Too Many Titles to Choose From

I thought I had a few good titles picked out for this entry but I couldn't pick just one. I've returned from my whirlwind week-long trip around Japan. Rather than just rattling off stories and including pictures, I'll break it down in short version and then post pictures with explanations.

After seeing "The Dark Knight" on Saturday (bitchin!!), I spent my last night in my own bed for a while. Sunday morning, Lauren and I headed to Kobe (36 minutes by train) to meet Mariah (Hiroshima by way of Oxford, England) and TJ (Kobe via Los Angeles). Upon arrival in Kobe, we learned the bus was sold out for the night but we got seats reserved on a bus from Osaka to Tokyo. Kobe to Osaka (15 minutes by train) and we spent a few hours wandering the areas near the Shin-Osaka station before boarding the overnight bus to Tokyo (8 hrs and 45 minutes). As far as buses go, I was pretty comfortably except I was in the front row and right behind a wall so while I was able to spread out because no one was next to me, I had no leg room and slept like a spider....or someone who sleeps with their legs spread in different directions (insert your own joke or whatever here). Eventually we got to Tokyo - kinda sweaty and tired and had to roam the area for about 7-8 hours waiting for check-in at the hotel. That could've been better but that's the price you pay for cheap travel. For the next three days, we were on a busy jaunt through as much of Tokyo as we could see. Thursday morning, I took the shinkansen to Kyoto to meet Susan (Tokuyama via Portsmouth, Virginia) and Brian (Hammamatsu via Sacramento). I came home Thursday night to have a rest and then went back to Kyoto on Friday. I am done with the travel for the remainder of my vacation but it was well worth it. Here are pictures and writings. I'd love to hear from you -- please, please I am a desperate person.

You may recognize the cutout - it's Bruce Lee at the Bruce Lee shop in Kobe's Chinatown.  You may remember it from my mug in there a few weeks back.  This is a prettier face - my friend, Mariah.
"Please do it at the beach."  I didn't and continue to not understand what that means considering we were in a Tokyo train station nowhere near the beach.  I can tell you that we spent three days in Tokyo and did not see anyone shoved into the train and no one severed at the midsection - which this picture leads me to believe is a common occurrence.  We did rush for a train one time and Mariah was the only member of our six person crew to get on.  It could not have happened to a better person.  She had a worried and befuddled look on her face and we could see her mouthing "No!!!!" in her proper English voice.  We were able to communicate the stop she should exit at so it all worked out beautifully.
Our first destination in Tokyo was a ward called Akihabara, aka "Electronic City".  I had no clue what to expect from that name but I thought it was intriguing.  It wasn't...for me, anyways.  It was techie-nerd dreamland.  Akihabara is block after block of electronic stores advertising and selling the same things.  Since a few of my friends were interested, I went along and didn't bitch when they comparison shopped for things they'd never buy.  I didn't bitch because our next activity was finding a maid cafe to eat and get drinks.  Just as it sounds, there are places, I was told, that the waitresses are dressed as maids and refer to you as "master".  I am usually not the type for places like this but something piqued my interest so we set out for the cafe.  The first place had maids alright - but the place was tiny and I guess it was themed because for a fee you could get a private lesson on how to play darts.  I know, it seems like an odd draw for the customer but I am not the expert.  I'd come to find out that this costly lesson was nothing more than playing darts with a kinda good looking girl in a maid outfit - they didn't flirt, they didn't bend over explicitly, they didn't even let the dudes win.  It was Hooters, only seedier.  The second place promised pancakes...but once we got there, it was essentially a diner with some maids.  Needless to say, this was not all it was cracked up to be.  The first place was good for 4-5 screwdrivers so I was buzzed enough to not let it get me down.  On with the journey...

I had been told that the place foreigners go in Tokyo to meet girls looking for gaijin is Roppongi.  So...to Roppongi.  If you'd have told me there would be a giant iron statue of an animal, I would have picked cougar because that seemed the most likely for the reputation of the area.  But, no...spider.  
We made our way to a bar on the main drag of Roppongi.  This place was an English pub which offered a nice selection of beers and other drinks, including margaritas....1000 yen margaritas (about $10).  Be careful what you order in Japan because it's never really what you expect.  There is no picture to capture this the streets of Roppongi reminded me of Vegas.  You know those probably homeless guys that slap cards for prostitutes or strip clubs??  They're in Tokyo too.  These guys were clearly from the Caribbean.  How does this work?  Is it cheaper to fly over some different islanders?  I don't get it but there are hundreds of really dark island guys lining the streets trying to get you into their clubs.  As I walked down the street, one of them approached my friend, Adam.  Adam asked "what's this?"  Islander response - "Titties!"

I'll give it to them, it was direct and succinct marketing.  But for those who need a little more clarification, the business card he gave to Adam was black and written in white was, "Our titties are both luscious and vibrating!"  Even though the prospect of vibrating titties was tempting, we elected to pass.

Also, earlier this evening, I discovered that the dictionary I bought at home is perhaps a bit ghetto.  Not only are there misdefined words, but they have some odd words translated, including 'gonorrhea'.  I took advantage of this and would occasionally ask Adam

Matt:  Adam, do you have gonorrhea? (Adam, rimbyo motte imasuka?)

Adam:  Perhaps (tabun)

If you want to ask your friends...the phonetic breakdown is something like this - deem-be-oh   moe-tay-mas-ka?
I don't end good nights without karaoke.  This is my new friend, Akane, beautifully smiling while Jeff is wailing something awesome.  It was this karaoke experience that continued my fun process of changing words in songs to add humor.  We'd changed "you" to "Jew", starting with "Hanging by a Moment" by Lifehouse back in the day.  And now, we've started adding in "Batman" to random lyrics and seeing what happens.  Our particular favorite was from the song "Everything I do, I do it for you" by Bryan Adams...or rather "Everything Batman do, Batman do it for you"...we elected to not change the verb tense and I am happy with the choice.
Mos Burger says "Hamburger is my life." and I could not agree more.
This is me getting Crunky.  I wish I could write about the massive amounts of joy the cashier of this AM/PM brought me.  He is a teddy bear of a man who's likely flamboyantly gay and each time he rung us up, would say "Arigato gozaimas" with the most perfect gay, soft and elongated (hehe - funny descriptors given what I perceived to be his sexuality) tone.  You'd have to hear it to appreciate it.
The next day, we woke up as early as we could...maybe 11 and headed on the train to Ebisu and the Yebisu beer museum, garden, all around fantastic place.  Not only was it drink-happy, but it was actually a gorgeous area and, for once, this time of the day was not ungodly hot.

I bet they've only seen foreigners doing this 290383094820935823 times.
500 Yen for the sampler of four beers..much better than the damn 1000 Yen margarita.  This is a little deceiving because Akane does not drink and just used Jeff's beer for the picture.  It's a good thing too because without her, we would not have done half of what we did in Tokyo.  She may be the sweetest person I've ever met - or, just a regular Japanese girl.  I'm not totally sure she's not a very polite robot.

I know the image I had of Tokyo before coming here, and it was this...Shibuya Square.  "Lost in Translation" was shot mainly here and it is the biggest intersection in the world.  Times Square looks relaxing in comparison.  I wish I could've captured the swell of people better but it was like midnight and I wasn't about to go into stores to take pictures outside.  Trust me, it was crazy.
Mariah posing in front of the mass.  Actually in this picture, you can see plenty of Japanese but Tokyo was littered with foreigners.  I was partially glad for this because they aren't generally the socks/sandals/giant camera weirdos that loiter in Himeji.  But while I was glad, it was also kinda disappointing.  The entire time I was in Tokyo, I never actively thought I was in Japan.  I get by normally with minimal Japanese and a lot of gestures.  In Tokyo...everything is in English.  I wouldn't say most of the people spoke English but they knew their menus or products so everything was easy to attain.  For all this, Tokyo felt like a densely crowded Los Angeles....lots of cool stuff but not typical Japan.

It was like LA.  In LA, you may find Axl Rose.  In Tokyo, you find a little Japanese man pretending to be Axl Rose....even down to the Guns n Roses t-shirt.  Damn self-promotion.

Tokyo Rail Map - thank you Akane for being a savior.

This was my favorite part of Tokyo.  Even though we'd been told to arrive around 6am, we decided to do lunch at Tsukiji Market.  This is the place in Tokyo where all of the fresh fish is delivered and auctioned in the early morning.  They have a little marketplace with a handful of sushi places.  We managed to find one place that wasn't terribly packed and get lunch.  I wouldn't say that you would love this food no matter what.  I like sushi....and if you like sushi, I've never had anything that even came close to this.  It was amazing and relatively cheap!!  I finally know now what to compare sashimi to.
Me, Adam, Akane and Jeff jammed into the sushi place
I don't really take a lot of scenery pictures because I don't have fond memories of things without people being involved but some things are worth it.  We took this shot from the largest ferris wheel in the world on the manmade island of Odaiba.  I really liked these buildings - and I cannot tell you why.  The only bad part of the ferris wheel ride was that the weather was overcast and that prevented us from seeing Mt. Fuji.  I tried yelling "Where are you, Fuji-San?" but it was for naught.

I can't really say much about the next few photos except that they were taken in the amusement park area in Odaiba...and it's a freakin' trained monkey doing tricks!!!  I don't know my primates well enough and this may be a baboon...but for the sake of the story, it's a monkey.  And it's a monkey doing tricks!!!   It's been a Japan goal to see monkeys and I stumbled upon a gold mine.  The next step is to get to the monkey shrine and get my picture sitting five feet from a monkey and looking at it peripherally while it looks back directly at me.  And I will accomplish this goal.







For our last night in Tokyo, we stayed in a capsule hotel.  Of course, I'd been really curious about the capsule hotel because of Seinfeld.  I assumed it would be somewhere between a giant chest of drawers and a morgue.  Honestly, it was much more comfortable than I thought.  There is plenty or room and I liked the confinement.  If it wasn't for the strong smell of manstink and the temperature of the capsule overnight, I would prefer it to regular hotels.  As it was, sweaty travelers gather in these man-kennels and there is no air freshener strong enough to combat this.  All in all, it was fine and cheap so I'd definitely do it again.

This is Jeff and our hallway of capsules.
Here...another scenery shot.  I do actually go to historical places and really enjoy it but you will not be seeing much of that because I don't find it interesting to write about.  Sorry, I'd rather make stupid observations about inconsequential things.   But this is the Kinkaku-ji Temple ("Golden Temple") in Kyoto.