Japan Adventure - Part 2 Tokyo - Akihabara - Sunday August 1 2004
the yamanote line is the main subway line for tokyo... it essentially circles the city and hits all the major districts. it was always a good feeling when i got lost to find the friendly green sign.
i have no shame in taking pictures of strangers.
next stop... akihabara... world famous for the latest electronics, so we had to stop by.
whenever i mess up with the shutter speed of my camera, i get fun effects... this picture gives a good sense of how it feels.. dizzying
you don't find big best buy type stores in japan... they're all multi-story department stores. there were no escalators going down... but we found the elevator at the end
even though i kicked the arcade habit years ago... it was so big and pretty i couldn't resist myself. six stories of arcade goodness.
of course i win. actually, i lost two in a rounds to a japanese guy... on the verge of a humiliating loss... when i pulled off an incredible comeback... winning 3 rounds in a row to score a victory. next match he kicked my ass though... but whatever.
thinking back, it was my sister who got was into videogames first.. with that old atari... and that samurai showdown arcade game.
it was japanese nerd-ville. literally every floor was jam packed with action, one floor for sports games, one for 2d fighting games, one for 3d fighting games, one for casino games.. etc.
they have memory card slots in the machines so you can load customized characters and stuff.
vending machines litter ever street corner in japan... really... every corner. and they have a nice variety of drinks.. a lot of gatorade type sports drinks... miu, aquarious, pocari sweat are some of the popular brands. soda's not too big, i only found coke, and that new coke, C2. more common were iced green tea drinks, coffee drinks, and fruit drinks. the most peculiar one i had was a fruit/vegetable drink... imagine fruit punch with an aftertaste of celery and onion... very odd.

what struck me here were cigarette vending machines out in the middle of the street. no IDing or anything... oh yeah... and cigarettes are mad cheap in Japan. that's probably my one problem with the country... too much smoking, even in mcdonalds. gross.
more multistory arcade action.
i'm also glad i kicked the anime habit years ago or else i would've been giddy like a school girl in this city with all the anime abound. but i don't get what this is... an anime about dueling violinists? i think they're running out of ideas.
it was sunny... really sunny. it's not like japan is any closer to the equator, but even with the parasol, the sun was blinding and hot.
Tokyo - Shibuya
some underground food market
This is one of the things i'll miss most about Japan... the food markets. they're so lively and colorful, and have convinced me that Japanese people don't cook.
mmm... free samples of sushi. i'm not a big fan of slabs of raw fish, but my sister helped herself.
...but it gets worse... right... that's a $70 melon and grape set. needless to say, fruit is mad expensive in Japan. especially melon type fruit. So that $20 brunch would've paid for itself if i has a slice watermelon. haha.
so the exchange rate is $1 = 109 Yen. right... so those are $16 melons...
famous shibuya intersection that usually represents tokyo... it's like time square in new york. it's a big shopping/entertainment area.
Back in Yokosuka...
I don't know what this was all about.... i come home and there are fireworks. and really nice fireworks at that... being launched from japanese ships. i couldn't think of any reason for there to be a celebration but it was a pleasent surprise.
i wasn't a fan of the cigarette vending machine... but boy it'd be nice to have one these on the block. the japanese have a lot of trust in their youth.
i decided to head out into the streets by the bay to see what was going on, and there was a festival of some sorts... people were in kimonos and yukatas... there were food vendors all along the street. i got food from this guy... it was a wierd mixture of cabbage, wheat flour, egg, and something fishy... right, not too good.
another wierd camera accident... if i could only control these things... i'd be famous. the people were really into the fireworks... heard a lot of waaaahhhh and sugoi... the way we go whoa and cool... but they were almost hypnotized by it.
i like this.. cars for the tramps in your life.
right down the street from the apartment was a dennys. so even though i vowed never to go to dennys again cause of poor quality food and horrible service, i made an exception.
just as we americanize and bastardize all ethnic foods in the US... they japanify everything in Japan... hmm... miso soup at Denny's?
you mean you were never served a hot towel when you were seated at denny's before?
i decided to go american with my breakfast... the bacon was more like ham, and the sausage was more like spam... but at least the toast was served with jam.
my sister got the japanese style breakfast set... rice with raw egg, miso soup, salmon fillet and pickles... mmm... classic grand slam there.
the subway system is extensive in japan yet so logical... i was making transfers anywhere i wanted within a few days. and the best part is that if you mess up or miss a stop, you can always go back just as easily, and they can adjust your ticket. some stations had absolutely nothing in english though... so i had to think about how the diagram looked in english and guess what the kanji characters meant. one thing i wish was that i bought the all-access pass that gives you unlimited access to all the lines for 2 weeks, would've been perfect... cause transportation ended up being the biggest expense averaging $15 a day about.
too bad it was summer so school was out... but there were some encounters with japanese school girls going to summer school of some sort.
this was the first weekday i was there... people were in their business clothes and the pace was a lot quicker.
next stop... ueno park. this is a big park in tokyo that has a zoo... several national museums, broad scenic walkways, etc. zoo was closed, but there was still plenty to see.
there were a lot of homeless people camps in the park which was odd. they seemed quite settled in though.
"i know what that means."
i'm comtemplating the form and stroke dymanics of the calligraphy... actually, i'm just posing for the camera.
pretty canopy of trees... mmm... shade...
some shrine in the middle of the park. i ran across so many of these that i end up not caring about their significance.
afflack
Tokyo - Harajuku
This district is the super trendy, young, hip, and expensive part of the city... where every other shopper had a $600 louie vuitton purse and a bad hair-do.
bikes were plentiful, but didn't stretch for as far as the eye can see like in China.
turns out they didn't all die out 65 million years ago.
contruction workers were plentiful as well. crazy how such a developed city continually grows and grows
it's a subways sub with a hotdog... hmm...
classic pizza topping right there... sunny-side egg. some other common toppings were shrimp, corn, and of course, anchovies.
we went to an underground antiques mall to escape the blazing hot sun. among the relics were really expensive antique sword blades and this freightening thing.
Meiji Shrine
right behind train station for harajuku, behind a line of trees, is the meiji shrine. it was crazy how two different worlds can co-exist so close to each other. this place was built to honor emporor meiji about a hundred years ago. the canopy of leaves provided a peaceful shaded pathway.
western tourist taking a picture with girls in their traditional clothes
i'm glad that in contemporary times, we can enter buildings and courts that only really important people can enter way back when.
cute.
this guy had no shame in asking the shrine priestesses where the bathroom was
interesting wall of decorated sake jugs
some old lady taking out the trash... the trash situation was interesting... since japan has little land to spare, they're really adamant about recycling. all trash receptacles force you to sort your trash into bottles, burnable, and unburnable waste... most of the time you end up having to take the trash home cause there weren't any trash cans anywhere.
i know japanese are minimal... but this is pushing it.
ow, my back.
breakfast... of course... the egg.
i went out of my way to try as many different types of drinks from the vending machines as possible. that was an adventure in itself.
me and my sister decided to go yokota air force base about an hour and a half away to shop at their base exchange cause they has better variety and prices than the navy exchange. but i didn't end up buying anything so it was pretty pointless.
they get all the new movies and tickets are only $3... makes me feel sick paying $9 at home.
taking it easy that night, we catch a movie at the theatre on base.
am i up to the challenge? oh yes i am. it's funny when my sister was telling her co-workers we we're gonna climb fuji , they were saying we were crazy... and i'm thinking, how hard could it be?...
as opposed to the boring version