Thanksgiving, Black Friday, N1 Coming

 Food, Japanese Language, Music, Technology  Comments Off on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, N1 Coming
Nov 292013
 

Thanksgiving was nice. We had our usual fried chicken, because turkey is boring, and takes too long to make. I made some killer fried chicken this year.

We did NOT go to any stores. It’s Thanksgiving– it’s not a day to shop. That’s what Friday is for.

Deals!

I’m also looking out for good deals. Ever since the Propellerhead User Forum got shut down, I’ve been relying on Rekkerd’s Deals page a lot for info as to what’s going to be on sale this weekend and beyond.

The coolest thing I found was Native Instruments‘ massive software sale. Full versions of some of their software is half-off, everything except Komplete.

But it’s not what you think.

If you get a cross-grade from the full version of an NI product, you can get a big discount on Komplete, and Komplete Ultimate. The way it worked for me was that I bought Kontakt for half off ($199), then got the Komplete Ultimate cross-grade for only $374. Considering it retails for $1099, and usually goes for around $999, that’s a great deal.

I’m looking forward to playing with that. A lot.

I also scored a great deal on a new dryer. My dryer has been making scary noises and giving off weird smells, so rather than have the house burn down, I bought a cheap dryer. Really, all I need in a dryer is a low setting and a timer.

So long as it fits, dries my clothes, and doesn’t burn the house down, I’m happy.

N1 Coming

Tomorrow I leave for Washington to take the JLPT N1 again. I’m studying as much as I can.

Study-wise, I put a couple of N1 grammar books into Anki. It’s not enough, but it’s all I had time to do given the time I had. Studying for the A+ (and getting it) took up a lot of time.

Celebrating Pocky Day in Manhattan

 Food, Japanese Language, Photography, Travel  Comments Off on Celebrating Pocky Day in Manhattan
Nov 112013
 

Happy Pocky Day. (11-11!)

I celebrated by heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The recommended donation now is $25! Ouch! I saw a lot of exhibits at the museum that bring back memories of my childhood, like the Egyptian section and the Temple of Dendur. We used to come to the MMA when we lived in NJ, and I always looked forward to it. It’s one of my favorite museums in the world.

After looking at the Egyptian section, I looked at the American Decorative Arts section, then at the sculpture garden, then another favorite section of mine, Arms and Armor. I’ve always been fascinated at the various inventions humans have created to protect themselves from… other humans. And plate armor just looks cool. I’d hate to wear the real thing, though.

Then I broke for lunch. Lunch was in the basement cafeteria, which is the cheapest place to get lunch.

First I had to find it. It took a little wandering and map-consulting, but I found it.

It was about $25 for lunch, but it was good. I just wish I could have gotten a plain turkey sandwich, instead of something with cranberry mayonnaise on it. I like cranberries, and I like mayonnaise. I would just rather pick the dressing myself.

I swung by the medieval statues I saw on the way to the basement, and snapped a few photos with my phone, then snapped some more of the statue garden on my way to the modern art section.

I wandered around the modern art section, and finally found my favorite painting in the building. It’s a Jackson Pollock painting called “Autumn Rhythm.” I don’t know why I love it. I just do. That’s art.

By then it was about 2:30, and time to head out. I found souvenirs for everyone, headed out the door. I got a few shots of the building on my way out with the Nexus 5.

On to Times Square, and Kinokuniya

I grabbed a train to Times Square, then headed to Kinokuniya to do some more shopping, but really, by now I have all the books I need. This was more of a “make sure” trip. I really wish I had a Kinokuniya or similar book store nearby.

Then I headed back to the apartment to clean up and get changed. I was going to meet up with some friends in Greenwich Village for dinner. I got all cleaned up, and headed out.

Oh, My Battery!

We met up at Oh! Taisho! at around 7 or so, and had a nice conversation at dinner. The food was good. It was yakitori and other bar-style food. We talked forever, then went over to Starbucks and talked some more. It was a lot of fun.

But my battery was almost dead by 9. I had to borrow a portable battery charger from a friend of mine. I wasn’t happy about that. This is after recharging the battery once while I was changing. I’m not sure if it’s a driver thing, or a Kit Kat thing, or a Nexus 5 thing.

By about 10 or so, I had to head back, because I don’t want to be out too late and wake up my SO’s parents, so we said our goodbyes.

Tomorrow I go back home. It’s supposed to snow.

Career Forum Day Two, etc. etc.

 Food, Japanese Language, Photography, Travel  Comments Off on Career Forum Day Two, etc. etc.
Nov 092013
 

Day two of the Career Forum, and my last. I’ve seen everything I want to see, and talked to everyone I want to talk to. I talked to a few companies, had a couple of brain cramp moments, but generally feel okay about it.

If something comes through, great! If not, I’ll keep freelancing.

I headed back to the hotel, changed, and had lunch. Then I got my stuff together and headed to the USS Constitution, to get a good look at it before the last tour of the day. I just made it to get on board, but I missed the last guided tour. I did get a chance to take some photos with my NEX and my Leica 21/2.8M ASPH lens, though.

I went back to the hotel, rested for a little while, then headed to the same Japanese restaurant I went to last year, Shiki in Brookline. It’s about a 45 minute trip by the green line. I had 20 minutes to kill before my table was ready. There wasn’t anywhere to wait, so I waited outside.

I had udon. It was good. The service was a bit on the slow side this year.

Tomorrow I head to New York.

Raleigh Greek Festival

 Food  Comments Off on Raleigh Greek Festival
Sep 222013
 

My SO and I went to the Raleigh Greek Festival for dinner last night. The music was a bit on the loud side, but it had a great party atmosphere, and of course the food was amazing.

I’m glad we finally got to go. I’ve been wanting to go to this festival for a number of years, but I could never get my schedule to align with it, or I would find out too late to plan anything. I’m also glad she wanted to go, too, because going to Raleigh is a bit of a drive for us.

The pastitsio was awesome, so was the spanikopita. That was some of the best spanikopita I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot. The lamb skewers were good, too.

Our plan was simple: buy a bit of everything, and take it all home for leftovers the next day.

We also tried some of the desserts, too: the donuts were really good (covered in honey, cinnamon, and a little brown sugar), and the galactaburos was good, too. (I really wanted to cover that in dark chocolate, though.)

There was a baklava sundae that we also tried. It was a bit on the sweet side for me. Okay, it was nuclear sweet.

It didn’t cost a whole lot more than going out to a nice restaurant, and we got two days’ worth of food out of it, so it’s a win-win kind of thing.

Wrightsville Beach

 Food, Travel  Comments Off on Wrightsville Beach
Jun 202013
 

I just got back from the annual family trip to Wrightsville Beach, NC, where every year for the past 30 years or so, my folks and my aunt’s family all get together and take over a beach house for a week.

It’s a great time to catch up with family, play setback, eat, kick back and relax. My dad’s cousin and his kids and grandkids all visited, too. They usually come for dinner one night on the weekend. The house gets crazy crowded, but it’s fun.

I made sure to visit the Trolly Stop (yes, that’s the correct spelling) for the best hot dogs in N.C., and we went to Genki Sushi for lunch. Sugi-san makes some wicked good food.

The only thing we didn’t get to do was go to Britt’s Donuts in Carolina Beach, N.C. It was a little far to drive for donuts, even if they’re some of the best donuts in the country. We’ll have to go next time.

I feel recharged… I also feel like I need to eat nothing but raw vegetables for the next few weeks.

AB!

 Food  Comments Off on AB!
Apr 192013
 

I’m a Good Eats fan. I’ve been a fan since the show first came on around 2000 for two reasons. First, Alton Brown is entertaining and writes a really fun and educational show, and second, he teaches the science behind cooking. I respect a well-produced show, and I love science in my cooking.

So it was a thrill to see Alton Brown perform live at DPAC in Durham last night. It was pretty awesome, if a bit random. He’s getting a show ready to take on tour, so things were a little improvised, but it was very enjoyable. He experimented with dry ice, liquid nitrogen, and other fun, moderately dangerous items to make food. Not necessarily the kind of stuff you’ll have lying around the kitchen.

One irritating thing: they said a few times, “No photography, please.” So what did the guy next to me do? Immediately stand up and shoot photos with his cell phone.

Pardon me, while I rest my face in my palm for a few minutes.

Alton did a Q-and-A after the show for about 30 minutes. I had no Qs for him to A, so I just enjoyed listening to everyone else’s questions.

If he comes to your town, I highly recommend checking his show out.

Career Forum, Constitution, Shiki

 Food, Travel  Comments Off on Career Forum, Constitution, Shiki
Oct 202012
 

While I’m freelancing, I’m always keeping an eye out for opportunities to do something interesting. I like freelancing, but it’s not the most secure kind of work in the world. I’d also like to be able to focus more on the work part of work than all of the other stuff that has to be done around freelancing, like accounting, etc.

So I headed back to the Career Forum today. Getting there was a lot easier for two reasons:
1. It wasn’t raining like crazy.
2. I have gotten somewhat used to the transit system here.

I sat in on some more presentations, handed out more resumes, and talked to a lot of different people. There were a few very promising leads here, and we’ll see how they pan out. I’m not going to get too high or too low over what happens at a job fair.

Seeing the Constitution and Bunker Hill

I got back to my hotel room, changed, flopped down for a bit, then realized that if I wanted to see the USS Constitution, I had better get a move on.

I started walking along the waterfront, taking lots of new pictures with my Sony Nex 5N, and eventually got to the Constitution. When I got to the admission gate I found out I was 15 minutes late. The last tour is at 4 p.m., not 5.

Oh well, I can still take pictures. And I took plenty of them.

Then I went into the USS Constitution Museum, and looked around at the exhibits. It was very interesting, and also very educational at the same time. When I was done looking around, I went down to the gift shop and picked up some souvenirs.

From there, I started walking towards Bunker Hill, because the sun was starting to set, and I thought I could get some good pictures from there.

Turns out I was right.

It was a little tricky to find it, because I saw two signs pointing in the general direction, and then saw absolutely nothing. But I had Google Maps with me, and Google Maps is a mighty weapon, so long as I have a signal!

I took a lot of pictures, and then started to get hungry. I walked back to the hotel, but wound up at the Constitution again, so I took more pictures of it in the sunset, and wandered back along the harbor walk to the hotel.

I asked one of the people at the front desk for a good restaurant that does seafood here, and I got a recommendation. I went upstairs to my room, and checked it out on the web.

Yikes.

Take the Green Line to Brookline

I decided to find someplace else to eat. I thought I would try Google’s Zagat ratings, and set it to seafood, 24 or higher, and it came back with Shiki, which is in Brookline, MA. I wasn’t intending to eat Japanese food tonight, but it had high scores and lots of good comments on the food, and the food is what matters.

It took 45 minutes to get there. The Green Line is a subway/tram line, and it branches out in 5 different directions. So when I got to the main Green Line station, I had to wait 15 minutes for a tram going to Brookline.

I eventually got to the restaurant, and they were packed. Fortunately, I was alone, so I could get a seat at the bar. I have gotten into a lot of packed restaurants that way. I prefer eating at the bar, because then I don’t have to watch other people eating, and I can talk to the bartender sometimes. It depends on my mood and the mood of the place.

I spent about 20 minutes worrying over the menu– they just had so many delicious looking things on it, that I couldn’t make up my mind. I settled on zaru soba, which is one of my favorites, and gyutan, which is grilled sliced cow’s tongue. Alas, there was no cow’s tongue left, so I tried to get kushiage, which is a bit of everything, deep fried. No luck. I got hirekatsu instead, which is like a tonkatsu, only in smaller chunks. The waitress apologized for not having what I wanted, but they were slammed, so I understand.

Shiki has great food. If you’re in the Boston area, it’s worth the trip.

When I got done eating, I went back to the Harbor, but stopped off to get some ice cream along the way at Emack & Bolio’s Ice Cream, because it’s near my hotel and on the way back from the subway station. The Chocolate Moose is pretty good.

I need to start packing, because I want to get to Manhattan in time to do some shopping before everything closes.

Harajuku, Akihabara, and a View I Won’t Forget

 Food, Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Harajuku, Akihabara, and a View I Won’t Forget
Dec 212011
 

Today was my last full day in Tokyo, and there was a lot of stuff I had to get done, so more so than a touristy day, it was more of a shopping/shipping day.

For starters, I’ve been battling this nasty sore throat for two days now. It hasn’t really gotten worse, but it hasn’t really gotten better. What makes it worse is going outside, or going into really dry, overheated environments. What makes it better is hot soup, cold drinks, hot showers, Ricola, and steam.

I’m glad I bought those Ricolas in Nagoya!

I wasn’t all that hungry when I woke up, so I just had some yogurt and some Emergen’C… and now I know I’ve been thoroughly trained to wash my trash by living in Japan, because without even thinking about it, I washed not only the yogurt cup and plastic spoon before I threw them away, I also washed the tear-off foil lid, too.

But the hotel doesn’t do recycling like that here, so it was a wasted effort.

It took me a while to get started today, just because I generally felt so awful. It’s probably because I’m all run-down from the last few weeks of running around like crazy without taking time to rest. My body is screaming at me to take a break. I know this.

But I’m only in Tokyo for a day and half more, and I have no idea when I’ll be back. So I kicked it into gear and got going.

The first order of business was to get the last two boxes shipped. Another reason to love the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku, as if I didn’t have plenty, is that there’s a post office right across the street. Awesome. The only downside is that they don’t do insurance on surface mail packages. Oh well. It wasn’t valuable stuff.

After a brief break, I was off to Harajuku again, to find one of the very last souvenirs, for one of my godchildren. He’s into ninjutsu, which makes it very difficult to find a good present. I don’t want to get anything that’ll get him injured, so I went to Kiddy Land again, and found him a Samurai Kirby.

Then I stopped at Shakey’s for an interesting pizza buffet lunch of grilled onion, then pepperoni (still normal), then shrimp, anchovy, pineapple and bacon, pineapple/chicken/bbq sauce, and “Mexican,” whatever that means. I skipped “corn and mayonnaise,” because it looked gross and offended my American sensibilities.

I like corn. I like mayo. But on a pizza?? No way, no how. I’m used to the seafood stuff by now. It’s actually not bad, if it’s well-made.

All the pieces were really teeny tiny. That’s why I could eat so many.

Then I went back to Shinjuku for a brief break, then off to Akihabara, finally. The place is a zoo, now, even more so than before. Between Gundam and AKB48 cafes, I’m just waiting for the inevitable Disneyfication of Akiba.

The Vita has only been out a few days, and I already saw 3 used units for sale… all of them 3G units, if that says anything. I tried to find some used games, but the deals on the pricing just weren’t that good. Book Off has better deals.

I picked up some manga, but that was it.

I can’t believe that’s all I’m going to buy in Akihabara. I’m sure in a few months I will most surely regret this, but there’s not much I can do. I haven’t figured out a way to manufacture extra time or extend my temporary visitor status. If I stay too long, I’ll get tossed out for good, and that would be bad.

I stopped off at Oasis, my favorite pay potty in the world. Such an experience for 100 yen. I recommend it to everyone. It’s across the street from Yodobashi Camera, near JR Akihabara. You can just tap your Suica and go. (Pun intended.)

Then I headed to Yodobashi Camera to gawk a bit. It’s 9 floors of electronics. Same as it was last time I was there 4 years ago. Not much to add. Lines were huge for the Vita now. Weird. Honestly, I don’t know what to think about it.

I played with one of the demo units for a while, and I really like the graphics and play, but the price is just keeping me from buying it. Curse you, weak dollar!

Then it was time to head to Maruzen to spend the rest of my points on a few books. Marunouchi is a nice area this time of year. Starting tomorrow night they’re going to have a light display every night for a week. Too bad I’ll miss it.

One of those Special Traveling Memories

After that, I headed back to Shinjuku for dinner, at the soba shop I went to night before last, Sou Hon Kei. This was another attempt to fix my throat. Roasted duck bits and soba in soup. It was absolutely awesome. It helped soothe my throat and my spirit. The view was splendid again as well. This time I sat in the Japanese style section, so it took a bit of getting used to.

But eating duck soba and watching the trains and people come and go in Shinjuku, and staring at the beautiful skyline? That’s one of my priceless moments from this trip. It was just incredible.

I very reluctantly pried myself away from the table and the view and headed back towards the hotel. A brief stop at the local Family Mart for a few snacks for later, and that was that.

I stopped by the front desk and paid the extra fee to check out late, because my flight leaves at 7, and I want the extra time to chill out in my room before I leave. I did it four years ago, too, and it worked for me.

Right now, it looks like I’m going to be flying coach back. I can’t say I’m excited about that. I’ve been trying to see if I can get some kind of upgrade to business class, because as soon as I get home, I have a four hour 250-mile drive waiting for me the next day. I need all the rest I can get!

Now it’s just frantic packing time, and I’ll be physically, if not emotionally, ready to head home tomorrow.

Toughing it out

 Food, Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Toughing it out
Dec 202011
 

Ugh.

I felt like crap today, so I had a late start.

It’s the season for it, and when I push myself too hard over a long period of time, I can’t say I’m surprised. I woke up, and my throat was sore. I had a nice little red patch on the back of my throat from the heater blowing right on me, and maybe an incipient cold? Oh, I hope not. The last thing I want on the flight back is a cold. That would be the worst.

So I really took it slow today.

First I went to Bic Camera in Shinjuku around 1 or so. I gazed longingly at the PS Vitas (Vitae?). The WiFi models were back in stock. Nobody was buying the 3g Models… and nobody was really buying the WiFis, either.

I think that the days of the handheld gaming machine are numbered to be honest. Smartphones are killing them.

I searched in vain for something for my youngest godson. He’s tough to shop for, but I don’t think Bic will have anything for him. (They do have a decent toy section, though.)

Sekaido

I hiked a bit in Shinjuku to try to find Sekaido, where I shopped 4 years ago for office and art supplies. It’s a good store, with lots of good discounts. It has just as nice a selection in some respects as Itoya, only with much lower prices. (Like 20% off the top just for starters.)

I found it, and did some shopping there. I saw two girls get in a screaming match. That was awkward. Especially because they kept moving it around where I wanted to be.

Can’t we all just get along?

I found some good bokujuu, which is ink that’s already been ground into a liquid form for 書道. Purists don’t like it for many reasons, chief among them is a firm belief that you should grind your own ink stick and make your own ink.

That’s great if you’re getting paid for it, or if you have lots of time to grind ink. It’s not so great if you’re just an amateur like me who likes to practice, and has scant free time. Grinding ink takes 20-30 minutes. And when you use it up, it takes another 20-30 minutes to grind some more.

I found a bunch of different kinds of ink to play with when I get home. Of course that’s all going in a box by sea mail, because I don’t want an inksplosion in my suitcase.

I got some bubble wrap and a few fun cool unique Japanese souvenirs for people back home, and headed to the Post Office.

Whirlwind of Packing

The Post Office in Okazaki is more together, to be honest. I never could find the forms I needed to fill out to actually send my packages. But I did get to buy the boxes. I think this will make 6? 7? Jeez.

I went back to my room and started filling them up… after I did some suitcase triage. The room looked like a tornado hit it. A very very messy tornado, full of stuff mostly for other people.

Don’t ask me how this story ends, because even I don’t know.

I got one big box filled, but the little box full of ink isn’t full yet. There’s still room for something. I’ll have to find something to put in it later.

I Will Follow You For Chicken On a Stick!

Around 7-ish I was feeling peckish, so I headed out to Roppongi Hills again for dinner.

I went to a restaurant called Momotarou for oyakodon and various bits of yakitori. The chicken breast was ninja’d with wasabi. At first I thought they sprayed lighter fluid all over it… no, that was wasabi. Wooo! Good stuff, though.

The oyakodon was really good. Just next time, please don’t serve me with a spoon… I know how to use chopsticks already. We even have them in the US. Honest.

A quick stop at Cold Stone… OMG expensive. 510 yen for a scoop and a half of ice cream. That’s $7! For ice cream! I could get a paint bucket full of ice cream for that much in the US.

I stopped again at Aoyama Book Center, which is a neat little book store, to get my brother in law another present, a cool book that should be useful for some random movie he’ll have to work on in the future. (Or not. You never know.)

Then home, on an jam-packed train.

I still feel kinda crappy, but I don’t think I’m getting worse. (I hope, anyway.)

Great Luck, Good Food, Plastic Food

 Food, Japan, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Great Luck, Good Food, Plastic Food
Dec 192011
 

I got a late start on the day, probably because the fatigue is catching up to me. When I look at all I’ve done in the last few months, it’s a little mind-boggling.

Today I went to Asakusa, and to Senso-ji for the Battledore Festival.

The raimon again:
Raimon Again.

Flyer for the Battledore Festival, called Toshi no Ichi in Japanese:
Asakusa Toshi-no-Ichi Poster

It sounded great from the flyers, but I didn’t see anything really special going on there. There were some extra stalls open, and some of the usual festival stalls selling the usual festival food. I used the chance to buy souvenirs for people, and took a few photos.

I went to the omikuji stand and this time I pulled a daikichi! 大吉, which means “big luck,” or “best luck.”

There are two ways to look at this.

1. Yay, I’m gonna be reaaally lucky! (A typical Western view, and somewhat typical in Japan, too.)

2. I better work hard to work off the inevitable bad karma that will come with “great luck.” (You hear this in Japan sometimes.)

I got a talisman for general safety, in case 2 comes true.

On the way back to the station, I found a taiyaki vendor. I love taiyaki, so I looked at the menu, and made a great discovery– chocolate taiyaki! Someone finally listened!

It was awesome.

Yeah, I know. They made it especially for us non-Japanese tourists who aren’t fond of sweet bean paste. And for that consideration, I thank them!

I don’t mind sweet bean paste, but give me a choice, and I’ll take chocolate just about every time.

Do Not Eat

After the good food, I decided to go to Kappabashi to get some plastic food.

There are some really neat stores there, selling all kinds of cool kitchen stuff. I could easily drop 10 bills there on knives alone, but I didn’t.

I bought some platic food instead at Satou Samples. I liked the donut “covered in glass powder.” Looks like sugar, tastes like broken glass. Yeah, don’t eat it!

I wandered around a bit, then found a station nearby.

Here are a few photos from Kappabashi.

The Tokyo Sky Tree looms over everything now:
Sky Tree from Kappabashi

A sign for a salon/beauty parlor:
Kappbashi.

A love hotel with an interesting name:
Kappbashi.

Covering Sounds You Didn’t Even Know You Wanted to Cover

Nature called. Who am I to ignore the call of nature?

I had an encounter with the oddest toilet so far. They’re right there on the platform at this station, which is kind of handy. You can hear the trains come and go as you do your business.

And I found a rarity for me in a Tokyo train station– an actual Western-style sit-down toilet.

I haven’t gotten to the odd part yet. Now I will get right to it.

When I went into the stall and started taking off my backpack and jacket, it started agressively playing this “rushing water” noise to cover up whatever wretched noises I making… taking off my jacket, I guess?

Then when I finally sat down to get around to making some wretched noises, it was already done, and fell silent, which apparently made the machine feel kind of awkward after about 5-10 seconds.

So it started back up again.

Booktown!

I headed back to the hotel, grabbed a sandwich at a station on the way, and took a one-hour break.

Recharged, I headed out to Jinbocho, and looked at a bunch of used books in a bunch of different stores, but didn’t see anything I liked. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun, though! Jinbocho has a lot of great used book stores if you’re looking for used Japanese-language books.

On the way to the station, I found a neat stationery store called Bunboudou, that was selling some really useful 書道 stuff, like a booklet on how to carve seals. That will come in really handy.

I also found some nice book covers for my mom, who likes to use book covers when she’s reading in public, and sometimes in private, too.

And of course plenty of postcards. Really nice ones.

I was starting to feel a little crummy, so I headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit.

Recharged again, I headed across the tracks to Tokyu Hands in Takashimaya Times Square for more souvenir shopping.

Takashimaya Times Square.

I bought more Nanoblocks as souvenirs for some of my friends (and myself!), and some Rirakuma stuff for my goddaughter. (M-Sensei at Yamasa is a huge Rirakuma fan.)

They had an amazing collection of Stuff I Can Adhere to My Cell Phone to Make It Look AWESOME. I was sorely tempted for a few minutes, I have to admit, but I decided in the end not to. I like my Nexus One clean after all. Maybe next time!

Then I headed up to the 11th/12th/13th floors in search of dinner. They have a lot of restaurants on those floors of Takashimaya Times Square in Shinjuku. I recommend it if you’re looking for a good restaurant.

I found a really nice soba shop with an awesome view of the various Shinjuku stations called Sou Hon Kei (I’m sure I butchered it), and they had a cute Christmas dinner special for 2000 yen.

I love fresh soba. Their soba was delicious, and the view was fabulous. I was revived!

I went back to the hotel after all of that and crashed for the night.

A Master of Saying Nothing

 Food, Japan, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on A Master of Saying Nothing
Dec 132011
 

We have our main class (AIJP) final tomorrow, for chapters 5-12. We’ve all been studying like crazy, too! Most of our classes have been review, and I’ve been reviewing whenever I can, including on the train.

Today I was awesome in JBPP.

I have fully mastered the art of saying nothing.

It’s important to know how and when to use filler words. Even in formal situations, there are times when they’re necessary.

I really have come a long way!

But I still have a lot of things to do before I can leave town.

Last Excursion to Nagoya, For a While, Anyway

After class, I went to the post office to pay some bills, get some cash, and then I headed to Nagoya for (probably?) the last time until I leave for Tokyo.

While I was waiting for the train at JR Okazaki, I snapped a couple of photos:
JR Okazaki on the way out to Nagoya

JR Okazaki on the way out to Nagoya vertical

When I got to Nagoya, I stopped by Maruzen, and found some good 書道 books, then went to the 書道 supply store in Sakae to get things like stones for carving seals, knives for carving, etc.

While I was in Sakae, I took a few pictures. First, the area near one of the supply stores:
Nagoya, Sakae, Looking for Supplies.

Then I headed to the park, and saw this weird little sign way off in the distance:
Park and Sign - 1

Aww, it’s kind of cute!
Park and Sign - 2

Okay, maybe creepy-cute?
Park and Sign - 4

I also grabbed an obligatory shot of the Nagoya broadcast tower:
Nagoya Tower from the Park 2

And I tried a little too hard to be artsy about it:
Nagoya Tower from the Park 3

For dinner, I made my last trip to Mokumoku. That food is great, especially the beef stew. I’m going to miss it!

Then I went down a few floors to Tokyu Hands to get a few more 書道 supplies for me, and some souvenirs for family members.

Going Home

By then it was getting on 9 pm, so I grabbed a train back to Okazaki. I wanted to say “home,” because really, by now Okazaki feels like home to me, but in a few days I will be leaving home to go to Tokyo, then back to my other home in the US.

Sigh.

This is all kind of bittersweet for me. I have had an incredible experience here, and a wonderful time, but it’s a little sad, too.

It’s also incredible motivation for me to get back here as soon as I can. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, but I will come back to live here for a while. (More than three months, I can assure you!)

Jackson Pollock and The Tallest Toilet in Nagoya

 Food, Japan, Photography, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Jackson Pollock and The Tallest Toilet in Nagoya
Dec 112011
 

Today I went to Nagoya again. (Again?) Yes, again. There was a Jackson Pollock 100th birthday commemorative exhibition going on at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, so you’re darn right I was going. It was a collection of a lot of his major pieces, even pieces from Iran, which I would never be able to see in the US. So of course I was going.

Jackson Pollock is one of my favorite artists. There’s no way I wasn’t going.

I stopped at the post office on the way out of town, only to have my ATM card declined. Twice. Apparently I hit the limit when I was in Toyohashi, and it’s not US midnight yet. Doh.

I still had plenty of money, but I’m always paranoid about not having enough cash on me here. In a pinch, I can usually use a credit card, but there’s always a chance that my card will be randomly declined. Either it’s security or just incompatible networks, it’s embarrassing and annoying. I wish there was a way to tell them, “Hey, it’s me! Let it go through!” Sadly, not yet.

Also, a lot of stores here will only take cash, so that’s also something to keep in mind.

It’s Not All Paint Splatters!

I got to JR Nagoya around 1, then made my way to Sakae, where the exhibition was.

On the way, a gratuitous shot of Oasis21 with my IXY, which I keep in my pocket now pretty much all the time.

Oasis 21 Nagoya, Japan

The museum was close by. They had an amazing number of Pollock’s paintings. As I said before, some came from places the US doesn’t have good relations with (like Iran), so I got to see things up close and personal that I probably would never be able to see in the US.

I also got to see a lot of Pollock’s early period work, and his really late work, both of which were surprisingly different from what I’m most familiar with, but were both impressive in different ways.

They even had a mock-up of his studio that you could walk around in, and a photo of his paint-splattered floor you could walk on. It was pretty cool.
Jackson Pollock Exhbit, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art -1

They also had paint cans and brushes and other tools he used to create his paintings with.
Jackson Pollock Exhbit, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art -3

After a couple of hours of geeking out, I headed to the gift shop and bought some post cards and a clear file. The clear file is awesome. It’s clear, but has a band from one of his paintings on it. Way cool.

Walkin’ In The Sky

I headed back to JR Nagoya, and decided that it was time to check out the Midland Square building, which is pretty darn cool. I had been meaning to go there for a while, but with all of the rain, it was impossible. Why? Because the observation deck is all outside! It’s 47 stories up, and the observation deck is 5 stories high, and all outdoors. According to their website, it’s the tallest outdoor observation deck in Japan.

It’s cool.

Well, it’s also cold, because it’s mid-December.

But I was willing to tough it out. I got some really nice shots, and even shot a little video of the walk around the periphery.

So here are some of the nicer shots of the Nagoya Skyline from my little Canon IXY:
Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

JR Nagoya:
JR Nagoya

The spiky sculpture in front of JR Nagoya, from 47 stories up. Scarier than it looks!
JR Nagoya

You can see people boarding a Shinkansen!
JR Nagoya

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Castle in the lower left corner:
Nagoya Skyline and Nagoya Castle from the Midland Tower

Nagoya Skyline and Nagoya Castle from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline and Nagoya Castle from the Midland Square Building.

Looking down from the top:
Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

I really like this angle and this shot in general:
Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

The light in general was strong as the sun was setting, so there was a lot of dramatic lighting:
Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

I felt the call of nature, and headed to the restroom there. That is one fancy and technologically advanced restroom. It’s almost as cool as the one at Oasis in Akihabara. Almost. But pretty close. There’s a hand dryer built into the sink, so as soon as you’re done washing, you can dry your hands without getting other peoples’ restroom cooties on your hands. And unlike a lot of air dryers in the US, it only stops when your hands are dry.

Of course I took a picture. It was cool!
The Coolest Sink in Nagoya.

I went back out and took some more photos. I only had my IXY with me, and just as I was getting into it, the battery started to die.

Boo.

I got a few more shots of Nagoya Castle, with more dramatic light as the sun was getting on with setting at a much quicker pace than I expected:
Nagoya Skyline and Nagoya Castle from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline and Nagoya Castle from the Midland Square Building.

I managed to squeeze out a couple more photos, and then it quit completely.

This shot is one of my favorites:
Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Nagoya Skyline from the Midland Square Building.

Last look at the Nagoya Skyline.

And after the Christmas tree photo here, the camera called it quits for a while:
Christmas on the 47th floor, Nagoya, Japan.

Well, I did manage to get this shot of JR Nagoya:
JR Nagoya

Not bad for a “cheap” little point-and-shoot camera, huh? It’s really not about the gear, it’s where you point it!

Supplies!

Satisfied with my trip to Midland Square, I decided to go look for some office supplies to take back home. I found Shimojima (シモジマ) using Google Maps, and hopped on the Sakura-dori subway line to Marunouchi. I got off there, and started walking. It’s a few blocks away.

Shimojima is 4-5 stories full of office supplies. They had stuff I didn’t even know I needed. So I stocked up!

I bought stuff like A3-sized clear folders, which are 20-page binders with 20 clear plastic pages. I can stick my good calligraphy pieces in there and keep them protected. I learned this from S-buchou.

I also stocked up on Frixion refills. Yeah, they erase in high heat, but for just jotting stuff down, they’re pretty neat pens. And the US version doesn’t take refills.

I also got some erasers, and a couple of cardboard tubes for putting paper, posters, and calendars in for safe transport. (Going back to Tokyo is going to be difficult!)

Then I headed to Sakae and Maruzen, and picked up some calendars. They make great gifts for the folks back home. They’re one-page calendars with traditional Japanese-style prints on them, printed on good quality paper. (And they’re only 1000 yen a piece. Not bad!) It’s a suitably Japanese-enough present, but not tacky. And after a year, they can toss them or whatever.

It’s almost as good as food.

I stopped off at a drug store in the Sakae Underground shopping mall to get some pain relief patches for my increasingly sore muscles. All of this moving around and carrying stuff is making me sore.

Then I headed to Hisayaodori to get some more books.

Then a trip to JR Nagoya, to go to the Tokyo Hands there, to get some Nanoblock puzzles for my neighbor’s kids.

After that, I needed dinner. Badly.

I’ve been at Mokumoku a lot, because it’s a good restaurant, but I needed to try something else. So I went Breizh Cafe Creperie. Crepes are BIG in Japan, but they’re not necessarily cheap. I got a salad, a bacon and tomato crepe, a chocolate crepe (as big as my head), and a ginger ale for 4,000 yen.

Yikes.

But they were some really fine crepes.

I finished up around 9:30 or so, then grabbed a train to Okazaki. I got home around 10:30 or so.

It was a very successful day!

Postcards From the JBPP Edge, How to Read Japanese Food Labels

 Food, Foreign Languages, Japan, Japanese Language, Photos  Comments Off on Postcards From the JBPP Edge, How to Read Japanese Food Labels
Nov 282011
 

Today was the final exam for my N1 grammar class. I think I did okay. Not great, but good enough. JBPP takes up a lot of time, as do my regular classes, and daily life eats up another chunk. I’m taking this more as an introduction to N1 level grammar, because I know that there’s still a lot I have to learn, so I’m not worrying too much about it right now.

We’re starting to do a lot of reviewing for the upcoming big tests in the main classes on Wednesday. Fun.

I’m a little tired after all the traveling this weekend, but it was fun, and I feel recharged.

In JBPP, we started working on how to mail letters. Snail mail is still important every now and then, so I have to know how to send letters properly. And it’s the sort of skill that transfers over to email as well.

Souvenirs!

Here are a few photos of the souvenirs I bought for everyone in Kyoto. I’m actually posting this from the future, but it fits with my “Kyoto Arc” here.

The cookie/wafer things came in two varieties:
Souvenirs from Kyoto

A fall leaf motif:
Kyoto Souvenir 1

Some kind of grass motif?
Kyoto Souvenir 2

Anyway, they were a big hit with everyone. People like getting stuff.

How to Read Nutritional Info on Japanese Food!

Since I’m just tacking stuff onto this post, I might as well tack this on, too. It’s a really important survival skill in Japan if you have any dietary needs. That skill is how to decipher those labels!

Let’s start with the nutrition info from my cheese slices:
Japanese Food Labels, and How to Read Them 1

So the 栄養 bit above the box is saying “Nutritional Information.” 1æžš means one slice, 18g 当たり means approx. 18 grams. (Well, it means exactly 18 grams, but realistically, it’s approximately.)

Now, let’s analyze the stuff in the box:

  • エネルギー this is “energy,” measured in calories. (They use the more accurate kcal, for kilocalorie, but we just call them calories in the US.)
  • たんぱく質 this is protein.
  • 脂質 this is fat.
  • 炭水化物 these are carbohydrates.
  • ナトリウム this is sodium.
  • カルシウム this is calcium.

The last bit, the 食塩相当量 bit, is just telling you the table salt equivalent of the sodium in the product. So each slice has roughly half a gram of salt in it.

Let’s apply this to convenience store food, because I eat a lot of it. (It’s probably bad for me!)

I bought some butajiru udon the other day. (It’s pork soup with udon noodles in it.)
Japanese Food Labels, and How to Read Them 2

Okay, the 11.11.23 bit is the “best by” date. 2011, November 23 is how you read it. The プラ bit means that the whole thing is recycled with the plastic trash.

Below that, you see 1600w and 500w? Those are cooking times depending on your microwave’s wattage. One minute and twenty seconds for a 1600 watt, and four minutes for a 500 watt. (Useful!)

Now, under that is the actual nutritional information.

  • 1食当たり we saw something similar before, but basically it means “one serving.”
  • 熱量 is our calories again, just using a different way to say it.
  • 蛋白質 is just another way to write たんぱく質, except they used kanji. It’s still protein!
  • 脂質 is back again. It’s still fat.
  • 炭水化物 is also back again, still carbohydrates.
  • Na refers to sodium by its periodic table name.

Everything else is the list of ingredients, and the address of the maker.

Hope this helps you figure out what’s on your plate!

First Night in Kyoto

 Food, Japan, Japanese Language, Photography, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on First Night in Kyoto
Nov 252011
 

Man, I’m tired. I raced back to the apartment after JBPP, frantically packed, tossed out anything I didn’t need, repacked, still had too much, but left anyway. Yuck. Too heavy. I tried to take the bike to the station, but realized instantly that that was a horrible idea. The walk to the station wasn’t much better.

I really want to be one of those dudes who can just travel with a toothbrush and a spare pair of underpants. Seriously, how do they do that?

I managed to get a seat on the train to Nagoya, then grabbed a Nozomi to Kyoto.

PINning Down My Tickets

Here’s a tip: if you want to use a credit card, and you don’t have or remember your PIN number, buy your shinkansen tickets at a smaller station and talk to a human, if you can speak Japanese.

If you can’t, then go to the bigger stations, like Nagoya or Tokyo, and stand in line. The people working the counters there speak excellent English, or can find someone who does. (I learned this in 2007.)

If I had gotten my ticket at Okazaki instead of Nagoya, I would have saved 20-30 minutes of standing in line.

If you have/know your PIN, just use the machines. It’s a LOT faster. But if you’re trying to do something complex, humans are more helpful.

Hello Kyoto

I got to Kyoto at around 6:30, then headed straight to the APA Hotel, which was right outside of JR Kyoto. Fortunately, I had my confirmation number with me, because nobody in either Japan or the US can spell my name to save their lives.

The room was okay, but pricey: 10,000 yen.

I checked in, crashed for a few minutes, then headed over to Bic Camera to finally get a circular polarizer. I’ve been putting off buying one for too long. I looked around a bit, and found one.

Then I headed up to the restaurants on the 11th floor of Isetan, because it was starting to get late.

The Christmas decorations are already up:

Xmas Decorations, Kyoto Station

I found a good okonomiyaki shop, and had a good modern yaki with bacon. That’s good stuff!

After that, I headed down to the second floor of the station, and went to Cafe du Monde for a beignet… only to find out that the Cafe du Monde in Kyoto Station does not serve beignets. What the hell?? It’s Cafe freakin’ du Monde! They do sell hot dogs and coffee. But no beignets? There was a Mister Donut next to it, so I waited for 10 minutes and ordered some donut-looking things from them.

It Has a Hole in the Middle

As I headed out of the station, I took a couple of photos of the Kyoto Tower Hotel, which was very purple tonight:

Kyoto Tower

Kyoto Tower

Then I went to the Lawson outside of the station, and it was jammed full of people. It was a madhouse. I decided to go ahead and get breakfast as well as beverages, because I wanted to save a trip here in the morning. (Seriously, it was nuts.)

I headed back to the room.

My room if full of amenities. See?

The Hotel's Amenities!

Then I ate my donuts. The MisDo (as they call Mister Donut here) donuts were really mediocre, like not very good grocery store donuts that had all of the flavor chased out of them by the bland police. Frankly, Harris-Teeter’s chocolate donuts taste better, and they’re average at best.

Now I understand why the lines at Krispy Kreme are so long here; these people haven’t been eating proper doughnuts! (There’s a difference between donuts and doughnuts, but I don’t want to get into it right now.)

The MisDo chocolate donut just tasted like it was… brown flavored.

I called home to let them know I was still alive, then I sacked out early. Gotta get up early, too. Tomorrow will probably be chaotic on a level I haven’t seen yet.

Dumb Things in the Rain

 Food, Japan, Technology  Comments Off on Dumb Things in the Rain
Oct 302011
 

It’s Sunday, and I didn’t do much today. I mostly rested. But in the evening, I started to go stir crazy.

So I decided to go to the 7-11 that I saw on Google maps which was apparently a 20 minute walk away. I usually go to Family Mart, because it’s closer, but I hear 7-11 has good salads, so I figured I’d go there.

This was a dumb idea.

I decided to walk there. Another dumb idea. In the rain. Really dumb idea.

I spent about an hour looking for a convenience store that didn’t exist, in the rain. I did find a Lawson a block up the street, but it didn’t have anything, as in, it had been completely cleared out of bentos.

I had no idea that that sort of thing was even possible in Japan.

I trudged to the Family Mart, which was full of good food as usual. I decided to go for a hamburger tonight, because I miss America. (Pun intended.)

I nuked it when I got home, and had it with some Pringles. It was actually pretty good when I added some mustard to it.

Okay, this wasn’t a meal that would win any nutrition awards, but it was the best I could do given that I spent an hour walking to get it.

And now that I’m writing about this, I’m getting hungry again. Ugh.

Orientation and Okonomiyaki in Okazaki

 Food, Japan, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on Orientation and Okonomiyaki in Okazaki
Oct 052011
 

Orientation at Yamasa started today.

We learned lots of things that don’t apply to me, because I’m on a short-term visa, and will be gone in 3 months. It’s kind of a bummer, but there you go. But there was a lot of really useful information, too, like what to do with my trash.

I’ve been hoarding trash for the last week or so, because frankly, I don’t know what to do with it.

Welcome to Japan! You Fail at Trash!

When I got first got into my apartment, I was checking all of the drawers, and in the file cabinet there was this thick brochure, and in it was this whole dissertation on how to sort trash about 800 different ways.

So I figured that’s what I had to do. I went to the nearest conbini, bought a bunch of trash bags, and went at it.

There are trash bags for all kinds of trash here. It’s mind-boggling. Each type of trash gets its own special bag. We only have the one sort of trash bag in the US, and we pick based on brand loyalty, size, application, and how much trash can it hold before exploding.

In Okazaki (I’ve been told it’s different in other places), ordinary people have to sort their trash into bags of burnable trash, paper, plastic, non-burnable trash, and PET (plastic) bottles.

But wait, you’re not done yet. That milk carton is made of paper, so you think it goes into the “paper” bag, right? Wrong! It gets cut open and flattened (after you wash it out and dry it, of course), then stacked and bundled with twine, and disposed of at the proper place. (Wherever that is.) Same goes for newspapers, glass bottles, cans, and a long list of other things you probably didn’t realize.

You think you can just hide it in the trash bag? HA! You fool! You have to write your address on all of your trash bags, and one of your neighbors (the Trash Shogun) will be checking your trash for “improper items,” and that person has the right to reject your trash.

Yes, in Japan your trash can fail to be proper trash.

And you can’t hope that they won’t see it, because the trash bags are clear. Fun, huh? Makes you think twice before throwing out a lot of stuff, doesn’t it?

So rather than try to actually throw out the trash, I panicked and just stuffed it under the sink in a lame attempt to sort it until I got orders on what to actually do with it.

After orientation, I learned something very important.

I don’t need all of those bags.

Luckily, our apartment complex just has two blue dumpsters, one marked “burnable trash,” and the other marked “nonburnable trash.” At orientation, I learned that I just have to keep two little trash bags, and I can just use any old bags I want.

I don’t even have to write my address on them.

Thank God.

Recycling Back Home

Still, I miss the way we do it Back Home. How do we do it there? Simple: most recyclables go in the blue box everyone gets. Put the blue box outside on your designated day, and a truck comes and picks it up. Usually. When they feel like it.

Vegetables and other kitchen waste can be ground up in the garbage disposal and handled as raw sewage, or you can compost it, or just toss it in the trash. Bulky stuff, like electronics and the like, needs to go to a recycling center run by the county. Hazardous stuff goes to a special center. Not a big deal.

I learned a lot of other useful stuff, too. There’s a grocery store just down the street from the school. Woot. My lunch problem is solved!

I also got a ZigZag coupon. Yay. I hope I can get some beer with it!

After orientation, I went with a group of fellow students to a local restaurant that sells okonmiyaki. It used to be the kaiten-zushi shop, I went to four years ago, I think.

It was pouring rain, so when we got there, we were soaked.

The United Nations of Japanese Language Education

Yamasa does a really good job of mixing up the student body. It’s not just a bunch of Chinese or Korean students with the odd American. There are folks from all over the world here, not just Asia.

The group that went to the restaurant was a good mix. There was a guy from Switzerland, and a woman from Israel. And of course a couple of Americans, and some folks from other places, too. I can’t remember them all, but it was a good mix of people.

Then I went home, dried off, watched some TV and went to bed. Gotta get up early for class.

It’s Saturday, So It Must Be Nagoya.

 Food, Japan, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on It’s Saturday, So It Must Be Nagoya.
Oct 012011
 

It’s Saturday. No classes, and it’s beautiful outside. So I went to Nagoya to do some shopping for some much-needed necessities.

No photos on this trip, because I didn’t take my SLR with me. It was too heavy to carry around while I went shopping.

I needed to buy sheets, a wireless router, and after lugging my big digital SLR camera around Tokyo, I decided to find something small and cheap to take pictures with. My Nexus One is a good smartphone, but it’s a terrible camera.

I hopped on my bike and headed to JR Okazaki, and grabbed a train to Nagoya. That’s about 680 yen each way. Ouch. So I’ll be down ~$18 just on train fare each time I want to go to Nagoya. I wish the yen wasn’t so strong these days.

It’s Saturday, so everything was crowded.

JR Nagoya is one of my favorite places, because it’s full of all kinds of neat stores, and there are a ton of restaurants here, mostly on the 11th and 12th floors.

But I didn’t come here to eat, I came to get a router, sheets, and some kitchen supplies.

Sensory Overload

First, I got my bearings. For some reason, I always get turned around at JR Nagoya. After I figured out where I was, and where I wanted to go, I went out through the West Exit, crossed the street, and went into Bic Camera, one of my favorite electronic chain stores. (I’ve mentioned this before.)

The thing about Bic Camera is that for someone not used to it, you can experience sensory overload. There’s a crush of people trying to get in and out at the same time, there’s a guy yelling indecipherable stuff into a megaphone trying to sell you something you don’t need, there’s music playing the store’s jingle at repeated intervals, and of course, there’s electronics piled high and in your face with strange writing all over them. (Well, the level of strangeness is proportionate to how much you study, I guess.)

I love it.

Bic Camera is one of my favorite places to shop for electronics. I don’t always buy there, but I love to shop there.

The first trip is always a bit stunning, in the “hit in a head with a heavy blunt object” kind of way, but once I got over the initial shock, I was okay.

First off, I looked for a router. The salesperson steered me to the cheapest one, since I’m only going to need it for 3 months. I also grabbed a power strip, because I have so many electronics vying for limited outlet space that I thought I’ll need it.

Then I headed down into the basement, where there are row up on row of cameras to try out.

If it’s currently made in Japan and takes pictures, you’ll find it in Bic Camera’s basement. I spent a good hour or so checking them all out and agonizing over each one. I got some help (in Japanese) from the sales staff, but in the end, it was my decision.

I wound up with a cheap but not dirt-cheap Canon IXY, which is the same as the ELPH in the US. It cost around 13,000 yen. I wanted to spend a little less, but I think the IXY was a good trade-off for price/performance.

I need something I can stuff in my pocket and pull out for those “Oh, that’s unexpected. I want a shot of that!” moments, and I don’t want to have to worry about having a giant SLR to deal with for those kinds of things. The IXY isn’t the smallest or thinnest, but it’s cheap and takes pretty good pictures, and that’s all I need.

I headed back to JR Nagoya for part two of my excursion.

Oh Sheet

Now it was time to get some housewares, and the best place for that is… huh. I don’t know. So I went to Takeshimaya, a big department store chain in Japan, which has a store in JR Nagoya, and I started looking around for sheets and blankets.

I went up about eight or nine floors on the escalator to the linens department.

Yeah, it’s a big store.

Unfortunately, I found out that although I’d measured my bed, the measurements didn’t mean anything, because the numbers I kept repeating to her just didn’t seem to match anything she had in stock. She said I probably had a single, but she wasn’t sure. (Of course, I didn’t use the best measuring stick in the world. I used a sheet of paper and a calculator.)

Frankly, the other problem I was having with Takashimaya was the price. I just wanted the Japanese equivalent of a $10 Wal-Mart/Target bottom sheet, and she was pulling out some fancy stuff. I don’t mind getting it wrong on a $10 sheet, but I mind if it’s a $50 sheet. Yikes.

Knives and Forks and Spoons, Oh My!

Having failed at bedding, I took a look at the kitchen section at Takashimaya, and it was nice, but a bit ritzy for my taste as well. Since Tokyu Hands was sharing floor space with part of Takashimaya, I started nosing around there a bit.

They had the kitchen knife I wanted, but I couldn’t get any help. It was in a case, and nobody was coming by. Not even close.

I decided to come back and went up to look for sheets– oh, hey, stationery and calligraphy supplies! No, must go look for sheets.

After a bit of digging, I found a sheet that was cheap and “good enough,” then went back to the kitchen section to try again. This time, I got someone to help with a nice ceramic santoku for all-purpose cutting, and a pair of kitchen shears. When all else fails, kitchen shears can probably handle it. A true multi-tasker.

I also grabbed some stuff like a small cutting board (with happy vegetables on it), a decent pan, some chopsticks, one setting of cheap silverware– you know, the stuff you don’t really know you need until you don’t have it handy.

After all of that, I headed back home, because I was carrying a ton of stuff.

Getting it back on the train wasn’t too great, but once I got to my bike, the last bit wasn’t so bad.

Now I’m going to enjoy some Japanese TV with my conbini dinner.

Getting Used to Apartment Life

 Food, Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Getting Used to Apartment Life
Sep 302011
 

More classes today. I have a lot of gaps to fill in in my Japanese. Today I have my private lessons, then I’ll probably go to Nagoya to do some shopping. I need to get a wireless router and some kitchen supplies, as well as some sheets ASAP. Those are all top priorities.

I’m getting used to the apartment. I like it a lot. It has some nice features, which I’ll go into some other time.

Shopping List

My B-Mobile data-only SIM card ate about 100 MB of data since I got it in Tokyo, and that’s too much, too fast. I want this to last the whole time I’m here, so I need to pick up a WiFi router to slow down the data drain.

My tablet is also kind of useless without a wireless internet connection. It’s not completely useless, but it’s about half as useful. So I better get a router.

My kitchen comes with a rice cooker (but it’s tiny), a few pots and pans (the “non-stick” pan isn’t very much of one), a toaster oven, a microwave that doubles as a tiny oven, a fridge, and that’s about it for the kitchen. The rest is pretty much up to me.

So I need to go buy a few things to make my life easier for the next few months. I suppose I can just live out of the conbini… but I’d rather make an attempt at not doing that.

Pillow Talk

Something else I found out is that Japanese beds don’t have the same sizes as US beds do, so the sheets I brought don’t fit. It’s like a fat twin or a skinny double, so my US twin-size sheets are too narrow to fit this bed.

That’s something else to buy.

I brought my own pillow with me. I know I sound like an 8-year-old, but I have a favorite foam pillow. It collapses nicely and fits into a Space Bag. I also brought a blanket, so I can just “camp out” on top of the bed for now. Not a huge deal, but I kind of want a bottom sheet at the very least.

That’s it for now. Gotta jet.

Eye Yai Yai

 Food, Foreign Languages, Japan, Japanese Language, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Eye Yai Yai
Sep 282011
 

I had the hotel’s breakfast again, then went straight to the front desk to take care of two things:

  1. my eyes, which now hurt like hell
  2. and finding someone who can do something about the stink in the bathroom. Seriously, what is that? It’s not me. It was like that when I got there.

A nice young woman at the desk told me to go to the JR Hospital down the street a block from the hotel, and she helped me write a short paragraph in Japanese, explaining just what the heck is wrong with my eyes.

Yeah, I know, I’m lame. But I haven’t studied medical Japanese at all. I did learn the word 眼科 がんか ganka, which means ophthalmology.

Anyway, I had to hustle, because they stopped seeing patients at 11 a.m., and it was already 10. So I rushed over there, and started working my way through the Japanese Health Care Delivery System. And it IS a system.

A Hospital Is Approaching, Please Stand Behind the Yellow Line

First things first– it is the JR Hosptial. Yes, that JR, as in Japan Rail. Well, I’ve seen stranger things, I guess. But I can’t complain. The treatment I got was first-rate, just like pretty much everything Japan Rail does. (Except maybe some of the train station bathrooms… some of those can be kind of on the icky side.)

First I had to ask around to find the non-emergency clinics. Clinics found, I got handed around by a bunch of nice women, some of whom spoke English, some of whom did not. Eventually, they found a medical translator, and she helped me get through most of the forms, and helped me get my hospital card… which had my name spelled wrong in both English *and* in Japanese. Quite a feat, but not surprising. My last name isn’t easy for native English speakers, either. They always screw it up. Can’t say I was surprised.

The translator led me to the ophthalmology clinic, then I got a number, and got down to some serious waiting. And waiting. About 40 minutes of waiting.

I finally saw an ophthalmologist who spoke near perfect English, and she told me that my eyes were inflamed. (Which I kind of knew.) She gave me some prescriptions for some medication, answered my questions, and sent me on my merry way.

Then it was off to the cashier to pay, and then to the pharmacy department to pick up my meds. And I was done.

From “I’m coming to your hospital with my sick eyes,” to “Here are your eye drops, now get out,” it took about 2 hours, and cost about 11,000 yen.

That’s pretty good, considering that it usually takes me anywhere from 7-10 days to see my eye doctor in the US. By then, my eyeballs are trying to explode in my head. Maybe they can fit me in that day, maybe they can see me next week, or the week after. It’s not a sure thing.

To be honest, I like the Japanese system of coming in early, taking a number, and seeing the doctor that way, but I don’t think it would work in the US. It would be a mess. The doctors would just get totally swamped.

Oh wait, we already have that sort of thing, it’s called the Emergency Room. But it’s ridiculously expensive.

From the Eyes to the Nose

After I got my eyes fixed, I went back to the hotel to see what was up with my room. They were cleaning it.

So I goofed off in the lobby for a while.

I went back to check, and they couldn’t fix the bathroom, so they offered another room.

Hmm. I’m leaving in the morning. Is it really worth it to move all of my crap?

Yes. Yes, it is. The bathroom smells funky. It’s as if someone has peed on the ceiling, walls, and places I don’t even know about, with a musky kind of pee that is just awful.

Yes, I will take your new room!

So I moved to a room on the 6th floor, 639, away from room 1326. (I didn’t like being on the 13th floor anyway.)

Senso-ji, I Have Returned!

After a short break, it was time to head to Asakusa, to Senso-ji, for a little photography break, and to see the Kakminarimon again, among other things.

If you want more information or to see the photos from the first trip, they’re here.

The Kaminarimon is always interesting:

Senso-ji Kaminarimon

Nakamise Dori is still busy:

Nakamise Dori

No lanterns at the Houzoumon this time:

Houzoumon

Back side of the Houzoumon:

Houzoumon

The Chouchin is still impressive, although the paint is starting to crack:

Houzoumon -- Chouchin

Chouchin supporters!

Houzoumon -- Chouchin

The Tokyo Sky Tree dominates the scenery:

Tokyo Sky Tree

Tokyo Sky Tree

Houzoumon and Sky Tree, Combine!

Houzoumon and Sky Tree

The Honden is still busy:

Senso-ji Honden

Senso-ji Honden

Heading out–Nakimise Dori:

Nakamise Dori -- On the Way Out

Kaminarimon on the way out:

Kaminarimon -- Nakamise Dori side

I like Asakusa a lot. It’s a neat neighborhood, and I really like the temple there. Granted, it’s usually choked with tourists, but it’s still fun.

I wandered around there for about an hour or so, and took all sorts of pictures. I thought about heading to the new Tokyo Sky Tree under construction, but it was too close to closing time and… to be honest, it was too much of a pain to get there.

Ameyoko

So I headed to Ueno, with no particular destination in mind, and wound up in Ameyoko-cho. (I think that’s right… could be wrong about that.)

Ameyoko-cho is in all of the guide books as someplace to see “great street life” or whatever. It’s interesting, and kind of useful, if you want to buy fish or $10 watches, or maybe a T-Shirt with some weird English on it, or maybe a random piece of luggage.

See, it’s really hard to pin down what you’d want there. It’s just stuff that people would buy if they live in Tokyo, not necessarily if they’re tourists.

“Hey, Mr. Tourist, I have a really big smelly fish for you! It just fell off of a truck! $5 okay?”

No, that just doesn’t work if you’re staying in a hotel as a tourist, you see?

Now, if you’re local, things change. “Oooo, just *how* smelly is it? Is it ‘peel the paint off the walls’ smelly, or ‘send me to the hosptial again’ smelly? Because I’m thinking sashimi if the worms aren’t too big!”

I wandered. I didn’t buy the fish, nor did buy the watches that were amazingly reduced from 10,000 yen to 1,000 yen for the next 10 minutes ONLY! What a coincidence!

Then it was back to the hotel for some dinner. But first, it was time to hit Takashimaya Times Square’s basement for dinner. Half-price basement food. Yum. Then back to the room to scarf it down.

After that, it was time for a trip to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, to check out some nighttime scenery.

Tokyo Metropolitan Building On the Way Out

The scenery is very pretty, but I forgot my circular polarizer again… doh.

The view from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building

I tried pressing the camera closer, but it still didn’t work:

The view from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building

One decent shot from pressing the lens right up against the glass, but I didn’t want to risk damaging anything (and you can still see reflections in the shot, even with the lens up against the glass!):

The view from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building

Then it was back to the hotel room.

Streets of Shinjuku

Tomorrow it’s off to Okazaki. I hope they have a bed for me instead of a futon plank. I never heard anything either way.

Tonkatsu, Point Cards, and Burning Eyes

 Food, Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Tonkatsu, Point Cards, and Burning Eyes
Sep 272011
 

This was my first full day in Tokyo. I started with the hotel buffet for breakfast. 1,200 yen for all you can eat, either Western or Japanese style.

Some of the Western stuff is a little odd, but it’s good enough for me. Plenty of yogurt, and a decent strawberry sauce. Other stuff was available, of course: poached eggs, “baking bread,” whatever that is, Japanese-style bacon and sausages that don’t taste like either bacon or sausages, and some good croissants and OJ.

The most important points here are that: I didn’t have to make it, and it was right there in the hotel, so I didn’t have to find a place to eat breakfast.

It’s the most important meal of the day, you know.

Point Cards

Belly filled, I headed off to Kinokuniya in Shinjuku to get my JLPT application. It wasn’t too difficult. Just ask at one of the desks and you can get an application.

I also picked up a Kinokuniya point card.

That’s one thing you should definitely do while in Japan– pick up point cards whenever you get a chance. They’re very handy. You get points for every purchase, and then you can cash them in like money. A lot of times, though, they expire at the end of the month, so be careful. Better to use them as soon as you can, especially if you’re just on a short-term visit.

You may need an address and phone number for the point card. If you decide to specify one, well, I leave that up to you.

Ginza

Application in hand, I headed off to Ginza to do some shopping. First I stopped off at Itoya, which is my favorite stationery store. It’s 8-9 stories full of interesting stuff to buy.

If they don’t have it, you don’t need it.

I was looking for the a calendar similar to the kind I picked up 4 years ago, which is a standard yearly calendar on nice paper with a traditional Japanese woodblock print on it. But after combing through the store and the annex, I had no luck. I spent an hour wandering around, because Itoya is a great place to just wander around and look.

I managed to find double-sided sticky tape. I’ll need that for my JLPT application. (To attach the photo.)

It was soon time for lunch.

Rengatei

In the US, I usually watch a show called “Tokyo Eye” that comes on TV-Japan on Saturdays, and they did a show on a Ginza eatery called Rengatei, which is famous for being either one of the first, or the first place to serve tonkatsu in Japan. (Sorry, I can’t remember which.) It’s been in business since the 1890s, if I remember correctly. I’ve been dying to try their tonkatsu, and thanks to remembering to star the place on Google Maps, today was my chance.

Their tonkatsu comes with a pile of thinly sliced cabbage, and I ordered some rice and lemonade to go with it. The sauce they have is a bit thinner than the usual tonkatsu sauce. I poured it on the side, and dipped the katsu in it, as well as the cabbage.

It was a great tonkatsu. I’ve never had anything that light and crispy. The regular is 1,300 yen, and the large is 2,000 yen.

And it’s worth it.

Kyukyodo

After that, I went to Kyukyodo, because I still hadn’t managed to find those calendars. Kyukyodo is a very nice stationery store, but it can get pretty expensive. The 3rd floor still has a nice gallery full of calligraphic art. This time there was a display of calligraphy carved into wood. There were some really interesting pieces there. I spent some time talking to the dotients in my broken Japanese.

On the second floor, they had some nice seal carving knives, and some great-looking calligraphy books, but nobody was interested in helping me, and I wasn’t interested in carrying them all over Japan, so I decided it was probably for the best.

I’ll get that stuff in Nagoya.

Marunouchi & Maruzen

I got on the subway and rode to Tokyo Station to go to Maruzen. Maruzen’s always a pain in the butt for me to find. I spent a good 10-15 minutes lost around there looking for it. I did the same thing four years ago, too.

Google Maps wasn’t much help, because once I was underground, there was no GPS signal, and one building is a lot like another. I did find it eventually. I didn’t buy anything, though. Again, the issue was the whole “Carrying books all over Japan” thing.

I inquired about the BJT, or Business Japanese Test, because I was thinking about taking it as a backup to the JLPT, but nobody there had ever heard of it, and didn’t know where to get the forms.

I suppose I can ask at Yamasa when I get there.

After that, I headed back, since my eyes were starting to hurt, and it was getting late.

As the evening went on, my eyes were really starting to hurt. I stopped by the drug store kiosk in JR Shinjuku and bought some Visine, and tried it when I got home.

Eyes On Fire

Using Visine was a big mistake. It made my eyes burn even worse.

My eyes have been hurting ever since I got off the plane, and they’ve only been getting worse. So I decided to use Skype to call my insurance company’s overseas “OMGHELP” number. They were very helpful. They told me to go to any doctor I wanted to, and they would pay the claim when I got back, so long as I filed the right paperwork, and I had a year to file the claim.

Awesome.

They even told me the papers to get from the doctor, and not to worry if the papers were all in Japanese.

If you’re ever in that kind of a bind, make sure you get the paperwork taken care of.

I spent a couple of hours trying to find one of the “recommended doctors” on their website, but it was kind of a pain in the butt. I never found any of them in Google Maps. I’ll probably just ask at the front desk in the morning.

Good Line Karma

 Food, Great Britain, Travel  Comments Off on Good Line Karma
Jul 122011
 

Well, I’m finally back home. Long day today. I got up at 5:15 a.m. after a 2 hour nap, got the last bits of packing done, had breakfast, and got out the door at 7 a.m. Base2Stay was a lovely hotel, and I thoroughly recommend it. Check-out was a breeze.

Off to Earl’s Court, then to Paddington, and grabbed the Heathrow Express to Heathrow.

Everything was going smoothly.

That is, until I got to the American Airlines terminal.

There were two people doing security checks, and a line was starting to build. The line kept building and building, and we were all waiting and waiting… and one of the security people just up and left. The other person stared at her as she walked off, and everyone in line sighed in the way that air travelers sigh when they realize that something simple has just become something difficult. Fortunately, someone else eventually stepped up and got things moving, but by then the line was ridiculously long.

I was glad I had gotten there early and made it to the front of the line. I had good line karma today. Even so, 30 minutes’ wait just to check my passport? Can’t the people at the desk do that when they take my bags?

I was also somewhat fortunate that my bag was under 50 pounds in weight, so no extra charges.

Then it was off to the security screening, which was a lot friendlier than the TSA. There was a person there in front offering plastic baggies for people with liquids. That’s a brilliant idea. And there was a place to dispose of things that would not be allowed in security. Also nice.

There was no silly shoe dance. I got to keep my shoes on, and there was no loss of dignity, either. Just a simple bag search.

I think the TSA could learn a lot from our British friends on how to conduct a search. All of the incidents and complaints swirling around the TSA come from some crazy policies that center on a basic fallacy– that humans, who are fallible creatures, can create a perfectly secure environment. It’s just not possible. Might as well do the best we can, and put more air marshals on the planes, instead of making flying a harrowing experience. It’s bad for business.

I headed to the Admiral’s Club and relaxed for a bit, then at what I thought was the right time, headed to the gate. Unfortunately, they hadn’t fueled the plane yet, so we had to wait 20 minutes to board the plane. Argh! I could’ve stayed in the club and enjoyed its calming atmosphere, but no such luck for me.

Even after I got on the plane, we had to wait to take off. Naturally.

The flight was long, and tedious. I listened to podcasts and dozed and stared at my watch.

Getting into RDU was interesting. I got off the plane quickly, and had good line karma at the US border, so I didn’t have to wait too long, and customs was just a matter of handing in my card. I guess they don’t search your bags anymore, huh?

So that was pretty much it for my London trip. Lots of fun on the whole. I saw a lot of former US presidents, oddly enough. The JLPT didn’t go as well as I planned, but I came away with some knowledge that I hope will propel my Japanese studies forward.

London is deceptively expensive, and can lull you into spending a hell of a lot of money. Those pounds can just fly out of your wallet if you’re not careful.

As a cultural center, it’s definitely worth a visit, although some places are more interesting than others. I suppose that’s a matter of personal preference. Going in summer is a bit of a mixed bag, because you have to deal with thousands of other tourists, but the days are really long, and the weather is generally good. (Low 70s, with a little rain here and there, but nothing too bad.)

Contrary to American stereotypes (which are usually wrong anyway), the food in London is excellent. Use a service like Google Maps to check out restaurants before going to avoid bad restaurants, and be ready to just try stuff out.

Hotels are expensive in London. I think of it as opportunity cost. If I have a decent hotel that costs a few pounds more, and has an excellent location, then I can save money/time in other areas.

I’ll put my London wrap-up in another post.

You Don’t Know Where That Stick Has Been

 Food, Great Britain, Travel  Comments Off on You Don’t Know Where That Stick Has Been
Jul 112011
 

Today I managed to fit in Westminster Abbey, a visit to Grosvenor Square, a trip to Foyle’s, and dinner at Nando’s one last time.

My throat was still sort of sore. I think it’s all the air conditioning when I really don’t need it. Who needs air conditioning when it’s 70F?

The other major annoying thing today– tourists. If I had a major city, I would never let tourists in. They can be the most rude and obnoxious people sometimes.

Case in point number one. I’m standing in line at Westminster Abbey. I look up for 2 seconds, the line moves 2 feet, and 4 people cut in front of me. I’m tired at the time, so I decide not to make a scene. I mean, really, if it looks like there’s a line, and people are standing in it, even if there’s a bit of a break in it, don’t you usually ask, “Hey, are you standing in line here?” just to make sure you’re not cutting? Because cutting is just one of the lowest forms of line behavior I can think of.

But that’s not the bit that really annoyed me. What really bugged me was when nine people walked up to one of the cutters and start babbling in Dutch about how glad they were he saved them a spot in line.

Seriously? Is it me, or is that rude? I think it’s beyond rude. If you want to stand in line, then get in the back like everyone else. Don’t make your kid hold a place for you.

In this case, a father made his son stand in line for him, then brought the rest of the extended family along later, while they brought food with them. Must be nice.

Jerks.

Westminster Abbey. No Matter What I Say, You’re Still Going to Go There, Aren’t You?

Welcome to Westminster Abbey, where you can see all of the famous dead people in England, all piled in one place, and walk on top of their tombs.

It’s kind of a creepy place. I suppose it’s because the whole idea of walking over other peoples’ graves doesn’t sit well with me. The architecture is beautiful, but I can only see so many dead people before my eyes start to glaze over.

Poet’s Corner was kind of nice, in that it was a Norton Anthology of English Literature, all dead and piled in one corner. (Or I suppose the Dead Poets’ Society is more apropos?)

What I did not like was the abusive use of audio guides. If you didn’t give them £5, you weren’t going to find out anything about anything, unless you were up for some exhaustive tomb-reading.

The map’s sole purpose was to show you what buttons to press on your audio guide, and provided scant information otherwise. They already shook me down for £18 just to get in the building, so the least they could do is cough up some info about the place. It was the same feeling I got visiting any other major tourist trap.

It was a pretty building, and it was somewhat impressive, but I did not like the shakedown game.

Oh, and forget about taking any photos there.

One cool thing: they have the practice crown jewels in the museum. They look just like the real things, so you can avoid the huge line at the Tower of London and just look at the fakes. Unless you’re a jeweler, you’re not going to be able to tell the difference.

OMG. Where Is He Putting That Stick???

Here’s my gross Westminster Abbey story (skip it if you’re about to eat lunch): Before you can go into the admission office to cough up your £18, a security guard has to search your bag. He was using some sort of a drumstick or something to poke through everyone’s bags.

At the security point, there’s also a place where you’re supposed to throw out your gum. Well, security guy sees that disgusting tourists have been being disgusting tourists, and using the gum trap to throw away half-eaten sandwiches. So what does he do? He uses the stick to wad up a bunch of gum and half-eaten sandwiches and tosses them out in another trash can.

Yikes. Then he goes back to poking that same stick in everyone else’s backpacks. Double yikes. Fortunately, he had already gone through mine, but God only knows where that stick had already been.

If I can, I’m going to boil my backpack.

Westminster Abbey in a nutshell: pretty building. Lots of famous dead people, lots of obnoxious tourists, and a place that will try to shake every pound off of you.

But you’ll probably go anyway, because every guidebook says you have to, and it’s part of the “London Experience,” whatever that is.

Just tell the guy not to put that nasty stick in your bag.

Presidents!

After that, it was off to Grosvenor Square to see the new statue of Ronald Reagan, because I promised a childhood friend who is a huge Reagan fan that I’d snap a few photos for him. To find Ronnie, I got off the Tube at Bond Street, which has a neat shopping center attached to it.

From there, I went to Grosvenor Square Park, where I found a statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a monument dedicated to 9/11, but no Ronnie. I headed across the street to the US Embassy, and found Dwight Eisenhower in his General’s uniform on one corner of the embassy, and when I went to the other corner, I found president number 40, 10 feet tall and bronze.

I took my photos and headed back to the station and did a little cold-prevention shopping, just in case. Then it was off to Tottenham Court Road and Foyle’s.

Boooooks!

I’ve been wanting to go to Foyle’s for a very long time. It’s one of the great bookstores in the world. They have a huge selection of books. I spent some time just wandering around, looking at books. It was a lot of fun.

I went to their Japanese section, and to my surprise, I found books in Japanese. I wound up buying a copy of “The Little Prince” in Japanese, as well as a book on Japanese Linguistics. I headed downstairs, and bought some postcards and a couple of Whitelines notebooks.

I’m keen to give the Whitelines products a try, because I usually just use copy paper, but copy paper can make for messy work. What would be ideal would be Whitelines products made for Japanese, or at least just graph paper pages with bigger boxes.

Then it was time to head back to Earls Court. I stopped by Gregg’s one last time for tomorrow morning’s porridge, cleaned up, then headed out to Nando’s for a last dinner on the high street. I’m going to miss that delicious chicken.

On the way to Nando’s I stopped by an internet cafe and printed up my boarding pass.

Group 2. Yatta!

Greenwich Down Time

 Food, Great Britain, Travel  Comments Off on Greenwich Down Time
Jul 102011
 

I woke up today feeling like the bottom of someone’s shoe. My throat was sore (probably from a combination of snoring and the A/C in the room), I had a raging headache, and my right ankle was sore, too.

So Greenwich was out.

As I get older, I realize more and more that I have to listen to my body, and when it says, “Going to Greenwich is a stupid idea today,” then I will listen to it.

So today I shut things down, slept in a bit, and rested up some. I needed to have a nice, relaxed “slow day,” where I goofed around a bit and didn’t do anything too demanding, because there’s just no way I was up for anything demanding.

My main fear is that this sore throat is a precursor to a cold. I really don’t want to fly home with a cold.

Dinner was an excellent katsudon again at Tokyo Spicy. The service is good, except when it comes to getting the check. They won’t bring it unless you ask for it. Part of me wonders if they want it to look like there are more people in there, so it attracts more customers.

Really, the food there is excellent. Don’t be turned off by the empty tables. That katsudon revived me in ways I had no idea a katsudon could.

Towering Over London

 Food, Great Britain, Photography, Travel  Comments Off on Towering Over London
Jul 092011
 

Today was a really busy day. I saw the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, then went to Piccadilly Circus yet again to pick up some tea at Fortnum and Mason.

After that, I had some noodles and karaage, and picked up some Japanese confections at Minamoto Kitchoan. On the way I came across the Whittard shop, but didn’t buy, and found out that Uniqlo moved.

After all that, I went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and set off for the Tate Modern, saw the Miro exhibit, saw a bunch of other cool stuff there, then walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Underground and went home.

I’m totally exhausted, but I love traveling.

See the Jewels and Kiss Your Day Goodbye

I dragged myself out of bed reasonably early to get to the Tower of London today. Going there on a Saturday is a really bad idea, by the way. It’s totally jammed with tourists, and there’s no way to get out of there in under three hours unless you just want to stand in the middle of it, look around, and just leave.

If you want to see the crown jewels, you can kiss the whole afternoon goodbye. The line was monstrously long. I skipped it.

I took Rick Steves’ advice, and bought my ticket from a gift shop outside of the tube station called Traders’ Gate.

As you leave the station, go down the stairs, and it’ll be on your right. They’ll give you a piece of paper with a pink/yellow/white copy, and you take that to the main entry gate. It works exactly like a ticket, and you avoid the huge lines for tickets. Brilliant.

Well, they still get you for £18, but at least you don’t have to line up for it.

So That’s Why My Ancestors Left

I walked in just as one of the Beefeaters’ tours was starting, so I joined it right away. The tours last 55 minutes, and are entertaining, if a bit grisly. We saw the Bloody Tower, Traitor’s Gate, the White Tower, the courtyard, and the chapel.

Then I headed for a bench and took a break. My trusty hiking shoes have been breaking down, and my feet are paying for it. The shoes themselves are fine, it’s just that the soles are no good anymore, and there’s no amount of insert trickery I can use to avoid that. So when I walk for more than a couple of hours, my feet hurt like hell. Pacing becomes vital.

I wandered around the courtyard a bit and took some pictures, then wandered to the walls, and wound up in the tower that houses the old crowns, minus the jewels. That was somewhat interesting, if a bit sad-looking to see crowns without jewels (not even fake ones) in them.

I got some good photos of downtown London (also known as The City) from the walls, headed back to the courtyard, and on to the White Tower, which is full of armor, including the Rude Armor of Henry VIII.

I love a nice armor collection, so I enjoyed the White Tower a lot. My favorite weapon was a combination mace/gun. If you run out of bullets, just bludgeon your enemies, I guess. It looked painful either way.

There was also a dragon made out of bits of armor. It was very cool.

The path through the White Tower leads you to the basement, which used to be a torture chamber, and is now a gift shop. So I guess it’s a modern-day equivalent: you squeeze into a room with a hundred tourists, all shuffling around trying to find tchochkes to commemorate their visit to the Tower. I shuffled for a few minutes, about went crazy from it all, and got the hell out. There’s not much worth buying there that you can’t buy at the main gift shop, and the main gift shop has less of an apres-torture chamber feel to it.

After that, it was on to the Bloody Tower, to see where Sir Walter Raleigh and his wife were cooped up for 13 years, and where the two princes were murdered. Such a cheerful building.

But you don’t go to the Tower of London for warm fuzzies, you go to get a good dose of history. And history here is full of people doing really nasty things to other people.

Back in the courtyard I caught the changing of the guard, and then I was pretty much done with the Tower as a whole.

Escaping from the Tower

I headed out towards the Tower Bridge, took some photos, bought some stuff at the gift shop, and headed to Piccadilly Circus for some shopping and a late lunch.

First it was off to Fortnum and Mason, famous purveyor of teas, jellies, and other things. Tea and shopping bag purchased, my mission there was over. That shopping bag will surely spark envy in the U.S. Mom will love it.

After that, I went across the road to a wagashiya, which is a place that sells Japanese confectioneries, called Minamoto Kitchoan. It was a neat place, with all kinds of authentic Japanese confectioneries, with authentic Japanese prices. I picked up an anmitsu bun (which is a bun filled with red bean paste), and some youkan, which is a kind of sweet red bean paste in a block. It goes well with green tea.

I also bought a small jellied peach-like thing. I forget what it was called, but it was delicious.

Lunch was at a place called Wasabi, which had a deal where you can get 2 items for around £5. I got karaage (Japanese fried chicken) and yakisoba (noodles in sauce that are sauteed). I wish I could have gotten more than two pieces of karaage, but that was the combo deal. The food was very good, but the floor was a bit dirty, so I wasn’t too thrilled about putting my bags down.

Then it was back on the streets, wandering around Picadilly Circus and sightseeing. I was going to stop by the UniQlo in Piccadilly, but it was closed until later this year, and I didn’t feel like going to SoHo, because it’s a pain to go to Tottenham Court Road from just about anywhere.

I decided to head home for a shower and break.

Follow the Orange Poles to the Tate… Uh, Where’d They Go?

After cleaning up, it was off to Southwark to the Tate Modern, to look at the Joan Miro exhibition, as well as some other great pieces of modern art. When you exit from Southwark Tube station, just follow the orange street lights to the Tate… well, until you run out of orange street lights, which I did at one point.

Fortunately, I had my Nexus One and Google Maps, and could figure it out. But there weren’t any signs or anything after the quaint orange light poles ran out, which is really very annoying.

The Miro exhibition was fascinating. Modern art changes so much, and to watch a modern artist change so much over his lifetime was something I haven’t had the chance to see. It was a really well-curated exhibit.

I also got a chance to look at some of the other galleries there as well. Rodin’s “The Kiss” was impressive, and I did see a couple of works by Jackson Pollock— he’s one of my favorite artists. I also saw a lot of photo montages by John Heartfield, which were fascinating. And of course a few Dalis. Dali is always fun.

There was also a photography exhibit on Afghanistan then and now, with images from the 19th century British expedition and from 2010-2011. I would not call it photojournalism, but it is an artistic expression. I don’t know. It felt forced. I’m not going to get into the politics of Afghanistan. The images were vivid, but it’s the photographer’s statement about what he feels about Afghanistan, not necessarily a reflection of reality. That’s how photography is.

I don’t know that photography ever really accurately represents reality. It just represents our perceptions of reality, since the person behind the camera frames the image, and chooses what to put in the frame, and what to leave out of the frame. So as an art exhibition, it was interesting, and I’ll just leave it at that, because I can’t judge it as a representation of reality. I’m not on the ground there, so I can’t make any statements either way.

After all of that, I headed out of the Tate, since they closed the gift shop before I could buy anything, and headed to the Millennium Bridge to cross the Thames. It was around 10 p.m., so the sun was just starting to go down.

London in summer is pretty interesting, with sunset so late in the day. I would imagine that winter is brutal, though. Sunset at 4 p.m. or so, I would guess.

I got some lovely shots of the bridge, the river, the skyline, and St. Paul’s, then it was back to the hotel to call it a night.

That was a great day, but I’m exhausted.

Jul 082011
 

I had an ambitious plan today, and got whooped by the National Gallery. That’s one tough museum to get through, even on roller skates.

I started out early enough, but made my first error when I headed out the door and down the street, having forgotten to brush my teeth.

I hate it when I do that. I doubled back, lost 15 minutes, and restarted.

On to Charing Cross, and Trafalgar Square. I took about 40 minutes to take a bunch of photos of Nelson’s Column and the other various Things to See there.

None of the photos are unique in any way, shape or form, but it’s the sort of thing I felt compelled to do anyway. After 9/11, and more recently the disasters of 3/11, I have learned to take lots of pictures of every place I visit, because you just never know.

Saying “It will always be there” is foolish. It’s obviously not true.

It’s really difficult to get a decent shot off in Trafalgar Square, because to get a decent angle, you have to move across the street, and that means waiting for the pink plumbing van to move from the stopped traffic in front of that nice looking church, or the giant double-decker bus with an ad that says “GET STUFFED!” to unblock your view (and to classy-up the photo a bit with its removal.)

I suppose if I had a tripod and a stack of neutral density filters, I could do a 10-20 minute long exposure, and make it look like everyone had disappeared, or something similarly creepy.

Then there were the times when I was trying to take a picture of something like the Olympic countdown clock, and I was patiently waiting my turn, and people just kept rudely jumping in front of me to photograph each other standing in front of it.

Honestly, I have no idea why they’d want to pose in front of it, but nevertheless it was still annoying that they kept jumping in front of me.

Photography is sometimes fraught with peril, and sometimes it’s just flat out irritating.

Art, Inconveniently Housed.

On to the National Gallery, which is full of family pictures of Jesus.

It’s a pretty building, but the layout of the place is kind of annoying. I lost 20 minutes just trying to put my bag away.

I went up the giant steps on the Trafalgar Square side, then went down 2 flights of steps to one cloakroom, only to be told there was no more room. So I had to go back up 2 flights, across the whole building, then down 2 more flights to another cloakroom to drop off my bags. Then back up 2 flights, halfway across the museum again to the Central Hall, just so I could start the tour I wanted to do in the proper order.

Sigh.

I picked up one of those audio guides again… am I the only person who gets grossed out when he thinks about using the same headphones that thousands of other people have used? It makes me shudder to even consider it.

So I yanked them out and put my own ear buds in, listened to a few descriptions, then promptly stopped using it. It just bogged me down. I really need to stop using those things.

Paintings by the Numbers

The collection at the National Gallery is really good. It’s not top three, but it’s definitely top ten. Only one Hieronymus Bosch, though. (“Christ Mocked,” if you want to know which painting.)

One of these days, I want to see a bunch of Bosch’s paintings. For someone who painted in the 15th century, his work has a great surrealistic feel to it. It reminds me of Dali’s work. Or maybe Dali reminds me of Bosch?

Note to self: Go to Madrid one of these days to see “The Garden of Earthly Delights” in the Prado.

Van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Portrait” is a classic medieval painting at the National Gallery. It was great to see a major painting like that up close.

I also got to see Botticelli’s “Venus and Mars,” which I think is an excellent painting. I love the pensive (or maybe bemused?) look on Venus’ face.

I enjoyed the El Grecos that they had there as well. I think he could have painted a children’s birthday party and it would still have had a haunting quality to it.

That Ain’t Lemonade.

About halfway through my gallery run, I decided to have lunch. Once again, I was at the mercy of the floor plan of this building. I was in the Sainsbury Wing, which is where all of the 13th-15th century paintings are. On the 1st floor, there’s a dining hall, so I went down there to eat. I looked at the menu, and it was a sit-down, fancy food kind of place. (Oysters, meat dishes and pies sort of thing.) Definitely something that would consume many pounds and much more time than I could afford.

My only other choice was to go up a flight of stairs, go all the way across the museum, then go back down two flights of stairs to the Getty Entrance and eat at the cafe there. It was a sandwich shop kind of place. The drinks were a miss, though. The “Victorian Lemonade” was gross.

Important lesson learned: ALWAYS read labels before you buy things here. Just because it says “Lemonade” doesn’t mean it’s going to TASTE like lemonade. It was some sort of lemons mixed with ginger and sugar and “aromatic herbs,” all carbonated, served lukewarm.

Gross.

The BLT was okay, although it was a bit weird, and the chocolate chip/hazelnut cookie wasn’t bad. The important thing was that I had calories to keep going.

Art, Part Two

Back to the art grind. My feet were killing me towards the end. It’s probably time to get new shoes.

I really liked Boilly’s “A Girl at a Window.” I think it’s a print of a lost original, but I love the expression on her face and the composition. I also liked the “Portrait of Susanna Lunden” by Rubens. And of course the “Self Portrait at the Age of 64” by Rembrandt was great. I love his expression in that painting.

I loved Renoir’s “The Umbrellas,” and saw a bunch of Van Goghs, including “Sunflowers,” which is fine, but I’m not too keen on the dark yellows. I like Van Gogh’s other stuff just fine, though. Of all on display, I like his “Wheatfield with Cypress” the most.

I was really more into the 19th and 20th century paintings, but alas, that was when I had realized that I had already spent FOUR HOURS there. All of the medieval and renaissance stuff just bogged me down.

The Monets, Manets, and Seurats were all good. It’s easy to remember that Seurat was into pointilism– “Seurat knew a lot about dots.”

There was a special exhibit on Italian altarpieces, which was interesting, but looking at religious artwork is like visiting shrines in Japan. I can only see so much of it before my eyes glaze over. Since I had already seen all of the 13th-15th century paintings, the altarpieces just kind of blended into the rest of them.

Sadly, I am that shallow at times.

You can get a “60 minute tour” list of what the museum considers to be the most important pieces if you just want to hit the highlights. You can use the audio guide with it… but I wonder if you can actually do it all in 60 minutes.

Anyway, it’s useful as a reference for what the curators think is important, because there are a lot of pieces by artists most people have never heard of that clutter up the place. Not that their work isn’t important, or isn’t worth preserving, it’s just that there’s an awful lot of it, and while it’s good art, it’s not great art.

There are a few pieces on the “greats” list that I didn’t agree with. I didn’t particularly care for Constable’s, “The Hay Wain,” to be honest. It’s a pretty piece, but it didn’t particularly move me. I’ve already mentioned a few others above, like “Sunflowers.”

At 4 p.m., it was time for a mad dash to the gift shop, where I bought a bunch of very tasteful blank cards and postcards. Now I can send people cards and impose my aesthetic sense on them at the same time.

How convenient!

Back to SoHo

Then it was time to leave the National Gallery and head to SoHo to pick up my zoom lens, which was almost destroyed at Westminster the other day. I can still see the bits of glass dust trapped in there, so it’s going to have to be stripped down when I get home, but it’s good enough for now.

Tottenham Court Road station is a royal pain to get to these days, because it’s not served by the Northern Line. You can only get to it via the Central line, and that means lots of transfers. Ugh.

Anyway, after I got the lens back, I stopped by a crepe shop called Crepeaffaire and had a delicious dark Belgian chocolate crepe with whipped cream on the side. But it wasn’t cheap– that plus a cup of milk was almost £7.

Yikes. In dollars, that’s a whole meal plus dessert.

He Never Used a Meerschaum Pipe!

Then it was off to Baker Street, to see a certain Consulting Detective, or rather a certain Consulting Detective’s Gift Shop. There was no way I was going to see the Sherlock Holmes Museum, because every tour guide says that it’s a ripoff, and I refuse to pay for another ripoff museum.

But I wanted to get some Sherlockiana, because it makes for great souvenirs.

The annoying bit? Even I, who is just a casual Holmes fan, got annoyed by the constant use of a Meerschaum pipe in all of the Holmes shadow portraits. He never used a Meerschaum pipe… yet there he is in every trinket, Meerschaum in hand, or hanging out of his mouth.

So annoying.

I bought some less-annoying trinkets for the people back home, and then I finally staggered back to Earls Court. That was it for me today.

London Loves the BL.

 Food, Great Britain, Travel  Comments Off on London Loves the BL.
Jul 072011
 

It’s Thursday, and I had to move out of my double room today.

Before I did that, I started to check over my camera from my trip to Westminster yesterday, and what do I find, but the UV filter on my 80-200mm lens is smashed to bits, and it’s bent into place.

I forced out the broken glass with a pencil, and tried to shake out the bits, but only so much would come out.

I knew I had to get it to a camera repair shop stat.

Note to self: don’t forget the lens brush next time, dummy. Also, add a layer of padding to the drop-in camera case.

Getting Fixed

So it was off to Calumet in SoHo in a frog-strangler of a downpour with my crappy umbrella. They pointed me down the alley to Sangean, who told me they could fix it by tomorrow for £76.

That includes a new UV filter. While I was at Sangean, I asked them where to get a decent umbrella, because the one I got at Boots was just junk.

Here’s a tip: if you need an umbrella, NEVER buy one at a chemist’s/drugstore. It will always be a disappointment. The ones in コンビニ (conbini, Japanese for convenience store) aren’t much good, either.

The advice I got lined up with common sense: buy one at a department store at the very least.

I stopped by Calumet again and got a UV filter for the other lens. I realized that I could use one for the main lens, because I’ve been shooting with nothing on it. (I left the UV filter at home. D’oh.)

England, Land of the Umbrella

After that, it was off to Marks & Spencer’s for a decent umbrella, because it was still raining like rain Armageddon, if there was such an event. (It would make a great Hollywood movie.)

Ignoring the Hare Krishna who was trying to give me some sort of book, I headed into the store and made a beeline for the men’s department. I found a good umbrella, but it’s annoyingly big.

It’s not a cane style umbrella, but it’s at least a foot and a half long. Maybe longer. It keeps me dry, but it doesn’t really fit in my backpack. So it’s maybe 2 feet long? When I get back to the States, I’ll have to hunt down a good, compact umbrella that also expands to something BIG.

All of that fiddling around aside, I needed to do something. What to do, what to do, I’m in London, time’s a-wasting. It’s raining like hell, so it had better be indoor stuff. I know, let’s go look at the document that started it all, the Magna Carta!

“My First BL Experience”

So it was off to the British Library, up by King’s Cross. (What did you think I meant?)

It’s a neat place, but it’s a bit of a pain. I had to put everything in a locker, and to use the locker, I needed a £1 coin handy. I would get the coin back when I’m done, but troublesome things are still troublesome.

I didn’t have a coin handy, and the smallest bill on me was a £20, so I had to withdraw £10 from the ATM, then bust that into 10 £1 coins, just to use the locker.

15 minutes lost.

Bring a £1 coin with you if you’re going to the British Library!

Then it was off to look at some historical books and documents. I saw some quartos by Shakespeare, and notes from other famous authors like Milton, as well as compositions by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and the original score for Handel’s Messiah. It was all very cool. There were also famous religious texts, including the Lindisfarne Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, and the King James Bible.

And, of course, a few copies of the Magna Carta.

What? You didn’t know? There isn’t just one copy of it. In fact, as many as 35 copies of it were made, and nobody knows which is the “original,” or if there ever really was an original, but if you go to the British Library, you can see two of them.

It’s pretty cool, if you’re into that sort of thing. You can also see the Papal bull that invalidates the original Magna Carta soon afterwards, because kings are chosen by God, and a bunch of scruffy nobles cannot put limits on God’s chosen kings.

A somewhat-watered-down version was put back in force later on.

There was also an interesting exhibit on science fiction, and even a version of the TARDIS to look at, as well as an exhibit of Mervyn Peake‘s works.

The gift shop was… a gift shop. I don’t remember buying anything there.

I Said Lunch, Not Launch!

After that, it was back to Piccadilly Circus, and the Japan Centre for lunch. It was time for pork ramen and some fried chicken, Japanese-style.

Good food, although the ambiance left a bit to be desired. There are only a couple of big picnic-table-style benches in the store, and a couple of tables outside. I probably should have eaten outside, but I didn’t have sunscreen on. (The sun was back by then, and I have two settings– pasty white and sunburned. I think someone forgot to give me some melanin when I was born.)

The ramen was served in a plastic bowl with a plastic Chinese-style spoon. Eating out of a plastic bowl only does so much for me. But like I said, the food was good, and in the end, that’s all that really matters.

Another thing– when you order noodles there, you get a LOT of choices, down to 4-5 kinds of soup to put them in.

The Museum of Vague Dissatisfaction

Then it was off to Covent Garden, and the London Transport Museum, because by this point, I am completely fresh out of ideas, and I like transportation stuff.

I’m not a full-on train nerd, but I like interesting public transport in interesting places. It’s probably because the public transport where I live is dull, and because I’ve traveled a lot, so I’ve had a chance to see all the different ways people have approached the same problem. It’s interesting.

The Underground has an antique feel to it… New York’s Subway is pretty old, too, but the Underground has that crazy architecture that flaunts its age. I really get that feeling when I pull into Earls Court, with its big glass roof. It feels like someone with muttonchops and a top hat will accost me at any moment with a “Sirrah!”

I won’t say I’m a railroad/transportation nerd… I just have an appreciation for it, and I enjoy a nice train ride… and subways fascinate me as part of the underside of cities.

Okay, I’m a bit of a nerd in that regard.

So with that in mind, it looked like the London Transport Museum would hit my strike zone.

The London Transportation Museum has a really good gift shop. You can get all kinds of cool Underground-branded stuff there.

Oh, the museum? Well, my £13 got me in to see some exhibits on… err… okay, there are some cool things there, but not £13 worth. You can look at a few 19th-century mockups of Underground carriages which were interesting, and there are a few double-decker buses through the ages that you can sit in, and even the front end of one you can pretend to drive, and all of this is probably great fun.

If you’re 11 years old, that is.

There’s also a bit of London Underground memorabilia… which was somewhat interesting. I was hoping for more, really, but they only had a few cases’ worth.

And that was pretty much it.

The main problem was that there just wasn’t a whole lot there, past the vehicles. It was okay, but not worth the outlay of funds. £13 is more than $20. Yikes.

The gift shop was pretty good. I bought lots of souvenirs for friends and family.

Would I recommend it? If you have kids and money to burn, yeah, maybe? Or if you can get free admission on one of those museum deal cards. Only on those conditions. Otherwise, skip it. (But the Underground logo ice cube tray will make an awesome gift for one of my friends…)

Covent Garden itself is a really nice part of town, with street performers and food vendors all over the place, and lots of shopping, if you’re into that sort of thing. Frankly, I wish I had spent more time wandering around Covent Garden, and skipped the museum.

There’s a lot you can learn from museums, but there’s also a lot you can learn from interacting with people.

After the museum, I had pretty much hit the wall, so I limped back to the hotel, ate some sandwiches, and called it a night.

The new room is 302. It’s a single, and much bigger than 114. (It’s hard for any room not to be bigger than 114.) The bed isn’t as good as 114, but I like having enough room for my bags. Also, the TV has a kind of weird red cast to it, but since I don’t watch much TV, it’s not a big deal.

The showers still don’t do hot water properly. I haven’t had a room yet that does hot water properly. It usually goes from too hot to too cold to lukewarm, to generally unpleasant.

I haven’t had a really good shower the whole time I’ve been here.

But I didn’t really come here for the bathing.

Pounded

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Jul 062011
 

It’s Wednesday, and I’ve crested the hill of my trip to London. Today I had to move out of room 114, a nice little room, so I spent some time throwing everything into bags.

I had also decided to send two boxes full of unneeded books home.

Using the mail turned out to be a dumb idea.

In fact, it turned out to be an expensive, horrible idea.

You would think that sending things home by mail would save a lot of money. You might even think that sending books would entitle you to a book rate.

You would be very, very wrong.

The difference between sending 9 kilos of books home by surface mail (which takes 8 weeks), and by air mail (which takes 5 days) is £80 vs £100.

Either way sucks. I need the books sooner than 8 weeks from now, and I really didn’t have the luggage room to spare anymore, so I had to take the full £100 hit. That’s $160 for the folks back home.

Thanks for nothing, Royal Mail. I heart you too.

To be fair, the lady at the Post Office was very nice, and found a way to save me a few pounds. Still, using US Mail, this would have cost about $58… okay, maybe $58 per package. I might still have gotten screwed on the deal, but I’d have money left over for a meal or two.

Traveler’s Checks Are Great, If You’re Traveling to 1986.

After that,  I learned another important lesson: traveler’s checks aren’t worth the trouble.

I went to cash in my checks at Lloyd’s TSB Bank, and took an absolute beating on the exchange rate. Sure, the current rate is in the $1.60 range, but when I got my money, I discovered that the rate I got was $1.75 per pound. And that was from one of the only banks that would take the stupid things.

The fees were hidden in the exchange rate.

I’m never doing that again. I’ll carry an ATM card and cash. I’ll use plastic. I’ll even sell some plasma.

But I will never carry traveler’s checks again.

When I used the ATM, I got hit with a 1% fee and a fixed $0.75 fee, but I got the market exchange rate. So $5.75 on $500, vs. $26.79 from the crap exchange rates using traveler’s checks.

Lesson learned.

Note to self: USE A FREAKIN’ CALCULATOR! THERE’S EVEN ONE IN YOUR PHONE!

Speaking of credit cards, good luck using them in England. I pretty much gave up on them, outside of hotels.

Of course, both of my credit cards will smack me in the head with a 3% foreign transaction fee anyway, but it’s cheaper than the $26.79 I lost on the traveler’s checks. ($15 on a theoretical $500 purchase.)

And that’s why nobody uses traveler’s checks anymore.

After handing over large sums of cash to people behind bullet-proof glass (now I know why it was bullet-proof, even at the post office), it was time to head over to another place where people generally take large sums of money from people and spend it unwisely.

Yes, Parliament.

Dropping in on Parliament

I arrived at Westminster, and joined the crush of tourists wobbling around the Palace of Westminster, looking for the visitors’ entrance. I asked a guard how to get in to see Parliament. He told me to come back in 2 hours, and I could see a session.

So I went over to the Churchill War Rooms at the Imperial War Museum, and the Winston Churchill Museum, both of which were very interesting.

There was a lot of shuffling around in the dark and listening to Winston Churchill.

I learned a lot. He liked painting, whiskey, and gambling. He was a liberal, then a conservative, a POW who escaped from South Africa, and the second honorary US Citizen since Lafayette. I even saw his US passport. He was also grouchy.

I highly recommend visiting it if you have any kind of interest in World War II, or Winston Churchill. The latter obviously helps. It’s very interesting to see how they lived while trying to run a war under constant threat of German bombing raids. It’s also interesting to get a peek into the mind of Churchill, who was a fascinating man.

Bench Press

After that, I headed back to Westminster Palace, where I began an complex ritual that consisted of varied intervals of standing in line and sitting on benches. First, I stood in line to go through security. They take your picture, print it on a paper badge, and that’s your pass. Then they scan your bags, and let you in. Then you can wander around a bit. (Just a bit, mind you.)

Of course, I also managed to drop my camera bag, when one of the straps of my backpack came undone. That was brilliant. There’s nothing like the sound of an SLR hitting flagstones. But everything looked okay. (By everything, I mean the camera body and the 17-55mm lens attached to it.)

Silly badge around my neck, I went off to Westminster Hall, which is big. Very big.

It’s also very old.

It was completed in 1099, and survived a fire in 1834. The woodwork in the ceiling is gorgeous, and well, it’s just impressive.

Enough looking around, it’s time to go stand in line to go up to the public gallery for the House of Commons!

As the line moved ever so slowly, I eventually made it to a big wooden bench, where we sat for about 15 minutes, then got whisked off upstairs to St. Stephen’s Hall, where we sat on another bench.

While we sat on the benches there, we could look at big frescoes of scenes of Famous English People doing Famous Important Things. And we repeated the process of moving from one bench to another and then another. Four benches in St. Stephen’s Hall, and then we could finally go up to the Central Lobby.

At least we got to sit, rather than standing in line.

The Central Lobby is the place where people can, well, lobby their MPs.

Yes, that’s where the term comes from.

From there, we went up the stairs to another security room, where we had to drop off our bags and cell phones.

Then it was off to the gallery, where I got to watch the emergency debate over the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Very historic, or so I’ve been told by every BBC commentator on TV in the past 48 hours.

It was interesting to see the debates… although you can’t really call it a debate when politicians all get up and say that criminal activities are bad. When journalists or anyone for that matter engages in hacking that destroys evidence, well, that’s wrong.

The sun is also hot, ice is also cold, and Jerome Bettis is still from Detroit.

On the way out, I realized that I had lost my Oyster card, with £25 still on it.

D’oh.

So I ran back up to the security station at the public gallery, and sure enough, they had already found it for me. That was awesome.

Back to Earls Court

Then it was time to buy a few souvenirs, shuffle back to the hotel, and check out the new room, number 117. It’s nice, although the mattress isn’t as nice as the one in old room. It’s a bit thin and kind of worn-out, as though it has seen a few too many chunky Americans who have worn the stuffing out of it.

But I can deal with it for one night.

On the upside, the room is nice and big, and otherwise comfortable, although, oddly enough, the smaller room had a nicer bathroom with a bigger shower and a bit nicer view. The window over the bathroom sink is a bit weird, but I’m good at adapting.

Dinner was the local Wagamama on the high street around Earls Court. Wagamama is a chain of Japanese restaurants in London. Everything on the menu comes with chicken of some sort, it seems. No pork in sight. Kind of a bummer there.

The yakisoba was good: lots of vegetables in it, plus shrimp and, of course, chicken in it, as well as some delicious crunchy fried onion bits. It was nice to sit at right in front of the second-floor window and just stare at the crowds walking by the high street.

I can understand why it’s not popular with Japanese people. Wagamama means “selfish” in Japanese, not a trait that any culture is particularly fond of. Also, the lack of pork didn’t do a lot for me, either. I like my Japanese food with some pig in it. Not a lot, but just enough to make things taste good.

After that, a trip to the Sainsbury’s for a few supplies, and back to the hotel.

I took the chance to do some laundry in the sink, and used the heated towel rack to speed up the drying.

My “No Cotton” rule has saved my bacon on this trip. It makes washing shirts, underwear, and socks in the sink a breeze. They all dry out relatively quickly, too.

Wandering Around Piccadilly Circus

 Food, Great Britain, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on Wandering Around Piccadilly Circus
Jul 052011
 

My first stop today was Piccadilly Circus, where there’s a neat used Japanese book store called Adanami. It’s in an old dry cleaner’s, and when I got there, I could still see the old dry cleaner’s sign.

I got there just a little too early, because they were still closed. They open at noon, and it was still 11:45.

So I headed down the street to kill some time, and found the Vintage Magazine Store, and looked around in there. I checked out their vintage magazines in the basement. They have a nice collection, but it’s all on the expensive side. I was scouting it out for my brother-in-law, who often uses old magazines as references for his graphic design work.

Upstairs, they had an interesting selection of post cards and birthday cards, as well as movie-related novelties. I got some funny birthday cards, so it was a success.

Then I went back to Adanami to search for used Japanese books. The prices there were pretty good for the most part, but I didn’t have a whole lot of luck finding the books that I wanted. I was interested in finding some books on 国語 (sort of like Language Arts for Japanese), but didn’t find anything that struck my fancy. I did find a copy of Harry Potter. It was a bit pricey for a used copy, but it’s getting harder to find it in Japanese.

FYI– no credit card accepted there. Bring cash. They also have a karaoke box in the back, if that’s your thing.

Bulgogiiii

After that, I headed to a Korean restaurant in the neighborhood called Soju, and had a really good bulgogi lunch set meal. Bulgogi is a Korean dish of marinated beef that’s been grilled. I got some kimchi along with it, as well as some pickled mung bean sprouts and rice.

Considering how paranoid everyone is about bean sprouts and other salad ingredients in Europe these days, I ate them without really considering it. Oops.

The only downside was that the chopsticks were metal and kind of thin, so it was hard getting them to work. I’m much better at using wooden chopsticks than plastic or metal. A spoon came with the chopsticks, but there was no way I was going to wimp out and use the spoon.

Mitsukoshi and Japan Centre… Again!

After lunch, I headed back towards the station, and then towards Mitsukoshi‘s basement, where the books are. I wanted to have a good look over them before I headed out, because I can’t look over them at home. They have a really good selection on Japanese learning, even though they’re all pretty expensive. If nothing else, you can check them out and then buy online from someplace like BK1 Honto. I found a really good book on business Japanese that I haven’t seen anywhere else, so I decided to take the hit and buy it. ( £36. Ouch!)

Then it was over to Japan Centre again to look at their books and to see if they had anything else interesting, but nothing really jumped out at me.

They didn’t even have Men’s Pocky.

I headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit and to pack my books to send home tomorrow. Box wrestling, commence!

Showers? More Like a Fire Hose!

Packages packed, this evening was my first encounter with the rain in England. And rain it did, violently hard.

My Gore-Tex jacket was barely able to keep me dry, and my nylon hiking pants were getting soaked fast. So I dashed into Boots‘, and stared at umbrellas for about 15 minutes. I figured that it wouldn’t really matter which one I picked, because they would all kind of suck, so I got the most compact one for 10 pounds, and sure enough, it sucked. It barely covered my head and made sure I got completely soaked.

Then it was off to Tokyo Spicy, for a katsudon. They make an awesome katsudon.

OMG Muffins @_@

 Food, Great Britain, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on OMG Muffins @_@
Jul 022011
 

I finally discovered Gregg’s, which has awesome sandwiches, and these evil chocolate chip muffins, filled with PUDDING. Or maybe it’s some sort of chocolate pastry creme?

Either way, good God y’all, if you sold these in America, my fellow countrymen would start randomly exploding.

The sandwiches at Gregg’s remind me a bit of some of the sandwiches in Japan. They have that big, giant fluffy sweet bread you get at the Japanese bakeries. It’s good stuff. It’s not the most healthy stuff in the world, but it’s good. Add in a lemon ice Fanta (my latest obsession, which reminds me of my misspent youth in Germany), and one of those muffins, and I’m good to go.

Other than gorging myself on sandwiches, Fanta, and muffins, I pretty much stayed in the room all day and studied.

Test is tomorrow. Blech.

Crossed Up at King’s Cross

 Food, Great Britain, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on Crossed Up at King’s Cross
Jul 012011
 

I met up with Michele (pronounced the men’s way, not the women’s way) from Italy today. He’s someone who also posts on the RTK forums, and is really good at Japanese. He’s in town to take the JLPT N1. We had a bit of a mess at first trying to meet up.

We agreed to meet at Kings Cross/Saint Pancras, since that’s the neighborhood where the test is going to take place on Sunday. What neither one of us realized was that there are two national railway stations there: one is called King’s Cross, and one is called Saint Pancras. (Hence the “/” in the name.)

So when I asked him where he was, he said he was in front of the Starbuck’s in the station. That’s odd, I didn’t see a Starbuck’s. But I did see a Burger King. Well, he didn’t see a Burger King at all. So I moved to the wicket in front of platform 2, and he agreed to move in that general direction, thinking that maybe we were just on different floors. We even tried waving. After 10 minutes or so, we finally broke down and started asking around for ideas. Then we found out why we couldn’t see each other.

No, we weren’t in parallel universes, although that would have been far more interesting.

He was in Saint Pancras railway station, and I was in King’s Cross railway station. One is right next to the other.

See? Parallel universes would have been more interesting!

Mitsukoshi and Japan Centre

After finally meeting up, we headed over to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) campus of the University of London at Vernon Rise, where Sunday’s test will be. It wasn’t too hard to find.

Then it was off to Piccadilly Circus and Mitsukoshi for lunch. Yes, that’s the same Mitsukoshi that’s a famous department store chain in Japan.

Mitsukoshi has a nice restaurant. The food presentation is very attractive, and very standard Japanese. I get the feeling that the intention is to make Japanese tourists feel like they’re “home,” more than it is to bring a taste of Japan to London.

I had the steamed vegetable and sashimi set meal for £14, and that was one of the cheaper ones. It was very good, but not cheap.

After lunch, we did some browsing around Mitsukoshi’s book shop. What’s interesting about Mitsukoshi is that they don’t really sell a lot of “Japanese stuff,” instead they sell a ton of English souvenirs to Japanese tourists.

Again, it’s the whole, “Hey, if you’re Japanese, then this is a store that caters to you” vibe. It was kind of disappointing, really. They had a good book store, but the prices were hideous. It was yet another case of, “Don’t you mean dollars instead of pounds?” A lot of cheap books, 1800 yen books, were going for £35.

Yikes.

After being scared away by the expensive books, we headed over to the Japan Centre, to look at their smaller selection of books. Japan Centre is neat, because they actually have Japanese products.

The downside, again, are some crazy high prices. Also, their book selection is much smaller than Mitsukoshi’s, and the prices aren’t much better.

The upside of Japan Centre is that it has a lot of Japanese products, like food and other things. It also has a restaurant that I’ll have to try later.

We looked around a bit more, and then headed back to the Piccadilly Circus tube station, and called it a day.

I headed back to the room, crashed for a bit, studied some, then headed off to Nando’s, a Portugese-style chicken chain. That’s some good chicken. The store is a little chaotic, but the chicken is tasty. It’s in some kind of sauce, but it’s delicious. The downside is that it’s not too cheap. £9 ($14?) for a meal.

Welcome to London. Empty your wallets, please.

Asian Markets in the Triangle

 Food  Comments Off on Asian Markets in the Triangle
Aug 102009
 

I forgot to post this yesterday, so it’s backdated accordingly.

I went on an excursion today to check out some of the Asian markets in the Raleigh-Durham area today, because I had a sudden and unexpected free afternoon pop up. I had been meaning to check them out for a while now, because there are a few things I have been looking for. Now that I have a copy of Gaku Homma’s book The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking (on loan), I figured it would be a good idea to scope out sources of ingredients.

I also needed some yakitori sauce.

Toyo Shokuhin

First off is my reliable store for everything Japanese, Toyo Shokuhin and Gift Shop, at 748 E Chatham Street, Suite L in Cary, NC. They have a good supply of Japanese groceries, as well as some plates, kitchen utensils, rental videos, and knick-knacks. They have my favorite rice there, a California Koshihikari called Tamaki Gold.

They don’t have tons of fresh produce, but they do have a robust sake selection. If there’s a pre-packaged food that triggers your 懐かしい switch, odds are they have it. I even found UCC American Coffee. The last time I saw that was in Okazaki. 懐かしい indeed.

Grand Asia Market

After that, I went to Grand Asia Maket, at 1253 Buck Jones Road in Cary, in South Hills Mall. It says mall, but it’s really more like a convoluted shopping center. Anyway, it’s a nice big supermarket-sized place that carries a variety of food and gifts from all over Asia. You can find Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and lots of other Asian countries’ products there.

They have a very respectable dinnerware section, and lots of fresh produce. They even have live fish, a bakery, and a restaurant. The bakery was really tempting. The store is right near the intersection of Buck Jones Road and US1/US64.

A & C Supermarket

Then I made a trip to A & C Supermarket on 3210 South Wilmington Street in Raleigh, on US 401 about a mile south of I-40 at exit 298A. It’s really big. They had a lot of cookware, too. They also have a small restaurant attached as well, and a produce section. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend there, sadly, because I was running out of time. It looks like a nice store, it’s just a bit too far away from Chapel Hill for my tastes.

Raleigh Asian Market

The final place I wound up at was Raleigh Asian Market at 3901 Capital Boulevard, suite 159 in Raleigh. All of the units in the shopping center are numbered 159, so the number is kind of useless. It’s tucked away on the Buffaloe Road side of the shopping center. It’s a small store, but it has a lot of stuff, especially what seemed to be Vietnamese stuff. (I’m pretty sure that was Vietnamese… my knowledge of Southeast Asian languages is rough.) It’s not really what I need for what I’m trying to make, but if I ever get into Southeast Asian cooking, I’ll definitely come back. The people were friendly.

Just looking at Google maps, I realize that there are at least a dozen Asian markets in the area… maybe more. And I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Oh, Osaka! Castles and Towers and Okonomiyaki!

 Food, Japan, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Oh, Osaka! Castles and Towers and Okonomiyaki!
Nov 022007
 

Today I left fun fun Fukuoka for Osaka. The shinkansen ride took about 2:45, and I got there right at 1:45 p.m.

The way the shinkansen works is that it runs on special tracks designed for high-speed rail. This means that not every station is equipped to handle these trains. So Instead of going to Osaka Station, the shinkansen stops at Shin-Osaka (Shin means ‘new’ in Japanese, by the way. You’ll see a lot of shins in Japan.)

On arrival, I went through my now usual drill whenever I get to a new city in Japan. I get off the train, get out of the way, take my bearings for a few seconds, then start hunting down the information booth, and raid it for maps and pamphlets. I find it’s the most efficient way to find the big sights in a town. I’ll cross-check with guidebook opinions, but I’ll go with the pamphlet’s directions, because Lonely Planet Japan’s directions suck.

The maps of Osaka at the station are great, and they’re free.

Free is good.

The next thing I do when I get to a new town is figure out how I’m going to get to the hotel.

Precisely, how am I going to get out of the station? Most major stations, and even minor ones, have at least 2 and as many as 40 exits.

Yes, 40.

40 exits.

So the exit you pick can become important, because if you choose poorly, you can wind up all turned around and lost. Find the station map, make sure which way North is pointing, then proceed to the exit you need.

Namba Mamba

Shin-Osaka is connected to the subway lines, so it’s not too bad. Follow the subway signs.

It’s kind of far away from my hotel, so I decided to just take subways instead of a cab to the hotel. It might have saved me some time to take a cab, but it’s risky to take cabs in big cities over long distances. Japanese traffic can be horrible, and I didn’t want to risk it.

I got off the subway at Namba station, and promptly got lost. No big surprise there. Prepare to get lost in Japan. It’s just hard to find things sometimes, and it’s oftentimes disorienting. This is why you got the map at the station, anyway. I should have brought a compass. It would have saved me a lot of time.

A nice security guard pointed out the way to go, and I followed it for a bit, then thought I could improve upon it, and got lost again. But this time I knew which way North was, so I figured it out on my own. It took a while, but I found my hotel. It’s the Business Hotel Nissei, and it’s 5,250 yen a night. Dirt cheap, the way I like it. It comes with all the usual amenities, except for Internet.

Ah, well. I’ll survive 2 days without Internet.

I dumped my stuff in the room, which is the tiniest yet– I have to go out into the hallway to change my mind– and made my battle plan. I know I can’t see everything in a city, and if I did, I’d wear myself out and not enjoy it. So I picked today’s and tomorrow’s highlights.

Today I was going to go to Osaka Castle, The Umeda Sky Building Floating Garden Observatory, and wander around Kita Osaka. (Kita is Japanese for North. Another handy word to learn.)

Osaka is broken into 4 districts. Kita (North), Chuo (middle), Minami (South), and the harbor. My goal today was to knock out some sights in Kita and Chuo, and then hit the harbor and Minami on Saturday.

Osaka-jou

Osaka Castle is in Chuo, and it’s very scenic. There’s a lot of hiking involved. I managed to get there just as the sun was starting to set, so I think I got some good shots of the castle. I love the “golden time,” when the sun gets low and the light gets really nice and reddish-orange.

Photos! Outer gate:

Outer Gates

Now some photos of the castle exterior:

Approaching the Castle

Fall colors:

Osaka Castle and Fall Colors

Clouds loom overhead:

Osaka Castle

It looks like someone is climbing outside the guardrail???

Castle Detail

Another angle:

Osaka Castle

Golden light hitting the front of the castle:

Castle Front Bathed in Sunset

I climbed up to the top of the castle, and enjoyed the observation deck. The views from the deck are superb. You can see all of downtown Osaka, and with the late afternoon sun, it was all very beautiful.

Great shot of the castle grounds from the top:

Osaka Skyline

And the Osaka Skyline:

Osaka Skyline

Osaka Skyline

Osaka Skyline

Look, another Ferris wheel!

Osaka Skyline

Osaka Skyline

I went down and took a few pictures of the front of the castle again, bathed in the sunset:

Osaka Castle Facade bathed in Sunset Again

Osaka Castle

On my way out of the castle area, some nice shots:

Osaka Skyline at Sunset

Osaka Skyline at Sunset

I went back down and started walking through the castle park on my way back to the hotel, when I saw a band office. That gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Osaka Municipal Symphonic Band Office

The fountain in the park was pretty.

Fountain

Longer exposure:

Fountain

I walked a little further and saw some of the city’s homeless population setting up tents for the night in the park.

Kita~~!

I headed back to the hotel to rest a bit, because I had just walked about 3 miles on an empty stomach, and I was out of gas. I got back around 6, slept until 7:30, grabbed a quick shower and headed to The Umeda Sky Building Floating Garden Observatory, which is in Kita Osaka by Osaka Station. The area is called Umeda.

The Sky Building is two office towers joined in the middle up high by a big 4-5 story sqaure, so the building kind of looks like a boxy Arc d’ Triumphe. It’s a bit of hassle to get to the observation area, but worth it. Only downside– I got there after 9 p.m., so everything but the deck was closed. That was kind of a bummer.

In Japan, if a store closes at 5 p.m., you better get your stuff by 4:45 p.m., because at 4:50 p.m., they’ve already got everything covered up. At 5 p.m., the metal shutters go down. So it doesn’t really close at 5 p.m. It closes about 15 minutes before that. That’s been my experience so far.

Either way, I was out of a chance at souvenirs. Even the restaurants had closed. Then again, I’ve never been a big fan of any eating establishments at the top of Tall Buildings or Towers, except for the late Windows on the World at the old World Trade Center in New York. That was an incredible restaurant.

In general, though, the food at the top of buildings whose claim to fame is their tallness isn’t so hot. The Space Needle comes immediately to mind for some reason.

To get to the observation deck, you climb 3 flights of stairs, take a glass elevator for 32 stories, then go up a 4-story glass enclosed escalator (kind of like a habitrail tube), then you climb 2 more flights of stairs, and you’re there.

At night, Osaka is gorgeous. The views from the observation deck took my breath away. Totally worth it. I tried to take some pictures, but they probably didn’t do any justice.

Kita Osaka at Night

Kita Osaka at Night

Kita Osaka at Night

 

Had to crop this one a bit:

Kita Osaka at Night

It’s worth a trip there, if you’re in the area.

Music to My Stomach

By now it’s 9:30 p.m., and I’m weak in the knees with hunger. I’ve been walking all day on not enough food, and I need calories badly. But I don’t want more department store or conbini food. I want real Japanese food. Real Osaka food.

I started hunting, and I finally found a place that serves okonomiyaki. It’s a little tiny restaurant called Melody that has 4 tables and a bar. And it’s almost as big as my hotel room. So it’s a tight fit.

Melody

Everyone says okonomiyaki is “a Japanese pancake.” It is not. It is similar in that it’s made from batter and cooked on a griddle, but that’s all. Okonomiyaki is made with a batter with veggies chopped up in it, then you add toppings. The toppings are where it gets fun. I ordered mine “modern,” which means that you cover it with yakisoba (grillled soba noodles in sauce). Then I added shrimp, mayo (which is standard), bonito (dried fish) flakes, and a sweet sauce.

It was so incredibly good. Ah, man. I’m ruined. I don’t know how I’m going to get an okonomiyaki fix in the U.S. now. Let alone, a good one.

Stomach filled, I headed back to the hotel, and made a quick stop at a conbini on the wayto get some supplies for later. (Okay, snacks.) All of this walking consumes a lot of carbs.

I like to believe that, anyway.

Tomorrow I’ll try to visit the Aquarium at the harbor, maybe Universal Studios Japan if I feel like it, or the ukiyoe museum in Minami, and Dotomburi for dinner in Minami. Reality will probably dictate that I dump USJ, but I’ll try to see some of it. I do want to see the ukiyoe place. Ukiyoe is an old style of depicting nature and people. It was popular in the early-mid 19th century.

Random Stuff: you can get license plates where the letters/numbers in the tag light up at night. Way cool.

Everything closes at 8, 9, or 10. Main sights close at 4, 4:30, 5, or 5:30. They have a quick trigger finger on closing stuff. Seriously quick.

Hotels are stingy with power outlets. Bring a power splitter if you can.

Shopping arcades are awesome, and there are lots of shopping arcades in Osaka. I could really dig living here.

The other big Osaka specialty is takoyaki, which are little fried dough balls with octopus inside. I’m going to try to find some to snack on.

Random Musings from Hiroshima

 Food, Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Random Musings from Hiroshima
Oct 302007
 

I managed to snatch dinner before they could snatch it back out of my hands. Department stores just up and close at the drop of a hat. And they have confusing hours. For example, the food stores in the basement close at 8 p.m. The main stores close at 8 p.m. The book store closes at 9 p.m. The restaurants close at 11 p.m., but stop taking orders at 10 p.m.

Make sure you read the hours before you go in. Great advice I should probably take myself.

I managed to find a soft sandwich and some pastry at 7:59:59 p.m., and then didn’t have time to find anything but water to drink with it.

I came back to the hotel to do laundry… to find out it’s too late to finish it all. A vast faceless conspiracy moves against me! Apparently laundry hours stop at 10 p.m., when they unplug the machines. Fair enough. If my room was next to the laundry, I’d want that service as well.

My dentist e-mailed me back. He said to go buy an emery board and file down the annoying bits until he could fix it properly, but not to file off too much. Ah, the joys of travel.

It is pretty cool that he replied to my e-mail that quickly. Right now I’m 7,000 miles away from his very comfortable dentist’s chair. (Dr. Saib has great chairs, and knows how to take care of a patient!)

I’m going to go to Fukuoka/Hakata next for a day and check things out. I found a cheap Comfort Inn there. 5,400 yen with my AAA discount. I saved 600 yen off of their regular rack rate.

Too bad I can’t use Comfort Inn when I’m in Tokyo. They have a pretty nice chain of hotels with very reasonable rates, and I can use the English website in the US to set everything up. That’s really handy.

The Bells, the Bells! (Because “The Chimes!” Sounds Lame)

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Oct 242007
 

Okazaki Castle happens to be too far away for me to get to today.

But at least I have a way to show you where I am on an interactive map. (It’s in Japanese, but a map is a map.)

http://tinyurl.com/3d6cgv

There’s a zoom-scale-slider-thing at the bottom of the map, to change it from 500m to up to 250 km.

I’m just to the right of the red cross hair on the map.

That green thing above is a high school, and I can hear the class chimes from the school all day long. It’s kind of like being back in school again. Fortunately, I haven’t had the recurring dream where I have an exam in the class I haven’t attended all semester long.

More of My Commute to Yamasa

I took a few pictures of my daily commute to and from Yamasa’s main campus from the dorm. I put some of those photos on yesterday’s post. (About my daily dance with death.)

Here are a few extras:

I go by the coffee shop every day.

Downtown Coffeehouse

I like the lettering on their signs.

Downtown Coffeehouse

Be careful not to step on the covered gutters. Those covers move. Here’s a closeup of one of the Yamasa apartment buildings, you can almost make out the dorm in the back. It’s peeping over that wall.

Okazaki on the way to class

A cemetery on the way:

Okazaki on the way to class

In the distance, you can see big new apartment buildings going up. Okazaki is growing fast because Toyota is close by.

Okazaki on the way to class

I’m getting close to 248, the main road.

Okazaki on the way to class

And here is the Daiso, a 100-yen shop. They’re like dollar stores in the U.S.:

Okazaki on the way to class

There are a few of these tunnels that go under route 248. Here’s the tunnel itself:

Okazaki on the way to class

Once I cross 248, the wall protecting me from traffic disappears. So does the sidewalk. The building with the red letters is the South Okazaki Hospital:

Okazaki on the way to class

As I get to Yamasa, here’s a photo of one of the classroom buildings and the coffee shop/Japanese-style restaurant:

Yamasa Campus

Looking to the other side, here’s the main classroom and administration building, Yamasa II. I don’t know if there’s a Yamasa I:

Yamasa Campus

And here’s the place where I took my classes, the Info Gallery:

Yamasa Campus

Later that day, on the way back to the dorm, I spied this Caution sign on the pole of a Stop sign. I really liked the way the white bits were cracking:

Caution Sign

And here’s the entrance to the dorm, to the right of the laundromat, which is right next to the convenience store:

Laundromat and Hidden Dorm!

And here’s the Mini Stop convenience store, without which I probably would have starved to death:

All Hail MiniStop!

The Donkey Was Surprised, and so Was I

I went to Bikkuri Donkey tonight for dinner, because translated it means “Surprise! Donkey!”

I learned an important lesson today. Don’t go to a restaurant just because it has the word “Donkey” in its name.

I couldn’t get into the hambugu. It’s ground beef mixed with some other stuff, shaped into a patty-like form, fried in a pan, then dumped on a plate with some sauce.

Note that this is not hamburger, which comes on a bun and tastes entirely different.

Hambugu yields easily to chopsticks, which was also a source of dismay. I come from the Land of Meat. In the Land of Meat, we have special knives for eating Meat, and these knives are sharp. The meat we eat usually does not require much more than salt and pepper to be tasty. This dish had far more than 11 herbs and spices in it, and I could barely taste the meat.

Japanese famires (short for family restaurant) cuisine so far has been less than satisfying. I’ve tried 2 different kinds, and so far, I’m 0 for 2.

The Trash Heap Has Spoken!

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Oct 232007
 

Yesterday was interesting.

I got up at 8 a.m. I was freezing, and my throat was killing me. The window had been leaking cold air into my room, and it was right above where my head is on the bed. (Or was– I moved the other way on the bed so my head and feet are reversed.)

I felt lousy for most of the morning. The funny thing is, most of the people I saw on campus were coughing and hacking too. So apparently I wasn’t the only one who got caught in the draft. And no, the window was closed. It just wasn’t well-insulated.

Class got moved to from 12:40 to 1:40, only I didn’t remember being told that. They probably told me in Japanese, which explains why I screwed up. The rest of my classes this week will go from 1:40-4:40, so now I have mornings totally free. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with that now.

Denny’s

After class, I finally went to the local Denny’s. First off, I saw no chopsticks. All I saw was silverware. Sorry, guys. No souvenirs for you.

Okazaki on the way to class

Let me just say that every meal I’ve had in Japan up until now has been very good. I was surprised to discover that Denny’s in Japan is somehow worse than Denny’s in the U.S. My server was very nice, but the food she brought me was poison.

Drinks. What would I like to drink? How about ginger ale? No, they don’t have that. So she gave me a colorful drink menu to choose from. Hmm… Okay, how about pink lemonade? It can’t be all that bad, right? She brings me something bright pink. It turns out it’s pink lemonade soda so sweet it would put a 5-year old into insulin shock.

I’ll have water then.

Then the puzzle of settling on actual food to eat. My confidence unshaken, I perused the menu. Hmm… American Club Sandwich. I can’t read this other stuff, but the picture looks good.

Well, it looks like a sandwich…

I’ll get a side of fries with that, too. What the heck.

The fries came as an appetizer. They were taramasala mayo fries, I think. All I know is that they came with a pink sauce with little red dots in it. It wasn’t bad. It tasted like mayo mixed with something. So far, not bad.

Then came the sandwich.

I’m getting nauseous just thinking about it. It was a double-decker club sandwich all right, but the first deck consisted of bacon, 2 fried eggs, and ketchup.

Where I come from, that’s already a meal.

We call it breakfast.

The second deck was some sort of chicken in a sweet sauce or gravy, lettuce, and mayo.

And that’s something we call lunch, or maybe dinner.

You might think it doesn’t sound too bad.

And you would be wrong.

They are all foods I like.  And I’m actually amazed that I got it down without bringing it back up. Describing it later to someone, I could actually feel the normal meal I had later try to make an escape from my stomach.

So yeah, Denny’s. Service was great. Food… ugh. Throws self on sword to relieve stomach pain.

I don’t know of any Americans who would think, “Hmm, I think I’ll have a club sandwich. Esther, let’s fry some eggs and bacon, and hey, get some of that chicken and gravy out!”

Just as much as Americans don’t understand Japan, Japanese don’t get us. “American” gets stuck on the most random stuff here: it’s put on stuff that no American (well, no American in his right mind, anyway) would ever eat.

I think it’s just an excuse to for one group of Japanese to try to fool the rest of the country into trying to eat something they wouldn’t ordinarily eat.

“Hey, I know you wouldn’t normally eat a bacon and egg and chicken and gravy sandwich, but you know, those Americans do, and they’re so wild! Now you eat it too, so you can be wild!”

“Mmkay.”

“Now have this American ice cream. We filled a big paint bucket with ice cream…”

Not much else happened yesterday. I spent the evening recovering from that meal mistake, then got a snack at the conbini. Thank you, conbini. You saved me again.

All Hail MiniStop!

My heeeero!

Oh I Looove Trash

Trash sorting is the most disgusting thing ever. I’ll have a hard time taking the shoe-switching thing seriously now that I’ve seen what the landlady does to improperly sorted trash.

If you’ve never been to Japan, let me explain. It’s a small country, with little room for things like landfills, so you’re not allowed to throw anything away.

You have to pack out all of your trash with you, because you will never see a public trash can. If there was such a mythical beast, it would be crammed full of trash that people didn’t know what to do with, or just got tired of carrying around with them all the time.

Okay, that’s only half true.

Trash is supposed to be sorted into burnable trash, paper, plastic/non-burnable trash, PET (plastic bottles), cans, and glass. I’ve been sorting as best as I can, and taking it down to the kitchen, which also serves as Sorting Central.

But apparently, people fail sorting on a daily basis, and the landlady has decided that if you don’t put trash in the right place, she’ll put it ON THE PREP TABLE BY THE TRASH. So when you come into the kitchen, you can see a lovely (and by lovely, I mean repulsive and disgusting) pile of Other People’s Rejected Trash. Things like Kleenex with hairballs, old food containers, old dirty chopsticks, cigarette butts… I even saw a pair of torn dirty underwear.

Let me repeat that last item again, just in case you missed it. Someone threw away their underwear because it was in such terrible shape, and instead of winding up in the trash, it wound up on the prep table in the kitchen by the trash can.

This is the same prep table people make their food on.

So yeah. Japan? Never taking the shoe thing with a straight face again.

Oh, and I’m staying the hell away from the kitchen.

Now I’m hoarding all of my trash until the last day, where I’ll just ninja-sort it and flee, unless I can find a trashcan, which will probably be next to the unicorn and the leprechaun.

By the way, hotels are great for the simple reason that they have trashcans in the rooms, AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO SORT IT.

Oh, you can find recycling bins for the various things you buy from vending machines, but that’s 99% cans and bottles, which does me no good at all.

Noodling Around Okazaki on a Sunday

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Oct 212007
 

Today was nice.

I woke up at 8, was freezing to death, cranked up the heat (once I figured out how), then went back to sleep until 10 a.m. (Which is exceedingly late for me.)

I goofed around for most of the day, played on the computer a bit, did laundry, and then I went to the local Aeon mall.

Going to the mall was interesting. It was about a 25 minute hike to get there, and when I got there, it felt like a smaller-scale version of a U.S. mall. As if everything had been shrunk a bit.

It felt very crowded, and un-U.S.-mall-like. American malls generally have more space devoted to wide corridors that are easy to traverse without having to get to close to the other shoppers. Land isn’t as plentiful here, so I understand that you can’t get such a luxury and still keep prices reasonable.

I found a Sports Authority, and it had Chunichi Dragons hats, which were expensive at 2,400 yen, but I wanted a hat. They weren’t the good wool hats, they were the cheaper ones with the plastic mesh back.  I got my hat anyway, and now I am Mr. Baseball, too. (But I lack Tom Selleck’s mustache powers.)

Then it was back down route 248 (the main drag in this section of Okazaki) to stop off at the Seiyu. It was one of those, grocery store on the first floor, lumber on the second floor, clothes on the third floor sort of stores. It was kind of confusing, but at least I have a place I can buy groceries where nobody knows that I wandered in accidentally when they were closed. 

I wandered some more and found a kaitenzushi place, which is Japanese for conveyor belt sushi. I snagged some tasty deep-fried nuggets… of what I don’t know, but it was good. Chicken, maybe? Pork? Either way, it was good.

Then I found my Holy Grail: ootoro, my favorite cut of tuna. It’s the fattiest cut, and it goes down like butter.

It’s also 600 yen a plate, so I could only have one plate. I had a few more plates of other stuff, like egg sushi. But it was no ootoro.

I am now ruined for sushi.

I decided to skip Denny’s again, because my rule is one restaurant a day to keep the costs down. After first dinner, I went to the QuickMart for second dinner, because sushi doesn’t fill me up. Convenience store food here is good. Then I listened to a little ESPN, did a little antivirus scanning, and now I’m heading to bed.

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