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The homepage mostly works... mostly. The rest of this site is borked right now, until I port over the new, cleaned-up code structure I put together. If anybody knows how to auto-fix "unescaped ampersands" in XML documents, I would greatly appreciate having that information.

I'm going to be moving stuff around on this site... shifting priority. I don't have time to go into details, I just want to get back into a routine. Oh yeah, also, I miss being in Japan. I could tolerate this heat a bit more if it came with maid cafes, iced coffee vending machines and the JR line.

Our goal for Monday was to go to Ueno, Okachimachi, and just sort of hang out and buy toys and stuff. We ate a yummy breakfast at Jonathan's - an American chain family-style restaurant (with a wide variety of delicious Japanese foods.) Lots of kids hang out at these places and it is really relaxed.

Ueno is about a 15-20 minute walk from Akiba. There's a huge park, a zoo, tons of museums, a shrine... it's pretty rad. There is a big lake in the center of the park, and last time the water was hardly visible due to the forest of 'fuki', or butterbur plants growing up out of the water. A lot of the plants were dried out and dead this time - I think they are more of a late-summer/autumn thing. Like some other parks we've seen, Ueno park is home to many of Tokyo's homeless.

We climbed up some steep stairs to the shrine that sits at the top of the hill, next to the park. There were kitties everywhere, just hanging out, walking around. There were lots of people there too, enjoying the weather, eating their bentos, or just walking around. We aimlessly wandered around, and there was this huge mural advertising a manga convention, so we got a picture of it.

We eventually made our way to a sort of "commons" area, and there was a massive bonsai show going on!. There were several rows of stalls full of bonsai of all types - mostly flowering. We took a bunch of pictures, but I'm going to only put a few up here... We actually skipped seeing one of the rows... we just missed it... and we were sooo tiny-tree'd out by that time. But here's a bunch of pics! If you hate tiny trees, you'll hate the next 17 images...

Apparently, bonsai aren't cool enough for people under 60 here, as we were half the age of everyone else there... ev's. So what, I like little trees! Anyway, we headed across this pedestrian walkway that was actually the roof of the train station, and made our way across the street to one of my favorite toy stores in the world; Yamashiroya. Seven floors of awesome. Dragonquest, Ultraman, Godzilla, Ghibli - FTW. Purchases were made. Hunger struck. Luckily, there are a ton of conveyor belt sushi (kaiten-zushi) places all around here. Luckily, we were armed with this data ahead of time - so, kaiten-zushi it is! (A lot of Westerners think Japanese food is all about sushi... this was the only sushi place we ate at. I like to show more of what the average urban Japanese eats.)

It was okay. The fatty tuna and the kohada were excellent. Afterwards, it was time to walk through the Okachimach marketplace in search of katsuobushi and katsuobushi kezuriki. I found a little shop selling vacuum-sealed katsuobushi, which I thought had a better chance of getting through customs. I immediately found the katsuobushi shop that I remembered from last time, and so I purchased a shaver from them. They were very friendly, and the guy tested it for me on some katsuo to show me it was a sharp blade. Then an Annoying Foreigner Thing happened. Remind me to write about it later - it's too much for this post.

Newly won katsuobushi and shaver in hand, I was good to go. I had my knives, my pots, and my katsuobushi and katsuobushi kezuriki. Time to head back to Akiba and drop this stuff off!

Toy store time. Manga store time. We saw so many little shops - I don't see how they all stay in business. We went into a store that sold maid uniforms, "clothing", "toys"... it's right next to Akihabara station, across from that Curry House restaurant place. It's weird to walk through a store, looking at all the awesome anime stuff, turn a corner and slowly realize "Oh...umm, I guess this is the dildo section of the toy store... hmm...". We did manage to find this place that sells tons of old school transformers and other toys, crammed to the ceiling with awesome stuff. Money was spent, but I really forget what was bought where. You could spend a week just going to toy stores in Akiba and not see the same one twice. Of course, after all that walking and shopping it was maid cafe time. The cafe on the menu tonight is called "MaiDreamin". Here are some pics I found online of the interior.. Sandy took the cute coasters they made for us.

Then it was arcade time! I played two crane games and won cute stuff! Sandy won stuff too. I typically do not feed money into crane machines, but for some reason I was inspired, and I wons a prize on the first try on each of them. We mad our way back to the hotel, swinging by Family Mart to pick up snacks, and watched Back to the Future in English with Japanese subs. We also saw a crazy food show where they put jam, eggs, milk and rice in a rice cooker and made a yummy, custardy dessert! I totally want to do this!

Breakfast at Denny's.

Last time we were in Japan, we found this little town called Adachi... well, we thought it was called Kita-Senju, but it turns out that is just the name of the train station in Adachi. There's really nothing too special about it... just markets lining the roads, cute winding neighborhoods, nothing touristy. Okay, so it's population is larger then Seattle's, but it seems like a little town. Anyway, a common practice in Japan is to paint murals on the doors of shops that are closed, and Adachi had a lot of cool ones. They had cool decorated tiles embedded in the sidewalk too.

We walked up and down the market streets, through winding alleys (which are actually neighborhoods) and to a small shrine.

We were kind of thirsty and a tiny bit hungry, so we stopped in as little smoky cafe and ate yummy cake and iced coffee. Afterwards, we saw two shops worth a mention. I wish I would have gotten pics of the first one, which was a kids clothing store, but I never know if it's okay to take pictures in a store, and there were too many watchful eyes at the time... but OMGOOSES - Best Shirts Ever. The only one I recall said "Beans Club" on it, but seriously... if they made these in grownup sizes, I would have bought tons. We also found a little shop where Sandy bought a handmade ceramic Totoro from three adorable obaasans. When we walked in, they began nervously panicking over how little English they knew - I got that much - and they were giggling the whole time over it.

Making our way back to the station, we found out that the nearby mall had a Tokyu Hands store in it - one of my favorite Japanese stores. I was pretty much stocked up on bento boxes by this time, but Sandy wanted to buy some crafty stuff there. The top floor of the mall had a ton of restaurants in it - mostly of the European variety. You have to remember, though, this is Japanese "European". We decided on a place named "Rakeru" which had yummy, yeasty breads and omelets. Sandy loved the bread so much that we bought an extra loaf for later!

We shop a bit more, and Sandy finds a place that sells really nice sets of hiragana stamps... so she bought a set. Loaded up with stuff we get on the train and head back to Akiba to drop it all off at the hotel and roam the arcades. More prizes were won from crane machines, which can work up an appetite... so ramen it was. I've had ramen quite a few times around Tokyo, but we keep coming back to this place in Akiba. It's just so good.

EDIT: This is the first in the series of our last week in Japan. Sorry for taking my sweet time to post everything; it's kinda been a crazy couple of weeks.

We got up early Saturday morning and went to Coco's for breakfast. Now, Coco's is an American chain, but the Japanese version offers very little in the way of American fare. We went here a few times on our last trip to Japan, simply because it is cheap and good and really close to our hotel. I had tonkatsu, miso, rice and pickled vegetables. Sandy had tuna don and miso.

After breakfast, we hopped on the Yamanote and went to Harajuku. Harajuku is a ward of Tokyo, as well as a famous shopping district, and the way people dress here is awesome. Lots of custom clothes, shoes and bags, if one is willing to pay the very high prices. The store layouts and architecture are really cool as well, and you stumble onto quirky, expensive places hidden down back alleys and in basements. As for the offering of clothes; Sandy found quite a few things, some of which I had to talk her into getting. On the other hand, I found nothing I liked that would fit me. I found plenty of stuff I liked, as well as stuff that would fit - but not both at the same time. Oh well.

It began to rain. My tiny umbrella was not enough for the plum rains, and we were starting to get hungry anyway, so we ducked down a stairwell and into a traditional-looking Japanese restaurant. We sat on tiny stools at tiny tables and ordered food and took some candid photos of the place.

I had the Sanma Set Lunch and Sandy ordered the Ginger Pork Set Lunch. Very delicious.

The rain and the delicious meal and the shopping and walking made us sleepy, so we got on the train and headed back across Tokyo to Akiba, to drop off our purchases at the hotel. Our goal this evening was to find a maid cafe. We headed out, after resting a bit (and watching a few sumo matches on TV), into Akihabara in full Saturday night mode. Now, if this had been Shibuya, or Roppongi Hills, we would have been greeted by drunken foreigners, drunken club girls, and a string of bars and nightclubs... luckily it wasn't. Instead, crowded arcades, packed manga stores, lines outside of electronics stores, geeks huddled outside in the rain, watching a video game trailer on a huge flatpanel, girls in maid outfits handing out fliers and tissue packets and maps to their cafes of origin, kids lined up outside of Don Quixote's eating freshly made takoyaki and crepes... this is Akiba on a Saturday night.

We went into a manga/anime store and looked around for a bit. I haven't really been keeping up with the new anime releases, except for Spice and Wolf, so I wasn't familiar with a lot of what was offered. Next door was a maid cafe that we saw last time we were here, but never got to go into. It was called Cafe with Cat (or is it Cafe Witch Cat?). Okay, so not a typical "maid" cafe; more of a catgirl/witch/maid cafe. Since photos are strictly forbidden, no food pics ensued. I had this really good, not-too-sweet strawberry shortcake and neither of us can remember what Sandy had... probably a parfait or something.

Despite the food, walking through countless electronics and manga stores, feeding 100 yen coins into crane machines and walking around made us work up an appetite. By this time, it was late, and the only thing open was a kebab stand! We saw kebab stores all over the place last time, but never tried any of them. The dudes working spoke both Japanese and English, which was easy, and we ordered food. Sandy got a gyro and I got the "kebab don"; kebab on rice. It was all so greasy and delicious, and the cooks were yelling in some Middle Eastern dialect and everyone was super nice... rad city. Here's what I ate:

As is our routine, we stopped by Family Mart, a "combini", to look for weird food. I found "Milk Curry" and whisky in a can! I didn't know if it was actually whisky, or some carbonated whisky-flavored alchoholic beverage... it was whisky and water. It was pretty good too! (I will eat the Milk Curry later)

On Sunday, we wanted to go to that curry place that we frequented last time we were in Japan, called "Homemade Curry", right next to the Akiba JR station. This is one of those ticket-based places. You put your money into a vending machine, push the buttons of the food you want, and it spits out tickets. You hand the tickets to the person behind the counter and they hand them to the cook, who makes the food happen. I like that nobody has to handle money AND food in these places.

We took a train to Shinjuku just because! Maybe it was because this was a Sunday, or maybe we took the wrong exit from the station... or maybe it was just too early in the morning; Shinjuku was empty. The mall next to the station was closed. We saw maybe 10 people outside. Shinjuku also has some awesome architecture.

We followed signs to Shinjuku-Chuo park, which has a very cool waterfall at the entrance, across a large courtyard. The park also has a tiny "tent city"; the homeless of Japan seem to all live in these little cubes, which are essentially a light wood/metal frame with a blue tarp covering it. They are very tidy and clean inside; like little houses. I peeked into one last time we were here and saw a small propane grill with a tea kettle on it, laundry hanging on a line... just so much different then America.

We found a little shopping district on the other side of the park, and it was kind of like a mini-Akiba. Eventually we made it back to the station, where there was a department store that was open. We found one of those little "American/European" style cafes called Orange Cafe, and ate lunch. I was the only dude in there.

We went up a few floors to the kitchen stuff - I love looking through the kitchen stuff at any store, but in Japan it is even better. I ended up buying some really cool bentos and two Japanese-style cooking pots. We also looked at the toy section of the store, where Sandy bought some cute presents and I exercised restraint.

On the search for food again, and preferably a maid cafe, we headed out. There were some loud, pulsing noises coming from a few blocks away, that we had been hearing for awhile but only just noticed. We decided to investigate. Turns out, there was a taiko drum festival in the middle of the street. The sidewalks were lined with people, clapping and cheering, and the taiko drum dudes were dancing around and yelling and beating huge drums. I've seen live taiko drumming before (which is really the only way experience it), but never this energetic and cool. They didn't block the whole street off - cops were directing traffic around them!

After that bit of cultural win, we walked around a bit and found a maid cafe called "Maid Cafe Pinafore". There were three or four maid cafes in this building, and we went to "MaiFoot" on accident the first time - MaiFoot serves foot massages and foot baths; which neither of us really wanted. So it was up to Pinafore, where we proceeded to wait in line. This is fairly common at maid cafes, as they are pretty popular hang-outs. An adorable, very outspoken maid girl approached us and YELLED; "NICE TO MEET YOU!". Sandy managed a meek "Umm, nice to meet you.. too?". After some confusing exchanges and a bit more waiting, they sat us at a table downstairs. Adorable maids, good atmosphere, good food - this was Sandy's favorite place. (I still love Cafe Chocolatte, our first ever Maid Cafe experience) There was a bit of confusion as to the ordering of food, and I only got an iced coffee - Sandy got curry. I was kind of curried-out, and I wasn't very hungry, so it was fine. She got a photo card for ordering that particular meal, of a girl in costume who was sort of Rei Ayanami-esque. There was also a crane machine outside, where you could get tiny photos of the girls in costume - which we did!

We went toy store hopping. It's tough to remember which ones we had already been in, and everything connecting maze-like does not help. We eventually found a multi-story toy store that had everything. Vinyl toys, gundams, figures, manga, anime, cards... everything. Also, since there was a line at the elevator, we took the stairs - and got some awesome dusk-pictures of Akiba all lit up.

I bought some Azumanga Dioah figures and Sandy bought some manga, and it took us about an hour to work our way up through all the floors. What to do now but - go to another maid cafe!

We had been to JAM Akihabara on our first trip, and some getting lost in the back alleys caused us to find it again. JAM is another fairly popular place, but tonight there was hardly anyone there. Maybe it was too late (8:30 PM)? Anyway, Sandy wanted to buy maid toys and more socks, and this place had both. They also had a cute tiny bathroom. They also had not-too-expensive food.

Okay, so we were on our way out of JAM, and we stopped to feed our money into more gashapon machine, when this lanky Japanese super-otaku in school uniform approached us. He had the biggest smile on his face, but he wasn't drunk or anything - just a super geek ecstatic to be in the mecca of super geeks! He wanted to take a picture with one of us! He was all "Take picture? Take picture?" I thought he just wanted one of us to take his picture, but he handed me his camera and pointed to the button. I said "Here Sandy, you are better at the photo stuff then I am" and handed it to her. She aimed the camera and he said "No no no, with you! With You!" pointing at me! So I stood next to him, mimicking his raised hands, and somewhere, in Japan, some Japanese picture has this random gaijin on his camera. Later, it occurred to me that he wanted his picture with Sandy, not me (since he handed me the camera), but he really showed no preference at all. Who's to know? Weird.

Whew! This incredibly full day came to an end, sadly, and it was now sleepy-times.

Stay tuned to the exciting continuation of TANGENTBOT: JAPAN EDITION! Will our heroes make it back to America alive? Will Mathias ever try Milk Curry? Will they talk a beautiful Japanese girl into coming back to America to live with them? *Who's to ever know?! (*Answer: You, dear reader!) See you later!

Just a quick update; I have a week's worth of posts and images to upload, and I will still be uploading them. Don't lose hope! We saw some crazy and awesome, some would say "crazy awesome", things, and I want to share them with everyone! Also, I've been awake for nearly 30 hours! I got my katsuobushi and katsuobushi shaver! I got two excellent knives! I'm going to try and sleep now but ultimately fail!

I told a lot of brave souls that Sandy and I would be attending Fool's Play, but alas... I feel sleepy. I feel... asleep.

Sandy and I spent the morning waiting in our hotel room for a non-smoking room to be cleaned, and what better way to pass the time then watch sumo matches on TV! Seriously, I actually, officially, like a sport. Sumo is unlike anything I've ever seen. There's a cool shinto quality to the whole thing, and the matches themselves get pretty vicious. I'd like to see a match in person.

We finally moved into our new room, on the tenth floor, and headed out on the town. If Sandy had her wish, we would eat curry for every meal, so we went to this newish looking place near the train station called "Curry Kitchen Spice" but forgot to take pictures of our meals. It wasn't excellent, it was just food. We then hopped on the Yamanote train line to Sugamo, one of our favorite little wards of Tokyo.

Sugamo is all old people. All the stores are old people stores, but everything is so cute and non-touristy. We saw only one gaijin there, on the train platform, and he looked lost. We bought a bunch of treasures at this little place crowded with old Japanese women, and they were all so sweet and nice to us. I bought a jinbei, but with long pants instead of the shorts shown in the picture. It is soooo comfortable, for serious, and since I bought it in Sugamo, it was only about 15 bucks! We also found a place with black sesame ice cream. Freaking delicious.

Since Sugamo is the only place (besides Osaka) that we have seen taiyaki in Japan, and since taiyaki are Sandy's most absolute favorite dessert thing, we had to hunt down the little taiyaki stand we found last time we were here... and we did. We didn't take any pictures because we were too busy eating them.

So we ate taiyaki on these little chairs and walked around a bit afterwards, eventually boarding the train with a million kids just out of class and heading back to Akiba. It was very warm that day, and we wanted a Cooling Beverage, so we went to Excelsior Cafe for iced coffee drinks. Excelsior Cafe is sort of like the Starbucks of Japan... even though there are Starbucks stores all over Japan. It was overpriced but okay.

After a short nap in the hotel, we set out once again, this time eating ten don (tempura don, not tendon) for dinner. Mine had oysters, octopus, chicken, shrimp and vegetables! Yummers! Somehow though, we only got a picture of Sandy's meal.

I bought a manga, which are half the price over here then in the U.S. I figure that translating it will help me read Japanese quicker, as it takes me a bit to decipher stuff. I try to read everything we pass, and I'm recognizing a few kanji as well (I just need to know how to pronounce them). I have also tried speaking to everyone, which is frustrating at times, but it really helps me.

Wait - vending machine dining time. There are vending machines everywhere. In Akiba, they are more than everywhere. I didn't see it as much last time, but recently they have started offering quite a few hot, canned meals in vending machines. Oden, udon, ramen... so I was intrigued. I got the ramen, which had a piggy on the can, because ramen broth is made of piggies.

It was hot, ready to eat, and came with a little fold-out plastic fork. For some reason I totally trust beverages from vending machines, but food from them makes me a bit uneasy.

The noodles were a cross between wheat and rice, kinda rubbery, like shirataki noodles. The broth was salty and oily, and the slab of fatty piggy slice looked boiled and tasted just fine. It was okay. I would eat this crap if I were homeless and they wouldn't let me into stores and restaurants, but I'm pretty sure if you ate this for a week you would get all oily and just die. I want to try some of the other stuff now.

So, we checked out of our hotel early and opted to take a taxi to the Shin-Osaka station. Given that we had accumulated an extra bag of stuff, and the price and hassle of the subway while laden with said stuff was something we did not want to deal with, we were glad with the decision. It was about 25 bucks and took us 15 minutes or so. The subway would have been 10 bucks and taken 30 minutes, including a transfer, plus walking up and down stairs with luggage, plus dragging our crap onto already overcrowded trains... totally worth it.

We got bentos at the Shin-Osaka station, and ate them on the 3 hour trip to Tokyo aboard the Shinkansen. I got a picture of the inside, with the train official stamping tickets in the background.

We arrived in Tokyo, took a quick train to Akihabara, and checked into our room. Somehow, something got mixed up and they put us in a 'smoking' room - and the A/C blew cigarette smoke air. We requested a non-smoking room, which they told us we could move into the next morning, as the hotel was currently booked.

It was only 3pm, so we headed out into Akihabara, or Akiba, as the locals call it. Akiba is a ward of Tokyo, and the mecca of otaku worldwide. Girls in maid outfits hand out tissue-packets to passers-by, loudspeakers blast videogame soundtrack music, multi-story video arcades are on every corner, and shops catering to every hobby imaginable proliferate. Salarymen crowd the manga stores in their suits next to kids in their school uniforms. If you want cake and coffee served to you by girls in maid outfits (or get a foot massage, or play video games with them...), maid cafes are everywhere. If you want to buy a particular school uniform costume that appeared in some manga or anime episode, they have a store for that. If you build model trains, collect replica firearms, mod out action figures or eat, sleep and breathe video games, this is the place for you. It is simply one of the most awesome places I've ever been.

We walked around a bit, paid a visit to Don Quixote, and bought some little toys and stuff. I bought a gundam shirt and a tachikoma shirt, and we fed our 100 yen coins into tons of gashapon machines. We came to the conclusion that shipping stuff would cost a lot, so we are just going to buy one big piece of luggage and check it in on the plane. After awhile we got hungry, and there was no argument over where to eat; our most favorite ramen place was right around the corner, and it was as awesome as ever.

There were two tables of Chinese people in there and they were LOUD! They were right next to each other YELLING IN MANDARIN. Every other time we've been here in the past the place has been nearly void of conversation, even when packed with people; just the sound of slurping noodles and low murmuring. I have a problem with people disregarding local custom, and I do believe in the whole "you are an ambassador for your country" when traveling abroad. (Based on my experiences, I NEVER want to visit Europe... okay, maybe the U.K. and Scandanavia, but that's about it. The Americans and British we've encountered here are sort of oblivious and culture-shocked, but still nice; the Europeans have been outright arrogant, disrespectful and embarrassingly rude) /rant

We headed back to our smoky hotel room to retire after this slightly exhausting awesome day.

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