Back for more
It’s been a really long time since my last blog post so for people that don’t know me that well I guess I should say what’s going on now. After my last trip to Japan I did one year of graduate school at Georgia Tech, but I got a scholarship to do a full year of intensive Japanese language study so I’m back now. Maybe later I’ll write some details about how all this has happened for people that don’t know, but most people reading this probably already know what’s going on, so I’ll go ahead and jump to the recent updates. I should have written a lot of this sooner when it was fresher on my mind, but I’ve been pretty busy.
First, the flight. On the day I was supposed to leave, my connecting flight got delayed and they had to move me to the next day but that was full. Since I was getting bumped by them, they put me in business class which I was pretty excited about. It was much much nicer than coach, but it really didn’t make that much of a difference overall I think. It’s nice to get for free, and if one day I’m accepting a job that sends me to Japan a lot, it’s definitely something I’m going to ask about. But overall, you still know you’re flying and it’s still a pain. I got a seat on the second floor which was cool because I was right behind the cockpit and could see in when they had the door open. I wanted to take a picture, but I reminded myself this is New America and I’ve heard too many stories of people getting arrested for a taking picture of a lot more innocent things than airplane cockpits. I did take a picture of my chair and I’ll post that later when I have real internet. I boarded first of course and they started serving drinks to help us pass the time while the peons boarded. Just to try on my fancypants, I had some champagne. The space and 176degree chair are the biggest differences from coach, but I still had a hard time sleeping. Later I realized maybe I just drank too much green tea. Also, the food was amazing. I ordered the Japanese dinner and I had the sashimi ever. Before I’ve never had a problem with raw fish, but I never thought it was that great. Now I now why some people love it so much. The stuff I had on the plane was amazing in both taste and texture, but I imagine I would never voluntarily pay what I’d need to to get something of that quality again.
I had no problem with anything getting off the plane. Immigration and customs both just welcomed me to Japan. I also hit good timing and only had to wait 20 minutes for the bus to my apartment, so I bought a card to recharge last year’s phone in the meantime. After that I took the bus to Shibuya and emailed everyone on my phone on the way.
When we stopped at a hotel, the sign said the name of the hotel where I wanted to get off so I did. Turns out that was for some reason saying the name of the next stop even though we were clearly at another one. So I asked the hotel helper standing there how to get where I wanted to go and he said it would be a bit of a walk and very hard with my luggage so he called his hotel shuttle to come get me, giving me the first big piece of Japanese hospitality.
Even from where the shuttle dropped me off, it was incredibly hard to navigate around the millions of people and get to my apartment with my luggage. I finally got there though, and it was exactly how I pictured it. It’s a great apartment in the perfect location, and when I can I’ll put up some pictures. The only thing that’s a problem right now is the whole no internet thing.
My first couple days were taken up with exploring Shibuya and trying to get errands done which are practically impossible for someone who’s not Japanese. I need an alien identification card before I can do anything else but it takes two weeks to get that stupid card. Luckily I have last year’s pre-paid cell phone that I recharged or I could do absolutely nothing else without that card. I got my insurance and my lease signed and that stretched my Japanese skills quite a bit but I got it done, and so far my unconquerable arch-nemisis has been getting internet access. Japanese internet is incredibly fast but also an incredible pain to get connected.
There is already an ethernet jack in my apartment so I figured we have something already provided if we just turn it on. I didn’t know who to ask though, so I got a name and email off a notice of a building meeting in my mailbox and just asked that guy. I ended up going to his apartment where we tried applying to get the fiber that the building is already wired for, but they were going to charge me again for installation and then charge a lot monthly so I think I’ll get DSL from a discount ISP. I went to talk to them today and sent in my application. Since they’re undercutting the monopoly that provides the network, they said the monopoly company will try hard to deny the application, but hopefully I’ll be ready to go in a few weeks. It’s a long story for how, but today I ended up finding an unsecured wireless network that I can see from a bench in the station so I think I’ll use that in the meantime to get and send emails. I don’t want to sit there all day but at least now I won’t be completely cut off from the world. Also school starts Thursday and they have internet for us there.
The weekdays haven’t been anything too exciting since all Japanese people are busy and I’ve just been doing errands but I had a great weekend. Friday I went out with a friend from last summer and a few of his friends. I realized there’s a subway line that goes to the station right beside the one for ICU so it’ll be easy to see people from there. Most of them I will only be able to see once or twice though since they’re leaving soon. Jon (a guy I met at ICU that lives here) and Mari (a girl that goes to ICU and studied at UNC last year) will be here all year.
Saturday I went to Odaiba with a Japanese friend, which was great. I really wish I’d taken my camera, but I didn’t know it was going to be such a picture worthy place. We also went to this Panasonic exhibition that had lots of neats things you could explore. They had a home theater setup and I honorably allowed them to introduce me to it. I liked the sound system better than the ones they use in movie theaters. They also had a big Nintendo section where you could play Wii and DS games. They already had Zelda out for you to play, which was cool. There was also an educational section with a lot of the same toys I saw at the science museum in Boston, along with some more high-tech stuff and some nice demos. After that we just went to the shopping area around Odaiba to look around and watch people. It was a neat place because you could smell the ocean and see Tokyo from the outside(ish) which I’d never seen before. The night view was amazing and I’ll have to go back with my camera sometime. Odaiba also has really cool architecture.
Sunday I went out with another Japanese friend and her friend who showed us around Yokohama. I got to see school again and learn my way around things over there. We walked all over Yokohama and it was a great confidence booster since it was my first time holding my own in a group of friends in Japanese (since it’s much harder than one-on-one). Saturday and Sunday were all-Japanese-all-the-time and I can already tell I’m getting a lot more comfortable.
I guess that’s mostly it for what I’ve been doing so far. I know there were more interesting observations I wanted to write about but I don’t remember them now. I’m sure they’ll come back later. Oh, the weather has been great so far. It’s been cool and dry except for Thursday. My first day the big story was that the rainy season finally came so I was mad about that but I think they were wrong. Since then it’s been just a little warm during the day and perfect at night. One more interesting thing is I was tired today so I was watching the news and they had a long story about how all the foreigners that go to the fish market are a pain in the ass. It’s completely true, but it’s amazing how candid that are about it. In America, it wouldn’t really fly to have a show about how… I shouldn’t give any specific examples. Anyway, that’s one reason I hadn’t gone to Tsukiji (the fish market); it’s a real fish market where people work, not a tourist attraction. At the end of the segment they did mention Japanese tourist in other countries, but my language failed me at the most important time and I’m not sure exactly what they said. Maybe they said “Japanese would never d that” or maybe they said, “Japanese probably do the same thing in other countries.” Neither would really surprise me.
Day 11 – Yokohama
The next day I slept in a little since I was out so late with the baka gaijin. I had arranged to meet someone I met on Mixi in Yokohama later in the day so first I explored Tokyo a little more. I don’t remember anything of particular interest in that time so I’ll just skip to my trip to Yokohama
Lots of times on trains I would get stared at by people. Sometimes if they’re girls and they don’t look away when you look at them it’s hard to tell if it’s because they’re so curious about the gaijin or if it’s because they like what they see. On the train to Shinagawa, a girl kept looking at me and I wondered but didn’t think too much of it. Then we got off at the same stop and as we were walking up the stairs she said, “Hey.” I was surprised and asked why she spoke English. It turned out she was actually from Taiwan, and she was in Japan trying to build a better portfolio or whatever you use to build your career in makeup. We talked for a little bit and she was really cool so she said to meet her in the same place again the next day ’cause she and her friend were going out to shop and eat. I told her I’d try, but I wasn’t sure since I had to register for school the next day. Then I headed on to Yokohama
I met Ai in the Yokohama station and we immediately started heading to Minato Mirai since most of the day was already gone. She had just gotten out of school and was going to show me around a little before she went home. It was nice to be able to speak Japanese again and we just talked a lot as we walked to different places.
I was amazed when I saw Minato Mirai. The name means “Future Port” and it feels like it. The place is very clean feeling with great architecture and nice parks. It feels like what a city should be instead of a random jumble of stuff that ended up close together. It has the tallest building in Japan, the Landmark Tower, some other nice office buildings and hotels, an old ship, an old warehouse, a free-entry amusement park, etc. It’s definitely my favorite urban place in the world and when I was walking around there thought about what it would be like if I worked there at some point. That’s pretty amazing now that it looks like I’m going to be going to school there for a year.
First we went up the Landmark Tower which is the tallest building in Japan and I think has the fastest elevator in the world. You go in the elevator and the lady gives a stiff speech about the tower and the elevator and it really doesn’t feel like you went anywhere and you’re at the top. Unfortunately it was pretty hazy on the day I went and you barely even see Tokyo. On a good day you can easily see Mount Fuji. I took a few pictures and looked around the place but we couldn’t stay too long because it was getting late.
Next we went to see an old ship that’s docked outside of the tower. Again, we didn’t have much time, so we just looked at it and moved on. I’m looking forward to being able to see these things in more depth later. Next we walked over to the warehouse which is a very old, very big, brick building. The brick looks very out of place in Japan, and this warehouse is famous I think for it’s size and age. Now it’s been turned into a mall I think and there are stores on the inside. finally we walked over to look at the amusement park stuff real quick and then headed back to the station.
We ate dinner in a restaurant in the station and I headed back to the hotel. I wish I had gotten to see Ai again, but I didn’t go to Yokohama again while I was in Japan. Hopefully we can hang out again since I’ll be living there next year. When I went to bed it was pretty sad, because I knew my freedom expired. This was the last day my rail pass was good and from then on if I just up and wanted to go to Hokkaido one day, I’d have to pay (a lot) for it.
