Euan Robertson

Love Hotels and Harajuku

This would be the point where I should be wrapping up my blog, but I've decided that I'll keep writing till I finish the story, there's too much good stuff still to write. I'll try and be quick about it though...

So I'm writing this entry from Narita airport, waiting to board my ominous flight back to Scotland. It really doesn't feel like I've been in this amazing country for 2 months, time has really just flown by. Loved every minute of it.

Really thought I would be caught up with these blog posts by now, but the last week has just been non stop with work and nights out and farewell things, just haven't had a chance. I've got a 10 hour flight ahead of me, so I think I'm going to be using some of that time to play catch up.

So after the wonder that was Disneyland, the next weekend was taken as proper time off. To be honest I can't even remember what happened, except from the photographic evidence that I have.

The Saturday morning was spent trying to shop for clothes in Tokyo. This is a major challenge for me. For those of you who don't know me I should explain. I come in at the above average height of 6'3". I have trouble finding stuff to fit in Scotland. Now factor in the average height of the average Japanese man of my age, and we have a whole new world of problems. Suffice to say that a Large in Japan sizes equates to Hobbit in UK sizes. I bought some of the smallest T-shirts I now own from Shibuya that day. Also finally managed to get myself a mobile on the Saturday, with a great deal of luck and a great deal of help from Zach's Japanese girlfriend, who was on hand to translate back and forth between myself and the rather bemused looking shop assistant. There is a whole post worth of content about the use of mobiles in Japan, and how the ret of the world could learn a great deal from them, but I will save that for later.

Up till now, keeping in touch with the rest of the interns had been a real problem, since using our UK mobiles over here would bankrupt us in a week. This was made even more tricky by the fact that relatively new Japanese laws have been enacted to make getting a phone of any kind a challenge for anyone staying in Japan for less than 90 days (therefore not being eligible for an Alien Registration card). And add that to the fact that Prepaid mobiles are as hard to come by as Leprechaun gold, the process took some time. Finally managed to track down a place that had some (you could tell by the queue of foreigners outside it) and only required a passport to register. So I left with a new toy, which being the gadget freak that I am meant immediately unboxing it and playing around with all the settings. I think I turned the language Korean for a while...

After I had finished acting like a baby with a new rattle, myself Zach and Tamami headed to a cinema to go see the Dark Knight. It was subtitled in Japanese, but after a while you just didn't notice it. Such an awesome movie. Also had my first experience of Japanese fast food. There's a chain called First Kitchen, which looks like a slightly more up scale McDonalds. The food is really pretty good, although the portions are rather small, then again I suppose we are used to Americanised portions (e.g. bloody massive). Their speciality (as I am told) is their chips (fries, whatever you personally call them). There are something like 15 different flavours, something I don't think has been experimented with properly back home...

After the movie, we decided to go exploring Dogenzaka an area world famous for it's road filled with "love hotels". Yes they are as blatant as they sound. There are always two prices on the doors, "Stay" and "Rest". The difference between the two should not need to be explained. The cool thing about the hotels is the huge variety of themes that they encompass. Everything from Arabian Nights to Medieval Castle, it's all there for your...pleasure. We decided to wrap up the night there, said our goodbyes and headed home.

Sunday was a really relaxing day. And by relaxing I meant that I didn't get up till about 1pm. Hey, it's the weekend and I was working a 9-6 all week, gimme a break. Decided to head back to Harajuku, this time equipped with my camera. Got some great shots of the Harajuku natives in their wide variety of unusual garb, and also retread through the Meiji Jingu shrine, so get some photographic evidence of the amazing place. Apart from that, Sunday was a slow day. Just the way I like them.

Next time, 3 days in Kyoto!

A 20 year old guy shouldn't be this excited...

Really playing catch up now, so the story continues...

So Sunday had reared its head, and as seems to be the case with big outings, it involved me getting up at ridiculous hours in the morning on a weekend. Considering this is the longest consecutive period of time where i have had to get up at 7:30, this is not a good thing. I wasn't too bothered though, cause I was going to Disneyland! Yeah I know, a 20 year old guy shouldn't be this excited, but there is just something about the place that reduces anyone with an organ remotely resembling a heart to turn into a grinning fool.

I was being accompanied on this trip to my inner child by Sonia and Sergio, who I don't think I've formally introduced on this. These two were the only other people in my language class when we started, and are about 12 bajillion times better than me. They have been a great laugh through all the time I've been here.

So we arrived at the park, on what has easily been then hottest day I have experienced in my two months experience. Within 5 minutes of walking about the sweat was actually dripping off me. It really wasn't pretty.

As we were waiting in a barn watching old Disney cartoons projected on the wall, while being interrupted every couple of minutes with Goofy knocking the projector over, while waiting to go in and see Mickey Mouse (strangest sentence of any SaltireFoundation blog, I'll bet), I heard the strangest thing I had herd up to that point during my stay in Japan.

Everyone knows Mickey Mouse's voice. Everyone could probably to an impression of it right now, to varying degrees of success. Same applies to Goofy, Donald Duck, or any of the central Disney characters. Now imagine them speaking Japanese. In the exact same accent. It's the single most unnatural sound I have ever heard. Mickey should not be speaking Japanese!!

The other interesting point came from our little groups multinational nature. We have me as the native English speaker, Sergio as the Spainiard and Sonia as a Frenchie. The result of this was the exciting shouting of the name of any character that we saw, in three separate languages. Thought Mickey Mouse was Mickey Mouse everywhere? Not so.

The place was not dramatically different from Disneyland Florida or Paris, the place still had the unnatural friendliness and cleaness that Disney is famous for, but it wasn't as out of place as when you walk though the door in Florida, as EVERYWHERE in Tokyo is like that. It still had the same rides and the same shows as everywhere else too.

Something I've realised since I've been here is how ridiculously popular Stitch is. Lilo and Stitch was never THAT popular a Disney movie back home, but here that little blue guy is everywhere in Disneyland, and Tokyo for that matter. Souvenir shops all have him in some type of costume doing some type of activity. Even if it has nothing to do with the area. Very strange.

We were there all day, even stayed for the Illuminations show at night, which was pretty incredible. Apologies for the blurry pictures, still hadn't figured out how to do good shots at night yet.

One week left! *sob*

As of today, I officially have one week left in Japan. Time has really caught up with me, and it really doesn't feel like 2 months. Anyway, the point is I still haven't caught up with writing about all the stuff I did yet!

When last we left our hero (i.e me) I was asleep on the floor of a swanky penthouse in Roppongi. When we were all conscious again, we decided to go to our respective homes, get cleaned up a bit and head to Yokohama for a day. Zhanar was otherwise occupied that say, so that left myself, Colin, Alex and Bahariah for this little excursion.

Before leaving we headed to Lazona, a huge mall complex in Kawasaki Station, right next to where I'm staying. Alex and Colin had quite heavily advertised a place called "Coldstone Ice Cream", so we decided to find out what all the fuss was about. It looked like any other ice cream stand. Until someone ordered something that is. We were standing in the queue wondering what was so special, when suddenly the staff burst into song. And dance. And I am not kidding. I wish I could have filmed it, it was amazing. They do this for EVERY person that orders, and the song and dance changes depending on what was ordered. And as if that wasn't good enough, it was also the best ice cream I've ever had. Ever.

After that we jumped on a train and headed out. I don't know why we didn't go to Yokohama more often, its only about 15min from where I was staying and the place was amazing. I had herd that Yokohama wanted to keep a very different identity from Tokyo, and you could certainly tell. The place just FELT different. We wandered aimlessly for a bit just taking in the sights, like Yokohama Stadium and the park surrounding it. Eventually we stumbled across a small amusement park, where we ended up spending most of the day.

When the effect of the ice cream had worn off, and we were hungry again, we decided to head to Chinatown to grab some food. This was also the only point during my entire stay in Japan where I felt ripped off. We were browsing the menu outside a restaurant, and saw a set meal for 3 people, costing (i think) 3500 yen (about £17.50). There wasn't that much in it, so the price seemed pretty good. When we in, and had our complimentary water and got the menu out so we could point at what we were after (our Japanese still wasn't great at this point) we discovered that the price advertised was PER PERSON. But we were stuck there now, so we had to order something else off the extortionate menu. It was nice, but not good enough for the price I paid for it.

We decided to head back into the city, and try and go up to the observation deck on the huge tower in Yokohama, who's name and importance escape me at the minute. To our dismay we discovered that we had missed the last admission time, by about 3 minutes. Argh.

With nothing left open, we decided to head back after that. But not before the guys had gone another ridiculous ride, and Alex strutted his stuff on the dance machine. Reallly need to get that video on YouTube...

Next time, I regress to the age of 5 in Disneyland Tokyo!

Heavenly Star...

Considering I only have two weeks left in Japan now (*sniff*) I think I had better catch up with the old blog entries.

The 1st day of August brought with it another weekend, and it was to be quite a busy one as well. It began with a frantic set of emails between myself, Colin and Zhanar with suggestions as to what to do that night. We decided to go for our first experience in Japanese nightclubs. After Zhanar had made some enquiries with her knowledgeable collegues, we had some names to go on, and we said we would all meet up in Roppongi. Me and Colin met up first, as Zhanar needed time to do... whatever it is that girls do to get ready that takes three times as long as guys. We grabbed some dinner in a little ramen place and set about finding a little place to drink.

The thing you realise quite soon after arriving in Tokyo is that it is a very 3-dimentional city. Normally when you are exploring a new place, you can walk down a street and just look left and right for places. In Tokyo however, you have to look UP. In the central nightlife areas of Tokyo, and indeed in most busy places, some of the bar/club buildings have at least 8 floors, all seperate establishments. So youve got to keep your eyes up or your going to miss some great places. We wern't so lucky however.

Me and Colin came across one of these places, and decided to try the "piano bar" on the 6th floor. We waited at the bottom of the place which looked suspiciously like an apartment block, and took the elevator to the 6th floor. We stepped out into what looked suspiciously like the hall of an apartment block, and saw the sign for the place beside a door that looked suspiciously like the front door of someones apartment. I'm sure you can see where this is going. After much "no YOU open it" style arguments between us, I opened the door a crack to see what it was like. It looked as if someone had plonked a piano into their small front room, threw some cushions on the floor and decided to open the place to the public. We decided to make a hasty retreat.

Our luck made a considerable upturn when we decided to go down instead of up, after following a sign with a pint glass of beer and a big arrow. We entered into a fantastic little place, with a proper bar down one end, tables and stuff for people who are eating, and at least six huge fridges stocked with every beer you can think of. There was a seperate beer menu there were so many. The best part though was that through a hole in the wall you can see the chef making the food orders. And they were something else. As we were sitting there, he made the biggest and tastiest looking sandwich I have seen in a long time. Unfortunatly there was no English menu, so we have no idea what it was, but we made a pact that we would go back and try and find it.

Eventually we met up with Zhanar, and headed out. It was still early so we went to go find another place to sit and drink. We found a place, but minus the sitting. It was a great little standing bar, really cheap, and even considering that the two bartenders barely spoke any English we had a right laugh with them.

Finally the time came where we would actually hit the club. One of the ones that had been mentioned was a place called "911", which we found after some intensive searching. It was packed and the atmosphere was amazing. The best bit though was that they played one of my favourite Japanese dance songs. Check out the embedded YouTube video if you want to hear it.

We left there after a while and jumped to another place that looked a lot like an English bar from the outside, but it had a dance floor so everyone was happy. That place was pretty cool aswell.

It turns out we were all a lot more tired than we thought, and were all pretty tired. By this time me and Colin had missed our train, but Zhanar had said that if it got that late we could crash in the front room of her and Bahariah's luxurious apartment. And boy was it luxurious. Those guys definitely won big with their accommodation, the place is amazing. So we made hasty plans for the next day and collapsed for the night.

Dancing, Lights and being 5 again.

Considering I only have two weeks left in Japan now (*sniff*) I think I had better catch up with the old blog entries.

The 1st day of August brought with it another weekend, and it was to be quite a busy one as well. It began with a frantic set of emails between myself, Colin and Zhanar with suggestions as to what to do that night. We decided to go for our first experience in Japanese nightclubs. After Zhanar had made some enquiries with her knowledgeable collegues, we had some names to go on, and we said we would all meet up in Roppongi. Me and Colin met up first, as Zhanar needed time to do... whatever it is that girls do to get ready that takes three times as long as guys. We grabbed some dinner in a little ramen place and set about finding a little place to drink.

The thing you realise quite soon after arriving in Tokyo is that it is a very 3-dimentional city. Normally when you are exploring a new place, you can walk down a street and just look left and right for places. In Tokyo however, you have to look UP. In the central nightlife areas of Tokyo, and indeed in most busy places, some of the bar/club buildings have at least 8 floors, all seperate establishments. So youve got to keep your eyes up or your going to miss some great places. We wern't so lucky however.

Me and Colin came across one of these places, and decided to try the "piano bar" on the 6th floor. We waited at the bottom of the place which looked suspiciously like an apartment block, and took the elevator to the 6th floor. We stepped out into what looked suspiciously like the hall of an apartment block, and saw the sign for the place beside a door that looked suspiciously like the front door of someones apartment. I'm sure you can see where this is going. After much "no YOU open it" style arguments between us, I opened the door a crack to see what it was like. It looked as if someone had plonked a piano into their small front room, threw some cushions on the floor and decided to open the place to the public. We decided to make a hasty retreat.

Our luck made a considerable upturn when we decided to go down instead of up, after following a sign with a pint glass of beer and a big arrow. We entered into a fantastic little place, with a proper bar down one end, tables and stuff for people who are eating, and at least six huge fridges stocked with every beer you can think of. There was a seperate beer menu there were so many. The best part though was that through a hole in the wall you can see the chef making the food orders. And they were something else. As we were sitting there, he made the biggest and tastiest looking sandwich I have seen in a long time. Unfortunatly there was no English menu, so we have no idea what it was, but we made a pact that we would go back and try and find it.

Eventually we met up with Zhanar, and headed out. It was still early so we went to go find another place to sit and drink. We found a place, but minus the sitting. It was a great little standing bar, really cheap, and even considering that the two bartenders barely spoke any English we had a right laugh with them.

Finally the time came where we would actually hit the club. One of the ones that had been mentioned was a place called "911", which we found after some intensive searching. It was packed and the atmosphere was amazing. The best bit though was that they played one of my favourite Japanese dance songs. Check out the embedded YouTube video if you want to hear it.

We left there after a while and jumped to another place that looked a lot like an English bar from the outside, but it had a dance floor so everyone was happy. That place was pretty cool aswell.

It turns out we were all a lot more tired than we thought, and were all pretty tired. By this time me and Colin had missed our train, but Zhanar had said that if it got that late we could crash in the front room of her and Bahariah's luxurious apartment. And boy was it luxurious. Those guys definitely won big with their accommodation, the place is amazing. So we made hasty plans for the next day and collapsed for the night.

How the Japanese do barbecues

This entry is being written from a small cafe in Kyoto station, with a glass of ice coffee in hand watching the travelers go by. This is the big day of the Obon festival, and so I'm waiting for my friends to get ready so we can go and watch people set fire to the mountain. Yes you read that right. More on this when I get round to my mega Kyoto entry. Mega Kyoto should definitely become a manga someday, of it doesn't already exist.

So into my second week of my time in Japan, and another eventful week in Toshiba. Started to properly get my head round the scope of what I have to do. Was quietly confident though. Or I told myself I was anyway.

So onto the weekend then. and a busy one at that. On Saturday, I had been invited to the leaving party of another Toshiba intern from France, Michel-san. When I turned up that day and discovered that no one was carrying anything resembling BBQ equipment, or more importantly nothing resembling food, I was slightly worried. Until I realised that there is always an easier way in Japan.

We arrived at the park, and wandered through until we reached an area filled with gazebo style constructions. At the central desk, the person who had organised this little adventure handed over a small ticket (I think, I was still trying to work out what was going on...) and was given a big sheet of paper. This paper was then taken round the different tables in the BBQ area, where we were given everything we needed such as the barbecue itself, tables, chairs, and most importantly two massive hampers of food and a 10 liter chilled beer box. After setting everything up, we got down to actually getting things cooked. I ate so well that day it was unbelievable. Everything you could think of was in that hamper; shrimp, steak, vegetables, noodles, sausages and loads of other things.

The Japanese are very relaxed about cooking their BBQ food. In the UK we are always told to make sure the food is throughly cooked on the BBQ before eating. Here they really don't care so much. The food is slapped on the grill, waved about a bit, flipped over then it's on their plate and eaten. I've never seen anything like this before. There is also the problem of how to eat still shelled shrimp with only a paper plate and chopsticks to hand. More tricky than it sounds. After demolishing the two hampers, and flinging a recently purchased frisbee about for a while, we packed up everything and headed to the next port of call. It was 4pm, we had just finished "lunch" and now we were heading for dinner. And what a dinner it was.

We headed to Shinkjuku and went to a Sashimi restaurant in the Washington Hotel. I would tell you the name for a recommendation but it was in Kanji and I can't remember the translation. Sashimi is raw fish, and has been one of the (many) dishes I have grown to love during my time in Japan. In this restaurant was the best (up to this point) I have had yet. When I appeared after heading to an ATM and getting horribly lost in Shinjuku (i hate my sense of direction...) everyone had been seated in our own room, with a low table with a gap underneath for your legs.

The sashimi itself was a piece of art. One of the plates came out accompanied by the meats previous owner, bent up as if it was leaping from a lake, with a huge skewer through it. It was incredibly fresh and incredibly tasty. After the eating had slowed, someone had suggested we go fishing. Where do we go fishing? In the restaurant.

The restaurant had a river that looped through it, filled with various forms of sea life. For a price you are given a small rod, and a plate of Japanese anchovies (read a couple entries back for more on my experiences with these marvelous creatures), and you can try and catch something. This all seemed a bit fairground to me. The chances of us catching one of these huge fish with a tiny bamboo rod is slim to none. Two minutes later my friend was fighting with one of said fish as I was struggling to get it inside a net. We got a cheer from the restaurant, and got our hard work served up to us within 15 min. With the fin still kicking with it's last flickers of life. Damn tasty.

And what better way to finish a night in Shinjuku with a friendly game of Darts. Yep, , I fly halfway round the world and end up playing Darts in a snooker hall in the middle of Tokyo. Go figure. But was a great way to end a great day. And tommorow was to be another experience I will never forget.

Nikko

Prob my last Shikansen entry, think we are getting pretty close to Kyoto now.

Another week of work had gone by ridiculously quickly, and was time to our first proper adventure in Japan. Over our train wreck of a dinner the previous week, the four of us had decided to go to Nikko for the weekend. We had read that it was a beautiful place, a lot more rural than Tokyo, and home to some amazing temples and such.

We met in Asakusa, bought our tickets and saw we had an hour to kill before the train left, so we went to explore Asakusa. We headed for the Kaminarimon gate, and found a massive long alley of small stalls selling everything from food to fans. At the end was our first temple of Japan. The detail on these buildings are incredible. Check out the pictures to see for yourself.

After exploring, we jumped on the train and started the journey to Nikko. Two hours and many inventive time-passing games later we were there. Our first priority was to find somewhere to stay the night. We quickly discovered that this would be more of a problem than we anticipated
. We had not realised that weekend was some form of national holiday, and so Nikko was pretty full. After much toing and froing with the various staff at the station, eventually one very helpful guy found us a room in a ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel with traditional Japanese rooms). So with accommodation secured we set out to explore

The main area around the station of Nikko was full of small eating places and hundreds of souvenir shops (most of which sold the exact same selection of stuff). After stopping to grab some lunch at a local convenience store, we headed towards the biggest temple in Nikko.

I'll have a really difficult time trying to explain how beautiful this area was with words, so I'll leave it up to the pictures below to show you. The temple and it's surrounding areas are incredible, and ate up my camera space pretty quickly. Just check out the pictures.

About half way through the tour of the temple, the heavens opened and we had our first experience of Japan rain. Coming from Scotland, I thought I knew all there was to know about rain, but I was wrong. It was torrential. I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to only buy two umbrellas for the four of us, but that was what we did. As we searched for somewhere to eat we got more and more soaked, not helped by the fact that we were intentionally soaking each other as well. Eventually we found a small chain restaurant which had wholesome food for a decent price, which after being soaked to the skin was exactly what we needed.

We headed back to the station in time to grab some provisions and get picked up by the hotel staff to be taken to our lodgings for the night. We thought this was a good idea as the station staff member who had booked the place for us had warned us not to walk there (to quote the man, "many dangerous animals", followed by his impression of what i assume was some form of large cat). We got there and was shown to our room, which was even better than we were expecting.

It was a traditional Japanese style room, meaning paper screen doors, a low table and tatami (bamboo) mats on the floor. Our beds were folded in the cupboard, and involved a (very thin) futon mattress that we had to roll out onto the floor and a sheet. I realise that this doesn't sound very comfortable, but it actually was. And then there was the bath. The ryokan also had a communal bath, which you could use. It was certainly a unique experience, but was slightly soured by our experience with locals on the way there.

In the cupboard of our room, there was a yukata (light kimono style robe) for each of us. Being the foreigners we were, we assumed you change into the yukata to go down to the bath, leaving (all) your clothes in your room. Our decision was called into question as Zhanar headed off to the female bath and me, Alex and Colin headed down to the male bath kitted out in our shiny new yukatas, and were promptly laughed at by three Japanese girls who were leaving the bath and heading back up to their room. We concluded one of three things had just happened. We had either...

1> Put the yukata on wrong. Apparently there is a certain way that women wear it, and a certain way that men wear it. We scoured out guidebooks when we got back to the room, and found that we had through sheer luck put it on the right way. So it wasn't that.

2> Accidentally flashed the girls. We were (wrongly) naked under the yukata. Apparently your supposed to keep your underwear on. Go figure. We really really really hoped it wasn't that.

3> The sight of three foreigners wearing the yukata was just too much for them to take, and they had cracked up. We concluded (partly for our pride) that this was the cause of the hilarity.

After an eventful session at the baths, we headed back to our room and proceeded to get stuck into our provisions, which included snacks and a carton of plum wine (carton being the same style of thing that you get milk or orange juice in. I love Japan). Pretty soon after the days traveling had taken its toll and we passed out for the night.

The following day we were treated to a traditional Japanese breakfast and headed out for another day of exploring. We decided to grab a bus up to the Kegon Falls, as we had been told they were something to see. A small problem appeared when we got off the bus in the form of an immensely thick fog, which meant that we couldn't see more than about 40 feet in front of us. Suffice to say that the falls were pretty invisible. I took a picture anyway for reference. Slightly curious as to what to do next, we came across a place where you can rent row boats for an hour. This was great fun, although for anyone reading this, Alex cannot row. Except in circles. The fog made this little adventure a bit more dangerous than it should be, as we discovered as we turned around and realised that we couldn't see land anymore. All we could see was a very faint light that we promptly headed were quickly for. I can't imagine that the "Four Scottish interns lost at sea" headline would have looked very good for the SaltireFoundation.

After our naval excursion, we had to head back to the station for the train back to Tokyo. All in all it was a pretty cool trip, especially for the ryokan, which was something i really wanted to experience while I was here. Back to work the following day of course, for another week of Toshiba.

Gonpachi, Karaoke, Harajuku and Anchovies

Another entry from the Shikansen, I've got 2 hours to kill, I might as well use them. Just had a very interesting sandwich. No idea what it was but it was pretty nice all the same.

So after out first week of work in Japan, SDI treated us to dinner in Gonpachi. Gonpachi is a famous restaurant in Tokyo with foreigners, mainly because It was featured in the movie Kill Bill. Google it for more information.

Unfortunately my innately bad sense of direction failed me again. I came out of the wrong exit of the subway station (are you starting to see a pattern here?) and got hopelessly lost in the middle of Roppongi. After walking straight past the restaurant (twice!) I eventually met up with everyone. The food was amazing, and the conversation with the people from SDI was even more so.

After dinner, with all us interns being the young vibrant people that we are, we decided to make a night of it. And how better to represent Scotland than to hopelessly embarrass ourselves at Karaoke. And boy do they know how to do Karaoke here. The system has a hi tech touch screen remote for selecting your songs, and has a sound activated lights system that only switches on when you start singing. Even though I was easily the worst singer out the group, I still had an amazing time, as did everyone. Until the bill at the end. We had slightly miscalculated the costs of the drinks and room rental, and so were caught slightly off guard when we saw the register at the end of it all. A mistake we weren't going to make again.

At this point in the night we had encountered a problem. Me, Zach, Alex and Colin had missed our last train, and so we were essentially stuck in Roppongi till at least 5am when the trains started again. Bahariah and Zhanar live in the area, so they didn't have a problem. From this point on the night is a bit of a blur. Suffice to say I ended up back at my room at about 7am the next morning.

We had made plans to go to Harajuku on Saturday during a lull in the Karaoke session the night before. We had not planned our escapade the night before, however. So I appeared at the meeting place at 12pm, looking slightly disheveled, to be greeted by Zhanar on her lonesome. No one else had decided they could make it.

We still headed out though, and had a great day. Unfortunately the many pictures the previous night had killed the battery on my camera, and so I have no photographic evidence of the day. I revisited Harajuku later on by myself, so read that blog entry if you want to see what it's like.

Before we left for Harajuku, we had fired off an email to everyone saying where we were going, and that if anyone was still alive, they could meet us in Roppongi at 5pm. When we got back we were greeted by a similarly disheveled Colin and Alex (one more so than the other, but I'm not going to point fingers. *cough*Alex*cough*) We went searching for somewhere to eat. Zhanar recommended a place that she had had been taken to by some of her work colleagues, so we went.

This was one of the funniest meals I have ever eaten, and was also the spawning point of a great running joke between the four of us. The restaurant we went to was an Isakya, and so involved various things in tempura batter on skewers. We decided the best thing was to get a main meal each and a random assortment of skewers between us. Me and Zhanar ordered a stew bowl with rice, Alex ordered Kimchee (which none of knew what it was, but liked the name of) and Colin ordered "Japanese Anchovies and Radish". This is where the problems began.

Firstly, after our first couple of skewers, the rest took a long time to appear. About an hour in fact. And that was only after we had inquired what had happened to them, and were told that the cook had "forgot". Me and Zhanar had had our stew bowls, and some skewers, and the other guys still had not had anything. We asked what had happened to the other two dishes. The "Japanese Anchovies and Radish" turned out to be a small side plate that we had all tried a bit of, and had pushed to the side. I had imagined Japanese anchovies to be similar to anchovies back in Europe, IE a small fish. Technically what we had was small fish. They were just really small. Tadpole sized small. and there were loads of the them sprinkled on a pile of radish. And this was what Colin had ordered for his main meal. I was in tears laughing.

We called it quits after that, as we were all still quite sleep deprived, and madeour way back home, with plans to use our Monday holiday to go to Nikko for two days.

Oh, and you may be wondering what happened to Alex's kimchee. Well so are we. Still.

Toshiba - Week 1

So I'm writing this bunch of (heavily) backdated entries on a Shikansen (bullet train), and this is how I want to travel from now on. Everywhere. I'll leave the details for when I (eventually) get round to writing the entry for todays escapades, but suffice to say that this thing is like a 747 on the ground. Even down to those scary toilets that seems to create enough of a vacuum to rip the air from your lungs. But anyway, on with the entry

So I started Toshiba on the 7th July. There's a sentence that I never thought I would say... Got up ridiculously early to get ready and ended up with an hour to just sit in my room and be nervous, which is never a good thing. When the time finally came, I headed to Kawasaki station to meet with Komatsu-san, who was going to show me the ropes, how to get to work, which of my (3!!) pass cards open which doors, etc. The place itself is huge. I'm working in the Research and Development Center, which is about 15 min from Kawasaki station by bus. It's split into buildings , some are offices, some are research, and some are manufacturing. RDC also has 3 canteens (although not all good, as I will find out later) and a bar (which I was to get more and more familiar with as the internship progressed).

The rest of the week was all about getting myself orientated and starting my internship project. I'm not entirely sure how much I can say about the research that I'm doing, so I'll just say that it involves sound processing. This is a subject I have never worked on before, and involves a lot more maths that I am usually comfortable with, but after the initial information overload had passed, I started to really get interested in what I was doing. I was really worried that I was going to end up with some really boring project to do, but It's been the total opposite, I've learned so much and so much I would never have been exposed to otherwise.

That Wednesday the team I am working with in the RDC had a welcome party for me, in a local Izakiya (bar with food). It was an amazing night, and was a great laugh. To say that my Japanese was bad at that point is a massive understatement (admittedly it's not that much better now, but anyway...), so I was really worried about communication with the rest of the team. This proved to be unfounded, as most of the team have really decent English language skills. The Japanese are taught English earlier and for longer than we are taught any other foreign languages, and so It's natural they have a pretty good hold on the language. Many of our lunchtime conversations involve the intricacies of the English language, and it's many subtleties. In essence, I teach them advanced English, and they teach me (really) basic Japanese. It's a pretty good trade.

The dress code (pleasantly) surprised me also. Everyone has seen the stereotypical Japanese salary man, with the white shirt, black trousers and tie. Now I have never been the smartest dressed guy in the world, and was a wee bit worried that I wasn't going to be able to pull of that business look. You can imagine my sheer elation when I find everyone else in the office in jeans and t-shirts. Judging by the rest of the guys, I've got it pretty damn lucky, as the Fujitsu guys are all shirts and trousers, and the RBS girls always have to be smart.

On the Thursday of that week, I joined my supervisor Ouchi-san at a conference at Tokyo university on the subject of my project. There was a distinct problem with this idea, in that all bar two of the presentations were in Japanese, and there is a limit to the information you can learn from pretty diagrams. The two English presentations were really interesting though, and so I headed back to the RDC after they were done, and Ouchi-san had treated me to lunch in a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, which was pretty amazing. I think I need to dedicate an entire entry to Japanese food, I've had so many amazing things here.

So my first week was pretty eventful, but I was feeling a lot more confident now. To round the week off I had a great little weekend too, but more of that next entry.

Day 2 (Still Pretty Late...)

Still playing catchup...

Anyways, my first proper full day in Tokyo. Well, when I say full, it means that I woke up at half 2 in the afternoon. This is normal for me by the way.

So I decide to go out and do a little bit of solo exploring. First stop, back to Akihabara for another look around. The place is amazing for just being able to wander, your guarenteed to find something cool in every shop. The arcades are so far beyond what we have back home I feel like there should be a different word for it...

Next up was Shibuya. There was one primary reason that I wanted to go to Shibuya, and I'm sure that the more hardcore of gamers amongst you will know why. If you google a game called "The World Ends With You", you can read all about it. Anyway, the game is set in Shibuya, famous landmarks and all. With TWEWY being one of my favourite games, I was keen to go see the real things for myself...

After Shibuya I headed to meet up with Alex and Colin in Shinjuku. This proved to be a lot more troublesome than I had anticipated. We had agreed to meet at a resturaunt that was on both of our maps, getting there was tricky. For the unititiated let me explain how the train stations are laid out here. In a nutshell, they have 22 bajillion exits, and if you get out at the wrong one, you can't just turn around and head straight back through, as the other exits are usually back through the barriers.

So in case you can't see where this is going, I went out the wrong exit. The killer was that I didn't KNOW I had come out of the wrong exit, and walked on thinking I was on the right side of the station. 30 minutes later and my map no longer matches the terrain, and I am officially lost. A very nice Australian couple (yeah I know) pointed me in the right direction, and an hour after our agreed meeting time I get to the resturaunt and meet a slightly miffed Alex and Colin. Sorry guys...

We look around for a while, try unsuccessfully to find somewhere to eat and instead grab stuff out a handy convenience store (this is not as bad as it sounds in Japan, more on the wonders of Japanese FamilyMarts and Lawsons next post). The main part of this little trip was to visit the Tokyo government building. As unexciting as that sounds, it has an observation deck on the 42nd (I think) floor, which has the most amazing view of nightime Tokyo. Check out the pictures below to see for yourself.

All in all, an awesome weekend, and left me well prepared for my first day of Toshiba.