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.