Darkroom Beta

Japan Day 21: Things at Which White People Suck

2008-07-12T09:41:00.010-06:00

So yesterday (yeah, I'm a day late) was supposed to be for meeting Naomi and doing something or other. She ended up busy and suggested we meet up on Sunday. We wandered off to Ikebukuro instead. We were hoping the nice waitress at the Casa in Seibu would be around. We couldn't even stand being in that place long enough for the stupid restaurant to open! SHOPPING SUCKS!!!!!

So we wandered off to Asakusa, which Rina had recommended. On the way there we went to Yoshinoya: Japan's super cheap food. Basically, they have a menu of things involving noodles and shaved meat. You sit at a table with a lady in the centre. She yells everything at the top of her lungs exactly like that crazy woman from Austin Powers and they serve food really fast. It's dirt cheap and it tastes good. You don't ask questions!

You can see the gate at Asakusa, which is near Ueno. Nice place. We've seen temples as nice in Kyoto several times over though, so mostly we wandered around the little shops, got hot, and drank more Aquarius.

We fell back on Ueno. We had arranged to meet with Rina at 19:00 in Shibuya so we had a load of time to kill. There was a new juggler guy, and there was also the one we met a couple weeks ago. Didn't know his name was Pepper Zero before. His routine is a bit more complex now (he even commented on that to us). There were a lot of Koreans watching so he used more English this time. At the end I handed him a 1000 yen bill and a $20 CDN bill. His reaction: "OOOOOO!!!! CANADA DOLLAR!!!" Got some laughs there.

We got to Shibuya with lots of time to spare so we went looking for food. We found Rakeru! It's the only one we've seen so far besides the one in Shinjuku. This one was very different inside. It was styled rather like a pub from Europe. The waitresses were more experienced, which was kind of amusing, but the food was the same. Yum!

So we met up with Rina a little after 19:00. Finding her was tricky. Shibuya is scary. Thousands of people running around EVERYWHERE! Mental! We had to call her from a pay phone. She brought her friend, Anna. We went to Tully's Coffee first. Japanese coffee shops rule for having green tea flavours of everything! Then we did Purikura. This is like those silly photo booths we have in malls, but way more complex, since they have a light-pen setup that lets you draw on the pictures and then print them into cute, but utterly useless stickers! STICKERS!!! Must be a girl thing. ;-) Anywho, we got the computer to crash! The technician was able to resurrect it with pictures intact though. We also somehow tricked its AI into exploding my head with a firework. I like that picture. :-) I'll have to find somewhere more permanent to put the stickers than most people usually would. Japanese people can also download the pictures to their cell phones so they have them even when the stickers run out or get destroyed. If I stick them anywhere other than a photo album they'll probably disappear in a month though. The whole thing is much more fun than it sounds. Helps to have somebody familiar with it show you around. :-D

We went for karaoke after that. Mostly a similar experience to the karaoke clubs at home, except we had an all-you-can-drink deal and they bring you drinks after you order them through the telephone. It seems about 99% of people are better at karaoke than me. That's ok, because I normally don't have any inclination to do it. Rina and Anna were very, very good. :-) Oh, and Japanese karaoke machines don't seem any more high tech than their western counterparts. Really a bit surprising considering how impressive the photo booths are. The service is much better though.

Allan got some nice pictures of them afterwards. It was dark outside when he took the one by the flowers, but you can't tell from the picture! Shibuya is lit up like a Christmas tree at night. Was a good time. At some point in here we also ventured into what is apparently the busiest Starbucks in the world. I don't know how to confirm that. It was busy, but we saw worse before when it was raining.

We had a fun day thanks to Rina, Anna, and Pepper Zero. Will be one to remember!

Japan Day 20: Shopping in Tokyo

2008-07-10T06:29:00.010-06:00

We got up late today and ended up missing the free breakfast at the hotel (oh well not a big loss to miss out on toast and jam). We left the hotel in a hurry and made our way to Ikebukuro. We were off to a place called Sunshine City, a series of buildings in the area with a 60 story office building which offers a view of Tokyo, an aquarium, a planetarium, a gyoza museum (Japanese meat dumplings), restaurants and shops. We made it to the "city" by lunch time and made a stop at an omurice restaurant for a filling meal.

We went hunting for the UNIQLO in the Sunshine City building. It was quite a bugger to find it. We also found a Toys R Us and finally managed to pick up a white PS3 controller for Liam's brother! Toys R Us beats Yodobashi and gaming stores when it comes to having the PS3 controller. How about that, eh? While walking around the ailes, we also found some really nice Lego sets and very expensive Gundam models made out of Mega Blocks. After picking up the controller we went to UNIQLO and bought a few shirts. Sure wish we had a UNQLO in West Edmonton Mall! It's become my favourite clothing store! Note that the UNIQLO in the photo is a different one in Ikebukuro. I just took a shot of this one to show what one looks like.

We left Sunshine City and went across the street to Animate, a gigantic anime store. The store was quite big but the staircase was really tight. Sometimes, people had to wait at the top or bottom of a floor to let people through before they can climb the stairs! The elevator was really cool. It was painted with a brick wall motif with a bunch of anime "posted" on the wall. I ended up picking up some trinkets there as souvenirs for people. The store had a different feeling than the stores in Ahkihabara. Felt like a department store rather than a shady "garage-like" setup in Ahkihabara.

On that note, I must say that I am quite dissapointed with Ahkihabara. Nothing really wrong with the place, but I went in with high expectations as a Canadian who likes anime and video games. Turns out that the most hardcore of anime fans that I know of back home are nothing compared to the Otakus here! Before coming to Japan, I thought Ahkihabara was the place where I would feel most comfortable to be in. Turns out that it's the area where I just feel odd whenever I am there. I felt better when I was in Roppongi!

Anyway, back on track. After we finished our shopping in Ikebukuro, we went to Ueno for a break rest (another thumbs up for our JR passes and Ueno). We had surprisingly large green tea soft ice cream in waffle cones for about $2.80 (at home I would probably see this go for at least $4.00).

Caught a street performance as we were walking into the park. We saw a large crowd and heard bagpipes playing as we got closer. Bagpipes in Tokyo? It was definitely strange but it was quite refreshing!

After the performer finished with the bagpipes, he pulled out a diablo. We've seen at least a couple diablo performances so I wasn't very excited to see what was to transpire. Turns out that this performer was quite a master of the trade. His final performance was juggling three of them at the same time. It was most impressive! Even with one, he would send the diablo in the air and whip it back with the rope!

We caught one more performance which was a yo-yo master. His skill with the yo-yo was absolutely stunning!

After watching the performances, we went to Ahkihabara to look for a Wireless G PC card for one of Liam's computers. We found one, but it was super expensive. We left Ahkihabara empty handed.

It was supper time and we had a craving for curry rice. We went back to Shinjuku station and up the Odakyu department store. Turned out that the restaurants were really expensive so we quickly left. Dinner ended up being Lotteria (Korean fast food chain which I think is a knock-off of McDonald's). It was nothing special. The burger patties there were more peppery than anything I've had in a while. But the food there was very salty and we suspect that there's MSG! Curse Korean fast food!

Japan Day 19: Roppongi - Where Patrick Would be King (leading to a failed state)

2008-07-09T10:05:00.005-06:00

Today was somewhat sad for us. We had to leave Kyoto and Allan had to make sure he had pictures he wanted from there. We didn't get much sleep either because we stayed up drinking with Stefan, Tim, and his girlfriend, Mayu. He loves to talk about how she has such a young face. It's true, but it gets her nothing but harassment. Then it was blog time. It left us with four hours of sleep since we hauled our asses out of bed early to go meet Tim before he had to run off to work. Luckily, we were successful, and found both him and Stefan in the morning.

The Shinkansen ride back would have been more restful if they hadn't stuck us on the side of the train with three seats and had random people moving out from the window seat! Honestly, we didn't want to leave Kyoto yet. Too much fun there, and it felt like home. Our apologies to Ai, Rina, Naomi, and the people we've met here in Tokyo, but we just like Kyoto better. :)

Anywho, we came back and tried to meet up with Aleem and Kat. Easier said than done! They went to the wrong side of Shinjuku station. Not the first time someone's done that! We ended up wandering to the hotel and doing a bunch of mundane crap like laundry and luggage. We even tried to find out where you can find Street Fighter figures (you can't).

We did manage to meet them later though, and we went to Roppongi. This is one of those "rich" parts of Tokyo. Patrick would love it! Lots of uselessly huge facades, TV screens, lights, girls dressed like they want things other than trinkets, and tall buildings.

We found ourselves on the observation deck of Mori Tower. Ok view, but the whole experience wasn't quite as interesting as the Kyoto one. The one striking thing was Tokyo Tower (the big orange thing in the picture). They had the Mori Art Museum there too.
Considering the price of the tickets (1500 yen) we were obliged to check out the art. It confirmed my opinion that much of modern art is a scam even if the scammers don't know it yet. I liked the slices of plastinated cow and the thing called "the void," which was just a floating blackness, but honestly I think artists just make up shit, join a clique that decides said shit matters, and then make money, leaving lots of perfectly good artists starving! Half the stuff in there could have been generated with a computer program and passed off as human work yet I have so many friends who draw and paint beautifully who get squat! Yeah, so that made me hate that place. We went to a Koots for some tea/coffee concoctions. Kat says it's her favourite place in Seattle; Aleem says they closed the one in Seattle! It was good, but at almost 700 yen for our drinks I wouldn't be doing it every day.

Dinner was good stuff. Aleem didn't wanna go, so he wandered off, but we had some Korean BBQ at a place in west Shinjuju. It was good, though I think I enjoyed the place in Osaka more. That one had more variety of meat. Funny how good the ears off of pigs and cows can taste when you grill them over some coals! :p

I'm outta here though. Need sleep. Gotta go look for some things we want to buy tomorrow. Allan's on blog duty tomorrow, but if shopping sucks enough I'll sneak some nasty remark about it in there. hehehe Yuck! I HATE shopping! It's like work, but usually less interesting and harder.

Japan Day 18: Himeji

2008-07-08T10:49:00.003-06:00

Our last major stop in the Kansai region was Himeji Castle. Stefan decided to join us the night before and three of us departed from the hostel at 10:00. The train ride on the Special Rapid service took about an hour and a half. It was long, but it was a good nap. The Special Rapid trains have coach seating. So if you have a seat you're good to go for a nice long nap!

After arriving at Himeji, there was a thunderstorm. I was hoping that it would pass by quickly, and it did! After a 15 minute walk, we arrived at the castle, the clouds broke, and the castle was displayed in its full beauty!

The castle took a good part of the afternoon to explore. We had a quick break at rest stop and made our way to the gardens of Himeji Castle. The gardens are incredible displays of Japanese nature at its finest. The there were different types of gardens sectioned off. Traditional japanese gardens with banzai trees, a bamboo tree garden, a garden for growing flowers, a tea garden, and several other ones.

I took dozens of great shots from the gardens. Mostly landscape photos, but also photos of butterflies and flowers (I totally wish that I brought my macro lens!). After our stroll through the gardens, we looked around for a place to eat. We ended up going into a department store (trust me, it is the easiest way to find a Japanese restaurant) and decided on the ramen restaurant which had a $15 ramen bowl on the menu! I wanted to order in Japanese, but Stefan decided to take the waitress to the plastic models of food and point out what he wanted! Well the waitress returned and I ordered the same set for Liam and I (no, we did not get the huge ramen bowl).

We made our way back to JR Himeji Station and hopped on the Special Rapid line back to Kyoto. Unfortunately, there was a huge delay on the trains because of the thunderstorm that rolled past us earlier on (at least, that is what I heard from the locals here). The ride was extended by another hour. Thank goodness for the coach seating!

After arriving back at the hostel we packed up some of our belongings (heading back to Tokyo tomorrow to meet Aleem and Kat) and made our way down to Zen Cafe to meet up with Tim and Stefan.

After lounging around for half an hour, Tim showed up with his lady friend Mayu. She is a very intelligent girl, is working on her Ph.D and is the same age as us! About 15 minutes later Stefan came down with a Swiss roomate.

We pulled out various artifacts from our home countries (driver's license, money, rail cards, Tim Horton's gift certificates) and passed them around, telling various stories. We haven't said sayounara yet since we are all meeting up for breakfast in the morning for one last meeting at Zen Cafe!

Japan Day 17: Kyoto is a Place of Many Layers

2008-07-07T09:31:00.010-06:00

The idea today was to wake up late and wander off to the Water Temple, since everyone recommends it. We ran into Tim in the bar and started chatting with him around 10:40 though. We also ended up chatting with an Australian woman, Elizabeth, and her daughter, Columbia. So after more than two hours we finally left!

Tim showed us the original Nintendo building (from when they were a playing-card company), which is only a couple blocks from here. The buildling is closed, although it's maintained very well. He also showed us some other things in the area. These included a factory for temple items (they have temple bells outside) and a place full of guys who have suits and big cars. Can't refuse their offers! ;-)

So, the temple that half makes it into the pictures today is Kiyomizu Temple. The view is very beautiful. We think we know why it's called the Water Temple: it has an area where where you get the water to wash your hands and worship from a waterfall of sorts. No idea where the water comes from.

The girls in the picture were already going to take one before we appeared, hehehehe. The temple is in a district called Gion, which we explored quite a bit.

Tim says the place looks like it's hundreds of years old, like in the picture of the alley, but honestly the power lines ruin that image. We bought some snacks from a neat bakery (didn't eat them yet), and we found a famous park with the sakura tree blow. The thing to note about the tree is it's dying and they can't accept that here. According to Tim they've cloned the tree and are gearing up to replace it, so in a sense they will still have the same tree! The two traditional-looking girls are from the same area. Don't know a thing about them except the one on the left looks like she'd rather be somewhere else!

We walked back from Gion. Took a while, since it turned out we were pretty far north. We noticed in Kyoto the construction crews are unfailingly polite and pleasant. There are also many Art-Deco buildings. The rest of the day was routine, but as usual was very pleasant. When we first got to Gion we bought some Aquarius Zero (basically Gatorade) and were stopped by a girl with pamphlets for a restaurant. The English on this thing was pure gold! The title was "During Advantageous Service Enforcement." WTF? Advantageous service enforcement? Who's getting the stick here? The restaurant or the customers??? Fracking hilarious! :D

There were a couple of girls who needed our assistance in taking a photo of them with their camera. We ran into them three times during our exploration of Gion! Looks like there might really be an optimal way to explore the place and we found it. Just one of those funny things that happens I guess. We liked Gion. If you ask us about visiting Japan you're going to find us always recommending you spend lots of time in Kyoto!

The rest of the day was fairly routine. The only difference is Allan went to Starbucks to share pictures with Mayuko (one of the waitresses from the bar downstairs). We spent the rest of the night at the bar. Nice place. Lots of random people there. The Americans really are louder on average, though.

Anywho, I'm outta here, since a day passed between the last couple paragraphs! :D Look for Allan's entry in a hurry. :)

Japan Day 16: We found Nintendo and lots of Tori Gates!

2008-07-06T10:13:00.007-06:00

We started off our day heading off to Sanjusangendo Temple which was only a 10-minute walk from the hostel. It's a Buddhist temple with over a thousand Buddhist statues lined up. It was pretty eerie to see all the statues in a giant formation. It was really hot during the day and it was not any better inside the temple. As soon as I entered, sweat started to run down my face as if I was in a sauna. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a photo of the rows and rows of nearly identical Buddist statues, but I did get a nice shot of the gardens just ouside of the building.

Our next stop was Fushimi Inari Shrine. We decided to make things more interesting and opted for the 1 hour walk instead of a 15 minute train ride on the JR Nara Line. The walk was long, hot, and not very scenic. But we found the most incredible thing along the way: we found Nintendo! In the middle of a Japanese residential neighbourhood, this plain old gray building with the Nintendo logo, absolutely shocking! Definitely a pleaseant surprise while shrine hopping! (Liam notes the neighbourhood wasn't even a particularly nice one!)

We arrived at Fushimi Inari Shrine at about 14:00, expecting an easy stroll through thousands of Tori (the red Shinto gates in the photos). That was true for for the first half hour. Things started to get more vertical and we found ourselves climbing a lot of steps. It turned out that the walk was on a mountain. We were absolutely sure of it when we saw a view of Kyoto!

There were little old rest stops (people's homes with a cafe on the first floor) selling drinks. The higher the rest stop, the more expensive the drinks were. What a cleaver scheme (no we didn't cave-in to the drinks with the inflated prices)! There is writing on all of the gates, but we noticed the writings were visible only when you face the downhill side of the path. Turns out that many of the gates are sponsored by various companies (a so called business shrine). There were thousands of red gates big and small (places on shrines), and there where hundreds of a sacred wolf animal. Many of them were unique in size and design and often decorated with a red cloak.

After our long trek, we took the JR local train back to Kyoto Station. The underground passageway of the station is home to a few shopping malls so we made a shopping stop. We went to UNIQLO and bought some shirts made of fabric that isn't common to Canada (it's very light) for very low prices (I'll probably buy some more later on). We went for Japanese "fast food" (stuff like ramen, soba, curry rice) for dinner.

It was off to Zen Cafe to meet Suzuki-san and friends. Unfortunately, he and his friends did not show up (I am very sad about that). However, we did meet a kind old Japanese man who decided to start a conversation with Stefan. He bought us a round of drinks and gave us all a handshake before he left (everyone is just so nice here). Later in the evening, Othes joined us and we had more fun listening to his commentaries on Japanese culture. I also had a lengthy chat with Koji-san who works at the Cafe. I showed him photos of Edmonton and Jasper and he really loved the scenery (yes we definitely take it for granted). A French couple sitting beside me took a peek and were quite impressed with the photos! I happily gave them my photographer's card. Perhaps I will now have fans from France! Sadly, I had to say farewell to Koji-san since he won't be working at the Cafe for the next few days. I'm already starting to miss people here!

Cheers from Kyoto,

Allan

Japan Day 15: Osaka is weird for Japan!

2008-07-05T10:17:00.005-06:00

Today was Osaka day. We got up late since we didn't have to meet Aleem and Kat until 11:00 at the bar downstairs. Allan decided it would be a good time to take a picture with Mayuko. Apparently, she has a computer virus and we've now been charged with fixing it. Even after I get thrown out of my job I can't escape my job! ;)

We ventured to Osaka around 12:00. Once again, it's interesting to see how the culture there is different. Osaka at first feels a bit more like Tokyo because it's so busy. Then you start to notice other things. The big thing there is people are not so shy. They are very affectionate. There are couples everywhere. It made us feel lonely!

The big thing to see in Osaka was the aquarium (picture on the left). It's quite famous because it's very large and has whale sharks. For some reason, no whale sharks made it into the pictures for the blog though. They were kept in a big tank that was four storeys high, along with rays, like the one in the picture. The other big thing was the turtles. Allan got loads of pictures of them too. Only trouble we had was we had agreed to meet at the gift shop. The problem is there is a small gift shop inside and a big one near the exit. This kept us from finding Aleem for a long time after we left. We also rode the Ferris Wheel next to the aquarium. It's one of the largest in the world. It's stupidly tall and spawned some good pictures, which again didn't make it here (five pictures per blog is a rather small limit, although Blogger would let us have more if we wanted).

After the Ferris wheeel we had Korean barbeque, which shows int he last picture. What you see in the picture is the pile of meat they gave us to cook. In the middle of the table was a BBQ device that appared to be fueled entirely by hot coals. It was very good. We can't say what some of the meat was, though. We had chicken, beef and pork, but some of the parts were hard to identify. We found ears, and what we think were tongues, but we're not 100% on that part. We also found one piece we couldn't identify. I don't care; it tasted good!

Kat and Aleem had to leave today. They spent some kind packing luggage after we came back to the hostel, but did find time for a drink in the bar. We intend to meet up in Tokyo in a few days, if we can. Should be fun. As it stands now, the rest of the trip is pretty thoroughly booked with temples, castles, and people to visit! :)

We spent the rest of the night in the bar with Stefan. He's been doing a similar thing to us. He gets up earlier for his temple-hoppping expeditions though. He also likes to walk and cycle everywhere he can. He must have sun screen because I'm pretty badly burnt from trying that! He's a fun guy to talk with. :)

Japan Days 13 & 14: Temples, Gardens, and Deer -- oh My!

2008-07-04T09:46:00.014-06:00

So we have actually missed a day on the blog! We have been having too much fun down in the local cafe by the hostel, instead of blogging. We have met more people, but we will get to that later. On Thursday we explored Kyoto without our new American friends. We had breakfast at the cafe where a fellow Canadian from Toronto thought I was one of his colleagues. We went to Nijo Castle, the Shogun's castle. Inside, we walked on special floorboards which made a whistling sound. In the past, it was a mechanism to alert people of intruders trying to sneak in. Outside within the castle walls were beautiful gardens (the first two photos).

Afterwards, we walked to the Kyoto Manga Museum which actually turned out to be more of a Manga library where people can buy an annual membership and go read all the manga they want to their hearts content. Nevertheless we saw some pretty cool drawings and a video feature on how manga is created.

From there, we walked to the Imperial Palace, but we couldn't enter (you need to book a special tour). After the walk through the park around the palace we were exhausted from the heat, so we took the bus back to the hostel.

In the evening, we had our first experience with authentic okodomiyaki. It was really tasty and a rather heavy type of omelet. We didn't meet anyone interesting at the cafe on Thursday night. It was mostly just me, Liam and Stefan chatting about various things about the world.

The next morning, we ran into Kat and Aleem again (hurrah!) and we set of for Nara. We hit the JR Nara Line at about 11:00 and we hopped onto the local train since the rapid train was a 15 minute wait. The ride was very long (over an hour) but looking out the window provided a scenic view of Japan's country side. After arriving at Nara, we made a short stop at the MOS Burger and had the privilege of trying out the MOS Shake (milkshake).

We entered Nara park and started to see the free roaming deer of the area. These little guys are very friendly and are looking for people to give them some senbei (type of Japanese cracker). I bought a package and gave it all to one deer. I considered myself lucky when I saw another tourist being swarmed by a dozen or so! We hit Todai-Ji temple, which is the largest wooden structure in the world. Inside the temple was a massive Buddha statue. It was quite impressive to imagine how the people in the past managed to engineer such a building!

We took the rapid train (with coach seats which made for a very nice nap) back to JR Kyoto Station. We arrived back at the hostel at about 18:00 and took short break before heading out for dinner.

We ended up eating at an omurice restaurant where the omurice were twice the size as the ones we've seen at Rakeru!

After arriving back to the hostel after a big supper, Liam and I went to the cafe where we met another fellow Canadian, Othes (he talked about the uniqueness of his name for a while) from Vancouver. Turns out that he's been working in Japan for 8 years now as a consultant to big Japanese firms (I am so jealous). He told us about some of the cultural knowledge of Japan that he has gained over the time of his stay. He made an interesting point about how foreigners are shielded from the good and bad things from Japan because of how people here are put into groups. Stefan joined in for a few drinks later on. We also met Ai-san's (girl in the white) friend, Misaki-san, who will be going to France for a year. How exciting for her. *Sigh* all these people in foreign countries for extended periods of time...I am quite envious....

Japan Day 12: Kyoto is too Sociable for the Internets

2008-07-02T10:20:00.009-06:00

The idea today was to meet Kat and Aleem at the cafe downstairs. Aleem is Cat's friend and it's his first time in Japan. We decided we'd go to the Golden Temple (Kinkakuju). We all managed to wander out of here by about 11:30, but not before Rice King spent half the time chatting up the two waitresses to the left (Ai and Midori).

We get around Kyoto with all-day bus passes (500 yen), so the whole effect is more like Edmonton when compared with Tokyo. We only get to post this one pic of the Golden Temple, but we took lots. The whole place was very pretty. The history on the pamphlet completely failed to explain why the place is guilded (yes, the temple is literally covered in gold).

The Golden Temple wasn't very large so we went and visited the Silver Temple (Ginkakuju). This was a similarly beautiful place but I didn't see anything made from silver. The temple itself was being renovated and had scaffolding around it. We spent some time in the gardens. The picture we have is of the Golden Temple.

Lunch was very late and was at a little Japanese restaurant. The English translations of some of the food were classic: "edible wild plants." I bet not many foreigners order that! :D

We went to Kyoto Tower in the evening. As Aleem says, this is almost exactly like the Space Needle in Seattle. Turns out we can't make Allan's camera take pictures through the big, mounted binoculars they have. :/ I don't know what that character is where we took the group picture, but it looks quite silly. We also took a lot of gag pictures in front of a big, fun-house mirror.

We played Pachinko after dinner. Cat had played it before but she said she had played it wrong. The idea seems to be you buy some balls, which you launch through the machine. If you get them in a certain spot in the middle it will play a small game like a slot machine. You can win more balls and the balls you have when you quit determines how much money you get. Stupidly hard game! We saw a woman there who had several big bins full of balls. One of the hostel employees later explained there are professional Pachinko players, so she may have been one! We didn't like this game too much, partially because of the noise and smell of the place, so we ended up back at the hostel in short order.

We lost Kat and Aleem somehow, so we went to the cafe downstairs for drinks. We met Stefan, from Switzerland; Suzuki, who lives here; and also his two friends, Kiyo, and Chieko. The last picture has Suzuki and Koji, who was one of the waiters. There was a waitress, apparently called Mai, but she didn't make the pictures this time. Long night with lots of drinks and conversation!

We intend to meet Cat and Aleem tomorrow, but we don't have definite plans since they disappeared today. Might meet Stephan too. All of them will be in Kyoto for at least a few days and visiting places is more fun with more people it seems. :)

Japan Day 11: Questing in Kyoto

2008-07-01T09:25:00.003-06:00

We finally arrived at Kyoto after killing a couple hours waiting for the Shinkansen to arrive at Tokyo Station, then dozing off on a 2.5-hour ride on the Hikari Super Express. We got off the train and started to follow the map with the directions to the hostel we were staying at. As we left the station, we discovered the ultra-modern JR Kyoto Station. There many ads and statues of Astroboy around the building, so I'm guessing that the famous boy robot originated from Kyoto. Added by Liam: Kyoto feels more like Edmonton: slower, lots of cars, smaller buildings, etc. Refreshing change from the craziness of Tokyo!

We ended up turning one street too early during our final stretch to the hostel. While we were wandering, we noticed the abundance of restaurants in Tokyo was completely absent in Kyoto (and we were getting close to supper time). We arrived at the hostel which can be seen here in the second photo. Compared to the room in Tokyo, the place was a breath of fresh air. The room we have is much bigger (although we do not have a private shower/bathroom), the shower and bathroom facilities are top notch and there is a lounge where you can sit, relax and meet other travellers.

After checking the place out, we noticed that a lot of travellers were bringing in bags of groceries or precooked food and cooking in the communal kitchen. We played the same game and went to the local convenience store and purchased some dinner bentos for $6.00. The microwave we used was pretty cool. Instead of punching in numbers, you just turn this dial that turns on a circle of lights that are in 20 second intervals. As you can see from the photos, we met a few travellers on our first day here in Kyoto. While we were waiting for our food to heat up, we met Yumi-san (third photo), from Hokkaido, who recently returned from a long trip in Australia.

After supper, we sat down at the tatami and met a couple more people: Cat (fourth photo), from Seattle, is travelling with a friend of her's and will be taking all of us to the Golden Temple tomorrow! Finally, we met a fellow Canadian fellow from Montreal who is a world traveller (I was planning to get a photo with him, but he went to bed early). Me, Liam, Cat and our Canadian friend went to this nice bar next door to the hostel and had a few good laughs. I also had a chuckle to myself when I saw a young Japanese guy talk to two blonde British girls offering to teach them Japanese.

I had another good laugh when a guy was talking to the waitress asking if she was going to be working tomorrow (I definitely cannot blame the guy for trying). After discovering that she won't be there tomorrow he asked if she will be working the day after. He got the answer he wanted so he happily walked out after =)

Japan Day X: Things the Camera Didn't Find

2008-06-30T06:12:00.006-06:00

Today was "finish-stuff-before-we-leave-Tokyo" day. Basically this meant doing the laundry and visiting restaurants with nice waitresses! We decided to go see if the nice one in Seibu was there -- she wasn't. Seibu is kind of boring so we wandered off to Akihabara and visited the restaurant on the left. We have no idea what it's called in English. It had good pasta (they fry it).

The nice part of all this is our JR passes kicked in today and will work until the end of our trip. Now we only need our cards for the local trains so we can take the Yamanote Line anywhere without worrying about the fare, and hence our decision to visit Akihabara.

We went looking for some figurines for people. We had little success. We don't have a bunch of pictures of them either, because half the ones they sell in those little shops are somewhat naked. Allan was somewhat mortified by those things. Rather hilarious to see people in shirts and ties shopping for naked models of girls. :D We went to the game store too. It's rather short on PS2 games but we found an isle full of obscure Japanese game music. Eventually, we resorted to trying to snipe photos of maids (see days 2 and 3 to find out why). Not too much luck there, but we weren't completely unsuccessful.

Wasn't long before we ended up in Ueno (yay for "free" trains!) and sat in the shade with some drinks. Not much going on there on a monday. The same acrobats from last week were there again. There were some pics but they weren't Blogger worthy.

I should mention how the "free" rail thing works. Since we have unlimited travel on JR lines we show our passes to the ticket guys. They tend to wave us through without a second glance. It feels like we're VIPs!

We went to Rakeru for dinner again. I got a kick out of the size of my dessert (photo didn't turn out). Their "chocolate brownie parfait" turned out to be about the size of three average Japanese desserts. Good thing I skipped breakfast!

The two pics below are Ueno Station and Harajuku station, respectively. They both have more interesting architecture than the pictures convey. Ueno is rather large and iron work on the platform looks like it's decades older than the rest of the building. Harajuku looks pretty old too, but in a way that applies to the whole exterior.

We decided we like comparing people we know with what we find at the end of different stations we visited. This makes me Ueno, parks and museums; Patrick is Shibuya, expensive shopping district; Jamie is Akihabara, gamer/anime paradise; Allan's sister is Harajuku, non-conformists here; Candice is Ikebukuro, shopping more affordable and not dirty; Allan is Shinjuku, big business; Darren is Kamakura, lots of Bhuddist and Shinto shrines; etc. We might come up with more of these soon. Some people could be cross breeds too. For example, John probably has a lot of Akihabara to go with the Ueno (Akihabara still has a lot of obscure electronics and computer stuff).

The big surprise came when we came back to the hotel and got the room key from the receptionist. They have a few of them, some who speak more English than others. Allan started talking to the one at the desk (Ai-san) and she asked where we had been. When we told her about going to Ueno this past week she asked if we'd seen the street performers. This is because she knows the one we had been talking to on wednesday! Turns out she's in a juggling club and he was in it. Bigger surprise when we found out she lived in Edmonton for three months, recently. We spent some time talking to her and the picture was from later when she finished work (I can't pose for pics worth a damn!). She offered to show us some things when we come back from Kyoto in a week and gave us her card (it's a very nice card!). Allan gave her a surprise back by handing her a Tim Horton's coupon (one dollar).

So, tomorrow we're taking the train (Shinkansen) to Kyoto. Should be interesting! This is where we'll find more traditional Japanese things: clothing, food, geishas, etc.

Japan Day 9: Rain in Harajuku. Rain in Shibuya. Fun in Brazil!

2008-06-29T06:56:00.008-06:00

We got up pretty late after getting home close to midnight from the long train ride home from Fujusawa to Shinjuku. After a quick breakfast, we made our way to Harajuku, the area where people in crazy outfits are to be found on Sundays. First photo shows Liam posing at a store which sells the sort of outfits. We go to the station at around 10:30 with no people in fancy costumes in sight. I received a tip from a friend who traveled to Japan that these folks don't show up until noon so we decided to wander around the area. We walked to a secluded Shinto Temple where we witnessed someone playing a very large temple drum. The sound it made was absolutely incredible! It shook everything around us, including my ear drums!

We grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald's. This time we had the "Teriaki Chicken Filet-O." It wasn't bad, but I think the Mega Tamago was much better! =)

After lunch we went back to the area where the costumes people were to make an appearance. I did manage to get one photo. I felt really odd when I took this shot. These girls didn't show any level of emotion when I asked if I could take the shot. I was absolutely mystified, but Liam cleared my confusion when, told me that these girls were just shy. Figures that he would know, since he likes this type of girl. The one group was all there was in the area where these people hang around and pose for photos. What a bummer!

We took one last loop around the area and encountered the parade of facist vehicles. We've seen this group a few times, but recently discovered that these people with their loud speaker-equipped vans playing old Japanese military songs and flying the old Japanese flag were the old facist types from World War II.

The rain was pretty bad at that point so we hid under a subway shelter for a break. There, we met a fellow tourist, Travis, from Hawaii. He was trying to figure out how to get to Odaiba. Since we where there a few days ago, we pointed him in the right direction and told him about our experience at the Mega Web. He tipped us back saying that he saw many of costume people making phone calls to their companions to cencel their weekend plans. Well he definitely saved us a bunch more time of wandering in Harajuku in the rain! I hope that he enjoyed his time at Odaiba! Hope we will be in touch!

We made way to Shibuya Station, which was only one stop over from Harajuku. Rina had invited us to eat at the restaurant she works at. The place is a Brazillian restaurant called Tucano's (more details to come later). Their website didn't provide a map and I have no idea how addresses in Japan work so we had to do some exploring. It took us about two hours to find the restaurant (much faster than I expected). Unfortunately, we had another couple hours to kill in the rain. All the coffee shops were full and the department stores have no public sitting areas. Towards the end of our greuling hike in the rain, we went into a supermarket. Everything there was extremely expensive! We saw $6 apples, $30 watermelons (very small in size), $1.50 juice boxes, $7 salad dressings (small), $3 small loaf of bread (small). Seems like eating out is more economical than buying groceries and cooking at home!

So we finally entered Tucano's and it turned out to be a really fancy restaurant despite it being in a basement besides a shady club called Xanadu. After checking out the menu, we noticed that the place was buffet style. It was pricy, but we were invited by Rina, and I can't recall having Brazillian food before, so why the heck not! There were different options, but we went for all you can eat AND all you can drink (including alcohol) for $60. We briefed Rina on our recent adventures in Japan and she was happy to hear that we were having fun. After we got our first drinks ordered and our plates ready, waiters would come by with a large skewer of meat and hack off a chunk onto our plates. The food was absolutely incredible! There must have been at least half a dozen different cuts of meat from beef, pork and chicken. I tasted combinations of spices that I have never tasted before. An extravegant eating experience! To top that off, there was also live music and Brazillian dancing girls! The girls came out after we had our fill of food and alcohol, which was the perfect time!

We met a few people at the restaurant: A young waiter who studied in Australia and is learning more English from Rina (totally did not get his name), and Yumi (in the last photo), a cute waitress who studied in the United States and Brazil (makes sense since she works at a Brazillian restaurant), and a cool dude from Toronto who overheard Liam and I telling Yumi (the waitress) that we are from Canada. Hopefully we will hear from Travis, Yumi, and the waiter who went to school in Australia (I feel terrible for not getting his name, gomenasai).

Japan Day 8: Train Hijinks and Japanese Food!

2008-06-28T09:06:00.006-06:00

Today was supposed to be us meeting Allan's friend, Naomi, at 10:00. Yeah, that didn't happen. We were a bit late for the train and the train took an hour, taking us way into the suburbs. We proceeded to exit through the wrong gate, circle around, and then get denied exit from the proper gate. We thought our cards were out of money so we topped them up to no avail. Ended up getting a ticket guy, with the help of a woman who knew some English, to wave us through.

So when we finally met Naomi at Fujisawa Station, she had us buy day passes for the local train line (cheaper than always using the cards) and she took us to various places by the sea. We visited the Hachimangu Shinto Shrine, where we saw the wedding in the first couple of pictures. The whole thing was very religious and mysterious. They had a little museum there. It had some ancient cultural treasures, but they weren't very in depth. We got some "Engrish" fortunes from that place too. Was amusing. They take a donation from you and have you shake a box full of sticks with numbers. They give you a fortune corresponding to the number you pull out. They're full of strange sayings like "Don't make little of your language or you will fail." Ok, noted! :)

Note the pic of us all in the Japanese restaurant for lunch. This place was upstairs alongside a busy, little street. Naomi described it as homely. Food was good. We got a bunch of sashimi piled on rice, and some other little dishes including, soup, some dish made from egg and shrimp, vegetables, and a little dessert that was like a jello.

We spent the afternoon wandering around and seeing different things. The local trains were very, very packed -- just like they tell you about in textbooks! We visited the Daibutsu Bhuddist Shine with a huge Bhudda you could go inside. We didn't go in the Bhudda: Naomi said it's boring in there and there was a big line. We saw a store with all kinds of Japanese weapons. Pictures will come later. They even had imperial Japanese flags for sale alongside the modern ones. Also saw another Shinto shrine. This one had lots of stairs, which served to annoy Allan.

After that shrine we started looking for a place to slow down. Our journey through another market brought the stop at the shop on the left. They had some fish snacks that were packaged a bit like those hash-brown things McDonald's has. They were better than most things from McDonald's though. These kinds of markets are much more fun when you have someone local to show you things.

We took the train back to where we first met Naomi and found our way into a department store, UNIQLO. We looked at some t-shirts for a bit but we were there for the food. The place where we had dinner was Watami, a big chain. We got some different sashimi, various interesting Japanese things, and some drinks. Tried a drink similar to sake. It wasn't bad. The one she ordered came with a grapefruit and one of those devices to squeeze out the juice! We had some alcoholic frozen drinks for dessert. Very good. The other interesting thing we had was horse sashimi. It wasn't bad. I think I enjoyed the salmon more though.

Japan Day 7: The Quest for Fish

2008-06-27T04:53:00.006-06:00

Today was our "free day" in that we didn't have anything planned at the start. We ended up calling Patrick in the morning. It was pretty fun doing that, since he started recommending we hang out at public baths in the middle of the night. I don't get that guy sometimes.

We ended up checking out some huge shopping malls called Tobu and Seibu, just off Ikebukero station on the Yamanote line. This was after we had passed the station, so we ended getting off and going back one stop. You can see one of them in the pic on the left. Best to think of these as huge, interconnected department stores. Lots of stuff seemed way too expensive but certainly looked like stuff Patrick would buy. Saw lots of clothes. I dunno how fashion works here and I'm not really the type to care either.

The second pic is from a place called Casa Family Restaurant. We wandered in there because the plastic food in front looked cool. Allan wanted this crazy meat dish and I was after some real Japanese food (until now nearly everything we ate has been something stolen from another country). We certainly weren't disappointed. We still don't know what some of the things in my lunch were, but they were mostly tasty! We thought we knew the restaurants here until the waitress handed us a basket for our bags. Had to ask her what it was for. Also had some interesting green-tea ice-cream desserts. They had some kind of fruit things on top. We couldn't figure out if they were a fruit or some kind of cake. The waitress (third pic) said they were a kind of vegetable. She came back soon and said they were a kind of potato. We just decided to take her word for it. Wasn't long before a second lady appeared and told us they were some kind of melon. We don't know; they tasted good, though. The waitress always had a big grin like in the pic. She wasn't afraid to be on either side of the camera either. :)

When we got tired of department stores (probably in less time than average) we ventured back to Ueno. Wandering around there, taking pictures, is fun, especially on sunny days. There were some Latin guys dressed up like native Americans doing a song-and-dance routine. They weren't very convincing, but they had some good music. We think we might be close to exploring all of that park now; we did notice a shrine we haven't visited yet. Also had some crazy-strong tea from a vending machine. The only English label said it was barley tea.

A couple of days ago, one of the street performers in the park told us to head south from there and check out the market. He said we could find all kinds of cheap things, including good fugu. We didn't find where he was thinking (too many sushi places) but it was a neat market. We went for dinner at the OIOI store (assuming they're not really using some Japanese characters in that name). You can see a pic of the restaurant floor logo and the market where the building was.

The big thing about dinner there was we went to a pizza place called Trattcria Nolita. Trying pizza in far-away lands is fun. It's a Japanese knockoff of an American knockoff of an Italian food! Allan's pizza had an egg in it and mine was made of salmon and cottage cheese. They were light pizzas and very good. If I go back I'm either grabbing the one with crab or the one with cuttlefish. Pizza, wine and Enya made a good combination -- for stumbling back on the train to Shinjuku! :D

Things we learned today:

Some restaurants have baskets for your bags -- dunno why.
What we thought was a bottle of fabric softener was really liquid detergent. Our laundry survived that, thankfully!
For some reason restaurants always give us a four-person table. Is it because we're big, fat tourists? ;)

Japan Day 6: Odaiba and Harajuku

2008-06-26T05:38:00.005-06:00

We had a slow start to the morning after our being so tired from our venture into east Shinjuku the night before. We took the JR Yamanote line to Shimbashi Station and transferred to the Yurikamome. The Yurikamome provided an incredible view of Tokyo harbour and is also an unmanned elevated train with rubber tires! We got off at Odaiba and made our way to Mega Web, which I think is owned or sponsored by Toyota. We entered into a massive showroom of Toyota cars and had fun checking a few of them out. In the first photo, we have a futuristic Lexus which could be driven by Batman!
After an hour or so, we decided to finally cave-in and go for some McDonald's (it was highly suggested by some who have been in Tokyo in the past). I looked for things on the menu which we don't have. There was one thing that almost immediately caught my eye: The Mega Tamago (Egg). It was basically a Double Big Mac (which they call the Mega Mac), with one of the patties replaced with an egg. I went up to the man at the till (who also was the manager of the place) and placed my order. He asked me where I am from (I talked to Liam in English for the drink order) and complimented me on my Japanese. Seems like my Japanese is slowly getting better! The Mega Tamago turned out to be absolutely scrumptious! The sauce they use for the burger is more peppery which gave it quite the zing. The egg in the burger was pretty darn good as well! Throwing the garbage away turned out to be more than what we do in Canada: put the plastics in one bin, paper items in another, and the ice and liquids into this little sink.

We hit the mall called Venus Fort where I encountered a moment of grand nostalgia. There was a NHK Shop which had a bunch of merchandise from Kiki's Delivery Serivce, one of the first ever animes I watched when I was a little kid. The display brought back a lot of memories from the times I watched the show. It also made me realize how old I was! The cat from the show was the main character for the merchandise even though the main character in the movie was a witch girl who used her broomstick to fly deliveries of food to people around town.

From there, we found ourselves in an old car museum. The place was decorated with a retro look and feel. We saw some massive boat-like Cadillac, the make of car made in Italy that Stalin drove (so much for one car for the people), and a Delorean.

The second floor of the mall was quite beautiful. The entire floor had an artificial sky and displayed a different time of day when you entered a new section in the mall. We witnessed a wedding photoshoot at the gorgeous fountain in the third photo.

Liam remarked that the place owned Europa Boulevard. I totally agree. The place had way more class and way better stores and restaurants.

There was also a pet store where we saw a lot of cute puppies. You can take one of these cuties home for about $2000-$3000. I thought the puppies at PJ's Pet Store were expensive!

We left the mall and hopped back on the Yurikamome. We made an executive decision and decided to check out Harajuku. We arrived at the hip little area after a nice nap on the Yurikamome and Yamanote trains. There were a lot of trendy stores and quite a few Jamacan people working to promote the hip hop stores!

We went shopping at Kiddy Land, which is a store full of items from cute icons like Hello Kitty, The Peanuts, NHK characters, and other cute cartoon celebrities. Liam purchased a cute gothic kitty for a friend of his.

We headed back to Harajuku Station tried to get into a packed train bound for Shinjuku. I managed to squish myself in but the doors closed and Liam was still outside! Luckily, he took the next train which was only a couple of minutes behind the one I was on. Thankfully, without a hitch, we quickly found each other on the Shinjuku-Yamanote platform. We had a quick supper at Rakeru where the waitress couldn't figure out that I wanted my coffee "before" my meal (I really need to figure out how to answer that question in Japanese). Besides that the food and service is still top notch! We ended the night by doing some laundry. How exciting eh?

Allan

Japan Day 5: Museums and Random Chance

2008-06-25T06:37:00.005-06:00

This one's by the blind guy who sees things others don't!

So today was museum day! Ueno is big and one of the things it has in abundance is museums. Allan was under the impression you can do a bunch of museums in one day. Normally, if you're interested in the given museums this should never happen, but Japan is weird.

We started off by wandering into the Tokyo National Museum. This place tried to be Japan's equivalent of the British Museum. Their signage admits they're not quite there yet, but it's got lots of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean history if you wanna poke around. Allan didn't think all the buildings were so easily dated just by looking at them, but I disagree. There were four main ones from 1908, 1937, 1968, and 1999 respectively. The two middle ones there had the most to see. We spent about four hours wandering around in there, including lunch. The first pic is the restaurant where we ate. We had some awesome soup with noodles and tempura. The thing that caught us was the lack of music in there. First restaurant that didn't play jazz.

The museum ended up being faster than normal because we can't really read all those Japanese descriptions, and they didn't have them all translated into English. The parts about Japanese history had more translations than the rest though. One thing I did pick up was the Koreans were basically in the stone age while the Greeks had steam-powered contraptions! :D We decided we'd spend extra time in the science museum. They had one Japanese doctor they seem to worship. They had lots of natural history and anthropology. I liked the gallery of mechanical things. They had quite the collection of antique microscopes, seismographs, and clocks. Some of the clocks made it into one of these pics. The best part was when we doubled back through the anthropology gallery though. They had a big row of cases showing wax models of Japanese people from different ages. The last case was open and you could stand in it to represent the modern person. Allan found a schoolboy in there and decided to make him flinch -- not hard! His buddies happily pushed him back into that thing for more embarassment when he tried to leave! :D The pic of him from just after that is priceless. Showed it to him too. :) On a related note, it would be extremely funny to have somebody obviously non-Japanese stand in there for a while. hehehehe

When we left there we wandered back through the main square and encountered another crazy street performer. This guy was making balloon animals for kids and had some juggling props on hand. When he saw me watching with binoculars he switched to English: "Please come closer! Easier to watch!" We did; he was good. His escape act (pic with the straight jacket) was hilarious. He said he'd get out in three minutes and if he did he wanted us to give him a tip -- though he joked about us giving him video cameras and credit cards! We talked to him a bit later. Turns out he learned the juggling in the states and spent some time in Vancouver but didn't have the confidence at the time to join one of their performing groups. He gave the impression he might venture back across the pond to show his stuff. I hope he does!

Dinner was at Rakeru again. This has become something of a daily routine. Waitress with the glasses finally reappeared. We had some awesome mango dessert. He wanted to give a gift to the waitress we were talking to the other day (we have Mountie teddy bears on hand). The debate was for nought because she was gone by the time we went to pay. Any thoughts on what the Japanese would think of such a gesture are welcome!

We weren't totally tired out though, and since a Polish woman had recommended we check out the night life in Shinjuku, we did. We found our way into east Shinjuku at about 18:30. We wandered for quite a while and saw all kinds of hotels and clubs. We have a picture of it. Until we get more pics up, if you're curious about what it feels like there Blade Runner is a decent example. I often wonder if Ridley Scott has been to either Hong Kong or Tokyo. Things we noticed included a staggering number of Pachinko parlours, loads of drink machines in rows, and a place that was basically "Korea Town." We were a bit lost for a while since Allan had some fun trying to read a compass. In addition to me having to insist that north can never be 90 degrees to the right of east we seem to have found a lot of Tokyo maps that put east where north should be! The pretty lights made me happy though. That Polish woman was right about that. Blind guy likes the pretty LED signs everywhere and the Pachinko places lit like day! This is the place where we find Patrick's type of women. This was depressing. Everybody know I pretty much only like geek women and they were not to be found here.

Anywho, we're half passed out now. Long day and good cheapo beer! Will post more craziness when it happens.

Japan Day 4: Ueno Zoo

2008-06-24T06:12:00.013-06:00

We had our day planned with a visit to the zoo and museums in Ueno. The plans immediately changed when we saw the huge map of Ueno Zoo. It took us a good six hours to fully explore the place!

There are way too many zoo photos to post so I selected the highlight photo reel. The establishment turned out to be quite tourist friendly. The only exception I found was ordering from the restaurant, where the menus were almost exclusively in Japanese. Thankfully, I can read most western style items on the menu so I ordered us a couple of "Hamburger Sets."

During our stroll through the zoo, we saw a throng of elementary school kids eating their lunch in one of the rest areas. Every single kid was either wearing a bright blue or yellow cap, and eating their bento boxes, which were about the size of the palm of my hand, with mini chopsticks. Very adorable!

The small mammals and nocturnal animals were interesting to check out. There was a rodent with chicken-legged feet bouncing around in its little glass cage at incredible speeds! There was an overactive armadillo that wouldn't stop pacing back and forth. Had a good laugh when we saw a track in rocky ground where the little fellow kept pacing. There were also the little fellows in the second photo. The lighting from a small hole on the ceiling created an erie glow on the white portions of their fur.

The jungle section started off with a male and female lion display, which was very impressive. The male wasn't in the best of moods and was roaring quite a bit. While at the lions, I saw this cute little Japanese girl wave and say "bye bye" to lion-san and "see you soon!" Definitely a heartwarming moment I will never forget! There was also this beautiful tiger in the third photo. The clever animal had a great time playing with the spectators and their cameras (including me). Conversely, at the next exhibit, a few lazy gorillas were sitting around doing nothing. They looked like a bunch of bums leeching off the zoo!

Next were the birds. The"host" in the fourth photo stood outside uncaged, where the path led to the bird exhibit. The birds were coloured beautifully. I even had the pleasure of capturing a photo of two birds chasing after a cockroach!

While we are on the topic of birds, the pigeons in the area are quite intimidating. They can walk up to humans to about a 10 cm distance. Had a few moments where I naturally flinched away when they flew in hard and fast towards me. The darn things don't even get out of my way when I walk on their path. I actually adjust my path so I don't get in their way!

We finished our zoo excurion at 3:30 P.M., wondering what to do before dinner time. Luckily, there was a street performer who just started his act. The act consisted of creating an animal balloon for a kid, using a diabolo set, juggling, and a balancing act. Sounds like a typical street performer, but the guy was absolutely entertaining!

Liam made a snide comment about how this would be Patrick in the future (ooo another Patrick shot!). Seriously, he does sound like Patrick! And in my honest opinion, he acts like Patrick! I'm sure we can all imagine Patrick showing off to all the Japanese girls in school uniforms! We did take a half hour of footage so we can see the entertaining show of Pat's double when I return with all this digital media.

Japan Day 3 Part2: More Wanderings

2008-06-23T06:22:00.011-06:00

Blind is back! Or, maybe not because I was never gone, but meh...

Anywho, that game store Allan mentioned was neato. If you guys want or NEED something from there speak now or forever hold your peace! Ended up not buying the N64 expansion card they had (we have a video of this) because Rice King said I could have his when we go home. Now I don't get to say I had to go all the way to Japan to get one!

After that place we wandered outside and bumped into a store selling lab equipment. We didn't go in, but I figure I'll force the issue next time because it looks cool. Their window had a display of ancient oscilloscopes from the 50s and 60s. Those weren't for sale. Not surprising, considering the value science geeks place on those things! There was another store selling bags of electronic components. We saw things like USB controllers and RS232 ports with controllers. Those were just the ones we could recognize. The packaging, consisting of Ziplock bags and cardbard cards, was all in Japanese and mostly made absolutely no sense. What this all proves, is half the neat stuff in Akihabara is to be found on the ghetto-looking side streets.

We had been thinking of going to Ueno today but held off because of the possibility of rain (most of the stuff there involves going outside a lot). Since it wasn't raining and we were tired of Akihabara, we went to Ueno Park. The train station there is weird, with all sorts of low arches you can smash your head on (they're labelled as such). The park is cool: very scenic, with lots of trees making canopies over the paths. We almost got smashed a few times by these huge black birds that tend to swoop low because they're just not scared of people anymore. They look, and mostly sound, like crows.

The highlight of the place was the Chinese acrobats. We don't know they're really from China, especially since the announcer lady spoke Japanese, but the routines they had were in the style of the acrobats we saw in Hangzhou last year. The girl in the first picture, with the silverware on her head, was the most impressive. The first time we saw her, she flipped that spoon onto the bowls and can perfectly, from her leg, while balancing the unicycle with her other foot. INSANE! There was also a guy balancing a huge vase on his head while dancing, a dancing clown with a baton, and a super-flexible girl who could balance four towers of glassware on various parts of herself while standing on her hands.

The picture with the wishing cards was a shrine where they have a flame that's been kept lit since the end of WWII. It was from a house that caught fire when the Americans used an a-bomb on Nagasaki. A bit eerie that was! There was a more standard, and very scenic, Shinto shrine too. Pics from that didn't make the post so they'll make the net when we get home (why free blogging services sometimes suck...).

The dogs were a WTF moment for us. We saw that cart shoot across the square in the park with the dogs in it. When it stopped a lady took one of the dogs with her but the other remained. We dunno what was going on and we're probably not going to find out unless somebody with more of a clue reads this!

The pic of me looking dumb (I always look dumb in pics) is from a walkway in Shinjuku. We'd decided we were going back to Rakeru by then. That walkway had a nice view. Dunno why RK posted a pic of me screwing up the view. lol

Rakeru continues to be awesome. Now we like to act like we know something nobody else does, because that place is just classy, and not too expensive ($30-35 on average for the two of us). You can see RK with one of the waitresses. He decided he was going to talk to her more in Japanese (can you blame him?). He did ok with that, especially when we let her find phrases in the phrasebook that were hard to make simpler. Couldn't get her to teach RK more Japanese or show us around though. We hope she's not in too much trouble for the twenty minutes she spent talking to us! :D

It didn't really rain until we got home today! We win! As an added bonus, the "Asahi Draft" doesn't taste much different from the more-expensive "Asahi Extra Dry" so we get cheap beer from the machine ($2.40/500 mL). Win!

Japan Day 3 Part 1: Return to Akihabara

2008-06-23T05:24:00.008-06:00

Allan here, back for another blog report! We dragged ourselves to Yodobashi Akiba (the Yodobashi Camera store in Akihabara). At first I thought I would be absolutely dreadful to listen to the Yodobashi Camera theme song for another few hours. But it's gotten to the point of being humourous! We made our way to the 6th floor, and came across a pleasant surprise: TOYS! They had everything from the 8-bit classic video game characters (in the photo), literally hundreds of plastic models and figurines, replicas of modern guns, model trains, video games and game consoles. Games turned out to be prohibitively expensive when compared to our local prices. I have no idea why...

By the time we finished shopping in the toy department, it was time for lunch. Convienently, there was a floor with restaurants two floors above us. We ended up at a ramen (noodle) restaurant with a ticket machine used for ordering food. Good food and a novel way of ordering -- sweet deal! Before we had our tickets printed, the server had our seats prepared. Talk about quality service! I discovered eating ramen in Japan is quite barbaric. It can go as far as grabbing some noodles with the chopsticks and slurping whatever came attached!

After the quick and delicious lunch, we hiked over to the store we came across yesterday playing 8bit music. The store, Super Potato, had a massive inventory of video games from the ages! We're talking about the days from the NES, Atari 2600, and even Pong-like machines! We had a blast from the past when we recognized old titles we played when we were little kids. Where else would you see a demo TV playing Duck Hunt!

Cheers from Akihabara! - Allan

Japan Day 2: Akihabara in the Rain

2008-06-22T04:13:00.009-06:00

Written by Liam, because he bloody well felt like it!

So today we wandered to Akihabara, which is probably the one place in Tokyo that all geeks think of, and of course, also the place where that guy went on a rampage and stabbed seventeen people. There's a big memorial there and lots of cops (they look like the ones on Pokémon).

So we had to take a longer train ride there and discovered trains put us (and old people) to sleep. There certainly are a lot of electronics stores there, but it's awfully hard figuring out which one you want when you can't read all the Japanese signs. For some reason they love to put signs on EVERYTHING. Allan wanted to avoid Yodobashi Camera like the plague so we kept trying to go west and avoid it! I see his point about the dumb song but that store was so big it probably sold every computer peripheral available.

Anyway, we wandered a lot, trying to get our bearings. The first picture shows one of the clever sidewalk tiles we found (most of Tokyo is paved with tiles from what I can see). In addition to the robot, I recall a 1920s record player and what looked like an 1880s carbon-filament light bulb. The store in the second pic was neat. It played 8-bit Nintendo music. We caught it playing Zelda and Mario tunes. We didn't go in though. We probably should some time, since it looks like it might sell retro games.

When we got hungry our concern shifted to finding one of those maid cafés Allan was interested in. That proved more difficult than expected. Turns out his map sucked (we blame the relevant websites). The one he really wanted to visit (Mia Café) was full. The hostess didn't have trouble telling him that. She looked like she wanted to say something else and kept running off to consult with her co-workers. She came back with a cell phone and handed it to Allan. Whoever was on the other end (the MOD maybe?) spoke English and explained we could give them a number to call us when they had a spot. Useless! Some time around then it started raining. We ended up in another café (Mailish) but today this one didn't have maids. It had waitresses dressed up in what looked like animé costumes and they were promoting some video game. Unlike in Mia, these women stayed very composed and new exactly what they were up to, even with English-speaking fools like us. The food was awesome; the bathroom was confusing! The thing that caught me off guard here was the hostess had bleached blonde hair! It was really weird! At one point they turned off the lights and did a birthday thing for a guy in there -- he was by himself! He left in short order.

By the time we were done lunch and off to more shopping it was raining like crazy. Rain in Tokyo sucks. Rina explained yesterday that it's the rainy season and that combined with the forecast makes everyone pre-emptively carry umbrellas. They know how to deal with the rain here, so there are lots of complimentary bags to cover wet umbrellas and racks to store them while you go eat. That said, those tiles I mentioned earlier get really, really slick in the rain. Stairs to the trains are SCARY!

We ended up in a game store that also sold figurines, DVDs, manga, models, and everything else that smelt of anime. The store would have been fun had half the floors not had six TVs going and people trying to yell over those and each other. We get it, people! We don't need six different shows to go with the products on the shelves! GAH! Saw some army guys there, along with all the otaku. When we left the army guys were having a parade of sorts outside. We got a kick out of the anthem they were singing but we didn't get a vid thanks to the rain.

The rain angered us so we went in the first café (Mia) and got seats this time. They were very understaffed and took forever to take our orders, but the drinks and atmosphere were nice. It's kind of sad to see one otaku go in there and play his PSP for an hour, but whatever floats his boat I guess! We hung out for a long time in there, since the rain was oppressive.

We gave up not long after that. Rain really ruins this place. It's just no fun dealing with an umbrella and two bags while trying not to die on the slippery tiles. The pictures of the maids are from when were standing at the entrance of the train station to go back to Shinjuku. These ones were clearly selling something and all the maids, including the ones in the cafés, are dressed like that for the money so they won't do photos. When he was taking these pics they kept turning around or hiding behind umbrellas. No smiles from the cute one in pink! :-(

We brightened up the day by trekking back to Rakeru, where we had lunch yesterday. I still find it funny how at first glance it looks like a fast-food place or some kind of take out, because it's really quite large for something in a basement. The food and service was still awesome but the girl in the glasses wasn't around. Oh, and I accidentally ate Allan's salad. It was good! It looked like they'd made a fancy caesar salad with vinaigrette, but it tasted rather Asian.

All this eating in local restaurants has been interesting for another reason. Every time we think we have it figured out, they throw us something new. They ask easy questions like "do you want your drinks with your food, or before?" or, "is it ok if I give you the bill now?" and it throws us for a loop. Part of it is of course my almost complete lack of knowledge of Japanese combined with Allan's fairly simple Japanese, but part of it really is the questions. Maid cafés seem like the type of place that would want you to stay and order more things and force you to ask for the bill!

We're trying to figure out what to do the next few days now. Most of Tokyo and area seem more fun without rain and the forecast is loaded with heavy rain this week. Suggestions welcome!

We've been observing things as we go of course. Here are a few of the less-obvious ones:

The only guys who wear shorts (other than us) are otaku.
In Tokyo they don't cover their lights unless there's a reason for it. Lots of bare fluorescent tubes hanging unless they have a glare shield or a water-proof cover.
What James said last year about Japanese fashion is true: lots of people buy trendy things but have no sense of how they go together.
Lots of dairy here. Every meal we have seems to feature rich ice cream, real butter, thick cream for coffee, etc. Makes stuff taste good; makes me feel guilty!

We're off for now. Must try more of the ultra-cheap vending machine beer (240-320 yen / 500 mL). Cheers from Liam and Allan in Tokyo!

Japan Day 1: Shinjuku

2008-06-21T06:56:00.019-06:00

After a somewhat long and boring flight, Liam and I got on the Narita Airport Express Train to Shinjuku Station at 5:15 P.M. local time. I got off the platform and wondered where all the locals were. The train platform was fairly empty. We followed the train signs so we could find the train line to the hotel: the Keio New Line. So off we went, up some stairs and through the passgate. After the last station sign we saw nothing but a busy street. I was confused. Perhaps the arrow pointed the other way? No, for once my sense of direction was correct and we stood there confused. I decided to ask about the line and luckily there was a woman from Britain who pointed us to the other part of Shinjuku Station across a busy street. So we crossed and entered the station. We discovered where all the people of Shinjuku Station were -- at the MAIN Station! It was absolutely packed shoulder to shoulder and we had the unfortunate task of dragging our suitcases with us!

Luckily, without making any mistakes in selecting which trains to take, we ended up at our small, comfy hotel. As you can see, the room is quite cramped, with barely enough room to put our suitcases down. But that was perfectly fine with us. The room has good A/C and the bed is comfortable. We unpacked and reorganized our stuff and decided to head down to the local Mos Burger. A nice old guy greeted me at the till in Japanese and I just ended up just standing there dazed. At first I wanted to respond to him in Japanese that I was an English speaker but I couldn't dig up the words in my jetlagged mind. Too late, the cashier replied "Oh, so you don't speak Japanese!" in very fluent English and changed the Japanese menu to an English one. Dang, did I feel dumb!

After enjoying a free, spartan continental breakfast consisting of toast, butter and orange juice. We set off for Shinjuku, which was only a couple stops from our local station, Hatagaya. One of our first stops was Yodobashi Camera. Eight floors of things we can find at Future Shop, Rona, The Brick and Staples! Announcements of duty-free shopping were made in Japanese, English, Mandarin, French and German! The bathrooms had the high-tech toilets with the heated seats and water cleaners. However, there was one thing that drove me nuts about that store. They have a theme song, which is a rehashed version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, playing over and over again!

After our trek (literally) through Yodobashi Camera, we walked around the shopping streets. We came across the Rakeru restaurant, which wasn't open for another hour. After window shopping the plastic versions of the food available on menu, we decided we would return when the establishment opened. During our random exploration we discovered things such as cigarette vending machines, arcades with games that we had never seen before, and another Yodobashi Camera!

We finally went to the Rakeru at 11:35 A.M. and we ended up being the first ones there. Once again I froze when the servers spoke to me in Japanese. Total failure!! We were seated and we marveled at the classy setting.. The server returned and I apologized to her with "Sorry my Japanese is not very good" and repeated the same phase in Japanese... I did it! SUCCESS! So I had some fun with trying to order for me and Liam with my Japanese with our server (the one in the glasses). After we enjoyed a great rice omelet meal, we paid for the meal and I used my junior Japanese to ask if I could take a photo. As you can see, the effort paid off! The food, price and service was so good that we will definitely be back to Rakeru!

So after lunch, we went to back to Shinjuku Station to look for my Japanese friend, Rina. The meeting area was Shinjuku Station West Exit, which was huge! We waited there for an hour and walked all over the station entrance... still no Rina. We went back to the hotel where I called her -- she was there all along! Well, we went back to the hotel and I called her. Thank goodness she was still waiting for us! We figured out a better meeting place: the Station Koban (police box, or a mini police station). We finally met up and enjoyed the sights of the Shinjuku shopping departments, enjoyed traditional Japanese food, a fancy cafe (which was the cheapest of the franchises but still was quite upscale compared to what we have) and played a couple games on a Taiko Drums arcade machine! It's sort of like Guitar Hero, but with two massive drums!!

From Tokyo, Cheers from Allan and Liam!

Shot of the Month - February

2007-03-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

So I went from an extremely late post for January to a bang on time post for February...just a few minutes into March! Anyway, the feature this time is: Melanie in her colourful blue jacket holding a tiny point and shoot camera in her gloves.

For this shot, I had some incredible front light to work with as the sun was setting. A pleasing soft golden light on a beautiful model. Add an awesome lens that can create an incredible out of focused background and an off center composition and I got myself an incredible shot of an incredible girl! Smashing baby, absolutely smashing!

Shot of the Month: January

2007-02-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

Before February is out and you start asking, "What happened to the January shot of the month?"

As a photographer, January turned out to be relatively quiet until dance started again. Naturally deriving from that, the shot of the month comes from the January dane social!

Voila, My Dance TA Ryan! Mr. Technique and Form and can definitely show his stuff in front of the camera!

For all you dance savvy types, Ryan here is doing a "New York" during a Cha-Cha.

Why this shot? Well, I really like the lights on the ceiling decorating the top part of the frame. And despite the busy dance floor, I managed to single him out from the rest of the action.

Cheers to Ryan!

Shot of the Month: December

2007-01-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

Well this is one fine example of turning something as simple as a gate, into a photograph of interesting patterns! I had so little light to work with but my improvised with a low light lens (Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8) and using the lens hood as a "pod" to prevent any camera shakes! A fine photo of intersting composition and excellent photographic technique!

Shot of the Month: November

2006-12-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

Alright I figured out to post images with Picasa looks pretty sweet! Anyway I'll be starting a new (first) segment on here called the "shot of the month!" I took this photo down by the river by the University of Alberta. The big raves I see from this shot are the cool textures, the gradient colouring and the implied movement with the angle of the shot. A pretty nice shot don't you think?

2006-12-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

Let's give this a shot shall we?