I'm making Mac 'n' Cheese Tomorrow! Mm Mm Mm!

Today, after she convinced Katrina to reschedule the picnic because she was unavailable, Laurel dragged me to Border's on the premise that I could read comics and keep her company while she worked (ok, more like I wanted to get ice cream and photos from Costco and then go read comics, and she needed to work, so I tricked her into getting into my car--but at least this time I didn't force her to listen to Tegan and Sara on repeat), but the silly bookstore was out of THE ONLY COMIC I WANTED (the same one the library was out of!), and so I had to read travel books about Japan (also, I bet the majority of the 3 people who read this forgot what the sentence was about after the first pair of parentheses, so recap: sneak attack, ice cream, T&S, comics, no comics, tour book).

Anyways, after looking at every travel guide covering Japan, I realized that the prefecture I am going to is insanely unpopular. Comparison: if we compare prefectures to SoCal counties, Saitama is Imperial County. To which all of you will reply, "Not a real place." But apparently, it is! I was originally going to say San Bernardino County because as we all know, that place is gHeTtO, but I looked at a map outlining counties just for fun and saw that Imperial is not just a highway that will take you from LAX to Anaheim Hills (and that nice international market with all the lovely desserts!), but the name of a living, breathing county (well...maybe. But I am fairly certain that, similar to the above paragraph, 1 of the 2 determined readers that has continued this far will not remember what this section is supposed to be about). But despite not having any info on my soon to be residence (not that it matters; I've been to Saitama), one of the books did have a good deal of very entertaining material.

One of these topics mentioned a particular area of Tokyo that will be rather close to me, so I felt it was appropriate to read into. The specific topic of the section concerned Otaku; the nerdy Japanese population that is overly into comics and video games and maid cafes. The usual culprit is a Japanese male with worn out, bland clothes and an awkward shyness that is more off-putting than endearing, especially when they cling to their anime character body pillows. However!, this article mentioned that while men are the usual characters indulging themselves as Otaku, there is a small portion of the population that is female, and are usually seen frequenting Ikebukuro (the place in Tokyo that will be by me)--and this portion of Otaku ladies are usually interested in what they call "boys' love", which is apparently very attractive boys who are in love with each other. There are even cafes that feature women who dress up as they very attractive men for the women visitors (so follow: girls who like pretty boys visit places where pretty girls dress as pretty boys to draw them in). I find this very hilarious, but I tend to think it is probably one of those small facets of of Japan that foreigners find and blow out of proportion as a way to describe what Japan is like.