Done in Japan

[Wrote this on Sunday]

This morning, I spent about 1 hour walking around Akihabara (30 mins of which the stores weren't open yet). Akihabara appears to be a mix between two industries: computers/electronics and comics/Manga/anime/and associated porn/etc. The fact that the latter is such a big market here is kind of scary. Apparently there are places that people (men.) can go to "rent" and have sex with life-sized dolls dressed in nurse or schoolgirl uniforms. I found a few blogs/websites describing that.

I like that a lot of hotels and airports have switched to providing free Internet service instead of requiring you to purchase credit or pay for a 24 hours. Unfortunately, Japan's Narita airport still charges, and it's rather annoying. So I'm doing without Internet while I write this.

In terms of Japanese Yen spent, I just did the calculations, and they're beautiful. I exchanged 35,000 yen, and AC gave me another 2,000 yen that she had left over. When I arrived at the airport, I went to a duty free shop to get rid of my leftover change (228 yen). After not seeing anything on the shelves, I finally found something sitting on at the register; a 228 yen cake thingy. Perfect.

Adding up all the cash expenses I incurred on this trip, the total comes to a gorgeous 30,000 yen. On top of that, I split up my expenses and the company's expenses. I spent exactly 23,000 yen. Nice numbers.

I only took about 47 pictures, and 11 were in the Taiwan airport. So, I didn't spend much time seeing anything new. Hmmm... Tokyo gets old pretty quick. Hehe...

Ok, survey for anyone who read this far. On the plane, your meal consists of cold noodles, seafood curry on rice, apple slices, and cake. You are given chopsticks, a small spoon, a small fork, a knife, and a toothpick. What do you use to eat what? Just curious.

Boring.

Wrap of up Day 3. Overall a pretty boring day. I overslept in the morning, but still managed to get ready in about 10 mins to get a taxi from Shin Yokohoma to Shinigawa Tokyo. The conference I was attending, which was all in Japanese, was rather uneventful. A very small conference in which I took pretty much no part. But I brought the hardware we were demoing, and that was my job.

Throughout the day, I did a bit of work, watched some shows on my computer, MSNed, and made use of the free drinks. We packed up and left before 6pm. Dropped my stuff off at my hotel in Akihabara, went to an English pub for Steak Pie, and came back.

This is probably the smallest room I've stayed at -- although a Hong Kong hotel (Imperial Hotel, I think it was called) might contend for that title. But it's surprising how efficiently they use this tiny space. I have a single bed, a small flat-screen TV, a hot plate built into the desk, internet, a radio, a phone, a few lamps, hair-dryer, little flashlight, little closet, little washroom, enough outlets to charge my few electronics, and that's pretty much all I need. $7,900 yen the first night, and $8,600 the second.

Though one interesting thing is that this is the first time I've been required to do a virus check before using the hotel internet.

Gotta sleep earlier tonight -- long day ahead of me. Of fun.

Buddha Air

Arrived in Japan yesterday, got soaked in Tokyo, had dinner with SFU Engineer and friend BC, and settled in at my hotel at Shin Yokohama. A few observations and stories from the day's travel:

- Why is it that whenever I go to the airport in Taiwan, I see Buddhist monks? You don't see that many monks around Taiwan, but yet they convene in airports.

- I took the Hello Kitty flight. It was SERIOUSLY Hello Kitty. The waiting room was completely decked out in HK (Hello Kitty) - not just a few items, but completely renovated. I'll post a picture on this posting shortly. When we boarded the plane, all the personalized LCDs were showing HK with accompanying song over the loadspeaker. Our meals had Hello Kitty decorations and ice cream.

- Tokyo is the New York of Asia. Everyone dresses sharp and walks fast.

- My hotel room is small. Only a little larger than the double-sized bed. But it comes with a pants press - a large flat electric device that opens like a laptop and you put your pants in. Neato... but really rather useless. I'd rather they gave me an iron and ironing board so I could do my shirts too.

- Travel is almost always a sweaty affair for me. Just lugging around luggage. If it's hot out, I'm bound to sweat. If it's cold out, I'm probably wearing more layers and then I get hot, so I'm bound to sweat.

Anyway, the worst of the travel is over. The hardware I brought to Japan works, and now I can spend time doing the same stuff I would have if I were in Taiwan.

[written 2 days ago]

I guess it's hard to keep up with blogging while on vacation. The days are long and packed with activities, which doesn't leave much time for sitting down and giving updates. But I'm doing that now.

The exhibition I attended was okay. Slightly on the boring side for me. As I expected, this wasn't really a pressure situation, and there wasn't too much work for me to do but stand around and help with the demos if need be.

Saturday:
Headed from Shin Yokohama to Tokyo, and met some coworkers (in Japan for a ski-trip) at their hotel. Went to Yoyogi Park (dead grass and bare trees?), Harajuku (uneventful on a Saturday), Shinjuku (just walking around and shopping for gifts), and then to Hard Rock Cafe at Roppongi. A few (4 - 5) coworkers bought Nintendo Wii's, which is much cheaper (and available) in Japan. That night, I stayed at CY's place - which is much further out, smaller and dirtier than BC's. But who's complaining?

Sunday:
CY, his friend N, and I went to Harajuku and took pictures of some of the interesting artifacts (people) all dressed up. Visited Meiji Shrine (pretty nice), and went to Shinjuku for the rest of the evening. The evening was an eat-fest, having different kinds of katsu, sweets, and maki's in a food center downstairs from Shinjuku Station, then hitting up Yakitori Alley, and finally landing at an izakaya restaurant. In between the eating, we also went to the Toyko Metropolitan Government Building to overlook Tokyo at night from 45 floors up. Stayed at BC's place that night.

Monday:
Was up-and-at-'em before 7am to go to Tsukiji Market where top notch sushi is to be had with the day's catch. It's a huge market with tons of edible goods from the sea. According to most travel resources and tourists, you should go for a ~3000 yen breakfast of sushi at one of the restaurants next to the market. My ski-trip coworkers told me that they had 3100 yen and 3500 yen meals -- roughly 10 or 11 sushi pieces. Based on what I saw at the market, and from I gathered from them, I decided to approach it differently. I started with a 3000 budget and decided to buy my own seafood straight from market-folk, thereby cutting out the middle man. My critria: no cooking necessary, and as little as possible (because they normally sell in larger quantities). I got two pieces of Japanese tuna cut into sashimi slices, Hokkaido uni (sea urchin), raw shrimp ready to serve, 5 large scallop, fish eggs (the big kind, not ebiko), and salmon sashimi mixed in some flavoring. Then I bought some microwaved white rice, soy sauce, and wasabi from a convenient store. I ended up going over budget, but for my 3842 yen, I got far more food than my coworkers - though less variety, and possibly lesser quality (assuming the people buying for restaurants pick grade A ingredients).

I made another trip to the Metropolitan Building to get some "near aerial" photos during the day. Then met CY at Asakusa. Walked around Asakusa until after it got dark (around 6pm or 7pm), and went to Akihabara. Met up with BC for dinner, randomly finding a restaurant. This restaurant, whose interiour was designed to look like a cave, had incredibly cheap prices... but deceivingly so. A mountain of deep fried chicken filets just $550 yen, and a large piece of fish only $700+ yen. But what they didn't tell us was that each person had a table charge of $380 yen. Anyway, all added up, still a pretty good price for the food that we had.

Tuesday:
My last day in Japan was spent walking around Ueno. Packed most of whatever hadn't been packed in the morning, and then walked out to a couple temples and then to the Tokyo National Museum. After the museum, and went to a couple more temples. The highlight of the day was going to Jomyoin Temple, where I saw an old man sitting quietly alone painting the temple. I said 'hello' and just watched him painting for a few seconds. Then I asked him if I could take his picture. He showed me his beautiful artwork from his sketchbook, let me take photos of them, and then gave me a postcard-sized copy of one of his paintings, which I asked him to sign on the back. All this done with only hand gestures and "this" and "thank you" in Japanese. Went around Ueno a bit more afterwards, and went back to BC to pack up the rest.

Now I'm on the Skyliner train back to Narita Airport. Looking forward to getting off my feet and getting some rest.

First day at work, and I'm tired as hell. Had a long, long day yesterday in Tokyo yesterday, and didn't get to my hotel in Shin Yokohama until midnight.

Yesterday, my morning started at 7:30am. BC and I went to the Tsukiji Market, where they bring in the catch of the day and have the freshest sashimi in Japan. But, we found out when we got there at 8:30am that the market isn't opened on Sundays. Next was a visit to the Imperial Palace grounds, where we met up with CY, my ex-coworker in Taiwan. With limited time, we walked around the Imperial Palace and I.P. East Garden until 11:30am. BC left to meet with his realtor. CY and I went to Odaiba.

Odaiba is a full day's activity, if one could afford the time. We spent roughly 9 - 9.5 hours there, and still missed a few places. Shopping, mostly. Features?

• A man-made beach
  
• Rainbow Bridge: A suspension bridge with some lights - nothing special
  
• A replica of the Statue of Liberty, but on a much smaller scale
  
• Aqua City mall: lots of sales going on now, but I wasn't looking for anything
  
• Decks Tokyo Beach mall
  
• Fort Venus mall: where the interior is modeled to be like a street in Italy, complete with blue sky - really nice
  
• A huge ferris wheel: similar to one in Neihu, Taipei
  
• MegaWeb, Toyota's showroom building where you can test drive almost all the cars they have. Unfortunately, all cars were booked, and so we paid about $2cad each to sit in an electric car that drove itself for 7 mins. It was neat.

Rushed back to BC's in Roppongi at 10:30pm, packed, and left at 11pm. An hour later, I arrived at my hotel in Shin Yokohama. My room, on the 19th floor, is the 2nd smallest hotel room I've ever stayed in (behind one in Hong Kong that I paid for myself). It's got a single bed, a small desk with TV, a long but thin couch, a washroom, and that's about it. I found that the air in Japan is fairly dry compared to Taiwan, and my skin itches because of it. But through my last 2 business trips, it seems I can't rely on hotel rooms to have lotion. But I could really use some now.

Slept at almost 2am, up at 7:30am, and at work since 8:30am. I think I need this evening to unwind and relax a bit. But I doubt that'll happen tonight. At least I can try to get to work later tomorrow.

More Impressions/Notes:

Toyota has so many cars here that each brand (Corolla, Blade, Crown, etc.) have their own emblem on the front, with the Toyota logo on the back of the car. For example, the Corolla series has 4 or 5 different makes.

People don't eat while they walk, or talk on cell phones in the subways. It's just not done here.

I pointed out to BC some people who bought ice cream cones while out in 5 - 10 deg C weather. Which I thought was kind of crazy. And then a few hours later, CY and I had some DAMN good ice cream. Green tea ice cream so intense it was like we were chewing the tea leaves.

[While waiting in the pre-waiting room]

If I were a kamakaze terrorist, I would pick Saturday to board my plane o' death. There are just so many people traveling on weekends that it seems the best time to get away with villanous activities.

Through customs, I took two carry-ons. Together, they clearly surpass the size and weight allowed by the airline. One contains roughly US$35K of hardware boards and boxes, and the other one has my laptop, a digital camera, and a DSLR. And yet, passing through the X-ray, no one said anything. I could have had a bomb and detonator! I'm dangerous! Pay attention to me! No one even cared to question my suspicious guava (I like fruit, can you blame me?), which is a little too soft in the middle. They won't think it's so harmless smothered in the captain's face and in his eyes.


[On the Skyliner train between Narita Airport and Ueno Station]

Turns out that the Japanese customs officials did ask me to open my luggage. But that was an open and shut case. Get it? Open and shut? Anyway.

The first thing I noticed about Japan (after leaving the airport) is that the Japanese have HOUSES! I didn't expect this. Given that this country has the 7th largest population in the world. Mind you, I'm not quite at Tokyo yet, and I'm sure this trend will change quickly as we get closer to the big city. Sigh... I want to live in a house again. Apartments suck. Even more so when it's just a room with a washroom attached.

For the first night, I will crash at my SFU friend BC's place in Roppongi. His company has given him a temporary residence until he finds his own place to rent. In Roppongi, the clubbing / night life district of Tokyo, his place costs his company $5000 CAD/month. Yowza.

Second thing I'm starting to notice as I'm looking out the window while typing this. Suzuki, Nissan, Mazda, Honda,... sure are a lot of Japanese cars around here. I wonder how many people would buy an American car. Maybe someone with a taste for dripping oil and depreciating value. Well, I see a few Beamers, Benz's, and Audi's too.

This train is fricken fast. Either that or everything's too close. My head starts to spin a little bit each time I look out the window at buildings whipping by. Can't stare out the window for too long.

A quick test with the wireless LAN. Random searches for networks returned 1, then 5, then 9, then 30, then 23 wireless LANs. This is while I'm still on the train.

Eating a Snickers bar now. My 3rd this week, thanks to NK. Ueno's the next stop. Closing my laptop.

[At the end of the night]

Got to BC's place in Roppongi, and then we went out to Shinjuku. First, we spent 30 mins trapped in the labyrinth Shinjuku station trying to find the right exit. Then we walked around the Shinjuku area and did a bit of furniture shopping (BC needs a bed ASAP because he's moving into an empty apartment next weekend). Came back to Roppongi, went to Roppongi Hills, and that was that. End of day. Tomorrow will have more walking, more adventures, and more getting lost.

More impressions: Japanese people generally dress very well. The girls are "very well packaged" as BC says, referring to their make-up. He says "their make-up technique is so advanced that you don't even notice they're wearing make-up". Based on what I've seen, I'd agree.

There are a lot of Japanese people.

Major Subway Stations are confusing as hell.

Veggies are EXPENSIVE. Try a handful of green beans for $3 CAD. A single red pepper (a beautiful one, like BC Hot House) for $2.50 Cad. Ouch.