There were souvenirs to be purchased, themed candy to drool over, and decorated store windows to stare at. I got two keychain souvenirs--one of Baltan and one of Urutoraman. My favorite thing about Soshigaya-Okura, though, was that even the street signs and banners, posted and displayed all up and down the cozy, narrow shopping streets, had images from the show and of the characters. Or maybe it was the lamp posts, which were designed in a way so that rather than being straight and vertical and, you know, lamp-posty, they curved way over at the top into what looked like giant hooks looming over the street sides. It only took me a second of staring to notice how the two oval light bulbs at the top of each post, lined up to the left and right of the hook, created Ultraman's head.
...I'm gonna say it again. The lamp posts on the streets in this neighborhood were designed with Ultraman in mind. Somewhere, during some moment in the past, a group of professionals were huddled over blueprints, deciding how they could make these functional and necessary poles of metal and large light bulbs resemble a cheesy 60's superhero head. SSsssswatch!
There was also a medium-sized flying Ultraman above one of the street entrances, and a large Ultraman statue with glowing eyes right outside of the station. You're damn right I posed in front of the big one!
Even after all of this paradise, when I bought my ticket to head home and stood on the platform waiting for the train, I just didn't feel completely satisfied. Anthony and I started talking about where we wanted to go for dinner when it happened: an instrumental, 8-bit version of the theme song began playing, and ended just in time for us to hop on our train and head back to the Science Patrol Building. Another day saved.
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