Today is Navina's last day here, which seems crazy-I feel like she only just got here! Although we were thinking about it, and it seems like some of the stuff we did, like the BBQ and everything seems like it was ages ago, but overall, it seems pretty fast!

Today we had a pretty relaxed morning, and then went to check out Akihabara-what a place for my inner geek, pretty amazing!! We checked out a few of the big electronics shops, and I planned all the ways I could dress up my laptop I don't even own, and Navina bought a case for hers, and then after some Korean food (yummy!) for lunch, we headed to Ryogoku to watch the sumo.

The tournament opened yesterday, and Peter told us they wouldn't sell out if we went in the afternoon, however, unfortunatly, they definitly had, and so we weren't able to watch any of the wrestling, which was really too bad-we were both looking forward to it! We did hang out where everyone else was poised with their cameras though and Navina managed to get some pictures of Sumo wrestlers leaving the stadium.

After that, we headed home via the Shinjuku takeshimaya times square Tokyo Hands, and then in the station, stopped for choco cro before heading home. We had bentos for dinner, and watched some Friends, and now Navina is doing the depressing vacation-ending act of packing...

She gets on a bus at just past 11 tomorrow, and heads home while I head to work...

xo
D
(More pics of Disney Sea below-taken by Navina)...

I'm tired and lazy after a long day with Navina and Peter at Disney Sea, which was great, but I'm really excited to head to bed now, so, before we head out to the sumo tomorrow, I think I'll get photos from our night up on Friday, as well as photos and video from Disney posted then...

In the mean time, this is a pretty interesting link (about emoticons in Japan vs. North America).

and also, Happy Mother's Day!!!
xox
D

So yesterday ended up being long and busy, as predicted, and didn't end until about 6am today...

I went to the gym around 7am and signed up, which was great, but took ages longer than I thought it would, going through forms and everything. It's a really nice gym though, with a pool and a sauna and studios (lots of classes), plus the normal gym stuff, and really nice change rooms. Also, totally reasonably priced given that I've gone for the mornings before work only option.

I had time for a quick workout (but no classes), before I headed to work, mostly spending the day on BAB and some other design stuff... Navina, after getting a bit lost in Toranomon, made it to work, with some help from everyone in the office via the phone ("are you near a big sword shop?"), and we went for drinks at Suji's which was great fun before we went to Shinjuku to meet up with Jordon.

Unfortunately, Sarah wasn't feeling great, so she didn't make it, but the three of us wandered around and showed Kabuki-cho, or the entertainment district, to Navina. We went into one of the entertainment arcades that are everywhere, and Navina and I did the Taiko drumming game (kind of like dance dance revolution, but with taiko drums), and Jordon took some photos and video (to come).

After some wandering, we made it to Jordon's friend's Thai restaurant, which was very tasty, and really funly (that should so be a word!) decorated and then headed to Hatagaya, to a cute, small live house called 'Heavy Sick', where we watched Jordon's friend's all-girl band called 'The Feminine' play their garage-rock. It was a really cute space with a comfortably crowded number of people, not so many, as it was small though! And great, because the bar/tables and stuff were in a seperate room from the dance/dj/livehouse space, so while the live show was on, we went in there, but spent most of the night in the lounge area, which was quieter and lighter, and much better for chatting! Randomly, there was a Chihuahua in a purse for most of the evening, which seemed unfortunate, but other than that...

I'd met quite a few people before, which was both nice and embarrassing, as they all knew my name, and I, well, we know what I'm like with names! however, everyone was to nice, drunk, out of it, or not speaking English to really care! Also, when anyone would ask where we were from, and we'd say we were Canadians, and then they'd go "OH! You must be Jordon's friends!"

Navina and I got taken under the rather oppressive wing of one of the event/space organisers (as far as we could gather, that's what he does). He was quite funny, because at the beginning, he came over to me, and asked how old we were, and then when I told him, went "Oh. Too Young!" (for any sort of chatting up, I presume. He was 29...) and then proceeded to just spend the night intermittently hanging out with us. He insisted we memorize his number, so that if we ever run into problems in Japan, he would help us, as he "only has good feelings for the city, and any problems, have, we should call him and fix." Which on the whole, is a very nice sentiment, but he was a little far into the beer, so we ended up having a great round of a conversation, explaining to him about 10 times that we were students, but not in Japan, that I worked at an internship at a magazine, and that Navina was visiting. The capacity for repetition was astonishing! He was nice though, and certainly kept us fairly entertained!

It was also fairly astonishing how many people got falling down (OK passing out) drunk! Quite the percentage, which from a sober standpoint, was entertaining, though I can imagine there were some really, really unpleasant mornings for people today! Navina pointed out it was interesting/kind of surprising that there weren't really any random hookups going on. I wonder if that's a cultural thing, or a 'most of us know each other at least by sight and therefore its not so random' thing, or simply because it's hard to do much of anything when you're glued to the floor under a table?

Ahh, good times!

As one can imagine, after getting home at 5:30ish (we were actually walking distance from home, but didn't quite realise that until today, oops!) not much of anything went on during the day! I slept until about 1, and then got up to basically relocate to the couch, where we watched TV and I napped (for like 2 hours or so), while Peter went with Venus to check out the new dog park in Yoyogi Koen and the Thai Festival. It would have been nice to go and see everyone, but catching up on sleep was lovely as well!

In the evening, Peter took us out for a nice dinner to an Italian restaurant on the 54th floor of the Tokyo Opera building, where we had some lovely views over towards Roppongi, and then afterwards, snuck into a banquet room, and had lovely views of Setagaya-ku. We finished the evening with a drive through the Skyscraper District of Shinjuku with the top down-really nice!

Off to bed now, as you can never have too much sleep, and we want to be rested up for DISNEY SEA tomorrow!

xo
D

Worked today as Navina headed out to Ueno park and Asakusa for the day. Today was Nine's last day of work, which seems crazy, since she just started a few months ago, but she has to head back to Europe for school and work, so unfortunately, today was her last day. As a result, we all headed down to Suji's for a farewell lunch.

The new BAB also came in this afternoon (Weekender went to print too, so busy day!), and it looks good, although I'm a little scared to actually look at it too carefully, convinced as I am that I'll find a mistake we didn't catch BEFORE we went to print (and therefore can't fix now!). I think all the photos and everything came out OK though, so that's good--that's what I was the most worried about I think.

After work, I went to teach, and that was fine as well--multiplication sucks as much now as it did ten years ago, but the novel study for the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe that I found online was good, so that was successful.

Came out and found that it was PISSING down rain, very very weird and unpleasant--even with an umbrella I was getting wet!

Stopped by the gym in the station on my way home and decided to join, so I'm going to go do that in the morning... I went in there and they gave me an English schedule and also spoke some English which is great. The cheapest time is also the best for me, M-F 6:45-10 (before work), and has some good classes, including stretching, ab/upper/lower body sculpting, step, etc. Of course, there's the regular gym, and then also a pool, so hopefully it will be good! They're also having a special on now where the first month is free and you get Y3000 in the store, so it kind of cancels out the membership sign-up fee.

Apart from that, just hanging out at home-work tomorrow and then we're going out in the evening/night/morning, so probably don't expect a blog!!

xo

D

*yawn! So tired!

Busy day at work today trying to get ready for print tomorrow morning...Navina spent the time going to Midtown and Roppongi, and then came for lunch with Nine, Kieron, and Emma, as we headed to Suji's.

Got out of the office at about 6:30, grabbed Navina from Roppongi Hills area, and then headed home to watch the second to last (EVER) Gilmore Girls. Peter got home around 8 with a Venus who was very happy about being able to run around the whole office today! We ordered pizza, and then I promptly fell asleep as Peter tried to subject us to Magnum PI

Off to bed now I think
D

Will post photos and video from yesterday's fishing excursion on this blog, as today wasn't so exciting-work, which was busy and fun, went for lunch with Helen at Wolfgang Pucks, very tasty, and had a busy day working to get Weekender ready to go to print on Thursday. Went to teach after, it was pretty easy - math and spelling for the little girl, and her brother had no homework but got really really into the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, so that was good! After that I wandered to the outlet store at the Aoyama Book Centre, and picked up a couple of things (books, like facebook, are seriously my crack!) Of all things, I was excited to pick up a typography book, although all of my friends who might be excited about that with me, live in Toronto, and are part of the facebook group "Last night, I kerned your mother".

Yes, we are just that cool.

Anyway, Navina hung out in Shimo Kitazawa, and Peter and Hitomi got back from Hawaii tonight, so it was great to see them again-sounds like they had a lovely trip!

And now, for the angling photos/video:

(I don't think this place has changed at all since it opened in 1963!)(The smart fish congregate by the bubbles in the centre)
(some of us had a laugh while fishing...)
(...while some of us concentrated a little bit harder)
(the girls got some help from that guy wearing the white shirt...he called it 'princess fishing')



(baiting the miniature hooks was a goopy process!)
(but the fish seemed to love the snacks...)
(and eventually, one was stupid enough to get hooked! I shrieked like a wussy girl, and the guy unhooked it for me...)

(and then passed it off to Jordon to put in the net (so we could keep track of our points, though I think we probably could have collectively remembered "3" between us))

(but then goldie took a leap for freedom!)(...and lay gasping on the floor until Jordon scooped him back up and saved him (unless he was one of the two fish who died in front of me minutes later...seeing something take its last swimming stroke and then croak is a bit disturbing!)

And of course, there's the requisite bad quality video of the whole endeavor:

Dani does some princess fishing

Jordon fishes (or well tries to set the line I guess?)


xo D

Long, busy, fun day today-will expand the blog and add photos tomorrow when I get them off Navina's camera (and have a tad more creative energy!)

In short, we started the morning with a trip off to Kabuki-za, where we took in one show, for about an hour. The theatre has shows all day, and you can buy a ticket to see the whole day, but it seemed that those patrons tended towards the elderly Japanese set. The rest of the foreigners were like us, up in the 4th floor open-seats, just taking in a taste of kabuki. It was pretty interesting! Much more exciting than Noh-the sets had scenery, and there was a discern able plot! We went and got the English ear pieces, which was definitely a good idea--without them, we wouldn't have had a clue what was going on!

After the show (about an hour, a good length to get the idea!), we headed to Shibuya to meet Jordon for some pre-fishing lunch. We headed to one of a chain of Italian restaurants called Tapas and Tapas (or something similar to that-they have an octopus on a plate of pasta as their logo).

After lunch, we headed to Sangenjaya and did some fishing. Seriously. This place has been around since like 1964, and basically its a slightly ramshackle building with stools surrounding a big, above ground, concrete pool/pond, about 4 feet deep. You sit on the stools, and with tiny fishing rods, even tinier hooks, and itty bitty balls of bait, try and catch goldfish. It's harder than it sounds! I caught two, and Navina got one, and that was our sum total for the day! Both of us caught our first ones with the help of a guy who may or may not have actually worked there, but was really helpful-resetting our bait and telling us when to pull. He called it princess fishing, which was perfect!

There was also a random film crew in there at the beginning, and the girl being filmed spoke really good English, so she talked to Jordon a bit - she wasn't having much more luck than we were either! Tons of people there were regulars-really good at fishing (for points!) and just chilling out with their beer, cigarettes, and 24 inch long fishing poles. It was pretty great, more fun and relaxing than we all had expected, although I have to say the actual catching part was a bit traumatic! The first one, I made the guy de-hook (its all catch and release, no sashimi here!) and the second one, I fully just thrust at Jordon to deal with. For some reason, I really have a thing against live, flopping fish! The first fish almost met an unfortunate end, as the guy passed it to Jordon to put in the net, and it jumped out of Jordon's hand and onto the floor! He finally managed to scoop it back up and in, but it was traumatic for the poor little fishy!

After that, since I had remembered that there was a through road to Shimo Kitazawa, we wandered down there, and then once we got there did a big, circuitous loop around the area, taking whatever streets seemed good. Finally, we ended up at a back street izakaya, and sat outside, on converted kegs, for a few drinks. Randomly, we were given some potatoes and pork that we didn't ask for (but had to pay for, i think?) and then some microwaved popcorn, that we REALLY didn't ask for, but also didn't have to pay for. How odd, but a really good spot. We (well Jordon mostly, since his Japanese is so much more functional!) was chatting with the manager of the place, and we got his card, that had all of their locations on it-including one in Vancouver!

After all that, Navina and I wandered home, and have just been watching a couple of episodes of Sex and the City before heading to bed--work in the morning and all that!
Photos and videos of the fishing tomorrow...
xo
D

Soggy day today! Taught in Shibuya at 10:30--taxi guy, who spent most of the lesson discussing how his company is facing possible legal action due to their regular disregard for labor laws. He's not a big one on confidentiality!

After that, I had an hour or so before I needed to meet Navina and Sarah, so I went to Three Minutes Happiness (isn't that a great store name!) to buy an umbrella, and then wandered by the Apple store to drool over macbook pros. *DROOL!* they were randomly having a great little concert in the corner of the store - quite a large (8 piece?) band was playing a roots type gig...It was great! Random, but great!

Went to meet Sarah and Navina at Hachiko, and then we went up to TGIF's (flair!) for lunch and a chat. After that, we sloshed our way around through the GAP, UNIQLO and Bic Camera, before dropping back into the nice dry subway. I decided, against all better judgement to go to soccer (honestly, I'm like a dog with a bone when I get an idea!), but when I got there, it was unfortunately cancelled due to rain. I did randomly meet a really nice girl who was working there though - Japanese, she grew up largely in the states, and therefore spoke perfect English. Since no one was playing, we just chatted for about half an hour, before I gave up on anyone coming and headed home. I did find out that the reason that the turfs close in the summer is because there is a swimming pool underneath! It has a retractable floor, that they push up in the winter and role the turf over, and then in the summer, they drop the floor down and fill it back up with water!

Headed home for origin bentos and choco cro for dinner, and since then we've just been chilling with Sex and the City and pink books...

Today got off to a pretty relaxed start as I wasn't teaching until 1, in Shibuya. We headed down there, and I went off to teach while Navina went for a bit of a wander and then came up to the cafe to wait for me... We hung out there for a little bit after my lesson, and then headed a couple of streets over for some more ramen. So good! I think this basically needs to become a regular after teaching on Saturday lunch!

After that, we headed to the Imperial Palace East Gardens, not really sure what to expect, as we'd been told you couldn't see much, but still wanted to check it out anyway. Unfortunately, we didn't realise they closed at 5, so we only had just over half an hour to check out the gardens, which were beautiful! I actually took pictures today, but haven't down/uploaded them yet (I really think it's time I go pro at flickr!) so these are Navina's....Mine will come later-they're pretty similar, anyway!

Amazingly, we ran into Nine and her sister, here visiting for about ten days in the Gardens! As Navina says, 'that's like running into someone in CANADA'. It was fun to run into them, and they gave us a great osusume for the best place to spend our few precious minutes in the gardens!

After that, headed home and hung out- I kept working on this (research intensive!) article for Weekender, and Navina watched Casino Royale (for the fourth time, lol). Then I took V for a walk, and we did the download photos/blog/laundry/dinner domestic thing...

Tomorrow: teaching, lunch with Sarah, and hopefully, futsal.
ox
D
Cool lens flare action on Navina's part! Some part of the castle defence system... The actual castle itself is really hidden away and you can only just see the top of it poking through the trees...

Posing by the river...
Finally a shot together after I accosted a poor Japanese couple and thrust Navina's camera at them...
A very small Navina under a very big gate
And me being dwarfed...these gates really meant business!

Taking photos (I have a similar shot of Navina on my camera!)
Interesting juxtaposition between the old gate and the modern city beyond...