Tokyo!

Back on Saturday; I took off for Tokyo! (Technically I was in Tokyo when I went to Asakusa; but I'm not going to count that). I had done some preliminary research, noted some districts that I wanted to visit; but it was more or less unplanned (at least as "unplanned" as I go...)

I didn't get out till the afternoon - so I headed right for Harajuku. Harajuku is a younger/fashion district, that attracts all sorts of wild dress, including cosplayers - but I had heard that it was pretty quiet at night, so I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything there. When I got off the train, it wasn't apparent which way to go - so I just followed the largest crowd of the most interesting people... and found Takeshite Street (above)! It was crowded, and full of crazy little shops.

 (I was able to snap one shot of this store, before I was waved off)

I eventually emerged from the river of people to a main road... where I saw a fragmented portal into another dimension. The other dimension turned out very mall like; but that made the entrance no less awesome. It was all high fashion inside, with a Starbucks at the highest level. There are many, many Starbucks.

 But, since this is Japan - I also had the option of crossing the street, and disappearing into a thick, beautiful, serene forest. Meiji Shrine stood behind an impressive Torii; and I could not resist.

 (Outdoor museum / history exhibit)

At the shrine; there was a wedding. At the other shrine I visited Saturday... there was a wedding. I'm noticing a trend here. So far it hasn't stopped me from getting inside any shines (I usually get there in advance of the wedding party), which is good.

After Harajuku, I made a quick stop in Shinjuku - the "downtown" area. It had less to do (at least, that I was able to ascertain with a shallow investigation - so I snapped a picture, and moved on).

 Finally, I arrived at Akihabara - the "electric town" district, full of arcades, manga shops, internet cafes, maid cafes, electronics shops, and sex toy shops (which I had to investigate for "professional" reasons, *ahem*).

I almost didn't leave (actually... I sort of didn't; but wait for those details). The arcades were smoky, but full of lights and sounds that made them appeal to me. It was like a Las Vegas that was full of people like me (sorta), playing games that are anything but mindless lever pulling... it was amazing. The sex toy shop was seven stories tall, and... exhaustive in its selection.

I floated around until I ran into a girl from Ohio, who looked a little out of place (to be honest; all non-Japanese people seem out of place, but this girl had a certain "I'm looking for something" stare going on). Turns out the object of the search was reasonably priced food - so I took her to a sushi-go-round I had spotted earlier, and we ate and chatted.

Now; somethings to know before I continue...

• Trains are effectively the only way in and out of Tokyo; cars are prohibitively expensive to get in (via tolls), and park. 
• Tons of people work in Tokyo, and commute in - many from two to three hours away.
• Japanese "salarymen" love to cut loose after work at bars, arcades, doing karoke, ect.
• All the trains in Japan stop running at midnight.

These factors have lead to some unique business types in Tokyo, that cater to people who miss their last train home (which, as you could have figured out, could involve leaving as early as 9pm) - or are too drunk to attempt the journey. Capsule hotels are one option - they are (approximately) 3'x3'x8' tubes with beds in them, stacked several high, where you can sleep the night relatively cheep. The other option, is to find a 24x7 internet cafe (which generally have private booths/rooms), and check in till the trains start up in the morning (or you have to return to work). Both of these types of establishments have even evolved to provide the option for showers, breakfasts, and even fresh shirts and ties out of vending machines.

I knew I wanted to have this experience at some point this trip.

By the time my Ohio friend and I finished sushi, sake, playing dance-dance-revolution in the arcade, and briefly flirting with the idea of going into a karaoke bar... it was well past when I would have had to start the transit back to the hotel. She was able to make the subway back to the hostel she was staying at (it was nearby) - and I found this...

Since I was getting in later the peak, the private rooms were taken - but this reclining seat, with computer, was relatively secluded at the end of the row.

I spent some time online (using my masterful Windows XP knowledge to navigate an Operating System that was in Japanese), but wanted to attempt some shut eye before I roused myself for a 5:00am train, there were snores coming up from a number of adjacent cubes, and I could not figure out how to type an apostrophe. With my hat over my eyes, and the provided headphones blasting white noise into my ears, I was able to doze off.

Sanja Matsuri Festival

Saturday went nothing like planned. 

I got on the train headed towards Yokohama; a large city on the outskirts of Tokyo, that has a pretty cool  looking district with museums, parks, ect. I was just going to wonder around, and see what I could find.

On the way there, I ran into a young guy from Portland, Oregon. As we're the only two people on the train car that can reasonably converse with each other, we get talking. He's trying to make his way to this festival in Asakusa, to meet a friend - and that sounds even more interesting then what I have planned (I didn't know it was going on, but Google confirmed it) - so I decided to tag along.

Right choice. The Sanja Matsuri ("Three Shrine Festival") is one of the three major Shinto festivals each year, and (according to Wikipedia) - "...the wildest and largest".

 This is a street.

Far as I can tell, it's all about these people in green outfits (with little to no pants), carrying around shrines and chanting. This isn't incredibly descriptive, so I took a video! Shrine comes in at about a minute in.

Still shot of the shrine

The shrines seemed to aim to pass through the gates. 

It wasn't all just pants-less revelry on the streets. There was also lots of activity going on around the major shrine in town (I say major, because there are shrines and temples every time you turn around). This one was amazingly green - and like everything else in Japan, super well kept and clean. 

I ate some different street foods here, including some oddly candied strawberry on a stick. Oh, and went into some mini-amusement park. It had one of the towers that shot you straight up, that looked to give a great view of the town. It did; but I was prohibited from bringing my phone along with me to capture it. Still was worth it.

When everything was said and done, I was exhausted... and then I had to ride the trains. Everything going out of the festival was packed, so it was standing room only on the subway and train. Then I had to walk back to the hotel, which was probably another two miles. Being out so late, I did get a great view of what the night is like in Yokosuka, on a Saturday.

I've not made it out to Yokohama, as originally intended. But that will persist, and this was a fleeting chance. I'm just happy that when presented with the chance to go the extra (couple dozen) miles, that I took it.

All the pictures - including some unmentioned baseball hijinks.

Kamakura

During most everyone's first full week at work, we are put through a cultural class to help orient/accustom ourselves to Japan. As a culmination, they take us out to Kamakura to see some temples, shrines, and get us use to the train system.

Any confusion that the train system could potentially have provided was dispelled by the presence of... the Suica. 

I swear that it's Socially Awkward Penguin

It carries a balance; you put money on it at stations that have English as an option... and you go. It doesn't even swipe - you just touch it (or your wallet) to the terminal and walk through. Anyway; train was easy. Then again; we did only go three stops on one line... Tokyo may be more of a battle.

When we arrived, we dismissed for lunch. I ended up getting Sushi with some great people from our tour, then checking out a two story shop dedicated to Miyazaki - the mind behind amazing movies like Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service. 

 Sushi-go-round!

Miyazaki Store

After lunch - the guided tour. We started down an amazing wooded road (in the middle of the city), that started off with a Torii gate. The Torii are suppose to be gateways to the sacred, and always frame an amazing view. Somewhere beyond each Torii is a Shinto shrine.

 Torii Gate

 Path beyond the gate

When we got close to the shrine, there was a purification area. It wasn't required, but it looked like fun... dip water out of the fountain, wash it over each hand, pour some into your hand and drink it, then use the rest to rinse off the stick.

 This is not the shrine; this is just the purification area.

 This is the shrine.

I took a ton of pictures of the shrine; make sure you take a look at the album of all the pictures at the end of the post. Words don't really do it justice. I will, however, stoop to using words to describe sweet potato ice cream. Yes; ice cream that is sweet potato flavored, and is purple.

It was... good? I don't much care for sweet potatoes in general, but I did like this. However you'd describe the taste that separates a sweet potato from a normal potato... this was that, but in frozen form. I enjoyed that while walking to the nearby temple, which housed the great Buddha.

Temples are Buddhist. Shrines are Shinto. The only two reliable ways to tell them apart... are that shrines have Torii outside them, and temples have Buddhas in them. This particular Buddha was massive - he once had a temple around him, but it was destroyed in a storm centuries ago. Buddha, not giving one single shit, just kept hanging out. Buddha is a chill guy like that.

This post is somewhat behind - this adventure was back on Thursday. I should be able to get back to the present sometime this week. Oh - and as promised, the rest of the pictures.

Mikasa Park

On Saturday, I ventured out of the relative safety of my immediate work/hotel area, and on to the streets of Yokosuka...

I cannot fly. This was a pedestrian walkway.

Across the bay was a park, that I had someone point out to me. It looked quiet and green; and just the kind of place that I could easily spend some time people watching or reading. As a bonus, there were a number of restaurants that would be along the routes I was taking to get there, so I could grab lunch afterwards.

When I arrived, it was very clear that something was up. Something... delicious.

OMG Festival! 

I still don't know what the occasion was - but Mikasa park was full of people... and performers... and food stands. And each food stand easily had two people screaming at the top of their lungs; presumably about how their food product would beat the neighboring booth's food product at a wrestling match. 

Sunday: A video of some of the children dance groups...

There was a large stage that had music groups performing throughout the day. I grabbed some meat on a stick, and caught some live music. I didn't understand much other than some of the the emcee's formalities when they were seeing groups on and off stage. When the one singer switched over to English for a verse, I had about a two second brain flair/flop where I was thinking "holy crap! Japanese is finally clicking for me!"... after which I realized that I had no such revelation, and it was they who had switched languages.

 There is nothing but beautiful, jagged stone edges.

To get out of the sun, I grabbed some melon flavored ice, and headed to a quieter part of the park. The large portion of this area was a shallow pool, surrounded by stone water features and walkways. It was the kind of jagged architectural beauty that would get covered in rubber bumpers and have the water drained, had it been in America. I sat and soaked it all in, and reflected on how much more an enriching places this was then any given lifeless, sanitized park in the US. 

When I left, I saw tons more water features along the roads. Had I been glued to my cell phone, I would have fallen in on more then one occasion. I suppose that is one passive aggressive way of getting people to pay attention to your landscaping...

Click here for all the pictures!

Working!

In this post, I attempt to talk about the fact that I've started work, while attempting to be nondescript about what it is I do. I assure you there is a good reason behind this.

 

A view of my walk to the office.

I actually started working back on Tuesday. My Tuesday, at least. My office is about a twenty minute walk from my hotel; which is fantastic. I haven't had a commute I could walk since high school, which led to me forgetting how nice of a ramp-up / cool-down period of time it is (vs driving ten minutes while sucking on coffee and listening to two and a half songs).

View from near the hotel.

I'm quite lucky that the group of guys I've been placed with are fantastic. They all spent quite some time preparing me for my first meeting with our boss; who I came to find is very... exacting with his language. Not a bad trait, but one that has you called out when you incorrectly use "amount" vs "number". I actually think that I've got more an appreciation for his correct use of language than most... I'm just not in the position where anyone else I talk to regularly would tolerate a lecture on "would" vs "could", ect. 

In the absence of my computer (it hasn't been delivered yet) - I've been pouring over Svechin readings. Svechin, if you haven't had the pleasure, was a Russian / Soviet strategist, who wrote the book on strategy (cleverly named, Strategy). Again, it's something that I am finding guilty pleasure in. In another life, I'm a history buff, I'm sure.

I haven't been able to stray far from the hotel yet (hence the somewhat less exciting pictures). I know this coming week I'll be attending an orientation to Japanese culture, that includes a tour. I'll also very likely just stick myself out there this weekend (either informally, or with one of the tour groups that does stuff periodically). So look forward to that; I am!

Arrival

After a long and relatively sleepless day (if day is the right word for it) - I have arrived.

Harrisburg airport set me on a seventeen (17!) minute flight to Washington, DC. The amount of time that portable electronic devices could be used was two minutes long. There wasn't even a beverage cart. Considering the nude pics that the TSA took of me... it kinda felt like a cheap date.

The flight to Japan however... wow. If you ever, ever get the chance to fly Air Nippon (ANA)... do it.

This was dinner. There is sablefish hiding underneath the vegetables on the left.

 (including this one because you can't see the Miso soup in the first one)

French wine, American ice cream.

ANA treated the economy section like first class; at least as far as I'm concerned. Hot towels, constant drinks (hot and cold). I at some point had to start saying no to things... which if you know me, is crazy.

My Kindle Fire was a great source of entertainment. I read some, but mostly played Super Nintendo. I've got this crazy hope that the movie selection will be different on the return trip (and I figure with 90 days in the middle... it could be). The most captivating part was right before landing, where I could see the landscape. Rice farms everywhere. No sprawling townhouses. The thickest, greenest foliage.

After touching down, the passport check in was expedited on account of my Official US Government passport. I had to wait in line with everyone else; but the time I spent at the counter was next to nothing. I didn't have to get fingerprinted, retina scanned. Customs was fast, luggage pick up was fast.

To get from Narita to Yokosuka, I was signed up for a shuttle bus; this gave me an on the ground view of what I was seeing from the plane. One of the most striking things about the highways/roads, is that there is no trash. Not a single errant water bottle, cigarette pack, or fast food bag. As I thought about it, I realized - you couldn't have the amount of heavily water-based agriculture everywhere if there was the threat of trash blowing in to it, and turning it into a cesspool.

I meant to get a picture of the sunset while on the bus. To me, it was the first sunset in nearly twenty-four hours of constant sunlight. However, the darkening sky cued my body to go the fuck to sleep, and I did.

So here is clipart.

The Details

As part of a management development program at my work, I'll be spending ninety days in Yokosuka, Japan.

I leave on 6 May, and won't be returning until 5 August.

Yesterday was the last day I'll see my normal office for three months.Today I was working from home. Now I have a wedding on Saturday, and leave first thing on Sunday.

Travel Papers... check.
Hotel Confirmation... check.
Plane Tickets... check.
Translated Business Cards... check.
Work-Issued Cell Phone... check.
Voicemail OOO set... check.
Desk Cleaned... check.
Laptop... check.

Lets do this.