Part of what I forgot to mention about yesterday was that in my searching in Akihabara, I never discovered any big Manga shops. By doing an evening search on the internet, I discovered where to go—but they were closed! So I decided to get up early and take those last few precious hours before leaving to go and check it out.

Arriving more than an hour before they opened, I went back to an already open Yodobashi Camera—where I made the snap decision to buy a new camera! It’s the pocket-sized, latest version of the Sanyo VPC series, and it actually does HD movies—and it was a good deal. Of course, now I need to sell the old one and scrape up some more money to pay it off…

Then the manga shop—Mandarake—then turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but then I didn’t have a lot of time to check it out thoroughly. It’ll have to be for my next trip…

Then It came time to leave the apartment behind and make my way for the last time to Shinjuku and the Narita Express. That part of the trip was fine and uneventful—but raining, of course, right when I needed to carry all my stuff to the airport. The airport was really nice, since they’ve just re-opened their new facilities after a major renovation. I haven’t been to a more efficiently run airport checkin service since 9/11, and it was refreshing. I made the snap decision to upgrade to Business Class, which I was glad I did (since I had really good food, service and plenty of room with a seat that reclined and had a leg rest—I managed to actually sleep on the plane for a change). Before I’d thought about it, though, I spent some extra money and an extra hour eating lunch at an airport restaurant instead of just making my way directly to the Business Class lounge where I could have snacked for free and had more time to relax and use the wireless internet. Oh well, not for next time…

So then I got home. Dad picked me up at the airport and took me home to an absolutely sweltering Woodland Hills. There has been a record-breaking heat wave here since I left, with only 1 day in the past six weeks where it was below 100 degrees. It was about 106 today, and completely insufferable since I have no air conditioning. That will have to change immediately.

So then—here ends my Japan travel diary. I’m going to switch back to my regular blog and website, where I’ll probably continue to talk about how my visit and study trip to Japan changed me. Check back there over the next little while…

Sayonara…

It’s hard to believe my time here is almost over. I’m at that point where I’m trying to pack in everything I possibly can before the clock runs out, and beginning to have regrets about things I didn’t do and won’t have time for…

Anyway, the first stop was Asakusa to see the famous Kaminarimon Gate to the Senso-ji temple. It was a typically gray morning, threatening rain just to make things perfect. I also ended up doing a lot of souvenir shopping on the market street between the gate and the temple itself. I actually used the fortune sticks at the temple and got one that was really true: “Always traveling around since your childhood has given you a lot of places [sic]…Wherever you go, everything can be done as you wish.” Seems like my life does involve a lot of travel wherefrom I derive my happiest times.

Next stop was the famous (or infamous) Yasukuni Shrine where Japan’s war dead are commemorated. I don’t see what the big deal was—except that supposedly Class A war criminals are also remembered there, but I wouldn’t have known that without the news reports. Most importantly was the museum there, which discussed a lot of Japan’s Military and other history—it was fascinating. My favorite part was watching the little film with actual footage from the Russo-Japanese War.

Then it was off to the Kato Hobby Center Tokyo, which was really cool and much bigger than the Osaka one. They had a ton of operating layouts and I got some good photos for reference on my own layout. I also couldn’t help but succumb and make a couple of additional purchases…

Last stop was Akihabara Electric Town again, which drew me back like some kind of electro magnet (pun intended). I discovered the Yodobashi Camera super store, which is 8 floors of consumer electronics and other goodies—a veritable wonderland for a guy like me. I could easily spend an entire day in here and not see everything. They had a nice hobby section there too—where I ended up buying even more stuff. I ate a really nice Tonkatsu dinner in the 8th floor restaurant area. My niece and nephews would love this place…

And then it was back home to begin packing. Time is too short…

The day started off poorly with me wasting a few hours searching in vain for another place to get wireless connectivity for my Mac—I finally gave up and checked emails and such from the ¥200 internet cafe. I also muddled my way through finally finding a ticket counter (at Shinjuku) that sold the full-day JR/Subway passes.

The morning being shot by then, I resolved to stay out as late as I could getting things done. On the list for today: Odaiba and Akihabara. I’d wanted to go out to Odaiba primarily to see the Tokyo Big Sight building because I’d seen it so often in anime like Comic Party. I also knew it was a popular place to hang out with lots of entertaining things to do. That turned out to be true, so I spent a few hours there, had lunch then went to Akihabara in search of anime stuff and electronics.

What a place! It’s almost an overpowering assault on the senses (it probably didn’t help that the first place I ventured into by mistake turned out to be a noisy, smoky pachinko parlor). There was so much going on, and every shop had their touts out front with microphones or bullhorns, shouting for you to come and see what they had. I found a really cool anime and model store—8 floors! There was one floor with nothing but Gundam models and figures—thousands of them. And it was like that with all the other figures and models and series—I was absolutely amazed at the variety. The one thing I did not find was any big manga shops, particularly used manga and doujinshi stores. I think I was in the wrong area, and will try again tomorrow.

Since I’d purchased a separate all-day ticket for the automated train out to Odaiba, I decided to go back there for dinner too and see the city and the Rainbow Bridge all lit up at night. It really was beautiful and also nice and cool out by the water; I can see why it’s a favorite date spot and place to kill time. I ate at a famous Hawaiian hamburger restaurant, of all places. I had the “Set Menu A” which had an avocado burger, fries, salad and drink. They were in “American Sized” portions, too—I think this was the first time I can remember since leaving home when I finally ate enough at one sitting to be full! Of course it cost me around $12.00…

I began wending my way home, stopping off at Shinjuku once again to buy my Narita Airport Express train ticket for Monday—my train leaves at 12:42 PM, and then I’ll be on my way home. I got back to the apartment at around 10:00 PM and took a relaxing bath. I’ve got another big day ahead of me tomorrow—my last full day here—so I need to get to bed!

Up early and off—to Niigata. My Tour book didn’t say there was anything spectacularly interesting to see there, but it was easy to get there and didn’t take too long.

Turns out I’m glad I went. The one attraction listed was the Hakusan-jinja shrine, set in a lovely park with an amazing lotus pond (that’s it above). Sadly, it was pouring rain—but amazingly, they were actually conducting a ritual service. I believe it was the ritual for blessing a newborn baby—like a christening ceremony would be for christians. So I actually got to see the maiko or shrine maidens dance and the shinto priests do their thing. I got a lot of it on video and it was awesome. I feel so lucky that I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

There wasn’t much more for me to do than that, so I grabbed a boxed lunch at the station (they’re delicious, by the way) and took off for my next destination—Nagano, home of the 1998 Winter Olympics.

It’s also the home to a very famous Buddhist temple, Zenko-ji, which houses the oldest image of the buddha in Japan (though, nobody has actually seen it in 1,000 years—they bring out a copy once every 7 years in a special festival). It was pretty fascinating, and you can see all my photos in the Photos section. The weather also cleared up late in the afternoon for about an hour, and it was beautiful. Nagano is in the “Japanese Alps”, and the mountain scenery reminded me of Utah. I had a lovely early dinner, rounded up a few souvenirs and then made my way back to Tokyo.

The strange things is that as I’m sitting here writing this and having a snack, I’m watching on the news about flooding, overflowing rivers, mudslides and people getting killed up in Nagano prefecture where I just was. It looked pretty scary, but I think it must have been somewhere in a more remote location. I did notice that the rivers looked fairly high and muddy as I zoomed by on the train.

It’s the final countdown already. I’m going to be busy in Tokyo shopping and touring, but I’ll try to finish my perfect record of journal entries all the way up until I depart. I’m already going to miss Japan, my time here and the friends I’ve made. I’m just starting to get the hang of the language and how things work—and now it’s back home with me.

Sigh…

[PS – I went to go upload my changes at that wireless spot I found the other night, but I couldn’t get connected. They either turned it off for the night or something else changed—I’ll have to try to find somewhere tomorrow…]

I spent the day today just wandering around to a few places that I’d wanted to see. It also gave me a chance to get a greater feel for the city.

There are so many people! Everywhere you go, everyone is bustling around, going here and there, shopping, cramming onto the trains, you name it. But for some strange reason, I don’t feel bothered by it at all. Everyone is so polite and goes about their own business. I’ve also never felt safer in such a big city with so many people—that’s a wonderful byproduct of such a homogeneous society, I think. You sort of just have to let the wave of humanity wash over you and around you as you go about your own business. It was actually a lot of fun and very interesting.

I went first to Shinjuku—Japan’s busiest railway station. And it is. Then I went to Shibuya, prime shopping area and home of the “in crowd”. It’s also the spot where 3 different attractions are: the famous Shibuya 109 department store building (which usually pops up in anime as the “108” building); the multi-street intersection where waves of people cross this way and that when the “little blue man” is lit; and the statue of Hachiko, the faithful dog where everyone meets. Hachiko was an Akita owned by a professor living in the area in the 1920s; every day Hachiko would walk to the station to meet her master—including for eleven years after the professor passed away in 1925 until she herself passed away. A classic tale of Japanese faithfulness and sense of duty, and deserving of a monument.

Then it was on to the Nihon Ki’in, or headquarters of the Japan Go Association. It was really exciting to be there—both for the anime connection (Hikaru no Go is my favorite anime) and for my own go playing connections. There’s a small museum there with lots of interesting artifacts. The building and the various floors and areas were immediately recognizable from the HikaGo anime episodes, and I felt like I’d already been there. I bought a few gifts and souvenirs—including the object of my quest, my very own sensu (fan).

The last stop on the itinerary was the Amgen Tokyo Office. It was really fun! I met With Kato-san, and Kimura-san and it was fun speaking with them in my rudimentary Japanese (thanks for your patience—arigatou gozaimashita). I met several other people in the office and even spent a while doing an impromptu EDM Teams Q & A session! It sure would be fun to come visit again on business in an official capacity—all part of my cunning plan…

So that was about it. Tomorrow is the last day for my rail pass, so I’m trying to figure out how to get as far as possible and see some sights—since I’ve already been in the south, I’m going north!

I really was tired last night—which turned into being lazy when I woke up this morning and found it was pouring rain. I tried to put together a game plan, and decided to go to Kamakura to see the Great Buddha and whatever else I could find. I actually didn’t leave until noon, and it rained all day long. But, I figured that since the Buddha has been sitting out in the rain since his temple home was washed away in a typhoon in 1495, I could probably take it too…

But since it was kind of wet and miserable, I didn’t stay too long. I took the little Enoden train up to Enoshima (where it was raining even harder). I didn’t stay there long either, but got to ride the Shonan Monorail which was pretty fun. It’s precisely the kind of thing we should have suspended over every freeway in L.A. (BTW, this is the monorail featured in Midori Days, so I thought that was kind of cool.)

I’m now back at the apartment watching TV, typing this up and preparing another photo album. There’s an internet cafe nearby that I think has wireless access, so I’m going to go try and do updates there after dinner tonight. At least it’s pretty much stopped raining finally. I hope that will be the case for the rest of my time here in Japan, though the forecast doesn’t look too good.

The time finally came to leave my temporary home of Kyoto behind, and it really was kind of sad—I feel like I “belong” there somehow. Fittingly, it was gray and raining when I left. I did enjoy chatting with the cab driver on the way to Kyoto Station (frankly, I was amazed at myself that I actually could converse with him—sometimes I find it astounding that can actually speak Japanese, at least simple Japanese…).

But then it was a really swift trip on the Shinkansen to the world’s biggest and busiest megalopolis: Tokyo! I was kind of fearful, but far more excited. Just pulling into the station was quite exhilarating—there’s just so much going on and so many people. I was instantly fascinated and can’t wait to see what the next few days will bring. Of course, it’s raining here too…

I arrived fairly early, but easily made my way through a large and bustling Tokyo Station to the Chuo line and the Nakano Station where I was to meet Kuno-san who took me to my rental apartment. It’s an easy walk, and not too complicated to remember where to go; in fact, it was surprisingly simple. The apartment is quite comfy too and will be a very convenient base of operations.

I went for a short stroll around the neighborhood, which includes a nice shopping street (complete with a really cool anime/model shop). I started feeling a bit tired, so I did grocery shopping at the nearby supermarket and ate dinner in.