No Maps for These Territories

Today Yuzo and I check out Don Quixote, a CRAZY eight story building that has every imaginable good and then some.  Then we head out for monja-yaki for dinner, which I’ve not only never had before, but I’ve never even heard of.

Here’s my only bit of life in the hostel room.  I bought a plant, and I put him in my empty one cup sake.  It makes my tiny crappy room a little homier.

For lunch Yuzo grabs a hamburger in mystery sauce.

I go for hamburger with omrice, better known as scrambled eggs with ketchup.

The Japanese will seriously put a hot dog in ANYTHING.  Even a goddamn taco.

Hand made onigiri on the streets of Akihabara.  Very cool.  You pick what you want in it, and they make it to order.

This is a game where you put in money and try to grab piles of rocks.  Seriously.  It’s a game where the only prize is a fistful of small useless stones.

Yum, that’s octopus jerky skewers in Don Quixote.

This curry is very cheerful.  And encouraging.

Neon Genesis Evangelion themed ramen in a UFO machine.  Neeeeeeeerdy.

Bondage themed dongles for your cell phone.  I’m sure your boss will appreciate that one.  Or your girlfriend.  Oh wait, you don’t have one if you have one of these.

Kurt Cobain action figure??

Kevin and Range drink like women.

Monja is crazy.  It’s cheese, mochi (rice paste), and veggies and other ingredients like fish eggs, corn, meat, you name it.  You throw it all on a grill until it’s firm, and then you scrape it off in little bites and eat it.  It looks like vomit and tastes like heaven.

Here’s the start of monja.

And the frightening end result.

Delicious!

The monja crew!

Magical floating noodles on the streets of Ueno.

We have all decided that shochu is freaking disgusting and should never be drunk by anyone for any reason.  Stick to sake.

Good night.

For the full album, go here.  Today we’re off to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama, which is this amazing Disneyworld for ramen.  You get to walk around 1950′s era-Japan with lots of little shops that sell ramen from every area of Japan, and see all the different ways it can be made.  Afterwards we head over to Shibuya to check out the famous intersection, and then get food and do some karaoke.

Range finds his soul mates in the rail workers in Japan, who also like to pose with their fists up.

Kevin shares music with a Swedish girl we met in the hostel on the train.

I would call this stealth beer, but Range is 10 feet taller than anyone else here, so nothing he does is very stealthy.

Yuzo throws up some gang signs with Rob from Amsterdam.

Very cool little cafe with a waterfall behind it, in Yokohama.

Who was that masked man?

The inside of the Ramen museum.

NOM.

Our happy little ramen crew.

The map of all the different areas you can try the ramen from.

Here in Shibuya, there’s a famous intersection that becomes chaos every time the light changes.  On your mark, get, set…

Go!

Yuzo and me in downtown Shibuya on the way to dinner.

Augh!  So many lights!

Hurray, izakaya!  Hurray, beer!

Yuki was so excited by the cheese on the menu.

Our amazing karaoke booth.  Looks down right over downtown with a huge bay window.

The homeless here like to build cardboard forts to sleep in.  It’s all very neat and tidy, and at the end of the night, the streets are littered with forts in every doorway.  For some reason they prefer the main streets to the alleys, even though it’s much louder and they’re not begging for money.

Full album is here.   Prepare yourself for some food porn.  Yuzo’s brother in law, Toshi, took us out for some kick ass izakaya food in Shinjuku.   Course after course of small dishes, plenty of beer, and great company.

Plates of snacks, and an unfortunate look on Kevin’s face.

Range digs into the only salad we’ve seen in Japan so far.

Toshi illustrates some sort of undoubtedly erudite point.

Good times.

Here’s the bowl before we cooked it.  We lit the gas burner beneath this cauldron of meat, tofu and veggies, and sat back to let it cook for 20 minutes or so.

The final result.  Oh man was that delicious.  Once you eat the food, you toss in a big bowl of rice to soak up the sauce.

My favorite genre of food, breaded meat.

Beat the egg, mix it into the leftover sauce, and then add rice.  Not sure what it’s called but it’s heaven.

Range tackles two beers at once.  Like a true champion.

Afterwards, we went on a bar hunt, and found Bar Hermit.  They wanted a seating charge, so we moved on, but not before I got some great pics.

This bar apparently always closes three hours into the future, tomorrow.

Truer words were never spoken.

After the pub, we did what all worthless delinquents do, drink on the street and play guitar.

Rob showed us how to look like a true Japanese local.  At any time, a huge number of Japanese people are wearing these masks either to a) protect others from their colds, b) protect themselves from others colds, or c) protect themselves from allergies.

Range, wooing the sexy homeless men in the street.

Short picture day today.  Working again with Range and Yuzo in Shinjuku.  Pretty much just worked all day, got some ramen, came home at night and hung out in the Beer and Coffee pub down the street.

Corner ramen joint in Shinjuku.  I love that you sit about two feet from where they make your dish, and watch them toss in the miso ball, and cook the noodles and what not.

Preparing the happy.

Yuzo and Range drinking a cold one and waiting.

Look at that.  Perfect little egg, pile of pork, delicious broth.  I love ramen more than a fat kid loves cake.

Victory.

This is the hand drier at work.  There’s absolutely no paper towels anywhere in Japan, either they expect you to have a handkerchief and dry your own hands, or they provide one of these high tech bastards to blow the water off your hands into the trough below.

The japanese-style toilet at work.

That button on the right does exactly what you think it does.  High pressure bum blasting.  Still haven’t tried it. 

Our new friends from the hostel.  Rob is on the left and unable to make a normal face at any time.

As you can see here.  Also, Swedish people are apparently beer thieves.

Rob with his handy reference material.  So far, I don’t think it’s working out too well though.

Yeay my first omrice!

Crazy vacuum-and-boiling water powered coffee maker.

This might be the coolest table I’ve ever seen.  You walk over the middle part to get through it.

Dinner in akihabara.  I’m not sure what this style of meal is called but it’s genius.

They give you a hot plate with meat and rice on it, and you cook the meat on the plate, and then cover the rice with different sauces, spicy and savory, and mix it all together.

The crew is happy.

The end result, moments before it entered my belly.

A driving range on the 9th floor of Odobashi Camera.  Freaking sweet.

The ultimate weapon?  A train that transforms into a robot with another train inside it.  What?

You can cut carrots into the shape of Winnie the Pooh for your lunch!  Complete with eyes.

What the hell time is it?  IT’S GUN O’CLOCK SUCKA!

A toy where you get the pleasure of popping soy beans out of their shell, over and over.  See the guy’s tears of joy?

If that doesn’t do it for you, how about a game where you pop bubble wrap?

A really cool building in Akihabara, which is pretty much a gerbil tube for humans.

The number of middle aged men hunched over tiny child-sized pokemon games is truly surreal.  Pictures in arcades are illegal, so I took this at great personal risk.

Okay, this is fucked up.  These guys who play a video game called Idol Master, where you train young girls to dance in girl bands, also have notebooks at every arcade, where they can write daily notes about their gameplay.

They leave notes and draw pictures of their girls.

If anyone can translate any of this for me, I will be your best friend forever.  What kind of stuff would you write in a daily journal about your fake girl band?

For the full album go here.  Day 6 is our first day at work, so the pictures decrease in number.  Not much excitement sitting at a desk writing code.    Still, we had some good food and met up with Elisa for overpriced pints in Ginza, so it’s not all boring!

Breakfast of champions.  I LOVE salmon onigiri.  It’s salmon, in a rice triangle, wrapped in a crunch seaweed wrapper.  It’s the perfect meal.  I’ve been eating a lot of them since we got here.  Also, they’re like 100 yen.

NOM NOM NOM.

This seriously appears to be some sort of sweet muffins in a can.  Very tempted to get one.

And this is an UMBRELLA vending machine.  Screw getting caught in the rain when you can grab a vending machine umbrella for $4!  There’s also a fancy pants nicer umbrella in there if you’re feeling like a big spender.

There’s a delicious ramen joint upstairs in Yodobashi camera in Akihabara.  You get a bowl of ramen plus a whole plate of extra fixins to dump in there.

My pint is a lot bigger than Yuzo’s.  Not sure if you can see that.

Elisa met us for drinks at a fake British pub.  We were all amused until we saw that they wanted $14 for a pint of beer.  Whoops.  Damn Ginza.

The crew chilling at the pub.

Kevin illustrating how the camera brings out all 10 of his chins.

We finished our pints and headed out for the night.  Thanks for coming out, Elisa!

For the full album go here.  I got food poisoning so I had to sleep late, but the guys went out to Kawasaki for the fertility..  er, cock festival.  I’ll have to get some pictures from Kevin for that.

Kawasaki.

Games are everywhere.  I love it.

Not content with one cup. they invented…  JUMBO ONE CUP.

The temple at Kawasaki.

Unbelievably gorgeous.

The crew at the temple.

Temple cat keeps evil spirits from emerging from the pit of despair.

Everyone grabbed a cup of water before heading into the temple.

Buddhist cemetary.

Beware gaijin who like to steal bags!  Yuzo wasn’t able to get away.

If you can explain this, I’ll give you a dollar.

This dude had a very weird jacket.

Graffiti in the japanese-style toilet.  Not on the walls, but the handlebars.

It’s a tip toilet!  The green money slots actually thanked you for tipping.

Furries?  Kind of?

Harajuku was freaking crazy.  Walking anywhere was almost impossible.

Awww, so cute.

Pink latte is very, very pink.

My ducks.  Store them.  Harajuku has lots of very weird signage.

Including this one.  I’ll take pictures of whatever I want, thank you very much.

These slippers freaking rule.

Engrish is always fun.

I like spending time with my favorite goods too.  This stuff is all from a 100 yen shop.

I bought this plant for my room.  I put it in a one cup.  I’ll get pics later.

I think Richard is actually Bistro Bear.  He is cleverly refined, and very stylish and kind.

This ad for a rat trap cracked me up.

Greetings from the future.  This is me in Shinjuku, waiting for the train home.

Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara is the greatest nerd store ever.  Yes, that’s a girl dressed as a maid, selling laptops.

Nine floors of nerdy goodness.

These are ALL models.  Gundams, trains, you name it.

Doesn’t everyone need one of these for their coffee table?

More aisles of models.

Look at all these DS games that will never make it to the US.

Goddamnit.  I want to play the Professor Layton sequel so badly.  I wish I could read Kanji.

The video game section of Yodobashi Camera

SO MANY CAPSULE MACHINES.

These “kid” games crack me up.  No one plays them except squatting adults.

Tamagotchi is alive and well here, but they never seem to make it to the US.

What do you need a model of an ass for?  Just to caress when you feel lonely?

These are the coolest things in the whole world.  Keychains that play the theme songs for JR train stations.  I bought three of them.  For those of you who don’t know, the JR train station songs are freaking awesome.  They sound like RPGs.

For the full album go here.  Day 4 involves another Hanami outing, this time out in the boonies in Tachikawa, with Yuzo’s brother in law and his friends.  It was awesome to actually get to hang out with people who live in Japan and hear what it’s like, and experience hanami the way it’s supposed to be.  A bunch of drunk people under a cherry blossom tree.  But we started off the day with oden in our neighborhood…

Nom.

Cute oden place about a block from Minami-Senju

Heading back to the station to ride an hour into the wilderness.  And by wilderness I mean endless concrete jungle.

Grocery store along the way.

Animal hospital with big bay windows so you can watch them fixing pets?

Here we are at the festival!  The park out in Tachikawa is huge and spacious, full of fountains and trees and paths.  It took like 20 minutes to walk the length of it from the station.

Look at those cherry blossoms!

We finally reach our spot, and the tarp is already out and ready to go.

All this grub is home made, and fantastic.

All around us are falling petals in the wind.  Hard to capture on film how gorgeous it is.

Damn right a cup of happiness.  Thanks, one cup!

Range is very big.  And this girl is very small.

Chin ups on his big monkey arm!

Ah, racism in Japan.  Blackface is cute!

Is this not the world’s smallest beer?  I bought it and…

Gave it to Range.

Who proceeded to destroy the world.

Good times.

That is a girl drinking Asahi through a “duck mouth” made of Pringles.

Range gets a head band.

Hanging out in the train station.

Dude taking a nap on the train.  A serious nap.

Time for shabu shabu!  If you don’t know, that’s paper thin slices of meat, which you then boil in pots of flavored water.

Very cool shabu shabu pot.

Range likes the pork.

So does Yuzo.

Kevin goes into a happy coma from all the meat.

This is the rest of our crew.  Yuzo’s brother in law TJ and all his friends.

Aussie attack!

And we cap off the evening with a picture of the usual sign insanity.  Mini mini says goodnight to you all!

Full gallery of pics is here.  Today we check out our office for working remotely, and then head off to the famous Hanami (cherry blossom) festival in Ueno for utter chaos!

Hot and spicy noodles down the street from our hostel.  They’re so good, we all ordered them this time.

Kevin and Range chow down on noooodles.

You won’t believe this.  A fishing park in the middle of the city.  They stock it with fish, and you pay to sit and fish in the middle of metropolitan Tokyo.  I’m not sure if you actually get to take home what you catch, or if you have to just toss it back.

I LOVE these machines.  You insert your money, pick your meal, and give the ticket to the people inside.  I believe this comes from the buddhist concept of handling money being “unclean”.  No one inside ever has to touch cash.  And there’s no tipping in Japan, which is wonderful.

Closeup of the front of the happy food machine.

For some reason Japan is obsessed with Krispy Kreme.  Every single franchise has a line like this in the front.  This is the Shinjuku Krispy Kreme.

Our home away from home.  Here’s where we’ll be working.

They even have a game room with a bamboo floor!  Of course, I’ve never seen it in use.  It’s probably completely decorative.  Japanese would feel too weird about gaming during the day while their coworkers are toiling.

The view out the window in Shinjuku.  14th floor baby!

The inside of a coffee machine.  I couldn’t help myself, I’m an engineer.

Here’s the outside.  You can choose your levels of sugar, creme, and coffee strength.  So awesome.

Here’s what every train looks like.  Dead silent, everyone on their cell phone.

Except in our case, it’s Range and me towering above everyone, banging our heads on stuff.

Ah, Ueno.  We’re here for Hanami.  Look at those mountains of trash!  The Japanese do not mess around when they’re out drinking.  They’d been at it for HOURS by the time we arrive.

This is what the parties look like.  Tarps covered with beer, coworkers being forced to dress in maid outfits, everyone drunk as hell and having a blast.

Here’s what everyone is theoretically here for.  No one seemed to be looking at them but me.  Nice cherry blossoms.

Now that’s a lot of one cup sake.

The next few pictures are food porn.  Here’s all the awesome festival food they had available.  Oden…

Corn cobs

Grilled meat on sticks.

Not sure.  Takoyaki?  Dough balls?

Cabbage pancakes?  Okonomiyaki?

But there’s an EGG on it!  I should have tried one.

Aww yeah.  Hanami food.

The crew.

Bags like this were everywhere.  Enough to give every Japanese citizen a full facial flush.

Wow.  A McHotDog.  They should have sent a poet.

Kevin bought Death cigarettes.  Not because he smokes, but because they’re freaking awesome.

After this we all drank at the “Coffee and Beer” cafe down the street with some folks from the hostel from Sweden and Amsterdam.

For the full gallery of pics, see here.

Man, it’s really hard not to fall behind on these posts, the days are so jam packed with action that setting aside time to blog is hard.  But I’m gonna try to stick with it!   Day 2 started off with a trip to Akihabara, where I dragged Kevin and Range, as it is my spiritual home on the planet.  So many nerds and games.  I’ll be going back again to actually PLAY games instead of just doing a drive-by.

Catching the Hibiya line.

Everyone’s got a cell phone, and the trains are completely quiet.  No talking, and no cell phone conversations.  It’s really pretty awesome.  In such a crowded place, the Japanese have taken great lengths to safeguard the precious little time they have to decompress after work.

First thing on the agenda, food.  We pop into a soba noodle joint.

Curry soba.  Fantastically delicious.

Here we are, Akihabara.

A UFO catcher game, where you can win… Ritz crackers.  The game costs about as much as it would cost to just buy the damn things.

I am so totally going to try this Gundam game.  They don’t allow photos in the arcades, so I risked my life and limb to get this one.  Full 180 degree screens, each person gets a pod, and they have screens displaying the games live.

The number of stores just selling analog components like wires and resistors and what not is truly stunning.  Anything you could possibly need is in Akihabara.

This shop sold police batons, stunners, handcuffs, mace, pepper spray, you name it.

The density of stuff for sale is staggering.  Another component shop.  Kevin needed a cable for his camera and was able to find it no problem.

This vending machine will sell you a ticket for hot food, which you then pick up upstairs.

How many Japanese workers does it take to replace a few planters full of flowers?  The answer you’re looking for is four.

The imperial palace is near the Tokyo station is pretty, but disappointing, since it’s all locked off.  This is as close as you can get, everything is blocked off by police.

I ran ahead to get a shot of Kevin and Range towering above the armies of Japanese tourists.

This tonkatsu dinner only cost $8 and was fantastic.  You can get some amazing meals in the Tokyo metro station.

Sadly, these large delicious beers were also $8, which doubled our dinner bill!

Yes, this does appear to be a hot dog wrapped in a tortilla.

The density of the concrete jungle around Ueno station is crazy.  Layers upon layers in every direction.  Escher would be proud.

Poking women’s eyes out with your newspaper is discouraged.

Clorets ICE will punch your bitch ass in the face with its freshness.  PWNED.

We found a beautiful cemetary near our metro stop.  (Menami-senju).  This is on the walk back from the metro to our hostel.

They actually have rags and other scrubbing implements available for you to clean the grave of your loved one.  I found that really touching.

A side street near Minami-senju.

Please note that not ONE of these bikes is locked up.  Not a single one.  Again, a first world nation is one that should be full of adults that don’t steal from each other.  The lack of theft is a constantly mindblowing element of Tokyo, and a kind of depressing one when you think about how long these bikes would last in the US.

That is a four LITER bottle of sake.  That’s what I call the “living under a bridge” size.

The “lots of fried shit” section of the grocery store.  I would like one of everything, please.

Okonomiyaki!  I’ve always wanted to try this.  Our friend Deanna took us out for dinner at her favorite place in Shinjuku.  You get a bunch of meat mixed in with toppings and batter, dump it on a grill, and make a meat pancake.   It was so good my mouth waters just thinking about it.

Kevin tends to his meat pancake.

Ah, Shinjuku.  Absolute wonderful chaos 24/7.  It’s never dark.

The Park Hyatt.  I’ve never in my life been in a place that exuded affluence more.  Everything is subdued and rich.  We went to the 52nd floor to check out the bar made famous in Lost in Translation, but it was a $20 cover charge each to enter, and we decided to pass.  The view from the 40th floor has to be seen to be believed.  I’ll post the videos I took later, I think they came out better than pictures would.

At night the Shinjuku station turns into a homeless shelter of sorts.  Dozens of men (no homeless women?) camp out their spots in cardboard boxes.  Not a single one of them is begging for money or harassing people.  That’s another thing that’s stunning about Tokyo, you never get approached by scammers or panhandlers, everyone just kind of sticks to their own space.

Range passed out sitting up, next to his Japanese twin.

That’s how I like to end my evenings.  Oh one cup sake, how you treat me so well.  I’ve been informed by my new Japanese friends that one cup is the equivalent of Mad Dog here, it’s kind of a homeless sort of drink.  I still don’t care, it’s my sweet mistress.