Tim’s Ramblings

Yup. Writing to you from the hotel room in San Francisco. So far, the vacation is going well. Jet lag is still hitting me but not as bad as I thought.

F and I got in Sunday afternoon and got to the hotel around 11:40ish. We were too early to check in so we had our luggage held at the door and went out to lunch. We’re staying at the Miyako Hotel in Japan Town in San Francisco. Yes…Japan Town. And yes, I’m going back to Japan next week. But the price was good and the reviews were ok so we decided to stay here.

The area of town…well….it needs a bit of work. It doesn’t FEEL like San Francisco. The buildings are too new and there’s not that many people here. We’re a bit out of the way from the center of town so…eh. But it’s not bad. There’s a mall attached to the hotel and near it that has tons of Japanese and some Korean restaurants and any sushi in San Francisco is better than most in Cleveland :)

We had lunch at one of those places where the sushi comes to you on a boat going around the bar. Not bad and it was a good lunch. By the time we got back to the hotel our rooms were ready.

The room is not bad. Pretty nice for a hotel room in the city actually. The whole “asian” decor is…suspect…but the bed is nice and the room is a good size. If nothing else, it’s a hell of alot bigger than my room in Japan! The focal point here is the so called “traditional Japanese style bath” in each room. It’s the whole “soaking bath” concept where you wash yourself outside and then soak in the tub. So the shower room is a good size and you do indeed shower outside of the bath. The problem is…there’s not much ventilation really…and the whole shower room smells slightly of mildew. You know…ever so slightly like a locker room shower… Which is unfortunate since if it wasn’t for that this place would be even better.

Bah.

But really, it’s not so bad and the wireless internet works fine and we won’t be in the hotel much anyway.

This morning, bright and early at 8am, we were on a shuttle bus on the way to our tour. We decided to do the whole “tour bus” thing and be a true tourist :) Today was a tour on Highway 1, Monterey, and Carmel. It was nice actually. Though I have to admit…the bus along with the scenic tour thing (aka…lots of farms…) and the tour guide was putting me to sleep. Oh well. Not that the tour guide was bad. On the contrary, he was quite good. Though his obsession with artichokes and brussel sprouts were a bit odd….

I also got to test out my new Canon Rebel too. It’s niiiiice. Very nice. I’ll post more pictures later.

Highway 1 was impressive. Those cliffs and the drop down off the highway could be a bit scary for some though. Especially with the bus and the cars all around us going quite fast. It was overcast as well so it really gave it that gloomy look which I don’t really mind.

In Monterey, we spent about an hour in their impressive aquarium. Some of the exihibits including a 3 story tall kelp tank was cool. They also had a pretty big jelly fish display. Apparently there is a bigger one but that won’t be open for another week. Got some really nice pics of them too and with the new camera, I was able to get pics like this.

Oooooh.

Looks better in full size with no compression….but what can you do?

Lunch was tasty and we eventually made our way to Carmel, the town where Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor. It’s very….quaint. It reminds me of Niagara On the Lake. Really nice shops with nice expensive clothes and such and lots of rich old people. Hell…Pebble Beach is down the street. I did stop by Lush however since F wanted to go. It’s one of those soap stores that sells chunks of designer soaps along with other stuff like shampoo bars and such. I don’t really go for overly fragrant soaps and such but I did decide to give it a shot so I bought a chunk of Sea Vegetable Soap. Supposed to contain kelp and such along with sea salt and so on. Not cheap but hey, if it work, it works. I’ll try it as soon as my current soap, Liquid Dial for Men, runs out :)

After that, after a quick stop at a Garlic shop, it was a long trip back. A ridiculously filling dinner at a Korean restaurant (it was sooo hot, temperature and taste both…but soooo good) and now I’m just sort of vegging out.

Tomorrow, we’re heading out to Fisherman’s Warf area to see if we can get a ticket for Alcatraz. Though everyone keeps saying you need to do this ahead of time and it sells out and such. So we’ll see. If it does, then we can do other stuff. Tomorrow night is the concert at The Filmore anyway. Gonna be fun :)

More updates to come!

Ugh.

Long flight.

Let’s see…where do we start?

Once again, it was a full flight and what seemed like an empty seat next to me was gone in the last 5 minutes before the door closed. Dammit. I was soooo happy until then too even though, you guessed it, another Chinese Baby Adoption Tour decided to board my flight….again…..

So even before the door closes I have babies all around me crying and screaming. Yay.

Then the dude in the seat next to me shows up. Apparently a French Canadian. I only know this because he spoke with a heavy French accent and told the flight attendant he was Canadian when she was handing out immigration papers. Now I have nothing against the French or the Canadian but…yeah….that’s what he was.

Aaaaaaand as soon as he sat down next to me I can already smell him. He smelled like he hasn’t taken a shower in about 3 days. Now…some women might find his stink musky and manly and sexy. To me, it smells like BO and in an enclosed space, it’s overpowering. If that’s not bad enough (remember…still have babies screaming everywhere), he curls up and falls asleep…which is fine but his head is RIGHT next to my shoulder/side of my face. I mean…he’s not nuzzling me but it’s pretty damn close. And soon, to my horror, I realize that not only does he stink but he has bad breath too….. So every once in a while, depending on the current of air in the plane, this horrid stench wafts over my face.

…kill me….

I somehow manage to survive all this and in the last hour of the flight they serve “breakfast”. The food smells kinda bad to begin with, and I’m sitting next to a stinky dude who has now been sitting next to me for the past 10 hours breathing into my face, and what does he do? After eating his food, he proceeds to eat 2 bananas that he pulled out of somewhere.

Let me tell you…the combination of BO and banana? Not pleasant. At all. Actually…pretty damn nauseating.

*sigh*

Of course, the border guards are jackasses too. I mean…you figure you work in a place where you deal with foreign visitors EVERY DAY. They can’t speak English dammit! He tells this Chinese woman she has to go to another room probably because she has too much money with her and has to pay taxes. He mumbles to her in fast English to go over to some door that I didn’t even see. He then watches her try to go to another door and proceed sto yell at her that it’s not that one and it’s the other one. Then turns around and lets out a big sigh and a “jeezus…” before he deals with me. Nice. Real nice welcome to the US buddy.

He then looks at me and my green card and proceeds to literally wave the greencard in front of me and start asking me in a very annoyed tone “How did you get this? How did you get a green card huh?” That was a new question. I told him I was a student at the time and I got it with my parents to which he snorts and tells me “Well there’s only 2 ways you could have gotten this anyway.” Thanks dude. Then in an accusatory tone he askes me if I was really in Japan for business. I tell him yes and he asks me AGAIN. Um…dude…I know I’m not in a suit but that’s because I was on a horrid flight for 11 hours. What the hell do you want from me? Further interrogation about the stuff I declared and finally he pretty much tosses my passport and greencard to me and sends me on my way.

You know….I know this is a stressful job. But really. Is this truly the first few faces you want any new immigrant to see when they enter the US for the first time? Then again….there seems to be a major anti-immigration agenda going on anyway…maybe this is part of it.

Blah.

Anyway, just a few more minute before I head to my gate for my last flight back to Cleveland. Will be good to be hojme. (-_-)

My beer dispensing machine post has been picked up by Gizmodo! Thanks to whoever tipped them off.

Edit: oops…the link to the article is here: Gizmodo Post

Oddly it must have been a reader of my LiveJournal blog since they linked it to that one and not this one.

Of course, this means I have to read the comments on Gizmodo…which mostly either says US beer blows and/or Japanese beer blows and/or Asahi has no head so they have to compensate etc… Heh. And someone commented on my post there saying it’s old news and asked if they put it out in general public. Hey now. Even I go into the “executive lounge” buddy. And it’s not really executive if anyone that pays enough can get in. *hmph*

The best was a dude named rainbowwarrior spamming my YouTube post with one comment after another about why everyone should boycott business/tours to Japan due to our tendency to eat whale meat and horse meat…and makes claims about how the horse meat we eat come from American horses that are stolen.

….great….

So those got removed awfully quick.

The price of fame?

Heh heh heh.

(^_^)

Sitting in Detroit’s WorldClubs lounge…oh I’m sorry….*ahem*…executive lounge…and I see now cool beer dispenser here! Posting about my horrid horrid flight back to the US in a bit. It keeps me awake…

Well…ok…maybe not the greatest but it’s damn cool.

Behold, the Asahi beer dispensing machine!

What may seemingly look like just another drink machine is, in actuality, far far more. Located in the Northwest Worldclubs lounge in Narita Airport, this machine is a marvel of Japanese engineering and love of the perfect beer.

See….not only does it serve beer but it tilts the glass while pouring to give you the perfect pour and THEN even makes sure there is juuuust the right head on the beer at the end.

Pefect!

I need one of these in my house.

Hell…I need one of these in the office!

To see this machine work in all its glory, check out the video I took as it poured me my second glass (the first video came out bad so I just HAD to get another one right? RIGHT??)

(^_^)

…now if this annoyingly loud drunk Japanese businessman would just shut the hell up and stop talking on his cel, my life would be almost good….. Goddammit….

Last night. Will be leaving tomorrow morning. I’m kinda ready to leave this time. Even though it’s only a week and a half, it seems longer.

Bought too much stuff though. Actually what is REALLY weighing me down are the chocolates I got for my sister and the guys at work that sit in our little group. Those weight ALOT. If it wasn’t for those, then I’ll only have to deal with the weight of the magazines. So needless to say, once again, I bought another piece of luggage. Well…not really luggage but a big sturdy duffel bag. So damn heavy I’m tempted to check it but I think I’ll take it as carry on. What’s sad is, the new bag with the candy and the magazines (only the candy and the magazines) weight almost as much as my main suitcase.

….the things I do for my friends and family….

They better appreciate it dammit!

But I’m pretty much packed. All I need to do is add my toiletries, my electronics (once charged up) and pack my laptop tomorrow morning.

I plan on watching some mindless TV and then go to bed early.

With 4 bags (my suitcase, my garment bag, my duffel bag, and my backpack) getting down to the train platform tomorrow morning (no elevator going down…..for godsakes), navigating onto the Narita Express train, and waddling around the airport is going to be…fun? No. It’s gonna suck. *sigh*…should have mailed some of this home…though the most heavy stuff I still would have carried with me.

Can’t win.

This is a pretty pointless post of me whining about luggage management….

Can’t wait to get home though. Even though I’ll only be home Thursday through Saturday only to go to San Francisco on Sunday. But at least that’s for vacation (^_^)

This post doesn’t really have a theme. Just an excuse to post these 3 pics. I don’t always need to write an editorial right?

Click on the link for the pictures!!

Continue Reading »

Oh look. Pictures! See? I told you I’d get them up.

And I’m dead tired too after walking around in huuuge crowds all day. Did I say I was mildly claustrophobic? Yeah. I am. It suuuuuuuuuuuuuucked. Suck suck suck suck suck.

But I’m here for you, my dear readers. So on with the show! Click on the link there to see the pictures!

Continue Reading »

I WILL do a picture update. Soon. I swear.

Today I didn’t get back from my parent’s place until 10pm and am pooped. It was a long day and it’s a 2 hour commute (I take a bus, then a train, then another train and then one more train before getting back to the hotel…..blaaaaah….).

But one thing stood out in my mind today so that’s the subject of this here post. I know you are all excited. All 2 of you readers. (>_<)

So, a bit ‘o background. From Wednesday to Friday I was at a place called Tokyo Big Sight (pictures coming….) for a trade show called the E-Document Japan. Exciting, I know. So basically, starting from 8:15am or so when I leave the hotel, I am on my feet until I get home around 7 or 8 at night. Wearing a suit in an uncomfortably warm convention hall in dress shoes on concrete (they don’t really carpet the show flloor in Japan…only in the booths and even that’s a very very thin layer) sucked. And it also happened to be the final hurrah for my dress shoes.

I’ve had this pair for about 3 years or so now…maybe a bit longer. Up until this year, I wore these shoes maybe a total of a week or two a year…maybe… But this year I started wearing these more often. An average of 2 weeks per month. And unlike the US, I walk ALOT here so there was definitely more wear and tear on the shoes. They weren’t the most expensive pair either. Actually I probably paid less than $40 for them. Back then I really didn’t give a damn as long as they looked nice.

But after the past 3 days, it finally died on me. Thursday night I realized that the heel on my right shoe was starting to slooowly separate from the sole and the leather was starting to split. I still wore it on Friday since I had no choice but by the time I got home, I realized that the bottom of my right shoe has also split and was starting to crack and such. It basically gave it it’s all and died. Of course I still have 2 full business days to go here…..

So today after having lunch with mom and dad, I told them what happened and mom took me to a shoe store nearby. It looked like a small neighborhood shoe shop. Nothing special with a pretty faded sign out front. But when I walked in and started looking around, I noticed that these were not cheap shoes…. The cheapest shoes they had there was over $100. But I wanted a nice pair since I’ll be wearing these for a while I think, so I looked around and found a pair I liked but I wasn’t sure what shoe size I was in Japan. I did do a preliminary lookup online and they told me I was a 27.5 and when I said that the woman looked sad and told me that they didn’t have shoes that big….but since I don’t know my shoe size for real, the owner will measure for me.

I knew something was up when, after I replied saying “sure, I guess I can get a general sizing” thinking to myself “how off can I be?”, she kinda looked up and told me that “it’s not a general sizing, we will tell you what size you are for real”. Hm.

And she was right.

I have never ever had a professional “foot sizing” (I have no idea what else you call it…) done before. It took 15 minutes to figure out my shoe size. He first had me stand on a pressure sensor so he can see what part of my feet landed where and with how much pressure in real time. Then the true sizing began. He first had me stand on a peice of paper over an ink pad and then drew a contour of my feet. Then using various types of calipers and tape and rulers and other stuff, proceeded to take, I swear, like 10 to 15 measurements per foot.

After all of that, he had me flex my feet and toes (apparently I am quite stiff and unflexible…who knew?) for both feet and then had me wait while he consulted one chart after another and started doing some math and so on and so forth until he came up with my actual shoe size and width in Japanese measurements. Apparently I am a 26.5 with a width of EEE. I guess the web was wrong (nooo….).

He then proceeded to fit me with just the right type of shoes, not just for size but for the way I stand and walk and my weight distribution and my width. And I have to say…after trying out a few he chose and some I chose purely based on my size….his choices were unbelievably more comfortable. I mean…it was even better than wearing my tennis shoes. It truly was a perfect pair of shoes.

Now I know what it’s like to have a shoe fitting and I have to say…it was worth it. Now, I can actually look forward to wearing these to work on Monday and not fear the long walk back and forth from the office to the hotel.

Oh…I should also point out that these are, by far, the most expensive shoes I have ever owned in my life. Over $200. But I’m hoping these will last me a long long long time.

So there you go. My experience in shoe fitting. It was much more interesting than it reads….I swear (^_^) If you actually read this far down, I give you my congrats and you deserve a prize!

I’m too exhausted to do a picture update of either the conference I’m attending at Tokyo Big Sight or the band I saw outside of Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara all the way back on Sunday… For the past 2 days I have been on my feet all day from when I leave the hotel at 8:15 until I get back around 6:45…. My feet are KILLING me…

Anyway, dinner. Yes. The bane of all business travellers who travel alone. Everyone can bet pretty tired and bored eating out alone every single day. But you get used to it after a while. This is also easier to do here in Japan. Maybe it’s just as easy in the US in the big cities too but I’m not sure really since…well…I really haven’t done too much of that.

I’ve written about it before but here, most restaurants are very “single party” friendly. They will either have a counter seat or smaller tables and, as this is a city where people eat out often, there are plenty of other lone diners so you’re just one of the crowd.

Of course, the key is to find places that you feel comfortable in along with having good food. There are certain places that you just can’t go alone…those include the “yakiniku” places where you cook your own meat as those are places that you go with at least one other person as it’s a social event. But that’s where the ramen shops, the sushi shops, and diners (or what passes for diners) here. And I’d like to introduce you to one of these places today.

This is a favorite of 淳子さん and it’s a place called Ootoya (the “oo” is pronounced like a long “o” and not like “cook”…more like “oh”). It’s a really nice clean bright restaurant with a very large menu (http://www.ootoya.com/index.html). The meals are mostly traditionally Japanese with some nice desserts and some western dishes mixed in for good measure. The portions are very ample, the dishes are delicious, and the service is fast. The one near the hotel (about a 6 to 8 minute walk) has a very large table in the middle of the restaurant where you can sit if you are there by yourself. Plenty of room for each person and the table is large enough to stretch your legs out without bothering anyone. Nice place to take a book and relax a bit while your food is being prepared.

However, after saying all this…there is one thing that makes this so popular amongst everyone from giggling HS girls to weary middle age office workers…the price. It’s so cheap it’s unbelievable. Case in point. Tonight I had an “Ichiyaboshi sumibiyaki toro aji no hiraki teishoku” (一夜干し炭火焼きトロあじの開き定食) otherwise translated in English as “Charbroiled dried overnight fatty horse mackerel dinner combination”. Yeah…it’s a long long name even in Japanese. All you really need to know is, it’s a very large horse mackerel that has been cleaned and opened down the middle dried in sea salt overnight then cooked over an open flame. It comes with some Japanese pickles, miso soup, a small small salad, grated daikon radish, and a bowl of rice. The rice comes with various toppings and I chose “jyako” which are very small cured fish.

Now. This dish along with all that comes with it and I ordered a large bowl of rice (extra 60 yen) and I also ordered a softdrink which was self serve and unlimited came out to a total of 995yen. At current exchange rate that’s only $8.34. That’s at a full service restaurant. Goddamn.

And it was gooood too. The fish was cooked perfectly with the meat nice and tender and slightly salty. Mmmmmmmmmm. I would go there every single night if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s always so crowded that there’s a big line. I got lucky tonight but less than 10 minutes after I got in there was a line. There’s nothing like a good meal that truly tastes home made in a nice restaurant with good service at an unbeatable price. Makes dinner alone while on a business trip that much less of a chore.

(^_^)

Oh…and for anyone that might travel to Tokyo alone, look this place up. It’s not very foreigner friendly as the menu is entirely in Japanese but, like a Denny’s menu, there is a picture for every single item in the menu so you can just point (^_^)

Yup. Picture update that’s NOT from Japan!

Here are pics from my vacation in Florida with friends from college (plus a friend of a friend from college – hi Erin!) that I took 2 weeks ago. Oh, and before I forget, these pics were taken by both myself and Michele. Gotta give credit where credit is due! (^_^) Thanks for letting me use them!

Also, no pics from Epcot…since…well….that was the day I stayed at home with a bad back. The other guys that were there should have pictures that Michele took already anyway. *hmph*

Heh. I’m not bitter. But anyway on with the show! These are going to be pics taken at the Kennedy Space Center and Cocoa Beach.

Click on the link for the rest of the pics!

Continue Reading »