Open Sesame

August 19, 2008


I woke up and traveled to Akihabara again. The pressure of finding an ethernet cable was growing. Internet withdrawal was setting in.

I traveled through the tunnels, head low, frantically shifting my eyes from side to side searching for the cable I CRAVED.

Oh yeah, the tunnels...I don't think I mentioned them before. They aren't necessarily tunnels that go underground (although I don't doubt that those exist in Akihabara), they are more like a man-made above-ground cave system. You know those cheesy carts that you see set up in the middle of malls? Or better yet, the booths that are all set up at flea markets? If you still don't know what I mean, just picture Lousie's lemonade stand in Charlie Brown/Peanut Gallery.
So you have these booths, hundreds of them set up side to side on both sides of you, leaving you a 4 foot wide trail to walk through. Then imagine that being covered by a ceiling that's about 6' tall, but with signs hanging down from it every 10 feet. Then also imagine that there are breaks in the booths every now and then, allowing you to choose different corridors to walk through, MAZE-LIKE in it's design.
This is the tunnels I speak of. And dammit, they were not built for people taller than 5 feet!!!

After 5 minutes of wandering through the tunnels like a lost mole I caught sight of ethernet cables out of the corners of my eyes. I doubled back and found the owner of that specific "wire cave."
"Sumimasen."
"Hi!"
"Um...ethernet cable?"
'questioned look'
"Um...cat 5?"
'blank stare'
"Internet cable-u?"
"Ahhhh! Internet!"
"Hi!"
He grabbed a plastic bag containing an ethernet cable and pointed to a sticker which read "15m Y1,700." I assumed it meant that it was 15 meters long and cost $17 (or 1,700 yen).
"Hi!"
The transaction was made. I hurried home. Shakes from internet deprivation were starting to develop.

When I got home I played on the internet all day, like a heroin addict who had stumbled upon and opium field.