... in Tokyo

Day 98 - Flying home

Sun, 5 Apr 2009 22:22:46 +0900

I am on my way home, this is written at Tokyo Airport. I am currently waiting for my flight, (I am not wearing the t-shirt, will do that in Helsinki! Thank you again, really! domo arigatou gozaimasu). There was fortunately not any problem with my luggage (well so far) although it is a bit overweight (27kg! =)).

It is a strange feeling, somehow I already miss it, it is after all quite different here, but on the other hand I look forward to see old friends again, and well I am looking forward to next week back at home with Caren! :)

Day 97 - Cleaning, Moving Out and Akihabara Capsule

Sat, 4 Apr 2009 15:43:23 +0900

My last day in my flat and also the last evening in Japan.
I did finish cleaning my room after feeling a bit hung over from last night, but by the time I threw the bed sheets into the laundry machine I was almost fine :)
By 12 I had to leave my room and well I was kinda ready, I just had to throw some clothes, since I had too much stuff for my suitcase, which well is really heavy, I hope not to get too much trouble with it tomorrow...

I went for a last watami today with the girls, and it was quite nice, lots of crazy stories to tell :)

Right now I am in a capsule hotel here in Akihabara, which is kinda interesting as a concept, not that special though, just a really small room =) haha
I did forget to ask for a password to the wireless network so I can not sign on and actually post this right now, ... (yeah wonderful and really useful sentence cuz when you read that it will be online already).

Off to sleep my last night in Japan...

Day 96 - Ueno and Farewell Hanami

Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:40:31 +0900

Yes I did count this day twice ;) and well I stand by it :)
After the fish market (see previous post) I went thru the Ueno Park to see what is going on and well tt is crazy, millions of people there enjoying the weather and the cherry blossoms, awesome!
This is also my last day in the ISSL and I am of course sad to leave, the people are great, the atmosphere is very constructive and well everybody is really nice but really busy. Unfortunately there was no time to go to Karaoke with them, well the next time :) I

Sakura desu ka?
these last days is always packed with tons of people and well they are all there to drink oh and of course stare at the cherry blossom, which is called sakura (I heard also in English not just in Japanese). It is pretty impressive, tons of cherry trees with even more blossoms all over the park and millions of people passing under it and staring up taking pictures and videos. Really cool atmosphere!! I am really glad I saw it and did not miss it! Another thing I am going to do is hanami, tonight I am going to meet with the girls since Miwa invited me to their Hanami celebration. I guess that is a good thing to do on your almost last day.
Before that I did my laundry and started packing and cleaning my apartment. I have to hand over the keys (after inspection) tomorrow at 12.

The hanami place was close to the Tokyo Tower and it was really nice to sit there, though a bit dark and well stupid me I forgot the camera :( I ended up being the only guy with 4 girls and that is not easy, especially when they drink as much as those girls ;)

Maria did take some pictures and well the ones you see down there are all hers...

Day 95 - Tsukiji Fish Market

Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:39:41 +0900

Marc said that this is something you definitely have to do while being in Tokyo and well it was on my todo list which uhm well is still really long. To actually go there you have to get up early, since I was going with a Spanish ;), we went early for well Spanish time, 8am :) So this morning Maria and I met at Tsukiji station and went to the market.
At first we had our doubts if we really are there, well we did not know if that is it. But that is because we were not really at the cool part :) this one is closer to the river/bay in big warehouses where tons of fish and other seafood are killed, prepared and sold. Really impressive. I saw soo many different things dunno what they all were :) And well amazingly huge amounts of tuna and other fish, really massive!! Unfortunately we missed the tuna auctions, on the webpage it says up until 9am but there was a board at the market saying 5-6am, so I guess you should more trust them than the webpage.
We ended the visit there with a sushi breakfast and yeah it was expensive but my it was really good too, not something you would do everyday though but definitely worth to see when in Tokyo!

Day 93 - First of April

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 15:31:49 +0900

I did take those pictures while going around Ueno, the reason was that I needed to bring my flight tickets and reservations to the Taito-ku office, which well was a bad idea to do on a first of the month :)
On the way I had to pay the NHI and also changed USD to 円。

Day 92 - Last Day of March

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:19:03 +0900

We are in my last week in Tokyo!!! The de-registration at the National Health Insurance did not really work now, but the good news is that I do not have to sign off from the town hall. Tomorrow I will have to come back with a flight details and a ticket...

On my way back to uni I walked thru the Ueno Park, the place to be at Hanami and Sakura, and well 10 min walk from my room :)

Day 88 - Last Day for Marc

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:13:11 +0900

After a very sad last day for him in his attorney office Marc’s last day was almost over when we decided to go for one last short drink ;) Well we should have known better, we returned back home at 5 in the morning, I had a massive hangover and obviously Marc does not find it too nice to fly with one either ;)

We started off with Kaiten Sushi, with Sake :), headed to a not very high-class Izakaya, where Marc really enjoyed the waiting staff ;), then we ended up in a pachinko/game hall, a sex shop, MY 99 Yen store ;) and in our neighboring bar, which we always wanted to go in, and well we obviously missed out for the last 3 months cuz it was kinda cool! =) (not too bad pics this time ;))

Day 85 - Farewell Marc

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:04:09 +0900

Since the girls did not want to come, it was just Marc and me, and after going to a watami place where we already had Sake (or was it Chuchu?) we were already a bit drunk, we then did walk around the Ueno-Okachimachi area with its tons of small shops and patchinko halls. We of course went into those ones and other places :) Was good, meaning I was quite drunk :)

Marc does not like when I put discriminating pictures of him up here ;)

Day 83 - Okazaki

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:23:35 +0900

Here in Okazaki we were visiting the castle where the first shogun, that is the guy to unite Japan, grew up. Okazaki is where we stayed in the Ryokan and also Masaki’s hometown. We got breakfast (typical Japanese style) prepared by his mum at his place!!! Oishii desu!! We also got lunch there (fresh Soba! also delicious) and then left for Tokyo.
After we did see the castle, which was quite fast, since it was raining quite heavily, we went to the Miso (paste and therefore soup) factory there. It is one of the oldest factories and has a guided tour oh and the soup there is "the Emperor’s choice" :) It was quite interesting especially since i really really like Miso soup :)

We went also to one of the biggest shopping malls in Japan, at least that is what Masaki tried to expain to Pipe and me =) And of course we have been to the Hello Kitty shop..

As mentioned before we took that (packed again) Shinkansen back to Tokyo, where we then went through Akihabara. Masaki also showed us the place where they bought the electronics for their CubeSat, well just a regular electronic store (but a few stories high and with every possible component you can think of :)).

We also went into a Maid Cafe which to be honest was just not really that cool, I guess it would have been nicer if I understood them (it was of course all Japanese) and there were just tons of weird guys in there. Okay I dunno what I was expecting...

Day 82 - Kyoto, again

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:51:17 +0900

After Nagoya yesterday, we (the same folks as yesterday) we went to Kyoto today and I managed to get another day in this really amazing city. You just do not know all the stuff that is here, amazing :) Apart from the shopping street, and Yasaka Shrine I saw completely different things again! =) We started our tour with a visit at the famous Golden Temple (Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion)) which is a Zen temple formally known as Rokuonji, where construction started in the late 13-hundreds!! :) It is Kyoto’s number one tourist spot and definitely worth it!

We then went back to the big shopping area where we had a nice Japanese lunch (it helps if you have Japanese around ;)). We saw an electronic ox (year of the ox, remember?) at a shrine and of course we (3 robotics SpaceMasters ;)) were intrigued :) We also saw some cherry blossoming on our way to the Yasaka Shrine. There a wedding was going on and I also saw a bit of how that looks, quite cool too =)

Through the Higashiyama we were on our way to the really impressive Kiyomizudera Temple, which is an amazing wooden terrace and a magnificent view over Kyoto. The way there is really impressive too, we saw lots of Maiko, small shops, selling all sorts of stuffs from chop-sticks to cookies, and sweets and tea. I got a few things (and also sent some EDIT: but seems the parcel got lost in the mail :(). Up there, at the temple the others convinced me to buy a fortune paper, which you more or less pick by yourself (you pick a stick from a box after shaking it and the number tells you which paper you get ) and according to that I have great luck in life, with basically everything. Sounds too good, I doubt it anyway =) haha

After that we just went to a Zen garden and house nearby and then did go back with the Shinkansen to the same place we stayed yesteday, we did have dinner on the Shinkansen. there at the JR (train) station we had a selection of an endless amount of various bento boxes. Oishii desu!

Day 81 - Nagoya

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:08:01 +0900

With Pipe, a thai second round SpaceMaster, I did go to visit Masaki (also SpaceMaster 2nd round, and recent PhD graduate from the ISSL, congrats!) in Nagoya. After taking the shinkansen which was uber-packed because of a public 3-day long holiday, in honor of the start of spring.

When we finally arrived in Nagoya (after seeing Fuji-san on our way there!) we had Soba lunch and started touring around. Masaki brought a friend of his, I am sorry I did forget her name, and so we were the 4 of us trying to go to the Nagoya Castle. After seeing hundreds of temples and shrines (and yeah even the Japanese sometimes have trouble distinguising) I really liked the different style of the castle (a bit like the imperial palace). The castle itself is quite massive and has a dolphin-shaped-fish with a tiger-head in gold on its roof. (yeah really =))

From there we went thru one of the bigger shopping areas (it is a lot of streets! =)) in Nagoya and ended up at a temple (hmm I am really bad with names...). After hanging around the shopping streets for a while we took the metro to Central Park and Nagoya Tower, there is also a thing called Oasis21 which is basically a very high (and shallow!) swimming pool =)
There was also a Pokemon Center in there as well as a big anime shop, but since I dunno much about both ... well anyway

We then took the train to Masaki’s hometown, Okazaki, where we went for kaiten (running) sushi, this restaurant was quite big (really really) and had a Shinkansen train that would serve you the sushi you ordered on the touchscreen, well in case you did not like the things that were passing by on the belt. :) Sooooo coool =) haha Pipe took pictures of everything we ate =)

Masaki then showed us the Inn we were staying in, a typical Japanese style one, looked awesome and Pipe and I had quite some fun getting our beds ready, oh and we had to try on our Yukata of course =). There was also a public bath (not onsen though) but quite nice and hot =)
oh and if you ever go to Japan, buy a JR Rail Pass before coming here, saves you huge money =)