Saturday night was my friend's birthday party. The night was fun and consisted of great food, drinks, and fun. A friend that goes to San Francisco State University who is visiting for the winter also tagged along.
Most of us at the party
Roomies Justin and Dustin of the 2nd Floor
Show me the money. Scott, the football star, and Justin
New Years Eve was a whole lot of fun in Tokyo. Most Japanese spend the holiday with their families, sort of like we do with Thanksgiving, so us foreigners with lots of time and no families are left searching for something fun to do! I did a lot of research and watched many YouTube videos of random peoples' past New Years celebrations in Tokyo but all of their clips were really crappy so I decided not only to party, but to make a video for the world to see. My friend Justin, who is roommates with the previously mentioned birthday-boy, has his sister in Town so around noon we headed to the usually busy Shinjuku area of the city. Our destination was the Tokyo Metropolitan Building because it has a free observation deck up really high. However, it was closed for the holiday so we couldn't enter. The combo of it being a legal holiday, and that holiday being one where few leave the house made Shinjuku seem like a ghost town. Here is a picture of that building and some others in that vicinity:
This one is especially beautiful and construction is almost finished:
We then were in in search of some lunch and decided to put our trust in this guy holding a sign for an Indian restaurant.
We all really enjoyed the meal and would happily go there again. Next we went to Takadanobaba which is near where we live. There we decided to head the "Hub" (the most popular bar among Waseda students). We had drinks at 55% off with the combination of my friend's members card and it being happy hour. We played a game we call "Moose" (a good name because the word is the same in Japanese and English). In "Moose" the rule is simple, if you touch a glass with your right hand and someone sees you they will yell "moose" and you have to drink everything in the class immediately. I only had three drinks at the bar but the second one was really strong and was made with an alcohol too strong to be sold in the USA. Unfortunately for Justin, he was Moosed as soon as we got those stiff drinks and was caught on video making that drink disappear. There was K1 (high profile kickboxing) on TV and more friends showed up so we had a blast. The time came for me to go to Tokyo Tower to meet Miho so I took off on my own and hung out with her for the rest of the night. The train was so empty on the way there. It was like nothing I had ever seen. On the way from the station to the shrine we hung out with we stopped at an AM/PM and I saw this "Bacon and Eggs" flavor of potato chips:
The shrine was so beautiful with the futuristic Tokyo Tower in the background. People blew up large, biodegradable baloons and wrote wishes on them and let them loose right as the clock struck midnight. It was so beautiful!
We ate fried potatos and Okonomiyaki which is a mix between stir-fry and an omelet. They were sold in traditional Japanese festival fashion by street vendors powered by propane and generators. It was delicious.
As the countdown approached the night seemed to keep getting colder. We got to listen to some live, traditional New Years music while we waited. The anticipation grew in the last thirty minutes and the atmosphere became electric. The Tower began to sparkle and change colors and before I knew it there were thirty seconds left. We counted out loud with everyone and watched as the Tokyo Tower turned a beautiful whitish-blue at midnight and shined lights that read "2008". The colors eventually returned to orange and we decided it was about time for us to return home as well. I had a blast, check out the video.
Part of my work beginning next month involves work in the promotion of baseball around Asia. Major League Baseball seeks to gain popularity around the world just as it has in Japan. One major setback it faces, though, is the discontinuation of baseball as an Olympic sport. At the International Olympic Comittee meeting in July 2005, baseball and softball were voted out of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England, becoming the first sport voted out of the Olympics since Polo was eliminated in the 1936 Olympics hosted in Berlin, Germany. The event will be played in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. They could be brought back for 2016 though. The concern is that if there is no baseball in the Olympics, there is just that much less baseball coverage in countries where baseball is still emerging. Anyway, I came across this article on the man who manages the office I will work at. I haven't met him yet because he was out of the office when I had my interview but we have exchanged emails. The article has some interesting information about the environment I will be working in so those of you who are interested should check it out. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20071020a1.html
My fun little Christmas in Japan just came to a close and I had a great time!My highlight was going to an area of Tokyo called Odaiba with Miho.Odaiba is an artificial island that was built in the 1800s for defense purposes, but it is now a place for leisure.It also has the unique Fuji television building.These pictures should give you an idea of what I am talking about:
We took the train there which crossed Tokyo's famous Rainbow Bridge (which lights up like a rainbow at night).We spent the first part of the sunny day walking along the bay in search of the replica of the statue of liberty.It took a while, but we found it and took a few pictures.
After that we went to a mall called Aqua City and got a taste of Odaiba's famous shopping.The holiday weekend and good weather brought crowds but it was tolerable.We were originally going to have our Christmas "date" at a restaurant at Aqua City but ended up going to Venus Fort (a Venice-themed mall).
Venus fort was overall a classier mall with lots of fancy places to eat and trendy shops.For those of you who have been to Las Vegas, it really resembles the mall at Cesar's Palace (isn't that the one with the Cheesecake factory?) There were also various free exhibits and shows in some of the mall's big lobbies.At one point there was a Christmas light show at one of the fountains (see the picture below).Miho had also seen on the internet that there was going to be American gospel singers so we headed to that vicinity of the mall and just decided to eat at a nice Hawaiian restaurant which overlooked the stage for the performance.It was a great choice because the food and drinks were delicious and we got to enjoy the show sitting down.However, there was a 10% gratuity fee on the dinner because this is the biggest date weekend in Japan.In fact, Christmas in Japan is more like Valentines Day in the USA.
After dinner we walked around some and ended up seeing a really cool illuminated Godzilla attacking a Christmas tree.From that area there was a beautiful night view of the Statue of Liberty, Rainbow Bridge, and Tokyo Tower.The Tokyo Tower is on the same block as the Major League Baseball office I will work at beginning next month.It is also probably where I will attend a block party to countdown New Years.
When we got home we got to eat the cake that Miho made.It was baked to perfection and decorated beautifully.It was so delicious!Check it out in the video:
The year 2007 is now 27/28ths through and it is about time for me to reflect back on what I did during it. Every year I write about my entire year for my personal saving, and share it with my family. Since I am now regularly writing a blog I will post it here. Some of my old year reviews are on this blog at the very end. The main reason I am able to remember what I did during my years is my free date-book from the Credit Union in Garberville, California. I love this thing! I keep it in my pocket every day and thanks to it I rarely forget dates. I would never consider buying one at the store because they are of too good quality and therefore are not lightweight, nor do they fit well in my pocket. My younger sister just sent me the 2008 version so I am good to go. So anyway, I will soon be writing about my 2007 which is bound to be too long, somewhat boring, and full on run-on sentences as my English writing skills have suffered a bit here in Tokyo.
I have finished all of my hard school work before the winter break starts and I just have to endure one more day of classes before I am done until January 8th. I had an oral presentation with a fellow Californian and an Alaskan friend and we did really well. We actually got the best grade in the class! I also finally have a pigeon-free balcony. It is very nice and now I can hang my laundry out there. I am drying clothes as I type! The pigeon from before was indeed stuck and has tried countless hours to try to get back on my balcony but it thankfully can't. My neighbor now has to deal with it! The neighbor obviously doesn't care because they have never tried to shoe away the pesky birds. The people who put up the netting on my balcony said they think my neighbors are feeding the birds! Just around an hour ago I looked over to my neighbor's balcony and saw mountains of bird feces. These are really big pigeons but one of the piles is bigger than 2 of them combined. What should I do? Should I report this to the health department? It is a total disgrace. I just got this photo emailed to me from the day my Japanese class went to the primary school. It was really fun, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures of the kids. We are all Americans except for the professor, a British girl, and a German girl. The low morning sun was harsh on everyone but me.
Tonight is our California State University monthly dinner and I hear it is all you can drink so some blog-worthy material is bound to surface by the end of the night.
On January 15th I will start work at Major League Baseball Tokyo. I got a call and an email from then saying that I was one of the chosen students to get hired to work through late March! I will work from 9-5 Monday through Friday. I am excited to start and see what kind of assignments I get to take on! I told them about my prepaid trip to Okinawa and they said I can take time off and go so I am extra happy! Recently I have had two issues. One involves a human, and one involves a pigeon. The first one, involving a human, is an American girl who talked to my realtor about moving into the open room in my apartment without telling me. This realtor only deals with foreigners. At the time there were many rooms, all quite similar, that were available to foreigners so I approached her with my take on the situation. I said something equal to this: "We traveled very far and spent a lot of money to get to Tokyo so how about we make an effort to live with foreigners that don't speak the same language." In response I got a very nasty email trying to make me feel guilty for her have to find another place to live which cost her some realtor fees. She also requested that I never speak to her again! Since then a French guy has looked at the room but I think he will move to the third floor so I still am living alone. The other issue is with a pigeon that lives on my balcony. This is a huge problem because I have no place to dry my clothes. The realtor has tried to putt up netting to keep the bird out but it always slips through. Today they put up more netting and still the pigeon made it in. The problem now is that I don't think it can get out! I am pretty sure it is stuck on my balcony. Here is a picture of me in traditional clothes from Mongolia. There was a Japanese girl trying on a different garment so I asked if she'd take the picture with me.
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It is fun how some nights just seem to go on forever! Friday night I went to a presentation put on by Mongolian exchange students showcasing their homeland. It was very well done and even included an appearance by a sumo wrestler. A there was also a cool performance of a Mongolian string instrument alongside throat-singing. The throat singer had a cold so he actually had to stop singing at one point. I caught that on video actually! Anyway, I got to drink Mongolian tea, eat Mongolian dumplings, learn about a game played with ankle bones of goats, and meet new people (all for free). I also got to try on traditional Mongolian clothes (pictures to come later). All of this reinforced my desire to visit Mongolia someday.
I got to see something really unique when the throat singer asked for someone to come up and try it with him and the (Japanese) guy went up there and started beatboxing. The throat singer was really into it and started to do his thing alongside the beatboxing creating a cool clash of ancient and modern sounds!
After that ended I took off to go to my friend's birthday party. The party included lots of people, food, and drink and was a great birthday bash indeed! I met a guy named Silver and a Ugandan woman named Kenya with her Kenyan friend who's name I have forgotten.
That lasted until around midnight and after that a friend and I checked out a popular bar to see if there was anyone there we knew. As we expected there were, and though I didn't order anything we hung out there for around an hour. My friend then suggested we go to an abandoned building with some others so we recruited a fellow Californian girl we ran into at the bar and all headed to the building.We all went to the creepy building which reminded me of pictures from devastating earthquakes. Some people were drinking on the top floor and we hung out with them. Things got pretty loud and eventually someone with a bright flashlight started yelling at us from below telling us to come down. Someone supposedly heard him say that he called the police but I don't think that was true.
Finally, we went to my friend's dorm and everybody started playing video games and I decided to go home.
On Saturday I earned my first yen ever! It ended up being 5000 yen for 2 hours of English conversation with an internet site director. We agreed to meet once a week for 3 months. I was bought a nice lunch at The Cotton Club, a place that I have walked passed many times but never considered going to because it seemed too expensive. He said he was going to mention me to his friends who were also hoping to get some English conversation practice.
Since 2004 I have been on video crews for many different types of events. It started with Reggae on the River, lead to more music festivals and responsibilities, and progressed into internships and work in televised sports in the Bay Area. Anyway, just because I am a part of many things doesn't mean that I am very high on the "totem pole" so to speak. An example of this is that I had never watched one of the recordings of any of the concerts I have been on camera for. However, one day while on Youtube I stumbled upon footage that I filmed! It doesn't make sense how the video got there though because copies of the shows go to the artist, our director keeps a copy, and the concert's organizational committee keeps a copy for archival purposes. None of them would have any reason for posting this raw, unedited footage online for the world to see. Yet somehow someone has done it. I also have no idea why, but the footage is in black and white. Anyway, even though this isn't the most legal, nor desired method, I see this as my first opportunity to show people my work on camera! My camera on this shoot typically gave a view of the right side of the vocalist. Some times that my camera was used in this clip are 0:05 1:13 1:59 etc etc. This is from Reggae Rising (formerly Reggae on the River) in Humboldt County California.
I also found some fun pictures on the director's blog of me at work. Reggae Rising was an incredibly enjoyable show considering all the turmoil surrounding it. The first is of me on one of the jibs and what makes it cool is guys I went to high school with are performing on stage, and friends of mine are in the front row! That group threw marijuana into the crowd and some of it landed on my shoulder! I had totally forgotten about that until seeing this picture. The second is me using one of the cameras on a stand in the crowd.
Anyway, back to the present. Before arriving here, I told myself that I was going to try really hard to get involved in something memorable, and unique to Tokyo while here and I feel it is about to happen. After sending a letter to Major League Baseball Japan explaining why I am here and that I was looking for a way to try to get involved, I was invited in for an interview. The interview was today and so I left in the morning for the Minato district of Tokyo to find the MLB offices. The office is very close to one of Tokyo's most famous landmarks, Tokyo Tower. I was a little early so I took a couple pictures.
The office building where I went was nice and as I made my way to the MLB entrance I passes the Walt Disney offices of Tokyo which are in the same building. The interview took place in a meeting room that (other than a TV I saw Sunday at a store) had the biggest plasma television I had ever seen. The interviewers were all really nice and casual. It was two women, one Singaporean and one Japanese, and a guy from Las Vegas. It was sort of a relief to me having two native English speaking interviewers but everyone there also spoke Japanese. Only about ten percent of the interview was in Japanese but working there does require Japanese language ability. What was discussed in the most detail was how there will be a series between Oakland and Boston here in Tokyo in March and we will be a major part of organizing it. This includes all sorts of tasks including stadium operations, helping foreign tv crews prepare for the event, providing comfortable accommodations for the teams and being there when they have questions or needs, and lots more. The primary function of this office is for marketing MLB to Asia, but when there is an event in Japan like this it seems there is a lot more work for them to do. Anyway, I will know if I get hired next week to work with them from mid January through the end of March. The interview went well and these people contacted my references working for MLB in New York and got a good word on me so I have a good feeling about getting this job. It sounds like I could miss out on my group's prepaid trip to Okinawa though!
I am tired and I have to give a report on Japan's involvement in World War 1 tomorrow. I am also going to an elementary school teach kids foreign culture with some classmates and I will also meet students at my school thinking about going to school in California!
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!
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!
