Wrapping it up, the last few days in Japan

Sorry this post has been so long in coming, but I'm finally going to wrap up the remainder of my trip to Japan.  So here you go.

Our first stop was the Docomo R&D facility.

We were allowed to take pictures inside, but they said for personal use only.  i.e., no posting to websites or showing people.  So... with restrictions like that, I didn't bother taking any pictures.

They actually had some pretty cool stuff in there.  For those who don't know, Docomo is Japan's leading cellular communication company.  Some of the stuff they showed us included an application for cellphone data analysis.  The phone companies track where each phone is at any given time, and therefore can tell how many people of what gender and age are in a given area at a given time of day (approximately.  Not everyone has a cellphone on them at all times).  They were showing how this can be used in city planning, and they're working to make it more readily available and useful to those in the government who could benefit from it to help with decision-making.  It's kind of a cool idea, and (unlike recent developments with phone companies back here in the US) they said that the data is purely an aggregate, so you can't really see who is where, just how many people and the general direction of movement.  It has potential as a quick mode of surveying the area to make building decisions.

That was a lot more detail than I intended.  They also showed us several new technologies in development.  I'm not really sure how much I'm allowed to say about them.  They're working on the next generation past 4G, which has speeds of up to 2GB per second (!), and should be widely available in Japan in about 2 years.  I'd assume something similar would be coming to the US sometime around then, too.  They showed a demo of that and said it's already functional, but the tower technology isn't yet placed around the country, so they can't release it.

They also showed us several new gadgets which are probably more secret, so I'll just give general info.  There was a device that transmitted sound through your bones into your ear instead of listening through a speaker.  It didn't seem to work that well for me.  There was a translator where you spoke in Japanese and it would write it out in English.  That's been done before, and it all depends on the quality of the translation.  There was something that could pick up trace body chemicals from your fingertips and breath (things you frequently use on a phone) and use that to monitor your health in various ways.  That one sounded really impressive, but the demo we saw in action was a little weak.

We also watched a whole bunch of videos showing the future potential of a lot of these technologies.  The first video was cool, but seemed pretty far-fetched, but then when they showed us how much they've already gotten done of what was in there, it made it seem like maybe it would actually work at some point.  Probably not for another 10-20 years, and not exactly like they showed, but still.

Alright, moving on.  Our next stop for the day was a fishing and farming village.  We got to pull up cages that were hanging over the edge of the docks, used to catch fish.  Two of them had octopi in them, and there were also a few fish, hermit crabs, and an eel.

One of the nets with its catches.

This octopus got out of the net and was trying to escape.  Everyone was taking pictures and watching it crawl across the gravel.  Lots of them (especially the girls I could hear) were talking about throwing it back in the water, but not too much later one of the fisher(wo)men killed it with a hook.  It wasn't very pleasant to watch.

A view from the docks towards the village.

And here's our octopus friend.  We had lunch in one of the buildings there, and it included some tempura (good this time), vegetables, seaweed, rice, and after a while, one of the octopi that had just been pulled up and cooked while we ate the rest of the meal.  I had one chunk of tentacle (they just cut it up with scissors...), and while it didn't taste bad, it was really hard to swallow.  Extremely chewy and rubbery.  And I'm sure knowing where it came from didn't help, either.

We then left the fishing village and went to Jougashima, a small, scenic island.

The town is built right up to the shore in some places.  It had lots of hills and plant life, too, so you could get a lot of nice views.

Looking down from near the top of one hill, upon which sat a lighthouse.

I always like staircases like this.  Long, curvy, and a little uneven.  Plus, one side has a wall of greenery the whole way down.  It's a pretty interesting place.

Some aloe vera plants, I'm pretty sure.  They were growing in a few patches here and there.

Everyone else beat my group to the shoreline, because we were taking pictures.

Not my idea.  The girl who doesn't like getting her picture taken likes taking pictures, and had us pose like this.  She liked that I was flanked by stripes.

I saw that natural bridge from all the way across the island and wanted to go there.  While we did get closer, we didn't have enough time to actually go all the way over.

Journeying through the foliage.

Emerging on another great lookout point.

There was a long, low bench near the cliff with a sign on it saying it was a glider observation point (in Japanese).  Two older men, probably at least in their 50s or 60s, were putting together gliders, and proceeded to fly them around for a while while we watched.

Building a stack of stones.  I've heard that there are some legends about stacking stones in certain shrines granting wishes or something.  Maybe that was just in an anime, but it sounds like it would be a genuine Japanese superstition.

Dinner that night was nice.  More western style.  I don't really remember where it was... but that's a long table, which is the real point of the picture.

 We got word that the trip to the Imperial Palace was canceled.  Instead we'd be going to the fish market.  Yeah.  Fish market.  So a few of us tried to go that night to the palace anyway.

Tokyo Station again.  A different part.  I say again, because I took a picture of a nearly empty Tokyo Station last time I was in Japan, too.  This one wasn't quite that empty, but close.  Shinjuku station is actually the busiest in all of Japan, I learned later, and that's the one that was right next to our hotel, which we took to get here.

We arrived at the palace gates, only to see them locked up with a couple police on guard.  Since I was the only one who really spoke Japanese in the group, I was tasked with talking to them and getting information.  It turns out that you can't actually see the palace from outside at all. :/ So we made the trip for nothing.

Well, we did get a few pictures, but it was really late at night, so it was hard to get anything clear.  This is much brighter than it actually was, because if I posted the picture that's closer to reality, you wouldn't really be able to see anything but a light gray blur.

We walked around for a while and discovered that the sidewalk running all the way around the palace grounds is really popular for joggers.  We met up with a bunch of Japanese college kids who were taking a break and all talked with them for a while.  They were training, one of them planning to run I think a 100km race in a day or two.  Whatever it was, it was ridiculously long.

And thus ends... whatever day that was.  Monday, May 27.

Tuesday, May 28

Our first stop was Mitsubishi Corporation, which does a whole lot more than just cars.  There we sat through a long and largely boring lecture on the company, and were given packets of info.  It sounded nice and all, but I think most of it went over most of our heads.  I'm not really sure why they thought that it would be a good idea to have us sit and watch so many business presentations on this trip.

Then they wanted to show off Tokyo Station, which I'd already been to several times.  But this time it was the front entrance.  That place must be huge.  I've never seen the same entrance twice.

The main entrance of Tokyo Station.

Tokyo is making a bid for hosting the 2020 Olympics, and there were lots of posters and signs everywhere promoting it.  I'd feel kind of bad if they lost after all that.

Lunch was... interesting.  Not good, but interesting.

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant, where they brought out a bunch of vegetables (probably cabbage, mostly) and cooked them on a plate in front of us.  I'm sure lots of you have seen these types of things, since we have them back here in the US, too.

After frying the vegetables, they made a donut shape, poured in some sauce, then mixed it up some more and flattened it out.  Then they left, and it never solidified past that, so we just kind of scooped it onto our plates and tried to eat it.

The first dish was pretty plain, and not that good.  Then they brought out some more, and this time there was curry powder with it.  And we were expected to cook it ourselves.  I did most of that one.  It tasted a lot better than the first, but still not that interesting, and there was just too much.  We were mostly feeling done already, when they brought...

Something that looked like a giant tongue.  It's actually a bunch of fish eggs, inside... something.  Egg sac?  Not really sure.  This one they cooked.

She did the vegetables like before, with the eggs sitting off to the side and not being cooked at all, until the end when she dropped it in the middle, chopped it into little tiny pieces, and mixed it all up.  We let it sit for quite a while after that, because no one really wanted to try first, and I don't think anyone was fond of the idea of almost-raw fish eggs, so we let it cook.  The red stuff was almost completely gone, whatever it was.  Instead, there were thousands of tiny eggs, about the size of a poppy seed, spread throughout the mixture.  We all tried some, but none of us really enjoyed it.  We left most of it there.  We weren't full, but after three not-so-good dishes, we'd all lost our appetites.

They brought two more sets of food, neither of which we even put on the grill.  I felt really bad for not eating it, but I couldn't take more of that cabbage stuff and the sauce.  The other tables were leaving heaps of food, too, but they all at least tried some of each.  One table actually managed to finish all five courses, but my friend there was obviously overstuffed and not too happy for the next hour or so.

Look familiar?

 Our next stop was back in Akihabara!  We only had about an hour 40 minutes to look around.  Nowhere near enough time to see everything.  I went around with my friends for a while, but eventually we split up and did shopping for our respective interests.  I bought a couple more games and an art book, then didn't have enough money or time to buy anything else.

Giant Vocaloid Nendoroid ad on the wall of the Sofmap store.  I think the big one is actually the fat, scary "Miku Dayo~" figure, but it's blocked so I'm not sure anymore.  Not sure why you'd want that.

Giant character art from one of my favorite artists, Kantoku.  I haven't watched any of the show it's advertising (Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko) but I always like Kantoku's style, so it made me happy to see it.

I just think it's funny there's a donut shop chain called Mister Donut.

After a depressingly short time in Akihabara, we moved on to Harajuku.  Well, I couldn't have bought anything else anyway, what with having only about 1000 yen left after everything else.  So I guess it's not that bad.  I only brought about $100 on the trip all together, so the fact that I managed to get everything I did is still impressive.

We are all chelsea.  I don't know who Chelsea is, but I assume it's that guy.  And now I'm him.  And you're him.  Everybody is him.

Looking down the street of Harajuku.  Once we got into the crowds, it was mostly girls talking excitedly and looking at all the shops, and guys ignoring everything around them looking straight ahead or talking with their friends.  Sounds like a typical shopping district.  Lots more girls than guys.

My friend fancied the fancy hat.  He didn't buy it.

Crepes are very popular in Japan, and if they actually looked anything like the displays I could see why.  My friend bought a strawberry cheesecake crepe, and it was pitifully small compared to the display.  Still, I had a tiny bit and it tasted alright.

Don't feed the shirts.  I actually thought this one was pretty clever.

Also clever, but...

Harajuku was basically a fashion mall, but I did manage to find a bottle of concentrated Calpis Water to bring back home, spending most of the little money I had left.  Much cheaper and lasts longer than getting individual bottles of the actual drink.

My group got bored with Harajuku after not very long, so we went to the nearby shrine.  At least, to the entrance.  The actual shrine was waaaaaay down the path somewhere off in the distance, and we didn't have time to go that far and back.

Illegal Disposal is forbidden!  Really?

And that's the end of that day.

Wednesday, May 29

The last full day in Japan.  We went to see a demonstration of kabuki dancing.  One man, supposedly a master of kabuki, but I don't remember his name, showed us a few sample performances, explaining the different motions and props as he went.  I studied kabuki back in fall semester in Japanese class, so most of it was pretty familiar to me.  He then had volunteers come up and join him in the performances, teaching them the steps.  I didn't end up going up, but probably about half the people there did.  He only did the female dances when the volunteers were up, for some reason.  In kabuki, both male and female roles are played by men exclusively.  So he showed us both types.

After that, we went to the fish market, an art museum, and a very small kabuki museum.  The fish market really wasn't that interesting, and the others had no pictures allowed.  The art museum was focused on the Japanese feeling of the four seasons, and how it's important to their culture.  I learned about that a couple semesters ago, too, but I saw it a bit more in depth in the museum than just what we talked about in class.  We mostly mentioned food and things, but it applies to a lot more than just that.  They seem to take it into every aspect of daily life, so the seasons are very important to them.  Having only been to Japan in the summer, that now makes me wonder what the other seasons would be like.

Outside the kabuki museum, my friends found a random store's mascot character and posed for a picture.  I've never heard of Gunma-chan before, but he had all sorts of merchandise inside the store.

Then we had the formal debriefing, where everyone talked about the things they learned and differences and similarities between the countries, and all that.  It was nice, but nothing I can really write about here.

Then, our last dinner.  We went to a restaurant near the hotel, and had nabe.  Well, I think that's what it was.  They never called it by that name, but it was Japanese hot pot at least.

Each table (for six) had two pots of boiling water, and a few plates of beef and pork, along with a bunch of vegetables.

We put in all the vegetables and meat, let it cook (it only took a few seconds, really), and pulled it out and ate it.  This meal was absolutely delicious!  I would have loved to have more of it, but I think it was probably pretty expensive.  They must have saved the best for last.  I left still a little hungry. :(

After the meal, one of my friends was trying to get rid of all her remaining yen, and really wanted to go to karaoke.  So a couple of us went along with her.  It was better in some ways than my first trip, but harder without a native-level reader to use all the controls.  I ended up having to figure out how to work everything, and we lost some time because of that.  Still, with only three people, we each got to sing quite a bit.  All in all, not too bad of an experience, but I wouldn't have considered it worth paying for (she paid for all of us).

We then spent a while looking for a suitcase for her, since she had bought too much stuff to fit into her original one.  We found a small bag in a clothing store, then thinking that would have to suffice stopped looking and I led everyone into a game store where I wanted to look around.  And lo and behold, at the back of the store, a corner for luggage.  To be fair, the store had more than games, but we were on the game and movie floor, and the luggage was completely out of place.  Interesting setup.

The next morning, we all gathered bright and early, around 7 am (after having an even earlier breakfast) with all of our luggage and departed for the airport.  I spent almost the whole trip home watching movies, including Wreck-it Ralph (first time, good movie), The Dog of Flanders (first time, good but kind of sad), The Hobbit (second time, awesome), and I think there might have been something else.  I didn't sleep at all.  I did try reading some of the manga I bought, and made it about a third of the way through one of the books with the help of my phone dictionary.

Flying over Alaska, or thereabouts.

It was a great trip.  I'd love to return to Japan again someday.  I might even try to make it an annual or biannual thing if I can afford it, but that might be pretty hard.  I'd really like to see it in the other seasons, though, and explore more of the countryside.  Maybe go up north in the winter, where there's tons of snow.  Stuff like that.  Anyway, those are adventures for another day.  For now, I'll have to be content at home in the summer heat of Virginia.

Thanks for reading.  I doubt I'll be posting much more to this anytime soon, but hey, you never know.

First few days back in Japan

I have arrived back in Japan after only a 14-hour flight.  Not nearly as bad as my three-flight trip last time.  This post is mostly going to be pictures, since I've got a lot of catching up to do and I've taken 440 already.  So first we landed in Narita airport, then took a bus to Shinjuku.

Rice paddies + orange and white electric tower = Japan

First glimpse of Tokyo Sky Tree.

Beautiful bridge and skyscraper scene.

We drove right by the Square-Enix headquarters.  I was about to take a picture of it because of the cool brick design, then looked up and saw the logo.

Once in Shinjuku, we dropped off our stuff at the Prince Hotel, and then moved out en masse to a nearby restaurant on foot.

The shop had a bread buffet, so I collected several varieties.

Our school occupied one whole wing of booths.  25 people.

Everyone's meals.  This was a fairly western-style menu, but obviously with a Japanese take on it.

And, of course... Calpis Water!! I realized that I have not been making it strong enough with my mix back home.  This is a lot stronger than I remembered, and therefore better.

On our way out of the restaurant, I decided this would make a cool shot.

A lot of the others decided to explore straight after eating, but I didn't remember the way back to the hotel, so my roommate and I went back there first with the guide before wandering around some more.

The only thing consistent about the architecture in Tokyo is that the buildings look cool.  There is no unifying design element besides that.

A karaoke tower.

We got free slippers.  They let us take them home.  I read the Japanese to make sure I was interpreting that part of their translation correctly before deciding to keep them.

You should never Slippers.  Especially not outside of your room.

We went out again and explored the area a bit more after that, but quickly decided to return to the room after we were both made well aware that the area across the street from the hotel is a red-light district.  It took us about two streets in before we fully realized it.  Since we couldn't see much in any of the other directions, we decided to give up for the moment and go to bed.

Nothing like fresh smog in the morning.  This was taken looking out the hotel window.

We went to orientation at the Youth Olympic Center, which seemed a lot like a college campus from what I could see, but had more tours.  Orientation was long and boring, and it was really hard to stay awake during the 2+ hour lecture on Japanese-American relations.  The fact that this was on our first full day didn't help.

Lunch at the cafeteria.  I couldn't eat the barely-not-raw egg, but I finished the rest.  The melon gelatin was pretty good.

Just a friendly airport limousine.

We can't actually stand up in the back of the bus.  For some reason it slopes up almost a foot in the last few rows.

We next visited the Tokyo National Museum for a couple hours.  They had a lot of Buddhist statues, some swords, and a lot of writings and paintings.  We didn't get to see everything since it was a pretty short visit.  Self-guided tour, though, which was the first time we got to really get out on our own (unless you count the night before).

At the museum.

Four-season folding painting.  From right to left, it has scenes from spring, summer, autumn, and winter, all in a continuous set.  This was a common style.

Detail on the same painting section above.

A very, very long scroll.  There are lots of these.

A music stand.  I mean, reading stand.  But it's the same basic idea.  Only this one's gold (or looks like it at least).

One of many swords on display.  This one had a cool engraving in the base of the blade.

After the museum, we went to Kappabashi Dougu Street, which is the largest concentration of shops dedicated to cooking goods, primarily for restaurants and such.  They had lots of huge knives, pots, etc.  I also saw a taiyaki maker, which would be pretty cool to have if it weren't 20,000 yen or something.

A kappa on Kappabashi street.  Kappa are water spirits.  There are lots of weird stories and ideas about them, so you can look them up if you're interested.

We next went to Sensou-ji, an ancient temple.  I've seen and posted about many of those before, so I didn't take all that many pictures this time.  Just the main buildings, mostly, and they look basically like all the others I've already posted about.

Another shot of Tokyo Sky Tree from the temple grounds.

Don't feed the pigeons.  Feeding pigeons makes them sad.  Pigeons can get their food by themselves.

On our way to dinner after the temple.  The building just looked cool with all the ivy.

Dinner wasn't great.  Tempura of all sorts, but I think we got there a little late, so it was all a little colder than it should have been, and I wasn't a big fan of the stuff anyway.  I heard later that some of the others at least agreed that it wasn't good as tempura goes.  I don't remember having any before, so I can't really say.

That night, I went with a larger group, 5 or 6 of us, to better explore the area and buy stuff at Book Off.  We stopped at several shops along the way and lost a few people who decided they'd walked far enough, so only 3 of us made it there, but I ended up buying 3 manga I'd never heard of before in hopes of practicing my reading and improving my vocabulary.  I don't really have any idea what they're about.  Didn't have enough time to try to figure it out beyond the titles and quick skimming of the pictures inside before deciding.

Today, we moved to Yokohama National University, where we had more lessons on Japanese culture.  This time, though, it was actually fun and interesting.  We learned about the cultural emphasis on work, various opinions on different topics, seasonal foods, and other things, most of which I already knew but were still kind of interesting.  Then we had lunch.

A friend poses with a ridiculously large bite of ramen.

On our way out of the cafeteria, I saw one girl outside talking to her friend pointing in at all of us (I think at me specifically at the moment, because I happened to be right in front of her).  When she saw me look at her, she started laughing and waved, so I waved back.  It's weird being looked at as a foreigner again, but it doesn't happen nearly as much in Tokyo as it did around Izumichuo.  Most people ignore us.

We had our pictures taken in front of the school emblem.

And then we climbed up to the roof.  Well, I did.  Everyone else took the elevator.

Most of us then climbed the ladder to the top of the little building on top of the roof.  Because why not.

It was a pretty long way down, though only maybe 15 feet to the roof below.

My roommate and his new Japanese friend pose on the rooftop.

After that adventure, we headed inside to learn how to put on yukata.  This time we all actually did it for real, unlike last summer where we just kind of messed around with it until we got something that looked almost sort of right or gave up.  I think I could actually remember the knots well enough that I could do it again if I had one.

Some of the men in their yukata inside.

All the men in yukata and geta by the university's emblem.  Walking out there we got a lot of looks from the college students.

And suddenly, color.  The women always get the better-looking outfits.

The instructor and Japanese students who helped with the presentation and lesson.

Then we learned how to properly fold the kimono.

After a little while waiting for the bus, we went to our new hotel, the Heiwa Plaza Hotel.  The rooms here are bigger and more spacious than the other ones (which were absolutely tiny), but the beds, doors, and bathrooms are smaller.  But now we have internet.  Some of the guys promptly opened the windows and walked outside to the other people's rooms.  I stepped out to see what was there.

My roommate at the next room over.

Looking down from our "balcony"

Another ostensibly western-style meal for dinner.  Bread, chicken with cheese and tomatoes/tomato sauce on top, corn, and potato wedges.  And of course Calpis Water, but this time I also changed it up and got Melon Fanta, which was actually pretty good, too.

The bread was just too cute.  It's like a whole loaf from the store, but it fits in the palm of your hand.

We had plenty of time after dinner tonight to explore, so we went to the Landmark Tower Sky Garden.

Some cool buildings along the way.

The tower itself.  The tallest building and third tallest structure in Japan.

I just thought this was a cool shot.

It wasn't actually this light outside, but I thought the framing of the bridge, buildings, and grass around the water was nice.

We had many adventures along the way.  The 15-minute walk took us almost an hour and a half.

Japan.  The vending machine capital of the world.

Some possibly famous sculpture near the tower.  We don't know what it is.

Riding the escalator down right after going up because no one else followed.

In the mall between us and the tower, I found the Pokemon Center.

Now that all our pokemon were back to full health, we continued to the actual tower.  This is the ceiling of the fastest elevator in Japan, reaching the top of the 69-story building in just 40 seconds, with a max speed of 750 m/min (45 km/hr or about 28 mph).

The vast city as seen from the observation deck.  It looked about like this no matter which direction I took a picture of.

Bridges of light seemingly over nothing.

A subset of our group at the top of the tower.  The girl taking the picture didn't want to be in any of the pictures herself, so my roommate and I made it our mission to get good pictures of her.  Then I realized when I got back to do this blog that I already had a few (on the escalator).

This is the Nippon Maru, at the Nippon Maru Memorial Park just at the base of the tower.  I don't know anything else about it.

So now I'm back at the hotel, and that concludes the recap.  I can elaborate on anything if there are questions, but I'll only have internet for a few more days, then nothing until I get back to the States.