Interesting how the internet becomes somehow unusable when Google is down. I can’t post this update, I can’t see my personalized homepage, I can’t IM Sparks and complain about how Google is down (as I use GoogleTalk), I can’t search for random stuff or news (I know, I could use yahoo…), and I can’t read the cool article on Howstuffworks.com about how the Death Star works (because hsw uses a Google database). I suppose if you’re reading this Google is back up and running.

Any-hoo, today was a lot of fun. It was “Bunka no hi” or Culture Day which is yet another national holiday. As such we got the day off school. After getting up and sitting around a bit I planed my route for the day. I wanted to go to Asakusa, Roppongi, and Suidobashi. The problem is that all 3 of those places are in the 3 corners of Tokyo where I don’t live. Asakusa is in the Northeast, Roppongi is in the Southwest, and Suidobashi is, well actually, kind of in the center of the city. As no JR trains go to Asakusa I decided to use the subway exclusively today.

I got to Asakusa about 11:00am and decided to have lunch at… McD’s… again. (What can I say… it’s “safe”- read “known” food.) After lunch I walked around town for a while. The last time I came I only walked the run-up to the temple, today I explored more of the town proper. I discovered there are many shotengai (covered shopping streets) in the Asakusa area. I also noticed that, if you want to buy a kimono or kimono accessory, you go to Asakusa. There were also quite a few suit shops and nice shoe shops. I get the feeling that this is the “fine dress” shopping district. Being purposefully vague, I had a hard time finding what I was looking for because it is “out of season” now, but I did eventually find it. I also FINALLY found some Ramune. Ramune is Japanese “cider”. It’s kind of like… Sprite, but not so lemon-lime. Evidently, it’s only really sold during holidays.

After a while of shopping and taking pictures I decided to head for Roppongi. When I got near the station entrance I noticed a large police presence. I next noticed a large concentration of people lined up on the side on the street. Putting two and two together, I figures out that, because it was culture day, there was going to be a parade. I walked across the street and got a good position from which to watch. Soon after the police closed off the street of auto traffic strips of red vinyl were laid down next to the curb. “Odd,” I thought, “they’re rolling out the red carpet, but for whom?” As if to answer my question a police man said “Go ahead” and everyone waiting of t he curb moved foreword and sat on the vinyl. Yes, they sat IN the street. Sitting culture BANZAI. A curious side note, when walking or sitting on the vinyl, everyone took off their shoes.

Next an announcer came on over a loud speaker system and gave a speech about Tokyo’s founding. Thanks to all the museum trips and history lessons I’ve been getting I was able to follow what was being said. A short time later, the first parade cart came along. I say parade cart instead of float because it was a 4 wheeled cart with a set of Taiko drummers on it. The announcer said these were elementary school kids from the Asakusa elementary school. Maybe 5 minutes later the second cart came by. Again, Taiko drummers. After that, another 5 minutes went buy. At this point my American attention span snapped and I decided to head to my next stop. Unlike American parades, there’s nothing in-between the floats, except waiting for the next float.

A quick subway ride later and I was in Roppongi. If Tokyo has a “seedy underside” I suppose Roppongi would be it. There are rumors of shady night clubs and drug deals. From what I saw the buildings and streets didn’t seem to be as well kept up as in other parts of town, but it didn’t seem like altogether a bad place.

The sole reason for my stop in Roppongi was to try out the new Coldstone Creamery there. For those of you checking this blog from under a rock, Coldstone is a widely popular ice-cream joint in the states. The attraction, I suppose, being that you can get candy mixed in with your ice-cream. I managed to find it okay, but… there was a bit of a 2 hour wait to get in. It’s popular in the states, but no where near THIS popular.

Abandoning my hopes of ice-cream I noticed on the map in the station that the U.S. embassy was nearby. I wandered over and took a few pictures. There were lot and lots of (oddly, Japanese) guards around. Not having any particular need to enter, I decided to just walk around the outside before heading to the subway station.

My stop in Suidobashi was strictly search and destroy. I wanted to get a Kendo uniform so that I can stop practicing in street clothes and liking and feeling like a fool. I went to the store recommended by my teacher. The staff there was a very nice elderly couple. I walked in and politely asked if they had any uniforms for a giant like me and they said it wouldn’t be a problem. Sure enough they had a set in my size. They even embroidered my name free of charge.

On the way out of the shop I spied with my super-fast-food-vision a Subway across the street from the train station and stopped in for dinner. It wasn’t quite as tasty as last time, but it was still enjoyable. After dinner I came home, laden down with bags from the days shopping.

Tomorrow I have class, but I may, afterwards, go to the Tokyo auto show. I meant to go a few weeks back but it got preempted by other plans. It seems it ends this Sunday so I’ll defiantly do it in the next few days. Sunday, after Kendo, I’m going with a few (different) students to the Ghibli museum.

Ja Mata Ne.

Edit: It seems today was the opening day for Coldstone (hence the looong line and the news crew I saw while I was there.)

Stupid daylight savings time! I went to register for classes for spring semester which I can do as of 9:00am on November 1 (yay, being a senior,THX Josi for reminding me). It's now 10:00pm here - 9:00am in the states, BUT NO! it's 8:00am in the states! I have to wait until 11:00pm if I want to get in when registration starts. Japan doesn't use daylight savings time, so now the time split is even more screwed up than it was before.

Taking note of changing seasons, as it became November 1st today 2 things happened. It became quite cold, and all the department stores changed from Halloween to Christmas. It's amazing, overnight every trace of Halloween has been erased and replaced by Christmas stuff. Japanese efficiency for you.

Also of note, on a tip from a Japanese student Shinjuku is the new Akihabara. It doesn't have as many (read any) computer stores, but it has a good deal of computer game and electronics stores. It also has less of the creepy "otaku" feeling that emanates from the Maid Cafes.

Coming home these two dogs were waiting unflinchingly in front of the 7-11 for thier master. They weren't tied to anything and just sat there staring at the door. Note that the one dog appears to be wearing a kimono.

Ja Mata Ne.

Yikes, a solid week sans update. Sorry folks. I assure you I haven't run off to the back woods of Japan to live as a crazy old hermit... yet. That being said, this week went by incredibly fast.

Tuesday some of the students gathered to watch "Black Rain" in preparation for last friday's lecture. (Black Rain (1989) based on a novel written in 1966 about the social after effects of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. See: Amazon.com) Wednesday I chatted with some folks back home using a VOIP type service. It felt good to catch up on the goings on at school. Thursday after class I headed to Akihabara to pick up a new game that came out that day. For those of you in the US who have a PS2, "Shadow of the Colossus" is an awesome game.

Friday after classes there was a get-together with some of the JLSP and Japanese NiDai students organized by monday's JLSP professor. It was a lot of fun. I sat next to a Japanese student who I had met before when he sat in on a JLSP lecture and a Chinese student. I noted while looking at the menu that I liked Yakitori (a kind of shish-kabob) and Saba (mackerel) and the two student took it upon themselves to order for the three of us. I'm glad they did however, because what we were served was delicious. There was only one thing I was kind of afraid to eat, and that was because the Chinese student kept insisting (in English) that it was "Chicken Bone." (it looked and tasted like a hot dog... sort of.) After the party ended we all rode home together. There was a rumored after-party, but everyone agreed that they were too tired at that point.

Saturday I got up and showered before going to McD's for a big breakfast. I need energy for my crazy plot for the day; walk from Shimotakaido (home) to Ichigaya (school). Some of you are saying, "walk to school as a task, I do that every day!" I respond by noting that my school is roughly 10km (5mi) away from my house. There is a pretty straight path between the two in the form of a freeway that runs 3/5 of the way there.

All in all the walk wasn't very exciting. It took me about an hour to get to Shinjuku and another thirty minutes to finish walking to school. I took a lot of pictures on the way, but they were mostly stock-shots that I'll use later. At Ichigaya I got on a train for Akihabara.

The second trip to Akihabara was to further investigate something seen on the first trip. Akiba-enta-maturi (Shortened form of Akihabara Entertainment Festival). In conjunction with the 18th annual Tokyo international film festival, Sony and many of the stores in Akihabara put on this event which ended this weekend. There were deals to be had, and Sony's Playstation division had a pavilion set up. I walked around for a bit until I realized I had walked all day, and was really tired. Usually I stand on the train, but on the way home I had to sit.

This morning I went with a few other students and some of the Japanese helpers at the university to see the Hokusai exhibit at the National Museum in Ueno park. (the DL on Hokusai; Ukioe artist. You've seen that "Japanese print" of a big wave with Mt. Fuji in the back, that's Hokusai.) I really only knew that he did the 36 views of Mt. Fuji series of prints, but Hokusai (one of MANY pen names) did a LOT of work in his 89 year life. But really out of the 495 works displayed (it was a big exhibit) I only wanted to see one. It was there, it was wonderful, it made me happy.

After we had all walked through the exhibit we went out for lunch at a wonderful Japanese restaurant. I was glad hear that the same restaurant exists in Shimotakaido. I had a tasty bowl of grilled pork over rice. After lunch (which was late because we took a while in the exhibit) I went back once more to Akihabara.

Okay, so for the third time in one week, I went back there. I wanted to see the Playstation pavilion again.

Warning: Video game babble ahead!

-Monster Hunter 2 is Awesome! I never heard of Monster Hunter, but it's evidently huge here. I guess it's an online "Guild Wars" type game. Also, Monster Hunter Portable for PSP is coming out soon. I don't know if any of these games will make it to the states, but I sincerely hope they do.

-Metal Gear Solid 3: Substance. So, you get another copy of MGS3 (because you bought it already RIGHT!?), sure you get the original MG and MG2 games emulated for PS2. But really your box can not contain those 2 CD and you'd be happy. The shine of this set is MGS3 Online. Let your imagination go wild. Yes, you can do that. Whatever it is. It's everything you could want from a MGS online game.

-Katamari Damacy Portable. It's KD, that you can take with you. It uses the D pad and the right key pad to give it the usual KD controls similar to the PS2 versions. It should be coming to the states soon.

-Metal Gear Acid 2. If you liked the first MG for PSP, you'll like this one. The add on "gear vision" of whatever it's called is a bit more chincy than expected (it's made out of cardboard) but does make the screen 3d.

Sony did a good job of making sure they earned (will keep) a customer. After a long time in the game hall playing around with new games I decided to head home.

Hopefully this next week will be just as awesome if not better. Nothing on the books yet, but I'm sure something will come up.

Ja Mata Ne.