Tokyo and Then Some

So last weekend was a bit too busy for me write, so this week I'll catch up.
(Lots of pictures, so I'm gonna center this one)

I was finaly able on the 10th to go get my alien registration card and with it a mobile, a bank account and the certainty of internet in my future. In a combined effort to play to Nathan's request for more food pics and to display the rediculousness of japanese technology, here are a couple pictures and a short video I took of my new mobile (the cheapest I could find at $90) functioning as a TV (a free service). All I was looking for was a phone, but somehow the cheapest phone ended up also being a TV, a camera with internal and external lenses, an mp3 player and has touch screen and facial recognition capabilities . . . like I said, rediculous

This past Monday was a day to celebrate old people (a national holiday), so last weekend was a long weekend. I decided to take this opportunity to pay a visit to Tokyo. I left at 07:30 on Saturday morning for my 5 hour bus ride to the metropolis. A relatively uneventful trip, but I did grab a couple snaps when we stopped.

A bit of scenery at the first stop

A tasty pork bun (half finished because I remembered I was hungry before I remembered to take a picture)

And some various juices that reminded me of Frost and his mild obsession

Arrival in Shinjuku

I found a famous statue

From there I headed to my hostel . . . I was a bit put off by the fact that I couldn't get in contact with any AIESECers in Tokyo (the MC and about 8 LCs are in or near the city) for a place to stay and some people to hang out with, but the hostel ended up being a good chice in the end . . . I arrived at the relatively new "Tokyo Ninja",

checked in and headed up to my "room".

After setting down my pack and updating the drivers on my dad's laptop, something that hasn't been done in years, so that I could actually transfer pictures from my camera to the laptop, I headed out to get the lay of the land and see if I could find some AIESECers. Internet wanderings combined with my new best friend google maps got me maps and directions to all the places I wanted to find. Wandering point the first: AIESEC Japan office. I headed here first in the hopes of catching some people before the end of the day (this was around 15:00). As seems to be becoming a trend, no one was around (no window for a ghostly pic this time). On my way back towards the hostel (in Asakusa) I made a quick pass through the electronics Mecca that is Akihabara.

While I can quite easily amuse myself wandering through this place for quiite some time (as I did the last time I was in Tokyo), I was a bit sickened by it this time around. While I have no issues with the geekiest of geeks (I go to school with them), I can not stand the fact that the mainstay of USAliens that come to Japan are unhealthy socially inept otaku who want to sit alone reading comics and cartoon porn playing video games, find a Japanese bride or some combination of the two. I grow weary of the poor perceptions brought about by these people traveling, and there is an overwhelming glut of them in Akihabara . . . but I digress . . . I spent about 30 minutes there before giving up and heading to my next stop, Ochanomizu. A place famous for guitars and all things thereof, quite entertaining. I spent the next few hours here mentally recouping from my previous stop. As I meandered through this piece of the city I sat by and watched numerous bands performing at corners and subway/railstations. I also looked through some guitar shops and bought some strings for my guitar. From Ochanomizu I went back to the hostel to check some directions and plan my evening.


I wanted an entertaining evening and to grab a piece of video, so I made for Shibuya. Making a hopefully soon to be followed first step, I made a short video of me walking through the well known intersection in front of Shibuya station for the OGX video.

Interesting fact: that's the busiest Starbucks in the world.

I paced through the alleys around Shibuya, saw a small parade,

listined to a bossa nova/conga band concert,

found the all important vagabond staple, a doner kebab stand,

and got asked by some marines on shore leave where they could find a drinkin good time. Definitely met the qualifier of entertaining, and it only cost me the subway ticket over and back (about 8 miles from my hostel, so I felt it was worth the two 190yen tickets). En route back to the Ninja I grabbed a few 8% ciders, in hopes of finding some kids in the hostel commons to drink and chat with.

Upon return I headed up to my "room" and took a much needed shower. I was in a 16 person room, and several had returned from their day's activities. I sat down and talked with a couple kids from Taiwan, they had done the Tokyo Disney thing and had exorbitant amounts of Disney crap. Some fun kids on a five day holiday from school . . . Now I've got a place to stay and a couple tour guides in Taiwan. There was also a guy from the UK, Matt, that I talked to for a while who was at the front end of a 16 month long "my life in accounting doesn't seem like enough anymore, so I shall wander the earth" kind of trip. Quite an interesting guy, nice to have an intelligent conversation. After the roommates gave up for the night, I to my cider and made for the commons in the basement. As luck would have it there was a group six or seven Britts hanging around some beers and some tables, so I grabbed a seat and joined in. One of the guys was on something of an extended stay, staying at the hostel at no charge in exchange for acting as cleaning staff, likely on his way to China at the end of the month. Three of the kids, Damien, Emily and Zoe, were the larger part of the ramblings and would become my travel mates in the comming days. After the others all knocked off for the night, Zoe and I stayed up for a while chatting about Japanese studies and the efficacy (or lack there of) of the current higher educational system in a world based not on what but who you know.

Sunday morning I once again checked the MC office as well as the Japan Alpinist Society . . . both were vacant (quite bothersome always traveling on weekends). I heard from UK Matt the previous night that on Sunday's in Yoyogi Park every week there were a miriad of local bands that would come out to play on the street, so I decided it would be a fair way to waste some time. First I stopped at a ramen shop that had a line of people waitng outside, and I got some tsukemen

Pretty good, but not even close to the tonkotsu ramen in Fukuoka

It was a nice park, quite big, and a nice contrast to the city around it.
I walked through the park not seeing any bands, but I eventually heard music off in the distance and followed it. There were indeed a multitude of bands allong the street on the outside edge of the park.

Kind of funny, the first misician I saw was a girl playing keyboard and singing that I had seen a week or two before outside the train station near my boxing gym in Nagoya. Most of the bands were lacking at best, but a couple were quite good, and I sat down to listen to their sets. After a while I remebered one of the kids saying that there was to be a Wii bowling bash at the hostel that night. Always ready to demonstrate my mastery of the Wii bowling, I decided to head back.

Unfortunately I arrived just too late and missed out on name tags and team selection. I gussled a bit of nihonshu and matcha and downed some snacks while watching the competition throw their Wii balls.

Half way into the follow up Wii tennis tourney I sat down to converse with Damien, Emily and Zoe. After I tried to convince Damien that I had defeated Super Ghouls and Ghosts, he started downloading it so that he could convey the game's insurmountable frustrations to the girls. Chatting and drinking continued amongst the crowd and a tasty Chinese style potato dish was prepared by the resident Britt, Luke. At some point or another plans were created and the decision was made that I would head to watch Sumo with Damien, Emily and Zoe in the morning.

Sumo was quite fun, and I recommend it if you get the chance

Damien left early on to wander for a bit, and upon his return Zoe decided to head home. Damien, Emily and I opted to hang around for a bit, and ended up staying until the end. I'm glad I did, as it afforded me the opportunity to see the two Yokozuna in action. The three of us stopped at a convinience store on the way back and grabbed some beer and, for me, some food. When we got back to the hostel, we sat for a while, chatted for a while and drank our beers. Fun was had, Super Ghouls and Ghosts was played, frustrations were understood and I headed off to catch my night bus home.

From here, my bus left Shinjuku at 23:00. My bus arrived at Nagoya station at 07:00. My train left from Nagoya station and arrived at my station, Shibata station, at 07:30. I dropped my pack off as I passed my appartment, and I started work at 08:00 . . .

Something I find both anoying and amusing about this trip: I left my small towel/rag in the hostel in Asakusa (annoying part), and it was a towel/rag that I had gotten from a hostel in Asakusa durring my previous stay in Tokyo 3 years ago (amusing part). Born from Asakusa hostel and so it shall return.

At work this week I started on the preliminary experiments for my actual project, so that's somewhat exciting (in an "I'm an engineer and I get exited about polymers" kind of way). . .

Yeah that's my uniform (I know you're jealous)

And look, it's like a layered shot (only if you drink this one your insides will polymerize)

I sent out an email to AIESEC at Nagoya City University for possible future endeavours, but no reply yet. I also chatted up sir Chuck, and I'm looking to go hang out with him in Honk Kong for a few days in October.

My mission for this weekend was to find a used book store, and I succeeded. This means a few things. Thing one is that I can now get cildren's books to read and help build my Japanese literacy muscles. Things two and three are a bit more in the range of general nerdery. I can now get cheap comic books, and I can look through stockpiles of old video games (consequently I found a copy of the Japanese version of my favorite game for $10 and couldn't help myself).
For those who can't read Japanese (or small print on globes), the name of this game is "Super Chinese World" . . . I know nothing of this game (other than its hillarious title)

I also bought a male-male audio cable while I was in Akihabara, so now I can play my iPod through my laptop's speakers (which is preferable to always wearing headphones). That means I now have: music (very important), boxing gym to workout in (very important #2), 1 liter of milk a day, 1 liter of orange juice a day (found some at the 100yen store) and books to read . . . save for some people to hang out with on nights and weekends, I'm pretty well settled in.

Monday (22nd) is a day off, and my fellow UFOers (my department) and I are going to play some tennis and do some barbiqueing . . . sweet
My fellow UFOers found me a dark beer
In case you are wondering . . . all delicious
Some ohhh so tasty purple sweet potatoes
Mmmmm Japanese Bitch Beer
And the obligatory peace sign photo

And after burning all the left over food, every single beer can, paper plate and cigarette butt was picked up and carried away (cleanest post party I've ever seen)

Indeed it was sweet