Cleanup Discoveries

I was cleaning out my temp folder and found a set of picture I had taken of the Tokyo tower with the hopes of doing a panorama of them. I gave it another shot just now and got them to come together a little bit better this time. Anyway, here's the result.Yes, you could take that picture with just one shot if you had the right gear, but the shortest focal length I have is 18mm, and it's very poor for low-light work. That said, a brightly-lit tower can hardly be considered "low-light", so I used my 18-55mm, the cheapo kit lens that comes with every low-end DSLR for the past five years.
it would take at least six separate pictures at that focal length to do this from where I was standing, and I was far back as I could get without standing (too deeply) in shrubbery/gardening. This picture is taken from 17 of the 20 or so picture I took from that spot. You'd think with that many, I could've got the tower to expose properly in one of them. Unfortunately, though I did, I took those picture from a slightly different viewpoint, so I can't match them. Cool, huh?

I'd like to go back and try this again with the proper gear, ie: a tripod, but I don't think I'll be able to afford it this trip.

Tokyo: Akihabara (Day 2)

This day was originally supposed to be entirely Akihabara, but in all honesty, I simply ran out of enthusiasm for looking at figures, porn, and porn figures after the first fifteen shops. I mean, there was non-porn stuff as well, but there was as much that was blatently pornographic as there was anything else. This may have had something to do with being led around by an anime otaku, but I'm not certain. This kind of stuff was largely limited to just a few buildings we went into, so don't let it deter you from going. Then again, if it's what you're looking for it won't be difficult to find.

I picked up some little omiyage for people, but none of it has shipped yet because I've been lazing around and breaking my computer instead of being productive. I left my room once today to go check the mail, if that gives you an idea of just how lazy I'm being right now.

Okay, so on with the Akihabara! Well, after this picture of a flower I took that morning. My 18-55mm just doesn't do macro well, you know, but I like it and this picture anyway. So there.

We left the house around 10:30 or so, and got to Akihabara within an hour or so, and it cost us about $5 in train fare. We got off at Akihabara station, where we met our guide, a Mr. Kanayama. You can see him posing at left.

We started off wandering around in random stores, as far as I can tell, and I saw a lot of figures that I wanted to buy. This confuses me for two reasons: I didn't think I liked dolls; the starting price for the good ones was about $50. Two of those would be the same as a brand new tripod. Four would be a cheap lens... You can see where this is going, I think.
I'm generally not a big fan of things whose only purpose is to go on a shelf and never be used, so I don't know what I would do with figures if I had bought them. Fortunately, I didn't, so all is well.

There were a lot of figures in each store, and I we visited at least four stores completely dedicated to them, each about... figure the average size of a Radio Shack. In spite of the quantity, I really didn't find myself drawn to many of them. Here are some girls, I think - it's often hard to tell with Japanese people - checking out the scantily clad figures.
Go figure?

But there were a couple that I was very tempted by, such as these Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball figures. Some of you may remember these characters either from that game, or the multi-platform game Dead or Alive 3. A number of people have played it on my Xbox at our Chamith house.
Looking at this picture more closely, I can see that they're supposed to be from the second version of DOA:XBV that's for the Xbox 360. I haven't played it myself, or even ever seen it. I mean, I've only played the actual Dead or Alive 4 for Xbox 360 once, and that was at Sakura-con. Was very thoroughly schooled.

This one was surprisingly low on the creepy figurines list, despite the human-size scale. I've seen people here that look less realistic than this giant doll, though, which I will admit worries me to some extent. Japanese women have a tendency to wear... rather more makeup than one might think. I've checked with at least five other people and they all agree with me, so I'm not alone on this.

I watched Shana and Fate with someone who hasn't been reading this blog lately, but I'm putting these up because I found them and thought they were cool. The Zero figurine is a little bit odd, yeah, but we are talking about a store for otaku, so it's either that or a maid outfit, right?

We wandered around quite a lot, but mostly found more of the same general sort of thing. I mean, I probably have 60 pictures of random figures that I took while no one was looking, but honestly, you can only see so many before you start thinking "Oh, on this figure, only the skirt comes off?" and "Look, it's another random anime character I don't recognize!" Though I would wager I recognized at least half of all the characters I saw. Given I haven't watched but two anime since coming here, that make me feel good as an anime-watching person.

While we were doing the aforementioned wandering around, we stopped for some ice cream, and right next to the place was a place selling some kind of pork-based food. You can see the guy shaving off little bits of pork at left. Interesting method, don't you think?

And here (at right) you can see why it is that I don't want to buy radios (AKA walkie talkies) here in Japan. The cheapest price I see in that whole lot is about $100. For one. Oh, and did I mention that they're not interoperable? They only work with radios from the same brand, and even then only sometimes.

I'd love to get a batch of six or so cheap bubble-pack radios here. They'd be so nice for coordinating groups and meetups. Given the cost of voice calls on a phone, they'd pay for themselves pretty quickly, too. And they're usable in an emergency, unlike a cell phone, as cell networks are so easily overloaded.

Specifics aside, my overall take on Akihabara is as follows:

• If you're looking for anime, manga, or anything related to them - including music and third-party porn - come to Akihabara and you will be at home. You'll be broke pretty quickly, too.
• If you're looking for hard-to-find electronics and have exhausted all other methods of getting whatever it is, come to Akihabara. They have it, I'm sure.
• If you're looking to build something that involves any number of a variety of different random tiny eletronic thingamawhatsits, come to Akihabara. They have more thingamawhatsits than you can shake a doohickey at.
  
• If you're looking for name-brand or popular consumer electronics - say, camera gear - don't bother. Prices in Akihabara are no better than you would get from anywhere in the Western world. They're slightly cheaper than average for Japan, on average, I think. But not enough to make it worth the trip unless you're also coming for sightseeing.

In the end, I can't say that it was a really amazing place, but it's a place that I couldn't not go, given the chance. I'm glad I was able to go, even if the only thing I gained was to be able to say, "Yeah, I've been to Akihabara." I may just mentally add a "... So?" on the end of that.

[This is, I think, the last of my posts about my trip to Tokyo. People keep asking, so here's what I thought of the trip as a whole: It wasn't great, but I definnitely don't regret it, either.]

Tokyo: Wandering (Day 1)

Yeah, this is the third or fourth post for Day 1. It was by far the most fun day. I spent the first half of it navigating on my own, which was fun. I mean, sure, I was headed to a popular tourist destination that hundreds of thousands of other people have no problems finding every year, but I'm a little... special when it comes to pathfinding. It's an aura I have with me, I think, as people have a tendency to get lost more when I'm around even if I don't say a word.
In the end, I was able to find my way to the "Raumen" museum without getting lost. I think I already said that, though...

So, what'd we do after that?

Well, I met up with Shimpei and his fairly cute girlfriend. You can see the two of them posing on the left. Apparently, she was going to help us navigate the city, and is a "train expert" in Shimpei's words. Oh, her name is Natsumi, though I'm not certain which kanji she writes it with. I haven't checked, but I would assume there are at least ten different ways you can write that name.
I hate kanji.

So we visited some random parts of Tokyo: Ginza... and... other places I don't know the names of. Yeah, I was completely lost and just following our train ninja.

I took the obligatory picture of the Tokyo Tower. Or rather, about 30 of them, when all was said and done.
The sky was pretty bright, but nothing compared to the tower, so I couldn't get them to expose with each other. I didn't realize it was that much of a problem until I got back, or I would've set up a couple shots to make into an HDR picture when I got back. Tried to pano everything together, but to no avail.
I got Natsumi to take this picture of me, but it took us a few tries because I was backlit. She moved the camera a little and blurred the background. Honestly,I think it makes the picture better. It looks cool. Though I'm a little worried for my right kidney and lung, which might have something to say if that part of my body started disappearing.

After about six hours of wandering around Tokyo, we headed back home, where Shimpei and I intended to make some food. Really, though, he made the smart decision and didn't let me try to cook anything, so I just watched. Mabudofu is pretty good, by the way.
Tempura eggplant is not good, by the way.

Saw this random bit of goodness on the way back. I want to make some connection between this and traditional Asian healing practices I don't believe in, but I've got nothing witty for it, really.

After dinner, we basically lazed about until it was time to go to bed. After a day filled with standing up and walking around and riding the train, it was really nice to stop, sit still, and just kind of exist without all the people and noises and... everything.

やっぱり、田舎の人なのね。。。

Tokyo: Ramen Museum (Day 1)

I don't know how many of you know this, but I'm kind of a fan of instant ramen. When I was about 15 years old*, I heard about a mystical place filled with ramen, ramen history, and ramen-related stuff. Now, if you can think of a more delicious place, I welcome you to try - a cheesecake or licorice factory might give it a run for its money - but it's a great combination of educational and culinary goodness.

*I previously said that I'd been wanting to go for ten years, but when I went to write this post I thought about it a little more and I think it's closer to six or seven. Please excuse my zeal.

For a slightly heartier description, you might check out Wikipedia's article or this random website. If you can read Japanese, you might try the official website.

I'm not certain why I took these pictures, but if it helps, here's an image of the last intersection on the way to the museum form Shin-Yokohama station. It's at the far right of this picture, and the road that goes off in that direction runs North-South.

Finding it is pretty easy, as you can follow a path marked by convenience stores at each corner, which makes it really easy to follow a map to it. I mean, I found the place on my own - without getting lost one or more times - so I'm pretty certain anybody can. At right, you can see what the entrance looks like, and you can also see that they, for some reason entirely beyond me, spell ramen with a U. The "Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum".
No idea.

Inside, they have a gift shop, a timeline, a little fake ramen shop, drawers, examples of various kinds of ramen, and... the basement.

The gift shop takes up about half of the ground floor. It's got some neat stuff, and quite a variety, from musical instruments to cell phone charms to high-quality (presumably?) ramen and ingredients. It's pretty decent as gift shops go. With stuff that's not too painfully priced, you could say it's a bit of a rarity here.

The timeline was pretty cool, but since it was all in Japanese and I'm really not that much of a history person, I kind of stared at it for a while and tried to make noises that sounded like I was getting something from it. The basic gist of it was that the whole thing started around the middle of the 1800s and there are still innovations taking place in contemporary times. It seemed well-done, and someone with better reading skills than me would've probably liked it.

The fake ramen shop was pretty neat. It's a red-themed replica of a ramen shop - a bar, basically - but you can go on the other side of the counter and play around with some of the utensils and stuff. In addition, there was information on kinds of noodles and ingredients and their history here. I'm not sure why, but I never took a picture of the whole area, and only got a bunch of the details, like this one at left: examples of varous kinds of noodles.
In addition to this display, there was a display in another area that had various kinds of instant ramen from the past hundred years or so. You will see an Arnold Shwarzeneger one among some of the more strange ones - it's in the lower-right.

The drawers area was kind of like a morgue for ramen shops. It had memorabilia from probably two hundred ramen shops from around the country. They were numbered, though I'm not sure why. I opened up drawers three and four and took the picture at right.
"Ooo, bowls and a T-shirt", right?
This picture is a good example of when one might use a polarizer. I think I might have, actually. The flourescent lights tend to put quite a lot of glare on shiny stuff, and the glass covers for the drawers hardly show up in this picture.

Then there's the basement.

The basement is a two-level replica of some city 1940s Japan. It looks kind of like someone was filming a Western movie, and then accidentally imported a bunch of stuff from the 1940s and just kind of... blended them. I'm not saying it's not fairly authentic, merely that it was kind of weird.

I refuse to categorically go through what was in the basement on the basis that I don't want to spend the next week writing this one post, but some of the highlights follow.

I tried mizu-ame ("water sugar-candy" is about the best I can do with this one), which is basically runny, flavorless taffy. I guess this was Japanese kids' first experience with pure sugar, because it is just like eating caro syrup. Yum.

I had a bowl of ramen. At $10, I had pretty high expectations, but I was stupid and got a spicy ramen, and the Japanese don't really know how to make spicy food that has flavor without involving curry. Or something. Anyway, it was fairly average ramen, especially compared to the place I had gone to the previous night with Shimpei.
It was prettier when they sent it out to me, but I didn't think to take a picture until I had poked at it a little.

Lastly, I got some ice cream and headed back out. The ice cream was pretty decent and was really good after eating a hot bowl of spicy ramen. Cooler was the little stand they brought it out on. In? I don't know.

On the way out, I asked a random Japanese girl to go pose for me, and after a minute or two of giggling, she did. This picture really doesn't do her justice, but I'm not sure who would look good in that frame.

Back Home

I'm back in Kyoto and still alive. Food takes precedence over writing, and sleep is getting pretty high up on the list, too. I'm going to work on blog posts about the trip tomorrow after some errands, so they shouldn't be too long in coming.

Tokyo: Japanese Toilets (Day 1)

There are a couple of weird things about Japanese toilets. I don't mean the ones that are not a toilet as much as a hole in the ground coated with porcelain - those are definitely weird - but there are some features Japanese toilets have that seem to be pretty normal that I've never seen in the States.
The first is that it's pretty common to see toilets in private homes with heated seats. I haven't been to a lot of people's houses - nearly everybody I know lives in student apartments - I'll admit, but the few I've been in have had heated toilet seats. I've only tried it once, but I forgot I had turned it on and was a little confused until I remembered. I'm sure it would be nice on a cold night, but it felt uncannily - pardon the pun - like going right after someone else.
If you look at the picture at right, you can see the control knob and power cord running off from the seat itself to the wall socket.

You can also pretty clearly see what appears to be a faucet on the top of the toilet. This is, in fact, a faucet. Someone decided that, if you have to fill the tank, and the water in the tank is just going to be used to flush various human wastes, it probably doesn't need to be clean. Right?
So why not first use the water to let someone wash their hands?

In case anybody cares, that there is a high dynamic range picture composited from two shots. Given that it was handheld, I'm surprised it worked, but there you have it.

Tokyo: Wake-up (Day 1)

I took this picture of Shimpei - the guy whose apartment I'm staying at.

Down below is a panorama of his apartment. Close quarters always do bad things to panos, so please forgive the diagonal door.

[Edit: I don't know what happened to this picture, but it somehow ended up getting wedged into the links on the right side.
Want to guess the true reason this edit is here?
It couldn't be to push this down until it centers properly. That would be bad practice!

Probably.]

Tokyo: So Far (Day 0) - Traveling

First off: Apparently, you can buy large JR tickets with a credit card. Good to know.
I had a number of transfers due to the distance involved, but I ran into three other people going the same place as me on the second or third transfer, so I had a good time talking with them and we helped each other find the way. It was really lucky.

I somehow (probably due to the people I met) managed to get here without any major problems except my own stench - big thanks to Kyoto's humidity for that one - which I fixed by tossing one of my prized blue shirts. The last three times I've worn it, it's smelled really bad, really quick, so I think there may be something growing in it or something. It now smells bad somewhere between Kyoto and Tokyo, in a trash can in a bathroom.

It took Shimpei (the guy I'm staying with) a few minutes (~15) to find me due to the massive monstrosity that is Yokohama station. From there, a 15-minute train ride to the actual town he lives in, and a 15-minute walk to his apartment from the station.
Total time from leaving my apartment to getting to his apartment was... Long. 7:20AM to 6:30PM, so nearly 11 hours. Shinkansen (bullet train) would've put me here around 11AM, but would cost more one-way than my round-trip ticket did.

Dean said he's going to send me some cashes, so I should have some money to do some shopping while I'm here, which will be cool. It looks like Akihabara may not be the best place to get camera gear, but there's some pretty good deals at... some place. I dunno if I can find it.

Last thing before I hit the hay: the warm water here has a switch. I'm not kidding at all. You have to turn on the hot water knob, then turn on the hot water heater. Then you have hot water. I thought it was just really, really slow. I figured after five minutes, I was probably just missing something.

[Edit: I was just looking through my pictures I've taken so far, and I found these two signs, which felt left out, so they're getting put in to assuage their feelings.]