I was wandering the streets of a sort of "Red Light District" one day and came across this night club. I took the picture and the looked it up on the internet. It turns out it is the type of club in Japan known as a "host club" where ladies can pay to drink and converse with attractive men who work at the club. Coincidence, or career of destiny?
Life in Tokyo continues to get more expensive. When I first arrived here I went to CitiBank and withdrew 10,000 yen. That showed up as costing me $881.52. Saturday I went and withdrew the same amount of yen and it cost me $924.39. Some say that US home sales are a major contributing factor to the devaluation of the dollar. It seems that a higher number of US dollars are being spent that don't actually exist through loans, credit cards, and more. This has made the dollar sharply decline in the global market. It is not only the dollar verses yen that has changed, but the dollar also fell to an all-time low against the British pound during my stay here. Here is the up to the minute graph of the dollar and yen.
Since the dollar is so weak, it seems only natural to be eating at home. I actually rarely eat out in the first place so I took some advice to buy some cream and make a Japanese winter favorite known as "Cream Stew." It is a pretty simple stew needing just vegetables, meat, cream and milk. The recipe is found on boxes of dried cream here. I made the mistake of using food to make a utensil stand. That is only done at funerals when a plate is presented to the dead so you aren't supposed to do it any other time here in Japan. Check out the video.
I guess I will keep things in chronological order and start with my first blog-worthy news. Last week I sent a letter to Major League Baseball's Tokyo office to inquire about work there. This wouldn't be video related work but I am still interested. This office is MLB's agent in Japan to represent the sales of sponsorship rights, and facilitate event operations, broadcast sales and licensing. I couldn't find any sort of email address so I actually had to write a letter! It had been a long time since I had written a letter. Anyway, they responded to me via email and asked for my resume and gave me information about an apprenticeship program that they are currently recruiting for. I emailed them my resume and got a call to come in the same day for an interview but unfortunately I was out of town and won't be able to go to their office until December 5th but it should be interesting. I still can't tell if it is a Japanese or English speaking environment so I am a little nervous. The place I was when I was out of town was somewhere where most of you probably wouldn't have expected me to go...Disneyland! Tokyo actually has two Disney parks and the one I went to is Disney Sea. Disney Sea opened in 2001 and is the most expensive theme park ever built in the world. It is estimated to have cost over 4 billion dollars.
Anyway, I had a great time! I really had my doubts, but it was definitely worth my time and fifty dollars. Our crew of 4 was there for 13 whole hours and I believe we experienced every penny of the 4 billion dollars it cost to build this place. We showed up early and had our tickets around 15 minutes before the gates opened. As we entered the park we realized that it wasn't that crowded at all. I think our first wait for a ride was just a 15 minutes. In fact, the whole day the most we ever waited for anything was 30 minutes and that was our second time riding the most popular ride.
What really made Disney Sea worth my while were the incredible shows. The acting, singing, dancing, and musicians were superb! Not all of them were Disney themed, however the Little Mermaid show was quite a show! The actors were all in incredibly elaborate, unique costumes and were harnessed by robotic arms to a decorated ceiling. This way it was like they were swimming in the sea. Everything about it was worth seeing twice! Another show we saw was a tribute to big-band music. That featured a full band, tap dancers, acrobatics, acting, go-go, and more. It was brilliant!
Not being a big fan of theme park food I brought lots of snacks into the park. Therefore, I only got one meal there, and it happened to be at a Mexican restaurant. It was my first time to get Mexican food in Japan and I have to admit I really enjoyed it. I paid $9.50 for fajitas.
At night one of the realistic bays in the park is the location of some fantastic shows including incredible displays of lighting, robotics, and pyrotechnics. I will now include Disney Sea in my recommendations of what to do in Japan simply because it is tons of fun and had world class entertainment. Disney Sea has a peculiar reputation in Japan though and that is that it is for couples. The park doesn't base its attractions or shows on the idea that there are mostly couples there, it had just become somewhat of a cultural thing I guess. If you tell someone that you are going to Disney Sea they immediately ask, "With who?" If a guy can get a girl to go to Disney Sea with him she has given him the seal of approval! We didn't actually buy any of the ride photos, but we took pictures of them!
Hey everyone, nice to have you reading again! Last weekend I was pretty sick and had to study for midterms. I did manage to see a new place though when I went out to eat with Miho and her sister. I don't go out that often so it was fun! It was Yumi's recommendation so I was happy to come along. After dinner we went walked to a place already lit-up for Christmas. It was pretty, and very Tokyo how it was right next to what's known as the busiest train station in the world. There were trains coming and going into the night to the side, but unfortunately we don't have any pictures of that.
Tuesday my friend Dustin from Fresno State University moved into the second floor of this building. We hung out a bunch this week along with his roommate from Chico State named Justin.
Around Thursday morning I got some cool news that it has been confirmed, and made public that there will be a real, regular-season Major League Baseball series between Oakland and Boston here in Tokyo in March. A generous friend in San Francisco has told me that she will try and get me work there. She and I worked for the same people (MLB International) as a part of the international broadcast at the All Star Game in San Francisco in July. There are also rumors that there will be a series in Beijing, China this March between San Diego and Los Angeles so I am keeping my eye out for that. I never really shared any of my All Star pictures so here are a few.
I promised a few people video of me goofing off in my horse mask so here it is. Originally I put on the mask and scarred a tour guide who was with a bunch of children so bad that she screamed out loud. Then my friend got out his camera and we continued. They are mostly kids on field trips. It was really funny.
The Waseda University festival took place this weekend and it was such a great party. It is a student run event that attracts tens of thousands of people, has nationally known acts, and draws the attention of the national media. I spent most of my time there on Saturday going to various concerts held inside classrooms. I also ate a wide variety of food which benefits various school clubs. This was all part of 4 of the most exciting days I have had here. Friday I went to the Nikko mountains, Saturday was the festival then celebrating my friend's birthday and my other friends' going away, Sunday was more Waseda festival (plus a nap), and then Monday I went to go to a CPR seminar and disaster preparedness workshop at a firestation. Here is some video from the festival!
More updates! Sunday I went to another one of my school's baseball games. This time they were playing their rival. The two teams happen to be the two best teams in the nation! It was part of the championship series of some sort so we played more games and Waseda took the title! There was a big ceremony on Tuesday night after we won. One of our pitchers in a national celebrity. College baseball players here can get very famous.
Here are some pictures of a fun part of town I passed through on the way home from the game.
Friday was a school holiday and the group of Californians I came here with was scheduled to go to the Nikko prefecture (a trip included in our tuition). It was a beautiful place in the mountains northwest of Tokyo. The mountains were volcanic, there were rivers and lakes, and beautiful shrines and old architecture. There are really hairy monkeys that live there but I didn't end up seeing any. I had such a good time but I will let the video and pictured to the rest of the talking.
All blogs found on this site written before 2009 have been imported from MySpace. Some may not look too pretty, and some of the pictures won't enlarge, but it is a small price to pay to not have to deal with MySpace's primitive blog setup anymore!
I recently graduated San Francisco State University. I majored in Japanese and minored in International Relations, and spent a year studying at Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University. I grew up in a very rural area of Humboldt County California. That remote setting built up a lot of ambition in me to get out and chase my dreams. Thanks for reading!
