Japan Trip Part 11

We woke up for our 8am breakfast. It was just like dinner, very traditional. After breakfast, I decided to get one last soak in the hot springs before we checked out. We gathered in the lobby at 10am, and the Inn took us down to the train station. We still had over an hour before departure, so we did some shopping. The main attraction for just about everyone except me and a couple of others was the Hello Kitty shop with a giant golden Kitty in front of it. I had already bought my Hello Kitty gift in Sapporo, so I had no interest. After about 5 minutes in the shop, I left to explore the rest of the town with Austin and Quixia. We found shop that sold some expensive hand made woodcrafts. I bought a small Hear no, see no, and speak no evil monkey statue, which current sits on my desk at work.

We took the train to Utsunomiya, which is apparently famous for its gyouza. There were at least five gyouza restaurants right by each other in the station. We split into three groups for lunch, since no one restaurant could accomodate us all. I ordered the spicy gyouza with a side of kimchee. From Utsunomiya we took the bullet train to Asakusa, Tokyo. Riding the train made me think of the Chemical Brothers video for Star Guitar. So started playing the song on my zune.

In Asakusa, we went to Kaminari mon. There was just tons of shops, most of it very touristy. I bought a lantern and a Shinsengumi coat. I also bought some tenugui bought they came from shops off the main road. After shopping alone, I finally found the main group. We walked slowly split off as we saw things that interested us, like the arcade for purikura or food. I stuck with Seiji for a while, but after dinner I decided I wanted to head back to the main shopping area to show a Fritzi the out of the way shops that sold tenugui. I was leading Fritzi and Quixia back to the station, when stopped at a Mister Donuts, because Quixia had get something. This stop caused me to get disoriented, or maybe I was already oriented wrong, but I started heading in the opposite direction of the station. After stopping a man for directions we started back and we met up with going to where we came from so we decided to tag along. He was looking for the Golden Kappa statue and the district where they make the realistic looking plastic food. We found the statue but it was fenced off, and we didn't manage to find the plastic food, probably because it was late and most of the stores were closed. We headed back to the station and we still had some time leftover to stop be the tenugui shops. After that, we hopped on a fairly crowded train which we managed to avoid most of the trip, and went back to Minako's house. We packed our things but before we did that I laid out all my goodies and took a picture.

Japan Trip Part 10

We left Minako's house at 6am to catch the train to Shinjuku, which is the busiest station in the world. From Shinjuku we hopped on a train to Nikko. It was a two hour ride, and most of us slept on it. I slept through the first half, but managed to stay awake for the rest to enjoy the scenery. Once we arrived the inn were staying at sent two vans to pick us up. We dropped off our bags since our rooms weren't ready, and we headed out to tour the shrines. Nikko is a relatively quite town, known for its hot springs and the location of the tomb of the Tokugawa shogun.

We walked from the inn to shrine. It was a huge area. The day we went, several schools were there for field trips. I walked a little slower and walked with a group of senior citizens with a tour guide. I did that for a while until I fell far enough behind. We had lunch at shop in the shrine. Most of our day was spent walking around. Sadly halfway through the trip, the battery died on my camera, and I left my charger back in Yokohama.We returned to the inn around 3-4pm. After getting our rooms, I relaxed for a bit, then headed up to the 6th floor to the hotspring bath. Seiji and the supporters were already up there soaking in the outdoor hot tub. There was a beautiful view and the cool mountain air left good in the hot bath. After the bath, the inn provided us with yukata. When I returned to the room, Austin was napping and Micah was gone, so I got bored and went for a walk around town. I felt awesome walking around in the yukata and vest. Only thing that would have been better is if I had a sword. It was very quiet, and none of the stores seemed to be open besides the conbini.

After returning from the walk it was time for dinner. It was a very fancy japanese dinner. It was much better looking than it tasted. I prefer okinawan cooking over japanese. After dinner, a group of us, all of us old enough to drink, went to the conbini for some liquor. It was like a miniature liquor store. They had a decent selection, though the majority was sake. We all went back to Seiji's room to hang out, drink, and look at some of the pictures that people took throughout the trip. I'm not sure about anybody else, but I got to the happy stage of drunk. After a couple hours we all went back to our rooms for bed.

Japan Trip Part 9

We woke up around 8:00am and Minako's family was kind enough to make us breakfast. Our first stop on the way to Tokyo was Shibuya. We split into three group. The guys went to the games, manga, and music store, some of the girls went clothes shopping and I have no clue where the third group went. I looked around the manga section, but didn't want to buy anything, that's too much stuff to carry around and I don't want to just buy one volume of a series. I did buy one used Sakura Taisen game for DS, and four ued music cds; Bonnie Pink, two brilliant green, and Lucky Soul. I was happy to find Lucky Soul, since they're a British band, and the Japanese version of their album has two bonus tracks, but it doesn't have the secret track. We ate lunch at Yoshinoya and had some delicious beef bowls. Sadly there was no room for all of us to eat together, so I ate upstairs by myself.

After lunch, we met up and walked to the Meiji Shrine.
On the way we walked to through a massive bicycle and motorcycle parking area. We was a slightly interesting to me. There wasn't enough actual motorcycle, just a lot of big scooters. Along walk way there were some homeless people's houses too.

The Meiji Shrine was kind of interesting, I'm not really fan of shrines. I did buy some lucky charms though. The shrine is right next to Harajuku which was our next stop.

The main attraction was the "underground", which is basically a street with a ton of clothing stores of varying styles. Walking through, one of the owners stopped me and brought me into his urban clothing store. It's not my style but I had time to kill. The prices were ridiculous, and I was definitely wasn't going to buy urban clothing in Japan. I explained to him that I was hoping I could find a great Engrish shirt. He showed me a couple of shirts, but they all had proper English. In fact, Harajuku disappointed me, because I could find any Engrish shirts. I only found little store, that wasn't even in the underground, that had cool shirts. Being a Tuesday afternoon, we didn't see many of the Harajuku girls or street performers.

After Harajuku, we hopped on the train to end to the main destination of all the men, Akihabara. We went straight into the giant Yodobashi store across from the subway station. I went straight to the 6th floor which has all the games, music, and most importantly toys. There was so many things that I wanted to buy, but I knew I couldn't fit them into my luggage. Coincidently, they sold luggage on that floor. I ended up buying a 1/60 YF-19, which has been something I've wanted for the past 10 years. I also bought a Pinky:St figure of Sakura Shinguji. After spending about an hour in Yodobashi, I finally got out to explore some of the smaller shops. I found one shop with a smaller, YF-19 at the price and it was still transformable. The shop also had a ton of gatchapon figures. I wish I had more time to walk around, but I spent too much time in Yodobashi. Dr. John latched onto me in Yodobashi so I wasn't completely free to roam. After buying some gatchapon, John was getting hungry so we went to a Kaiten sushi place.

Earlier that week in Akihabara, a mad man killed several people. So there was onlookers, and media everywhere. I didn't really notice them at first, but walking back after dinner, I noticed. We all met up at the train station, and had a long and crowded trip back to Yokohama. Once back at Minako's I tore into my new toys, and everyone looked at me as if I was a child, which might been true. I was ecstatic to have have my own variable YF-19, which I played with for a while, because I had trouble transforming it. Before bed we had to neatly pack our things, because we were going to Nikko, and Minako was having other people stay at her house while we were gone.

back to work

Work started on my new project yesterday. Today they’re just clearing and grubbing, so only one person needs to be out there. I’ll have to be out there late in the afternoon after the other inspectors go home, since they don’t want give OT. Which is fine by me and actually works in my favor, because I can come in later. The contractor works from 7am to 5:30pm, so the early birds can cover the morning, while I do the afternoon. At least for now, until we get more things going on. We stopped flex time this week, so people not on project have to work 8am to 4:30pm or 5pm. It’s odd writing this while everyone is still here. I originally started writing this to kill the last 30 minutes of the day after everyone leaves.

I’ve been working semi-hard trying to final out my old project, since I’ll be working on this new one. Copying a couple thousand excel entries into an orange workbook sucks. I also got assigned a new phone today, which is odd. I had to give my phone to the new senior, and I got the old phone of a tech. Why the tech didn't give the phone to the senior, I don't know. Luckily most of us keep the same contacts, so it's not that bad.

Starting next week, we'll have a new tech transferring in from the North office. It makes sense to transfer here, it's a bigger office and we have 4 empty desks. They have tiny cubicles and cram everyone in half the space we have. We also have an awesome boss. I've worked with the new transfer before, and she very friendly and likes to talk a lot. We're not so talkative in our office since we're spread out more.

The Roots

Yesterday, we had a meeting for the project that I was assigned to. There's 5 of us, the project manager and 4 helpers. I'm the only helper without a specified job. I'll just float around and help out when necessary. So I'm probably going to be aimless for quite a bit, answering to people that are technically lower than me on the totem pole. The project starts sometime next week and is expected to finish around xmas time. An interesting aspect of project is that project manager wants try our best to conserve fuel. He wants us to start now before the state mandates it. He wants us to try to carpool and to not leave our trucks running. I personally never leave my truck running or even use air conditioning. I also choose to walk everywhere on a project. I wouldn't mind carpooling, since unlike everyone else, I don't keep my office in my truck. Mine is fairly devoid of personal items. Though if I'm a floater, if there's nothing to do, I'll probably just go home and get very little OT. I don't look forward to being out in the field for 6 months, so hopefully I can get that promotion.

Much like half of the office, I'm taking tomorrow off. I'm going to take my truck into the shop, then head to Kansas City for the Roots Concert. I like the Roots, but I'm not a huge fan, I don't even own any of their many CDs. They're playing at the Harrah's, so I thought I might have some fun at the casino, then catch a show. A couple of my friends are coming along too, so it should be fun. Though I'm going to feel awkward being at a hiphop concert with two very white guys.