Tales of a very hungry caterpillar.

I just sent out a check for $150 to my friend Lara in Japan to procure me coffee. I'll repeat, I just spent $150 on canned coffee. I am an addict. I need to get back to Japan. Oy.

I've been feeling sick lately, and tonight for some reason i want nothing more than yummy stuff from Sukiya. Sukiya is an amazingly cheap and yummy place. We didn't eat there often, but it was good stuff! I ate there for some reason when sick a few times. So did Mandy. Maybe that's why we didn't eat there often...association? But then, I remember it being useful while sick. The soup was amazingly good! Hey! I have miso in my cabinet at home! Perfect!

Eepzilla! - Directors Cut Special Collector's Edition de arimasu!

I may no longer be in Japan, but it doesn't mean my memories of the wonderful time I've had there have faded. It's been months and a lot has happened. Went to Florida. Became a lawyer. Still don't have a job. I'm stuck here for now, and wish to go back to Japan as soon as possible. In the meantime, I've finally managed to get all the photos off my awesome uberbenri Japan phone. No particular order here (emphasis on very unparticular chaos) I hope you enjoy.

No, this isn't Paris. In early February Ami-chan and I got to visit the (in)famous Tokyo Tower. We had seen the Tower nearly every night walking from the Law School to the Alley of Awesomeness, and had been hoping to go for some time. On a whim, we decided to just go, as it wasn't that far from the school and neither of us felt it was the right night to be in a class. The towers was spiffy. The lower levels contained lots of various shops selling fun touristy stuff. Amusingly, they sold a lot of knock-off Suntory Boss stuff. Ami got me a cool lighter that looked like a Boss Coffee can, but sadly I wasn't able to bring it back with me to the states. Although the bottom levels were free, it cost some Yen to get up the Tower. Braving her fear of heights, Ami and I went up to the lower observation deck. From there we got a nice view of the Tokyo Skyline. I paid a little more money, and went up to the higher observation deck, after waiting in line for 20-30 minutes. That deck...not really as worth it. A fun time though! We went back to the Tower a few times while in Japan both for souvenirs and to go to the aquarium! YAY! Mandy got herself an AWESOME Tokyo Tower T-shirt. Here we are at MOS Burger with a look of pure "Why are you taking my photo again J?" A quick word about MOS Burger. It's a damn yummy chain, if you're looking for fast food in Japan. Good prices, and perfect portions. Their "onion potato set" gives you the right amount of fries and a couple onion rings to go with their burgers. Mountain, Ocean, Sun....what's not to love? Also, another great fast food chain is Freshness Burger. They're another wonderful chain, with a bit of a laidback atmosphere. Their burgers are really good too, and they serve steak fries! I loved the Salsa Burger, the Teriyaki burger, and the Katsu burger. Oishikatta. They also had really good "ginger protector" drinks. There was a Freshness Burger and Mos across from each other in Monzen-Nakacho where Ami lived. For most of our time in Tokyo, we would go to Mos. We finally tried Freshness, and it was really good. We ended up spending many hours studying for finals there.

On the topic of food, another great place to go, which we went to in the Alley of Awesomeness is Doma Doma. Similar to many other Izakaya, Doma Doma is almost like a Tapas place. Lots of small dishes (though a lot is put on those dishes) at very cheap prices. Also a great place to observe after-work Japanese people doing their thing.

Now, who wants some Engrish? I forget who had this shirt, but they were wearing it on valentine's day. Valentine's Day (St. Valentine's Day there) is done differently. The ladies give us guys gifts. Mind you, we have to give them an even bigger present on White Day. I personally appreciate the Korean Idea of Black Day. Hah!


Admit it. My ties ROCK. The purple ones, the cool black ones, and the ones with the fans I got in Japan. The 3 black ones (one with chains, one with a chain and spiders, and one with leather straps) I got at Richards in Harajuku. I've previously posted some stuff about Harajuku, but haven't really gone into it. Harajuku is a capitalist dream. It's a test market and admittedly it has some cool to it. It's way pricey, and very chaotic, with stores opening and closing all the time. It's crowded with a lot of young people dressed up looking to find the latest and coolest thing. On Takeshita Dori you'll find a lot of stores, and some yummy crepe places too. It's nice...but not necessarily my thing (especially on a student budget). I found my groove in Shimokitazawa! Again, another place that we didn't discover until late in our time in Japan. It's kinda like Tokyo's East Village. Very hip. Very laid back. Very cheap. Ami and I found the most awesome hookah place ("don't you worry about Pimps?"- fabian) in the world there, Shisha. The place was very chill. The owner's friends constantly were coming in and out to say hi, and have a quick puff. The guy knew how to mix his tobaccos, and liked to play his Nirvana. More than that, the price for a hookah was only 500 Yen! CHEAP! During finals time, the place was invaluable. We went there, relaxed and Ami found hydration in it.
Anyone up for some product placement? Hah! Another one of those awesome Dr. Pepper labels...right next to a boss coffee and my laptop. Clearly this was taken in mita hall.

There was some traveling in Japan as well. I'll post some pictures in a re-released edition. In late January/Early February as mentioned, we went to Sapporo. During spring break Evan and Kendra visited us. We stayed in Tokyo wandering around a few days before we went to Kyoto. Sugoi time there. Stay tuned! As always, other things interfere, so I can't do a full posting. For now, let me leave you all with some random images.

GUNDAM POCKY! THE SARGE'S FAVORITE!

That's right ladies. F Cup Cookie! Eat these cookies and your boobs will grow!
And if that doesn't work...Miracle Boober!

Sums up the Japanese view nicely, doesn't it?

What? I'm having breakfast?

And so it ends...

I actually deny this city being tokyo. No no. It must be some other city. The pigeons won over the cats in Monzen-nakacho. Our holy bridge pigeoned! The vibe is wrong. And most of all,ami-chan beloved isn't here. This isn't Tokyo.
However it ends the way it begins. I am in asakusa, just as I came here. But I have my greater wisdom. I'm not lugging my bags the whole way, when I can simply taxi over to Ueno eki, and take the limited express from there. Yosh.
I look forwards to my summer journey to Florida.I'm not excited to go back to the USA. The people are rude and ignorant. They are shitheads to themselves and others. There is no value for the dollar. Dying empire. In my life, I have the bar coming up, and LLM applications to send out. Pain.

I found joy, magic, true love, and pocky in Tokyo. Why would I want to ever leave this?

What would keroro do?

P.S. Maybe one day I'll backdate some real posts. Till then, I leave today!

and now a word from our sponsor

Back from Sapporo. A bit behind in the work, so no posts. Until then, enjoy first a review of Suntory Boss coffee, and then the webpage itself. Oh! Wikipedia too! Suntory is my boss.

Better than the french foreign legion

After many gatherings with people have been thwarted I have decided to get a phone. Is it not nifty?

a taste and it is eggy!

I should be asleep. Instead, I shall post random photos of weird shit in Japan. Enjoy.


MEAT! A shirt in Harajuka.


From Hanashiki in Asakusa.





Perna should enjoy this message of wisdom from an arcade in the alleyway of awesomeness.


Me with my mega-awesome new tie. Yes, I'm happy, over a fucking tie, what of it? Fuck you. I got it in harajuku. It's metal.


more great shirts in harajuku


pink rotary phone in the bento box place


Creepy coke ad, also in the bento place.


Do you think I ever know what's really going on? this was in the subway

incoming post

Hey kids, sorry for the lack of posts lately. Excuses: 1) I've been busy. a) I have been avoiding spending too much time with my computer. b) I've been out having fun 2) I have lots of photos. I don't want to tell the stories without the photos. Finally found the cord.
So I'll be updating soon!

Fun and games.

Have I mentioned how much I love this country? The pictures below show some cheap purchases made. Except the 5 flavor pocky, which I won.
Suddenly, I find myself in the mood for Mongolian BBQ. Weird. Enjoy.

Cup sake


Crush pocky- Cookie


Crush pocky- almond


Grape pocky!


Five flavor Pocky fruit


5 flavor pocky black

Decorative Apple Custard


Decorative Grape

tori amos vs. the men from mars part 3

So once again I owe a few days worth of updates. Let's start with Sunday. On Sunday I went to a Media Cafe. More to the point, I went to one of a chain of media cafe's called "Popeye." Oooh. A wonderful link in Japanese. Great, right? It's a really weird experience. I went in, and at the desk arranged the service I want. They offer three different packages. A level is just an open computer. B level is a booth with a fucking awesome lazyboy, and a computer and what not. The C package gives a nice mini-sofa, with a computer, a ps2, a dvd player...and a little mini locker. some slippers to put on come with it as well. Here's where it gets weird (scroll down folks)...the place has some stuff you'd expect a media cafe to have. It's got munchies, drinks, books, blah blah pretty normal. Here's where it gets weird. It has a shower facility and a tanning booth. The place is also 24 hours. This is clearly meant for a 24-25 hour a day lifestyle. This is the kinda place you go to between 12-5 while the metros are closed, and you don't feel like paying $60 for a cab back to Toshima. yeah. So enough about that. Post that, I went to Namcoland and played the crane game (Taiko drum master was full). This was an example of eep strategy in action. I limited myself to 500YEN. The prize was a 4 pack of special 5 flavor pocky. It had both Goka pocky and Kurogo pocky. I know for a fact that these pocky usually go for about 200YEN+ a box. So I knew it was worth the 500YEN to try. Lo and behold, using my ninja crane game skills, I was able to win a 4 pack. In eep tradition, I gave a box to the first mädchen I saw (in this case the employee giving me a bag for my winings) and walked off. As a side note, the Goka is much better than the Kurogo. Go eeps though! As a side note, let's cross these off on Eep's list of pocky. Truly, my goal is to try as many as possible. I rule.
Today was pretty low key. I overslept again. I really did try to wake up. No. Waking up isn't the problem Getting out of bed is the problem! I am jack's lack of motivation. I really need to start getting out of bed earlier. I should be able to easily tomorrow. I have work to do, and my first day of Japanese. I finally got out of bed, showered, and went to Lawson's for some salmon sashimi! YUM!
IP tonight was ok. The big thing tonight was going to the Alley of Awesomeness with my friends to a place Sarah and Leslie found called Doma Doma. I very much enjoyed the food here! The place was almost like a tapas place. All of the dishes were small, and low priced. Let's explore the menu a bit, shall we? From the cheese menu, we ordered several things. Leslie and I split some delicious fried Cheese Mochi (left side, 3rd picture down. the 380 yen thing). Really yummy stuff. The cheese melted right out of it. It was a nice twist on the cheese stick idea. The group of us split some nan bread with melted Gorgonzola cheese and honey. Tres yummo. In addition, Amanda and I got Doma Doma's mini pizza. I was shocked! The pizza was fucking delicious! Not bad for 490YEN. Also on the cheese menu, I got the "Doma Doma Russian Roulette." That's the item on the bottom left. Basically, it was 6 ball like items that looked like takoyaki, but were actually melted cheese filed balls. So what was with the name? Well, 5 of the balls were filled with a delicious sweet cheese. But one of the balls was filled with a super spicy melted goo. Tasty, but damn it was hot! From the egg menu, Sarah got a delicious omelette. Finally, Leslie got some fried pumpkin fritters from the fried menu (Second to bottom row, center). Delicious!
After that, we left Doma-Doma and went to our respective metro stops. They took the mita line, and I took the JR back to oji.
That's about it. I've gotta work!
hopefully more photos soon!

change of flans

So we ended up not going to goth night. Juliana, Amanda, and I met up at Azabu-juban station around 8PM. From there, we went to Shibuya, where we would have gone for goth night anyways. It seemed to be a relatively quiet night in Shibuya. We were still burned out from last night, so we decided to take it easy. So we nerded around Shibuya for a while, going to a good curry place...an Indian curry house! SO YUM! It was great to have some curry that wasn't that british-style curry for a change! LUCK-EEP! We ended up going to TAITOland (I forgot the name of the place) to play some games first. I played that Taito drum game again. It's really addictive. We then nerded over to a Sega where I played a really neat dragon ball z fighting game. After that, went out to the metro and went back home. Yeps. That's it. Time for some photos.

Amanda and Juliana ala goth.


I actually have no idea what this is an advert for.


Mmm! Pasta Cube!


Shibuya at night.


Again, I have no idea what they're selling.


Everything in Japan is uber cute, even the bus mascot.

feeling like a space plane one more time tonight

So I owe you a couple night's updates eh? Let's start with a photo of another great questionable Japanese product! This was either supposed to be lychee...or skittles flavored.

Well, Thursday night Sarah, Lesley, Abby, Amanda, Juliana, and myself went to the alleyway post class to get some dinner. The alleyway area, as previously mentioned is rather groovy. From the street, all you see is a small neon gate. But as you get to the gate, you'll see a small alley like area loaded with tons of small food shops and street vendors. I haven't seen it during the day, but I'm willing to bet that it is only really alive at night. It seems Tokyo doesn't truly come to life until 10PM. The Japanese are much different than Americans in terms of their after work activities. The American mindset is Work ends, run home. In Japan, all the end work means is that you're now off the clock...but still on the job. Company members then go out for drinks/socialization with each other. As a result, the busy evening rush hour tends to be the last few trains in the evening. Sadly, I couldn't get any good pictures of the alley itself, but I managed to take a few pictures of some fun things!

As you might guess, this place involves alcohol.

Here there be frogs! RIBBIT! "Human Song Network." That sounds sinister, doesn't it? And you'd figure they'd show humans, unless those are former humans who have been turned into frogs. Either way it's a karaoke bar. We'll get more into that sorta thing later.

GIANT FUCKING EGG. I have no idea why. I don't question it. GIANT FUCKING EGG.
Moving on, we went to what I think was a Chinese place. I ordered a yummy shrimp and soba dish (yummo). We spent some time there eating our meals, drinking godawful jasmine tea, and generally being gaijin. After that we headed to our respective stations and headed home. Helpful note: The Kehin-Tohoku JR Line rocks because it runs a bit later. Rock. This will come in handy at a later episode, I'm sure.
So last night...
The story begins after Prof. Wilson's class let out. Set your clocks to 7PM tokyo time. After some false starts and other ishkabible we headed over to Roppongi (In truth it was next to Roppongi hills) to go to a venue known as the Super Deluxe. The venue was really trippy.
It was kinda like some sorta Andy Warhol-ian bar/space dream. After going down a spiral of a set of stairs, you get to the anteroom. A quick photo of one of my fellow students in the ante-room.

So yeah. Eyes everywhere. Creepy. The inside was also...interesting. Crowded as hell though. The place was packed with both law students and undergrads. We arrived during the talk from this past year's Cherry Blossom Queen. Side note: I missed drinking the Jagermeister. According to Amanda, it actually is a bit different/better in Japan. MOOF! Grr! After the Cherry Blossom Queen, we had a guest expert come in to teach us all about Sake! Very useful! very informative! we also got a list of good brands to buy and other such things! Luck-ee! Then madness transpired, as the sake tasting begun! YUM! There were 7 different bottles of good quality sake. Some of them were only so so if you ask me. They tasted like the stuff I get back in the states. However, some of the other sake was really unique. I dare say some of it had a bit of fruitocity to it. RANDOM PICTURE TIME
.
This was outside the Super Deluxe. Can anyone tell me what an "Avant-guarde women's toilet" is? And more importantly...why someone would want one?
So yeah...we were inspired to quest after that for some real good sake of our own. We navigated through Roppongi to find a way to safely cross the street and ended up at a small Sake-ya. I spoke with the clerk there as best I could and sadly he had to inform us that he didn't have any of the top sakes on the list. We did manage to get a big bottle of great sake anyways. From Roppongi we headed to...well...damned if I know. The area where Sarah lives in. Our first stop was Mos Burger for some midnight munchies. Not too shabby. The old lady working behind the counter was exceptionally nice, and did her best to deal with the sudden influx of noisy non-Japanese speaking gaijin that was our crowd. I'm actually shocked that my Japanese is starting to improve a bit. I've been able to communicate decently. I'm still no where close to the level of some of the other people but I'm better than I was.
Originally, we planned to go to Sarah's to drink drink drink, but on the way we came across a fun looking karaoke place. In a spur of the moment decision, we decided to go there. It LOOKED like it was only 400YEN a person per hour. So we opted for 3 hours. We were shown to our own private soundproof room, given a book full of English songs, and opened up our sake and began drinking. Lots of fun. Lots of good songs. Amanda and I did our best "Young One's" imitation to...uh...Cliff Richard's "Young Ones." Amanda and Lesley also each got another bottle of wine. In the end, I drank 1/5th a thing of sake and 1/2 a bottle of wine. And it had no effect. :( Disappointing.
We left the joint after paying way too much money and split up again. It was about 3AM so the trains were down for the night. I went with Lesley and Juliana back to shirokane-takanawa station by taxi (TOO MUCH $$) and we went to Juliana's place for a bit. They took her room, and I took the kitchen floor. Around 5:30, after not sleeping I realized the trains were up again so I split. Got back in around 7. So tired. Slept until 4PM. So tonight in that line...I'm going out to a goth club which runs from Midnight -5. ROCK! I'll write more tomorrow!

I shouldn't be seeing the sun

Crazy night last night. Will post later. 7:30amish. just finished checking the eepmail. got in a half hour ago.
G'night.

I hate that cat.

Enjoy.

we interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast

Holy fargleflang. It would seem that Evanescence will be playing Tokyo the 30th and 31st. This is very much worth missing class for? What? Fuck you. I like Evanescence. Their new album isn't bad...but it's a disappointment considering how good their past stuff was. And it is indeed great. They suffer from the problem that they became extremely popular. And admittedly, some songs were overplayed. But ai ya! I saw them back in 2003 with Meep and it was a great show. I can't think of any shows I've been to since that. Can you? I need help. Can someone help me get through the Zepp site, and get tickets? Help!

Ya-pa-pa Ya-pa-pa: revisited

So tonight Steve, Lesley (also from Pitt law), Iffeanyi, Juliana, Jerusha and myself went out for dinner. Up the street from the law school, and past the evil KFC and the "Hyper convenient US 100YEN" mart (not my name!) is this cool maze of alleyways that comes to life at night filled with small restaurants. It's awesome. Sadly, I didn't have my camera today, so I'll be revisiting. What did we do? We went to a cool little Monjayaki/okonomiyaki shop! The place was in the back alley of a back alley of a back alley. You could barely see the place, but once we slid open the door, we found ourselves in an adequately sized eatery. The vibe was cool. There was one other group there, a bunch of Japanese students of English Language. I'm going to cut things short here as I don't have any photos, but it was good stuff. I'll be returning.

whole lot of shaking going on

I forgot to mention...last night around 3AM there was about a 30 second earthquake.

purple reign

Today I signed up for a number of possible internships. I would really like one because I need work experience. I need to also apply for post-grad jobs, because frankly, I'm fucked.
So here's the deal I make with you reader. Should I be unable to get an internship, I will be taking the Japanese language class, which also gives me free time to explore Tokyo. What it also does, which is why this is post worthy, is give me a number of months where I won't need to do anything superformal that would require me to be lawyertastic. As such, I'm going to let myself revert back to my more...natural...form...Re-dye my hair purple, and perhaps a few other things. Any American firms I apply to won't be able to see me for months anyways. Good deal?

get your body beat

It's interesting the type of people TUJ draws to it. Straight to the point, the law school has drawn a large number of people who are somewhat gothtastic and/or will be going to the club with me as soon as I find a good club. I'm referencing Abby, Amanda, Renee, and Juliana right now, or as I have identified them, the four horsewomen of the Eepocolypse Japan branch. Amanda also had a pangtastic plan...she found a place that serves Absinthe. Actually, the place is Cafe Absinthe in Ikebokuro, which is near me! Amanda's plan is Absinthe, then goth club. That's her poison. Let's do it!

random images from japan

shiny shiny shiny


evil evil evil


Looks like there should be cute candy in here, yes?


Hah! No silly gaijin! Japanese uh...yeah.


That's right. Aso-Viba! Say it. Sounds like ass vibe.

ya pa pa, ya pa pa part two!

Ok folks, the eepernet seems a little less bitchy now. So let's continue, shall we? After lunch Abby, the Evil Queen of Visual Kei, and I explored the Yebisu Garden area a bit more. On the ground floor, I found some very silly/hyperactive Japanglish signs. Also, they had some randomly placed "art" like a chandelier.




After walking around Yebisu Garden for a bit, we decided to take a side trip to Shinjuku. I've never been there, but I've heard cool things. Also, we always practiced "Shinjuku Eki" in Japanese class, so it's burned into my mind. But yeah. Also, Abby has a really amusing game/plot. She plans on taking a picture of one Japanese person per day, to make a calendar. So very evil. Also a subplot is to walk up to gaijin, i.e. people like us, go crazy and take photos. Evil.
So yeah. We went to the station, and then went to Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a very cool place. I'll dedicate another posting to describing it. We wandered the streets Gaijin style, as Abby attempted to take photos of the various Japanese people...er...and not be too obvious. At some point, we stopped into a place called Closet Child, a place with CD's of a lot of visual kei bands on the fifth floor, and gothic lolita stuff on the 6th. Are you recoiling in fear at the second? Good. I didn't get a chance to take many photos of people in action there. Not many dressed up to be honest. However, it seems Abby is a HUGE visual kei fan and will be giving me a copy of her whole collection. In amusement/gratitude I purchased a Gackt CD for her. She seemed happy.
After that, we walked around a bit more, and split up. She went to Asakusa to meet a comrade, and I went back to my place.
I returned home, typed the first blog entry on this matter while the internet was the suck while trying to work on my Japanese placement test. Eventually I got frustrated and proposed that Yuum, Fabian, and myself go to Namcoland! I was shocked that everyone agreed, so off we went! We had a great time tonight! I played Taiko: Drum Master. Simply put, this game rocks. I want to get addicted. After that, yuum and I played time crisis 4. 4? I love getting to play these games before they're big in the US. She's deadly at the game though! damn deadly! finally we ended with a race!
Following the fun at the arcade, we headed out to find Fabian something to eat. After many false starts, we ended up at the AM/PM near our house. While they decided what to get, I found something amusing. "Jersey Milk Sticks." A jersey pocky? What the hell?!
So yeah. After that, headed home. We each had a beer, toasted, and whatnot and that was that. Oy! What a day!