Studio Jiburi

Today we finally managed to make it to the Studio Ghibli museum, which, despite being a Japanese animation studio, is pronounced, "Jiburi."

Starting our morning off we ate a very healthy breakfast, composed of orange juice and donuts from a place known as, "NY Donut Plant." Let me assure you, if there was such a thing as a, "donut plant," then I would have already discovered it, placed many in my back yard, and would be working to secure my stay at home donut shop dreams that I've always longed for.

With a great supply of refined sugar energy we were off on the local Chuo Line headed towards Mitaka, only to transfer onto a local community bus which had the capacity to shuttle six whole oompa loompas at a time.

From the small bus we were taken to the small museum. Now, it was only ten dollars so I guess I shouldn't complain, but for some odd reason I figured that it would be larger. I would love to show you just how small the insides were, but guess what? You guessed it (or didn't) - you can't take pictures inside of the building.

Hayao Miyazaki, the founder of the studio, and the museum, decided that he wanted to create a magical place that would be experience with ones eyes, instead of through the lens of a camera. I guess that's his right, but I would have rather had some proof of being inside, you know, in case I forget the experience one day.

Inside of this cameraless world there were replicas of his workshop, walls plastered with sketches, shelves filled many colors of ink. Other rooms individual movies or highlighted the process in which animation is created, showing truly how long it takes for a single frame to be created.

Upon checking out each room we headed down to the Saturn Theater to view Ghibli short film entitled, "The Cat Bus Returns," which is an extension of, "My Neighbor Totoro." It was a great little short with a high animation quality. It also helped that Melissa and I watched the origional just the day before so all the facts were fresh in our memory.

Short, but great. I really enjoyed the musuem - almost as much as I enjoyed the second half of our day...Thunder Dolphin.

That's right, Thunder Dolphin, one of the best, if not the best roller coaster I've been on. Here is a run down of the cool features it had to offer:

• Height -262 feet (5th tallest continuous loop coaster)
  
• Max Speed - 80.8 MPH
• G Force: 4.4
• Defining Points - 80 degree vertical drop, Passes through a centerless Ferris Wheel, Passes through a whole in a building, Rides along the roof of a building twice.
  

We ended up riding it twice, once in the back, once in the front - both of which were great fortune seeing how you don't get to choose where you sit in Japan.

To see today's pictures click here

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Ninja Warrior!

Come with me now as we travel into a world that is the future. The buildings are strange, high school students roam the streets, even on a school day. Oh, and the weather is nice, the breeze feels warm, and it doesn't smell. Welcome to Odaiba - an area which was built to showcase the future of residential living in Japan.

If that is the future, then I'm sure that most people would have to be faced with culture shock. For starters nothing smells. Frequently in the other parts of Tokyo that are stuck with the rest of us suckers in the past there are rancid sewer smells.

This is the average scenario: "Look at me, I'm a respectable gentleman trying to enjoy a lovely crepe as I walk down the street." - Sudden, uncontrollable vomiting due to smell, resulting in the loss of a $700 suit. It's s shame, and explains why nobody ever eats and walks at the same time here.

Other than lack of smell there is another weird thing missing: adults. It's like a weird version of pleasure island - minus the donkeys. For the most part all I saw were high school students roaming the streets, with just a small dash of teachers and adults. Sure, there were plenty of adults on the train going in, I'm just not sure what happened to them once we arrived.

Putting aside the strange feeling of being alone, lost in a care free world, filled with hyper-enthusiastic children, chomping at the bit to try and practice last weeks English assignment, there two really fun things to do on the island.

The first, and possibly greatest thing, was a place called Japan Muscle Park, a theme park dedicated to fitness games. Sure, it doesn't sound like the most fun at first, especially seeing how one of the games allows you to pay to due a push-up, sit-up, pull-up contest, but it really was cool.

To start things off I tried to due the miniature Sasuke course - or as it's better known in America as "Ninja Warrior." As a whole I would have to say that it's hard - very hard. They start you off all nice and easy with a confidence booster having you complete a trip on a hand bike. Easy enough. Then they decide to have you dangle from a steel beam and inch your way across using only the tips of your fingers. Not cool. Afterward you move over to a steel pole laying horizontal on two steel poles, similar to a gunrack. You then must use the two steel poles to shimmy up three high racks. Sadly though I was too heavy for the bar and nearly snapped it in half. And last are the crooked rings, which combine that Windows plumbing pipe screen saver with gymnastics rings. This one I thought I had going for me, but that was an fail in a half, sending me flying off the course.

Other than Ninja Warrior we were able to compete in some great games, such as a Baseball punch out game, a soccer punch out game, and this really fun game where you have to stack blocks while a train goes around a track. It's one of the funnest games I've ever played, but I would have to explain how it works in person.

With all the musclefide fun that we could handle we headed off to the JOMSI (you know, the Japanese Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). Okay, so it's not called JOMSI, but it is a whole lot like a newer OMSI, but set in Japan.

We were given the opportunity to meet the Asimo robot, which is the first to run, balance on one foot, and kick. It can operate on it's own, and can follow your instructions with you via voice commands. I really want one, but they cost 106,710,325 yen and can only be on for an hour at a time.

For me he was the highlight of the trip, but there we lots of great demonstrations and activities to look at, covering a wide spectrum of emerging sciences in the fields of quantum computing, health care, earthquake detection, and space and sea discovery. As I whole I would rate the place at 3.5 OMSIs.

For the days pictures click here.

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Mouuooonkeeeysu!

This was a very odd day today as we set out for the Inuyama Monkey Park. Before we get started though I think it's prudent that we take a stroll back into the trip planning phase of things.

Around December we were looking for things to fill four of the gaps in our trip, so we decided to look for a listing of zoos and aquariums throughout the country. On this list were a lot of the standard type zoos with a few specialty parks mixed in between. One of the specialty parks listed happened to be the Inuyama Monkey Park. Seeing how we both love monkeys it seemed like a sure fire winner, but if only I would have payed more attention to how simplistic their website was I might have taken a second thought.

Deep down we actually ended up liking the park, but there were times when I wasn't quite sure what I had us mixed up in. For starters the park isn't on a main JR train line, but instead is off of a local train line and then includes a rather long walk. Unfortunately I chose the longer way there - probably a three mile walk - up hill. It was beautiful though, winding around a mountain with views of the river and castles. Very helpful natives enjoying the warm weather pointed us in the right direction.

"Gouood Moraning," said a jogger as he passed us heading down the hill. "Springu Jougging," on the way back up. He was a happy man, as most people in the area seemed to be.

He was one of the last happy people we saw for a while. The park was at least 40 years old according to sticker we received about the park's monorail, and was in sad condition. That same sadness seemed to fill all the employees. I would be sad too though if I worked in the heat of the day in a park that had, at best, 40 people visiting it.

It was a barren wasteland, filled with dilapidated rides, and a very scary roller coaster. It wasn't scary though because of it's age, but rather due to the fact that it was jarring, had way too low of head choppers, and cost us 500 yen each.

Looking past the theme park portion of the park and into the zoological portion, things were a lot better. I'm not totally sure yet how I feel about the living conditions of some of the animals, some of which were very small cages with no natural environments.

I'm not an accredited zoologist though, so I can't say that a bunch of metal bars to swing from is any different than a tree. It just didn't seem right. Now when the animals were happy though they seemed to be quite so, especially seeing how we were able to purchase food to throw to them.

Clapping at your, making faces, jumping up and down; they seemed to do anything to get your attention when you had food in your hand. It was really a lot of fun watching how similar God made them to us.

The highlight of the day though is actually a dual highlight. The first part was an area devoted to ring tailed lemurs. Unlike your average American zoo this area allowed you to come face to face with the animals as there were no cages. At one point the zoo keepers threw a bunch of dandelions out causing a large group of lemurs to run across Melissa feet. It was the coolest thing I've ever done at just about anywhere.

The second highlight was a giant grey-back gorilla. When I say "giant" I mean it. Never have I seen a gorilla as large as this one. My best guess is that he was 9 feet long and over 700 lbs. It was amazing to be able to look at him.

With those two great experiences under out belt we decided to head on home - but this time the much shorter way as directed by the park attendants.

To check out todays photos click here

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Kannon, Tengu and Nio, Oh My!

Today we finally managed to make it to the Tokyo National Museum - yatta! Seeing how this was one of the major places that I had been wanting to go to I was rather glad to see that we were able to find a day to fit it in after our last attempt ending in failure. Things would be easier if buildings didn't decide to close on random days of the week.

As a whole the place can be summed up in one word - museummy. Sure, "museummy" may not be a word, but it's the best one I could come up with. Basically, if you love history, then this was great place to be. Thankfully I am one of those people, and I had a really great time.

Upon entering you are taking directly into a viewing of the history of Buddism and how it spread to Japan. There really wasn't much here that hadn't been see at other places throughout our trip with the exception the ability to see how the image of Buddah changed over time. Some of the works in Turkey were from the 1st century AD.

From there things slowly wound you around in a circle, giving you the chance to walk through the different stages of Japanese history, starting with the Jōmon period (1,600 years ago to 2,600 years ago). Through this early stage of the islands history we were able to see the oldest known pottery, and some pretty funky clay sculptures depicting everything from monkeys and cats to cactus looking looking people.

As things progressed things began to take on form of the more stereotypical Japan. Swords here. Kimonos there. Statues over there. Everything was beautiful, neat, and quite old. I would love to post pictures for today but we took around 300 of them, so I guess you'll have to ask me in person if you like to take a gander.

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Craft Shopping?

Prior to coming here Melissa had been reading up on all sorts of craft blogs - because you know, Japanese people have rich history full of crafts. She didn't have illusions of spinning silk for kimonos or fashioning a sword, but rather partaking in the new "kawaii" style of doing things. Because of this we thought it best to devote a day to searching through craft stores, but things didn't quite work out that way.

There was rather large laundry list of places to go, and just as it would be, all of them were rather far apart, but thankfully connected by one train line. First on the list was a crazy super awesome store called "Kiddy Land." The name may lead you to assume that it's a pedophiles dream, but there were in fact very few kids. Instead there were a lot of cutesy toys made for the child inside of every adult. Thanks to the lack of craft materials we were on a start to a disappointing day for crafts, but a great for shopping as a whole.

Next on the list was a fabric store located near the Tokyo Parasite Museum, but sadly I was unable to find an easy route there so it was skipped in light of another fabric store called, "Tomato."

Tomato would bring us for the first time into a calm part of Tokyo, where people are free to ride bikes and the elderly can wander safely. Due to hard to follow directions we ended up wondering though the back streets, through a market, near a school, and by a really neat car park that held cars above the ground in a ferris wheel style holder. It was a nice walk eventually leading us to out destination, which as it would happen to be was - closed. Up to that point I hadn't seen a store closed durring the day, but oh well, it was a Sunday afer all.

Heading on down the line we were to visit a mega-store called "Sunshine City." At one point in time the tower was the tallest building in Tokyo, housing a five story mall, a Cold Stone Creamery, and a rooftop observatory. Once ariving there we weren't actually sure how it was in any way craft related and after getting home I'm still not sure.

The observetory was awesome though, allowing you to see really how massive of a city Tokyo is. You actually can't see to the end, a haze in the horizion prevents it, but I can imagine that even if it wasn't there you still wouldn't be able to find an end. A bad side note - when trying to walk and look out the window I tripped over a large platform used for looking through a telescope. It messed up my knee, chest, and shoulder, but I'm fine.

With all of the views that we could handle we ate some Cold Stone, tipped the server to get a song (Zippidy Doo Da), and headed on home. Once again a great day, one in which Melissa managed to find two whole store devoted to Hello Kitty.

To see the pics click here.

P.S. - for the next day we simply rested and worked on a Gundam model I purchased. You have to rest sometime, right?

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Game Show!

So, one of my goals coming here was to try and get on a game show. I wrote every television station that I could find in Tokyo, which is quite a few, but never did I get a response other than an automated, "Thank you for leaving a massage."

Today was a good day though, as I was approached on the street by a game show crew. It was crazy. We were at a vending machine trying to purchase 500 ml Pepsi cans when a lady and a camera crew came up to us and wanted to know if we would help with a game show. Melissa didn't want to, but I knew I had to give it a try.

The gist of the game goes like this: a Japanese celebrity who was an actor (the guy with the bowl cut) was to try and use charades to explain to me that "something" in the "something" in 60 seconds Guess two words in 60 seconds - sounds easy. Wrong. The catch was that the actor had horrible English, which the hostess (girl with tie-die) was well aware of.

At first he said "A warrior in the air." So I said, "Superman." He said, "No, no, no. To infinity and beyond," while pointing in the air. "Oh Buzz Lightyear!," I exclaimed. "Okay, sounds like buzz, in the air." "Buzz Lightyear in the Sky?" "No, like Buzz." ...and the time was up. I was asked for my final answer, which was "Buzz Lightyear in the Sky." I was told by the hostess that I was actually really close. The answer was, "Bus in the Sky." Hopefully I can now bring laughter to generations of Japanese to come.

That was pretty much the highlight for the day. Oh, well that and buying a new Gundam Model. Woot. For todays pics click here.

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Giant Wooden Buildings Oh My!

This was a day of lots of firsts. It was our first time taking the Shinkansen (bullet train). First time outside of Tokyo. First time visiting a world heritage site. A good day in general.

We started out by boarding the Shinkansen in a risky move by taking an unreserved car. Fortunately we arrived at a very unpopulated part of the track and had no problems what-so-ever securing a seat.

At first it seems like just another train, but when they finally pick up speed you really start to realize how fast you are going. Buildings - blink of an eye. Whole farms - maybe two blinks. The best part though is when one Shinkansen passes another. The intense winds from the two trains passing causes the cars to buckle sideways. The feeling never gets old.

With a transfer at Kyoto to a slower city train we found our way in Nara, home to the Daibutsu, a 67 foot tall statue of Buddha.

For some of the people this was a sacred trip, filled with many hand clapping, hand washing, mouth rinsing, incense burning, and coin throwing. For most though it was a day in the park with a chance to see a World Heritage site and the worlds largest wooden building. Being Christian we were in the latter, and seeing how there was a gift shop selling "I Love Japan" shirts I'm not sure how anybody could be in the prior.

The statue and it's housing, although amazingly cool, wasn't the highlight of the park - no, that my friends belong to the deer. You see, all throughout the park there are "wild" deer that roam around, waiting for you to feed them food cakes sold by the natives. The Shinto people believe that the deer are messengers from their gods, but I believe they are just plain cute.

With lots of temples, lots of statues, and even more deer, we decided to head on home. Unfortunately we jumped on a local route instead of an express, which lead to longer ride. Then coming home we took a Kodoma Shinkansen instead of a Hikari Shinkansen, which stops more frequently and ends up taking much longer. Oh well, all turned out right and we made it home.

To see the pictures from the day click here

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Ye olde Nippon

Today was our first day in "old" Japan in the form of Tokyo district of Asukusa. Sure, there were large buildings all around, and they were doing construction -with scaffolding and the like - but it did have a different feel than the yest of the town.

Asakusa is currently one of the last holding out places for single story buildings with it's quaint open air market filled with many wooden shops along the narrow streets beckoning tourist from the Japan and beyond to taste their wares. Want a baby kimono? They have it. Want a wooden sword? They have it. Want a samurai wig? They have that too. In fact, if you want something something stereotypically Japanese you have no further to go than Asakusa. It's a haven for this kind of stuff.

Asakusa is not just for touristy gifts though; no there is a whole lot more.

Once you pass through the market, under the giant lantern, you are swept away to a land of temples, shrines, statues and fried bananas dipped in chocolate. Although in no way a spiritual part of the trip it was actually rather nice to have a chance to sit down and look at a time gone by. Buildings were several hundred years old, and some of the shrines looked even older.

It was a quiet day, with great weather, a lot of history. Tomorrow shall be the same, but instead we will be just under 300 miles away.

To see some of the wonderful sites at Asakusa click here.

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Disneyrandu!

"Disneyrandu, Disneyrandu, Disneyrandu!" - that is the sound of a train full of kids about to get off at Imahara Station, just outside of Disneyland. The Japanese language doesn't truly have the letter "L" or single consonants other than "N," which leads to a lot of funny words. So, with funny words we were led to fun times at Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.



Like most days we started out a train, but this time we weren't so blessed as to simply catch one train and call it good. No, we had the pleasure of finding the Keiyo, which was a treacherous walk through the underground labyrinth at Tokyo Station.

Not only was a it a long and confusing walk, we were led down escalators that were steep enough that you could simply lean back and fall asleep and wouldn't have to worry about falling forwards. Seeing how Tokyo station is regarded to by locals to the be the most confusing of stations I find it rather cool that we managed to get to our destination on time. Oh, and speaking of cool things - ever heard us talking about how we think we have been blessed with good timing? Well, we happen to be here for the 25th anniversary of Tokyo Disneyland.

Pulling into the station you are immediately greeted by the wonderful site of the Tokyo Disney Hotel - it it's self a work of art. In fact the whole park is, thanks to the staff who are always in a rush to keep things neat. The employees are constantly keeping things cleaned (one person with a broom, one person with a dustpan - how's that for productive hours), constantly monitoring lines, constantly yelling "welcome" to you.

Other than looking great, having great rides, there are a few drawbacks.

1. Lines are crazy long. We're talking three hours a ride.
2. Estimated wait times are never correct. Seeing how perfectly on time their trains are it's very odd to see them have wait times be off.
3. Curry and black pepper popcorn. More of a plus/minus seeing how I like curry, but on popcorn...really?
4. Most rides are in Japanese.

Now the fourth one only makes sense, but it does take a tad bit off of the ride.

Despite any setbacks though we managed to have a great time hitting up many an awesome rides - including the amazing Tokyo Disneyland exclusive, "Pooh's Honey Hunt," which takes you on an adventure through the hundred acre wood.

Fast forward now onto the next day we continued our adventure by visiting Tokyo DisneySea, which in my opinion was the greatest theme park I've ever been too. As soon as you step through the front gate you receive this feeling that you have arrived at somewhere very different than your regular Disneyland.

A giant harbor sets in the middle of the park with a volcano jutting out of the skyline, spewing out real fire. Around the park are more themed areas, such as large scale city walls around Agrabah and a faux Taj Mahal, a Myan temple, Mexican marketplace, and an underwater city.

All of the rides, with the exception of the Tower of Terror, were original creations. Although The Tower was in fact my favorite there were many that gave it a run for it's money.

Journey though the Center of the Earth is a great case in point. It is a dark ride, where you travel though a steam vent down towards the earth's core. Along the way you run into odd creatures, lot's of hot air and real fire. The climax of the ride though is a fast exit through the top of the parks volcano.

Once again; great rides and some amazing times. Sure, there was a lot of walking and a crazy train ride, but I guess that was all part of the fun too.

To check out our photos of the two parks click here.

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Uppercut!

Today was a very nice day, with a bright yellow sun, and for the first time some blue sky. We started off on a late day to allow Melissa's foot a little while to rest, as it was to be a long day of walking through Ueno Park - Tokyo's largest park.

The goal was to try and view the park's cherry blossom trees, it's semi-large zoo and the very large Museum of Natural history. Of these three we managed to complete one and a half.

The museum was instantly out of the question due to the fact that they are closed every Monday. With all the planning that I did beforehand we finally came across something unexpected - oh well, we'll just see it later on.

The cherry blossoms were not in full effect yet, which I could have figured out if only I paid more attention to the weather reports. You see, the weather girl each morning lets you know: A) What type of weather you are going to have. B) How hot and cold it will be. C) What percentage of cherry blossoms have bloomed. It's a weird thing to show at that time but people seem to take them pretty serious.

Although the blossoms weren't in full effect there were still a lot of great things we were able to see and do.

First off there were lots of temples and shrines in the park. Some of them had gongs you could ring, and incense you could burn. Others had room for you to tie on a prayer. All of them though had a place to wash your hands, rinse out your mouth, and toss a coin in for a prayer.

All the buildings were several hundred years old and looked like they have been preserved in great condition. Friendly monks waited inside some of them to sell you prayer scrolls that you could tie outside of the building, or a wooden plate that you could use to ask "the gods" for luck.

Oh, and as an odd side note we were approached by a "Japanese" man from Buffalo, NY. He wanted to know if we had heard of, "The Family International." Guess what, random knowledge prevails, and I did happen to know about them. They are a cult - a cult that kidnaps the children of those who try to leave it. I promptly rejected him and left as fast as possible.

After receiving our fill of water features, temples and shrines we headed into Ueno Zoo to see what they had to offer. In general there was only the standard fair, with the exception of a couple of rare birds, a red panda and a armadillo on steroids. It was a nice zoo though, with lots of little kids running around. Japanese kids really are the cutest.

Good views, good weather, and a good vegetarian dinner made for a very good day. Click here to see a small sample of all the pictures we took today.

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Harajuku Girls

Today's post shall be rather short, as I find myself to be rather tired at the moment. It's weird being tired at 7:00 at night, but I guess if you think about it, we really have been messed up by the 8 hour time change.

This morning we woke up and had yet another wonderful breakfast at Starbucks, which I found out serves pancakes here. Seeing how it was a Sunday morning, which is a non-work day for a large portion of the city, they were actually pretty full. Fortunately we were able to your superpower of blessed timing to get in just before they ran out of seats.

With food out of the way we headed on over to the Yamanote line as we had before, but this time we were going to travel couter-clockwise and head on over to Harajuku, supposed home of the Harajuku Girls from Gwen Stephani fame. By the way, somebody really needs to give her a call and let her know that Harajuku Girls don't really exist much anymore. They aren't all gone, but there certainly aren't many.

The whole area can be summed up into three words, "incorrect usage of the English language," and "packed."

As you will note from this photo there is a lot of people...a whole lot. It seemed like everywhere you turned you were either cutting somebody off, or you were being cut off.

The stores were about 15 feet wide and usually had three or four stories jam packed with 5' tall tweens. Lining the walls were a copious amount of clothing with horribly incorrect
English sentences, as I will post below.

By the time we reached the end of this main street, known as Takashita Dori, it was apparent that a break was needed. Melissa's foot had been hurting her rather bad, so we decided to turn around and head back to the hotel to wrap it up.

Eventually we managed to wrap it up and get some lunch in our bellies, from which we decided to try and set out again. This time our destination was Shibuya to go to the flagship store for Tokyu Hands.

Thanks to Google Street View we were able to easily find our way, but not before smashing into an intersection with made Harajuku look as if it had tons of space. The store it'self was even more massive then I had expected, with seven main floors, and three sub floors each, for a total of 21 stories.

After shopping we stopped on by a place called "Shakey's Pizza" - and yes, I know, we are in Japan, we shouldn't be eating Pizza, but I don't care. The place was dead, well until this teeny bopper girl stepped in and talked with the host. Somehow she signaled that she was going to be brining in a party bus full of people, because out of nowhere there were about 30 people coming in the door.

And this ended our day. Melissa's foot was in horrible pain and we decided it best to call it a night. As I leave you though I inite you to enjoy a lot of really fun pictures from our day out: click here

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Akihabara - Electric Town

Today was our real first day getting to travel about Tokyo, and our first stop was to be Akihabra - the Electric Town.

Bright and early around 8:00 we set forth from our hotel to catch the Yamanote train line. Much like everything else here it was a breeze to find, and very simple to catch.

The biggest surprise actually was the fact that there was practically nobody around. Nothing like the videos at all.

We traveled from station to station, each about three minutes apart, all featuring their own song when you arrive until eventually we made our way to Akihabara.

The station here, like the others, was well labeled, leading us in the right direction to our first store, Yodobashi Camera. On the outside the store looks huge, but once you get inside of those 9 stories of goodness you really realize just how big it is The store was full of everything you could ever want, rather that be a hand-made minture piano, or a bicycle made by GMC, it's all here.

Below is a small sample of some of the more bizzar things that I found while looking around, you can view the rest at the bottom of the page:

Cassette players? Really?

This lovely man wig. If you look at the before and after you will notice that it turns you from constipated to trasvestitical.

Ah yes, a face up roller. Exactly what ever Caucasian woman uses each day.

This is actually a regular cell phone. I'm not sure why it says "help" on it.

Continuing on we stopped along at as many shops as seemed interesting. As Akiba is a hub for geeks and freaks there was a lot Anime and Manga stores mixed in with a fare amount of girls in maid costumes trying to push flyers in your face. Thankfully I'm married, so that sort of thing doesn't really work.

With a nearly full day spent walking around this district we called it good, packed up the horses and set out on the Yamanote for home. Remember how I said before that the train wasn't busy? Well guess what? That's right, in the afternoon things seem to change quite a bit. Not only was it packed, it was packed full of a wide variety of people.

There were children wearing outfits from the Newsies, young girls with socks and open toed high-heel shoes, older women in kimonos, and last, but not least, there were lots of old men who seemed to like to glare at me. Thankfully it hadn't managed to get to the height of crazyness that youtube would show you, but it still was a little too close for comfort.

In fact, all the time I feel as if things are too close for comfort. I'm not a giant here, but I'm still much larger than 90% of the people. This has caused me to get use to using the phrases, "sumimasen," and "gomen nasai" a lot (that's "excuse me" and "sorry).

Constantly I'm bumping into people, and in fact I elbowed a lady in the face today. I felt horrible and before I could manage to think about what to say she appologized to me and went on her way.

So, besides smashing into people, finding little to nothing to eat, and almost getting lost finding a market, today was a really fun day. I just love everything here makes me laugh, rather it be the advertisments or the doorways that are too short for me, it's all a great laugh.

If you would like to continue laughing with me I suggest you check out this link to all of our photos from today: CLICK HERE

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Food Sucks

First and foremost I must ask everybody to pray for Melissa. Today when walking through a store she stepped on a weird metal plate which caused her to have some pretty bad pain and a little bit of swelling. Right now walking is difficult and causes her to cry. I hate that. So, our hopes are that she will be healed in the morning.

Second most, you may also want to pray for the both of us to find some food. Seriously, the food here all seems to look like it could be edible but for some odd reason they have decided to throw in one really odd ingredient, and a whole lot of really odd smells.

From starters, they don't really serve breakfast here. The same resturaunts which were serving dinner last night were open bright and early to serve it again in the morning. As a result this we decided to stick with a great American staple - Starbucks - where we enjoyed White Mochas and lemon poppy seed pound cake.

Lunch was a different story all together. Above I give you exibit A. This is the menu for a lovely resturaunt that has decied that food safety really isn't something that you need to take seriously, as can be seen from the fact that it serves all of it's meats raw. Yum!!

It seemed like everywhere we went there was either some odd twist on the food rendering it rather ditasteful. Maybe with time we'll learn to cope, but for now it looks like we are stucking trying to find american food chains that don't force you into eating something with eyes still attached.

Oh, and as side note, you prolly won't belive this, but McDonalds ran out of food today. You actually couldn't eat order anything that used standard beef. Crazy huh?

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Look around

Want to really see what it is like here? Make sure you have the flash plug-in installed and then check this out in full screen by clicking on the "full screen" button in the image. Once it is open you can drag the mouse around to see things.


Shinjuku Station south exit in Tokyo

Pretty cool huh? This is the south exit of Shinjuku station, which is the busiest one here in Tokyo. It is just a stones throw (if you are a Nephlim that is) from our hotel.

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We're here...

Hello again everybody. Let me start by saying that today has been a very exciting day. This morning we woke up bright and early, ate a healthy, dietitian approved, breakfast of sugar free raisin bran with 1% milk, threw our luggage over shoulders, and headed off for the Portland Airport.

Besides having air blown up my trousers the whole check-in process was actually rather bland, but hey, less is more when it comes to airplane check-in's; right?

From there we had a rather uneventful flight. To my left I had Melissa, and to my right I had a frail Japanese man with a yamaka on.

After landing the check in process was smooth sailing. No questions, no search, no hassle. We even kindly received directions to our the train station office where a man with a high degree of stamping ability smashed through all the paperwork for us. It was great fun.

The train arrived on time. We arrived at our destination on time. We found the correct exit the first time, which is an amazing feat seeing how there are 700 of them, and we easily found our hotel. The check in process took about 5 minutes and the room is very nice.

So...if everything was so easy and bland, what made it exciting?

It's actually rather simple. You see, although everything is prompt, on time, and easy, all of these things are filled with a weird quirk that makes them like a micro adventure each time you do them.

Let's being with the train station exits. Today we arrived at Shinjuku Station, the busiest hub in Tokyo. After exiting our train we see a lovely yellow sign which states in plain english "Shinjuku South Terrace Exit." Great - just what we needed. When we actually arrived at the exit though there were these small bars that allow one person to at a time to pass - and to top it off everybody is going in instead of out.

Confused we decied to watch for while and finally we spotted a person who exited through of a gate with a green arrow pointing out. It looked easy, walk up to the gate, walk through, call it good. When I tried to perform this simple task of walking, two sets of bars close down in front of me - denied. Eventually we noticed that it takes a pass to exit. Fortunately for us though a nice man in a train station outfit decided to let us exit through his gate.

It's not just the entrexits that are same, yet different. Take this McFlurry I bought for example. The McDonalds that I purchased it at had no walls, just a roof, and it's open 24 hours a day. It looks like guacamole, tastes like fake green tea and could be fed to cows during the dry season.

When I went to pay for it I handed the worker a 10,000 yen note ($100 USD - which is the only amount the ATM gives out on American debit cards). He looked kinda confused at first, which in turn made me confused. After we received our change he moved onto the next customer who when paying placed his money into a small tray on the table and pushed it towards the worker. So, now I know - use the tray or get stared at.

The list could go on for quite a while, from the fact that my toilet has three water spray types and a power setting to our TV which is currently displaying QVC, but it's called QVC-TSV and the stuff they show doesn't look like utter garbage.

This is only the first day, so I can imagine that as time goes on things will only seem more the same, yet even more different. So, until then I shall sit here and drink my orange drink which translates into English as"Cat Milk" and has a picture of a rabbit and a raccoon on the box. Since you are unable to enjoy the same I offer you just a few pictures for now:

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Way to go!

It’s finally here. In just a few short days we will be taking off from Portland Airport around 2:00 pm (PDX for those who are fans of FlightTrack on Google Earth) and will be arriving at Narita International (NRT) around 5:00 pm their time.

From this point forward we are looking at posting daily with a summary of what’s going on, a map of the days events, hopefully a few good photos and maybe a video or two.

People keep asking if I'm exited, and I have to continually answer both "yes" and "no." I think I'm excited, but I can only imagine that I'll be ten times more once we are on the flight. Around that time I can only imagine I'll either:

1. Feel as if tomorrow is Christmas
2. Wet my pants
3. Feel as if I wet my pants on Christmas
4. Be scared of flying and still prolly wet my pants.

No matter the outcome it's goign to be great. Well, unless I actually do wet my pants. That really wouldn't be that cool, nor exciting.

Well, sorry to keep this short, but we’ve got packing to finish up. Talk to you on another side.

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This how we're going to do this...

View Larger Map

Hello once again, and welcome to the second installment of our pre-trip posting. Today's focus will be on highlighting the route for which I've been working on for some time now. Despite months and months of dedicated procrastination I believe that we have reached a point where a nice track has been laid ahead of us, albeit a track shy a few pieces, a nice track none-the-less.

So, without further a due let's get started.

If you will so kindly please focus your eyes on the image above. As an American you may not know this, but that is a map of Japan and I highly recommend clicking on the "view larger map" link as it opens a world of better detail.

Once inside of the larger view you will note that there are a lot of letters with flags attached to them. Each flag is where we plan on spending a day of our trip with a very inaccurate path drawn in-between them. We can thank the good people at Google for the inaccuracy, because you see, if you want to plan a trip with a stop along the way you have to select "car" as your mode of transit, but the even gooder folks at Japan Rail have been quite gracious to hook us up with full country train passes making the the use of a car obsolete.

So as a whole we are planning on visiting each lettered flag using the remarkable Japanese train system. Want to see how remarkable? Sure you do, so click on the following links, and as always, it's best to have the volume turned up on your computer.

• Loading Procedure
  
• Suppah Speedu
  

Looks like more fun than a barrel full of monkeys huh? Thought so. And think, we are going to be stuck on them for approximately 4028 miles (if you subtract out the errors from Google and then add back into consideration that we have to return to our hotel each night.

With so many places to describe already I figure it best to give a synopsis of what we are doing instead of giving the full play by play, which will actually be posted daily as said plays are being played - which in tounge twister format is: full play by plays will be displayed on the day of the plays are being played. Say that five times fast and I'll make sure to give you some sort of souvenir*. Until you complete that here is our quick run-down of cool stuff we're doing:

1. Traveling to Akihabara - the electric town, home of anime, an 11 story electronics store, and a video game shop known as "Super Potato."
2. Traveling to Harajuku - best known in Gwen Stephanie music videos, frequented by the uber-trendy Harajuku Girls who hang out around the main station on Sundays.
3. A visit to Nara to see Japan's largest Buddha statue and the worlds largest wooden building.
4. Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea (a park that only exists in Japan).
5. Fuji-Q Highlands, a roller coaster junkies dream - which is something I am and have neglected to mention
6. A trip to Nagashima Spaland or Nasu Highlands - more for the roller coaster fix.
7. Inuyama (dog mountain in English) Monkey Park, home to over 1,000 monkeys...oh, and a rollercoaster
   
8. A walking tour with an 80 year old man in the town of Kyoto, Japan's historic center.
9. A visit to Himeji Castle, a World Heritage site and one of the most well preserved castles in Japan
10. Hana Matsuri, a flower festival for Buddha birthday
11. And much more...

Well, this should hold us over for now. Sure, we'll prolly change these plans up three to four thousand times before we are done, but for the here and now that is what we are trying to stick to.

Join us later for more antics just before we take off on my first flight ever. Delightful.

*souvenir available only with photgraphic proof of tounge twisting. That's write, photographic. I suggest taking a picture every few syllables.

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Come Sail Away

Hello everybody, and welcome to my blog - Two Pirates in Japan - a magical place where anything can happen. Well, okay, so maybe "anything" isn't able to happen, but if all goes as planned then a lot of wacky things should.

My name is Camron and as it would so happen, I am the boy pirate up in the header - the girl is my wife Melissa. Now, before you ask, no, I'm not literally the drawing of the pirate, come to life to write a blog. That's just a drawing.

In the event that you can't distinguish art from life I highly suggest that you turn back, for the humor and sarcasm that is about to ensue my likely cause your head to implode upon it's self from the shear weight of confusion.

Now for those of you who understand quite well the differences between reality and not, I highly suggest you join us on our maiden voyage to The Land of the Rising Sun.

Before we get going though I thought it would be best to give you a little bit of background info on why this blog exists in the first place, but to do so we must travel back to simpler time, one filled with bright colors, flashing lights and far too tight of pants - usually utilizing both bright colors and flashiness.
The 80's were a mystical time filled with some of the greatest things this world has ever seen. CD's, Rubix Cubes, Glow Worms, Michael Jackson's nose, Melissa, and little Japanese company by the name of "Studio Ghibli."

Around 1988 my dad introduced me to the latter in the form of a "Sci-Fi Cartoon" by the name of "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind." The reason for the quotes around "Sci-Fi Cartoon" is for the simple fact that he called them this not realizing that these were actually Japanese Anime dubbed over for an American audiance.

Instantly I attached onto this new medium finding myself each week asking our local video shop owner if he had received any thing new. Unfortunately growing up in a town of 600 people doesn't make for a good selection, especially when you tastes fall into a minority.

Days into weeks, weeks into month, months into years. I was slowly deprived of all things Anime. Then one odd day in 1997 my family decided to gather up the wagon (figurative of course) and move on over to the Will-a-mett-ee Valley, where with that move came some of the most life-culture changing moments in my life.

With a new city and far greater access to things that most take for granted (such as a library, cable television and the internet) I quickly found out that there are quite a few people like me. You know, those weird kids at the back of the class who love science class, have a tendency to read comic books and for the most part couldn't get a date to save their life.

In Japanese there is a word for this type of person, and that word is Otaku; or as we know it, "geek." Yep, I was an outsider and I liked it just fine. Eating my noodles, attending the Anime Society at Emerald City Comics, playing Risk all night. It was a simpler time in my life, and one which helped shape my love for the Japanese culture.

Now let's flash forward 6 years to where some things have changed - such as the fact that I was obviously able to find a girlfriend - while other things are much the same - such as the fact that I spend a lot of my time playing board games.

Deep down I'm a nerdy kid with a love of Japan and I think I always will be, which brings us to our current state. On March 26th, 2009 I will be heading off to Japan with my wonderful wife Melissa to live out a dream from my childhood.

This will be a time of firsts for me and I plan on blogging it all along the way and hopefully on into the future when I get back. As we head on from here this is how things will go down, along with a few tips:

• I will try make a post every day, usually around 7:00 AM PST
• Posts will be photo heavy, so I hope you aren't a fan of my writing
• I love sarcasm. If something is offensive, there is a good chance it's sarcastic, as I usually am not an offensive person.
• Comment as often as you like - it's a great way to stay in contact while we are away
• Last, but not least in any way, a reminder: as much as this is a blog for friends and family to read it is even more so a journal for us to remember our trip. Some things may be boring or over detailed. I happen to have a poor memory, so the more I write, the more I retain - besides I'm paying to get these memories, so I better not forget them.

So, with this little slice of history I must bid you all adieu until my next post where in which we'll go over our itinerary. Yay!

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