No Maps for These Territories

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.