If Mandrake was where you go to buy anime figurines, Harajuku is where you go to see them in real life. Lots of young people dress up in crazy outfits like their favorite anime characters. But I don’t think it’s done to be ironic. They really mean it. I kept expecting them to take off into the air shining with big starbursts of light. This never happened.
We walked a lot more. Went to another awesome toy store called Kiddyland that had toy vending machines where we bought more guys for my nephews and a few for Angelica.
A note on vending machines: Many of you probably know this but vending machines in Japan rule. You can literally buy anything. Ok not literally. But you can buy cameras, toys, CD’s, DVD’s, sushi, every kind of drink you’ve ever seen, underwear, cell phones, and probably nun-chucks although I didn’t see them, I’d just really like to believe it is possible. In fact you could subsist in Japan on only things purchased from vending machines. This is an experiment that someone should try.
We ate authentic Japanese pizza for lunch. It tasted a lot like other kinds of pizza I’ve had before, only we were in Japan. One of the most fun things about Japanese restaurants is that when you walk in all the cooks and servers yell a greeting. I believe they say something like “welcome.” Japanese people are very nice.
After lunch we walked around Harajuku some more. This place is wild. We saw some awesome shoes but couldn’t buy any as both mine and Angelica’s feet fall outside the range that they stock.
Enough Harajuku, we got on the train and took it to Roppongi. At first we didn’t like Roppongi at all. It seemed to be full of things like TGI Fridays, sluts and American frat boys looking for said sluts. I wish them luck.
But Ange and I were looking for neither a TGI Fridays, nor sluts, nor American frat boys. Although it was raining, and we needed to “Find our bearings,” so we actually did sit down at the bar in the TGI Fridays to “Find our Bearings.” The bartender was maybe the sweetest guy ever, he wanted to practice his English with Angelica and I, and was also practicing doing Cocktail-esque tricks with bottles mostly to show off for Ange and I.
But to go with the sweetest guy ever was something on the exact opposite end of the sweetness scale. It was an old American guy chain smoking some form of Marlboro cigarette picking up an older woman all in the span of ten minutes as we looked at our maps. It was like watching a train crashing in slow motion, disturbing, slightly nauseating, making you feel that weird feeling in the pit of your stomach, yet transfixing. It was physically impossible for us to look away. We got our bearings and left the TGI Fridays at the same time as the American and his new friend, Ange looked at me and said, “They’re totally going to do it.” Yes, yes they were.
After “finding our bearings” we decided our feet had had enough abuse for one day and we would go see a movie. Two hours for our feet to recoup. So we headed for a theater that turned out to have the largest theater screens in all of Japan. Sweet.
(If you don’t like or know about Ultraman you can skip the following paragraph. Unless you know or like the Brady Bunch as I do make a random Brady Bunch reference.)
But it gets better, at the entrance to the theater we looked across to see we were also right by the Roppongi museum which has a wing dedicated to Ultraman. What? How could the day get any better? We bought our movie tickets for two hours later and spent two hours in the Ultraman exhibit. How can I express this in words? Ok, sorry for the long winded unintelligible analogy but this is the first thing that came to my mind. But the Ultraman exhibit was like sitting on one of those dunking machines like the one they had on the Brady Bunch, you know, where you sit on a platform over a tub of water and someone throws the ball at the target dunking you in the water. So I’m sitting on the platform and Roger Clemens in throwing the balls at the target, and he hits it ever time, but instead of falling into water I fall into a tub of 100% pure awesome juice. Over and over again. Awesome juice. Every suit ever worn by every Ultraman, and every Ultraman friend and villain. Models of cities destroyed by his battles. A wall explaining all of Ultraman’s various weapons and attacks. And much much more.
Finally we left and went to the movie. I Am Legend starring Will Smith and CGI vampire like creatures. It was pretty good. Really good caramel corn. And rice balls (more on rice balls later).
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Day Two: Shibuya/Asakusa
We woke up in our hotel room at about five in the AM. Still on LA time I guess. I know my legs and feet have been more sore in the past, but I couldn’t really remember when. We tried to sleep more but found this difficult. So instead we decided to create our “plan of attack” for the day. What was our plan of attack you ask? Follow the Lonely Planet Guide around the neighborhood of Shibuya. (Which I think is probably Stuart Scott’s favorite Japanese neighborhood. Sports fans will get this reference. Maybe.)
This is a very cool and hip neighborhood on account of all the young cool and hip Japanese people that hang out there, also because there are tons of stores selling cool and hip tee shirts for really skinny guys.
It is also a neighborhood without many street signs. Come to find out Tokyo is a city without many street signs and/or street names. This can be a little frustrating for people used to navigating via streets and signs telling you what these streets are named. But we were almost moderately successful using landmarks from the above mentioned Lonely Planet guide. Like the ten story Tower Records, or the Parco Department store (Uh oh, there are three Parco department stores? All within a few blocks of each other? This upped the confusion level by at least two degrees. The Japanese love department stores, also raw fish.)
But we eventually got our bearings and found what we were looking for which was more toy stores. Well just one in particular it was called Mandrake, and it was the greatest toy store I have ever been in in my life. It wasn’t really a toy store so much as a place to buy Manga (these are Japanese comic books only cooler and get this, you read them left to right. What will they think of next?) and also a place to buy figurines, toys (both new and antique) and little models anime chicks in fetish outfits. Wild.
It was at this store that I learned how cool I was when I was a kid as two of my favorite toys ever were on sale for huge sums of money in the antique section. One was my favorite toy of all time, it was a little metal robot called Tranzor Z. Tranzor Z was equipped perfectly for any situation in which someone might need to shoot his fists a few feet through the air, as this is what the toy did. I almost bought it, and would have if it hadn’t been over three hundred dollars. But I was content with the fact that I was that visionary as a seven year old to choose Tranzor Z as my favorite toy, a figure that would one day be a highly sought after prize to the cool people of Japan. Although it could have been a fluke. I also played dungeons and dragons.
After we dropped a hemorrhaged money at Mandrake, mostly buying cool looking guys for my nephews, we walked some more around Shibuya. We took a break and ate lunch at a place on top of one of the three Parco department stores. It was authentic Japanese food. But isn’t any food ordered in Japan authentic Japanese food?
At this point in time Angelica and I have mastered the phrase Arigato. I think this means hello.
After Shibuya we left and made our way back to Asakusa. We decided to let ourselves rest a little that night. We wanted to get drunk and sing karaoke, but this was not going to happen. My feet were once again in the barbeque zone and we still had a lot of walking to do.
We got back to the hotel. Took a nap. Got up (Angelica enthusiastically, me I would say in more a of a begrudging mode). And decided to go find a tempura place written about in the Frommers guide to Japan. Tempura is awesome because it is anything (usually seafood) that is encrusted with some form of breading then fried. We had a little trouble finding the restaurant as all the signs are written in Japanese. Eventually we did and discovered once again that the tables were just a little too small for me. (Maybe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but Japan as a whole was built for someone smaller than me.) I had to sit sideways again which made a table of young girls laugh even more than they already were. The hostess looked at me disapprovingly. And it didn’t help that when we finished with the lovely tempura I stood up and the table came with me, kind of like a turtle. The waitress said something which I think meant: Silly foreigner, he take table, we charge him extra! No this didn’t really happen. Well everything happened but the taking the table with me. That’s how we ended that day.
Still have yet to see any form of karate, giant monsters, or yakuza gun fights.
Most used phrase: “Let’s step back and get our bearings,” “Arigato,” “I can’t feel my feet.”
Most painful body part: Feet.
Interesting yet possibly offensive fact about Japan that I will write anyway: When people laugh they actually say “ha ha ha ha.”
This is a very cool and hip neighborhood on account of all the young cool and hip Japanese people that hang out there, also because there are tons of stores selling cool and hip tee shirts for really skinny guys.
It is also a neighborhood without many street signs. Come to find out Tokyo is a city without many street signs and/or street names. This can be a little frustrating for people used to navigating via streets and signs telling you what these streets are named. But we were almost moderately successful using landmarks from the above mentioned Lonely Planet guide. Like the ten story Tower Records, or the Parco Department store (Uh oh, there are three Parco department stores? All within a few blocks of each other? This upped the confusion level by at least two degrees. The Japanese love department stores, also raw fish.)
But we eventually got our bearings and found what we were looking for which was more toy stores. Well just one in particular it was called Mandrake, and it was the greatest toy store I have ever been in in my life. It wasn’t really a toy store so much as a place to buy Manga (these are Japanese comic books only cooler and get this, you read them left to right. What will they think of next?) and also a place to buy figurines, toys (both new and antique) and little models anime chicks in fetish outfits. Wild.
It was at this store that I learned how cool I was when I was a kid as two of my favorite toys ever were on sale for huge sums of money in the antique section. One was my favorite toy of all time, it was a little metal robot called Tranzor Z. Tranzor Z was equipped perfectly for any situation in which someone might need to shoot his fists a few feet through the air, as this is what the toy did. I almost bought it, and would have if it hadn’t been over three hundred dollars. But I was content with the fact that I was that visionary as a seven year old to choose Tranzor Z as my favorite toy, a figure that would one day be a highly sought after prize to the cool people of Japan. Although it could have been a fluke. I also played dungeons and dragons.
After we dropped a hemorrhaged money at Mandrake, mostly buying cool looking guys for my nephews, we walked some more around Shibuya. We took a break and ate lunch at a place on top of one of the three Parco department stores. It was authentic Japanese food. But isn’t any food ordered in Japan authentic Japanese food?
At this point in time Angelica and I have mastered the phrase Arigato. I think this means hello.
After Shibuya we left and made our way back to Asakusa. We decided to let ourselves rest a little that night. We wanted to get drunk and sing karaoke, but this was not going to happen. My feet were once again in the barbeque zone and we still had a lot of walking to do.
We got back to the hotel. Took a nap. Got up (Angelica enthusiastically, me I would say in more a of a begrudging mode). And decided to go find a tempura place written about in the Frommers guide to Japan. Tempura is awesome because it is anything (usually seafood) that is encrusted with some form of breading then fried. We had a little trouble finding the restaurant as all the signs are written in Japanese. Eventually we did and discovered once again that the tables were just a little too small for me. (Maybe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but Japan as a whole was built for someone smaller than me.) I had to sit sideways again which made a table of young girls laugh even more than they already were. The hostess looked at me disapprovingly. And it didn’t help that when we finished with the lovely tempura I stood up and the table came with me, kind of like a turtle. The waitress said something which I think meant: Silly foreigner, he take table, we charge him extra! No this didn’t really happen. Well everything happened but the taking the table with me. That’s how we ended that day.
Still have yet to see any form of karate, giant monsters, or yakuza gun fights.
Most used phrase: “Let’s step back and get our bearings,” “Arigato,” “I can’t feel my feet.”
Most painful body part: Feet.
Interesting yet possibly offensive fact about Japan that I will write anyway: When people laugh they actually say “ha ha ha ha.”
Day One: Ginza and Shinjuku (sp?)
It was kind of like walking down fifth Ave in New York. There were like five different Tiffany’s stores. Maybe there were only two but we probably passed them both multiple times which lead to the feeling that there were more.
We read about a cool paper store called Itoya. So we went there and looked at paper. It sounds totally boring, but was really pretty fun. Maybe it wasn’t so much the paper store but being surrounded by people from another country. Well, really they weren’t from another country, they were from right there. But we were from another country and you know what I meant. Everyone spoke a different language, well, they all the spoke the same language but it was different from the one that I spoke, which was English. There language was Japanese.
I tried to blend in and not seem like a tourist, but Angelica kept taking picture so I’m sure they all knew.
After the paper store we went to a toy store. It was full of toys that are cooler than the toys in America. It made my heart happy to see that Ultraman is still huge, and there was a whole section devoted to Ultraman guys.
I think you can tell a lot about someone by where they decide to go first when they visit a new country. Pardon the exaggeration, but there are millions of lovely temples in and around Tokyo that you can go for a spiritual experience. So what you can tell about Ange and I is that we chose to go to toy stores. But my experience was probably no less spiritual. Or maybe it was. I don’t really know about all that.
After that we went to Matsuya. I giant department store. Pardon the generalization, but Japanese people love department stores. They seem to be everywhere. Like literally every subway stop you come out of has a department store. The basement of these stores have food shows. Basically food courts on some form of stimulant drug, perhaps crack, perhaps crystal meth. We didn’t buy anything to eat, just walked around.
We left and went to the Sony building. I was expecting to see some new form of video game system that doesn’t exist yet. But they didn’t have one of those. Instead they had this funny little ball that rolls around and plays music, I forget what it was called, but it wasn’t too impressive. But then I saw what I think was a 96” TV. (In American units of measurement that is 96 inches). I think this is science at its best. (you can tell a lot about a person by what they think of as science at it’s best, I guess you can tell that I think TV’s are more important than curing diseases, this is only partly true).
After this, we ate something somewhere and then got on the train again and went to a place called Shinjuku. At this point in our trip I was getting disappointed. I had yet to see a single person do karate let alone a single spontaneous sword fight. That’s pretty weak Japan, pretty weak.
Shinjuku is like the Japanese Times Square, but really all of Tokyo is kind of like the Japanese Times Square. But Shinjuku is the most Times Squarish of all. Lots of lights. Lots of people. They even have their own naked cowboy. But instead of a cowboy he’s a samurai and instead of playing a guitar he chops people’s heads off. Ok, not really, but that would have been cool.
Then we decided to walk to the Park Hyatt hotel, which is where Bill Murray stayed in the movie Lost in Translation. This was a very far walk. At this point I’ll digress and tell you about the state of my feet and legs. They hurt really bad. I don’t walk a lot anymore now that I have a car. And at this point in the day Angelica and I had been walking or standing for about nine straight hours. As we walked to the Park Hyatt an image came to my head that may gross you out, but it was of Barbeque rips where the meat falls right off the bone, but only instead of ribs it was my feat. This thought also made me somewhat hungry.
Also this may be more than you ever want to know about me, but my chaffing factor was at a 7.5 and rising.
The Park Hyatt was cool. We sat there and I ordered an eight dollar coke, and Ange ordered a ten dollar cup of tea. But I didn’t care. It was probably the best Coke I’d ever had. And since I was really paying for the view and not the Coke I ordered another one. But not a third. Sixteen dollars is more than enough to pay for two small bottles of coke whether you can see Mount Fuji through the haze or not, I mean I’m not Burt Reynolds who can throw real money around as if it was Monopoly money but not just one set of Monopoly money, like seven sets, and a Burt Reynolds with seven sets of Monopoly money that exists in a universe where also five hundred dollar bills exist.
After this we made our way back to the Asakusa View Hotel where my feet literally fell off. Of course I mean this figuratively.
Chaffing level: 8.6
Most used phrase: “Plan of Attack,” followed closely by, “(sigh) I guess I’ll have to sit sideways again.”
We read about a cool paper store called Itoya. So we went there and looked at paper. It sounds totally boring, but was really pretty fun. Maybe it wasn’t so much the paper store but being surrounded by people from another country. Well, really they weren’t from another country, they were from right there. But we were from another country and you know what I meant. Everyone spoke a different language, well, they all the spoke the same language but it was different from the one that I spoke, which was English. There language was Japanese.
I tried to blend in and not seem like a tourist, but Angelica kept taking picture so I’m sure they all knew.
After the paper store we went to a toy store. It was full of toys that are cooler than the toys in America. It made my heart happy to see that Ultraman is still huge, and there was a whole section devoted to Ultraman guys.
I think you can tell a lot about someone by where they decide to go first when they visit a new country. Pardon the exaggeration, but there are millions of lovely temples in and around Tokyo that you can go for a spiritual experience. So what you can tell about Ange and I is that we chose to go to toy stores. But my experience was probably no less spiritual. Or maybe it was. I don’t really know about all that.
After that we went to Matsuya. I giant department store. Pardon the generalization, but Japanese people love department stores. They seem to be everywhere. Like literally every subway stop you come out of has a department store. The basement of these stores have food shows. Basically food courts on some form of stimulant drug, perhaps crack, perhaps crystal meth. We didn’t buy anything to eat, just walked around.
We left and went to the Sony building. I was expecting to see some new form of video game system that doesn’t exist yet. But they didn’t have one of those. Instead they had this funny little ball that rolls around and plays music, I forget what it was called, but it wasn’t too impressive. But then I saw what I think was a 96” TV. (In American units of measurement that is 96 inches). I think this is science at its best. (you can tell a lot about a person by what they think of as science at it’s best, I guess you can tell that I think TV’s are more important than curing diseases, this is only partly true).
After this, we ate something somewhere and then got on the train again and went to a place called Shinjuku. At this point in our trip I was getting disappointed. I had yet to see a single person do karate let alone a single spontaneous sword fight. That’s pretty weak Japan, pretty weak.
Shinjuku is like the Japanese Times Square, but really all of Tokyo is kind of like the Japanese Times Square. But Shinjuku is the most Times Squarish of all. Lots of lights. Lots of people. They even have their own naked cowboy. But instead of a cowboy he’s a samurai and instead of playing a guitar he chops people’s heads off. Ok, not really, but that would have been cool.
Then we decided to walk to the Park Hyatt hotel, which is where Bill Murray stayed in the movie Lost in Translation. This was a very far walk. At this point I’ll digress and tell you about the state of my feet and legs. They hurt really bad. I don’t walk a lot anymore now that I have a car. And at this point in the day Angelica and I had been walking or standing for about nine straight hours. As we walked to the Park Hyatt an image came to my head that may gross you out, but it was of Barbeque rips where the meat falls right off the bone, but only instead of ribs it was my feat. This thought also made me somewhat hungry.
Also this may be more than you ever want to know about me, but my chaffing factor was at a 7.5 and rising.
The Park Hyatt was cool. We sat there and I ordered an eight dollar coke, and Ange ordered a ten dollar cup of tea. But I didn’t care. It was probably the best Coke I’d ever had. And since I was really paying for the view and not the Coke I ordered another one. But not a third. Sixteen dollars is more than enough to pay for two small bottles of coke whether you can see Mount Fuji through the haze or not, I mean I’m not Burt Reynolds who can throw real money around as if it was Monopoly money but not just one set of Monopoly money, like seven sets, and a Burt Reynolds with seven sets of Monopoly money that exists in a universe where also five hundred dollar bills exist.
After this we made our way back to the Asakusa View Hotel where my feet literally fell off. Of course I mean this figuratively.
Chaffing level: 8.6
Most used phrase: “Plan of Attack,” followed closely by, “(sigh) I guess I’ll have to sit sideways again.”
Japan: The Arrival
We landed and got off the plane. Guess what? We were in another country full of a different kind of people than we were. Mostly you can tell who is Japanese and who is from the west by the style of clothing they wear. But also because their eyes look different. Oh, and everyone has black hair. We found our way to the train that would take us to Asakusa which is where we were staying. We did not see anyone do karate on the way from our gate to the train. This was dissapointing to me.
The train ride was fine. We got off one stop too early on accident, and had to get back on again. This detail is not that interesting.
We got to the hotel around nine pm Japanese time. So it was like eleven am. And we didn’t sleep like we were supposed to on the flight. Instead we watched Bourne Ultimatum more than once, but less than four times. And thought about fighting guys.
So we went right to bed.
The people at the hotel were really nice. They bow a lot over there. And it’s an easy habit to fall into. I feel like I may do it the rest of my life. Or at least for a few more days. Or maybe something in between the two.
The train ride was fine. We got off one stop too early on accident, and had to get back on again. This detail is not that interesting.
We got to the hotel around nine pm Japanese time. So it was like eleven am. And we didn’t sleep like we were supposed to on the flight. Instead we watched Bourne Ultimatum more than once, but less than four times. And thought about fighting guys.
So we went right to bed.
The people at the hotel were really nice. They bow a lot over there. And it’s an easy habit to fall into. I feel like I may do it the rest of my life. Or at least for a few more days. Or maybe something in between the two.
the flight
I am a large man. The flight was 12 hours long. We aren’t rich enough yet to pull the trigger on business class. We told the lady at the desk it was our honeymoon but no dice on the upgrade.
So it was tight.
But ANA has good food. And TV screens at every seat. I watched Bourne Ultimatum. It was awesome. Matt Damon totally beats up a lot of dudes in that movie. It made me think if I really had to maybe I could beat up a dude. This is what I thought about as we straddled the Pacific Ocean.
Other things I thought about: Cheescake, dinosaurs including the T-Rex and the Triceratops but not the brontosaurus, and whether or not Spiderman could be considered literature. I concluded yes.
So it was tight.
But ANA has good food. And TV screens at every seat. I watched Bourne Ultimatum. It was awesome. Matt Damon totally beats up a lot of dudes in that movie. It made me think if I really had to maybe I could beat up a dude. This is what I thought about as we straddled the Pacific Ocean.
Other things I thought about: Cheescake, dinosaurs including the T-Rex and the Triceratops but not the brontosaurus, and whether or not Spiderman could be considered literature. I concluded yes.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Packing
Testing 1...2...Sibilance...Sibilance
Today we do laundry and pack. And also watch football and play video games, this has nothing to do with Asia except for the fact that I will be playing a PS2 which is from Asia. I tell my PS2 that I'm going to visit its family. It's sad that it can't go. I should stop ascribing human emotions to my PS2. Also I should get a PS3.
Today we do laundry and pack. And also watch football and play video games, this has nothing to do with Asia except for the fact that I will be playing a PS2 which is from Asia. I tell my PS2 that I'm going to visit its family. It's sad that it can't go. I should stop ascribing human emotions to my PS2. Also I should get a PS3.
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