Week 40

Ach, I was doing so well with updating weekly too, then to go and skip twice (almost three times) in a month! Oh well, back on track. Let's see where did I leave off...

Tuesday (the 20th), in addition to packing for my trip to Tokyo, I fit in some time to play video games with one of my friends. And, in what would be come a theme for the next few days, I went to bed fairly early.

I decided quite a while ago that I'd try to go to Tokyo Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of "Silver Week" this year. That in mind I'd been keeping a close eye on typhoon 15 which was scheduled to make land-fall right along my travel route on Wednesday. Fortunately the weather held long enough in the morning that I could get to the station without getting too wet. I rode the subway up to Shin-Osaka station, bought some souvenirs, and caught the 8:27 Nozomi Shinkansen bound for Tokyo. It was exciting riding a high-speed train through the heart of a typhoon. The train goes so fast the windows don't get wet and you can see the wall of water falling outside. I arrived at Tokyo station at 11:03 just as they were announcing that all Shinkansen services had been halted due to heavy rain. At this point the local trains were still running and it wasn't raining too hard in Tokyo to I made my way over to my old university to meet with some of my old professors (the main goal of this trip.) I met the one professor that I'd been e-mailing and we had a nice long chat over a delicious sushi lunch. Unfortunately afternoon classes were canceled (due to bad weather) so none of the other teachers came in. I also missed out on a chance to meet my two kohai (juniors) from W.M.U. as students were all told to go home early. I would have stayed and talked more but the university building itself closed down early with rumors that the local trains would stop running soon. Not wanting to get stuck too far from my hotel I made a dash over to Shibuya and checked in at my favorite capsule hotel. At this point it was still only 3 in the afternoon and, not wanting to roam too far I walked around Shibuya in the pouring down rain looking for something to do. I quickly settled on singing karaoke for a few hours (as it was both cheap and got me out of the rain for a few hours.) After singing I headed over to the local Burger King and had dinner. Shortly after dinner the rain let up and I wandered around a bit more. It was still reall windy and there were a lot of trees down along the main street including one that crushed the back half of a taxi. There were several crews of guys with chainsaws working quickly to clear the streets. Shortly before 8:00 I returned to my hotel, had a leisurely bath in the big Japanese-style bath there, and spent some time in a massage chair in the "relaxation room" planning the next day's adventure before turning in for the night at 10:30.

Thursday morning I got a reasonably early start and kicked my day off with some delicious Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Having ingested my fat and sugar allotment for the year I started to walk from Shibuya to Shinjuku (about 2 miles.) Along the way I stopped at the Meiji-jingu shrine and paid my respects. In Shinjuku I went to the top of the Tokyo Metro Govt. Building (one of my favorite places in Japan) and surveyed the Tokyo landcape. The post-typhoon calm had set in at the weather was almost perfect (except for Mt. Fuji which was hidden by it's quintessential cloud formation.) While I was taking pictures I was approached by no less than four people wanting to practice their English and ask where I was from (I don't get that too much in Osaka, it was kinda fun.) Departing from Shinjuku I took the cross-town train over to Akihabara (my favorite place in Japan.) In an amazing show of self restraint I managed not to buy anything and was satisfied to window shop before stopping for a late lunch at McD's. After lunch I walked up to Ueno Park (about a mile away.) In Ueno I decided that I'd never been to the Ueno Zoo (one of Japan's most famous) and went in. The Ueno Zoo's really proud that they have two pandas and let you know it. There are panda flags, posters, toys, marketing everywhere. Overall it's a fairly nice zoo (for an innercity zoo) and, although it has less animals, looks a lot nicer than the Tennoji Zoo here in Osaka. While I was touring the zoo it started to rain again and with the zoo closing at 4:00 I ducked into another karaoke place and waited for the rain to stop. It got to be a bit late and with the rain showing no signs of stopping I decided to walk the last leg of my excursion huddled under my umbrella. I walked from Ueno to Asakusa (another mile or so.) In Asakusa I snapped some pictures of the famous big lantern there before having a quick dinner at McD's (I'm not proud, but it's cheap and easy.) Finally I took the Ginza subway line from one end (Asakusa) to the other (Shibuya) and checked back into my hotel. Repeating the previous night's routine I again was in bed by 10:30 again. I was dog tired and although I only walked about 4 miles between destinations, I walked countless more around those places and my feet were killing me.

Originally I had planned to go see my old apartments in Shimotakaido (university) and Fujisawa (Nova) before heading back to Osaka but I changed my mind Thursday night and decided to check out Yokohama instead. There's a really convenient train line that goes from Shibuya directly to Yokohama and ends in China-town so that's where I started my day on Friday. I walked from China-town, along the waterfront, to Landmark Tower (another of my favorite places.) I arrived 5 minutes before they opened and got to ride the first elevator of the day to the top. As with the previous day the weather was fantastic (except, again, for Mt. Fuji.) Satisfied with what I'd seen in the Tokyo area I made my way back to Osaka arriving home around 3:30. I spent the rest of the evening recuperating.

The next work week was a short but busy one. After three days back it was Tuesday again before I knew it. I spent Tuesday doing chores and getting my hair cut. Wednesday I helped a friend move from up-ton into my neighborhood which was fun.

This past week's work week was normal length (5 days) but was nicely broken up with a date on Friday night (Mmmm Hawaiian burgers) and going to see my favorite band play on Saturday night. It was the band's last show of a tour so we had a big after party outside the venue which was a lot of fun. Last (Sunday) night I hosed another "game night" at my apartment which I think everyone enjoyed. Oh, aslo, last Friday was the first time I saw my high school students since before August so it was great to catch up with them and play some of the games I brought back from the States over the summer with them.

Phew, that's a lot of catching up. Anyways, looking foreword, there's nothing on the schedule for this "weekend" but next Monday I have another day off (hurray for three-day weekends in the fall!) so I may try to make plans with my girlfriend next weekend. Here's to hoping I remember to update next week.