Sorry about the lack of pictures - blogger is still being stupid about photos, even though I switched to blogger beta in the hopes that upgrading would bounce me over to a different set of photo servers or whatever is causing this problem... Did it work? Of course not! I'm going to try throwing up a couple of pictures taken with the little sony camera to see if it's getting hung up on the file size... We shall see...

Anyway, Happy Halloween to everyone! We had a few trick or treaters today, I'm not sure exactly how many because we weren't home for the whole time, but it seemed to be a fairly good turnout, and we got through almost two bags of candy. Poor Venus was very sad she didn't get to play with all the kids! To stop any confusion about which house was celebrating or not, there were neighbourhood wide signs saying to decorate if you'd be participating, however, it pointedly said that 'there was no application required' to participate in the giving out of candy -
I'm glad that I don't have to apply to give out treats!

We duly decorated before heading out this afternoon, although I have to say we didn't exactly have the most impressive effort on the block! (and look at that, after all my whinging, the smaller photos uploaded no problem... Technology!)



close up on my handsome sign!

Pete had a meeting near Harajuku again, so I got a ride with him, and walked to the Shibuya Ward Office to pick up my official gaijin card - I'm now an official alien! I walked back through Yoyogi Koen, where the World Volleyball championships are currently happening-I had to stop with a group of people on the sidewalk to let a tour bus with the Japanese national team on it through the gates, much to the excitement of some of the fans waiting with me, autograph pads at the ready. Seemingly volleyball is a pretty big sport here in Japan!

I did a bit of shopping at GAP and got a pair of jeans (in mammoth sizes for me compared to at home, very depressing here!), and a white top... I really think there should be some kind of standard sizing, or at least going by measurements or something, its ridiculous that jeans which are exactly the same size if held up together, and from basically the same company (old navy at home, GAP here), could be exactly doubled in size on the tag. Although I guess to accomplish that, you'd have to go into negative sizes or something to fit in everyone over here... But really, measurements would be a good way to go, everywhere, because even between different stores in one country you can be different by like 4-6 sizes, which doesn't help anyone!

Annnnyway, Pete and I came home at 5:30ish, and did some more Hawaii research, I think we're finally coming to a solution/conclusion for everyone who is worried about getting their flights, etc. in order, we'll be calling Hawaii when they wake up tonight, and then will call everyone else as we find out what is going on...

And that's about it, just hanging out mostly and waiting for Pete to get home - he went back out to another meeting at 9, and for it to be late enough to call Hawaii and Pacific businesses...

Back to uploading more photos I think, and tommorow is the vaulting research day part two! Very exciting!
D

OCTOBER 31st:

So my photo uploading issues seem to be largely related to trying to upload Pete's huge image files from his Nikon, as it uploaded the small sony images with no trouble. No photo editing software on this computer, so I'll have to remember to take snapshots for now, and then figure something out when I take my canon out on a photo expedition...

Anyway, I've edited this post to add some photos from the JRA riding place, more to come on November 1st, as I'm going back to watch the jumping and find out about vaulting...

Looking back towards the main entrance...this is the main walkway....
paddocks, there were probably 40? in total, in and around the trees and double fenced - nice!
grass ring, for jumpers I'm assuming
part of the XC course (its not a huge one, maybe 3'6-3'9" or something?)
Dressage ring w/ the three judging booths
Main grand prix jumper ring. The jumps are set for the student show this week
looking across a schooling ring to the jumper ring
stabling
they've taken a dirt track and converted it into lots of ring areas with jumps and stuff...
stabling again...
Map of the complex so you can get a bit of an idea...

OCTOBER 30th:

Right now, I hate blogger! It won't upload my pictures from yesterday, so I'm assuming it won't upload today's either. I'm also having some iify-issues with publishing my blog, but from what I gather from the message boards, it's not just me. Anyway, its still saving my posts, even if no one else can see them, so the plan is to keep blogging, and post when it lets me, so that I stay in the habit.

Today was a very exciting day!!!!

Started the day with a run (sans el lazy bones) and stopped at the park to do some fitness on their climbing structure (really, I wasn't playing!) I hitched a ride to Omotesando with Pete and then walked to Shibuya to get on a train and start my adventuring...

I headed to Ebisu to Good Day Books and got a couple of books there (its a big English language used bookstore), which was exciting in itself, I literally can't be without a book for a day, but we all knew that, so anyway... Unfortunately, I finished the first one already, less than eight hours later, so the three I bought, even though one is fairly long, and the other two aren't particularly short, won't really last me too long :( 100 pages an hour doesn't make reading a particularly cost efficient activity for me, I need to kindle a source for ARCs over here!

Anyway, after that, I took a train back to Shibuya, stopped at a Starbucks so I could start my new book, and then walked home (well as far as Yoyogi Uehara eki). Yesterday, I found a couple of vague references to some horse facility in Baji Koen, and I'd planned on checking it out, but by today, it was seeming like a lot of work (train, walking, etc) since I didn't know what it was going to be like.

I finally ended the internal debate by deciding that I could find someone to try and find out if there is any vaulting in Tokyo, and since I was wearing my vaulting jacket, I figured I could use the badges (which show a person doing a flag), as a visual aide in case they didn't know wtf vaulting was (pretty common even with native English speakers! If you're one of them, you can check out this link, and this one to get an idea of what its all about)

Anyway, I finally made it to the correct train stop (actually pretty close to Pete's house!), and then made a pit stop at a bakery, which was exciting discovery number 2 of the day - Despite what Pete might say, I'm in LOVE with bakeries here now! You get a tray and tongs, and then you get to load up on carby delights :) I got fantastic white bread (sooo good if nutritionally lacking), a buttery, garlicy bun, and some amazing cinnamon sugar-y donuty delio... Very good snacking while I hiked around the rest of the day!

After getting directions from a fellow shopper, I set off on the twenty minute hike to Baji Koen, sponsored by the JRA (Japan Racing Association). When I got there, it was SO worth the trip! Unlike a regular riding barn, which I was expecting, this is a full out horse park, with a 'grandprix' ring, several dressage rings, about 40 small paddocks, a track now converted into sand jumping areas, a huge grass ring, stabling, lunging arenas, a cross country course, and a big huge common walkway type area...

The whole thing is built around a regular park kind of, so there are human walking trails in between paddocks and stuff, and you can go on the xc course when its not in use, there is a traditional garden running between a couple of the xc jumps, and there is a playground or two on the site as well, its a fantastic mixed use project, and there were tons of families hanging out today.

There were also a bunch of riders working with their VERY nice warmbloods, and a 4'3" -4'6" ish sized stadium course being set up, so I watched them work for a bit.

Anyway, I hiked around for awhile, and then gathered up the courage to try and find out something about vaulting. I couldn't see an obvious office for general enquiries, so I headed to what looked like the show office when it seemed quiet, and luckily they had a bilingual lady on staff named 'Suzuki, not Honda' lol, who was able to tell me that JRA offices were closed and would be open on Wednesday, and she'd be here to come with me and talk to them, but in the mean time - yes, the only vaulting club in Japan happens to meet here! She said she wasn't totally sure if I'd be able to train with them, but she'd come with me to talk to them, and I really really really really hope I can convince them to let me train with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She also told me that it was a Japanese Student rider (i think she meant university team riders) competition this week, showjumping tuesday - Thursday, and then dressage on Friday, and xc on the weekend... Anyway, I really hope something comes of this - cross your fingers for me!

On the way back to the station I stopped in next door at the very nice tack store, Cavallo, and checked out the super nice imported German (mostly) tack and stuff they had. What they had wasn't super over priced, but they didn't carry anything cheap, making the end product an expensive but not overly inflatedly so tack shop which was very drool worthy! No vaulting stuff though unfortunately...


Anyway, bounced my way back home, and then read w/ Venus until Pete came home. We made KD for dinner and dressed it up with left over spaghetti sauce to mixed reviews - some classics shouldn't be tampered with too much!

Other than that, just a quiet evening to Desperate Housewifering and reading, updating the blog, msn etc....

will keep you updated on the vaulting front - I can't wait for Wednesday!!!!!
D

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29th
- blogger was down yesterday, so I'm posting today, but this entry is actually from the 29th...

Post number forty! This must be some sort of record for me!!
Also, check out one of the noted blogs this week - Upgrade Travel - its got some interesting stuff on there, and some good links...

We all got up fairly early for us today, and I made French toast and bacon for everyone. After we all got organized to leave, Peter and Venus and I dropped Hitomi off at the station, and she headed home, and then Pete and Venus and I continued on to the dog park.

Venus was in heaven playing with all the other dogs in the off leash area at Komazawa Olympic Park. (not an official website, but there are some nice photos). There were TONS of dogs there, and Venus made lots of friends, though most of them were human, the dogs, she could take or leave :) We saw pure bred dogs of all varieties including a few labs, a couple of weimeraners, about 6 jack russells belonging to the same family, tons and tons of veeerrry cute long haired dauchsaunds, a whole whack of tiny little guys, and one very interesting dog that looked like it was a black lab/golden retriever cross, very dramatic!

Venus made fast friends with a little group of small dogs, including one wearing a dashing pumpkin costume, and they played fetch for quite some time. There were several small dogs in outfits ranging from jeans and a tee shirt, to frilly skirts, to school girl uniforms. There were also several bows on little poodle ears.

After the dog park, we walked/lurched around part of the rest of the park, with a VERY pully Venus! There happened to be a huge soccer tournament for the eight and under set at the big stadium, so we checked that out, and there were hundreds of kids all kitted out in very nice uniforms when we were walking around. We went to check out a pond/water feature around a tower where there was a flame for the Olympics, and while Venus was wading in it, we noticed that some kids had lost their soccer ball into the water. It was kind of a two tiered affair, so one of the kids who was about 8 or 9 was elected to walk out along the ledge in the middle and reach down to collect the ball, which was in about 3 feet of water at that point. It was all going well enough for him, until he decided to throw the ball back across the water (about 15 feet) to his friends. Unfortunately for the poor kid, he threw himself into the water with the ball! This wouldn't have been that big a deal, except that on his way into the water, he bounced, crotch first off the sharp ledge prior to splooshing into the water.

The poor guy hauled himself out of the water with a very sad mixture of shock, embarrassment and pain. It was pretty funny though, in a 'I really shouldn't be laughing about this, but there is no way that I can stop now' sort of way. The poor kid wrang himself out a little bit and then went back to the dry side, eventually, an adult came and a bigger kid VERY carefully walked across to get the ball, and brought it back, no throwing attempted.

We continued on our walk, and I had V since Pete had a coffee, we were getting into a good natured discussion about who was leading our walk, until she spotted an errant ball, just as we were on a slick patch and pulled me straight onto my ass. Unfortunately, Pete was right in the way, and I very nearly used him as a bowling pin on my skid through the mud. I guess it serves me right for laughing at the kid, since there were little kids laughing at me and my errant Labrador.

We finally dragged ourselves through the park (which was very nice!), and then went to Sizzler for a very yummy 'linner'. Salad bars to go with your meal are a very lovely idea! Then, we headed home and now Pete continues to catch himself up on Desperate Houswives, while I update the blog... I'll post photos of the dog park and of the Olympic Park (complete with 16-18 year old guys practicing their hip hop moves with skipping ropes!) in the next post, once I get them off Pete's camera (and mine).

D.

Not much to blog about today, but there was almost nothing, so at least now there is something ;)

We all slept in after our late night Korean BBQ feast, and then Hitomi made yummy bacon and eggs. The eggs here are cause for debate re: which eggs are scary - the pale yellow yokes of north america, or the crazy bright fluorescent yellow yokes of Japanese eggs. At first, I thought the yokes here looked like farm eggs at home, but after I examined it more closely, I think there was a definite glow, unnatural in the farm world... In any case, they were totally yummy, and since I still only have one head, that's all that really matters!

We then continued the Hawaii trip research project, and finally, at about 5pm headed out to Omotesando. Hitomi did a little bit of shoe shopping, and Pete and I headed to get a drink at Nathan's hot dogs. Unfortunately for Pete, the Omotesando Nathan's is no more, which is very sad!

We also checked out Sony Plaza, the full of completely useless yet strangely entertaining crap shop. They had several small tabletop 'crumb' vacuums in the shape of a pig or elephant or dog, a frying pan the size of a small coaster, and several other equally random items.

We then went to check out the absolutely gigantic Tokyo flagship Ralph Lauren store, which is based on the White House or something - its a pretty commanding building! Check out this article on the Ralph Lauren website for information about the store, plus some photos to give you an idea of what this 'mansion of fashion' looks like - pretty impressive!

Then, for a bit of contrast, we headed to Shakey's for dinner, and had some good ol' American Pizza. Randomly, however, one type of pizza (we got a mix of four styles on one pizza, like in four quadrants), had potatoes and mayonnaise on it! Anyway, it was basically exactly what you might imagine when someone tells you they are going to the pizza parlor, it's basically right out of central casting.

Anyway, we headed home a little while ago, and now Hitomi and Peter are FINALLY starting to catch up on season 2 of Desperate Housewives, so that we can move on to season three (thank goodness you can buy it on itunes episode by episode so I won't have to wait for the DVD in August to find out what happens!)

I'm going to work on my hardcopy scrapbook of this blog, and possibly take Vchan on an icecream run to the Circle K, if I have the energy....
D

Edo-Tokyo Museum... sorry the pictures are so dark - photography was OK, but flash wasn't reccomended...

Orbitune office party pictures:

More Glitterball pictures..

Ok, well I managed to get this one photo of Jordon and me uploaded, but it keeps timing out, so I'll try again tommorow...

I've been trying to upload new glitterball pictures, as well as Orbitune office party photos from Pete's camera, but blogger is screwing me over and timing out repeatedly, so I'll blog about today first and then try and go back and update with the additional photos from yesterday.

Pete had an early (well 10am) meeting this am, so I got him to wake me up when he left and then headed to the Tokyo-Edo Museum for bit of culture or history (finally! :) )... It was actually very interesting, and much more detailed than you would first expect when walking in. They pack a lot of info into a fairly open floor plan, and a lot of the signs are in English, so there is lots to take in and learn! The museum is about Tokyo from the Samurai age, when it was called Edo, through to the 1964 Olympics. There were some amazing scale models of areas of the city, remarkable buildings, a kabuki theatre, etc. the models ranged in scale from 1:60, through 1:1. The displays were super detailed, and looked like they would have been really fun to make! There was an amazing amount of detail work in them, and they were as interesting to examine as the actual subject matter!

They also had artifacts from the time, as well as some exhibits which you could touch, climb on, etc. depending on what it was - I took a picture of a pedicab that was a predecessor to good old Kabuki Kabs at home, though ours looked much more comfortable than this one did!

I took a break from the museum (it was re entry all day) to go and get some money out of an ATM, which should have been a simple task, but of course, wasn't. It took three ATMs to find one that had an English button, and then when I finally managed to accomplish that, it didn't support the Plus network. So I checked out in my guidebook how to ask where the bank is, and headed to a hotel to do so. The problem with asking for directions in Japanese, is that people tend to answer in Japanese, which given my current grasp of the language situation can be a bit of an issue! I finally got a map and some directions and went hiking to the local bank, which wasn't able to deal with my bank card either. However, they were able to tell me that the local post office would be able to help me, so several sets of directions later, I found another hotel which housed a post office on the second floor and finally, forty-five minutes into the search, got some money out so I wouldn't starve and be stranded way out by the museum.

It's interesting here how there are lots of offices and shops and other public type things on the 2F and 3F of buildings, as opposed to at home, where all the public stuff is on street level generally, and private offices or empty spaces are above. It's much more efficient, but also means there is a lot more ground to be visually scanning when you are looking for whatever...

Met Pete back at the office and we headed home for a couple of hours of chilling out with Venus and not doing too much, before leaving at about 9:40 to meet Hitomi for dinner. By this point we were both VERY ready for food, so we hiked eagerly up the hill for some Korean BBQ. It was very yummy! I even ate tongue!! A new experience for me (you dip it in lemon juice!) but it was pretty good, and definitely shared some characteristics with Canadian/Back Bacon.

We had a nice dinner and then walked/rolled back down the hill to home, and now I'm just updating this, and will have another go at those pictures as well...

D

(btw, shouldn't the blogger spell checker know words like 'blog', 'blogging', and 'blogger'? Just a thought.
D

So after sleeping off the Glitterball etc. from last night, Pete woke me up at 11:30 this morning, to let me know that there was a lunch @ Orbitune I was invited to - It was several people's birthday recently, so we had pizza and some very very yummy icecream cakes (and a good shortcake that came out later) to celebrate. Everyone surprised me with a welcome to Japan present - a very nice daytimer with some gorgeous photos from all around Japan. Thank You! It is from 2007 which works out nicely - my social calendar should be filling up by then ;)

Hung out at the office for a couple of hours - we tried to eat our way through the mountains of food and played with the dry ice from the icecream cake container (how cool is that, for like 20Y you can buy chunks of dry ice at Baskin Robbins) - I looooove dry ice, its so fun and bubbly!

We recapped the glitterball and all agreed Pete's costume was hilarious for the people there who knew Pete, Kong, or both. The other 990 or so people probably thought he was either Steven Spielberg or some variety of random dude...

Headed home after that and watched a little bit of LFTV.. Venus and I fell asleep watching Leno, just like Elli-blot and I do back home... (Blotty, I might have a V-chan over here, but I still miss you! Any humans reading this that might like to give him a treat from me are very much encouraged to do so!)

When I woke up, I got to work on my scrapbook the blog project, and got through the first few days, adding photos, postcards, tickets, and maps, etc. to the blog entries - it's turning into a pretty comprehensive log of my trip! I really, really, really want to keep it up! So far so good, let's hope I can make it to the 21 day mark (where something becomes a habit, I think)

Then just a quiet dinner at home for V. and me, it's 11:25 and we're still waiting for Pete to come home from work, he claims he's coming home soon, but he claimed that at 9pm as well, so we're not holding out too much hope ;). Anyway, a nice quiet day to blog, read the magazines I forgot I never read on the plane and hang out a bit at home...

Should have pictures of the lunch and of the party last night if/when Pete gets home with his camera....

D

So Glitterball is over, and what a party it was! There were over 1000 people at Velfarre in Roppongi, and some pretty fantastic costumes on display. Even though I forgot my hard to find gloves (!!!!!) my flapper costume went off pretty well I think, and Pete's costume - Kamasami Kong was a total hit with anyone who knows Kong. Some people didn't recognize Pete under there, and when Kong showed up at the end, as himself, it was great to have the two of them together! Mostly going to have this blog be pictures, so here goes: General crowd shot of the main dance floor - there are three levels in Velfarre - an upstairs entrance level, a VIP drinks level where you can look over the dance floor, and then the main dance floor with a bar on either side, a stage at the front and the DJ/light booth at the back.
Cool shot of the lights
The two Kongs
Mibu, 'Kong', Marina, Nana
Mibu, Marina, Nana
Mibu, Me, ( the guy in the back knew one of those three, but I'm not sure how), Marina, Nana
'Kong' and Dutch Mark the school girl
The second place winner in the costume competition, he's won before so they didn't seem to want him to win again...
The Met Pod Crew - 'Kong', Susie Newsie and Jordon (note the drink on his shoulder - people kept stashing beer on that convenient surface in the middle of the room)
The winners of the trip for two to Brazil, courtesy of American Airlines, who were one of the major sponsors of the evening. These four are dressed as a famous Japanese biker gang, - a lot of work went into their costumes!



Pete just before we left
Venus getting into the act, and a little confused/wanting to eat her costume
Flappertastic

There will be more pictures of last night from Pete's camera later...

After Glitterball ended at around midnight, Pete, Kong, Mibu, Marina, and I went to Velours which is the place to be on Wednesday and Saturdays.... Yesterday, it was so much the place to be that it resembled an overstuffed, albeit swanky, sardine can. From the website it looks pretty cool, but honestly, we couldn't see much when we were in there! Kong, Pete and I lasted rougly five minutes before escaping nextdoor to Bluestone, a very nice, laid back bar which only had one other group in it while we were there. We hung out there for an hour or so, and had a nice chat and some drinks with Kong before Pete and I came in and he greatfully scraped off his beard before we fell into bed at about 3am.

Incidentally, the beard was quite a challenge to make and took Pete nearly an hour! We cut off some of the hair from his wig, especially what was hidden under the hat, and then trimmed it down to a shorter length before using theatrical glue to piece it together on his face. It was pretty funny since it shed for the entire night - it was amazing that there was any hair left by the end of the night!

Anyway, that's it for the first installment of the glitterball afterblog. I'll post more photos later when I get Pete's

D

Just a quick note while I wait for my hair to (hopefully) dry into something resembling pin curls, or a wave, or something flapperish for the Glitter Ball tonight...

I headed out today to check out Design Festa Gallery in Harajuku (more in a sec.), and on my way there, walked through Takeshita Dori, which is that crazy street of teenage fashion.

You can get all sorts of clothes here, but they aren't toooooo terribly expensive for the most part, and its all very young and modern - very cool! This is also the place to get costume wear year around, and then I gather that on Sundays, the street is full of Japanese teenagers involved in 'cos-play' which is short for costume play. I'm not sure exactly what play occurs, but all the guidebooks promise weird and wonderful sites if you head to this area on a Sunday - I'll have to check it out sometime!
Here is a shop where you might be able to get some of the requisite costumes, although I haven't been inside, so I couldn't give any details...

Since I didn't really have any appropriate shoes to complete my flapper costume tonight, I was kind of on the lookout for a pair. I ended up finding some onsale at a store called 'NoFall' (there are some very very random store names here! You get the feeling they just picked a couple of English words that sounded interesting together and went with that) Anyway, being a relative giant in the foot department (my size 8 feet barely fit into the L sized shoes!) was a good thing, because their 1000Y (10$) rack was full of my size shoes. I picked up this pair:
Although not soooo practical, they are basically equivalent to casual day wear here in Tokyo, so I could actually wear these with anything, anywhere, anytime, and not look out of place. As a start, they can be glittery enough for my costume, even though they aren't exactly the right style!

After that I headed to my destination (only getting slightly lost in the maze that is any neighbourhood over here!) Design Festa Gallery is the permanent gallery which compliments Design Festa, a two day event held twice a year. What a cool place!!

A converted apartment building, it is a two story free for all gallery, in which anyone can exhibit. There are about 10 rooms, and artists pay for the room for a couple of days, up to a couple of weeks. When you have the room, you can do with it as you wish, and there was everything from photography, to incredibly intricate black and white drawings on large silk scrims, to a small clothing shop set up. The Gallery charges very reasonable rates (starting at $5.25/day for a piece of wall, and going up depending on how big a room you have, and if you rent a projector from them, etc.)


As you can see, the outside of the building is also a complete free for all, but very cool! Obviously no pictures are allowed in the gallery, which is open every day and free to visitors, but there was an equally crazy mix of stuff in there as well. The Gallery doesn't take commisions, so there are a few artists selling stuff, and some just exhibiting. There was a video installation some three dimensional stuff, and then some more traditional forms of art. Since it changes almost weekly as new artists move in and out of their rooms, I'll be going back often!

There is a very funky, art school feeling to the place, and it seems like working there would be a pretty sweet gig! They also have a tiny 'cafe', which sells tea and cookies in the backyard, which looked to be festooned with yard art although I didn't check it out as I wasn't partaking in the tea option.


Anyway, it was a pretty cool place, and totally felt young, welcoming and fun, not at all like most galleries! If I ever do anything cool here, I might just have to exhibit it ;)

After I finished at the gallery, I walked to Tokyu Hands via Yoyogi Park (about a twenty minute walk) to pick up a sketch book in their great art section. I'm both terrified of this blog gettng corrupted or swallowed by cyberspace, and also unsure of what to do with tickets, brochures, etc., so I've decided to print out the blog, and scrapboaok each entry with the hard copy ephemera...

Then, I decided to walk home from Shibuya, which wasn't as far as it might have been - about thirty minutes at a 'Nikki' paced walk, so it's not super close, but it's definitly doable, and since there is no direct train to the station closest to us, it kind of makes sense. Plus, with it being safe to hike around here, its quite a pleasant way to listen to some podcasts or music and get a little bit of excersise, plus see what's going on in the area.

While I was hiking up the hill towards home, I decided to stop at one of the gazillions of vending machines around here and grab a drink - my diet coke came out in the coolest container, and since i'm easily amused by stuff like this, I'm going to post it on here -
It's like a (small) can with a screw top! So cute!

Anyway, my hair is basically dried, so i'm going to go see if I've made curls or a complete mess on my hair, and then finish getting 'flapperized'

D

One thing I've noticed here is how seriously they take their traffic control here! Not necessarily (or at all!) while actually moving, but in terms of when and where you can park, it's all very well organized! There seems to be an entire industry build around white gloved parking attendants who are guiding you in and out of parking lots for department stores, around construction sites, or wherever they think you might possible need some friendly guidance... Even gas station attendants will stop traffic to let you get back on the road! Anyway, this is all a bit of a random lead up to some photos from an event I saw take place today - several bikes actually getting impounded! I've never even heard of having to pay for bike parking before, but apparently, here sometimes, you have to do it, and some places are flat out no parking zones, so for these unfortunate people, they ignored this sign:
and then this happened to them:
The team of two was just driving slowly up the street in their tiny little truck and chucking in bikes that were illegally parked - very efficient 'towing'!

Anyway, today was spent in Shibuya getting costume-y things organized at Tokyu Hands, which is the best 'buy anything here' store ever! I've now managed to buy facial hair adhesive and golden blazer buttons, among other things here in Tokyo! I was helped by an overly attentive shop keeper at a large glasses shop today when I was buying, of all things, flip up, clip on, old school sunglasses! Never fear, it was part of the costume purchasing requirements, I haven't relocated to the mid eighties! Anyway, the guy helping me literally ran to the door when I walked in, and then proceeded to trot happily around the store while we wildly gestured, bowed, bobbed, and used the three words of each other's respective languages that we each knew to conduct a very happy transaction. Two minutes later, sunglasses in hand (carefully triple wrapped as is the custom here), I walked out to the chorus of 'arigato ' from all of the employees in the store. It was a very happy experience ;)

Spent a quiet night at home crafting some last minute costume items - I finally found a pair of long gloves in Tokyu Hands, and I sort of heathed together a head band with a clump of feathers on it (google flappers if you don't believe me!), and then helped Pete fabricate some parts of his costume.

When we were finished, Venus and I rewarded ourselves with a walk to Circle K (convenience store) for an icecream run - it still seems very very odd that walking down a dark street at midnight is safe, but I'm getting used to it. I ended up with some kind of weird but delicious icecream bar, which was like icecream cone shaped like a Belgian waffle which has been hollowed out and filled with vanilla icecream, with a chocolate sheet through the middle. I have no idea what the point of this particular configuration of icecream might be, but it was tasty!

Off to bed now, tomorrow is the big Metropolis Glitter Ball at Vellfarre in Roppongi - should have lots of costume pictures for tomorrow's blog!
D

Oh! - almost forgot one other random thing from my shopping trip today - I was trying on a pair of jeans, and noticed this random box in the change room:

Unfortunatly, the pictures are a bit blurry, but it really looks like they're providing you with bags to put over your head! I was very confused, so I examined further, and they are, indeed, head bags made out of fabric similar to dryer sheets. I guess they're so you don't get makeup on whatever you are trying on, which makes sense, I guess, but at first glance, the instructions for how to bag your head up neatly seemed veeeery odd!

Part Two of Venus' House Tour (scroll down for part one, I was having uploading issues - sorry!)

"Let's go visit cousin Dani's room..."
"Time to stretch in the spare room...Sometimes my humans look soooo funny!"
"Time for a bath before bed"
"This is a little bit tricky for me to work! Not having opposable thumbs is a challenge!"
"Time for bed, see you all later!"

Venus' Fantastical House Tour (with support from Peter)...


"Do I hear Daddy coming home? Better go check it out!"


"Yippee!!! He's home!!! Let's go into the living room for a cuddle..."

"Time to Make Dinner!"

"Tastes pretty good to me!"
"I think It's time to use the potty..."


"Or maybe I'll go out here... I don't mind the dark!"

"Come check out my room!"
"Let's go upstairs now..."

No particular reason for posting these, but I took them on my first or second day here, and I've been waiting for a good opportunity to post them... Since there were no photos from the grey and rainy day we had today (look at that, I'm a poet! :p) I figured they could go up with today's posting. This, for those who are wondering when I took a side trip to Turkey, is actually about a block away from Pete's house. It is a huge mosque which is a recreation of a mosque in Turkey. It's a gorgeous building, and also doubles as a way to find your way home - the large tower/spire thing is hard to miss and is a very handy landmark when walking home!

I've been using my new pump since yesterday, but I didn't get the blood testing sensor in until today. Since I'd basically fainted the last time it went in, I was a little bit worried about inserting the new sensor - last time, it didn't go all the way in properly, and it was very unpleasant! Luckily, this time I used a deeper insertion angle, and it went in just fine the first time. Anyway, I got it in, and didn't pass out or anything silly like that, and then I had to leave it for two hours to get soaked in 'intersitial fluids' before it starts to work.

So far having mixed results with it - it seems to be quite a bit behind if your numbers are changing quickly, but I'm sure I'll get used to how it works soon enough. I just read in the manual that if you update it more often, (like calibration), it can help with more accurate results, so I've been trying that, and it seems to be working OK... I guess my pump must have seemed weird before for the first while as well, even though I don't really remember that anymore...

Anyway, after I put the sensor in, I headed out to Shimo-Kitazawa, which is one stop away from Pete's house... It's a fun little area with tons of little clothing stores and cafes and restaurants and stuff. There was an intriguing place which looked delicious - a bakery called 'taste of Scandanavia' or something like that - I'll have to go back and sample some lovely baking! Perhaps I'll make a trip back to shop at 'Salad Bowl', which is a small, three storey clothing shop with vintage, new, and used clothing - lots of fun stuff! The whole area was full of shops like that - definitely need to head back at some point to do some shopping!

Today, I was on a mission for fake pearls and long gloves for my flapper costume, so I was poking around the shops there, but having no luck finding either item, I jumped back on the train (I didn't get lost today!) and headed back to Meji-jingumae/Omotesando to check out some of the stores down there. I looked in Accessorize, and they didn't have anything, but I finally found some fake pearls at an accessory store on Omotesando Blvd. Still on the hunt for long gloves, I headed to Takeshita-Dori, which is where you can, apparently, buy Little Bo Peep costumes on a regular basis. There are sooooo many little tiny shops and stuff, but I didn't have any glove related luck! I found a ton of ways to decorate your legs - leg warmers, tights, leggings, socks of all varieties, etc. But the only gloves I could find were short! V. ODD... It was raining though, so I didn't hang around poking about for too long.

Tonight Pete and I are watching 'I'm Alan Partridge' which is a BBC comedy about a completely useless radio dj who is forever putting his foot well and truly into his mouth as he tries to make his way, stumblingly, through life. It's pretty funny, and he has some great lines! The poor guy is SUCH a loser!

Anyway, having some issues making a not so interesting day sound interesting, but I know there are people who want to know what's going on, so, here you go!

Sorry about that, I'll try and make tomorrow a bit more entertaining!
D

Just got back from seeing Jordon's band, The Molets play at Wasted Time in Shibuya. Pete and I headed out there at about twenty to ten and caught the last couple of songs in the set before The Molets went on... We had no idea what to expect (well k, I didn't, but I don't think Pete knew too much about the band either), in the end, we got to see some very happy, entertaining twenty-somethings playing calypso (apparently) music.. When you closed your eyes in some of the songs, you could imagine yourself on a Caribbean island. Jordon is the resident trumpeteer, and as far as I could tell did a pretty good job of it :)


Tonight, we were lucky, because The Molets, who operate in a revolving door style, and never quite know who is going to play with them, had a special Sax guest. Apparently, the musician is quite famous and plays on TV occasionally. It was the second time they'd all played together, but it was pretty cool how well they all flowed around each other (having no musical skills whatsoever, I'm not really qualified to review with any sort of authority, or proper terminology) but anyway, I liked it :) They played a pretty short (but sweet ;) ) set for the headliners of the night, and I gather they were all reworked covers, though I wasn't really familiar with any of them originally, so I wasn't having to make any comparisons or anything ;) Of particular note was 'the alphabet song' "Spell it: M - O -L, M -O -L -E-T-S spells Molets", etc... (or something to that effect anyway)...combined with energetic, synchronized jumping by all the band members it was v. amusing!


I tried to get some sound bytes on my phone, but the quality is terrible when I play it back on the phone speakers, so hopefully it improves when I figure out how to get it onto the computer... the only other problem with that is I accidentally recorded onto the camera memory and not the memory stick in the camera, and I can't figure out how to pull stuff off the camera and into the computer yet... So photos for now, and possible music afterwards!
Of quick 'cultural' note, I'd forgotten how entertaining the taxis with the self opening back doors are to let you in and out!

If I can get some decent quality sound bites I'll definitely post them, but not sure how much luck I'll have with that...

Earlier today, Pete and I went to Don Quijote, or 'Donki' which is an absolutely ridiculous store! It's like someone took a Walmart and put it through a blender at high speed, mixed it around, and then took all the products out and sprinkled them completely randomly through the store. Its noisy, crowded, and full of stuff, everywhere! Everything from the traffic cones and poles necessary to officially stop traffic in Tokyo, to real coach bags and just about everything in between. They also have different music playing in each section, which means that the store is a complete audio mess, as well as anouncements, etc. Plus, given the size to crap ratio, its like walking through a garage sale or flea market or something. For anyone in Toronto who has been there, it is a bit like Downsview Market, with the same sort have 'this could have fallen off the truck' feeling, except nothing has, it's just the way its laid out that gives it a chaotic vibe. I really really really pity the people who have to work there! 45 minutes left us ready for some peace, I can't even imagine eight hours of it!

We were there on a mission for Halloween costumes, Pete, whose costume is a surprise, was looking for several items and found about half of them, which will be more fully discussed after glitterball, just in case anyone comes across this blog who shouldn't know before then...

I, as I've mentioned, am going as a flapper, so I needed several things, one of which was a feather boa. This should have been very easy to get in this kind of place, and indeed, they were part of all sorts of displays (like to market other products), but we couldn't actually figure out where they might be selling them. So Pete flags down a sales girl and has this conversation, in fairly passable Japanese -

"Excuse me, but do you know where these (gesturing at one hanging from a sign on the ceiling) are for sale?"

"Um they are in the Christmas display that isn't up yet"

"Oh, well we need them for a Halloween costume, so it will be a little late for that"

"Ah yes, I see, well they will be in the Christmas section, sorry about that"

So she walks off, and Pete turns around, translates, and then claims it was a made up answer given to placate us. I believed her, kind of, until we turned around and looked up (literally taking about four steps), and there they were - logically displayed in the car section! Seemingly, the 'cool' guys who park their cars on the side of the street, displaying their black light, stereos, etc. use them to decorate the dashboard of their cars - these feather boas light up! (Incidentally, we saw and watched a bunch of these guys with their cars at Odaiba yesterday, but I didn't notice any illuminated feather boas!)



Anyway, I now have a spiffy black feather boa with some red lights incorporated into it, which should make for a good addition to the costume...

Anyway, I need to go now to get ready to go see Jordan's band play (if they let my underage self through the door - it really sucks not being legal anymore!!!), but I wanted to blog about our shopping expedition to fulfill the reader requests of a more detailed account of some events.. Comment and let me know if this is the kind of thing you are after...

This is an audio clip of Kamasawi Kong's theme song (really, everyone needs one!) Just click the play button on the little logo below (you need flash), and it will play...In case anyone else wants to add to their blog like this - its a free (for basic) service called Gabcast. Where you basically sign up, create a 'channel' which is a assigned a number, and then phone one of several phone numbers for your region, and log in using your channel id and a password you decide on online, and then record your post into the phone. It immediately dumps it back into your account online, and from there, it's easy to get it into your blog... A very cool tool!

Going to see Jordan's band tonight... Maybe I'll figure out how to use the voice recorder on my Keitai and then post a clip on here.... Ah technology!

Gabcast! gaijinbedbug #1

Tokyo Tower from the Tokyo City View (pic by Pete)
view from Pete's convertible driving through Tokyo @ night
the Tokyo City View is at the top of this building
The Ritz Carleton in Foreground, and Shinjuku in distance (I think)
Tokyo at twighlight
Tokyo just before twighlight
Tokyo tower and Tokyo at 4:45 pm approx.

Tokyo Tower, Rainbow Bridge, Statue of Liberty (pic by Pete)
some rules were just made to be broken....
Odaiba and Rainbow Bridge from the Tokyo City View (pic by Pete)

Me in front of the Rainbow Bridge (Pic by Pete)
Me and Pete in front of Rainbow Bridge (pic by Kong)
Kong and Pete in front of Rainbow Bridge

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

Started the day off slowly, as is starting to be the very relaxed routine, and then at one ish headed to the office with Pete to hopefully get my new insulin pump. Unfortunatly, it won't actually be here until tommorow due to a customs clearance delay, but I managed to edit a chunk of my book, and also read the end of it, which was less cring inducing than it might have been - O certainly did provide some good inspiration! I think the fact that none of the jokes seemed familiar/I couldn't remember what I'd written, probably means that I've been editing waaaaaaay too slowly! Maybe I should use the inspiration of NANOWRIMO to finally get the damn thing done.

Pete had a meeting in Meguro (I think) at 4:30, but since he said there was nothing to do really in that area, I embarked on yet another transit adventure to try and get my 'gaikokujin toroku kisai genpyo' which roughly translates into 'proof of residency form'. Since I don't have my alien registration card, but I want to open a bank account, I needed to find the Shibuya ward office (like our city hall), and pay them 300Y to print out a piece of paper with my address on it.

The actual ward office was fine, but finding it was quite the challenge! First, I got off at the wrong station - confusing the JR 'Yoyogi' station, with the Metro 'Yoyogi Koen'. Whereas Yoyogi Koen would have been OK, Yoyogi definatly wasn't, so after I wandered around for about half an hour, I gave up and re found the station, to get back on a JR train and head down to Shibuya station. Which was fine, except that Shibuya station has about 10 different exits, and when I finally got outside I was completely turned around. Luckily, there was a touch screen map, in English on a street corner nearby, so I was able to punch in 'Shibuya Ward Office' and get directions...

After I got my little piece of official paper, I headed back into Shibuya (the ward office is a little bit out of all the action), and headed up to the 7th floor of tower records, which is the best english book section in the city. I ended up picking up a rough guide to Tokyo guidebook, and then checking out all six of the music floors while waiting for Pete to finish up a meeting he was having in the area...

Met him in a Tully's coffee, and then we headed to Sonoma, a funky little place on the third floor of a building in an alley/super narrow street in Shibuya. Pete actually thought we were heading to a curry restaurant he'd been to about ten years ago, but the space has changed hands, and we ended up in a california/mexican inspired restaurant with some asian influences I guess...

Our waitress had flawless English, without an accent, so Pete asked where she was from, and she told us - Kobe. So he asked if she'd lived overseas, and she said - "Well, for the last four years I've been in France". Her English was very impressive, and Pete is guessing maybe she went to an international school... We had spicy spring rolls, and a chicken appetizer, and then Pete had sword fish and I had chicken enchiladas w/ beans and spanish rice. It was very good! Although not exactly Japanese, this meal, unlike all the others, involved chopsticks, so I suppose we're progressing culturally....

Came back home and watched some gymnastics (!!!!!!) on TV, and while reading Metropolis,
discovered that there is a touring show of RENT coming to Tokyo in November!!!!!! I'm soooooo excited!!!!! Also found a foreigners welcome tennis club, and a couple of women's soccer teams, so I have to look into that...

Tommorow we'll be either going to China Town or to Roppongi Hills, in either case photos to come. Also, Pete feels we need to be including more of him on this blog, so stay tuned for 'Peter and Venus' photographic house tour' in the next couple of days...

D

Unfortunatly there are no pictures from today, as such, so I took a picture of some of the stuff I collected at the museum - the bottom map is the whole Yebisu Gardan Place area, and then there is a museum brochure, exhibit brochure, exhibit booklet, and my ticket... Not too thrilling, but something at least!

Not too much for today - Pete kept me up until 2 or something last night looking at old photos (wow there were some unfortunate haircuts back in the day!!), so I slept in until about eleven this morning, which was good timing as ANTM was on the LFTV at 12...

Peter went to work at 1sh, and I stayed home to research the Hawaii Xmas trip - we're still working on finding dates, flights, houses, etc. but we're making progress! Finally, at threeish, decided I'd had enough of that/Pete pointed out Hawaii business hours were over, so I took V. for a quick run (but she wasn't very into the whole idea!), and then at fiveish finally left the house...

Today's goal was the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu... Getting there was quite the adventure! The trains here are very confusing because there is the subway, and the JR trains, and seemingly random other companys with trains (but I might be completely wrong about that!) I left from the other station near the house, and got on a train to Shinjuku, after having carefully decoded that 300 yen (3$) would get me to Ebisu. I transferred at Shinjuku, and had my first clue that maybe I had the wrong ticket when the train gates slammed shut behind me as I powered through the ticket reader thingy... Given the oh, thousand or so people behind me (Shinjuku at rush hour is nuts!!!), I just kept going, since it had let me through, and I THOUGHT I had the correct ticket, plus no one came to yell at me. SO I got on the JR train/Yamanote Line to Ebisu... When I tried to exit the station, the gates shut on me, so I went to the guy in the little window beside the ticket gates, and he looked at my ticket, and then looked at a sheet of information he had, and then waved me through. I have no idea if I was actually correct, or he just figured there was no way he'd be able to explain to me what I'd done wrong, given my obvious lack of Japanese ability....

The exhibition, once I finally got there, was quite interesting - it was called 'Mothers', and was a series of photos of details of the photographer's mother's things. There were also a couple of movies which basically showed a lace slip in great detail, or a yukata in great detail or whatever...

The museum, according to a website I saw, has a permanent collection, but once there, I discovered it actaully doesn't have one open to the public, so I checked out the museum store which had TONS of photography books, and then finally made a plan with Pete to meet up for dinner.

I spent a little bit of time between finishing in the museum, and making said plan, so I wandered around Yebisu Garden Place a bit, which is actually a big shopping area/restaurants, etc. But it seems like it should have been a lot better than it was... Nice architecture and stuff, and a huge space, but the shops weren't that great - Ecco shoe store anyone? And although they were all open until midnight, there was nothing very interesting, and all the restaurants were overly expensive. Anyway, it was a nice public space though, and it was interesting, because after my year in Toronto, its very hard to convince myself that even though it wasn't that well lit, and there weren't that many people around, and it was dark, that it was still safe. If Pete can leave his car running so that V. can have air conditioning, and be completely confident that he won't have it stolen, I thin it's fairly safe that I won't get mugged outside the Armani store. Still, it's very odd to compare it with Toronto, which isn't a terribly dangerous place, but you still feel the need to be a lot more careful than you seem to need to be here. It's nice...

Anyway, after Pete and I figured ot our dinner plan, it was back on the train I go, this time very simply taking the JR train back up about three stops to Harajuku, and then meeting up at 'Pizza Express' in Harajuku... Pete claims it was Japanese, because the menu was in Japanese, and it was in Japan, and there were Japanese waiters, but really, it was a lovely italian restaurant - we had salad, brushcetta, dough balls with pesto dip, pizza with chicken, sweet onions, etc. on it, and chocolate cake, all really good :)

Then back home to do some more research for Hawaii, blog, etc. and Hitomi is back today, so going downstairs to hang out or whatever...
D

The photos, from top to bottom in the previous post are:

1. Harajuku (as in the Gwen Stefani song), and the area where the Omotesando Blvd. is...
2. Pete's Street.. this is actually one of the larger streets in his neighbourhood.. still super narrow though!
3. Pete's house, with his neighbour's SUV in the foreground... my room is the two windows on the second story which are kind of hanging out a little bit
4. Venus at the office on the pillow I made her a few Christmases ago
5. Shibuya
6. Yoyogi Park
7. One of many, many, many vending machines on the streets - they are EVERYWHERE! and often in groups of 3 or 4, although this is just a single one... you can buy all sorts of other stuff in vending machines as well...photos to come as I take them...
8. Dog in yoyogi park with no apperant interest in running around
9. view from a pedestrian overpass near mejijingo station/omotesando, but I'm not sure which ku it's overlooking...

Spent today walking around and exploring a little bit - took the train for the first time to Mejijingumae station, which was an adventure trying to figure out which train was actually mine - there were JR trains and Tokyo Metro trains all going in the same direction, and coming to the same platform, it was quite confusing! Finally got on the correct one, and headed a couple of stops down the line...

I ended up hiking around a bit, first going up and down Omotesando blvd. which is a very posh shopping street, including stores like Harry Winston, Dolce and Gabbana, Pucci, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Celine, etc.... I managed to find the begginings of my halloween costume though - a green and black flapper mini dress from a little vintage-y store called Santa Monica...

After that, I walked up through Yoyogi Koen (park) where part of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was held, and ate the lunch I'd packed for myself there, it was very pleasant! Saw loooots of cute dogs - there are tons of them around here! Including one that was being pushed around in a baby carriage, and looked as if it had no interest in participating in the park whatsoever...

Then I kept walking and managed to find my way to Shibuya, where I looked through about half of Tokyo Hands, the absolutely crazy store of anything you might ever need in your home, Loft, which is like Tokyo Hands but a little bit more design-y (and has SUPER cheap fabric!), and found another cool clothing store which reminded me a bit of the Patch in Victoria, but huge! I scanned my first QR code there : ) (you take a picture of like a square barcode with your phone, and then it automatically points you to a website on your phone's browser...)

Also went into one park of Parko (i think that's the name anyway) which is like a posh department store with four different buildings in the same area! The part I was in had a lovely huge design book section - that's like the third one I've seen so far!

Finally, I got tired of hiking around, so I took the JR train up to Mejiro and walked to Pete's office from there - I managed to be just before the rush hour I think, so it was very busy, but not insane, except at Shibuya station, which is right beside one of those absolutely nutty all ways crossings, the ticket machines were down for about ten minutes which caused quite a backlog!!

Came back here from Orbitune at about 8ish, and had another quality North American meal - bacon imported from Canada, on bread from California, with a side dish of beans from the USA, washed down with some 'California cola from the USA'... I'm sure at some point I'll hit some japanese culture...really!

Just had a message from Victoria that my new pump arrived, so that's exciting, it should get to Japan in the next week or so I guess - I'm excited about the pump, and kind of freaked out about the sensors - that really didn't go so well for me last time!!!

Anyway, that's about it for today- I'll post photos of the day in the next post... Mom, since I know your reading this, I'll try and call you tommorow instead of replying to that big long email, I'm barely awake right now as it is lol - that whole jet lag thing is not treating me well I guess!

Started this morning off with a shortish half hour run around Pete's neighbourhood at 9ish, with V-chan... we explored the rabbit warren of small streets around here, and I took some photos with the new keitai, but I can't seem to download the camera phone pics, so I'll have to post the anti cat (according to pete) barricade made out of water bottles at a later date... Came across a funny little park which has a small gravel pitch and put type practice area-quite interesting!

Came back to the house for some breakfast (from our stash of very north american food following last night's shopping - I had a New York style bagel with some made in Australia Philadelphia cream cheese) and then Pete went to a lunch meeting at a floating pub/brewery on Tennozu Island, which is a waterfront development with offices, restaurants, etc. I went with hime and hung out on the water, went for a bit of a walk, etc. I also bought my first bento box of this trip, along with a hermetically sealed pre loaded soft icecream cone from the conbini. Incidentally, the icecream cone is one of my only memories from the last trip out here!

I'll add pictures in a seperate post of the area, since it isn't letting me do it right now...

After that, we headed to the office, which had some vaguely familiar aspects, but which has been largely renovated, making it a bit confusing! Met everyone from the office pretty much I think, and will, as per usual, only remember about 15% of the names! We invited Jordan, the twenty something from Vancouver that Pete seems to be making show me around (poor guy ;) ), to a movie which Pete's friend Lisel was in. The movie, Kamataki, which did very well at the 2005 Montreal Film Festival was screened at the Canadian Embassy, which is a fantastic building! All it's missing is a timmy's to make it a very Canadian experiance. The movie is about a youngish guy who goes to rural Japan to search out his roots, and hopefully get over that whole ' I tried to comit suicide and failed' thing, and ends up at his uncle's house. The uncle is a master potter with some unconventional moral attitudes! Its a very film festivalish movie, with gorgeous shots of fire, etc, and very unrushed, but not nescessarily slow, pacing. Despite questions about a possible booby double in post production, it was, overall, and enjoyable movie :)

After that we hit Tony Roma's to keep the staunchly un-Japanese run of food/culture/etc. alive... Jordan seems to play in several bands, and has some gigs coming up, including a full two note preformance on trumpet this Saturday, so will probably check out either that one, or a different band on Sunday, which would be cool... Planning on spending the next few days exploring, and probably trying to figure out the JR/subway systems...

Dropped Jordan off at a station, and then headed home, so just looking @ possible houses in Hawaii, blogging, etc. before heading to bed and deciding where to go first - maybe I should just stick a pin in a map and see where it all takes me?
D

So, first day in Tokyo is basically done, we just got home at 7:30, and will make some dinner or whatever, but as far as going out, we're about finished... Started off by going to the kyuakshuu (spelling-no idea!), to get my my alien/gaijin card... I started the registration proccess, but can't get it picked up until the end of the month...

Then Pete went to do some banking in Roppongi, and then we went to SoftBank to get me a new phone from the very nice English speaking Russian/former USSR sales girl... I got a VERY cool red Vodafone 904T which has a 3.2 megapixel camera (solving the lack of a party phone quite nicely!), video camera, GPS/navigation (which is mostly in Japanese, a way to pay for stuff, internet, email, etc... Considering my old phone can make phone calls, and that's basically it - no camera or anything, it's very cool! Pete's going to take it when I leave, as our contract is 26 months...

While waiting for my phone to be prepared/switched to English, etc. We walked with Venus for about ten minutes to General Nogi's house and stables. He and his wife seemingly used to live there and then both killed themselves when one of the Emperors died (Meiji?) All circa roughly 1910, apperantly... It was a nice little park type setting with the four stall barn and their house, where you could look inside the windows. We just had a quick peek inside, and then walked back to the downtown Roppongi area to grab the phone...

After that, we went to get an English Tokyo Atlas, and a little guide book type thing at a near by international bookstore... Then we went to Roppongi Hills (soooo cool! - we're going to go back for a tour) to try and get a bank account, but the fake little alien card thingy I'd gotten earlier wasn't sufficent proof of residency, so I'll be going back to get my hot pink or lime green (you get to pick from like 40 colors!) bank card at the end of the month...

Then, we walked around the corner to meet Hitomi for a Starbucks in another bookstore with some English books (lots of great Design and Architecture sections so far!) and then went to an international grocery store to buy some very english-y type groceries - you can buy Canadian brand beans and pizza and stuff... Some stuff is only a few cents more (like cream cheese, although if you buy the 'made in Australia' philly, its cheaper than its American clone), but some things, like apples are obscenely expensive - 5.25 EACH!

There were a few odd things, like a 12 pack of quail eggs for 11.75, but other than that, it was like a scaled down North American shopping experiance at roughly 150% the price...Incidentally, gas isn't really that much more expensive than Victoria, but bread is 8$/loaf... Very bizarre pricing anomolies...

So, nothing too exciting/Japanese-y to report, although the phone is quite exciting! But that's what we've been up to so far, and I want to get into the habit of journalling about this trip (unlike so many others, so that's why there's a blog post about today's errand-y ish day).... Hopefully I'll have pictures in the next couple of days, especially with the camera phone to have in a pocket!

D

I'm finally here, after a ridiculously long flight - we ended up being 40 minutes late into Narita, and we didn't really sit around much in Vancouver, so I'm not too sure what was up with that. The flight was actually pretty bumpy for most of it, but the rescue remedy I took was fantastic! Totally works as advertised - very exciting!

Pete picked me up, and we had hotdogs in the terminal before driving home - saw about ten huuuuuge Japan Racing Association horse trailers headed the other direction on the freeway - they're like modified class A motor homes...

Will post pics of pete's house and my room and everything later (very nice), but got here and unpacked (amazingly!), walked to the combini to see where it was and get butter, and then came back here for a really nice spaghetti dinner that Hitomi made... My introduction to Japanese food seems to be coming along nicely ;).

V-chan is very cute, but quite the stealer! I think she feels a bit put out that I've arrived on the scene, and unlike Basil, doesn't give up the things she's stolen (unless you're Pete) particularly easily, so everything is on high hidden alert right now. I woke up at two am to find her unpacking some of Pete's papers from a crate he had them stored in on the floor - They're a little worse for wear, but I think I prevented any of them from getting completely chomped!

Other than that, she's very very sweet and happy - in between paper snacks, she slept on my bed last night (though if you asked her, I think she might tell you that I slept on HER bed and not the other way around), and she's very cuddly...

I'll write more once I actually go explore or something, not sure what's on the agenda for today
xo
D

Just a quick note from the gate at YVR...waiting to get on JAL flight 17, and spend an unpleasant 10 hours getting to Narita...

Was a little bit worried about getting through security with my insulin, etc. But I had it all in the baggy as requested, and the screener turned out to have a brother with type 1, so she was like 'Have you heard about that new insulin pump that tests your blood sugars?' and I was like 'Yes! I'm getting one fedexed to me in Japan!' I neglected to mention that I fainted in the training yesterday when they put the sensor in... It was very deja-vu ish like the first pump training session when I did the exact same thing as they put the infusion set in for the first time...

Anyway, off today, so can ignore that for awhile... Mom and I came over to Vancouver yesterday, and saw Julia and Jaana for awhile, which was great - Thanks for the Japanese food, guys! :) Then off to Sascha's for a bit, saw Peta briefly last night before she skipped off to scrapbooking, and then Sasch spent the morning with mom and I at the airport.

Entertaining signs at all the duty free stores: "Yes, you can buy gels/perfumes/liquids, maple syrup *always key* here" The body shop seemed especially keen to reassure would be hand cream shoppers... Also entertaining is that all the tvs are playing international show jumping from Spruce... Anyway, I'm going to publish this now, so that I can get on with repacking what I'm going to need in what bag while on board,

I'll post when I get to Pete's
Ja mata
Dani

Things I want to do in Japan (not nescessarily a complete list, but the things I can think of straight off the bat)

1. Go to the Apple store in Ginza (preferably, go again, and buy a MacBook Pro, 15.4", 1GB ram, 100GB HD, and a blue incase sleeve with a kensington lock). No, I don't visit the applestore online every day or two to drool. :p

2. Go to Akihabara and get a small, party-ish digital camera...possibly the red casio one

3. Stay in shape
3a) run with Venus
3b) do gymnastics
3c) get my oversplits

4) Read for a living

5) Go to Tokyo Hands

6) Backpack for two weeks

7) Go to Tokyo Disney/Tokyo Sea

8) Go to one of the amusement parks that recreates old fashioned (ie samurai period) Japanese towns

9) Learn some Japanese

10) Go to Super-Deluxe

11) Collect as many things from vending machines as possible

12) Explore; lots

13) Keep the blog vaguely up to date (Personally, I feel I'm actually doing OK at this, however its the length of time I'll be away which worries me)

mata ne-
Dani

Just because (and since Jane's blog sent me to the quiz site, which we all know are ridiculously addictive):

Your Quirk Factor: 47%

You're a pretty quirky person, but you're just normal enough to hide it. Congratulations - you've fooled other people into thinking you're just like them!

How Quirky Are You?

Also, I'm a boston cream donut (one of my two favourites)
Also, why is Basil licking the couch and the floor like its raw meat? What an odd dog that one is!

Leaving in six days, and not packed yet,
mata ne,
Dani

Yay I have it! I went over to Vancouver on the 7am ferry (uggghg!) and took public transit to downtown, got my travellers cheques, got my visa, put the travellers cheques money back onto my actual VISA, and took public transit back to the ferry, and then the 2pm home, resulting in a trip which took rougly the same amount of time as my flight to Tokyo (good god that's going to be unpleasant) in order to complete a three minute task once actually in the (overly-polite) consulate. No matter, I know have a lovely big full page sized sticker in my passport complete with a ridiculously dox-matrixed picture of myself which will get me into the country for six months...

Now the only thing left before I go is my stupid, stupid doctors appointment on tuesday (a new endo ...waaaahhh.....) and trying to get a new pump sorted - Pacific Blue Cross denied my request/pre claim or whatever, and that's a good 10 000$ I don't happen to have lying around, soooooo I guess its yee oldy no time on the screen, screwy battery, no testing pump till this one well and truely croaks, and then we'll see what happens given its way out of warrenty :(

anyway, enough whining,

Ja ne -
Dani (who has listened to five Japanesepod101.com podcasts so far and can now say 'I am Canadian', and y'all, in its uncondensed, untwangy form)

So, In the end, the threat of turning up at YVR, or more upsettingly, Narita, without a travel visa has spurned me....yes, ME! Into a walk in clinic to get a doctor's note. I went to see Dr. Andrea Lewis infact, who was very nice and wrote me the note, etc. As per normal when it comes to me and the terrifying creature of the white coat, she had to take my blood pressure twice - there was the recwisit (btw how on earth do you spell that?) heart racing, about to keel over, get thee to some drugs STAT reading, followed by the normal (well I assume since she wrote the note) reading.

In other J. preparation news, I have a lovely new backpack from Capitol Iron, reg. 170$, onsale for 99$.. Its a nifty travel bag which is like one of those big 'I'm going hostelling in Europe' backpacks, but also includes a cover to zip your backpack straps away with, a detachable day pack, a rain cover, and a laptop pouch... being that it's 2006 and all.

Also, preparing to get my ridiculous travellers cheques for the visa, which I'm planning to pick up from Vancouver on Friday. I have to show them 2500$ in travellers cheques, so I'll haul them out and put them straight back in on the same day...

While at the bank, I'll also be purchasing approximately 63, 000YEN, which makes me seem rich to those of us who equate zeros with meaning, but in Japan, you cut an upsetting number (like 2) out to get to the Canadian exchange rate.. All in all, I won't be completely destitute upon arrival (well until I get like four coffees or something), but it's a good thing I'm getting a WORKING-holiday visa!

Other than that, its two more gymnastics, one more vaulting, one more doctor's appointment (good god do they ever end?!), and oh yea, 10 days or 864,000 seconds or 4,400 minutes or 240 hours or 1 week (rounded down) until I'm on that monster of a plane, listening to as many of the 267 Japanese language lessons now taking up room on my iPOD as possible before the UDON meal service comes around...noodles...I love noodles....

ANYWAY...-

Ja mata ne, (I think that's right, anyway)
ttyl,
D