Week 2 - In Brief

So as you may have noticed, the updates have become a bit less frequent recently. This week has been a relatively bland one, and frankly I'm a bit surprised it's over already. The last 5 days have pretty much consisted of me waking up anywhere from 6:30-8 and, in order of importance, a) checking my mail and possibly making some phone calls, b) eating breakfast, and a distant c) showering. I'm in the lab by 9:30 where I spend another hour or so speaking to people online, reading news and checking e-mail. That gives me a good hour if I'm lucky to do some real work like reading papers, until about noon rolls around at which point everyone simultaneously gets up and goes to lunch. About 12:45 I'm back in the lab and I decide to check the news and such again for a bit until about 1:30PM where I sit down to try reading a bit more literature. Add a few breaks in between and suddenly it's about 5:00 and it's time to go home.

It typically takes about 30 minutes to get home, at which point I offload my stuff, plug in my computer, and usually watch some of the TV shows I'm missing while I relax. 6:30 rolls around and it's time for dinner, so Tim and I usually meet up and go downstairs for our incredibly hit or miss free food. I finally let them know I don't eat pork so when it is some sort of pig dish the kitchen staff will prepare me some chicken nuggets and pseudo-salad. Now while I do question the nutritional value of multiple chicken nugget meals a week, I must say I can't complain...at least chicken nuggets don't have eyes.

After dinner it's about 7:15 and I'll usually go back to my room for about 45 minutes or so at which point I'll hop in the shower. This week Tim and I picked up running, which is very likely to get us arrested for jaywalking, being creepy gaijin who get lost in childrens' playgrounds, or being even creepier gaijin who like to play "race that sweet old lady riding her bicycle alone on this vacant street at night" (to Tim's defense, I'm really the only one who likes this game). We're hoping the running will last, though we did take a break on Friday and, due to soccer injuries sustained by both of us, may have to postpone it indefinitely.

After the run and/or shower I'll usually head back to my room, peruse the "Intahnehto" a bit more, and go to sleep by 10 or 11. There are a ton of things I'd really like to start doing, such as learning a bit more Japanese, but for some reason it seems like as unproductive as I may be on a given day, I don't really have the time for it. I'm hoping this coming week I'll get started on some experiments.

The Weekend:

Friday most of us didn't have any lab work to do so we spent a large chunk of the day deciding what we were gonna do that weekend. We had decided to stay in Osaka for the weekend, and planned to go to the aquarium at some point. Friday night we wanted to go to Shinsaibashi, which I guess is one of the other big downtown-like areas in Osaka (Umeda being the other). One of the problems with going out over here is that since the trains stop running at 11PM and cabs are prohibitively expensive, you either go out pretty early, as in 7PM-11PM, or ridiculously late, as in 11PM-5AM. We settled on the 7-11 run and decided to meet up in Umeda at about 6:45.

4:55 rolls around and one of the guys in the lab tells me that he's practicing his english presentation at 5:00 and would like me to watch. Alright, this shouldn't take long. So he starts the presentation at about 5:10 at which point his computer crashes and he has to restart it. At about 5:20 he begins the presentation again, and finally after the presentation/questions are over (5:45) I tell Tuan-san I had plans and I can't see his presentation and I leave. I get back to the dorm at about 6:10 sweaty from running to make it, change, and we're out the door a few minutes later. We get to Umeda about 15 minutes late, and then learned that trying to find an asian person in Japan is like trying to find a needle in a haystack...all rook same!

We finally found Clare in the shoe store at the bottom of Hep 5, our meeting place, and I was rather surprised she didn't fly into a fit of rage at the very sight of us. We had a bit of trouble finding the train line so we stopped by the standing room only McDonalds (chris bought the Shrimp McNuggets) for some dinner and to figure out where to go. Being the ever frugal college student I had made some screwdrivers prior to our departure, and so I gave thanks to Buddha for his lack of open container laws and chugged away.

After finding the train we headed over to Shinsaibashi and decided to walk around a bit. The initial plan was to stop by Cafe Absinthe but no one remembered to bring directions so we just walked around a bit. Much like Umeda, I feel like Shinsaibashi is more of what people imagine Japan to be like.

Crazy and busy with lots of lights.


Apparently they have homeless people as well.


And we stumbled upon this.


I have no idea what it is, but I do know that I see the picture in almost every map or promotional material I see for Osaka.

After walking around for a bit we noticed Tim getting increasingly irrate as he mumbled things to Chris under his breath (that's right Tim, we heard you!) so we decided to stop into the first place we saw which happened to be a brewery/bar. We sat there and grabbed some overpriced beer that made me happy I had planned a bit ahead of time with my cheap vodka, though rather unhappy I had just paid 7 bucks for a beer


Afterwards we decided to stop by a bar called the Pig and Whistle which we had read about in Frommers and had seen along the way. Much like the previous place it was also pretty expensive (about 500-700 yen per drink on average). While we were there I got up to go ask some Westerner if he knew where Cafe Absinthe was. He informed me he'd only been there 2 or 3 days and so I offered for him to come join us. Ewin, an English teacher from Scotland, spent the remainder of the night drinking with us.

Not long after Ewin joined our table some random older Japanese man said hi and asked if he could join us. I didn't really speak to him or catch his name, but as it turned out the Japanese have something in common with the Scottish


Bad teeth...

After taking a couple more pictures with our Japanese friend


and speaking a bit to the group of people next to us we decided to head back home. Once we got to Umeda station Clare went on her way to her dorm and we went back to Ikeda. We decided to check out the Japanese Denny's so we got there and I ordered some fries which Tim and Chris ate because I fell asleep. After eating they woke me up and we headed home to sleep for real. I still maintain that I was simply resting my eyes.

Saturday, after ignoring the phone, I was awakened by Joey and informed that we had meetings with Kuboi-sensei (meetings that like most other things, no one informed us about). I headed over to campus around noon for the meeting, and since Joey was in the middle of his I decided to just get lunch. After lunch I came back and had my meeting in which Kuboi-sensei spent his usual 20 minutes telling me absolutely nothing. After the "meaningless discussion" as his students like to call it, I decided to stay on campus for the next few hours because we were due to play soccer at 4 with Chris and his lab.

Soccer time came around and after finally finding the group we played the game. I make it a point to mention stereotypes and I must say we all represented our country quite perfectly in being the living proof that Americans are poor soccer players. We played on a dirt field about half the size of a regular field, and it was some of the most fun I've had since being here. Every time one of us would do something remotely decent or as was more often the case, completely pathetic, everyone would cheer and laugh. It was all fun and games until I went to block a pass, slipped on the ball, and sustained what I like to call "my ass injury."

After playing for almost 2 hours we called it a game, and Tim and I went to the cafeteria to grab some food. My back was covered in dirt so Tim lent me his extra shirt, and it wasn't till I sat down that I realized the extent of my injuries. I finally found a sitting position that didn't pain me greatly, finished my food, and embarked on an excrutiating walk home. I was pretty exhausted so I went to sleep early on Saturday.

Sunday we were going to go to the aquarium but the weather took a turn for the worse and I wasn't too excited about the prospect of walking around all day so we took a rain check. Tim and I got breakfast (basically a bunch of assorted pastries and an egg sandwich) and I spent the rest of the day watching Studio 60 and scrubs, and basically lying in bed. We got some ramen for dinner, but that was about it.

It's now Monday, my ass is feeling a bit better, but my request to begin some experiments clearly wasn't understood because I just spent the last couple hours updating my blog.

Day 7 - 10 - Our Somewhat Successful Trip to Tokyo Part Deuce

So after going to sleep pretty late (about 3:30AM) I woke up a few hours later at about 7:00AM, a tad later than my planned 6 o'clock wakening. Tim was kind of awake as well, and after making a bit of a raucous so was Joey. Chris was falling in and out of consciousness and Clare was sleeping like a rock. I told Joey I wanted to leave by about 7:45, and between one of Chris's semi-conscious states I told him the same. We went back downstairs to pay for the second night, as well as a luggage lock for our bags, and started getting ready.

At about 7:50, which was about as close to target as I could have expected to get, we left the hostel and made our way to the train station. About 8:00 rolls around and we're rolling. We had made plans the previous night to meet at one of the exits of Tokyo station, the station pretty much in center of Tokyo which happens to also be the station we would need to transfer at to get to the Tokyo Game Show. We get to Tokyo Station and begin walking to the other train line we're supposed to take. We walk. And walk. And walk. And then see a sign.

900m to Keiyo line.

It is at this point that I realize how truly large this station is.

And how truly fucked our plans are.

I make a mental note to leave from the Game Show about 45 minutes earlier than previously planned to give us ample time to make it to the station and find the meeting spot.

We finally get to the line we're supposed to take. This is the first stop the train makes and there are literally hundreds of people there, including a few westerners wearing the tshirts of some gaming website. We get on the train and after a few stops I decided to ask them if they were going to the Game Show. They said "yes we are" in a French accent and the rest just nodded. I asked if I could follow them to which they just nodded again pompously. How did I know it was a pompous nod and not simply a noddish nod? Well a) they were French and b) they kind of ignored me after. Fucking pricks...I guess centuries of military defeats and being best known for a fried potato that arguably never came from France at all will do that to a people.

We got off the train about a half hour later and frankly, didn't need to follow them at all. It seemed everyone that got off the train was heading to the convention and swarms of hundreds of people made their way to the show. We stopped by a booth quickly to buy Chris's ticket, a stop that probably set us back in line about 500 people.

We walked out of the train station and passed by a building with a menu/directory on the front of it which I decided would be a good place to meet.

Dane: "Ok guys, 3:45PM we're meeting right here ok?"
Minions: "Ok!"
Dane: "Ok, so where are we meeting?"
Minions point
Dane: "Good, here's a treat"
Dane gives Minion1 a pastry and Minion2 a new Tom Clancy book.
Minion1: "Wait, 3:45 right?"
Dane sighs...
Dane: "Yes...Jo...er...Minion1"


Taking great misery in the foreshadowing of future events, I decided to ignore it and plunge on ahead. After seeing this


on the way we started to get a bit excited, partly because for the first time all weekend a plan had actually worked out flawlessly, but mostly because we knew we were going in the right direction. Finally after about 10 minutes of walking we reach the line to get in. It's about 9:15AM and the show didn't start till about 10AM, but already we were over a thousand people back, and thousands more seemed to be piling in. The sun was out in full force which didn't help much, but I killed some time watching two of the people behind me engaged in a vicious Pokemon duel to the death. It seemed like almost everyone there was carrying either a Nintendo DS or a PSP. There were also a ton of foreigners there, this picture in particular made my day. Where's Waldo?


At about 10:15 our line started moving and not long after we were inside. I have to say I was pretty overwhelmed at first, kind of like a little kid in a candy shop. I just walked around the place for a good 20 minutes with a huge grin on my face bowing to all the booth babes (or booth companions as they're called in Japan)


. I guess that's kind of creepy. Many of the big companies hand out these huge bags that are meant to hold all the junk people hand out to you (promotional flyers and press kits and such). After walking around for a bit this guy pulled me over to one of the booths. The booth basically had a few benches with a Japanese girl sitting on each of them.


They would hand you a phone and teach you how to play the game, and even though I couldn't understand anything, I managed to pick up the word Jan Ken and figured the game would be pretty self explanatory (rocks paper scissors = Jan Ken Pon). I lost the first game to which my Japanese girl gave me a sad face and a sumimasen. We then played another game which i didn't understand so I just pressed buttons and must have done something right because afterwards she started clapping her hands and cheering for me, at which point she said "win!" and handed me something that was in Japanese.

I walked around a bit more and then decided to head to the other building. The building is separated by a little outdoor walkway, so I passed through that and went in. I went over to the square-enix booth at about 11AM and waited an hour in line to see the Final Fantasy XIII presentation which was freakin amazing. Again while waiting in line everyone was just chatting away or playing their PSP's. After leaving the presentation room I walked by a little fenced off area where people would just sit down and play their DS against each other which I thought was kinda neat.

This room was far more crowded than the previous one, and it was almost unbearable at some points, so I decided to leave and head back to the other building. I entered the walkway and saw this


For those that don't know, this is cosplay. Basically, people dress up as anime characters/video game characters and the outfits range from awesome





to just plain ridiculous.



I probably spent about an hour out there taking pictures of all the cosplayers at which point I went back inside. I had kind of seen all I had to see at this point so after pacing around a bit more I decided to just go over to the meeting spot to look around. I went to the pastry store over there and got something to eat, and then just happened to pass Chris at Subway. He'd pretty much been TGS'd out as well. Alright I thought, 2/3 isn't bad, maybe things will continuing going as planned!

Maybe not.

3:35 rolls around and we head over to the meeting spot to wait for Joey.
3:40 no Joey...
3:45 a very pissed off Dane

After pacing back and forth around the building with the anger building up inside of me I finally catch a glimpse of Joseph Kotarek.

4:20 upon making I contact with Joey I throw my hands helplessly in the air, give him a passionate "Dude...what the hell?!" and as he's about to say something, turn around and start walking. At this point rather than being at Tokyo Station half an hour early it looked like we were going to be there 5 minutes late. We get our tickets and hop onto the train, and luckily no one said a word because I'd had 35 minutes to prepare Joey's eulogy (I would later inform him that he is "not allowed to speak to me for a very long time").

We get to Tokyo Station and it's 5:05PM and, just as expected, we have no idea where the exit we're supposed to meet at is. We start walking frantically around the station walking up almost every exit we see until finally at about 5:20PM we decide to go above ground and walk around the station from there. After a minute of walking, in what had to be the biggest stroke of luck I've ever had, I spot Tim waiting on a pedestrian light. He said they couldn't find the exit either, which made me happier because technically if everyone's lost then no one's fucked up.

We went to go meet Claire who was sitting down across the street and all decided to head over to Roppongi for dinner and drinks. We had dinner at a decent restaurant over there and were contemplating going to a bar, but Chris was on antibiotics, Tim had had a rough evening a few nights before, and Joey was never a big drinker to begin with. I was really not in the mood to argue about or plan anything at that point, but I had printed out a Roppongi pub crawl equipped with the times of all happy hours, so we decided to go for it and made our way over to the first bar we saw


Geronimo's! Sounds awesome. We went in and there was no one there yet so we started to get the party rolling. After a few beers a Japanese couple came in. Roppongi is known to be a very popular foreigner hang out, so oftentimes Japanese will come to practice their English and meet foreigners. Either these two were no different, or my boyish charm transcends all boundaries, language barriers included, but we wound up talking most of the night and they even invited me to a sake bar next time I'm in town.


10PM rolls around and we all decided to leave. We're all walking to the subway station when Clare and I decide we aren't quite done yet, and we have about a half hour more before we need to get back to the station, so we go find another bar to grab one last drink at. We cross the street and the first bar we see that I recognize happens to be Bar Sheesha, a Hookah Bar. I thought I'd convinced the guy at the entrance to give us half priced beers but it turned out it was happy hour anyways. The place seemed really chill, and I kind of wished we'd gotten to spend a bit more time there. We took some pictures with the bartender


drank our beers


and made our way back home to pass out.

Sunday was pretty much spent checking out of the hostel, looking around asakusa a bit (unfortunately I didn't get any great shots of the temple)


and going to Akihabara. Akihabara is Tokyo's electronics district, which was cool to see, but I didn't really see anything I needed and there weren't really any great deals there. After Akihabara we decided to go home, bought our shinkansen tickets, and left Tokyo.

I must say though, I will return.

Tokyo is freaking awesome.

Day 7 - 10 - Our Somewhat Successful Trip to Tokyo Part 1

I woke up Thursday morning and was surprisingly not hung over from the previous evening. I went to the lab that morning, put my stuff down, and went to ask Matsumoto-san a bit more about the Tokyo Gaming Show. I had decided that we simply couldn't make it to the press day that Friday, so instead we would aim for Saturday morning. Joey was out somewhere so I walk over to our desk and begin to plan our trip. All of a sudden I catch a wiff of something gross and I have no clue where it's coming from. I'd just taken a shower that morning so it couldn't have been me. After looking around the room and breathing through my mouth for a few minutes, Joey waltzes over, gives me his usual "Oh hey Dane," and sits down. A few seconds later he begins telling me about his experience the previous night.

"...yeah, when we were leaving the bar they asked if anyone wanted to the squid jerky so I took it. I left it in my bag overnight and woke up this morning and realized it smelled, my room's probably gonna smell for a bit."

I put 2 and 2 together and determined where the foul stench was originating...

Fucking squid jerky.

Much of that day was spent not doing what I was supposed to and planning the trip to Tokyo. At about 5PM Chris, Tim, Clare and I decided to head over to Ishibashi and get some dinner. After our first walk through the only place we could see that we were comfortable ordering was McDonalds. It was getting late so we walked through again and settled on a pizza place. After all, what can go wrong with pizza?

Oh how naive Dane-san, how naive.

We get into the restaurant and naturally they don't speak English, so finally they show us to a table and hand us a menu. We start looking at the menu and aside from the headings (pizza, pasta, drinks) everything is in Japanese. That wasn't so bad since we figured we could pick anything on the pizza menu and we'd probably order a pizza of delicious, unconventional, and certainly questionable conent (really after delicious it's best you don't inquire about the unconventional and questionable). We make this decision, look at the prices, and realize we're about to drop a lot of money on some pizza, so we decide to get 2 pizzas instead of 4 and split them.

This was our first mistake of the evening. Firstly the pizzas were scarcely of medium size. Secondly, I have decided that if something's 3-4 times the price of a big mac, and is of unconventional and questionable content, you'd probably be better off with the big mac. Being very frustrated we decided to go ahead with the 30 dollars of pizza. We decided the cheapest thing on the menu would probably be cheese so we make the safe bet. We then randomly pointed at another pizza and made the adventurous one. The lady takes our order and walks off, only to come back about 5 minutes later.

After some poor Japanese, poor English, and failed hand gestures she calls over the manager. After more poor Japanese, poor English, and failed hand gestures we finally decide that they're trying to tell us we're 4 people and thus we need to order 4 things.

Second mistake of the evening. We order 4 things. We decide whatever, we're already here lets just get another pizza and some ice cream. At this point we probably should have just walked out rather than blowing some more money on food we new would not be worth the price. One by one the tiny pizzas come by and we devour them. The first two were just cheese (the second one might have had basil on it as well, it's difficult to tell) and the final one was cheese with some greens and proscuitto on the side. Finally the ice cream came out, which was actually very good and of a decent portion, but not worth the 7 bucks we paid for it. We devoured that as well and went and got the check. The grand total was about 60 bucks, which is a decent price for a set of neverending pasta bowls, but highway robbery for 3 quicklyending pizza pies and a cup of ice cream. As we left the place Tim told the waitress he was going to fire bomb the place to which she smiled and replied "Bye, Thank you!" We were all a bit ticked off after dinner so we went back to the dorm and decided to kill our bottle of smirnoff and go to sleep. In retrospect it wasn't that bad, especially since there are always zen barbers to make my evenings filled with happiness:



Friday - The Trip Begins...ish

Much of Friday morning was spent making sure everything was organized for the trip and that we knew where to go. 5PM rolls around, the time we usually leave the lab, and we decide to head out. Clothes? Check. Wallets? Check. Passports? Che...

Chris: "I was pretty sure I put it in my bag..."
Us: "Sigh..."

The original plan was to go to the major train station via one of the trains right next to the Chemical Engineering building on campus. Unfortunately to get to our dorm, and Chris's passport, we had to go to the train station on the other side of campus, and thus take a slightly longer route, as well as wait for Chris. We get to the station and see him off, after which we decide to get something to eat. After the previous night's debacle, Tim and I decide to head over to McDonalds (It would be my first since arriving in Japan. The second would come shortly thereafter). One of the great things about fast food in foreign countries is that the menus always have pictures, they sometimes have english, and that a "BigMacu" tastes the same no matter where you go (though I swear this one was more delicious than usual). Tim and I devoured these perfectly formed architectural masterpieces while the nearby a table of Japanese schoolgirls stared and giggled.

Incredibly satisfied, we left the golden arches to go find Clare and Joey, who happened to walk by at that very moment. We went over to the train where Chris would arrive. 6:30ish rolls around and Chris finally shows up, Joey wanders off to buy some pastries (it happens quite frequently), and the train rolls by. We all run to the train and start yelling for Joey so as not to waste any more time than we already have. He runs on over armed with 5 cups of some mushy coffee jelly that he gives to us.

At this point we're all in pretty bad moods because we were leaving 90 minutes later than planned, and it didn't help that the source of my next annoyance, Joey almost missing the train, was caused because he wanted buy us coffee jelly. I mean it's a nice gesture and all, except for the fact that I hate coffee.

So we get on the train, get to Umeda, and transfer to our final destination in Osaka where we all slide our tickets through the machines. All of us except for Joey. We turn around and all we can see is Joey walking back and forth around the train station, as if he's looking for something. He goes to the trash and is about to throw away his desert box, but then pauses to check inside of it. He then tosses it away and starts pacing again before checking his pockets again. After witnessing this for about 10 minutes we finally ask him what the hell he's doing.

Joey: "Uh...I think I lost my train ticket"
Dane: "So go to the freaking service counter! The sign's right on top of you, it's even in
English!"

30 seconds later Joey's reunited with our jolly, but at present time slightly more irrate, band of engineers. After this we walk on over to buy the shinkansen tickets and as usual have no clue what we're doing. We finally manage to ask an attendant in broken Japanese where we buy the tickets, after which he points to the ticket machine. Then after looking hopelessly for a minute more he walks by and presses the English button. Oh. We buy our tickets and make our way to the train where we all finally got a bit of peace, quiet, and separation from each other. The shinkansen is the Japanese bullet train. It's actually really nice. The seats are both comfy and incredibly spacious, and the ride is very smooth. I watched that evening's episode of Grey's Anatomy and read Frommers for most of the trip.

About 3 and a half hours later we got to Tokyo where we almost got off at the wrong station. The shinkansen stops in 2 places in Tokyo: one stop is in the southwest, and one is in the center. Not sure where we were, Tim used his best Japanese skills to ask a Japanese man sitting next to him if the next stop was Tokyo station, to which the man responded:

"Yes. The next station is Tokyo Station"

Awesome, we'd been in Tokyo barely 5 minutes and we already knew more natives that speak English than we do in all of Osaka. We asked him if he could tell us where to go to get to the Hostel and he said he'd come with us to the metro because his line connected to the one we had to get on. It was about 10PM at this point, and we immediately noticed how much busier Tokyo was than Osaka. The trains were more packed than I'd ever seen them, and so we squeezed into the train that would take us to our transfer spot. It was only 1 stop, and so we said goodbye to our guide and parted ways.

We made our way over to the next train that would take us to Asakusa where the hostel was, and prepared for the fun ahead: finding the place. I had printed out directions but we were a bit disoriented and they weren't completely clear. Leave the train station and head to some street (I forgot the name) and you'll see a huge red gate. We started walking towards what we thought was a gate but turned out not to be, so we decided to ask some people which direction the street was. It turned out to be the other direction so we started walking, and just when we thought this couldn't be right we saw it:


I guess it was pretty hard to miss. The next step in our scavenger hunt said to walk through the gate and we'd see a long walkway and to go through said walkway until you reach another gate.



After walking for quite a while we thought we'd done something wrong and so we asked a guy about the gate, which had a name, as well as the temple we were supposed to see. We decided to walk a bit longer at which point we knew we had to be in the right place:


that shot was taken in the day because my night shot was pretty crappy. The next step was to go around the temple and then go around a nearby amusement park. This part was a bit fuzzy, so we asked someone where to go and they pointed us in the direction of the hostel. After walking around some fence and through a dark alley we finally saw the hostel. We went in and it was actually really nice. We had an 8 person room to ourselves, and so after settling in I spent some time planning the trip to the Tokyo Game Show after which I passed out.

Day 6 - Get Fucked Up

To quote Dr. Williams at lunch the other day:

"I mean how can you not like this? See if you take two things that are awesome by themselves and put them together, how can it be anything other than awesome?"

Take sake bombs for example. Sake is awesome. Beer is awesome. Thus, sake bombs are awesome. It doesn't work for everything though. For example special things are awesome, and the olympics are pretty awesome, but I wouldn't call the Special Olympics a winning combination. Same thing with the WNBA. I mean women are awesome, basketball is awesome, but womens' basketball is pretty unawesome. Oh and if anyone I've offended wants to pick a fight, bring it on. I never turn down a fight I know I'll win.

Day 6 (yesterday at this point) was my second day in the lab. I decided not to ride my bike, partly because Tim hadn't gotten his yet, but mainly because I hated every second of the experience, so we walked to the train station. It was fucking hot out and the huge hill we have to walk up to get to the lab didn't help things. I got to the lab and set up my computer at my shiny new desk and began reading/correcting papers.

At about noon we went to go get lunch. The Japanese won't eat until everyone's at the table and they can say Itadakimasu, which is kind of like their grace I guess. I've felt like an idiot a few times because I tend to sit down and start eating before I realize that everyone's looking at me funny. Yesterday I just felt kinda bad because it took me forever to get my food and everyone was sitting there being hungry. After lunch we came back to the lab where I continued to try reading those papers.

At some point some of the undergraduate students came to the lab and I met Ena-san and this other girl whose name I forgot. When people go on trips they'll bring back a "souvenir" which is a lot of times just a pastry or sweet or something, so Ena-san brought back these small cookie things with cream inside of them that were Oishii (delicious)! A bit later me Joey and Claire were sitting around and this sweaty disheveled kid walks in panting. We thought there was a fire or something, but turned out he just wanted to introduce himself (Matsumoto-san). He mentioned he was very into anime, and a bit later he showed me his collection of manga, and then he showed me some tentacle porn.

Just kidding.

He never showed me his manga.

At about 3PM we all went out for a coffee break where someone asked me if I watched any anime and, in a response that would earn me nothing but condescending looks in America, they were actually impressed. We spoke for a bit and all of a sudden Matsumoto-san mentioned the Tokyo Game Show. I thought it was just some crazy Japanese game show like the one where people have to say tongue-twisters and if they make mistakes they get hit in the balls, but it turned out it was a gaming convention being held this weekend in Tokyo. This got Joey and I very excited, so pending some further planning today we very well might be making our first trip to Tokyo this weekend!

After talking about our spare tires a bit (the Japanese are very weight conscious...it's what they call their beer bellies) we went back up to the lab and did our thing for a few hours until the welcome party.

The Welcome Party...

was awesome.


We went to this nabe restaurant that was all you can drink for 2 hours. It was basically a huge pot in the table with a broth inside it, and you put chicken, vegetables, and noodles inside it. They also had a boat with sashimi and raw seafood on it, and a plate of sushi at each table. I was feeling pretty adventurous so I tried everything that didn't have eyes. Sashimi is very leathery and though I had some fish here that i quite enjoyed, this stuff was pretty shit in comparison. Perhaps the best part of the restaurant was it was all you can drink for 2 hours, and thus we drank a lot.

Everyone was drinking quite a bit. Tuan-san apparently does this thing when he drinks where he takes one of the huge bottles of beer and just goes from table to table making people chug their glasses with him. I can't say I was too upset by the ritual, and I began doing the same. After about 45 minutes Hiro-san came by and asked to switch seats, so I went to go sit with Yuji and got waylaid by Kuboi-sensei. I wasn't too happy, because even minor interactions with Kuboi-sensei turn out to be long drawn out philosophical conversations, but I decided to speak to him in Japanese. He was very impressed and offered me sake. I know it may seem obvious, but this Japanese sake I had was sooooo much better than the shit I've had at home (particularly the bottle we got for Dan's MIT party). I actually really liked it. After about 45 minutes speaking to Kuboi-sensei I finally got a chance to leave his table and go mingle, so I did and caught up on my drinking a bit with Mokato-san.


After dinner a bunch of us went to a nearby bar for some more cocktails. I kept forgetting everyone's name so they all wrote on me. They also brought squid jerky to eat which was interesting. Being that at this point we were all pretty wasted, naturally my Japanese and their English became a lot better, and all in all it was a lot of fun.

Sayonara!

Wallen G - Legurate

A picture of one of the research papers I was reading in the lab today...

Do You Know How Nice Field Life Is?

Osaka Castle Pictures for the Lazy

These are the pictures I took over at Osaka Castle.


This one is pretty self explanatory.




A monk standing at the front of the castle...not sure if he wanted money or something, but man he makes a sexy picture.

A bonsai tree outside the castle.

This was on the bridge on the way to the castle. Not sure what the building on the left is

.

Man Japanese stereotypes aren't true...this kid's hung like a freakin canon!

Day 5 - First Day at the Lab

I decided not to finish day 4, particularly because I'm exhausted and there was not very much to say (to sum it up, we went to this kickass fried-fondue-esque buffet for lunch, visited the old site of Osaka University, visited Osaka Castle, and went home). Just check out the pictures.

As for today, it was a day of firsts. I ate the first fish I've eaten since I was old enough to know that though there are starving kids in Africa, chances are we wouldn't be inviting them to dinner anyways. I also went into the lab for the first time, met Kuboi-Sensei for the first time, and rode a bike for the first time in a long time.

Kuboi-Sensei:

We all met Kuboi-Sensei this morning when he walked into the lab and basically said "hi, I am Ryoki Kuboi, I have meeting, bye." A bit later, Kuboi-Sensei came back into the lab to speak to Joey and I, where he proceeded to turn a 5 minute speech about what we'd be doing into a 30 minute philosophical soliloquy about fusion, and researching yourself. He also says "ne" at the end of every english sentence, which is a bit difficult to explain, but from my understanding it is the Japanese particle used when you ask a question but fully expect someone to agree with you. I like to think of it as the rhetorical question marker. It's kind of like saying "right?" at the end of your sentence. Most of what I gathered from the conversation was that we'd be doing a lot of work, and that fusion is good.

I also met some of the masters students in the lab, which was nice because they're pretty much the first Japanese people I've met that are around our age. It was a plus that they spoke very good english, and I wasted no time informing them that I like to drink. It's quite amazing how organized the entire lab is, and how much they utilize their space. No space is wasted, and even among all the chaos of the experiments and instruments in the lab, the entire place is very functional.

Not long after getting to the lab we went over to the international student office where we met Tanaka-Sensei, the head of the office. We chatted and hung out for a bit, scheduled our Japanese lessons, and then went to lunch.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Later on we got our bikes and one of the guys in the lab took us to dinner and showed us the route home. Dinner was uneventful, except I happened to look up at the TV and saw this contest where this one guy held a balloon to his mouth and the other guy had to blow the balloon up through the first guy's nose. It was pretty weird in an awesome kind of way.

The bike ride home was exhausting since for the most part it was uphill. Luckily it was pretty uneventful, aside from Joey running me off the sidewalk. I don't really know where the hell the phrase "it's just like riding a bike" came from, because either I never really knew how to ride one to begin with, or all the jackasses who say that haven't taken an 8 year hiatus from bike riding.

Day 4 - Osaka Castle

I'm fucking exhausted.

I've been walking for the last 3 days and it's been pretty draining, though pretty awesome as well. Today was a Japanese holiday, and we met up with Hiro-Sensei (Kuboi-Sensei's assistant), Dr. Williams, and two people from the lab and went to eat, to see the old Osaka University, and to see Osaka Castle. I'll try to finish this update later though. It's now day 5 (the I'm fucking exhausted was all I wrote yesterday) and I need to get ready to go to the lab for the first time...much of the funnies shall ensue. Here's a picture of me being large to placate you.

Day 3 - Umeda

The highlight of my trip thus far has definitely been Umeda. It's kind of like a much more polite and organized Times Square, and definitely more of what I envisioned Japan to be.

Day 3 began at about 6AM when I woke up after passing out a bit earlier. I went through my normal routine of checking e-mail and getting in touch with the real world, and watched a bit of football online using Korean Matt's college gameplan account (unfortunately the UF vs. Tennessee game wasn't showing). I took a shower and got dressed, and at about 10AM we went to a local convenience store and picked up some sushi. I'm not too adventurous at 10 in the morning so I got what turned out to be rice balls and rice dumplings. The dumplings were basically rice in this slimy sweet eggy batter that certainly did not receive Dane's seal of approval. The trip was worth it though, as we found our first bit of Engrish of the day on the ashtray outside the convenience mart


After eating we made our way back to the dorm where Tim and I watched an episode of The Office and waited for Clare and Dr. Williams to meet us at the dorm. At about 11:30 they came by and for some reason they were shoved out by Papa-San, the dorm father whose name we don't really know (we learned later that we shouldn't call the dorm mother Mama-San, which is apparently the name given to the female supervisor of a brothel).

We made our way to the train station and took the train over to Ishibashi to eat. We went to this place that served these omelette kind of things which were basically egg, lettuce, and some miscellaneous other things. Apparently the Japanese, much like the Koreans, love their pig. When I mentioned to Dr. Williams that I didn't eat pig he asked "oh, so you can't eat bacon then?" Sorry Dr. Williams, I can't eat ham or pork either in case you were wondering. I'm used to not having things to eat, and really I think other people make more of a fuss about it than I do.

We settled on the squid omelette (you know there's nothing else when squid is my best option) and it was alright, not entirely worth all the praise but a good value for the money. It was also my first seafood since being in Japan.

After lunch it started to rain a bit so we went to an umbrella store near the train station. On the way this old lady began speaking to us in fluent english telling us she was going to a buddhist temple nearby. We chatted for a couple minutes and she wished me good karma and left. We spent a couple of minutes deciding what umbrella to get (I was torn between pink and blue polka dotted). Tim decided to get dinosaur and i settled on the blue polka-dots. By the time we went to the train station it had stopped raining (I never really got to use the umbrella because Tim convinced me to open it when it was really windy and it flipped inside out and broke). We made our way over to Umeda which is like one of the downtown shopping districts, where the rest of the day's fun would continue.

The train ride was about 20 minutes or so. After walking around for a few minutes and admiring the area we decided to make our way over to the Umeda Sky Building and, against our better judgement, let Joey lead the way. After about 10 minutes of walking we came to the conclusion that the building we were going to wasn't the building we wanted to be going to, and decided to try asking for directions--apparently the Sky Building was in the opposite direction.

We kept walking and decided to make our way to the huge ferris wheel on top of one of the buildings with hopes of being able to see the USB from up top. We walked a bit longer before stopping to ask for directions, and impeding traffic along the way. Dr. Williams is a pretty big man, and so when we stopped to get some more directions it was as if we'd created a moat in the middle of the sidewalk. A few seconds later the pedestrian light turned green and people started rushing by, only to stop once they reached us. They didn't say excuse me, didn't push, didn't even make contact. They simply stopped and waited for a few seconds till we moved out of the way a bit. What a polite people. Next time I'll get some pictures of the four of us towering above the crowd.

We made our way to the building with the ferris wheel and headed to the top. The view from the top was pretty spectacular


Dead center is a store called Loft that Ashley talks about a lot, which is on my list of things to do. I also want to come back either on a sunny day, at sunset, or at night. We spotted the Umeda Sky Building as well.

After the ferris wheel we made our way downstairs where I saw perhaps my favorite Engrish thus far. We passed by a music store, and right in front was the rap section, or as the Japanese like to call it, the "Black and Dance" section. Man that's why i love these people. The Japanese really tell it like it is. After passing by some of the scariest looking hairdos I'd ever seen we left the building and made our way over to the Umeda Sky Building.

On the way to the USB we caught a glimpse of the west side


and after later research I realized I was reading it incorrectly. The shirt isn't "Straight out of Compton, Dando" but rather "Straight out of 'Compton Dando,'" which is in Southwest England rather than Western California. Ok it makes a bit more sense, but it's still the wrong Compton. We continued walking and got stopped at an intersection where I was standing next to this tiny little woman


and decided to take a picture.

We got to the Umeda Sky Building and decided to rest a bit.


This was where Tim told me to open my umbrella and, consequently, where I needed a new umbrella.

The Sky Bulding is a pretty cool looking building. It's basically these two towers

connected at the top by some walkway.

We made our way to the top of the tower which was a lot larger than we thought (it looked really small when we were on the ferris wheel). It's a pity the weather was so poor, it's definitely another place I'd like to come to at night. After the skytower we all headed back to the train station and decided to go to this conveyor belt sushi place for dinner. By the time we got off the train it was night time, and probably my first time really out in Japan at night. The country seems to take on a whole new persona at night when all the lights come up.

The conveyor belt sushi is really cool, there are basically 5 different plates ranging from about 1-5 dollars and carrying various interesting, delicious, and disgusting looking sushi. I went ahead and got some cucumber rolls to start, followed by some yellow pickled stuff (it wasn't too good) and then decided to split one of these


with Clare. It was pretty good, though to be honest I don't get what's so great about shrimp. After dinner we all parted ways and the guys made our way back to the dorms. It's now Monday, which is some holiday here, and we're all about to go meet Hiro at Ishibashi to possibly go see Osaka Castle. Peace.

Just So That Ryan Doesn't Steal The Funny

Ryan: What's the time diff round there?
Dane: 13 hours ahead
Ryan: wow, ur on like a dif planet
Dane: yea, i'm in the future
Ryan: HAHAHAHahah
Dane: be careful ryan...in the future...everyone is asian

Day 2 - Walking Around...

...and getting lost.

What would a trip to Japan be without the occasional wrong turn?

The morning started off kind of slow, particularly because not many Japanese people wake up at 3AM (I would find out later that the other Americans pretty much did). I spoke to people, wrote a blog, watched as the peeping Toms walked by my window, and eventually Tim woke up and we went down for breakfast.

Breakfast was solid. The bread here is cut in huge slices (interesting note, the bread is "Pan" in both Japanese and Spanish), kind of like Texas Toast. We had 2 slices of that with butter and jam (I had some Ichigo jam), along with potato salad, green tea, sausage, and something else I can't remember. After breakfast we went back to our rooms for a bit and I finished unpacking my things and speaking to people online.

At about 11AM Claire and Mr. Tuon came by the dorm to get us, so I slipped on my Ogre shoes and we went to go find the train station that would take us to the University. Apparently Claire and Mr. Tuon had gotten lost on the way to our dorm and had to have a taxi bring them, which wasn't too comforting, but we got to the station successfully.

Once at Ikeda Station we bought our train cards and made our way towards Ishibashi Station, the station nearest Osaka University. The campus is very similar to any college campus, except that there are a bunch of really cool bonsai trees all over the place. Mr. Tuon took us to the Chemical Engineering building and showed us where our labs would be, and then we went over to the cafeteria for lunch. I washed my hands and threw the paper towel into the correct trash can


While deciding what food to get for lunch this old guy came by us and started speaking in Japanese. "Nihongo Ga Wakarimasen, America-Jin desu" (I dont understand Japanese, I'm American) we kept telling him but he just kept talking. Eventually we figured out that he was from Kobe, and he hated Osaka and apparently "Kobe wa ichiban!" (Kobe Numba Ooooone!). Tim and I walked away to go get our food, and while waiting in line he walks over to us, looks at our trays, laughs, and then walks away. A bit later after we finished eating, probably because he felt he hadn't adequately expressed the point, he stopped by our table to inform us that Osaka is hands crossed in X formation and Kobe is thumbs up. "Kobe Ichiban!" I said excitedly and he laughed and walked away. Whatever creepy old man...

After lunch we walked over to a big grocery store near school, the 100 yen store, and the electronics store upstairs. I got a shower caddy and a 3 -> 2 prong plug adapter and looked around the electronics store for a bit. Once everyone was done browsing we made our way back to the train station, where we stopped by another grocery store that was a lot cheaper than the big one.

We didn't really need anything, but decided to scan through the alcohol aisle. Surprisingly, some things were even cheaper than they are in America, so we bought a bottle of smirnoff and I took some obligatory sake pictures. For relaxing times,


make it Suntory time.

After the grocery store we went to the train station and Claire and Mr. Tuon parted ways. We hopped on the train back to Ikeda, which was uneventful aside from the Japanese man staring us down out of the corner of his eye after hearing Joey's cacophonous laugh. We got off the train and decided we could either a) try to find our way home or b) explore and hope we find our way home.

Naturally we chose the latter, and we began wandering around the city. One thing that I like a lot about Japan is that even though there are a ton of appartment buildings, there are also a lot of quaint little houses all over the place, many of which have very beautiful little gardens. We saw a really cool looking building that I decided couldn't be a house, so we walked into it. Joey started getting cold feet about wandering around some random establishment, partly because we kept telling him we were going to ring the huge bell


but seriously, I know it's Japan and all but houses generally don't have bells. We left after wandering around for a couple minutes and continued wandering around till we stumbled on Ikeda Castle.


You know you're in a pretty cool place when you can stumble upon a castle (though in all fairness it was just a recreation of it). The view from the top of the tower


was pretty cool so we took some pictures and tried to see if we could spot the Shell Station, our landmark for the dorm. We couldn't so we decided to keep walking.

We passed by what I thought was an arboreum, but turned out to just be a gym, and then made our way up a hill and stumbled upon an elementary school. I wanted to explore the area a bit but everyone else was a bit hesitant. We decided it was probably for the best. Though Japan has no open container laws (and in all fairness our container wasn't yet open) it's still probably a bit creepy to see four gargantuan westerners carrying a bottle of spirits and wandering around an elementary school playground.

We wandered a bit more before realizing that nothing looked even vaguely familiar, even though it looked nice and chill


so we made our best guess as to where we should go and proceded with hopes that something would. Joey had taken a stroll earlier on in the morning, and after walking for a bit he informed us that he saw something that he "vaguely thought was marginally familiar." We decided to have a sort of group meeting where we somewhat decided to maybe follow the possibly correct pseudodirections that would perhaps lead us on a pathlike trail to what might be our dormitoryesque place of residence.

In an unusual turn of events the directions were actually correct, and totally unworthy of my biting sarcasm, and 3 minutes later I spotted the shell station and we were home. When we got back everyone pretty much passed out until dinner, at which point I think Joey took a train somewhere and I passed out until around now when once again, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and updated my blog. I'm gonna go to sleep now, hope you're all enjoying the blog. After all



"It is a one of daily necessaries for your life"

My Pictures

http://photos.yahoo.com/dane.cohen

should work, let me know if it doesn't...off to spread smallpox!

Day 1 - Konichiwa Osaka!

Konichiwa Osaka!


The plane ride from Dallas to Osaka wasn't too bad for a 14 hour flight. I was able to sleep a fair bit and watch a few episodes of house, and I got the window seat which is always awesome. We practiced a bit of our Japanese with the hostesses (all we could really ask for was "Orangy Juicu" so I moved over to English when I felt like changing it up) and other than that it was pretty uneventful. There was a Japanese guy a few seats down from us who would sniff all the food we got on the plane like a little rat which I thought was pretty funny. After every meal he'd play his DS Lite for a few hours which for some reason I thought was kinda cool.

After landing we went through customs, where the helpful customs mascot Customs-San informed us not to "Pet the drug dog on face." We got our luggage, exchanged some moneys, and went to go meet Mr. Tuoc who would take us to the dorms. After about an hour bus ride we arrived at the train station and met up with some of the students from the labs. Not too much was said because their English was about as bad as our Japanese, but eventually someone managed to let us know we were going to drive to the Dorms. One of the cars only had room for 1 so I volunteered and naturally tried getting into the driver's seat, just another thing I'll need to get used to.

On the way to the dorms the opening theme song for Bleach was playing on the radio. I started humming it and the guy in the car was very surprised that I knew it. I believe his words were "oooooh you know?!" The ride to the dorm wasn't too long, which was good because we were all pretty exhausted.

We got to our dorm, Satsuki-ga-oka, where we met the dorm parents. They're basically these two old people who live in the dorm and, in a surprising plot twist, speak no english. The dorm dad started calling out our names to give us the keys, which took a bit since no one was used to hearing their name in Japanese, and then we all went to our rooms to put our stuff down.

After putting our stuff down the dorm parents (I really should find out their names) gave us a tour of the dormitory. At some point very early on in the tour I became the unofficial translater, partly because of my Japanese prowess, but also due to the two months of nonverbal communications training I got in Korea. They serve dinner and breakfast downstairs, and the showers are open from 6:30-midnight. We were a bit worried at first when they showed us the communal shower, but thankfully there were a couple private ones across the hall--we can save our destruction of the Japanese Ego for another time.

I think the dorm dad took a liking to me on our tour. On our tour of the showers I said "ii desu ne," which basically means "this is good!" I can't really tell if it's because I said something funny, I said something I didn't mean to say, or the atmosphere was simply conducive to it, but the dorm dad gave me a strong slap on the ass and started laughing. Either I did something right, or said something horribly wrong, and given the circumstances I hope it was the former.

After the walkthrough we went downstairs for dinner: rice, beef stew, salad, grapes, and green tea. Dinner was pretty good, we saw some of the other people that live in the dorm. Gonna take a bit of time to get used to the tea though.

After dinner we decided to walk around the area nearby the dorm. There's a convenience store just across the street where I was reunited with my good friend Crunky


considered buying some Sake


but settled on Mama's Happy Choice



We went a bit further, passed some vending machines that sold beer (yes, it's as awesome as it sounds), and saw a few restaurants and stores before turning back.

There's a locker at the front of the dorm where you put your shoes since you're not supposed to wear them inside (they give you slippers that are too small instead). Unfortunately my shoes were a bit big


I'm A107 if you couldn't tell.

After our walk around the neighborhood I was pretty exhausted so at about 8PM I passed out, which is why I woke up at 3AM to write this blog. Day 1 complete.