Brief Notes

I'm sleepy. Mostly because I can't sleep at night. And even less by day.

I've been to a Chinese restaurant where the serving obasan was so surprised I could say a sentence in Chinese that I got a free jasmine tea, free rice - and free iced oolong tea for the whole table of four. I was embarassed, especially the way my Japanese companions kept semi-enviously teasing me.

I've gone to another monthly boardgaming meeting. It was fun. I managed to explain Red November in (something similar to) Japanese. Much hilarity ensued, even if I couldn't explain about "gnomes" and why everything was going to hell in a handbasket.

I've seen the first season of True Blood. Props to Paquin, but Sookie is way better in the book. But Vampire Bill rocks on screen.

I need to find time to go to Akiba by day. I decided my back is worth ~¥6000.

Festival

On Friday the Canadian and me went out to eat something. We ended up in Christon Cafe. Very cool place - an underground restaurant decorated as a church, with very goth-looking staff. The cover charge (or "amuse") was more than I usually pay for entire dinner, but once in a while, it's worth it. The atmosphere was great (if you like gloom), the waitress cute (in a faceful-of-metal kind of way), and the food fingerlickingly delicious.

This weekend is the Todai Festival, so I went over to Komaba campus to check it out. There were some couple of hundred food stalls, just for starters. I had some very nice and rather cheap yakitori - and I've been craving the grilled meat taste for some time now. I also snuck in a game of Go with the Go club. I suck, but I still had fun. And there were bands playing their stuff all over - from very beautiful and haunting vocal songs, to horses playing guitars, to none too bad metal that I didn't quite expect here.

One day I might even upload some photos.

Lost in Shibuya

So, two other guys in my class happen to live in the same dorm as I do: the tall Argentine and the hip Canadian. The Argentine is a source of constant amusement due to his slick look and fixation on neckties. The Canadian is a potential gaming partner.

So, we got together on Friday night, the hip Canadian and I, to try to play a game. My new Galaxy Trucker, for those in the know. Since the rooms are way too small, and since the common room was being used by the laptopped people, he said he's pretty sure we could play in Starbucks. "They don't care what you do, as long as you get something to drink." Despite my reservations about the table size and boardgaming in a public venue, we went out.

He said you can walk to Shibuya in about 15 minutes, so we did. It was a nice walk. We looked at our options, and finally did settle at a Starbucks outside table. I got a cuppa sencha, since I don't like coffee, but even sencha tasted funny. The table was round and hardly big enough for two players, but we managed - once the funny Dutch guy we met there stopped talking about kidney stones. He's also from our dorm, and he was coming back from his gym, and we spent a bemused time listening to him, and giving him layman medical advice. Just goes to show you can never know what your day will be like. But he's cool.

We got one round done, then headed back, and then went to his room after all and went on to play the other two rounds. The consensus was, needs more players.

This was just the preamble. The next day, I was in Shibuya, and I thought it might be a good idea to return home on foot. You know, reinforce the learned data. So I started out, uh-huh, remember this shop, yep, this was the corner, then under this overpass --

This doesn't look quite like I remember. Similar, but - was it really where we crossed?

Must be. Don't know how it could be anything else.

Okay. Yes, the street here was like that...

Wait - I don't remember this! I'm sure I would have remembered this!

Let's ask someone. "Excuse me, sorry, I think I may have gotten lost, so could you please tell me which way is Inokashira Line Komaba Todaimae Station?" "Eh? It's very far! Walking? Very far, you sure? Okay, that way, then turn right, then after turn left, very far..."

Oops.

So, I start walking where she pointed. Five minutes later, I check with a salaryman, but he has no clue. Then I ask a passing couple, and they also give me the "very far" routine, and wonder if I might be better off by retracing my steps to Shibuya. I assure them it's good exercise for me, and press on.

Five more minutes later, I ask a girl, and she says it's complicated to explain, but very close.

Huh? What did I miss? Did I sleepwalk for half an hour? No, just turns out that people have different concepts of "long walks". It actually does turn to be not that very far, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The girl gives up on explaining, and takes me three blocks back where she came from, in order to explain better. In the meantime, we figure out we go to the same uni (No way! Really?), and exchange keitai emails. Her instructions prove to be very correct and very precise (third bus stop, across from 7-11, there is a sobaya there, narrow street just after, then just straight) - I couldn't miss if I wanted to. If you're reading, ever, thanks!

Altogether, my return home lasted 1:20 instead of 0:20. Not bad.

Today I was again in Shibuya. I was in Ginza before that, so I saw some really expensive places, but I also saw some rather normal, yet interesting-looking places - such as a dark, almost sinister, Mexican restaurant with an oldsmobile for a cash register. In Shibuya I found some interesting stores, some decidedly interesting stores, and an extremely strange gambling machine.

The story is, I went into another arcade, but this one catered more to the gamblers than to gamers. The first floor was filled with the grabby machines, I have no clue what they're normally called, but if you're good with cranes, you can get a toy or an ice cream or a box or whatever is inside. There was also some purikura booths, and a taiko playing game. That one looked extremely fun, especially when a really good dude started beating the hell out of them. He hardly missed a beat at difficulty 9/10. Props, man, major props.

The third floor had horse races. No, really. Horse races. There's a fake 5m by 2m hippodrome, with robotic horseys and jockeys, a huge big screen where the computer animated recreation of the race was running, and many many seats for people to bet. Some seats were just next to the hippodrome, while others were hi-tech super-comfortable recliners, but all had race monitors and betting interfaces.

The fourth floor had simulated football betting, and also some normal arcade games, like Tekken 6 (6?!? Already?!?), and the aforementioned collectible card video games.

But the main shock was on the second floor: gambling devices of a decidedly Rube Goldbergian nature. I can't even describe them - but there are photos of posters in the gallery. I was totally fascinated, because I could not for the life of me figure out the specifics of the game. The basics are easy though: coin-tokens go in, coin-tokens go out. If more goes out than in, you're good.

In the end, I returned home by train. I figured my next attempt should be from the dorm side.

Talking about Teeth

Long time no blog. Nothing special happened though. The most exciting thing is that my tooth filling fell off, and it made me famous among all the Japanese lesson teachers - for some reason, they apparently thought it was hilarious.

We were doing another conversation challenge, and we were supposed to go to the staff room (where our conversation teacher and camera were waiting for us), and ask for information on any subject of our choice. I had completely forgotten about the assignment, just like most of my classmates, and it was dubiously fortuitous that my filling fell out a day or two before, so I went with that: "[required long preamble omitted] Do you know a good dentist?"

Well, apparently, this time my countenance was too serious for this kind of request. I'm still at a loss as to why a serious face would not be appropriate where there's talk of doctors (excepting plastic surgeons, people actually willingly go there). And other professors saw it, and now everyone is asking me about my tooth - with a giggly accompaniment. Of course, none of it is malicious, and I don't hold any of it against them, but I'm quite perplexed by the whole situation.

They even dug out a phone number for an apparently very nice and friendly clinic, but it's closed on Thursdays.

Other than that, we went to izakaya after Wednesday gaming this week, and it was nice. Ethnic and pictoresque, to quote the tourist.

Exotic Things

I went to my first kaitenzushi today. It was nice. I've eaten my fill, and surprisingly enough, paid less than I would for a bowl of ramen (outside of our university refectory). The stuff actually fills you up! Who'd've thunk it...

Anyway, there was four of us - let's call us Croat, Kiwi, Malagasy and Finn - and none of the other ones shared my non-dislike of natto. I couldn't figure out why - but then got my comeuppance when I bravely decided to try ikura gunkanzushi. Boy, was that a mistake. Yet Finn and Kiwi had no idea why I didn't like it, they thought nothing of it. Anyway, five plates later, we were full (and I was in search of something that will help me get fish eggs out of my palate).

During that time, Kiwi talked about some of his experiences or insights about Japan. One was particularly telling. Did you know that gambling was completely illegal in Japan? Neither did I. However, there are all these Pachinko salons - I thought it was gambling?

Well, yes and no. Because gambling is illegal, it works like this: when you go into a pachinko parlour (I still haven't, so this is all second-hand knowledge), you buy a bucket of balls. You go and stick your balls into slots, hoping more balls will come out. When you're done, you take your balls and exchange them for - not money, but trinkets and toys. So it's more like a game in an arcade, or a theme park...

...If it weren't for the shop that is always - always! - next door or nearby, and always - always! - unconnected to the pachinko place. Can you guess what it is?

A pawn shop. Specialising in buying toys and trinkets. The largest buyer of which is... (do I really need to say?) A pachinko parlour. Makes perfect sense, and it's all within the bounds of the law.

Yesterday we went to see the Meiji Shrine. There were about forty of us in our guided Todai group, divided into five or so platoons. This weekend was the Shichi-Go-San festival (as well as Culture Day, and the Emperor Meiji's birthday), and there were lil' ones wearing the (mostly rental) best. Props to them, as they were photoed to death. We saw the shinto ceremony in the shrine (well, from outside, anyway), I hung my own ema at the ema-hanging tree, and maybe a passing spirit decides to give me some of my wishes. Afterwards we had a bento picnic just next to aikido demonstration, then walked on by some other demonstrations till we reached what we were ostensibly there for: yabusame.

Yabusame is an old tradition, in some ways like a sport but more like an exhibition, i.e. no winners are announced, where horsemen gallop past three targets while shooting from the bow. At the said targets, of course. It's quite spectacular, if you disregard the long wait beforehand. They ride so fast that if you're not looking at the track all the time, you almost miss them. Afterwards we were taken to a pricy cafe, where we could get beer or a juice, and where soft-drinkers were rewarded by a piece of cake - and all we paid for the day was actually less than what our share cost in the cafe. The Japanese system is actually amazing, from my point of view: the students get subsidised by the senpai. The volunteer guides paid twice as much as we guidees, if not more. Thank you again!

Other than that, I'm a proud owner of the Gathering Storm! Finally!

Tea Festival Mininote

Another day in Akihabara. I finally got to play Modern Art, which is kind of funny since it's such a well-regarded game. And I finally got to play Galaxy Trucker, which is so not funny, because my copy shipped this week after I waited for it for half a year.

But anyway, yay, I'm finally getting the goodies! Yay me!

In the meantime, nothing memorable happened. Except for the tea ceremony. But there's a bunch of pictures posted in the temporary folder. So I don't have to type a lot.

Basically, it was a kind of a tea festival, which means we got to enjoy tea ceremony for much less yen than it would normally have cost, and we got to visit the beautiful garden too. From all the stories I heard the tea ceremony tea, matcha, was very bitter, but it really wasn't. I liked it.

And the contrast between the park and the surrounding skyscrapers was too amazing for words.

Gingko

I have a bit of time, so I thought I'd just mention something that has been bugging me for a while, and I never remembered to put it in. The official plant of U-Tokyo is gingko.

I hate gingko.

And so does everyone else I've talked to.

Why? Because the campus is full of them. And their fruit, as it is in an institution of higher learning and not in an orchard, falls to the ground, unpicked. And then it starts to smell... "real bad", as the Americans would say it. And since they're in almost every street, you can't help but walk through the Stinking Cloud.

There is even a biohazard team who cleans up the mess. Okay, so they're just poor cleaning crew, but I pity da foos!

Basically, gingko trees are like cluster-bombs, filled with mean bomblets of yuck.

A numberless footnote: Actually, gingko fruit is edible, and some people even come to the campus to pick some. Not enough, in my opinion. For my sanity's sake, folks, come to Todai and get yourselves some fruit! Please!

Umbrella games

I've met the gamers!

Admittedly, so far, it seems our Japanese counterparts mostly go for the lighter gaming fare, but a game is a game, and I'm not complaining.

To begin from the start: After several misses, I was finally going to have the time to go to the Yellow Submarine - and knew which Yellow Submarine to go for. So immediately after my classes, I went off to Akiba to search for the store, guided by the red marker dot the helpful store attendant in the last week's Yellow Submarine miss helpfully painted onto my map. However, it seems the treasure was moved in the meantime - the store was nowhere to be found. The ex did not mark the spot.

I knew it had to be somewhere in Akihabara, and I did not yet want to admit defeat (even though it was quite probable I (was) already lost); so I started wandering around aimlessly (well, aimfully, though I had no clue where the bloody target was); but my staunch spirit paid off, as I looked up and spotted my Holy Grail!

So, where there's a banner, there's a store, so up I went - but when I came to the store, it was way too small to hold any gaming. At first, the attendant had a blank look on his face, and then he got it - "kaado geemu?" "hai, kaado geemu ya boodo geemu nado!" Then he pulls out a real Akihabara map - not the photocopied flyer they had at the other store - and showed me where, exactly and finally, I can find a game.

During all that time, it was raining. Not too fun. But I finally arrived, and was welcomed, and accepted into Carcassonne: the New World, that no-one really knew rules to, except this one guy who was just leaving. I won. I later found out we had some rules wrong; I still would have won. Lucky game :)

I met the founder of this event, who rode the train for one hour in each direction each Wednesday with a suitcase-sized sampling of his 300-odd collection; I met the tall BGG liaison guy improbably called Joe; and I met two Germans who studied in Kiwiland together, of which one was visiting the other for a week, and the other is working in German Embassy for half a year. Had a long chat about nontrivial games with the latter, while the former charmed a female gamer, and received an email address, despite the fact that the only language they could communicate in was his very rusty French.

I got invited to the special Heroscape day the following evening, so I came back and played a bit of that. Funnish, certainly beautiful, but not that much involved. "Age 8+" summarises my impression rather succinctly.

Change of topic.

I am amazed sometimes at the practicality here - when it rains, every store (yes, every store, including the hardcore software ones) have cheap umbrellas for sale. Wherever you are, you can avoid getting rained. (Bad English, works in Japanese, so meh.)

Also, the first time I saw another Japanese umbrella-related surprise was in my cafeteria. Don't know yet if they do that elsewhere; I'm sure they must, but I haven't been to any other very public place while it rained. They put umbrella condoms at the entrances, along with a big disposal bin. You come inside, you put the tight baggie over the dripping part so there are no accidents while you're inside, and you take it off when you're done and drop it into the provided bin. Quite convenient.

Otherwise, many other places, for instance most of the buildings in my Uni I've been to, have umbrella lockers. You put your umbrella inside and lock it, and take the key. There may or may not be a deposit required. Ever gone somewhere and had no clue what to do with your big wet stick? Well, not in Tokyo.

Except in subways. But then, we have these great signs telling us how to behave.

Change of topic.

Things really work differently here. When we gaijin were leaving the Wednesday gaming, we heard someone calling after us. It was a policeman running after us. He was holding a piece of paper, and when he caught up with us, he said we dropped it. It was the email address mentioned five, or seven, paragraphs earlier, depending on how you count them.

The next day, I was getting off in Nezu (from the train!), and I noticed that the escalator that was out of order and under repairs the week before was back in function. I probably would have noticed anyway, but what really drew my attention to it was not a what, but a who. There was a construction worker, or a train line officer, or whoever it was wearing a helmet and a uniform, standing rather motionlessly next to the bottom end of the escalator, extending his white-gloved hand in its direction, inviting people to use it. I would not be surprised if that was all he did that day.

That said, I see a lot of people with a strange job description, at least according to my worldview so far: standing in front of their stores and holding up a sign advertising something in the shop, or the shop itself. They are not yelling anything (that's apparently another job), just standing around holding a sign, which probably could just as well stand on its own, with a bit of proper propping. They did get my attention though, so I guess it works.

Change of topic.

So I finally bought the One-Seg tuner for my PSP. So now I can watch TV. Or rather, what passes for TV in Japan, which is mainly strange game shows I don't understand yet, strange talk shows I don't understand yet, and strange food shows I don't understand yet. Hopefully, one day, with the help of the intensive lessons I'm taking, that will change. My understanding, not the programme. Did I mention over three hours of classes every day, plus homework? We even have listening homework. The teachers upload mp3-s to the web server, which we download and listen at home. Fun! but a bit tiring.

So now I have to also write the handouts because the book circle was moved to Monday this week, and tomorrow I've signed up to go see some Tea Ceremony so I have to get up early, and there's so little time...

At least I'm well stocked in grapefruits. Thanks, 99!

Parent-Thetical

Long time no wright, so to say, and I forget what was when. I really should do this more often again.

Anyway, there was a classification exam for the intensive language classes. I'm in group 3 of 5 (no Borg references!), or "intermediate"; yesterday was orientation, and from today we start for real. Nine classes per week, each class 1:40, and then there's homework. Yay! (Might be a bit tiring though.)

There were representatives from home. Err, make that HOME. It's a group for international student support. Basically, there's japanese volonteers, and there's us. They're here to talk with us, introduce us to some cultural events, and generally ease us into life in Japan, when there's noone we know yet. So, one of the volonteers, let's call him "H" (or maybe "Ha"? - Japanese initials, funny things) organised a nice get-together, where we'd all cook in a big kitchen. I have no clue what the room is normally used for - it's in a very nice and very, very expensive-looking building next to H's building, it looks like a community hall back home, but it has a kitchen in the room. So after a flurry of food preparation (and hungry tummies), there was actually so much food the three dozen or so of us couldn't eat it all. Even if half the eaters were Japanese - of which some were in college, yet some were quite young (as they say on rather different class of web pages, "barely eighteen"). Fun was had by all.

What else. Yeah, I finally managed to get money from my Mum. Thanks, Mum! It seems there's just one place in Tokyo that handles Western Union (or even knows what it is), and I was an idiot for not looking it up on the 'Net sooner. And just in time, too, since their contract expires with the current year. (Silly anthropomorphic yoga-related scenes are now running through my head. Yours?) (This "managed to get money from my Mum" sounded really bad. It's not like I begged and begged and she's a cheap old hag, but that she sent it readily to her favourite but soon to be broke son, who was an idiot enough not to be able to figure out how to receive it.)

Speaking of, Mum has grown tired of waiting for the ISP people, and is Skyping me via mobile connection, costs be damned. The said connection is pretty bad, but better than nothing. Skype is fun, even if I'm in a rather bad timezone, Croatia-wise. When I come home, everyone's at work; when I get up, everyone's asleep. Thank gods for self-employed family.

In the meantime, my PSP has arrived. (It's only a small part of the reason for my ex-soon-to-be-broke state.) It's so cool. (The PSP, not the abovementioned state.) Too bad its crippled to anything not authorised by Sony, but c'est la vie. (Or at least, vie artificielle.) The things that it does do, it does very nicely. (Pata-pata-pata-pon and don-dondon-dondon echo inside my cranium all day.)

I found out why hyakuen (100 yen) shops are popular. It's because some things are twice as cheap in a hyakuen shop than anywhere else, and up to five times cheaper than in konbini. Shame the closest one is so far from my dorm. Still, looking forward to the grapefruit I'm gonna slurp up for my midnight snack.

So in the meantime I've actually gone to the classes, and it was really fun. The teachers (at least the ones we saw today) are so nice, and fun... The conversation teacher had us ask for a day off from classes, recorded it by video-camera, and then analysed (or at least started to; two thirds of the class, including me, are to star on the silver screen next week) the behaviour, distance, content, politeness, congruence, body language, expressions... Did I say fun? I'll see what she says next week :) We got some grammar homework, but it's not much for now, and we did it all during the class anyway.

Death Note is fun so far, but I'm hardly at home, and I'm sooo slow anyway. I haven't even read the first part yet.

I still haven't gone to see the gamers (not successfully, at least). Maybe tomorrow. Who knows.

So yeah.

B(l)ogged down

So people are asking me, where's the blag? I want the next text!

The thing is, there are two reasons for that.

The first reason is that nothing particularly noteworthy is happening. I always hated writing a journal, and this is exactly why: as soon as you settle in some kind of routine, every page starts to look the same. I got up, went to work, ate some lunch, got back, ate dinner, messed around with my computer, shut down for the night. Not fun, people. Not fun.

So, I'm slowly getting into a routine, a large part of which is going to the Uni. It usually takes me an hour to get there, and an hour to get back. While home, I tend to take long showers. It also takes time to delete all the bacn (Gmail solves spam quite well, so that's fine). I might grab fifteen minutes to (try to) read Death Note, with clarifications courtesy of One Manga. Starting from next week, my most likely daily language classes will probably be held every day. I've also grown quite attached to eating at least twice a day, and at least one of those is usually in cafeteria, which is, usually, nothing to write home about. (There will be a photo or three now and then, though.) And finally, what goes in needs to go out as well. (And I bet you knew most of that, so writing this out was not really necessary.)

This brings me to my second reason for not writing more often: I don't have the time or energy to write a blog post. Today I've already reconciled with the fact that I will be late to the lab, even though I don't think anyone's watching (or if they are, they're keeping their complaints politely to themselves, in a typically Japanese fashion), so that's how come you're reading this. I really should learn to write shorter posts.

Now on to other concerns.

My current top two worries: spending all my money too fast, and not finding time to wash my clothes.

The latter is kind of related to my scheduling problem described above (although, writing a blog post fits rather well into the 40 or so minutes the clothes are being washed and the 20 more that they spend in a spin-drier). As for the former, partly it's my own fault (okay, let's say mostly, and be done with it): there is a lot of really cool stuff here that is much cheaper than at home. This mostly concerns consumer electronics. So, having come to Japan without a single circuit on me (umm, okay, there was a clunky old MP3 player), I started outfitting myself with various cyberbits and technopieces, and BicCamera (and, in one already described instance, Yodobashi) were gracious enough to help me. Partly, it's that everything else (except soy sauce) is so much more expensive here.

I would really love to hear an explanation from the Japanese people who used to tell me Japan was cheaper than Croatia. Restaurants are, maybe, but that has less to do with Japanese restaurants being cheap than with Croatian restaurants being inordinately expensive. But other things...

Yesterday the lab held its own welcome party. And in contrast to other welcome parties I've seen here (which is, admittedly, one), this one looked like a typical Japanese post-work outing. (And notice that, this not yet being a part of my routine, gets blog space.)

For starters, we went to a restaurant. It was a rather nice Chinese restaurant somewhere past Ueno (was it Okachimachi? I can't remember). There was so many of us that we pretty much filled that floor. It is a Chinese restaurant, but it's in Japan, and is thus spaced accordingly. The fact that there was about thirty of us did not help matters. The restaurant people kept bringing us food; they would typically bring one smallish plate per about eight people, but I'll be damned if there weren't at least ten different courses, so we ate our fill. I must admit (and I'm sorry if the lab people, or the Chinese read this), I wasn't too impressed with some of them; but there was a couple I could have wolfed down all by myself, they were that Yummy. The drinks kept flowing (more or less; I'll leave the explanation for another time), some people stumbled on their self-introduction, but it was all in good fun.

Until it came time for the bill. I was really happy and grateful that they decided that only the senior members pay, because it came to about ¥5000 per person. It might not look much, but it adds up. Shopping and public transport aside, I usually don't spend more than ¥2000 a day. So that was a "gulp" moment there.

After that, about half the people decided to go for nijikai (Second Party, or as one online dictionary puts it, "first after-party party"), which is quite a common thing in Japan. We stood around in front of the restaurant for about ten minutes while the group self-organised into a decision to go for karaoke. Then it took fifteen more minutes to cross the fifty metres from the restaurant to the big karaoke bar nearby.

We booked a largish room, so that all fifteen or so of us could fit in. I've never been in a karaoke bar, either a western or a Japanese one, but I should point out a very significant difference: in Japan, every group has their own room. It's like a little hotel, with very sound-proof walls (unlike most other places in Japan - for instance, my dorm, which featured rhythmic thumping performance when I got back; your guess is as good as mine, and mine is pretty good). You get a huge (huge!) book with the menu of available songs (oh, more about "menus" later). It looks like a phone book. Hefty is a good word. We actually had two, one was for gaijin, featuring stuff from Sinatra and Carpenters to Pink and Slipkot, with a lot of "who-the-hell-is-he"s thrown in. There is a huge (huge!) remote control (hefty!) which you can use to select a song ("70919"), and it must have plenty of other uses as well, but I saw only one of them utilised: a girl raised the song by a note or two so it's easier to sing. Some people could really sing, some people really couldn't, but everyone earned a democratic and warm-hearted applause.

The downsides: drinks start from around ¥500, I don't drink, and the bill is split equally. This usually means that, if I care to repeat the experience, I'm screwed. It might be that we were in an expensive place, I don't know, but the bill came out to about ¥30000, so they even reconsidered and had us newbies pay ¥2000 each. I totally don't blame them. Anyway, good fun was had by all (except by this one guy who slept through any decibels we managed to throw his way), but I probably won't want to repeat it that soon.

After we got out, the three of us who lived basically in the same place (another guy who lives in my dorm, and my tutor, whose not-quite-next-door-dorm I've already written about) had about three minutes to catch the last train. We managed it, then things got a bit anxious again when there was a sick person on the train and we ran a couple of minutes late, but apparently the last Inokashira train actually waits for the last Yamanote train, so we managed the connection as well, and came back home safe and sound.

Shopping Spree, this time in Shimokitazawa

Yesterday was one of those days. You know, the days you can hardly get out of bed, let alone blog. So I have lots of typing to do today.

First of all - I went to the Orientation for New Students on Friday. It had four parts, each consecutive one more interesting. The first one was indeed an intro to something we have all already done successfully. There was one new piece of info in about nintyish minutes. The second part was a bit more interesting, about the types of help we can receive from the International Center, which would be really interesting if it were shorter: Having read the handout, I started listening, then after 10 minutes realized they were still on the pretty much the same sentence. Waiting for translation did not help matters. The third part was fun: they took us on a tour of the campus. We learned new things! And there were four volunteers leading my group around: a Chinese girl who was our guide, an older gentleman and a married couple - and we talked with them a bit. Every lil bit of Japanese practice helps.

The fourth part was the best - party! The space was small (it was really crowded), the food was gone in a blink (homemade, too! yummy!), the drinks disappeared at the worst possible time (when they gave away some really awful junk food), but it was really fun, and we got to know some of the other international students a bit, and some of the volunteers working to make our stay in Japan better.

Then there was Saturday. I have nothing to say about Saturday, except that I went to konbini, and that this Korean girl saw me with a konbini bag and told me that I should go to Shimokitazawa. Why, I asked, and she replied that it was rather near here (not a good enough reason), and that there's a big store which is much cheaper than konbini (now we're talking!). Another Korean gentleman was also there, and said he always took the train, and would be also interested to learn how to get there on foot.

So, today, at 10 o'clock, our little expedition set out. At first we walked carelessly, without a worry in the world; then, about 15 alleys later, the gentleman started taking notes at every intersection. Smart, but too late, as the worst part was behind us. When we finally got there, there was this big shop. o
Okay, not that big, just two storeys, but it took me a while to walk through it. And I recognised maybe half of the stuff I saw - and even the half that I recognised, I couldn't really tell any details about. For instance, that's miso, but that's miso as well. In fact there is a whole shelf dedicated to miso. What's the difference between this miso and that miso? Damned if I know. Also, I recognised vegetables. But for some items, beyond "vegetables", I got nothing. Never saw anything like that in my whole life.

So it was fun. I spent about ¥4000 there - I got a pan! Now I can cook! - and then took my Korean guide's advice to look around some more "across the tracks". I tried to find a knife (for before cooking) and a bowl (for after cooking), but I was having no luck - until someone suggested I try the department stores. "There are none here... But try Shinjuku." Great idea, I thought, exited the little shop, and entered a department store 100m down the street.

I found a bowl and a knife, but neither was what I was originally looking for. I wanted a plastic bowl, not a ceramic one, because with my phenomenal dexterity and the general crowdedness of my 13-square-metre apartment, I didn't want to have to pick up the pieces. But they didn't have plastic bowls (actually, the cashier I asked started hyperhelpfully running around the shop, showing me one bowl after another, but they were either tupperware or salad bowls, not eating bowls), so I bought a more expensive, wooden one (so pretty!). And the first knife I saw (actually, the first article, period) had a white blade. Yep, white. Is it a toy? I wondered for a second, then realised I was seeing something I heard about, but never yet saw before: a ceramic knife. So I bought it. It's supersharp. And white.

It has an orange handle, though. Can't have it all.

After spending pretty much every yen I'd brought with me, I tried to return home. The part where the Korean gentleman took notes went without a hitch; then I got lost in the little alleys so close to home I could almost see it (actually, I could see the buildings right next to my home, but not actually my home; close enough though), but I had to backtrack more than a Prolog program to find the entrance we passed through.

Only to find that it was locked, and that the magnetic strip card that opens the other gate does not work on this one. So I limped around the campus, trying to find the entrance I knew, when I found myself walking the same street I walked in the rain, several days ago. It would have been nice to have gone to Shimokitazawa a week ago - I would not have been so lost when the rainy day came, and I would have been shopping more cheaply than I was. Konbinis really are expensive!

Finally home, I set out to prepare my dinner: a salmon sashimi with the rice left over from my breakfast. Yummy. Then I thought I'd study, but the lunch knocked me out; next thing I know, my lil bro is Skyping me. After that, the neglected blog; and lo and behold, the day hath passed.

I installed devtools for Mac, and some fun stuff that plays with the Sudden Movement Sensor. And also Last.fm, but it is driving me crazy, because I wait for it to retrieve the stream longer than I actually get to listen, so it's kind of pointlessy. So I'm looking at alternatives, since I have no idea why it's so slow

The Welcome Party

Today was a good day. Really. I'm not missing the other two words from that sentence. Today was a good day.

Again, I overslept. That, because I couldn't sleep in the evening, again. But I learned from my tutor today that it was not required to show up at 9 am - indeed, few people do, and that's why they stay so late (in addition to "custom"). I spent my day hacking at an algorithm we talked about at the book club, so that I can understand it better and remember it longer. Then a lot of people were going to lunch together, and asked me if I wanted to tag along. Sure! So we went to a traditional Japanese fish restaurant. There's three set courses each lunch: baked fish, cooked fish and raw fish. So I picked sashimi, simply because it was most unfamiliar. It came as a bit of a shock that I was the only one subscribing to that option, but I bravely persevered.

It was quite Yummy. I got three pieces of something and three pieces of something else, and one of those might have been a yellowtail, and the other might have been some kind of a snapper. It would help if I even remotely knew what those were even in English, but alas, no - so it's just six pieces of Fish. There was also a bit of wasabi, and soy sauce, and some unidentified but probably pickled vegetables, some glass noodles, a bowl of rice and another bowl with miso soup. When I asked whether they ate misojiro before or after the fish, I got a simple and very Japanese answer: "during".

Still, it was a bit difficult for me - I managed seiza just until the meal arrived, then switched to cross-legged position. One leg was properly numb by mid-course, so I switched again to give the other leg the chance to experience the same adventure. In the end, I stuck my leg out in front under the table, hoping I won't ending up playing footsie with the Korean guy across the table, but everything went okay. No subtext, no subtable...

I made plans to go check out the gaming Wednesday in the Yellow Submarine (a gaming outlet). However, it seems they no longer play games in both shops, but only in the one I haven't gone to. In the meantime, my tutor called me (my first incoming phonecall!) and told me there was a welcome party for the newcomers in his dormitory, which is about 50 metres, or 7 minutes, away from my dormitory. (An aside: 50 metres or 7 minutes?!? The thing is, the buildings are next to each other, but the entrances to their courtyards are in fact quite far from each other.) I apologised because I couldn't possibly get there on time - especially since I needed to shower again before I could go meet new people. It's so bloody damp here, the humidity is killing me - and I can't even imagine what I'll be going through come summer. And the locals don't even sweat it. Sure, here and there you can see an old riiman wiping his face with a handkerchief, but it's more an exception than a rule. And from what I heard from other gaijin (I'm gaijin, so I'm allowed to say it - kind of like "nigga" being considered an insult from anyone except from a black person), I'm not really an exception. The Southeast Asians have apparently adapted.

So, I was in Shinjuku, at a wrong place. While I was there, I might as well have a browse for a minute or two, I thought, so I took a quick look around the Yellow Submarine - and then I saw an arcade.

The arcade was amazing. I mean, it's just various video games, but I haven't felt such a wonder about video-games since I was in Piccadilly Circus twelvish years ago (which is when I first saw Virtua Fighter, and the game that spun you around - can't explain better than that at the moment). I mean, there are plenty of amazing games available on personal computers, and they get amazing-er and amazing-er all the time, but you generally know what your computer was capable of - the PC games don't really have revolutionary stuff that often.

Here I saw two games that made me widen my eyes and stare for a bit. The first one was DVX or some other TLA, which was controlled by a stick, three buttons, and a touch screen, all at the same time. The second was Sangokushi Something, which is a collectible card video strategy game. I kid you not. You buy cards, make armies from the cards you have, and deploy them on the surface of the game. The game knows where your cards are. Each card represents an army unit, which takes its orders by how you position the card. If you turn the card by 180 degs, the lil guys will do about face. And if you push the card forward, the guys march to meet the enemy. The battleground corresponds to the play area, so you actually control all units' movements by shuffling the cards around the table. It was totally cool to watch, but then I remembered the party and my soaked shirt and decided I better shuffle myself.

The party was fun. There were various people from various countries, some were newbies and some were oldbies, I met many of them but few names stuck. They'll just have to throw them at me harder. In particular, a Serbian girl was delighted to finally have someone who'll understand her native speech (natsukashii naa...), a wacky Korean invited me to her birthday party on an indeterminate date, a Bulgarian guy studying the same stuff as I do gave me his phone number so I can get some cool books from him, and a strange-in-a-good-way gothy girl who apparently holds Japanese classes around here was all gothy and strange, but in a good way. Loved her hat.

I apparently missed the first party, when people were doing little cultural presentations (among those, my tutor and 9 other Japanese doing some kind of a dance), and I passed on the fourth party, the one in the Russians' room where they started moving when we were being kicked out from the third party.

Tomorrow I'll oversleep intentionally, I think, and stay later in the lab. Not hurrying anywhere tomorrow. So, that's what I'll do. Yep, that's the plan. Uh-huh. Oversleep.

If I can.

The Fire

I got a rent bill yesterday evening, so I thought I'd pay it today. However, it seems I should pay in a specific bank. I thought I'd do it in the morning, but I was hurrying to the lab. I thought I'd do it after the lab, but the book circle ran a bit longer... before it was cut short. First there were some sirens that were quite disconcerting (fortunately, we weren't really in concert); then there was a lot of megaphonic shouting (which is, really, an oxymoron, if you think about it), and then, five or ten minutes later, we were evacuated from the building. Apparently, someone lit up something they shouldn't on the seventh floor of the next entrance in our building. So we all went out (some people even in their slippers), and we watched as more and more fire trucks pulled up. If they were blue, I'd've thought we got taken hostage and SWAT was throwing everything they had against the terrorists. So we stood about aimlessly for a while (actually, even if I did stand around pointedly now and then, that was still a funny phrase), then I thought, might as well grab a dinner. I turned to a guy from my lab (one of the guys from the book circle, the one who has to be good in computing because he is not really a prodigy in English, and asked if he thought the cafeteria was open. He said (something to the effect of) he wasn't going, because he is going drinking with his friends. I explained that I asked for myself (then explained again) - then he understood and was very kind and led me to the cafeteria himself, through the throng of fire-truck observers. Then he apologised again, saying he really must go now to drink alcohol. I went in and ate a rather good menu, but I can't really say what it was, except for the rice. I mean, there was a soup with some vegetably stuff with couple of livery blobs, there was a plate where a bit of chickeny threads accompanied some more vegetably stuff, which looked rather like very description I ever heard of kimchi. The tea was not up to par though, it seems that today's tea machine waited for the baka no gaijin to drip its last. After that, I tried to see if there was any post office around, since I believed I was already late for the bank (but I had no clue by how much; it seems that the bank in question is open 9-3). It's a mission I've already failed a couple of times. (Back to talking about the post office now.) How come there is such a dearth of post offices? And whoever I ask, noone knows about a post office. Actually, it's a ritual - whenever you ask someone where something is, if they don't know, they'll think and look around for at least thirty seconds, mumbling "maa, yuubinkyoku, yuubinkyoku tte..." or whatever you're looking for, then, after a period that they perceive should be sufficient to convince you that they really tried, will finally shrug apologetically and say they're really sorry. They're that polite. And the really well-meaning ones... well, wait a bit more. Anyway, after several false starts, I asked some guy before I saw him properly. He looked quite a bit weird and a little bit drunk (or vice versa?) had a nervous tic, smelled of beer, and spoke in full-auto bursts of rather incomprehensible Japanese, and after a while, even some even more incomprehensible English. However, he said he knew a post office. He's going that way, and he can take me there. Is it far? No, no, he's going there anyway. I know, mom, you said not to go anywhere with strangers, but he looked harmless enough. By which I mean, I could take him. Unless he's in reality a drunken master. Anyway, "not far" is so not the description I'd use. I never did find it though; after he left me, I gave up at about the time when 1) I got an independent confirmation, and 2) the rain started again. Looking around, I noticed I have inadvertently found myself in Akihabara. Now, from a map, I knew there was a Ginza line station somewhere there, but I just couldn't pinpoint it exactly. So again the same ritual - Ginza line? Oh, maybe there is... There's a JR station there, but... Ginza line... Ginza line... Hmm... I'm really sorry, sir. Sorry. I don't know. I started talking about the really helpful, and this is where I'll pick it up - the really helpful don't go away after their 30 seconds, but grab another passer-by and rope them into playing the game along with them. That's also what the old lady of the independent confirmation above did - startled that a gaijin was talking to her, then quickly recovered seeing he talked Japanese and needed help, then cringed to see she didn't know, then pounced on a young couple strolling by. Anyway, so far, the pounce instinct proved itself, for both of the pouncees managed to answer the question - the granny's young couple, as well as the OL's salaryman group. Anyway, I walked on in the direction of the riiman's advice (5 minutes, he said), but it seemed longer, and I stopped to ask again. And (30 seconds later) yet again. I was about to give up and ask a policeman on the street corner (that's what they're here for, anyway), and I was waiting for him to finish talking to someone else when I turned idly around and noticed I was standing 2m from the entrance. That would have been embarrassing! I got back home uneventfully, but then noticed this huge bug on the hallway and had to squeeze one more photo from my dying dijikame (I haven't fed it any juice since I bought it). So that's that - I'm in my room now, and I'm going to the lounge to upload this. Enter Return wanted me to tell you he's sorry, but he was too tired today, so he was not going to make an appearance. See you soon!

I'm 3L!

I overslept. I thought I'd be at the lab in the morning - I wasn't. It wasn't even near morning any more - noon has already passed. I woke up too late, then met up some old residents (they've been here since April! April!!!) and asked them about various things they knew and I didn't, like where to get briefs in my size (go ahead, laugh, but it's a problem! and not just mine - the guys are stick thin, but are a head taller than average Japanese, so they sent me to a big people clothes shop they knew, whose street sign has a rather large jolly old gentleman wearing a suit), and what's the best solution for a TV (namely, get a PSP, then go to Akiba to buy a One-Seg USB trinket for peanuts, and if this didn't mean anything to you, it's fine, you haven't missed anything important).

So when I finally got my 3L ass to the lab, I found out a bit more about a book circle. I have no clue any more if I said anything about it yet, so, at the risk of repeating myself, I'll describe it, possibly again. I was told it would be good to join a reading group, and that a rather basic one has just formed couple of weeks ago, and I could go with them. Basically, if I understood correctly, they meet twice a week, and the guy whose turn it is explains two chapters that he has read to the other two guys, who haven't. Now that I'm joining, they're very happy, because English was not their strong point - at least not for the two people I talked to. Not sure who the third member is yet. But anyway, they asked me if I could read English, and were quite impressed when I replied in the affirmative. Fun times.

So I copied my book (even with a hi-tek copier, it took more than an hour, I think), and then dozed and read, in alternation, trying to read at least as much as I dozed, because it was hot and stuffy and some of you probably know what happens to me without proper cooling. If you don't, it's the same thing that happens to a CPU in similar conditions - I overheat, start glitching, and finally shut down.

I'm wondering if anything is seriously wrong with me, because I sweat like a pig here. (I don't really know how much pigs sweat, and you will probably understand better than if I wrote "like a chocolate", for who ever leaves chocolate alone long enough to notice? Also, my girth makes the comparison applicable.) Every day when I come home I'm completely soaked. And it's supposed to be autumn, most comfortable season in Tokyo.

Yeah, pretty much it for today. Came home, read the book. The reading party has gone six levels... sorry, wrong game: six chapters, which means I have about 200 pages to catch up to till tomorrow. I've read some already, and I'll read some tomorrow, and it's mostly stuff I know, so far, so it shouldn't really be a herculean task (can you even use "herculean" for reading?). However, I won't upload this till tomorrow, because the lounge is crowded with people waiting for one of the three surviving cables (one has bit the bullet; kicked the bucket; gone to cable heaven), and I don't feel like budging from my room again.

I got some more pics of drinks I tried. "Kanjiru Mango" instructed me to feel this full-bodied drink, while Welch's Grapefruit 100 said it was a healthy squeeze.

Rainy Day

A short day. I did go to Shinjuku and Harajuku, after all, but only at 5 o'clock. I overslept.

So, after connecting briefly in the common room to download some stuff (I bought Keyword Manager! And OpenOffice.org 3 is installed as well), then I went out. Not really having planned my outing out, I just went to Harajuku (hint: "I wonder if anyone wrote anything about this Harajuku...") and Takeshita Doori was just in front of me. I didn't even know it was Takeshita Doori - I just figured, well, if everyone else is going that way, it's good enough for me.

Of course, not being a camera freak like almost all my friends, I did not take it out until it was already too late (read: the two gosurori entered a purikura, where I did not really want to go). And also afterwards, I was not really feeling comfortable shooting innocents, so there are rather few pictures from there. I think... maybe... about... two. In one, I was trying to capture a cute outfit being sold in one of the shops, then all of the sudden two people jumped right in front of me. Luckily, me being a giant, the costume is still visible. The second one, I was actually trying to record a movie, but I had the camera setting wrong. After that, I did record a couple of movies. They sucked (the camera was pointed too high, and there were too many lights), and the most interesting things always happen either just before I start filming or just after I stop, so you're not getting them.

After that I thought I'd take a walk to Shinjuku, it's close...

Well, it's close on the map of Tokyo, which, given that Tokyo is bloody huge, is not really saying much. After a longish walk, I managed to get to Yoyogi station and then I took a train home.

Or at least, that's what I thought. I remembered from the map I got about my dorm that, besides the Komaba Todaimae, there are couple of other train stations nearby. One of them, to my recollection, was Higashi-Kitazawa. So I thought, why not get a bit more flexibility - if I want to go to Shibuya, I already know where to go. But if Shinjuku is my goal, then maybe going directly might be better than taking the train from Komaba Todaimae to Shibuya, and then switch to one for Shinjuku.

Just as I boarded my Higashi-Kitazawa train, it started to rain.

Now I'm somewhere I've never been, I'm all wet, I have no clue where I am because it all looks different from what I recollected of my imaginings from when I was looking at the map, and there was almost noone on the streets. All I know is, I have to turn right somewhere, but everyone just said "you'll see it on the right". Well, I didn't - I turned twice at a wrong place, before a kind gentleman finally managed more precise instructions (and even then I was not 100% sure, for "more precise" and "precise" are not quite interchangeable terms).

So I'm home now, hoping I won't catch a cold (I did get soaked, but it's still rather on the warm side outside). I thought I'd take some photos of the travel brochure I found ("Croatia", which details how nice Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and "Bosna i Hercegovina" (sic!) are), but it got wet too (not so much from the rain as much as from the leaking bento with which it shared a plastic bag). Maybe some other time.

At least I'm getting plenty of walking exercise.

As far as my home supplies are concerned, I've bought two bento. I've also decided to risk buying Fruit Punch, after being reassured by the salesman there was no sake in it, and seeing as how it might be turned into a can for Cedevita (I have a kg package, and was kind of scared to use it directly from the huge bag); however, it has chunks of Real Fruit, it's not expensive, and it proved Yummy. I also bought 2 kg of rice, in hope someone will explain suihanki to me soon.

In other news, my Pocari Sweat is almost gone, and I've switched to Vitamin Water.

Regarding the Pictures...

I'm not linking anything for now. I don't yet know which solution I will use to host the blog piccies - Picasa is easier to use, but flickr has unlimited storage... And there are many others as well. Anyway, for now, take a peek here.

Shopping Spree

I finally got my bank book. Which meant, I was finally ready to get a keitai. And also, I thought, I would take a stroll through Akihabara. It was interesting, all around. I went out in the morning, and came back in the evening, and I had no idea where all the time has gone, except for about an hour and a half at SoftBank, and why my feet hurt so much. But I've took a nice photo, bought the first part of Death Note (which I'll probably be reading the next month or so), got a rice cooker in Don Quijote (now if only someone would tell me how it works!), collected a thousand flyers and promotional handkerchiefs (or whatever they are, I still haven't opened any), managed to do what I set out to do (buy a keitai, remember?), eat an oyakodon, forget about matcha cream mochi till home, down a can of pulpy apple juice from the vending machine (yummy!), look at maids, procure a bedsheet and a mug (tired of drinking water from a used PET bottle), and probably also something I managed to forget in the meantime.

Those who don't know about Akihabara should now really read the Wikipedia article. Really. Because explaining what I do takes quite a lot of time, even without explaining about all the rest of the world. It's explained already, more clearly and concisely than I could ever manage to do. Also, Google Images, there's loads on Akiba (and if someone now asks me what's Akiba, I'll smack them in VR) on the 'Net already. And it's a fun read, and funner look.

On my way back, I guess I thought five bags of Stuff wasn't enough, so I stopped by in Shibuya to pop into BicCamera and finally buy a computer. This blog post is a direct consequence - I'm writing on my own hardware! Yay!

As I said, the best laid plans and all that, so I couldn't get a huge iMac, and I didn't want to get the expensive MacBook Pro (oh, maybe I haven't said - macrumours talked about a defect in the nVidia chip, and also, it would leave me begging for rice in the foreseeable future). Thus I settled for the medium MacBook - I would have taken the best MacBook, were it not for the superficial observation that they didn't make the 250 Gb MacBooks in white - after I already color-coordinated all my other electronics! Rude.

So now I'm connected in our dorm's common room. My room's connection shouldn't be expected till about Thursday. It's a funny story, really: We got this magnetic card that goes into this machine where you have to swipe it, then feed the machine ¥1000 notes, and the internet connection costs ¥2750 per month, and the machine does not give change, but the remainder apparently carries over to the next month, and when you first do so, they ("They") will connect you in 3 work days, and last two days when I came back to my dorm I never had three ¥1000 notes, so despite my desire to pay in advance and have my connection ready when I finally get a computer, it backfired and now I have to wait.

This kind of leads me into another funny story: the one about how to get a mobile phone in Japan. Now, everyone I heard from says I should sign up for SoftBank, and not one of the two other major operators, or one of the apparent million of minor ones. Why that should be so, I have no idea, but simply by the logic everyone else was on SoftBank and my fees would be less if I followed suit, I followed suit. I was already twice checking out the mobile phones: once with my tutor on the first day in BicCamera (when I was all indecisive and stuff etc), once by myself when I thought I had finally decided (in a proper SoftBank place, but this time they refused me on the grounds I did not have my bank book yet), so third time's the charm, as they say. Besides a bank book (or a credit card - debit card is apparently no good), you also need your Alien Registration Card (or a certificate of the said Alien Card being In Procedure, since it takes about 3 weeks to make), and of course your passport. Also, I learned in the meantime that to take advantage of a monthly repayment plan for the mobile phone over 2 years, I'd need a 27 month visa. So I had to buy a mobile phone and actually pay for it. Which would be okay, but for the fact that the mobile phones are insanely expensive here. I bought my MacBook here because it's cheaper; I bought my keitai here because the ones used everywhere else won't work. The cheapest phone I could find costs about ¥17000; however, they informed me I better buy a charger as well, otherwise the phone is not usable (another ¥2000). I thought about iPhone, but whereas I remember Apple announcing its new price ($200, or $300 for more memory), the Japanese had other ideas, and it costs over ¥800000. Wow. So, the cheapest one for me.

So this time I picked, as I later thought, the worst place to finally Do It: I thought it was a SoftBank shop in Akiba, but it turned out to be a Yodobashi Camera pretending to be a SoftBank shop. Which is bad because I already have a bonus point card (with some bonus points!) in BicCamera; now I have a Yodobashi point card as well. (You get points on the point card by - what else - purchasing things, and then you can spend them on your next purchases as discounts). However, it seems I got off lightly - some people I talked to later said they took over 3 hours on a SoftBank chair. However, it seems they managed to find some weird discount that I missed (which apparently involves signing up for a more expensive plan, then canceling it by receiving a call in Japanese).

So that's it for today. I still have some bread left over from yesterday (bought 6 rather delicious slices for ¥350 or so, quite a bargain), one pack of natto to go with it, and there's still a bit of Pocari Sweat. I should be fine for today. And tomorrow... I don't know. See Shinjuku and Harajuku, maybe. Get a metro day pass, maybe. Maybe even go see some temples or sights or something. Dunno. If my feet stop hurting that much. If not, I guess I can space out in the common room watching cooking shows (which is what is almost always on telly).

Oh, one more thing: Mac rocks. A guy with another Mac came to the common room (the 3-hour-keitai one), and all the cables were taken (one of which by yours truly). It took about one minute to enable internet sharing on my machine and for him to connect to it, neither of us having done it before. Take that, Bill Gates!

Skype is installed, but I won't be using it till I'm in my own room. I did not buy a headset (Moniq should note here it's a perfect place to use the explicative construction). Also, by virtue of having a keitai, I can now be reached by email wherever I am (in theory at least, I haven't tested it yet, and there's also some setting up to do to make it even easier - for me, at least). The interested ones may ask me in a private email, please - I'm not naming any names here.

Except for Bill Gates, obviously.

See you soon, dear readers.

Welcome to the Office!

I managed to get to the konbini in time. Got a toothbrush that looks like it was designed for a tooth fairy, a tube of toothpaste that looks like it's made for her kid, a bottle of body shampoo and hair shampoo, both of which designed for stinky giants (well, they got some products right, at least), and a nikuman, which was designed just right for me. Yummy.

Went back home, grabbed a used blanket from the "I don't need it any more" pile, and crashed again. Some time in the middle of the night, my jetlag decided it was a good time for me to try out my shiny new dijikame. It's cute, but some options will have to wait till I can get a nice English manual. Then i fidgeted some more, slept some more, fidgeted again, and decided it's gotta be late already on the account of birds singing and sun shining, so I threw on some clothes and went to pick up my suitcase which had arrived while I was having fun spending money in Shibuya last night. In the end, I was grateful noone went katana-tonic on my ass for showering at 6 in the morning.

So, I wasted some more time lounging about, I ate some cold frankfurter soba, and went out. Frankfurter soba was not as bad as it seemed it might be, but nothing to write home about. And yet I did. How funny is that? Oh, and I drank a can of Calpis Soda. I decided I liked Calpis Soda quite a bit.

I was supposed to make an appearance in both my intended faculty, and in my research lab. So I thought going in the morning would prove advantageous. However, enter Shibuya, yet again. I wasted some three hours grabbing lunch (350-yen mountain veggie udon), chatting with the two udonya obaasans, changing my mind a lot, getting a map of Tokyo from a bookstore (damn the books in English are expensive! Algoritam, I take it back...), crossing the intersection about 6 times, trying and failing to buy a keitai, and finally getting repeatedly lost in Shibuya station. Once I managed to find the bloody Ginza line, it went quite smoothly, and I made my belated appearance at my faculty-to-be (FTB, for short). It was not really belated, because I could have come any time I wanted to (it's still the arrival week, noone expects anything serious, and even if, jetlag is a great excuse). Then the lab, where I met lots of people not wearing shoes. The lab fellows are a truly international bunch, we got Swedes, Koreans, Chinese, a Croatian, a Finn, apparently, and half a dozen (or a full one?) of other nationalities I can't remember just now. I'm pretty sure Ruben is not Chinese.

A researcher brought cookies which had nothing to do with her having had her birthday on Tuesday. They were... yummy as well. Like princess donuts. How do you even say that in English? "Princess donuts" somehow does not sound quite right.

I'm going home now. But I fear Shibuya will again stand in my way. The things girls jailbait wears in Shibuya...

AT (for "afterthought", "post scriptum" just does not work here): What's up with those oversized boots?

AT2: My wallet is scared. I spent so much just in 2 days...

Japan: the Beginning

I stink.

This little fact comes first just because it's been on my mind all day.

Let me rewind for just a bit, and make a proper intro. This is my travel blog, where I blog about different places I travel to. And I meant different - if I wanted to say "various", I would have done so. The first episode was Syria, some years ago. Nothing interesting happened in the meantime. This time, I'm in Japan. I got a scholarship to come here and stay for a spell, and I accepted. Today is still the same day that I landed on Narita Airport, one of two airports that service Tokyo. But don't be misled into thinking that it's a Tokyo airport - it takes about an hour with a fast train to get to the city. And you pass a lot of cities on the way.

The flight, including the transfer time, took from 9 am to 8 am, which comes down to about 16 hours. Then there's an hour of monkeying about the airport, waiting for your luggage (actually, waiting for a friend's luggage - I spotted mine the moment I walked up to the baggage snail, err, train), waiting in lines, doing paperwork...

Doing paperwork is extremely important in Japan, as I will discover... Make that "As I have discovered, and you are about to.". (I'm a programmer, I'm allowed to have two periods. (Don't quote this out of context.)) But the highlight of the airport experience was a guy whose job was, when a lot of people came to the immigration queue at the same time, to hold up a paper saying "The End of the Line" at the end of the line.

Having reached Tokyo, I followed instructions, and got a cab to my school. There I met my tutor, who took care of me for the better part of the day (which was mostly spent doing district office paperwork, post office paperwork, dormitory paperwork, insurance paperwork, and probably couple of other paperworks I forgot about). He was great and I'd never have managed without him. He speaks English.

In the process, we passed Shibuya couple of times. The intersection is really as amazing in real life as people tell you it is. And the Tokyo transport system is even more confusing than I imagined. I think I will have to take courses.

Speaking of which, I will have orientation courses. And I was told last year there was actually a course in how to get to the campus. Held on the campus. One month after the classes have started. My guide said that kind of thing is rather normal.

We also went to BicCamera, but I was too indecisive about my keitai. Their mobile phones are bloody huge, the smallest among them would be about the size of the biggest brick back home. I kid you not. You know, back where I used to live, people put their earpiece to their ears, and stretched their mouthpiece toward their mouths, and there would still be another unspannable two inches? Well, there's a two-inch gap here as well - but in the other direction. Anyway, I didn't yet get it, but I think I'll get a cheap one, that kind of reminds me of the Apple design. And it doesn't flip, pop, snap, or make any other hip-hoppy action. It's huge. But at least it's slender.

Unlike me. If you know me, you know I have a couple of grams extra (with "couple" being a metasyntactic variable, here meaning "four thousands or so). I'm a giant here :) But not as big I thought I would be. Not all Japanese are tiny, contrary to what you might have heard.

Anyway. In the afternoon, I crashed in my room. My room is some 13 spartan square meters large, and I guess I'm not getting an iMac as I thought, simply because it will not fit. I will elaborate graphically, once my camera is up and running.

It was a real dilemma: crash or shower. In the end, crashing won, by virtue of there being no soap or shampoo or towel to be found. (My luggage is still in transit, I hope it will arrive by the time I'm back from Manga Kissa...) But not by a large margin, as there was no bedding either. So, one short doze on a 2.5-inch mattress, I decided to check a) what time it was (8pm), b) what's up with my suitcase (nothing much), and c) if I can buy some basic toiletries, maybe even breakfast. So I went out, and then decided I want to get a camera ASAP (even while not quite knowing which computer I'm going to get), then I went to find a net cafe. Which is where you find me now, my devoted readers (I know it's only the first installment, but it's gotten a bit large, kind of to the point I recognise true dedication in those who managed not to quit by now).

So, I did buy a camera. In the end, I decided against Sony, but it took multiple arguments to sway me (no Mac support, no English translation, no standards...), and even that with difficulty. So I'm now a proud owner of Olympus 1060. Or I hope I am. I.e. I would love to still be a proud owner once I understand what it is precisely that I have bought. But it looked nice on the shelf.

Anyway, I'm off. I need to catch a konbini in the next 36 minutes, or my shower will wait another smelly day.