While going down the stairs looking at my phone, I spotted another anime place I could go to. So I went back to the hotel to deposit my spoils and drink a bottle of water, then went back out. The place was at a convenient place – near the Ximending Night Market area. It was appropriately called “Mag Freak”.
When I went in, I thought it might be like a fake-out. Where’s the anime stuff? It wasn’t until I went to the two floors above it that I found what I wanted – loads of anime merch.
Unlike Animate and Toranoana, Mag Freak had way more of the merch in a good way. Loads of anime merch, loads of gacha game merch. And yeah, pins and trinkets for days. And I’m amazed it was housed in that small of a space. I mean, Animate and Toranoana were big spacious stores. This was more like a hobbyist’s store that happened to rent some small hole-in-the-wall.
I went around to see what could I still add to my wallet damage. At the end, I bought:
- Splatoon stickers, keychains and other merch. Man, those pack of stickers especially. I wanted to buy two packs, but I kind of felt bad about it as there was just two of them and I might deprive another splatfan of an amazing find. So I only got one pack of stickers. These will go on a future laptop too.
- Loads of pins and trinkets of anime. At this rate I won’t run out of pins to festoon my bags with.
- Some mouse pads.
- Some plastic folders. They had more folder variety than Toranoana.
Fortunately, this place was more merch-heavy than book-heavy so I didn’t have to buy more dōjin.
Once I finished up my run of the place – it was past 6PM and I had a bagful of merch – I decided to stay a while at the area and just eat takeout later. But I also spied something a few days ago while I was also at the area that I wanted to buy some at:
The store was called Popcorn Chicken King Ximen, and they sold snacks. What snacks? Various fun snacks. Like, popcorn chicken, it’s basically their calling card. Some onion rings. Bacon skewers. French fries. But since we’re in Asia, there are delicacies I always see a lot and have zero problems with eating. Like chicken cartilage. Crispy pork intestines. Chicken gizzards. Pig blood cakes. Century eggs.
The place also had a handy English menu laminated nearby that people like me can reference. Numbers are the key here. They have this card that resembles a 6/45 lotto ticket that one has to mark their preferences and the portions, then the seasoning, and for takeaway. And if the laminated menu is too complicated for the smooth-brained, they have an English side for the card as well. Sweet.
So I went nuts but not too nuts – I have to mind calories as well as the morning dump I might have. So I marked the veggies first – baby corn, mushrooms, potato dices and cauliflower – before I went for the heavyweights. Chicken popcorn, hearts and gizzards (double portion each), chicken cartilage, pig blood cake (double portion), glutinous rice sausage, fried tangyuan, tempura, century egg (I love this stuff too), and tofu. Spicy seasoning. Didn’t wait long as well, line was brisk despite the length and the servers were hustling. Before going back to the hotel, I dropped by the 7-11 again to buy a fluffy bread bun and one of those 1.5L-sized bottles of chilled tea, and I chose a random black tea that looked nice. Greasy food needs tea, and I abide by it.
Went back to the hotel to eat it in private while watching nature channels, and man that was a pleasant gutbuster. I’m sure I shot past my calorie counting, but fuck it, last day and all. Everything was goddamn delicious. Nothing exotic or funky taste, all prepared well and the spicy seasoning gave it just the right amount of kick. Washed down with big gulps of cold tea. Superb.
I fell asleep soon after a quick jaunt down the lobby to get some crackers and juice, plus a warm shower, full belly and all. I did plan to sleep early, 9PM. Flight’s in the morning and I look forward to home anyway.
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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