55 Days in Tokyo

January 24th, 2007

Slept fairly well the night before. Seems like I sleep well one night and have a terrible time sleeping the next. Woke up at the usual time and spoke with my girlfriend online for about an hour. Checked my laundry and found that it was mostly dry but still needed a few more hours. Took my time getting dressed after my shower and, after making certain that my laundry was still setup properly I set off to go wandering around. I walked down the street to Sugamo station instead of my usual trip of taking Itabashi to Ikebukuro and then getting on the Yamanote line. Sugamo is one of the stations on the line and now that I know where it is I think it'll actually be faster to walk there than the delay I get for going to Ikebukuro to get onto the line.

From my house to the actual train it took me about 30 minutes. Don't know if it is actually faster but it still gives me more exercise. Hopped on the train to AKihabara to wander around for a while. Got off the train and walked through part of the newest structures in Akiba. Large building that supposed to have the Anime Museum, which was mostly a small room with a bunch of merchandise and press releases. Not very interesting. Some of the restuurants in the building seemed to be not that bad. The american food resturant had some nice choices and weren't priced that much differently than their food would be here in the states.

Wandered around for a little while before stopping into an arcade to play my Gundam game. Fairly entertaining again and I think I'm slowly getting better. Hopefully I'll be a decent player before I leave Japan. My game finished I decided to try my basic navigational skills and see if I could find my way from Akihabara to the Kodokan, which shouldn't be too far away by my standards of how much I walk. Used my compass to get a general direction to the west and started walking. In general I was able to find my way by my own, only having to stop at a Koban and ask for directions once due to the fact that I was not exactly going the perfect direction. Turned out I had slightly missed my mark and when I finally came out onto the main street I had gone past my intended goal, but only by 4-5 blocks. Went to the the Tokyo Dome mall area to get some dinner before going to watch some Judo. Found a ramen place that gives you a piece of paper that lets you specify everything you want in your Ramen, like how strong the broth is, how much garlic and green onion and how you want your noodles. By far the most delicious ramen I have had so far. I will have to remember that place.

Went back to the Kodokan and discovered that they were having a mass Randori (standing up full out practice) with almost the entire class being black belts. Very interesting and educational to watch them practice. Watched them for over an hour until most of them finished up and left. Only annoying thing was this woman was there with her small daughter. The daughter kept making all this noise and the mother did nothing to really stop her because the mother was taking all these photos with the flash on. I later realized she was the wife of one of the black belts who also was explaining most things to the foreign students. Still rude to be taking pictures with flashes when people are practicing.

Left shortly after 8pm and got home at about 9pm after stopping off to get some food for tomorrow. Also picked up another calorie mate as a backup food source, just in case. Played poker and read up on random topics on Wikipedia until well after 1am and went to sleep.

Photos for January 24th, 2007