Continental and Forbidden Fruit

Today’s day started out nice with a new restaurant.  It had many of the same selections, but not all of them.  It was a continental (not The Continental) style breakfast overlooking the gardens.  It was a very nice way to begin my day.  I leisurely strolled through the entire garden on my way to work.

I received some updates to the some work items during my night and was able to start some work right away.  One user has one of the strangest problems in connecting to the internet that took a long time to resolve and in the end needed brute force to get it to work.  That is more of a story for a beer:30 and not so much here.

It wasn’t a real exciting day other than the computer I ordered getting here.  However, since I was dealing with the other user’s internet issues, I didn’t have a chance to do much other than unpack the system until about 4pm.  I was at work late working both the systems and have more work to do early tomorrow before they show up.  A leisurely meander may not be in the cards for tomorrow.

Practically stumbling out of work, I head to that ramen house I ate at last night and before the waiter even bothers to bring me an English menu, I order up my 6 Gyoza and a bowl of rice.  Within about three minutes I have my repast steaming in all its glory in front of me.  My only regret?  I didn’t find this place earlier in my stay.  This hit me as a touch of comfort food as I felt the day’s stress just wash away.  Another nice thing was I was the only gaijin in the place.  Well, at least I was until a couple and two guys showed up.  I’m not sure what it is about this place that attracts us foreigners.  I’m going to go with the awesome food as my answer.

I schlep back to the hotel later than I’d care to be getting back.  It is still hot, muggy, and not all that comfortable outside, so the interior of the hotel is a welcome feeling as the air conditioning washes over me.  Tokyo may be a beautiful city 99% of the time, but it cannot be accused of having beautiful weather that same amount.  That aside, I love it here.

Cracking the door to the room and peeling off the work clothes brings another shot of welcome relief and I head to the mini-fridge in the room where I have my latest acquisition waiting for me: De Verboden Vrucht.  A wonderful little fruit beer that is dangerously easy to enjoy being that it is 8.5% alcohol.  I kick back enjoying the brew and staring at the bright lights of Chiyoda-ku letting my mind wander and marvel in the luck I’ve had in even being able to enjoy this wonderful nation and a few of its people.  I was beginning to dread leaving not knowing if I’d be back, but knowing that I will is making the last few days that I have here not so urgent.

Until tomorrow’s sojourn…

Darn + The Luck

Today started like most others where I needed to head to work with the slight caveat that breakfast is now included.  So instead of going to the place from Sunday morning, I decide to try The Top, a restaurant on the 40^th floor of a rotating section of the building that completes one revolution every hour.  The view was pretty spectacular along with the crowd.  The food?  Meh, the same as they served at the place yesterday with no choice of that vegetable juice.  Well, at least the view was worth the price of admission.

I head back to the room and get ready for work.  Today I am armed with a bit more information to solve some problems and I get one person completely set.  Although with the language barrier (on my part mainly) and the user’s relative inexperience with computers, I may be hearing from them after I leave.  I will be leaving detailed instructions with everyone and I hope they can manage to copy files to an external hard drive as a back up.  The other two I need to work with is either waiting for their computer to arrive that we ordered last week or they are moving to the office of the guy that is moving back to Rancho Bernardo used to occupy.  The move should be approved or disapproved tomorrow and also the computer may show up as well.  So it is possible the majority of my work will be completed by the end of tomorrow.  Today’s work was setting up the one person and then a detailed inventory of the equipment in the office.

Lunch was at an Indian curry place in the lobby and was very good.  I had the mixed seafood curry.  That naan was HUGE and you got as many refills on the naan as you wanted.  I did not partake of the refill as that was quite enough.  Right after lunch, we step into the Lawson’s right next door for part of my mission: to buy a sewing kit.  When I packed up Friday, I noticed that the hem on one of my pant legs had come undone.  I also needed toothpaste as I didn’t pack a full travel tube thinking I was going to be home already.  Mission accomplished, we head back up to the office.  On the way up, I ask the two ladies I’m with if they have heard of the fugu restaurant I saw last night.  They hadn’t.  One did say that you should go with someone and go to a more … “upscale” place.  When you’re talking about fugu, you should really make sure you’re at a reputable place.  I decide to pass on that particular place unless I can get someone to go with me so we make sure we are both OK afterwards.

Back in the office, I’m compiling my data from the inventory and get an email from the lead of the international team who is on the east coast.  It’s 1:40AM for him.  He says he’s helping someone in Saudi with some issues and it is difficult based on the work culture there (prayer times, etc.).  He also asked how I was doing, not with my work, but personally over here.  I say that I’m having a great time and that the Skyping with the wife really helps make the distance feel not so bad.  He then says that he’s heard from others that I’m doing well in the job and that since they like me in the office and I’m having a good time that he’s going to send me back here when I need to help the other half of the office with pretty much the same thing I’m doing right now.  So…. WOOHOO!  I think it will be sometime in 2015, but I’m good with coming back.  I hope it is during the first week of April in hopes of catching the cherry blossoms blooming.

So room 888, seeing multiple Joro Spiders, and other small fortunes continue with that bit of good news.  Now I can only hope it won’t ruin my chances of going to Australia also in early 2015 I believe.  I’m already used to the left-hand traffic so it won’t be too bad in that regard.  Nominally speaking the same language will help.

Speaking of language: on the way to dinner tonight, I caught my first word that I could read in Japanese after really only trying to learn hiragana starting late Friday with no practice on Saturday because of sumo, and on and off Sunday.  The word?  Udon.  I was walking quickly past the sign and as I walk I have been looking at signs and trying to read what I can.  That word was the first that I realized that the characters were all something I knew (no kanji mixed in).  With only a little pause to sound out each syllable as I saw each of the three characters: う(“u” as in dude), ど(“do” sounds like dough), ん(which is the “n” sound).  I then repeated them a little quicker to get “udon”.  Woohoo!  I’ll need to practice more for when I come out and learn what the words actually are after knowing how to read/write them.  Knowing it says “jinsokuna shi” is great, knowing that it means “quick death” is probably better.  The words before "udon" are "tempura" and "soba". =)

Dinner was at an awesome miso ramen house.  I got the deluxe Akasaka Miso with a spicy broth.  Holy crap, that was sooo good.  About half way through my slurping joy, another couple of guys come in and as they order in a heavy east coast accent and hearing the waiter have problems I’m glad I am making the effort to at least speak some of their language.  I also notice that there are five people in this small, 15 seat place and we’re all foreigners.  I hear the cooks mention gaijin.  I look up and he’s nodding proudly so probably was not being derogatory at all.  The guys behind me ordered a metric ass ton of food including gyoza.  Holy crap! I forgot about those!  Well, I’m way too full with my miso ramen to order some of those, but I will be back tomorrow for either lunch or dinner for six of those beautiful treasures and a bowl of rice.  It already sounds good and I’m still full from dinner!

After dinner, my goal was to browse all 10 floors of Bic Camera.  Wow… so many neat little gadgets from really cool looking refrigerators, couter-top dishwashers, cameras, laptops, DVDs, mobile phone accessories (they get their own floor), medicines, sporting equipment, toys, video games, and much, much more.  Including these:

That's right folks: $2,000 ear buds

Well, I need to get to darning my pants, shower, etc. and off to bed.

Mata ne!

Gardens, Walls, and Sumo

The plan originally for today was to go to Kamakura and see the Buddhist temple complex there.  However, yesterday’s very full day pretty much wiped me out and I was ready for a relaxing, not-so-full day of sight-seeing.  Kamakura is an hour away and an all-day commitment to see all of what there is to see there.  So instead, I needed to figure something else out.  I decided to go back to my missed plan from last Tuesday and see the Imperial Gardens at some point in the day.  Whenever that was, didn’t matter.

At check-in, I was given meal vouchers for breakfast and I can choose between four restaurants.  I went to the one that was closest and it offered traditional Japanese style buffet breakfast as well as western style.  No wonder the people here are so skinny.  The traditional Japanese meal consisted of boiled fish paste, grilled salmon, pickled vegetables, and other various healthy choices.  On the other side of the aisle was bacon, sausage, pancakes, and all the various other choices we’d be used to back in the States.

I stuck more with the traditional Japanese style, but sampled little bits of most things.  I walked away from that buffet feeling I got cheated out of my meal ticket.  While the Japanese side of the food aisle was tasty, the western side did nothing to my taste buds.  They made an in-house vegetable juice that was very tasty.  It was made of cucumber, and two other vegetables, and a little apple juice.  You could mainly taste the cucumber.  Oh, and if I did have to pay for that, it would have been ¥3,300, or about $32.00.  Well, there are three other places to try and I will be trying them over the next 5 mornings.

Reasonably full from trying all the food in bite-sized portions, I decide to stroll through the hotel’s garden.  The many branching paths, ponds, waterfalls, and manicured horticulture are very relaxing.  This is a cool place to just sit and unwind.  I wander every path I can find and even find a little friend, another Jorō Spider.  This one only about 2.5 inches long and well off the path and hard to photograph.  Another sign of good luck for me!  After that, I find more friends in one of the hotel grounds’ local mouse patrol members.  A couple of them are ambivalent, but one seems friendly and I pet the cat for a little bit until a get a little bit of a purr and then I head back into the gardens to see the rest.

I finish my garden stroll, head out of a random exit from the hotel, and just decide to walk opposite of where I usually have been going.  Up through some residential streets, I head to a sloped, large rock brick wall.  There are stairs here.  I am tempted.  There is a sign there with red kanji including an exclamation point.  They’re serious about whatever it says.  Still tempted.  Screw it, I go up the stairs to a path that is maybe 15-feet wide that runs along the top of this wall with steep-sloped sides that is about 30-feet above the street I just left and maybe 50-feet above the baseball diamond and rugby/futbol fields.  The entire path on top of the wall is shaded by many trees.

Undaunted by red kanji or exclamation points, I walk down the path watching four guys practice batting and a small group practicing futbol.  The path is quiet, serene, and a welcome little respite from the city streets.  Eventually in my stroll, I see two other people.  They must not care about red kanji either.  About three blocks worth of walking down this path, I see the same sign.  This time, however, there is an accompanying sign in English warning of mosquitos near the greenery.  The signs look like they have been up for years and serve as a general warning.  Still good to know.

I continue walking and the wall ends at a major street where I spot a KFC across a bridge.  Also across the bridge are more shops and restaurants.  While not as packed as the Akasaka-Mitsuke area I am used to visiting, it could hold some promise.  I spot a Tokyo Metro entrance and head to it and head towards Tokyo station and purposely go one stop beyond so I can browse through the streets back and towards the Imperial Palace.

The buildings where I popped out into daylight are all magnificent and the spaces between have greenery and all is very neat and orderly.  I am struck each time and the extremely clean streets and sidewalks.  Coinciding with that extreme lack of trash is the extreme lack of trash cans as well.  No overflowing consumerism byproducts of the West (to the east of me, oddly enough).

I have little issue finding the Imperial Palace Garden grounds.  Honestly, I took the most random turns throughout the city and didn’t care where I was or where I was going, so it wasn’t like I was lost nor *trying* to find the Imperial Palace.  So, I go in and immediately regret not grabbing my sunscreen.  While an “Imperial Palace Garden” in Japan may conjure visions of wandering paths and trees and manicured wonderfulness, it is not what greeted me.  Large expanses of gravel, moats with castle walls on the opposite sides, and a large grass area with pine trees in which no one was allowed are what greeted me.

I walk several blocks to the main area of activity.  There about 60 tour groups here.  Ugh, tourists… wait… nevermind.  I slowly make my way around and see the entrance to the actual palace grounds over a bridge.  There are two guards that stand on the opposite side of the bridge on either of the large doors and it seems 99% of their job involves standing still and stoic.  I spot a receipt that someone has dropped so I pick it up to throw it away.  There are no trash cans here either.  Well, better than it being on the ground as trash.

I start heading out of the grounds on the opposite side I came in.  What the heck, I haven’t been there yet.  I eventually get to an area where the tour buses disgorge their patrons and nearby there is a very cool statue there of a samurai, Kusonoki Masashige, on a horse.  He is commonly viewed as the ideal of samurai loyalty.  I find and sit on a bench in the shade and people watch for a little while.

Eventually the urge to see more overcomes the urge to sit more.  That took probably about three minutes.  I did say “a little while”.  I head back through the streets near Tokyo station and decide to maybe head back to the station I came from to wander those streets and scope out a lunch spot.

On the train, I practice trying to read hiragana and katakana.  I know maybe about 10-15% now, but really only started in earnest on Thursday for a few minutes.  I found an app or two and am getting better.  I’m sure by the time I leave, I’ll at least be able to make out most of the words.  So, I’ll be able to say or read the words, but not know what they’ll mean.  That will come later, if I can come back.

So the streets near the Yotsuya station hold some interesting places for food, the least of which is that KFC.  I think I’ve settled on an udon place when I realize that I’m still really not hungry.  Oh well, I know a place or two later for dinner.  One interesting thing happened when I stopped in a 7-11 on one of the back streets.  I was looking for KitKats and still coming up empty handed.  I spotted some whisky, and thought, “I do enjoy whisky”, but something ingrained in me just can’t buy whisky in a 7-11.  I try to overcome this very logical seeming aversion when I catch what is playing on the overhead Musak system: Daydream Believer by the Monkees.  Wow… of all the places.  I walk out with a smile, but no whisky.  Maybe I’ll try that shop I have been getting my interesting beers so far.

I trace a different path back to the hotel and try reading signs along the way to enforce my alphabet learning and get back into the hotel room.  I want to try and tackle why my pictures haven’t been automagically downloading and I still haven’t figured it out.  Oh well, they’re backed up manually so I’m still good, just slightly put out.  I am also finally able to throw away that receipt from the Imperial Palace I picked up.

I hop on Skype a couple of times and try to see if Kari is online.  She had a long, tiring day with our club’s car show and was napping.  Eventually, she’s on and we video chat for a while and then the coolest thing of my day happens.  Sumo is on at 4pm locally. I tune in about 4:15 and spin the iPad to face the TV, switch the audio channel to English to show Kari what a match looks like.  We watched the entire final match of the Autumn tournament together.  As much as I was cursing technology for not working with my photos and making it inconvenient for me, the fact that I could stream that and we could chat about what we were seeing was pretty damn cool.  Yeah, if I get to come back out here and bring Kari, she wants to go.  Kick ass.

Hakuho won the tournament and ties for the most championships won at 31.  He’s one away from tying the most ever at 32.  A man he considered a father when he was training, Taihō, still holds that record from 1971.

We say our good nights and it is time for me to look for dinner.  I decide to maybe grab a small bottle of whisky that I could finish before I leave so I can try some Japanese whisky.  That means going back to the old stomping grounds which suits me.  There are several places around.  On heading over to “restaurant mecca”, I quickly discover that most places are closed on Sunday night or because on sumo.  I can’t complain, but my stomach can.  Right near the liquor/grocery store is a Burger King, which IS open.  Something in their window is intriguing: their Kuro burger.  It is made with bamboo ash as well.  So the bun, and cheese, and a coating on the burger is all black.  What the hell; it is different, and that’s what I want.  However upon finishing, it tasted precisely like a Burger King burger would.  Oh well, I still would rather regret doing something than not so I’m glad I at least tried it.

I did see a fugu place in my stroll that was closed at the moment.  I will definitely be inquiring in the office about that place and see what the opinion is about the place.  Puffer fish is not something you want to get from a place with a bad reputation.

I head back and pour a dram of Nikka Whisky From The Barrel to enjoy as I reminisce and tell you of my sojourns of the day.  Mata raishu.

Salt Adds Time

4:00AM was quite a rude awakening.  I’m up and out of the hotel by 4:45 to get to the only open gate at the Akasaka-Mitsuke line which is right below the Bic Camera.  First train is right on time at 5:09.  There are several people sleeping on benches and propped up against walls having missed the last train at 11:00PM the night before.  Tokyo is safe for practically anyone, as long as it isn’t snowing.

There are maybe about a dozen people in my car.  This bodes well for our chances of getting a pair of the 350 tickets that will go on sale at 8:00.  The stop before I meet my co-worker, about 60 people cram in.  Now it is packed.  My co-worker sees the “sea of humanity” as he put it and is flabbergasted.  Well, it wasn’t so bad that they need to press people in with sticks.  Two stops later a majority of them pile out to join one of the other trains.  We hop onto the JR line at Ueno-okachimachi and continue to the Ryogoku station where it is about a 4 minute walk to the front of the Ryogoku Kokugikan.  We get to the line at about 5:50 and there are about 60 people ahead of us.  Things are looking up and as long as they’re not all waiting for 6 friends, we should be good.

The cold wind and the sun hiding behind the kokugikan keep us awake with little problem through sheer cold.  By about 7:00 we have maybe 70 in front of us as friends join groups, and maybe 80 behind us.  Around 7:30, a girl comes by and heads towards us and explains that they will be handing out numbers soon and you must have that number and stay in line.  Also, only one ticket can be purchased per person.  This is really good news.

Then a couple of guys start moving down the line handing out numbers.  We’re #81 and #82.  We’re in!  The rest of the line waiting time was alternating standing in the sun and marveling at the length of the line.  We took some perverse pleasure in watching some foreigners running to try to make it in time to get in line.  They were unsuccessful.

Breakfast needed to be quick so we could get inside and reserve our general admission seats.  Crap.  So we ate at McDonald’s.  Same food, different looking menu.

We get inside the kokugikan and head inside and grab the best seats we can, place our match schedule sheets on the seat and head down to the museums and shops to look around.  No photos were allowed in the museum.  Lots of cool things down there.  There were block paintings and photographs of all the yokozuna (there have only been 71 in the history of sumo).  There is such a rich and colorful history to this martial art and the tournaments.  If you ever have the chance to go to a sumo tournament, do it.  It is very cool.

The bouts started around 10:30 with the younger, unranked rikishi (wrestler).  Bouts last about five seconds to maybe one minute, and they occur every about two minutes.  They’re very efficient.  That is until you get to the Juryo division and they start being able to practice the salt purification rituals.  It’s a bowl of salt that the rikishi will scoop out some and toss in the air to land on the Dohyo and to keep the bad spirits away.  Some rikishi do this several times.  So the usual two minutes between bouts becomes about five or eight minutes.

I’ll share a couple of photos at the end of this post to show some of the bouts.  Dinner of baby clam, squid, octopus, and onion over rice with miso soup was had in Akihabara, an electronic Mecca.  If you’ve been to Comic Con and seen booths of figurines and Japanese style dolls, manga, etc., imagine 3-story floors of that instead of just booths.  Insanity.

So tired, and I just want to crash now so I’ll end this post early with some sumo pictures.