Whew....long day and it didn't even really begin until 2!

After a slow getting up, and a run with Venus who either is out of shape, hates running or is lazy, because she puts on the breaks at about the fifteen minute mark of all our runs, and is hard to drag around for the last fifteen minutes as we run home, Pete and I finally got out of the house at about 2:30...

First we headed to the office to pick up my pump which had been delivered by fedex that morning... What a huge box for something the size of a deck of cards! I haven't started doing anything with it yet, and won't until tomorrow now as its 3:15 am, so I'm not about to start messing about with it now! I'll post more about how it works when I get it going... (And mom - it came with a 10 pack of transmitter glue pad thingys and tape) I'm so sad my stomach is going to get all tape-gluey again :(

Anyway... after shoving the huuuuge box into the trunk of pete's car, taking up the trunk entirely, we headed off to Omotesando Hills, a large mall on Omotesando Blvd (see earlier posts for more info), for our adventures at Shinsei Bank, part two...

The first time we tried to open me an account, we couldn't do it because I didn't have my proof of residency with me, hence the adventure through Shibuya to the ward office that I posted about yesterday. So today, feeling all smug (obviously our first mistake!), Pete and I headed to a different branch to try and open our accounts... Everything was going fine until they realized I wasn't 20, which is the legal age for everything here. We still, at this point, thought we were OK - a brochure we'd gotten last time stated that those under twenty could get an account if a guardian signed first. The plan was for Pete to get his account first, and then, since he's officially my 'head of household' over here, sign as my guardian.

unfortunately, the account maker lady, who didn't speak English to further complicate matters, managed to convey that it needed to be a parent... Fast forward 40 minutes, and Pete finally convinced them to call someone who spoke English to translate (the whole reason we're trying to open Shinsei accounts is because they're supposed to be the most gaijin friendly!). The phone person gave Pete the same line, even when he went so far as to say my mother is no longer alive (sorry mom!) That kind of did the trick, but apparently there's yet another official piece of paper we need to get that will say Pete is officially my guardian over here. All of this is very random, since I no longer have a legal guardian at home, and Pete figures I'd have to be declared 'incompetent' to get myself one... Anyway, still no bank account, but we're working on it!

At this point it's about 4:30, and time to get the day really started - Pete and I went to Roppongi Hills to meet his friend Bob, AKA 'Kamasami Kong', a radio dj, podcaster, etc. over here (he does the Metropolis Mag podcast, and also writes for Metropolis magazine) We headed up to the Tokyo City View, which is 52 stories, or 250 meters above sea level for a 360 degree look around the city... Unfortunately it was a little smoggy, & cloudy when we got up there, but still very cool views! It soon got dark, and Pete tried out his new camera/tripod combo and we all took lots of pics (to follow in the next post).

After we'd gotten our visual fill of the city, we headed next door to the Mori Art Museum which was included in our ticket, and saw a video installation by Bill Viola. It was um interesting :) Very well executed, but kind of depressing, and a little slow in some installations, some of them were pretty cool though, I especially like the one where he filmed people diving into a pool and then revered the tape, so it looks like they are rising out of the water... At this point, a big shout out goes to Prof. Gill's FACS class from last year - it was TOTALLY the sort of thing he would have gone for, and then discussed, ad nauseum...

By this point, we were all starving, so we headed across the Rainbow Bridge to Aqua City in Odaiba, heading for a Sam Choy's that no longer exists. We ended up going to a place called ZEST for yummy Mexican food. Our waitress, Luna, was from Nepal, and she and Kong ended up getting into a friendly discussion about which is higher ' Mt. Everest or Mauna Kea. Kong has a theory that its the Hawaiian island taking the prize, if you measure from the sea floor or something... Pete, the traditionalist, put his money on Everest, and be Kong 100Y (1$).

We wrapped dinner up at about 11:30, and headed outside to take pictures of The Rainbow Bridge, Statue of Liberty, and Tokyo Tower all lit up and looking beautiful across the harbour!

Finally dropped Kong off and then started to head home, but got a little bit distracted on the way - It might be impossible to find a non-sexual 'massage' at 1:30 am in north america, but seemingly not in Tokyo! Cruising home Pete was like 'do you want a great massage?' and I was like 'sure!' Thinking he meant at some point in the future... But no - he immediately pulled off and parked right in front of 'Relax Body' where we each had an hour of aromatherapy Shiatsu loveliness! Luckily my masseuse spoke a little bit of English, so even though it was my first massage, I'm pretty sure I did everything she wanted me too - either that or she was too polite to say anything, which is equally likely! She asked me if I played 'hard sports' which I took to either mean I was full of knots of had muscles lol...

So, back home at 2:30 or so, to discover that Venus had eaten, among other things, an entire package of mint flavoured calcium mentos and a couple of old school records from when Pete was in grade eleven... I guess she wanted to come to the massage with us!

Pictures in the next post,
Dani