Toyama!

Yesterday we went to the northern coast of the main island of Japan, to the city of Toyama. I'm told that lots of Russians (and Brazilians) live there, but I don't think I saw any. We went to meet my pen-pal, Saiko! She is one of the nicest people ever! She went with us to some restaurants and helped us order, and showed us around Toyama. It turns out she does not even live in Toyama; it takes her nearly an hour to get there! This is the first time I have met one of my penpals.


Here I am after getting off of the Thunderbird express train from Osaka to Toyama. And there is Toyama castle! Real pretty.


Here we meet Saiko! See how nice she is! Oh gosh! Then we went to karaoke and sang our little hearts out; Saiko even sang a few songs in English, real hits from the 80's that are still super-popular here in Japan! Then we went to a Japanese-style pub and ate some really good stuff. I had ochazuke, which is green tea poured over rice, with other things thrown in for good measure like a plum and crunchy bits of baked rice I think. Whatever, it was yummy.

The best part was that we got on the correct train back to Osaka, even though it was the last train of the
night, and we would have been screwed if we had gotten on the wrong one or missed the last Thunderbird.

Pictures to go with the Tokyo saga from two days ago

We didn't go back to Tokyo, I'm just posting pictures of what we did while we were there.


We got on the Shinkansen, and I was feeling pretty dang good!


We passed by a hazy Mount Fuji, and arrived at Tokyo station!


What was the first thing we found but the famous Gamers! store! Also, David found the real Snaaaaaaake!


I think this is the same Mister Donut as from the YouTube Haruhi Dance video I saw, but I am not sure I am convinced. Tokyo sure is pretty at night-time.


Here is Ed and I horsing around. It was a thrill to be a hot 14-year old cartoon girl with a beard, even if only for a moment. Then, we went to Mos Burger, and I had a rice burger: a pork patty with rice cake things in place of a hamburger bun. (I also had a jalapeño chili dog which was actually real good.)


And our night in Akihabara in Tokyo comes to a successful conclusion!!





...


Not!


We wandered for an hour or more after we missed the last Hikari Shinkansen back to Osaka, until we were accosted by a helpful gentleman who directed us towards the Kanda station off of the Ginza line, where we stayed at a manga-kisa, or a manga cafe. We slept there in leather office recliner chairs. We had little cubicles, but we could close the doors between them. I got probably four hours of sleep, on and off. I gather the rest of us were not so lucky.

It's what's for dinner

Today was kind of a bust.

The Manga Cafe did help us get through the night, without question. That hooker out front wasn't helpful but once we got in there, we had shelter, drinks, and web access. $18 for 8 hours indoors was definitely better than wandering Tokyo for another hour in search of Capsule Hotels that may or may not exist.

On the other hand, our booths were directly underneath the air conditioner, which was at full blast all damn night. We were freezing. Also, the booths were likely constructed for people who are, on average, smaller than us. I never could stretch all the way out.

To top it all off, I think I've pinched a nerve in my back. All night, and for most of today, I've been experiencing a stabbing pain going up and down my leg, and no particular motion or position seems to touch it off or alleviate it. It's no damn fun at all. I checked for actual Japanese citizens stabbing me, and it's not that, so I'm thinking, yeah, pinched nerve. It sucks. When we finally got back to our hotel this morning, those of us who didn't really sleep last night (including me) just lay down and passed out. The others got some errands run during the day, apparently, but I feel bad. We haven't really gotten to do anything fun or vacationy today, and I feel sure that my crankiness over not sleeping and my damn back and leg hurting hasn't helped matters at all. I'm bringin' us down, man. We did not fly all this way to sit in our hotel room and not enjoy Japan.

Tonight ought to improve matters some. At my suggestion, it looks like we're going to go out and do shabu-shabu, a delicious thing where they bring you heaps of beef and you cook it in a broth you just made out of vegetables you just cooked and then the water gets more and more brothy from all the beef and veggies and then you cook more stuff in it and then you keep eating. It's typically all-you-can-eat. Oh, and: all-you-can-drink. If that doesn't cheer us up, then we're a lost cause. So we've got that going for us. Which is nice.

Ah well. We shall forge on and turn this vacation back around. Tomorrow we're going out to the countryside, and on Friday, we're hitting Kyoto. Should be pretty sweet. I understand there's stuff there. In the meantime, here are some photos from the last couple of days!


This is a karaoke spot on the edges of Amerika-mura. Despite the location, they didn't speak any English.

Didn't stop us.




This was actually the theme on every shirt in this place. I can't remember its actual name but it will remain in my memory as the Ronald vs Colonel Emporium.



Grilled crab legs at Kani Doraku. At night, that giant crab behind us moves. I think it is trying to claw visitors and wreak vengeance. It's not very good at wreaking.


David is about to ride the nicest shinkansen of his life.


nyo


Akihabara during the daytime. Pick any building; there are vices to be treated.


how do i shot alien


Akihabara at night. Pick any building, chances are it's sent someone to hell today.


Pork burger on rice patties. I am sad we don't have these. Get to work, Arby's.


I think I'm tired at this point. I don't yet know where I'll be spending the night.

To the shabu!

go somewhere else nyo

You would not believe the day I'm having.

Today started out greaｔ. For the mosｔ part, it remained great too. Later? Not so much.

We started out the day exactly the way we planned to: a quick subway trip to Shin-Osaka station, and the first serious use of our JR passes--a shinkansen ride to Tokyo! The shinkansen is actually quite remarkable. It's admittedly been a very long time since I rode AmTrak, but from what I can remember of it, this kicks its ass in many ways. Beyond going ridiculously fast (Three hours from Osaka to Tokyo, and that's not even the fastest train), it's just comfortable. Plenty of leg room, reclining seats, pleasant bilingual announcements. If I could ride this thing home, I would. Fuck Economy Plus. This makes it look like the goddamn crawlspace it is.

Reaching Tokyo, we hopped a quick second train to our target destination: Akihabara.

gema

Akihabara is every bit the nerd mecca they say it is, and now I've experienced it too, and gone broke in the process. I picked up quite a few gifts here today, and more than a few personal purchases as well. Let me explain Akihabara to you: Imagine a brightly lit cityscape, full of neon, monitors, tall buildings, and noise. The effect is not unlike Times Square or Las Vegas. Now, imagine that the first thing you come upon is a six-story game store. Next to that: Six-story porn store. After that, there's another six story game store, followed by another porn store, which is next to a game store neighboring a porn store. Every so often, there is a store which sells pornographic games. Repeat until you are both morally and financially bankrupt.

You may notice that most every store here is multi-levelled. Tokyo, far, far more than Osaka, is a very vertically-oriented city. The buildings themselves are actually very small in terms of area, so they make up for it with a crapload of depth. We went up and down a lot of stairs and elevators today. And, at various levels of height, there was hidden treasure to be found. Some of the gems of Akihabara:

Gamers. This is the famed Akihabara anime, games, and manga store immortalized in Di Gi Charat, and Dejiko is here on every available surface. Now I've been here and they have my money.

Mos Burger. This seems to be a Japanese burger chain, not unlike our earthly McDonald's. But, they serve something here called a rice burger, where instead of a bun, the meat is sandwiched between two patties formed out of rice. It's a unique experience.

Half-Life 2: Survivor. I didn't even know they HAD a version of Half-Life 2 for arcades. Did you? Why did nobody tell me about this? You fuckers.

By now, perhaps you're wondering where the pictures are to go with the story. Yeah. This is about where things go wrong. Once we'd had all the Akihabara our wallets could handle, we headed back to Tokyo station to catch the shinkansen back to Osaka. Somewhere along the lines, though, we were misled about the last available train. Yeah--we're stuck in Tokyo. We can't get back to the hotel tonight.

Don't anyone panic or worry about us. If we were in dire straits, I wouldn't have wasted your time with the description of our day, I would have written the panicworthy part first. Rest assured, this is at most an inconvenience. Thanks to a helpful gent who spoke English and our invaluable guidebooks, we have located what is known here as a Manga Cafe. Twenty bucks for eight hours, and we get private booths to read manga, cruise the net (as I am doing now), and watch anime. There's even free sodas, and sleeping here is practically expected. My chair reclines pretty much horizontally, for god's sake. This is cheaper than a capsule hotel.

Tomorrow morning, we will finally make our escape from the baffling streets of Tokyo, and catch the shinkansen into Kyoto for some sightseeing on our way back into Osaka. We'll have pictures and more stories then.

This has been a strange, strange day, with an adventurous and somewhat worrying-but-okay end. If this is the worst thing that happens during our time here, then hey.

...wow, what the hell is going on over on David's TV?

LOST in Tokyo! T.T

Well, I certainly didn't expect or plan for this to happen, but we got lost in Tokyo. We have some guidebooks, and thankfully they contain things like railway and subway maps, but other than that, I feel they were pretty useless and let us down. Why have a guidebook that has not a whole lot in the way of specifics? "There are capsule hotels. The end." Yeah. Helpful... =P

Random act of kindness! Some westerner, very kind, clearly American (who had a very pretty Japanese wife or girlfriend, who kind of giggled at our misfortune a little bit, heh) pointed us towards a likely place to find a manga-kisa when we asked for capsule hotels. Really we were just looking for something cheap, and this manga-kisa is about as much space, and for comparable money but with way more amenities. By far. Instead of a barren tube with a mattress to sleep on, we sleep in a recliner chair but with all the manga, DVD's, free soft-drinks, and so on, plus guess what, internet access. Thank you random westerner guy!

It kind of sucks that we missed the last Shinkansen train back to Osaka — well, not the last one, there was a Nozomi, but it woulda been more than $120 per person just so we could go back tonight. I think this is fine. We needed some adventure, and so we got lost, argued amongst each other a little, and Jesse even got propositioned by some hooker. This is entertaining, random, nice, safe, and a little slice of Japan to remember.

We were pretty hamstrung by guidebooks being useless, not having any internet access, not having anyone around that spoke English, and most stores and even most coffee shops and stuff closing their doors from around eight to ten o'clock. Why places close so early in one of the biggest cities on earth baffles me, but whatever. Once we ran into a guy that spoke English, problems became solved, in my opinion. Now, to entertain myself for an hour or two as I doze off to sleep...

Tokyo Today!

Sorry I didn't post last night. No time! In reality I don't have time right now either, we need to get moving and get on our train...

Yesterday was pretty cool. We saw this thing:



And I had to mess with the statue of the Colonel that's in front of all the "Kentucky" locations.
We wandered a bit, but we did make sure to have some grilled crab legs from a street-corner vendor, they were actually really really good.




And we had okonomi-yaki! It's described as "Japanese pizza" and I don't think that's very precise, but whatever it is, it's really good. I'd eat it again!

Okay, we need to go and get on the Hikari Shinkansen! I need to cram some breakfast down my gullet first though. See you chumps in Akihabara!!

A true vacation day, while on vacation

Today was a bit of a lazy day for us. Our feet were so tired from the previous two days, we decided to sleep in a bit and didn't get out till a bit before noon. This is supposed to be a vacation after all, why not a little relaxing.

Once we got off our butts, it was off to see America Mura. This turned out to be not quite what I was expecting. I had thought this would be either something like what you think of China town or Little Italy or maybe like a re-creation of what the Japanese think America is like. I guess depending where in America you are it could be kind of like the latter, but it all comes down to the eye of the beholder. It seems more to me it is the area where Japanese youth (for the most part) get their American style cloths from. A series of streets with many small shops selling second hand clothing and t-shirts with English or in most cases "engrish" written on them. Still an interesting place to see.



They had these cool looking light posts as well


Oh and a statue of liberty


While in America Mura we did check another item off our lists. Karaoke. We screamed out some tunes from the likes of Metallica, Journey, Sublime, the Beatles, System of a down and did an obligatory version of doomo arigatoo Mr. Roboto from Styx (God help us). (If one of my mates happens to have a picture of me singing please share... I don't seem to have one on my camera.)


Once done in America Mura it was time for some food. We traveled back toward the main shopping areas in search of some Okonomiyaki, which is sometimes called Japanese pizza. I think this was my favorite treat of the trip so far. It is basically a pancake like thing, made from a cabbage and egg based batter, then topped with different ingredients, such as beef, pork, prawn or squid, a sweet, almost bbq like sauce and sometimes a fried egg. All of this makes for an odd looking, but pretty damn tasty meal which is filling to boot. I think I'm either going to have to figure out how to make this or find somewhere that serves it in Austin.

Cortland and myself at the restaurant. (hopefully someone else has pictures of the food)

We are off to Tokyo tomorrow where we may wind up staying the night if we feel we need more of it once the day is through. You may not hear from us again till we get back from there. Talk to you then.

Finally a random picture of one of the streets in the shopping district at night.