Selfie taking hipsters are universal

31102016

Full day in shimotikazawa. This if very much the hipster neighborhood of Tokyo, not only is it full of Japanese trendy folks but it is full of young foreigners trekking the world.

We went to a cafe in the neighborhood that had baked goods, various pastries and buns with stuff on them (I got one with olive oil, Italian spices and zucchini) that would get tired real quick before you went on your way to your super cool programmer/internet journalist/etc job.

After that I had second breakfast, a donut covered in soft serve ice cream. Served by this very nice ancient lady, no judgment that I was eating ice cream donuts for breakfast, just a very nice old lady. Most Ice cream over here isn't as sweet, I think they use soy milk so it isn't as creamy or heavy as ours. And the donuts weren't as sugary either. Honestly it was a pretty appropriate breakfast.

We wandered around shimotikazawa and found a cat cafe. For 1440 yen we got to hang out in a room full of cats for 30 minutes. Laura took a bunch of cleratin so we wouldn't get kicked out and burned alive for sneezing without a mask on (everyone here wears a surgical mask when they feel a little sick as courtesy to everyone else).

The cats here look weird. I dunno if these were the broken cats that couldn't get adopted, but most were odd. There was a munchkin cat (I think is the PC term for them) with short little legs, and cats with smooshed in faces, and short stubby ears, and almost inside out ears I dunno.

One was big and fluffy and a huge asshole picking fights with other cats, one gray one was super nervous about everything and another gray one was very friendly. Even hopped onto Laura's lap.

I was not expecting head buts from this cat, but I was sitting the floor in front of laura, and anytime my head got close the cat reached for nuzzling.

Then we wandered around the area pooping into shops. There are a lot of vintage, used, and new clothing shops around, with a wide array of pricing; a used shop with every item 700 yen, next to a vintage shop with what appeared to be sweat pants for 18,000 yen.

Most of the shops were very small making maximum use of their space, be out a basement, a stairwell or multi storey building.

Laura bought a shirt, but Is hesitant to blow her clothes budget here when we are going to China and can find knock off everything for pennies.

We stopped for udon noodles, i got city, and she got noodles in a light broth. This place also had tempura fried stuff, I got a mass of onion, and laura got a slice of yam, and some other starchy vegetable.

The curry udon was so rich, this was my final meal of the day at 1645.

We did a little more wandering, checked out a drug store, got since crazy candy and then went home.

The candy was one of those make your own mini x. This was donuts, they had burgers, pizza, all kinds of stuff. You mix the powdered tapioca with water, and then the frosting with water and put it in the molds and then eat it. I dunno it reminded me very much of MRE milkshakes/pudding. Powdered food product that never goes bad with just add water instructions aren't my idea of a tasty treat.

After some lazing around laura needed for, cause she didn't have fantastic curry udon. We found a burger place, that was

take out OK

got a hot dog and promptly at it when we got home.

I fell asleep shortly there after, while she watched old Steve Irwin clips.

Fish heads and vomit (unrelated)

10302016

We woke up hungover, well collectively the two of us woke up pretty hung over, I was ok, but laura was near death.

But she was determined to go to the Tsukiji Fish market.

So we packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, and took a walk to the fish market. Stopping for Yoshinoya on the way, greasy-carb-laden breakfast was just what i needed. Being Sunday the inner market was closed, and no Tuna auction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukiji_fish_market .

The outer market was fill of shops and restaurants and smells. Lots of very strong smells. And also tuna heads. I guess they put the tuna heads on display outside as a marketing gimmick. After our experience with sashimi and larvae, I was not interested. Some how the sights and smells here didn't upset Laura's tummy and made it through without incident.

We did find a street vendor selling candied ginger that helped some with the discomfort.

After the fish market we wandered around the Ginza neighborhood. Again being Sunday, there wasn't much going on, we stopped at our first cafe of the day to try some wifi and laura Ave coffee. We signed up for stove free Wi-Fi that is good at over 40,000 locations around Japan, including most train stations. And laura puked here, then we decided to head back to akihabara to try and find boxes that would fit ask the stuff we are trying to send back. Akihabara being full of Japan-fetishizing Americans I figured would have boxes for shipping. On the train laura got sick and we got off early, so she could puke. And while walking the rest of the way to akihabara we came across a pile of boxes outside a clothing boutique. Snagged some and went back to the hotel.

I packed the stuff into a box, and Laura puked the hotel lobby toilet, so we wandered off in the Shinbashi neighborhood. we found a park, where she puked in a public squat toilet, which I'm pretty sure was a novel experience for her. Then she napped on my lap on a park bench. We went to our second cafe because I was getting hungry. I got a muffin and a maple latte, and laura puked in this bathroom too.

Then it was time for us to go to Shimotikazawa for our next stint. We definitely should have taken a cab, between Laura's glass stomach and the box of stuff, a transfer at Shinbashi was not going to happen. We ultimately didn't make the transfer and hopped a cab anyways.

Late on Sunday almost nothing was open on Shimotikazawa. We went to a place our AirBNB guy recommended. Unfortunately the menu was all Japanese and the staff knew 0 English. We struggled through with Google translate. Ordered chicken. Laura ate a bite, then felt sick. And we went home for our first night in the AirBnB.

Too many Harley Quinns

29102016

We tried today to mail the Gundams and since unnecessary clothes over to the US, unfortunately the Post offices around here don't have very large boxes on hand, so we went home empty handed, or rather still-full-handed.

The morning wasnt a complete loss, we did discover 7-11 had tasty smoothie drinks for waaay less monies than the smoothie place in the train station, not as good, but well worth a buck fifty.

We decided to go over to Aomi, which is one of the islands made up of reclaimed land in the bay. It has one of the main ports of Tokyo, meaning there is alot of area that we couldn't go to, but interesting for a "logistician" like myself to view through the metro train window.

It is also a sort of entertainment hub, given that it is all less than 75 years old, it was very curated, they had the space and forethought to build it purposefully. There are a few enormous mslls, like 7+ story buildings with hundreds of shops in them. Many of them shops you would find in our malls, a few unique brands, but really the same stuff you would see in a mall in the States. There was also a huge ferris wheel and presumably other rides/attractions around.

The primary reason for heading to Aomi was so I could check the block and be done with my fan-girling for Gundam here.

We went to Gundam Front Tokyo. Which is basically the factory store and museum for all things Gundam. They have a full size one outside, inside they had on display at least one of nearly every model kit they have produced. They have a big shop with a big selection. And they have a paid session where you can go and see how they are produced, and watch some only-available-there films, and some more displays. I elected not to pay. $10 a head to see a plastic injection molding machine (which laura and I literally stole a peek at at a Chicago museum), exclusive videos from parts of the franchise I don't care about, and the minor display didn't seem worth it.

Mostly i wanted to see the historical log of kits, and see if any of their exclusive kits tickled my fancy; they didn't.

Given that this weekend is holloween, and Aomi is an entertainment center there was a huge concert going to go down later in the day, there were many many people in the area, and many in costume. In the various malls was really the first moment that we really realized how many goddamn people there are here. And this theme will come back later in the day.

Wandering around the reclaimed island we stumbled upon a very large tennis complex. Many many courts, and with it being the weekend most were filled. I'm not sure whether these were pick games or clubs or lessons or what but it was fun to walk around. We even found an actual scored and spectated match. We sat and watched them play. My favorite part was the 5 ball boys/girls that ran around chasing errant tennis balls and tossing the players fresh balls. Those kids were determined to keep the court orderly and free of wandering tennis balls.

We take the train home and start researching what to do for halloween. Everything said to check out Shibuya. Shibuya is where that iconic super busy intersection is, we figured would get crazy.

It was.

That doesnt really do it justice. There were people everywhere, shoulder to shoulder, most bars were standing room only it was bananas. And again about 2 in 5 people were in costume.

This is one of the prime tourist spots in the city, there were alot of Westerners here, which actually was nice. I am guessing the competition among the bars has sorry of been a race to the bottom on price, no where else have we consistently found inexpensive beers, and beers that didn't come with obligatorily buying food.

So laura and I got drunk. We did have a few snacks, but mostly drank. By the time we were about done we stopped at a ramen place in the thick of it. I was in no state to be sitting, so I told laura to stay put and I was going to walk the block.

Terrible idea, I got completely lost. After about 10 minutes of not recognizing the front of the ramen shop I just started going into places and looking for laura.

Unfortunately after a few minutes laura freaked out about MY being gone so long, and left the ramen place.

Even worse idea.

Luckily, and I have no idea the chances we stumbled into each other within a few minutes. And decided it was certainly time to go home.

We stopped at 7-11 for snacks and breakfast, laura puked outside. And we went home to our final night at the Shinbashi hotel.

Where is the castle?

28102016

Did comparatively little today. Got out of bed late, because everyone needs a lazy Friday morning, and made way for the Chiyoda Castle. It was s quick train ride away, though we did buy the wrong tickets, so now we need an excuse to ride the Japan Rail rather then just the Tokyo Metro.

It began to rain just as we popped out of the station at Chiyoda, so we didn't want too much on the gardens, and decided to go to one of the museums to escape the rain.

That first picture is the main gate, and then the moat. It has a very impressive moat all the way around, that had clearly been filled with water for a very long time, with lily pads growing in it.


From what I've gathered on various plaques, the castle was started in response to a few uprising in distant provinces of Japan. It was made the seat of the Shogunate in early 1600s which is when it became a real castle looking much like does today.
Again without a tour I can only really point you to Wikipedia,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_Castle

We then went to the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. It wasnt an exhaustive museum, but it was interesting. Like many modern art museums, I struggled to appreciate the art that is simply paint trowelled onto canvas, or a cardboard box bolted to the wall.

They did have a very interesting room, dedicated to the 1930s and 1940s and how many artists were forced to document the War in the Pacific.

I was hoping to see something of their perspective on WWII, as by most accounts they were the bad guys. Germany is very apologetic, and did is best to divorce the German people and modern Germany from the Nazi Party. This exhibit stated a little more objectively, not admitting wrong doing, not apologetic, but it didn't feel accusatory. From what I gathered it was called the War in the Pacific, fighting primarily the Chinese, and Western Imperialist colonies, not the ideological battle that it is usually framed as in the US.

After the main museum, was the crafts museum, a small annex that has more recent craft works, things like stone ware and baskets. That was neat too, and despite the avant garde and non utility of the art, I appreciate the skill that goes into sculpting and firing a pot vs splattering paint on canvas from 5 ft away.

The castle is made up of many gardens and nature that, despite the rain were still beautiful. As pictured above.

For a late lunch we grabbed some Indian food at a little place just off the women's university campus. And trained home. We had originally indented to go out again for dinner, but neither of us were hungry, and we thought we had to get to the Tsukiji Fish market reeeeaally early, and decided to go to sleep early.

Juxtaposition of old and new

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We spent a little more time in bed this morning, Laura figured out how to steal the baseball game from the Internet, and we did research what to do for the rest of the day.

Firstly I wanted some kind of pastry, is not necessarily traditional, but I wanted some carbs in my stomach. We went up to Shinbashi station, found a "auntie Anne" like kiosk and got some cream filled puffs. Fortunately it is Halloween season, so they had pumpkin spice cream. They were pretty tasty. Also in the station we found a smoothie place that wasn't outrageously expensive, which we will probably be hitting up every morning we can.

After this we hopped a train back to Akihabara to find those last Gundams, which we did, I saved about $175 on what I'd pay in the US, so as long as I beat that on shipping I am ahead of the game.

We took the train back home. But this time went the wrong way, to ride it around the big loop and see the city. Tokyo is mind bogglingly big.

Dumped the model kits and went up our street for curry. I touched on this a little bit about Akihabara, but Tokyo, and by looking at the map most of Japan is made up of crazy irregular blocks. There are big main streets, with boulevards and multiple lanes of traffic, but there are hundreds of tiny one lane or pedestrian only roads that cross the city, and businesses front on these tiny roads. This curry place was in a basement on one of these roads.

They had one thing on the menu, and then 5 derivatives of that. They had city, curry with vegetables, with chicken, with minced beef ball, and some others I didnt understand. Laura got the basic with bone in chicken leg, and I got the beef ball thing. It can't with rice and silverware. The intention was to dip the rice into the curry, this was a great meal. Well portioned, absurdly flavorful, appropriately priced, everything about it was pretty good, and I appreciated that it was down some dark stairway in a relatively untrafficed alley.

After which we resolved to just wander around Shinbashi. We found ourselves headed towards the Tokyo Tower, and between the hotel and the turret we found 2 important landmarks:

A. A liquor store. With very fair prices considering the neighborhood.

2. The Zōjō-Ji, it is basically the prime temple for a particular sect of Buddhism. I admittedly know very little about Eastern Faiths, and without a tour guide, all I can really do is point you to wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jōdo-shū .

Exploring through the compound we find the entrance the tokyo tower.

This was the first really touristy thing we did, and it was worth it. We got there around 4, no lines we went right up and took a bunch of pictures, unfortunately the super high uppermost tower is closed, so we didn't get to the 300m spot. The view was pretty spectacular.

The pictures here are my picture, and then the Plaque indicating what you are looking at out the window.

It was a little overcast so we couldn't see Mt Fuji very well, but could see the city pretty great.

I then realized that sunset is happening very soon, so we got a beer and some ice cream in the tower cafe. As evening approached the place got busier, and filled with children groups.

The sun set, and then the city lit up.

Never before have I seen such an exemplary testament to mankind's defiance of nature. Cramming 30+ million people into a single area, building that city many many stories tall, on a place that is historically earthquake prone, and making it daylight all the time. We forcibly change our environment to fit our needs, fuck you natural ecological processes.

We grabbed some beers on the way home, drank said beers, watched crazy Japanese game shows, and headed out for dinner. We ate and a not very good ramen place, and went home for bed.

Fans of all types.

261016

Going to sleep early, led to waking up early, earlier than the sun, earlier than the train, early. So we laid around in bed trying to find a place that would pay the baseball game. Apparently the Chicago Cubs made it to the world series (cause I guess they beat teams from around the world?) and laura wanted to watch.

With the time delay Laura was under the impression the game would be starting at 1100. So we took our time getting up and over to the Tokyo dome city ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Dome_City ). Thus place is pretty cool, it's kind of a big mall/amusement park/stadium/venue.

We went to this entertainment Goliath because there was a MLB cafe, that would certainly be playing the game. We presumed it would be a large American style sports bar, which it was once we found it. We needed the help of security, who was great, between their broken English, gestures and the map we found the place.

The primary difficulty in finding the bar was that the entire complex was slammed with fangirls. There was some kind of show or expo for this presumably J-Pop boy band. I really apologize for not taking a picture of the sea of girls and signs.

The game was already in the 6th inning and the Cubs were losing. I honestly had little interest in watching the game, even less so given that I am in Japan. And knowing Laura's stellar ability to multitask while "her team" is on, I had little interest in sitting in an American themed bar, drinking expensive Bud, in Japan. So I went shopping. What a progressive and gender-role ignoring couple we are.

I went over to akihabara, to look through the anime stuff, and most importantly the Gundam models (henceforth gunpla). Gunpla is a hobby I got into years ago when the Gundam Wing TV show made it to the States, it was a pretty natural thing for me to like, giant robots, explosions, political intrigue, existential crises in regards to the the value vs utility of a soldier as a human, and gunpla, the building of scale model kits of said robots fit into my hobby set. They are very expensive in the States, I always figured it was just an expensive hobby, kits range from $35 and up, with my particular subset usually around the $60 range.

Not the case here, everything is 25% less expensive, some as much as 50%. But much like when I buy over the Internet, I'm going to get beat up on shipping, cause not a single one of these is going to fit in our bags. So I resolved to beat shipping the way everyone does: bulk.

I figure I can slow-boat ship 10kg worth of shit for $40, if I send 2 kits home. Where I save $20 off the purchase price, I'm breaking even, so if I send 4 kits home at the same rate, one is basically free right?

So I wander around, spot the deals and go back around desperately trying to find the same shops in the circuitous, warren filled, no street sign, all signs in language I can't read, neighborhood. I found some but had to head back the 2km to laura to pick her up at our designated time. I met up with her on time, and dragged her back to akihabara, but still couldn't find what I'm looking for (is OK though I'll go again later and I'll find those damn discounts).

Also I have to describe akihabara. It's a neighborhood full of stores dedicated to all things Japanese pop culture. All forms of anime, manga, movies, music everything. So this area attracts all the otaku (look it up), and is the Mecca of weeabos (again look it up) the world over. It is full of people, and probably the area with the most non-Japanese people we have seen so far.

After this we went back to fully check out of the hotel, and move to our new one.

Our new hotel is in shinbusa, which is the district that all the office workers go to to eat and drink.

For dinner we had breaded fried steaks, and cabbage salad, and rice and it was pretty good. There were little grills at every seat so you could cook your steak pieces to your liking. The place was tiny in a basement, 6 seats at a bar and then another 8 seats at tables. The line took about 25 minutes to get through, but good showed up as you sit down so it was a quick process.

After this we wandered around the narrow alleys looking for an izakawa to eat and drink at. Ultimately we settled on one with another White guy and his Japanese translator friend, just in case we need help.

And we certainly needed help. The menu was in hand written kanji, so there was no way we knew what to get. The server spoke a little English and recommended a sashimi plate, and I got tempura fried chicken parts. I can do raw fish when it is doctored with enough other flavors, this was not doctored. The plate was well presented, but all chopped up raw fish, and very fishy. Laura did her best ate the (I'm guessing here) salmon, and the eel, other pink fish, but the full little fishy (with head on plate) was to heavily ocean flavored for us. The chicken cane out, and was ok. I had one chunk, ate it, and realized that the tiny little pots in front of me had a seasoning salt in them. Boom turned okay tempura chicken into good tempura chicken. At this time laura showed down eating her sashimi plate, so she watched me, she saw how the salt reacted to the oils in the chicken sauce.

And then...

Noticed that it wasn't a chemical reaction, it was in fact squirming little larvae.

She told me not to eat it, I didn't eat it. And we tried to figure out how to communicate this to the staff. Not tryna get a free meal or anything, just let them know, pay and get the fuck out of there.

I immediately interrupted the white guy and his friend next us and tried to explain, they found their own creepy crawlies in their salt, and he called the staff over. They exchanged some words and asked us what we wanted, again we wanted the check and to get the fuck outta there. The chef refused to let us pay. We tried to communicate that the food was good, we are just done, on account of you know the maggots.

We got out of there, laura felt sick, which is odd cause i was the one that ate the baby bugs.

We stopped at 7-11 and got some snacks on the way home and watched Japanese soaps until we fell asleep.

Walking To Death

251016

We opened the day with a breakfast of champions: Yoshinoya, which is basically a Japanese McDonald's, super cheap, super fast, super delicious, probably not good for you.
I had the beef bowl with green onions and egg, Laura had the beef bowl, with a side of Miso and a side of kimchi.


After this filling breakfast we made our way to Tanaka, a neighborhood about 2km away from our hotel, renown for its many cemeteries and shrines.



The Tanaka cemetery is yuuge, like 25+ acres ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanaka_cemetery ) and beautiful. As seen in the pictures above.

Being that we could read absolutely nothing, it was a little more contemplative then other cemeteries wandered through. The "ancestor worship" practiced here means the stones were very well kept, with many of them adorned with fresh flowers and a lingering scent of incense.

If you look closely you'll also spot r first Japanese kitty to be identified, a kinda sickly, very loud cemetery calico. Laura wouldnt, let me pet her though.

We popped out of the other side of the cemetery, crossed a rail station and came upon the Yanaka Ginza.

This was a shopping street leading down hill. This was also the densest foreign tourist area we had seen so far. We stopped at a little bakery for these dough-tubes. They were kinda like a churro, but instead of fried, baked. They were good, and at 155JPY we should have eaten more of them.

The shopping street dumped us into Bunkyo university area, at this time we were ready to head back for lunch.

Unfortunately we took a wing turn somewhere, and continued on that wrong turn for atleast 2km, ent up seeing far more of these neighborhoods than we intended, but we made it back and had an early dinner, or supper? I dunno, we got ramen

Firstly the neighborhood immediately surrounding this place was a sort of red light district, there were a bunch of Thai Massage places, and businesses looking for Philippino talent. It was 4 in the afternoon so there was no one around and everything was closed, except for this ramen shop. Laura pointed out they have the dipping noodle style ramem, as she knows in not a fan of the overly brother soups. We pop in clearly the only people in there. I prefer the spicy, laura orders the regular. It took a little while get to us, by no means too long, but the staff apologized for the untimeliness.

I looked at the bowl of broth, I d initially concerned at how oily it was, but all concerns, apprehensions and any unpleasant feelings were abolished upon first bite. It was one of the best things I have ever eaten. I honestly cannot think of a meal that was better than this. It was perfectly spicy and oniony and garlicy and porky. It was everything I didn't know I needed. Upon finishing the bowl I was quite literally intoxicated. People throw around food drunk way too frequently. I felt so good after this ramen.

And just like every other mind -altering substances we crashed, hard. We fell asleep at like 1730. And subsequently woke up at 0500.

So I am blog updating, laura is researching where to watch the WORLD SERIES cause apparently the cubs are playing. And I will wander around akihabara looking for Gundams...

Exploring the neighborhood

W
241016

our second day in Japan, this post is a day late,nbut with the difference most of you are reading this on I doubt you are awaiting eageerly for these updates.

Firstly, any pictures in today's post were not taken by me. My camera uses a full size SD card, and my tablet has a micro SD card slot,and we don't have the appropriate cord. But no worries we are in Japan, and I still need scour Akihabara fo hobby stuff, and Akihabara as I understand used to be the densest electronics shopping neighborhood in the world.

Anyways, we woke up a little early, for a vacation day, but it gave us time to explore the day. We did some preliminary research on what to do for the day and checked out of the room (they were Changing us from a smoking room to non). We went into the train station for a quick breakfast, and of course Laura needed coffee. The place we went to had a preset menu with English and pictures which is pretty common for the ease of tourists. Toast and eggs, and yogurt nothing exotic. We then wandered over to he Ueno Park ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ueno_Park ). Apparently it is pretty old and was built on the whim of one of the Shogun, like most parks in he Old World, though this had a lot more spiritual relevance, due to the Japanese not being civilized to Christianity, and still worrying about demons and such in the 1620s.

And then when the Japanese opened up and saw how great and advanced the west was they desperately tried to catch up by building museums and a zoo in the park. All this makes the park an ideal spot to start our trip.

We walked around spotting the zoo and the temples and shrines, which you will have pictures of later. There also was a bonsai expo? Or maybe competition, I don't know I can't really kanji so all of this is just guessing on my part.

After that we meandered through Ameyoko ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameya-Yokochō ). And on I Akihabara, getting our bearings on where train lines and rivers are.

For lunch we stopped at an izakaya, which was super authentic, but ultimately bewildering because we don't have a "fixer" and subsequently have no idea what is going on on the menu. We ordered sliced pork and chicken meatballs, and Laura got a very fishy miso. I don't think she was expecting half a fish bones n all in the soup but that's what it was. The pork and chicken were delicious though, and the beer was cheap.

We made y back to our hotel, figured out what to eat for dinner and started walking again. We walked bout 20 minutes to he Asakusa neighborhood for diner and on wandered around that neighborhood, before returning to the Ueno area for beer and small plates.

While reading about Ueno and Asakusa we learned that these are two of the worst neighborhoods of Tokyo. Which is amazing, because it felt safer than. Many Neighborhoods I have wandered in South America and Europe. I think that in general crime is nearly non existent in Japan, so the existence of the homeless squatters in he park dramatically skews the numbers. The homeless in the park weren't overtly crazy like many in the parks and busses of the States, so we were surprised to learn of this areas bad reputation.

This is it for the day, turns out typing on my tablet is exhausting, fighting the knock-off Android dictionary is a losing battle. I apologize for any autocorrect mistakes made.

Better Living Through Science

22/231016

So laura and I began our adventure through East Asia. We packed enough socks and underwear to last us about 14 days, which will be plenty because we are traveling for like 65 days.

Pictured above: me doing final checks and packing, and Sicily "helping" at 0745 departure day.

Anyways we left O'Hare at like 1240 local Saturday, flew for 13 hours, and arrived at Tokyo Narita at 1600 local on Sunday.

Firstly let me tell you the future is now. This plane, instead of having the shutter blinds like every other of the hundreds of planes I've been on, had done kind of electronic/chemical opacifying film.

It was bananas, you could adjust it by varying opaquenesses, and it could be controlled centrally. That is cool, because then when it is night time (or should be nighttime cause you are flying faster than the day is pissing) there isn't some asshole sitting next to you letting the blazing-thin-atmosphere-filtered sun into the otherwise pleasantly dim cabin. The captain or head steward/was can make it dark for everyone. It was kind of bluish which is why these pictures look extra blue.

( For you to learn, nano tech is great
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass )

Those are some mountains in Alaska/whatever Canadian territory is right there ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_and_territories_of_Canada ). They were beautiful, I've flown over the Continental US Rockies and they were cool, these seemed so much larger and remote.

When we finally got to Narita, I immediately noted their dedication to safety, being a former safety officer the US Army, I certainly appreciated it.

Just look at these professionals, the chock block went in immediately, on both sides of the wheels, everyone had a hard hat on, and not just a Reflective Hi-vis belt, or a sash, a whole vest apparatus.

First order of business, get localv monies. Too easy, I've pulled cash out of every country once been to, lil Wisconsin educators credit union hasn't failed me yet. It did, the ATM wouldn't take that or our capital one cards, all of which called and cleared for overseas use. Laura has a card that worked, but forgot the exchange rate, she pulled out 1000 yen, a little less that 10USD.

That won't even pay for our train into the city. Luckily we find a 7-11ATM that my educators card worked in I pulled out larger sums of money and away we went.

Anyways, narita is well outside the city so we had to take a train in. We got our tickets for the express train, the ticket guy said "not the first train" Roger I got it, cool not the first train.

So we got on the first train. The train ticket guy informed, us 20 miles from the city and 10 miles from the airport, we were on the wrong train but said if we give him more money is all good. Basically he charged us the difference in the price from the express, to the super awesome train we were on.

It came out to 25ishUSD each, but it did get us there in like 30 min instead of 85.


The train dumped us off very near the hotel. Not as near as we had originally thought, but close ebough. I say that because there is a hotel from the same company with 2/3rds the same name as ours that we walked into, and they sent us on our way to the right one.

We get to our hotel, and due to some fuckup on hotel.com part the hotel is showing the reservation as cancelled.

We tried to call hotels.com, didn't work. The hotel fortunately still had space and could take us. But we would have to pay because they never got money from hotels.com despite our having paid hotels.com in full.

The hotel was going to charge us ¥27800 which is roughly $275 which is $40 less than what we paid hotels.com for the space. We paid it, and hotels.com refunded the fee, we were already primed with our credit card company ready to dispute the charges if hotels.com was gunna get ugly about it. It never came to that.


We got our room, played on our phones a little and hit the streets for ramen, because laura be lovin the ramen.

Webwent to and ichiran place around the corner. These places are great, they have ramen and that's it on the menu. You can make it more spicy or garlic or oily or extra time noodles or an egg or what have you, but you chose this on a card, then go inside and pay a vending machine, then hand the ticket to a person, as you sit in a single person booth, with blinders. Kinda like those study desks in college I heard about but never uses because I never went to the library, ever. I digress, they give youbyour food and drop a little shade so you see no one or nothing but the ramen in front of you. Then you eat.

Now we are home, laura is asleep. And im deliriously tired, and writing this on ny phone.

It's a little narrativey and less substantive that usual, but I'll do better soon I promise.

Also welcome back, read my old posts to date yourself till I can express some of ny initial impressions of Japan and Tokyo and the Wine park area.