April 6, 2005 Archives

So, tonight in Akasaka, chic neighborhood south of the Center of Tokyo (if it was the Imperial Palace - I'm sure it is), eating sushi, and such delicacies.

Continued pics. The computer is in the guestroom, and the guestroom is now occupied by my hosts' guests from France, while I sleep in the younger one's (Paul) room.

Now, on my 6-day trip/tornado-ing around Japan.

The venerable Mount Fuji. Kind of romantic that the nicest pic I have of Fuji-san has those chimneys in the foreground. Took this unboard the Shinkansen, going to Shin-Osaka from Tokyo. Was sitting next to an Indian-born economist who studied and lived in the States, and who was travelling with his family in Japan. Kept switching seats for the Fuji picture taking, etc. Great tourist in Japan moment. I should've kept track of who had the Lonely Planet Japan among the people I met.

I followed the Carp games religiously in the next few days, as they were visiting the Giants in Tokyo for their debut series of the season. Once in the hotel room in Fukuoka-Hakata, as described in the previous entry, and then at the Shin-Osaka YH, with a handful of Hiroshima natives travelling to Kansai. The Giants are really a team to hate. They've got the Japanese Barry Bonds, and his name is Kiyohara, but he can't run, apparently.

Atomic Bomb park. Lots of foreigners, as the picture shows. A very nicely done memorial, gives the chills, as it was the exact same spot directly above where the Atomic Bomb exploded (which went on to completely destroy the area 1 or 2 kilometers around it).

Got lost in Nagasaki. It's a shame I didn't take more pictures of the area I got "lost" in. Was one of the highlights of this trip. I wanted to get lost somewhere. It's a great feeling. Like being stuck in some sort of movie set on a sunny afternoon after school. Kids playing hide and seek. Passerbys carrying groceries back to their home. People selling food in place up the hill where nobody ever walks about.

Most beautiful views of Japan in my head are rice fields in the summer. Not quite summer yet, but April in Kyushu, is June in the rest of Japan. Taken at dusk, while on the train back to Hakata from Nagasaki.

Found a sort of Totoro shop, within a souvenirs/Hello Kitty shop on the hillside road going down Grover Garden in Nagasaki (the Westerners' settlement in South East Nagasaki, beyond the Dutch slope).

Nights in Hakata. I thought I would've had time to see downtown Fukuoka-Hakata, the "Tenjin" neighborhood, or that Canal City shopping mall. Instead, went to Kinko's to get ripped off for 1260 yens for an hour of Internet. >_>

(The rest tomorrow, because the guests want to sleep)

I improved my self-pic-taking technique. No more closeups of my greasy face. No sir. Every pic of myself (except the sakura one in the Kyoto entry - the old man walking by pitied me as I tried using the bush behind as my improvised tripod >_>) is taken with the timer. I'm so good.

Well, ok, I was six days away from Tokyo. Being in vacation, I forget which day is weekday or weekend. It's really bleh to try to keep track. I know that next week is my interview. That's really scary. One week, and I almost didn't prepare, besides flipping through my articles on the 12-hour trans-Pacific flight. Gneh, really stresses me out.

Been learning a great deal with myself. I am not a social hermit, when faced with the situation. I mean, I've always been kind of average when it comes to meeting people - not the crazy Uri-style outgoing, but still, I can draw conversation from something, when that something exists. Drives me to be on my own, and loneliness is an ambivalent feeling after all.

Don't forget the videos. Uncompressed, but I'll deal with that when I have my own computer again. Super scriptable.

On the sea front, southeast of Tokyo, there's the Tsukiji market, where you can auction for fish early in the morning, 5AM-ish (got there at 11AM, bleh).

Kamakura was last week, same day I went to the market. I forgot what day it was, but it was a weekday, and seemed crowded enough (not from this pic, but maybe from the ones taken in the small merchant alleys) that I was happy it wasn't a weekend day. That's a row of sakuras, less the blossoms. I can just imagine how pretty it gets at night...

Pacific Ocean, at last. This was the first time I touched it, now that I think of it.

Yokohama has this Chinatown with restaurants that costs relatively like Japanese restaurants in Montreal.

(going sushi with tante Ghyslaine, will continue this tomorrow morning...)

It was Canada Day yesterday, so there were shows throughout the day. Caught the lunchtime show, quite by chance, as the Expo Dome was near the exit to the Piccolo gondola towards the South of the park. I sat next to the reserved section where a group of Canadians, normally holding fort at the Canada pavillon, I suppose, was sitting. So far away from home, and seeing/hearing Canadians, that's a heart-warmer for sure. There were Corneille and Alanis Morissette with a preview of their evening show (comes Alanis, who updates her lyrics to Ironic to the new Canadian reality, "It’s meeting the man of my dreams / And then meeting his beautiful husband").

And I went to the Mountain of Dreams, in the Corporate Zone, where I saw an exhibit directed by Mamoru Oshii. A floor with TV screens, and rows of cloth towers with fish heads around the arena, a soundtrack like Innocence, and a figure of what seems like a robotified Ashura. (There were videos too in the pics collection - all this is of course illegal, and a matter of time until someone asks me to take it down... -_-)

Earlier, I was at Satsuki and Mei's house. Was the only foreigner, until I bumped into my roomate at the youth hostel, who happened to be walking in there (I saw him twice that day - it's not hard spotting Westerners - but I so blend in), and invited him along on my ticket for the house. The lady guide told me there were only 20 foreigners or so visiting the house since the start of the Expo last week. But there were mounds of Japanese, and it's apparently full until the end of April (basically for the whole period there were seats available ... in Japan they have to sign up via a ticketing system at Lawson convenience stores, and for overseas visitors, they need to mail a letter to the Expo people, like a month in advance from when they plan to go to the Expo... I hope they change this policy, it's really impeding on everyone's chances.

Check in the recommendations folder. The first track is really good. The second track "Joy" was the first single, and I believe topped the Oricon in February. Really jpop-cute (it's a pleonasm) album.