Haneda Airport International Terminal

I'm back!

So I left Japan last September 9 to go on a holiday in my home country, the Philippines, and I promised I would blog about the Japanese food there. Well, oops. I didn't have time. It's because the reason why I went on a holiday there was actually to meet my very first, newborn son for the very first time. I was actually a week too late already but at least I got to spend time with him on his 2nd and 3rd weeks on earth. And man, if you're a parent, you know what those first few weeks entail. But, it was all good.

So anyways, I do have a few things to blog about, with some related to food in Japan. This first one is all about the Haneda (Tokyo International) Airport International Terminal from where I took off. I have lots of pictures. Check 'em all out below.

Found in Japan: USB Flash Drives

Can a picture say a thousand words? This we found at the souvenir shop at the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. There's no entrance fee to go up there, by the way.

From carbonaramara.com

Sakura Hanami in Chidorigafuchi

The Japan! Japan! Video Blog Episode #36 features our videos from our trip from Atsugi to Chidorigafuchi in Tokyo for some cherry blossom (sakura) viewing (hanami).  It's over an hour long, because the cherry trees are just so nice to look at, plus there's just so many of them. If you want you can skip over the "intro" which features some along-the-train-route sights of Tokyo, and start at around the 10:30 mark to see sakura already. We also dropped by the Nippon Budoukan and the Yasukuni Shrine.

Harajuku+Yoyogi 2

I visited the Harajuku/Omotesando/Yoyogi area for the 4th time this year, this time by myself though. And this is my second video around the place, but this time I videoed some new stuff. Check it out:



You can view the video directly on YouTube at this link: The Japan! Japan! Video Blog Episode #11.  This and the last 2 episodes are all available in HD. :-D

I also have two new basketball videos.  Wala lang.
The Japan! Japan! Video Blog Sideline #01
The Japan! Japan! Video Blog Sideline #02

Harajuku, Cos Players, Meiji Jingu Shrine, and a Japanese Wedding

If you can't view the above, you can view it directly from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qEDl5hqYsA

Very Weekling

It has been 10 days since my last post.  I am calling Japan Blog 2.0 quits.  I am just too busy nowadays I think.  And I think it will be this way until the end of my 3-years here in Japan.  I've been here just 4.5 months so far.

But this don't mean I ain't posting nothing no more.  I'll still be here.  Just not regularly anymore.  Certainly not daily, but no, I can't promise weekly posts.  My intention also is to post more photos.  Or do a videoblog.  But I can't promise anything.

And, as you can see, I've been blogging on practically a daily basis for my 1st 4 months here.  That is a world record.  4 straight months of daily updates!

Unfortunately, like for most part-time bloggers, and now, the end is near, for daily blogging.  I do not have anything in mind yet for Japan Blog 3.0.  But I do know that I plan to gather together all my Japan posts into this one blog, which means my posts for my Japan Blog 1.0 (from 2005) will also be found here in the near future.

Anyways, just to let you know, I finished two papers the past week.  I had been delaying it because I thought it would be easy enough - supposedly I have the materials to write them.  But, no, it wasn't easy.  I was just too busy last Thursday and Friday, and then Saturday - Microsoft Word crashed on me!  Well I was doing structural analysis and other stuff in the background so that might have added to it.  What happened though was that I was already 90% finished on my first paper and boom, I went back down to probably 70% finished.  I just thought, 70% is better than 0%.  Thank you (or not) for those Auto-Recovery functions of Word.  Anyways, I was so on a roll those two days, but when that happened, I just went blank.  I just didn't wanna do it anymore.  I spent just two hours or less on it during the weekend.

But that is so also because we went to this eat-all-you-can/tabehodai place called "Carnival Buffet."  Western food?  Nope.  It's "Western."  (Emphasis on the quotation marks.)  It is actually Japanese-style Western food.  There's a salad bar, a drinks bar, your choice of ramen, udon, or soba noodles.  There are 4 kinds of pizza - two are more like Indian-style pizza.  There is curry.  Japanese love curry.  There was roast beef for a little while.  There are these small hamburgers that you heat on a teppanyaki grill yourself.  And hotcake mix for making hotcakes for yourself.  There was fried chicken and sausages, and pizza - did I already say there was pizza?  I ate mostly the fried chicken, the sausages, and the pizza.  I have been craving for real pizza.  Or the taste of cheese.  It was good enough.  The fried chicken tastes a lot better (more Western-tasting maybe?) than the fried chicken at the cafeterias here in school.  Then there was a salad bar where I had me a medley of fruits and an ice cream.  Then "ka-ching!"  I thought, I could have a float as well. So I made a Coke (Zero) Float.  Yum.  I was already "wa chun la" (200% full) just before eating dessert.  I was "wa chuns la" (so full, I'm almost like dead) after the float.  It was a good ending to a 1500 yen meal.

And then we rode our bikes back home.  It was quite a long ride, and then I checked using Google Maps how long our trip was.  It was 6.4 km each way!  By the time we got back to the apartment, we were back to "wa pao la" (100% full) again.

Anyways, it was probably that long bicycle ride, maybe 40 minutes each way, that got to me.  I was so dead tired on Sunday.  It was a no-day.  I was just at home.  But I did find the need to go the grocery store.  But I just can't ride the bike again.  No sir, not yet.  So I took the bus.  And then, lo and behold.  The supermarket was probably nearly half empty of groceries!  I saw two of my fellow students and they confirmed, we should just come back another day.  Anyways, I did go back the next day, and it was still probably close to half empty.  But there were a number of employees putting some stocks back on the racks.  It is so weird.  I noticed then that apparently the furniture outlet store right beside it is closed.  Is something going on?  I really don't know.  I wasn't able to find some of the stuff I needed so I went to the nearby grocery store #2, "Coop."  It was my first time ever to visit a Coop grocery store.  My friend told me about it already but I forgot - you have to pay a hefty amount for plastic bags.  Anyways, it was a good thing I had extra plastic bags.

On Wednesday night, I feasted on sweet, sweet Tacos.  12 of them. :-D  And then just today, I finalized probably 3 dishes: tokwa't baboy, postek, and sinuglaw.  It was my first time ever to prepare tokwa't baboy - not a problem actually.  But it was my first time ever to prepare kinilaw na tuna.  I wondered how come my kinilaw at first didn't look at all like the ones I order from most restaurants.  I think, based on what I read, that kinilaw actually has coconut milk or something.  Anyways, I bought so much pork, I converted the kinilaw into sinuglaw, a mix of sinugba and kinilaw.  Sinugba of course is Bisaya for inihaw.  For the tokwa, I used Japanese tofu, of course. :-)

Wait, Ronjie, you bought so much pork??????  Yes, I bought them last Sunday but because I felt so tired that day, I was able to cook them all only now.  It's not that I eat pork only.  The last couple of days, I've been eating beef.  I had tapsilog the last two days, and Tacos (ground beef) last night.  My tapsilog looked better than ever.  It is because this time I was able to buy a cut of beef that was more appropriate for tapa.  It tasted great as well.  Recipe was from my mom.  I didn't use patis though.

Last Sunday, my engineering mentor, Doc Benny, arrived here in Tokyo for a 3-day conference and so we met up Tuesday night, together with my former thesis adviser, Prof Fer.  We went to the Imperial Palace and the Asakusa area.  I didn't realize that the walk to the Imperial Palace was that long.  Actually, we did a lot of walking, even just for getting to/from the train stations and transferring between stations.  Anyway, the Palace grounds was just so huge a place.  Sunset actually caught us there.

When we got to Asakusa, most shops were closed.  The good thing was, there were very few people.  I didn't think the Sensoji Temple would look so much better in the evening.  And then, we had dinner at this ramen and gyoza resto wherein they serve...  just one kind of ramen, and gyoza!  Their specialty, apparently.  Not the greatest, but pretty good.  Not so salty ramen.  They had beer and Japanese sake (or rice wine; beer is also sake, actually because sake literally translates to alcoholic beverage.) as well; we had a cup each of sake.  Pretty strong.  And overall, a pretty good dinner: the ambience, the company, the food.  It was a fun evening and it was nice to meet up with fellow Filipinos and chat in Tagalog.  Doc Benny, who probably spent 6 or more years here in Japan for his PhD and associate professorship back in the 80s, still had very good Nihongo.  But he wisely chose when to use it and when not.

So, well, that's it.  Back to the books.  Stay tuned for updates here and there.  God bless, everyone!

Hangover

Well, no, I wasn't drunk last night, but "for my age," and not really being a regular drinker, it was a little bit more than I could take for the next day (today) to be normal and as if nothing happened yesterday.

Anyways, Windows Media Player has this problem of not playing playlists right away (which serves as my alarm) because it asks you if it is okay to "erase" the previous playlist with the new one, even if they're both the same.  And so my alarm didn't work and I woke up quite late; too late to get to the 12 noon mass in the 2-hour away Meguro area.  But actually I was also feeling a little bit like, I want to rest some more!  Anyhow, I had to go to mass and so, without having eaten lunch yet, I left home and took the 3:20pm bus.

I got to Hon-Atsugi and suddenly I felt the hunger so I had me a quick, whopping meal. :-D  I got to Komabatodaimae (that translates to "In front of Todai/Tokyo Daigaku/University of Tokyo, Komaba campus") station at just before 5pm.  Took me a little while walking, then I got in time for the Gloria part of the 5pm mass at the Piarist Catholic Chapel.  The mass finished at only a little past 5:30pm.  Wow.  So it took me 1 hour & 40+ minutes coming here, attended a 30-minute mass, and took another hour and 40 minutes going home.  I didn't ever think I'd be commuting that long this regularly!  In the Philippines, while traffic is slow, I usually travel only an hour and a half at most, particularly when I haven't yet found the "optimum" route, though usually it comes to around just an hour or less when you use the train system.  Of course this is no comparison to my situation back in the Philippines were I lived in Metro Manila and worked and went to mass also in Metro Manila.  Here I'm like in faraway, provincial Bulacan and I have to go to mass in Metro Manila.

Anyways, on the way home I dropped by the grocery store to buy my food for the week.  I was planning to buy salmon for grilling, as well as side veggies (pechay and carrots), and pork adobo and pork nilaga.  Alas, there was no more ribs/buto-buto part for the nilaga, so I just ended up buying... steak. :-D  I bought a little extra side veggies to go with my soon-to-be-grilled steak.  :-D  Not bad actually - each piece of meat that sells for around 180 pesos at a nothing-fancy restaurant in the Philippines, costs me only around 125 pesos here.  Of course I have to do the cooking, and if you have to consider my current hourly professional rate, then it is a very expensive......  nevermind. :-D

I also bought pizza for dinner.  Ate it with ground black pepper and Tabasco.  Yummy.  Oh, and today was generally rainy, and my umbrella, which I bought for around 300 pesos (6 dollars) in Singapore is now starting to show some signs of ageing.  I better get me a new umbrella!

Toukyou

When you spell out Tokyo in Hiragana, and then romanize it, it comes out actually as toukyou.  Basically the two instances of "O" in Tokyo are supposed to be long "O" sounds, thus the "u".

Got up around 9am this Sunday, took the 10:20am bus, and I got to Meguro church a little late as usual, this time during the responsorial psalm.  After that, my Tokyo-based Filipino friends/colleagues and I ate lunch at Plates & E.A.T., the "Italian" tabehodai (buffet/eat-all-you-can) place nearby again.  But it is so cheap, by Japanese standards - just 1000 yen with a chicken Caesar salad or minestrone soup.  But I took the 1300 yen option that comes with a Margherita pizza (though pasta or a Shrimp and Broccoli pizza was another option).

After that, one of my friends had to get a haircut, and so off they went.  As for me, I went around Shinjuku before heading home.  I went this time to another side of Shinjuku and saw a demonstration rally of Japanese who are opposed to keeping the American military bases in Okinawa.  I also went to the GAP store there because signs outside said "Final sale, upto 50% off," which translated means "You really want to come here."  It was really so tempting to buy something, but I didn't find anything I could use.  They have shirts that are just 900 yen - my friend says you are lucky to find shirts below 3000 yen here.  But, I thought I have better uses for my money.

When I got to the station, I missed the express train.  The next train was a rapid express train though that is headed to Fujisawa (and not to Odawara, my direct train), that was leaving 20 minutes later.  I got to sit there and guess what.  That train I took eventually caught up with the first train that I missed.  By the way, "express" train means it skips some stations, so it's fast particularly when you're travelling rather long distances.  And "rapid express" means it skips a lot of stations, and so it's even much faster.

When I got to Atsugi, I went around the SATY department store a bit, to checkout the bicycles again.  I think last week, they were on sale - the 15800 yen was 12800 only - but I wasn't sure.  This time, no sign of any bicycles "on sale."  So I thought, what the heck, I'm ready for a 15800 yen bicycle.  One other thing I had to think about was what color should I get.  The most common color is silver and I thought if I had a very distinct color bicycle, it might be more attractive to bicycle stealers.  Yup, although very, very, very rarely, bicycle stealing could happen.

Last stop was the grocery - I had to buy rice.  Some ice cream were on sale, almost 50% off.  So I bought a couple.  One ice cream is around 125 yen, and they were now just around 65 yen I think.  By the way, "one ice cream" here is a conservative single serving (almost like just one scoop).  They don't come in pint sizes or larger.

Dinner was picadillo.  Yummy.

No sun Sunday

Well it did shine for a very little while actually.  But today is generally one of those "rainy season" days.  But it's not like pouring rain, but instead it was very Asian - very shy rain.  In the exact same 1 square meter area, there is only one drop every minute.  So technically you don't need an umbrella.

I was in Tokyo when the sun first shone today.  I went to the church in Meguro to attend the 12 noon mass.  A one way trip from my apartment to Meguro takes an hour and 50 minutes.  Before going home, I went around the Shinjuku area and took pictures of the two most prominent buildings there: the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, and the Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower.  I also went to Bic Camera, the electronics store, and was able to try the new iPhone 4 and iPad.

One of the things I did today was withdraw from the bank, via the ATM.  Guess what.  There's an "overtime charge," apparently because it's Sunday today.  Overtime charge????  Who's doing overtime?????  Well, I guess Japan is still very much Asian.  Any opportunities to earn money, they will grab.  I mean, of course, that's a good thing to do, from a business-owner perspective.  Like in renting apartments, aside from paying the rent and a 2-months deposit, you usually would have to pay a non-refundable 2-months' worth of "gratitude payment" (or what they call "key money") to the landlord and when you leave, you may need to pay a fee to have your apartment "cleaned" and ready for occupancy by the next tenant.  I mean, in other countries, the rent (as well as the deposit) is supposed to cover all that already.

Another thing I did today was... to finally try eating at Denny's here.  As I mentioned before, there are two Denny's branches here in Atsugi alone.  Pretty surprising.  The Denny's closer to the Hon-Atsugi station is on the 2nd floor of a 3-storey building; a.k.a. a building with no elevators or escalators.  Anyways, from what I can understand from the sign, this Denny's store is open 24 hours!  So I come in, and as expected, the interiors are very Western, much like the Denny's stores I've visited in California.  Then I sit down, look at the menu and...  It's a Japanese menu!  Of course the text is in Japanese, this is Japan anyway.  But the items on the menu are all Japanese (or Japanese-style) food!  I was really craving for some Amerika-no tabemono (American food), though I wasn't sure yet what exactly.  Anyways, I ordered the suteiku (steak, Japanese-style), but it was "sold out," the waitress said in English.  So I asked what's a similar dish, and so she pointed to another kind of suteiku, but this time instead of one big slab of meat, it's pre-sliced already.  Anyways, fyi, Japanese-style steak usually comes on a sizzling plate and with onions and "sauce."  The price, is expensive, though for the ambiance, it wasn't so bad.  I've eaten at a hole-in-the-wall Japanese steak place before, and their prices are my reference point.

And that's about it for my day.  Hi, mom!  Don't worry, I'm fine. :-)

The miracles never end...

Today I prepared beef tapa marinate!

And...  I got to taste really good real Japanese food.  I was thinking I was getting tired of Japanese food already but after tasting Japanese food at this place called...  Yikes, I forgot.  Ootaya?  ...in Meguro, I realized the only type of Japanese food I've been taking is school cafeteria food, frozen ready-to-heat-then-eat food, and actually not much of convenience store food anymore, which tastes a lot better (though a little more expensive than cafeteria or frozen food).

Anyways, my day started out getting up a little late to catch the bus, which again on Sundays, comes only every 30 minutes.  So I rode the bike to Atsugi Trellis, half-way to the Hon-Atsugi station, and where there are more buses available.

And then back to Meguro church, and then to... Ootaya? ...It was Prof Germar's birthday and he treated us out - there were 4 of us who had lunch together.  Prof Germar and I also had a glass of Kirin Beer each.

Then we went to Musashi-Koyama shopping street.  It was basically an old street that was renovated to be pedestrian-friendly, complete with a translucent roof that protects from rain but still provides some daylight on the street.  And it was like 5 or more blocks long of shops.  There were 2 100-yen stores along the street.  McDonald's, KFC - the usual.  Supermarkets, grocery stores, shoe stores, bags, fashion, toys, books, "recycled" (2nd hand) goods, a sauna....  Yup, a sauna.  Kinda out of place, eh?

And then back home.  Well, back to Atsugi Trellis first, to pick up my bike and ride it home.  It was a difficult ride home.  I was so tired...

Then I had Picadillo for dinner!  Yum.

And I felt even more tired after eating dinner!  I ate so much.  Yum.  Yesterday I thought it was too salty, and it still is but it turned out fine, if eaten with rice.  Also I thought I should've put pepper, but it still turned out just fine.  I love Filipino food!

While I was heating my dinner, I marinated some thin slices of beef in beef tapa marinate, the recipe for which I got from this website: http://www.pinoyrecipe.net/filipino-beef-tapa-recipe-cured-beef/.

I'm excited to have Tapsilog on Tuesday morning. :-)

...Except it's not going to be the usual Tapsilog.  Instead of Tapa-Sinangag-Itlog, it will just be Tapa-Sinaing-Itlog. :-D

Meguro Church, Tokyo!

I was supposed to attend an event in Tokyo today, particularly at the Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo.  The event starts 9am and will be until 5pm.  That meant I have to get the 7:20am bus to get there on time.  That meant I had to be up 6:30am latest.  I've never been up that early here!

But I did try, and I had my alarms set at 6:30am...  To no avail.  I woke up at 7am but got up at... 8am!  I was ready to leave at 9am.  The latest I would arrive at the event venue would be 11am.  I would miss the Sunday mass at the venue.  I cancelled my trip there.  Instead I took the 10:20am bus to get to Meguro Church.  I got to the church around 12:10pm already!  Almost a two hour trip!  (Inclusive of the waiting for the trains, and the walking.)

Anyways, this is by far the largest church I've been to since coming here.  More Filipinos as expected.  But also more non-Filipino foreigners.  And like in the mass I attended in Tachikawa, there was a baptism ceremony for two adults and one very cute little girl, as well as a First Communion ceremony for the two newly baptized Catholic adults.  Of course, it's Pentecost Sunday so the priest was wearing a red vestment. :-)

I also met up with Prof Germar, one of my master's thesis advisers, at the church.  And after mass we saw some of my former undergrad schoolmates from UP (also BS Civil Engineering grads) who are now taking their PhD, masters, or working here in Japan.  We decided to have (late) lunch together at this "Italian" place (I'm sure my Italian colleagues here in TPU would disagree), but actually what I like about that place is that it's tabehodai (eat-all-you-can/buffet).  The second thing I like about the place is that it can be as cheap as just 1000 yen for a buffet lunch meal!  Of course, I like that it's Italian.  I like fresh green salads with Italian dressing.  And Caesar salad with grilled chicken.  There was also "spicy" chicken nuggets, and a few other yummy stuff.  Just a few.  There was only one pasta dish on the buffet menu.  Overall, it's not great but... it's great (for me)!  Oh, but I have one complaint about the place though I would understand why they do it: they have very small plates for the buffet!  Each plate was just probably 6 inches in diameter.  So imagine how many trips I had to make!

On my way home, I dropped by the Atsugi Basu Senta (bus center) to look for the ramen place I used to visit 5 years ago with my colleagues back then (who have since earned their PhD degrees).  It was closed!  I don't know if it was only closed on Sundays or open only at certain times but...  Well there's one less place to visit.

By the way, it was rainy the whole day.  A little cool but not so cold - people were wearing plain t-shirts still.  Daytime high was just 21 degrees.

For dinner I cooked my own rice yet again, and ate siomai (Tagalog for Chinese dumplings) dipped in Kikkoman soy sauce, some side veggies, some takoyaki, and a banana.  The frozen takoyaki doesn't come close to being like the freshly prepared ones.  But it was a hearty meal.  Thank God for all the blessings.

P.S.  Last night before I drank my milk and went to sleep, I made one bowl of sinigang soup - I brought with me some Knorr Sabaw ng Sinigang (or is it Mama Sita Sinigang Mix?), dropped about a teaspoon into a bowl of hot water, and voila.  Didn't taste the same as the real thing though, maybe because there's no pork, veggies (most specially onions and tomatoes!), and fish sauce in there which add to the overall flavor of the real deal.  Oh well, I loved it nonetheless.  Thank God indeed for all the blessings.  :-)

Whew, Watta Day!

Got up early, did my laundry - whites, colors, and whites that have stains.  Then left them to dry.  I was too late to get to the 12pm mass in Meguro to meet up with a friend from college, Coy, who is taking her masters in Public Administration (or something like that).  I left TPU at around 12:30pm, took lunch in Hon-Atsugi, then off to a route I have never taken before.  I got off at Noborito, transfered to the JR Nanbu (train) Line, and got down at Tachikawa.  Then it was a 10-minute walk to the church.  The Google Maps directions led me to the back of the church, so I walked around one block to get to the front.  I arrived at the church at 3:15pm, in time for the Alleluia before the Gospel reading.

Anyways, of course the mass was in English.  The priest was Caucasian, but I don't know where he is from, but if I did not know that he was Caucasian, I would've thought he was Filipino because of his English accent.  Interesting.  Like the previous English-speaking (but apparently from a non-English-speaking country) priest, he was fluent in Japanese, and gave his homily also in Japanese - to this Japanese guy.  Apparently that Japanese guy, an adult, was getting baptized that day.  I loved that scene.  It was also his first communion day!  "Omedetō gozaimasu ne!"  (Literally, "Congratulations [to him], right/eh?")  It was really cool.  I wanted to take a video but... well I regret not taking a video.  Oh well.


His baptism rights were right after the homily, and it was given by the priest in Japanese.  After that, the priest was continuing with the mass... in Japanese!  He momentarily forgot it was an English mass.  But of course, back to English it was.


As expected, most of the mass attendees as well as the choir there were Filipino.  3 guitar players in the choir.  Then one "egg (mini maracas) shaker."  Maybe 6 singers.  And there was a drum-box drummer.  I liked the choir at the Atsugi Catholic Church better... :-D


But unexpectedly, I heard 3 Filipino songs in the mass - "Si Kristo ay gunitain..."  "Kordero ng Diyos na nagaalis..."  and...  I forgot the 3rd one, but it was a communion song.  I don't know if any of the songs during the early part of the mass were also in Tagalog.  The "Our Father" is a version we sing in the Philippines; I don't think it is sung elsewhere where there aren't that many Filipinos.  "We Remember" was also sung.  As well as "Take and Receive," and for the Recessional Song it was "For God So Loved the World," I think is the title.


Anyways, the mass finished at around 4:15pm and I had to meet up with Coy at 5pm in Harajuku.  I got to Harajuku at 5:30pm already!  That church is that far!  Approximately 2 hours from my apartment (2.5 hours with some time for eating), and approximately 1.25 hours to Central Tokyo.  It was probably 45 km from my apartment, and around 25 km to Central Tokyo.  It was probably 45 km from Central Tokyo to my apartment.  (In case you don't know yet, it's just a 2-minute walk from my place to my school. :-D)


So I met Coy, and the first thing we did was go to Softbank to ask about their mobile phones.  I got a plan with a 2-year contract for ZERO monthly rate, and also I pay ZERO for the phone itself, because I am a student, and because I used my credit card.  Credit card to pay for what?  Anyways, the ZERO monthly rate, which is normally 980 JPY monthly, is what they call the "White Plan," which allows FREE same-network calls and texts (i.e. Softbank to Softbank users) between 1am and 9pm.  Not bad!  But then there's the catch.  The phone itself doesn't come with a charger!  So I had to pay to get one.  JPY 1155.  Okay, not bad.  That is practically what I paid for the phone.  PHP 500!  (By the way, 100 JPY = 1 USD, approximately, so 1 JPY = 1 US cent).  And another catch is, or at least that's what I think it is, is that I have to enroll my account for mobile internet services, which is 315 (or was it 350) JPY monthly.  Minimum.  Still not bad.  So technically I'm paying 350 monthly.  But actually once I use the internet, there will be charges.  Yikes!  *self-control*  But there's a cap though, so in case I use the internet excessively, I won't pay hundreds of thousands of cents.


But anyway, my mission was accomplished.  Get the cheapest phone and cheapest monthly rate, using a phone company that most of my fellow students also subscribe to so that our calls to each other are free, and now I am able to make emergency calls when needed, and people can call me when needed, and in case I am lost I can access the internet and take a look at maps and so on.  I really hope I don't need to make emergency calls.  I also set my billing to be automatically charged to my credit card so, no worries there.  I'll be paying hopefully just JPY 315 or 350 monthly, or PHP 160 or USD 3.50 equivalently.


Actually I had a choice between a nice looking phone model and this model that I got which has....  TV!  Chance to learn Nihongo!  Ehehehe.


Anyways, it took us probably an hour at Softbank.  Next stop was dinner.  But we also passed by Takeshita-Dori (Takeshita Street) which is the popular teenage hangout street in Harajuku.  Coy bought something at this women's socks (i.e. also print/colored stockings) place.  Yikes, I forgot the name.  Interesting looking "socks" though.  Expensive if you ask my Philippines-based how-much-things-should-be standard.  We also passed by The GAP.


Dinner was at this ramen place.  I forgot the name!  Anyways, Coy says it's her favorite eating place in Harajuku, and then the ramen we ordered, said Coy, is one of the more popular ones from the long list of different types of ramen (i.e. different ingredients).  And indeed it was delicious.  I forgot the name!  But there was pork in it, and it was a little creamy - maybe with milk or butter?  The pork also, was so tender.  I loved it.


Coy and I left Harajuku at around 8:20pm - so I was just in time to catch the last bus, 1.5 hours later, from Hon-Atsugi back to school.


What a day.  Yay to Sundays! :-)

Rain, Rain, Go Away

After a very nice day, here comes the rain.  And the cold.  No colds though, thank God!

Off to Tokyo again, this time by public transport all the way, to visit JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. More details here: www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html.  As usual I went to Hon-Atsugi, which was also our meeting place.  There was probably 12 of us from the school, both PhD students and senior researchers, and only 2 are Japanese.  We went all the way to the end of the Odakyu-Odawara Line train route, to Shinjuku, probably the busiest train station in Tokyo and all of Japan.  Then from there we took the Chuo line to go to Mitaka, then we took the bus to the Mitaka City Office, then a 10-minute walk to JAXA.  All trains we took were Rapid Express trains which skipped a lot of stations - great!  Then vice versa.

And, that's about it.  Nothing so great about today...  I took photos at JAXA, and hopefully I will be able to upload my photos really, really soon.

Did I say it was very cold today?  Ranges from 8 to 15 degrees.

No wait, there was a "flight simulator" at JAXA and I volunteered to be a pilot.  It wasn't so engaging though.  We almost crashed, but we didn't.  There were two of us pilots actually, so it wouldn't have been all my fault! :-D  If it were real, we would've been saved by the autopilot.  And we were safe, of course, because it was not real.  No twists and turns and all that, no advanced controls and all that.  It was...  not engaging at all.  It is interesting though that they have an agency such as this; they plan to have hypersonic (i.e. very fast) airplanes in the near future, and even space planes!

And that was it.  Rainy.  Cold.  Hungry.  I'm off to my favorite food place: the convenience store at the corner. :-D

"Good Morning, Japan!"

I started today very early, woke up very early - 6am (thanks Mara!) - but slept a little again and then woke up around 6:50am, one hour before the meet-up time at the school for today's technical tours.  Surprisingly I was able to do all that I need to do - including taking breakfast and taking a shower, among others - and I got to the meet-up place on time.  It helped that I bought ready-to-heat-then-eat breakfast food, a kind of hotdog embedded in some bread.  Nope, it wasn't really like a hotdog sandwich.  Anyways, it was good.  The hotdog here is a little different from the usual ones we in the Philippines or in the US know - you can still see some chunks of pork fat inside.  It's almost more like a sausage, like longganiza, but it looks like a hotdog from the outside.  It appears that it's the usual type of hotdog here, much like the red, Tender Juicy hotdogs we have back at home is the usual there.

Anyways, so off we went to Tokyo on a rented mini-bus that sits probably 15 or more people comfortably, with reclining chairs and all that.  I saw a 3rd McDonald's here in Atsugi, as well as a Denny's.  And then, surprise, surprise.

MT. FUJI, appearing with a white tuque (bonnet/beanie) of snow, suddenly appeared in the background behind the dark/green Mt. Ooyama that stands guard on Atsugi, as if saying "Good Morning, Japan!" and thus, this blog entry's title.  I thought I would've entitled this "First Tokyo Tour, Day 1," but after seeing the glorious heavenly creation that is "Fuji-san" (that's what they call it here; "san" also means mountain), I could've also entitled this blog post as "Surprise, Japan!"  And it was indeed a pleasant surprise.  Of course I took some photos.  :-P

Now, I could've also entitled this blog post as "Where's the rain?"  And that was the other surprise of today.  Two days ago, the forecast for today was rainy and cool, with day-time temperatures below 20 degrees, and night time temperature below 10 degrees.  The forecast yesterday for today, was cloudy, but pretty much the same temperature range as previously forecasted.  Today went and passed and guess what - it was a very fine day, with temperatures reaching 23 degrees in Atsugi and in Tokyo.  And it was clear skies here in Atsugi, thus the surprising view of Mt. Fuji.  This is the first time I saw Mt. Fuji from a distance; I "climbed" Mt. Fuji up to the tourist center, by car, 5 years ago, and it was freezing cold then, at least for me, although it was still springtime, with temperature below 10 degrees and quite breezy weather.

To give you an idea of what I saw, you can check this link out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skyscrapers_of_Shinjuku_2009_January.jpg

Anyways, first stop on the tour was Shimizu Corporation's Open Institute of Technology.  The top 5 Japanese construction companies here are high on R&D, and Shimizu is one of them.  They have plenty of laboraties, including a wind tunnel testing laboratory, a vibration (shaking table) testing laboratory, an acoustics lab, a geotechnical centrifuge lab, and so on, and they have introduced plenty of building services technologies.  They also have built "green" spaces, which attract plenty types of insects and urban birds, and are actually host to some fish, ducks, and one bird that looks like a crane.

Where are the photos?  My camera lost battery (I didn't charge it last night), and I left my spare battery at home.  *sigh*  And then my phone camera - oh what a problem it usually is - it "requests for 5Mb space" - on the main storage system.  I have plenty of space on my mini-SD card inside my phone (like around 8Gb) - but it does not recognize it!  I think it's a Windows Mobile issue.  I don't like, and I don't recommend Windows Mobile.  Mine is Version 6.1, by the way.  I do have some photos, including of Mt Fuji, and I requested some of my fellow students and colleagues to take some photos of me, and share their other photos with me.  Hope I can get those soon.  I still haven't uploaded any of my photos!  Let's see if I can do that later tonight.

Anyways, one of the highlights of today was...  We got to be "tested" in one of Shimizu's wind tunnels.  As in, "We."  Basically, we, 4 at a time, can step on platform, and then we get to feel what it is like in very high winds with speeds up to 30 m/s (108 kph).  WOW.  And that's not a gust speed, it was the mean speed, so it was 30 m/s continuously for a few seconds to a minute.  It was quite uncomfortable, of course, and actually I found it difficult to face the wind itself continuously.  The photos we had were funny.  I hope I can upload them very soon!

Anyways, next stop was... lunch at Shimizu.  We had authentic bento box lunch, I think taken from Shimizu's canteen, but courtesy of TPU.  It had shrimp, duck, chicken, and fish, as well as the usual sides of veggies, mushrooms, some shabu-shabu-type of food, and of course, rice.  Yum.  And we had green tea in a bottle with the meal.

Next stop was the Tokyo Sky Tree construction site.  Actually we're not allowed to go into the construction site, so we just viewed the whole thing from about 100m away.  The Tokyo Sky Tree is a communication/broadcast/antenna lattice tower that is intended to be 634m tall, with a triangular base, but circular top, made almost entirely of steel.  It is currently 349m tall.  You can see how tall it is currently because they have a sign posted just outside of the construction site.  You can read more information at www.tokyo-skytree.jp/english/.

Next stop is Japan's currently tallest completed structure, the Tokyo Tower.  It is also a broadcast tower much like the Sky Tree, and its shape is more traditional, like the Eiffel Tower.  It is 333m high.  It is taller than Japan's tallest building, the Yokohama Landmark Tower, which is just nearly 300m high.  You can read more information at www.tokyotower.co.jp/english/.

It was my first time to go up Tokyo Tower, while previously I just took pictures of it from a distance.  The tickets cost more than 800 yen, I think, and that is probably one reason why I didn't go up the last time.  That ticket is the cost to go up the first observation deck at 150m height, which has two floors.  You need to pay an extra 500 yen, I think, to go up the higher "special observation deck."  Anyways, one of the features at the first observation deck is looking down the tower through "lookdown window" - not really so scary, each was just probably 0.6m x 1.5m in area, so unless maybe more than two people step on the glass, something might happen.  Generally, people were scared to step on the lookdown window.  Even people much lighter than me.  You wouldn't feel height-sickness at all, because the tower itself is enclosed, so you don't feel the lower pressure and stronger winds that you would normally experience at altitude.

When we were up Tokyo Tower, the Tokyo skies were quite cloudy already, and so we didn't get to see Mt Fuji from Tokyo Tower.  Likewise, it wasn't worth it to go up toe the "special" observation deck.

On the bus trip, I saw two Pepper Lunch restaurants - not like the ones in the Philippines in size; they are just small restaurants.  I would think the food tastes are the same here as in the Philippines.  We'll see.  The food at the Yoshinoya chain of restaurants, by the way, doesn't taste the same here and in the Philippines.  I tried Yoshinoya the last time I was here.

And that was it.  Back to Atsugi we went, and surprisingly the trip was just an hour.  Traffic only met us in Atsugi itself as it was already around 5pm then, nearly after office hours already.  So apparently, even here in Japan where the trains are very efficient, it is faster to go by car (or in our case, private bus).  Of course, it is a different scenario in Tokyo itself, where, like New York, parking might be a problem.

Near Atsugi, I think I saw Mt Fuji again but because it was getting dark, it didn't look as white as it was during the day time and you don't really know that it's Mt Fuji except for its shape.

What a day!  Love it. :-)