Everyone's asleep now, and Sachiko is sick with a cold :( Poor thing
I'm going to go and get some midnight gyoza in a sec from the local 7/11. That's one thing that I will miss so much, is the 7/11's. For anyone who doesn't know (None in Adelaide, but all around rest of Aust I think), they are 24 hour convenience stores. Here in Japan, they are everywhere - The price of your property is basically judged on how far you are from the nearest train station and the 7/11. I'm about 10 mins bike ride, and another 10 mins walk from station, and only a 30 second walk to the nearest 7/11.
Actually, I can see it from my room :)
I'm going to comment on comments in my blogs now :)
One thing to clear up however, which I really should have explained previously, is that I'm not staying for a year. It's just that my ticket is a 1 year open ticket, so it doesn't expire for 1 year, and I can change the return date anytime for free. I had to change, because there were no 3 month tickets available. I do plan to stay for 3 months minimum, but hopefully for 6.
You see, I'm currently on a 90 day visitor VISA, so technically I can only stay for 90 days. But I'm going to Korea in March to visit friends, so when I come back to Japan, I should be granted another 90 days :D But not sure yet - So I plan to ring the embassy just to make sure.
And quotes -
" will you be getting a job there? That would be interesting... kind of like MegaTokyo the comic, if you have ever read that."
haha, very much like MegaTokyo I hope. I love that comic. Unfortunately because of the VISA I'm on, I'm not allowed to work here. But it would be nice to make an income somehow by myself - Hopefully though selling items on ebay :)
"remember to take heaps of photos for me mate"
Many photos have been taken already :D Just have to find the time to edit them and upload them. Because this comp is a pos, it takes a min just to load photoshop elements. It's a Duron 800 / 128MB RAM for anyone interested btw.
Anyway, back on track.
Last night I went to a place called Shibuya. It's about 30 mins train ride from where I am living.
It's probably one of the busiest places in Tokyo, with it's rival being Shinjuku. Both places are havens for young people, with massive 15 floor shopping malls, nightclubs everywhere, game arcades, tons of places to eat, you'll never get bored. I went there because it's showed often in the movie 'Lost in Translation', which I absolutely adore.
As soon as I got off the train, and walk out of Hachiko Exit, it was like standing in the middle of the movie. Absolutely amazing.
http://www.geocities.com/wadebeger/Japan/Shibuya.jpg
In Shibuya, I just walked around, looking in shopping malls etc. I went to a big SEGA Arcade (I'm a big SEGA person for those who don't know) which rocked. But the problem with big arcades is that they are more expensive. NFI why, they just are. But I brought a couple of ice creams from vending machines there and went back wandering around.
I found a nightclub that I had heard about so many times on the net, and it's always been a dream place to go. I really couldn't believe I was there. It's a place called Gaspanic (http://www.gaspanic.co.jp/), and is very popular with gaijin (foreigners). So as soon as night started to come, I went in.
Gaspanic is a very very small club compared to Australian clubs. Most nightclubs here charge entry of about 2000-3000 yen ($25-35) with 1 free drink, but luckily Gaspanic don't.
But, because of this, they do have one single rule. You must be drinking at all times. They even have signs posted around stating this. So you're meant to order a drink as soon as you finish your other one. This doesn't always happen if people are dancing and such, but when it's not very busy they do go around and shake you glass a little if you're not drinking from it.
They have a great happy hour though. 400 yen for any drink you want. Including cocktails until 9:30 every night. Needless to say I got quite pissed.
Anyway, great night. Spoke to many gaijin. And danced with a few nice girls too.
Sachiko didn't come with me, so she was a bit worried that I might not be able to get home (get lost etc) because I needed to change trains. But luckily I made it home safely - Mind you I did get into the wrong train once, but quickly realized.
For a bit of a change, I'll note on something a bit sad. Hachiko.
Hachiko is a dog. A very caring, loyal dog. A dog who became so popular that even a statue was erected just outside of Shibuya. The exit is even called 'Hachiko Exit'. It's become a super popular meeting spot, but quite a sad tale to hear. One of the reasons for me going to Shibuya was to pat Hachiko, because I read about him on the net.
http://www.fabuloustravel.com/globe/hachiko/hachiko.html
Also, seeing today is now over, to run down on what I did is a list below.
And that concludes my blog today.
Just kidding, but I didn't do much at all because I wanted to stay home with Sachiko.
I ran over to 7/11 and brought some super expensive ice cream (900 yen for 6 little 75ml tubs). It's a very popular brand called Haagen Daz, which unfortunately we didn't have in Adelaide either :(
Anyway, more to come soon :D
I'm meeting my old time Japanese friends tomorrow at Tokyo Station! W00t.
I haven’t seen them for years, I seriously can't wait - Will post photos soon.
Goodnight until then :)
Monday, January 10, 2005
Saturday, January 08, 2005
A Long Time Coming...
First off the bat, I apologize for the major delay in updates. To wash away recent rumors, I am indeed still alive. I've simply been having too much fun :D
I am indeed in Tokyo at the moment, but we'll start from the beginning. And one thing I'll clear up also is the fact that I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Basically it just means sometimes I have to rush off to the toilet without warning. It's a reasonably common and between 10-20% of adults have symptoms of it. I won't write about it too much, but sometimes it can be incapacitating, forcing me to stay home. http://www.ibsgroup.org/main/aboutibs.html Seems to be a reasonably good explanation if anyone wants to read it. Anyway, on with the rest of the blog.
26/12
This is it. The day I leave country I call home. Temporarily of course. The reason I brought a ticket for the day after Christmas is because I wanted to spend Christmas in Australia, and Sachiko wanted to spend New Years Day in Japan. I originally brought a 35 day ticket (due to only being able to have 1 month off work), but then changed to a 1 year ticket when my situation changed (no more work). In total the ticket cost me about $2600 excluding insurance (which luckily I get free on my Credit Card).
Anyway, off I go to a foreign land. A land to which I've never been. Heck, this was the first time I had been on a plane before. I was armed with my suitcase, my backpack and my camera.
My first plane ride was to Melbourne, where we stayed for 2 hours. Sachiko seems to have problems with her ears 'popping' and getting a terrible headache if she doesn't use ear plugs, but I had no such symptoms. I quite enjoyed the plane. Lovely staff, free alcohol, and a comfy seat with a TV packed with 50 stations. In Melbourne we just walked around looking at the shops in the airport. I had a nice coffee at Starbucks which I normally can't do as Adelaide doesn't have any. I also took more than my share of the free toasted sandwich samples.
After a while we were back on the plane to HK. The flight took about 9 hours in total, but it wasn't too bad. Nothing really special happened on the plane - Met some nice people who we (Sachiko and I) chatted to. We arrived in HK about 10PM (HK Time). It was quite exciting thinking that I was in a foreign country.
The first thing that went through my head when we got off the plane was how fucking big this place is. The airport that is. Adelaide International Airport is essentially a shed. We even had to climb up the plane via a ladder thing as the Airport is too small to connect the plane to it. As I've lived in Adelaide all my life, I've been pretty used to things being small. But now here I was in HK Intl Airport, where they even have a subway connecting Arrivals to the rest of the airport.
So after about 6 escalators, lots of walking on travelators (those horizontal escalators) and a 40 second train ride to arrivals, we were finally at Customs. From there, we had arranged a bus to take us to our hotel - Island Pacific HK.
Unfortunately however, 1/4 through the bus ride I was forced to stop the bus to run to the toilet. Being on the main highway to Central Hong Kong, I was very lucky the bus driver could find a toilet. So I spent the first 20 minutes of my Hong Kong trip in a little porta toilet, but a squat type ones, without a flusher. Where you had to manually push you foot on a pedal to shoot this blue liquid though it. It was quite disgusting. Actually, it was probably one of the worst moments of my recent life. And what I've written here makes it sound so much better than it really was.
But once we were finally back on the road, within about 20 minutes we were at our hotel. It was quite cheap, costing about $300 for 3 nights including breakfast. The room was reasonably small, but not too bad. And we had a fantastic view from our ceiling to floor window of the harbor.
For the next 3 days we did lots of walking around. Actually, it's basically 2 days because we arrived late the first night, and our bus picked us up at 6:30am on the 29th.
Hong Kong in the suburbs is incredibly dirty. It reminds me of a dirty, smelly china town. But here, no one can speak English. I was quite surprised about this, seeing as HK is such a popular destination. But for the majority of the time, we had to play the fun game of charades.
I'll just jot down a few things we did, otherwise this first post will be incredibly long. We were staying in 'Central', which is on Hong Kong Island. We were about 5 mins taxi ride to the port, where we could catch a ferry to Kowloon - The main shopping district. I might mention how cheap many things are in HK. Taxis including. The flag fall for a taxi in HK is $15HK, which is about $2.40ishAUD ($1AUD = $6HK Approx). With that flag fall you get 2km of travel, and after which you are charged $1.2HK per 0.2km. Because of how cheap taxis were, we were able to take a taxi wherever we wanted.
And the cheapness doesn't just stop there. The ferry ride to Kowloon is $2.20 - About $0.35. And arcade games! There are many arcades in Hong Kong, which a majority of relatively new games including Initial D 3 etc. All of which are either $1 or $2HK! So basically, you'll get 6 games of Initial D 3, compared to 1 in Australia for the same price! Even Initial D cards were only $4HK, compared to $4AUD in Aust. I probably spent a good $35HK in Arcades.
One reason I wanted to come to Hong Kong also, is because of one of my favorite games Shenmue 2. Basically just so I could go to some of the places in the game. So I went to Wan Chai, Kowloon and Man Mo Temple. I was so excited at Man Mo Temple, it looks basically the same as it does in the game. I took some pics there, so I'll see if I can do comparisons. It really feels very strange going to a place in real life that you've only ever been to in a game. Man Mo also is filled with an amazing amount of incense as well. Never smelt anything so strong - There was hundreds hanging from the roof.
We did a lot of shopping in HK. I brought many online games from the local 7/11 very cheap. One game was even just $2HK. No idea if they include a free month, but I'll try them out later.
We did so much more in HK, but I'm falling so far behind with this blog that I'll leave HK at that. If I remember anything exciting, I'll write it down later.
Anyway, on the 29th we made our way to Tokyo. A dream come true. I had been waiting so long to come here, but never getting enough money together. And probably if I wasn't with Sachiko, I would still be working at Dick Smith. We arrived in Narita Airport quite safely, however our plane was stuck for 20 minutes waiting for a free space to dock, as someone stole ours. And Snow! Outside the plane it was snowing! It was the first time I've seen snow falling from the sky before. When we left HK, it was about 20Cish, and now 4 hours later on a plane, it was 2C and snowing.
We met Sachiko's parents just outside of Customs, and a good family friend of there's (Tomiyama San) drove us home. While walking out to the car, I saw 2 brand new Bentley Continental GT's in the car park. Not something you see everyday - Someone parking an $800,000 car in an airport car park is rare enough, but 2! Unfortunately, they didn't own one, but it was a nice new car nonetheless. Narita is well known as being far away from anywhere, so it took us about an hour or so to get home.
I was so happy to get out of the car when we arrived here. Took off our shoes at the front, and I donned the new slippers the family provided me with. So cool, I started to feel like I was in Japan. Unfortunately, it wasn't just the cool things that were Japanese like. In Japan, you can't really sleep in your partner’s bedroom until your married, so I have my own room here :( Even though the parents know perfectly well we've been living together for the last 7 months in Aust. Luckily however, my room is adjacent to Sachiko's, which can prove convenient. Ironically, my room is also next to the parents.
Just to bring us up to date quickly, I'll just run though what I've done the last 1.5 weeks here.
I'll explain alot of these things in more depth soon enough. With photo's of course.
- Brought hot coffee from vending machines.
- Played Pachinko (I think I did anyway. It's like Pokies, but less interaction. If that's possible)
- Played addictive as crack coin games, that 10 year old kids spend thousands of yen on a day (Photos and manual coming shortly)
- Ate lunch at a place called 'Mos Burger'. Very nice btw, you gotta try it.
- Used fantastic heated toilets that spray water to clean you.
- Used awful run down, squat type toilets in stations.
- Gone to 2 Ramen shops. I love these things, will write and photograph more.
- Brought second hand games from the local game store 'Famicon House'. I love that place
- Complained how PSP is sold out though Japan. And how noone know when it's coming back into stock.
- Went to Ginza, and shopped at huge Louis Vuitton , Hermes, Chanel, Ralph Lauren stores
- Went to the big Sony Building in Ginza and complained about how PSP is sold out though Japan.
- Went to Nikko - It's very cold there.
- Prayed at Shrines.
- Went to Shrine at midnight on NYE and donated money, rang a bell and prayed.
- Drank Sake, and Beer.
- Complained about how slow this computer is at home countless times to Sachiko.
- Threatened to buy new computer
- Went to Akihabara
- Went to huge department stores
- Went to 8 floor store of just anime/manga stuff
- Brought Hellsing box set thingo
- Brought Bandai Wonderswan and game set from Sofmap
And I'm sure there's more, but will update daily (or so) from now on, so there will be no shortage of things to write about. w00t.
And plus in half an hour I'm going to Yokohama to meet Sachiko's friend, so no more time.
Photo's to come too! Once I work out an easy way to post them.
jyaa neeee
- Wade
P.S - Just to mention it, I can speak Japanese. Or at least enough to hold a very basic conversation.
EDIT : Thanks Eclipse! It did seem a bit strange without it..
I am indeed in Tokyo at the moment, but we'll start from the beginning. And one thing I'll clear up also is the fact that I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Basically it just means sometimes I have to rush off to the toilet without warning. It's a reasonably common and between 10-20% of adults have symptoms of it. I won't write about it too much, but sometimes it can be incapacitating, forcing me to stay home. http://www.ibsgroup.org/main/aboutibs.html Seems to be a reasonably good explanation if anyone wants to read it. Anyway, on with the rest of the blog.
26/12
This is it. The day I leave country I call home. Temporarily of course. The reason I brought a ticket for the day after Christmas is because I wanted to spend Christmas in Australia, and Sachiko wanted to spend New Years Day in Japan. I originally brought a 35 day ticket (due to only being able to have 1 month off work), but then changed to a 1 year ticket when my situation changed (no more work). In total the ticket cost me about $2600 excluding insurance (which luckily I get free on my Credit Card).
Anyway, off I go to a foreign land. A land to which I've never been. Heck, this was the first time I had been on a plane before. I was armed with my suitcase, my backpack and my camera.
My first plane ride was to Melbourne, where we stayed for 2 hours. Sachiko seems to have problems with her ears 'popping' and getting a terrible headache if she doesn't use ear plugs, but I had no such symptoms. I quite enjoyed the plane. Lovely staff, free alcohol, and a comfy seat with a TV packed with 50 stations. In Melbourne we just walked around looking at the shops in the airport. I had a nice coffee at Starbucks which I normally can't do as Adelaide doesn't have any. I also took more than my share of the free toasted sandwich samples.
After a while we were back on the plane to HK. The flight took about 9 hours in total, but it wasn't too bad. Nothing really special happened on the plane - Met some nice people who we (Sachiko and I) chatted to. We arrived in HK about 10PM (HK Time). It was quite exciting thinking that I was in a foreign country.
The first thing that went through my head when we got off the plane was how fucking big this place is. The airport that is. Adelaide International Airport is essentially a shed. We even had to climb up the plane via a ladder thing as the Airport is too small to connect the plane to it. As I've lived in Adelaide all my life, I've been pretty used to things being small. But now here I was in HK Intl Airport, where they even have a subway connecting Arrivals to the rest of the airport.
So after about 6 escalators, lots of walking on travelators (those horizontal escalators) and a 40 second train ride to arrivals, we were finally at Customs. From there, we had arranged a bus to take us to our hotel - Island Pacific HK.
Unfortunately however, 1/4 through the bus ride I was forced to stop the bus to run to the toilet. Being on the main highway to Central Hong Kong, I was very lucky the bus driver could find a toilet. So I spent the first 20 minutes of my Hong Kong trip in a little porta toilet, but a squat type ones, without a flusher. Where you had to manually push you foot on a pedal to shoot this blue liquid though it. It was quite disgusting. Actually, it was probably one of the worst moments of my recent life. And what I've written here makes it sound so much better than it really was.
But once we were finally back on the road, within about 20 minutes we were at our hotel. It was quite cheap, costing about $300 for 3 nights including breakfast. The room was reasonably small, but not too bad. And we had a fantastic view from our ceiling to floor window of the harbor.
For the next 3 days we did lots of walking around. Actually, it's basically 2 days because we arrived late the first night, and our bus picked us up at 6:30am on the 29th.
Hong Kong in the suburbs is incredibly dirty. It reminds me of a dirty, smelly china town. But here, no one can speak English. I was quite surprised about this, seeing as HK is such a popular destination. But for the majority of the time, we had to play the fun game of charades.
I'll just jot down a few things we did, otherwise this first post will be incredibly long. We were staying in 'Central', which is on Hong Kong Island. We were about 5 mins taxi ride to the port, where we could catch a ferry to Kowloon - The main shopping district. I might mention how cheap many things are in HK. Taxis including. The flag fall for a taxi in HK is $15HK, which is about $2.40ishAUD ($1AUD = $6HK Approx). With that flag fall you get 2km of travel, and after which you are charged $1.2HK per 0.2km. Because of how cheap taxis were, we were able to take a taxi wherever we wanted.
And the cheapness doesn't just stop there. The ferry ride to Kowloon is $2.20 - About $0.35. And arcade games! There are many arcades in Hong Kong, which a majority of relatively new games including Initial D 3 etc. All of which are either $1 or $2HK! So basically, you'll get 6 games of Initial D 3, compared to 1 in Australia for the same price! Even Initial D cards were only $4HK, compared to $4AUD in Aust. I probably spent a good $35HK in Arcades.
One reason I wanted to come to Hong Kong also, is because of one of my favorite games Shenmue 2. Basically just so I could go to some of the places in the game. So I went to Wan Chai, Kowloon and Man Mo Temple. I was so excited at Man Mo Temple, it looks basically the same as it does in the game. I took some pics there, so I'll see if I can do comparisons. It really feels very strange going to a place in real life that you've only ever been to in a game. Man Mo also is filled with an amazing amount of incense as well. Never smelt anything so strong - There was hundreds hanging from the roof.
We did a lot of shopping in HK. I brought many online games from the local 7/11 very cheap. One game was even just $2HK. No idea if they include a free month, but I'll try them out later.
We did so much more in HK, but I'm falling so far behind with this blog that I'll leave HK at that. If I remember anything exciting, I'll write it down later.
Anyway, on the 29th we made our way to Tokyo. A dream come true. I had been waiting so long to come here, but never getting enough money together. And probably if I wasn't with Sachiko, I would still be working at Dick Smith. We arrived in Narita Airport quite safely, however our plane was stuck for 20 minutes waiting for a free space to dock, as someone stole ours. And Snow! Outside the plane it was snowing! It was the first time I've seen snow falling from the sky before. When we left HK, it was about 20Cish, and now 4 hours later on a plane, it was 2C and snowing.
We met Sachiko's parents just outside of Customs, and a good family friend of there's (Tomiyama San) drove us home. While walking out to the car, I saw 2 brand new Bentley Continental GT's in the car park. Not something you see everyday - Someone parking an $800,000 car in an airport car park is rare enough, but 2! Unfortunately, they didn't own one, but it was a nice new car nonetheless. Narita is well known as being far away from anywhere, so it took us about an hour or so to get home.
I was so happy to get out of the car when we arrived here. Took off our shoes at the front, and I donned the new slippers the family provided me with. So cool, I started to feel like I was in Japan. Unfortunately, it wasn't just the cool things that were Japanese like. In Japan, you can't really sleep in your partner’s bedroom until your married, so I have my own room here :( Even though the parents know perfectly well we've been living together for the last 7 months in Aust. Luckily however, my room is adjacent to Sachiko's, which can prove convenient. Ironically, my room is also next to the parents.
Just to bring us up to date quickly, I'll just run though what I've done the last 1.5 weeks here.
I'll explain alot of these things in more depth soon enough. With photo's of course.
- Brought hot coffee from vending machines.
- Played Pachinko (I think I did anyway. It's like Pokies, but less interaction. If that's possible)
- Played addictive as crack coin games, that 10 year old kids spend thousands of yen on a day (Photos and manual coming shortly)
- Ate lunch at a place called 'Mos Burger'. Very nice btw, you gotta try it.
- Used fantastic heated toilets that spray water to clean you.
- Used awful run down, squat type toilets in stations.
- Gone to 2 Ramen shops. I love these things, will write and photograph more.
- Brought second hand games from the local game store 'Famicon House'. I love that place
- Complained how PSP is sold out though Japan. And how noone know when it's coming back into stock.
- Went to Ginza, and shopped at huge Louis Vuitton , Hermes, Chanel, Ralph Lauren stores
- Went to the big Sony Building in Ginza and complained about how PSP is sold out though Japan.
- Went to Nikko - It's very cold there.
- Prayed at Shrines.
- Went to Shrine at midnight on NYE and donated money, rang a bell and prayed.
- Drank Sake, and Beer.
- Complained about how slow this computer is at home countless times to Sachiko.
- Threatened to buy new computer
- Went to Akihabara
- Went to huge department stores
- Went to 8 floor store of just anime/manga stuff
- Brought Hellsing box set thingo
- Brought Bandai Wonderswan and game set from Sofmap
And I'm sure there's more, but will update daily (or so) from now on, so there will be no shortage of things to write about. w00t.
And plus in half an hour I'm going to Yokohama to meet Sachiko's friend, so no more time.
Photo's to come too! Once I work out an easy way to post them.
jyaa neeee
- Wade
P.S - Just to mention it, I can speak Japanese. Or at least enough to hold a very basic conversation.
EDIT : Thanks Eclipse! It did seem a bit strange without it..
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