June 24, 2008: A Day For Introspection - Introduction

I'm writing this a few days later than I had intended, but do you know what day June 24, 2008 was? Well, according to Wikipedia, one of the many things that has happened on this date happened in "1983 - Space Shuttle program: STS-7: Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut, returns to earth". But events like that are not exactly what I am talking about. You see, for me, 06/24/2008 represents the one-year mark of my time in California so far.

So, upon making that realization I decided to take a step back and reflect on what my goals were/are in coming out here and then match those goals up with where I think I am in terms of achieving them. Those goals that I had in mind when I first came out here are the following:

1. Improve my career and grow my skills.
2. Improve my health and physical fitness.
3. Improve my dating life.

Let's take each one in turn, and see where I want to go and where I think I am. I'm usually pretty private when it comes to personal matters (or at least I like to think I am) so speaking about some of these things will not come easily for me. I'm also not too fond of the idea of putting this out there for all to see, but in some ways I see this as another outlet to grow.

So, here we go ...

Neo-Tokyo Tour, Intermixi - Spring in Japan, Final Thoughts

Ah, the group's all here (well, most of them anyway). Looking back on my trip with Intermixi, I have to start off by saying I was really lucky. There is always a worry that when you are traveling on a tour with people you don't know that there will be people you simply don't get along with. I am honored to say that in this instance, this was not the case.

I originally wanted to post pictures of each person from the tour and write a few words about each of them underneath. But, really, as I was working on that exact plan I didn't really feel like my words were doing each individual justice. So, I think instead I will simply say that I had a great experience and would do another tour with these same people in a heartbeat. I would like to let everyone from the tour know that they have my heartfelt thanks for making the trip unforgetable.

Neo-Tokyo Tour, Intermixi - Spring in Japan, Days 6 and 7

It seems like I'm slowly winding to the end of this adventure. Day 6 opened up bright and clear. There were no plans set for our group this day. This was our designated "free day" and I had no definite plans to spend it in any specific way. My roommate, Travis, wanted to take me to the Nakano Broadway, which is essentially a large shopping mall comprised of many specialty shops.

We left for Nakano late that morning. The plan was to get there, have a little bit of lunch, meet up with some other people and then spend some time shopping. We took the JR trains from Ikebukuro to Nakano, and open exiting the station at our destination we set out to find some food. The station opened up across the street from the Broadway, but since we had some time to kill before meeting up with our companions we decided to go exploring. Surprisingly, after being in Japan for about 5 full days at this point I still had not eaten any sushi. Therefore, the goal was to find a sushi restaurant.

We wandered the backstreets a bit looking for any place that caught our eyes. As we moved further and further away from the station, we happened upon a small sushi restaurant that had just four seats to serve people. There was already one older gentleman finishing his meal there, and he was talking to the proprietor while a Japanese baseball game was on the TV. I must admit, I believe we surprised both men a bit by coming in to eat. They both seemed quite amused at two gaijin trying to order food in Japanese. But don't get me wrong, they could not have been nicer and I felt very welcome there. The proprietor admitted to knowing a little bit of English, and he asked us where we had traveled from and if we were in Japan on vacation. We told him a little bit about ourselves and enjoyed a very fresh, tasty and filling meal.

After lunch, we met up with some friends and made our way through the Nakano Broadway. I doubt any of you are really interested in hearing about our shopping adventures, so I'll just skip ahead ...

... once we were all finished emptying our bank accounts, we went back to Ikebukuro and towards our hotel. I had mentioned earlier (I think) that for the second half of the trip we stayed in the Sunshine City Prince Hotel. What I didn't clarify is that Sunshine City is a building complex in Ikebukuro that encompasses a shopping mall, aquarium, planetarium, museum, convention center, theatre, etc. It also houses the Namco Namja Town (Wikipedia entry here), pictured above this paragraph. Essentially this is a small, indoor theme park and as you can probably tell the mascot characters used throughout the entire place are cats. Now before any of you question my sanity, I was "convinced" that I needed to check this little tourist-trap out. I will admit it was kind of amusing, and they had an entire section of the park devoted to serving different kinds of ice cream, which were all delicious. And they did have a curry restaurant that served surprisingly good "kitteh curry". After running around all day, it was about time to turn in. But I had one more errand to run.

This is a good friend of mine, Dan, who is currently living and working in Tokyo, Japan. I have actually been friends with his entire family for a long time, since about 4th grade, and when I made the decision to take this trip to Japan I knew that I would make time to go visit him. After my escapades in Nakano and Namja Town, I met up with Dan after he got off of work. We ended up walking along the streets of Takadanobaba, drinking and talking about life and other things. It was really chill, and really great to see him again. I keep up with him online, but that is nothing like catching up with someone in person. Unfortunately, I could not stay out all night. I had to get back and start getting ready because on the next day we were leaving Japan.

Day 7 really cannot be considered much of a day. We really only had the morning to do whatever last minute things we wanted. By noon, we were pretty much loaded into a shuttle bus and we were back on the way to Narita Airport. From there, we all boarded our respective planes and flew off for a 9-hour flight back to the States.

Check back shortly for final thoughts on the trip, the people I met and rode with, and overall experience.

Neo-Tokyo Tour, Intermixi - Spring in Japan, Day 5

Monday, Day 5, was scheduled as another pretty full day for our group. This morning started out on a sad note, as we lost one of our group. Aka-san's sister, Kim, had to go back to the real world and work. (What? I haven't talked about any of my tour companions yet? That's coming soon ...) Although I only spent a few days with her, it was fun getting to know her a little and hang out with her during our after-hours adventures (which I will get to later).

We started out traveling by train to visit the Tokyo Campus of Manga University. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the prefecture we traveled to, and worse, I cannot remember the names of our gracious hosts. However, we met two representatives of the school upon exiting from the train station and were led around the area over to the school. There, we learned a little about the products and training they offer. We also received a brief lesson from the manga-ka that illustrates most (all?) of their books, Atsuhisa Okura. Now, I have no skill whatsoever when it comes to drawing but I found the lesson to be very helpful, instructive, and gives me hope that one day I will be able to draw better looking stick figures. ;-)

Each of us was given a choice to have one of two of their published books as a gift. Even better, Mr. Okura signed the book we were given. I ended up getting this book, 50 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT JAPAN. I also purchased two copies (one for me and one for a friend) of the cookbook they had published so I could try out some new recipes at home. Although I wouldn't have minded staying there and learning a little more, we had a schedule to keep and Akihabara beckoned.

Ah, Akihabara. As quoted from Wikipedia, "Akihabara is a major shopping area for electronic, computer, anime, and otaku goods, including new and used items." Otherwise known as death to my bank account.

We were scheduled to have a guided tour of Akihabara that would take us to some out-of-the-way places and highlight aspects of this district that have evolved over time. Quite honestly, I was a little apprehensive about this part of the tour because I knew that our tour guide was a little ... well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words (or something like that) so take a gander.

Yes, that was really our tour guide for our trip through Akihabara. And yes, he is dressed as Son Goku from the Dragonball/Dragonball Z anime franchise. Now my apprehension was based on my real worry that he would take his "character" way too seriously. Luckily, my fears were not proven true. Despite the cosplay, our guide performed professionally and took us around to various sites, sounds and stores in the area. He made sure to explain the history of the area, and mentioned cultural tidbits about various places. The tour took us around Akihabara for about two hours, and then we were let loose to shop/look around on our own. I ended up wandering around with Travis, Helena and Vince as went to a wrestling shop called Backdrop (I think), various novelty stores, and a couple of arcades.

After Akihabara, we returned back to the hotel however the night was not over. We finished off Day 5 with a bout of karaoke, although we were Rickroll'ed in the process. And yes, there is picture evidence of my participation (Thanks, Travis).