So long and thanks for the fish.

Heading home in a couple of hours.
I already want to come back.
*deep sigh*

Ah well. With a little luck and some planning I'll be back in March...
I leave you with this picture, and add that no I did not buy any t-shirts this time.

Sayonara.

Believe it or not...

...but I found another garden I hadn't visited before. The Koishikawa Korakuen.
Perfect start of a Thursday I'd say. Spent some hours walking through winding paths, up and down hills, in and out of "forests" and enjoying the sights. Contemplated by a lake for a while and just soaked up some sun.

I still think it's a bit sad that I have to travel half around the world to find such peace as I find in these gardens...

Walked from the garden to Akiba, some 3km, to switch back into "city-mode". The midday sun was burning hot today. Felt more like 30 than 23. I found a place to eat where they did not have an English menu and the waitress did not know more than "welcome", "sit here" and "yes" in English.
This is what you end up with when you try to decode the pictures in the menu and match towards your memories of similar menu-pictures from other restaurants:

Do not ask me what it was, I do not know. But the noodles hiding under that "something" was uncooked. Yup. Crunchy... That was a new first. Not the best meal I've had, but it did what it was supposed to do - quench the hunger. And for ¥500 (around SEK40) I guess I shouldn't expect more...

Sleepy

I didn't get much sleep last night, or the night before that...
So I think I need some extra hours soon in order to be able to at least take a quick tour the nightlife in Shibuya tonight...

The day has been spend in meditation in yet another garden. This time it was the Hama Rikyu. A big garden, not as compact and crowded with sights as some of the others. Beautiful. Lot's of water in this one. And the view from the tea house was really nice. Some pictures...

Oh. And this garden had a free audio/video tour guide. Using a GPS it cut in to say things about the sights around you. Nice stuff. No. It was not an iPhone/Pod/Pad.

After spending four hours in the park I headed to Roppongi for lunch and a little walk through the more artsy-fartsy parts of the city. Always nice.

Now, like I said, I need to get some shut-eye or my brain will melt...

A late update

Forgot to update yesterday, so I add some notes today.
It's 5:30am and I cannot sleep anyway, so...

Yesterday was a half-day, in the sense that I only had vacation half of the day. The morning was spend with a walk around the old palace grounds and the gardens.
Some photos are in order I guess...

Spent the time after lunch and before work in a cafe reading a book. I think I'm starting to wind down. Too bad I still can't sleep during the night though...

Birthday, Blowfish and Beer

Yesterday was my birthday and this is how I spent it...

Got an early start and headed out for breakfast at the Café de crie just around the corner. Took my time, read a book and enjoyed my coffee. After finishing breakfast I headed to the Rikugien garden.
Not all trees has turned their leaves to autumn colors, but the ones that has was a bright contrast to the greens. Beautiful.

I spend a couple of hours just walking around and taking in the sights. It's amazing how much details come out when you slow down and really start to look at the surroundings...
Relaxed I then headed to Harajuku for a late sushi lunch. Mmm. Sweet. I indulged wholeheartedly and ended somewhere around 30 pieces. Sometimes you just got to dive in... Walked around Harajuku for another couple of hours, stopped by the Baird Brewery Taproom and said hello, tasted a new beer and read a little.

Went back to my hotel to freshen up for the evening. And the evening...well...
First - I decided to try fugu. Fugu is the Japanese word for blowfish.
The whole experience was a bit of a blur... Of course I was nervous. With all the hype around this fish it is hard not to be once it is time for the first bite.
I had a "sampler platter", that is four different dishes of different parts of the fish. It was beautifully arranged and the waiter instructed me in which order and how to eat it. Satisfaction for the eyes - high.
The taste? Well. Apart from the rush of adrenaline as you munch down the first bite, the knot in your stomach as you wait, the desperate gulping of beer while waiting some more...it was not that special.
It tasted bland. No really distinct "this is blowfish" taste. A bit on the chewy side also, it's not melting in your mouth... Over all a bit of a disappointment.
But now I've tried it and I won't have to do it again... Fun rush though, and I definitely don't want the experience undone.

After finishing the blowfish I headed towards Mother. The place where they play music so loud you have to scream to each other to be heard. It's a nice place though. Lots of fun and good music.
And as always...I ended up partying 'til early morning light. *ouff*
Got back to my hotel at around 7am this morning. Went to sleep and slept for 10 hours straight... Had a message on my hotel voice-mail from housekeeping who wanted to know if I wanted cleaning or not today, and then another who said that it was now too late for cleaning. Gnuff... Ok, I probably needed that.

After that I've not done much, but I feel a lot better. I guess I'll spend the rest of the evening at a cafe just reading a book and sign this day of as buffer-time... I had a great birthday, and that's what counts.

Bzzzzzzzzz

The water, painkillers and sleep did not do the trick this time.
I managed to drag myself out into the evening to hunt down something to eat (noodles and a beer), took a walk around the block just to stretch the legs, and headed back to the hotel.

Hopefully I'll get an early start tomorrow...

Welcome to Japan

Arrival at Narita.
Customs guy: Konnichiwa!
Me: Konnichiwa! *hands over passport and declarations form*
Customs guy: *long fast sentences* *looks at me*
Me: Nihongo ga hanasemasen. Eigo ga hanasemaska? (I don't speak Japanese. Do you speak English?)
Customs guy: Ah. But you speak small Japanese. Yes? ("small" here meaning "a little", small/little are often interchangeable in Japanese)
Me: Sukoshi. (little)
Customs guy: *big smile* See. Small Japanese. Very good!

And so the customs guy flips through my passport...
Customs guy: Why many times in Japan? *points to all my visas in the passport*
Me: Because I like Japan.Watashi wa Nippon ga dai suki desu. Did I say that correct?
Customs guy: *even bigger smile than before* Me too! Also like Japan. Yes.

And the customs guy looks at my bag without opening it, hands me my passport and says "Yoi ichinichi o" (Have a nice day).

That was probably the easiest wave-through of the Narita customs I've ever had. So, kids, from this we learn - stay in school, learn a foreign language and you get better treatment. ;-)

And speaking of better treatment. I got upgraded. Again.
This time I had boarded the plane, found my seat and sat myself down when two Japanese girls stopped at the seats and started talking to each other. After some conversation amongst themselves one of them took out her boarding pass and said "25B" - which was the same as I had.
A flight attendant was called, some rushing back and forth commenced and then she (the flight attendant) uttered those sweet sweet words:
"Sir, you have been upgraded. Please follow me to your new seat. Would you like me to carry something for you?"

Aaaah. Those like honey and silk to my ears. No business class though, "only" economy extra. But the extra legroom and width of the seat is just enough to make the flight comfortable. Still not able to sleep, but at least my muscles didn't crumple up and die...

So, yes - it's good to be me.

Now I've checked in to my hotel and my brain hurts like crazy. I need to catch a few hours of sleep before I can do anything else. A bottle of water, a painkiller and 2-3h of sleep should do the trick.

Up in the air

The bag is packed and I'm ready to go.
The flight doesn't take off until this afternoon, so I'm working in the morning and will probably leave for airport-land around lunch.

Still no itinerary for the week in Tokyo, I'm just going to do whatever pops up for the day.
The weather forecast looks promising - Sun, 15-18°C - so I'll probably take long walks around the city and its parks.

Now time to wrap up the last presentation and emails and set the out-of-office reply to activate at 12:00CET. Next post in Tokyo!

New Title

Yup. It's time for a new title here. A new title means a new trip.
In 13 day's I'm back in Japan. Tokyo for a week. Mmm. Fun fun fun.

I'll be posting now and then when I'm there. See you then.

End of days

Last day of the trip.
I spent it walking around Akihabara (or Akiba as it is more familiarly know here) and Shibuya.
Akiba to just browse all the junk there is collected in one place. It's amazing. There are shops selling nothing but old PC-parts that looks like they will not even work. And of course there are about one million stores selling manga, anime and all the hentai versions of them as well.

One store was selling old videogame, both cartridges and the consoles, and I found a Sega Mastersystem that I actually thought of buying. But something stopped me at the last minute.

Unfortunately they didn't have any cartridges for the Mastersystem. I could use some cheap ones to experiment on for trying to build something that connects the Mastersystem that I've got to the PC so that it can be used in creating weird noises together with the MSX...


Also found this store that had nothing but different keyboards in it (some hundred different types, including the different versions of HHKB of course), I guess at least one of my friends would have like that place. ;-)

Shibuya to browse for music and to eat (eating in Akiba - not so much). Also remembered to write a postcard to my mom, she's big on postcards and I have promised to write her one whenever I'm abroad for more than a day or two. Got to be a good boy you know...

Tonight I've been asked to join up for a punk concert, but I'm having second thoughts about that. I know that it will not end with just the concert and it will probably end up being really really really late. Guess when I have to leave my hotel for the airport? Uhu, at 6am...
Ah well. We'll see. At least I'll stop by Mother to say goodbye...

Now signing off, no more updates here. I'll be back in Sweden tomorrow evening.

Gnfrghlgnyff!

Today I felt like I deserved when waking up...
The reason is spelled "Mother".
What was supposed to be only a beer or two and some music for an hour or two turned into an all-nighter... At 5:30 I found myself having sushi breakfast/night-snack in Tsukiji with people from the bar. That was so not the plan... But I had fun.

Needless to say I slept 'til noon. Waking up and walking outside I was hit by the +34°C and high humidity - that is not a nice temperature to be a little hung over in. But after a double shot of espresso and a liter of water I was actually way more fit for fight than I thought I'd be. Letting the night play back in my head I realize I didn't have that many beers and they were all small ones (33cl), it just got very very late. God I'm getting old...

I managed to get a picture at Mother this time, which didn't end up all out of focus or just black, or at least of its "Current playing CD"-stand and a small selection of the liquor stash.

The CD on the stand in this picture is Type O Negative (or "Tipe O Negative" as it is indexed in the music menu...) - World Coming Down, and the song playing is Everyone I Love Is Dead. That's the only T0- record they have. Note to self - next time I'm going to Tokyo, bring T0- CD's and give to bartender.


And here I am at the bar. You can tell from my smile that I like this place, right?.. ;-) And yes, I'm wearing ear-plugs. I'm a wuss I know. But I'd like to keep my hearing for a couple of years to come thank you very much...

Photo taken shortly after I arrived at the bar. It was only me, one bartender, some Australian guy and a Japanese "salaryman" there by then, but some time after midnight the place filled up.

But even after recouping from the night quite quickly I spent the afternoon just walking around Shinjuku flipping through records, sipping coffee and watching people go about their lives. I managed to find that record store that I thought had closed the other day - turned out they had re-branded itself with a new name and the sign for the shop came up again today. I also found a nice little psytrance clothing and record shop in a basement some blocks away from the aforementioned record shop. Nice, nice, nice.
No records in my bag though - didn't find anything "out of the ordinary" or distinct Japanese.