Japan Times

Its kind of hard to think of it still being fall on this, the 30th day of November, but this year in Tokyo its still a true statement. The trees still have leaves, of many a hue and the weather is quite nice. Tomorrow's high is about 13C so I can't complain in the slightest. But what would fall be without taking a little time out to look at some of those beautifully coloured trees. While most people think of Tokyo as nothing but a sprawling megalopolis its pretty interesting to note that a lot of the surrounding countryside (which is still in the municipality of Tokyo) is really beautiful and about a million miles away from Harajuku, Shinjuku and the like, even though the actual distance is more like about 50 miles.

One of these beautiful escapes is Mt. Takao where I went last week. It's only one 45min - 1 hour train ride out of Shinjuku station, but its great. Unfortunately it gets pretty crowded on the weekend, but that's Japan. The leaves were pretty .. um.. pretty and I managed to get my hands on a massive pork bun near the top. Nothing says tasty like a hot meaty snack on a cold autumn day.

Another cool thing was that I was able to get a chance to see the legendary Mt. Fuji from on top of Mt. Takao. Mt. Takao is only about 300m tall, while Fuji is about 3000, so its still a pretty impressive sight. There were a bunch of people standing at the top of the mountain waiting to get a sweet picture of the sun setting behind Mt. Fuji, so I stayed and tried my hand at it too..

Speaking of sunset, there are two ways down the mountain, the cable car and the usual "one-foot-in-front-of-the-other" method. We chose the latter, which maybe wasn't the best idea, since we had stayed at the top to see the sun setting over Mt. Fuji. To make matters worse we took the narrowest, steepest, slipperiest route down in the hopes of seeing a waterfall that was next to the trail. (There were several signs posted saying that you should *not* try to go down this way since it was steep). Well with the light fading very quickly, and no flashlights, we made a bit of a mad dash down to the bottom before the rabid squirrels and zombie rabbits decided to take a stab at tearing into our flesh. Just as things were at their darkest (literally) we saw the light (literally) at the end of the tunnel. We made it down to the foot of the mountain where there were lampposts a plenty. All in all a good little afternoon.

Now that the semester is done, and I've all but had it up to my eyeballs in Lyapunov functions, Linear Matrix Inequalities, congestion control algorithms and whole host of other things that no one cares about, the summer of fun can begin. Well the 2-3 weeks of fun, anyways. What better way than to kick it off with my first ever trip on a boat larger than the center island ferry.

And what better way to celebrate a trip on a 4 deck gargantuan mammothocity than with a beer or twelve. Yes indeed, let me introduce the Tokyo Bay Yukata boat cruise. 2500 yen for 2hrs of all you can drink fun and frolic on a big ass boat. Special thanks to Dean for arranging the tickets for this, especially since when we got there the tix were sold out as evidenced by some poor sad sack running around looking for scalpers.

As I said, it was a big boat, a couple "below decks" where most people were sitting around eating and drinking, and the two upper decks, with more sitting and eating and drinking, but also a bit more dancing, and a few less families. I met a few interesting people, including a cool group of Korean tourists, several random groups of Japanese people and one particularly amorous girl who seemed to be having fun squeezing the butts of passers-by.

As an extra coolness factor, many of the people on the boat were wearing yukatas (think of a kimono, but lighter and thinner, so you can wear it in the summer without losing 10 pounds). There were also the signature "yukata dancers" shakin' their booty on the dance floor to liven the place up even more (not that it needed it with a bunch of drunkards running around taking pictures and trying to spot fireworks in the distance). All in all a good old time.

Labels: japan, tokyo

Now it can't really compare to a fat rack of baby backs, topped with a jerk chicken drumstick or twelve, but a Japanese BBQ's not too shabby. So I was pleased to be able to go to the BBQ party held by my work last weekend. We all got on a bus at an ungodly 7:30am at Shinjuku station and headed off to parts unknown (at least to me.. actually I still don't know where we went). A few hours later we arrived somewhere in the outskirts of Tokyo, next to a little river surrounded by green. Funny thing about Japan is that, despite being super densely populated, there's still quite a lot of green space, rivers and whatnot. So we set up our BBQ's for some good ole fashioned Japanese BBQity. Steak, shrimp, veg, and fried noodles made up the menu.. A little different, but all goodness.

Once it got too hot (or once we all got too drunk) it was into to river for a quick cool down. I think it was my first time swimming in a river, and I learned a valuable lesson. River beds have rocks. Lots of rocks. Big ones, small ones, and general all around feet hurting ones. I wondered why everyone else had flip-flops. Still it was all good.


The day was topped off by the a good ole watermelon smash. Its like a watermelon pinata. You gotta hit it with your handy-dandy wooden sword to break it open before everyone can eat. All good fun.

Long and the short, it was a good day. The kind of thing that I hope to have more of in the near future.

Labels: japan, tokyo

I finally managed to get around to seeing my third movie in a movie theatre in Japan, and other than a nasty leg cramp due to a wee shortage of leg room, it was some pretty good fun. The movie was the new "Indiana Jones" and I have to say that it wasn't too bad. The cool thing about movies in Japan though is that when you buy your ticket, you can pick your seat from a display at the ticket counter. You get a numbered ticket and worrying about finding 2 or 3 seats together when you get into the theater is a thing of the past. Not every theatre does this, but the majority (especially busy ones do). And you can do it online too, which is a neat little feature.

Other than that, its been working and studying and more of the same. I meant to write a post about the stabbing spree that went down in Akihabara a few weeks ago, but I never really got around to that. Suffice it to say, it was pretty freaky that I dude decided to run his big ass truck into a crowd of people and go on a stabbing spree in the middle of downtown Tokyo. They caught him, but I don't know what they're gonna do with him now.

Labels: japan, tokyo

So the spring has come once again to the shores of this isle. And of course, like the thoughts of all young men in springtime, my thoughts turn to only one thing; cherries. (you can stop giggling now). Yes, the cherry trees are in full blossom and its a sight to behold. And this year the timing was especially nice since the blossoms coincided nicely with graduation day at my school. All the little undergrad boys and girls in their suits and kimono under the cherry trees in full bloom was a sight to behold. Took a picture of it. Wanna see it? Here it goes:

All in all a pretty good day to graduate and I hope that mine will be as nice. Not that there'll be any cherry trees in bloom, since I'll be graduating in September, not March, but maybe they're be some nice fall colours or something.

So after the graduating people were all done with the "listening to boring speeches" part of the day, all the people in my lab went out for our quarterly "drink yourself into a near-comatose stupor" event. Well maybe not "near-comatose", but "drink yourself giggly" doesn't exactly have the same ring to it. Like I said, a good day.

Next week, I'm going back to Osaka (yeah!!) to attend a friends wedding. It'll have been over a year since I've been back to Osaka and I'm looking forward to some good, cheap eats and some of my old haunts, and I may even try to determine the ultimate fate of the bicycle I left behind.

Labels: japan, tokyo

So my first post of 2008. Happy umm.. Valentine's Day.. How've y'all been doing? I know that most people reading this will probably crucify me for my next statement, but I just have to bitch a little about the cold in Tokyo. It's cold.. it's damn cold. Not so much because the temperature outside has been hovering around an absolutely frigid 2 or 3C, but because the temperature inside has been hovering around an absolutely frigid 2 or 3C. Someone once told me that houses in Japan are built to allow a draft to pass through so that they can stay cool in the summer. Man they weren't kidding. It's all about brass monkeys and witch's bosoms in my apartment.

On a slightly sunnier note I started this year in grand style.. by losing my wallet. I went out for a New Year's eve dancing jamboree and came home without any cash, credit cards, or maid cafe point cards. Luckily for me though, when I called the club a few days later, someone had turned in (or found) my wallet with everything intact except for the cash I was carrying. All things considered, it could have been much worse.

Between New Year's and now its been mostly business as usual, though I did manage to take in an amateur symphony last weekend, and I went to listen to a buddy DJ at a very tiny club/concert venue. Weird thing was that it was in the middle of the afternoon. Weirder thing was the other guy who picked up a mic in another part of the club and went on for 10-minutes about his bathroom habits, which somehow had the crowd in histerics. Tim Allen, eat your heart out.

Labels: japan, tokyo

So Christmas has pretty much come and gone in Japan for another year. Its kind of a wonder that its really celebrated at all, since there really aren't many Christians here, but then again, its not really celebrated much. There's no holiday on Christmas Day, so I spent the day both at school and at work, but what can I say... "When in Rome", right?

Still, even though there's no holiday they do decorate the place pretty nicely.. I managed to snap up a few nice pics around Shinjuku station, and Shinagawa station where they have some pretty nice displays. I was surprised to find though, that the Shinagawa decorations were gone 2 days after Christmas. Don't joke around these folks..

Despite the lack of a Christmas holiday though, the New Year's period is absolutely massive, so the traditional Christmas holiday is really just shifted a week or so to become the New Year holiday. Which basically means that as of tomorrow afternoon I'm on vacation for a week!!! (The don't make exclamation marks large enough to express how happy I am about this)

All this excitement might explain why I'm not sleeping yet. I'm like a kid at, um.., New Year's.

Labels: japan, tokyo