TheLeong.com

You know how in some video games like Final Fantasy, you spend a lot of time just walking around on a map? Well that’s not really just some creation of video game programmers; it’s because that’s what life in Japan is really like. I guess they added the random battles to make it a bit more interesting, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I got attacked by a Pokemon walking around here somewhere. But anyway, I walked around what seemed like a lot today, and I never really even left the general area. This was only partially because I got lost. I even made a map, thanks to Google Maps:

1. Started at the Keio Plaza Hotel after eating the huge buffet lunch.
2. Walked to the other side of the station, having the go around the station, and went to a movie theatre to watch the Kamen Rider Kabuto movie, God Speed Love (link). Yes, it is nerdy, but it was fun, so shut up. That was my only plan for this excursion, but I decided to do more as you can see here:
3. Went to the nearby Isetan department store to scope it out for work. It’s a pretty ritzy place.
4. Decided I would walk to Takashimaya Times Square, partially to scope it out for work and partially because I wanted to shop for more useless crap. Unfortunately, they close at 8:30PM, so I just missed it. Walk down more of that area, but everything is already closing up (all the big stores and buildings).
5. Began side quest to find a coin laundrymat, so I can clean my clothes without having to pay the ridiculous hotel laundry service prices (like 500 yen per shirt). Walked past the Times Square area and ended up somehow a bit lost. It also started to rain big time, so I had to buy an umbrella. I apparently walked all the way to JR Yoyogi Station. Since it was raining, I decided to just take the Yamanote Line back to Shinjuku station.
6. Got off at Shinjuku Station; familiar territory again.
7. Walked all over in the general direction of a laundry place I found online, and finally found one in some apartment complex. GOAL. I’ll probably head there tomorrow and do laundry. It says for residents of this huge apartment complex only, but I’m sure they won’t catch me.
8. Walked back to the hotel; not too far away.

Yes, after mapping this all out, I see that I should have just walked from point 5 to point 7, but it was raining and I didn’t know exactly how far away I was, so it was worth the 210 yen and the extra walking. I suppose. I have no idea how far I walked this afternoon/evening, but as you can see it was a lot. I blame this on not having a cell phone. If I had one, I could have used NaviWalk and it would have been much easier.

If my life really were a video game, it would be horribly boring.

This blog would have been more menacing if I would have actually written it yesterday, but I was far too busy being lazy. On day 8 of my short journey back here to Japan, Tuesday, all the TV stations were showing weather maps and semi-freaking out. Why is that? Why because there were 3 typhoons heading to Japan. Two of these, numbers 8 and 9 (I think), were heading towards Okinawa on the southern part of the island chain, but big bad number 7 had the possibility of slamming right into the middle of Honshu, the main island where Tokyo and yours truly are at. Winds were reported as being pretty strong, but this was while it was over the ocean, so chances are if and when it did hit land, it would be nothing more than a rain shower. It did, however, make the sky a really weird red-ish color around sunset. Actually I don’t know if the typhoon and the sunset color are even related, but they at least happened on the same day.

Click on the image to the left to see the full picture. That color is pretty close to what I actually saw outside of my hotel window.

As much as I hate Roppongi, I headed there last night to get dinner with Sunny since she works there in fancy-schmancy Roppongi Hills. I realized that I don’t hate Roppongi so much as long as I’m in the normal part of town and just avoid the club and bar area, where as we all know there are only 3 types of people: hookers, foreigners, and foreign hookers. But I didn’t go there so it was bearable. Met under the giant metal spider, which only in Japan would be a normal meeting place. Found this Chinese restaurant nearby that was actually run by Chinese people, including a guy who had a super mullet going. Good lord, the hair around here is horrible. But anyway, it was one of my first trips to Roppongi where I didn’t curse under my breath the entire time.

I woke up Wednesday morning around 6AM; I’m not sure why, but I think it was because there was so much noise outside. It wasn’t a typhoon, but there was a pretty good rainstorm going on, and that combined with some heavy winds were enough to wake me up briefly. I stumbled to the window, looked at the rain, probably muttered something to myself like “oh it’s raining,” went to take a leak and then went back to bed. So much for the big bad typhoon. It rained on and off, but I think that’s pretty much it for the devastating storm that had all the TV stations giving weather updates every 10 minutes. Maybe Okinawa will get hit with the other ones.

Over Sunday and Monday, I didn’t do too much of note, although I did make some progress on my business work. On Sunday, I spent most of my day out at LaLaPort, the super huge mall in Chiba. There’s a Toys R Us and an Akachan Honpo there, so I was able to do some work while going back to a somewhat familiar place. There is a Shakey’s pizza buffet there, but it was a Sunday lunchtime, so it was packed. I didn’t feel like spending 2 hours to wait to gorge myself on pizza alone, so I ate elsewhere. LaLa Port is such a huge mall, even bigger than some in the US, I think, but it is mostly clothes shops where you can buy t-shirts that cost 6000 yen. That’s right, $60.

Monday, I headed out to Makuhari. Things really don’t seem too different there from last summer, except for 1 new building or complex that you can see right after exiting Kaihim station. It was kind of weird, since I walked past the bus queue and didn’t even notice it, then looked to my right and thought to myself “did that just pop out of no where?” Chances are it didn’t, but it is Japan, so maybe it appeared out of the ground to launch a robot or something. I was planning on going to Carrefour and Plena to investigate their baby product selections, but instead went to the IES Center around 4. I ended up staying there until almost 6:30, so there wasn’t much investigation done for that part of the afternoon. Got to catch up with the now-assistant director Shin-san, who is awesome as ever but he now has some fashionable glasses. He also moved from his little office in the front of the center to the “main” office area in the back, so at least he has a window now. Although it is a view of an alley, it’s still natural sunlight I guess. He introduced me to the new Director, Marik-san, and was like “he was here over a year ago, but it doesn’t seem like it.” I didn’t think about it much before, but it has been an entire year and I feel like I was only gone for a few weeks. I guess I’m just that well adapted/desensitized to being in Japan. Oh ya, and the new director is a pretty cool guy. He apparently was one of the guys who started United Nations University, and has been in Japan for over 30 years, so you could say that he’s more than qualified to run IES Tokyo.

Went to Y’s afterwards, Shin came to hang out for a bit then had to go for a meeting. Yoko and Tomomi came, and we stayed until close. I missed Y’s so much. Pretty much the same as usual, although I think the food selection actually improved a bit, since they had sashimi, rice (not fancy, but they were missing it before), and those BBQ riiiiiiiiibs. Also a snow-cone machine for the summer. Was given a Nikka and chocolate snow cone, which actually isn’t as bad as you would think. Matsushita-san was awesome as always, and gave us the usual counter even though we didn’t have that many people. I really think Y’s might be the greatest place in the whole country; we have to get a complete A-Team reunion there sometime soon.

I’ll likely come back to Makuhari once or twice more this trip. I’m kind of glad now that my AEON placement is out in Ichihara, because while it’s an hour/an hour and a half away from Tokyo, it’s only 30 minutes from Makuhari. Honestly, I think I might like Makuhari more than Tokyo on the whole. It’s not as big and doesn’t have as much variety or weird stuff, but just for hanging out and everyday things, the place is perfect. Carrefour has everything you need, you can hang out at Y’s and Hana no Mae, and if you want to work out, eat Indian food, and study 1000 kanji a day, then the World Business Garden is right there. Haha.

Two points that don’t really fit with the rest of this entry. Instead of writing a transition to make the flow of ideas smooth, I will just bust into them straight forward:

– By 2011, all Japanese TVs will be digital. They will have to be, or it won’t work with broadcast TV. Since all broadcast signals will be digital, everyone has to have a digital or high-vision (HD) TV by then if they want to watch TV and stuff. Although it sounds like a sweet idea, I guess it kind of sucks for old people who just want to watch the news, or people who don’t really want to buy a fancy new TV. But hey it’s Japan.

– Shin-san said that there is a popular TV drama show (the most popular one at the moment) called Supli (サプリ) starring Misaki Ito that tapes all of the office scenes in the IES building (Sumitomo Chemical Engineering Bldg) in Makuhari, on the 16th floor or something. Every Thursday through Sunday they’re up there taping. If I happen to be in the area, I’ll see if I can sneak a peak at anything. Shin-san says he saw Misaki Ito at the Sunkus downstairs, which is awesome because she is absolutely super mega hot. He also saw them taping the Kamen Rider Kabuto stuff around there, which is awesome also.

After getting settled in the room and trying to coordinate with people on the computer with IM and e-mail, I met up with Bryan and we headed out to explore Shinjuku. This won’t be the last time I say it, but trying to plan things with people in Japan without a cell phone is one of the biggest hassles ever. You’re usually out for the entire day or night without coming home to use a computer, so cell phones make communication not only convenient, but possible.

We met up with Yuji at the Shinjuku East exit, after we waited at the East-South Exit for about 15 minutes. We’ve both been out of kanji-reading practice, so I say that mistake wasn’t really our fault. Anyway, we goofed around Shinjuku and Kabukicho a bit, which of course is the red-light district in Japan. That’s what it’s famous for. I totally forgot all about what is what in Shinjuku, so it wasn’t until we were already on our way that I realized Yuji had made us meet there, haha. We grabbed food, my first meal after coming back to Japan, at Yoshinoya, and oh man was it delicious. I think US beef is legal in Japan again, but they still don’t have just regular gyuudon. They had gyuuyakinikudon, which is pretty much the same though, so I had it and it was delicious. We went back to the station to meet up with Sunny and Joel. No one else really made it. Yuji ended up having to go back to his work, since he apparently kept the key to the entire building of where he worked. His boss was pissed. But either way, the 4 IES alumni walked around and we just decided to go into some bar to hang out since Joel had to catch a 2 hour train back to the other side of Chiba. We ended up going into some place downstairs in a building called the Hibiya Bar, which ended up being way swankier than what we were looking for. I guess it was just kind of fake nice, because there wasn’t much in it, and not a lot of customers either. The waitress seemed to be waaaaay to excited about this “invisible ink pen” that the used to write on a coaster. The pen had a light on it that let you see the message, and she was seriously about to pee her pants she was giggling so much. I guess she thought invisible ink pens were something gaijin never have. Well she’s wrong, since after paying 1500 yen to just sit and have 1 drink in addition to the mandatory appetizer Japanese bars love making you pay for, I stole her invisible ink pen. Oops.

After Joel and Sunny left, me and Bryan figured Yuji wasn’t coming back so we went to go walk around Kabukicho. We had no intentions of going to anywhere sleazy, but Bryan had never walked through it at night so we decided to see what was going on. This turned into us looking at buildings and laughing, at stuff like the building appropriately labeled “Crab.” The Nigerian street pimps were also out in full force. I think we had at least 5 approach us just as we walked around the street. The best part about these guys is that you can mess with them and they’re pretty harmless seeming, although I’m sure they’ve got ties to the yakuza who run these sorts of establishments. The last one we talked to approached us near an intersection and was like “Hey brothers! Final answer! I am the problem solver!” He was trying to get us to go to his bar, which was 10000 yen for an hour, all you can drink and all you can touch. Classy joint, right? Well since he liked us so much he was willing to cut the price down. All you can touch, you say? Yes, I asked him what you were all thinking. “Can you touch the girls ears?” and then Bryan asked if we could stick our fingers up their noses. I don’t think the Nigerian guy had any idea what we were talking about, but he probably assumed it was something more sexual than it was, and was just like “yeah, yeah, all you want!” You mean we can pick this girls nose all we want? Oh man that’s great. We asked him to wait at that intersection for 20 minutes while we went across the street to eat. He actually started following us across the street! Somewhere in there he asked where we were from, and Bryan said Germany. I wanted to see how far this guy was going to follow us in hopes of saving his commission, but when we were almost across the double street intersection, Bryan told him to buzz off. Fun times, messing with street pimps.

On the way back, we stopped in several arcades, the best find of which was an arcade version of Mario Kart! I’d never seen anything like it, it was great. Like the racing games you see in arcades, but it had awesome Mario Kart graphics, characters from Pac-Man, a camera on top to put your face in the game, and a big “ITEM” button on the middle of the steering wheel. This is what Mario Kart should always be like.

That was the end of the night. I got back to the hotel and was so tired, I went almost immediately to sleep. I’ll write the entry for Day 2 (today, Wednesday) later tonight. Now you’re all caught up on my Tokyo trip. I’m sorry these are so long, I guess I’m in writing mode.

Here we go, I’m going to start the first of many blog entries I’ll write having to do with my current trip to Tokyo. To summarize, I’m here working on researching stuff for my summer job. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be top secret or whatever, so I’m not going to go into much detail. Plus it’s boring to write about work, so I won’t focus too much on that here. Ideally, I’ll write everyday, but that won’t happen, so I’ll just try to summarize things between posts. Maybe I’m trying to make this blog more accessible and worth reading to people who don’t know me. I guess I could have some interesting insights on life in Japan? And by that I mean I like wasting money in arcades and wasting money on things like Dragonball Z keychains. Like what I’m writing? Don’t? Comment either way, even if it’s just to say hey. Might as well.

So on to what we’ll call Day Zero. I was at home in St. Louis for less than 35 hours before I left for the airport. With my flight to Houston being at 7:40AM on Monday morning, I was planning on leaving for the airport with my Dad around 5:30. Around 1AM, I decided I should stop watching News Radio with my brother and start packing. Around 4, I was not even halfway packed and thus went into a panic. It got even worse when my Dad woke up at 5, and I realized I wasn’t done yet. What followed was the fastest packing session ever, pretty much me just throwing stuff I thought I should take into my two suitcases and backpack. Somehow, I managed to do it pretty well, and even had time to take a 5 minute shower before hitting the road. Must be a record or something for me. After waiting around 45 minutes in the line to get through security at St. Louis Lambert Airport, I was on my way to Houston. It was a small plane, and I had a seat that was both a window AND aisle seat (only 1 seat on my side, 2 across the aisle). Things weren’t too bad, although St. Louis was already hot, and the plane was sitting there for a while without the air conditioning on because I think the plane’s battery was dead or something. Who knows. Either way, we were about 15 or 20 minutes delayed which had me worried because I had less than an hour scheduled to catch my flight to Tokyo. Slept the entire way, got off and went as quickly as possible from 1 terminal to another, with a tram ride in-between, and made it as my flight to Tokyo was boarding. So we’re set for now.

I don’t remember flying Continental in recent history, and for some reason I had a pre-conceived notion that it was a ghetto airline. I was somewhat wrong, which was good, as the plane was a standard nice 747 with decent seats and the personal TV with video game controller built into every seat. I had a window seat, with a Japanese chick with the artsy glasses on the aisle and an old guy in between us. Soon after taking off, within 30 minutes I learned 3 important things about this old guy, who somewhat reminded me of John Locke from Lost:

1. He was British, or from somewhere near there. I could tell this by his accent.
2. He was an alcoholic. I could tell this because although drinks were not free ($5 a pop), he ordered at least 6 by the time our first meal was served. Again, they were not free, and this isn’t a party, so I don’t understand his thinking.
3. He was decaying. I could tell this because he smelled like death. You know how some old people just SMELL like old people? This guy did times like 1000, which was not comfortable to sit next to. I don’t know if it was just his old man B.O. or his breath after 6 drinks, but he smelled like death.

So that’s all for Locke. As for me, I spent most of the trip either sleeping, listening to my fancy new iPod, or doing both. I made the mistake early on of not replying to the stewardess when she asked “Would you like anything to drink?” because I was still taking my earbuds out. Of course, this went to make her assume I didn’t speak English, so she asked me in Japanese. I figured whatever, and ordered in Japanese back at her. Big mistake. The rest of the flight she assumed I was Japanese, which I suppose I could have corrected, but I was afraid she’d get mad or something. On a related note, what in the world happened to stewardesses? Didn’t they used to be hot, like back in the 80’s? I thought so at least. Nowadays, every American airline I’ve been on has had the oldest, grumpiest, frumpiest stewardesses you could ever imagine. What in the world happened? Are these the same stewardesses that used to represent men’s airline fantasies, only aged 20 or 30 years now? Asian airlines don’t seem to be as bad, but it’s still getting worse and worse every year. If you ever happen to get a flight attendant nowadays who is under the age of 30, it’s probably a dude, which just doesn’t do it for me.

I slept pretty much the first 8 hours of a 12 hour flight, which was great because it’s the best way to pass time. I listened to my iPod the rest of the time and we finally touched down around 2PM Japan time on August 1st. Went through customs fairly quickly, having to wait in line only 15 minutes or so. If I would have gotten to the customs line 10 minutes later, I would have had to wait behind an entire flight from China or something, and it would have taken over an hour. I’m glad I booked it all the way off the plane. After all that, got my luggage and a ticket for the Limousine Bus, which cost 3000 yen (a little under $30) but goes straight to my hotel. I had only about 10 minutes to catch the bus, so I called my parents real quick and got on the next ride, which was almost another 2 hours of sitting and traveling. Along the way I zoned out until we started driving through Makuhari, which finally kicked in to my brain that I was back in Japan. We drove past all sorts of places and stuff I know, which was sweet. Finally arrived in the Shinjuku area, and I had some major deja vu of Spring break in Tokyo 2004. I remember the last day of the trip getting up early and walking around the station before anything was open. But either way, I finally got dropped off at the Keio Plaza and checked in. The only downside was that there were 1400 JET orientation people at the hotel, so the elevators took forever. Once I got to my room, I unpacked and got settled into my room, which you can see part of here.

I’ll try to post some pictures with the blog entries for this trip, since I know I’m too lazy to actually make albums (if you haven’t noticed, I haven’t posted any new pics since March).

I’m back in St. Louis now, after an exciting 2 days of a process I’d like to call “Tetris with Anthony’s stuff,” where I had to manipulate the placement of my furniture and personal belongings first into my parents van and then into my car, so that everything will fit without having to throw it away. I did fairly well, in the end only having to throw away my kitchen trashcan, giving away some toys and stuff, and selling my bed, a magazine rack, and a table that you can hide secrets in. The process overall was not too bad, although I just slept about 12 hours to try and compensate for the lack of sleep and rest that I had over the moving process. I drove back to St. Louis yesterday, leaving Bloomington forever (kind of), and had a fine drive until just before the Illinois-Missouri border, when I drove directly into a HUGE storm system, complete with lightning strikes every few seconds, torrential rains, and wind so strong I could feel my loaded car swaying to the right. But I lived.

I’ll write some more over the next few days, perhaps as I’m waiting in airports or sitting on an airplane next to an old man or fat woman. It’s always one of those, and they always want to talk to you. I’m sorry, but unless you happen to be a movie star or a really hot chick, I probably don’t want to talk to a complete stranger. Especially if this is for a 12 hour flight to Tokyo. I’ve remedied this over the years, mainly by sleeping for the entire flight, which I seem to be able to do when no one else can. My other trick, if I don’t fall asleep immediately upon sitting in my airplane seat near the window, is to make myself look as angry, big, and dirty as possible. How do I do this, exactly? It’s hard to describe, but you wear a big jacket, puff our your chest and shoulders, have your bag open and looking like you’re a pain in the butt, and you have an angry look on your face. Hopefully, if there is enough free seating on the plane, this will cause people to not want to sit next to you, because who wants to sit next to a disgruntled guy who looks like he’ll be a pain in the butt to sit next to? But I digress.

After wasting pretty much my entire morning sleeping, eating lunch, and watching News Radio with my brother, I figure I’m going to go to the store and get supplies for the trip. I need to buy a few more dress shirts, and some random stuff at Target, then I should be ready to go for tomorrow. That is, of course, except for packing, which I will most likely not start until around 3AM, since I have to leave my house around 4:30 or 5AM to make it to the airport and leave on my 7:40AM flight. Believe it or not, I’ll be happy once I get to the airplane, because I’ll be able to rest and relax for a good few hours, before landing in Tokyo, partying with the JET kids who are there for 1 night overlap with me, then having to knuckle down and figure out this whole baby bottle thing. I have a feeling this 2 week trip to Tokyo will be busier than I thought.