Trains to Akihibara

Akihabara, or as the signs at the train station call it, is the Electric Town. The name Akihibara is strange in itself, for the kanji compound (秋 葉原) means something like "the leaves of fall", which is in stark contrast to this quarter which seems completely unaffected by nature. The offending rain of the evening serves only a tool to illuminate the streets from above and below with promises of the latest electronics.

There were very few places open when we arrived, but we spent some time trying to get ouf the rain an arcade. I learned something important that night: Japanese arcade games are unbelievably hard! They only give you two tongs to pick of these absolutely adorable plushies. We spent about ¥1,000 and had no sucess whatsoever.

Akihabara

I also rode a train for the first ever in my life (excepting the speeding train of the DIA concourse), and it is an experience that I think one can never fully prepare for. The kanji on the boards are incomprehensible, although all the routes are very neatly arranged. Fortunately, we were able to figure out the symbol for aki and bara. Also, the consistent change in velocity was continually catching me off-gaurd. My balance isn't very good to begin with.

Good composition is hard to acheive on a train.

Unfortunately, when we did arrive in Akihabara, nearly all of the stores were closed, and the ones that were open did not have the dictionaries we needed. However, the selection of DS games was phenomonal, and it was all I could do to stop myself from purchasing one.

Within a half hour of arriving in Akihibara, we made our way back through a rainstorm we were ill-prepared for (one pink umbrella for seven people), and as we walked through the station to the hotel I saw the most remarkable thing. Unfortunately, I could not document it with a photo because I was afraid that it would be rude. Everywhere between the supports and the walls, there were men building cardboard walls and beds. This surprised all of us because we had not seen this the first time we had walked through. It seems as if this men were homeless, and every morning they struck down their cardboard tents, only to erect them again that night. These men were unfriendly to the passer-byers, but some were conversing with one another as if they were old neighbors. It was disheartening, and bewildering. How is one supposed to react, except to callously ignore them?

Location: Keio Plaza Hotel Room, Tokyo JAPAN
Song: Hang Me Up to Dry - The Cold War Kids
Last Ate: Curry

More Foreigners! (もっと外人!)

For all you that live in the United States, I am contacting you from the future! I understand how timezones work, but that still doesn't take away from the mystique of me writing this on an overcast Monday in Tokyo while it is still Sunday in Colorado.

Losing a day is a very surreal feeling, especially when one spends a whole day with night close at one's heels. Fourteen hours in the air, and it never once got dark. Again, I understand the science of it all, but greater person than me would find nothing but poetry.

In any case, I've had one experience so far and I've only been in Tokyo twelve hours. If only I had had a camera to document the occasion! A few of us CSU students, plus one other, decided to go out around the town and find dinner. While we were wandering around, completely dumbfounded by the rainbows of lights that saturate the city after dark, we were approached by a very loud, and very determined business woman who assured us free beer if we ate at her restaurant.

As she walks us in (after first ushering us into an elevator with a capacity for two), she yells, "motto gaijin! Motto motto gaijin!" which translates to "more foreigners! Much more foreigners!"

As it turns out, we were not the only ones she had seduced with the magic of free beer. Choosing the food was interesting, and she spirited Megan, the most fluent of all of us, away to the kitchen to assure us of what we were eating, since none of us understood the menu. All in all, it was very tasty, or as the business women kept assuring us "totemo oishi desu ne? TOTEMO OISHI" or "it's very good isn't it? VERY GOOD!" She had very little of the stereotypical japanese modesty.

I haven't got any chances to take any pictures, but I took this from my hotel window:

Shot of the street below through an uncooperative window.

I'm very nearly done packing. Will write more in a few days.