So, today's destination is none other than Harajuku! Well, apparently this place is all about the teeny-bopper fashion and is generally filled with such. Also sports the previous period's Shinto temple along with a bridge known for girls to dress up in gothlic lolita outfits. Gotta check that out, right?

The day started a bit earlier than our previous days, so we're on a good roll here. The problem was that we had finally caught up with everyone else's time schedule, and it was packed from the get-go. Ueno station was packed, and the ride all the way to Harajuku was pretty packed as well. One point of note, I noticed a giant garden gnome while I was riding along in the train. I only had a couple seconds to see it, so no picture, sorry. It was easily 3 stories high, with it's red hat spiraling away into the sky. Kinda weird, but funny enough to mention. When we exited the train, however, it was pretty much the same situation as was in Shibuya. Human traffic jams everywhere as you shoved your way towards your preferred exit gate.

We were searching for a specific road, though we weren't able to locate what kanji they would be. That would prove difficult as the only ones I knew for those pronunciations were probably incorrect. Of course, what was greeting us right outside the exit we squeezed out of? I'm feeling lucky! Sorry, had to.

I'm not sure if I have commented on the general height of the population here, but I generally feel quite average height/tall here. When we got to Harajuku, however, I seemed to grow about 4-5 inches. BC even stuck out of the crowd. I don't think we had quite realized to the full extent what teeny-bopper would entail.

We started down that main road, though, and what greeted us were numerous clothing shops, accessory shops, etc. It was the same thing that 109 building was, but geared more for the teens gathered here. We decided that we had seen enough here, and that taking a bunch of pictures of kids this age would be a little on the creepy side.

We decided to hop over to the emperor's temple after that, and since on the way, we'd hit up that aforementioned bridge, cool beans, right? Even after just 10 minutes walking down that street, the main area had only gotten more and more crowded. We squeeze by however we could, then moved onto the bridge. Unfortunately, the bridge was relatively empty, though it did sport one or two girls getting ready. I guess it was a little early, still. We also kind of still had that creepy vibe going on from the street earlier, so we didn't try to take too many pictures.

Just across the bridge, though, was the huge entrance to the previous emperor's Shinto shrine. And man, it was rather large. We had visited quite a few shrines last year, and this one easily dwarfed them all. Very impressive, indeed. We did snatch quite a few pictures of this place, at least. You start up a long, wide pebble pathway, and halfway up the hill were displays of many barrels of French wine all lined up on one side, and sake (“sakee” to you folks that don't pronounce it correct =P )from all the various districts of Japan on the other. They were all there for the opening of the shrine, and I suppose that they have been preserved there since then, proudly on display for all to drool over. Further down the path, we eventually made it to the shrine itself. The pictures don't do it justice, but here are the ones we nabbed. It was a huge squared off area with walls all around, and each gate grandly decorated, but not gaudily so. This was a place to be used, not shown off. This site is also a famous place to get married, as there were signs telling the foreigners to please respect those that are going through the ceremonies. And we even managed to catch one in action, so we did the respectful thing and took many pictures. The traditional wedding clothing is really beautiful. On the way out of there, we picked up some souveniers, and even saw some mikos! No pictures please. Pity.

After the shrine, we decided to start heading to the main shopping district and grab something to eat. BC had read that there was a shop that served all the okonomiyaki that you could eat in a two hour period. We set out to locate this place post-haste. Or slowly. Or not at all. Along the way, we were hassled by a guy with really bad teeth.  He was raising money and awareness of the Japanese government's lack of help for earthquake victims.  Or something.  We talked for a bit and moved on, remarking about his teeth afterwards.  Continuing on, we managed to find the general street it was on, and even got directions from an AM-PM nearby, though even armed with directions, we completely missed it. I don't understand why we suck so much, but we're good at it. After going down what we thought to be the correct street a few times, we gave up, and just went for the nearest restaurant that was open. It happened to be a chinese restaurant, and it ended up being a quite delicious choice. The best part, though, was the cute cashier that was having fun practicing her English on us. I decided to help her out, and practice my Japanese a bit more as well. Learning language is fun when you can actually use it. Also helps when the person you're practicing with is cute. BC nabbed himself a hot sesame soup, KC got a ramen-like pork soup, and I got a yakisoba with meat dish. Also had some gyoza and spring rolls on the side. The place was delicious, and the food was great too. It made up for our mistake. A little.

Next up was the little tourist trap called the Oriental Bazaar. Didn't bother with too many pictures, but it was a stark contrast from the waves and waves of Japanese outside, and stepping inside and only seeing foreigners throughout the entire place. I instantly smelled trap, and was greeted by rather exorborant prices and gaudy trinkets. Upstairs sported lots of expensive furniture, and the higher I got, the more expensive things got. It wasn't uncommon to see things in the 6-7 digit yen price ($1,000-10,000+) range. Downstairs, however, was a great find. Kimonos and yukatas for fat-ass gaijin. Booya. I grabbed a few for myself, family, friend, pet, goldfish, and moved on. Even though we were wincing at all the price tags for some of them, in retrospect, I really should have grabbed a hakama. Ah well, I'll grab one on eBay or something later, I guess.

After spending a bunch of money, we hopped out towards the large park nearby. On Sundays, there are a bunch of street vendors that pile up around the main pathways to sell their wares. We had to check that out, at least. Of course, apparently everyone else also had to check it out as well. After we squeezed by several food stalls (one that sold okonomiyaki as well, damnit!) we made our way to the entrance to the park. We had to get through a few hoodlums first, though. They were no match for us. Or something.

Inside the park, however, was a vast expanse of pathways, trees, and waterways. It would be quite the looker if it wasn't covered in people all over the place. It was really nice, though, considering that you look at parks back home in the US that are generally empty. This place was filled with many thousands of people. Most were just sitting back on a blanket chatting away and having a meal, while many others were doing activities such as playing catch, swinging balls on a string around, selling sake, kendo, violin practice, guitar/mandolin practice, some ... odd singing and dancing practice, or just doing a musical storytelling performance for the children to listen and enjoy. It really was quite the site, and really makes me want to just go out next year and bring my instrument with me and just play some tunes. Of course, that would require me to practice something beyond my bi-weekly stint, I am thinking, haha.

Near one of the exits to the park were these two large walls that were decorated up, one red, one blue. The red one had someone dressed in a red shirt dancing away in front of it, so that was rather appropriate. In a cranny was a group of men singing away and beating on some drums. Up the stairs, however, provided a grand view of the surrounding park area, and I took several pictures. Some are repetative, and I caan't quite recall quite why I took some of them, but it was a nice view. We sat up there for about 10 minutes just soaking it all in. After a while, though, we realized that there was actually some music that had been playing the entire time. We decided to go check out the source of that music. Lo and behold, it was the backside of the Earth Day Tokyo event we had witnessed the other day. The gears finally clicked into place at this point, and we realized that we had pretty much walked back into Shibuya. Crap, we had read that both of these places were pretty close together, and it was even recommended that you walk from one to the other. Blarg, we are awesome at planning trips. Pictures were taken regardless, and we slinked our way back to home base. Eventually. As badly packed as I have described the entire place, it seemed to only get more and more packed as we went along. At least there were a couple new sites along the way.

We finally got back to our home town of Ueno, but it was relatively early. KC decided to hop off to the local arcade and jam it up here, while BC and I hopped over to Akihabara for a little tromp through. We split off and did our own respective shopping, and I got the part I needed to get my laptop up and running again. It worked out well enough for me, as it was a cheap part to replace (though I did see it for up to 2.5 the price that I found it for, yeesh).

Tomorrow, we go to... actually, we don't have anything planned. Maybe we'll do some laundry and figure out what we'll do from there.

You know, I purchased a cool hat the other day. I figured it'd help out my street cred when I go to Shibuya, the Japanese center for youth culture and fashion. Guess what I forgot to bring with me today? Ah well, it's not as bad as BC forgetting his JR pass until we get to the point in which we need to show it to pass through the ticket gate. Of course, I had forgotten my hat again after going back to retrieve said JR pass, so I dunno on the scale of fail where I stand in comparison.

I know you all are wondering why I haven't started with the usual food update, and I am too, really. Here it is, though: We made our way to the station and figured that we'd grab some grub before heading to Shibuya, so we stepped into a small katsudon shop. BC and KC had some katsudon and I grabbed some ramen. They were jealous (in reality, I was just being cheap as it was 80 yen cheaper, and I knew I was going to be spending a lot of money in Shibuya). Ramen in Japan is the best. Some day I need to actually put some work into my own ramen so it doesn't suck like it usually does. Some day...

So eventually we got going onto our train ride to head to Shibuya, though of course since I'm even bothering to mention it in this post, you know that something went wrong. Well, so much for our increased understanding of the Japanese train system. It's even quite intuitive, but that won't stop us. We'll follow directions posted on the internet and hope that runs us right. Bleh. To sum it all up, we ran up and down quite a few flights of stairs trying to get to the correct platform for our initial departure. Once we were on our way, the rest of it was rather smooth, though we did have one minor worry that the train we hopped onto went to all the stops except the one we wanted. We transfered to a faster line due to our worries, though I suspect that the train would have gone at least the one more stop needed to get to Shibuya.

Well, regardless of how we got there, we did eventually make it to Shibuya. Now to check out all those trendy kids and some crazy muzak! Well, wait. We need to head to the Hachiko statue first! It's right outside the station, so it can't be to far, right? First, a quick lesson on the significance of Hachiko, though. Hachiko was a pet dog for a normal salaryman that would head to work daily on his train ride. His dog, Hachiko, would accompany him to his train to watch him go, and come to the station to pick up back up and they would return home together. This would continue for over a year, and most regulars had taken notice. One day, though, the owner was killed in an accident (traffic, I think) while he was out at work. Hachiko kept coming to the train station to pick up his master, but his master never returned. The dog came back to the station every day until it's death later on, and the station employees would feed it and take care of it while it was visiting. Word of this dog's loyalty had spread, and they were even erecting a statue of it while it was still alive. Eventually it passed away, though, but this statue is a huge meeting ground for people in Shibuya. It's all so assumed that someone can say, "Hachiko, 2 o clock," and you'll know to meet there at two. Anyway, so we wanted to check out this statue. It just happened to be on the opposite side of the station. And this station is pretty big. I think we walked about a kilometer before we finally got out. To top it off, the entire way was flooded with people. Every time we'd enter a new intersection, more people would join. It didn't let up at all. Awesome.

So we eventually get outside to the bustling arena that is Shibuya, and, well, wow. I thought the hallways were crowded inside the station. But once we were outside, things got worse. How is that possible?! We wormed our way over the the Hachiko statue, though, and grabbed a couple pictures. Then our heads slid about 45 degrees to the right to see an enormous crosswalk section. Now, I have seen videos on some broadcast television shows when they're showing "Japan" they show a huge street, then suddenly everyone just crossing a giant intersection and filling it up as everyone goes on their way, and well, this may have been the street they use. And it's completely different when you're in the middle of that mass. Just to apologize ahead of time, we were so enamored by the huge crowds of people, that we forgot to snap tons and tons of pictures. Sorry.

BC was the main navigator of this sprawling area, as the entire ground level was covered with people, and sprouting up from those people were huge buildings proudly displaying their brand to entice those milling about to slide right in and give our buckets of money to pay the rent for those giant structures. We knew what we were here for, so we headed to the huge Tower Records building to help them pay their rent. This building was sporting seven stories of music. That's seven floors, each themed after a genre or two of music. And these weren't the tiny floors that most multi-tiered Japanese stores have, this place has plenty of space on each floor, also sporting bathrooms, an elevator, plus escalators to take you to each floor. The first floor was all their new releases and features, and off to the side was a band getting ready to perform. They also have listening stations scattered all throughout the store for you to sample featured CDs. It was amusing to hear a cover of the Disney song, "I can show you the world," sung in English, and it turned into a punk version.  was awesome.  The second floor was where we managed to spend the most, though, as between BC and I, we purchased 6 CDs each. Most of the CDs here cost from $20-30. Pricey, but oh well -- we were there, damnit! Poor KC, though, I don't think he was really in his element there, and he also had a hard time searching for any artists as he couldn't read any of the signs. We warned him to study up, though I can't say too horribly much, because I slacked off on my own kanji and grammar studies. I can still get by, at least.

After buying a ton of CDs, we realized that we had spent a little too much, and we wouldn't be able to afford everything that we had planned on doing that day. We now had a very important decision to make: Eat some whale meat, or go to a six-hour concert. And judging by our filled stomaches, I think you can guess what we went with.  We decided to hit up the 109 building, which is a huge landmark in Shibuya.

So in the 109 building, we found out that this famous center is not geared for males.  It's 9 stories of girl clothing and accessory shops.  All of it.  Dear.  God.  This was also seemingly the carbon copy Japanese school girl whore shopping center.  That's about all you could see everywhere you looked.  Trendy girls, all wearing pretty much the same thing, with the same hair color and style, and the same makeup.  Blarg.  We evacuated after 6 floors of that and not finding a specific thing I have been searching for (for a friend).  Let's eat.

So, whale meat. It's... quite delicious. I definitely could not eat this regularly. It was a $25 meal for 6 small pieces and a dinner set, but I think it was worth it. Now I have had two Asian delicacies: Shark fin soup, and whale. There are pictures, and I think that about sums it up well enough. KC did manage to buy the BBQ set, which was completely different from what he was thinking, I am thinking. BBQ in Japan means that you fry the meat yourself. It's also usually more expensive too. Ah well, it was amusing watching him try to cook, though he mixed his cooking chopsticks and his eating chopsticks... That kid, there's always something new with him. The fun thing about sitting down there, though, was that we could look out the window at the endless streaming crowds that were going on both directions on the sidewalk. It's crazy when you think about just how many lives are passing by that window each second. Well, after adding up a minute's worth of people, anyway.

After that great set of food, though, we were in dire straights as we were at a loss as to what to do anymore now that we were rather cash strapped. We did recall that we wanted to head to the NHK center to grab some domo-kun related merchandise, so we made that our next destination. Of course, throughout most of that walk, we were just squeezing our way past thousands of people. It's quite amazing at first, but after awhile, you just think of it as people-traffic, which little jams and slow people that don't quite know where they are going (us) causing annoyance far down the line. Once we started to get on the fringes of the CBD, though, things were finally starting to clear up for us, and we made better time to our destination.

Though when we got there, we noticed that there was some sort of bazaar going on right outside the building. Cool, something to check out after we're done here. We hopped downstairs into the NHK store, and were greeted by a huge Domo-kun. We did the only natural thing that came to mind. And well, there was a lot of domo-kun stuff for sale in there. Really awesome to be at the center of a great internet meme. Wasn't too much else done here, though, so we slid out to the bazaar happening right outside. It turned out to be much more than we expected, and we also lucked out with the timing of this event that we had stumbled on to. For, it was the Earth Day Japan event!

As we slipped in, right at the front was a stage with a bunch of people performing some music, and a professional camera videotaping the event. Cool, cool. Though right on the other side, though, was a van showing off an engine that would run on what looked like canola oil. Righteous! But yeah, this was hippie Japan central, and boy was it great. Even sported a live band performing on a huge stage, complete with peace signs made of wood.  Though once again, we suck as we didn't take too many pictures. Also quite crowded here, but not to the degree that the lower end of Shibuya was.

We made our way through semi-slowly and just took in the sights. There were quite a few stalls selling various natural jewelry and the like, and some occasional food stores. I grabbed some sesame-and-brown-sugar-based snack that was quite tasty, and later one we ran into a stall that was selling some goods that were made in Sri Lanka. They had actually gone to Sri Lanka and help build a kindergarten over there and helped the children out, and they were selling goods to help fund another trip down. They had gone down last August, though I didn't ask when they were going again. There was one cute girl that was the only person that was there that had actually gone on the trip and I tried to make some basic conversation with her for a bit, but we picked up some tea and KC bought a keychain for the road and we moved on. The rest of the stalls were more of the same knick knacks and so on, so we worked our way back out.

After the Earth Day bit, we were pretty much tuckered out. We started heading in what we thought to be the direction of the station, though it ended up being a little off. We did manage to find an arcade along the way, and we had to oblige. After a bit more shooter and fighting game playing, we left and headed towards the station. Again. To sum it up, though, we eventually made our way back, though we did take quite a few side streets and generally got pretty lost. We didn't even get any doughnuts after finally finding the end of the line.   It worked out in the end, though.

[	Tags	|	camera, ghibli, japan, japan_trip_2009, park, sakura, shopping, tokyo, touhou	]
[	Current Location	|	Tsukuba Hotel	]
[	Current Mood	|	excited	]

Tokyo 09:17

Well, day one in Tokyo and we've already screwed things up. We underestimated just how tired we were in thinking that we'd wake up nice and early and make our way to the fish market. “Bullocks to that,” we said as the appointed time came by. So yeah, today we're scheduled to hit up the studio Ghibli museum and check out it's surrounding parks and areas, but we haven't even gotten tickets yet, and they're quite strict on when visitors can enter... I hope we can make it in time. This should prove to be an interesting, or frustrating day. Depends on how things tip, I suppose. I did grab a few pictures of the hallway in the hotel that we're staying in, just any sort of reference. Maybe I'll do a few pictures of our room later tonight as well to give you the sense of space we have.

If anything, though, I am glad that BC brought his map of Tokyo that he obtained last year (I had one too, but I have no idea where it is now) as it has already helped us out in one occasion. It seems as though he has conquered his aversion to the bathroom in our room too. You see, it has a heavy mold smell to it. I like that smell as it is quite nostalgic to the smell I am used to from Malaysia, though BC seemed to be quite riled by it, though I am unsure of his status on it now. If anything, he'll use it as a necessity.

@ 1943

Returned from the trip, though we're just dropping off the stuff we bought before we grab some grub to eat. Got some shopping done for people, and myself a bit too.

@ 2117

Alright, time for the meat and potatoes of the post, ne?  I know, bad joke.

So today, as stated earlier, we were slated to go to the Ghibli Museum (which I learned today that I have been pronouncing it incorrectly this entire time. It's gee-boo-ree, not gih-blee. My bad.) so we had to purchase tickets from a kiosk in a rather common convenience store called Dawson.  Now, as I had looked up information on this particular event, I found that if you're going to purchase tickets, you need to buy them in Japan or through an authorized agency.  I procrastinated way too long, so buying them in Japan it was.  I found some instructions on how to purchase them on the kiosk and printed them out.  Easy enough, right?  I got the date code written in and everything.  So when we finally make it to the kiosk, I go through the steps that I had printed out, and when I get to the step where it is supposed to print out an order for me to bring to the counter, I get a screen filled with various Suica VISA cards.  What?  I'm so flabbergasted, that I don't even try to read it or put two and two together.  I try to ask the younger guy at the front to help me out.  I had really broken Japanese, but I threw out enough of the words to get the general need out.  He just sat there and stared at me with an open mouth.  He eventually simply said, "iie."  No?  Gee thanks.  I turned to the older gentleman working behind the counter, and he knew just what I needed.  He went over, got through the same steps though through a different path, and once he got to the VISA page, he had this to say: "A-re?"  (huh?)  He was as confused as I was, thankfully.  We tried swiping my cards to no avail.  BC's card also yeilded the same results.  We skipped that step and had to enter my name, then the next screen which I had gotten to before and couldn't figure it out at all.  It was just an entry box and a numberpad.  Apparently it was to enter your phone number.  Your japanese phone number.  We ended up writing the store's number in.  That old guy was awesome.  I should have gotten his photograph, but I didn't think about it until we had already left.  We did snap a picture of his store, though, so if you just happen to be near the Ueno JR Station, stop by his store!

So a few station transfers later (and an hour [and an interesting advirtisement sighting]), we made our way from the Yamanote line to the Chuuo line to Kichioji station.  From here, we managed to get lost immediately as we needed to head out of the eastern exit.  Fortunately a kind lady saw our plight and helped us out.  She pointed us out to the nearby park by actually walking us out and getting us halfway there.  Another act of kindness that really helps my perception of lost foreigners in the US.  I try to go out of my way to help people out.  Anyway, she sent us down a narrow road towards a beautiful park.  Maybe we'll see some of the sakura that had been blooming a couple weks prior?  Of course, we found some interesting things along the way.  I mean, Fire brand drinks?  What?

Eventually, we made it to the park, and what greets us at our arrival?  Why a fleet of ducks.  Some one was actually using one of the boats too.  Don't tell him I took his picture.  We made our way to the bridge and we were greeted by some huge fish.  I mean, these guys were quite big.  Really really big.  We suspect this lake was artificial, though we didn't see the other end of this bend, so we don't know if that was the inlet or not.  We also spotted a guy with a huge camera lens.  Always love taking pictures of them.  As a bonus, one of the few trees left with sakura blossoms still on it.

We decided to walk through the park and take in the sights and sounds as we still had about two hours before our appointment at the Ghibli Museum.  There were many people just out for a walk, to get some exersize, or to smooze it up with their current love interest.  Typical park, really, right?  We even saw some people drawing up the scenes rather well.  I snuck this picture in as I didn't want to disturb him.  The park itself was really beautiful, filled with lots of vegitation, and even some areas that had some labels on the various plants growing around there.  Too bad the only english characters that were displayed were the latin names of the species.  Sort of helps, but not to me.  We decided to take some random exits as well, through that just led us into the middle of some residential zone.  They did have a public fire extinguisher, which was pretty cool.  Just to make sure, though, don't ride your bike downhill too fast.  There was even a shinto shrine hidden behind all the lush vegitation, though we didn't bother checking it out closer.  I mean, we have our own nearby that we haven't bothered to visit too.  Maybe we'll just give them a call and call it good.

Eventually our romp through the park finished up and we made our way along a main road to find where the Ghibli Museum was located.  Of course, even a short walk is bound to bring up some interesting sites.  I mean, come on.  The Toho Bakery?  I'll bite.  Literally.  Also, it's good to learn the process of the things around you.

After our delicious side trip, we made our way back into the park, though this half sported less shrubbery and more public facilities.  And some kid on some awesome pogo stilts.  In this side of the park, there were many more cherry blossoms still intact, though they were still rather scarce.  it was saddening, but I was glad to see at least a few still blooming.  As a side note, this picture is the first time I was photographed this trip, to my knowledge.  I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I enjoy taking pictures of other people taking pictures, regardless whether I know them or not.

Finally, the time came for us to head to the Ghibli Museum. Unfortunately, they did not allow pictures in the place, and the pictures would do much better than my long-winded-yet-non-descriptive-words.  My apologies upfront.

As you turn your tickets in, you are greeted to and directed towards a sign-in desk.  You stick in your name, address, and country of residence.  I think it's more of a bragging list of who's come to check this place out.  You're handed an information packet, and a ticket for a short film that you can watch.  The ticket itself is pretty cool, as it is three frames of some film reel.  Everyone got a different piece of reel.  Really cool.  When you enter, you are reminded that pictures are not okay, and you enter into a building that is designed to spark the imagination.  Definitely tailored to children, as a lot of things are seen from very low on the ground, though even as adults you get sucked into the little world that has been created here.

We turned right into the animation room.  This room had it's lights turned down, and it was filled with various displays of animation, be it the rotating frames with the various cells all on display, but as it passes by something to make the eye temporarily blind, it appears to animate smoothly.  I can't recall what this type of animation is called, but they had some really impressive displays of this.  They had the Laputa robot on the bottom slowly rotating with it's arms extended into the air, and there were two layers of animated birds flying around it.  I sat there and stared at it for almost two minutes just enjoying the view.  It was amazing. 

At the right of the entrance in this room was the "House of Ghibli."  It was a mini-model of a multi-story house sticking out of the wall, and it had various windows open that would show a scene from the many films that Miyazaki had created.  There were even small windows that were closed, and you could open them to show either some detailed models of all of the people that Miyazaki works with to get the stories together, or their pig versions working hard, in their comical way.  There were also a pair of large doors that would act as the entrance to this miniature house, though they didn't open.  You could turn the knobs, and it would give the door's tops eyes as they were stained glass.  A neat effect.  You could also open the mail slots to reveal some plush toys of the various characters from his shows.  Many people just laughed in delight as they recalled the characters and their adventures.  Most of them, adults. 

As you went along that same wall, you come to several wall hangings that were fully animated with either old-fashioned gears moving the many parts of intricate animations and movements, complete with large visible gears spinning away, or more of the spinning animations that I described earlier.  I really wish I could take pictures of these, but alas... 

As you turn the corner, you can see some models of various characters from the Mei and the Catbus show (can't recall the name right now) in various states of motion.  Many of the Catbus running through the air, some bats flapping away, some girls jump roping.  It was pretty neat to see, though it was a prelude to the next item along the wall.  They had all of these models set up on a large carousel.  All of their positions in full display.  Then after a moment, the lights turned off and the figures started spinning up.  As the strobe lights kicked in, you could see the myriad of models animate beautifully.  It was quite amazing.  You could see the girl jump roping happily away.  A large layer of rabbit-things were squirming away, and one would break off and head towards the center.  The next layer was some more dancing rabbit things, wihch would then slide into the center tree.  Flying around the tree was the Catbus bounding away in the sky with all six of it's legs and a giant grin.  Above that, a bat flapping away in the wind.  It was quite a sight to behold.

04-14-2009 @ 1023 PST

Maybe I should get my eyes checked again.

So here I sit in the SFO airport, incredibly tired and still waiting for another two hours before our flight departs. I wish I could sleep on planes, but more importantly, I need to figure out how to read itineraries. Here I was, fully expecting to show up on LAX International Airport, and they announced that the flight would be heading to San Fransisco. How the...? Oh, I didn't even notice it on the boarding pass. I blame the no sleep thing. Yeah, that's it.

The flight was turbulent enough when we were in lower altitudes (generally during takeoff and landing) but the rest of it was quite smooth. I sat next to an elderly lady who pretty much kept to herself. After the landing, though, we made our way to the international terminal easily enough. They actually had a sky bridge installed so the walk was quick and relatively painless. We made it over in a few minutes, and got ourselves checked in by a cute oriental lady. My camera is packed away and I am too lazy to pull it out. Sorry. I'll have loads of pictures from Japan – isn't that good enough?!

My picture was just taken. I'm hard at work typing away at the screen, and one of my eyes seems to be more open than the other. Am I always that bad looking? My apologies to everyone who has to look at me.

When we got our boarding passes, though, KC didn't receive one for the connecting flight to NRT (Narita) so we had to get him a pass, and we checked in since we were there by previously said cute oriental lady (and badly ninja-photographed).

Maybe I'll make another entry while I am in flight, but I doubt it.

@ Tsukuba Hotel - 20:36

Well we made it.  I hardly slept at all in the plane, as I ended up with a middle seat and got stuck with someone bigger than me sitting next to me.  He hogged the arm rest rather well.  Annoying.  (-_- )

A couple of notes I forgot to address back in SFO:  First, we decided to eat at a Japanese restraunt.  I know, I know.  Think of it as a mild climatization exersize, maybe?  I had some delicious Tempura Udon, though I devoured it without any pictures.  Sorry.  I also had a pair of hamachi sushi which was a great appetizer.  KC had some eel and BC had a pair of appetizers.

Also, while BC was recording me typing away furisouly on my laptop, some guy walked by and tripped over his power cord.  His netbook went flying.  It appears to be alright now, though he did have quite a worried face while stating, "It's okay, it's okay..."

You know, while getting this trip all set up, I almost had a feeling of, "Why am I doing this again?  I already wet all over last year.  Why would I want to come back so soon?"  After we got off the plane, got our luggage, exchanged money, and grabbed our JR passes did it all settle back in:  Japan is so freakin' awesome.  We sat down in the shinkansen bound to Tokyo station and let it take us to our destination in a fast and smooth manner.  I got the window seat this time around, and just staring our the window trying to read the signs was entertaining enough.  I was incredibly tired from the flight, and I could barely keep my eyes open while sitting down, but just looking out into the life that was moving about outside the window was just too fascinating to pass up.  From Narita, we passed a lot of rice farm country.  You could see various farmers walking down the line checking their crop, and some occasional kids riding their bikes home for the day.  Gradually the landscape would change to one that would more accurately move in line with what you would think when you think of Tokyo:  Lots of tall sky scrapers and wads and wads of traffic made up of cars, lorrys, bicycles, and foot traffic.  It was quite a view, and I was saddened to think that I had missed that the first time I came here.

Eventually, though, the ride ended, and we were dumped into the massive hub that is Tokyo Station.  It wasn't nearly as packed as when BC and I first came here, but it still had plenty of people heading to wherever it is that they needed to go to.  We transfered to Ueno station with ease, and headed out of Ueno station.  We got to the exit, though I had to ask a bit to figure out which direction was east.  Even then, when we were confronted with a large map, apparently they don't line their tourist maps with north being the top like the google map that I had printed out was aligned.  That took a bit of checking to line up the maps so we could head to our hotel.  Along the way, there are tons of shops as our path takes us along two major streets in Ueno.  There was even a Shinto shrine in hidden along the way.  I finaly managed to pull out my camera as I was waking up a little bit as we were walking.  I took a few pictures along the way - I figure that it gives a rough enough idea of what we were walking by.

We made it to our hotel, got to our room, traded our room for a bigger one, then set out for a quick walk around and to grab something to eat.  We found a nice place that looked like a generic cheap beef bowl place.  Man was it good.  I grabbed the main dish that had a raw egg on top.  It took a bit of courage, but I threw it in my mouth, and it was amazing.  I need to look up some symptoms of salmonella.  Seriously though, it was great, and I know I won't it one bit.

We finished that up, headed to the station to try and map our what we're doing tomorrow, then headed home.  On the way, we saw a McDonalds, so BC picked up a cheese katsu burger (looks great) and I grabbed a green tea McFlurry with Oreo.  Yum.  Afterwards, we made our way back and it's sleep time, I am thinking.  I can't wait for tomorrow!