Southern Comfort

Southern comfort, southern hospitality, call it what you want but know that it is alive and well. The trip back home was certainly one of my better ones, due in no small part to it's relative length. It seems that many of my recent trips back to Atlanta were two or three day affairs but this time around I gave myself a full five nights to catch up with friends and family. Unfortunately I forgot to charge the camera up after the trip to Tokyo, so you'll have to imagine all the friendly faces and group hugs.

The week started off on Christmas Day at Anne's parents place where we dined on the traditional Christmas lasagna, snacked on dried vegetables from the Tokyo airport, and did our best to annoy the only type of cat I can safely get within three feet of. Unfortunately Anne needed to be back at work on Thursday and Friday, so our ongoing streak of not being in the same city continued the next day when she caught her flight back to New York.

I spent the day after Christmas at my brother's place. With my sleep schedule still somehow off, I managed to wake up before both kids and went upstairs as they were waking up. I have to rank this as perhaps the highlight of the trip, getting to see these little guys as they got up. I heard Kevin whispering to Josh that someone had arrived in the middle of the night as he walked from his room. When he saw me at the other end of the hall he ran towards me and gave me a big hug. It always makes me feel good when he remembers me, as I see him every six months or so, and constantly think that he'll have forgotten my name. I guess he's old enough at this point not to forget.

Wednesday night saw me in Avondale Estates at Ginger and Andy's new place where I was treated to a few pints of fine homebrew. I've never seen a place look more lived in then theirs does after six months. It's amazing - I thought I was staying at the Avondale B&B. The place is simply tremendous. Also on the plus side here is their proximity to the rental houses I share with Doug. We got to spend a couple hours working on one of them on Thursday, just doing some routine maintenance. I was pleasantly surprised by its condition and finally got to meet the tenants after a year of occupancy. Definitely happy about the way things are going there. Of course there was the mandatory stop at the James Joyce, the crown jewel of Avondale Estates in my uninformed opinion.

Doug, Jess, Kevin, and I made our way to Athens on Friday where Brant and Melissa were nice enough (again with the southern hospitality) to host us for the evening. We started off at Harry Bissets for dinner, had a couple drinks at the 283 bar, and then finished up at a new place that I'd never been to called Little Kings. Even though the campus was on vacation, Little Kings still attracted quite a crowd, including Opel and Christina and Opel's beard. An Opel sighting is an every other year event at this point and thus must be treated with great respect. The big question that was answered is this - when a friend who is constantly refered to by his last name gets married, do you still address him that way in front of his wife, who shares his name? The answer is an unequivocal yes, they can figure out who you're talking to.

We finished the evening off the same way we started the following morning...Nintendo Wii! I'd been dying to give it a shot and figured that 3 AM was as good a time as any. Faced with a dozen plus options, we chose to go with tennis, ping pong, and bowling. I've seen a few videos of people playing and I know that it's all in the wrist, but it's so difficult to refrain from taking a full swing. I know that I was doing it wrong (and that I'm out of shape/getting old) because, embarassingly enough, I could feel it in my shoulder the next morning. Ridiculous.

Anyway, it was back to Atlanta the next day for my final night. Many of my friends were out of town for the holidays but by Saturday, they'd made their way back to Atlanta so we got together at 97 estoria, which I think is just a great spot. It was so cool to see everyone and I really appreciate all of you coming out on such short notice. Every one of you are welcome to the air mattress if you'd like to plan a trip to New York. Beatty and Jonathan, I'll be expecting you in the spring!

Finally, New Years Eve and New Years Day will be spent listening to KEXP's top 90.3 albums of the year. You have two weeks to listen to their archived data stream, and I highly recommend it, as always.

Vacation in Athens is Calling

Not Athens so much as Atlanta, though I'm fairly certain that I'll be able to make it up to Athens for one night. It's been a long time since I've paid it a visit, so long that I don't think I can actually recall it. I doubt I've been since I lived in New York, so I'd guess at least three years. My guess: more bars downtown, nicer houses, larger price tags. From what I've heard Athens is becoming more and more a remote suburb of Atlanta. I'm not certain that this is a bad thing, at least from my perspective. Though an hour plus will be too long of a commute for most, I have a few friends who've lived most of their post-college lives there and, more and more, it seems like a viable solution.

Band of Horses is playing four sold out shows at the EARL, one of my old favorite Atlanta venues, but tickets sold out in minutes. The EARL is a tiny little club and it would be great to see BoH there, especially seeing as how Anne and I last saw them at McCarren Park, with 4,000 of our closest friends. There's no way the EARL holds 400 people. I poked around on Craigslist and Stubhub, but there were 10 people looking for tickets to every 1 seller. I asked one of the sellers who simply stated 'make an offer' how much he was looking for and he replied that he had offers of $150 for 2 tickets. As I told him, too rich for my blood. I was thinking about swinging by to try to scalp tickets, but if that price is any indication, it's just not worth my time.

Odaiba

One of the other things that was recommended to me was to take a bus tour of Tokyo from a company called Hato Bus. I know these tours always promise more than they deliver, but there were two things about the tours that appealed to me. One was the chance to listen to an english speaker describing some of the sights. As I mentioned, a few of my co-workers speak english very well, but unfortunately I did most of my work with speakers who are learning the language at a rapid rate, but are still relative novices. The second thing that appealed to me was that I'd pretty much seen everything their tours offered of interest except for one particular one which offered views of the Tokyo Bay area, which I hadn't ventured toward.

So after a few hours of work in the morning, I headed out to Hamamatsucho Bus Terminal for the 1:40 PM tour. It wasn't too expensive, 3,500 Yen or about $30, so I paid and waited for the trip to begin. As 1:40 approached I still hadnt seen any other touristy looking people, so I went to look for the #6 bus. A man came up to me and asked if I was on the Tokyo Seaside Tour. After confirming this, he told me that since it was off-season and mid-week, I was the only person who had signed up for the tour. So it was just me and him.

Nakagawa-san was probably in his mid to late fifties and walked slowly. I couldnt tell if he had a limp or not. We had an entire 50+ person bus to ourselves. I mentioned that this seemed kind of wasteful and that we could probably take the tour in a car if he wanted to. He explained to me that they don't make any money if they don't fill the bus. Anyway, I just appreciated, at this point, that he didn't cancel my trip, though it certainly would have saved us a few awkward moments. We waited for the boat. He sat at his table and I walked around taking pictures of anything that might seem interesting. On the trip, he sat inside, while I sat outside enjoying the view and trying to communicate with the Korean tourists on the boat.

Odaiba itself is a man-made island in the Tokyo Bay. It's actually pretty cool, designed almost as a future city, with interesting architecutre (that will probably look very dated very soon), a showroom for new Sony products, and the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, all of which were part of the tour. Nakagawa-san waited patiently as I looked at Sony products (true convergence is upon us - the TV and the PC are now one and the same). We walked through the mall together. I suspect that this is a great way to kill time on a 50 person tour, but I wasn't really interesting in checking out the GAP or Banana Republic. This was one of our more awkward moments. Teenagers ran through the mall, shopping and chatting, while Nakagawa-san and I tried to make conversation. Yikes.

Apparently France gave Tokyo a miniature version of the Statue of Liberty in 2000, and they've got it set at the entrance to the island. Pretty jarring to see, actually. We took a driverless train with tires and electric current passed through via metal conductors attatched to it's sides (pretty cool actually) to the Museum where again, he read his book and I walked around for an hour and half or so. This wasnt a bad way to spend a little time. It would have been better if I were a child/teen or understood Japanese, but many of the concepts (robotics, environmental conservation, aerospace, deep sea drilling) are conveyed just as easily with pictures. Nakagawa-san and I finally hopped back onto our luxury bus and were driven back to the bus terminal. We thanked each other and finally parted ways.

I went back to one of my favorite Yakitori places for dinner. Chicken on a stick, served atop a green salad, with a pint of Hoppy White beer. Not bad. Saturday Night Fever was playing on one of the television sets and one of the Japanese cooks was doing a little dancing of his own. I had to smile.

Finally, one of my co-workers volunteered to take me out for a beer at 8 PM, so he met me at my hotel and we grabbed a subway ride across town. After one pint, we realized that it just wasn't working. We'd exhausted our ability to speak to each other rather quickly, but that was OK, I really appreciated his effort. I have to say, yesterday was a day straight out of Lost in Translation. My flight leaves tonight at 6:30 and I get back to New York an hour earlier, at 5:30. I'm going to try to spend a few hours at a nearby park this morning, but the weather doesnt look like it wants to co-operate. Hopefully the rain can hold off for a few more hours.

Asakusa and Akihabara

My team of co-workers here in Japan told me on Wednesday night that my assignment was complete and that I was free to take the day on Thursday to explore the city a bit. They peppered me with suggestions of places to see, which seemed to fit nicely with the suggestions that a couple of American friends gave me. So, I planned my day to see the temple at Asakusa and the electronics mecca that is Akihabara.

Asakusa is on the northeastern side of Tokyo and I'm staying in the southwestern part, so the trip took quite a while, but was well worth it. In New York, when I get off the subway I still sometimes have trouble getting my bearings a bit, figuring out which way is north or east and that sensation of being out of sorts is obviously very much exaggerated here. When I emerge from underground, I tend to take about ten minutes looking for anything that might lead me to my destination. Many of the stops have large maps on ground level, but they've been surprisingly unhelpful. After a few minutes, I crossed the main street and headed into a tunnel of shops and restaurants, after noticing that quite a few other people were heading in that general direction.

After wandering through some tight alleys I finally caught a glimpse of the temple off to the right, so I headed that way. It opened up and the vendors started looking a bit more touristy, selling trinkets rather than food, so I figured I was on the correct path. Anyhow, Asakusa is one of the last remaining links to Tokyo's past, from what I could gather, with ancient architecture intact and well kept. The coolest thing as far as I was concerned was a central area smoking with incense that was said to be the breath of the Gods. Everyone would walk up to it and do their best to inhale as much of it as possible, so as to take in some of it's restorative powers. Many people even went so far as to hold their hands up to it and then rub their bodies afterwards.



After spending an hour or so at the temple and then grabbing a quick bite, I headed towards the subway to find Akihabara. One of my coworkers recommended it, as did one of Anne's coworkers. Akihabara is essentially the center of technology and computer equipment sales. There must have been 500 stores of various size selling all things electonic. iPods, Macs, PCs, along with phones, cameras, cabling, GPS systems, power supplies, surveilance systems, all the way down to hobbiest type stuff including anime and role playing game cards. It was easy to get lost through all the little side streets and shops. Nothing really jumped out at me as being especially unique gear-wise, but I had a blast wandering around and people watching.

I got the sense that the most interesting thing about this area wasn't necessarily the equipment for sale, but the life-style that it encouraged. There was a weird combination of technology and anime that produced interesting sytles of clothing, almost Matrix-esque. I think the wikipedia page describes this better than I can. My highlight was a guy standing outside one of the larger stores rapping in Japanese to try to convince people to come in and check out their gear. The scope of this place is truly overwhelming and I've never seen anything like it. Also, 3 PM on a Thurdsay and the place was packed with children and adults, shopping perhaps for work, but more than likely just goofing off. I'm not sure exactly how you make a living selling nothing but cables, but apparently it's doable.

Cameron Diaz sells stuff, too

Clean Subway

Morning at Tsukiji

Even with a couple of sakes the night before, my sleep patterns are still varying fairly widely. My first meeting of the day on Wednesday wasn't until 1 PM, so I knew I'd have some time in the morning to do a little sight seeing. Taking advantage of my inability to sleep, I left the hotel at around 6 in the morning heading across town to Tsukiji fish market for a fresh sushi breakfast.

It's an easy shot to the Tsukijishijo station with a single transfer at one of the stations that I'm beginning to get slightly familiar with. The morning commute, I must say, doesnt appear to be much different in Tokyo than it does in New York. If you're on the train at 6 am, you arent happy. And there's a good chance you'll end up falling asleep so you clutch your bag a little extra tighter so you don't drop it, or worse yet, invite someone to take it. I remember reading an article on the New York subway and the type of riders that board at different times for their morning commute. The 6 am'ers in NY were more blue collar, if i recall correctly, and then the office workers started showing up later and later. I didn't sense anything different about the early morning travelers here except that as I neared the fish market, I began to notice the occassional wet-boot wearing commuter. I made a mental note to follow one of these guys as he'd probably be spending the day in fish guts.
Also, as the station got closer, more and more westerners hopped on. So far, the largest number of americans I've seen has been at Tsukiji. Perhaps 25% of the morning sushi eaters were from the west. This is a pretty touristy spot, even at 7 am. It was great to see though and is divided really into two sections - the side closer to the station had eight or so mini streets with sushi restaurants, bodega style shops, and a few clothing or pottery shops. On the other side of a parking lot is the actual market, where chefs meet in the mornings to purchase their fresh fish for the day. This was the real sight, mainly for sheer volume. Unrecognizable fish and other ocean creatures at every corner, some still alive, pulsing with their last gasps of freedom and others just piled into styrafoam coolers or arranged on the floor. One of the things I couldnt seem to take my eyes off of was the electric saws they were using to cut the meat off of the bone. It was like running a two-by-four into a saw except it was maybe a shark head.

After wandering around for a while, I made my way into one of the little restaurants. By 7:30 the place was already clearing out, many of the chefs done with their shopping, so navigating around got a bit easier. It was later explained to me that sushi in the morning is very out of the ordinary, but I dont care, it was delicious. I had maybe ten pieces of the freshest sushi I've had and got to watch the most amazing display of sushi eating prowess I've ever had the chance to see. The guy next to me was putting back light beer and taking pieces of sushi down like it was his last meal. The chef just kept slapping more and more exotic looking things in front of him and he would slap his paw around it and throw it down without flinching. I'm not sure if he was even ordering, or the chef knew he was just to keep bringing food until he was told to stop. Regardless, it made an impression.

Back to the hotel for an attempt at a short nap before work. Work has been good and, without getting into the details, I think I was able to fulfill the tasks assigned to me and in the end we were able to bridge the difficult language barrier. The language of computers helps, as there are certain words and ideas that make sense in any language and the concept of white-boarding is simply universal. They may not have understood every word that I said, but there was a lot of affirmative head shaking, so I have to assume that things worked out in the end.

Lastly, another American co-worker was in town for the evening, so our entire office - 10 plus the 2 of us, went out for Italian food. Yes, Italian food. It was quite good, I must say. Anne gave me some good advise before I left and I managed to pick up two decent New York City t-shirts before I left town and I presented them to the two employees that I've spent the most time with. Arrigato's all around and I took off for the subway station by myself.

Here I am with the guys I spent the majority of my time with over the past two days:

Tuesday Catch Up

I'm already starting to fall behind on my posting. So, I'll try to get caught up a bit. I worked much of the day on Tuesday, calling it quits around 4 PM or so and my co-worker was nice enough to accompany me on the subway back towards my hotel, even though he wasnt really going in that direction. I've pretty much gotten the hang of the subway system at this point, and I explained to him that I would be ok with out him, but he was very gracious and made sure that I safely made it back.

He was also kind enough to recommend that if I had some time, I should visit the Tokyo Tower. So, I set out map in hand to navigate the subway and check out the tower. By this point it was dark out and I'm fairly certain that my guide book led me astray as far as which stop to get off at. I ran into a police officer who didnt speak much english, but he obviously understood Tokyo Tower and he was kind enough to write down the correct subway line and stop for me. He also pointed at a neon building and said to head that way to the closest subway stop.


In my stumbling around I happened upon a pretty little park and then, apparently, a Christmas art exhibit in Midtown Tokyo. There were plenty of people gathered around this square patch of land that had blue Christmas lights run through it, meant to mimic the waves of the ocean. The exhibit was called 'Water' and I think it was put on in association with Coca-Cola. Regardless, I was happy to stumble upon it.

Next I made my way to the subway station and did indeed find the Tokyo Tower. From what I read, there was apparently a period of time when Japanese architects were doing their best to mimic designs from around the world. This was their stab at the Eiffel Tower. Having never seen the original, I was duly impressed. Took the elevator up to the observation level, with amazing 360 degree views of the city. My camera just wasnt doing the job as it wasnt open air and every picture was underexposed. But you get the idea. Well worth my time.

Next it was time to get a bite to eat. I've been finding this part of the day rather intimidating. I dont want to eat my meals at the hotel because that's just not experiencing the city life at all, but most of the restaurants are difficult to deal with if you dont speak the language. Rather than getting a seat at the first sushi spot I tried, I was pointed to the door, because they said they didnt speak any english. Very curtious, just not interested in struggling through the language barrier for 2,000 Yen. I understood.

The second place I went into was a little yakitori place where they served hunks of meat on sticks and different types of soup. Again, lots of stares at the only non-Asian in the room, but I can deal with that. There was only one seat available at the bar and immediately two guys, both pretty well drunk from what I could tell, started harassing me a bit. Nothing serious, just making me feel unwanted. I thought about taking off, but instead ordered a couple pieces of food and a beer. The girls on the other side of me spoke very good english, the best I've encountered, and they tried to help me with the meal choices and pointed me to some spots worth seeing on the map. We had a couple sakes and after a while everyone started to ignore me. The girl in the middle had just purchased a pretty cool toy that allowed her to beam a picture from her phone to a polaroid-type device and print it out. Everyone in the bar was shocked and amazed. Japan is definitely ahead of us as far as cool gear goes.

Feeling much more comfortable indeed. And judging by the time it takes to get from one side of Tokyo to the other on the train, it's much smaller than New York. At least the subway accessible bit seems to be.

Tommy Lee Jones is the New Bill Murray

Harris's Birthday Cake

You're never too old for a cake shaped like a baseball stadium. It's been a few days since Harris reached the big 35, but I'm just now gettting around to publishing photos of his Citizens Bank Park birthday cake. I was watching a show on the Food Network about charm city cakes and got inspired by an incredible cake they made of Camden Yards. I knew a similar cake (only Phillies-related, of course) would be the perfect present for Harris! Here's a picture of the actual stadium, just in case you don't realize right off the bat that this is an actual, scale-model replica of Citizens Bank Park.

Off Schedule

Well, I didnt sleep ten hours. Maybe half that. My sleep schedule is still way off, as I'm typing this at 11:30 am eastern time, 1:30 in the morning here. I'm wide awake.

Yesterday I woke up and had breakfast here at the hotel. They must cater to American, or at least Western travelers here, because there were quite a few familiar items at the hotel buffet. The kind hostess gave me my choice of views, I asked her which was best. She pointed me to a seat with a far off view of Mt. Fuji. Outstanding.

I met my coworker around 9:30 AM, as he came to the hotel to help guide me to the office. Traveling was done strictly via the subway, which is obviously very similar to the way I get around in New York. I was fairly helpless with it though, moreso than any of the many visitors we've had to New York have been. I'm not sure if any of my coworkers ever drive, but we spent the day going here and there underground. My 3,000 Yen card is still working, though I really have no idea how long it will last. It was explained to me that different rides cost different values, depending on the distance and the number of transfers. I assume it shows me in the electronic display how many rides or how many Yen I've got left, but I'm still just trying not to delay the queue of riders behind me and havent gotten comfortable enough to stare at the screen. I'll just keep using the card, I suppose, until a big red 'X' displays.

The subway cars are much nicer here, though I haven't yet been on one during the heat of rush hour. The benches are a nice brown sueude, with storage bins above, individual circular handstraps, and less english writing than in most places. Don't even ask about the subway map. It's not based on distances the way the New York map is (though some might argue that the NYC map gets the distances wrong too), but needless to say once I'm underground I'm basically following someone around, with no clue as to my whereabouts. We made a couple of trips during the day. Once to our main office and then, after a delicious Chinese lunch, to a second venue. Since I seemed capable enough with chopsticks, I was asked if it would be a sign of shame in New York if I were incapable of using them, New York being such a metropolis and all. I explained that I didn't quite live in that society, though my friends might tease me a bit if I were constantly shoveling food onto my shirt.

Thats it for now. I'm going to try to get some more sleep.

The Travel Day

My big problem was that I really didnt have a plan when I got on the airplane. I knew that I was going to lose 14 hours and that the flight would last almost that long. I just didnt know if I should try to power through the whole thing or knock back a few quick beers and try to log eight hours sleep. I quickly noticed that almost the entire plane started dozing off within the first hour. Uh-oh. I figured that my primarily asian travel companions must have known what they were doing, so I tried to get a little sleep. Unfortunately it was noon my time, not even early enough for me to take my first weekend nap.

Anyhow, I managed a few half hour naps here and there. Maybe one of them lasted an hour, it's tough to say. I destroyed a decent sized chunk of my podcast directory during those dozen hours, however. Four episodes of the Denver Post's Lyrics Uncovered (who knew that Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me was based on the Archies Sugar Sugar?), a crappy holiday version of NPR's All Songs Considered, two episodes of This American Life, a full month of CNN's Race to '08, and two episodes of the 10,000 things. I always do my best to save Chi Li's work for when I'm traveling, as he concentrates so heavily on travels, it just seems right to wait. Anyway, if you havent listened to him, and I'm betting you haven't, it's true social/cultural history that he's working on, and he's on a hot streak right now. If you're between thirty and forty and you're reading this, you should give him a listen. He'll convince you that you've been living in the center of the world and that everything revolves, somehow, around Atlanta, Athens, or Portland. I also started reading Murder in Amsterdam. Pretty compelling.

Before you quibble with my choice of podcasts, just note that if this trip were taking place during baseball season, that list would look a lot different. In fact, I was disappointed not to have a Mitchell Report cast to accompany me on this trip. I digress.

I landed here at about 2:30 AM your time, 4:30 PM Tokyo time. The airport really wasn't all that difficult to navigate. Everything's in english, as you might imagine. What really struck me was that everything was quiet and efficent. I was ushered through without slowing down. Grabbed $200 in Yen (the exchange rate is 109.59 Yen to the dollar), bought a bus ticket, and the next thing you know I'm taking the hour long ride into Tokyo. As a hat tip to Lost in Translation, I decided to let My Bloody Valentine provide the soundtrack to the ride. Other than a few droning sections that almost put me to sleep it was, I think, the correct choice.

I'm staying in a beautiful hotel in a neighborhood then seems young and hip and bright and pretty much overwhelming. I'd have to say that this might be more overwhelming than Times Square, if only because of all of the little side streets and underground spaces. I only walked around for a few minutes, to get my bearings and grab a quick bite, but I have to say, its pretty amazing. Now I'm going to sleep for ten hours.

Here's the view from my hotel room:

Another one from the hotel:

And from the street below:

Traveling Tomorrow

Good day, fine people. In the short term, this blog will hopefully help me to chronicle my week in Tokyo and in the long term, well, if I can convince Anne to post occasionally, then maybe I'll be able to keep it going this time around. My last couple of attempts at regular blogging have been aborted almost before they began.

Anyhow, I'll be spending a week in Tokyo for work, so I have to assume I'll be fairly busy, but like I said, I'm hoping that this will spur me to take more pictures, scribble more notes, and generally remember my first week in Asia a little bit better than I otherwise would.

Oh, and Anne made me a birthday cake shaped like Citizen's Bank park. Let's see if she posts pictures.