Well... I'm Hungry!

     So the first issue that needs to be brought up now that I’ve been in Japan for this long is: the food is delicious, but NOT. FULFILLING. Goodness gracious, I’ve been so hungry the past two days because all of the portions I get are so small compared to American ones but still cost MORE. I’m luckily if I spend less than $5 here for dinner, and when I’m done I still need more to eat. To save my money for other things, though, I have to watch out. Tonight was probably the first meal that I’ve eaten that I’ve felt even partially fulfilled, and that was 450 yen worth of spaghetti and a 105 yen piece of bread (to roughly calculate yen to dollar, move the decimal over two places), both from the 7-11 that’s on the way back to the DK House. Hopefully I’ll be able to pay a flat fee at the cafeteria at Sophia for all I can eat… otherwise, expect me to be 30 pounds lighter when I get back. One thing I can’t wait for in returning home already? Seconds.

     The other things that’s bothersome about the food situation here is the lack of drink. I’ve probably been somewhere in the vicinity of being almost on the verge of being officially dehydrated because you don’t really get much to drink for meals. I usually drink about two full glasses of something with every meal (milk, which is probably the most common for me for lunch and dinner, by the way, hardly exists here), but here you get a really small glass of green tea, and then a really small glass of water when you ask for it. When I got some melon soda with my lunch two days ago, the “medium” size (they had “medium” and “large”) was probably the amount of liquid in one of those mini-soda can things. Jen told me that an effect of this lack of hydration is why, I quote, “Japanese people don’t sweat in the summer.” WHAT!? I’ll be looking out for that one. It sounds ridiculous to me, but after not having anything to drink for the past few days, I’m less reluctant to believe it.

     By the way, it’s extremely hard to find a trash can anywhere here. I think it this was something I had marveled at before… the country being so clean but there being absolutely no trashcans anywhere. Today I walked the 15 minutes from the DK House to the station with a plastic container from lunch trying to find a trashcan to dump it in, but it wasn’t until after I bought my ticket and made my way inside the train station that I found one. But anyway, onto the days’ events:

Friday, March 28^th

     After a long night of dragging bedding around for what seemed like an hour and crashing right afterwards, I… well, woke up and wrote the end of the other day’s post. But then probably went and showered so that I was ready to do what I had to the rest of the day.

     Showering is another issue that I’ve been confronted with every day since even before I got my towels. Wait, I don’t think I mentioned that I didn’t bring towels. But I didn’t! They take up too much space! And I didn’t get towels until I got the bedding, so yes, I was a little grungy that whooole day of walking around. But not as grungy as you think…! I was able to wash myself somewhat, and while I’d like to tell you the whole story, I’m not going to be able to because 1) it should have been in the last post, and 2) it’s on the podcast! After I’m done with this post I’ll be sure to upload the podcast somehow so you can hear the complete bathroom situation the first day. But on with the current situation!

     Luckily I’ve been able to go to the showers without being confronted by another person, but soon enough I’m going to be… and hopefully I’ve been doing everything right. The first time I went to shower I walked the wrong way, and that’s kind of embarrassing because when you walk downstairs towards the showers you have the dining area doors directly in front of you. So, anyone that saw me coming down the stairs for the showers also saw me walk the wrong way down the hall that also has windows to the dining area and thus turn around to walk the other way. I made it, though, and have never made that mistake again. Other mistakes may be happening, but I’m not sure. First, I really don’t think that the Japanese have specific shower shoes. If I recall correctly from my time at the building that I stayed in with USHSD in 2004, you take your slippers off in the first room and walk into the shower room. After being in a college dorm with a communal bathroom once already in my life, I really don’t trust walking into those showers barefoot, especially since we have other residents who aren’t Japanese (not saying that some of them wouldn’t be as disgusting as some of us, but I’m inclined to think that the scale is tipped somewhat in their favor). That being said, I’ve been using my shower shoes, just waiting for someone to be weirded out that I’m using SANDALS in the SHOWER. Goodness.

     

(As I mentioned last post, you have to wear sandals/slippers everywhere in Japan. They do it in schools, you have separate ones for the house and for the bathroom, etc., so they’re pretty sacred. By the way, the sandals I bought in Shibuya? They cost me $26 because my feet are about TWO TIMES the size of a normal Japanese person.)

     

The second thing about the shower is, I don’t know when to get naked. I’m pretty sure you do it in the first room, bring in your towel to the shower, and then return to the communal room to put on your fresh clothes, but I don’t know. I don’t know about you all, but I think it’s less embarrassing to bring your underwear with you and come out seeing everyone else naked in the communal room than to come out naked and see everyone with their underwear on in the communal room. But that’s just me.

     

No, really! On with the day’s events! Jen was gone with Dan at Sophia to exercise and look around, so Natalie and I did some running around. Basically we went to find lunch and wound up getting turned around right outside our dorm and ended up back at the supermarket we were at the day before. Not knowing how we did that, we just went with it and got some snacks and drink rations from the supermarket because we both were feeling the arid state of the Japanese body. I chose three Japanese drinks to get: Calpis (yes, that’s almost “cow piss”), a milky-looking water drink? (a guy Natalie and I met today and I were trying to describe it but were at a loss for words… it says “Calpis Water” and “Happy Refresh” on the bottle… I think I’ll go with the “Happy Refresh”), Mitsuri Cider (I haven’t had it in a few years, but I think I remember liking it…), and Aquarius, a sports drink.

     

We dropped our stuff off back at the DK House and continued on our journey to find lunch, and it wasn’t until about 2:30-3:00 that we finally stumbled in a mall to eat. This mall, significantly closer to the DK House and to the station itself, was in fact the EXACT same mall as the one that we got bedding from earlier, which made Natalie angry and me laugh. They didn’t have as snazzy bedding choices as what we had picked, though, so the other play was justified.

     

Anyway, we ate fast food ramen at the bottom of the mall and ran into a bit of a bind. The Japanese separate their trash into plastic bottles, plastic-other-things, paper, burnable-other, and aluminum, and are especially hardcore about doing this in Warabi, according to S. Uzuki-san. Now, Natalie is lucky that she is already a rather light eater, but not when it comes to throwing away ramen. She had a looot of broth left over, and since broth isn’t even the throw-away category of burnable-other (that’s my term, not theirs... you know, in case you thought that was a really clever category), we didn’t know what to do with it, and, unlike eating at Makkudonarudo, we couldn’t just wait for someone else to get up and throw away their trash (yes, we did that), so we stood over by the trash can muttering English and looking at the signs really close up until one of the employees told us to put our dishes on this metal tray. Crisis averted. But oh! That reminds me! In case you like to judge restaurants by the quality of their napkins (I’m looking at you and that baseball place, PJC!), Japanese napkins (and, erg, Japanese toilet paper) are all, if you will, “one-ply”.

     

So yeah, we got lunch and PILLOWS (woooooo! That REALLY completes the bedding situation) and headed back to Donkey Kong. There we sat around waiting for Jen to get back (which wasn’t very long). And we blogged. And blogged. And Jen got back. And we still blogged. And then it was something like 9:30 when we decided we’d better get up and find food before we all starved. Ended up we went to around where the station is and found a place to eat called “Sukiya”. Here we all at curry instead of their advertised gyuu-niku-like dish that had a ton of mayonnaise on top of something, but so much mayonnaise that I didn’t know what was under it. The curry wasn’t too exciting, and once we found out that the pillow mall was closed early on Friday (… beats me), we just headed home to blog more, and the rest is history that you’ve already read (me falling asleep at the computer and writing nonsense). So I really DIDN’T write the end of the other day’s post on Friday! Shows how much you all were paying attention… jeez.

     

Before I move on to Saturday, I wanted to display some pictures of the BEAUUUTIFUL scenery of Warabi city, which I actually haven't finished photographing, so they'll just be added bonuses from now on. First, check out the wild beavers that roam the streets*. Fierce!!! Secondly, this is the bustling Friday-night nightlife that I was talking about when I was comparing Shibuya to Warabi. Maybe I was exaggerating a little when I said Shibuya was that much better**, especially when you can experience places like "Club Tira" that prominently display prehistoric creatures outside of their nightclub***.

* It says "Beaver Reform Studio" and "Housedoctor"... during the day you can see old ladies making quilts inside.
** This is, in fact, what Warabi city looks like anywhere that's not close to the train station. There, as I said, lies Pachinko Land.
*** And they may exist inside, too!!!

(the font changes here for some reason... sorry if you can't read it as well, but if you click "view" on your toolbar, go to "text size" and click "large" or something, you should be able to read it alright)

Saturday, March 29^th

     Saturday began with me waking up and getting on g-chat, per-usual, and Jen and Natalie proclaiming that there's a festival going on outside, not per-usual. Hey look! A possibly-orange tree! Okay, okay, before I go on, I have to explain that I totally forgot to bring out my camera for the festival, so until I say so, you're looking at Natalie's lovely photos of things like us, trees, more trees, and... hey! Is that a Sapporo beer can!?!? Oh jeez, come on, Ma, I'm sorry! It was a festival! Plus, I'm hatachi, which is the special words they say for twenty, which is the legal drinking age, plus I got it from a vending machine! How cool is that!? Well, I'll tell you: not as cool as TAKO-YAKI!!! Oh, wait, wait, lemme zoom out a little bit... ahhh, yes, that's it. Check out the mayonnaise on the three balls in the back; though I was scared about eating the mayonnaise on the other dish, this wasn't too much and actually tasted really awesome with what's inside the tako-yaki balls. Oh, wait... man, there's something with this zoom... Woooo! Octopus inside dough balls? KILLIN'.

     You know what's even MORE killin'? The butt-biting bug. I'm not kidding. The little sucker that is promoting the action of "biting butts" so that Japanese children will be less shy (and maybe even bite other childrens' butts!?) is even on bags of cotton candy at a small city festival. Check out this video for a sample of what it can do. Did you see that? They got MARRIED. Guess I know what I gotta do now when I'm at the club!

     Now back to the more serious stuff. Here're some extra pictures of m--- what the heck is that doing there still.... Okay, much better. We all wanted pictures like that in front of the cherry blossoms, so here's one of Jen and also one of Natalie (oh, I actually took that one). Here's also an idea of how the festival was set up. On the left there were a bunch of booths with people cooking things like tako-yaki (by the way, "tako" is octopus and "yaki" means fried), skewered chicken and pork, mini-okonomiyaki (a Japanese "pancake" which really isn't like a pancake at all... who would put mayonnaise on a pancake anyway???), candy, and our desert of choice, the choco-banana (that's "chocolate banana" in English). Natalie and Jen got chocolate while I diverged from the name and got strawberry. In the back of the first picture of the bananas there's a green one, which I think to be "green tea", but I decided to stick with the strawberry until the next festival.
*Here come all my photos again sans a few at the end of Shinjuku! Yay!
     After we were finished with the festival, the sannin (did I mention that already? that's what Jen, Natalie, and I are calling ourselves... sannin means "three people") traveled to the station to hop on a train in Shinjuku, which is a district three? stops previous to Shibuya (it's where our train started going backwards last time). But first, we thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of this car in Warabi city. It's so packed here and around here that this is how people have to fit their car in front of their houses. There's no room on ANY side of that car.

     Arriving at Shinjuku we had a whole lot of time to explore, so we went to some hyaku-en shops ("100 yen") and then to a huge arcade (yes!). Before grabbing Teresa from the station we explored the arcade and found this game, which many of you will find to be unbelievably cool in an arcade. For those who don't know, "Typing of the Dead" is a version of the popular arcade shooter "House of the Dead", expect instead of shooting dead things like zombies by aiming with plastic guns, the player is forced to shoot by typing in a displayed word on the screen. Luckily for our players Jen and Natalie, the words were in Japanese as well as romanji (alphabetized pronunciations of Japanese words, i.e., "tako-yaki", in place of characters). But, when they got to the boss who asks you to choose between three answers, the whole things was just in Japanese... so they were pretty much screwed. I played Taiko Drum Master some more and then we went to get Teresa at the station.

     We ended up back at the arcade to do "purikura". Purikura is one of the most popular activities of Japanese youth, and involves going into a photo booth with a handful of your friends, taking a handful of silly pictures, and then editing them with frilly objects and text. Afterwards, you print them out in sheets of really tiny photos to stick everywhere imaginable! The pictures are really nice quality and decorating them can be pretty fun, so I can see why it's popular (you're going to have to wait to see the pictures since they are only hardcopies). One hilarious (and possibly disturbing) thing is that men cannot go upstairs to the purikura floor unless accompanied by a female. Hm.

     The last three things about the arcade that need mentioning: one, they have BeatMania, two, they have DrumMania (think rock band drums with a hi-hat button and where the foot pedal isn't a bar, but is displayed like a button with an oversized foot on it on the screen... it made me fail basic, which wasn't all TOO basic in the first place), and three, I was told that Taiko Drum Master is my ticket to attracting those of the opposite sex. Supposedly as I was grooving out I had some fans gazing at me (that's Teresa in that picture, not a fan). Cha-ching! And you thought that my 200-yen in that machine per two songs was a waste.......
...
..
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Yeah, 200-yen. Practically $2. Arcades are crazy expensive. At home I wouldn't think twice about paying four quarters for a game of even the latest DDR, but here I spend 200-yen on one game of Taiko Drum Master (even BEFORE I was told I could pick up chicks). There's a big problem with yen: the first bill is 1,000-yen. So, anything under that and you're paying dollar amounts with 500- and 100-en coins. As humans used to the quarter being the most circulated large-valued coin, we here are finding it hard to conserve these things, not only because everything's costing us plenty of money, but also because we're just using COINS, which we hate carrying around in the first place! 400-en for a box of six tako-yaki for lunch? No problem! Only FIVE DOLLARS. I can get a super value meal for that, and I usually just settle for double cheese and water for lunch to save me money!
     To continue with Shinjuku, here're some pictures so you can contrast the daytime streets with the same streets in the nighttime. Similar sized crowds to Shibuya, yeah? People crossing the street in such masses still awe me. I couldn't imagine how cold I'd be if I were driving a bus in this city (fun fact, all of you bus enthusiasts, is that the Japanese buses have signs to enter on the BACK of the bus and not the front, so when someone comes through the back doors and they're Japanese, don't get too upset!).
     We scoured the city some more, checking out even more hyaku-en shops (I got a hanger for my suit, a basket for my shower stuff, and a cup) and the "sketchy" part of Shijuku, which features many "host bars" (you pay for a pretty female or male to sit there and talk with you while you drink) and even a part that is nothing but love hotels (use your imagination, or look it up on Google). Hey, we even saw an embarrassed young Japanese lady running to or from a love hotel in a robe! What was under that robe? Prob'ly nothin'.
     Before we left we happened by this place where there were street performers... mostly singers (such as "Silent Sprout" and "Sad Sad World") that had shows they were advertising. One guy looked like he was setting up for a magic show, so we stopped for a minute and watched. He was AMAZING. He did some work with a crystal ball that made it seem like it was weightless (think David Bowie in "The Labyrinth"), bent a fork in weird ways WITH HIS MIND, and then did some absolutely astonishing tricks with two sticks with a string attached in the middle and some rubber hourglass-looking things (Natalie called it "Diablo). After the show we took pictures with him and he gave Natalie and me separate halves of his fork. Then, we went and sat around after spending some quality time with some BIDETS!!!
     One of my fondest memories of the first time I went to Japan in 2002 was sitting on these really fancy toilets called "bidets". You won't believe me that they're awesome, but don't knock it 'til you try it, folks, 'cause sitting on a toilet seat that warms right up is oh so nice. And it sprays you partially clean if you want it to. It's all up to you... spray, no spray, warm, or not warm... it even has a deodorizer built in!!! I think I had been to that EXACT one, too... or at least it gave me memories of a place just like it with soothing music and an excellent relaxing experience.
      The ride home was pretty unpleasant since we caught the train so late. We were really packed in the train, and since I take up two Japanese people and my backpack with items in it takes up one more, I was taking up a loooot of space.

      I want to get to bed sometime before 1am, so I'll end this now and post about yesterday tomorrow. Thanks for getting through it, and thanks for all of the comments on the last one. Keep 'em comin'!

Until next time...!

Well... I'm alive!

*Follow the linked text by scrolling through Webshots when you click on the first link ("Natalie", below) or just open select pictures. Sorry if Webshots is slow!

     Hopefully no one was too anxious to get some info from me about the first few days... or to know that I did in fact make it to where I was supposed to be. To make a long story short, I, uh, got by with a little help from my friends and to the DK House relatively easily. If you care to read in detail, hopefully I can fit all of my pictures and a good bit of information in a semi-compacted area.


     First, meet Natalie and Jen, my two main travel compadres. Both are friends from my Japanese classes at UVA and we had been coordinating our itineraries from the beginning. We began at Jen's house in Vienna, Virginia after Natalie traveled from Illinois and I, of course, from Virginia Beach. Basically we ate our final American dishes (I made sure to get a burger labeled "The All-American"), made a fort in her basement, slept, and got hopin' to Dulles airport Tuesday morning.


     Dulles was nice and easy, and the only thing to report is that I was allowed to have my saxophone as a carry-on, which I was expecting because it doesn't fit within the size regulations for carry-ons. It was definitely a relief to finally get on the plane with it (I got the O.K. at the check in) because I was expecting to get stopped every step of the way. If you've never been to Dulles, check out what you may find: strange looking shuttles (that one was for you, Mike) and perfume that is ironically called "Jet Lag".


     The flight was pretty fun and unexpectedly short-feeling. Our flight was United 803, leaving Dulles at about 1:00pm Tuesday and arriving 14 hours later in Tokyo at 4:00pm on Wednesday (so right now you're reading information that was written from THE FUTURE!!! woooo!). As far as entertainment, we got our own video screens which was nice to have even if I didn't use it very often. I did watch a pretty good movie about Queen Elizabeth while playing Pokemon on my DS, but most of the time I had the screen showing where the plane was. I ended up getting a a of shot of Canada and a couple of Alaska since I knew where we were and thought that seeing the two from far up would be pretty. Otherwise, I had to face the perils of avoiding nuts while I was on the plane (for anyone who doesn't know, I'm deathly allergic to nuts). To rid me of the problem, my meals were changed from "normal" to "heart patient". Here's what the inside looked like to the lunch of the latter. As you can see, there's quite a difference... one between a ramen-like meal and one of couz-couzy leafy lunch with sour tomatoes. Lucky for me, the stewardess were awesome and let me, the first time, exchange my meal for a normal one (pasta was exchanged for a pretty excellent beef and corn dinner) and, the second time, eat both meals. The last lunch we had I got waffles instead of a sandwich, so I was cool with that... But anyway, that's the about it for the plane aside from a couple hours of sleep and some podcasting (which I'll get posted for anyone that's interested)... doesn't really seem like a lot, but Pokemon, Patapon, podcasting, and other words that start with P take up a good deal of time, I guess.


     So 4:00! We arrived (the other girl in the picture is Teresa Lui, another one in our group of UVA Japanese students who was on the same flight but not seated near us) at Narita airport in Tokyo. I didn't really feel like I was in Japan yet for some reason (I think that I may have mentioned my lack of these feelings in an earlier post) and just let fellow UVA-ite Dan (who has been studying at Sophia since last semester) lead us to where we needed to go. Out of all of the members in my group, I decided not to use the service that took your luggage to your place of residence in Japan, so I toted my bags and saxophone from the airport to the train and to the DK House. Surprisingly enough, the airport is quite a long distance from Tokyo and even further from Saitama (which is the prefecture right outside of Tokyo that the DK House is in), so it took over two hours of train ride and train-transferring to get to Nishi-Kawaguchi station, which is about a 15-minute walk from the DK House (if you know where you're going and don't have luggage). As a side note, Teresa is doing a homestay and got off at a station before us, in case you would wonder where she went.


     But yes, Dan had a map ready for us and we hiked to the DK House, only asking a random person for directions once! When we got there (er, two or three hours after the office was supposed to close) Mr. S. Uzuki (or Mr. Suzuki, as we like to call him) gave us our keys and showed us around. Not that the DK House doesn't look nice, but it's definitely not as beautiful looking as in the pictures on their website (you know... the ones with text bleeding into them). It's much more like a hostel than I expected, actually... they temp you with promises of a nice common area, kitchen, gardens, etc., but the common areas are really small, the main kitchen area is pretty small, and the gardens are oddly placed on the street rather than having their own place outside the back of the building or something. Don't let that fool you, though, it's a nice place... reminds me a lot of living in a dorm.


     After throwing our stuff down we went out to explore a little and get something to eat. We ended up at a Japanese fast-food place called Yoshinoya where I got Gyuudon which, as you can see, is a bunch of beef thrown atop of some rice (it's a lot better than the stir-fry bar at O-Hill, which is the closest association that I can come up with). Exploring just added to our exhaustion, but on the plus side I did find a place to snag my favorite drink from the vending machines, Real Gold.


     Returning home we all went straight to our beds. Unfortunately, none of us decided to rent bedding from the DK House. We thought that we'd find a place to buy it that night and then return home to sleep comfortably. Instead, we returned to the DK House empty-handed and decided to sleep on our big wooden boxes. This didn't really bother me too much, as all I really wanted was to get some sleep, but it wasn't the best thing to do that on, obviously. Trying to rectify the situation by sleeping on all of my clothes didn't really help, either. To add to the unpleasant bed, it was freezing. I mean, I had to wear a waffle shirt, a hoodie, my blue jacket, a pair of corduroys, and my sweatpants to stay warm enough to fall asleep in the first place. Before I went to sleep I tried to figure out how the heating system remote worked, but never got it going, and since I didn't know Chinese (Jen) and I didn't have access to the internet (Natalie) due to battery power, I roughed it out.


     And here it was, the moment for the first time that I realized that I would be in Japan for a really long time. There was really nothing in my room, I was in a room in a strange place, and I knew that I would have to make all new friends again... and four months still seems like unimaginable time to be so separated from my friends and family (UVA is only two hours away from home, so it's a completely different deal even in the respects of being away from home in general).


     The plus side of the morning was that I had a beautiful view staring at me from outside my window (the third isn't beautiful... but whatever). I couldn't shower because I didn't have a towel yet and I didn't have any idea what time it was because I didn't internet or my watch set, so I just hung out in the cold for probably about four hours waiting for someone else to wake up. Eventually I brushed and washed my face and blah blah, and we went to go find some bedding and complete some other errands out in Warabi City. Since Natalie had never eaten at a Makkudonarudo (McDonald's in Japanese), we went there. I ordered a Teritama burger, which is short for Teriyaki-Tamago ("tamago" means egg). It was pretty good, and pretty Japanese for a McDonald's burger. Check out the wrapping, too... it's done in a diamond rather than in a square (and opens from a corner instead of a side). We also stopped at some point, too (maybe the night before), at a 7-11, which isn't too different from American ones except for different foods and a merger with another company, and a STOMP: the thrift store of Japan (or, at least, Warabi).


     The first business stop of the day, though, was to get our Gaijin (foreigner) Card application filled out so that we can get train cards and cell phones. I was missing the needed pictures (Natalie and Jen had kept some from when we filled out forms at home), so we had to go to a photo booth to get my taken for about $7 and return later. That experience was pretty rad in the case that we had a fun time listening to the officials talk in Japanese to us about the forms. They couldn't really read my handwriting, so I had to spell out words like "Norfolk" to them, as well as write my whole name in Japanese so they could, ummm... better understand my name? I don't really know. But the photo booth happened to be outside of the mall we were going to to find bedding! And find it we did, but since we were going to meet Dan in Tokyo, we decided to come back before it closed to buy it (and do some price checking while we were in the city).


     On our way to the registration station and to the train station, Jen and Natalie were stopping at every bank and post office possible to find a place to exchange their traveler's cheques. Thus, an important note for you travelers is: DON'T bring traveler's cheques. They're a pain because most people seem like they've never seen the things in their lives, and it's easier to just get a big wad of yen and bring cash dollars with you to exchange for a terrible rate (unless you WANT to spend a ton of time finding a bank that'll exchange them). They didn't get them cashed until...


     We headed to Shibuya to meet Dan. According to Dan, it's where all of the kids hang out and stuff, and when we got there I could see that this was right. THIS was the Tokyo I was looking forward to. I was commenting to Natalie about how everywhere we went there were just suits... business men going to and from work... and hardly any sign of people our age walking about. This puzzled me and even made me a little uneasy. The Japanese seemed like a bunch of lifeless beings on the train, not chatting to each other, not smiling... just doing their daily thing. Terrible. But then, Shibuya! That's where all of the youth were... a complete 180 from the dronage that was apparent in the other cities. Also, Shibuya is a lot different from Warabi. Warabi city is very crowded in terms of not having any space, but there aren't hundreds of people walking the streets at any given time. There's a nightlife of Pachinko in Warabi, but nothing is comparable to Shibuya. Shibuya is where there are huge, city buildings and floods of people walking across the street all directions, many walking straight through the middle when the crosswalk signs say "go". All around there are restaurants, shops, arcades, bars... Claire's... whatever! It's pretty awesome to actually be a part of. My first real taste of "big city" was when I went to New York last year, but Shibuya makes even New York feel a little lame to me. It's so full of people that it's barely possible to drive anywhere. The streets that cars are able to drive on must just be very specific and one probably just drives through Shibuya because they absolutely HAVE to to get somewhere else. Having one of these around Virginia Beach would be really cool in the sense that I may never have to feel that there isn't really a place to GO again. I feel like I could just walk around observing people and things for really long times without feeling underwhelmed in Shibuya.


     Shopping was easy to do since the place, as told, was full of everything. I ended up picking up some towels, slippers (because in Japan you have to take your shoes off at the door of houses, and even establishments like the DK House, to change into slippers), and a power converter for my computer. Even the places to eat sound pretty cool. There's a kaiten zushi place (rotating sushi) that we went to eat that night that you had to eat seven plates in 20 minutes (not hard AT ALL) or else you were kicked out. Basically, the chefs stood in the middle making the different types of sushi and put the plates on a conveyor belt, the sushi moves towards you and you pick up the ones you want. I stuck to unagi (eel) when I could get my hands on it, but tried some weird stuff, namely this squid sushi, which tasted preeeettttty terrible. Like it had some really bad sauerkraut in it. I downed both pieces though, and Natalie even has a video of it, heh.


     Oh, and speaking of Natalie, all of the Japanese people seem to think we're married. So as far as picking up any of the ladies, I'm going to have to travel in groups larger than two girls and two guys in the future (it's even harder that Dan and Jen are together, too! Jeez...)


     After dinner we went to an arcade and I played some four-player Gundam game (called "Gundam VS. Gundam"... how straight forward) and got a high score on Taiko Drum Master! I'm going to have to take a picture of an arcade next time I go to one because they are so cool... one half is dedicated to actual games... mostly tons of fighting games that range from Street Fighter II to Tekken 6... and then the other half just has a bunch of gambling machines. There's one game that I remember seeing (and playing, as forced by my host brother at the time) a few years ago that was a big horse racing simulation. But, instead of racing the horses, you bet on these horses that are programmed into the game... each have their own stats and records and whatnot... and the screen is HUGE!!!


     For those that don't care about such things, we ended up making our way back to the train station because were so fatigued from the day's events and STILL had to go get our bedding.


To be continued after we get dinner! (I've been at this for at least two hours now... and it's 9:20pm)


     Having only one train fiasco so far (for some reason one of the trains that went from Akabane station to Shinjuku to Shibuya according to multiple signs stopped at Shinjuku and started going BACKWARDS!) we stopped at Warabi station because it was closer to the place where the bedding was. After snagging a sale on the bedding we made a realt on.....
fall asleep, sorry... we


(the next morning...)
     Continuing on, we carried our huge bedding packages back to the DK House, but unfortunately got lost along the way somehow. When we finally made it back we were greeted by Mr. DK House himself with some blank looks, saying that he was staying up for yet another study abroad student (only later did Natalie point out that he was probably looking at us that way because we had decided to go buy bedding instead of renting it... but what was he expecting us to do? sleep on the wood?). Quickly we headed upstairs to crash in our respective rooms. Before going to bed, I set up Skype (my user name is gregory.weaver in case anyone happens to want to try and catch me on it) and called my parents. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but calling cards are a complete hassle. There must be some secret to using them that I didn't find out and don't remember from the past 'cause I just didn't get mine working. Easiest thing to do is just set up a Skype account as far as I'm concerned... you can talk to other Skype users for free or pay $15 for minutes at a rate of about 2 yen a minute (which is approximately 2 cents). Of course, just make sure you have a microphone to use.


     The next couple of days I'll cover tomorrow or the next day, I presume. I realize this post was extremely long (kudos and thanks for those who got through it all), but I assure you that when classes start and whatnot I'll just be abridging like crazy. It's Saturday today and I'm very well-rested, so I'm all ready for an adventure in the city. Until next time...!

PS: I did NOT proof-read this... it's way too long to read again... so if there are any grammar or spelling errors, kindly let me know. Thanks!

Winding Down

     So my trip to Japan is coming soon... two Wednesdays from now I'll be on a direct flight from Dulles to Tokyo along with three of my travelmates, Jen Doo, Natalie Wilson, and Teresa Lui. At this point I should have everything figured out... right?


     Well, the case is that I don't. In fact, I have a problem where things like this don't hit me very hard until I'm actually in the country, or maybe have even spent a few days there. It's rather strange. But anyway, at this point I'm finally trying to check off things that I need to do. I've taken care of getting all of the necessary paperwork with my passport and visa (to make a long story short to give those that need it a special hint, I had to drive to DC and give them my passport and was thinking that I had to return to pick it up, but luckily they just mailed it to me... yay!) and registered my early arrival with the DK House, so I'm set for existing lawfully in the country... but what now?


     First I need to still get some things. One: debit card. Still don't have one linked to my checking account yet. Two: recording device. How am I going to interview and record concerts without one? Hopefully I can actually find a good one in stores so I don't have to worry about paying extra for shipping. Three: some more reeds. Four: traveler's checks, and five: an understanding of what exactly I need to bring on this trip.


     I was talking to my friends Nick and Cody last night about how awesome would be to just bring an empty suitcase and have to buy everything from the start, but seeing that that's really unrealistic because of the financial burden that'd be imposed upon me, I have to actually take stuff. Off the top of my head I can think of only a few things: clothes (with suit!), toiletries, laptop, saxophone and music, Nintendo DS, camera, money, and some RSVP pens. Writing this makes me feel even more disorganized and stupid than I did before attempting to organize my thoughts on what to bring.


     Next, I have to take care of unfinished personal business. Since when I found out I was even doing this I had wanted to make sure that I visited graduating friends at multiple colleges in Virginia. Now I feel that I'll be going to only Charlottesville and Williamsburg because I've spent so much time NOT doing what I had planned. Instead of getting these things done I've been working six or seven days a week with the exception of the month of February where I was going to Charlottesville every week to rehearse with the UVA Jazz Ensemble.


     Regardless of me getting paid for taking UTS (University Transit Service... I drive a bus at school) routes, my income and expenses for February basically balanced out. The UTS pay was covering my gas money and my few sub jobs were paying for food and miscellaneous expenses (... like Rock Band DLC and Super Smash Brothers Brawl). Otherwise, my income for the months of January (severed by the Christmas bill) and March added to whatever I had saved earlier will have to be my funds for the trip. Luckily for me, I'll be getting two hefty VBCPS (Virginia Beach City Public Schools) paychecks and even a Farm Fresh paycheck while I'm overseas so that I'll still be rollin' in the cash even in Japan.


     The morals of this post are: think about what you need to bring ahead of time and take care of it sooner rather than later (but it's not like EVERYONE doesn't tell you that already, so I'm not expecting anyone to really take that advice), and get your personal business taken care of with plenty of time to spare. I'm out to bag some comics and maybe get some stuff a little more organized. Later!

(oh, and STUDY! I've only been studying for a week!!!)


(... luckily I think that's a lot more than my other friends!!!)

Tokyo Jazz Clubs

     This is almost just a personal note to myself, but I am trying to find websites of jazz clubs in Tokyo so that I can be prepared for them. Here's some stuff I found so far (and, presumably, I'll just be adding on to this post as I find more):


The Blue Note, Tokyo (priced generally at 8,400 yen): Charles Lloyd (w/Jason Moran and Eric Harland) 4/3-4/6; Ron Carter (w/Russell Malone and Mulgrew Miller) 6/5-6/10; The Mike Stern Band (w/Randy Brecker, Dave Weckl, and Chris Minh Doky) 6/16-6/21

Blues Alley in Tokyo has a slew of Japanese jazz players, which I'm really interested in. Hopefully I'll find someone who knows something about the players so that I won't blindly walk in to a smooth jazz concert : P

Ko-Ko in Shibuya has jam sessions Wednesdays at 7:30 and on some Sundays, so I'll DEFINITELY be heading there to play.

Shinagawa's Meguro Jam House has jam sessions on Saturdays and Sundays.

Mingus in Fukushima has live jazz and jam sessions on Saturdays

Okay, by this point it's getting ridiculous looking at ALL the clubs in Tokyo. There are TONS........ I'm going to have to find out what's good by word of mouth, I think....


Later!