Smelly Capsules and Hacking on the Plane

Hey guys. Sorry the last few posts have been slow coming. I came home and hit the ground running on the job search. Here will follow the posts for my visit to Maui with Kristen, and my final words on my favorite and least favorite... everything. So lets start with Maui!

Scratch that! Let's start with the Capsule Hotel! GROSS! This was a mistake. I guess it all worked out in the end, because it helped me sleep on the flights from Tokyo to Maui, but it is not ideal. The Capsule hotel was in the red light district of Tokyo. Now I've said before that Tokyo is the cleanest city I've ever visited. The red light district is no different. Very clean, and I felt pretty safe there. But still, they can pack a lot of casinos and strip clubs into a square block. About a block away was my capsule hotel. The Capsule part was cool. Had a TV and was pretty big so you could sit up and spread out on the bed. You have a little wooden blind covering your feet, so I didn't really feel claustrophobic. The bigger problem was that every place besides the capsules was smoking. I mean EVERYPLACE, restaurant, spa, sitting area. I reeked by the time I left. And all the girls offering massages gets a little creepy. Especially since I was the only guest there under 35. Anyway, I've had the experience. Never again.

The flights over were great. Korean Airlines. My path was Tokyo->Seol->Honolulu->Maui. We had awesome entertainment systems. It seemed set up like a full computer, complete with a USB port on the side. I'm betting if you can force a full reboot you could plug in a bootable USB drive and have your own computer for the flight. I tried to at least do the reboot (had no bootable drive), but I couldn't do it. I managed to force a crash on the system, but it seems like it had another layer to prevent the system from doing a full reboot. Maybe the entertainment software is sitting on top of the OS, in which case you'd have to crash the OS. Anyway enough nerd talk. Brian, Wes, Tommy, Funk, or Jeff. If any of you are listening, this is your hacker mission, should you choose to accept it.

I slept through half the Seol to Honolulu, and all of Honolulu to Maui. Finally back on US SOIL!! I grabbed my rental car, drove about 35-40 minutes to my hotel, and crashed! Pillow. Face. Sleep. For one hour, then I had to go back and pickup a very pretty lady at the airport who was coming from the other direction. Then it was hotel, pillow, face, sleep again. More on Maui after the break!

Nerd Mecca and Joypolis

Yesterday, I had a full list of temples and the palace. But before this was Akihabara, a district in Tokyo dedicated to computer parts, video games, dvd's, anime, manga, and general nerd paraphernalia. This was another aspect of Tokyo I was not aware of before coming here. I had heard about this from some friends who were decidedly not nerds. So my expectations were low.

Akihabara is nerd mecca. It is a pilgrimage every nerd should make once in their life. I spent three hours walking up and down a giant store dedicated exclusively to all the old toys I used to play with as a kid. Transformers, Power Rangers, Gundam, NES, SNES, Sega, you name it, it was there. It was amazing. Then I left that building, and found a square mile of shops dedicated mostly to the same thing. It was amazing. I found so many amazing things that I could not buy. Mostly cause they cost a fortune now that they are collectors items. I ended up spending the whole day there. It was awesome.

That night two friends and I went to a cool sushi restaurant. The ones where the plates go round a conveyor belt. I stuck to the cheap plates. It was still delicious. As we were walking back, a building with a big Bandai sign caught our eye. Bandai made most of the toys I mentioned in the paragraph before. They, along with Nintendo and a few other companies, are directly responsible for my nerdiness. After a little investigation, we found out that that was indeed Bandai HQ, nestled in the strangest part of Taito, Tokyo. My friends and I started flipping out.

Today we went back there and took pictures. They had a museum of their most succesful toys, which we shamelessly drooled over. Tokyo has been one giant nerd and nostalgia trip. It's been awesome. After this, we decided to take a hike to the harbor district in Tokyo. We had heard about two cool parks. Muscle Park, an offshoot of Ninja Warrior, and Joypolis, and indoor amusement park by Sega. Muscle Park was a huge letdown. I was expecting obstacle courses. Instead I got a little kids playground. Complete with a ball pit. It was sad really.

Joypolis on the other hand was awesome. All the latest video games, but on steroids. My friend, Lloyd and I spent the whole day there going on every ride and video game imaginable. My favorite was the giant oversized Tetris game. It wasn't too complicated either, and would be fairly simple to build. But I think I have enough nerd projects that I haven't finished.

Anyway, tomorrow I change hotels to a Capsule hotel! This is where your bed is literally a hole in the wall. It's a strange Japanese custom, but I'm interested to see how it works. After that, it's off to Honolulu! Back to USA. Now that I have been to a dozen countries all over the world, I can safely say that there is no place like home. Internet there might be expensive, so my next few posts may very well come from good old NJ. If I don't get to post til then, it's been fun everyone, and I'll see you all soon back home!

Real Life Giant Robots... and Baseball

Hello TOKYO! First let me start by saying, Lost in Translation was just terrible. That movie was one of the worst films I've ever seen. It also did not portray Tokyo correctly at all. At least not the side I'm getting to see. The movie portrayed Tokyo as dreary and strange. While I kind of get the strange bit, I don't get the dreary thing at all. I love this city. It's clean. Everyone is friendly. The food is delicious. And there is a ton to do, especially for a nerd like me. I will admit though that everything is really expensive and the subway system makes no sense at all. None. They showed me a map of the subways and trains. It looks like those drawings where a 6 year old just grabs two fists full of crayons and starts drawing.

Anyway, my first few days in Tokyo. The first day I woke up late and chose to do one of my nerd exhibits first. Now if some of you haven't seen my nerdier side, let me explain it. I love video games, giant robots, and giant spaceships. If you have 1 or more of those things, I'm sold. One of my favorite tv series in the giant robots arena is Gundam. It's an old giant robot series from 70's and 80's originating in Japan. I got very lucky on this trip, because the 30th annual Tokyo Gundam Expo was this weekend. I did not plan that at all, I just lucked out. So yesterday I went. They had toys, robot model kits, vintage everything from when the series started in the 80's, promotions for newer Gundam series, and of course Gundam video games. I don't mean like Xbox games, I mean the giant arcade games where you have a giant console full of buttons and get to drive one of the giant robots! I was in nerd heaven. Consequently... I'm a terrible robot driver. These two 6 year old Japanese kids schooled me. But it was still awesome!

That took pretty much all day, so by around 3 I went back to the hostel. Two friends I had made, Sebastian and Heinrick, decided they wanted to go to a Japanese baseball game at the Tokyo Dome and invited me. It sounded cool, and was pretty cheap so we went. They had never been to a baseball game, so I explained all the rules. It was a lot of fun! The Japanese don't really get as rowdy as American fans. Instead they have specific chants for parts of the game or certain players. They chant through the whole game. It's interesting to say the least. It was also the longest game I've ever attended. Seriously, we were there for 4 hours and it was only the bottom of the 6th. We just gave up and left. It was still fun though.

Today I woke up late again. (I'm starting to run low on gas. I'm sleeping a lot more lately.) Today was the day where I went to the big Gundam statue! So according to the tv show, a Gundam robot is around 60 feet tall. A few years back to commemorate the anniversary of Gundam, they built a 1:1 size statue of the robot in Tokyo! Unfortunately they took it down... BUT they recently rebuilt it in a town 3 hours outside of Tokyo by train! Again, I didn't know this until a few weeks before I got here, so I did not plan this at all. So today I took the long train ride out. It was awesome! How often do you get to see one of your favorite tv shows come to life in a big way. (Pun intended) I spent a good two hours walking around taking pictures, and again looking at merchandise and exhibits around the statue. The thing didn't move much, just the head every 30 minutes or so. But it was still awesome!

I finished off the day today going to Subiya, the part of Tokyo with the giant crowds crossing the busy streets and all the shops. It's like 5 square blocks of Time Square like areas, all with nice shops. After that I went to the Pokemon Center!... which was kind of a let down. It's a tiny shop with some Pokemon stuff. Not even a lot of stuff. I took some pictures, but it looks better than it is. You'd think they'd have something better in Tokyo. Whatever. Tomorrow is the electric part of the city, Akihabara. It's a big section with electronics, video games, and general nerd stuff. Until next time!

Anti-climatic End to China and Delta Airlines FAIL

I wish there was some big story to end this on, but there isn't. The last day I packed, researched Japan, and took it easy. I tried to go to the Summer Palace. Even took some pictures and walked around. But it was a rainy day, and I didn't like my pictures very much. Didn't even bother posting them.

I did try to go the Wangfujing street markets. These are the ones where they sell all the cool and gross foods right there on the street. I thought they served fried scorpion and seahorse. I was even excited to try them, and maybe a little scared. I took a few steps into the market, walking toward a vendor with scorpions on a stick. I was ready to go.... and then one of the scorpions moved. NOPE. DONE. I don't have many rules, but one of them is that my food must be dead. D-E-A-D. DEAD. Thanks for playing. See ya next time. After that I went to a Pizza Hut, followed by a Cold Stone Creamery.

Today I woke up at 4am for a flight to Japan. This was by far the worst transit experience I have had so far. Delta Airlines and Beijing Airport, you fail in so many different ways. To start the day off, they confiscated my airline bottles of alcohol. Now it was just two of the little bottles, but they would have helped me sleep through the flight. They made it through 3 seperate inspections. At the gate, two Chinese guards confiscated them saying they weren't allowed on. When I asked why, their English all of a sudden got bad. Really? You're scamming people out of little liquor bottles? Whatever.

The flight was a disaster. I have never had turbulence that bad. At one point we dropped so sharply and suddenly, a woman who wasn't wearing her seat belt actually lifted almost a foot or two out of her seat right in front of me. It just got scary at some point. I buried my head in my book and did my best not to think about it. So now I am in Narita in Tokyo, tired, hungry, and very angry. And my checked bag looks like it went through a meat grinder. It's disgustingly dirty, one strap is completely missing, and my padlock is gone. Not the one closing my baggage, the one I had carefully placed on the outside of my bag. It made it all the way around the world that way, but apparently Delta didn't like the look of it and had broken it off. It wasn't even closing any openings! So in my last bit of complaining here, I'll just say this. DELTA AIRLINES YOU FAIL!

BUT after that experience, I am now a strong proponent of a cure to bad travel. One hot shower, and one hot Big Mac. (Big Mac can be replaced by any unhealthy and warm meal.) This is all it takes to make you feel better. It won't fix any problems, simply bring you the comfort you need and clear your head. But a lot of times that's all you need. Anyway, Tokyo is awesome! There's technology all over the place. My toilet has a computer! More details on the land of the rising sun to come soon. Expect all of them to be nerdy in nature.