New Years eve

Wow.. I can't believe its New Years Eve already. Time has gone way too fast this year. I honestly felt that this whole year went like a blur. I guess it is true on what they say, the older you get, the faster time passes by. Damn.. that is depressing... Anyways, this will be the first time I am spending New Years in Tokyo. The other New Years eve I've experienced in Japan, I was either in Tottori or Yokohama. I don't have any New Years plan other than eating soba tonight and watching/recording all the New Year special K-1 fights and multiple hour music specials. I may or may not go to a Shrine/Temple tomorrow which is traditional in Japan to visit during at the start of the new year. Unfortunately, I will be working tomorrow, so my plans will all be dependent on how busy I am.

Speaking of work, my work laptop that I got back in 2005 started breaking down last month. I asked the IT guy to replace my laptop but made a request to get a non Japanese laptop as my work laptop used a US style keyboard. Whenever I type on a Japanese style keyboard, I always have countless typos and find myself spending too much time trying to find different characters like quotation marks. Luckily, he fulfilled my request, which I was surprised because other international employees that had similar requests got stuck with Japanese laptops; however, he replaced my laptop with a European equivalent. Its not the same as the US keyboard layout but most keys are in their similar location.

Finally, I have taken the next step in trying to play more basketball in Tokyo. Saturdays playing with the junior and high school kids are great, but I want more. I found a basketball club that plays somewhat near where I live on the internet. From their site, their ages range from mid 20s to early 30's. They rent out a Junior High school gym and usually play on Sundays which is perfect for me. I gave them a quick e-mail in horrible Japanese asking if they will accept a funny looking foreigner in their group. I am currently awaiting for their reply.

Christmas Eve in Tokyo

The city is illuminating brightly.
The sweat is running down my forehead from fighting old Japanese ladies trying to get the last of the "Christmas cakes".
The train is crowded with every other salarymen carrying a Christmas cake.
The line at the local KFC is getting longer.
The electronic TV guide is filled with 3 - 4 hour "Christmas specials" on every major broadcasting channel.
Its Christmas eve in Tokyo, wishing everyone to be happy and safe during the holidays.

For the love of ...

the Gym:

Christmas time, time for giving, time for receiving.. but most of all.. time for eating. Japan loves to eat, especially KFC and different variety of cakes during this time. This is where going to the gym is key or else I will soon see my body morph into Frosty the Snowman. Anyways, I was determined to go to the gym today after work. Its a good 15 minute bike ride from my apartment to the gym. I was a bit hesitant at first because at the time I was about to leave my apartment it started to drizzle. Well, in the morning Mezamashi TV (Japan's version of the Today show) said it may rain lightly today but it would mostly be cloudy. I took this to heart and took it up to faith that if it rained at all, it would be long after I was back home. Well, 5 minutes into my bike ride the rain started coming down harder. Luckily, I was equipped with my 5 year old rain jacket from GAP. Well.. I thought I was lucky until after I found out it had a few holes that I didn't know about and my clothes started getting wet. I peddled to the metal and reached the gym in record time before I was completely soaked. I knew I would be in the gym for about an hour so I hoped the rain would have calmed down if not gone away by then. Boy was I wrong. When I got out of the gym, it was pouring and the wind picked up strength as well. I manned up and tried to ride home as fast as possible. I was completely drenched when I got home. My immune system was hating on me but my body felt good from the work out. I hope I don't get sick. I used to never do this for the gym, boy has times changed.

the Dallas Cowboys:

Man.. they lost pretty bad on Saturday night. It was hard to watch the first half of the game, but even harder to see the Romo miss crucial throws to try to win the game.. that was before the Ravens had 2 consecutive 50+ yards for TDs which were too much for the Cowboys to overcome. I was demoralized after the game. I thought for sure their season was over, that is until Christmas came early and the Bucs and the Eagles lost today. This was the first time this season I was actually rooting for the Redskins. The Boys now have a shot to make the playoffs if they beat the Eagles next week in their final regular season game. I can't wait!

the Orlando Magic:

They are having a great year. Currently they are 20-6. They beat Kobe and the mighty Lakers on Saturday night. The Magic haven't done this well since Shaq and Penny were the main attractions. Like the Cowboys, I hope the Magic can get into the playoffs this season and do something productive.

Basketball:

I've been playing basketball once every week and I'm seeing myself improve. I'm still playing with the Junior and High school kids, so that isn't saying much. I want to play more basketball so I'm currently trying to find a place where I can possibly join a league or play pick up games somewhere in Tokyo. I found a couple of "clubs" on the internet but I feel weird just randomly showing up to one of their practices. I can just imagine it now "Hey... I saw you guys on-line.. my Japanese sucks and you probably don't understand me now, but can I play with you.. pretty please? Awww... common..." The best scenario is if I can find just a good place nearby that has random pick up games. Last time I played with a club/league team I was accused of not knowing "team basketball". Even now, when I play with the kids, I keep telling them if they are open to just shoot the ball. I hate it when they are driving in the lane and no one is near them and they just pass the ball to someone who is covered. The point of passing the ball is to get the most wide open shot possible. But I guess its a bit hard to satisfy that new concept, so even I sometimes pass the ball when I'm open to another teammate even if no one is on me so I don't offend anyone. Anyways, I love the game and its a great workout, so I don't mind adjusting my game. I really hope I can find what I'm looking for soon.

Money:

Remember I said it was time to buy dollars earlier? Well.. I was wrong.. NOW is the time to buy dollars. Man.. I am kicking myself now for buying too early. Oh well, I've never been good at predicting trends.

Quick update

Its been some time since I've posted an update. Not much to report to be honest. I did end up getting a new digital camera the other day. I got the new Canon 920is. So far I like it. I haven't transferred any pics I've taken to my computer yet, but I expect to post some better quality pictures in the near future. I managed to visit Disney Sea again this past week. Enjoyed some Mickey's Xmas shows and ate lots of junk food. I've been going to the gym pretty consistent these days, so I'm not hesitant to eat some "bad" food every now and then. On the job front, everything is going fine, not great but not bad. The economy is sucking and it seems lots of companies are laying people left and right, so naturally I am worrying a little bit about my future. My lease at my current apartment ends this summer and I'm currently debating whether to renew (which would cost me an extra month's rent to do) or move a bit further away from Tokyo and take advantage of cheaper rent. I have to be prepared just in case I find myself sweeping chimneys to make ends meet. Finally on a completely different subject, I find it amusing that a Japanese news program that is playing in the background now is doing a complete analysis on how George Bush managed to avoid getting hit by shoes. When I say complete analysis, I mean they are breaking down the incident by seconds, measuring the velocity of the shoes thrown from a 5 meter distance and the reaction time of an average 62 year old man. Wow....

Hilarious..

While walking through Shinjuku station this past weekend, I came across this poster. The message is very true but so funny....

Doggy Debut

Well the Japanese drama Cafe吉祥寺で "Cafe Kichijoji De" with DonDon finally aired on TV today. His screen time came and went in a blink of an eye. He was only in one scene but it was cool. As always, I took pictures with my keitai camera of my TV screen which is why the low quality. I really need to invest in a new camera. The digital camera I have now is almost 8 years old and the zoom lens sometimes doesn't work. Anyways, below are the pictures.

Diagnosis..

Bruised ribs. I was glad that I didn't fracture anything. It seems it got worse as time went by because I kept playing sports and pushed myself when working out. So now, it will be at least a week until I see the gym again. This sucks, especially since I was on a roll with my workout routines. I will have to really watch what I eat until I can start being active again. It doesn't help that there are tons of programs featuring their delicious annual Holiday foods, especially desserts. Man.. really craving for a nice slice of chocolate mousse cake and a jar of custard pudding.... Gotta fight the temptations... fight ...

Dusting away the heater

The temperature has dropped dramatically over the past few days and I feel winter is here already. Like the AC during summer, I tried to see how long I could last without using my heater but I lost pretty quickly. Needless to say, the heater has made itself back into daily use. In other news, the left side of my chest has been really sore. I actually collided with a kid during basketball. At first it stung but I didn't feel any pain for a couple of days. Recently however, its been getting sore and actually sort of hurts when I take deep breaths. I hope its just a bruise and nothing serious. Its been going on for about a week and a half already. If it doesn't get better by the end of the weekend I'll most likely see a doctor. I'm very afraid of doctors here.... last time I went to see a doctor in Japan.. he stuck a tube down my nose and almost made me vomit on him. Good times.

Time to buy some dollars!

I can't believe I missed the opportunity to buy dollars when it was at 90 yen to 1 dollar. That is the lowest I have ever seen the dollar vs. Japanese yen. Today is not as a good, 94 yen for a dollar but I think I'll go ahead and jump the foreign exchange currency collecting band wagon before its too late. I have seen some reports that some locations are sold out of the dollar, so my contingency plan is the Euro. It is currently selling at around 119 yen. I don't plan to travel anytime soon to either Europe or U.S. but if the yen stays strong as it is doing, I may have to change some of my plans in the coming months.

School'd!

Just got back from basketball... and man.. I got school'd by a couple of high school kids. Recently, with my working out regiment and me balling consistently once a week, I've been able to regain some of my basketball skills (which ain't much to begin with) and have been controlling the game flow when I play with these kids. However, today.. this one kid who I was assigned to guard had it in for me. He tried to do them "And-1" moves on me. At first he was dribbling for like 20 seconds and not moving at all... I got out of my guard stance and just stood there looking bored. Most of the time his fancy dribbling didn't work on me, but this one time, he straight up crossed me out, went to his right, I quickly recovered and tried to block his lane to the basket, and when I went up for the block he adjusted his shot and made me look like a fool when the ball went in the net. After he made it, I saw a grin on his face and he said something to me which I didn't understand. On the playgrounds where I come from, you don't let anyone do that to you. So I told him, I'll remember that move and he will never do that again on me in Japanese. I then let my competitive nature take over me and started talking smack to the kid. When the kid had the ball I made sure he wasn't going to make another lay up on me. He was dribbling in circles and even faked the ball to me a couple of times, I smiled and when he drove in, I blocked his shot (even though he got passed me) and let out a loud roar. Everybody looked at me like "What is this foreigner doing?" because here.. everyone plays hard but most of the time no emotions are shown. I felt kind of bad, because usually back in the U.S. emotions are really high when I'm playing sports with others but at the end of the game, everyone (except for a select few who have real anger management issues) leaves their feelings on the court/field. I highly doubt that the kids I played with understand that so I came up after the game and thanked them for whooping my ass, yeah.. my team ended up losing anyways hehe. On a positive note though, I appeared to have made two new friends, they are college students who were on my team during this session. I asked if they wanted to hang out sometime or better yet play ball on a non-Saturday because I'm really craving to ball more than once a week. Actually.. I'm really wanting to play some flag football but I know that will be harder for me to do in Japan. Anyways, I'm really happy that my body is starting to get in shape and I can be active again. I really can't wait until next Saturday where I can re-match those kids again....yeah.. I'm that pathetic hehe

1st game that ...

I'll miss the Dallas Cowboys play this season. They are playing the lowly Rams so that game doesn't seem to be bigger than the 49er/Giants game that is going on at the same time slot. Oh well... 6 weeks straight of watching the Cowboys somewhat live in Japan is a pretty good streak. I hope the Boys pull together and get their season back on track!

Train delays...

I had a nice Saturday planned out which involved going to different parts of Tokyo. Everything at work was clear and the day was sunny. Unfortunately, an "accident" occurred on my train line, actually my station in particular and now there are massive delays. By accident, I mean it most likely is a suicide of someone jumping at an on coming train. Delays like this are not new to me as it happened to me a few times already since I've lived in Tokyo. I don't understand it to be honest. If a person hates their life so much and wants to end it, why do it jumping at an oncoming train? The consequences affect thousands of innocent people and actually the immediate family of the deceased will be held responsible for the cost of the "clean up" effort. Ending one's life selfishly is a lose-lose situation for everyone. Anyways, I'm going to try to make the best of today by bicycle.

Got a new toy

and finally got the 2nd generation iPod Touch. I'm very impressed with it especially when comparing to my old school iPod that I bought 5 years ago. So far the only negative aspect I have found is that my fingers are easily smudging the screen so I think I will need to shell out extra money to buy a new case. I was planning to spend a lot more money on other "toys" but ironically after getting this iPod, I've been on iTunes a lot more and tuning in to various audio podcasts, particularly about finance. I realized that spending more money on more high price items would be financially irresponsible, especially in this economy. Anyways... time to research on what good Blu-ray movies are out there to buy so I can view them on my new HDD Blu-ray recorder.... I mean... nevermind just kidding... well... not really..

Only in Japan

Picture of the day in Japan.

The policeman's facial expression holding the shield is classic. He looks like the Japanese Braveheart.

It was all over the news last night. Its too funny! Though it may be a bit disturbing and a blow to the average foreigner image, its better to see this as top news as opposed to murders and gun violence (which I saw on the local Washington D.C. news today via slingbox).

For more information click for the Homer Simpson-esque story.

Doggy TV

My dog managed to get a gig on a Japanese Drama that is currently airing on TV Tokyo. I've actually never heard of it until he got the gig but it is based on a popular Japanese Manga. He just came back from shooting and seemed like he did a good job. Now I have to see if this justifies me buying an HDD Blu-Ray recorder...

Radiohead in Saitama Super Arena

I've never been to a concert quite like Radiohead before. They played for over 2.5 hours, came out for double encore, and barely even wasted time talking to the audience. This was a huge difference from the mini concert I saw from J-Pop group Perfume during Summer Sonic music festival. *Flashback to Summer Sonic* We waited for an hour before showtime in a small indoor auditorium that was way overcrowded with drunks, otaku's and innocent girls that did not know the fury of hell they would soon experience. Anyways, when Perfume came out, the crowd went crazy. When I say crazy.. it was like the entire floor became a huge mosh pit. Its fine if everyone was expecting to see Iron Maiden or something and there was an implied discretion that the pit of hell was going to start, but this was Perfume, the 3 girl techno-jpopish group that does a cute introduction of their members that resembles something that Morning Musume would do. Anyways, everyone was pushing, girls were crying, people were falling and calling for Staff assistance. Since my little brother was there, I had to protect him from being trampled in addition to protecting myself. Perfume only ended up "singing" 3 songs and talked the rest of the time before saying good bye. What a huge rip off that was. *Fast forward to the present* My friend managed to get standing tickets closest to the stage. Besides my lower back hurting from the 4 + hours of standing, the concert was worth it. Here are some visuals from the concert (again sorry for the low quality as they were all taken from my mobile phone:








I messed up when I took this video clip, but the LCD screens are supposed to go horizontally not vertically. Oh well, everything looks blurry anyways LOL.



Funny clip of a Japanese chorus group singing Neyo's "Because of you" right outside the arena:

I've heard about it...

but I've never seen it in real life before. Nothing is more refreshing than having a drink from a 90 dollar bottle of Okinawa's finest alcohol....... filled with a dead snake...



*Shivers*

Fall is here and so is the rain

One big thing I was looking forward for the past couple of months was the Vietnamese Festival that occurred last week. I've missed good Vietnamese food ever since I moved to Japan, and unfortunately, I still am. Basically the whole week leading up to the Vietnamese festival weekend was sunny and pleasant, and then the typhoon strategically came and rained out the day I planned to go to the festival. You would think that it would affect the crowds going to the festival, but it didn't. Long lines and people fighting for tables under tents from the heavy rain are not what I consider a fun time. It was just about an hour before my party and I decided to bail out and escape to the Harajuku Comme Ca cafe.



Other than that, nothing much going on. I am doing pretty good at the gym. I haven't seen any significant physical results however I am seeing my energy and stamina getting better. I've been more competitive in my weekly basketball games against the local teenagers. I've also been pretty good on watching what I eat, even though I sorta took a break yesterday as I ate a 5 course meal which included a very rich dessert at a pretty fancy Italian restaurant. My weakness is and will always be good food. I definitely have to burn it all and them some when I head over to the gym after work today.

Finally, I just finished watching the Dallas cowboys lose to the Redskins. It was really hard for me to watch Dallas just blow the game like that. I can't believe they just abandoned their running game like that after it helped them win their first 3 games. After the game, I even turned off my phone just in case any of my heckling Redskin friends decided to call me and start talking trash to me. Good thing I don't see any Redskin fans in Tokyo...

Sometimes...

the grass isn't greener on the other side. I've been trying to find a new job for the longest time since my company started showing signs of instability. Most of the recruiters I have been in contact with pointed me to roles in the finance industry, which would have been a nice change for me as the majority of my professional career has been spent in telecommunications. The majority of the positions presented never materialized even though I had one opportunity literally in my grasp, but at the end the conditions were not favorable so I turned it down. Having said all that, I became really frustrated with myself and the job market here in Tokyo. Now with the recent mayhem going on in the finance industry, my failures in trying to secure a new job seem like a blessing in disguise. I mean, my company's stock has taken a major hit since I've been with them and I've survived what I am told have been the last of the "restructuring efforts", but compared to what the big finance firms are going through, things here doesn't seem so unstable anymore. In addition, my project has been going better than expected. Things are a bit delayed, but if my team can work out the kinks, I should experience job stability and a decent paycheck for at least the next couple of years. I really hope the job market/economy will pick up and stabilize by that time.

Lebron loses

I read an article about Lebron losing in a game of "HORSE" to a contest winner recently. The competition was held right after the Beijing Olympics. I finally found the youtube video for it. The contest winner is a sick dude.

Good start

The NFL season kicked off this weekend and I'm really happy that Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys started off their season with a win. Even with the time difference, I was able to watch the majority of the game live. It was actually by accident because for the past couple of weeks I've been struggling to sleep for a long period of time. I would toss and turn repeatedly and wake up (many times) in the middle of night unable to go back to sleep. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I started going to the gym last week, so my body should be more exhausted than usual, but nope.. I'm wide awake. Anyways, I am going to finish up on some documentation at work and then head over to the gym. Go Cowboys!

I took the plunge...

and got myself a membership at the local gym. My body was getting blown out even though I consistently watched what I ate and have been pretty diligent with my "poor man's" home workouts. I have more rolls on my my stomach than a French bakery shop. Usually joining a gym is not a big deal, but when I'm now obligated to pay 200 bucks a month (no that is not a typo... 2 Franklins or the JPY equivalent every 30 days) for this membership... I literally can't afford to slack off with my body anymore. Anyways, I can now say that I am a member of W.O.W which does not stand for "World of Warcraft", but "Work Out World".

甘い 甘い 甘い 甘い こ い び と。。。

What is the role of HR?

I don't get it. I thought the role of HR was to lure potential recruits and then process them if they are eventually chosen. It seems it is different in Japan. An HR representative from an IT consulting company contacted me a couple of weeks ago for a potential position that they felt I could handle. I accepted and went through a series of interviews with various team members and the PM at the client site. I passed all of them but I was not prepared for the final interview with the HR manager. I thought my final meeting with him was going to be him trying to convince me that their company is the company to join, however it was the complete opposite. The tone of the meeting or interview was like this was the very first interview. He was asking me in-depth questions about my technical skills and past experience like my other interviews never happened. He was marking up my resume like it was the first time he looked at it but in reality, it was him who first contacted me to lure me to his company because of my resume. The interview ended up with him not looking optimistic with my future at the company. I was totally shocked. I mean I don't really need this position because I still have my regular job but I just don't understand how these HR folks have so much say in the hiring matter. The team that I would have worked for all wanted me on-board, but it seemed like that didn't pull any weight. The worst part is that this was not my first time experiencing this crap. The exact same thing happened at my current company during my transfer attempt to Japan. I've never experienced this during my professional career in America so is this only a Japanese phenomenon or does this happen in other parts of the world? If it is the former, this experience has really tainted my view of Japan.

Tamagawa Fireworks

This weekend was full of more fireworks, this time looking at the Tamagawa fireworks from my coworker's house's balcony.



In other news, I just finished watching the Olympic men's 100 meters final race. It was completely insane. Bolt got the world record but I don't understand why did he slowed down about 10 meters before the finish line. He could have gotten a time in the low 9's. I remember the day when it was insane when a runner broke 10 seconds. Its just a matter of time until we see someone run in the 8's.

Visual Recap

My little brother left back to U.S. yesterday afternoon, and I believe he is still flying. I think at this point, he should be hovering near Houston en route to Washington D.C. Anyways, lots of things happened during his stay and I don't have much time to write about them so I will let the pics below do the talking.

Disney Sea:




Kamekura:






Odaiba:




Tottori:


















Short Firework video (taken from my keitai)


Summer Sonic:




Bobby V at Summer Sonic:


I had a great time with my brother, I'll definitely miss him.

Its official...

I'll be having sushi benkei this weekend.

Too many earthquakes

There was a pretty big earthquake in Tohoku ...again. That region has experienced too many bad earthquakes in the past couple of months. Fortunately, the intensity of the earthquake wasn't so bad in Setagaya-ku but this was one of the longest tremors I have felt since I've been in Japan.

Really short notice, but I may head to Yonago this weekend for a few days to have my brother experience the countryside of Japan. If we do go, one of the things I really want to do is go camping. I've actually never been camping before, so I'm not sure where this desire came from, but I hope it isn't very difficult to do this. The Sakaiminato summer festival will also be held this weekend. One of the big attractions there is their fireworks. It isn't as big as the firework events in Tokyo, but since it is the countryside, there won't be huge epic-like crowds. Last time I've been there, back in 2004, I remember feeling the boom of every firework explosion. It would be really cool to have my brother experience that. Since this idea is really last minute, I will need to start analyzing different aspects like budget and see if this potential trip will conflict with any plans I had going on here in Tokyo.

Lastly, in my theme of jumping between totally different topics, I find it strange that in most murder crimes that Fuji TV reports, they use the anime background music of "Death Note".

"Yeah~"

Met up with Jim and Akiko yesterday in what may be the last time we can hang out before they move to the U.S. We hung out at the Ebisu area to have dinner before they stopped over at my place to chill and hangout one last time with my dog. It was really cool laughing at old times and catching up with them. I definitely will miss them.

In other news my neighbors are being a pain in the ass again. Ever since I moved to my apartment, my neighbors have always been unreasonably loud especially late at night either yelling at their dogs (when I say yelling, I'm talking about those types of yells a drunk yakuza would say to another before they brawl) or singing opera, usually the female parts. The worst thing they have been doing lately though was smoke on the balcony while my freshly washed clothes are drying and they end up smelling like crap after wards. A month ago, I've complained about my neighbors to the management and they gave them a stern warning that if another complaint were to come about them, the management company would ask for them to move out. It has been good until just a few days ago when they started going back into his old ways. I'm debating whether to pull the trigger and complain again and force my neighbors to move out. This may sound naive but given the recent random violence going on in the news, there is a small fear lingering inside me that if I disgruntle them they may retaliate in one form or another. Is it worth to take that chance?

Best of the Bestest

I am really exhausted from the Bennie K concert at Zepp Tokyo. It was a great concert and I was really satisfied in my very first J-pop concert in Japan.



This was not my first time at Zepp Tokyo. I went there to see Jay-Z almost 6 years ago. I forgot how small this place was. Luckily, Japanese people are a lot tamer than the people you would find in similar over-crowded concert venues in the states. Going inside Zepp Tokyo was like boarding a Southwest airplane. Every ticket has a specific number and when they call the ticket's number range, that is when you are allowed to enter the venue and try to find any open space available. Even though my ticket fell in the higher number range, my group and I managed to get a good spot in the middle about 10 meters away from the stage. Start time for the concert was around 6:30pm but Bennie K took the stage about 10 minutes later. They rocked the stage for about 2 hours and it was crazy from beginning to end. I was really impressed in the performance quality of Bennie K especially Yuki's live singing ability and the energy they brought throughout the whole concert. I'm happy to say that everyone I went with had a good time and that we are all bigger fans of Bennie K.

Afterwords we chilled in Odaiba for a while which included riding the brightly lit Ferris Wheel. I'm not so good in dealing with heights so I had sweaty palms throughout the ride.





The Ferris wheel itself is pretty spectacular at night, but it looks even cooler when it is reflected off on the buildings across from it. As you can see above, I failed to adequately take a picture of the coolness from my mobile phone's camera.

トレイン・トレイン

In the 5th most peaceful country in the world, I saw the first train altercation last night. While passing Osaki on the Yamanote line, I heard shouting and a loud thump right behind me. I immediately turned back and saw a standing young man grabbing an older man's neck who was sitting pressing his head against the window. The young man started repeating in Japanese "What do you mean it can't be helped?". Soon after, a couple of passengers interfered very politely and asked if everything was fine and tried to quietly help the two men resolve their issues. The young man was surprisingly polite to everyone else and even started smiling and laughing with them. When the other people decided to back off, the young man continued to yell at the old man and took the old man's newspaper and ripped it up in front of him. A couple of new people crowded with the young man and again politely started to resolve the situation peacefully. This time they continued to be with them until everyone including myself got off at Shinjuku station. On the way out, I heard one man yell at them "Lets get along!".

Being the nosy guy I am, I had to ask the details of the whole commotion and what started it, because my Japanese is the same level as a 7 year kid. Apparently, the young guy was standing in front of the old man in the crowded train. The old man either kicked or stepped on the young man's foot. The young man who looked like a cross between a skater and a punk wearing sandals was a bit agitated and asked the old man "Why do you keep stepping/kicking me?" and the old man rudely replied "Its a crowded train, that's how it goes" and continued to read his newspaper. Obviously it wasn't a very smart answer in this situation and aggravated an over emotional guy which ultimately led to the old man having a bruised neck and an unreadable newspaper.

On a positive note to this matter was that even though the cause was pretty ridiculous and over dramatic, it was very encouraging to see other people interfering and not let the situation get out of hand in a peaceful matter. The Japanese society is usually depicted around the world and even in their own culture as being passive, sometimes too passive where people do not want to interfere in one's business even if a helpless person is in need. I'm happy to say that times are changing.

Let's Matsuri!

Let the Summer Festivals (夏祭り) begin!







The above pictures was a 2 day matsuri at Asakusa. In other news, I have finally decided not to get the iPhone. Though it may be the best 携帯 in the market right now, I don't think the approximate 100 USD per month in basic voice and unlimited data plan for the next 2 YEARS in addition to the quality of carrier is worth it. As an alternative of mimicking me getting an iPhone without losing one of my arms, I will wait a couple of months and try to upgrade my current handset later in the fall, only if there are desirable ones released by AU. The current summer line has not appealed to me at all. I also plan to replace my old school non picture/video iPod with a newer generation iPod Touch that should come out either September or October of this year. Hopefully it will inherit some of the new goodies that the 3G iPhone has now.

We be burnin'..... cash

It has been a really hot weekend. I tried to man up this year and see if I could resist using the AC until at least the third week or so of July, but this weekend was just too unbearable. The news said that the past weekend broke record high temperatures in Japan. The AC got a month's worth of utilization in the past 24 hours. I know I'm going to see a big hit in the wallet when the electric bill comes.

Speaking of the wallet, this month and next will not be kind to the bank of "moi". I have been spending money like I'm drinking water. Not all my colorful bills have been spent frivolously. I have recently bought some household items that I managed to do without in the past year like a microwave/oven. Before, I used the fish grill below the gas range to toast my bread but 8 out of 10 times it usually resulted in my bread catching on fire and me eating a soggy piece of burnt dough at the end. I have been wanting to get a Blu-ray HDD recorder, but with the way I've been spending money, it will definitely have to wait at least another month. Also there is the iPhone I've talked about in my last entry and now I'm debating whether it is worth denting my monthly budget further. The reason why I need to pay attention to my budget carefully this summer is because my little brother will be here soon to stay for the summer so I definitely anticipate my spending to increase from eating out, shopping and going to places like Disney Sea, Hakone, and Summer Sonic music festival. I hear that people usually get a summer bonus in their salary during this time. I doubt I will get one, but I really really hope that the salary fairy will make a visit and bless my bank account.

Pondering whether to get the iPhone

So next Friday, Softbank will sell the iPhone in Japan. I actually have been waiting for the damn thing to get here since it came out in the states. I currently have AU and am debating whether to make the switch to Softbank to get it. My mobile work phone is Softbank and I have to admit that it doesn't get nearly the same reception as my AU phone. I haven't seen any current and upcoming AU phones that even competes against the iPhone. Docomo has a couple of options like the Sharp touch screen which doesn't look so good and the outrageously priced LG Prada phone (approx 980 USD). I remember when I first came to Japan 6 years ago to visit, I was really impressed with my friends' mobile phones. The full color screen, multi color lights and built in camera really made my monochrome Nokia 6520, which was the "it" phone back then look like crap. Now that I'm living in Japan, the tables have turned and the phones here besides the 1 seg television and mobile Suica functions seem to be less advanced than their U.S. counterpart. Anyways, there is still a chance that the iPhone may come to Docomo which I would be more comfortable in switching to but waiting longer for that to happen, if it does ever happen is harder said than done... This concludes my geek related entry.

No more touch! The group picture

I just received pictures of our entertainment during the "No more touch!" night. This one picture in particular just makes me crack up every time I look at it. Hopefully no one in the groups looks at this blog hehe.

Heavy Rain + Soccer = World Cup Qualifiers Nippon vs. Bahrain

It was pouring all day but that didn't phase anyone who was going to see their beloved Nippon national soccer.. I mean football team take on Bahrain, which I must admit did not know existed until earlier last week. Saitama Stadium was packed and the 20 minute walk from the station to the stadium gave nostalgic memories of RFK stadium when I used to see the Washington Nationals back home. I sported my outdated Nakata jersey inside my rain coat and was relieved to see that not everyone was wearing the new color uniforms. As for the game itself, Nippon miraculous scored a goal in the final minutes to beat Bahrain 1 - 0 when Uchida made a header appearing to pass to his team mate to score but ended up in the back of the net. It was a great experience, if you excluded what appeared to be the endless rain that managed to pierce through my rain coat and successfully drenched my underwear. Anyways, here are some pics of the night.

Eating in the sky

Getting a concert ticket...

at face value is extremely difficult in Japan. At least the ones in Tokyo. Tokyo is the worlds most populated city, or at least is in the top 5 and competition is fierce to get anything desirable (e.g. 45 min - 1 hour waiting time to just enter the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in Shinjuku). For concert events that I have wanted to go I always had to enter myself in a lottery type of system just to qualify myself to purchase the tickets. If I don't qualify, then I have to battle it out at yahoo auctions to find a ticket that isn't marked up by 200%. Anyways, I have FINALLY won a ticket lottery and got myself Bennie K tickets for their concert at Zepp Tokyo this July. I am totally stoked. Check them out at their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/benniek

No more touch!

This past weekend was action packed, well at least to my standards. A friend currently working in HK came to visit Tokyo for the weekend. Though we met up on Friday, the action packed night was on Saturday. We all started the night off with a good Yakiniku dinner in Ebisu then headed off to Shibuya for some drinks.

The first bar we went to had a Hawaiian motif. That place was decent. Nothing too special about that place except for the soba like appetizer which kept flying into my eyes when I would bite into them. We moved to a second bar near by that is known for its all red decoration and met up with other people. It started out kind of slow there until an already intoxicated group who just came from a wedding showed up. They were really load and started doing some mentally inexplainable actions. Of course, a bit buzzed, we were intrigued by this and we started communicating with them. One thing led to another and they moved to our next table. They had a chant for everything, from "Obama!" to "No more touch!" when one of the guys accidentally touched one the girls in our group. It was hilarious. There was also another group that seemed to have drank a lot and we saw this one guy trying to do everything in his power not to puke while he was waiting for the bathroom to open up. It didn't look like he made it and we even took pictures of him during his vulnerable moment.

When our entertainment slowly became more sleepy and unresponsive, we headed out to karaoke and finished off our night, or morning at that point eating ramen. The last time I stayed out until the next morning was in early March when M and C came to visit. Actually staying out all night and wasting the following day turned out to be good for us. Had we gone home early to explore more of Tokyo the next day, I was planning to take them to Akihabara, which would have potentially exposed us to the stabbing incident that occurred. It is really sad that the incident occurred, and like I mentioned in my previous post, the increase in violence in Japan is disturbing, especially random ones like what occurred in Akihabara.

Too hectic

Things have been too hectic here. Work has been kicking my butt and caused me to suffer greatly this past week. On Thursday, I was stuck on a 9 hour conference call and could barely do anything else like eat a decent meal before heading out to one of my coworker's birthday dinner later that evening. The place was at a wine bar and had a buffet style dinner menu. The dinner started out with drinks and when the food came out, I was a bit surprise on the portion size, as it was way too small for the 20 + people that was in attendance. It seemed everyone also didn't have a decent lunch so there was a mad rush to get the food. Unfortunately for me, I was too slow to pick up a decent amount of food. The stress that I have endured the past few days caused me to drink glasses of wine like water and before I knew it, I was drunk. I'm not quite sure if I was in the state where I started seeing doubles of everyone but I would say I was pretty close to that. Even though I was barely conscious, I was alert enough to try to make it home before the last train and luckily for me, one of my coworkers who lives just a stop away from me also decided to come home at the same time. I followed him and he made sure I got off at my stop. After that, I really had no clue how I went home. I remember getting off the train, but the next thing I knew I was vomiting in my apartment. No idea what happened in between. Anyways, I suffered quite a bit the next day. I had another conference call with my client in the morning, but I convinced him to delay it a few hours while I try to sober up. It was pretty bad. The finance and HR guy want to go to a beer garden (not really sure what it is as I've never been to one before, but I'm assuming its a happy hour like event with discounts on beer) on Monday night with me so I have to make sure I eat a decent size lunch and be very careful not to over drink like I usually do.

On a lighter subject, I went to my first Costco in Japan this past weekend. It was almost exactly like the one back home. The prices were a tad more expensive than the states, but they still had huge slices of pizza for less then 3 bucks and 2 dollar hot dog/drink combos. It was a good time.

Finally, Japan is considered a safe place to live especially having previously lived in the Washington D.C. area where there is a new story of someone getting shot or robbed almost everyday on the news. However, I feel disturbed on the number of stabbing/cutting stories I have been hearing on the local news recently. The latest being where a man went to invade his neighbors apartment and killed her. The sickest part of the story is that he cut up her body into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet. The parts where it wasn't flushable, he mixed it in with his burnable trash. The news crew interviewed the guy because he lived just two doors down from the "missing woman" before he became a suspect. He acted totally normal and had a smile like nothing happened. Stuff like this is just too sick for me to comprehend.

New times with an old friend

This past week, I met my friend who I have known since middle school (junior high school) who came to Japan on business for a week. Since we were both busy, we managed to hang out a couple times during his stay. He actually finished his work in half a week and spent the other half exploring Tokyo with his coworker. I was surprised on what they accomplished in Tokyo, being that it was their first time here and all they used was wikitravel. They actually experienced things here that I have never done. For the times we did meet, we got to chill in Shinjuku and Roppongi. It was really weird meeting him in a place that wasn't Northern VA or CA. We ended up enjoying great food, good discussions, even got to meet new people and enjoyed a unique event watching my coworker's wife's Japanese Belly Dance crew perform. It was a pity that we could not hang out longer but it was good to get some new experiences with my old friend. Pictures will be posted soon when I get them.

Orlando magic gone...

Well, I finished watching the last game of the Magic's season. They were beat in 5 games to again.. the Detroit Pistons. What a demoralizing loss. I feel the same way I did when Dallas choked their season away to the now Superbowl Champion Giants. The Magic had countless times to win the game (and other games in this series) but they literally gave the ball away to the Pistons. The Magic played so sloppy, even after some of their players guaranteed a win days before. It was a disappointing end to a very good season. I'm not sure who to pull for anymore in the playoffs and actually not so excited about basketball anymore. Oh well, this will get my attention focused more on what is important than watching basketball games.

Golden weekend

Every year Japan has Golden week which is a series of national holidays that fall consecutively in the beginning of May. This year, 2 of those holidays fell under Saturday and Sunday, and the other days, I had to work. Yeah, so basically, it was just another weekend, except there were less people in Tokyo than usual.



Saturday was spent just walking around my area. I've recently have gotten off my diet and been eating fast food again. While walking to MOS burger, I saw the new Nissan GTR. Man it looked so nice. This was the first time I saw the car in public. I must say that it looked a lot sweeter in person.



I spent my Sunday at Chiba visiting my friend's family's house. Their vacation house is located in the countryside of Chiba. It was nice and very chill. I like relaxing weekends like this, but at the same time I'm starting to crave a wild weekend where I can just let loose and be crazy. Basically, reliving my university days.

On a last note: We've been having lots of earthquakes in Tokyo. There was somewhat of a big one yesterday and a couple of tremors today. I wonder if the "big" one is going to hit soon.

3 years gone too fast

Its been exactly 3 years since I last saw my mom. Its crazy how 1 month quickly turns into 1 year and 1 year turns into 3. Life goes by too fast...

Alone at Tully's

It has been a while since I had the opportunity to go to a cafe by myself and escape my worries. There is a Tully's coffee cafe at the bottom of my office, which I hardly go to because I'm not much of a coffee drinker to begin with but yesterday, I decided to finish up work a bit earlier than usual to go to the cafe and collect my thoughts. It felt damn good to just sit alone, read a magazine, while sipping an espresso and listening to the jazz playing in the background.

In other news, I have been getting really interested in an expensive hobby. This is not good especially since my financial situation will be a bit rocky in the coming months.

Opposite food

Went to eat Vietnamese food last night. There was a great deal, at least at the time where it was a 30 dollar course dinner set. I read the menu items and it looked like a great bargain for dinner for two. The food was honestly quite good, and one of the best Vietnamese food that I have tried in Tokyo thus far. Even though I had a great deal, I didn't go overboard in ordering drinks, actually I only ordered Vietnamese ice coffee (which was more like Cafe au lait) and tea. Come time to paying the bill, I had my 30 something dollars at hand but the cash register had other plans. It flashed out a gentle green colored 71 dollars equivalent on the screen. I was shocked. It turns out the dinner set was 30 dollars PER PERSON. We questioned the clerk about the price and even though the price did not say 30 dollars per group, it didn't say per person either. The whole time I was expecting something almost half that price, so my fingers felt ashamed when it had to go fetch ichiman yen (100 dollar equivalent) bill for Vietnamese food. Coming from the D.C. area, Vietnamese food was always known as "cheap eats" while Japanese food was known as the most expensive out of the Asian cuisines. It really feels weird that it is now opposite here in Japan.

Izu Recap and work sucks

I apologize in being late to post about the trip to Izu, but man, its been a wild and hectic week for me. Basically work is going downhill for me. The company is struggling and I will find myself in the open market very soon. Currently, I am frantically trying to polish my overall skills and am networking as much as I can and pray that my efforts will get me some leads to some decent opportunities here in Tokyo or any part of Japan. Its a tough time, but as people have been telling me, try to stay positive and everything will work itself out.

Speaking of positivity, my trip to Izu was very fun and relaxing. The best part about it was being able to hang out with Jim and Akiko again. Overall, the food was great, experienced clean and fresh air, lots of greenery, nice onsen, and oddly enough went to a teddy bear museum. The only negative thing I would say about the trip was that it ended too soon. I don't have too much time left to go into detail of my trip so please enjoy the pics below.