Settling with score with Tokyo

It's no secret that I got owned by the city of Tokyo on my first trip there a couple of weeks ago.  I was tired because we had to wait in the Immigration Bureau for 4.5 hours, I didn't want to carry around my papers all day, I wanted to spend at least a little bit of time sightseeing, and I was unprepared for the utter madness that is the Tokyo commute.  However, when Matt and I went to Tokyo again last Friday I settled the score...

Once again, we had to make a trip to the Immigration Bureau to get our visas officially changed from short term to long term.  As we were unable to convince anybody at AIST to hold our hands on our trip, we took more care in preparations to go.  We double checked everything from the required documents to the opening time of the Immigration Bureau in hopes of beating the rush.  The funny thing is that it only took us about 45 minutes at the bureau once we were there...awesome!  Our bosses weren't expecting us back at work that day so Matt and I planned the rest of the day over some bagels and coffee at the Tokyo Station.   

We each had several Tokyo guide books so we browsed around in them looking for some touristy things to do (wow, 'touristy' is a word?).  Several attractions in the books stimulated a pleasure center in our brains so we mapped out the train lines we needed to take to get to these locations.  The first stop was the Tokyo Electric Power Company or 'TEPCO' museum in Shibuya.

 Indeed.

On our walk to TEPCO we stumbled into what is often called “the world's busiest intersection.“  It is estimated that over 1 million people pass through this intersection everyday.  It just so happens that one of the world's busiest Starbucks is in this square also.  So we decided to go up, grab some (more) coffee, and take to photos of the intersection.

Photobucket

Two things I want to say about this: 1) It is very difficult to capture all of the madness in a photo.  You really have to be there to understand. 2) Since it was a rainy Friday afternoon, this still doesn't compare to how busy it gets on the weekends.  Since Matt has a sweet camera we decided to take some cool pictures of people passing around us. 


Well, we had our fun so we continued on our way to TEPCO for a good nerd-out session with electricity.  As soon as we got there we were handed a couple pamphlets in English and were told to start the exhibit from the 4th floor and work our way back down to the 1st floor.  I took some pictures as we went through.

Matt standing next to a full size  water turbine.

Matt sitting next to "Mindball."  You lean your head into some metal sensors and a small ball moves toward the other goal when you are more relaxed than your opponent.  During the first game I started laughing so I lost pretty quick.  During the second game I tapped into my chi and relaxed, so we tied.

Ahhhh yes...of course there would be a robotic dog.  I'm not going to lie, this little guy was pretty cute.

After leaving TEPCO we decided to walk back to the train station and make our way to the city of Ebisu.  On our way we saw a celebrity and were completely starstruck.  Feeling like a member of the paparazzi, I pulled out my camera and snapped a quick photo while he waved at his fans. 

That's right, its MJ!  Not to mention, the king of pop looks healthier now than he did right before he died.

Well, anyway we made our way to Ebisu to the Yebisu beer museum.  Going to a beer museum was a no brainier.  Yebisu is Japan's oldest and most well known beer company.  They have a good reputation for taste because when they started they brought in a German brew master.  Their beers follow German beer making traditions which is awesome because its honestly hard to find decent beer in Japan that won't break the bank.

View from the front entrance.

Matt is enjoying his Creamy Stout in the Tasting Lounge.

While we were in the neighborhood we decided to go to the Tokyo Museum of Photography.  There were two exhibits on display at the same time. This meant you had to pay separately so you had to chose which one you wanted to see.  One was a French guy who obviously only liked to take pictures of naked people and a Japanese guy who had an exhibit on historical figures.  Since, we didn't have any interest in trying to find "artistic expression" in room after room of black and white nudes, we went with the Japanese guy.  Here is one of his premier photos:

Morimura liked to take pivotal moments in recent history and add his own twist.  This is obviously in Times Square, but with Japanese people.  Also, there are signs with the dates of Peal Harbor, the dropping of the atomic bomb, and 9/11.

Finally, our last stop in Tokyo for the day was at an English bar called "What the Dickens." Which is what I kept saying to myself after we looked for the dang place for over an hour on the rainy streets.  Well, we finally found it by chance and went up to have some dinner.  The food was ok, they had good beer, and there was a live band setting up. The only problem we faced was that I was completely out of money and the last train to Tsukuba was leaving soon.  We were unable to watch the band, but we still liked the place quite a bit.  
The band was "setting up" for like an hour and still weren't playing when we left.

Luckily we didn't have to spend the night in Tokyo because we made it back to the train station in time.  Matt paid for my ticket home and we were home in no time at all.  After such a long day, I slept like a newborn baby that night. 

-Seth

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美しい桜の花 (The Beautiful Cherry Blossom)

Matt and I arrived in Japan just in time for the blooming of the Sakura or cherry blossoms. The pink or white flowers only last for about one week. Its such a beautiful time in fact, people who have spent their entire lives in Japan still go outside and take photos of these trees. One amazing thing is that the trees essentially bloom overnight. No joke, one day its rainy and cold and the trees don't have any flowers.  The next day, the sun is out and BAM! flowers are everywhere.

This motivates people to have picnics outside under the trees, go on walks more often, ect. In fact, one day at work we walked to the street bridge to look at the cherry blossoms and take pictures. Below is a photo of Matt and me with one of our bosses, Segawa-san.


Unfortunately, the bulk of the blooming happened during the middle of the week.  However, Matt and I decided to dedicate some time after work to take some photos.

Gorgeous cherry blossom with branches overhanging a popular walking/running path which stretched about 3 miles continuously down the middle of Tsukuba.


This is the clock tower in a park fairly close to my apartment. In fact, I look out at that clock tower every morning from my room.

Matt reviewing a photo.  I really like the composition of this one.

That weekend Matt and I made a trip to the Ministry of Agricultural which is famous for its abundance of cherry blossoms and flowers.  I found myself in constant awe from the arrays of cherry blossoms and yellow flowers.  Below are some photos.

 The roads were lined with Sakura. This photo doesn't show it, but these streets were very chaotic. People were everywhere and traffic was crazy.  We made our way down the walkways to the field of yellow flowers.  Much time was spent there admiring the scenery and taking pics.

 This is my favorite photo I took that day.

And it was all yellow.



Path through the flower field.

There was also a field of dark green grass.

Once again, the Japanese love this time of year.  There was a ton of people walking around, having picnics, and taking photos.  For example... 

This man tried for at least a couple minutes to get a good picture with his precious little dog in the field.  After a while, we asked a lady to get a picture of Matt and me in the field.

 
After this outing, I felt pretty satisfied with my first cherry blossom bloom in Japan.  However, I couldn't help but be sad that Katie wasn't there to enjoy it with me :( 

Don't forget to check out Matt's blog also at:      http://mattbhaines.blogspot.com/

I also have more photos at:      http://s744.photobucket.com/albums/xx83/sethrwalker/Cherry%20Blossoms/

 You can click on slideshow to view them. 

-Seth

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The Hunt for the Red Popcober

Living in Japan definitely has its ups and downs when it comes to grocery items.

PRO: There is almost always a grocery store close by.  I would say that within a square mile of our apartment there are maybe 7 grocery stores.
CON: Can't read the labels on anything.
PRO: There is an abundance of sweet tasting snacks.
CON: Some salty items such as microwavable popcorn and tortilla chips are a rarity.  Herein, lies the problem.... 

I would be as bold as to say that Matt is a popcorn man.  From my experience, his favorite after dinner snack is to chomp down on those little nuggets of salt and butter.  Obviously after the craziness of moving to Japan started to dwindle away, Matt really started to notice this void in his life.  After mentioning it on several occasions at the Ninomiya House (I will just call it "the house" from now on), We finally decided to consciously seek some out.

This past Saturday we had a long bike riding journey to visit an agricultural research facility that is famous for their cherry blossoms (that blog is next on my agenda).  At some point along the trip we spotted a large store and decided to see what was inside.  As it turns out, it was a large supermarket with many household items and food.  The first thing you notice when you go inside the store is an intense brightness.  I can appreciate a well lit store, but this place was ridiculous!  In fact, I felt justified in taking a photo of it.

 My retinas weren't appreciative of the highly reflective floors either.

The first section we walked through was the diet/health section.  I must say, you gotta respect the Japanese for their bluntness in advertising.  There was a hilarious add for some diet pills that I thought needed to be shared with the masses.

"You're too fat!"

After trolling around for a while we found our way to the snack section and were only able to find a bag of already popped popcorn.  Matt tried for several minutes to ask a worker if they had microwave popcorn.  During this ordeal we talked with three workers and a drunk man who stank of whiskey as he tried to tell Matt "Get it! Its chewy!"  I also noticed that he had nothing but alcohol in his basket.  Anyway, they didn't have what we were looking for.  However, there was a glimmer of hope.  The next store over was thought to have some popcorn.  So we went outside, unlocked our bikes, mounted them, rode 100 feet, unmounted, locked our bikes, and went in the store.  

Well wouldn't you know it, we went straight back to the snack section and they had some popcorn made in the good 'ol U.S of A.  Inflated prices be damned, we bought all of the bags they had (buttered and natural).  There was only 7 bags so Matt got 4 and I got 3.  What follows is my share of the goods.

Ahhh, Fun Pop.

I foresee another popcorn outing in our near future. I project that these won't last very long.

-Seth

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Cultural Note: Eating in Japan

12:17 AM Posted by Seth 2 comments
Some of the most frequently asked questions about living in Japan involve food.  What do you eat, how much does it cost, do they have forks, ect, ect.  Since I've been here for over two weeks now, I feel like I can finally begin to address some of these questions with confidence.  Lets start with eating etiquette.

Eat the doggy's mess
In Japan, people are very keen on giving thanks.  Before Japanese people start eating, they put their hands together, bow down, and say "Itadaki-masu" (phonetically sounds kinda like "eat the doggy's mess") which basically means I humbly receive this meal.  This is somewhat a loose practice.  I've truly only seen a handful of people do it on a day to day basis.  They also give thanks after they finish eating.  This phrase is "Goshisou-sama" and means thank you for the meal.

And yes, chopsticks are still the weapon of choice when it comes to bridging the gap between plate and mouth.  I've found that the only exception to this rule is when you order Japanese curry (so far).  However, when eating in a cafeteria type establishment, spoons, forks, and knives are readily available.  I've had a decent amount of practice when it comes to the twin sticks because Katie loves sushi.  In fact, one of the ladies in my office complemented by chopstick skills the other day. Ha!

Another thing I found interesting is that you usually don't have paper napkins.  Rather, you are given a warm wet cloth towel at the beginning of the meal to wipe your hands.  I suppose Japanese people aren't as messy as Americans.   

A feast for the eyes
The Japanese are extremely visual people in case you haven't noticed yet (Anime', bright advertisements, everything in cartoon form).  Food is no exception.  Virtually every menu in every eatery has pictures of most of their food items.  Even if their menu has to be 10 pages, they will have pictures.  Another way that restaurants try to lure you into their establishment is to have a fake food display in front.  Luckily, many restaurants have a window display with food displays and prices so we know what we are getting ourselves into.  Matt made an excellent comment the other day after walking past a food court "Geez, I bet making fake food is a huge industry over here."  I wholeheartedly agree.  I grabbed a photo off the internet as an example.

Typical Japanese food display in front of a restaurant.

"What part of the chicken is that?"
I was going to try to lead into this with some sort of clever analogy, but I'm just going to say it.  The Japanese eat everything.  It seems like almost any plant that isn't poisonous is consumed in one way or another.  Animals are no exception.

For example, Matt and I went to a restaurant called Torikichi.  Here they deep fry or grill about 90% of their menu items so pictures weren't helping.  We printed off a menu so that our boss, Iki-san, could tell us what everything was.  About half way through the broken English descriptions, I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  Its been a couple days, but this is what I remember from the description:

"lksdjfhlkajsdhflakjsdfh chicken head oiwurpqfn,mvnljghdfghlskdjfghlsdkfjg liver jkasdfhaisudfhjwefnbmn I think maybe cartilage. Many people like. zmxncvbkfhlsdfjhaisdufwer neck of chicken s;ldkfj;asldkfja;lskdfjvnjghlkguheir skin ;lksdfjasd;."

Anyway, you get the point.  Matt and I stood there and waited in vain for the words "chicken breast."  Alas, those words never came....however, some details of the food got lost in translation and there was some chicken breast on the menu after all.  We ended up going anyway and ordered some beef, grilled peppers, chicken mash balls, chicken neck, and some chicken breast.  The food was actually really good.  The neck tastes like chicken breast except every once in a while you will get some gristle.  Not awesome.       

I suppose that living on a series of mountainous islands for thousands of years would force your people to eat everything that doesn't kill you.  By the way, I tried some grilled chicken cartilage as well.  It has a surprisingly good taste, but the texture is a deal breaker.

-Seth 

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Mt. Tsukuba (the picture book)

Since I'm getting lazy about blogging already, I'm going to forgo lengthy descriptions of our trip to Mt. Tsukuba.  Instead, I will let the photos do the majority of literary work.  I will however say that the entire experience was totally surreal.  I've seen many photos of temples and shrines like that of Mt. Tsukuba, but actually being there is indescribable.  I wanted to take a picture of everything I saw there.  The people, architecture, vegetation, and the journey were all beautiful. 

Mt. Tsukuba is believed by some Japanese to be the birthplace of Japan.  The twin peaks are representative of two deities, a man and a woman.  In short, I think Mt. Tsukuba has influences in reproduction, vegetation, rain, and frogs.  In the past, there have been festivals where people would go to Mt. Tsukuba...and...um....practice reproduction with various partners on the mountainside.  I read that it has been compared, in some respects, to Woodstock.  Well, enough of that talk.  If you would like to learn more, you can go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tsukuba  

Our trip was not like that at all, I assure you.  Enough of this gibber-gabber, I will let the pictures do the talking.
I'm assuming you used to have to cross this bridge before entering the temple area.

 Some sort of spring.  I watched some people pour the water on their hands before proceding.

Matt standing in front of an entrance before the steps to the main shrine.  There were marble-carved guards on each side of the entrance, but it was hard to get a good pic.

Back side view of the entrance.

The main shrine. Tsukubasan Shrine. Breathtaking. Toward the front they have wooden tablets you can write your prayers on.  You then hang the tablets and hopefully the gods grant your prayer.  There is also a bucket that you put your money in.  I'm not sure if it's the same as tithing or not.

A cherry blossom overhanging a cemetery by the cable car. 

 Looking up the track on the cable car.  We decided to ride the cable car to the top and hike down since we weren't sure what to expect.  We didn't want to take too long and miss our bus back to town.

Shrine at the top of the north summit. 
View from the top of the north summit.  Too bad it was a cold and cloudy day.  We will be back when the weather is better.

  Much like U.S. tourist attractions, there are a bunch of little shops with trinkets and memorabilia.  This was taken between the north and south summits.
We decided to hike down on the main trail.  There are a million little wooden steps.  As you can see, they are very close together.  From some angles the look less like steps and more like a sloped wooden road. 

As it was Easter, I had to take a picture of the largest Easter egg I had ever found!  

On our way back to the bus station, I saw a store with this on it.  It looks like the frog launched from the moon and is heading to Saturn....hmmm....anyway, there was a lot of frog stuff at the shops. 

It was one of those places that you have to visit time and time again to truly process everything.  Next time we will be hiking the whole thing, up and down.  You can bet on it.

I took a ton of pictures that I did not include in this post.  You can view then by going here: http://s744.photobucket.com/albums/xx83/sethrwalker/
-Seth

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A portal to the New Mexican dimension

Saturday April 3rd:

Matt and I got down to our bikes at the crack of noon Saturday with hopes of trying to find the fabled mall and movie theater we keep hearing about. As with all good adventures, the plans at the beginning of the day did not match what actually happened.

In preparation for what may be a long day of riding, Matt decided to put a little more air in his recently patched tire. Moments before Matt was to mount his two wheeled pony, his rear tire exploded with a ferocious thunder clap that reverberated throughout the entire underground parking garage. If the damage done to the tire was at all proportional to the sound it made, a little hole patch kit wasn't going to fix it.

Lucky for us, there is a Specialized bike shop about a block away from our apartments. Unluckily however, they don't fix "normal bikes" and pointed us in the direction of a normal bike shop. I took out my flip camera and filmed Matt's reaction. What follows is that very video (I may have doctored it a little).




Well, we found the bike shop, dropped off his bike, and decided to walk around and explore the unknown. It was this venture into the unknown where we found something we know all too well. Right in the middle of Tsukuba is a Wild West store!? We could not believe it! Of course we had to pull out our cameras a take a couple photos.


Of all the states in all of the world...



Yes, I did take this in Japan.



Matt looking at some (highly inflated) turquoise prices.

We went inside and talked to the worker who told us that the owner of the store has a house in Gallup. He wasn't there that day, but we are planning on going back to talk to him someday soon.

The rest of the hour long walk was pretty cool. We passed by some nice houses, parks, and interesting neighborhoods on our way back to the bike shop. Once we got there, Matt was slapped with a 2500 Yen (~$30) bill to replace his rear tire. Matt reluctantly paid the guy and we left. Any high hopes of trying to find to movie theater had been dashed away.

We ended up riding to Tsukuba station and buying a couple things from the shops around there. Bed time was relatively early because we were determined to go to Mt. Tsukuba the next morning.

-Seth


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Having fun with failure

1:44 AM Posted by Seth 2 comments
Thursday:
Not a lot to report on this day. Matt and I had to make a trek through our first dose of precipitous weather on the way to work. After work we found a 100 Yen store right next to our house. Needless to say, we stocked up on all sorts to essentials we had previously deemed "non-essential" at normal stores.

Friday:
For the most part today was standard which is itself becoming increasingly standard. I'm getting used to not being able to understand 90% of the written and spoken word. It is quite interesting how Matt and I live in our small English speaking world with our computers, music, shows, and skype. It is easy to forget that we are in a foreign country.

For dinner we decided to go grab some sushi since we hadn't had any yet (whaa?!). Unfortunately we went to the Del Taco equivalent of a sushi restaurant. It's kind of cool that the menus items pass by you on a conveyor belt-type device. Cool, that is, until you realize that the same dish of raw fish has been passing by you for 30 minutes at room temperature. Hmmmm....it was a great learning experience though. Below are a couple pics.


The food track shuttling some drinks by us.



I call this one "How long has that been at room temp?"

Following dinner we stopped off at one of the bars a stones throw away from our apartments. Its a really small, intimate environment where you take off your shoes at the door and sit on the ground. I ended up ordering a borderline NA beer that you mix with like 2 shots of sake. It was really good, but not at all what I expected. I did you a solid by including the following explanation via my new best friend I named "PPB" or the party polar bear.


Another slick move I made was to order some fried tofu (safe enough, ride?) Well, Matt and I drew the attention of the chef when we started ruining his masterpiece by putting the wrong type of sauce on it. I knew it was bad when I saw him talking to our server and pointing at us. I thought to myself "crap, what did I do?" Before we were able to take our second bite, he was quickly at our table giving us a tutorial on how to eat it. It sounds worse than it was, he was very nice about it and not mad at all...I'm just trying to be dramatic.

-Seth

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Video Tour of my Apartment

This morning I finally got to do a video of my apartment. Enjoy.



I also decided to record a couple of Japanese commercials. Check 'em out.



-Seth

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"Earthquake? Oh, yes...that was earthquake."

12:11 AM Posted by Seth 1 comments
Well, its official. As of Wednesday March 31st, 2010 I survived my first earthquake. I know my mother's heart just leaped into her throat, but rest assured mom. It was less like an earthquake and more like an earth-twitch.

At about 6:30 Wednesday morning I felt the room move my body left, then right. Immediately aware of the implications of said movement, my brain sprang to full consciousness. I continued to lay in bed while straining all of my senses to feel any additional movement that might merit action. After a couple minutes I started questioning if I had felt anything.

"Did I dream that? Maybe one of my neighbors slammed a door or something."

At some point I had convinced myself that I imagined it. One thing was for sure though, I was up for the day.

Since it was my first day for work I wanted to brush up on the research topics we are to be working on while at AIST. So I grabbed my camera and went to the library. On the way I took several photos.


View from the 4th floor down to the courtyard area



Inside entrance to the library/study area



Some VHS tapes that we can borrow. I'm pretty excited because I haven't watched a VHS in like 6 years.

Chihiro, Matt, and I all rode to work on our bikes. On the way I mentioned something about how I thought I felt an earthquake. To which Matt said "Oh, ya. I thought I felt something too." Then Chihiro said "Earthquake? Oh, yes...that was earthquake. It was small though. You get used to them."

At that point I couldn't decide if I was more excited to have already gone through an earthquake, or terrified to have already gone through an earthquake. Either way, the proof is in the pudding. You can see the official documentation by the USGS here:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/2010ulbh/us/index.html


The first day of work was great. We were introduced to our bosses and they were very cordial. In fact the leader of the plasma actuator research, Segawa-san, took us to McDonalds for lunch. After getting down on a double patty burger (which I ordered by accident), Segawa-san drove took us to some international grocery stores and back to our apartment to drop off the things we purchased. Again, they are very nice.

The remainder of the day was fairly standard except Matt popped his tire trying to jump a sweet gap at a park right next to our apartment. Luckily he bought a patch kit the day before.

-Seth

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Tokyo, Oh No

While my first trip to Tokyo was one of business, I was still able to get a little taste of one of the world's most densely populated cities.

Before detailing our misadventures in Tokyo, I would like to make a little side note about commuting in Japan. What I found fascinating was that you can be riding on the train where one second you are surrounded by skyscrapers, and the next second you are in the middle of vegetable crops. Even as you walk around an urban neighborhood, there are small plots of farmland scattered throughout. Its quite indicative of the deeply seeded agricultural roots in the Japanese culture, despite its modernization. But I digress...

Sooooo, the purpose of our visit to Tokyo was to go to the Immigration Bureau and apply to change our Visa status from 'short term' to 'long term.' In stark contrast to the mundane atmosphere of the train car, as soon as you step into the train depot in Tokyo you are hit with hustle and bustle of the Japanese commuter. In my opinion, the immediate area by the train station felt like walking around in what would be the offspring of Las Vegas and New York City. Bright lights, people handing our fliers, large walkways, and even larger skyscrapers dominated my peripheral as I tried to keep up with Chihiro. She led both Matt and I through the chaos to a bus stop that would take us to the Immigration Bureau.

Once we were on the bus I was able to take a second and pull out my camera to take photos.


To be honest I don't know what bridge we were on, but I liked the view.

Chihiro (right) and Matt on the bus.

Once we got to the Immigration Bureau we went to the counter, took a number, and sat in the waiting area. Within a few minutes we actually comprehended the fact that we drew #524 and they were serving #237....bummer. After semi-patiently waiting from 12:30 to 4:30 to the lullaby of 300 people and Korean soap operas, we got to the counter and they processed our documents.

Right before getting back on the train to Tsukuba we spotted a huge, 9 story building called Todobashi-Akiba. This place has everything. Seriously. Everything. From TVs to bikes, tailored suites to telescopes. The entire 8th floor is devoted to dining, there is an arcade, and the 9th floor has a driving range. I know that it may sound like a Walmart on steroids, but it wasn't. Pick a retail item and this place has every related gadget you can think of and then some.

After walking around for 2 hours playing with various $1000 cameras, DJ equipment, and computer paraphernalia, we each bought like 4 small things and left. The train ride back to Tsukuba was packed with people. I wanted to document it so I took out my camera and snapped the photo below.


The ride back wasn't bad. Matt and I made it back to the Ninomiya House shortly after and called it a day.

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