Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The First Weekend
To start off, I am typing this post while sitting on a bus from Shinjuku Tokyo to Nyukawa, a small town in the prefecture of Gifu. Why I’m on this bus you’ll learn later. Anyhoo, the scenery has been amazing and now that it is dusk I can hardly see a thing, so I figured it was time to write out a journal entry/post. After all, it’s been a few days since I’ve done so and I’m sure everyone who has been reading my journaling on a regular basis is just dying to know how my weekend went. Well, I’m dying to tell you.

Friday, May 16th
Today was a heck of a workday. It is the best day of work I’ve had all week. The reason is simple and it has to do with my task for the day. Ya see, the entire rest of the week I’ve been given rather menial and boring tasks. The other designers have all repeatedly said that I came at the right time. They haven’t just said it to me, either. They’ve said ti to other members of the staff as well, so I know they’re not just being polite. Apparently their work load was a bit too much recently with the Arabic edition of their Manga Messiah as well as the English edition of their newest completed manga, Manga Metamorphosis, the story of the book of Acts.. They hadn’t gotten around to some of the smaller yet time consuming tasks. That’s where I’ve been of assistance. I was given those tasks that they didn’t want to do. I expected as much and don’t hold against them at all, but when I’m given a task that is of a more interesting nature it makes me all the more excited. My task for the day was to go into the character profiles pages of Metamorphosis and add the English text over where the Japanese text had been. Doesn’t sound that difficult, but when you think that Japanese sentences and type are not the same size as that of English, you quickly realize that fitting the required information into the space allotted is much easier said than done. As it turns out, to type something in English takes many more characters and much more space than typing the relatively same information in Japanese. I had a hard time making it all work, but with some creative rearranging and lots of thought, I got it looking okay. I admit it could be better, but Tsusumi-san, the art director, seemed satisfied with my work. For once my work took most of the day to finish. I only went and helped out with the mailers for about an hour or so.

During my time helping out with mailers I was approached by Chieko-san, the woman who has been placed in charge of making sure my stay in Japan is as comfortable as possible. She’s an extremely nice woman and I’ve enjoyed the time I’m getting to spend with her. Anyhoo, she invited me out to go eat sushi and I was more than happy to oblige. I hadn’t had sushi from a sushi bar yet and figured it was about as good a time as any. We went to one of those types of sushi bars that has the sushi on separate plates which circle the restaurant on a conveyor belt. You pick up the pieces you want and pay according to the color of plate. A pretty good idea if you ask me. It was a wonderful experience and I have to say it was the BEST sushi I’ve ever had. I ate squid, octopus, tuna, eel, salmon, and fish eggs. I also ate a fish whose name Chieko-san could not remember and whose description didn’t sound like anything I'm familiar with. I still have no idea what meat it was. But, to give you an idea of what it might be, she said it had many legs, was small, and lived off the coast of Japan. The meat was actually purple! It tasted good and had a similar consistency to that of squid—kinda spongy and chewy. I loved the experience and did a wonderful job of making a fool of myself. Remember how I said I had been complimented on my chopstick usage? Well, they clearly had not seen my try to eat sushi. It was awful. I was physically laughing at myself by the end of the meal. Chieko-san politely giggled. ^_^

Japanese culture tidbit: Roll sushi is typically reserved for kids. Adults eat the kind of sushi that is basically a sliver of meat on top of a portion of rice. There is no seaweed wrap. It is done much more elaborately with different types of topping such as mayonnaise, lightly pan fried onion, bamboo shoots, and fish eggs. It tastes much much better than roll sushi, but is considerably more difficult to eat.

With that my day ended for the most part. I spent the last few hours of the day preparing for my trip to Tokyo on Saturday.

Saturday, May 17th – My First Trip to Tokyo
Yes, it was Saturday that was the day I had been looking forward to all week. I was going to get to go into Tokyo for the first time. I’d already seen it from afar on my bus ride from the airport out to Hatoyama, but getting to actually go is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. It should come as no surprise to you that Akihabara was what I was looking forward to the most. ^_^ I couldn’t wait to see what it was like.

Anyway, before I could get to Tokyo, I first had to travel there. That is a bit of a challenge in and of itself. It takes a bus and two trains to get to Akihabara. So, I didn’t set that as my first destination. The first train stops at the train station in Ikebukuro. The Ikebukuro station is the second largest bus and train station in the world, and also the second largest in Tokyo. It is a literal maze of halls, department stores, banks, and restaurants. Combine that with the people and it’s easy to get disoriented. I made it there fine though. My first destination when I arrived in Ikebukuro was the Animate main store. Animate is a chain of Japanese anime and manga stores and the main and largest of which is in Ikebukuro. It’s 9 stories tall and is the largest anime and manga store in the world. This sounded like something I couldn’t miss. It was a blast! Though I didn’t purchase anything, looking around in it was a treat all it’s own. Each floor is designated to a different category of merchandise. Manga on one floor, dojinshi and posters on another, followed by music, anime, novelty goods, etc.. I didn’t stick around long considering I wasn’t really looking for anything to buy. But it was very fun anyway.

My next stop after that was Akihabara, but I ran into complications on the way. When I got back to Ikebukuro station, I noticed that I had no more cash. All I had was about 150 yen worth of coins in my pocket, that’s not enough to do anything with. Unfortunately, the Japanese don’t really use cards, so everything is done in cash. This meant that I had to find an ATM with which to withdraw funds so I could continue with my day. This task proved much more difficult than it should have been. Every ATM I went to refused to accept my debit card! Without cash I was stuck, and I had no way of getting any. I wandered around for at least an hour (probably more like two hours) searching for an ATM that worked. Eventually I gave up and was heading back to the station where I was going to call someone from the office and ask them to pick me up. But, on the way I found an ATM for a bank I hadn’t used yet. I figured it was worth a shot so I tried it. Lo and behold, it worked! I was able to withdraw funds and therefore continue with my day. Unfortunately because of the long delay I was not able to make it to the Edo museum like I had hoped to, but such is life. I’ll have to go another time. But suffice it to say that JP Bank will forever have a special place in my heart.

So, I finally made it to Akihabara. As I exited the train station I was accosted by a group of girls dressed in maid outfits handing out advertisements. I thought, “wow, so this is how it’s gonna be.” But it wasn’t as frilly and nerdy as I had anticipated, though the male to female ratio tipped drastically in favor of the male in comparison to Ikebukuro. Rather, it was more of an electronics area. Its birth was in electronics. After World War II it became a shopping area for electronics parts and pieces. It never grew up out of that. There were electronics stores all up and down the main street. The only addition since WWII was the anime and manga portion of the town and there weren’t as many of those stores as I had been expecting, but there were still quite a few. It was hard for me to tell what store sold what sort of merchandise and where things were located. The buildings are all both above ground and below with many floors. So, to make things easier on myself I just started walking into places. I soon discovered that that isn’t a very good idea in Akihabara. There is NO borderline between pornography and normal anime and manga. I’d be looking at a wall of posters and there would be a nice poster of a cute girl sitting on a bench below a cherry tree, completely innocent, and right next to it there would be a fully nude woman with a guy sucking on her boob. NO BORDERLINE! It was awkward. I figured out that when the atmosphere around me started to take on a general aura of pink, I was entering into the porn section. I stayed away from pink places. ^_^

Anyhoo, I didn’t buy anything the whole day, but rather just wandered around like a blind man without his cane. Around 4:30 my wandering had started to wear me out and I was feeling a bit peckish. I figured I’d take advantage of one of those advertisements the maids had given me and actually try to find a maid café. They were harder to find than I had thought they would be. I followed one of the advertisements to a place called Café Vierge. I was standing out front attempting to make sense of the sign to figure out the prices they charged for food. I didn’t want to get in there, find it to be too expensive, and walk out again. That’d be rude. As I was studying the sign, a couple Japanese guys walked by me, laughed, and said, “Maido café. You like?” I attempted to say I had never been, but they didn’t get it. They just smiled and said, “okay, bye” and walked down the stairs to the entrance. I figured I might as well go for it, so I followed them. They turned around with very surprised looks on their faces, chuckled, and walked inside ahead of me. I had expected that reaction. I became the spectacle of the entire place. But, like I said, I didn't mind. Inside was actually quite classy. It was all Victorian in style with Mucha prints hanging on the walls and maids dressed in classy long dresses of a deep redish maroon color. They were polite, soft spoken, and very good waitresses. Their food was exceptional as well. I enjoyed the experience and wished I could have taken pictures, but they had a sign saying no cameras, so I figured I’d respect their wishes.

After leaving I realized that I no longer had time to get to the Edo museum like I’d hoped to, so I just continued my wandering. I wandered myself into another neighborhood called Ueno. That is where the Tokyo National Museum is located as well as a few shopping centers. I discovered the Ueno jewelry market and found my way on to a backstreet market of sorts. They were selling everything you could think of from shoes to fresh cuts of fish. It was extremely crowded as well. I concentrated hard on making sure my wallet stayed in my pocket. ^_^

After Ueno I decided I wanted to see Akihabara at night, and walked back the way I came. On my 20-minute trek back I had an odd craving for something sweet and at just that moment I passed another maid café, this one called Merry Hearts. Convenient, because maid cafés are known for their desserts. The sign out front was MUCH more... what I would have expected it to look like. It was all frilly and happy looking and there were little anime chibi drawings of maids with hearts around their heads. I just had to go inside. So, I went into Tokyo expecting that I might go to one maid café, and left having gone to two. LOL! The second one was much more interesting than the first. It wasn’t that classy at all, but instead felt very trendy. The maids weren’t wearing matching outfits, but rather each one had a completely unique outfit and wild hair style. I was greeted by a high-pitched chorus of “Irashaimase, goshujin-sama!” Which when translated means “welcome home, master!” I was directed towards a table by a very cute and peppy maid in an orange and white outfit. She handed me a menu in a very cute and polite way and gave me a cup of water. I decided to get their chocolate cake and a cappuccino. The cake was amazing, it was sprinkled with a cherry sauce and came with a small helping of fresh fruit and whipped cream. The cappuccino was extremely sweet as well. The maid who served me, this one wearing green and black, asked me cutely if I wanted any sugar. I couldn’t help myself but say yes. ^_^ She put in the sugar cube and stirred it for me. I enjoyed my food and enjoyed watching the people around me. A couple girls to my right decided to pay the extra 500 yen to go into a back room and dress up like maids. They came out about ten minutes later, fully decked out, and posed for pictures in front of the crowd in the café. I wanted to get pictures in this café much more than the other one, but again was thwarted by polite signs asking me to refrain. Alas, only my memories will serve as proof that I was there, that and the massive amount of money that is no longer in my wallet. The cappuccino and cake was 1200 yen, but worth every bit of it.

I left the maid café with a merry heart (LOL) and a spring in my step. I’m still not sure if that was due to the fact that I had had a good time or that I had just consumed massive amounts of sugar and caffeine. Either way, I left feeling better than when I went in. I then wandered back through Akihabara, took a few more pictures, and got on the train to go back to Hatoyama.

My last mistake of the day was getting off at a bus stop one too far, which resulted in a half-hour walk. I didn’t realize which direction to go, so I called Chieko-san with the phone that Nishizawa-san had given me. She wasn’t sure how far it actually was, so she drove out to get me. On her way she realized that it was a very short walk. I could have gotten back myself with another 10 minutes of walking. But, she was okay with it. I’m glad I had the cell phone, though. I would have made it back anyway, but it would have been much more stressful.

Sunday, May 18th
I went to church in the morning just like last week. The service was very nice, but this time sans the tongue-speaking. Pastor Stan taught out of the book of Daniel and taught us the way to pray like Jesus said we should. It was a good service. After the service they had something called “Covered Dish Sunday.” In American terms, they had a pot-luck lunch. Many good foods including takoyaki balls, fried squid, Malaysian curry, fried chicken, and taco salad. I enjoyed it all very much.

My day after church was another trip into Tokyo, this time with Chieko-san. She took me to Harajuku. We started off by going to the Meiji shrine, which was beautiful. It’s a large area which includes gardens and other such things. The long gravel path to the shrine itself was lined mostly by trees, but there were other things along the side such as a line of sake barrels that had been committed to the shrine for good luck and blessing. The shrine itself was a large open courtyard with two adjacent smaller courtyards where you could buy good luck charms and the like. While there I saw a priest and priestess procession to go bless the wall of wishes (not the technical name, but it’s the wall where people would hang wishes to get blessed by the priests), and I saw two wedding parties getting pictures taken.

After the shrine she took me to a famous street in Harajuku called Takeshi-dori if I recall correctly. It was a haven for the hip and cool youth of Tokyo. There were trendy shops which included many clothing stores ranging in style from ultra-slutty to punk-rocker, a store for just socks, a couple underwear stores, and even a store for fashionable doggie attire. I had a blast looking through it all.

Our last stop was a streetside kimono flea market. I had expected to see something of this sort but was EXTREMELY surprised by the prices they were asking. Most of the kimonos were in good condition and the average price was about 3000 yen (approximately $30). I was blown away. I feel ashamed now. I paid WAY too much for my mens kimono. I’m not sure if I’ll buy anything there, but the price is so good I just might. Unfortunately I forgot my camera for this entire trip, so I’m going to go back to Harajuku briefly during the rest of my stay so as to take pictures of the places I just told you about.

I need to get this post up ASAP, so why I’m going out to the middle of Japan will be explained later.

Caesar1280's Anime Ticker

.hack//Legend of the Twilight, Air, Air: The Movie, Akira, The Animatrix, Appleseed, Aquatic Language, Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror, Beck, Black Lagoon, Blame!, Blood the Last Vampire, Bokurano, Burst Angel, Castle in the Sky, Cowboy Bebop, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Digimon Tamers: The Runaway Digimon Express, Egao, FLCL, Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shambala, Gankutsuou, Gatekeepers, Genshiken, Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society, Gin-iro no Kami no Agito, Grave of the Fireflies, Grenadier, Haibane Renmei, Hellsing, Highlander: The Search for Vengeance, Hikaru no Go, Howl?s Moving Castle, Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Jyu Oh Sei, Karas: The Prophecy, Last Exile, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Midori?s Days, Milennium Actress, Mushi-shi, My Neighbor Totoro, Naruto, Naruto: The Movie, Nausicaa, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death And Rebirth, Ninja Scroll: The Movie, Other Worlds, Paprika, Perfect Blue, Pet Shop of Horrors, The Place Promised In Our Early Days, Prétear, Princess Mononoke, Read Or Die, Read Or Die: The TV, Samurai Champloo, Samurai Seven, Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal, She and Her Cat, Spirited Away, Steamboy, Tide-Line Blue, Tokyo Babylon, Tokyo Godfathers, Trigun, Voices of a Distant Star, Witch Hunter Robin, Wonderful Days, Wrath of the Ninja, X

Anime I've Seen - .hack//Legend of the Twilight - .hack//Sign - 5 Centimeters per Second - Air - Air: The Movie - Akira - The Animatrix - Appleseed - Aquatic Language - Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror - Baby Blue - Beck - Black Lagoon - Blame! - Blood the Last Vampire - Bokurano - Burst Angel - Castle in the Sky - Cowboy Bebop - Cowboy Bebop: The Movie - Digimon Tamers: The Runaway Digimon Express - Doorbell - Egao - FLCL - Fullmetal Alchemist - Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shambala - Gankutsuou - Gatekeepers - Genius Party - Genshiken - Genshiken OAV - Ghost in the Shell - Ghost in the Shell: Innocence - Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society - Gin-iro no Kami no Agito - The Gokusen - Grave of the Fireflies - Grenadier - Haibane Renmei - Happy Machine - Hellsing - Highlander: The Search for Vengeance - Hikaru no Go - Howl's Moving Castle - Innocent Venus - Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade - Jyu Oh Sei - Karas: The Prophecy - Karas: The Revelation - Last Exile - Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi - Midori?s Days - Milennium Actress - Mushi-shi - My Neighbor Totoro - Naruto - Naruto: The Movie - Nausicaa - Neon Genesis Evangelion - Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death And Rebirth - Ninja Scroll: The Movie - Other Worlds - Ouran High School Host Club - Paprika - Perfect Blue - Pet Shop of Horrors - The Place Promised In Our Early Days - Prétear - Princess Mononoke - Read Or Die - Read Or Die: The TV - Samurai Champloo - Samurai Seven - Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal - Serial Experiments Lain - Shanghai Dragon - She and Her Cat - Spirited Away - Steamboy - Tekkonkinkreet - Tide-Line Blue - Tokyo Babylon - Tokyo Godfathers - Trigun - Trinity Blood - Vampire Hunter D - Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust - Voices of a Distant Star - Witch Hunter Robin - Wolf's Rain - Wonderful Days - Wrath of the Ninja - X Total: 93

Anime I Haven't Completed - .hack//Roots - Ah! My Goddess - Angelic Layer - Avenger - Baccano! - Bamboo Blade - Basilisk - Binchou-tan - Black Cat - Bleach - Blood+ - Boogiepop Phantom - Case Closed - Le Chevalier d'Eon - Chobits - Chrono Crusade - Code Geass - Coyote Ragtime Show - D.Gray-Man - D.N.Angel - DearS - Death Note - Dennou Coil - Desert Punk - Digimon - Dragon Ball Z - Ergo Proxy - Eureka Seven - Excel Saga - Fighting Beauty Wulong - Final Fantasy Unlimited - Flag - Freedom - Full Moon - Gantz - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Gintama - Glass Fleet - Great Teacher Onizuka - Gundam Seed - Gundam Wing - Hayate the Combat Butler - Hellsing OVA - Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - Ikki Tousen - InuYasha - Jigoku Shojo - Kage Kara Mamoru - Karin - Kino's Journey - Love Hina - Loveless - Lovely Complex - Lucky Star - Makai Senki Disgaea - Marchen Awakens Romance - Meine Liebe - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Mononoke - Monster - Moon Phase - Mr Stain on Junk Alley - Naruto Shippuuden - Negima?! - Negima! - Neon Genesis Evangelion: End of Evangelion - Nerima Daikon Brothers - NHK ni Youkoso - Night Walker - Ninja Nonsense - Noir - Peacemaker Kurogane - Pokemon - Prince of Tennis - R.G. Veda - Ragnarok - Rec - Red Garden - Robotech - Romeo x Juliet - Rosen Maiden - Rurouni Kenshin - Saikano - Sailor Moon - Samurai Deeper Kyo - Sci-fi Harry - School Rumble - Scrapped Princess - Shin-chan - Shingu - Shion no Oh - Shuffle! - Shrine of the Morning Mist - So Long, Mr. Despair - Solty Rei - Sousei no Aquarion - Speed Grapher - Spice and Wolf - Super Milk Chan - Tales of Phantasia - Tenchi Muyo - Tenjhou Tenge - Texnolyze - The Third - Tsubasa Chronicles - Urusei Yatsura - Venus Versus Virus - Welcome to the N.H.K. - Winter Cicada - X-1999 - Xenosaga - XxxHolic - Yu Yu Hakushou - Yume Tsukai - Zero no Tsukaima - Zipang Total: 116

Manga I've Completed - Cowboy Bebop - FLCL - Manga Messiah - Manga Metamorphosis - Q*Ko-chan - Saiyuki - Shirahime-Syo Total: 7 Manga I Haven't Completed - .hack//Legend of the Twilight - Black Cat - Blame! - Chobits - D.Gray-man - Darkside Blues - Death Note - The Demon Ororon - Desert Coral - Disgaea - Eureka Seven: Gravity Boys and Lifting Girl - Fruits Basket - Getbackers - Hayate the Combat Butler - Kamunagara - Legal Drug - Love Hina - Loveless - Megatokyo - Naruto - Negima - Read Or Die - Rurouni Kenshin - Tactics - Trigun Maximum - XXXHolic Total: 26

Anime I'm Currently Watching
Samurai 7, InuYasha, Samurai Deeper Kyo,
Boogiepop Phantom, and Shrine of the Morning Mist

Manga I'm Currently Reading
Read Or Die, Hayate the Combat Butler, and Megatokyo.hack//Roots, .hack//Sign, 5 cm per Second, Ah! My Goddess, Angelic Layer, Avenger, Basilisk, Binchou-tan, Black Cat, Bleach, Blood+, Boogiepop Phantom, Case Closed, Le Chevalier d'Eon, Chobits, Chrono Crusade, Coyote Ragtime Show, D.Gray-Man, D.N.Angel, DearS, Death Note, Dennou Coil, Desert Punk, Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, Ergo Proxy, Eureka 7, Excel Saga, Fighting Beauty Wulong, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Flag, Full Moon, Gantz, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Gintama, Great Teacher Onizuka, Gundam Seed, Gundam Wing, Hayate the Combat Butler, Hellsing Ultimate, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Innocent Venus, InuYasha, Jigoku Shojo, Kage Kara Mamoru, Karin, Kino?s Journey, Love Hina, Loveless, Lovely Complex, Lucky Star, Makai Senki Disgaea, Marchen Awakens Romance, Meine Liebe, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Mononoke, Monster, Naruto Shippuuden, Negima?!, Neon Genesis Evangelion: End of Evangelion, Nerima Daikon Brothers, NHK ni Youkoso, Night Walker, Ninja Nonsense, Noir, Ouran High School Host Club, Peacemaker Kurogane, Pokemon, Prince of Tennis, R.G. Veda, Ragnarok, Rec, Red Garden, Robotech, Romeo x Juliet, Rosen Maiden, Rurouni Kenshin, Saikano, Sailor Moon, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Sci-fi Harry, School Rumble, Scrapped Princess, Serial Experiments Lain, Shingu, Shuffle!, Shrine of the Morning Mist, So Long Mr. Despair, Solty Rei, Sousei no Aquarion, Speed Grapher, Super Milk Chan, Tales of Phantasia, Tenchi Muyo, Tenjhou Tenge, Texnolyze, The Third. Trinity Blood, Tsubasa Chronicles, Urusei Yatsura, Welcome to the N.H.K., Winter Cicada, X-1999, Xenosaga, XxxHolic, Yu Yu Hakushou, Yume Tsukai, Zero no Tsukaima, Zipang

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