Monday, June 9, 2008

Busy, Busy, and More Busy… But the Good Kind of Busy ^_^
Yeah, the weekend was a busy one. It really was. All sortsa happenings and good stuff to report on. Don’t ya just love it when that happens? I do. And, for once, I had my camera with me, so you get to see some real pictures again. Yay! ^_^

Friday, June 6th
Again, it was just another work day. I finished working on the text placement for the English version of Manga Mutiny this afternoon, so for the rest of the workday I worked on my activity book. I got a few pages done and am making some serious progress. It’s starting to look pretty nice if you ask me. I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished.

As with last week, Chieko-san came by at about noon and informed me that I had no choice but to go to dinner with her. I wasn’t going to complain. ^_^ Ai-san overheard our conversation, and she must have understood enough of what we said to know that we were planning on going to dinner. Later in the afternoon she asked if she could join us. She has a very hard time with English, but she’s doing well. It has improved since I got here. For dinner we went to a very Japanese restaurant. We ate at a two-foot tall table while sitting on mats, our waiters all wore traditional Japanese attire and the manager wore a kimono. We all ended up getting the same thing. This has happened a few times so I don’t think it’s just coincidence anymore. I think it must be considered polite in Japanese culture to order the same thing as your guest. We all got a dish of tempura vegetables and shrimp on a bowl of rice. It was exceptional.

Following dinner Ai-san must have said something about wanting to go somewhere else because she and Chieko-san sat in the front seat for a good two minutes counting their money, then Chieko-san turned around and asked me if I had any other plans for the night. I of course said no, so I was then informed that we were going to the CD store. It wasn’t the kind of CD store you’d expect though. This stores was a CD rental store. That’s right, in Japan you can rent music CDs. I can’t see that being a very wise thing for the Japanese music industry to allow to happen. It’s more than easy just to burn a CD to your computer and never actually buy it. Either way, the stores exist and we went to one. We wandered around for a while while Ai-san and Chieko-san picked CDs to rent. Then it was my turn. They both put all their effort into picking suitable Japanese music to rent for me. I did my best to explain what I liked and thus had to leave it up to them. They picked two CDs, one by Pe’z and one by Grapevine. Pe’z is a jazz rock group and Grapevine is British-inspired rock. I like both CDs very much. Ai-san has good music taste.

The CD store was the last thing of the day. When I got back to the room I watched an episode of Star Trek and went to bed, have you noticed a routine here?

Saturday, June 7th
The plan for today was yet another trip into Tokyo. Today my intended destination was the Edo Tokyo museum and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I couldn’t find Nishizawa-san to ask him for a ride to the train station, so I took the bus. When I exited the bus I put my ¥1000 into the money slot and it spit out some change. I figured I had just paid for the bus ride. I tried to get off and the driver said something to me and pointed at what looked like a metal bowl sitting on top of the console, I figured he was asking for a tip so I threw a couple hundred yen in there to be courteous. That is not the case. The thing I stuck my ¥1000 note into was just a change maker, the metal bowl was where you paid. As it happens, I only paid ¥200 for a ¥330 bus ride. I figured that out halfway through the day when I was counting my change. Well, I know how it works now so next weekend when I go to the Ghibli museum I won’t shortchange the bus driver.

Getting to the Edo Tokyo museum involved going to Ikebukuro station, hopping on the Yamanote line towards Akihabara. At Akihabara I transferred to the Chuo line and took that two stops to Ryogoku. From Ryogoku station I had to walk down the street and make a u-turn and that basically shot me out right at the museum. It was quite easy and I made it there with no incident. I took a short stop at Ikebukuro to get some money from the ATM (which I finally found) and to get some lunch. I had a Subway sandwich.

The museum itself was a pretty good size, though not too large to not be able to enjoy in one day. I love museums and thus spent most of the day there. I got there at around 12:30 and didn’t leave until 4:15 or so. I saw the entire thing. The entire museum is built on four massive pillars, so to get in there you had to take an escalator up. You enter on the second floor and work your way down. There is a large Edo era bridge across from the entrance to the museum floor. On the other side of the bridge there are a lot of models displaying Edo era buildings and such. The first historical event I got introduced to was the Meireki fire of 1657 that destroyed most of the city of Edo. That included a bit of other noteworthiness, because I didn’t know Edo referred to a city. I thought it was just the name the era was given. Edo is in fact the first name of Tokyo. The name was changed to Tokyo in the late 1800s. The reason why the period is named after the city is because Edo was the capital that was set up by the ruling shogunate. The first Edo era shogun was Ieyasu Tokugawa. The Tokugawa shogunate was the government of the Edo era and the collapse of the shogunate in 1868 marked the end of the era. The era lasted for 268 years! Amazing. One of the reasons for its collapse was the introduction of western culture which began in the 1850s when Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. navy demanded the opening of Japan’s borders. Most of the western influence came from the Dutch and Russians though, not the U.S..

After learning about the beginning of the Edo period, I was lead downstairs to where I learned about daily life, government, and all sorts of other stuff relating to the period. The bottom floor was divided in half. The first half was on the Edo period and the last half was on the Meiji period up until present. The had full-scale models of portions of Japanese houses, scores of historical artifacts, many scrolls, and more than enough maps to give you the whole idea of the growth of Tokyo. Unfortunately, all the descriptions under the historical pieces were in Japanese with no translation. The only things I could read were the broad category descriptions. From those I had to guess what I was looking at. Imagine how much longer I could have been there had I been able to read about all the artifacts. ^_^ The only things they would let me take pictures of were the models, so that’s all that is in the slideshow. I thoroughly enjoyed the museum.

I was compelled to leave at about 4:15 because my stomach was screaming at me for some food. All the walking around and reading had worn me out and I was in need of food. I rushed through the last portion of the museum dealing with post WWII stuff. I walked back towards the station where I had seen a few restaurants and picked a curry place. Mostly I picked it because they had a great deal—a large plate of curry and rice and a bowl of miso soup for ¥410. Granted, the price reflected the quality of the meal, but I was fine with it. It filled me.

I still had plenty of time before I had to be heading back, so because I had to get off in Akihabara anyway, I figured I’d look around a bit more. I went to a cosplay shop and looked around at the costumes, and I spent a lot of time in a shop that sold PVC models. I’ve always thought those models were well made and would like to buy one someday, they’re just so expensive! I fond one that I really liked though. I’d never buy it, they wanted ¥15,400 for the thing, but it was nicely and tastefully made. I admit I was tempted, but I would never be able to live with myself if I spent that much on something that pointless. I wandered around a bit more into a couple other places I had passed by the first time I went to Akihabara, then I got on the train and headed back. I was dead tired by the time I made it back to NLL, so I skipped the Star Trek and went straight to bed. I should have taken a shower, but my fatigue wouldn’t allow it.

Sunday, June 8th
Church was nice today. We went back to our study of Daniel today and learned about the fasting aspect of prayer. It was certainly informative. I’ve never fasted before, so it gave me something to consider. If I do fast, it certainly won’t be here in Japan. I’m liking the food too much to give it up. ^_^

As usual, I went to lunch after church. Today I went with Chieko-san and Iwaoka-san. Iwaoka-san isn’t much of a talker, so it was a rather boring lunch conversation, but I enjoyed the food. We went to a Chinese place, so I got a fried noodle dish with cabbage and shrimp. I love Chinese cabbage.

From lunch, Chieko-san and I went straight to the train station and caught a train to Asakusa. Our destination: the Asakusa Buddhist temple. I really enjoyed that! When we exited the train I was confronted with the strong smell of tea leaves. I thought maybe the entire area smelled that way, but apparently there just happens to be a tea shop right next to the station. The temple is just across an intersection from the station. There is about a 100m stretch of booths and shops in front of the temple where you can buy any number of assorted foods, gifts, and knickknacks. We had plenty of time to walk around, so I strolled around a bit and perused the shops. I found one thing there worth purchasing, and that was a set of sake glasses and bottle. It was a beautiful set! I was very tempted to buy it, but thought, “what’s the use?” I don’t regularly drink sake, and even if I did, I wouldn’t do it out of that bottle. I might still get it though. Honestly it’s the first souvenir type thing I’ve seen that I wanted enough to actually pay the price being asked.

At the end of the shops and booths was the temple. The temple was a large open court. You entered the court through a massive gate with a big red lantern-looking thing hanging over it. This particular temple was very different than every other Buddhist temple I’ve been to. It lacked one thing: a Buddha. The shrine actually didn’t have a statue of Buddha! I wasn’t sure what people were up there worshipping. You can check the pictures for yourself. Chieko-san was confused as well. So, if anybody knows anything about the Buddhist religion, check out the photo and tell me what it is I’m supposed to be looking for.

The time looking at the actual temple was brief. There wasn’t a great deal to see other than a shrine without a Buddha. So, we exited the temple grounds and walked around Asakusa a bit. Chieko-san took me to a shop that sold exclusively Miyazaki merchandise. She said she’d been there many times. She thinks Totoro is cute. I enjoyed the shop and considered buying a Japanese towel (similar to a handkerchief, just longer) with a print of Totoro on it. I considered it until I saw that they were asking ¥2100 for the thing. I’ll never in my life spend ¥2100 on a hankie. Anyhoo, we wandered around for about 30 minutes before we had to head to the dock to board the waterbus.

We took a waterbus from Asakusa to Odaiba. The waterbus we took was a rather special one. It was designed by a guy named Matsumoto Leiji, the creator of multiple animes, his most famous being Galaxy Express 999. There were statuettes of three of the Galaxy Express characters standing on the deck and throughout the entire trip the characters informed us all of different things we were passing by. It was certainly an interesting ride. Our desitnation, Odaiba, is right on the bay and was really nice. All I saw of it was a couple things right on the bay, and a small mall. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time looking around. The most interesting thing in the area was the statue of Liberty. That’s right, Tokyo has a statue of Liberty. It’s the EXACT SAME as the one in New York, just about a quarter the size. I’m not really sure why it’s there, and Chieko-san couldn’t give me much of a answer either. I’ll have to do a bit of research.

Also in Odaiba was a small beach with some fine imported sand. It seemed a pretty popular place for families to visit on Sunday evening because there were little kids running around everywhere. I didn’t expect to see a beach either, so it was worth stopping by.

We visited the mall chiefly to quiet our rumbling stomachs. There were many options for food and Chieko-san gave me the honor of choosing. I hate making food choices. She suggested a few places and I eventually chose a place called Pomme-no-ki. About the only thing the place serves is a specific Japanese dish called an omuraisu (omu rice). An omuraisu is an omelet filled with rice and topped with any number of different toppings. The most simple topping is ketchup, but I decided to go for something a bit more interesting. I got an omuraisu with a tomato, mushroom, and eggplant sauce. And, I have to say it was the best thing I’ve had this whole trip. I LOVED it! I am going to learn how to make one of those myself, because I don’t know if I can go my entire life without having one again, and I’ve never seen anything like it in the States. So good!

After eating we boarded a train on our first leg of the trip back to NLL. This train was a special one because it was completely automated. It didn’t have a driver. Honestly, that scared me a bit. The idea of careening down a railway at 60+mph with a microchip at the controls doesn’t feel all that safe to me. It was a perfectly uneventful ride though.

As we switched lines we were confronted by some disturbing news. Chieko-san saw a news ticker that spoke of multiple murders committed in broad daylight. Some guy went crazy in Akihabara, ran a guy down, got out of the car, killed the guy with a knife, and killed six more people and injured 11 before the police could subdue him. This was all done right in the middle of the intersection! The crazy thing is that I was at that exact intersection not even 24 hours before. Crazy. As we entered the train station a guy handed us a news bulletin that had more details on the disaster. It was quite scary to read about something like that, especially since any one of those people could have been me.

I went to bed right after we got back to NLL. Again, no Star Trek tonight.

Monday, June 9th
Today was a typical boring Monday. I worked all day on my activity book. I got five pages finished and think I’ll most likely be able to get the entire thing finished by this Friday. My work on the English version of Manga Mutiny has been put on hold until the activity book is finished. Ai-san says there isn’t a rush, which is nice. It means I don’t have to put in any overtime hours to get the activity book done. Though, tonight I did work until 8:00. It’s not because I feel pressured to finish, I was just in a good mindset of productivity and didn’t feel like stopping. So, it’s after midnight now and I’m going to head to bed.

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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