Charles in Japan

Brazil festival in Yoyogi Park

Before the concert.

Lunch

Luckily it wasn't raining fir lunch and I was nice. We just had a big downpour and there are large puddles outside.

They've had these noodles at the conbini's all summer, but I didn't have them till last week. I thought you needed hot water, but you eat them cold. Just add sauce and toppings. They have several types so they may be a bit different from day to day.

Sweetcron got released today and I'm excited. You may see it appear later. I've got a busy weekend planned, but I hope I have some time to work in the computer.

Now to pick up my dry cleaning and do a little more work.

Clear Day

Here is the view out my window at work toward Tokyo Disneyland. Don't be fooled by how nice it looks. It's hot, humid and miserable.

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.

Raining Cats and Dogs

I haven't seen rain like this in a long time.  A few minutes ago I heard thunder.  Then it started to pour and they had some really really strong wind.  Suddenly the wind stopped, but the rain is pouring down pretty hard.  If you look at the weather map though, everything around Tokyo seems sunny.  Weird.  As long as this continues I've got a riverside apartment.  

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.

Eating in Tokyo

This is kind of old news, Michelin released their dinning guide to Tokyo a few months ago.  Tokyo received 191 stars, more then New York and Paris combined. 

The 5 judges spent a year and a half going to 1500 restaurants.  That seems impressive until you realize they visited less then 1% of the restaurants in Tokyo.  Tokyo has over 160,000 proper restaurants.  I can't imagine what that number would be if you include bars and other places that serve food and very often it's damn good food.  This isn't your standard American bar fare, for the most part.  Indeed it's hard to get a bad meal here no matter where you go.

That number 160,000 just boggles the mind.  If you went to two restaurants every day it would still take over 219 years to visit all of them.  Reviewing 20% of them at four per page (8/double sided) would result in a 4000 page volume.  Some say there are over 20,000 Italian restaurants in Tokyo.  Paris has 20,000 restaurants total and New York has 23,000.

Tokyo is supposed to have quite a number of invitation only restaurants that of course didn't get reviewed either. 

One Tokyo food critic said the guide confirmed what he has been saying.  That Tokyo has very quality of food, but few real stand out restaurants.  I think you'd have to live here a long time sampling food to agree with that.  The overall quality here is so high from what I've had so far that a real standout might cause me to die from a foodgasm. 

In some ways I agree with other chefs that refused to be in the guide because the thought of a rating, bragging that you are better, offended Japanese sensibilities.  There is so much good food there is room to share.  The idea of the Great Tokyo area's 34 million people descending on 150 restaurants kind of scares me, especially when you consider some of these restaurants don't seat more then 20 or 30 people.  Maybe word of mouth is way to go here, although I think the city screams for a site like Yelp.com.

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.

The Japanese national pastime

If you can only pick one thing for that national pastime in Japan you'd have a hard time convincing me it's not construction. This city is under perpetual construction and often for no good reason that I can tell. I've seen them tear up and repave the same section of street three times since I've been here and apparently it's not uncommon. Coworkers have similar troublesome streets near their houses it.

I went to the coin laundry to wash clothes last week. I was only there for 50 minutes and on the way back I'm greeted with rows of glowing cones, flashy lights, men in bright red uniforms and glowy sticks directing me around (like I could of missed it). There in the middle of the road is a 10'x10' square hole about 8' deep? How in the world did they do it that fast? The next morning it was back to normal.

Ebisu stations has these metal tower things attached to the side of the station. I'm pretty sure they are fire escapes made to look nice, but I'm not 100% sure. I walk by one morning and they have covered scaffolding going all the way up the 8 or so floors. It's there for two days with lots of guys milling around the bottom. I never saw anyone on it, then it's gone and up on the other one the next day. I can't see that they did a blasted thing to it. Put the scaffolding up, tear it down, put it up, tear it down.

The part I love most about construction here is that it reminds me of caterpillars. Everything gets covered up completely. Tall walls and cloth completely covering the building blazoned with the company name. For months nothing seems to change as the building undergoes a metamorphosis. One day it's all gone there is a shiny new building like a butterfly just out of it's cocoon. Yeah, I'm weird.

This building near my apartment just started it's metamorphosis. I wonder what it's going to transform into?

Hisashiburi!

Ok, sorry for not posting for long time. No real excuse, but not a lot has been going on lately. I'd been going out too much so I've cut back a lot. I'm making a lot less money and I don't really want to spend it all on going out. I've been reading up a lot on the election and that's taken a lot of my time. I actually kind of wish I was down in Dallas. I'd probably be helping out, if only to see how it all works. It makes planning an anime convention easy I think.

The coffee is cute isn't it? Little things like this keep surprising me. There is another cafe at work where the cream is always the shape of hearts. Ok, that's just coffee, but fairly often you seem to get some service you don't expect.

This next month is going to pretty busy. Tino surprised me last week saying he's coming to Tokyo and he'll be staying with me. He gets here on Sunday and I need to do some more shopping. I went out tonight, but the station before I wanted to get off at the train changed to an express train, skipped several stations and it was too late by the time I made it back. Probably good since it looked like it was going to rain really hard over there. There was nothing where I live though.

Val who I worked with at Fanime in San Jose is going to be coming at the end of March through beginning of April and shortly after she leaves Patrick is coming over. So many people to take out! I'm not quite sure where to go.

Some things may be changing at work, but I hope I can take a few days off. More on that later... maybe.

I've been playing with my new photo software, Aperture. There is quite a bit to learn and definitely aimed at professionals with all the organizational tools. I've slowly been sorting through photos and redeveloping some of them over and over. I'm learning how everything works, but I need to look for some tutorials and figure out a process to use now. I've got some ideas from reading about other tools, but they all work a little differently and Aperture has it's own quirks. This picture is a good example of how ISO 1600 just doesn't look that good, although I didn't try to clean up the noise too much.

I did buy a new camera. (^_^) I got the Olympus E-510 with the two lens kit. Tino is going to be bringing it over he comes so I'll get a chance to take it out. I also got a surprise present from NTT and Bic Camera. When I signed up for Internet they said they'd be sending me about $200 in credit to use and amazingly it showed up today. Yes, here in Japan you sign up for internet. You don't pay anything to get it hooked up, someone will come out to set it up for you and they give you $200 for the trouble! I'm not complaining. I need to buy a memory card and now I have some money for it. There is also the wide angle lens, but I'll play with the camera a bit first.

The weather has been warming up here some too and it's been nice to walk around. It's reminded me to think about vacation and travel some more. End of April we have Tuesday the 29th off. If I can get that Monday off, I'll have two four day weekends in a row. It's kind of a soon after everyone visits but I'm going to try and set up some trips. It's one of the biggest travel seasons in Japan, so I'm not sure how much tickets are, but if I can maybe go to Korea, China, Thailand, or Bangkok. I just hope tickets are left and they aren't too expensive.

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. 

Torture Garden

Well, I finally have time to write about Torture Garden. To sum it up, it was a blast and I'd go again. If it was another country it would probably be a different experience.

First we had a pre-party starting at 7, although I got there a little fashionably late. I found a few new shops near Ebisu Gardens on the way there though, including a good wine shop. I live close by, but I haven't really explored that area at all yet. I picked up some wine and gouda cheese and headed over to the house. The guy must be pretty rich. I got a quick tour of it and it was a really nice place. He had it custom built, so it even had insulation and double paned windows! Yes, double paned windows are something you get excited about when you spend enough time here. Drank a lot of wine and ate snacks and everyone changed clothes around 10 before heading over to the UNIT, which is where Torture Garden was. I had some leather clothes for the event, which I have to say, I look pretty bad ass in.

We had a short wait to get in, and it was cold. It was supposed to snow that night. There were some fantastic costumes there, and some skin, although those people were freezing their ass off out there. The entrance fee was 5000 yen, or almost $50. I must be getting more used to Japan, because I didn't even hesitate paying it and didn't think about it until later. I'd rather go homeless then pay $50 to get into a club in Dallas.

I described it earlier as a fetish fashion party and that turned out to be a pretty good description. Most people were wearing some kind of leather, latex clothing or otherwise in costume. The amount of skin varied, and sometimes they weren't wearing much. :) One guy next to us in line had this amazing lightup kind of dinosaur looking thing. Others weren't wearing much more then a body harness.

If that's all it was it wouldn't of seemed much different then a really wild club, but it was the other stuff and shows they had going on that made it more interesting. On the first floor they had a fashion show that I caught, and Lucifire. I know she played around with fire, fire breathing, extinguishing the flame it in her mouth and other stuff. At the beginning she called up a volunteer and pounded a nail into her skull through the eye socket. At least that's what it looked like, I was a little far, but it was a real nail. That much I'm sure of. Ugh, my eye and head hurt thinking about it. She made the cute little volunteer pound it in then pull it partway out and put it back in before finally removing it. What I wasn't expecting was her husband(!?!). At least that's what she introduced him as. He was more like a heavily tattooed pain slave. I don't remember everything in particular, not that you want to hear all of it anyway. One part that stands out vividly was when she stapled (with a staple gun) several balloons to his back, then proceeded to pop them by throwing darts at them. These darts stuck under the skin and the blood wasn't a lie.

This was nothing compared to the Psycho Cyborgs though. I forgot to take pictures of them, but if you search on the web you can find lots of images and videos. They are a body modification group, so lots of fun stuff poking out from the skin. Imagine the borg, but it's all real and you get to see it go in. Just be prepared with a strong stomach. Definitely an experience though.

By the time we left around 4 or 4:30am it was snowing outside which made the walk home rather slippery. I probably should of taken a cab, but it wasn't far.

I took a few pictures, but it was really too dark for anything to turn out and I'm not sure photos were that welcome there. If you noticed I haven't been posting much lately. The trial version of the software I was using expired and I haven't decided if I'm going to purchase it yet. That and I downloaded some videos so my hard drive is almost completely full.

Overall it was a lot more fun then I expected. Part of the reason is probably because it's Japan. No matter what you do things feel safer here. If they return next year I'll probably go again. I could write more and try and describe some of the cool outfits I saw, but I don't think my words would do it justice. Just something you have to go to. Anyhow, following this you might see some more reviews on some more rather unique underground stores and events in Tokyo.

The interviews at work went well Sunday, at least a couple possibilities out of 6 people which is better then we've had lately. We went out to eat afterwards and I got home around 2pm I think and crawled into bed and slept.

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.

Differences between Dallas and Tokyo

I'm labeling this as Dallas and Tokyo because I'm not sure it's true for other places in the US or Japan.

In Dallas I knew quite a few people, and keeping in contact was a challenge, but not as hard as it seems to be in Tokyo.  The difference seems to be the number of things I can do in one night.  In Dallas it was easy to go home quickly after work, stop by and talk to Chris, Woody, Jas then go out eat with someone else then go the bar or study session with another group.  Tokyo seems limited to doing one, maybe two things in a night if you are lucky.  There are a few reasons for it I guess.  People don't stay at home, so I can't just drop in on my friends like I could in Dallas.  People work late, so normally you are meeting at 7 or 8pm, not 5-6pm.  Trains are nice, but face it, going a short distance from point A to B can take a lot of time.  Probably a reason why people take cabs.  Things seem a bit more like Europe where a meal is expected to take most of the night.  The trains stopping don't help.  If you have a car you can stay an extra 30 minutes or an hour.  Not here, unless you take a cab home. 

I think it also explains why you see large groups of Japanese all the time.  If you want to stay in contact with a lot of people, you organize large gatherings.  It's just not feasible to have many small ones and it's more expensive.  When the Japanese go out they spend a lot more money then Americans do, and things like table charges make it expensive to change locations.  The center of Japanese social life are these large gatherings I think.  Meeting people one on one is nice, but once they start inviting you to their events then you are becoming one of the group and getting accepted.  You need to find that person to bring you in and vouch for you though.  Often the core of these groups were formed years and years ago as childhood friends or students.  The way I formed my social circle in Dallas probably would of worked in another US city, but the dynamics are different in Tokyo.

I remember talking to a guy in Starbucks in Dallas maybe a year and a half ago.  He's lived and worked in a few difference countries.  He said his value lay in his ability to get teams or countries across different nations to work together and understand each other.  In particular his skill was with Germany.  It sounded rather simple to me at the time, but I think there is a lot more to it then I thought.  The more I experience here the more I feel I really don't understand things here yet.  It's also reinforced my desire to have more Japanese friends and not hang out with other foreigners here.  If I do I'm going to get a lot less out of this experience then I could.

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.

Review: Fonda de la Madrugada

Mexican food isn't that common here in Tokyo.  The ones that do exist are often written up on foreign guides.  When you are craving it, there just isn't a good substitute.  I found a place near Roppongi that isn't bad, but I was looking for someplace better which led me to Fonda de la Madrugada.  The highest rated Mexican restaurant in Tokyo that I could find.  It's near Harajuku, about two stops from where I live.  The entrance has a nice large sign that makes it pretty easy to find, at least if you come from the north.  They say it's in B1 (basement 1), but don't let that mislead you.  You walk down about three floors it seems.  I'm sure I've walked less to get on some subways.  The atmosphere is just what you'd expect from a middle to high end Mexican place in the US.  Adobe looking walls and the ceilings cross with branches.  It looks like they've collected a variety of art from Mexico and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the tables or chairs were imported too.  The main room is a couple stories tall and feels like an open air court yard.  They've got a great Mariachi band that seems to play there every night and knows a lot of songs.

Of course if you are going there, you are going for the food and it doesn't disappoint.  We had a cactus salad, enchiladas, tacos and something else I don't remember.  For that and a few drinks it came out to be about 9000 yen for the three of us.  We were light eaters and not too much to drink, so maybe expect another 1000-2000 yen per person.  The enchiladas weren't quite what I expected, but the flavor was spot on and they cook the meat perfectly.  At least from what we had.  They have an interesting cinnamon milk drink that was really good.  If your taste runs to tequila they have a large selection here.  You have a three story climb to get out though, so don't drink too much.  It ranks as highly recommended if you find yourself craving something other then Japanese.  It's not the cheapest, but I haven't read of anyplace coming as close to authentic Mexican food.

Open from 5:30 to 2am on Weekdays and 5:30 to 5am Friday and Saturday.  2-33-12 Jinguu mae, Villa Bianca B1, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. 

Snowy, but not white

I normally keep my curtains open at least a bit when I go to sleep.  They actually do too good of a job keeping the light out and when they are shut I really have no idea if it's daytime or not.  Today the sun woke me up and I when I looked outside the sky was filled with huge fluffy snow flakes floating down.  It's too warm for them to stick, but looked wonderful.  It was snowing hard enough that my hair was pretty wet after my short walk to the station.  It's too warm to stick, but that's probably a good thing.  Looks beautiful and I don't have to sludge through the snow.  This was still enough to make the stairways dangerously slick.  I took a few pictures and I hope some of them turned out.  I'll post them tonight.  I didn't think it snowed often in Tokyo, but people here have said two or three times a year isn't unusual.  Walking back home tonight is probably going to be COLD.

Review: Buri - Stand Bar & Restaurant

It's unfortunate that Yelp hasn't moved outside the US yet so I have no place to write reviews of the places I've been to.  It's actually a nice way just to keep track of where you have been so I'll start some reviews here and maybe you'll see someplace you'd like to visit if/when you come to Tokyo.

The title isn't a mistake, the business card says 'Stand bar'.  What they mean is a standing bar.  Nothing to sit on here while you sip on your sake.  It's fairly small, no more then 30 people would fit, if that.  It's a short walk north of Ebisu station.  They have beer and some other drinks, but they specialize in Sake.  The back wall is covered in shelfs with small single serving glasses of sake.  The staff seems to know the sake they have well, just tell them what you like and you'll get a suggestion or two.  You can get it served, warm, cold or room temperature.  I haven't tried to food, but I've heard it's good.  Some things on the menu, like liver, I'll probably skip.

It has a really relaxed feeling to it and the people there seem friendly.  If you are looking for people to talk to the standing bars (or tachinomi bar) are good choices.  If you find yourself in Ebisu looking for some not-so-expensive sake, give Buri a try.  Open from 5pm to 3am.  (Why do they close early?)  1-14-1 Ebisu Nishi, Shibuya-ku. 

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.

Useful Tokyo Webpages - Lovehomap

Lovehomap is your one stop guide to love hotels in Tokyo. Seriously, this thing is too cute, with all the hotels draw in anime-ish style. This makes it seem whole thing seem lighthearted rather then sleazy.

Creepy underground pictures of Tokyo

Take a look at these amazing pictures. The page says they are sewers, but that isn't correct. This is part of an elaborate scheme in Saitama to prevent flooding during the rainy season. This is what I understand from the Japanese web page. There are five of the giant cylinders 32m in diameter and 65m deep. That is big enough to hold not just the space shuttle, but the boosters and fuel tanks when it launches. 6.5km of tunnels 10m in diameter (I think), a giant holding tank for water 177m long, 78m wide and 25m tall. The support columns in that room are 7 meters long, 2 meters wide and weigh 500 tons each. I think in all the system holds 670,000m^3 of water. The drill used to make the tunnels weights 120 tons. There is a gas turbine that generates over 10,000kW of power for the pumps that can push 200 tons(!?!) of water into the river a second! All you say is WOW!

How could all this get even better? They give free tours! I know where my next date will be.

On riding the train

You've heard the stories about trains so crowded you are packed in like sardines and can't move.  How can you tell when the train is really crowded?  Stand on your tip toes then raise your toes, if you slowly slide back to the floor then the train is crowded.  Sounds horrible right?  Maybe in summer, but sometimes I appreciate it.  When the train isn't crowded you can brace yourself when the train start, stops.. etc.   When the train is just crowded though, you can't brace yourself well and often you are too far away to grab anything.  There is just enough room to fall and push people over.  (No, I haven't caused any domino like accidents yet)  When the train is really packed though everyone moves together as a giant mass and the people around you keep you standing up straight.  It's like of like watching sea anemones moving with the ocean currents in a Jacques Cousteau documentary.  Being crushed against the wall is no fun though.

Pictures from my new camera!

I finally decided to pick up a new camera and I got another point and shoot camera. I got the Ricoh GR-D 2. It's a fixed length 28mm lens, no zoom. It has it's limitations, but I like it. You just point and shoot, and if you want your subject closer then you walk/run toward them. I'm starting to understand the advocates of prime lenses a little better. The more you use a fixed lense the more you learn how the camera sees. I'm already getting a feeling if the picture won't work out before I even bring the camera up.

I've meet Keisuke a few times at the restaurant near my place. He delivers... something. I'm not quite sure what. Seems like he's gotten a bit of photography bug lately and picked up a Sony A100. We were playing with my camera over there. Not the best in a dark restaurant like that, but fun. I've heard there are some Tokyo walks where people head out together and take photos. A couple of the bloggers I have in my RSS reader have done that, so I can always ask them.

One thing I do like about this camera is that it captures raw and writes out a jpeg so you can preview the pictures quickly. They say this camera excels at B&W street shooting, which I won't disagree with, but I like the fact raw retains all the color information, so you can make a color picture or B&W without losing anything.

Leave a comment if you like any of the photos. The flickr stream is here.

Some Christmas photos

Click on the photo above for a few snapshots from Christmas.

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.

Christmas Updates

I promise!  I'll be updating with what happened over Christmas break.  Just no time yet to go through photos on my computer.  I got a note about the package, but I haven't had time to call yet.  I believe I have to go pick it up.  Back to work!

The last train

When you first get to Japan you worry about the last train.  After getting on the last train a couple times you realize that making the last train is only half the problem.  The second half is not falling asleep and remembering to get off.  Now I`m stuck in Ikebukuro after all the trains have stopped.  I haven`t checked for sure, but it`s probably 4-5 thousand yen to take a taxi home, but only 980 for 10 hours in the manga kissa.  Guess where I`m sleeping tonight...  Oyasumi!

Plans for this weekend

Tonight meet up with Yoshiko and Testsuo!  Yoshi is finally back in Tokyo for a few days with Kodo.  It's going to be good to see them again.

Tomorrow, either go to the self-funded bonenkai (year end party) or go out to eat with Yasuko.  I'm tending to the later, because the bonenkai is going to be about $55 of all you can drink liquor for three hours and I don't feel well enough to get my money's worth out of it.  That and Yasuko's last name is Amano.  How awesome is that?  (That's a Gunbuster reference)

Saturday, probably go furniture shopping then probably meet up with Kana for dinner.  There is supposed to be a famous, or maybe just popular okonomiyaki place near my apartment that I want to try.  Now if I can just find it again...

Sunday, hang out and do whatever during the day, maybe some shopping.  Emily is having a Christmas party at her house that evening I'm going to, but it's in Chiba.  I haven't looked, but it maybe a couple hours to get there.  Directions are somewhere in gmail.  George in Tokyo too, so I'll get to see him there, and probably Tetsuo too.  I'm not set up to make anything yet, so I'll probably just bring wine.  I think there is a good liquor store near me, but I haven't been to yet. 

Monday is a vacation day.  No plans during the day, but I'm going to go see Kodo that evening.  I've missed them every time they've come to Dallas, (yeah, no excuse) so I'm going to see them in Tokyo.  Probably would of been better in Dallas.  I think they played small venues.

Last night

I went home early last night, messed around on the computer then went off to do my laundry.  I think all the cheap housing has disappeared from near the station, so it's a fairly long walk to the nearest coin laundry .  (that I know of)  It wouldn't be so bad if the weather wasn't quite so cold.  I talked with an older man outside for a while and got a couple very vague bar suggestions I might follow up on when I have time.  Otherwise we just talked about Japan and America and what I've been doing here.  He makes glass windows and etc for apartments.  I'm not sure if he actually makes the glass, or just cuts it.  I was a little surprised to hear he doesn't have a phone.  No landline, no cell.  In this day and age it's unusual, but I find myself checking it fairly often.  Not being connected to people 24 hours day certainly has some appeal and is probably relaxing once you get used to it.  If you aren't afraid to start a conversation you meet some interesting people.

The coin laundry I've been going is right next to a sento (public bath house).  I don't know if this one is new or not, but I've heard they can be fairly nice, and some people just go because it's relaxing.  A lot of people seem to bring their laundry with them and wash at the same time.  If you really need to live cheaply this is a good way to do it.  You can find apartments for less then half what I pay in the same area.

Afterwards it was still early so I stopped by a bar I always walk past on my way to/from work that looked interesting.  Expensive, even a little more so then I expected.  I should of asked for a drink menu.  Not that it's that bad, but it won't be someplace I go to often.  Talked with the bartenders for a while, but the people there didn't seem very social. 

Hairspray

I went to go see Hairspray this weekend at Ikspiari, which is a fairly large shopping area next to the Tokyo Disneyland.  Disneyland is actually really close.  It only takes about 40 minutes by train for me to get the station.  I guess I'm just used to the US where most interesting things involve getting on a plane.  The shopping area obviously had that Disney touch.  Lots of shops, even more restaurants and way too many places selling sweets. 

We went there for the movie theater, with a massive 16 screens.  I haven't even heard of anything so large here.  Hairspray was on a fairly small screen, but for a two month old movie it was pretty packed.  Tickets were 1800 yen or $16.  How I long for the days of the dollar theater again.  The Japanese seem obsessed with sweet things and you could get carmel popcorn, or half and half.  Hairspray itself was fantastic.  Partially because I didn't know what to expect and had some low expectations.  I'd never heard of it before, but this movie is based on a musical version on the original movie (not a musical) by John Waters.  That explains why the songs were good.  ;)  No idea what the original movie and musical are like, but I'd recommend this one. 

I stopped by Ikea afterwards and picked up a mattress pad and light blanket that covers my feet and an ironing board.  Yeah, I don't have an iron yet, but for $3.50 who can refuse?  Maybe there are cheaper places then Ikea around, but you know you aren't getting a bad deal there.  Unfortunately the sofa bed I saw online turned out to be a big pain to convert back and forth so I think I'm going to get one of the roller types.

How do you live in a shoe box?

I wisely took a look at my apartment and measured a few things before I go out and buy furniture.  It's a lot narrower then I expected, 2.33 meters, about 7'7".  That space is going to go fast and I am giving some strong consideration to a futon even though I don't have one of those massive closets to put it in.  The second is plugs.  I have a total of 5 in the room, although many places this size didn't seem to have much more (maybe 6).  Of the devices I have right now I can count 12 plugs and that doesn't count a TV, Xbox, alarm clock, rice maker, microwave or anything else I might buy.  Granted, 4 of those plugs are my portable hard drives.  Being in this situation might be a good time to upgrade to a 4-6 bay raid box I keep thinking about.

Getting to work

I timed my trip to work today. Door to door (actually, about a minute from my apartment) to when I got to my office, 48 minutes. A bit longer then I expected. It's a 4-5 minute walk from my apartment to the Hibiya line station. From there I can either go to Tsukiji (19-20 minutes by train) and walk 20-21 minutes to my office (which I did today) or switch at Roppongi and go to Kachidoki (29-30 minutes) and walk 7 minutes to work. So I save 5 minutes switching lines, and 14 minutes of walking and it costs me 180 yen more and the hassle of changing trains. The switch at Roppongi isn't really close. (190 yen to go to Tsukiji vs 370 to go to Kachidoki)

In all, I found it doesn't really matter which way I go, but I can switch if I need to save a few minutes or just don't like the weather. Actually, according to Navitime I can buy a ticket that should reduce the cost of the 370 ticket to 290. I might have to look into that. You have to buy 1, 3 or 6 month passes though, so if you don't use them all the time or it's not really worth it. The nice part is that you can get off on and on during the route without paying extra, but for now, my most likely stop is Roppongi where I would be switching anyway.

I took a look at alternatives, in particular bikes.  Tokyo really seems like a great place to use a bike to get around. In some ways better, and in some ways worse then the UK or New York from what I've been reading. I've done a lot of reading on bike commuting lately and it's really pretty interesting. Normally you'd think you'd have to bike all the way, but there are all these neat folding bikes now that make multi-mode commuting possible. Riding to a bus stop/train station, getting on for a bit then biking to your final destination. Some cities are better equipped then others, and Dallas in particular is very bad. I'd be tempted to try it if I moved back there though.

According to Navitime it's 9.4Km (5.8 miles) from my apartment to my office using their Taxi route. The average walking speed of a person is 5kmh or 3mph making it about a 2 hour walk. Average commuting speeds on a bike in urban areas seem to be 10-12mph or 16-19.3kpm, of course terrain, weather, traffic can change it. That means the same commute could be only 30 minutes on bike, 15 minutes faster then train, and better exercise. At worst I should be able to match it. The downside with commuting by bike is that we don't have shower facilities or lockers available at work.

In Tokyo some commuters have a bike at one or both ends of their commute. Ride to the station, park your bike in the bike parking areas, get on the train then use a second bike at your destination to get to work. This would cut down my 20 minute walk to 7-9 minutes or so. Ok, for bikers that's nothing, but just a thought. Luckily parking is free in chuo-ku so an 8,000 yen bike would be perfect. After 9 weeks it would be cheaper then switching at Roppongi. The parking area near my apartment is about 100 yen a day (;_;) with longer passes available.

Luckily bike theft isn't quite as big of a problem here compared to some places in the US.If you have a mama-chari with any type of lock it probably isn't going somewhere. Leave it unlocked and it's likely to get 'borrowed' by a salary man or student and abandoned at their destination. You can register your bike for 500 yen and police often find abandoned bikes and will call you if they find yours.

I do plan on getting a cheap bike and storing it somewhere near my apartment, or one of the bike lots near Ebisu station. If I use it quite a bit I might get the bike I’ve been looking at.  The brompton folding bike.  Here is a video of a guy folding and unfolding it.  The folded size of the bike is  22.2" x 21.5" x 10.6".

I live in a parking space

Ok, not exactly in my car, but I've realized my room is about the size I would of needed to park my (now sold) Honda, although it might be tight getting the doors open.  I'm still surprised how small the space is.  I realized I was probably a little hasty picking this place, but I can probably blame a bit of that on the cold.

• The kitchen is really small, really really small.  A stove, one electric burner and no space for anything else, hardly any storage either.  I don't even have a place big enough to put plates in.
• Lack of outlets, I have a three plug outlet near the cable connection and a 2 plug outlet across from it.  Nothing near the kitchen or bathroom.
• No place to store a bike.  I'm not 100% sure I'll buy one yet, but I want to.  I need to figure out where to store one first though.

Ok, that's not much, really the only things bothering me, although I don't know if I have fiber yet.  Yeah, that was a big one to overlook.

On the good side, it's really close to the station and in the most popular area of Tokyo.  Part of me still can't believe I'm in a space this small, but it's going to be a good lesson for me on how to live much more simply.  I also understand now why the Japanese go out more and spend what seems like a lot of money on food or clothes.  They just don't have space to collect stuff.

The amazing part?  This room is twice the size (or more) then the hotel I was staying in.  Even while I say it's small, last night when I came home I thought how nice it was to be a "big" place now.  At least it takes me more then 2 steps to get from the bed to the bathroom.  This place is a fairly typical 18.74m^2, or 201.71 square feet.  It's less then 1/3rd the size of my old apartment in Dallas.

Maybe no new apartment this weekend

Last night I thought I had transfered my $4500 dollars to the owner of the apartment so I could start to live there.  Apparently I did something wrong.  You need to type the receivers name in EXACTLY.  I made one small mistake, but they don't tell you that it failed until later.  Now it should be sending events to my cell phone.  (Everything revolves around your cell phone here, but more on that later)  The real estate agent didn't call me until almost 2pm to ask where the money was.  I thought I had until 3, but after getting the information and rushing to the bank, doing the deposit I found out I was 4 minutes late (2:34) and the money wouldn't get sent to Monday.  The real estate agent is trying to do some sort of negotiation to see if I can get in my apartment this weekend.  *crosses fingers*  I haven't heard back from him yet, so I'm not expecting good news, but I'll have to give him a call soon.

Am I finally going to start?

My first post.  I've had this account sitting here too long and it's time to get it started.  My first week or two here in Tokyo was all excitement, after that I've just been exhausted.  More on why I haven't written later, but I'm happy to say I believe I have an apartment to move into and getting settled should help things a lot, although now I have to go shopping and pick stuff up for the new place.  It's small, about 6-jo (or 6 tatami mats).  I decided location was most important to me, and I'm in Ebisu, the most expensive area of Tokyo right now.  If not it's really close.  The location inside of Tokyo is great.  You really can't get any better.  I'm a one or two minutes from the main JR station and a little noisy, but it's central to everything.  There aren't many options at the price I was looking at.

I hope to write more later.  Unfortunately Japan is way behind when it comes to free internet and I may not get to post again until I get internet.  I'll probably back post some about my trip to Taiwan and some of the things I've done in Tokyo up to this point.