Hostile Traveler

(Quick announcement - I heavily edited the last post because it wasn’t complete and I had done it on a PDA. Should be more complete now if you read it before.)

After the interesting portion of the flight, the next 6.5 hours to Tokyo was positively boring - no naked crazy chicks or anything. Pity…that sort of stuff should be standard. But I digress - 1 hour bus ride from Narita to Tokyo Center, a quick cab ride to Roppongi, and I’m at the hotel.

The hotel that I use isn’t really a hotel - it’s a managed apartment. They’re designed for long-stay travelers, but I like them a lot because you wind up with what amounts to a small apartment. You give up some services, but they’re things I don’t tend to use anyways, like hotel restaurants, room service, and that sort of stuff. Instead, you get a nice apartment with a small kitchen, maid service every 2 or 3 days, and a generally very quiet relaxed atmosphere. I’ve stayed at this place before (though under a different name - Mansions at Roppongi) and I really enjoyed both the location and the rooms. Oh, did I mention hardwood heated floors? Nice. Oh, and the best part is that it’s a lot cheaper than a standard hotel is, so I win and the company wins.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the room. They’re taken at night, so a bit dark, but you get the idea. Also, for those of you that have looked at the Tokyo gallery posted, some of these will look familiar. Same place, plus I’m going to steal one or two pics later.

You may be wondering where the title came from. Well, the Japanese have taken the toilet - a simple, practical device, and made it into something rather unholy in its complexity. I admit there are some nifty bits, like the heated seat and the little sink above the tank, but from there it just gets kind of odd.

This is the control panel for the toilet. The top buttons are for flushing. I’m not sure what the kanji means, but I think the one on the left means ‘tsunami’ and the one on the right means ‘better grab onto something or you’re gonna get sucked in’. Agressive toilet. The rest of the panel is for various adjustments for a nozzle that will come in to wash you up and hot air to dry you - that sort of stuff. The thing is, I can’t read Japanese, so I’m not about to start screwing around with this stuff. The last thing I need is to have a power washer come out and assault my turdcutter.

Really, my main fear is that the Japanese are putting far too much technology into household items. Maybe we need to screen ‘The Terminator’ again so that people understand what might happen if machines become sentinent and decide to take over. The last thing I need is to get violated and killed by a smart toilet. The washing machine/dryer combo thing scares me too:

Quick view from my hotel this morning. Yeah, I know - not much to look at. Take note of the Eiffel Tower ripoff on the far left. That’s the Tokyo Tower, which is taller than the Eiffel, but far far uglier. The gallery shows pics from the top that I took last trip.

If you decide to go to the Tokyo Tower, beware of this idiot. It’s the mascot, and for some reason I want to punch it in the head worse than Barney.

I’m staying in Roppongi, which is were most of the gaijin (foreigners) seem to wind up. It ranges between very cool and seedy depending on where you go, but it’s absolutely packed with places to eat and drink, and everyone can speak at least a bit of English. Though, walking by all of the African touts saying ‘Yo - tittie bar?’ with various accents is actually kind of funny.

Roppongi is called the ‘High Touch Town’, which may be because of all of the hostess bars and strip clubs and such, but really, it’s a lot less seedy than the serious red-light district in Shinjuku. It has its flaws, but in all, it’s a very cool place to use as a home base.

Today was spent wandering around the area mostly. It was very nice for the afternoon, and walking in the sun makes the lizard brain happy. One of the things you see on almost every street are vending machines of all sorts, though occasionally they tend to group them together, as in this pic:

…and before anyone asks, yes, there are vending machines where you can buy used schoolgirl panties. I’ve personally only seen one, and that was a few years back, so it may not be the case anymore. Understand that the Japanese fetish culture knows almost zero bounds, and there are entire books written on the topic.

Speaking of dark, seedy places, I wandered into a local arcade to check out what was new. This goes to all of my fellow otaku(nerds) out there. First up, a pic of a giant horseracing game that people were betting on.

The second pic is of the machines, which are all equipped with HD displays, decent sound, and so on. not too shabby. Tekken and Virtua Fighter 5 see to be the games of choice.

OK…enough nerdiness. To balance that out, I wandered around Roppongi Hills, which is a new development with a multitude of restaurants, shops, an art museum, and a hotel, amongst other things. There was a spring festival going on to celebrate the cherry blossoms and such. The thing is, I’m in the middle of the city, so the closest I can see right now are what line the street. Pretty though…

I wanted to swing by a store and pick up some water and snacks to put in my room. The snack section of the local store had some interesting options, to say the least. I think I might have some sort of natural ability when it comes to finding tentacles.

The same store (a giant place called Don Quixote in Roppongi) also had one of the greatest Engrish signs I’ve ever seen. Good luck making sense of this one.

After the days wanderings, the weather got much wetter, and my colleage Ken from Seoul Korea arrived, so we went out to dinner in Roppongi Hills. We found a fantastic Tonkatsu (breaded fried pork cutlet) restaurant, and I had an amazing meal of tonkatsu dipped in fresh spicy toasted sesame sauce, shredded cabbage, and miso soup. Yummy.

Tomorrow I teach yet another class. I’m a bit afraid of what the English level will be because my previous trips to Japan have been for classes and projects where people don’t know what the hell I’m saying. Maybe we’ll do charades or something.