Week 23: Days 154-158

9/1 Monday:
Started packing things and getting things ready to send by mail. I still need to close my bank account (which I didn't need in the first place) and somehow mail some boxes (I think I have it figured out). Sorry no pictures. Enjoy these instead:

Artist: Perfume, Song "Love the World", I love this song/artist/music video... instant fan!


Two more faces of Softbank: Oniisan (brother, the black guy), and Otousan (Dad, the white talking dog). Lots of different commercials with them in it. From what I can tell, Otousan is supposed to be Oniisan's father... somehow... and Oniisan has a Japanese mother and sister... somehow...

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9/2 Tuesday:

From Japan 155

Seriously... watch this:

Yup, that's right, people in black suits making cats dance... and fly... I don't know what to say...

Well, today you get to see just about everything else I bought. Mostly figures, some posters, a small clock, another hand cloth, some little clips for zippers, the remake of Evangelion 1.01 DVD, Chii's Sweet home DVD (been watching this show just about every morning here, plus it includes a cute little pencil pouch), Soul Eater DVD (got a free little bag with it), some tapestry (at this point I saw the music video on TV), "I (heart) Tokyo" T-shirt, "Moe (Kanji), Akiba (Akihabara) in Tokyo" T-shirt, a neat gold "Nihon" (Japan) T-shirt, "Tama" (a common cat name) Puma parody T-shirt, an Evangelion watch, a large Ponyo tapestry poster (really happy I found this), a neat (and expensive) T-shirt from the Ghibli museum of the robot from Laputa, a shirt commonly worn during festivals that I got in Asakusa (the Kanji on the back is Asakusa), a neat black and gold Yukata I bought in Asakusa, four books I bought for the places I visited that I couldn't take pictures inside of (It's a Rumic World, Studio Ghibli Layout Designs, and the Ghibli Museum) and Ponyo (The Art of Ponyo), and phone straps: Shinigami from Soul Eater, Stitch and the three wise monkeys (err.. two wise monkeys... one sadly broke off), Stich eating Mt. Fuji (ROFL), and a 3D crystal of Tokyo Tower. Now for all the new stuffed animals: a character from the Ghibli Museum, Kirara from InuYasha which I bought at the Rumiko Takahashi exhibit, Stitch on a Peach (lol), Ponyo!, Final Fantasy characters I got at the Square Enix shop (a Chocobo, a Cactuar, a Moogle, and a Tonberry), Nya-mage (the cat from the Edo Era Village), and Chii (all curled up... awww...). Next are pictures (from the show "Lincoln" again) too funny for words... well I actually found the clips on Youtube:


Elastic Gum can be very painful... especially from 60m... poor robots.


"Be careful, it's hot." warns Hamada-san... a little late... poor robots.
Oh yeah, the last picture I took was of another peach gummy candy (yum).

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9/3 Wednesday:
Arg, the fact the Post Office is only open from 9-6 makes it hard to mail packages. Had to ask for time off in the morning... and took me a lot longer than I thought to carry the boxes all the way to the Post Office (grr...). I'll need to send one more tomorrow. Today I did my first presentation in front of most of the section I was in. I guess it went alright... Tomorrow I do it for the bosses. Sorry no pictures, enjoy another music video:

Artist: Halcali, Song: "Tandem". Love this song/artist, didn't see the music video till now, thought it was pretty neat.

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9/4 Thursday:

From Japan 157

My co-workers gave me this as a farewell gift, still need to try and translate it sometime.

Today was the final day of work, and my final presentation for the bosses. I think it went a little better than yesterday. After the presentation I had a special dinner with the bosses. On the way back home I stopped by Baskin Robbins and grabbed a peach float (yummy). I also took pictures of some of the things I got from my co-workers: an NES gamepad-shaped Meishi (business card) case (lol), the card with everyone's farewell messages (seen above, with a drawing of Ponyo and myself), a neat pen they gave me that was from Mt. Fuji (apparently), and a Mt. Fuji hand towel. The rest are some stuff I quickly grabbed from a character goods shop in Yokohama after sending my last package and before getting to work: a mousepad, Gurren Laggan stuffed mini-characters (just came out today!), and a couple more posters. Rest of the time was spent cleaning and finishing packing. I leave tomorrow (*snif*).

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9/5 Friday:

From Japan 158

My last picture of Japan, from Tokyo Haneda International Airport.

Well my final day. First, a picture of my hair, that I haven't cut in 5 months. Why? Because my host mom told me not to shave my head because normally "the only people in Japan that have a shaved head are: 1) People who play sports, 2) Monks, or 3) People who just got out of jail". So I didn't cut my hair (looks even more messy later in the day, after it has time to dry). Most of my pictures are from trains on my way to the airport. Well, I kinda lucked out. I wouldn't have made my flight by the time I got to the airport, thankfully the flight was delayed. I thought that 5 hours would be enough time to get from my apartment to the Tokyo airport, but confusion as to which trains to take and where to get tickets for some of the trains while dragging two huge pieces of luggage, a backpack, and a smaller rolling luggage case (all completely stuffed full mind you), made for a much longer trip than I anticipated. I took some pictures inside the airport (including a cherry-blossom themed McDonald's, an Origami museum, and some other neat things I saw) before finally leaving Japan. Hopefully I will be able to return some day, there is so much more I want to see and do here. This whole trip has been an amazing experience and I am so glad I went. Thanks to Stanford University, my family, my friends, and everyone else who has helped me have this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Week 22: Days 147-153

8/25 Monday:

From Japan 147

Mmm... peach dango.

Nothing really to talk about, so here are pictures of more food. They just came out with Peach Fanta (wohoo!). Next: a random peach drink. Next: a peach calpis drink, but you mix it with water to make it. I was happy when I found Nikkuman (meat buns), unfortunately it had mushrooms or something in it so it didn't taste good at all (*snif*). I saw this box for peach dango at the store and had to buy it, yummy stuff. The last few things are ice cream I bought. I think I took a picture of the balled ice cream before. The second to last ice cream was pretty neat, it had a hard outer shell, then a kind of syrupy gel between the shell and the ice cream. The last ice cream didn't taste that good, ended up throwing them out in the end. Oh yeah, and an interesting thing happened on TV: almost every channel aired the same commercial at exactly 9:00pm wishing Nissin a happy birthday to celebrate it's 50th anniversary.

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8/26 Tuesday:

From Japan 148

Shimatta!

Err... yeah... I'll get back to that. First, a huge bottle of Peach Fanta (bwahahaha). Some of the shows on TV are um... I'll just say odd. For instance, one guy has a microphone head for a... um... head. The next picture is from a show called "Lincoln". Basically a bunch of comedians from different shows get together and do stupid things for the sake of entertainment (some pretty funny stuff happens). For instance, in the picture I took, they are trying to catch balloons as the air is let out of them and they fall to the ground (yes, one of the people on the podium who let the balloons go is a girl in a bunny outfit). Next: mmm... ice cream mochi, a big box of em'. I kept trying to find green tea ice cream mochi, but the only ones they had were ones with chocolate in the center, which ruined it. Now Banana Street:

Ok, this is actually a different one than the one I saw, but it was funny. In the one I saw, the guy they were trying to get to say something um... amusing... in english ended up taking the note card from them and beating them with it (I guess he actually knew what it said, either that or he found out).
Side note - found something interesting while looking for "Lincoln" clips:


Notice something about the guy who is front and center of the group (Masatoshi Hamada, part of the comedy duo Downtown, one of the most popular comedy duos in Japan) that is watching (and laughing at) their friend (Hitoshi Matsumoto, the other half of Downtown): he is wearing a Stanford shirt!!! Sweet!

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8/27 Wednesday:

From Japan 149

Ramune.

This was the drink that the people from work gave me at the welcome dinner. Anyway, first picture is of my dinner: Omurice (basically an omlette with rice inside, actually pretty good). Then a bunch of pictures and a video of Ramune. I described it before, so here are some pictures of it. And now for the unveiling of the Square Enix Bag (well some of it). Mostly figures (actually half of those I got earlier, when I went to Akihabara). All the "Play Arts" figures (except for Auron) I got from the Square Enix shop. I also got a free leather notepad since I spent (well) over 8000 Yen. Also some pictures of the manga I bought. The first group is Chii's Sweet Home, a cute manga and anime about a kitten (couldn't resist). The second group is Soul Eater, a manga/anime I really wanted to get. The Trading Arts I got at the Square Enix shop, it only has one of the figures in each box, I don't know which one though. The last thing is the miniture gold-colored replica of the Tokyo Tower I bought when I went to the Tokyo Tower (sorry, didn't want to open the box yet).

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8/28 Thursday:

From Japan 150

Saku Saku, a Yokohama-area TV show featuring a cute girl and a puppet.

Here's a clip:

The odd thing is, she never really looks at the puppet when she talks to it...
Anyways, more stuff I bought. First: peach gummy candy (:P). Next: peach flavored water (:P). After the TV picture is a shot one of the things I bought at the "It's a Rumic World" Exhibit: a bag with the chick from the apron of one of the characters of Rumiko Takahashi's manga (Maison Ikkoku) with the words "Piyo Piyo" (aka Cheep Cheep). A large hand cloth of Sasuke and Naruto from the Naruto movie I saw. A 3D folder of Ponyo and a Ponyo bookmark. A nice fan that my host-mom gave me before I left. A purple Doshisha University T-shirt. A neat Nikko Kegon Falls T-shirt. An "I (heart) Kyoto" T-shirt. And an awesome Gurren Laggan T-shirt.

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8/29 Friday:

From Japan 151

Here is what 120,000 Yen (~$1,200) looks like. Watch as it disappears tomorrow.

Not a lot to talk about. The people from work took me to a Chinese restaurant for a farewell dinner (well farewell to me and another guy who was leaving the company today). They tried to get me to eat dog... I politely declined. I discovered another thing about my boss (the Sargent), he secretly has the same Laputa phone strap I have (hehe). Oh, and we had some crazy rain and lightning again today. The power even went out a couple of times in the restaurant. Got back pretty late and needed to go to bed so I could get up early tomorrow, so I only took pictures of the money I will be splurging and the ticket to the Ghibli Museum I will be using tomorrow. :)

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8/30 Saturday:

From Japan 152

The (not quite life-size) robot from Laputa: Castle in the Sky at the Ghibli Museum.

Lots of fun today. First stop: The Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. Thankfully it wasn't raining (well at least not right away). You know it's going to be fun when the bus to get there is Ghibli-themed. I took a lot of pictures here, it was really like something out of a Ghibli movie, so awesome. As usual, I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside (bah). So much to see, the pictures pretty much explain it all (well at least the outside). Even the stained glass windows were all pictures from Ghibli movies. After exploring the museum I had to get lunch at the cafe (although I didn't really want to wait in the long line). After lunch I headed to my next stop: Nakano (W of Shinjuku). I wanted to find more character goods (not the type that was in Harajuku), and Nakano Broadway apparently had some. At the station in Nakano I saw someone in a pepper costume (at least I think that's a pepper) advertising for Hot Pepper (whatever that is). It was pretty crowded there, but there were a lot of different goods, floors of them, although most were used goods. After exploring there for a while, I headed to Ikebukuro (N of Shinjuku) to search for more character goods. Walked around for a bit (taking pictures) but had a hard time finding the place I was looking for. Eventually I found it and spent some time there buying things before grabbing some dinner and heading back home.

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8/31 Sunday:

From Japan 153

A five-story pagoda at Sensō-ji in Asakusa.

Well I didn't spend all my money yesterday, so I have more to spend today. First picture is the results yesterday's splurg, now for today! First stop: Asakusa. Well, the first stop is actually Ueno station (which was pretty neat, and also has a Hard Rock Cafe, but I didn't have time to go there), then Asakusa. Wow is this place busy. Lots of things to buy here and lots to see. Hehe, I saw a little dog with boots, jeans, a jeans jacket, and a hat (it was cute). Samurai swords, stuffed dogs/cats, masks, food, you name it, they have everything you/a tourist would want to buy here. I eventually made it to the end of the long street of shops leading to the Hōzōmon (the inner gate). The gate features two large statues (representing Niō, the guardian deity of the Buddha), as well as three large lanterns (err two large, one HUGE). This then leads to Sensō-ji, Tokyo's oldest temple. I took some pictures there, then headed back into the shops. Took a picture of a Maneki Neko (beckoning cat) shop (that's right, an entire shop just for beckoning cats). As I was leaving, I grabbed some more pictures of the other gate, Kaminarimon (the outer gate). Spotted the dog again, which now had sunglasses on (lol). Also some random interesting things I saw while heading to Akihabara again. Took some more pictures around there before spending some more money. Came back home and took a picture of all the fun stuff I bought (well, the bags). Another amusing show on TV, this time one of the comedians (in full Geisha costume, makeup and everything) was teaching the others (including the Downtown comedic pair) how to be a real Geisha... sort of. Task one: serve sake... from a barrel... that sprays when opened. Task two: bring the tray of food... by way of obstacle course... including a slide (Hamada-san actually almost made it... except for the slide, where he painfully, and repeatedly in slow motion, slammed his ass onto the mat). Task three: bedside manner... which Matsumoto-san apparently didn't do right. Final task: make it to the house (set)... through wind (huge-ass fan)... and rain (fire hoses). Well he made it... not in one piece though.

Next week is my final week in Japan! *snif* :`(

Week 21: Days 140-146

8/18-19 Monday-Tuesday:
Work... Hmm... raining off and on here. One day we even had such a downpour that I couldn't see the building across the street from the window at work. Lightning here looks like someone is taking a flash picture of the sky (if that make sense).

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8/20 Wednesday:

From Japan 142

Isezaki Mall, Yokohama.

Wanted to check out this area for a while now. Sorta near my train stop in Yokohama, though in the opposite direction from where I work. Under the Isezaki Mall structure thingy, a mist is sprayed down onto passers by (you can kinda see it in the 5th picture). The last few pictures from Isezaki Mall are of a neat clock I saw. Then pictures of all the peach jellies I found (yay!).

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8/21 Thursday:

From Japan 143

A view from the tallest building in Japan: Yokohama's Landmark Tower.

Finally got around to getting to the top of this thing. Wanted to do it on a clear day, but it didn't look like it was going to be any clearer before I had to leave. Before getting to the tower I took some pictures of the area again (trying to get some better pictures). Got a few neat ones with the sun brushing the top of the clouds. Also, some more angles of the neat ship (I especially like the 9th and 10th pictures). Plus a picture of the moving covered walkway and a couple close-up shots from the base of the tower. Then TONS of pictures from the top. BTW, the elevator is the the 2nd fastest elevator in the world (41 ft/s or 28 mi/h), fun stuff. Sorry a lot of the pictures are sorta blurry, its hard to take pictures as its getting dark, plus reflections on the windows. Some are a little clearer because I was resting the camera on the windowsill, but couldn't really angle the camera. The picture above is of the area towards where I work. As it got later, the clouds started to roll in, and I got some neat shots of some dark clouds above the city. The fish were (I guess) the theme inside the tower. There was also a screen you could walk on that was displaying some fish in water. After a bit, I started seeing lightning and kept trying (and failing) to get pictures of it. Eventually the clouds got really thick, making it impossible to see outside, though now when lightning flashed, everything lit up, it was pretty neat, but hard to actually catch. After grabbing some dinner, I headed home. Since it was the 15th anniversary of the Landmark Tower, they had these "I LOVE YOU!" posters everywhere, amusingly creepy (why does the tower have eyes?). While walking back, I saw this great view of the tower at night and the boats lit up and reflecting in the water, I kept trying to get a clear picture, but nothing really worked (where's a tripod when you need one), the only one that seemed to turn out clear was crooked (the 2nd to last one), oh well.

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8/22 Friday:

From Japan 144

Awww... it's a sheep-donut.

Well, today I decided to finally try Pachinko. Since I spent some time figuring out what exactly your supposed to do, finally got around to trying it (it's actually really simple, you just need to know which ones to actually use). All you really have to do is try to get the balls into a center hole as it bounces down the pines. You keep firing balls by turning and holding a knob (the farther you turn, the farther they shoot up). Each ball that goes in the center will cause a slot machine to start turning. Lining up two numbers sets the machine in "Reach" mode, which is usually accompanied by neat movies and animations. If you line up 3 numbers (after much tension and excitement), the machine will enter "payout mode" where each ball that enters the center (which is now made easier) you will get some multiple of those out (depending on the numbers that lined up, or something). When in "Reach" mode, if you don't line up three numbers, the machine will often give you another chance by some flashy animation and parts of the machine itself moving (ie. a sword unsheathing, a dinosaur biting, a lantern tilting, etc.). Usually if you get into "payout mode", when it ends you have a high chance of entering it again (ie, winning streak). Anyway, I can understand how these are popular/can be addicting (they even have TV shows that show people trying out the newest machines). There will be different themes to each one (anime, movies, romance, etc.). Also, different Pachinko parlors may have different deals; how many balls you get for your money or increased chance of getting a "Reach". So, the interesting thing is what happens after you collect your winnings. In case you don't know, gambling is illegal in Japan, so... what do you do with your winnings? Well, first a Parlor attendant (I dunno what else to call them) comes and collects your trays of pachinko balls and then pours them in a machine to count them. Then you have the option of getting a card that you can save to use on another Pachinko machine (same parlor), or you can get a ticket to take to a counter where they have prizes ranging from snacks, pens, and cigarette lighters to bikes, electronics, and bread makers. So how exactly do people get money from this? Well, due to the fact that it's illegal, Pachinko parlors and police have a close relationship. Basically, when you go to exchange your ticket for a prize, you can also exchange it for these special chip-things that can be used to buy a prize later, or can be taken to a window right outside of each parlor and exchanged for cash. The catch is, the cash exchange window is not operated by the Pachinko parlor itself, this means you are technically not gambling for cash at the Pachinko parlor, and the police allow it. So I tried this out. Just a note, it is expensive, especially if you expect to actually win anything. Well, I did end up winning for a while on one of the machines (8000 Yen or ~$80), although I spent about 13000 Yen (~$130), about 5000 Yen (I think) before winning on another machine, then most of the rest trying out different types of machines after the one machine I was winning on stopped winning. Sorry no pictures, I didn't feel right taking pictures inside. After that I decided to finally try Mr. Donut. Got a few different donuts, including a green tea one. They were pretty good.

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8/23 Saturday:

From Japan 145

From Japan 145

From Japan 145

I love Ghibli!

*cough*... um... please excuse my child-like behavior. Fun stuff today. First stop: The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT) in Tokyo, featuring the exhibit: Studio Ghibli Layout Designs. Was very excitied about this. "In the first endeavor of its kind in Japan, Studio Ghibli will join MOT in exploring the power and fascination of the anime movies of Takahata and Miyazaki through some 1,300 layouts." Took some pictures of the outside of MOT. As usual, no pictures were allowed inside the actual exhibit, except for a few places. I wish I could have taken a picture of the ~10ft tall copy of the layout design of the onsen (bathhouse) from Spirited Away. There was a room we were allowed to take pictures of huge copies of some of the layout designs (not quite as big as the ones earlier). After the main exhibit, there was an area with some fun things to do: 1) a wall of dust-ball (from Spirited Away/Totoro) drawings from all the visitors to the exhibit (I tried to draw one... and failed... ended up looking like someone stepped on it). 2) A picture with the little white creatures from My Neighbor Totoro. 3) A giant poster of Ponyo to stand, and hold your own Ponyo in a bucket, in front of. 4) A perspective drawing of Totoro to lie down on for a picture (bwahaha, girls giggled at me when I took that picture). 5) TONS of merchandise to buy. Took some pictures of neat things I saw as I walked back to the train station (yes, that's Genie with a pirates mickey mouse hat). Then I headed toward Tokyo Tower. Picture #49 is of the gate I tried to take at night as I left last time I was here. Before getting to Tokyo Tower, I visited the Zojo Temple (Zojo-ji). Which (like everything else) was under repair. Since noone was really around, I grabbed some pictures inside, then headed off to the Tokyo Tower. Took lots of pictures inside and out. The amount of waiting I had to do, was rather annoying. Wait in line for a ticket to go up the tower, wait in line for an elevator to go up the tower, wait in line for a ticket to go to the special observatory, wait in line for the one elevator to go to the special observatory, wait in a line that circled all the way around the center of the special observatory for the one elevator to go back down to the regular observatory, wait in line for the elevator to go down to the exit. Half my time there was spent in line waiting (>_<). Anyway, the rainy weather didn't help with the view either. Although it was pretty neat that they had "look down windows" on the regular observatory floor to see below you. Although Tokyo Tower was celebrating it's 50th anniversary, the only thing I saw them doing to celebrate was give kids a 50th anniversary button. After Tokyo Tower, I headed towards Shinjuku to find the Square Enix Character Goods Shop Show Case. Saw this weird metal statue on the way there. Took me a bit to find it (rain not helping). Took a lot of pictures and spent over 20,000 Yen (~$200). They had a lot of VERY expensive stuff, but I didn't buy those. On the way back home I stopped by Dennys (yup Dennys, definately not American Dennys) and enjoyed ebi katsu (fried shrimp), a peach pancake thing, a peach drink, and a peach dessert (woohoo!). I'll show you what I bought later, for now, enjoy the awesome mystery black bags (they even put a plastic bag over the huge one so it wouldn't get wet). Last picture is the result of today's excursion :).
Side note: Random car commercial on TV singing "Puff the Magic Dragon"... yeah... thought that was um... random.

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8/24 Sunday:

From Japan 146

Nikko Edomura (aka Edo Wonderland, aka Edo Era Village).

Finally got back to Nikko. Today's visit: The Edo Era Village (Edomura/Edo Wonderland). Bah rain. Unfortunately (because of yesterday's excursion) I didn't wake up early enough, so I didn't get to Nikko (actually a different stop, Kinugawa-onsen) until around 2. Took me a bit to figure out what bus I needed to take, so I didn't get there until almost 3. Even though I complain about the rain, the clouds made the surrounding hills look really beautiful. On the bus ride to the Edo Era village I saw another "theme park" called "World Square" (which is probably where the Mt. Rushmore was from). Once I got to the village I had to hurry because I wanted to get back to Tokyo to take another train to go see Matsuri Tsukuba (a festival in Tsukuba where giant paper floats are lit up at night). So I somehow rushed through the place in less than an hour, taking a bunch of pictures. I basically walked from one end to the other then went in to a few buildings as I headed back. First building: recreations of historic battles and such (oooh... bloody... this ain't Disneyland). Next building: Horror house, damn this is creepy, moving floors, switches to activate moving statues, a spiked ceiling that falls down (ok, doesn't actually fall down, but has a video screen of two American actors pretending they are being impaled by falling spikes, funny stuff), demonic heads that move down as you enter a room, a well that you look down and see screen of the back of your head looking into the well, falling scythes, dismembered limbs, moving demonic plants (all of this is very dark and scary), and ends with the Buddha with rays of light shining behind it (can't really see the rays of light due to the flash), awesome stuff. Spotted the Nya-mage (the Mickey Mouse of Edo Wonderland, a cat with a samurai style topknot. Next building: ninja weapons (sweet!). Then through some cave to a maze (didn't waste time going through the maze). Next: Samurai armor. Then a ninja house, with a tilted floor (the camera is straight, actually the room was more tilted than that), and strange rooms (I think I accidentally took the emergency exit out). Then I headed back (I think I missed the activities because I got there so late). On the way back I noticed another "theme park", something to do with dinosaurs and 3D... Unfortunately I didn't get back to Tokyo until around 6, so if I tried to go to Tsukuba I would get there until probably 8, when the festival would already be over, and I would have a hard time getting back home, so I decided to grab some food, check out the shopping area of Asakusa (although just about all the shops were closed) then head home. I did get a neat picture of the covered shopping area of Asakusa.

Week 20: Days 133-139

8/11 Monday:
Epic Fail. Yeah, didn't actually do anything today, slept in after yesterday... so much for today's plans.

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8/12 Tuesday:

From Japan 134

The magnificent Kegon Falls.

Yay, plans successful... sort of. Well I did finally make it to Nikko, but didn't get to do all that I wanted. So I finally figured out what train(s) I needed to take to get to Nikko, unfortunately it wasn't entirely clear to me, so I ended up missing a transfer I needed to take and ended up going a lot further than I wanted, and ended up having to go back (although I did notice a recreation of Mount Rushmore while on this side route... hmmm... I'm still in Japan right?), so rather than arriving at about 12:30pm, I got there around 2:30pm. Then it took me a while to figure out what bus I needed to take to actually get to Kegon Falls. The area here is amazingly beautiful, just wish it wasn't so cloudy/hazy. The ride up to the falls was on a very zigzaggy road. About 2/3 up, I got off the bus to take a ride on a gondola up to get a nice view of the valley, the falls, and the lake. I then grabbed the bus again and finally got to Kegon Falls. Took lots of pictures here, as well as videos. It was definitely worth the trip. After another zig-zag down, I tried to see if there were any hotels around to stay at. Unfortunately I could only really find one hotel, and they were all full. Since I didn't really have time to search around (blindly and in the rain) for a hotel, I decided to head back home. I will have to return here again, there are still many things I want to see, like the Tosho-gu (also the location of the three wise monkeys: hear, speak, see no evil, and the sleeping cat). Plus I want to visit the Edo Era village.

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8/13 Wednesday:
Sleep is Fail.

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8/14 Thursday:

From Japan 136

Mt. Fuji FTW!

Ok, so maybe not the best picture, but that's the best I got. Today's destination: Mt. Fuji. Ok, not Mt. Fuji itself, but some cave exploring near Lake Kawaguchi. Oh yeah, one of the trains I rode had awesome caricatures of Mt. Fuji on it, especially the one on the front/back. So after some map/bus studying, I eventually figured out how to get to one of the caves... evidently the Batcave... or Bat-Cave... aka "Miracle Of Life On Our Planet". I can't remember ever actually going to a real cave before, so I decided, why not in Japan? The cave wasn't all that big, but it was kinda interesting, very wet, dark, and cold (had to wear a helmet, probably a good thing, would have most likely cracked my head open several times on some of the low ceilings/crawl spaces). Btw, I love signs that tell you to go two ways at once. There were no actual bats in the Batcav- err Bat-Cave, but the number of old Batman tv-show/movie posters from around the world was just awesome. Plus Mickey Batmouse, tons of pictures of bats, and bat-related books (don't think I got a picture of that one). Unfortunately I happened to take the bus at the wrong time to go to the cave. It just happened to be a 1.5 hour wait between when the bus would come... with the next bus being the last one to get back to the station (grrr....), so I didn't really have a chance to get some good pictures of Mt. Fuji. I tried to grab some on the way back to the station while I also got pictures of the lake. Oh well.

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8/15-16 Friday-Saturday:
Double Fail.

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8/17 Sunday:

From Japan 139

Throwing water at a portable shrine.

Almost-fail; woke up late. Got to Tokyo just in time to see the once-in-three year festival: The Fukagawa Hachiman Festival. Basically, tons of portable shrines are marched through some of the streets in Tokyo and people throw water/hose down the people and the shrines as they pass by. Well, it was raining (thankfully not pouring), so everyone was pretty wet anyways. I followed one of the shrines for a bit, then moved ahead to watch others down the route. Following the route I also came across Taiko drummers. I also noticed that some shrines would branch off different paths. It seems people were still having fun despite the rain. Eventually, things started to wind down, so I headed back home.

Week 19: Days 126-132

8/4 Monday:
Blah work... ok, last commercial, sorry, this is taking too long otherwise.

Yeah, that's Brad Pitt, yet another Softbank face.

This was the commercial I wrote about that I saw when I first came to Japan. Interesting no?

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8/5 Tuesday:
Something else interesting on TV today. It was a TV show where they had a bunch of guys dress up as school delinquents/gangsters based on manga characters, act (somewhat) like their manga counterpart, speak in slang, and chase each other around a high school trying to steal each others' pants, by taking them off forcefully of course. Hilarity ensued (sorry no pictures).

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8/6 Wednesday:

From Japan 128

It's a KFC matsuri! (festival)

Hehe, KFC commercials are awesome. First, more pictures of my peach-filled fridge (buahahaa, my coolish stock drastically increased) *cough* anyway, more peach food, this time drinkable peach Konnyaku Jelly (like the jelly packs I love, but in drinkable form). Now the KFC commercial. Amusing they have a commercial of a matsuri just for KFC, even carrying Col. Sanders like a portable shrine (lol). Last is Melon soda... err cream soda... not quite melon soda... tastes more like a melon float... which tastes like veggies... not that great.

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8/7-9 Thursday-Saturday:
Sorry, nothing to talk about. I got a week off starting on Saturday, even tried to make a bunch of plans to go to all these different places, kinda failed on Saturday when I spent half the day trying to figure out how to get to Nikko. Eventually gave up. I'll do some exploring of Tokyo tomorrow.
Forgot to mention I got to see "The Dark Knight" on Saturday. That made my day.

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8/10 Sunday:

From Japan 132

Welcome to Tokyo Dome City! (if you look closely, the roller coaster actually goes through the building)

Lots of wandering today. First stop: Shinjuku (NW Tokyo), where they had a Ponyo themed station (awesome). There I snapped some pictures of the famous Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office (Tocho). From there I headed to the electronics district of Shinjuku (sorta like a mini Akihabara). Saw an insane amount of capsule stations. Wandered around there a bit before heading off to my next destination.
Second stop: Shibuya (W Tokyo), where I finally got to see Nekonade (that adorable kitten movie). After the movie I took some pictures of the main area of Shibuya including the famous "Shibuya 109" building. Didn't actually go inside cause it was mainly stylish clothing for young women (I am neither stylish, nor a young woman). So I headed off to my next stop.
Third stop: Harajuku (between Shinjuku and Shibuya), which was mainly just one extremely crowded street lined with small shops selling gothic lolita, rockabilly, hip hop, and punk outfits. Not quite what I was expecting (my guide told me character goods, I think they meant something completely different). After slipping through Harajuku, I decided to head to my next destination.
Fourth stop: Tokyo Dome City. Wasn't quite sure what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised. It had a couple of roller coasters and other rides, as well as what seemed to be a recreation of Tokyo in Lego. Of course their goods shop had Ghibli merchandise. There was also a "Jump Shop" (Shonen Jump being another weekly manga magazine, which include some of my favorite series; Bleach and Naruto), so I spent some time there. After that, I took some pictures of the area, including the huge roller coaster that went through a mall and a Ferris Wheel, and the Tokyo Dome (the world's largest roofed baseball stadium, and Japan's largest concert hall). After wandering around some more and taking pictures of the LaQua mall, I eventually decided to ride the thing: Thunder Dolphin. Unfortunately I couldn't really see much because they tell you to take off any loose items (like glasses), and I didn't have my contacts with me. Still, it was really thrilling to ride the 5th tallest continuous circuit roller coaster in the world, and the fastest one I have ever been on (clocking in at 80.8mph). After that I grabbed some food at KFC (with the Col. Sanders from the commercial out front). Grabbed some pictures of the lights at night (some didn't come out that great), then headed home. The last picture is from outside the subway station at Shonandai. It started heavily pouring rain, and when I say heavily I mean insanely. The rain and lightning/thunderstorms here are something else.

Week 18: Days 119-125

7/28 Monday:

From Japan 119

Yummy Reimen!

The website above has a good description: "Reimen are boiled, cold noodles served in a sauce of soy sauce and vinegar, and lavishly topped with thinly sliced strips of omelet, ham, cucumber, tomatoes, ginger and sometimes also chicken and pork. The toppings are arranged in a colorful pattern on top of the noodles, the customer has to mix the dish." So happy I can have this, Somen, or Katsudon every day. Oh, and I caught some show that was having some topic on cats... too cute. The 2nd cat picture is of Tama, a station cat, that was even featured on the Colbert Report:
(It starts at 2:33)

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tip/Wag - Palin's Newsweek Cover

Ron Paul Interview
Bob Barr Interview

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

"That's the most adorable financial disaster I have ever seen."
Anyways, Japanese people love cute animals, especially cats.

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7/29 Tuesday:

From Japan 120

Err... seriously... wtf...

Oh the shows you find on tv here. Well get back to that... first, more peach food. Mmm... peach Anpan (red-bean paste filled bread). Alright, so it wasn't that good, don't really like red-bean paste, but it was peach, so it was edible. Next are some pictures of a very cutely-silly looking dog. It was amusing when the guy from the show approached the dog and then the dog jumped on him. Later they showed the guy running away from the dog on the beach (it was pretty funny). Next they showed "comical dancer Umacho". Yes, that's right, he is wearing a horses head (no clue why). Later on they got the people on the show to also wear the horse mask and start dancing... yeah... I don't think I can explain it...

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7/30 Wednesday:
Work... sorry, no pictures.

Yup, that's Cameron Diaz, one of the faces of Softbank (another cell phone company).

Seriously, American commercials suck compared to this :P. So simple, yet so enjoyable. I never really liked Cameron Diaz, nor the song, but I actually loved this commercial (ended up singing along most of the time it was on). I think its the dancing that makes this work.

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7/31 Thursday:

From Japan 122

Mmm... more peach steam cake.

Ah, never get tired of the peach food here. Steam cake and some peach and yogurt cream thing. Soo good. *sigh*

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8/1 Friday:
Sorry, no pictures again. Tomorrow I'm invited to a company BBQ (Japanese BBQ). Can't wait.

Too cute. Not quite sure exactly what the one cat says at the beginning, but this is a semi-translation of what the cats say at the end: "hey..what did you eat the day before yesterday..? Ah....grrrrr forgot".

Another Softbank ad. Another of the faces of Softbank is a talking white dog (more on that another time). So, in advertising one of their plans (White Call), they have these white cats... mmm... not quite sure why....

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8/2 Saturday:

From Japan 124

Mmmmm.... Japanese BBQ.... sooooo much better than American BBQ... :P

Japanese BBQ is soo good. So, I met up with my group leader (subleader) at Futamatagawa station (somewhere between Shonandai and Yokohama, via different train) around 9am and we walked to the "Child Wildlife Park" where we would be having the BBQ. There were a lot of trees around, but didn't really provide much shade (although it was mostly cloudy anyway). The guy with the "Unoversity" shirt is the subleader (Inomata-san). Japanese BBQ is a lot like Yakiniku, just put sliced raw meet on the slab to cook, and tastes soo good. The guy in the "1789 Hoyas" shirt is Mao-san (one of the guys in my small group, he's actually Chinese). The chubby guy in the blue shirt with the France flag is Yuusuke-san (not in my group, but works at the desk opposite mine and was the guy who showed me around Akihabara). After a while, some people started constructing a makeshift chute for Somen (yay Somen!) out of plastic bottles (hehe). I also got a picture of the awesome 10,000,000 Yen dried squid package (hehe). The guy in the bright yellow shirt wearing white cloth as a bandana on his head is the head boss (general manager) of our section (Ohara-san). So the way Somen is supposed to be eaten is by streaming water down a bamboo chute (in our case, plastic bottles covered in plastic wrap) and dropping the noodles down the chute with the water and the people eating it grab the noodles as they go past and then dunk the noodles in the Somen sauce (?) and eat it. Our makeshift chute didn't quite work... it ended up leaking in the middle, then the noodles would get stuck under the plastic wrap, and the chute would half collapse. Eventually we got it mostly working. It seems that they also dropped small things like grapes and jelly beans down the chute with the noodles (not sure why). Sorry again about the sideways video, I keep forgetting not to do that, I'll edit it at some point. And in the next video it may be hard to hear, but the little girl has shoes that squeaked, it was cute. So after eating meat, veggies, clams, Somen, and more noodles, we took to the Japanese summer tradition of splitting watermelons. Suikawari is usually done at beaches, it's sorta like whacking a pinyata, only on the pinyata is on the ground and people tell you which direction to go. The tall guy with the dark green shirt taking the picture of the kid trying to whack the watermelon while his blindfold falls off (hehe) is Kohno-san (another one of the guys in my group). I took some pictures and video of the kids trying to crack open the watermelons and then we started cleaning up. As we left I took some more pictures around the park and then headed off to Yokohama so I could see the new Naruto movie that just came out. Since the showings at the time I got there were sold out, I bought tickets for later on and decided to also go see the new Indiana Jones movie. It wasn't quite as bad as I heard it was. On the way back, I saw people were filming a scene near World Porters for a TV drama I had watched a few times on TV (eventually even saw the scene on TV that they were filming). I tried to grab a picture without a flash before they left, so that's what the blurry picture is at the end.

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8/3 Sunday:

From Japan 125

A Yukata water/ice festival in Ginza, Tokyo.

So, a lot to talk about, where to start... Well, first, my plan was to go to Ginza to see the "It's a Rumic World" exhibit in the Matsuyama building and then do some walking around Tokyo. Before checking out the exhibit, I took some pictures of some of the buildings in Ginza. The exhibit was in celebration of Rumiko Takahashi's 30th anniversary creating manga. Rumiko Takahashi is a very popular artist worldwide with such creations as Ranma 1/2 and InuYasha. The exhibit showed off a collection of her original artwork (never shown to the public before), full scale recreations and scale models of several things from her manga, exclusive products, new anime, and many drawings of Lum (from Urusei Yatsura, Rumiko Takahashi's first full-length series). As with many places, noone was allowed to take pictures inside. So instead, check out this website which goes in to much more detail and actually was able to take pictures inside: http://furinkan.com/features/articles/itsarumicworld.html
So after getting through the hugely crowded and slow moving exhibit, I stepped outside to see these amazing ice sculptures. I had apparently stumbled apon a Yukata water/ice festival where they close off the main Ginza street and put up ice sculptures in the shape of each of the animals of the zodiac as well as things like hats, shoes, flowers, and fans encased in ice. They were all pretty spread out, so it took a while to actually walk from one end to the other. After walking and taking pictures for a while, I stopped in a toy shop I saw and took some pictures of the amazing lego creations (a Star Wars battle, Indiana Jones, and R2-D2), including awesome engrish ("When you lean on a display and ride a load, please very stop it because it is danger"). I also grabbed a shot of Pleo, a cute little robot that has things like light sensors, touch sensors, audio sensors, tilt sensor, and force-feedback sensors. After the toy store I went and bought some water (it was hot... and the ice sculptures made me thirsty). While walking back down the road I saw that some people seemed to be gathering for something and I saw that there some women in Yukata walking down the row of wooden pails. I then saw that there were a bunch of what looked like professional photographers gathering in front of the women in Yukata. So I snuck in and grabbed a shot as they threw water onto the streets. At first I was disappointed because my first shot wasn't that great, but they moved down the street some and took another shot throwing water, I got a closer and better angle and was able to get the amazing shot seen above. I still had other plans, so I moved on, took some pictures of the long row of wooden pails and a sign that I think is keeping track of the temperature before and after throwing water onto the street.
I started heading toward the Sony building (my next planned destination) and took a picture of the crosswalk and the surrounding buildings (including one with a Ponyo poster :P) at the corner where the Sony building was. Next to the Sony building was a "Dry Mist" machine blowing a cool (-6C) mist, thought that was pretty neat. In front of the Sony building was an aquarium, apparently to go with the "41st Sony Aquarium", the Sony building was showing. This was a combination of the "Aquarium"-like view using high-def Sony monitors and the awesome high tech 3D show in the "Communication Zone Opus" area. This isn't the old red and blue 3D, although it still uses glasses (not red and blue), it is definitely different. I don't know how different it is from IMAX 3D (since I haven't seen IMAX 3D yet), but it was definitely amazing to see. I took a video of a little rolly thing that would move to music it played, and I found on the bottom floor that the stairs there light up and play a musical note (like walking down a piano), which was neat.
Next stop, Tokyo station. On the way there, I saw the awesome warning sign "Please do it at the beach" with someone getting caught in a train door (basically, don't rush onto a train). Finally got to Tokyo station, but it took me a while to figure out how to actually get above ground, reason being they closed off many of the exits due to the construction/repair work outside. Like many things I already came across, Tokyo station was also under construction work, meaning a lot of it was blocked off from entrance/view, so then I headed toward the Imperial Palace. Saw some neat fountains and took a lot of pictures. The Imperial Palace was huge, took me a while just to walk through the outer garden (since we aren't actually allowed to go into the main Imperial Palace area). It was surprisingly pretty empty, so I got a lot of neat pictures here. I wanted to try see more of the Imperial Palace (apparently there is an east garden as well), but since I still wanted to go see the Tokyo Tower, I left after exploring the outer garden. On the way towards Tokyo Tower I came apon a little garden area and a reproduction of the liberty bell.
Eventually I finally reached Tokyo Tower. Outside, there was a show outside in celebration of 50 years of Shonen Sunday (a weekly Manga Magazine). They had a monkey doing some tricks, so I took some pictures and video. Unfortunately, I found out that the top floor of Tokyo Tower was actually closed for renovation or something (all the upper floors were closed since at least April, but the middle ones were opened recently), so I decided to come back when they actually opened the top floor rather than paying twice to go to the top floor. As it got dark I got couple more pictures of Tokyo Tower at night as I headed back home. The last picture is supposed to be of a gate I saw, it was pretty dark and I couldn't tell how my picture came out... I'll get a better one later.

Week 17: Days 112-118

7/21-23 Monday-Wednesday:
Work week... nothing exciting.

Phone commercials here are awesome!

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7/24 Thursday:

EARTHQUAKE!!!

Ok... maybe not that major. Anyway, at 12:26 AM there was an earthquake that measured at 6.8 in the north-eastern part of the main island of Japan, which is pretty far from where I'm living... so it really only measured around 3.0 here... but I still felt it :P

Not the best map... I would be somewhere near the bottom right corner of Japan.

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7/25 Friday:

From Japan 116

Mmmm.... peach danish!

Not just any peach danish mind you... "Oishisa mo BIG!" (Yummy and BIG!).

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7/26 Saturday:

From Japan 117

"KAGIYAAA!!!"

Hmm... I think Tamayaa sounds better... Anyway, another fireworks festival! This time in Tokyo. So I found out about a fireworks festival that was happening in Tokyo today so I decided to go see it (since the one I stumbled apon last week was awesome). On the way there, I saw that there were people next to the station in Yokohama playing Taiko drums and (currently resting) portable shrines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoshi Mikoshi). I watched that for a little while (and took some videos). You could really tell they were having a lot of fun. There were two Mikoshi, one was carried by the men, and the other by the women. When they eventually carried them off, they put a little kid (who was wearing almost nothing) on top of the front of the shrine, kinda cute. After that, I went on to Tokyo. It took me a bit to figure out where I was going, but I eventually reached Asakusa. Boy was it crowded. I grabbed a shot of Asakusa's magnificent gate and headed in the direction of the masses of people (there were arrows pointing which way to go, which helped some). This fireworks display is displayed a little differently than the one in Yokohama. Instead of just sitting somewhere to view the fireworks, people are herded across two bridges to view them, with two different fireworks displays on two different sides. To put this graphically: * = fireworks, | = bridge.
* | | *
If that makes any sense... anyway, across the first bridge you can see the Asahi Beer Tower (Asahi is a beer company in Japan), noted by it's gold wavy thing on top. Little hard to take pictures when you are being told to keep moving across the bridge. Unfortunately, once you reach the other side, it was hard to find a good spot to actually see the fireworks (too many tall buildings). Eventually I found a spot that wasn't bad. After a while, I headed towards the other bridge and took pictures as I crossed that one. I somehow timed it just right that the fireworks started when I was crossing the first bridge and ended as I crossed the 2nd. Not much else after that, so I headed home. When I got back I decided to take a picture of Ice Cream Soda, yup, that's right, Ice Cream flavored soda... it was actually pretty good, kinda like Melon soda.

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7/27 Sunday:

From Japan 118

My "ghetto" drapes.

Heh, finally got around to taking pictures of my silly drapes. I'll get back to that in a second. First, some more fun foods. I bought these kids treats you can make. The first one is kinda neat, you mix to different packets of some powdery stuff with water and then take some plastic thing and fill it with the stuff from one of the mixtures and make little balls from the droplets into the other mixture. Then you mix a 3rd packet with water (I messed up, it should have just been one scoop of water, not several) and create a foam and eat the droplets with the foam. Tastes pretty good. The 2nd candy was simpler to make, just mix two packets of powdery stuff with one scoop of water and eat that with the candy pellets (VERY suggary... a little too sugary). Now for more pictures of my room. First, my futon... not exactly comfortable. Next, the rest of my room (I originally was sleeping where the TV is and kept the TV in the right corner and the table in the left corner. Got tired of leaning my back against the closet door, so moved stuff to a better location. Then, my drapes... if you can call them that. I originally bought the white see-through ones... which didn't really work, cause they were see through (go figure -_-). Then I eventually bought the two small drape-like things and hooked them where the drapes were supposed to hang (the hooks for these were turned the wrong way and there were only two... so I just forced them in). Since my sliding window-door is only see-through from the top part, these (mostly) covered them. Then the rest of my room, and the cute little panda cell phone strap I bought in Yokohama Chinatown. You will notice that it's a little dirty. That's because I found out a little after buying it that, it's not really meant to be used... it got dirty just after using for one day (made me sad). Last is the awesome "soft twist marshmallow" I love. I used to only be able to get these things when we went to Victoria (Canada) for New Years (long ago).