Charles in Japan

Japan update

I gave up on the iPhone temporary.  It's too hard here to live without a phone and I'm sick of waiting.  Since I had insurance at least, I could get a moderately expensive replacement, but now I'm finally back online and can receive your emails.  I decided to go for something other then the typical black, white or pink (if you are female) and this one is bright shiny green.

My exploration of bars has slowed way down.  I have a few places I tend to go to.  If I went out with groups of friends more it would be easier to try new places, but when I'm by myself certain places are better.  Having people there who know you helps a lot too.  Social networking in this country is much more difficult then the US, so having someone to vouch for you makes a huge difference.  My contact list, short as it is after the phone disaster of 2008 looks a little more promising then my first several months in Japan.  My favorite yatai is shutting down after this summer, but he'll be opening his own store in/near shibuya.  Hopefully he'll be looking a little south of the station making it an easier walk for me.

Hmm, what else has been going on here.  It's hot, humid and miserable.  Trust me on this, you do NOT want to come to Japan in the summer.  If you do, explore Hokkaido and northern Japan.  They said Kyoto is even worse since it's surrounded my mountains.  I can't imagine it.  I'm covered in sweat just getting to work, and that involves less then 10 minutes of walking.  I open up my apartment everyday to keep the air moving through it so it's hot and miserable when I get home, but it cools off very quickly.  201 square feet works to your advantage there. 

The iPhone looks like it's going to be a big success here in Japan.  A little Japanese software is out, but I'd expect to see a lot more in the coming months.  Apple sold 1 million iPhones worldwide in three days.  That took them two and half months with the original phone and 10 milllion applications downloaded in the same amount of time.  Japanese input is rather different from the phones here and it will be interesting to see if it catches on. 

Friday night I'm planning on going to Odaiba and  hope it doesn't rain.  It seems to every time I go and I haven't really been able to walk around some of the parks there and enjoy the view.  Saturday I'm probably going to catch a movie and see the photography museum nearby.  Next Friday my company hired a yakatabune so we are all going out to party for two and a half hours.  What's available varies from plan to plan and company to company, but it's always all you can drink.  There are going to be 50-80 sober people walking on the boat and most are going to come off it very drunk I think.

Other then that nothing big has happened recently.

Mid Japan Crisis

Disaster struck this Saturday.  I was making plans with Hiromi to go see the new Indy Jones movie.  (They call him Indy here, and if you say Indiana they kind of look at you strange.)  I had only seen one other movie since I'd moved here and that was Aibou, based of a Japanese drama and because my friend has free tickets.  So between text messaging and searching on the internet for a theatre I was doing some cleaning.  It was over due and my mom keeps telling me that just spending a couple minutes a day is all it takes.  Especially true when you live in 200 square feet, but that's besides the point.  Another tangent, making plans to see a movie here sucks.  In the US?  You just drive to the theater, if the one you want it sold out, catch it again in 30 minutes or drive 10 minutes to another theatre.  Easy right?  About the only time movies are sold out anyway are on opening day.  Not so in Japan.  Everything until 10pm is sold out by 10 in the morning.  More on the poor conditions of Japanese movies some other time.

I think we'd finally decided to go see the movie in Yokohama and a final couple of text messages should of cleared it up.  They were doing construction in my apartment so the water was off, but they'd just finished up a couple minutes ago.  (I thought this was the only day for my floor, but also on Monday, caught me by surprise)  I was doing a little scrubbing in the bathroom when the phone beeped in my pocket.  As I stood up, my arm caught the strap and the phone went flying toward the toilet, bouncing off the rim right into the bowl.  You kind of see it in slow motion, then you freeze for a second with the deer in the headlight look before quickly fishing it out and drying it off even as you see the screen dying.  This is when I realize that I still hadn't gotten the backup software working and if that phone went everything and everyone I knew here in Japan was gone.  And well, 3 days later, after letting it dry it still doesn't work.  With the exception of about two or maybe three people I don't know how to contact any of the people I've met in Japan.  Like most Japanese I lived through my phone.  Now with my life here almost reset back to zero I need to start making some friends again.  I know some of them may call or message, but based on past experience I don't have high hopes of very many.

Softbank won't replace the phone, but I'm not too surprised.  I think I'm going to wait for the iPhone and hope I can get at launch or quickly after.  One of the best things about it is that it makes a backup immediately.  I keep having some second thoughts about it though.  I wonder how many Japanese sites are really going to support it.  It's getting lots of support in the US and I think a decent amount in the US.  One example is the service Loopt.  If you haven't seen it, it's cool.  It uses the GPS features on your phone (or the signals towers) to determine your location, then you can find places or friends near you.  Great support on the iPhone, but no support in Japan.  There is a similar service in Japan, Mapii, but as far as I can tell from their site they probably don't support the iPhone yet.  The other kind of surprising thing is that many phones here have higher res screens.  Really you compare the feature sets and the iPhone doesn't look as good.  It's the browser and software that will make or break it.  If any of you know where I can buy a very cheap used phone in Japan please let me know.  I'd rather not have to rush into a choice, but neither do I want to wait too long.

All stuff about losing my contacts made me think more about my PC and how it's been acting a little (just a little!) weird the other day.  I went out last night and bought a 1TB external drive.  First think was to copy about 400GB of data off my 750GB drive and reformat in HPFS.  I was formatted in NTFS which I could only read, not write.  Now I'm moving some other files around trying to get all the files of the same type together.  I think I have about 500GB of music total, although a lot of it is duplicated.  Once I get a drive dedicated to that it should take a few weeks to get sorted out.  Hopefully before that I'll be able to free up of my 400GB drives to use for time machine to keep my laptop backed up.  This new drive gives me 3300GB of external drive space going by the drive manufacter's standard of 1000 is the new 1024.  Hopefully this will give me some new space for photos too.  My Aperture 'directory' on my laptop is about 50GB and I THINK most of the pictures are stored on an external drive.  I may be completely wrong about that though.

Oh well, that's my partial update of the disaster that was this weekend.  Just remember folks, PLEASE back up your phones and computers!!!

(And yes, I know now that the phone companies offer backup services of some type.  I just wish they told me when I bought the phone)

Update:  I just got an email from Mapii.  They are planning on supporting the iPhone the middle or end of this month.  Yay!!!  First good new this week.  I should also say I got an email from Loopt and they currently have no plans for support outside of the US.  BOO!!!  I'm not exactly sure what's involved, but with a lot of the backend seemly based on Google I don't think they have a good excuse.  Japan was also missing an application like this until Mapii came out, so I think they missed a huge chance in this market.  Brightkite is another interesting service that also doesn't support Japan, although I think they could.  Ultimately I think both Brightkite and Twitter will lose out to services that use features on the phone to determine your location, be it wither GPS or based on cellular towers.  I'm interested in their usefulness for finding other single drinking buddies.

iPhone worries

I'm still not sure if I want to talk myself into buying an iPhone or out of buying one.  My chances of getting on in July are probably pretty high assuming the stores aren't sold out.  The more I hear about it the more excited I get, but there are still some worries here and there.  Will software come out for Japan and be useful here?  There are some interesting services released lately, but the tend to ignore the market outside the US which seems kind of silly.  I'm not sure if Japan has similar services available, but I need to figure out how to search for them.

There are little things like the lack of the keyboard, but I think typing Japanese will still be fast enough.  Looking at the interface they seem to lack a few things that might make it better.  Emotion icons are a big question mark, but everyone uses them here.  I hope it supports it.  Strangely the biggest omission on the phone right now seems to be infrared.  That is what everyone here uses to transfer contact information around with and half of them don't even know how to do that easily.  Bluetooth doesn't seem to be in use here at all, whereas it's a pretty hot feature in the US.  I'm not even sure how many of the phones have it here, but that's all the iPhone would have available, besides just emailing contact info.

I'll probably wait a bit later in the month anyway and see how much money I have.  I stopped by Akihabara yesterday and noticed they had a 'normal' washer that was only 44cm deep.  I think that fits in the space I have available and it's MUCH better then old style washers I'd have to use otherwise.  It's a couple hundred dollars more expensive, but I think it would be money well spent in this case.  I need to clean the box that is sitting in there now and I'll see about getting it.  The coin laundry is getting rather inconvient as I get busier so having a washer would be nice.

Ramblings

This morning I was rummaging through pockets trying to find my wallet and in the left back pocket of one pair of jeans was a pack of cigarettes with a few remaining.  How did they get there?  WHY are they there?  I haven't started smoking, at least that I know of.  I'm not sure what I should do with them.  Damn the morals beat into me when I was young.  I obviously took them from someone and I feel I should return them, but who did I take them from?  And when?  And why?  Do they know?  Maybe they didn't even notice.  The other part of me says I should just throw them out and maybe they'll live a few minutes longer.  Of course, if I knew who they were maybe it would better if they smoked them.  In the meantime I have a pack of a crooked cigarettes on my sink.

I had another horrifying experience in the elevator at work today.  Like any day that is going to be bad, we stop at almost every floor up to mine.  Then on floor 29 we stop, one person gets on then goes to floor 30.  Both floors we were supposed to skip!  Arg!  The nerve of these people keeping me in the elevator for another 20 seconds!  Anyway, that's not the point.  Across the elevator from me is this guy, a salary man.  A normal salary man with the dazed look, still hung over from Sunday night were he was drunk off his ass singing the newest Utada Hikaru song in his socks under the cherry trees.  That's the only excuse I can think of for what he was wearing around his neck.  Maybe it was a punishment from his wife.   Maybe he didn't notice what was in his hand this morning as he tried to remember what he did last night.  I would of liked to see the look on his face when he goes to the bathroom and sees that he is wearing, rather then a tie, something that looks like a hand knit wool sock for a giraffe.  Wrinkled, mismatched colors and all.  I so wanted to take a picture, but I couldn't get myself to scramble for my camera before he got off.  (Which was good, since I left it at home this morning)

Losing weight

I think I've lost some weight. All my pants seem bigger. I've got to start eating more. I got my furniture in today. Looks good. (^_^) I need to try and finish getting things picked up. Tino arrives tomorrow evening. Heading out to do some shopping now before it gets too late. The Tokyo new friends meetup is tonight too and it looks like we'll have over 20 people there so I'm going to try and make it too.

Here is a picture I liked of a student in the subway. I wish my lens was a bit wider though. I couldn't quite get him all in. He was concentrating on his DS game like so many other people you see.

I'm glad no one noticed...

I had one of my socks inside out most of the day.

20 Things I wish I knew when I was younger

Zen Habits runs and interesting blog and had a post of 20 things they wish they knew long long ago.  There was another post like this I saw recently I thought was even better.  It's reminded me to do a few more things and avoid others.  I've been staying in a bit more recently, one because it's cold, and two I want to get a bit of an emergency fund set up here.  Especially something like moving is so expensive here it would be nice to have enough set aside for that and a couple months of living expenses.  Not sure why I'd have to move, but good to know you can handle it.  I don't share the author's desire to run a marathon.  If you feel the need to run 26.22 miles, all the more power to you.  Check out the story of Cliff Young, a 61 year old toothless man who won the worlds more intensive marathon in a pair of galoshes and work boots.  875 kilometers across Australia in 5 days.  He beat the fastest time to date by over 9 hours.

I read that advice on owning a TV and it's so true.  TV is such a waste of time.  I'd still like to get an Xbox 360 and watch some DVDs on it.  (I don't want to convert my laptop drive to region 2)  The TVs are just so blasted expensive though, plus the price of a game system if I get that.  I'm sure Japanese television could help me improve my Japanese, but I'm just not sure it's worth the time and expense.  I'm kind of liking my minimal lifestyle right now, bed, bathroom, computer, some clothes and one pan.  I think a bike would be more to my liking right now.  I've met a couple people that live in my building bringing their bike to their room.  It isn't that safe to leave it on the street, even in Japan.

The weekend was interesting.  I met a few people Saturday night at a nearby bar.  There was a new place having their opening night in Hamamatsucho.  Very Blade Runneresq.  You see those amazing bars/clubs in movies and wondered if they exist?  They do.  Granted I didn't go many places in Dallas, but it doesn't compare to Japan.  We went to Azabujuban to another party after that called Tokyo Decadence and I finally got home around 4:30am.  Worth the experience though.

Sunday I slept in till about 11 or so and played a little City of Heroes and talked to some friends in the US for a couple hours.  I had been playing with Aperture, Apple's photo software, for the past few days and decided to buy, so I ran over to the Apple store to pick it up.  It's now shipped in a small box, but felt heavy, so I asked if there was a manual in it.  No, they said, it's all PDF.  Well, they lied, kind-of.  There is a manual in there, but much more documentation is available online.  I had been watching their video tutorials which are excellent.  They had also lowered the price $100 dollars with this release so it made an easy purchase.  I also picked up a copy of Lightzone off the web.  It's more of a developer, especially strong with B&W which some different features.  It doesn't help with organizing photos though, so that's where Aperture comes in.  They were having a big Valentines day sale and I couldn't pass it up.  The two tools are fairly different so it gives me a chance to play a bit.

I after putting in my registration code I started importing all my photos.  It's eaten up at least 10GB of space so far generating previews and whatever else it's doing, so my drive is full again.  I bought some DVDs and was trying to burn some things off, but all I've ended up with is four coasters so far.  I'll probably have Apple take a look at it, but I need to back up my machine first.  Either that, or maybe in addition buy an external burner.  I'm tempted to go with a blue-ray drive.  They seem to have won the standard, and even though disks are expensive, I can put about 50GB on a single disk, that's about 11 normal DVDs.  Once I figure out how to get some more drive space you'll see some more pictures.  I've got about 8GB on my two memory cards too.  I can possibly see a larger card in my future.  I was running out of space and had to resort to taking some jpegs.  I'm not looking forward to seeing how they turned out.  *cringe*

Yay! Valentines day!

I just realized it's Valentines Day today.  I need to make a note not to go out to eat tonight as probably every restaurant is probably going to have some V-Day course dinner going on.  On the good side, I wonder if chocolates go on sale here like the US.  I'm doubting it for some reason, but I'll check for sales tomorrow.

It's been a bit too cold out for me to go out much lately.  Fortunately the election has been taking most of my time.  The strategies behind the different campaigns is really interesting.  I think March 4th is either going to clear this up, or make it last a really long time.  Clinton has already said she plans on going for the super delegate win even if she doesn't have the majority of pledged delegates. 

Daily Kos had an excellent comparison of McCains and Obama's speeches the other night.  This is one reason Obama would beat him.  He also voted to continue waterboarding this morning and reversed his stance on tax cuts for the wealthly.  He's got a lot of holes.  poblano has been putting out some great articles on the election with some math and nice charts.  Hillary may not be in as much trouble as we thought, but wait until next week and some more polls.  Not that they've been very accurate.  The Obama Kid.  I don't think he was supposed to get in. 

Tonight I need to head back to Bic camera, I bought the wrong thingy for my camera.  I got the see the new Macbook Air yesterday though.  It's so sexy, I want to lick it.  I'm sure someplace has it, but I haven't figured out where to order English versions of software here.

Lastly, my master mind, Teflon Tyron, hit level 32 in City of Heroes last night!  Final upgrade baby!  He's kicking total ass now.

More weirdness today

Surprise of surprises Brad called me as I was recharging my Pasamo before going home tonight. Brad was one of my Japanese classmates in Dallas and moved to Japan in the fall of 2006. I've met Brad 3 times in the 5 months or so I've been in Tokyo. That's 3 times more then I've met anyone else I know in Tokyo, and infinitely more then others. That gives you some idea how little help my old friends have been here. I've pretty much written them off as useless. It's back to making my own way as I've always had to do in the past.

I met Brad at Geronimo's in Roppongi and talked some about what we have been doing. He's only been working and I've just been trying to explore the city and make friends. Not a lot going on between us. We went to go eat at a fairly good Indian restaurant after that. I'll have to remember it. They had more types of curry then most restaurants have items on their menu. At least 40 different types of curry.

Afterwards I took the scenic route home and ran into Cool Train, a jazz bar I wanted to visit so I thought I'd stop in. Lets just say it's a far cry from Dallas. Only a piano player, although they have more on Thursday through Saturday it's $20 to get in, only $10 tonight. I miss Balcony Club and Pearl a lot. This is example of the type of people I met when I go out, roughly. The two young women who own the bar, a blind piano player, a dancer (couldn't figure out what type) and an artist. Four of which work at night, or go out and drink when they aren't working. Not sure what the artist does at night, but he wasn't too talkative. Everyone I seem to meet is on their night off from working, so it's impossible to meet up with them later, unless you go to another bar. In general you need to plan meetings with people weeks in advance here. Overall it seemed like a nice place, but a little pricey for the music. They invited me to some party on 3/23. Not sure if I'll go or not, it's 5000 yen, but what else do I have to do?

Random Encounters

I haven't been doing a whole lot the last few days.  This weekend was double xp weekend on City Of Heroes so I was playing that almost the entire weekend.  Between Skype and Ventrilo I spent hours talking to my friends in the US (at least the ones that play COH) and gaining many levels on the my characters.  It was a lot of fun to stay in for a change.  I picked up food at the combinis and some cheese and popcorn from the grocery store at the station.  I also got some milk and butter as I was planning on making the Mac and Cheese I got for Christmas, but the butter here seems to only come in tubs.  I probably need to go to a real grocery, but I'll manage with this. 

This morning I was running late as usual.  I've always been a slower riser in the morning, but I've been getting myself ready in record times the past few weeks.  Now I know when I need to leave my apartment to get to the apartment just in time and if I wake up 20 minutes before then I know I'll be ready to go.  I need to start waking up a little earlier though, if only to save money by not switching at Roppongi everyday.  Today I was waiting at car 1 of the Oedo line watching newest Daily Show on my iPod Touch.  The train comes, packed with people as usual, fortunately 60% of them get off at Roppongi.  I'm watching with glazed eyes, listening to Jon Stewart rip into Romney when some girl with wet hair grabs my arm and says hello and something else.  I don't remember.  I recovered pretty quickly with an enthusiastic Hi!  The people still leaving the train pushed her past then I had to get in.  I'm sure I've met her somewhere, but I have no idea where.

In other randomness, I found the same 99% chocolate I had in Germany in a store on the 2nd (or 3rd?) floor of Ebisu station.  I got a free umbrella by talking to some woman at the laundry mat on Saturday.  She was here for the weekend from Kobe helping her daughter who is here for two weeks taking college entrance exams.  It started raining while I was there, and a few minutes after she left she came back with an umbrella for me.  Thanking me for saving her from 30 minutes of boredom as she did laundry.  I didn't think I needed it, but the rain turned out to be fricken huge slushy somethings.  Half melted mammoth sized snow flakes.  They hit my umbrella like those giant dragonflies hit your windshield at 80 miles per hour on the highway.

When looking at apartments in Japan I never quite understood why these tiny apartments have so many doors.  Even in my coffin sized apartment, I have a short hallway, the apartment door is on one side, then a door before my main room.  It always seemed useless and I was thinking of removing it.  Bad idea.  That front door may as well not be there when it comes to keeping cold air out.  I can't keep my place warm unless I shut it.  You'd think it would be easier just to use a proper front door in the first place rather then put two doors in.  In a country that still hasn't discovered double paned glass and insulation this shouldn't be a surprise anymore. 

Weekend Plans

In 90 minutes I'm meeting Hiromi for lunch, and I really don't remember her. I got a message from her on my phone last December saying she was from Skype and we should meet up. After a few failed attempts we are finally getting together. I don't remember giving my cell phone email out. Maybe I have a stalker?

Tonight I'm getting my hair cut, then going to Torture Garden, which is like a traveling (around the world) fetish fashion party with various shows. It starts a midnight, but I'm going to a pre-party beforehand. I have no idea how I find out about these things. I'm not quite sure what to expect, but I'll report later. No cameras allowed though, so don't expect pictures. I figured since I'm in Tokyo I might as well do some of the things only big cities have and go out of my comfort zone a bit.

On Thursday though one of my co-workers from Fusion came and asked if I could help do interviews on Sunday morning. Sorry, but I can't Sunday morning. So I explained about this party in somewhat vague terms, but if you mention a party starts at midnight in Tokyo they know it's something a little unusual. This isn't that surprising to them though, we have some people in the company that are pretty big freaks and not afraid to talk about it. So we sit and chat for a while and he's still there. "You really need me to be there, don't you?" I ask. Yup, an affirmative answer comes back. I'm going to try taking a nap tonight and go home a little early. He's supposed to call to wake me up though. I've had this in my plans for a couple months and I'm supposed to meet some new people there, so this isn't something I can easily skip and they understand. Only in Tokyo..., well at least it wouldn't work that way in Dallas. It's group technical interviews so it's things I've done before at HP. Shouldn't be too bad, at least with enough coffee. After that on Sunday I'm probably going to go home and sleep the rest of the day.

I desperately need to catch up on writing reviews. I've been some interesting places lately. Bug me if you don't see some this weekend.

Useless Elevator buttons

This is just one of those little things to start to notice when you live someplace else.  Not that it bugs me, I just find it humorous.  You know those two buttons you never use on the elevator.  Not the emergency button, the other ones.  The door open and door close buttons.  They may be the most unused buttons on the entire elevator.  If the door is closing and you want to keep it open, what do you do?  Stick your arm in the door, or maybe your foot.  I know you do it too.  In the Japan the situation is completely different.  Those buttons have risen nearly to the level of sainthood.  Long before any of the floor numbers have begun to wear off these buttons have been worn blank from thousands of fingers.  I don't get it. 

The site I work at is the perfect example of this.  Everyone here has a door open and door close button pushing obsessive compulsive disorder.  To start with the elevators here are pretty smart, but what do you expect for a fairly modern building built for tech companies.  The doors here will stay open as long as they sense people moving through them.  They close within 2.5 seconds.  Using the buttons don't make any difference.  I've timed them.  Some people here are so fast on the trigger they are already pressing the button as the door just begins to open.  It still takes 2.5 seconds to close.  Although it might be said it's polite, others always push the door open button.  It's me and one other person waiting for the elevator.  She enters first and what's the first thing she does?  Press the door open button.  Why!?  I'm getting off two floors earlier.  The elevator arrives at my floor and she's on that door open button before the elevator even stops.  I swear some of them think the doors won't open if you don't press it.  Before I'm out the door she's already pressed door close.  It still takes 2.5 seconds.  I timed it.

This obsessive compulsive button behavior seems ingrained in Japanese society.  Apple's Ginza store must drive them crazy as the elevator has no buttons at all.  Maybe elevators once ate dogs, toddlers and the occasional adult and such safety precautions were needed, but no more.  It must be that it's just polite behavior, or badly behaved elevators.  I'd love to know.

Lazy Sunday

I finally went to Ikea yesterday and bought a small wardrobe. Unfortunately I'm going to need two people to put it together. It's just a little too heavy for one person. I bought a few other small things and might go look for a washing machine today or tomorrow. Tomorrow is coming of age day and a national holiday so I won't have to work. I'm not missing the things I expected to in Japan. I thought peanut butter would be a huge one, but I'm not missing it like I thought. Maybe it's just because I got a small jar for Christmas and it's satisfied for me now. That said, if you are looking to send me something (for some reason), you can't go wrong with this. I've been craving some of those salt and pepper Kettle potato chips. It would be awesome to find some here. They have some decent wasabi chips, but the chips in Japan are thin and weak. In an effort to keep the population thin they design the chips to crumble in your hand before they ever make to your mouth. On the other hand you could run over a bag of those Kettle chips with a car and half of them would probably be fine. I want to try their new chips, Mango Chili, Orange Ginder Wasabi (sounds SO good!), Death Valley Chipolte, Wicked Hot Sauce, Jalapeno Salsa Fresca. Oh no! It looks like don't carry the Salt and Pepper ones anymore. I have no reason to go back to the US anymore. ;(

Quoth the Raven, "Evermore."

I'm not sure if I mentioned them before, but Tokyo crows are huge.  Apparently the population has grown from 3,000 to over 40,000 in 15 years.  I've seen them on top of buildings chasing each other away.  In the spring they'll even attack people that walk too close to their nests, or so I've heard.  Apparently they've been known to attack pets, especially cats.  They've been blamed for train derailments as they'll put things on the track or in front of cars when stopped at stop lights to break them open. They've been blame for power and internet outages.  They seem to collect fiber optic cable for their nests.  You hear their cawing everywhere you go. 

I've seen some pictures online, but I've only seen them from a distance on top of buildings until this morning.  There were three, not more then a few feet from me on a pile of trash bags they had ripped open and trash tossed out around them.  They look so much bigger up close.  I can understand how people can get seriously hurt by them, their beaks are massive.  I'm not sure how aggressive they are, but I wouldn't want to chase them off unless I've got someplace to run for cover.  Either way, you won't chase them far, they are nearly fearless.  These crows are larger than many cats and dogs I see here.  I should of gotten a picture, but I was in a rush, and honestly they scare me.  I have no doubt I'll get another chance for pictures soon.  Crows are typically smaller then Ravens, but I have no doubt these are nearly equal in size.

Daily Photo

My cell phone on the counter at the restaurant.

Christmas break

I have another bonenkai (kind of a year end party) to go to tonight, so I'm not sure I'll have time to update my blog.  I wanted to use my new blog editor and upload a lot of pictures, but that will be plans for this weekend.

Thursday night I met up with Yoshiko and Tetsuo in Korakuen near where Kodo would be playing.  Both are going well, although I think they are forgetting their English and I'm forgetting my Japanese.  Yoshi surprised me with straight hair.  She looks more traditional Japanese now.  We walked to Suidobashi and finally found a nice like Izakaya to eat at.  The staff was hilarious.  I wish I could find the place again, but I could probably walk around for hours and not see it again.  After hearing a little about Sado shima I want to go up there and visit.  Christmas break is a little too cold though.  Yoshi did mention something about maybe going back to Dallas over Christmas/New Years, but she wasn't sure and I don't know if she got a ticket.  Tetsuo misses Dallas.  Chiba is just a little too far out of the city I think, which I found out later when I visited him.

Friday I caught up with Yasuka rather then going to the bonenkai that night.  I didn't feel that good, and paying 5000-6000 when I'd only have a few drinks didn't seem worth it.  Instead I caught up with Yasuka and had dinner at TGI Fridays.  Yeah, American food, but damn that hamburger was good.  I got the bacon cheese burger, and what I wasn't expecting was the large piece of fried cheese on top.  It was as big as the patty itself!  The single slice of cheddar got lost in the mozzarella goodness.  The food did me a lot more good then drinks.  Afterwards we walked around Shibuya.  Once you get away from the station it seems like there are a lot of nice shops.  Back at the scramble crossing things were crazy on a Friday night.  There were two young guys with a sign (hanasemasenka?  "Would you like to talk?"  We debated talking to them for a bit and I finally went up.  Their older classmate had started this and then they took over.  They've been there every Friday night for the past 9 months.  They'll just talk to anyone that wants to.  They said there are a lot of lonely people that just need someone to talk to for a bit.  Confirms my opinion of Tokyo too!  (Although, what does it say about me?)  They've met some interesting characters it sounded like, and some good people too.  We were just commenting that it was like the free hug people.  If you don't know how this started, watch this video.  You get some crazy people at those things, so after finally taking some pictures and laughing at them I got my free hug from a Japanese santa.  Actually, it was funny that night.  Yasuka is 100% Japanese, but she really doesn't look like it.  At TGI Fridays they gave her an English menu, on the way out someone thought she was hispanic and a couple of the free hug guys kept talking to her in English because they thought she was foreign.

Saturday...  Oh yeah!  I was supposed to go furniture shopping.  I decided not to, but did by accident.  I had unpacked my watches a few days earlier and I wanted to get my old mechanical one fixed.  You can still wind it and it tells time, but it's lose and moves around when you shake it.  I looked up some watch repair shops and went to a few that seemed promising, the first one near Ueno, actually Okachimachi.  As soon as I exited the station there were two large purple buildings in front of me.  I knew immediately this was the furniture store I had been looking for a week or two ago!  I found the building with their beds.  They had a sofa bed I liked, except for the fact it was light blue.  Why can't more places use covers like Ikea.  They had some others that weren't bad, but I decided I don't really want a fake leather bed to sleep on every night.  The watch place said they could send it off to get fixed, but that it would cost about 20,000 yen.  (around $200)  That was about how much the watch cost.  There were a number of other watch places in that area and I stopped in a few more, but the answer always came back that they couldn't do it, or a complete overhaul.  I'm not sure what I'll do.  I got the battery replaced in my digital though.

I went back to Shibuya and started walking around again, hoping I'd run into some furniture stores and kind of looking for the used clothing stores I'd read a little about.  I had copied a number of address and instructions to my iPod, but apparently the notes field only holds so much.  I ended up walking to Harajuku, over to Omotesando, window shopped for a bit.  I got completely lost after that, but wondered into a couple small museums/galleries with cool shops, ate ice cream and finally found a station.  I made it to Takadanobaba just in time to meet Kana for dinner.  Kupu Kupu has the best fried potatoes anywhere.

Sunday was Emily's Christmas party.  I bought some wine then went to Tetsuo's house.  Tetsuo said he had a small folding futon he didn't like that he could give to me, so I went to have a look at it.  I see why he doesn't like it, but I can use it for a while.  It should be more comfortable with a little pad on it.  Both of them live about 90 minutes away from me so fewer trips.  Tetsuo has quite the lab set up in his house.  I also didn't realize he lives right next to Monkey Punch!  Emily's party was fun.  It was great to see George again.  His eyes lit up as soon as he spotted Tetsuo's kara-age.  (deep fried chicken basically).  They had plenty of other food.  It was on the way back that I feel asleep on the Yamanote-sen and got stuck in Ikebukuro.  To answer some questions, yes, I did think about walking home, but a two hour walk at 1am in December sounded a little... cold.  Assuming I didn't get lost.  Some advice if you do stay in a manga kisa.  Make sure you ask for the most comfortable reclining seat they have.  Also request a quiet area, or if they have multiple floors avoid the one with the register.  Leave early, Tokyo at 5 or 6am is interesting.

I went home and slept until the afternoon on Monday (Christmas eve).  I finally woke up and sent Jean the information for the Kodo concert.  One of his friends and a Japanese girl were also coming.  We met up are Korakuen with little problems and I got the tickets from Yoshi.  They were great seats!  On the main level, but first row on the upper section so there was no one in front of us.  Kodo was fantastic.  I have a CD by them, but it's a lot different then the music they played in the performance.  It's a lot more then just a concert, there is a lot of dancing, acting, comedy and more.  If you haven't seen them, I'd definitely recommend it.  I think fewer members might go when they tour the US, but I'm sure it's still fantastic.  The four of us went out to an Izakaya to eat then we all split up early.  I went to Daimon and got off for some reason.  I'm sure I had some plan at the time, but I couldn't remember.  I walked home stopping at Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown and Ebisu Gardens on the way.  I finally ended up at Anko (restaurant 30 seconds from my place) and drank and snacked the night away with two other people at the bar until 3 or 3:30 am when we all finally went home.  I regretted it the next day when I had to go to work, but only a LITTLE bit.  Who the hell works on the Christmas anyway?

Christmas I'd planned to go home early and do laundry.  Sayuri texted me and we went out of Mexican.  Nothing like traditional Mexican food for Christmas, but it was good.  She absolutely hates Japan and can't wait to live in Europe again.  I can understand wanting to live someplace else, but what I can't understand is how you can call Tokyo (and the people in it) boring.  Certainly you can say a lot about Tokyo, good and bad, but boring isn't one of them.

I don't know if I'll update this post, or add the pictures separately.  Unfortunately I didn't get any of Yoshi and Tetsuo (no camera) and it doesn't look like many turned out.