Month: October 2008

Breakfast was at Yakichi. It was a lot of food. More food than I normally eat, but it gave me a lot of fuel to walk around.

Today, I decided to travel light. I took my point and shoot camera instead of my SLR. No backpack as well.

I found my way to Takashimaya and Tokyu Hands. I thought I bought some hair bands at Tokyu Hands, but I saw none. There were a lot of bento making goods, too. Next I thought I should buy a good map of Tokyo so I’d know what I want to do and how to get there. Free maps don’t seem to be very detailed and that usually drives me nuts. I also bought a mini defective compass. Defective because it takes a while to point the correct direction.

I got the idea to go to the Japanese Sword Museum from one of the books I bought and it might be an ideal place to buy a friend his samurai sword omiyage. It was small museum. I actually took the wrong train to get there. I saw that it was in Shibuya-ku, so I hopped on the Yamanote line train to get off at Shibuya. Wrong. I had to spend money to go back to Shinjuku station since I exited and take the Odakyu local line to Sanguubashi station. After that I wasn’t so dumb with the train. The gift store was mostly books. There was a 800 yen cell phone strap, but I was like he’s not going to use it and it’s 800 yen!

Lunch was at a soba restaurant called Monma nearby on the way back to the Sanguubashi station.

My next stop, Yasukuni Shrine. I decided to go there because of the controversy that surrounds it. The shrine itself was rather unimpressive. The museum was a bit more… I dunno how to put it… I thought of warmongering, but it’s not quite that. It was cool that they had Japanese airplanes and artillery. There was a tank and a (human powered?) missile. The thing that irked me was that they painted over everything that they had. The cannons that was on display on the first floor was covered in bullet marks, but it was painted over and the bullet marks were painted in a rust color. They closed at 5 PM so I had to rush out of the museum and didn’t get to see the rooms at the end very carefully.

On my way back to my hotel, I bought some stuff to fix my hair with after my shower since I forgot to bring mine from home. I also bought some night cream.

And milk. :9 I also bought the Bulgaria yogurt to try out. The yogurt was nothing impressive. The milk was yum. I took a lot of Lactaid, but not enough. Gassy right now.

There were many things running through my head while I was on the airplane to Japan. Mostly, what the hell was I doing going to a foreign country by myself without a strong clue as to where and what I was going to be doing?! Yeah, I know what I want to do, but as far as getting from point A to point B, I am a noob. OK, that’s not true, I went to Japan last year so I do have a clue as to what I’m doing.

Just not a very strong clue.

And I thought taking the Pacific Surfliner from Union Station to San Diego by myself was pretty scary. I think this is a few times scarier.

Some of the other thoughts that were passing through my head was, the plane is going to fall out of the sky and I’m going to die!! The wing is going to rip off and I’m going to witness our fiery decent since I’m sitting right next to the window. And honestly, how many lives has those life vests saved? ZERO. We’re doomed! I think I see something flying over the ocean. Are all those white dots birds? Or fishes? ….Or trash? -_-;; Why are we flying over land? Why are we still flying over land?? I need to get a globe and draw a straight line from Los Angeles to Tokyo. The airplane is shaking, we’re DOOMED!!! Dramatic, yes. I have a paranoid streak going.

On the flight, I finished book 5 of the Stookie Stackhouse mystery, Dead as a Doornail. There were a few movies playing as well. I got to see Hancock, which was a pretty cute movie, but I wasn’t too much of a fan of the ending. Saw most of Get Smart. I will have to see that movie again just to catch the parts with Masi Oka that I missed.

When I arrived at Narita, I discovered that I was short of what I thought I had in traveler’s checks. Um. Not good. I must have exchanged them last year and not remembered. Or I lost it. At least I have backup funds and credit cards.

Currently on the Narita Express going to Shinjuku.

Currently 8:46 PM, October 7, 2008.

There’s still a bunch of stuff I need to do before I hope onto that plane for Japan tomorrow.

Like pack.

Well, I have to do the laundry, too. I don’t want dirty laundry sitting around for 3 weeks. I also need clean jeans to pack into my suitcase. I still need to install my blogging software onto my Macbook and a list of important passwords so I can pay bills and stuff online if needed.

My flight leaves at 2:40 PM on Singapore Airlines flight 11 from LAX. I come back on Singapore Airlines flight 12 arriving at 12:55 PM. Still paranoid about the “pattern” and your garden variety terrorists….

Also, I didn’t finish the scarf I was knitting to wear in Japan. I ended up ripping it apart to remake because I thought it was too narrow and would end up longer than I like. :\ Maybe I can knit in the airplane… They allow knitting needles now! I checked. :x When I get bored of knitting, I can read. And when I get bored of reading, I can watch something on my iPod. When I get bored of that, I can try sleeping. And when I wake up from my sleep, I can wish for a neck pillow…

I went to the Angels & Vixens Women in Gaming party last night. It was at the Broadway Bar in downtown Los Angeles, a rather dingy area. There was no food served, so some of us ordered pizzas to go with our drinks. Of course, I drank all my drink before the food arrived. The pomegranate mojito was delicious. Very delicious, but expensive.

It was rather strange looking out the balcony. The bar was full of people, so much so that it was hard to move around. However, if you looked outside, there wasn’t a single person walking around. Definitely not a place to be walking around outside by yourself. Good thing I went with a coworker.

Funny thing about the party. It was a party celebrating women in gaming, but there were more men there than women!

After the party, I found out that there were still people at work working! Mike gave Doug an Angels & Vixens t-shirt since Doug couldn’t go. I talked with a few other people till 1:30 AM and we all went home at that point.