No Maps for These Territories

Every year in San Francisco, a bunch of really crazy bastards go up for Bay to Breakers, which is theoretically a race, but more like an excuse for thousands of people to dress up like it’s Halloween, and drink a lot.

I’ve never gone before because I have to wake up at 5am in order to get up there in time, but I figured that I’d man up this year and go for it.

Our crew went dressed as Wizards, which involves a robe of some sort, a wizard hat, and a wizard’s staff.  You have to earn your staff by drinking beers, and duct taping them to the bottom of your next beer.  Each new beer is “leveling up”, because we’re a bunch of huge nerds.

This is the view at Caltrain at 6:30am.  A bunch of college kids, already drunk and dressed up.

I’m level 1!  And it’s not even 7am yet!

The caltrain station again.  Lots and lots of neon and buttcheeks.

Oompa loompas!

Yuzo and Nina, as Yuzo beards up.

The race hasn’t started, and the wizards are already level 4.

I’m trying my best to catch up.  Look at those sexy wizards.

The construction workers don’t quite know what to think of us.

That’s not where the beard goes!

Colored hair and leopard prints abound.

Green man!  I was so happy to see a Sunny in Philadelphia fan.  Best show ever.

Oh yeah, and lots of people just go straight up naked.

This dude was a hero.  Walking all by himself with a shopping bag, in his tidy whities.

Is that the Death Star?  I can’t tell.

Grover!

Leveling up continues.

The lifeguard party float.

Wizards stop for a bathroom break at someone’s house.  I’m not sure whose.  They didn’t seem to mind TOO much.

I think this dude stole those girls’ slip.

Yuzo reaches level five!  Ding!

The tiki bar float was popular.

Look at all those PEOPLE.  It stretches as far as the eye can see.

Range in a mumu.  They should have sent a poet.

Level…. uhh… not sure.

The camera cannot contain our staffs!

Awww, man hug.

The wizards cast magical spells of plant watering.

She’s ready for the flood with her floaties.

Awesome robot costumes.

It’s hard to see, but these guys were dressed as Mario Kart characters, and they even had their own karts!  One of my favorite costumes of the day.

British cops?

Oh, hello, angels.  I like your outfits.

Now this cracked me up.  Impromptu PORT A POTTY PARTY!  Aww yeah!

I love that people were using the port a potties while people danced above them.

I may have forgotten to apply quite enough sunscreen to my arms.  Whoops.

All in all, that was a hell of a party.  I’m definitely going back next year.  You should join us, we could always use more wizards.

Adrienne went off to nerd out in Yuzawaya, which is a massive craft area in Kamata.  I went my own way, to nerd out at Akihabara and Nakano Broadway.  It’s nearing the end of the trip, I need more time in my nerd havens!  Much of this has been photographed already, so there’s not as many shots.

I thought this was interesting because it perfectly illustrates the Japanese workday.  Notice what times have the most trains?  The ones where you work at 12 hour day.  Ouch.

They loooove their translation machines in Japan.  Every one of these is for either dictionaries or Japanese-English translations.

Oh so very many Godzilla toys.  Yodobashi Camera is fun.

And boy do they love their collectable cards!

I so very badly wanted to buy a shitload of these, but I knew they’d just sit around my desk forever.  They’re 8-bit colored pegs that you stick to a surface and make your favorite characters.

Bags and bags of different colored pegs.

Outside Yodobashi camera is a massive no smoking section of sidewalk.  However, since there aren’t any OTHER places nearby to smoke, it works exactly the opposite, so you end up with dozens of dudes in suits, gathered around No Smoking signs, smoking like crazy.

No trip to Yodobashi Camera is complete without a stop to my favorite ramen shop in Akihabara!  SOOOO GOOD.  Don’t look away or I’ll…

Eat the whole thing in one swallow.

Here’s the joint if you want to check it out sometime.  8th floor, Yodobashi Camera, Akihabara.  Chabuton, the ramen heaven.  I miss you so!

Beat ass machine selling tickets, dudes slurping soup.  That’s what it’s all about.

Yeay, Akihabara!  I bid you farewell, and head to Nakano, because I want more useless crap to stick on my man bag.

Ah hah, there it is!  Walls of useless crap that makes video game sounds!  Hurray!

The flavors of popcorn available in this machine are “choco, barbecue, and butter”.  I was very tempted to try barbeque.  Only 100 yen!

Nakano Broadway is freaking awesome.  Look at all those shops full of toys.

Later that night we went out for dinner at High Noon Cafe in Ontakesan.  They don’t have an english menu, so Adrienne and I puzzled over the hiragana and katakana for like 10 minutes before we could figure out how to order.  They specialize in “Americana” type food.  This burger was quite delicious and as big as my head.

YEAY!  Life sized beer cans!  Complete with fake foam!

Adrienne strikes a (slightly) more dignified pose.

Welcome…  to the cavern of the BEER GODS.

They had paintings illustrating that women have been getting men drunk on beer and taking advantage of them for at least 100 years in Japan.

The essential ingredients of beer, being held in some sort of bizarre kryptonite-based prison.

Back when Egyptians discovered beer, they would get shitfaced and have to carry each other home.  Apparently.  I can’t read kanji.

Here’s my favorite part!  The tasting room!

Of course, since it’s Japan, that means that tastings are done by getting a ticket out of a machine.  Adrienne and I decided to go for the sampler.

Who knew that Sapporo made red ale and a wheet beer?

Nom!

Whoops, Adrienne may have had too many tiny beers.

Yes, that’s beer-based jello.

Lots of it.

Next, we headed off to Harajuku to check out the shopping areas, and because Adrienne wanted to see the legendary 4-story tall 100-yen Daiso.

Seriously, what is this product?  A fake swan head that you can attach to your daughter’s elegant ballerina outfit..  while a perverted child molester behind her pretends that the swan head is his phallus.  I’m so confused.  At least it’s only 100 yen.

What a tasty looking almond and dried fish snack mix!

Want to go green?  Stop using power, and shred those papers by HAND, Nancy!

Sadly, trucker hats have made their way from the douchebags of the US to the douchebags of Japan.  Everywhere you look, there’s huge trucker hats with complete nonsense on them in english.  Like this one, stating “You are the one.  All I need is you.  It goes to meet.  SO GREAT.”

Please do not fornicate on the ashtray.

Or on the package of band-aids?

Pink Latte is a store in Harajuku that is ALL PINK.  With the body of a pink airplane inside the store.  Full of pink goods.

Later that night, when Adrienne hit the sack, I headed to Shibuya Kaikan, which is a legendary 50-yen arcade.  And MAN was it awesome.  It ended up being six stories of gaming goodness, every floor having a different game theme.

The outside of Shibuya Kaikan.

Lots and lots of Gundam fighting games.

I believe these were for playing majjong, but I mostly wanted to show how comfortable they looked.  Big fat ass leather chairs, and an ashtray.  What more do you need?

The rhythm section was nearly empty, much to my delight.  I ran around and tried nearly every one of these games, some of them were brand new and not in the US yet.

Like this one, where you need to touch the colored squares as soon as they light up, to music.  It’s pretty neat.

Pop’n.  This shows the audience perfectly, solitary otaku, and schoolgirls.

Halflife 2, the arcade game?  Whaaa?

Here’s the retro room.  Look at those awesome old games!  Mario in a cabinet!!

See you guys later, I gotta go play some Bubble Bobble, baby.

This is a day I was excited for the whole trip.  The Studio Ghibli Museum!  If you haven’t seen the Studio Ghibli films, you’re missing out.  Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke… all animated and fantastic.  It’s been called the Disney of Japan, but I think it’s much, much more than that.  The museum is a bit tough to get tickets for, they only sell them at Lawsons, and the machines only work in Japanese.  I convinced a clerk to buy the tickets for me, which he was very gracious about, and we headed out to Mitaka, a short train ride from Shinjuku.

It’s a very cool little town.

They even have their own bus that goes right from the station to Ghibli!

Just look at this place.  It was built with the sense of wonder of all of Miyazaki’s films.  Moss and vines, tunnels and secrets, huge robots and spiral staircases.

Totoro mans the admission booth.

Aww.

It’s hard to describe how magical the place is, I’ll let my pictures speak for themselves in some cases.

This is the inside.   Large walkways crisscross the interior, and you’re encouraged to just explore.  There’s no guides, no correct path, and very few signs.

Kids should wash their hands before eating, of course.  Everything is built to encourage kids to be empowered and help themselves.

All the custom made stained glass has characters from the movies!  How cool is that?  Here’s a forest spirit from Mononoke.

A spiral staircase inside, where kids can go up three floors.

A massive atrium and fan.

Little kids playing on a massive stuffed cat bus!

Outside benches with built in noisemakers.

Crazy steampunk water fountain.

I want one at home.

Iron Giant has a bit of moss growing on him.

Cats watch you from the windows.

A working well…

With a man on the other side, ready to suck up the water.

More eyeballs!

Then we headed back to the hotel, before heading out to the Park Hyatt, where I wanted to check out the bar from Lost in Translation.  The view from our hotel room.

The bar was fantastic, live jazz music, and a view to kill for.

I tried to get some pictures, but I couldn’t really do it justice.

And finally, as we walked around the neighborhood after the bar, in search of donuts, I found a great sign outside a bar.  I think we’ve all been there before.

I wanted to show Adrienne the area of Shinjuku that I had stayed in before she arrived, so we headed back into the city to stay in the same hotel I’d scoped out with the guys.  But first, breakfast!

This is a bento available from the bento shop in Ontakesan.  Note that for less than $4, you can have a complete, delicious, healthy meal.  Green beans, squash, salmon, egg, and rice.  The bentos from this place were phenomenal.  I’d kill for a place like this back home.

Rice hidden underneath the bento.

The shop in Ontakesan where they roast coffee to order.

Pimp your PSP!

There’s an absolutely amazing tonkatsu place in Shinjuku that Yuzo had shown me, where I needed to take Adrienne.  They have people walking around with baskets of pickles and cabbage to refill your plate, and you grind your own sesame seeds for the sauce.

Every department store in Japan has a basement completely full of delicious foods and desserts.

Look at all that tasty goodness.

This place did all kimchee and pickles.

A very cool tea store.

And of course, dessert cakes.

And pastries.

There’s a store called Ranking Ranqueen that cracks me up.  Every week, they have the top 3 products in a million different categories for sale.  That’s all they do, an aggregation of the top selling products in Japan.  Here’s the best selling milk coffees, teas, and lemon drinks.

Best selling snacks of every possible category.

Adrienne was tempted to make off with the whole rack.

The best selling bubble baths, based on your blood type!

Note that the best selling headphones look like M&Ms.

Best selling matchbooks have cat prints on them??

It was pouring rain that night, Adrienne went to sleep, but I went out to wander the streets of Shinjuku.

I had to stop at my favorite Indian joint.  This place is run by one single guy, and is open til 5am.  He cooks some of the tastiest curries and rice you’ll ever have, for a couple hundred yen.  I chatted him up for a bit, and he says that the company that runs the restaurant flew him from India, pays for all his meals, lodging, insurance, and pays $30k a year on top of that.  Pretty sweet gig.

And that’s a good end to the evening.

When Adrienne arrived, we moved from the hotel in Shinjuku out into the more rural area, near the Ontakesan metro stop.  A family friend let us stay in their guest apartment, which was amazingly generous of them.  They even made us salads from their house garden.  I’ve never been treated better by a host family.

Adrienne and me in the new digs, having breakfast.

We headed out to Ginza, which is home to Ito-ya, the world’s most amazing pen/paper/notebook/art supply store.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Nine stories tall, every floor full of things that I wanted.  Granted, I’m a huge nerd for pens and notebooks, and the Japanese sure know how to do it.

I would like one of each of these notebooks, please.

This housekeeping book cracked me up.  How could housework not be fun with that big smiley face?

A dating notebook for Adrienne, after I’m hit by a truck.

Hand made sheets of paper.

Beautiful brushes for me to practice my non-existant kanji writing skills.

Would you like some colored pencils?  That’s not enough for you?

How about this?

Every one of these was a regular pencil, of differing widths and lead thicknesses.

Afterward we headed to Cafe Doutor to grab some coffee and people watch.

Next…  grilled meat!  We went to a restaurant with Range, where they dump a bunch of hot coals in the middle of your table, and you’re able to grill meat to your heart’s content.  One of the best things about Japan is the “shared cooking” experience, whether it be okonomiyake, teppanyaki, nabe..  a couple beers, a central cooking area, and good friends, and the night is perfect.

On goes the meat!

Range tends the grill.

After dinner and Adrienne going to bed, I got up and walked around Ontakesan at night.  I love taking night walks.  Here’s the train station at Ontakesan.

Just me and the station attendant.

This bar is quite proud of its empties.

Ah, a shrine in the middle of a crowded street.  Let’s go check it out, shall we?

Water for cleansing yourself before you head over..

Today we head out to check out Yoyogi park, right next to Harajuku, which is infamous for having greasers dancing, and people dressing up and having a blast, every Sunday.   People come out and picnic, dance around, get drunk, and people watch.  I’ve seen videos of the guys dressing as 50’s greasers for years, and I always wanted to see it in person.  I wasn’t disappointed!

Adrienne poses with her onigiri breakfast at the famous bridge, which fills up quickly with cosplayers.

We accidentally headed into the shrine section of the park first, which was a lucky accident.  There’s all sorts of gorgeous stuff in there, including a massive wall of sake casks.

Adrienne, after tapping a few casks.

We should have known we were in the wrong place, this park was far too quiet!

Ah, now there’s the crazy stuff.  Under a bridge, a whole bunch of guys were playing music and doing choreographed drum playing.

Also, it just happened to be Earth Day.  Whoops.  We looked at the fairgrounds, but decided we could get enough of that back in San Francisco, and headed back in search of greasers.

Found them!

These guys were heroes, it was a hot day, and half of them were wearing leather pants.  If you want to see some videos of them in action, we did a Noobtoob video about it.

I think this guy was the king of the greasers, he had by far the largest hair.

These guys had a different take on the 1950’s, they had poodle skirts and colored jackets, and they were doing the Hop, and lots of other group dances.  This circle was really fun to watch.

We started calling this look “host hair”.  It’s like emo on crack.  All the guys who work at host bars, which means that they entertain women and con them into buying overpriced drinks in exchange for company, have this hair.  It’s surprisingly popular, despite its silliness.

Some of the people dressed up on the bridge in Harajuku went all out.

Including this guy.  I have NO idea what he was supposed to be, but he still haunts my dreams.

Afterwards we stopped in at Tokyu Hands, a six floor department store that has everything you never wanted.  Including washcloth gloves with little animals on them!

Next, off to Ikebukero for italian food.  We were a bit skeptical, but Toshi promised us that it would be delicious.  And it was really quite awesome.

Crazy couple of days here in Tokyo!  Range and I found some great indian food in Shinjuku (thanks to a recommendation by Yuzo), and all of us went to check out Namjatown in Ikebukuro, which is a themed park owned by Namco, the gaming company.  Inside it is Gyoza Stadium, which is  bunch of shops selling gyoza (a japanese dumpling with meat in it).

The inside of that place is totally crazy.  I wish I had been able to go to something that cool when I was growing up, it was like Chuck E Cheese times 100.

Range enjoys his indian feast.

Our new friends in a pub in Shinjuku.  We went to the Hub, and Range tried really hard to practice Japanese on the folks we met there.

I tried to be all Japanese, but she was throwing up the horns.  I got owned!

Salarymen will seriously pass out anywhere.  This is in Mos Burger.

Rough night.

NO PUDDING NO LIFE, SON.

Here we are in Gyoza Stadium.  Lots of little shops selling all sorts of different gyoza, all delicious.

This joint was packed.  We had to fight our way up to each booth to taste the offerings.

Adrienne snags a seat.

These gyoza were amazing, you squeeze some lime juice on them, and it’s like heaven in your mouth.

Inside Namjatown there’s a store selling the weirdest flavored ice cream you’ll ever see.  This one is flavored like edamame (soy beans)

Dracula ice cream is flavored like garlic, of course.

Curry ice cream?

Snake ice cream??  I was going to buy this to make Range taste it, but it was $10 for a little bowl.  It’s funny, but not $10 funny.

Octopus ice cream.

I can only imagine this one was shark fin ice cream.  On earth day, no less!

This ice cream cone was so ridiculous that we had to buy it.  Not only did it have cookies and marshmallows, but it had another smaller ice cream cone EMBEDDED in it!

Range and Adrienne on a sugar rush.

I would just like to remind you that these boob puddings are being sold at a theme park for little children.

What appears to be a bowl of ramen is actually a bowl of ice cream, made to look like ramen.

We found a pet store in Ikebukuro where you can pay $10 to go sit in a room full of cats and pet them.  We didn’t feel like paying, but I saw these insanely cute little guys sleeping on each other.

What cat lady outfit is complete without a red leather purse, shaped like a cat?

On day 14, Yuzo and Range finally convinced me to move out of the hostel, and try somewhere better.  I don’t blame them.  Living ghetto is fun for a bit, but then you start wishing you could sleep without being able to hear every eurotrash fart and overly aggressive cleaning woman smashing cans at 7am.  Yuzo found the Oakwood Apartments in Shinjuku for only $110 a night, and DAMN was it worth it.

My last view of the hostel.  A baggie of found underwear.

A guy passed the hell out at work.  This guy would wake up, answer the phone, and then go back to sleep.

My new private bathroom in the hotel.  Oh yeah, private bathroom with Japanese style tub.

And a private kitchen with…

My own rice maker!

My own washer and drier!

A super comfy bed, with a view of the city!

Kitchen even came fully stocked with dishes and beer mugs.

Coffee maker, toaster, and hot water heater.  This may seem mundane to you, but look back at the hostel we were staying in.  It was like dying and going to heaven.  It’s probably the nicest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in, in terms of comfort and convenience.

Later that day, Yuzo and I hit up Nakano Broadway, which is this insane three floor explosion of nerdy collectables.  There are stores stocked top to bottom with the craziest new and old stuff.  Here’s a John McClane action figure from DIE HARD.  I nearly bought it.

Kick ass diorama of the sand worm attacking the Millenium Falcon.

Lots of super old school Star Wars action figures from the 70’s.

Aww yeah, Labyrinth action figure.  Probably complete with Bowie junk.

Are you a bust man?

Or a hip man?

Or an impossibly proportioned man?

My booty from the grocery store.  I cooked up some fried eggs, washed it down with some beer, and had a nice glass of OJ in the morning.

The insanely cool view out of my hotel window.  Good night.