5/30/05
this was daniel’s last day here. we were supposed to meet him at the train station, but somehow we had major problems finding each other. eventually, after hours of searching, we finally did. somewhere during the process, i saw three japanese men in traditional dress at a coffee shop.
after meeting up we went down to an area of town called akihabara. this is a major shopping area where they sell all sorts of crazy gadgets etc. we kind of just wandered around for a bit looking at random displays. during this, it started raining really hard so we had to kind of run from store to store. i didnt really see anything all that crazy electronics-wise, but we did check out a bunch of stores selling action figures. dude, japan is so big on their action figures. tons and tons of stores dedicated to these things. small figurines, large figurines, robots, ninjas, half-naked ladies, tanks.. you name it, they got it. some of the stores that sell these things are 8 stories tall. the whole country is obsessed. and it doesnt stop w/ just figurines, they have millions of different manga (comic books), movies, and video games. in one store, we found a bunch of transformers for sale. it was really cool cause my brother and i used to totally play w/ these during our youth and it was neat to see them again. of course, now they are collectors items and crazy expensive. some of them were selling for $1,000!!
tokyo is such a crazy city. it’s amazing to me just how much stuff they fit into every little area. the whole city is built up so high vertically. as opposed to back home where shops are usually limited to the first floor or second floor of a building, here almost every single building is a highrise and will have stores, restaurants, internet cafes, etc filling up 10 stories or more. every building you look at will have a huge sign out front that shows what’s on the 1st floor, 2nd floor, 3rd etc etc etc. space is such a comodity in a city as packed as this. because of that, most of the places you go to are really small. tiny restaurants, with tiny little bathrooms where you can hardly fit inside and close the door. i cant even imagine just how many businesses they cram into every city block. at one point, we took a break from shopping at a donut shop. we saw two people behind a window making donuts…
after a while we went to this arcade. like everything else, this arcade was 6 stories! one crazy thing that we saw that i’ve never seen before was that they had these games that interact w/ playing cards. you buy these cards, kind of like those “magic, the gathering” cards and the cards will have different characters etc. then you go to a video game and you lay out the cards on the game, and you play the game by moving around the characters that you acquired. it seems to add this crazy dimension to the game cause everything depends on what cards you got, and you can probably trade cards with other people etc. they also had a game w/ the same concept except it was a soccer game and the cards represented different soccer players w/ different stats.
one funny thing at the arcade was that each arcade game had little individually wrapped wet napkins that you can use to wipe of your hands after the game. the japanese are so big on having everything be sanitary. for instance, at all the internet cafes, after you use the computer, the staff comes by and disinfects your station with spray etc. japanese people who are sick wear little masks over their nose and mouth so as not to spread germs. heh, yup, cleanliness is really big in japan. today it was raining and so everyone was out w/ umbrellas. so almost all the shops here had little stands in the front of their store w/ umbrella sheaths. these are basically little slip on plastic covers so you dont get everythng wet in the store from your umbrella.
the other crazy thing about japan is how big on recycling they are. everywhere you look there are vending machines selling green tea drinks, cola, and beer. and proabbly like 9 times out of 10, these will have a recycling container next to them. this is such a sharp contrast from other countries we’ve been in where everyone just throws garbage out into the forest, ocean, or street. here people are meticulous about their litter and the streets are really clean.
that night we went out to dinner in rappongi hills. this is a little “city within a city” in the rappongi area. it’s a huge highrise w/ shopping centers, apartments, a park, a train station… basically everything you need to live is in this one enclosed area. pretty crazy. we had a pretty good dinner to celebrate daniel’s last night here. afterwards we hit a bar for a couple of last minute drinks and then there was a mad dash for the last train of the night.
5/31/05
we had been in japan for 8 days now and somehow have managaed not to have sushi even once. so we went down to this conveyorbelt sushi place. it’s kind of like the sushi boat thing back home, but instead of boats, they use plates on a conveyor belt. usually sushi is very expensive here, but they have some places like this one where the sushi is 100 yen (1$) per plate. that’s an incredibly good deal for sushi. we were about to walk in when they guy pointed to a sign on the wall. apparently this place is really really busy and they try to keep people moving by having strict rules on eating times. basically, you are required to eat at least 7 plates of sushi. if you eat from 7-10 plates, you can stay there for 20 minutes. if you eat over 10 plates, you can stay up to 30 minutes. i couldnt believe that they have such a crazy rule in place, but hell, we were there, and it was cheap, so we went in anyways. i was a bit worried if daniel would be able to eat so much sushi, but he totally was cool w/ it. the sushi ended up being really good for that price too. i want to start eating sushi all the time now if it’s gonna be this cheap!
after lunch, time was pretty much out for my brother, so we went to the station and he left. too bad.. it was really fun having him here.
*v