Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto.

Since the last blog post I've become very liberal with my picture taking. This, combined with a sharp increase in sight-seeing, has resulted in what I've diagnosed as a digital camera obsession episode. One can only hope that it will subside in the near future.
As I type this I'm feeling a little anxious with the thought of trying to get back home so I can photo-document all of L.A., it's just dawned on me that I've broken the 500 picture mark in Japan, yet hardly have any of the area I've been living in the past 2 years. So this is your fair warning- in the days to come there will be a massive surge of So-Cal photos.


Anyways...strap in. Here we go.


Alright, so I know I've mentioned Udon Master with his Udon Cart before, well I finally put together a couple pictures of this phenomena. That's Udon Master sitting in his cart (in fact it's actually a truck, and he outfitted the back into a kitchen), Tim is off to the right half cut off, the dude in the middle is some dude with dreads that was hanging out with us (I guess he lives near by), and Jesse is to the left being cut off.
The sheet of paper on the cart, with the stars on it, is the udon list. Curry udon is my udon of choice.
I've become addicted to curry.
Seriously.


Oh hey, there's Jesse!
So as usual, we're sitting at a fold-out table surrounded by beads and a tent, but the Udon Cart is outfitted with a bar with stools.
Pffff. Whatever.


That's the side of the Udon Cart, parked in it's usual spot in a local park.


Haha, this was a different night, obviously, but again we have Udon Master, Mayumi on the left and some other chick that was at the cart on the right.


Picture of the cart from across the road.


Ah. So yeah, usually after we spend an hour or two at the cart, we wander down the street to 7-Eleven and...buy more alcohol. I noticed this little bute and decided to take a picture. I figured if none else Don would appreciate it ;) The show "24" is HUGE in Japan.
Every second counts.


Hah. Yeahhhhhh. Yeah. This is such a typical magazine rack. I'm so used to seeing these now that they don't really phase me, but I suppose it was pretty freaking outrageous at one point. So for this, I share it with you.


Hahaha...oh god. Alright, so Jesse and I were wandering around Akihabara going into hentai (pervert) shops trying to find tentacle sex comic books. We DID indeed find many of them, along with many other disturbing things. This action figure of a tentacle monster was on display next to a bunch of tentacle sex manga (comic books), I MIGHT actually go back and buy it. It's pretty fucking fantastic.
So yeah, when you duck into these hentai shops there's usually multiple floors. So the 1st floor is the tame, soft-core stuff, and the higher you climb up the floors the more fucked up things get. Tentacle sex is usually on floor 7. Floor 8 and 9 need not be spoken of.
I will note, I find it interesting that all Japanese porn, real life porn sex tapes and pictures, used to have to blur out genitals. Two years ago they abolished that law and now blurring out is no longer mandatory, BUT the Japanese Idols (Idols are their term for porn stars...as well as J-Pop Stars...it just depends on what context it's being used it) were so used to be blurred out in the junk that they usually still only do porn if it WILL be blurred.
Strangeness indeed.


This is what we call depth of field. Typically it is done on purpose, to lead the viewers eyes to an intended subject, much like how their eyes would naturally focus on an object. In this case it does the opposite of what was intended.


There we go, that's more like it.
What is it? You ask.
It's a soda bottle with tentacle sex and explosions on it.
Of course.


In the states Dr Pepper isn't quite as...tentacle...sex...y.


These guys were in a gift shop. I liked them.


It really makes me want to go to Day of the Dead in Mexico this year. So anyone that's reading this in L.A. down for a Day of the Dead road trip?


Moo.


...moo?


Ahhhhh...this is food at a little place called Mos Burger. It's LITERALLY a Japanese version of In-N-Out Burger. I swear to god. Even the sauce tastes the same.
So yeah, it's a chain that only sells burgers, fries and shakes- and their claim to fame is that it's all healthy locally-grown food.
It's just more expensive than In-N-Out...because everything in Tokyo is fucking expensive. OH. And after you order the food little asian girls in cute little outfits bring it to your table for you.
Then you really want to smack their cute little ass and thank them.
I heart Mos Burger.


Then Jesse had to go to work so I ventured out to a place called the Otemachi Emperor's Gardens.
Pretty self-explanatory.
The above is a moat that separates it from the...main land?


This is how far the moat stretches in the other direction.
I didn't notice it until just now, but if you look way into the background on the left, where the skyscrapers are, I'm pretty sure the tall tower in the middle is Tokyo Tower.


More moat.
Honestly, look at those rocks. Can you even imagine the amount of work that would take? I mean, this place was built, oh, about 2,000 years ago.


That's the bridge that leads to enormous gates that lead to an enormous castle/fort/island/garden.


There, now you can see the gates a little easier. And the swans...


Alright, so yeah, basically this man-made "island" is a fortress that was built by a Japanese Emperor, and also housed the largest wooden castle (19 stories) ever constructed in Japan...until an earthquake took it out.
It was never re-built.
You can see how the island was made so that it had different elevations throughout, obviously for strategic reasons, as well as being
completely surrounded by a moat.


Birds at the dock at the bay. Wastin' their tiiiiiime...you know the song.
Anyways, the island is closed on Mondays and Fridays, so I'll have to re-visit again at a later time.
SPOILER: And I will.


Since the garden was closed I decided to venture out in search of the infamous Tokyo Tower. I took a train from Otemachi to Shibakoen, this map illustrates the exact location that I arrived at. The Tokyo Tower is one of the yellow blocks to the Northwest.
Notice all the schools on the map? There's a lot of schools.
Incidentally, a lot of school girls.


Yarrr! Set sail for thar Tokyo Towarrrrrrrr!!!


I decided to take a short-cut through the park instead of the less confusing streets.


It was a pretty nice park. Lots of water...and...plants.


And strange stairways...


...that lead to mysterious places.


Mysterious places with mysterious shrines.


Which lead to more strange stairways...


...that lead to mysterious lion statues.


Mysterious.


Funny story about this ugly looking seemingly useless structure.


It's the Tokyo Tower.


Yeah, after I got out of the park I called up my roomy, Tim, and said something to the effect of, "I'm looking for the Tokyo Tower, but it dawned on me I have no idea what it looks like."
He says, "Haha, yeah mate, it's orange and ugly."
"Huh. Well I guess I'm staring straight at it then."


Sure is...pointy.


Well I wandered away from the lack-luster tower in search of some cooler buildings. Tim had told me about this building constructed totally out of what appeared to be onyx stone, and at the front door the walls were so concave and reflective that it created a hologram of whatever was in front of it.
I REALLY want to see some bad-ass black building that can make a Derek hologram.


But it seems that I'll have to settle for...Tokyo Tower. Eh, at least the sky is pretty tonight.


This building seemed kind of neat.


I tried to find the building that Tim had told me about, the bad-ass black one. Instead the city map just listed a million-bajillion temples and
shrines.


I am here.


Red at night, sailor's delight. Red in the morning, sailors take warning.


The tower, 'ahem' Tower, was prettier when the pinkish sunset was hitting it...almost to the point where I was willing to cast aside my previous qualms with is utter ugliness.
Alright, I'll admit it. Tokyo Tower is actually kind of cool. KIND of cool.


Even the base of it started to take on a blue hue.
You can see the elevator that goes to the top, it runs up a shaft through the center of the tower.


Pointy.


I mean. It IS tall. But...it doesn't seem it when there's nothing around it to compare it to. If it was in the middle of Shinjuku or Tokyo I think I'd leave a bigger impression.
Or if they could move it next to the Empire State Building.
And then move the Sears tower next to that.


But yeah. It's tall. I'll give it credit for that I suppose.


Tall...and full of satellite dishes.
Uh...why not?


Derek VS. Tokyo Tower.


Are you getting sick of it yet? How about some trivia! Did you know that after construction Tokyo Tower was denied status as a world's tallest building BECAUSE a building has to be habitable, whereas this was just a "structure."
I kind of just half made that up, but it seriously isn't considered within the tallest buildings because of it's structure status.


Well I'm not!


I wonder if Godzilla is as tall as this thing...


Interesting font choice.


Oh yeah, at the base of the tower there is a dog-wolf/nativity scene thing goin' on.


I haven't quite reached a conclusion as to how sled dogs and Tokyo Tower are related, but according to the information chiseled into that granite block it has SOMETHING to do with the year 1959.


On my way back home I passed this temple/park full of little rock statues of people holding pinwheels. There were approximately 2,000 of these things.
Just...holding pinwheels.


The Tower behind a temple. I wanted to open the shutter some more but the light behind the temple was too bright and would just wash out the Tower.
If only I had a condor and some 10k's...


This park was quite nice, there were a lot of people playing soccer in it. I thought this was a good picture. Then I realized it was out of focus once I put it on my computer.


Once I got home that night I decided to assemble some action figures I bought in Akihabara earlier with Jesse.


One down, three to go!


Basically I just had to snap the pieces together. Not exactly the hardest assembling project I've ever tackled.


Two down, two to go!


The instructions didn't really coincide with the parts I received in the packaging. This set me back a couple seconds.


I intentionally didn't snap her torso completely onto the legs, I thought it was sexier with her panties showing.
Three down, one to go!


Oh man, this one looks tricky!


Woo! Done! And now with more panties!


So this is the shelf above my bed, now 400% sexier.


And with tails!!!


Once I finished showing off my new dolls...I mean...action figures, Tim announced he was going to shave off his beard. Then I announced that I was going to shave my hair into a mohawk...in a couple weeks.


It's been raining a lot the past few days. I don't remember if I mentioned that a typhoon had hit a couple days ago, so I got to experience my first typhoon.
That same night I also went out with a Japanese chick...that was kind of cool. I suppose there were TWO typhoons that night! WAH HEEEEY!!!
Yeah a typhoon is just a technical term for a hurricane here (which I have been in before). Difference being: typhoons happen in the Eastern hemisphere, and hurricanes are the term for it in the Western hemisphere.
Anyyyyways, long story short, it's been raining for about 5 days straight.
Short story even shorter, this is a worm we saw on the sidewalk.


Haha, this is a first person perspective of a completely full rush-hour Tokyo train. Spectacular eh?


Yes, we were all shoved in by a man wearing white gloves.


Haha...ay....oh boy. I think I posted a picture of this same meal in a different post, but here is the infamous 580 yen meal at Matsua- the Japanese equivalent of McDonalds.
But so so much better.
I think I went into detail about this place before too, but just in case- you put money in a vending machine, receive a ticket, hand it to a cook behind the counter, and they cook you your selected meal. It's pretty sweet.


And then I went crazy.


And started pointing fingers at roommates. Fingers and GUNS.


Jesse ducked for cover...


...so Tim caught a bullet.

But it only hit his leg. Well it should have been a better shot, and it got him in the head. They were all in love with dyin, they were drinking from a foutain that was pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain.

Yes. That was a Butthole Surfers PEPPER reference.


Remember how Tim declared he was going to shave? See. He shaved.


John. John's our couch guy!
Basically he's homeless until October, so I see him sleeping on the couch when I leave the apartment in the morning, usually see him when he comes home at 10:30 pm (he goes and does "John Things" during the day), then wash rinse and repeat.
It's neat though because he's a "proper" couch guy, with his English accent and all ;) (the "all" being that he's always making us coffee or tea)


So on this particular day I ventured out to the Tokyo station in search of a katana., the only souvenir I desire. I was told that Tokyo station is like an underground mall, so, it seemed like a good place to start.


Wups! I forgot! On the way to the station I took a picture of this big billboard for Emily, I see about 20 of these a day!


Heh. I thought this sign was pretty cool. I think the man with the hat is taunting the little girl. He's all, "Haha! I have hat and you don't!" as he waves it around with his grabby stick.


Alright, back to the inside of the Tokyo station...yup. This is it. It blows though because I've seen this hallway so jammed with people that you can't do anything but go with the "meat" current. It's just that when I'm wandering around taking pictures in the middle of the day, all the Japanese folks are doing what they do best- working.
Which reminds me of some students I had a couple days ago. I mentioned the phrase "think outside of the box," and they cringed and said, "That's a bad thing."
Pretty typical mentality around here.


So eventually I found the underground mall system, but...it was more of an...above ground designer mall.


I didn't have much luck finding katanas amongst all the suits, ties and dress shoes.


I did find a lot of escalators.


And some weird tunnel that went to nowhere.


Every now and then I'd stumble upon some delis and convenient stores, then out of nowhere I saw the gleaming red sign of this puppy! Coincidentally I happened to find it just when I started going on this ice cream kick. I've never been a HUGE fan of ice cream, but for the past few days I've been buying it pretty consistently.
But like everything else in Tokyo, ice cream is DAMN expensive.


All the flavors were in katakana, and the prices in the top center SEEM reasonable, but I assure you that their largest size (for 1300 yen, $13) is not even as big as the medium size in America. Their smallest size is literally a heaping spoonful.
I know at least one Brenna that would be disappointed by that.


After about 2 hours of walking around the sub-terranian hallways I re-surfaced to head back to the other side of the train station, where I had originally started.
I'm not sure what this building is, but it seems important. You should wikipedia it for me and let me know. It's in the heart of Tokyo.


I decided to wander around Asakasubashi before I had to go into work. This little place in particular struck me as extremely typical, so I figured I'd take a picture of it.


Tons of these little Japanese restaurants lined the alley alongside the train tracks.


A good portion of them are built precisely under the train tracks as well. It's not nearly as loud inside as you would expect.


I want bamboo trees in my next apartment.
Restaurants like this look 10 times cooler at night, when they're all lit up with dim lanterns :)


These balloon pandas are looking for a home. How can you resist those desperate inflatable eyes?


Lately these signs have been popping up EVERYWHERE. Whenever you get inside an elevator you see them, or whenever you walk into a large building they are posted on the walls.
It's an advertisement for celebrating some sort of "Disaster-o Awareness-a Week-u."


"Aquarius" and "Poccari Sweat" are two extremely popular drinks in Japan, both of which taste like lemon-lime "Gatorade" (I find it amusing that my spell check recognizes Gatorade as an English word).
I had just realized while I was at work that "Aquarius" is a Coca Cola drink. Damn you Coca Cola for being EVERYWHERE!!! (And now owning "Odwalla")


Japan has an interesting recycling system. See the number 1 inside the recycling triangle, and where it says PET underneath? The number 1 type plastic is considered non-recyclable. Which raises the question- WHY EVEN BOTHER GIVING IT A SYMBOL!?
When you throw out garbage in Japan you have to at the very least separate the burnable from the non-burnable. It's commonplace to see signs telling you what materials belong in which category, PET bottles always being a non-burnable.
I dunno. The word PET will forever trigger a Japanese nostalgia in my head. I have no idea why.

I was going to show you guys pictures of my new Gaijin card! (Yeah, "gaijin" is Japanese for "stupid fucking foreigners.") Having a passport and visa alone isn't good enough, they tag us with ID cards.
I guess it's better than having to wear patches on our coats...
Anyways, I got my new card- which looks pretty sweet and is covered with cool Japanese writing. And now my passport is all pimped out with stickers and stamps. AND I got my new bank card which is pretty bad-ass too! (It's colored with a sweet green gradient I chose from a brochure!)
BUT. All of this is pretty sensitive information...so I don't think posting it on the interweb tubes would be a good idea.
Remind me to show them to you in person.


So I just had a couple days off again (sorry- this blog has a sporadic timeline, like the sands of time blowing in the wind) and I decided to venture forth into the mysterious land of our Nipponese friends, once again.
The beginning of my travels beheld this epic looking movie poster. I figured Don would appreciate it so I took this picture for him, a movie that seems right up his alley. (It's being released today, 9/15/07, the day I'm typing this blog)


It was a pretty gloomy day to be wandering around, the residual rains from the typhoon have put this rain spell at a solid 8 days now. I hate to make the reference, it goes against what I stand for, but the rain combined will all the Japanese neon sign-age has a very "Blade Runner"-esque feel to it.
I'll try to get pictures of rainy neon alleys in Shibuya...or perhaps even Nakano...


So I decided to trek back to Otemachi to give the Emperor's Garden another chance. BEHOLD! The gates were open! (But this picture is taken from the inside facing out)


This is a second pair of gates leading into the garden. I suppose they were probably used as the "backup" plan, in case the first gates were penetrated.
By enemies.


This is the border wall of the garden that faces over the moat. It has peak holes.


The immediate pathway when you walk into the second gate and take a left.


Which leads this way, near the impressive rock walls. You can see some portions of the city of Otemachi in the distance.


Those are some LARGE rocks man. I don't know how they lifted that, but I'm guessing it was CAREFULLY.


This is a guard post near the 2nd gate entrance. I would imagine some bad-ass dudes sat in there and made sure that shit DIDN'T go down.


This longer building is as Derek as it gets (you'll find out why in the next picture). It's one of those things where you're like, oh shit. Derek would dig that.
After Derek talked about himself in 3rd person of course.


It's the Hyakuninbansho Guardhouse...which doesn't sound to spectacular (unless you're into vowels) but I'd like to highlight the last have of the paragraph:
"One hundred samurai guardsmen, chosen from among the Kinsmen and loyal retainers of each of the four main branches of the Tokugawa clan, had their quarters there..."
100 freaking samurai.
These are the things Derek dreams are made of.


I suppose while I'm educating you I might as well give you a slide of how the walls were restored (recently) using LASER BEAMS!!!
Is there anything Japan can't solve without laser beams?


The house of 100 samurai contrasted a little against it's skyscraper background.


This is the path that lead further into the island, past the guardhouse. The coolest fucking guardhouse ever. Of 100 samurai.


I suppose the shape of the island narrowed at this point, because these enormous walls seemed to just come out of nowhere. The bush in front of them is a little deceiving, considering it's taller than me. So imagine that I'm standing in front of that bush, and it's bigger than me. Big wall eh?


Not sure when exactly this thing was installed, but it looked pretty neat. I wouldn't mind having one in my living room.


That's about as Japanese as it gets folks.
Walking around through all of this was pretty surreal. A)Green is my favorite color, and there was NO lack of green here. B)I was pretty much alone the whole time, with nothing but the noise of cicadas and some birds. So that relaxing tone combined with the meticulously well-kempt shrubbery and wooden structures made for quite the euphoric experience.
100 freaking samurai.


I walked some paths through some of the less maintained woods and saw a couple spider webs with these nasties on them. I couldn't get closer without stepping off the path...which I didn't want to do, so take into account I'm a few feet away from them.
I'd going to take an educated guess that the smaller, mute-tone brown spider on the right is a male and that the much much larger (about 3 or 4 inches long), bright yellow spider on the left is a female. They seemed to be working as a team to wrap up whatever delicious flying insect had the misfortune of landing in their trap.
I'd bet in a couple days the female will eat the male, after he helps her out and impregnates her.
Girls are bitches like that.


After wandering through those woods I came across this "road." Now you can see how much larger the walls really are than they appeared in that last photo.
Yeeeup. Sure is some big walls.


So this is the interior moat. On the other side of the wall on the right is a raised portion of the island, so the wall is actually holding up a LOT of dirt.


Here's a visual aid. The red arrow in the center is where I was after walking up the road past those walls, you can see them behind me on the diagram (or south of me) where the water in the middle of the island is. I'm not sure what my elevation is at this point, but I do know this: someone scooped a lot of dirt into the middle of this island to make it higher, and they weren't using a crane.
I would imagine they used some sort of dragon with a scoop attached to it's head.


So this is a massive green field.
I feel that properly sums up the picture, but also note in the last picture the size of this enormous green field, and that it is connected to a 2nd equally as enormous big field (straight ahead in this picture).


To the left of me you see this. That big pile of rocks in the distance is where Japan's largest wooden castle once stood, at a mighty 19 stories. It was then destroyed by an earthquake, rebuilt, and then destroyed by a fire, never to be rebuilt again.


These defense houses lined the outer moat walls. The sign pretty much explains the rest.


This is the view on top of the pile of rocks that were where the largest wooden castle once stood. I suspect the residents of the castles didn't enjoy a similar view.


Reminded me of a smaller version of Central Park. Except...a billion times cooler. 100 samurai man. 100!


Huh, this picture is somewhat epic.


A wall.


So heading in a different direction I started to pass...palm trees? They are about as native to this island as they are to California.


I want my house to look like this.


Bring us....a shrubbery!


This was by far the most elaborate part of the gardens.
Ni!


With COY fish!!!


Lonely coy fish :(


I want my house to have a garden like this.
Perhaps I should just move in here.

Coy video.

Waterfall!
I'm not sure how exactly they devised a sort of water pump to make this thing run, so I SUSPECT that it's either a)a natural spring or b)it was installed once pumps were invented.
With secret choice c)midgets.


Hello Mr. Coy!
How are your whiskers today?

Army of Coy.


"Coo coy! Coo coy!"
My coy call brings all the coy to the yard. Your damn right it's better than yours.


Well. This is basically as Japanese garden as a Japanese garden gets.


It's hard to digitally capture how beautiful places like this are, but I try damn it. I try.


I climbed up on top of the waterfall.


And surveyed the land like all the mighty Emperors before me.


A convenient rock bridge to see me safely over the 2 foot wide waterfall. Understandable though, considering the cost of insurance these days.
As well as the danger of falling in and being jettisoned to the boiler room where I would have to be rescued by oompha loomphas.


"Coo Coy! Coo coy!"
They tried to swim to the source of my mighty call, but the force of the water, combined with the Earth's awesome gravity, was indeed a force that coy can not reckon with.


Hello creepy field.


It is a well known fact that 100's of samurai have had wicked fucking bad-ass slow-motion sword fights in these bamboo forests.


Just in case you forgot the layout of the island.


So after a few hours of intense Japanese-ing, I made my way back to the house of a hundred samurai. I couldn't stay away from it :(


The rock says:
"Dear strangers,
This house has a hundred fucking samurai in it. Don't fucking piss them off.
-Sincerely
Secretary of Samurai"


Cue gong. Gooooooooong!!!


The inner gates, as I head back out into the concrete jungle.


The outer gates.
I guess gates were fashionable back then.


Looking from the road TO the island fortress of a hundred samurai.


Same view, but without my camera strap hanging in front of it.


My next stop was to find some authentic Japanese sushi. From an authentic Japanese sushi train!


It took me about 3 weeks to find, but god dammit I finally found one! And it was AMAZING.
I was a little pre-occupied trying to figure out the proper manners for a Japanese sushi train restaurant to take more pictures, but don't worry you'll see more on these later.


After filling up on delicious uncooked sea creature meat, I took a couple trains to Ueno where I wandered around trying to find a katana. Yeah...the house of 100 samurai has kind of caught my interest if you didn't notice...
Ueno is a pretty touristy area, so there are a couple alleys lined up parallel to each other that run for about a mile and are completely PACKED with clothing stores. The only thing I could keep thinking of was how much Brenna would freak out if she saw this place.


It's hard to gather from this picture, especially since it's not a picture of the "cooler" shops, but they were selling AMAZING Japanese punk clothing. Leather bomber jackets, leather jackets that looked straight out of "Easy Rider," super Japaned-out t-shirts, crazy torn up jeans, a lot of plaid and leather. Apparently plaid and leather is a big thing for Japanese 20-something-year-olds right now.
Of course a regular t-shirt cost about $50, and jeans were starting at $300...


The clothes weren't expensive because it was a tourist area, the clothes are just expensive everywhere. Mainly because Japanese kids typically live at home until they are around 25 to 30, or until they get married, so they have a HUGE disposable income bracket here. Since younger Japanese people keep dishing out the money, the stores just keep their prices high.


After wandering up and down the alleys of Ueno for a good couple of hours, I started to hoof my way north to Asakusa. You would remember this as the place where I took pictures of the gi-normous temple that I had dubbed "Big Guy." Unless you weren't paying attention. In which case. Pbbbbllllltttttt.


I think Shinra is somewhere over there.
That was a FFVII reference...


Um...I was feeling art faggy? Hmmm...oh! It had green paint. I liked the green paint.


Somehow I stumbled across a motorcycle district.
I didn't know these existed...and I think I just made the term "motorcycle district" up...but yeah. "Corin" (I guess it's a Japanese import company?) seems to run a good solid 5 city blocks...with just...bikes...and...bike accessories.
I saw some pretty sweet freaking crotch rockets, but there were too many BAD DUDES hangin' around, so I didn't feel comfortable pulling out the camera.
And YES. They were bad enough dudes to rescue the President. The President has been captured by ninjas.


Ahhh back in Asakusa. Remember when I had pictures of this alley at night, all lit up and empty?


There were a couple stores like this.
Derek was a very, VERY, happy boy. (I did indeed purchase a super-sweet katana, there will be pictures of this much later.)


I took pictures of this before too (at night), but obviously it looks quite different during the day.


That little smoking hut towards the bottom left, people hang around the smoking coals that are in it and waft the smoke into their faces. It's some religious cleansing, but I'm not exactly sure what the story is.
Not too many of these people are tourists, this temple/park is smack in the middle of a major city area so the majority are just crossing through.


This is inside the enormous temple (in the background of the previous picture). Once again...can't really capture the beauty with a digital camera, but you get the idea.


This blurry picture is definitely a disgrace to the amount of detail they put into all of the artwork and structure of this temple, BUT, you can see a giant well-type thing (with a side-ways washboard contraption laying across it) that people make a prayer, clap their hands, and then toss a coin into.


Hey! It's Big Guy! Hello Big Guy!


I took this picture for Danielle since she's been on a kind of "Silent Hill" kick lately :)


Yeah, basically it was just an arcade machine inside a pachinko parlor. You owe me a new set of ear drums Danielle. (In case you forgot, from one of my first posts here, pachinko parlors are extreeeemely loud. I'd say about twice as loud as a jet engine. Seriously. Decibel-wise they destroy your ears.)


Well fuck me in the fuck sack! Spam!
Judging by the "Aloha!" in the center of the ad, I'm going to say this is aimed at the nearby Hawaiian natives who are doing some touristing.
For some reason the Japanese feel compelled to buy egg on top of their hamburgers. I...don't know why.


After taking a train from Asakusa back to Kinshicho, I walked past the park I always do, the one that leads me home.
The sun was setting, and I was carrying my newly bought katana.
Things felt right.


After it got dark out I decided it was time to show you guys the view I had from the top of my apartment building. We only live on the 2nd floor, so I had to take the elevator up to the 14th. This picture, of course, is looking downwards.


So this is staring straight ahead to the North, from our rooftop.


Northwest.


West. (If you could zoom in a couple kilometers you would see Shinjuku, Shibuya and all of those places.)


Northeast.


East.


So basically this is the whole view (after stitching the photos together).


This is a perspective view. It's like you're in my head maaaaaan!


Annnnd one more stitch job, without curving the photos at all.


Our apartment is "U" shaped (like a horseshoe), so this is the view directly South.


After eating some grub, Jesse and I decided to go wander around Shibuya- home of: the crazy intersection (world's busiest, remember?), most dense population of drunken Japanese youth and what I would estimate as a million-bajillion-cavillion neon lights.
This picture faces West of the station.


Northwest.


North-northwest. (I bet you know what I'm going to do with these picccctuuurrrrrres ;) Yeah, the rooftop set was just a test to make sure I had the stitching skills necessary for this project.)


North. (Dammit Kai, there's your Starbucks again.)


Hehehe! Everyone started to cross so I HAD to take a picture!


North-northeast.


Northeast.


East.


Southeast.


South-southeast.


Of course, this is the whole thing- quickly slapped together.


And, with less curvature.


So Jesse and I primed ourselves up with some of this "Geinki" drink (a Japanese term that refers to energy drinks). Basically it has 1000mg of taurine in it, along with some caffeine- a mere watered-down version of Red Line! (Zak, I'm lookin' at you!)
What I didn't know, until a couple days ago, was that this brand in particular puts 15 cigarettes worth of nicotine in it as well. Hot shit...no wonder it makes you feel so good!
Luckily I've only ingested 2 bottles of it during my stay, but this is THE BEST cure anyone has found for a hangover, so I my amount might be going up by a couple more bottles.
Seriously. EVERYONE uses this stuff to get rid of hangovers. It's got ninja magik in it or something.


The bottle is pretty bland looking, so you wouldn't suspect it would be so crazy...then again...it does have an Eagle logo on it, and some Japanese characters for "pharmaceutical."


V. I dedicate this to you.


V. I dedicate this to you too. ;)


Haha. Alright, so Jesse and I went to a 300 yen bar and drank a couple beers. The reason we drank the geinki drink was because we knew the train would stop running at midnight, and had planned on walking around Shibuya all night, until the trains started at 5:30 a.m.
After the bar we just wandered around from convenient store to convenient store making sure that we never walked with an empty can in our hands.
At one point we had shuffled our way into a red-light district, talked to some drunken Japanese dude for about an hour, talked to another drunken Japanese/Californian for a couple minutes, and then started to pass signs like the one in the picture above.
Just in case you don't make the connection, "REST" is not talking about the kind that involves sleep.


Love hotels in Japan are always pretty outrageous looking. I'm surprised I never took more pictures of them.


Haha. The picture speaks for itself eh? (That's Jesse if you didn't know.)


At one point we wandered into a 100 yen shop. It's basically the Japanese version of the dollar store, except they are typically multi-level and sell things for much more than 1 dollar (or 100 yen). The "100 yen" just implies that they sell stuff cheap.
The above is an EXTREMELY typical view of the mind-fuck they call a dollar store.


After wandering around in the 100 yen shop for about a half hour, we made our way down a dimly-lit walkway that lead us to a park. I'll try to explain this properly, so bear with me.
Once it's about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning it becomes common to see groups of Japanese high-schoolers sitting around in the streets/alleys/parks in groups- talking, singing and chanting. Once they enter high school they find a group, lead by a senior (male) that they want to join, and go through initiations to join said group. I suppose it's very similar to the American college Fraternities and Sororities, except with less latin, and less being a douche bag.
So the picture above is my camera zoomed in from across the park, with a 60 second exposure on it. It truly captures Japanese youth in the wild, completely undisturbed.


Now THIS is Shinra!
(Shinjuku, as viewed from a Shibuya park.)


It looked so ominous and evil that Jesse and I decided we needed to WALK there.


We got there at about 4:50 a.m.. The sun doesn't stay down too long in Japan.


It was VERY strange to see Shinjuku with no one, NO ONE, on the streets. It actually felt like a little slice of Chicago, or Cleveland, or any other semi-newly developed American city. Mostly because there were absolutely no asians around, along with a lack of Japanese sign-age...it was very very surreal.
And yes. These are the same building with the red lights on them that are in the pics from the park (2 and 3 pictures up).


This is the Tokyo Government Building. You can take an elevator to the top floor and overlook the entire city (along with many nearby cities). Something that I will return to do later on this day (after I go home and sleep a couple hours).


It's a pretty massive building. The satellites on the top look like weird video game lasers.


Morning crows.


Lingerie is Love-Jewelry indeed.
(See the Shinjuku sign?)


So I went home and crashed for a little bit, then woke up and decided I have been here entirely too long without going to check out the Nakano ward (the setting for easily one of my favorite books, "Kafka on the Shore"). V, you better be paying attention!


I was a little surprised by how developed it was, of course this was right next to the train station so the rest of the city (I suppose they are really called wards and I have been giving them the improper title of city this whole time) might not be so dense once you travel out a couple miles...er, kilometers.
The tunnel in this picture is a kind of indoor mall...that is shaped like an alley.


After walking straight through the "mall" I came out into a bunch of very narrow intersecting streets full of shops.


One shop in particular was a video game shop :)
Normally this wouldn't excite me too much, considering Akihabara is FULL of these, but today was the release of Final Fantasy: Crisis Core in Japan (seen on the rack in the pic above).


Since it was a major release day for a bunch of games, I took some pictures of the new DS games they just put out (clearer shots later).


OOooh, a copy of Valkyrie Profile: Silmfria...how enticing!


A bunch of newly release Wii games.
Erik and Emily, have you seen "The Dog Island," or is that a Japanese exclusive? (It's on the second row down, all the way to the right.)


Hahaha! The Xbox360 is TANKING in Japan, but one of the most highly anticipated games that is coming to America from Japan is this one, "Bullet Witch."


Eat your hearts out everyone in America that can't play this yet ;)


After some more wandering I discovered another sushi train restaurant! Woo!
It's pretty neat, you grab a mug from a conveyer belt, fill it with green tea powder, and then press the mug against a spout that pours hot water into it (everyone gets their own spout). Then you just grab a plate that looks good, and eat it. The plates have different color schemes, and each color scheme indicates how much that plate costs. At the end a waitress counts up your plates (and colors) and then you pay.
SOOOOO Good!


This is a taste of what its like at a sushi train restaurant.
Get it? Taste...


Annnnnd some more footage.


After I filled up on the sushies, I wandered around Nakano a little bit more.


Bingo. V, I nearly shit myself when I saw this! Man, I was grinning so hard...


Some more alleys...


Haha, a maid cafe. These are super popular in Akihabara, but it'd be weird to take a picture in one (I will eventually, I promise). Basically a hyper-cute japanese girl in a maid outfit brings you food and drinks. Then they ask you if you "Need anything ELSE?" in a VERY suggestive manner (not that anything will ever come of it).


Yay Nakano!


You can see where it starts to get more residential, which I think would feel more like the setting that takes place in the book.


I'm DEFINITELY coming back here at night. All of Nakano was littered with really cool looking dive bars and izakayas. Every now and then there were some bars with a tropical theme and some Jimmy Buffet playing, it seemed to be a sort of trend in this area.
Unfortunately I wanted to get back to the Tokyo Government building before the sunset completely, so I stopped exploring and started to make my way back to the train station.


So this is back in Shinjuku at around 5:45 p.m., rush hour!


You can see how it's COMPLETELY different than it was 12 hours earlier when Jesse and I were wandering through there.


Remember those three buildings from the picture earlier?


There was a bridge/crosswalk going over the traffic for pedestrians, so I ran up onto the middle of it and grabbed these shots real quick on my way to the Tokyo building.


Didja notice they drive on the wrong side of the street ;) (Yeah, they have left-handed cars here)


Tokyo Gov't Building when you're standing right under it.


Some other buildings...?


Tokyo Gov't Bld. again. Yes, I will keep making the name more abbreviated as I type this!


After getting some help from some police men, I finally figured out where in the building I needed to go. I was SO sure the building was closed and I missed out on the opportunity, but they actually keep ONE elevator open until 10:00 p.m. so people can go to the sky deck.


Of course, it's not the most popular attraction in Tokyo, so there wasn't much of a line. (You figure there are very few foreigners in Japan, and the people that already live in Tokyo couldn't care less about this building, so the only other people with me were some Japanese tourists from further away in the country.)


The line waiting for the elevator consisted of 3 Japanese "salary men" and a white guy. (The posters on the wall, I think those imply that Tokyo applied to hold the Olympics for 2016.)


The elevator had two floors to chose from: 1 and 45.


Annnnd this was the view from the top. I was in a decent-sized circular room, surrounded with glass windows, so bear with me as we go through all of the pictures!


This was the furthest to the "left" that I could see, then the view was blocked by that building on the left-hand side of this picture. See those 3 pointy buildings again? The ones from the earlier pics?
For reference-sake, all of the pictures I take are going to be shifting slightly to the right from this picture, until I do an almost complete circle around the room.


But first! Some video game machines to keep the kids entertained!


Ok, back to the scenery.


Obviously these pictures do the view no justice. But dammit! Look how far those buildings go!


And this doesn't even BEGIN to capture the vastness of Tokyo, you'd have to multiple what you're looking at about 30 times, in EVERY direction.


Haha, you can see the reflection of some people holding hands. I will admit, I wish I had had a special someone to view this with me. Touring Japan solo has been pretty exciting, but there are indeed some moments where it feels quite lonely.


Sooo many izakayas!


This picture alone probably has about 2,000 vending machines in it ;)


So. Many. Buildings.


Can you even IMAGINE what an earthquake does to this city? And they happen OFTEN!


But they just keep re-building...like lil' ol' Japanese ants!


I know, I know, this is getting a little redundant. But I want you to realize the scope that is Tokyo. And this is just a tiny SLIVER of the main island that is Japan.


Alright, we've almost come to a complete circle. If a circle was 360 degress (and it is) we just did about 270 degrees.


300 degrees from where we started.


3...30 degrees?


340!


Wooo! 350 degrees! We did it! We can't get the full 360 because of that stupid building blocking the view.


So here's the first version of the pictures stitched together. If you printed it out, taped all the sheets together, folded them into a circle and popped your head up through the center....you would have practically been there with me.


Shinjuku/Tokyo Government Building: Version 2.0


Ah! But we're not done yet! ONE MORE TIME! But a little bit darker out!


Woooo!


Yeah, you don't realize just how many light bulbs a city(s) like this has until you stand 45 floors above it at night time.


You can see the moon underneath the smaller lonely cloud to the right. It's a couple days before we hit a new moon, so it was a super small crescent.


It was hard to take sharp pictures because I had the ISO cranked and the shutter wide open for 1 second (even with the camera always resting on a railing).


Another factor was that I was shooting through some pretty thick glass, as well as shielding all the interior light around the camera so that it wouldn't reflect as bad.


Some pictures came out pretty sharp, I'm pretty happy with this one.


More neon than every year of the 80's combined!


Again, these were the buildings with the red lights that you could see in the park the night previously.


I've gotten pretty good at keeping the camera still, and focusing through 2-inch thick glass!


Annnnnnd I spoke too soon.


This kinda looks like those cool/cheesey posters you can get at Spencers, where it's a picture of a city-scape but the red lights on the towers are blinking LED's.
I always wanted one of those when I was a kid.


I'm really happy I got to take pictures at this exact time. Rarely is the view this clear, because there is so much humidity in Japan- it tends to get pretty hazy after a few kilometers. That, and once it got completely dark out (black sky) the pictures didn't come out nearly as well, the buildings didn't look any brighter and the sky just wasn't that interesting (well, as interesting as a black blob can get).


Woo panarama-vision!


If you were driving a spaceship through Shinjuku, this is what the windshield would look like.


Well, I have to admit that Japan is pretty fucking kick-ass. Although, I'm definitely feeling ready to wind the trip down, things like this (view) are only a novelty once, then it just becomes another day in a typical life eh?
Not to sound unappreciative though, this view was just as spectacular as on Mt. Fuji. There are VERY few places in the world where you can look miles into the horizon, in every direction, and never see the city end.


This was in the sky deck. Inside the circular columns is a classy restaurant with a grand piano. Hehe, I've had a few students ask me to explain the word "classy," and every time I just laugh. They say, "If something is nice, it is classy?" and I look at them and say, "Well, yes. But sometimes people might think you are making fun of them," then I have to explain sarcasm. Very few Eastern countries (as well as many Western) understand the comedic value of sarcasm.


This picture was on a sign on my way out of the building. One would suspect on the clearest of clear days you can see Mt. Fuji from the Tokyo Government Building.
Pffff, been there, done that ;)


On my way home I stopped at a grocery store to buy some sake and Jagermister. That enormous bottle of tsu-chu that I've been drinking (that was found under the kitchen sink) is just about kicked.
Notice the prices of the liquor? Keep in mind that the yen is of slightly less value than the usd. The large bottle of Jager was on sale for 1800 yen, which is roughly $15-$16 dollars.
The bottle of Bombay Sapphire on the bottom row, roughly $11. I don't think any of the bottles (which are generally the largest you can buy in the States) in this aisle costed more than 1800 yen.
Drinking in Japan is CHEAP.

Right when I was just about to finish this post the guy sitting next to me (in the Apple store) had a pretty severe seizure.

I just spent about an hour helping him and trying to communicate with paramedics...Ill give you the low-down next time I blog, for now I want to go home.

Take are all.