Bic Camera – The Stupid American Tourist

Toughing it out

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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 æ›¸é“. 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.)

Towering Over Tokyo

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Dec 172011

The first full day of my fourth trip to Tokyo was hectic.

I started off with breakfast at the hotel. 1200 yen for the buffet. It’s pretty good. Some of it is a little unexpected, but that’s breakfast in Japan. The bacon was a bit bland to me, but I’m used to hickory-smoked bacon. On the upside, you can try out a Japanese-style breakfast, or chicken out and have your Western-style breakfast if fish is too much for early in the morning.

Anyway.

After breakfast, I went over to Bic Camera to check out the PS Vita. The crowds were crazy. Everyone wanted to look at it and try it out. The WiFi version was almost sold out, and I was tempted, but I had a hard time justifying the price, which would exceed 50,000 yen if I bought everything I wanted. That’s around $700 these days. No way. That’s more than my phone cost, and my phone can do a lot more without the geographic restrictions.

Here are a few gratuitous shots of Shinjuku on the way to JR Shinjuku. The skies were amazingly clear, so the skyline looked good:

I headed over to Tokyo station to go to the Travel Information Center there. It took me a while to find it. It’s not in the station proper– it’s outside, in a random, unmarked building. It needs better signage for us clueless tourists, because I walked past it a few times.

I got there and spent some time talking to the ladies behind the desk there. They had a lot of good ideas for things to do, and I grabbed a bunch of pamphlets. I’ll have to sort it all out later and figure out what I want to get done in this one week I have here. (Less than a week, really. 5-6 days, tops.)

What to do next… I know. I’ve wanted to go to the Tokyo Tower forever, but I have never been able to make it happen.

Towering Ambitions

So I hopped on a few trains, and got to the Tower after a bit of a walk. I had my camera, so I took a lot of pictures.

Waiting for my train in Otemachi subway station:

On the way out of the station near the Tower, I saw a map. I’m still not sure if it’s for the Tokyo Prince Hotel, or for the Tower:

Getting close to the Tower:

I took a few shots from outside before going in:

Detail shot:

There was a bit of a wait to get to the main observation deck, but I got there okay. It was crowded. Today you could see Mt. Fuji, so that view was exceptionally popular. It was popular with me, too!

I had my new circular polarizer, so I tried using it… and it failed utterly. The windows are coated with something that makes the polarizer do weird things.

See for yourself:

Yeah, even with a polarizer, sometimes I just got those weird ugly rainbows in my photos, so those went into the recycle bin. I had to use the lens bare, and deal with the reflections as I could. I did okay.

The views were beautiful. I stayed well after sunset.

Here are some of the shots I took:

You can see the new Tokyo Sky Tree under construction in the back:

I tried to make a panorama:

I really liked this shot in particular, even though there’s a reflection in one corner, and little artifacts. It’s just pretty to me:

And then there’s Mt. Fuji, which everyone was eager to get a picture of. I had my big heavy zoom lens on me, so getting shots of it was easier, but getting non-shaky in-focus shots was still hard, because the light was going, and I had to shoot around the crowds inside the observation deck. (And some photos had weird reflections in them, no matter what I tried.)

Some non-Mt. Fuji sights:

The sun is really going down now, so Mt. Fuji looks great!

The streets are in full light:

I really like this one:

I started to get tired and hungry, so I a snack at the cafe there. It was a little overpriced, but tasty. Then back to shooting photos!

It’s night now:

You can barely make out the Sky Tree in the background:

Here are a few shots I took with the IXY. I have no idea exactly when I took them, because the IXY clock is off. Still, this one is pretty:

Then I went downstairs to the museum/gift shop area and looked around. They had a special “Always” exhibit, about the movie. That was pretty cool. They even had a big scale model of the neighborhood in the movie.

While I was down there, I saw a flier for fireworks tonight by the Rainbow Bridge at 7:00. It was 6:20-ish. Maybe I could make it if I hurry.

Chasing Fireworks

I stopped outside the Tower to take a few more photos, and headed to the Oedo Line at Akabanebashi, then rode to Shiodome to grab the monorail.

A few last shots of the Tower and the surrounding Christmas lights:

I thought the “I heart Tower” sign was cute:

Even dentists do Christmas lights here:

On my way to try to catch the fireworks, I got a little lost transferring from the Oedo line to the Monorail, so I lost some precious minutes.

As I was riding the monorail (which is pretty cool, by the way), I saw the flashes in the background between the buildings, and missed the fireworks. I got to the Rainbow Bridge area by 7:15, and they were already long over.

Boo.

So I hopped back on the monorail, took it to the Oedo line, and headed back to Shinjuku for dinner.

Skewered.

I’ve seen Memory Lane on some TV travel shows. It’s an area in Shinjuku that’s supposed to give you a feel of Showa-era Tokyo dining. Narrow alleys, lots of small restaurants all bumping into each other. I thought, “Hey that might be fun.”

So I wandered around, and settled on a small place selling yakitori. I sat down and ordered some yakitori, and found out that there was a 300 yen “seat charge.”

Seriously?

I was hungry, and I hoped that maybe the food would be worth the 300 yen extra.

It wasn’t.

It was overcooked, chewy, and generally not very good. I’ve eaten a lot of yakitori. I know good and bad. That was bad, with an extra 300 yen thrown in to boot.

I left and grabbed something else at a conbini to make up for it, then wandered around a bit more. I stopped by Yodobashi Camera in Shinjuku to see if the Vitas were selling (the WiFi was), and then to Labi to see what they were doing. More of the same. I enjoy wandering through Japanese electronics stores, because they seem to be much more exciting than the products they’re selling. It’s not just a row of vacuum cleaners, it’s an exciting row of vacuum cleaners! Something like that.

By then it was late, so I went back to the hotel, and called it a night.

First Night in Kyoto

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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:

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:

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?

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.

Makes Me Want to Eat My Phone!

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Nov 132011

Started off the day by going to Book-Off in Okazaki on 248 to check on a few things. For starters, don’t even bother trying to find Japanese textbooks at Book-Off, because they don’t seem to carry them. I did find some other cheap books there, though.

I headed back to the apartment to drop off my used books, then headed to JR Okazaki to head off to Nagoya again. It was a late start, so I didn’t get to Nagoya until 3:30, and I finally got to Maruzen in Sakae around 4:30 or so. I spent a lot of time looking at book covers. Maruzen has a lot of book covers there, and in a lot of sizes, but unfortunately, they don’t have any big enough to deal with the ultra-thick books I’ve been buying lately.

I went back to the 3rd floor to look at the Japanese language education books again. They have a really good selection. I picked up some good practice books, because for some reason, I suck at particles. I really want to fix the stuff I keep getting wrong.

I Discovered Oatmeal!

Then I went to the grocery store next door, it’s in the Meiji-ya Sakae building. (Look for æ˜Žæ²»å±‹æ „.)

The store had a lot of neat “foreign” foods, and a nice selection. It even had Odlum’s Steel Cut Oats, which are sold in the U.S. as McCann’s. Of course, now I feel like a fool for shipping so much oatmeal over in the first place, but I had no idea they would have oatmeal, let alone proper steel cut oatmeal, in Japan. It’s really smashing stuff for breakfast.

Book-Off was having a 105 yen sale, so I grabbed a few books (yeah, I just bought some in Okazaki, now I’m buying more in Sakae).

After that, I headed over to Osu to see if I could find the Kenkyuusha dictionary for my electronic dictionary at the big electronics store there. No luck. I went to one of the used video game stores there, and found Valkyria Chronicles 3 for the PSP for 1200 yen.

This Time, Try Asking Someone

I decided to go back to JR Nagoya and check Bic Camera again to see if I could get my hands on that Kenkyuusha dictionary. This time I decided to ask around a bit. After some asking around and explaining, the salesperson found a copy of the dictionary I wanted. It’s the Kenkyuusha 5th edition å’Œè‹± dictionary for the Casio electronic dictionaries. Score!

I used all of the points I had saved up for now to reduce the cost of the dictionary by about 2500 yen. See, this is where point cards are really handy. A 12,000 yen dictionary only cost me about 9,500 yen. Still expensive, but much cheaper than the paper version, which runs around 20,000 yen, and it fits in my pocket. (Sort of.)

Makes Me Want to Eat My Phone

I looked around to see if I could find a privacy guard for my Nexus One. I couldn’t find one that would fit, but I did see a lot of crap I can glue on my cell phone.

They had all kinds of fake crystals and candy and cupcakes and such… I think I’ll pass for now. I don’t want to cut my hands to shreds on platic candy. (Or see plastic candy all the time and get hungry.)

All of this running around made me hungry, so I headed to Mokumoku again to store up on more vegetables and that great beef stew. I really needed those veggies, even if they cost 2500 yen. (Hey, it’s all you can eat.) Dinner was once again delicious, even if my wallet took a hit. I’ll make up for it during the week by eating cheaply.

I know, I could buy local vegetables and make them more cheaply, but I don’t have the time for it right now.

I made it back to JR Okazaki at 10 pm, and got home at about 10:15 or so. I stopped at Family Mart to get some sandwiches, because I eat Spartan during the week. (If Spartans ate pre-made convenience store ham sandwiches, anyway.)

Installing the Dictionary

I spent about an hour installing the dictionary. I had to run it in Vista emulation mode to get it to run in Win 7-64, then I had to load a piece of software from the Casio website just to get the laptop to recognize the electronic dictionary. Pain in the butt, but it works.

If you have trouble installing dictionaries or getting your Casio recognized by Windows 7, I would head to the Casio Japanese website and look for the bonus software for the Ex-Word series. Installing it will install the correct USB drivers for detecting the Ex-Word series of electronic dictionaries. Now you can run the install software on the dictionary disc.

The good news is that you only have to do it once.

The Student’s New Clothes

Now I need to find some big & tall sports clothes. My North Face shirts are rapidly disintegrating, and it’s getting colder these days. Apparently, the velcro on my pants is chewing up the special knit fabric on the North Face shirts, so the net effect is that my shirts are rapidly getting torn up.

Argh.

The main problem is that Japanese men’s clothing sizes don’t go much beyond the US M size. That’s right, their XL is just a bit baggier than our M.

Gettin’ Busy.

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Nov 022011

Classes are heating up. Things are getting more intense and busier, with full weeks of regular class, JBPP, and electives. We don’t get any holidays this quarter, either.

And I have my first big exam on Friday, which covers 3 chapters of the book. I’m already making a grammar outline. We’ve got a listening/dictation test as well. Fun.

I Found a Better Price, Now What?

So I found the same electronic dictionary I bought this past weekend for 10,000 yen less elsewhere, but I really don’t want to go through the hassle of returning it, then buying another one on the other side of Nagoya. Is there something I can do about it?

The answer is yes!

I got some really useful advice from V-san, one of my classmates. She said to take the electronic dictionary back to Bic, and tell them that I found it cheaper. She said they’re really good about matching competitors’ prices. I’ll have to give it a try this weekend.

We had phone practice in JBPP today. How to answer the phone, hold basic conversations, etc. It’s one thing to do it in everyday Japanese, but entirely something different to do it in business Japanese, with the emphasis on proper use of å°Šæ•¬èªž (ãã‚“ã‘ã„ã”, sonkeigo) and è¬™è²èªž (ã‘ã‚“ã˜ã‚‡ã†ã”, kenjogo.) There are lots of complex phrases to remember, which are essentially really polite versions of the same thing. But which degree of politeness you need to use is important to know.

ã”ã‚ã”ã‚ and é›»åè¾žæ›¸ (Gorogoro and Denshi Jisho)

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Oct 292011

It’s Saturday, and for once it’s not raining. It’s not really sunny, but it’s not raining. I’ll take what I can get. My electronic dictionary is dying, so I’m off to Nagoya to buy a new one, among other things.

I got a bit of a late start, because I felt like lying around a little bit and just generally loafing around the apartment. There’s a good Japanese verb for this: ã”ã‚ã”ã‚ã™ã‚‹ (gorogorosuru). It just means to loaf around. Yep. I did that until about 2 pm or so, then headed to the station and grabbed a train.

First stop was the Mermaid Cafe, to grab lunch. I wanted something simple, because for the past few weeks my stomach hasn’t been in top form. The Mermaid just does simple sandwiches and some basic pastries, and none of it is very greasy. I love their iced cocoa.

Finding a New Electronic Dictionary

Then it was off to Bic Camera, to stare at row upon row of electronic dictionaries. They have changed a lot in the 4 years since I bought my last one. Lots of color screens now, and lots of extra features, most of which I do not need. It was frustrating trying to find one dictionary that had all of the features I want, without a bunch of stuff I don’t.

The features I want are no longer available, and the dictionaries I want, I have to pay extra for. I wound up forking over 38,000 yen for the Casio Ex-Word business model. Handing over that kind of money is painful, but it has a lot of the stuff I want in it, and to be honest, I’m going to use it for at least the next four years. So I’ll pay extra to get that later.

If I think of it as a stack of 10 really useful dictionaries, and another 20 or so useful-ish dictionaries, in a form factor that’s searchable across all of them with relative ease, it’s totally worth it.

One thing it has that I really want is a working NHK accent dictionary that pronounces words through the little speaker. It’s awesome. Now I can get the pitch accent right if I’m inclined to worry about it.

I’ll review the Casio later, when I’ve had time to play with it more.

I spent a good hour or so staring, reading, poking, and buying.

When I think back to using paper dictionaries when I first started learning Japanese, there’s just no comparison. Electronic is the way to go. Even a cheap electronic dictionary is faster and easier than the best paper dictionaries.

Osu!

Done with buying at Bic, I headed back to JR Nagoya, and it was really pretty in the afternoon light:

After that, it was off to Osu (å¤§é ˆ,ã€€ãŠãŠã™), a big shopping district with a giant covered shopping arcade and a famous temple. It’s a lot like Osaka’s Dotonbori area, or Tokyo’s Ameyokocho, with some Akihabara mixed in.

I spent a few hours wandering around in there, just looking at shops. I stumbled across the Osu Kanon Temple at some point. It’sÂ pretty famous in the area. I snapped a couple of photos.

As I was leaving the temple, I lucked out. It was just turning 5 p.m., so the giant clock was striking, and a little exhibition or play of sorts was starting.

The reflections in the window were pretty bad. The IXY just couldn’t handle them.

Sort of like mechanical dolls, set to music. They did their dance, and everyone enjoyed it.

And then it went back to being a clock again.

I went back to strolling. I found a pretty big electronics store that was pretty cool. It had all kinds of stuff, most of which was cheaper than Bic. Including the electronic dictionary that I just bought. (Ouch.) Same color and everything. (OUCH!) About 10,000 yen cheaper. (Ouch, OUCH!)

On the first floor, there was a sort of a community market of electronics and random stuff, where people just set up stalls. One guy had a bunch of great old shortwave radios. Oh how I lusted after his radios, but they were hideously expensive. He knew he had good merchandise, and it was priced accordingly. There were also guys selling old vacuum tubes– you name it. It was a lot like a mini-Akihabara.

If you wander to the street just north of the covered street markets, you’ll find a few used video game stores and some manga stores and the like, if that’s your kind of thing. There are some games I want to buy, but I’ll probably wait until I’m in Tokyo to buy them, because I can probably get them cheaper there. (I will probably learn to regret this.)

There’s also a Mandarake if you like toys and other collectibles. (Who doesn’t like toys?)

After that, it was off to Hisayaodori for some book shopping.

On the way, a couple of snaps of the Nagoya TV Tower. Yes, this shot is blurry, but I LIKE it:

Less blurry but not as cool version:

I picked up a few things to read, then went back to the station.

Couchin is Japanese for “This Chicken is DELICIOUS!”

I was hungry, and it was getting late, so I decided to head back to the area around Nagoya Station. I went back to the 12th and 13th floors of Takeshimaya, because there are a ton of good restaurants there. This time, I went to a place called Torigoten, because it specializes in Nagoya Couchin, which is a special kind of chicken that’s supposed to be super delicious.

I was feeling kind of run-down anyway, so chicken anything was on my radar. All of the restaurants had huge waits. This restaurant had a relatively short wait. So I sat for only 25 minutes until I got a seat at the bar. That’s not too bad for Nagoya Station on a Saturday night.

I ordered a Couchin set meal that consisted of a really good Oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl, with some chicken broth), and some kishimen (a flat noodle that’s a specialty of the Nagoya region) in a chicken broth served with cooked chicken.

Just what I needed, because I was still feeling crummy from my cold that I had a few weeks back. Still feels like there’s a frog in my throat.

After that, I missed the 8:42 train juuuust barely, but it was okay, because that meant I could get a seat on the 8:58 train home. I got back to Okazaki at about 9:30 or so, then got home at about 9:45 or so.

Long day, but fun.

It’s Saturday, So It Must Be Nagoya.

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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 donâ€™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 Cameraâ€™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.

Hot Doughnuts Now! Shinjuku, Takashimaya Times Square, Krispy Kreme!

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Nov 132007

Busy day today, with ups, downs, and a Krispy Kreme sighting.

I started off at 9:30 by running to Ikebukuro to buy a suitcase. Ugh. But I did find one. It’s not the best one I could find, but it was the right mix of cheap and not too shabby.

Then breakfast, which was more department store food. I love the depachika. (Depachika is Japanese for the basement, or bottom, so chika, of the department store, or depaato. So depachika.)

After that, I ran to Akasaka to meet up with Peter Galante, the host of japanesepod101.com’s many podcasts. I really like the podcasts, and it helped me a lot in getting ready for my trip here. I highly recommend the survival lessons. Especially the ones about trains and buses. Seriously. Don’t underestimate the importance of understanding the mass transit system here, because otherwise you’ll wind up like that poor lost Norwegian guy, adrift in Shinjuku.

You’ll probably feel overwhelmed and confused the first time you get here, anyway. No need to add to it.

It was fun meeting Peter, and I appreciate his listening to me ramble for 40 minutes. Sorry about that, Peter. I’m not always that talkative.

No, really, I’m not.

After that, it was back to Akihabara to raid some more shops. If you’re a nerd, you need to go to Akihabara, and be prepared to spend money. Of course, spending money implies buying things, and buying things implies carrying them around with you. If you live somewhere like New York City, you know this already. If you’re like me, and you live in the suburbs, then you need to consider it. I’m used to buying things, and putting them into my car. So I can buy a lot of heavy stuff without much thought. (Not that I do it often, but I do it.)

I went with my trusty backpack, which my girlfriend gave me before I went off to grad school. It has a lot of nice memories attached to it, but it has one little problem. Not to gross people out, but it makes my back sweat. And back sweat is probably one of the least appealing things you can show when wearing a charcoal gray shirt.

If you’re buying crap, consider your carrying strategies.

I raided Yodobashi Camera’s big store in Akihabara again. I found some nice game-related books there… so much data, it makes me want to cry when I look at the U.S. books.

After that, I went to Gamers’, and bought more manga there. There are sooo many good series over here that either haven’t or won’t come to the U.S. anytime soon. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering in and out of various stores, browsing. If I did live here, I’d have a serious space problem, because I’d have a house full of gadgets and books.

But no Hello Kitty robots.

Probably.

Hot Doughnuts, Hot Doughnuts!

By around 4 or so, I was exhausted. So I headed back to Shinjuku before the crowds on the trains got out of hand. I took a break, rested up, started going through all of my receipts for Customs (ugh), and then decided to go to Tokyo Cityview in Roppongi for evening fun.

On the way there, I decided to stop at Kinokuniya to try to hunt down a few novels again. (Last time was a miserable failure.) So I got there at 7:50…. just as they were about to close at 8.

Seriously, can’t I get a break?

I did see something interesting on the way– a Krispy Kreme. In Shinjuku. Not 100 meters from my hotel. And the Hot Doughnuts Now sign was lit. But the line was not only out the door, it wrapped all over itself about 5 times. No hot doughnuts for me. But I did have a nice warm fuzzy feeling seeing it, and the thought of Krispy Kreme in Japan just made me laugh out loud. People looked at me funny, but I’m used to it.

Photos:

Is that… a Krispy Kreme?

OMG It IS! Look at that line! And the Hot Doughnuts Now sign is lit!

Mmm… Hot Doughnuts… sadly, no time to stand in line!

Some shots of JR Shinjuku from the bridge to Takashimaya and Kinokunia:

Christmas Lights at Tahashimaya:

Roppongi

Then it was off to Roppongi. And I finally figured out what made my headache on Sunday worse– the Oedo line. Seriously, it’s the loudest subway line in the world. It screams and groans like an angry rusted giant robot who hasn’t been oiled in 1,000 years trying to run across Tokyo.

By the time I got to Roppongi, I was feeling icky again, so I looked around a little, and wisely cut my trip short. It’s not going anywhere. I’ll catch it next time.

I took a few photos.

Roppongi Hills:

Tokyo Tower from Roppongi Hills:

Back to Shinjuku

Then it was back to the conbini, then the hotel. Now I need to finish packing and get ready to head home tomorrow.

I’ve had a great time in Japan. It hasn’t always been easy. In fact, there were some frustrating times, some hard times, and some times I just wanted to go home. But those times tended to pass, and the more I stayed here, the more I loved it here.

When I travel, I like to have “Wow!” experiences. I usually consider myself lucky if I have one or two. I had so many on this trip, I lost count.

I highly recommend coming to Japan, but not just planting your butt in Tokyo. Yes, Tokyo is great, but Tokyo isn’t Japan. Japan is a big country with a wide range of regional variation, and a lot of interesting cities, both big and small. Just going to Tokyo to judge Japan is like just going to NYC to judge the U.S. What about the Grand Canyon? Or … well, there’s a lot of other stuff out there. I’m tired.

When I get back home, I’ll sort out my thoughts properly, and post them on the blog.

Senso-ji and Akiba Fun, Part Two, Akihabara, Ikebukuro, etc.

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Nov 122007

Akihabara

So on to Akihabara, or Akiba as everyone calls it here.

First, I stopped at Asakusabashi station again, as I transferred from the subway to the JR line. I had a wait, so I took some more photos of Asakusabashi station:

Asakusabashi platform:

Roof detail:

Signal lights:

My train came in, and I made it to Akihabara.

First off was Yodobashi Camera. It’s just.. wow. A 10-story monstrosity full of electronics. It’s where nerds go after they die. It’s like 4 or 5 Best Buys stacked on top of each other, only with really cool stuff, and no lame junk.

No joke, it’s big:

But since I didn’t have a point card there, I decided to search for Bic Camera in Akiba, because I do have a Bic point card with a lot of points on it.

Thus begins my Fool’s Errand.

You see, there isn’t a Bic Camera in Akiba. But I didn’t know that… yet.

Before I started searching, I had some business to attend to. As you exit the JR Akihabara Station on the Yodobashi Camera side, off to the left you’ll see a small glass building called Oasis. It offers two things. A smoking room and a 100 yen pay toilet.

You might scoff at a pay toilet, but it’s a damn fine pay toilet. That was easily the best 100 yen I spent in Tokyo so far.

You enter, and a receptionist greets you with a polite bow. Then you head to the bathrooms, where you can deposit your 100 yen coin or just tap your Suica card and it’ll deduct the 100 yen automatically. Then the frosted glass door opens, and you walk into the nicest public toilet in Tokyo. (Well, the nicest I’ve seen so far.)

There aren’t stalls so much as there are small rooms with sliding, locking doors, and plenty of room to maneuver. You also get a powered-up shower toilet, soft fluffy paper, and a touchless sink. You can wash your hands and dry them without touching anything. So nice.

Controls!

Then it was off to Chelsea Market in JR Akiba for a burger. Nice, but kind of odd. Had a weird curry-based sauce on it, but pretty good.

After that, it was time to begin my Fool’s Errand! As I was walking around Akiba, I found the Toranoana Main Store. Oh, look! Manga! So I started climbing the stairs.

Hmm… they sure do sell a lot of comics here with guys with no shirts on hugging other guys… with no shirts on.

Oh, wait– comics without shirtless guys are next door. I guess that would explain some of the looks I got from some of the patrons on that side of the store.

So I looked in next door– ah, this is more like it! No more shirtless guy comics! Stuff I might actually read!

But before I started to load myself down with more manga, I needed to make a trip to Bic Camera. (Which still doesn’t have a branch in Akihabara, but I didn’t know that yet.) So more walking around.

My Fool’s Errand completed, I went back to Toranoana, where I loaded up on manga and light novels…. you know, to help me improve my Japanese. I got into manga while learning Japanese. It’s really handy to read, because the language is usually pretty simple, and some titles (usually aimed at younger audiences) provide furigana readings over the kanji, so you can look them up more easily.

Of course, I also like electronics, and the weirder, the better. So Akihabara is a natural sort of place for me. I found some stores selling all kinds of weird old stuff, and some stuff that brought back good memories.

I could spend a week in Akihabara and not have spent enough time there. All kinds of electronics, video games, and books. Fun.

Then it was back to the station to pick up some dinner for later at Vie de France, then on the train back to Shinjuku.

JR Akihabara platform:

Densha no Koto

A word about trains (again? Yes, again.) As you go from Shinjuku to the east, the Chuo and Soba lines run parallel until you hit Ochanomizu, then they split. The Chuo goes on to Tokyo Station, and the Soba goes to Akihabara. So in order to go from Shinjuku to Akiba, you need to switch lines at Ochanomizu.

It sounds like a pain in the butt, but it’s actually amazingly smooth. As the Chuo Rapid pulls in, a Soba local is pulling in the other side of the platform. So just hop from one train to the next. Smooth as silk. Same for hopping from the Soba to the Chuo. That’s brilliant.

Tonight I’m going to hit Kinokuniya one last time, then hit Bic to buy stuff. (And an extra suitcase. Yeesh.) If I’m careful about how I work it, I’ll be able to plow through all of my remaining Bic points. *Fingers crossed.*

Tomorrow is…. well, that’s something I’ll worry about later tonight. I’m going to stop by the japanesepod101.com studios to say ‘hi!’ (they said I could), then I’ll try to hit Shibuya to get a photo of Hachiko and see 109. Then… MORE AKIBA! Maybe I’ll go to City View in Roppongi tomorrow night, too. Dunno.

For Wednesday, I’ve already scheduled a late checkout for 2PM. It’s a little expensive, but worth it. That way, when I check out, I can just head straight for the airport and crash at the Admiral’s Club until my flight leaves at 7PM, and I don’t have to mess with having to find a place to put my bags for 4 hours. I’ll probably just take the Chuo to Kanda, then the Yamanote to Ueno, then the Keisei Skyliner to Narita Terminal 2. Or I could just take the Narita Express from Shinjuku, huh?

Time Jump

A few hours later…

At 6 or so I headed to Ikebukuro to the Bic Camera store there, because it’s supposed to be the biggest one in Tokyo. It’s actually in 2 different buildings. In one of the buildings, they have some stuff, and in the other, they have more of the same stuff. The difference is that in the newer building, they have luggage on the 8th floor. I should have bought it there. I should have, dagnabbit.

But I figured that if they had it in Ikebukuro, they’d have it at Shinjuku. So anyway, after futzing around in Ikebukuro for a bit, I couldn’t seem to find anything that I wanted.

Don’t Worry, that Stunned Look is Normal

So I went to Shinjuku. And helped a Norwegian guy buy a Suica card. The poor guy was so lost… he said, “I just came here from Kobe, and I’m totally confused.” I reassured him– Tokyo does that to everyone. It took me a little time to digest Tokyo as well. But now that I have a basic grip on things, and the Tokyo Street Map by Kodansha (in EN and JP), I’m okay.

Seriously, if you’ve never been to Tokyo, you’ll have that same stunned look on your face, too, when you try to navigate it. Eventually I got the hang of it, but at first, I felt like I was walking in mud as my brain tried to process everything. It felt good to help someone through that, even if it was only a little bit.

After helping the poor lost dude, I went to the Bic there. I found one of the things I wanted, and some privacy screens for my DS and my PSP. (Ah, privacy!) But no luggage.

Laundry Time!

By then it was 8:45, and everything was closing, so I headed back to eat some dinner, crash for a few minutes, and then head out to find the laundromat in Yoyogi they told me about at the front desk.

It took a little figuring out, but thanks to the street atlas, I actually found it. Right next to the neighborhood sento (public bath). Fortunately, it was open til midnight, so I could get all my laundry done. It was getting fragrant. Not like a flower.

When all was said and done, I got back around midnight.

But I had to have my clothes clean– I was down to the emergency clothes, and they were a little… ripe.

Rick Steves talks about doing laundry on the road. He says it’s a good thing to do, to meet locals and get local flavor. I agree this time. While it can be a bit of a nuisance to find a laundromat in Japan (or anything else that isn’t a tourist attraction), it’s totally worth it to see daily-life Japan. And by doing laundry and packing less, you save money on expensive hotel laundry, and you save space for those important souvenirs. (Or books, in my case. Lots of books.)

Tomorrow I’ll get up extra early to make a quick run to Ikebukuro to buy a suitcase. They open at 10, and I plan on rushing the door.

Then I’ll run back to Shinjuku, and my day can actually start.

In 42:30, I’ll be on a plane back to the States.

Shoot.

Tokyoverload.

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Nov 082007

Leaving Sendai

Finally made it to Tokyo. A brief synopsis of the day: First, a jar of KitKats. Yep, a glass jar full of KitKats. Never seen one of those! I got up early to make my 10 a.m. checkout, went to the station, and made some calls overseas to the family. (Hi family!) I took some photos of the area around JR Sendai: I headed into the station (JR Sendai): A little closer in: Here’s my ride to Tokyo, another Max Yamabiko: Then I hopped on my last Shinkansen, the Hayate 10. It only took an hour and a half to get to Tokyo from Sendai. Nice. I’m a little bummed that I can’t ride anymore for a while. Riding super-fast express trains is really nice. I love the idea of getting somewhere without having to mess around with airport security. I can just grab my bag, grab a train, and get somewhere fast without the body cavity search.

Arriving in Tokyo

When I got to Tokyo, before I left the platform, I took some photos of the shinkansen engines in the vicinity. These were taken with my cell phone camera, so they’re kind of grainy: One last shot of the platform: Tokyo station is big, full of shops, and it can be a little overwhelming. The info desk was my first target, and it turned out to be a miss. No English language info I could find. Oh well. I went to the map and figured out how to get to Shinjuku by myself. I grabbed a Rapid train on the Chuo line, and got to Shinjuku in about 15 minutes. I’m glad I picked the Chuo line instead of the Yamanote line, because there was an accident on the Yamanote line, and it was delayed. The Yamanote line is a very useful train line in Tokyo. It goes in a huge loop around the “center” of the city. I use quotes because the city is so huge… and really center-less. But the Yamanote will save you, usually. The Chuo line is useful because it cuts across the middle of the Yamanote doughnut, and it has rapid and express trains that skip the custard in the middle. Anyway, I made it to Shinjuku.

Shinjuku Shuffle

Shinjuku is a bit chaotic. For starters, the station is big, and it’s got a lot of people trying to go in 800 different directions all at once. This can make things confusing. Since I already knew where I wanted to go, it wasn’t such a big deal. I just chose to move a little slowly to get there without getting crushed. Finding the hotel wasn’t too bad, either. I just used my powers of deduction, and found a map. (With North pointing down again, of course.) This is where having the Tokyo City Atlas by Kodansha, or Time Out Tokyo can be a real lifesaver, because both have good maps, and you will need good maps. Now, the hotel. It’s the Hotel Sunroute Shinjuku. Granted, I’m paying a little bit extra for this room. It’s running me $120 a night. But oh my god is it awesome. Right now, I’m staring at the best room view I’ve had in a loooong time, and the best one in Japan so far. (Sorry Hiroshima.) I’m looking out over the skyscrapers in Shinjuku. It’s an impressive view. (Photos were taken on a few different days.) The chair is comfy, the room has A/C or heating, whichever I want, a full range of soaps/shampoos, even shaving cream, an HDTV that doesn’t suck, ethernet (although the connection is a little sucky), a fridge, a humidifier, pants press, you name it. 10/10 so far. Even the keys are cool. They use RFIDs instead of swipe keys, so you just touch the key to the door, and it unlocks. My hotel room is really nice (taken the day I left Japan, actually, but it fits in this post): The only freaky thing is the glass door to the bathroom, and the window in the bathroom. That’s kind of… weird. In a sort of cool but not altogether uncreepy sort of way, if you get my drift. Oh! And before I forget– I found out why rooms are so scarce– the Tokyo Motor Show is still going on. At least I think that’s the reason… Either way, as soon as I can translate the flyer, I’ll go find it and check it out. I think. Maybe? There’s so much I want to do here, I’m suffering from overload. Ugh. (time jump of a few hours)

Shopping

I just got back from wandering around a bit. I went to the big Kinokuniya (a book store), the one by Takashimaya (a huge dept. store), and just wandered for an hour or so, totally lost. There are so many books I want to get, but I honestly don’t know where to start. Add to that 6 floors of books, and, well… I have a feeling that when I go to Akihabara, I’m going to be a mess. I know one thing I really want to buy, but I can’t afford… a laptop with a JP keyboard on it. I used a JP keyboard in Okazaki, and it makes switching over from EN to JP soooo much easier. But yeah… Kinokuniya is totally overwhelming to me. I guess I’ll just have to go once a day until I get comfortable or something. After that, it was Takashimaya’s basement for dinner. So much good food… but so expensive compared to the other department stores I’ve been to. Yikes. I had some tonkatsu chunks (yum), some more yakitori with negi, a sandwich, and some salad. One bummer- the person I was going to meet to talk about working here… had to go back to the US for an emergency. Shoot.

After Dinner Stroll

After dinner, I headed out to the electronics stores in Shinjuku. There’s a huge Bic Camera there, as well as a monstrously huge Yodobashi Camera. I think that one spans eight buildings. After checking out Bic, I headed over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building for the free observation deck on the 45th floor. Heading to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building: What’s the best thing you can say about the 45th floor observation level? Well… it’s free. The views are nice, but forget about getting a really good picture. Too much glare on the windows. And yes, there are some horrendous souvenir shops there, too. And evil toy machines from hell. Views from the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building: After that, I started to head back “home.” I stopped at Yodobashi Camera, and they were still open. They only closed at 10:00 p.m. Wow, Tokyo sure is different from the rest of Japan. If this was Nagano, all we’d see are tumbleweeds at 10 p.m. Nice store, but it was too close to closing time to check it out. I stopped by the conbini across the street from my hotel. No decent food there. I need to find a 7-11 or a Lawson or something. I did some research, and the Tokyo Motor Show is in Chiba, so I’m not going. Chiba is way out by Narita, and that would just kill a day I can’t afford to kill. Tomorrow will be a shopping day, I think. I’ll do some of that to clear my head and then settle on some touristy stops later. That way I can make sure to bring home what I want to bring home, ya know?

More Osaka: Giant Crab vs. Giant Octopus vs. Guy in a Clown Suit

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Nov 032007

It’s Saturday in Osaka, and time to go see more stuff. This will be my last full day in Kansai, so I want to make the most of it. I got up at 8 a.m., slowly got my act together, and made sure to get to the Osaka Aquarium (Kaiyukan) by 10:00 a.m., when it opened.

Osaka Aquarium

If you wind up in Osaka on a weekend, and you don’t get to that aquarium within 10 minutes of it opening, you’re done for. Luckily, I got there about 5 minutes after it opened, so the crowds were only annoying, instead of mind-bogglingly crushing.

About a block from the aquarium, there’s a Ferris wheel:

Then there’s another building. In front of that, there was an exhibit of art made from recycled objects by kids (You can see the aquarium looming in the background):

Then I got to the aquarium:

Which was already decorated for Christmas. (Early for U.S. standards.):

Then up the stairs on the right to the entrance:

The Aquarium is pretty good. If you don’t speak Japanese, then I recommend getting one of those mildly-annoying audio guides in English for 300 yen, because all of the exhibit explanations are in Japanese only. It’s handy because it turns on as you enter each exhibit, and stops talking when you leave the exhibit.

The only downside is that the script and the reader come off as a little difficult to understand. But it’s understandable enough to get an idea of what’s going on.

The exhibits were all pretty impressive, especially the whale shark. That was huge. They also had seals, sea lions, dolphins, sea otters, and fish as well, in all sorts of environments.

There were also plenty of opportunities to buy stuff. I wound up buying some post cards for my nephew, so he can get an idea of the exhibits there. Everything else was in Japanese, so he would have had to learn the language to get anything out of it. Then again, it couldn’t hurt him to have another language under his belt.

As I left the building at a little after 11 a.m., the hordes were arriving in force. The lines stretched out the door. So go early or don’t go on a weekend.

I saw the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga about 12-13 years ago, and while the one in Osaka is good, the one in Tennessee is better. I haven’t seen the one in Atlanta yet, although I hear it’s even more impressive. The Kaiyukan is good at giving you an idea of what’s in the waters of Japan, as well as all over the world.

There was also a double-size replica of the Santa Maria to ferry people over to the area where Universal Studios Japan is.

I have no idea why it was the Santa Maria.

But this is Japan, after all. They do things here that make perfect sense for them, and confuse the heck out of us foreigners. I’m already used to it by now.

Another shot of the harbor area (near the Santa Maria):

USJ in the Bag

I had mentioned yesterday that USJ was in my plans for today, but I had to make an executive decision– do I blow 1,500 yen to get there, then another 5,100 yen just on admission to see something I pretty much saw in Orlando? Or do I go back to the hotel, eat lunch, rest for a few minutes, then go to Dotonbori?

Well, duh.

I bagged USJ. I’ll visit it the next time I’m in Osaka. Or Orlando.

Dotonbori

After recharging batteries, itâ€™s time to go to Dotonbori, America-mura, Ebisubashi, and the Kamigata Ukiyoe Museum.

Leaving the hotel:

First off, Dotonbori.

It’s a bustling area around the river in Minami. It’s this wild collection ofÂ wild stores with even wilder signs. Is it fun? Of course it’s fun!

How is it spelled? I’ve seen it as “Dotombori” and “Dotonbori.” This sign says “Dotonbori, so I’ll go with it:

I needed food. I found the takoyaki stand with the biggest line, and waited 10 minutes for excellent takoyaki. (Takoyaki is a grilled octopus dumpling that Osaka’s famous for.) It’s screaming hot, so if you’re not careful, you’ll burn the heck out of your mouth.

The line:

The stand:

I took a lot of pictures around the area while wandering around. It’s a fun area to wander and people-watch. Just stay out of the pachinko parlors if you value your hearing. I’m not sure why, but apparently there’s some rule that every pachinko parlor has to be louder than a jet plane taking off.

Hey, don’t look at me. Rules are rules.

Some more photos:

Kuidaore Taro, locally famous:

Giant Crab!

An octopus eating takoyaki? Cannibal!

Hotel with interesting columns:

This one is a restaurant with a ship for a sign:

All Ferrengi will worship this guy (because he has the lobes for business!):

I may have mentioned this before, but Dotonbori is famous for its canals, which people have been known to jump in whenever the Hanshin Tigers when the Japanese Professional Baseball Championship. (Not very often.)

Another canal:

A lot of the canals have barriers to keep people from jumping in. I can’t figure out why anyone would want to, but I guess that’s a local thing.

Ukiyoe Museum

After blowing a few hundred yen on a UFO catcher (a crane game where you pay $10 to try to win a $3 toy), it was off to the Ukiyoe museum. I think I mentioned it yesterday, but ukiyoe is a style of art used to depict famous scenes from Japanese Theater in the 19th century. If you think of traditional Japan, you will probably get the image of an ukiyoe in your head. It’s hard not to.

Or just look at the poster in the photo below:

The museum has a collection of prints from the 19th century. If you’re a history buff or you’re in to art, then I recommend it. The museum itself is a little small, so you can get through it in less than an hour, which is pretty good for an art museum.

After looking at prints, it was time to hit the gift shop. Cute Things were found and purchased. I swear, Japan knows I’m a sucker for Cute Things. (But most of these are souvenirs for other people.)

America Mura

I set off to see what the big deal about America Mura is about. I’m still not quite sure, to be honest, and I was there.

I suppose you could buy clothes there or something? I wasn’t really feeling it.

Shinsaibashi

After America Mura, I wandered some more in Shinsaibashi, another shopping district/arcade just north of Dotonbori. It’s basically a long city street with a roof overhead.

One of the entry points:

I found some hard-to-find souvenirs, and had a delicious custard and chocolate crepe. They make great crepes in Japan. You can get them filled with all kinds of stuff, too. I’m sure you can get them in the U.S., but I’ve never seen lines like that for crepes.

Pro tip: In Japan, if you see a lot of people standing in line for a restaurant and you have an hour or two free, join them in line. Whatever they’re waiting for is probably good enough to make your head explode with one bite. Japan is full of people who will patiently wait 2 hours for a cheeseburger if the cheeseburger is the best damn cheeseburger you’ve ever eaten in your entire life.

I also found Atari-ya? Oh, another pachinko parlor. Dang. Got me all excited for nothing.

On the way back to the hotel, look! Glico Man! He’s another Thing that’s Famous Because It’s Famous:

I wandered some more then went back to the hotel to recharge.

Den-Den Town, Bic Camera

Recharged, I set out for Den-Den Town, the Osaka version of Akihabara (the electronics and nerd wish fulfillment zone) and realized too late that I was stupid again. Everything in Den-Den Town closes at 7 p.m., or just about everything. A lot of shopping areas in Japan are like that. If you want to fully experience a shopping area, you have to do it by 7 p.m. You can’t just set out at 7 and hope to catch stores still open. You’ll only get 1/3rd or 1/4th of them that way. The rest of the stores– you know, the ones with the really cool stuff? Yeah, they closed at 7. More like 6:50.

There’s always Akihabara in Tokyo, I guess. I’m still kind of bummed about it, but I think I’ll live.

I stopped by Bic Camera, Osaka style. They were having a deal where you got extra points if you bought something today, so I bought a Japanese PS2. Now I just have to figure out how to carry it around with me for the next week or two. Hey, that is considered a learning aid in my book.

I went back to the hotel to rest a little, and play a little FFTA-2 (itâ€™s awesome), then I went out for dinner.

BBQ, Korean Style

Dinner was great. I found a Korean barbecue place right down the street, and after a few false starts and some odd words on the menu I had never heard of before, I got a lot of tasty slices of raw meat, which I then cooked on the grill built in to the table. I love Korean barbecue now. This trip has totally spoiled me, food-wise. I donâ€™t know how Iâ€™m going to scratch my culinary itches in the States now. Pardon me while I go sob quietly in a corner to myself.

…

I still havenâ€™t seen any really weird vending machines here. Iâ€™ve seen ones for beer, cigarettes, drinks, laundry detergent, PPV TV at hotels, ice cream, tickets to enter attractions, camera film, newspapers, and thatâ€™s about it. I havenâ€™t seen any really weird stuff yet. Iâ€™m going to have to find some now.

Homeless Problem

Japan has a homeless problem. They may not want to admit it, and they may want to ignore it, but itâ€™s there. As soon as Den-Den Town was shutting down, lots of homeless people were bringing their cardboard boxes out and building temporary shelters for the night. I guess every society has the same problems, and no good solutions.

But every city I’ve been in now, I’ve seen lots of homeless people trying to build shelters at night, or camped out in parks. I hope for their sake that either the government or local organizations can get a handle on this problem.

Travel Tips (How to Use Public Transport Effectively!)

The best trick for saving money and hassle on riding the subways? Itâ€™s the minimum fare trick. Go to the ticket machine, dump in a few hundred yen, and buy the cheapest ticket you can. When you get where youâ€™re going, if you have to pay more fare, you do it at the fare adjustment machine, and it will give you change. Very simple, very easy, and you donâ€™t wind up overpaying for your subway ticket. (And you don’t wind up missing your train while you try to guess what your fare is going to be.) Better than buying tickets is using one of those fare cards, if they have one in your area.

Buses. Buses are very important to figure outÂ how to use while in Japan, because itâ€™s the only way youâ€™ll be able to get to some places that aren’t served by trains. Also, taxis can get expensive.

Get on the bus. In some places, a little ticket dispenser will issue you a numbered ticket. (Usually something from 1-40.) Itâ€™s telling you what stop you got on the bus. Then as you ride, youâ€™ll see a big board with stop numbers and fares by the driverâ€™s head. That board will tell you how much money you pay if you want to get off now.

When you get to your stop, check your number, look at the board, and dump the ticket and the exact change into the hopper. If you need change, use the change machine built into it. You wonâ€™t get change back from dropping a 500 yen coin into the hopper. I learned this the hard way. When in doubt, ask. Also, when youâ€™re going to be riding a lot of buses, ask if there’s a card that lets you use it all day. It saves you from having to mess with the tickets and the coins.

But make sure it’s worth the money first– it isn’t always a good deal.

For example, in Kyoto, some of the buses are 220 yen flat fare buses. Those are the ones to places like Kinkakuji. If you’re just going to Kinkakuji for the day, or that area, the 500 yen all-day pass isn’t worth it, because you’ll only spend 440 yen on fares.

I got interviewed by some people from the Osaka Chamber of Commerce or something similar. They wanted to know the most famous Osakan I could think ofâ€¦ and I guessed Toyotomi Hideyoshi. (I think thatâ€™s his name, anyway.) Heâ€™s the guy who had the castle built. Heh. They also wanted to know what I thought about Osakaâ€™s famous foods. So I told them- takoyaki is good, but the octopus is a little too chewy for my taste. Okonomiyaki is the clear choice. I could eat that every day. (Insert Homer Simpson drooling noise here.)

Tomorrow, I head to Nagano.

Hiroshima/Fukuoka. Hello Kitty Robot Overlords.

Japan, Photos, Travel Comments Off

Nov 012007

Last night in Hiroshima I tried to do laundry again. It’s not always easy to find a hotel that has coin-operated washers that work. Even though the 5,000-7,000 yen a night business hotels tend to have them, they aren’t always in the best shape.

I give you the hotel I stayed in last night as an example. The washing machine was fine. It did an admirable job of washing. But the dryers were all way too tiny, and either didn’t dry the clothes or just squealed like a pig being stabbed with a rusty icepick.

I asked the clerk if there was a laundromat (they call them “Coin Laundry” in Japan) nearby, and he showed me where one was.

Now, usually when I stay near the station, it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s shiny and new, and other times it’s a bit on the older side. Hiroshima has a little of both. Some shiny right next to some not-so-shiny.

The laundromat was a tiny little one with some old machines, and an older couple, who were the owners, working on them.

I asked the man which dryer was the best, and he steered me to the one he just finished repairing. Then I wound up chatting with them in half-Japanese, half-English for the next 45 minutes or so. Turns out they were really nice down-to-earth people. It was a lot of fun talking to them.

Leaving Hiroshima for Fukuoka–Err, I Mean Hakata!

I went back to the hotel, got some sleep, and got up at 8 a.m. to catch my 10 a.m. train to Fukuoka/Hakata. If you want to go to Fukuoka, make sure you tell them you want Hakata Station, not Fukuoka Station. (JR Fukuoka is somewhere in Northern Tohoku, like 1,200 Km away or something.) It was about an hour and a quarter to Fukuoka/Hakata, but much of it was in tunnels, so the scenery wasn’t so hot. No photos.

On the way, I planned my trip to Fukuoka for the day. I didn’t have a whole lot of time, so I went by my usual standbys: a museum, a tall thing with a view, and shopping.

First I headed to the info counter at the station for local brochures and maps. Fukuoka doesn’t really have a “You must do this or you will regret it forever” sort of thing, so it’s pretty much up to you. It is a pretty big city, so there’s a lot of fun things to do. On the downside, there really wasn’t a whole lot worth taking pictures of, either.

I stopped by the hotel to drop off my luggage. Some hotels will let you leave your luggage if you show up before check-in. If not, you can dump it in a locker, but going to the hotel can save you some yen on locker rentals. I found another Comfort Inn, and using my AAA card, I cut the rate down to 5,400 yen. 600 yen is another lunch bento box.

Exploring Hakata and Fukuoka

Then I went to explore Hakata. (Which is what they call this portion of town.) I went to the Hakata Folk Museum and looked at some cool exhibits of daily life in the area over the last 150 or so years. I really like looking at old Meiji, Taisho and Showa period stuff. It’s interesting to see the cultural transformation of Japan from an isolated, almost medieval society into an industrial powerhouse, and how that transformation affected the people of Japan.

They also had this really cool telephone exhibit. When you picked up the receiver, you could hear a couple having a conversation in full-blown Hakata-ben, which is the regional variant of Japanese spoken around here. It was so different from the Japanese I’ve been studying, that couldn’t understand a word, but it was fun, anyway.

On the way out of the Folk Museum, I saw the entrance to Kushida Shrine. I’m all shrine-d out at this point, so I took a few photos and headed on. But it looks like a neat place:

I decided to check out Canal City, because I saw some interesting pictures of it somewhere online. It was sort of disappointing. It’s just a mall. Yes, it has some interesting architecture, but in the end it’s still a mall. They did have an amazing arcade there, though.

A few Canal City photos:

The old shopping arcade a block away was much more interesting to me.

I found a store that was selling prints of old Edo– that were printed in the USA. So I didn’t buy any.

I decided to begin my search for Robosquare, which I could not find. The map indicated one place, and it wasn’t there. Nothing but more shopping malls. So I wandered for a bit, saw some scenic canals, and ate my first Mos Burger. It was delicious. The burger is definitely good. So were the fries and onion rings. And the iced cocoa. I love iced cocoa. Japan has some interesting beverages.

Here’s the general vicinity of Mos Burger and the non-existent Robosquare (at least not in this location):

By then, it was a little after 3, so I decided to go to the hotel and check in. It’s a VERY nice room for 5,400 yen a night. Seriously, not to sound like a shill or anything, but you should check out the Comfort Inns in Japan. They’re dirt cheap, they have nice amenities, and you can book online pretty easily. They only have one hotel in Tokyo, though, so that’s kind of a bust, but otherwise they’re great. They have hotels all over Japan. (And if you have AAA, you get the 10% discount.)

I have CNN-J on the TV, so I get some English language programming to get a rest. I sacked out until 5, then I went out to see some more sights.

Fukuoka at Night

First I went to Tenjin, the big shopping district, in order to catch a bus to the Fukuoka Tower, the 2nd tallest building/tower thing in Japan. The bus stopped nearby, I got out, and presto! I found Robosquare– 5 miles west of where the map said it was.

A nice lady there showed me a number of very cute robots they had on display.

The first one was Paro, a robot baby seal with fur and those sad seal eyes, and it made cute noises when you petted it. Apparently they use it for therapy for kids, the elderly, and people with mental or emotional problems of one sort or another. It helps people relax. It’s very cute and fluffy. I’m sure if they sold it in the U.S., it would clobber Elmo. (And parents’ wallets, too. Those sensors aren’t free, you know.)

Then I got to play with some of the original Sony Aibos. Cute little robodoggies! It was a lot of fun.

Then she showed me a robot whose name escapes me, but it’s designed to assist the elderly with daily tasks. It doesn’t move much. It’s more like someone to talk to who also handles your e-mail and phone duties… sort of like a robo-secretary, I guess. It was cute.

Then came the robot that had the most personality, but which also scared me a little bit. It was Hello Kitty ROBO. It actually said some funny stuff (all in Japanese, of course), but it was just a little bit creepy, and I never could figure out what you would buy it for. It was more of a toy than a tool. Toys are fine, too, but this one looked pricey.

I thanked the people at Robosquare and left to go to the Fukuoka Tower. It was tall. The views were great, the pictures were difficult to get.

A circular polarizer is a necessity for these kinds of places, and you can’t easily attach them to a compact camera.

Some photos of the Fukuoka skyline at night. Don’t expect too much:

I like photographing Ferris wheels at night. I wish I brought a better camera:

I made a mad dash back to Tenjin before the department stores closed to find dinner. I love Japanese department stores. They all have such wonderful food in their basements, and you can take it home with you.

After picking up dinner, I took a walk around Tenjin. It’s a lot of fun. It reminds me a bit of Tokyo, only less cold. People are nice and lively, and it feels like a lot of stuff is going on all the time. Tenjin is definitely worth the time, especially in the evening. (But a lot of stores close at 8.) I found my favorite chain in Japan so far– Bic Camera. They have 6 floors of nerd toys. I picked up a camera neck strap, and saw the Epson RD1-s, which is a digital camera that takes Leica M Mount lenses, and is only 240,000 yen (~$2200 US).

I must purge all of my lustful thoughts for a camera I cannot afford.

The best thing I found was on the 6th floor. FFTA-2 for the DS! And a thick as all heck game guide! GET!

I went back to Hakata Station, and my hotel. The station gets depressing at night, because the homeless come in droves to sleep in front of it in the square. It’s a whole different place from the day.

The guidebooks all say that it’s easy to find a yatai (food stall) in Fukuoka, and it’s a thing you should do, but I couldn’t find one tonight. I’ll have to do it some other time. I also didn’t find the good Hakata-style Ramen places, either. I saw a few, but they weren’t the ones I was looking for. That’s something else to save for next time.

Fukuoka looks like a good place to live; the people are nice, the food is good, and there’s normal stuff to do. It may not be a tourist haven, but I was only here for a day, so what do I know? I do like the vibe here.

Anyway, I’m going to get some rest tonight, then I’m off to Osaka tomorrow morning. I’m not sure what I’m doing there yet, but I’ll have 3 hours on the train to figure it out.

After Osaka is _____. I need to fill that in tonight. After _____ is probably Sendai, though, then Tokyo.

_____ is probably Nagano, if I can find a room there.

Flower Cars and Feudal Lords. Parade!

Japan, Photos, Travel 1 Response »

Oct 132007

Big day today!

For starters, I woke up at 7 a.m. On a Saturday. Can’t help it.

Then I did laundry at the laundromat next to the QuickMart.

I lead an exciting life!

Laundry was completed without much incident.

Wandering in Nagoya

Then I set off for Nagoya. This time the trains worked!

At first, I was a bit worried that the trip would be a bust, because I was trying to find Kinokuniya (a book store chain in Japan), and I couldn’t find it. I wound up wandering around the area near the station.

Here’s the station:

I saw a cool window display as well:

I even found the Computer Building!

I started to notice that something was going on.

Police were starting to blockade the streets, and people were expectantly standing around the blockades. People here usually don’t just stand around and not move purposefully somewhere, so I had a feeling something might happen, so I joined them in their standing around.

Suddenly, lo and behold! A parade! I had heard that there was going to be a festival in the region, but I didn’t know I’d actually stumble across it.

A couple approached me and started talking to me in English.

Of course, they asked me if I was an English teacher… *sigh.* But they were still kind enough to clue me in a little, and they gave me some sightseeing ideas, so it’s fine.

I was lucky because I was smart and brought my little Nikon point-and-shoot digital camera. I got about 300 pictures, (okay, way too many) but the parade was awesome.

There were even some mock battles. For those of you wondering about the scores, in the main match it was riflemen 1, guys with spears 0. Then there were some guys with swords, who did some mock slashing of people. My Japanese history is weak, so I was at a bit of a loss.

A little slapstick mid-battle:

Back to the fighting:

There were also visits by the members of the Nobunaga clan. Wait, I think this is the Tokugawa car. Either way, it was pretty cool.

I even got pictures of the people following behind the daimyos on horseback to clean up the inevitable daimyo horse poop.

After the Parade, a Feast!

After the parade, I went back to JR Nagoya Station to get food, because I hadn’t eaten since 8 a.m. I found a nice little sushi shop, where they served me some piping hot green tea, a small glass of water, and nigiri sushi, in which the chef had cleverly concealed enough wasabi to peel all the mucus membranes from my head.

But it was really good.

For “dessert,” he had prepared two pieces of sweet sushi. One was … I don’t even remember, and the other one was egg sushi with some kind of sweet sauce. Woo! A 9 out of 10 on the food scale.

After that, it was time for Kinokuniya, which I managed to find after asking the lady at the information desk in Nagoya Station for directions. She was impressed that I tried to ask her in Japanese, but since my brain’s batteries were failing, she let me speak in English.

A tip– in the big cities, find the information desk people and ask them every question that enters your tourist brain. You will not be sorry, and they all speak good English. And honestly, why waste hours searching like an idiot when someone else can just tell you where it is?

I headed to Kinokuniya. I picked up a fall foliage tourist magazine for some ideas, and a map book of beautiful scenic hikes. I could have gone into a book buying frenzy, but I decided to save that for the end of the trip in Tokyo, because I don’t want to lug my purchases all over Japan. Both publications are all in Japanese, but I know enough to get some rough ideas.

Bic Camera!

After that, it was time for the real reason I went to Nagoya in the first place– a trip to Bic Camera. This was fun. I was on the hunt for a new denshi jisho (electronic dictionary), and after checking out the one that one of the other Yamasa students had, I knew what I wanted… sort of. I went to the display and played with a bunch, but I wound up buying the one I already knew how to use– the Sharp PW-AT760B. (B as in Black and B as in Bad because it’s BLACK! ) They had a red one, as well as a white one with a tan top, but if it wasn’t going to be all white, then I wanted the all-black one.

Yes, it does matter.

Yes, I am a nerd.

You probably know that already anyway.

The really nice part about buying the electronic dictionary at Bic was getting a point card, and about 5,000 yen worth of points on it. I spent 1,200 on a really nice bright orange case for my little denshi jisho, and I decided to bank the rest for later. Many thanks to the nice lady who explained to me in a mix of English and Japanese that the point card wouldn’t cost me anything. I was afraid I was going to get scammed or something. I have too much experience with that in the U.S., I guess. Yeah, I mean you guys who always try to sell me the rewards cards that should be free!

If you want to get your nerd on, seriously, check out Bic Camera if you get to Japan. There’s a lot cool stuff to check out. They had all kinds of toys. And by all means, get the point cards!

After that, I was famished, because sushi does not stick to my ribs. I went back to the station for a chicken and egg sandwich (oyako-sando!), a croissant, and iced milk. I had never had iced milk before, but man, it hit the spot. The Mermaid Cafe if you’re scoring at home. It’s near the Tokaido Line platform before the wicket.

Then I took a 30-minute train ride home, and I wrote this blog post just for you guys.

Tomorrow may be Nagoya again, if I can take it. Or it may just be me drooling in a corner of the room. I think I got a major case of sunburn, so part of the day may just be spent looking for aloe.