The Mayor

So our trip is coming to an end. I wish I would have documented it more, some of feelings and emotions of our day to day lives. In reality though this trip has been so out of this world that some days it felt like I didnt have a chance to really think about how I was doing, I was just experiencing. Hopefully some of the photos weve taken will make up for the lack of words. I am feeling a little sad today knowing that we are leaving in a few days. Its not a matter that I am sad I am leaving Japan, its the same type of sadness that you feel when summer is ending as a child. The knowledge that you wont be able to spend all our lazy days with the people you want to be around doing what you want to do. Rather, you will be returning the mundane everyday life again.

Anyway, it has been a really great experience and Rose keeps reminding me that it isnt over yet. Tomorrow we take the bullet train up to Sendai for a one day / one night excursion to see Utada Hikaru. This should be a really good experience, and we can add this too our list of cities that weve been too.

Right now I am sitting in a manga cafe … In reality it is like a normal internet cafe, but rather than having open terminals you sit in a little cubical. I am sitting a creepy leather chair right now, which I am sure has been masturbated in more than I would like to imagine. crammed into this little cubical is a 27 inch TV screen, computer monitor, and playstation. There is literally no room for anything but my person within this room, the day pack I carry has been jammed behind my chair. Aside from the noisy girls that are giggling right now it has been as silent as a library, no game noise, nothing but the faint sound of the air-conditioner above head. I have about 25 minutes left of my hour which was sorta costly at 300 yen an hour. However, with all the shit that is in this room, and the isolation and quiet it provides from the outside I am sure some feel the price is worth it. Looking around the windows box I noticed there really isnt any useful tools like SSH, just a bunch of Japan`s RPGs. Entering into the cafe I noticed the walls were covered with bookshelves full of manga which I am believe is free to read within your personal 5×5 isolation tank. Also, upfront, near the door, there was several vending machines, one serving hot fast food such as french fries and I believe I saw hamburgers, there was also several drink vending machines. It seems that they`ve provided everything you need to never venture out into the real world. All in all, it is an interesting concept, ii`ve only been to an internet cafe once in the states, so I don`t know if I would really use something like this there or not.

Anyway, things are good, I am just about out of time and don`t want to be billed for another hour so I should jet.

Day 2 started out without us really knowing where we were going to go. The rain that made it so difficult to get to our hotel the when we first arrived last night has continued kinda limiting what we can do today. Also, jetlag has a firm grasp of my head and I feel thoroughly hung-over with the earth having the feeling of moving under my feet. After some discussion we figure the best place suited for the weather would be Akihabara. This is the electronics district of Tokyo, which has many multi-story buildings loaded with various geeky stuff. Each floor is generally dedicated to one type of thing that someone might collect, be it manga to softcore porn. However, before leaving we decide to buy some breakfast from the AM/PM down the street from our hotel. We learned from our last trip that convenient stories are truly their name-sake in Japan and are convenient providing tasty baked goods and other real food to eat. We picked up some apple rolls and a milk-coffee drink and began walking to the train station. I found out last night that I remember how to use the machines to purchase tickets for the train pretty well. At Jinbocho we purchased our tickets, which were under $10 for both of us, to Akihabara and sat down at the platform at ate.

Once we arrived at Akihabara we exited out the first set of stairs we could find which lead us to part of Akihabara we were unfamiliar with. Last time in Japan it was pretty much any means possible to get to one station to the next, and by means I mean pure luck, so god only knows where that place was last time. Despite being some what uncomfortable we began walking around with the confidence that we had mastered the train system. Therefore, if we got last we could just go down into the subway and hop a train. Unfortunately, that confidence didn’t translate to well to the above surface as we first unknowingly walked out of the Akihabara district and into department building. It was still a very interesting department store, much like a sears in the US, but only each floor dedicated to something such as houseware on one, video games on another. We actually had a pretty good time in this store finding all kinds of things we are considering buying later on. On the top floor was probably the most exciting thing for Rose green-tea nana at an Indian restaurant. We had looked a variety of places, but couldn’t decide when we can to this Indian place and knew we couldn’t pass it up. You think we would go for Japanese food in Japan… But in reality this was what Japanese people eat now, so I consider it to be Japanese food despite the underpinning of “Indian…” Anyway, the food was great, we have photos of it which will be posted later… We did buy a few other things in this department store before we left, we purchased a ocha-ken (green tea dog) toy set for Rose, which has real-world use as it doubles a desk organizer. We purchased Utada Hikaru CD which was just released yesterday in Japan. We also buy a few 100 yen capsule toys

After leaving this department store we wandered around Akihabara for a sort period more, we accidentally walked into a sex shop and looked around. We played taiko drum and light gun games within the arcade… I didn’t think I liked arcade games, but now I love them…. We also looked into purchasing a Japanese Nintendo DS lite with a few games, we’ll do that later, don’t want to burn through our cash in the first day….

Anyway, it’s been really wonderful thus far. My Japanese is passable, and where it fails grunts and gestures have done us well…. Tomorrow we plan to hang around Tokyo some more and go to a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome!

two days in Japan so far…

The flight over went well. I normally fly well, but this time I neglected getting up to stretch and walk around. I think that resulted in me getting a bit of a headache, but nothing too nasty. Rose and I requested different seats before the flight, the flight was pretty booked, but our request was granted and we got the emergency exit . I’ve never sat in the emergency exit before, so I was a but nervous at first. However, I turned out really nice because I could stretch my legs and not get frustrated about someone putting their chair back on me.

Once off the flight we didn’t rush, but we were able to make it immigration before the majority of the crowd. Last time we were in Japan we were in immigration for easily an hour. After signing the back of the immigration card saying that we did not have any firearms or drugs, which I think its odd that we have to sign a back of a card saying we don’t have these things, we picked up our bags.

We had discussed how to handle ourselves once off the plane, planning out what we would do to ensure that things went well. First thing was to exchange some travelers checks. Next we need to pickup our JR rail passes from the JR pass office. We a few issues finding this office, but, while Rose sat and rested for a few moments, I asked information in my amazing … japanese and was directed downstairs. ….About my Japanese, despite years of lessons I can say every word I know in one sentence…. Anyway, we picked up the JR pass, which was down by the subway platforms, proceeded back up stairs. Up stairs we purchased very expensive limo bus tickets to Tokyo Station, the busiest station in the world, least Japan, and by expensive $60.00… We had 2 minutes to get to the bus so we rushed out the door to see a bus at the place we need it. I am carrying the luggage so Rose rushes ahead, but is unable to stop it, despite her best, and perhaps over enthusiastic, efforts.

The limo bus took us on the hiway that goes through the southern part of Tokyo and took about an hour of a very cramped trip to Tokyo station. Cramped because we only checked two of our bags to go under the bus well the other two went on our laps… These were our first sights of Japan and it was very beautiful trip despite other frustrations.

We got Tokyo station a little information from the bus limo ticket lady on how to get to the station for our hotel, but little else. We were very tired at this point and just wanted to drop off our heavy and big luggage, but our trip had just began. We found our trains pretty easily, having to lug around our bags up and down several long flights of stairs. Once at the station our Hotel was at, Sakura Hotel, we began walking down the street we thought was the direction of it. However, it turned out that we were walking the wrong way for several blocks. Fortunately, a very friendly business man came to our rescue and walked us all the way to our hotel, easily 20minutes from where we were last lost at.

Another quarter over… 3.5gpa for the last and hardest quarter of the year. One more year of stress left. However, before that stress can be allow in, it is now time to be stressed out about the upcoming adventure.

This trip has been in the works since at least December… Purchased tickets around April… Booked all the hotels in April as well.

Depart tomorrow!

Nothing overly planned in Japan, don’t want to constrain us and compound, or worse yet over look something interesting. We do have a few things planned:

1) Tokyo
a) Baseball Game
b) wander aimlessly

2) Kyoto
a) rose dresses up like a geisha
b) wander aimlessly

3) Nara
a) wander aimlessly

4) Sendai
a) Utada concert

All that wandering will amount to a lot of adventures and hopefully we can find interesting things. We’ve purchased a video camera to document the journey. I hope that we can put up video posts on a nightly basis, but who really knows. The craziness that I feel right now is certain to become overwhelming, but that is not a bad thing. I hope to just allow it to envelope us on this trip and just be part of it.