahead of time and knew what time the sun would set (I’m anal-retentive like that). And we picked a hotel very close to a train station for that very reason.

The Il Grande Umeda Hotel Osaka was a brief walk from Osakatemmangu.