bannoubunkacoby

This thing is so cool.

It's an mp3 player shaped like an old audio cassette. Now, that in and of itself would be cool in a weird, "Why Japan, WHY?!" sort of way. But the fact is, it's a FUNCTIONAL tape. You load up your 256mb of mp3s, then you can plug headphones directly into the player or pop the tape into any tape deck and it'll play normally...for many, many hours.

*sniff* I love Japan.

In which fun and sunstroke is had by all

A few days ago, I went with my mother and sister to Tokyo Disney. I find it strange that many people haven't heard of or do not know about Tokyo Disney. If you've not gotten the hint from my talks about the contents of UFO catchers and the like -- Disney is super-popular here. It is almost entirely due to Disney that anime began in Japan. Those big eyes? They're based on the big eyes of early Disney characters like Alice. Osamu Tezuka may have been the father of Japanese animation, but he was heavily influenced by Disney and said as much at many opportunities.

So, seeing as Disney is very popular in Japan (with Pooh easily being the most popular and most widely-seen of any animated character, Japanese or Western) Tokyo Disney is equally popular. Big date place actually. Thus, it is big and is full of the impressive and cool shit. First day was the Magic Kingdom. I don't have many pics of it because it was basically the same as every other incarnation thereof. There was an additional themed area in the form of "Toontown" from Roger Rabbit; but otherwise it was mostly the same. Cinderella's castle contains a walk-thru ride in which can be seen the only Disney park incarnation of The Horned King from The Black Cauldron that I know of. Also, Fantasyland contains an extra ride called Pooh's Honey Hunt. The latter is a brand new ride. Very technologically advanced. Great animatronics. Each car contains 4 riders and is individually computer controlled and self-propelled. No track. Some very clever moments, such as a room in which is projected an animated tigger who bounces, shaking the floor so that your car seems to bounce too, though it's mostly an illusion. Mostly, the main difference of Tokyo Disney's Magic Kingdom is all the Japanese people. Seeing girls in yukata with Pooh and Tigger ears on, or standing in a ghost town in the old west was very incongruous.

FYI -- lots of Japanese speech in the rides, but less than I'd expected. In most rides, the narration has been translated to Japanese, but the various characters' speech and the songs are still in English. The Tiki Room is an exception as the entire show had to be re-recorded in Japanese. Interestingly enough, it's not just a translation but a whole new show with different songs like "Fever." Fever sounds pretty cool in Japanese. Another exception is Pooh's Honey Hunt. It exists only in Japan and so is entirely in Japanese. But the rest, like Pirates of the Caribbean are in English except for Narration. Too bad. I kinda wanted to hear it in Japanese.

"ヨウホウ、ヨウホウ、海賊の生活はおれのために。" Or somesuch.

One additional very different thing about this Disney is how affordable things are. The souveniers and food are downright cheap compared to the other parks. We had an amazing three-course dinner in a themed, sit-down restaurant for about $50 for 3 people. It would be near double that in America. Especially considering that the food was excellent and very attractive. We had topped off the meal with an Unbirthday cake and all was well. I also picked up some pirate-y props for renn-fest, including some amazingly realistic toy fintlock pistols. I will mail them home so I do not get stopped at the airport.

Oh, btw. The spaceship in Tomorrowland still says "USA." That's kind of amusing.

The second day we went to Tokyo Disney Sea. Very cool. This is one of the newest Disney parks and it really shows. There's so much attention to design and detail. Much like Euro Disney, there is more emphasis on themed areas to explore than actual rides. But there are, indeed, rides a'plenty. And they're much cooler for the addition of the detailed surroundings. When you enter Disney Sea from the monorail station, the first thing you see is a moderately interesting fountain. This is only the courtyard, however. The real meat lies further in. To enter the park proper, you must pass through an archway, atop which is situated the hotel Miracosta -- a hotel actually INSIDE the real park. That's just too cool. Once you pass through the arch, you are assulted by the primary feature of Disney Sea. The Magic Kingdom has Cinderella's Castle. Epcot has that big Sphere Thingy. Disney sea has a motherfucking VOLCANO! An ACTIVE volcano that periodically BURSTS INTO FUCKING FLAME! Well, it was obvious where we had to go first! Reene accompanied us on the second day. So, when we passed by a Spanish Galleon on our way, The Dread Pirate Bunny had to stop to inspect the cannon and the hold. With such pleasantries out of the way, we entered the volcano crater. Turns out that it's actually a full-scale recreation of Mysterious Island of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea fame replete with the Nautilus docked nearby. Coming out of the top of the volcano is a roller coaster ride of sorts that is themed by Journey to the Center of the Earth. The crater itself contains a 20,000 Leagues ride. The former is moderately lame, but culminates with an attack by a 20' tall lava monster (which Reene remains adamant in calling a Balrog). The 20,000 Leagues ride is very different from the Fantasyland ones from other Disney parks. It's a very cramped, dark, and claustrophobic rail ride that is much more impressive than the other parks' version.

The rest of the park is divided up into the futuristic Port Discovery which actually opens out onto Tokyo Bay, The Mediterrenean Shore (which includes incredibly accurate reproductions of Venice, cappuccino popcorn [?!!!], gondoliers, and vinyards with REAL GRAPES), an Aladdin-themed Agrabah in The Arabian Coast, and The Lost Delta which houses only one Indiana Jones-themed ride. The ride also exists in California, but the stepped pyramid in which it is housed in Disney Sea is much more impressive. I have, however, neglected to mention the most disturbing section of the park -- The American Waterfront. This is easily the largest section by nearly double any other part. It contains a painfully accurate reproduction of Cape Cod as well as a rather unnerving early-20th-century New York. The latter is replete with full-size ocean-liners in the harbor, a New York Deli (serving potato and edamame salad), an elevated trolley, steaming manholes, broadway, yellow cabs, and a pitifully small Hudson River bridge. As for Cape Cod, the illusion was only broken when you changed angles and saw the volcano looming above the church. Of course, this was immediately behind me as I took that Hudson River Bridge pic.

All in all, it was very interesting and fun, if horrendously hot and humid. Reene had an awful time. But it's her fault since I TOLD her there would be long lines and horrible, hot, sticky weather. Ah well.

The following day we spent a few hours in the evening at the Azabu-Juban Noryo festival in Roppongi. Roppongi is the clubbing area, so I've never been there before. The festival was fun, if also terribly hot and crowded. There was a shrine with some musicians and about a bazillion yattai selling all kinds of food. We ate things on sticks, fried potatos with about a cup of butter, some sort of clear sugar-jelly with fruit, melon ramune, and doraemon-shaped cakes. I also had a blue candied apple which made me look much like Reene when she passed out. Reene was enamoured of the The Dog cotton candy, while I was amazed by the conchs and scallops grilled in their own shells. The festival took up many blocks and many small side streets. It kept going well past sunset. We even passed people having what seemed like impromptu bonfires on the sidewalk.

Fun, but hot.

Deep Thoughts

Majiri. The Horse's Ass bar.

The neighborhood kitties continue to love, but we miss Floppy a lot. ;_;

I got a new nonsensical Japanese shirt. It proclaims, "SAVE THE WORLD. Your body needs good to be happy. Your spirit needs joy and happiness to be strong. SAVE THE CHILDREN. BECOSE I LOVE YOU. World peace begins in the heart of each person on earth." Now, all that might be ok -- except that it is written atop an image of several boxes of Kellog's Corn Flakes.

Laforet is a huge clothing department store/boutique complex in Harajuku. They just put out their ad campaign for fall. It consists of a pregnant, caucasian girl who gives birth in comic detail to a bunch of fashion dolls which she then proceeds to cradle like a baby. Umm, ick?

Damn. Now that's a platform shoe.

*sings* Bionic, bionic drink! Woo-oo woo-oo. We stick together. We fight for right!

MAI BURAZAA ando MAI SISUTAH!

K, it's been a while since the last post. Sorry about that. My mother and sister have come to visit so it's been a bit hectic.

Alright, so Moti and I went to Comiket for the videogame-and-such day on Friday. Comiket is huge. I was totally unprepared. Moti has said "twice or three times the size of Otakon." I have seen the anime Comic Party and that estimate had seemed vaguely right based on their representations. I had heard about the crowds and the lines, but I've been in lines and crowds at big conventions before.

Comiket is insane. Otakon gets about 15,000 people in a whole 3-day weekend. Comiket got, by my rough estimate, about 100,000 people on the single day we were there. We stood in line outside in the rain for an hour just to get in even though the convention had already been open for 2 hours. There's no entrance fee or anything, so the wait was simply because the place was that packed. I made a panorama of a chunk of a single one of the 3 huge dealer halls. Without stereoscopic imagery, I don't think you can really understand how many people were in this room and how big it was, but I had to try. Everywhere was packed. The hallways were as crowded as the dealer rooms, but were many times as long. I got a couple cute ICO doujinshi and some great Suikoden III artwork. There were some weird things tho. One guy was selling floppies with SEGA Channel games on them. Another table was selling NEWLY DEVELOPED games for old, dead systems like the Nuon and Jaguar. There was also some good cosplay. Especially for Guilty Gear XX characters. Interestingly enough, I don't know if I saw a single male character actually being played by a guy. It was like reverse Kabuki.

Reene and Moti went the next day too. Reene got Harry Potter doujinshi, as well as Buffy, Ally McBeal, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Going to harajuku, having shaved ice sundaes, and feeding whipped cream from your crepes to the cats seems to be becoming a tradition here.

Oh, I went to the Meiji Jingu shrine. Always pass by it. Never went in before. I was big. It also had impressive god-trees.

Yesterday, while I was in Shibuya with my family, we saw two guys playing soccer, sideways, suspended by ropes, with a ball on a tether, 20+ stories above our heads. Ah, Japanese marketing. Well, I'm sure gonna remember Adidas now.


Deep Thoughts

This guy was playing a wind-instrument keyboard in Akihabara. Really well.

Finally got to Yuurakucho to see the Hentai Arcade Games. Laserdisc-quality video of women masturbating, fucking, and licking bananas while you play majhong. Whee! Oh, smearing ketchup on their breasts too.

Saw this guy in Omotesando yesterday. It wasn't even Sunday! I think that's my favorite costume to date. Check out the neon borg shit on his face. Y'know, in NYC I walked around in my purple velvet coat and feathered hat and attracted stares. Here, I wouldn't stand out at all.

One of the weird foods I've not quite gotten used to here is drinkable jelly. It comes in all sorts of containers and flavors. Basically, it's sports-drink-flavored jell-o. It's good, but very weird.

Dreaming petit towel -- translation: washcloth.

Eyeglass store named Erotica. Why?!

Condomania sells condom omamori (shinto charms) here. They say "protection against disease" in kanji and look just like the ones you'd buy at a shrine except instead of a paper blessing, they contain 2 condoms.

Whenever you buy a book here, they put a plain cover on it for you at the store. I don't know for sure how this began, but I remain convinced that it continues so that no-one knows if you're reading porn. It's something akin to seeing someone drinking out of a brown paper bag. Everyone KNOWS it's liquor. BUT, if all drinks were in paper bags -- no-one would know for sure. It's genius I tell you!

Reene and I have an aquaintance in Ube (down in southern Japan) who also keeps an LJ. He recently wrote an amusing entry you all should read. It involves monkey vaginas. Who doesn't like monkey vaginas?

New at Electronics Boutique -- Dildos!

Today, I bought a sex toy without even knowing it. Ah, Japan.

I was at Asobit city -- the biggest game store in Japan as far as I know. I went to the porn floor cuz they have some cool vending machines there. Got a few DOAX figurines and whatnot from them. I'm sure you've seen such machines in the US. The just don't contain such neat stuff. When you get a figure, it comes in about this state. Then you assemble it and you're all set. There are actually stores that buy these figures in bulk, assemble them themselves, and then sell them at a 3oo% markup. If you really want a particular figure, that's the way to go. But the machines are more fun. And assembling the figures is the best part in my opinion.

Anyways, I saw a machine that said it was selling moisturizing soaps in the shape of the girls from Tokimeki Memorial. It was just perverse enuf that I had to have one. "You too can take a shower with one of the girls from Japan's most popular dating sim!" Imagine my surprise when I opened up the pink dispenser ball and found a little tube of lubricant and a squishy, pink, rubber schoolgirl with a hole in the bottom. Not only that, but a hole in the top too for easy cleaning!

The bottom hole is very small I might add...are Japanese penises really that small? They don't run THAT much smaller from what I've been told from those with first-hand experience. I decided to test it out in the name of SCIENCE! Turns out that the hole stretches more than 10x. Curses, now the world may never know the truth behind the tiny-Japanese-penis legend.

Deep Thoughts

Comiket is coming up this weekend. We've been looking thru the catalog. Japanese doujin circles have the best names. "the Old Glory," "Aeroflot," or just simply, "Jesus." But even official manga have great names.

You've seen Cat Girls, but how about Pikmin Girls?

Life-size, poseable, Ayanami Rei.

Elegant Gothic Lolitas

This weekend we went out drinking with the mangaka again. Poked around Shinjuku. We had various foodstuffs and drinks at The Dubliners (a famous Irish pub here) and some extremely girly cocktails. I saw my very first all-male brothel in kabuki-cho (the red light district).

On Sunday, I hung around Harajuku with Moti. When you come out of the station, if you turn right and walk for a block or 2 (depending on what exit you come out of), you'll come to a very large bridge on your right. Every Sunday afternoon, this bridge is covered with people in really weird costumes. They just hang out and show off their strange, very elaborate, cute, usually gothy, often sexy, always freaky costumes. I kept meaning to go there and take pictures. Finally did.

After that, had yaki-niku with Moti and a few of his friends. It was fun, if expensive. A night of drinking seems to always be very expensive here. The drinks plus the requisite food almost always run up a bill of Y10000 per person if you do the whole night-of-drinking thing.

Deep Thoughts

I don't know. I don't want to know.

The marketing blitz for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is in full swing. There's a 2-story poster of a moogle in Shibuya. It looks very different.

This apple cost me Y400. It was, however, probably the best red apple I've ever had.

There are a couple of shops on Takeshita Doori in Harajuku that sell weird Engrish shirts. I like how it extends even to their signs.

I went to Kinokuniya and Books 1st this weekend to pick up the Vampire Hunter D novels (16 stories in 22 volumes of very difficult Japanese, yeeek). While at Books 1st, I saw the Japanese translations of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Snow Crash. The Snow Crash covers are relly cool. If you look closely, you can see that the first volume has Hiro on it and the second has Y.T., both in manga style. If you're wondering why there are two volumes, it's to recoup translation costs. Longer translated novels are always broken down so you have to pay twice or even 4 times for them. It's the only way they can afford to bring over most Stephen King books and such. Only huuuuge blockbusters like Harry Potter seem to remain intact in a single volume since they know they can charge whatever they want for it.

Must remember to show my sister this store.

The l00tz continue to accumulate.

Went to Pirates of the Carribean on Saturday in Shibuya where, after meeting at Hachiko as usual, we passed by two bums still passed out from the night before in the middle of one of the busiest plazas in Tokyo. Aww, look, it's the annoying, begging old-lady looking at them disdainfully. "Grr! I'm the only bum working THIS plaza beotches!" I liked them better. They were entirely overt about wanting money for booze.

Yeah, so, thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Was very impressed by not only Johnny Depp, but the screenwriting as well. It would have taken no effort on the writers' parts to just slap together a product-placement film based on the ride. That's what The Country Bears was and what The Haunted Mansion will inevitably be (though I think they could have done some great stuff with the Haunted Mansion; instead, it's a shitty Eddie Murphy comedy flick). But for some reason they added the curse angle, and that makes all the difference. Pirates don't NEED a curse to be evil. They can be evil arbitrarily. Pirates kidnap girl, boy saves girl, the end. But the screenwriters wanted a hook, and the curse is a damned good one. The apple is genius. Watch the movie, if you've not already, and you will understand. (On a related note, Granny Smith apples like those in the film are not to be had here for blood or money. I feel Captain Barbossa's pain.) On top of that, they made the individual pirates into real characters. That is exactly what I felt was missing from recent action films like Blade 2. So the vampires are evil; so what? So the good guys are badasses; who gives a shit? Blade 2 was nothing but gorgeous artistic masturbation. Each actor was given no more than a character design to work with. In Pirates, there are at least 6 evil pirates with solid personalities. Some of them only have one or two lines, but it's enough. It reminded me of Aliens in that respect. Only Johnny Depp seems to be getting kudos for bringing life and character to this film, but the screenwriters made sure that there was a shitload for him to work with right off the bat.

Anyhoo, during the trailers there was a minute-or-so long trailer for ROTK. It was just an ad for ticket preorders tho. When you preorder tix for big movies in Japan, they always give you neat junk. Matrix Reloaded came with a snazzy light-up cell-phone strap. ROTK tix apparently come with cell-phone straps too, with little triangular wedges that each show one of the ROTK calendar pics on one side and fit together to make a pic of the one ring on the back. Cell phone straps are big here. Everyone has a snazzy cell-phone that's always being used for games or email or something, so you need cool junk to personalize it with.

If you wanna see the stuff, go to the official Japanese LOTR movies site. The moving Flash button on the bottom, furthest to your right is what you want. You can tell cuz it's got one of the wedge-thingies on it.

Below that, check out the pretty box for the DVD "2 Towers Collector's Edition Premium Set," which comes with a special American teaser-poster ROTK ticket. The box, you may notice is BLUE, just as you reported ROTK merchandise would be. It says the promotion is going on thru the 31st. You can find more info about the actual DVD release here, though the DVD is no different from what the US getting this month. It's just that the extended edition DVDs won't be out here before ROTK, as far as I know. So the ticket promotion has to go into the theatrical edition release.

But I'll be in the US this December. I don't have to wait for the Japanese release. I know ENGLISH. Haha. /LaughatJapanesefans

Deep Thoughts

Been having fun playing with Japanese ingredients. Anyone who has ever gone food shopping with me knows I have one rule -- I have to try one new thing every shopping trip. Japan has been great for this. I've been staying away from the fish mostly, because I just don't like most cooked fish unless it's deep fried or something. But fried fish is fried fish, y'know? Not much difference when it's drowned in batter. I've tried a whole buttload of different meats, grains, shellfish, and veggies though. This week I tried garlic sprouts and myoga (ginger buds). Tomorrow, damned if I know.

Rainy season is winding down. GIANT YELLOW-SPOTTED BEETLE season seems to be in full force, however.

Sexual Healing

On Friday, we met the mangaka of a comic Reene and I both enjoy. Out of politeness, I will refrain from naming both the comic and his nom de plume in this entry. I'm sure many of you can easily guess the name of the comic to which I refer, however.

The comic's artist is shorter than I expected. ("You ain't Guybrush Threepwood. He's 7 feet tall and has a prehensile tail!") Also substantially more sane; I had been expecting someone more along the lines of my crazy electronics teacher of fuckable pinball machine fame. In addition, he was not even remotely as whiny as he sounds in the forums. All in all a fun person with whom to hang around.

We met at Hachiko at 4 and then spent the rest of the day drinking. You have to start early in Japan since the trains stop running at midnight. That is, unless you plan to stay out all night and go home at 5 when they start again.

We went to a nice, if expensive, horror-themed izakaya that had decent beer and great snacks. We then proceeded to poke at the local arcades, where Reene won another The Dog and the artist introduced us to another type of vending machine we'd not yet tried. These dispense small figurines and trinkets including DOAX figures and a soft-core porn viewmaster for Y100 to Y200. Soon after, we had cake and more beer. Then we went out for karaoke with Moti et al and had more beer. Moti and I sang Tell Me Why by The Penpals -- pehaps the most incoherent Engrish song ever written. The mangaka sang Sexual Healing as well as several white-rapper songs, the latter were duets with Reene. Damn, they looked funny ^_^. As the evening wore on, I sank lower and lower into my chair, until it was time to go home, a happy drunk. Thanks, however, to copious amounts of Amino Supli I have yet to have a hangover here.

Deep Thoughts

We went to Harajuku for kaiten sushi and desserts. I had a shaved ice sundae. Ph33r Japan's madd 1337 sundae skillz!

We passed a store selling t-shirts from a vending machine outside.

How much more advanced are Japanese cell-phones than American ones? Well, for one, there are som many different-looking models available that they actually market certain ones to different demographics based on fashion, replete with ads showing how the cellphone can match your nails and jewlery.

Texans -- you have been warned.

This was posted in the genkan of our building today in both English and Japanese.

"We're going to Kyoto, we're going far too slowto, in day or night you knowto..."

Kyoto smells like incense. It's amazing. You step out of the station and it just washes over you. A city of 1.4 million people should in no way smell so good. Chalk it up to the copious amount of temples I suppose. Our taxi driver took great relish in making us guess the total number thereof. 1,672. It's incredible. Kyoto isn't all that big, so cramming that many temples into the city is an amazing feat. They range from huge, sprawling complexes with manicured grounds and multiple pagodas to tiny little shrines, hidden away in alleys. The sex trade is also really big there. At least in Gion, where we were. Take two steps off any main street and you would run into either a shrine or a brothel. Take THAT Christianity!

On Thursday, we took the Shinkansen to Kyoto. It was very fast and very pleasant. Large seats, fast trip. The fastest one (the Nozomi) takes 2 hours exactly from Tokyo to Kyoto, a distance of 320 miles or so, at a price of 13,600yen. In comparison, Amtrack takes 3.5 hours for 200 miles at $140 (though off peak, you can get those seats for $80).

We took a taxi from the station to the Ryokan we were staying at: Gion Fukizumi. It turned out to be really nice. We were worried because it was so cheap. Ryokans vary wildly in price. Most of the ones we saw were 25,000yen per person, per night with breakfast included. Some also included dinner, but not all. The nicest ones run as high as 65,000yen per person per night. Gion Fukizumi was 15,000 per ROOM per night for 3 people (Moti, Reene, and myself). Great deal. It didn't include meals, but they could be bought seperately for reasonable prices. They also had a roof-top bath as well as 2 indoor baths. Each room had a private bath as well. We had a great view and a lovely 12-mat tatami room. It was full service, with tea and snacks waiting for us twice a day and our futons removed or laid out at the proper times.

After having some tea and getting settled, we went out for a walk and dinner. Kyoto is very pretty. It is full of old. We passed by the big kabuki theater that had lanterns many times the size of a person, as well as a procession of monks taking a shrine for purification or whatever. SHRINE GET! Then we sat by the river and did not get beaten up by local hoodlums, contrary to what the Lonely Planet guide would have you believe.

Bye-bye Birdie

Eventually, we found an okonomiyaki place that we THINK the concierge had recommended to us, but maybe it was a different one. The streets are tiny and very confusing. It was waaaay off the beaten track, hidden in an alleyway between a couple of brothels. We were greeted at the entrance by a black birdie that said, "Konnichiwa," and a fluffy, black and white doggie that decided to sit on our feet during the meal. Inside, there was one oldish woman and a TV playing dubbed Crocodile Dundee and a show about proper posture. There was no-one else in the restaurant for the entire hour and a half or so that we were there. I have been told that renting a store takes about as much money as renting and apt., and most of the owners live in the back room. So if they get just a few customers a month, they can recoup rent and food costs. This results in many, many tiny food places that seem entirely dead. The lady running the place was very nice and, like all the Japanese people we met, was very happy we spoke Japanese. She was particularly impressed that all three of us could read the menu. We ended up ordering too much food by mistake since we were used to eastern-style okonomiyaki where you each order okonomiyaki and then you make it on the grill in front of you. We though we were ordering 3 flavors of okonomiyaki, but what we were, in fact, ordering was 3 types of teppan-yaki and one Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is HUGE. You don't make it yourself because you need madd skillz to be able to do it. It's a giant, layered pancake or sorts that starts out about a foot tall and is eventually a 3" tall monster, filled with meat and noodles and veggies. With our stomachs already filled with kimchi, enoki-bacon, and vegetable teppan-yaki, we were hard pressed to finish the okonomiyaki even though it was very yummy. As we left, the birdie said "Bye-bye" to us, then "Yujou" (friendship) then "Konnichiwa" again.

On our way back, we passed a strange, alternate universe Coppertone ad at a ramen shop.

When we got back to the Ryokan, our futons were laid out and waiting for us. We got into our yukata and went to take baths. Unfortunately, the male and female baths were on seperate floors, so Reene had to go alone. The baths switched floors each day, so Reene got to try the roof-top bath the first day, and Moti and I used the first floor one. It was hot and nice. Moti was a wuss and wouldn't get all the way into the bath though. Too hot for him. So I splashed him with cold water from the tap and all was right with the world. We went back to the room and brushed our teeth with cute little disposable toothpaste/toothbrush ensembles and went to sleep.

Who wants to be a Shogun?

The next day, we went to Kinkakuji and Nijo Castle. But not before eating at this REALLY good bakery. Japanese...food...so...good. Ahem. Kinkakuji was pretty, but as usual, it was just a temple. Nothing particularly special once you've taken a picture or two. I really like how capitalistic everything is here though. Temples sell about a bazillion different Omamori (charms) to visitors, as well as fortunes and tacky "souveniors" and snacks. Even the gods want your money. Moti got a fortune which had a "we" in it (a character that hasn't existed in Japanese for over 100 years). This weirded me out. I mean, Yebisu beer is still spelled with a "ye" which also no-longer exists, but the Yebisu mall-thingy is spelled "Ebisu" because no-one knows that character anymore. Why his fortune had a "we" I do not know, but he was happy. Once you read your fortune, you're supposed to tie it to these strings, wich Moti did, and we left.

Nijo Castle was ok. I'm not a big fan of giant manor-type castles. It was a lot like Versailles in that there were huge, hot, open places and ugly, repetitious, boring architechture and rooms inside. It was BIG though. REALLY big. One room was 800-mats. A single mat, btw, is about 3x6 feet. It was BIIIIIG. The only cool thing about the castle was that all the halls had what were called Nightingale Floors. They had these brackets underneath which squeaked when any pressure was put on the wood. The sound is vaguely like a bird chirping. This is so that you always knew when someone was coming, making assasination that much harder. After looking at fish and walking up the guard towers to peruse the grafitti on the benches, we left for dinner. But not before having some tako-yaki to hold us over. The store where we got it offered a version called "negi bukkake." Thus, I learned that bukkakeru means "to splash." This was edifying in the extreme as I'm sure many of you can imagine.

Of Ninja Prawns

The only thing I had decided that I HAD to do while in Kyoto was to have Kai-seki ryori. This is the traditional high-class Kyoto meal. It consists of a whole bunch of small dishes, each with subtle seasonal ingredients, etc. It's supposed to be the height of Japanese cuisine. There are more expensive meals out there to be sure, but Kai-seki is the ultimate in traditional Japanese food. So, I treated the group to it. We got back to the Ryokan, had baths, and they brought us the food. The woman serving us was very nice and, again, impressed with our (read: Moti's) Japanese. Moti isn't very good at turning down compliments the way you're supposed to in Japanese culture. When she kept complimenting him, he said, "My Japanese isn't very good, but objectively...."

As arrogant as that may have sounded, when he used the word "objectively" she said his Japanese was really good and that was the end of it.

Anyways, the food. It was extremely impressive. And there was too much of it. There was tea, rice, miso soup with little clams in it, chawan mushi, a fish omelette of some sort, various sea-creatures, oshinko, a nutty paste thingy, noodle soup, sashimi, tenpura, sunomono, and green-tea jelly with azuki. I managed to eat most of it, so did Moti. Reene, on the other hand, took to playing with the prawn shells halfway through the meal.

After dinner, we walked around Gion again. We saw Yasaka Jinja at night with all the pretty lanterns lit. Then we passed through the main gate and went over to the expensive side of town with all the izakaya and such. It looked very old. It really didn't feel like the place had changed since the Meiji era except for the addition of a few sign posts. This was further reinforced by the ancient, unreadable kanji on the lanterns. I felt Kenshin-y.

After spending a little time at an arcade, where I won another of those boobs with the help of some teenagers and one of the people working there, we went back to the ryokan.

Kamaunu

Joe showed up at 8 or so the next morning. We decided to head over to the Kyoto Handicraft Center to get touristy crap. We walked along the river and, on our way, passed some herons, a guy who was obviously compensating for something, and a dog chasing a duck. The dog/duck thing was very amusing. The duck was obviously fucking with the dog's head. It would swim a bit foward, let the dog catch up, swim ahaead more, wait, swim ahead, etc. It flew out of the dog's reach a few times, but then made sure to double back so the dog could chase it again. There were also a few shanty-towns under the bridges. I'm also told that many of the bums living under the bridges actually have substantial savings in the bank, but just prefer living that way.

On our way, we passed a small shrine at which I learned an important thing -- the gods like Zima. Btw, you'll notice the swastika on the shrine. They're everywhere here. They're used as they were originally meant to -- to denote shrines. It makes me wonder how the Japanese felt about the Nazi party's symbol. Were they offended that the barbaric gaijin would use the manji? Or did they approve of the use of one of their sacred icons as the emblem of their ally?

At the handicraft store, I picked up a yukata with a horrible pun on it. It shows a picture of a farming tool like a sickle, called a "kama" and then has the characters "u" and "nu" after it. If you read it like a rebus, it says "kamaunu" which is the old way of saying "kamawan" (I don't care). Whee! Horrible puns. I am told I have "oyaji humor." Y'know, old-man humor. The kind you laugh at to be polite and then pity afterwards. ^_^

We spent some time in the park around Yasaka Jinja again. Saw a small traditional music concert, took some surveys about the war in Iraq for a high-school student, and ate some good grilled corn and sausages from a street vendor. Also saw some very impressive wisteria. There are pergolas covered with Japanese wisteria at just about every temple. That stuff grows BIG.

Soon, it was time to bugger off to Arashi Yama for Ukai (Cormorant fishing). I had a children's book about that, and it always made me sad. But everyone else wanted to see it, and it was pretty cool in the end. I'll get into it in a bit.

We wandered around town a bit. I had tomato gelato, which was interesting. And we had awful salt tea. We also saw the scariest road ever. As Reene demonstrates, it was very narrow. And yet, there were trucks driving back and forth on it regularly. There were lots of signs telling us not to fish and stuff, but my favorite was the sign telling us not to light monkeys' butts on fire via fireworks. Joe also discovered, entirely by accident, the highest pressure drinking fountain in the world.

Eventually, we boarded the boats to see the ukai. We saw the fishermen getting ready, then all the various guides tied the boats together in a line and we waited for dusk. While we waited, in another show of blatant capitalism, another boat pulled up next to us and offered fireworks and snacks, including grilled squid and other festival-type food. That was really cool. It was motorized btw. All the other boats were steered by bamboo poles. Our boat was navigated by a 60-70 year old guy. He was strong. It was impressive. He also had a voice box. That was weird.

Eventually, the ukai began. The fishermen lit big fires on the ends of their boats to attract fish and dropped the cormorants into the water. The cormorants had leashes around their necks as well as metal rings so that they couldn't swallow the fish they caught. Whenever they caught a fish, the guy holding the leash would drag them into the boat and take it from them. There was much squawking and protestation from the cormorant at this. It was sad. Everyone clapped.

Eventually we went back to the ryokan and bathed again. As you may have noticed, using the public baths is a big part of a ryokan stay.

"Meshi, meshi, meshi, meshi, meshi!"

On Sunday, we checked out. But not before I noticed that our TV (which cost 100yen per hour) had a built in Super Famicom (SNES) on top. Ah, Japan.

We dropped our stuff in lockers at Kyoto station and moseyed on over to Nara.

Nara has deer. This is what it is known for. Not really sure WHY it has deer, but it does. There are about 1,200 deer in a very large park that is bordered by three very large temples. The deer just sorta hang around and poop and eat your clothes. There are people there that sell senbei which you can feed the deer, and boy do the deer know it. For anyone who does not know -- deer are goats. There's really very little difference. They eat anything and they're really pushy. They will butt you until you give them all the food you have on your person. See as Reene attempts to avoid being gored. Moti and Reene were both swarmed for their senbei. Joe was brave enough to try one of the senbei, though he felt it important that he try to look like a deer with antlers as he did so. Perhaps so that the deer would not consider him competition. There were LOTS of deer, including some cute little fawns. There were signs telling us to stay away from the fawns though, otherwise lightning would come out of their mommies' heads.

Ah, Japanese capitalism. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. One is for your Hello Kitty dressed up as a deer. Two is for your DEER DROPPINGS CANDY! Three is for your DEER POOP PROTECTIVE CHARM! God I love Japan.

After passing a few monks, and some big statues of oni, we came to the shrine with the giant Buddah. Damn. It was HUGE. Sure, it looks pretty big, but look at the size of the people walking into it. Do you comprehend the enormity of this structure? The original building was actually 33% larger, but it burned down. This one is still the largest wooden structure in the world. The Buddah was pretty big too. Not as big as the one that was in Afghanistan, but the Taliban tore that one down. Bastards.

After that, it was basically time to go home. I can see why people like Kyoto better than Tokyo. It was cool to hear people talking in Kansai-ben and such, and it's much prettier and more comfortable than Tokyo. But Tokyo has more stuff. It's a bigger, livelier, more modern city. Still, I certainly wouldn't mind spending much more time in Kyoto.

In parting, let me add some wacky Japanese videogames.

The Dog-walking game.

The card-collecting-based semi-tabletop Soccer tactical RPG.

Oh, and I met Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Nu-i-de! Nu-i-de!"

We had a BBQ. The guest house where we are staying is run by a couple of young guys. In celebration of their second successful year running their several guest houses, they had a party for anyone who wanted to come. A whole bunch of people from the various houses showed up. I helped a bit with the BBQ. We started around 5:00 and were still BBQing late into the night. Japanese BBQ is yummy, but very different from BBQ in the US. Since Japanese meat is so expensive, what goes on the BBQ is extremely thin slices of fatty, crappy beef that's been marinated just about forever. You get a little of it to eat, but mostly you fill up on potato croquettes, salad, rice, snacks, pizza, and whatever else is available (which was a whole shitload of stuff in this case). We got to try some other grilled Japanese-y-type thingies, like a very strong green pepper whose name I forget and ayu. Ayu are the fishies that are caught by the cormorants with the rings around their necks so they can't swallow them. Reene was brave enough to try one and rather enjoyed it even though they were "looking at" her. I tried one too. They're pretty good.

For some reason, no-one wanted any lights on. Here's a pic with flash, and without. It was damned dark.

Once everyone had become sufficiently drunk, D.J. Jam-master Satoshi broke out his turntable and proceeded to create what are often referred to as "phat beatz." Jiro (our landlord) took this opportunity to get down with his bad self. This resulted in others getting jiggy with it. Or so I assume. Reene and I were mostly observers. Reene made friends with another gaijin who was equally disdainful of those pumping up the jam while the beat was thumpin'.

An interesting Japanese party phenomenon is that Japanese men must remove clothes. Their own. Others'. It doesn't seem to matter. Here is an animated gif detailing the clothes-removing behavioral patterns of the drunken Japanese landlord. Interesting that Jiro lost his shirt at a party that was supposed to be in honor of the profitability of his business. Soon, there was nary a shirt to be seen among the males in the herd. With the foreplay now completed, they proceeded to mount each other.

Moti tells me that when he was in Shibuya for New Year's, a bunch of men got up on the signs behind Hachiko, at which point the crowd proceeded to scream at them to take off their clothes. He was mightily pleased.

Foodstuffs

A word or several about Japanese food. I have already spoken at length about the wonders of Japanese food. It is good. Damned good. Here are some more examples. Reene and I were in need of home-y food. So we had steak and corn. Now, Japanese meat and corn may be more expensive, but hot-damn are they better. Behold, the Japanese sirloin. Have you ever beheld such marbling in your life? It's so tender that it simply falls apart when you bite into it -- even if you like your meat well-done as Reene does. Sure, it's about 1/3rd as thick as an American sirloin cut and costs a solid 1700yen, but what it lacks it size, it certainly makes up for in yumminess. The corn is actually much bigger than in the US and it's yellower and has a deeper corn flavor.

Chains that exist in America usually have much better food here too. Shortly after Reene had an aneyurism and DIED, we went out for ice-cream in Shibuya. Haagen Dazs. They had sundaes the like of which have never been seen in American malls. They were awesome.

Here are a few strange snacks I had recently. From left to right, David Beckham candy, Crunky, and Ramune hard candies.

When you go to the supermarket, there are actually people working there and screaming out what they have and ringing bells and stuff as if they were hawking their wares in some English farmer's market. But they're just sorta standing there by the open freezer, yelling. It's weird.

I tried natto finally. Natto is one of the two foods people tell you not to eat while in Japan. The other being umeboshi. I tried an umeboshi and rather enjoyed it (VERY sour, but with a nice, floral aftertaste), so I mentioned to the person cutting my hair (more on that later) that I wanted to try it. So she gave me some from her lunch. That was really sweet. But I think she just wanted to see the horror on my face as I ate it. It really wasn't that bad. It doesn't stink to high heaven like everyone told me. It sorta smells like coffee actually. And it's similarly bitter. The real problem with it is that is SLIMY. Really, really slimy. A single bean is enough to coat your mouth with mucus. I am not a fan.

Hanabi

This past week has been filled with fireworks. Fireworks are not illegal or even restricted in Jaan. The local convenience or departments stores carry a large selection. At the BBQ, we had some of the smaller, cheaper variants. Drunk people jumped through them. Oh, and this is the original, traditional Japanese firework. Impressive no?

In celebration of Ocean Day, there were fireworks in Yokohama. I's not yet been to Yokohama, but all I had to do was follow the girls in kimono.

Yokohama is a pretty city. There primary feature of the Minato Mirai area is a giant ferris wheel which tells time! There were also a couple of what appeared to be 5-story buildings. They reflected everything in rainbow hues. Turns out that they're a GIANT installation. Wow.

All the fireworks were pretty, but some were DAMNED impressive. Sorry for the blurriness of some of the pics, but getting fireworks with a digicam is difficult, as there's a delay. Behold, the cat firework! The Hello-Kitty firework! Another cat! And these were actually kites. The firework exploded and left these burning kites hanging in the air for a good 30 seconds.

Deep Thoughts

Got My hair cut. Japanese hair cuts are a whole production. First they sit you down and ask you what you want. Then they wash your hair. Then they cut it. Then they wash it again. Then they give you a head and neck massage and some tea. Then they dry your hair and send you on your merry way.

Behold: The Dog Station. I spoke of it earlier. You get a card and put in some money, buy a doggie, play with it an feed it and stuff, then save it to the card. Then you have to go back to any dog station at any arcade in order to keep taking care of your virtual doggie.

I haven't seen many hentai games since I've been here. Apparently this is because I've not been looking in the right places. Some game centers have back doors which are used to access the hentai game area. Moti pointed this out to me yesterday while we were at his local arcade in Otsuka. He told me that he saw this one game where you're just chasing after a girl and she keeps falling over and looking back and stuff. It's a stalker game. Yay! I guess I gotta find some of these games and take pics. ^_^

Moti and I played air hockey. The machines here are really cool. They automatically dispense the pucks and have multi-puck modes. Lots of fun.

Got Moti a horrible, pink Sakura PS2 (popup, sorry) for his b-day. They're pretty rare, but he wanted one. Found one used at Mandarake. It was sitting right next to a Playdia. Wow.

More on Japanese toilets. Often, home toilets will have a faucet running into the tank of the toilet. When you flush (either big flush or small -- it gives you the option), the water pours from the faucet into the tank so you can wash your hands with the pre-flush water.

Japan has just so much cool stuff. Over by the Tokyo Dome is an elevated amusement park with a roller-coaster and log-flume sort of built into and around a mall. Tokyo is much like Vegas I think.

Stupid Japanese. I was trying to read the second line from the right for like 2 minutes when it suddenly dawned on me that that's English. Bah.

There were some guys in Shibuya selling "Happy LOVE Psychedelic LEGAL DRUG." I wanted to take pic, but Reene wouldn't let me. She said they'd beat me up. This is why I need a camera phone.

This is one of the larger banks of vending machines I've seen. You can't tell, but there are about 16 in this pic.

The pile of l00tz continues to grow.

Tomorrow we leave for Kyoto. Hopefully the deer at Nara will not eat me.

Ok, I have finally finished fixing all the links to the pictures. Nearly every one works now, though if you cache your pages, you may need to refresh or delete your temporary internet files if you're using IE. Hopefully it'll just work though.

My Poor Ears

On Saturday, we went out to a Shonen Knife concert for Moti's B-day. We met at Hachiko and went to the club to get our tickets. We had about an hour to kill, so we went over to an all-UFO-catcher arcade nearby. These are actually very common. UFO-catchers play into the whole Japanese gambling thing, so they're about as omnipresent as Pachinko parlours. Often in the same building. Reene loves UFO-catchers, and thanks to her I've gotten into them too. After wasting some money on them, I have developed an unbeatable technique which allows me to win most things in under 1000yen. Reene has learned it too. This resulted in us essentially cleaning this arcade out. Between the two of use we spent maybe 3500 yen total, probably a bit less, and we won 6 stuffed toys, worth around retail 7200yen. We now have a pile of The Dog loot accumulating in the corner of our room. It is fun. Moti was extremely impressed. Reene modeled with our winnings at the end of the day.

After that, we stuck our madd 1007z in a couple of lockers and went to the concert. There were two opening bands. The first one was cute and pink, but not particularly great. They had one song which has unfortunately gotten stuck in my head however. Chorus was, "I love you, I love you, my darling. I love you, I love you, my honey. I love you, I love you forever." Imagine that sung in bouncy, squeaky, high-pitched Engrish. It was cute, if somewhat surreal. I've listened to a shitload of J-pop, and I rather like it. But seeing those voiced actually come out of someone's mouth is just strange. No-one should talk like an anime character in real-life. Oh, and they didn't have a normal drummer. There was this guy in the back, playing the drums for them. He wasn't part of the band-proper. So he wore a traditional Japanese bunraku outfit with the mesh mask and all. Bunraku is a type of puppet show btw. All the performers dress entirely in black, against a black backdrop and move the puppets around. It's really cool. Go see a performance if you ever get a chance.

The second band almost ruined the evening for me. They SUCKED. Our MC, a gaijin (who claimed to be Shonen Knife's biggest American fan) name Marty introduced them by explaining that their name was very hard to pronounce in Japanese. He then pronounced it properly in English: "Bloodthirsty Butchers." Everyone applauded. Because, y'know, it's very difficult for an American to pronounce English, but *shrug* that's how cool English is considered over here. It IS kind of strange to hear people switch over though. Most Japanese guys talk a little higher than English-speakers and Japanese has no dipthongs or controlled sounds, so hearing him switch from Japanese to a name with 2 controlled Rs in it WAS kinda weird. He then announced them in Japanese, "Bu-ra-do-ta-su-tei Bu-chia-zu," and the horror began. They were loud. They screamed and played their guitars as loud as possible. Not Pantera-style we-have-no-melody lound. They were loud because they were dumbasses. They had songs with melody and lyrics, but you couldn't tell because they were above the threshold of human hearing. Seriously. Everything sounded exactly the same because when you're that loud, you can't be heard anymore. It was nearly an hour of shit. And it hurt, because we were in a small club and couldn't get away from the massive speakers. It took 2 days for my ears to return to normal.

Finally, Shonen Knife came on. Everyone started bouncing and thrashing. Some guys were really into it. Like seriously, metal-style thrashing to bouncy J-pop. It was weird. People were actually making the Metal sign. There was one freaky gaijin there who was dressed in a hard hat and a yellow jacket and a red bow tie. He was REALLY thrashing. There was no moshing though, thankfully. Though when the freaky gaijin took several pics with the flash on, another, substantially burlier gaijin told him to stop and spit on him. It think he was just trying to look all cool and barbaric for his Japanese hoochie-mamma. Shonen knife was fun. I've never been a big fan of theirs though. They're too generic. They use more English than most groups though, so they've gotten popular in the US. They sing the Supergirl song that plays on Cartoon Network every so often. "You know I'm a Supergirl. Yes I'm a funky girl. I never say Die. No-one can stop me. 'Cause I like to FIGHT!" Marty jammed with them (cuz he's a gaijin and therefore cool enuf that people wanna see him onstage) and the the concert was over. We ate and went home.


Deep Thoughts

I went back to Tora Tora Tora, but they didn't have the boob machine anymore. It was sad. At least I won one before they removed it though. As far as I have been able to figure, it IS named after that Pearl Harbor signal...sorta. See, I think it's a pun. The verb for "to grab" is "toru," so I think they might be making a pun since the place contains only UFO-Catchers. It's still weird. I wouldn't name a music store "All-time Greatest Hitler." But then, I'm not Japanese.

The contents of most UFO-catchers skew along the lines of Snoopy, Disney (Pooh being the most popular), THE DOG, Lupin III, and mascot characters (like the NOVA rabbit). But you can actually find Evangelion stuff rather often too. This surprises me. It must have been even more popular than I had thought. It's over 7 years old now.

Metal Lives....in Japan. This guy's shirt listed a 2001 concert where there were bands like Sepultura and Slayer. Loudness still tours here.

One thing I forgot from the trip to Kamakura -- you can get candy Budda feet there. They're yummy. They taste sorta like cotton candy.

Petridish is still broken. I don't know when it's going to go back up. Fixing all the previous links will be hours of work. In the meantime, I'm putting up the past 12 days of info which I have not yet uploaded. All the pics for this entry are hosted on my site so they'll work just fine. We'll see what happens with Petri. If it gets restored, all the old links will work again. If not, I'll have to re-upload and re-link to all the pics. As I said, maybe I'll just host them myself. It's just that I rather liked the album viewing ability and the quick-loading thumbnails. Tell me if you feel strongly either way.

I love you, You love me...

Let's talk seriously for a moment here. I think the thing that has impressed me the most in my time here is the fact that nearly everyone seems to understand the concept of social responsibility. People get the idea that if you fuck shit up you're hurting someone, and if you do it enough, that someone will be yourself. There is trust here, and shame. There isn't litter everywhere, because no-one would want to be seen littering. There's very little grafitti because people don't want to have to look at ugly grafitti everywhere. There are cushioned seats on the train because no-one is going to tear them up since they understand that if they did so, there would be no cushioned seats for them to sit on either. There are public toilets all over the place that can exist because people try not to make a mess and they use them for what they were intended. The bums don't use them as a place to sleep for instance. Even the bums do their part to no rock the boat. They generally try to stay out of the way and mostly don't beg or panhandle. Thanks to no-one abusing the public toilets, they're there to be used, and the city doesn't smell like piss, unlike, say, NYC where I used to have to hop over streams of fresh bum-piss on my way to class. There was even this one guy who politely asked me if he could please have my can once I was done drinking from it since he was collecting them. And he was obviously making his best effort to not appear pushy or freaky. People even leave little boxes full of fresh veggies from their gardens for sale on their stoop. They write a little sign saying the price and asking you to take what you want and leave the proper amount of money. The fact that no-one steals either the food or the money amazes me.

I could give any number of other examples, but I've made my point. It just makes me really sad that this sort of thing couldn't exist in the US. Say what you will about the crazy Japanese an their awful business practices, sexism, racism, etc. You'd prolly be correct about all of it. But at least they understand social responsibility. Somewhere along the way, that got lost in the US. And I don't think you can blame it solely on splits along racial or financial lines. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, black or white; if you cut up those subway seats, you're not going to be able to sit on them anymore. Simple as that. Whatever you want to blame it on -- upbringing, society, whatever, the fact remains that the US is a much more unpleasant place to live because people have forgotten what the Japanese still remember: if you hurt other people in your society, you ultimately hurt yourself.

On the other hand, it bothers me that the city government doesn't put out any garbage cans. Throwing away garbage in Japan is a difficult song and dance of a process. Everything gets recycled. There are 3 basic categories for garbage: burnable, PET (certain kinds of plastic), and glass/metal/hard plastic. So you have to carry around your garbage with you until you find the right kind of garbage can to throw it into. The only place you'll ever see such receptacles is in front of a convenience store or in a park. Drink machines often have can receptacles next to them, but not burnable or PET. This means you can end up walking for miles with nowhere to throw stuff away. That's really annoying. The city should put at least a little effort into making it easier to throw stuff out. According to Moti, there isn't even bulk pickup anymore. You have to call the city to take away anything large.

On a related note, I littered. It really wasn't my fault tho! I littered by cat proxy. We were eating crepes in Harajuku and this kitty came over. I gave it some whipped cream which it licked off my finger. It was really cute, but very scared, so I put down the small remainder of my crepe on the ground and offered it to the kitty, figuring the kitty'd lick off all the cream and then I'd throw the rest away. Instead, the kitty grabbed the crepe in its mouth and ran away with it. Later, I saw that the kitty had left the half-eaten crepe lying in someone's driveway, but I didn't wanna trespass, so I left it there. If I get deported, you'll know who to blame. ^_^

Wacky Japanese arcade games of the day

Here, you play a host in a 2-man comedy show. You need to beat up the dummy of your side-kick/straight-man whenever he says something stupid. But make sure you don't smack him on the back of the head when you're supposed to be stepping on his foot!

In this soccer game, you actually have to kick that soccer ball on the floor whenever you wanna pass or shoot. It's really cumbersome.

Typing of the Dead upright arcade machine! Wheee! The Lupin the 3rd typing game is right next to it.


Shine Get!

On Sunday, we went to Sunshine City in Ikebukuro. It's a 4-building, 8-60 story indoor shopping complex. It's terribly confusing and rather boring and in the end, we failed to find the entrance to the aquarium (which was on the 10th floor of one of the buildings, but none of the escalators or elevators went past the 9th floor) or the lobster UFO-catcher.

Once we found our way out of that awful maze, we decided to just walk around a look for fun stuff to do. We ended up spending a bunch of time in arcades. They had lots of cool stuff including a train cart game, a surfing game, and Ryori no Tatsujin. The latter is a game where you have a knife and you attempt to cut up fish as quickly and precisely as possible. I, with my madd [00k1|\|g 5k1lz, was able to get the top score and recieved a tote bag for my efforts. You can see the dispenser thereof on the left. Whee!

Turns out that the Club Sega in Ikebukuro is where SEGA tests out its new arcade games. I noticed one there that is a fine example of why tabletop gaming is so scarce in Japan. It's called Key of Avalon. As you can see from this pic, it consists of 4 consoles around a larger screen. You see the full dungeon map on the big screen, while you see on the part you're exploring on the smaller screens. The game dispenses data cards on which your character and stats are stored, and you carry it around to any available Key of Avalon station to continue your quest and building up your character. There are a whole bunch of games that work this way. There's one where you have a pet dog that you keep on the card and you must got to the stations to feed it and play with it. There's another whicxh functions a lot like Magic, wherein you hasve to buy packs of cards that have different characters stats on them, then you take them to the approriate game and place them down on the table in the proper places. The game reads the cards and builds up your forces or your sports team or whatever accordingly. Some such systems have as many as 20 consoles around the big screen. It's a lot prettier and ultimately a lot more expensive than traditional tabletop, but it's damned cool.

Another type of game you'll see everywhere in Japan are "Medal games." Essentially, these are gambling machines. But there is a no gambling law in Japan. So the way they get around this is for you to trade in yen for medals (just like tokens in the US). You then try to win stuff from incredibly cool-looking slot machines and such and then cash in your winnings for prizes. Certain specific prizes can then be taken outside to a small pawn-show-type window, which is ostensibly not affiliated with the game center, and sold back for realy money. The prize is then returned to the game center for about 1yen so as to seemingly form a business transaction and all is right with the world.

These medal games are nuts. Now, I've never been to Las Vegas, but I feel moderately safe in assuming that this shit is Japan-only. Some things are just technologically cool, like the DVD/Laserdisc-based game which projects a life-size blackjack dealer who talks to each player in turn, dealing out digital cards on a projected screen beneath the table, neatly fitting a normal blackjack game into half the space with no possibility of cheating (except on the computer's part). Then there's the bingo-type game that has the giant basketballs bouncing around inside a psychedellicly lit chamber. Or the push-the-coin-over-the-edge machines that have waterfalls of medals pouring over the sides for decoration. But the coolest one, hands down, is Dragon Treasure. I couldn't get a decent pic of it cuz they weren't allowing photographs of the test machine. But hot damn. It's an RPG. There's this giant console with 6 screens and a huge dragon over it. The player sits at one of the screens. The screen is recessed behind a glass plate and is sitting next to a treasure chest. The player has control of 2 chutes into which they can slide medals. The chutes can be pointed in different positions. You choose your character, stats, class, etc, then you're dropped into a dungeon. When in walking mode, you need to drop in medals and aim them at the "walk foward" icon to get the character to advance. Eventually, they'll either run into a treasure chest, a random encounter, or a boss. Treasure chests will give you medals, random encounters and bosses will actually drop you into a combat mode where you have to shoot medals as quickly as possible at the area onscreenwhere the enemy is currently standing. When their HP is depleted, you win more medals. When you win the medals, they actually fall into the treasure chest and then down into the drawer at your knees. At the graphics are really nice 3D and the frenetic pace ensures that you will easily spend more medals than you get back. It's a damned cool-looking game. And it seems very popular at that arcade. Only in Japan, seriously. And it's not the only gambling RPG out there; it's just the most impressive.

At the end of the day, we came home loaded down with The Dog and The Cat loot that Reene and I had won from UFO catchers. It was fun.


Kamakura, or Why the Budda Will Appear in a CLAMP Series, or Journey to the Center of the Mountain

Kamakura is the sort of place where I generally don't take pictures. It's not something you can really understand without being there. Kamakura = Shrines & Temples. Lots of them. Nothing else. It's very pretty, but you really gotta be there. Anyways, you've prolly seen about a bazillion shrines in pictures before. So, I'll just point out a few things of interest.

There were inordinately friendly squirrels.

Some asassain hid behind this tree and killed some guy back in the day. Ask Moti for details.

It rained while we were looking at this huge pond, full of water lillies. I had never seen this particular kind in real life before, but I had seen hundreds of paintings and sculptures of them. Now I can see why so many people are obsessed with them. They're gorgeous. When the rain hits them, each individual droplet falls down the edge and collects in the center. The leaf is completely waterproof. When enough collects, the leaf tips and a river of droplets run out of it onto the next leaf and ultimately into the pond below. It was very Zen. I could have watched it for hours. We actually sat there for at least 20 minutes watching it and getting soaked.

If you look at this pic of the giant Budda, you can actually see a sculpture of those lillies on the right.

You can go inside the giant Budda. There are windows coming out of his back. One day he will appear in a CLAMP series and wings will sprout from there. Mark my words.

Like I said before, lots of trust and personal responsibility in Japan. When you go into the Budda, you have to pay 20yen. There's no one watching you. You don't have to pay. Hell, you could just steal all the money that people had already paid. But no-one would.

Pretty cemetary.

The Money Washing shrine was damned cool. The idea is that you wash your money in this sacred stream and then you'll get more. Whatever. But damn it was pretty. Here, lemme give you the setup. You walk up the mountain and it gets darker and darker. The tree cover is insane. This pic was taken at 3:45 in the afternoon on a pretty bright day. You pass thru the tori gate into a tunnel, which is the only way into the shrine. You come out in a little valley in the center of the mountain. Inside, there are waterfalls and koi ponds and another cave where you go to the underground spring and wash your money. The cave is decorated with Triforces and strings of thousands upon thousands of origami cranes. It was absolutely gorgeous. If you ever go to Kamakura, make sure to go there.

Deep Thoughts

Think I'll pick up books I've been wanting to read while I'm over here. They'll be the best possible impetus for reading practice when I get back. I can pick up a few of the 23 Vampire Hunter D books, Legend of Lodoss (the Lodoss War prequel series), Parasite Eve, and maybe some of the Tylor books. I wanna read Legend of Galactic Heros (aka Boring Germans in Space), but it'll be years before I can deal with such complex military and strategic language.

The Battle Royale 2 clothing line. Laforet had a whole storefront devoted to it. For kids too! If you aren't aware of it, Battle Royal was a very controversial, ultra-violent Lord-of-the-Flies-type movie that came out a year or two ago. The sequel just came out here.

The nonsensical English on shirts can really get strange. I got myself a shirt which talks about "Job control Statement if it is followed the ground and surrounded by boos impermanence of all things." But if that's a bit too weird for you, you can always get a shirt with a warm and thoughtful message. That way you'll always know that you heart are fat. Store names don't seem to have much to do with their content either. Agent Orange is a frilly, expensive jewlery and shoe store.

I have set my crappy, $35 cellphone to play a 44khz sample of "Dancing All Alone" by Smile D.K. when it rings. Why Japanese tech so good? Oh, and FYI, battery tech here is way better than anything on US phones. The batteries on most cellphones, including mine, are about 3 mm in depth and weigh next to nothing, yet last for days and days on a single charge even under heavy use.

It's weird what you miss in a foreign country. In this case, it was cheese. Reene and I tracked down a block of decent, mild cheese and sat in our room eating it with a loaf of French bread. I didn't realise how much I missed cheese. Do not take cheese for granted!

By the way, I apologize about how blurry some of the arcade pics I take are. You're generally not allowed to take pics in arcades, so I do it as quickly as I can. This sometimes results in blurry pics.

For all you SexyLosers fans out there -- the Sharp Fappy. (FAX makes it happy.)

Petridish (the site that hosts all my pictures) seems to be down today. Maybe I should move them to my own web server. *shrug* Either way, until it's up, I won't be posting my next update and all previous pics will be unviewable...sorry.

Yesterday, we met Moti in Ginza and went to the SONY building. It's basically a giant showroom of the latest Sony stuff. We were duly impressed.

Cool Gadgets on display:

Blue Ray Disc Player/Writer -- This is SONY's answer to the HD-DVD issue. It's a DVD that uses a smaller wavelength blue-laser to read much more information off of the same physical size disc. For those of you not in the know, the DVD consortium has been trying to decide on a format for High Definition recording and playback. Panasonic has a version, there's another one by Phillips I think, and there's one that uses compression to fit HD on existing DVDs. Sony has, in a move that makes me want to suck all their capitalist-pig dicks, released their version directly to the market without waiting for those assholes at the DVD consortium to make up their minds. And what do those impotent morons do? They say, "Well! You can't use the name 'DVD' then! You're not properly endorsed!" Sony's response: "Who's gonna stop us?" The logo is prominently displayed in the lower left. /loveSony

DVD Walkman -- a small, compact DVD-writer/player with a tiny LCD screen. Easy to take anywhere. Can be hooked up to a laptop or used on its own. 8+ hours of battery life.

Mini-Laptop -- Fully functional WinXP laptop in only about 8"^2. 256mb base RAM, 600mhz Celeron processor. 60gig hd. 32-bit SXGA color screen. I forget the res. Pretty sure it was 800x600, which is just fine for a screen that small. Really damned sexy. Reene said it made her underwear moist. I'd love to carry one around with Jim Breen's JDIC loaded on it. *drool*

They had about a bazillion plazma and LCD TVs on display. Some were very nice, but for my money ($13,000 to be exact) the best picture came from the

Qualtia CRT -- Wow. Like, seriously, fucking wow. Fuck the WEGA series. This whups its ass. The HD feed they had running on it was absolutely flawless. The were showing these vistas of the Swiss Alps and you could see the individual blades of grass blowing in the wind. Perfect color and contrast. But 40" for $13,000? That's still too steep, even for such perfect quality.

Clie with video camera -- A fully fledged digital video recording and editing system in a tiny Clie PDA with WiFi so you can upload video from the show floor at E3. /creamself

Ericsson SO505i -- It's cute. It's a little digicam that fits in the palm of your hand, then twists in half to become a cellphone. They had a MASSIVE, and fully functional one on display. This woman was trying to call her cellphone with the giant one. Didn't stick around long enuf to see if she succeeded. LOTS of ads for this thing all over the place.

SoNET broadband -- In the great tradition of fucked-up Japanese advertising, the mascot for Sony's broadband service is a pink dog with an afro. One of the ads on TV for it consists of a soul-train-tyle music video. Lotsa big, pimpin' black guys dancing and singing about how "Captain Broadband" is here for you. Then it shows how your afro will grow to mammoth size in only 12 months of using SoNET broadband. Oh, btw, everyone has ADSL here. What you pay for it depends on how much bandwidth you want. For $20/mo I'm getting 1.5mb/sec. 12mbps for 4000yen is about average. It goes up to 100mbps -- referred to as "Light-speed." Back in the US we feel sexy if we're getting 500k. /whine

Oh, offhand, one other cool tech toy I've seen around -- Tokyo GPS. You stick it in the dashboard of your car and you get 3D renders of every intersection you have to go thru or turn at as well as an overhead map that's updated every second or so. It's apparently the only way to find your way around Tokyo, considering that street signs are almost nonexistent and 2-way streets are similarly rare.


After the Sony building, we went to Tokyo Tower. It was, umm, Tokyo Tower. We looked at things. A bit surreal that we didn't get sucked into another dimenson from there or get crushed beneath godzilla's massive girth (especially considering the ominous music they play on your way up and the whole time you're there), but other than that it was a tall structure. Whee. We did see this weeeeird-looking building tho. The name has the "rei" kanji in it, so thatindicates it has something to do with spoooky spirits. *shrug* The mascot for Tokyo Tower (because everything in Japan needs a mascot) looks like a pink doggie penis. Seriously.

Following our escape from Tokyo Tower, we went to Shinjuku. Moti showed us an arcade that he likes and we got to watch him in his natural habitat -- in front of a Guilty Gear XX machine. I really don't know why Guilty Gear hasn't caught on in the US. It's easily the best and most original 2D fighting game series to come out since Marvel vs. Capcom. To boot, it's gorgeous. It has crazy character designs, fluid framerate, a kickass hard and industrial rock soundtrack, and is the only 2D game ever to run in full NTSC 720x486 resolution. *shrug* Oh, and btw, when was the last time you saw an arcade like this in the US? The days of rows and rows of fighting games and other competitive one-player games is over in America. But here, it's still going strong. In fact, there were only a couple of the sorts of shooting and racing games that make up the contents of the average American arcade today and they weren't being used much. Here, you can see a 4-player shooting game called World Combat next to a Taiko no Tatsujin machine. Fzero GX and Inidial D Second Stage seem to be the only popular racing game right now. I played Taiko no Tatsujin. We tried out the home version for PS2 at the SONY building btw. Not nearly as impressive. The little drums just aren't as satisfying as those biiiiig ones. Reene spent most of the time wasting about 2000yen on UFO catchers.

Then we had Indian food with MASSIVE naan -- seriously, like 2.5' long and a foot wide. It was yummy.


Deep Thoughts

I had a shrimp burger. It had actual little shrimp in it. I was expecting just chopped up, unidentifiable fish bits. But no, whole yummy shrimp. It was good.

It rained. A LOT!

The things that one can find in UFO catchers never cease to amaze me. I actually haven't seen any that have anime plushies in them. Most seem to have The Dog or Pooh. But this one had boobs. Nothing but squishy, disembodied boobs.

The tunnel between the Ginza and Higashi Ginza stations is filled with ornate lamps, stone sculptures, and living plants. Murals on the walls too. In my mind, I compare this to the piss and garbage filled tunnel between Port Authority and Times Square. Then I cry.

American-Hamburger-flavored chips. Surprisingly accurate.

A waffle. Filled with ice-cream and chocolate. BRILLIANT!

Got a cellphone today. Won't be here for a year, so I can't sign a contract. Had to get a prepaid phone. Per-minute rate is awful, but whatever. Now, lemme point out, that for $35 or so with no contract, I got a color phone with a relatively big screen that can do email and custom ringtones and stuff. This would cost me easily $200 (before rebate of course) in the US and would require a one-year contract. Such a rip off.

Braved the scary statue of the Colonel and got KFC today. Had a melon soda, a cheese 'n rice ball, and a curry chicken cutlet on naan sandwich. It's always neat to see what American chains sell in other countries.

Reene and I just went out for dinner. We went to this little yakitori joint in town. Goddamn, why don't we have places like that in the US? It's tailor-made for hanging out and drinking while eating mountains of good comfort food with your friends. As usual, it looks just like you've seen in any anime or movie. As Reene said, you could have walked into that place 50 years ago and it would have looked exactly the same. You enter through the cloth door proclaiming "Yakitori." Everything is made of wood. There's a long counter on one side and small tables on the other. There is no menu. All the items they serve are written by brush on paper sheets hanging over the counter and on the walls. You look around, see what you want, and order it from one of the guys in head-bands running around and yelling out orders. Most things are 100 yen or less. It's beautiful. We just sat there drinking beer and ordering plates of food. We left fat and happy and only slightly drunk. Even though I couldn't understand 2/3rds of the stuff on the menus, it was a wonderful moment. I only wish such places existed in America. I would go there all the time.

Cars in Tokyo usually have the side-view mirrors way out on the hood of the car so you can see around all the blind corners on the tiny roads throughout the city.

Cooked corn. In snack packs. In the snacks aisle. Amazing.

Japanese courses are flawed. Reene and I are nearly unable to function here. Like mildly retarded people. I am spending all my free time learning kanji and vocabluary.

Stalking the Wild Potter

So, this morning, we got up early (5am) and took the train out to Shibuya to get Reene her copy of the new Harry Potter book. See as she approaches the beast carefully. Eyeing it warily, she cautiously reaches out a hand. The beast remains unresponsive. Calmly, she strokes the fearsome animal, letting it know that it has nothing to fear from her. Cradling it in her hands, she slowly removes it from its nest, wary of other predators....and she's off! Quick! Before the mother returns! Run!!!

After all that excitement, I left her to buy clothes and read whilst I buggered off to Shinjuku.

Skyscrapers, Shopping, and Brothels...Oh my!

Shinjuku is kinda weird. When you come out of the Shinjuku San-Chome JR-line exit, you are faced with what appears to be the same sort of content that you would find in Akihabara. Not so, however. This is merely a facade. Stray but a little to your right, and you will find yourself in an upscale version of Harajuku, with little brick-paved streets and many fashionable boutiques. Look behind you, and you will discover an Urban forest of tall, polished skyscrapers, Huge department stores and open plazas. Press on straight foward, however, and you will soon find yourself in the seedy red-light district, where even on a Saturday morning you will find men standing on the streets, trying to entice you into their establishments with images of exotic women and calls of, "Sir! Do desu ka MASSAGE?"

Seriously, there's this little chunk of Shinjuku, consisting of about 12 very small blocks or so, which is constructed entirely of strip clubs, sex-toy stores, and brothels. Oh, and the occasional pachinko parlour or 7/11. Some of the brothels even have menus outside, showing the girls available and how much it costs per half hour with them. I was just getting the lay of the land today, but I'll have to go back there and check it out more thoroughly. Too bad Japan's sex industry is an AIDS-infested hellhole though...

Back in the shopping area, I passed some intersting places like this karaoke bar, and this fugu restaurant. There were also a couple of places that had sushi going around on a converyor belt for 100yen a plate. I'm definitely gonna try one of those places out. 2 pieces of sushi for 100yen prolly means that it's not particularly good sushi, but hey, it'll be fun.

The skyscraper-y area was pretty boring, so no pics of it. BUT! I did find an interesting building tucked away in there. Tokyo was built entirely without a plan, and still continues to be. So you find strange buildings stuck wherever someone could find a piece of land to stick them. Thus, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you -- THE THINNEST BUILDING EVER!!!

While I'm on the subject of buildings, while I was in Shibuya today, I ran across this one. It disturbs me. It appears to be named after the code signal that the Japanese used to confirm the bombing of Pearl Harbor...

Oh, other funny store names I ran into today: Nudy Boy (for a clothing store...which would seem to me to negate the idea of a Nudy Boy), and, well, ummm...can any of you tell me what Vikings and Pasta have to do with one another?

Maybe you would be able to tell me if you had more knowledge of Tokyo. Why, that's a great idea! Then you could run tours! You could be a Tokyo Bus Guide! Bear with me on this one. It's a game, called Tokyo Bus Guide. You drive around a bus and pick people up and take them places like in Crazy Taxi. Only you're in a big, sit-down rig like for 18 Wheeler. And it's not Crazy. You have to follow the signals and traffic laws and wait for pederstrians and remain under the speed limit. Ummmm.....w00t?

Deep Thoughts

Remember the crows I talked about? They were all over Shibuya this morning. They were after the garbage that was all over the place. I swear, it looked like NYC. I guess that people just get drunk off their asses on Friday nite and it can't be helped.

The Japanese train their children to catch whales at a young age.

Whee! My first anti-American, anti-war protest outside of the US!

I am confused by this Ballet Academy [middle of the pic] smack in the the middle of the red light district. I'll bet anyone 1000yen that it's really just a ballet-school-themed strip joint.

This UFO catcher was playing the Marble Zone theme from Sonic the Hedgehog, so I walked over. It seems to contain only pissing cherubs (some beer's mascot btw) and multicolored pieces of poop. Well boy-howdy I gotz ta spend 100yen tying ta get me one of those!

Poster for the new, theatrical, Japanese production of Stand By Me. Somehow, it's just not the same without the fat kid...

And for the Tolkien geeks: "A L-Breath, Gilthoniel..."

Black people are cool. Or at least, the Japanese think so. So much so that stores in Harajuku hire black people to dress up in hip-hop-style clothing and stand outside the stores, accosting people and telling them in pseudo-gangsta-slang that they should come in and buy stuff. What makes it relatively ludicrous is that almost all of them are from Africa, and so they speak with thick African accents, or in French.

I saw a book entitled, "The Dark Story of Eminem." He's really popular here. That song of his from 8-mile was #2 on the top ten list this week.

Some hentai stores/floors have supermarket style candy/toy dispensers which dispense nude figurines for 500yen each.

The word Hentai is really never used in in the stores. Sometimes you'll see that something is H-rated, but nothing more. Everything is called Adult. In katakana. Weird.

I want a burrito. But there's almost no Mexican food here. There's an El-Torito in Shibuya, and Royal Host sells quesadillas and tacos on their menu, but that's all in Tokyo proper. Either way, I couldn't find a proper burrito anywhere. It's sad. I have a hankering for Chipotle. Maybe I should try getting some Indian food, but that'd be a pretty far train ride just for lunch. Nyeh.

So, is there anything people want me to look for or take pictures of or research while I'm in Japan? These posts will slowly become smaller once I cover most of the big stuff. If you want a me to cover anything specific, tell me. ^_^

Oh, FYI. For anyone who doesn't have both myself and Reene on their friends list, you may want to check out her journal too on occasion as she will sometimes have info that I have not covered and do not want to repeat so as to avoid spamming friends lists.

Such as, for instance "Most of the phones now have cameras, even the free ones, and according to Moti it's been agreed on by the phone companies that the cameras must make a loud noise when taking a picture, so no one can take a picture of you without you knowing. 'cause people were putting 'em under women's skirts on the train and taking pics, etc. Seems obvious to me -- how disappointing for the perverts! Maybe there is some way to disable the sound."

See? You needed that info. I know it!

P.S. -- Moti has informed me of a poll whereon someone commented that according to the laws of nature, the smart crows whose numbers are increasing and are adapting faster than they can be killed have more of a right to live than the stupid Japanese who have all sorts of problems and are noticeably declining in population.

Wow, it's actually clear today. Every day since we've been here has been rainy and humid and hot. The humid/hot condition is so ever-present in Japan that there's actually a word for it: mushiatsui.

So, yesterday and the day before, I went to Shibuya. I was on crack when I said we were 30 minutes out from it. It's 45 on the express and a solid hour on the local. Either way, that's still like being in Brooklyn, so no foul I guess. Reene and I went together the first day and met up with Moti at the statue of Hachiko (most popular meeting place in Tokyo by some accounts). (For anyone who doesn't know, Hachiko is a super-famous dog. His master died while at work and never returned home, but the doggie kept returning to wait for him at the station. After several years, he died right there, waiting, and they built a statue of him on the spot where he died as a testament to his loyalty.) There was a crazy gaijin there, talking to himself. Way to go dude, as if they didn't think we were crazy enough already. We looked at stuff, got the lay of the land, had ice-cream.

Ice-cream here can get really impressive. Capfox already took pictures of the stuff at the place we went, but ours was actually a bit more impressive. Mine had bananas and mint leaves on it as well as pocky and strawberries. Reene got aloe-flavored frozen-yoghurt. Seemes to be a popular flavor. Of all the uncommon (to the US) flavors here, I like melon the best. Food in general here is brilliant. THe Japanese do things witrh food that make me scream, "Yes! Why has no-one ever done this before?!" Case in point -- Coolish. It's drinkable ice-cream! Somehow they made ice-cream which melts quickly at any temp above 8 degrees celcius. Really quickly. Like, in 3 minutes. So you have this capri-sun-style juice-pack filled with ice cream. And you walk down the street drinking it. See? Brilliant! Other good food includes starch paired with starch -- like noodle sandwiches, or egg-salad/potato sandwiches. Delicious. Convenience stores have really good food for pretty cheap in high-quality with good selection. One could live off it easily and healthfully. In oither food-related news, we went into the Shibuya station Tokyu store. (FYI - Tokyu is one of the private train companies. At each one of their stations, they have a store that people can go to to get stuff on their way home or to wherever -- cleanly negating the need for private competition from grocery and department stores. Yay for monopolies!) Anyways, the Tokyu store in Shibuya has a MASSIVE and pretty expensive food section. It's easily bigger than most supermarkets. And my god! The food I saw that I want to eat. It could take me years to try everything if I went there for one meal a day. The most impressive thing was the beef. There was so much marbling in it that I bet the ration of fat to meat was 1:2. It was beautiful. We also got fresh cream-puffs from a store in the station that sells only cream-puffs. They were very good. There's a really old lady who begs at the station, btw, and she tried to get me to give her one. I was tempted, but she's there every day, she seems to target foreigners since they ostensibly won't know she's always there, and she lies to make you feel sorry for her. It's really annoying. I'd be much more inclined to give her food or money if she wasn't so disingenuous.

Oh, the cubic watermelons just shipped to stores. Yes, that's about $100 US for a melon. In fact, it's an inedible display-only melon. This stems from a tradition of giving gifts as apologies in Japan. There are stores that specialize in selling extremely expensive fruit to give as apologies. So this is an apology melon. And a damn cool one at that.

We also went to the local Mandarake while we were there. Damn, that place is impressive. From the decidedly freaky storefront (which contains a monitor displaying the veritable warren below), you descend 2 levels (4 flights of stairs), through flashing lights and tunnels until you reach the inner sanctum. Mandarake is one floor, but it's as if the entire contents of several 7-floor stores in Akihabara was spread out on one giant floor. There are old games and game systems, doujinshi, toys, more manga than you can imagine, cels, and lots of costumes. There were even some 7-foot full-3D stand-ups of major anime robots, like Giant Robo. We were duly impressed.

I went back to both Shibuya and Akihabara yesterday. I got an electronic dictionary for kanji and stuff, which was nescessary. I also played some Taiko no Tatsujin. I sucked, but it was really fun, if expensive. 200yen for 1 play. 'Course, that play lasted somewhere between 8-10 minutes, so it's fine. There were all these American and J-POP songs that you could do Taiko drumming to. That was cool. Something interesting about Japanese arcades -- almost all the fighting games seem to be set up with two monitors facing away from each-other and only one set of controls on each side. Weird. It takes up more space in an area where space is so limited. It's better for the players, but I find it strange that such a choice was made. I'm used to the "Fit the most you can into a given space" method of arcade planning.

While in Akihabara, I made sure to peruse the porn more thoroughly. I found much of the stuff I was looking for. Since Japan is the land of the rising pr0n, I have been ordered by people in America to find something so depraved and weird that it has gone through sex and come out the other side. I am doing my best. It is good. I remain amazed that no matter what your interests or fetishes, there is SOMETHING officially published for you in Japan, and if you want more content, there's always doujinshi. I am also amazed at the ability of the Japanese to make things cute. There's this series by Uziga Waita called "Mai's Daily Life," about an immortal girl who is a maid for a very abusive woman. In fact, the whole town is very abusive to her. She gets killed in very gory manners at least once per issue. Think of her as an erotic, graphically gory Kenny. Somehow, the artist manages to take these horrifying situations and make them CUTE. I actually caught myself smiling as Mai puts her various bits through a meat-grinder in an attempt to make something yummy for their new pet -- a body-modded quadruplegic. You really have to see it to understand. There's also some really good-looking real-time 3D CG porn available for the PC. Good production values. Not quite DOAX-level, but close enough. I was impressed. It seems that a crappy american 3D porn game came out under the same name. What are the odds?

Deep Thoughts

There are crows in Tokyo. Big ones. That caw. Remember the opening to Lain? Yeah, just like that.

Speaking of loud animals, the cats here are full of meow. They just meow and meow. You can track individual cats by their meow. It upsets me, as American cats only meow like that if there's something wrong. Japanese cats seem to do it simply to announce their presence...perhaps to other cats?

Big, Tokyo-style roach in our room. Yee-haw!

When you go to noodle places, sometimes they'll have a vending machine with lotsa buttons just inside or on the outside. You punch in what you want, pay, then hand the ticket to a guy and you get the noodles you ordered. I went to this place in Shibuya and got "Iron Fire" ramen. It was very spicy. I was impressed. It killed my tongue. I had been told you really couldn't get spicy stuff in Japan. You just need to know where to look I guess.

I played some Densha de Go at Aso Bit City. It's freaky. It has all the real controls you'd have in a proper train. In fact, there are other controllers as well, depending on the type of train you want to be emulating. Now when I ride the train I imagine playing the game. It's kinda cool that such a detailed train-driving game exists. Also kinda scary.

Aso Bit City has a floor devoted half to mecha kits and half to incredibly realistic gun replicas the Japanese gun-freaks buy because they are not allowed to own real guns. It's pretty surreal.

A new version of Typing of the Dead is out. And there's a Lupin III typing game too.

I am drinking a Calpis Sour while I air our futons out the window. I feel Japanese-y.

Whistle a Happy Tune

Everything makes music here. *dingle dingle* Me: "What's that?" *beeep bop boop dingle ding* Me: "It sounds like an ice-cream truck!" /rushtowindow Japanese female voice: (Please bring your garbage down to the curb. Thank you for your help. Please wait just a moment.) Me: "Uhhhhhh..."

Yes indeed folks, it's the amazing musical garbage truck! The garbage trucks roll down the street, broadcasting a happy tune that sounds vaguely like "Mammy's little baby loves shortening" and announcing their arrival in the standard pleasant Japanese femal voice. First off, really, I don't need to be aware of the big stinky truck coming down the street. Especially considering that garbage has to be out at the curb by 9am anyways. Second, IT TALKS AT ME! Why? And of all things, it speaks in a half-way sexy voice. Mmm...that tailpipe sure is looking good now... Yurk.

But seriously, it's hardly out of the ordinary here. The larger crosswalks have traffic signals that play music for the duration of the walkable time. Many trains do that too, until the doors close. The smaller crosswalks have the sound of birds singing. I am lead to believe that a great deal of this is for the blind, as there is essentially brail running down many streets and walkways. A straightaway is dentoted by raised dashes, while a turn or a door is dots. This makes me wonder though, what if there really ARE birds singing by the crosswalk? Does this result in visually-challenged roadkill?

Being a Good Smoker

There are smoking ads everywhere here. Smoking is not even slightly taboo, except in that there are smoking and non-smoking sides of SOME restaurants. Though, I feel that this is outweighed by the smoking restaurant CHAIN. I saw one thing that I think really exemplifies the whole culture of smoking in Japan, I'll take a pic if I see it again. It was an ad that said, "Are you a good smoker?" It then proceeded to show a picture of a guy and note all the things that good smokers should do, like not throw the butts on the ground, etc. Litter, not health, is the primary worry here. Y'know, smoking may be dead in the US, but the smoking companies are just laughing up their sleeves and moving on to different markets. Once Asia gets wise, it'll be Africa. There's always some developing, non-health-conscious place to sell to.

Yopparai

Moti took us to Harajuku for clothes shopping for Reene, followed by Thai food and karaoke. I got drunk. It was good. I was entirely willing to use my horrible, broken Japanese. Harajuku is very much like the Village in NYC. The Takeshita Doori side has lots of pretty cool clothing stores, freaky, gothy J-Rock clothing stores, etc. While the Omotesando side has the basic chains like the GAP. We had crepes, which are available everywhere here, like hot-dogs in NYC. There were cats. We did not, unfortunately, get to the Rock Fuck store.

Porn-damonium

Yesterday was my first soujourn to Akihabara. More like a geek pilgrimage, really. Akihabara: the mere name conjurs up images of anime and gaming selections unimaginable outside the land of the rising sun. It does not disappoint. Here's a basic overview of Akihabara's "Electric Town" There's a main street that was cordoned off for pedestrians only while we were there. There are many thin, tall buildings with about 8 floors a piece plus a basement. Each one has a ground level floor that is completely open to the outside with all their newest stuff displayed as they try to lure you inside, unless they're porn stores. Then they have big-name PC games outside and nothing but porn inside. Makes no sense. No one is fooled. Everyone knows you're in there to buy porn. Anyways, one side of the street and all the side streets behind it seems almost entirely devoted to firstly portable electronics, then appliances, then PCs. As cute and small and seemingly made for the Japanese market as Macs are, they have made little penetration. In fact, only the one, lone Switch store sells Macs as far as I could tell. On the other side of the street is all the geeky hobby stuff. Anime, gaming, and a buncha manga.

Gamers (of Digi Charat fame) is right next to the station. It's WAY bigger than I expected. Like most stores in the area, it consists of 8 small floors FILLED with stuff. I was very impressed from a capitalist pig standpoint. They carry SO much Digi Charat merchandise. Essentially, by sinking a bunch of money into making their own anime (Digi Charat) geared entirely towards fan service, they have created their own, exclusive, lucrative fandom. I bow before their might.

You won't find any pictures of the insides of the fan stores here because they don't allow photography and I have no camera-phone. Dear god, everyone has them here. It's freaky because everyone is always doing stuff on their cell, so the back (where the lens is) is always pointed towards you. You never know if someone is taking your picture. Damn those cellphones are cool. There's an ad in some of the stations that shows the profile of one of the new video-camera phones next to the profile of a juice-box drinking straw. They're just about the same size. !!!

Speaking of cameras, I now want the Ex Ilim camera from Casio. They advertise it as being the size of a business-card holder....and it really is. It also takes SD cards and plays MP3s, so for $700 total (or $420 without the extra storage), you could have a 3.2 mp camera/mp3 player with 512mb flash storage. Oh...and a waterproof, transparent case...functional up to 9' depth. *drool*

Enough geeking, back to geeking! One thing that confused me about the area was that I didn't realise that due to space constraints, the department stores are actually split up into different buildings that may even be on the other side of the street. I had always been told to go to LAOX; that it had the coolest electronics ever. So I went. Lots of rice cookers and stuff. Not impressed....that is until I realised that down the block and across the street was LAOX Aso Bit City. Oops. Dear god that place has stuff. My memory is obscured by visions of blinky lights, flashy colors, and 1/15th scale home-made mecha. Oh, and boobs. The thing I saw most on display other than Enter the Matrix was Arcturus (from software devloper Gravity, of Ragnarok fame). The game looks ok, but the posters consist of giant 4' blowups of the piece of art at the bottom of this page. Yes, her nipples are only half covered and yes it's even plastered all over the escalators on the children's toys floor. VIVA LA JAPAN! Now, if you wanted more than just half-covered nipples, you'd have to go to one of the two entire floors devoted to pr0n. Just look for the poster of the topless can't-even-be-11-year-old anime girl which seems to be an ad for some new hentai game and you'll find what you're looking for. This was very impressive, until, of course, we stopped by this building. After a cursory examination, Reene and I came to the conclusion that this entire 7-story building consisted of approximately 90%+ porn. *squee* I did not get a chance to persuse much of anything, porn or otherwise, in detail...but you will have my impressions when I do.

Also of interest was all the cosplay going on. Sexy girls stand outside most of the big stores handing out tisses with ads on them and looking cute. This is par for the course. So how does a retailer try to stand out? Why with giant furry mascots! Sakura Taisen Cosplay! And Concerts! Retailers in Japan engage in price-fixing, so one store is really just the same as any other. Thus, fluffy pink bunnies must be employed to give them the edge they need in the pink-haired bishoujo market.

Game Center in Japan usually means pachinko. So I was happy to finally see an actual arcade in the form of Club SEGA. Again, floors and floors of STUFF. The first floor consists entirely of UFO catchers. Seems like someone spends a great deal of time there.

Deep Thoughts

There's so little room here that underground parking lots have turntables to move the cars around in a tight a space as possible.

Fresh Field is a computer store here, not an expensive supermarket.

Girls touch each other here in ways they just DON'T elsewhere. On the train to Akihabara, there ware a bunch of highschool girls and one of them kept poking hard at another's crotch because she had so much extra material there. But the gist of it was, "There's so much material! Where's your vagina?" Though perhaps not in those words.

Street signs just do not exist here. I'm not even sure if most streets actually HAVE names. Oh, sure, the BIG streets are named...but nothing else. Giving/recieving directions is crazy.

We saw the Dog translator in Akihabara. /shakehead

Widescreen TVs are everywhere, even in our guest house, but widescreen video feed is not. WHY GOD?!!! Why have widescreen TVs that are just showing normal 4:3 feed stretched out so it looks like shit?!

We ate at this place in Akihabara that was kind of expensive (about $7 for a meal) for a Japanese restaurant. We soon found out why. For your 790yen you got your choice of 3 things on the menu, plus rice, plus miso soup. Oh, did I mention that everything on the menu was big and deep-fried? It was. It really makes me wonder why that place exists. There was too much food to eat. Just like you get in the US. Do they primarily cater to fat geeks and tourists hanging out in Akihabara? That doen't make any sense, especially since most of the people there were just normal-looking, sorta-thin Japanese people. I am baffled.

People are not insane about refrigeration here like we are in the us. Sandwiches with mayonaise, egg, sausage and other "perishables" just hang out on store shelves. I feel good about this, as the incesscant over-refrigeration in the US always bothers me. Stuff really won't spoil over the course of a day.

The JR lines have LCD screens above the doors on which maps and ads display. There's this fucking Sapporo beer ad which consists of a dog, definitely completely doped out (I like to imagine him speaking like Chong), that teaches you English. The usefulness of the phrases he teaches are rated by stars. Every single one is 4 or 5 stars. My favorites thus far are, "A castle tower." -- 4 stars, and "Is your love eternal?" -- 5 stars.

Grapefruit seems to be the default synthetic drink flavor here. Kinda like "red" in the US. Aquarius, Amino Supli, Pocari Sweat, and many other drinks taste like it.

Again, check out the rest of the album for other shots of the areas. Tip your servers. I'll be here all, uhhhh, 3 months... EDIT: Petridish is dead. Pics have been moved to my server. No album-view option is currently available.

So, I'm in Japan. In order to chronicle the forthcoming days wherein crazy foreigner hijinks and hilarity will surely ensue, I am reviving this journal which I have heretofore been using only to post comments.

The content contained herein will be of interest to those wishing to know what I'm doing here as well as what life is like in Japan. This journal is also partly intended to be a companion piece for any of those who have read Capfox's journal and wish to know more about Japan itself than personal relationships and day-to-day schoolwork, etc.

With that in mind, let's begin:

Japan is exactly what I expected it to be. There have been very few surprises overall. If you've spent a whole bunch of time watching anime and other Japanese TV as well as spent some time studying the language and culture you would know exactly what to expect as well. This makes for a somewhat surreal experience. It's something like walking off the plane and suddenly being in the Shire. Everything is recognizable. Everything you've heard about is here in some form.

Reene and I are living in a small, 6-mat tatami room in Fujigaoka. It's a Japanese-style room replete with genkan and everything. It's in a dorm-style guest house with a whole bunch of other people. There are Japanese toilets.

I can see why Takahata gets so nostalgic about Japan. It's very pretty and very safe. We live about 30 minutes from Shibuya in Tokyo proper. That puts us about an hour from Moti in Otsuka in central Tokyo. Essentially, we are in the Brooklyn of Tokyo. Now that you have an idea of our basic proximity ot the main urban hub, let me point out that there are farms here. Multiple small farms and various street corners. If you were to go North to Narita, you would pass a bazillion rice-paddies on your way in. There are flowers everywhere, as well as well-pruned trees and gardens. Even smack in the middle of Tokyo, over by Moti, there individual houses with pretty rock walls and small plots of land with manicured gardens. All this is only slightly marred by one of the few surprises -- the smell of raw sewage. Tokyo reeks of it. Any time you pass a sewer gate or manhole or vent therefrom, you get a healthy whiff of the stuff. Ick.

Right now it's the rainy season. That means lots of humidity and light rain every day. There will ostensibly be torrential downpours later. If you look closely at the pictures of our neighborhood, you will see that everything is on raised, sloped embankments. All of these are filled with scuppers at intervals of 1 meter or so. This place must simply become a river during typhoons.

One other slight surprise has been the cost of living. I had always heard it was extremely high. This is not entirely true. Depending on what subway lines you use, it can get very expensive, but not all that much more so than gas, car-upkeep, and parking meter fare in the US. Yes, melon is expensive, but many other fruits are downright cheap. Pepared food is absolute pocket change. See this MacDonald's pic? See the sign that says, "59?" It's advertising the everyday, non-limited-time-offer of 59yen (about 50 cents) for a hamburger. That's half the price of the US equivalent. Lots of prepared food is like this. About $2-$4 buys you a damned good meal anywhere you go. Sure, there are expensive American-style restaurants...but why go to them? Rent isn't bad either. A real apt with a private bathroom and kitchen in central Tokyo would be expensive of course, but for only about $500 a month, we're living in quite a nice place in a clean, air-conditioned corner room with only the occasional tiny roach. And the dorm-style living is kinda fun anyways. You meet people.

Speaking of fast food, KFC is here too. With life-size stand-ups of the colonel. Freaky. Oh, and of course, Starbucks is inescapable.

Other things of interest? Let's see. Hmm...how about real, honest to goodness, bona-fide Japanese grafitti and litter! The grafitti says, "Fujigaoka Gurentai" -- that's, "Fujigaoka Youngblood Gang" or somesuch in English. Ooh. I'm so scared. If I'm not cafeful, they might steal my drink bottle and PUT IT IN THE WRONG RECYCLING BIN! Nooooooo!

Oooh! A Japanese Bobtail! It meowed pitifully at me. But it didn't want me to come near it. I have found in traveling that animals in different places actually have different dialects. Floppy, a Brooklyn cat, for instance, will meow loudly when starting a fight. Gato Diablo growls and hisses. According to Regyt, all Brooklyn cats have battle-meows. But I know that Maryland cats have battle-hisses. I can only hope I will, in time, master the Japanese cat-dialect as well. Man, as if Japanese proper wasn't enough to worry about.

Oh, also, pachinko is everywhere. Pachinko game centers are like gas stations. In fact, here there are more of the former than the latter. And they're filled at any given time of the day.

Also omnipresent are the vending machines. Most are just drink machines, including beer. I haven't actually run into any of the weird ones that sell oden or toiletries yet except in the skanky hotel we stayed in the second night. Speaking of alcohol though, sours come in cans here! Brilliant!

What else? Oh yes. I don't have a picture of this, but private bathrooms are weird. The way we pre-fab showers molded out of plastic, here they have whole small bathrooms like that. The reason? You're supposed to use them like a japanese-style bath. There's a drain on the floor, you soap yourself up outside the bath by the toilet/sink (though sometimes the toilet is in a seperate tiny room), rinse yourself off onto the floor, then get into the filled tub and soak. I have not braved this process yet.

One last note. Most cars here are very small. You'll see the occasional SUV, but only out where we are in the burbs. Most trucks in Tokyo look like this, since roads are generall as wide as a large alley. And I thought NYC driving was bad.

Well, that's about it for this post. I'll leave you with other pictures of our very hilly neighborhood and views from our windows.

Tonight -- welcome party thrown by Moti in Harajuku. Pics forthcoming. Also to discuss: the amazingly cool electronics that abound here; though I will prolly wait until after going to Akihabara to go over that.