Charles in Japan

Vacation Report

So, what's been up lately?  :)

Thursday Dee and Keith got here and brought me a big bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  I love my friends.  Mmmm!  Dee unfortunately wasn't feeling too well, but we met up shortly after they got to the hotel and went to the Tokyo Tower.  Keith and I got a bite to eat, but Dee wasn't up for it.  I hope she's feeling better now.

Pat arrived on Friday.  I met him at the apartment, then we ran over to our company hanami.  It's basically an excuse to sit outside and get really fucked up drinking too much, but the flowers are nice.  Fortunately quite a few flowers were still on three and they were really pretty when the wind blew and it looked like it was raining petals.  After that we went bar hopping in Shibuya and Ebisu until about 2am and had a great time.  First was Tight, then an little outdoor bar in a tent (where I left my bag with cameras in it), then to Ebisu were we went to Q and one other place I think.  We crashed a home.  When I woke up I had 4 calls from someone at 4am and I couldn't figure out why.  I did meet them before.  It happened to be someone I met at that bar a week ago and they saw my ID when looking at the bag and brought it to the police station.  It didn't click until I was looking for it and found it missing.  We met up with him though, got my bag back after a lot of paper work then off to Kamakura.  We saw the large temple there and the Daibutsu, a large Buddha statue that's probably one of the most famous things there.  We got some interesting food then ran off to Enoshima which is a little island you can walk across a bridge to and went up to see the shrine and sunset there.  Then back to Yokohama where we walked around Chinatown and got kind of ripped off at our restaurant.  More kind of my fault, but it wasn't what we expected.

Sunday, we were supposed to go to Studio Ghibli in the morning, but couldn't.  Instead we went to go see Meiji jingu (The largest Shinto in Tokyo) then off to Yoyogi Park, Harajuku and Omotesando.  Kind of the fashion districts.  We got to see a few of the weird kids that hang out there, but I think it was still a little early and they were probably drinking under the cherry trees anyway.  Some friends of mine were having a hanami that day, so we headed over to the station and bought some drinks and KFC on the way.  Partway there we saw a little neighborhood hanami.  They had a small kodo group playing and the kids were making bird houses.  We hung out for a few minutes then continued on to the park which turned out to be a lot further then I expected.  I talked to a couple partway there and we took the bus the rest of the way.  After finally finding my friend we joined the about 20 people there and ended up staying later then we had planned, because it was so much fun.  We ended up going out to drink with them for a bit afterwards, but that was probably a mistake.  A little too much Japanese for Pat, so we split early went home and feel asleep.

Pat will have you tell you about Monday, but I met him at the Go center after work.  We went to the Tokyo Tower and went up to the top level.  I can finally say I've been there, done that.  (^_^)  It is a really nice view, but too expensive I think.  Then we went to Tsukishima which is famous for monjayaki.  It's kind of of like Okonomiyaki, but it looks like something someone threw up.  I'm not kidding!  We had planned on Okonomiyaki (the restaurants have both since it's so similar), but we got Taro (pork, fish and something else) and Hanako (two types of mushrooms, shrimp, squid and something else) monjayaki.  Pat did an excellent job making the second one and we talked some with the guys at the next table.  Then we met up with a couple friends at a bar we wanted to try then got home way too late (little after 1). 

We woke up about 5:40 this morning, took and quick shower and went to Ryogoku to see some sumo practices.  It actually turned out to be quite interesting.  We were the first there and it made us a little nervous, but probably 12 other people showed up while we were there.  Maybe 2.5 hours total.  I'm back at work and hopefully almost ready to leave.  I'm debating what to go eat tonight.  Mmm.  Probably won't stay out too late tonight though.  I think the lack of sleep is going to catch up with us tonight, but it's nothing Reese Peanut Butter Cups and Starbucks Coffee with lots of sugar can't fix. 

(actually, as I write that, I realized I haven't had any coffee today.  How the hell am I still awake?!)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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".