Saturday June 21, 1997: 2pm
I guess my life isn't complete unless I get lost. This time it wasn't so bad - only a 15 min. detour. Ah well. Anyways, right not I'm at the Yasukuni Jinja (literally the "Peaceful Country Shrine") which is neat. Actually, I haven't even gotten to the temple itself yet - I'm standing at the huge steel gates at the entrance. They're huuuuuge. The 2nd set are supposedly bronze. Well, the Yasakuni Jinja is right close to the Imperial Palace - it's a shrine to commemorate Japan's war dead. So I'm gonna go in...
5 minutes later
Ah, the bronze gates aren't nearly as big. And they're green. I made a mistake - the shrine is to commemorate the *spirits* of those who died in war after the Meiji restoration (sometime in the 1860s?? - I think that's when this was built). BTW, it's REALLY hot out. I'm sick of wearing wool socks and hiking boots. I WANT MY SANDALS.
Another 5 minutes later
Wow, this is a beautiful place. It's very quiet. Right now I'm standing in the garden near the entrance and there are doves everywhere. Their cooing is very soothing and peaceful. There's a great park surrounding the main shrine. And a war museum close-by. So there are a few war artifacts hanging around.
3pm
So now I'm in the famous Imperial Palace East Garden. Wow, this is a big place. Very green. And the lawn's so perfect! No one's walking on it so I assume you're not allowed. All the bushes are symmetrically pruned - it's all very mathematical. Reminds me of Escher for some reason.
3:40pm
Well, that was thoroughly enjoyable. What an awesome park. You could spend at least half a day exploring. Me, I'm settling with 45 mins because it closes at 4. I hear they close the entrance at 3! Anyways, next on my list is the National Museum of Modern Art just across the road. I'm on my way!
10 minutes later
Wow! I think I'm looking at my 1st REAL Picasso! It's not exactly stunning, but neat. "Head of a Woman in Profile" (1905). So the artist in focus at this point in time is Kiyoshi Hasegawa, specifically his prints. They gave me an English brochure of the museum along with an English booklet about 10 pgs long on Hasegawa's prints. I paid only 130 yen ($1.60) to get in - students' price. Had to show them my WATCARD!!
4:40pm
Well, that was a cool exhibit. Almost completely Japanese artists, but many taht had either studied Western-style art, or had lived abroad. This made the artworks a curious mix of both Western and Japanese styles. Really neat. Oh, there were postcards, so I bought some.
10:20pm
Well it was a fabulous evening! I walked along the moat of the Imperial Palace for awhile - it was really sunny and clear out. So beautiful. I headed over to the area around the Tokyo station and went to the Yaesu underground mall. Now this place is incredible - it's a whole mall underground (as the name implies...). There were tons of restaurants, Japnaese style. Oh, I'll have to tell Levon, there were loads of shoe stores!! She'd be so jealous. And they were cool shoes too.
So after that I headed home. Met an African guy on the train. He spoke French to me - ack! Oh, and when I got home, my SANDALS were waiting in the mailbox! Someone hear my complaining earlier on today, I guess! Mom got them resoled and sent them over - I'd forgotten them in Toronto when I left, like a true nitwit. Smooth move. My only summer shoes.
Oh yeah, when I was getting on my bike this morning, 2 young girls (3 and 4 years old) came over to me and asked me a question. But I didn't catch it, so I said, "Can you say that again?". But they just stared. So we just looked at eachother for an uncomfortably long time, then finally I just said "What's your name?". We had a little conversation - it was fun! But it's hard to explain to a 3 yr old to use simpler words because you don't speak Japanese very well...
for this day's pictures go here...
Sunday June 22, 1997: 6:45pm
Well it wasn't very nice weather today so I abandonned my original plan, which was to head back to Kichioji with some books and hang out at the Inokashira Park. Besides, I only got up at 10:30 or so, and I wasn't back from my run til 12:30. Oh, my run... I decided to run up in the Tama Zoological Park, which is way up on the hil across the river. So I start into the path that leads through the park, and I immediately realize that it's going to be tough. Welll, it's because the storm on Friday (plus the rain last night) not only makes the mud really slippery, but there were huge branches and even downed trees strewn all over the place. I guess that storm was pretty bad. Oh yeah, and since the path goes up and down and up and down, etc - it was sloooooow going. But definitely fun - I like the idea of flying onto my ass any moment.
Oh - they've decided to give me a phone!! Yeah well I finally got around to asking Hidaka-san about it. I told him how Jason and Dave both got phones from Epson. He thought about this for awhile, and then came back with "I think that Dave and Jason paid for their phones themselves". But since I was sure they didn't, he was surprised (almost apologetic actually) and went to tell Miyasaka-san. In a few minutes, they both came back to my desk to tell me that they'd talked with Ueda-san (the pres. of Epson) and he could give me an answer by 3 that afternoon... and, it was a yes! Coooool. I'm glad I asked.
7:45pm
Gosh, my arm has a bruise 3 inches long from that blood-thing on Friday. No wonder I hate giving blood. It's a peculiar colour of turquoise and purple. I must tell Jon (Happy 21st, BTW) since he was describing the colours of HIS bruise. Betcha mine beats his hands down.
Monday June 23, 1997: 6:15pm
I guess Nakamura-san caught a cold this weekend - she was walking around the office with something similar to a surgical mask over her mouth. Yeah - I'm serious! Now *that's* being considerate for other people's well being!
Today a new guy arrived from India to work with our team for the next 2 months or so. His name is Shravan, but everyone just calls him Shee-rah-vah-san. Hmmm... Anyways, tonight I get to go out for Indian food for his welcome dinner (note: this is different from the welcome party).. on Epson! Yeah! Free food! Well, first I have to go to my Japanese lesson - actually, I'm waiting on a train now. Funny thing is, the train has been stopped at this station for about 5 mintes and everyone got off - ack! Wrong train!!
one minute later
*whew* - THAT was a sprint! I made it onto the right train. How was I supposed to know it was heading back in the other direction??? I guess I just have no luck with getting to my Monday night Japanese lessons! Oh yeah, I'm taking a train because of the Indian restaurant, it's the same one they took me to on my first night, so it's not exactly within biking distance.
Tuesday June 24, 1997: 10pm
Well, dinner last nigh was Y-U-M-M-Y! Mmmmm. I do love Indian food! Anyways, I got there a good 40 mins late, not because I was lost (yay!) but because I'd confused the time my lesson ended. Ah well, at least they'd eaten some appetizers!
Today I did some good work. I'm happy with it, and I'm just glad I got something done. Oh yeah, my Japanese teacher yesterday told me not to drink too much at the Indian dinner. What a funny gal!
Wednesday June 25, 1997: 10:30pm
Well at my calligraphy lesson tonight I tried an interesting specialty dessert... it came all wrapped up in wrapping paper - bow included! It was a small rectangular shaped box and a very small plastic bottle (Barbie-size). In the box was this light brown powdered stuff, and in the bottle was black honey (!!). So whacha do is pour the honey into this box thing, and stir around the powder and honey with the stir stick, also included. As it turns out, there are three slightly-larger-than-peanut sized chewy things hidden in the powder, and the honey sticks the powder to these thingees. Then ya eat them. Wow, a long process, but they were really good! Not exactly common around here.
As for the calligraphy lesson itself, it was great. This week's kanjis were onna (woman), kodomo (child), haha (mother) and chichi (father). Neat-o. She told me that for the next month I'm going to learn the basics, and then after that we'll do the interesting stuff. Hmmm...
Hey, the big storm last Friday was actually a typhoon, and it was so bad that in Shibuya the big TV screen in the center (centaaaah as they call it) fell down from on top of its building and killed a guy. Sheesh - that's dangerous. I take it these typhoon things are actually pretty big!
Thursday June 26, 1997: 10pm
So today I went to Hirooka for another business trip. We (Hirabayashi-san and I) got there at around lunchtime, so we went to a ramen place. Ramen is a type of soup with Mr.Noodles kind of noodles, and lots of other goodies thrown in, such as veggies, rice, curry, and meat, etc. Whatever you want. It was really good!
Well when we got to Epson it was basically time for our meeting. At lunch Hirabayashi-san had given me some of his meishis (name cards) to redo with my own info, etc, so that I could do a proper introduction to the guys I was going to meet. So the guy that was having this meeting was the designer for the Banff homepage. This is really important because the homepage is where you run all the software from. And this is important for me, because they've just decided that *I'll* be the one to do the actual coding of the pages, as a side-project to the rest of my job. They think I'm quick at making homepages... hmm... Anyways, as it turns out, this guy hadn't prepared what we'd thought he would - so our meeting only ended after an hour! There we were, at 2pm, done for the day!!
I went to say hi to HuaYue, and he introduced me to Natasha, a Co-op student from UVic. She's the other girl over here, so everyone wanted me to meet her. Oh yeah, and me too! Well, she's really nice. And she's got her own apartment too - good deal. After that I went and saw Simon briefly. He gave me details on a concert up near Fuji this weekend. I'm thinking of going cause it'd be nice to get out of Tokyo and see Fuji. Not to mention a concert! Sounds cool. But I haven't decided yet.
When I got back to the Toyoda station tonight, by bike's back tire was completely flat. At first I thought maybe somebody had slashed it or something, but I decided that that'd be ridiculous! More likely it was a policeman who'd let the air out because I'd parked it where I shouldn't have. Ah well.
Oh, since we finished our meeting so early, Hirabayashi-san asked if I'd like to take the train to Matsumoto (bigger city about 15 mins away from Hirooka) to check out the castle there. So we did. (shh! This is a secret!)
Boy, was it ever hot! We walked to Matsumoto Castle, which is famous because it is one of Japan's 3 national treasures. I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds cool. And it was really fabulous! The castle itself is 6 stories tall, built of wood in 1504. Woah - that's OLD. Oh, and the stairs in this place - holy dangerous! They were incredibly steep and narrow - or should I say not wide. Hirabayashi-san said it was for defense because it made it difficult for the enemy to get anywhere. Yeah, I can see that because you *needed* the bannisters to help you up and down. Since we only got there a few minutes before the place closed, we were a bit rushed. But I got the idea.
At 6:30pm before we left Matsumoto, I saw the temperature - 29C!!! Wow - and this place is up in the mountains.
Friday June 27, 1997: 8pm
So today was incredibly hot as well - wow. At least everyone else thought it was hot too, or else I'd be worried! Well, I walked my bike to work this morning because I remember seeing a pump there. Anyways, there's no hole in my tire (so someone let the air out), but it's majorly screwed. I am NOT happy with this. Well, I hope to fix it later tonight. I've decided to go to the concert on Sunday. Sounds like it will be fun. They're gonna play Beethoven's 5th Symphony!! Supposedly.
Oh oh oh!! There's supposed to be a typhoon tomorrow! Oh goody! Can't wait!!
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