Almost... a... house...

I just got confirmation that my stuff I shipped from America will show up next Tuesday morning! Yay! I'll have Japanese prints on the wall again, and most importantly, I'll have my bike. That will trim my commute from ~35 min. now to about 15 min. (at least on non-rainy days).

In other news, Yoichi took us on the trip to Ikea for furniture's sake Sunday. I actually have (some) furniture in my room now!

The other exciting thing is that the new apartment is along a river with hundreds of cherry trees... and sakura season should be early this year. I've already seen two cherry trees in full bloom here (there are some varieties that bloom extra-early). It certainly has been a weird weather year.

Sorry for the no-posty interval lately. I moved two weeks ago, and the new apartment doesn't have an internet connection yet, so my connectivity outside of work is suffering. And, at work, my MacBook is running Windows all day, so I'm not so motivated to post :-(

Later!

El Jogo no Mundo Real

This is some serious fanitude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyLCi9RIZu4&eurl=

All these years later, and I can promise you it's pretty much shot-for-shot accurate. I remember a lot of those shots by their shot number even now!

Vegetable Cravings

Back when I was taking Karate, I would get serious meat cravings. I was working out enough that I would look in a meat counter at raw meat and actually salivate.

Here in Japan, that happens too, but it's with vegetables. Although the Japanese diet is very healthy (I've lost weight since coming here), it's hard to get any big servings of vegetables -- this ain't California. When I look at a display of nice tomatoes or other yummy veggies, I completely have the salivate reaction.

Veggies here are really nice but ridiculously expensive ($3 per bunch for Broccoli anyone?) so I'm always on the lookout for more. The other day in a British pub I actually ordered the ¥400 "vegatable stick" (aka carrot stick) appetizer just to get some fiber. On the way home the other night, I bought a package of cherry tomatoes (¥380) and looking at them in the store I was totally salivating.

The only vaguely affordable vegetable is carrots -- they're only $1 or so each (Japanese carrots are very thick but short, so they have more volume than a single U.S. carrot).

Shaker

Whee, we had a nice quake last night: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2007xpa9.php

It very distinctly made the building I'm living in (narrow and tall like most of Tokyo!) sway. As always, I woke up knowing it was because there was an earthquake. Another milestone of living here -- my first quake!

Leo

Found a permanent apartment!

Today was get-daragged-all-over-Meguro-ku-by-Hasegawa-san day. I needed to find a permanent apartment, my temporary place is coming up for renewal again, so I found an rental agent this week and also decided to look for a place together with a friend from work, Matt Smith (1-BR and 2-BR apartments are almost the same price in the part of Tokyo I was looking in).

Today we found one, on the second place we saw! It's near Meguro-eki, halfway between that and Nakameguro-eki, right on the Meguro river:

From Tokyo

It's on the twelfth floor of a high-rise, not really my preferred situation but the location is super-convenient (it'll be an easy 10-15 minute bike commute) and the views are pretty good. It's on an end, so it has a window, and here Matt demonstrates that the room is, in fact, wider than your outstretched arms:

From Tokyo

I don't know yet when I can move in, but hopefully it's before my trip back to the states on the 26th!

Engrish in Action

This is a clothing store in Shibuya:

From Tokyo

I was trying to figure out, what's the opposite of "casually casual"?

Mt. Takao hike

Today and did a great hike, up Mt. Takao and Mt. Shobatakeshiro. There were some fantastic views of the sunset from the second summit and a stumble across a suspension bridge and a dam in the dark at the end!



For the full story, check out the photos!.

Weird Ghibli Installation

Today I was wandering around Shiodome (on the way back from Comiket!) and I ran into this totally bizarre installation which was from Studio Ghibli. It's a little bit of Ghibli-esque old-style mecha design... in the middle of a skyscraper district!

From Ghibli at Shi...

Check out my album for more photos!

Kanji

Well, there's nothing like writing holiday cards for training you how to write your address. Although most of the cards I sent have my return address in English, eventually I just buckled down and learned the Kanji.

It's a lot easier to write the name of the neighborhood as 元赤坂 than as Motoakasaka. Also, both my work and home addresses have the name of the neighborhood twice, once in the building name and once in the address itself. So, with Kanji, my entire home address is

107-0051東京部港区1-7-4元赤坂レイとコート元赤坂#603

but in English it's

107-0051 Tokyo-bu Minato-ku 1-7-4 Motoakasaka Leito Court Motoakasaka #603

Don't worry, this is only a temporary apartment, so it's OK that it's on the Internet ;-)

I'm legal!

Woo-hoo! I went to the "Foreigner Management Bureau" (aka Immigration) today and picked up my Working Visa. I can now be paid!

Tomorrow morning I'm going to go to Minato-ku building and try to get my Gaikokujin Tourokusho (Alien Registration Card), which is the gateway to lots of things, like getting a bank account, renting an apartment, and (the most prized of all) getting a real Japanese cellphone (I still haven't decided whether to go DoCoMo, au, or Softbank yet though -- anybody out there with Japanese cellphone experience?).

I had to do it

So, I tried Tokyo Mexican tonight at a place called "La Jolla" in Hiro-o. The truth is... it wasn't bad. The tortillas (the thing I was most worried about) were fine, and the green tomatillo salsa was actually really good, tart and fresh. The red salsa... well... tasted more like Bolognese sauce. But overall it was OK, and they even had a real selection of Mexican beers (Carta Blanca, Negro Modelo, Tecate...).

Do they have these in the U.S.?

I was wandering around in Kamakura today, and the surfers all have these on their bikes so they can carry a surfboard to and from the beach. I've never seen 'em in the U.S., do they exist there?

Japanese Grocery prices

I was wandering through a grocery store tonight and saw some amazing examples of the Japanese predeliction for beautifully packaged, expensive food. Here's the extreme version: a single abalone for $27.

As you can see, especially when it comes to seafood, Japanese are quite aware where their food comes from.

Check my picasaweb for more examples (scroll to the bottom).

Second Life

Nicely summarized. Thank you, Joystiq.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/13/analyzing-the-press-second-life-obsession/

Wow, they have Engrish in Japanese too

Tonight's TV program: Japonica Logos. These guys run around Japan looking for examples of badly written Japanese. Then, they make fun of it on the air! Some examples from the recent show were "Do not go into the batting cage alone" (a typo, meant to say "do not enter together"), a sign on a faucet that says, "do not drink this bottled water," and a sign on a door that said, "do not enter while standing." Of course, all these examples of Japanese Engrish are accompanied by ludicrously over-dramatized music and three trash-talking hosts - this IS the country that gave us Iron Chef, after all.