Yesterday was black and white day. Or I should I saw it was a gray day.
I woke up early because Pam was trying to get my attention. She got some, but then I felt like I needed more sleep so I didn't get to go to work as early as I'd hoped. I knew I'd have to leave early because I was meeting Sasha.
Work went well. But I wasn't terribly productive because I kept meeting with team leads from other teams to discuss transfer opportunities. The more I learn, the more confused I get about what I want. I did find out though that I need to stay on my team until we go to Vegas. Otherwise I can't go and I want to dammit!
I left work at 16:45 to meet Sasha at UCLA. She's a post-doc there with a funky visa status. Fresh from Italy, but originally she's from Russia. Interesting person. She talked a lot. She's got Russian values. I liked it and not so much at the same time. Thinking rationally though, none of the unexpected things touch me personally.
I didn't have a lot of time with her because I had a dinner to go to. We managed to go to the beach. But it was before sunset and the windows were terribly strong. We left as soon as we came. Got some tea and cake at Urth Cafe. Good place. Yes, expensive. But, it's worth it. We had a good chat, but she's leaving for Italy in a few days. She said I was welcome to go there. I told her she can call me when she gets back. :)
Then I rushed my ass over to Sherman Oaks to see Anna. I owed her dinner for missing her call on my birthday. She didn't get into my b-day party because I dropped the ball on checking on my phone. So, I owed her. She invited her boyfriend. Not the nicest person in the world... but we don't choose our friends' partners. But.. she also invited Victoria... who's been trying to hook me up with for a while and I just keep telling her I'm not interested. Like really not interested. But, Anna kept asking if she can invite her. And this isn't the dinner where I was going to dictate the rules.
We had a good time. We talked about Japan and girls and condos. No controversial talk. Good stuff. Me... Lev (Anna's boyfriend) and Anna that is. Victoria didn't say anything humorous the entire evening. It's kind of unsettling. But... I already told you I don't like her so I digress.
Something weird kept happening because Lev and Anna kept acting oddly violent. They were strangling each other, pretend-hitting each other. Pulling each other by the collar. Yeah. I made a sex joke. Duh. Then Lev said that I'm too forward and super-ego something-something. I think he was saying he wasn't having this kind of talk. I was a little put back. Did he really think he could act the way he did and didn't expect to be made a little uncomfortable? I don't know. I'd love to hear something from him aside from how hard his job is and how he invests money. I don't know what Anna sees in him. It's definitely not manners.
So the dinner was soiled. But I met Sasha who's a cool person.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Date night
Somehow it's Tuesday. Yesterday was spent working and then watching anime. Good relaxation day. Played in well for today's soccer.
Today however, I had a date. Her name was Haley. What a beautiful name. And she was stunning in her photos. I was almost wondering what made her consider going out with me. Maybe she's got issues. That was my running theory anyway. When I met her, I realized it was something else entirely. She's too busy. Working without a sense of direction... and her body...well...reflected that. The photos looked to be 5 years old. She looked 23 in the photos and 30 in real life. I know that math doesn't add up. It's an exaggeration.
That being said it was another case of my knowing it wasn't going anywhere before she even sat down. Oh well. I made the best of it. I even walked away with a lesson. Some feminists who are actually for equality get offended when you bring up radical feminists. Which I'm still not sure don't make up the majority of feminists, but that's besides the point. I'd very much like to not push away potentially suitable candidates, so this was good to know.
So a couple drinks and a lot of food later I walked away. She had the amazing insight of picking a place right next to Antonio's where Alex L and I frequent. As luck would have it, and since I told him I would be there, that's where L was. I went straight there after the meet-and-greet. Another drink a lot of Japan-talk later I somehow ended up with a phone number of a women who wanted me to take her out on a date next week. Bobbi said if I pay for her dinner she'll give me some pointers. Well, I've got nothing to lose and she was closer to what I'm looking for than either L or bartender (Manny) did. So... I guess next week I'll see Bobbi? I'm not even sure how to spell her name. The whole thing feels weird. Maybe it's about time. At least she's sufficiently older than me that I consider that she's got enough life experience to rival mine.
That's all the interesting bits and it's after midnight. Stay tuned.
Today however, I had a date. Her name was Haley. What a beautiful name. And she was stunning in her photos. I was almost wondering what made her consider going out with me. Maybe she's got issues. That was my running theory anyway. When I met her, I realized it was something else entirely. She's too busy. Working without a sense of direction... and her body...well...reflected that. The photos looked to be 5 years old. She looked 23 in the photos and 30 in real life. I know that math doesn't add up. It's an exaggeration.
That being said it was another case of my knowing it wasn't going anywhere before she even sat down. Oh well. I made the best of it. I even walked away with a lesson. Some feminists who are actually for equality get offended when you bring up radical feminists. Which I'm still not sure don't make up the majority of feminists, but that's besides the point. I'd very much like to not push away potentially suitable candidates, so this was good to know.
So a couple drinks and a lot of food later I walked away. She had the amazing insight of picking a place right next to Antonio's where Alex L and I frequent. As luck would have it, and since I told him I would be there, that's where L was. I went straight there after the meet-and-greet. Another drink a lot of Japan-talk later I somehow ended up with a phone number of a women who wanted me to take her out on a date next week. Bobbi said if I pay for her dinner she'll give me some pointers. Well, I've got nothing to lose and she was closer to what I'm looking for than either L or bartender (Manny) did. So... I guess next week I'll see Bobbi? I'm not even sure how to spell her name. The whole thing feels weird. Maybe it's about time. At least she's sufficiently older than me that I consider that she's got enough life experience to rival mine.
That's all the interesting bits and it's after midnight. Stay tuned.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Weekend.
It's Monday and I have a PT appointment in 9 minutes. So I should get ready for that. But I'll give a quick weekend summary. I've been busy in the morning lately either with sleeping, waking up or cuddling with Pam. Chris got cat grass and apparently Pam has been much nicer since then. I can pet her back all the way down to her tail without her freaking out. So she's cuddled with me last couple of mornings. That's nice. Feels like. It's like she's a therapy animal. I just wish her and I were in sync.
Friday was rough sleeping wise. I woke up. Went to work. Went to dinner with Alina and Chris after that... came home. I was going to visit Alex or go out, or clean my damn room. But, I feel asleep. Woke up at midnight, stayed up until 04:00 and then went to bed again until 13:00. Yeah. Then gym, and then I had family over where I showed them photos from Japan. And then we watched family photos from 1974 to 1996. Hehe. Fun, but everyone left after 23:00 so I was pretty beat.
Sunday I woke up late again, around 11:00. Went to the beach until 15:00. Came home and discovered "Ajin", one of Netflix's animes. And this one is pretty good. So that consumed the rest of Sunday with the exception of going on a meet-and-greet with Tatiana. I'm still deciding whether to ask her out again. She talked so much I never did get to tell her that I want her to make the next move. Pros and cons.
Friday was rough sleeping wise. I woke up. Went to work. Went to dinner with Alina and Chris after that... came home. I was going to visit Alex or go out, or clean my damn room. But, I feel asleep. Woke up at midnight, stayed up until 04:00 and then went to bed again until 13:00. Yeah. Then gym, and then I had family over where I showed them photos from Japan. And then we watched family photos from 1974 to 1996. Hehe. Fun, but everyone left after 23:00 so I was pretty beat.
Sunday I woke up late again, around 11:00. Went to the beach until 15:00. Came home and discovered "Ajin", one of Netflix's animes. And this one is pretty good. So that consumed the rest of Sunday with the exception of going on a meet-and-greet with Tatiana. I'm still deciding whether to ask her out again. She talked so much I never did get to tell her that I want her to make the next move. Pros and cons.
Friday, April 22, 2016
JetLag
Dear Diary:
Nothing's happened yesterday. I woke up a little late and was sort of a zombie for a while. I got the photos onto the computer. Made sure they copied correctly. Then I went to work after noon. It was a lazy but productive day. I didn't try particularly hard so I was able to stay somewhat focused. The things coming onto my plate now aren't particularly challenging or annoying so I'm getting through them like cold knife through butter.
I met with a potential manager for another team. One down. Hopefully 4 more to go. Meeting another one in an hour. Excited to learn about my opportunities. I had a salad for lunch. It feels good but then I get hungry soon after. I got some snacks, and sadly they were sweet. Oh darn they tasted good. Yay 7-layer bars.
After a bit though I noticed people started being kinda dickish. Coworkers brushing me off. People walking away. Others saying the wrong thing. Then I thought the feels hurt, but the maths don't add up. Maybe it's me. I might be cranky. But I have no reason to be cranky... except. Oh wait. Jet-lag! Tun-tun-dun!
Some number of apples and bananas later I was feeling better. Went to the gym after work. Had all this energy. Kind of... too much, actually. I went up the wall and realized I was pushing harder than any time in the past year. Yeash! Also, scary! Toward the end of the night I started trying things I learned before going to Japan. Tried doing the front to back-bail onto a mat. My foot got caught and my toes still kinda hurt. I stayed till the end though. Can't wait for the soreness to set in. :P
Two days ago I went to bed at 04:00. Yesterday it was more like 02:00. Progress! I woke up at 07:00 though. I think it has to do with all the candy I finished last night. Damn sugar cravings. Need to get off this sugar-wave. I've been so good... prior to April. My birthday always screws me up.
Nothing's happened yesterday. I woke up a little late and was sort of a zombie for a while. I got the photos onto the computer. Made sure they copied correctly. Then I went to work after noon. It was a lazy but productive day. I didn't try particularly hard so I was able to stay somewhat focused. The things coming onto my plate now aren't particularly challenging or annoying so I'm getting through them like cold knife through butter.
I met with a potential manager for another team. One down. Hopefully 4 more to go. Meeting another one in an hour. Excited to learn about my opportunities. I had a salad for lunch. It feels good but then I get hungry soon after. I got some snacks, and sadly they were sweet. Oh darn they tasted good. Yay 7-layer bars.
After a bit though I noticed people started being kinda dickish. Coworkers brushing me off. People walking away. Others saying the wrong thing. Then I thought the feels hurt, but the maths don't add up. Maybe it's me. I might be cranky. But I have no reason to be cranky... except. Oh wait. Jet-lag! Tun-tun-dun!
Some number of apples and bananas later I was feeling better. Went to the gym after work. Had all this energy. Kind of... too much, actually. I went up the wall and realized I was pushing harder than any time in the past year. Yeash! Also, scary! Toward the end of the night I started trying things I learned before going to Japan. Tried doing the front to back-bail onto a mat. My foot got caught and my toes still kinda hurt. I stayed till the end though. Can't wait for the soreness to set in. :P
Two days ago I went to bed at 04:00. Yesterday it was more like 02:00. Progress! I woke up at 07:00 though. I think it has to do with all the candy I finished last night. Damn sugar cravings. Need to get off this sugar-wave. I've been so good... prior to April. My birthday always screws me up.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Tokyo and back to LA
Dear Diary:
I'll keep this one brief because it's 02:30 in LA and I should have really been in bed for a while now. But it did feel good to do other things on the computer including catching up on Archer. And we both know I wasn't going to miss out on it any longer.
So, long story short in Tokyo I went to the Sky Tree. Cool name for a tower with a gorgeous observation deck. I got there and realized that it was *the* place to go see far. There was a line to buy the ticket. A line for the elevator. The line to buy the ticket to the next floor etc. I went all the way up to 450m mark. Felt high. In retrospect it's not super tall, but the height is ~137 stories which I think is significant. :P
I didn't spot anyone who I really wanted to talk to. I had a few brief conversation with this couple of girls from Britain who are now living in Hawaii and operate and observatory there. Ooh. Cosmologists. Or were they Astrophysicists? I'm not sure. We separated and then I saw them have lunch by the deck and decided to not cut into their time. There was another girl I was thinking about talking to, but she looked either really uptight or really shy. Either way I wasn't in the mood.
I took the subway to SkyTree. It was too far to walk to from Tokyo station. But the astro-girls recommended I go to this one park that we could see from the deck, so I went downstairs and headed in that direction. That only to find out that the area around SkyTree is magnetized and my Compass was showing false North. Yeahp. I went in the wrong direction. I finally corrected myself and went in the right way, until that is one of the super helpful Japanese people asked me if I needed directions. I explained where I was going and she explained in detail how to get there.
Now I don't know who fucked up. I could have been me. Or could have been her. But I ended up walking in the wrong direction again. For a while. And at that point I was hungry and sad I wasn't making much progress. I wasn't even in Tokyo. Just some city in suburbs. But! It had grocery stores. Not huge ones. But like a mom-and-pop kind. I bought cucumbers and tomatoes for food and proceeded, finally, in the correct direction.
I passed some interesting gold buildings. One of which had giant gold poop nugget on top. Got a photo from the SkyTree of it, in person from like 4 different angles. Across the channel there were ferry tours. I really wanted to take one, but I was under the impression that they were running all day and I was really close to the park I was heading for. So I decided to press on.
Ooh. The city got so cool so fast. So cool! The streets were narrow. The people were Japanese. It was crowded. It was like the mall in Sendai, but smaller. But also less touristy which made it more attractive. Very quickly thought I got stuck. I found this parlor where they did caricatures and oh my god I've always wanted one. And so I got one. I only planned to spend $13 on a simple sketch. And I was going to ask them to make it small so I could put it in my pocket.
The artist drawing me didn't speak English. She apologized that she couldn't make it smaller. Phrasing. But I digress. She was cute. I decided that extra $7 was worth putting in color into it. That way I could look at her a little longer. I kept making faces the whole time. The couple sitting next to me were getting their anniversary caricature drawn. They spoke a little English. They all kept looking at me, saying something, laughing very hard, asking me silly questions, and then it would repeat. We were all laughing for like 15 minutes non-stop. Best time of the day!
I asked if I could take a picture of my artist, Shu. She said I can take the picture of the drawing after. I explained that I wanted to take a picture of her. She said she needs to finish first. Duh. I explained that I want a photo of her working. She blushed. She said thank you and couldn't wipe the smile off her face for the next few minutes. I snapped a few photos. Such a moment
The caricature came out great. I ended up getting frame, too. Didn't want it to get ruined. Got photos with her as well. She gave me her card. It has her phone number on it and blog address. Sadly, there's nothing on the blog and I'm not about to call Japan to talk to a girl who doesn't speak English. Le sigh.
I walked through more awesome streets into the park where the temple was. There were many women in kimonos and so-so many kids. School-aged kids. With chaperons. Maybe 1500-2000 kids in total. A lot! So pretty. The sun was setting and the Temple was closing. I got to see masses rush to get their prayers in. I talked to some tourists. I thought I heard them speak Russian. But I was wrong. It was in the Slavic family but I couldn't place it. They had to go so I didn't have time to ask where they were from. Still curious.
I went to the ferry station to catch the ferry to Tokyo Station. Turned out I had missed the last one by 10 minutes. So sad. After all that I decided to head back to Tokyo station and enjoy the sights. I stopped by another grocery store and got mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes were fine but the mushrooms still had dirt on them. I didn't notice. That is until I bit on one that had like sand in it. Oh well. Ate it anyway.
For some reason Blink182's Adam's Song popped into my head. I looked up the lyrics and kept singing it on repeat. Nobody could understand what I was saying anyway. I knew the general direction where I was heading but decided to make a little detour and follow the setting sun. Which by the way looks way better than it does anywhere else I've seen sunsets. I don't know if it's the architecture, or the flatness of the island or what. But it was calling me. I followed. Once it set behind the buildings I got a strong urge to find something tall to climb to watch it set again. I spent the next 30 minutes walking from one staircase to another to try to find one with roof access. No dice. I think I finally found what I was looking for. And the gate was very low. Maybe 5 feet. I could have easily gone to the top. However, there was a woman in that alley just talking to someone through the door frame. Not coming or going. Just standing there and occasionally looking around. I waited for her to leave so I could do my trespass in peace, but I didn't get lucky. I saw the rooftops lose the red shade. It was over. :(
After that I really did finally just go to the Tokyo Station. GPS said 37 minutes. But this time I was tired. My feet hurt. I got blisters. My hips weren't happy. Took me over an hour to get there. Alan and Annmarie were somewhere away. Bria was heading to the station around the same time. I got to the station and was trying very hard to find where I left my bag but I kept failing. Walking was painful. I got desperate and asked somebody for help. Just a random guy. He barely spoke English. What did he do? He took me, personally to the JR entrance through which I needed to go to get to the lockers. That etiquette. USA - you suck balls when it comes to actually being decent to other human beings.
I met up with Bria and we were supposed to get on a train leaving at 19:36. Took me a minute to convince her that it was the right one. But... it was 19:38 and it hadn't left yet. That was interesting. Long story short, all of the trains were canceled. We waited around for 10 minutes for an update, then took the rapid train to another service. All of the carts on the rapid were reserved so we just walked around. It was cool. I've always wanted to do that. I saw how much nicer expensive seats are. They're nice, but nothing special.
On the private subway things were crowded. Very crowded. Once we finally got to a train that had room for us, we quickly realized that it sucks being in the middle of ever-more packed train. We had 9 stops. The first few were dreadful. I could barely hold on to something. And I was holding all of the luggage. In the mean time everyone was shoving and pushing. I'm lucky I have a strong frame. I was able to shield some people a little. Then we got to a major station and things cleared up. We made it to the airport just fine.
Their version of security was nice. It was like a small town in Pennsylvania. Everyone was friendly. Not super friendly, but they treated everyone like humans. I didn't have to take my shoes off, for example. Once at the gate... I noticed that Saya was there. She's been in Japan and like didn't reply to my message. So I unfriended her. I don't usually give people extra chances. I didn't say anything.
We had a few hours before the flight and I was going to work. But only ended up working for an hour because we got into conversation about why I dislike Feminism. I made many good arguments. My favorite by far came out when I realized that Bria for example doesn't see anything bad with only helping women. That one was easy to debunk: I told her that her version of Feminism was to succeed, you would end up with gender discrimination where men are disadvantaged. She didn't see a problem with it. I tried a few times to explain to her that gender discrimination is a bad thing. She didn't buy. I rest my case.
Then, believe it or not, Saya came up to me and said hi. Said she got my message but didn't reply. Didn't say why. I didn't inquire further. We caught up and chatted until we had to board the plane. I didn't see her after that. On the plane I sat next to a Jewish couple who we ran into at the Monkey Forest. They remembered me. I'm memorable :P Bria remembered them. We chatted for a while and exchanged Japan stories. Cool peeps. Wouldn't be friends with them though. But they made excellent plane partners.
When we reached cruising altitude I took out my work laptop and worked. The internet was cheaper than the ones on the flight to Moscow. Go $19.95 for 10 hours of internet. Or, you know, the 3 that I used it for. I fell asleep for a few hours in there. Then I realized that we'll be landing soon and frantically tried to watch something on the TV. Almost finished Trumbo. Had like 5 minutes left when the plane media system shut off. Need to find out what'd happened.
That's about it. Took Lyft home because somehow I managed to get out of the station faster than the other 3. I waited for them after every checkpoint, but only saw them once, briefly at passport check. Then when I went outside to wait for them a bus pulled up and I thought it was a sign and hopped on. Then shower. Then work. Yes work.
There was a fancy dinner event after work. The calendar event said it was from 18:00 to 19:30. I got to work just after 19:00 and decided I didn't want to pop in for just 15 minutes. So I just worked. And worked. Around 23:00 my manager, Tony came into the office and said I should've been at the dinner. Well geez. I wish I knew. :P I think I would have preferred telling Japan stories with drunk coworkers. But.. instead I worked.
That and chatted with a girl I met on OkC. I decided to give Asian girls another go because still-lingering fascination with Japan. One of them messaged back, got me on Skype and then wanted to exchange dirty pictures. When I said I don't do that at work she stopped replying. :P Fun times.
It's 03:09 now. I realize I won't be having this many adventures any time soon. I expect my posts to get duller and more meta. I was still so happy at work today. Yay good vacation! However I got a little sad on the drive back home around midnight. After all, adventure was over. I'm back to square 1. But I'm like level 70. And I just need to hope to find someone who's level 70 on level 1. But something tells me it's a rare thing.
I'll keep this one brief because it's 02:30 in LA and I should have really been in bed for a while now. But it did feel good to do other things on the computer including catching up on Archer. And we both know I wasn't going to miss out on it any longer.
So, long story short in Tokyo I went to the Sky Tree. Cool name for a tower with a gorgeous observation deck. I got there and realized that it was *the* place to go see far. There was a line to buy the ticket. A line for the elevator. The line to buy the ticket to the next floor etc. I went all the way up to 450m mark. Felt high. In retrospect it's not super tall, but the height is ~137 stories which I think is significant. :P
I didn't spot anyone who I really wanted to talk to. I had a few brief conversation with this couple of girls from Britain who are now living in Hawaii and operate and observatory there. Ooh. Cosmologists. Or were they Astrophysicists? I'm not sure. We separated and then I saw them have lunch by the deck and decided to not cut into their time. There was another girl I was thinking about talking to, but she looked either really uptight or really shy. Either way I wasn't in the mood.
I took the subway to SkyTree. It was too far to walk to from Tokyo station. But the astro-girls recommended I go to this one park that we could see from the deck, so I went downstairs and headed in that direction. That only to find out that the area around SkyTree is magnetized and my Compass was showing false North. Yeahp. I went in the wrong direction. I finally corrected myself and went in the right way, until that is one of the super helpful Japanese people asked me if I needed directions. I explained where I was going and she explained in detail how to get there.
Now I don't know who fucked up. I could have been me. Or could have been her. But I ended up walking in the wrong direction again. For a while. And at that point I was hungry and sad I wasn't making much progress. I wasn't even in Tokyo. Just some city in suburbs. But! It had grocery stores. Not huge ones. But like a mom-and-pop kind. I bought cucumbers and tomatoes for food and proceeded, finally, in the correct direction.
I passed some interesting gold buildings. One of which had giant gold poop nugget on top. Got a photo from the SkyTree of it, in person from like 4 different angles. Across the channel there were ferry tours. I really wanted to take one, but I was under the impression that they were running all day and I was really close to the park I was heading for. So I decided to press on.
Ooh. The city got so cool so fast. So cool! The streets were narrow. The people were Japanese. It was crowded. It was like the mall in Sendai, but smaller. But also less touristy which made it more attractive. Very quickly thought I got stuck. I found this parlor where they did caricatures and oh my god I've always wanted one. And so I got one. I only planned to spend $13 on a simple sketch. And I was going to ask them to make it small so I could put it in my pocket.
The artist drawing me didn't speak English. She apologized that she couldn't make it smaller. Phrasing. But I digress. She was cute. I decided that extra $7 was worth putting in color into it. That way I could look at her a little longer. I kept making faces the whole time. The couple sitting next to me were getting their anniversary caricature drawn. They spoke a little English. They all kept looking at me, saying something, laughing very hard, asking me silly questions, and then it would repeat. We were all laughing for like 15 minutes non-stop. Best time of the day!
I asked if I could take a picture of my artist, Shu. She said I can take the picture of the drawing after. I explained that I wanted to take a picture of her. She said she needs to finish first. Duh. I explained that I want a photo of her working. She blushed. She said thank you and couldn't wipe the smile off her face for the next few minutes. I snapped a few photos. Such a moment
The caricature came out great. I ended up getting frame, too. Didn't want it to get ruined. Got photos with her as well. She gave me her card. It has her phone number on it and blog address. Sadly, there's nothing on the blog and I'm not about to call Japan to talk to a girl who doesn't speak English. Le sigh.
I walked through more awesome streets into the park where the temple was. There were many women in kimonos and so-so many kids. School-aged kids. With chaperons. Maybe 1500-2000 kids in total. A lot! So pretty. The sun was setting and the Temple was closing. I got to see masses rush to get their prayers in. I talked to some tourists. I thought I heard them speak Russian. But I was wrong. It was in the Slavic family but I couldn't place it. They had to go so I didn't have time to ask where they were from. Still curious.
I went to the ferry station to catch the ferry to Tokyo Station. Turned out I had missed the last one by 10 minutes. So sad. After all that I decided to head back to Tokyo station and enjoy the sights. I stopped by another grocery store and got mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes were fine but the mushrooms still had dirt on them. I didn't notice. That is until I bit on one that had like sand in it. Oh well. Ate it anyway.
For some reason Blink182's Adam's Song popped into my head. I looked up the lyrics and kept singing it on repeat. Nobody could understand what I was saying anyway. I knew the general direction where I was heading but decided to make a little detour and follow the setting sun. Which by the way looks way better than it does anywhere else I've seen sunsets. I don't know if it's the architecture, or the flatness of the island or what. But it was calling me. I followed. Once it set behind the buildings I got a strong urge to find something tall to climb to watch it set again. I spent the next 30 minutes walking from one staircase to another to try to find one with roof access. No dice. I think I finally found what I was looking for. And the gate was very low. Maybe 5 feet. I could have easily gone to the top. However, there was a woman in that alley just talking to someone through the door frame. Not coming or going. Just standing there and occasionally looking around. I waited for her to leave so I could do my trespass in peace, but I didn't get lucky. I saw the rooftops lose the red shade. It was over. :(
After that I really did finally just go to the Tokyo Station. GPS said 37 minutes. But this time I was tired. My feet hurt. I got blisters. My hips weren't happy. Took me over an hour to get there. Alan and Annmarie were somewhere away. Bria was heading to the station around the same time. I got to the station and was trying very hard to find where I left my bag but I kept failing. Walking was painful. I got desperate and asked somebody for help. Just a random guy. He barely spoke English. What did he do? He took me, personally to the JR entrance through which I needed to go to get to the lockers. That etiquette. USA - you suck balls when it comes to actually being decent to other human beings.
I met up with Bria and we were supposed to get on a train leaving at 19:36. Took me a minute to convince her that it was the right one. But... it was 19:38 and it hadn't left yet. That was interesting. Long story short, all of the trains were canceled. We waited around for 10 minutes for an update, then took the rapid train to another service. All of the carts on the rapid were reserved so we just walked around. It was cool. I've always wanted to do that. I saw how much nicer expensive seats are. They're nice, but nothing special.
On the private subway things were crowded. Very crowded. Once we finally got to a train that had room for us, we quickly realized that it sucks being in the middle of ever-more packed train. We had 9 stops. The first few were dreadful. I could barely hold on to something. And I was holding all of the luggage. In the mean time everyone was shoving and pushing. I'm lucky I have a strong frame. I was able to shield some people a little. Then we got to a major station and things cleared up. We made it to the airport just fine.
Their version of security was nice. It was like a small town in Pennsylvania. Everyone was friendly. Not super friendly, but they treated everyone like humans. I didn't have to take my shoes off, for example. Once at the gate... I noticed that Saya was there. She's been in Japan and like didn't reply to my message. So I unfriended her. I don't usually give people extra chances. I didn't say anything.
We had a few hours before the flight and I was going to work. But only ended up working for an hour because we got into conversation about why I dislike Feminism. I made many good arguments. My favorite by far came out when I realized that Bria for example doesn't see anything bad with only helping women. That one was easy to debunk: I told her that her version of Feminism was to succeed, you would end up with gender discrimination where men are disadvantaged. She didn't see a problem with it. I tried a few times to explain to her that gender discrimination is a bad thing. She didn't buy. I rest my case.
Then, believe it or not, Saya came up to me and said hi. Said she got my message but didn't reply. Didn't say why. I didn't inquire further. We caught up and chatted until we had to board the plane. I didn't see her after that. On the plane I sat next to a Jewish couple who we ran into at the Monkey Forest. They remembered me. I'm memorable :P Bria remembered them. We chatted for a while and exchanged Japan stories. Cool peeps. Wouldn't be friends with them though. But they made excellent plane partners.
When we reached cruising altitude I took out my work laptop and worked. The internet was cheaper than the ones on the flight to Moscow. Go $19.95 for 10 hours of internet. Or, you know, the 3 that I used it for. I fell asleep for a few hours in there. Then I realized that we'll be landing soon and frantically tried to watch something on the TV. Almost finished Trumbo. Had like 5 minutes left when the plane media system shut off. Need to find out what'd happened.
That's about it. Took Lyft home because somehow I managed to get out of the station faster than the other 3. I waited for them after every checkpoint, but only saw them once, briefly at passport check. Then when I went outside to wait for them a bus pulled up and I thought it was a sign and hopped on. Then shower. Then work. Yes work.
There was a fancy dinner event after work. The calendar event said it was from 18:00 to 19:30. I got to work just after 19:00 and decided I didn't want to pop in for just 15 minutes. So I just worked. And worked. Around 23:00 my manager, Tony came into the office and said I should've been at the dinner. Well geez. I wish I knew. :P I think I would have preferred telling Japan stories with drunk coworkers. But.. instead I worked.
That and chatted with a girl I met on OkC. I decided to give Asian girls another go because still-lingering fascination with Japan. One of them messaged back, got me on Skype and then wanted to exchange dirty pictures. When I said I don't do that at work she stopped replying. :P Fun times.
It's 03:09 now. I realize I won't be having this many adventures any time soon. I expect my posts to get duller and more meta. I was still so happy at work today. Yay good vacation! However I got a little sad on the drive back home around midnight. After all, adventure was over. I'm back to square 1. But I'm like level 70. And I just need to hope to find someone who's level 70 on level 1. But something tells me it's a rare thing.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Osaka
Dear diary:
Yesterday I met Abby from Liverpool and Grace from Essex. That's the highlight.
In more detail... I'm on a train back to Tokyo from Kyoto right now. I still have a couple hours to go. I'm sad to leave. It's been a fun trip. Great way to get away. The weather is finally nice. Very nice. Summer-anime nice. I got window seat. Everything looks amazing. I just had delicious food. Had dessert, too. I gave up on trying to avoid sugar while on the trip. Bring all the yummies. Nom-nom. I can't even begin to describe what I ate. There was sashimi-like thing that basically just ate the fish off of. I had enough rice. I had a rice-ball for breakfast. Great idea. Costs a buck. Mostly rice but has pieces of salmon in it. Finally had a bowl of veggies as well. I miss veggies.
That being said, yesterday I woke up earlier. Around 06:00 this time and went for a run. It was my second day doing this. I really miss having East-facing windows. It makes me a happier person. I love waking up to feeling of being immersed in sunlight. Everything is quiet and serene. I haven't woken up this refreshed in a long time.
So, I went for a run. Just down to the park a block away behind the Nintendo building. I stretched and did a couple laps there. I did cart-wheels and 360 rotations in the middle of the jog, too. Felt so good to use my shoulders again. I've been walking a lot and not using my arms at all besides to hold chop-sticks. Definitely doing the travelling rings when I get back.
When I got back to the apartment Alan and Annmarie were already leaving. They decided to go see Hiroshima. Bria was still in bed and I needed to take a shower. I bid them a happy day and got ready to leave. With blogging etc. Bria was able to catch up and we set out for Osaka.
I had purchased tickets for a Bunraku (traditional Japanese puppet show) for 16:00 and just needed to pass the time until then. Bria and I took the train into Osaka. I wanted to hit up a viewing deck on a nearby tower and she wanted to go see the Aquarium. I didn't think I had the time for the fish because the National Bunraku Theatre was an hour away and it was already 12:30. Good call on my part. So I walked over to this beautiful mall with what they called "hanging gardens". There were gardens outside of the awesome building. And there was a suspended sky deck. But the gardens weren't hanging. Oh well. The elevator shaft was transparent. Going up to 37th floor and watching it happen is breathtaking.
Upstairs the view was great. My only comment is that the viewing floor only had windows facing South and North, and the roof had a 10-meter gap between the viewers and roof edge. So I couldn't look at things down. In case you didn't know, Osaka is located at the edge of Japan and has many rivers going through it. It's quite beautiful. Sadly though, the visibility isn't all that. I got some pictures but they weren't as good as the ones in Tokyo. I had a good conversation with a Japanese-looking German guy who spoke English with a British accent. As for what to do next, I still had a couple hours left, so I thought I would make it to the Osaka Castle Park and then head down to the Theatre, since the Castle Park was sort-of on the way.
I walked. We have a JR (Japanese Rail) pass but it doesn't cover subway costs. Everything in Osaka required taking the subway. Google Maps said it would take 43 minutes. I made it there in 30. Beautiful park. Great castle. Not very large, but it was on a mount and had only a couple of access points. Looked very medieval. Or, you know, the way it would in Age of Empires II. The entrance cost was 600 yen or ~$5.50. So cheap. It was kept in much better condition than the castle in Switzerland last year and that one was 12 CHF or ~$12.
There was a long line outside with clear signs saying that the line can be skipped if you walk. I walked. The exhibits weren't very good. I wanted a view, but all of the inside was modernized. All of the interesting floors had a no-photo policy. All of the tourists crowded around the samurai armour but I still remember what they're like from that time LACMA (Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art) had an exhibit. I just kept making circles on every floor then going up to the next one.
And that's where I met Grace. I saw her reading a letter or something and I asked if she spoke English. She said yes, in this thick accent. It was British but I couldn't tell which British. I asked if she was heading up or down. It was the 3rd floor out of 8 so technically a good amount of time to spend with someone if they're going in the same direction. She said "up". "Can I join you?" I inquired. "Of course" she replied. :P
Actually that's where the story ends. She started reading the next letter. I've read them all. She was really taking her sweet time reading them. Once she was done she took out the phone and called someone. At this rate I was going to miss the Bunraku performance. I couldn't have that. So I wished her a good day and went on.
There wasn't much after that. The exhibits got worse, but the story of the castle made more sense. When I got to floor 7 I found a sign that said "start on floor 8 then work your way down." ... Really? Now you tell me?! Oh well. I took photos from the balcony on the 8th floor then went down. I hoped to see Grace again on the way down, but no such luck. I looked up directions to the Theatre and realized I better start walking. I was barely going to make it.
I pressed on. Walking through Osaka was very memorable. It looked like a city I'd like to live in. The navigation in my phone suggested I take certain back alleys. I'm so glad it did. I saw kids going home from school. I saw kids going to the store. I saw kids! I miss kids! There was this 5-year old girl going to the grocery store, getting something and then walking back. So awesome. I felt more welcome there than I do in the US. Nobody was walking on the street staring at me like I'm creepy or something.
Side note: I'm so fed up with the US culture of fear. People talk about all sort of "culture" that's prevalent, but the only one that stands out to me is fear. Nationalism: fear of people with different culture. Rape-culture: fear of not being in control of one's body. Restricting parks to parents and children: fear of losing babies. Political-correctness: fear of getting sued. Racism: fear of change. Sexism: fear of change. Feminism: fear of no change. Everything in the media: fear of not fitting in.
Existential tangents aside I made it to the theatre with 4 minutes to spare and rushed in to find my seat before the show started. I was so pressed on time I didn't think to try to get English audio aid or something. I also didn't realize I was watching Part II of the story. It was highly advised, as I found out later, to read Part I beforehand. So, with all that in mind, understand that I hated it.
If you end up going to something like that, go to the theatre exhibit where they explain what to look for etc. Because from my foreign perspective, here's what I saw. There was a man sitting off to the side who was reading a story from a book. They put inflection at the end of every word/syllable so it just all sounded a monotonous mix of letters. There was a guy sitting next to him playing a Japanese music instrument akin to a 4-string guitar. They were in sync. On the stage, there were puppeteers holding complex dolls. It took 3 people per doll. Most of the time they just stood around. The story was just narrated. This went on for 2 hours and then it ended. 0.o
I kept falling asleep and waking up. I wanted to leave so badly. But I thought it was only an hour long and at $60 I wanted to see if it got better. It didn't. I was miserable the entire time. Most of the puppeteers wore black hoods so they weren't very noticeable but the people doing the heads didn't have head covered themselves. And they had no facial expressions. The dolls didn't either. I thought they all sucked. Then I realized that it was just most of them who sucked because one of the puppeteers was actually pretty good. He moved the hand of the puppet in a natural fashion. He shook the head and actually made his puppet blink here and there. Mostly importantly, he moved the damn thing when his character was being narrated about. Everyone else just stood there. It was horrible. The more I think about it the more I just want to tell them how stupid it all was.
So the reason why I even went was because I saw an amazing video online of Bunraku to the next level. It was a tennis game with the scene moving up, down, rotating 180 degrees so we got top-down views. The puppeteers moved ping-pong balls in a natural fashion, and the background was black, so they weren't visible. It was awesome. I wanted that level of amazement. I was so disappointed. :(
I got out of there around 18:00 and wanted to meet up with the gang. Bria said she was done with the meal, felt tired and was going home. Alan and Annmarie weren't even in Osaka yet. I was going to go to another viewing deck but was closing at 18:30. The only item on my list that was still open was the aquarium and that's where I went.
Navigation said it would take me 34 minutes but I made it there in more like 23. Fast walking, yo. When I was almost there I saw the sun setting over the horizon. SO BEAUTIFUL. Damn. I wanted to run out at the next station and watch it more. Actually, that's what I did. I got out and kept going in the direction of the sun so I could catch the last glimpse. I decided to be rational and made sure that it was also in the direction of the aquarium. And... I missed it. :( But luckily I got the tickets for the Ferris Wheel as well. What luck that two of those things were in the same place.
The aquarium was nice. There was mystic or magical music playing. Very uplifting. However most of the lights were off and the animals were going to sleep. Yes, animals. Dolphins, beavers, sea lions etc. It was too dark to take photos. :( BUT. And this is the-but. I ran into Grace. Her and her friend Abby. They were Abby from Liverpool and Grace from Essex. I asked if I can join them on the aquarium adventure and they agreed. This time I had no place to rush to so I spend the next two hours with them.
I know I'm going to sound cliche, but they were beautiful. Grace was drop-dead gorgeous. I've seen girls like that on YouTube. They do exist. I don't even know what to say. We looked at sea creatures together. Abby had a bad on a ring finger so I didn't pay her too much attention. Except, I think I probably spoke to her more. She was the extravert. Grace was an introvert. Into anime. History buff. 5'4" with a hot-and-messy look. I didn't get a photo nor exchanged info, so I can romanticise her as much as I want and nobody can prove me wrong. :P
I touched fish. They got a photo of it. I took photos of them, with their camera. We stayed till closing. Gift shop was closed but they insisted on getting something so they went up to a keychain vending machine and bought a bunch there. They had like 40 keychains on their purse. All that from today. Quite impressive. I was looking for fridge magnets.
While at the aquarium they were running around. I thought they wanted to lose me, but I double checked and no. They said it was fine. After everything we were walking and I stopped by a store and found them waiting outside. Aw. I made it in. <3 LOL.
We went on the Ferris Wheel together. Sat in the same cabin and talked about anime etc etc. I told them about my fear of heights. They told me about their hopes and aspirations. Turns out I was the only one in that cart who has cosplayed. We took a photo together. They took one of us as well. The lighting was terrible which is why I only have a vague outline.
We parted soon after. I had to get the train and transfer and they kept going. They had plans the next day to go to Universal Studios early and I needed to pack for Tokyo. I should have given them my card. I regret not staying in touch. I'm legitimately curious how the rest of their trip is going to go.
Regrets aside, this is the tangent where I want to thank YT:Simple Pickup for really driving the point across of telling yourself to "shut the fuck up" when negative thoughts arise. Grace is stunning and I caught myself thinking I wasn't somehow not good enough to spend time with for her. But I quickly told myself that it's her decision to make, not mine. That's why I came up to her. That's why I had a good time yesterday.
The rest is as they say "history". Took the local train home. It look longer than expected to come to Kyoto. Ran to the apartment since I didn't feel like waiting for yet another train. Slept well for 6 hours. Woke up 05:50. Didn't see the sunrise but was pretty darn close to it. Went for another run/stretch out in the park. Got back, showered and packed. The rest of the gang was still waking up. Alan had a cool story about hanging out with drunk locals.
I decided to not waste time lounging around on the last day and bolted for Tokyo.
Yesterday I met Abby from Liverpool and Grace from Essex. That's the highlight.
In more detail... I'm on a train back to Tokyo from Kyoto right now. I still have a couple hours to go. I'm sad to leave. It's been a fun trip. Great way to get away. The weather is finally nice. Very nice. Summer-anime nice. I got window seat. Everything looks amazing. I just had delicious food. Had dessert, too. I gave up on trying to avoid sugar while on the trip. Bring all the yummies. Nom-nom. I can't even begin to describe what I ate. There was sashimi-like thing that basically just ate the fish off of. I had enough rice. I had a rice-ball for breakfast. Great idea. Costs a buck. Mostly rice but has pieces of salmon in it. Finally had a bowl of veggies as well. I miss veggies.
That being said, yesterday I woke up earlier. Around 06:00 this time and went for a run. It was my second day doing this. I really miss having East-facing windows. It makes me a happier person. I love waking up to feeling of being immersed in sunlight. Everything is quiet and serene. I haven't woken up this refreshed in a long time.
So, I went for a run. Just down to the park a block away behind the Nintendo building. I stretched and did a couple laps there. I did cart-wheels and 360 rotations in the middle of the jog, too. Felt so good to use my shoulders again. I've been walking a lot and not using my arms at all besides to hold chop-sticks. Definitely doing the travelling rings when I get back.
When I got back to the apartment Alan and Annmarie were already leaving. They decided to go see Hiroshima. Bria was still in bed and I needed to take a shower. I bid them a happy day and got ready to leave. With blogging etc. Bria was able to catch up and we set out for Osaka.
I had purchased tickets for a Bunraku (traditional Japanese puppet show) for 16:00 and just needed to pass the time until then. Bria and I took the train into Osaka. I wanted to hit up a viewing deck on a nearby tower and she wanted to go see the Aquarium. I didn't think I had the time for the fish because the National Bunraku Theatre was an hour away and it was already 12:30. Good call on my part. So I walked over to this beautiful mall with what they called "hanging gardens". There were gardens outside of the awesome building. And there was a suspended sky deck. But the gardens weren't hanging. Oh well. The elevator shaft was transparent. Going up to 37th floor and watching it happen is breathtaking.
Upstairs the view was great. My only comment is that the viewing floor only had windows facing South and North, and the roof had a 10-meter gap between the viewers and roof edge. So I couldn't look at things down. In case you didn't know, Osaka is located at the edge of Japan and has many rivers going through it. It's quite beautiful. Sadly though, the visibility isn't all that. I got some pictures but they weren't as good as the ones in Tokyo. I had a good conversation with a Japanese-looking German guy who spoke English with a British accent. As for what to do next, I still had a couple hours left, so I thought I would make it to the Osaka Castle Park and then head down to the Theatre, since the Castle Park was sort-of on the way.
I walked. We have a JR (Japanese Rail) pass but it doesn't cover subway costs. Everything in Osaka required taking the subway. Google Maps said it would take 43 minutes. I made it there in 30. Beautiful park. Great castle. Not very large, but it was on a mount and had only a couple of access points. Looked very medieval. Or, you know, the way it would in Age of Empires II. The entrance cost was 600 yen or ~$5.50. So cheap. It was kept in much better condition than the castle in Switzerland last year and that one was 12 CHF or ~$12.
There was a long line outside with clear signs saying that the line can be skipped if you walk. I walked. The exhibits weren't very good. I wanted a view, but all of the inside was modernized. All of the interesting floors had a no-photo policy. All of the tourists crowded around the samurai armour but I still remember what they're like from that time LACMA (Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art) had an exhibit. I just kept making circles on every floor then going up to the next one.
And that's where I met Grace. I saw her reading a letter or something and I asked if she spoke English. She said yes, in this thick accent. It was British but I couldn't tell which British. I asked if she was heading up or down. It was the 3rd floor out of 8 so technically a good amount of time to spend with someone if they're going in the same direction. She said "up". "Can I join you?" I inquired. "Of course" she replied. :P
Actually that's where the story ends. She started reading the next letter. I've read them all. She was really taking her sweet time reading them. Once she was done she took out the phone and called someone. At this rate I was going to miss the Bunraku performance. I couldn't have that. So I wished her a good day and went on.
There wasn't much after that. The exhibits got worse, but the story of the castle made more sense. When I got to floor 7 I found a sign that said "start on floor 8 then work your way down." ... Really? Now you tell me?! Oh well. I took photos from the balcony on the 8th floor then went down. I hoped to see Grace again on the way down, but no such luck. I looked up directions to the Theatre and realized I better start walking. I was barely going to make it.
I pressed on. Walking through Osaka was very memorable. It looked like a city I'd like to live in. The navigation in my phone suggested I take certain back alleys. I'm so glad it did. I saw kids going home from school. I saw kids going to the store. I saw kids! I miss kids! There was this 5-year old girl going to the grocery store, getting something and then walking back. So awesome. I felt more welcome there than I do in the US. Nobody was walking on the street staring at me like I'm creepy or something.
Side note: I'm so fed up with the US culture of fear. People talk about all sort of "culture" that's prevalent, but the only one that stands out to me is fear. Nationalism: fear of people with different culture. Rape-culture: fear of not being in control of one's body. Restricting parks to parents and children: fear of losing babies. Political-correctness: fear of getting sued. Racism: fear of change. Sexism: fear of change. Feminism: fear of no change. Everything in the media: fear of not fitting in.
Existential tangents aside I made it to the theatre with 4 minutes to spare and rushed in to find my seat before the show started. I was so pressed on time I didn't think to try to get English audio aid or something. I also didn't realize I was watching Part II of the story. It was highly advised, as I found out later, to read Part I beforehand. So, with all that in mind, understand that I hated it.
If you end up going to something like that, go to the theatre exhibit where they explain what to look for etc. Because from my foreign perspective, here's what I saw. There was a man sitting off to the side who was reading a story from a book. They put inflection at the end of every word/syllable so it just all sounded a monotonous mix of letters. There was a guy sitting next to him playing a Japanese music instrument akin to a 4-string guitar. They were in sync. On the stage, there were puppeteers holding complex dolls. It took 3 people per doll. Most of the time they just stood around. The story was just narrated. This went on for 2 hours and then it ended. 0.o
I kept falling asleep and waking up. I wanted to leave so badly. But I thought it was only an hour long and at $60 I wanted to see if it got better. It didn't. I was miserable the entire time. Most of the puppeteers wore black hoods so they weren't very noticeable but the people doing the heads didn't have head covered themselves. And they had no facial expressions. The dolls didn't either. I thought they all sucked. Then I realized that it was just most of them who sucked because one of the puppeteers was actually pretty good. He moved the hand of the puppet in a natural fashion. He shook the head and actually made his puppet blink here and there. Mostly importantly, he moved the damn thing when his character was being narrated about. Everyone else just stood there. It was horrible. The more I think about it the more I just want to tell them how stupid it all was.
So the reason why I even went was because I saw an amazing video online of Bunraku to the next level. It was a tennis game with the scene moving up, down, rotating 180 degrees so we got top-down views. The puppeteers moved ping-pong balls in a natural fashion, and the background was black, so they weren't visible. It was awesome. I wanted that level of amazement. I was so disappointed. :(
I got out of there around 18:00 and wanted to meet up with the gang. Bria said she was done with the meal, felt tired and was going home. Alan and Annmarie weren't even in Osaka yet. I was going to go to another viewing deck but was closing at 18:30. The only item on my list that was still open was the aquarium and that's where I went.
Navigation said it would take me 34 minutes but I made it there in more like 23. Fast walking, yo. When I was almost there I saw the sun setting over the horizon. SO BEAUTIFUL. Damn. I wanted to run out at the next station and watch it more. Actually, that's what I did. I got out and kept going in the direction of the sun so I could catch the last glimpse. I decided to be rational and made sure that it was also in the direction of the aquarium. And... I missed it. :( But luckily I got the tickets for the Ferris Wheel as well. What luck that two of those things were in the same place.
The aquarium was nice. There was mystic or magical music playing. Very uplifting. However most of the lights were off and the animals were going to sleep. Yes, animals. Dolphins, beavers, sea lions etc. It was too dark to take photos. :( BUT. And this is the-but. I ran into Grace. Her and her friend Abby. They were Abby from Liverpool and Grace from Essex. I asked if I can join them on the aquarium adventure and they agreed. This time I had no place to rush to so I spend the next two hours with them.
I know I'm going to sound cliche, but they were beautiful. Grace was drop-dead gorgeous. I've seen girls like that on YouTube. They do exist. I don't even know what to say. We looked at sea creatures together. Abby had a bad on a ring finger so I didn't pay her too much attention. Except, I think I probably spoke to her more. She was the extravert. Grace was an introvert. Into anime. History buff. 5'4" with a hot-and-messy look. I didn't get a photo nor exchanged info, so I can romanticise her as much as I want and nobody can prove me wrong. :P
I touched fish. They got a photo of it. I took photos of them, with their camera. We stayed till closing. Gift shop was closed but they insisted on getting something so they went up to a keychain vending machine and bought a bunch there. They had like 40 keychains on their purse. All that from today. Quite impressive. I was looking for fridge magnets.
While at the aquarium they were running around. I thought they wanted to lose me, but I double checked and no. They said it was fine. After everything we were walking and I stopped by a store and found them waiting outside. Aw. I made it in. <3 LOL.
We went on the Ferris Wheel together. Sat in the same cabin and talked about anime etc etc. I told them about my fear of heights. They told me about their hopes and aspirations. Turns out I was the only one in that cart who has cosplayed. We took a photo together. They took one of us as well. The lighting was terrible which is why I only have a vague outline.
We parted soon after. I had to get the train and transfer and they kept going. They had plans the next day to go to Universal Studios early and I needed to pack for Tokyo. I should have given them my card. I regret not staying in touch. I'm legitimately curious how the rest of their trip is going to go.
Regrets aside, this is the tangent where I want to thank YT:Simple Pickup for really driving the point across of telling yourself to "shut the fuck up" when negative thoughts arise. Grace is stunning and I caught myself thinking I wasn't somehow not good enough to spend time with for her. But I quickly told myself that it's her decision to make, not mine. That's why I came up to her. That's why I had a good time yesterday.
The rest is as they say "history". Took the local train home. It look longer than expected to come to Kyoto. Ran to the apartment since I didn't feel like waiting for yet another train. Slept well for 6 hours. Woke up 05:50. Didn't see the sunrise but was pretty darn close to it. Went for another run/stretch out in the park. Got back, showered and packed. The rest of the gang was still waking up. Alan had a cool story about hanging out with drunk locals.
I decided to not waste time lounging around on the last day and bolted for Tokyo.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Kyoto
Dear diary:
I'm going to try to keep this one short in the interest of time. Yesterday was a good day. We woke up early and went East toward the hills. The #1 thing to do in Kyoto seems to be to visit the 1000-gates park. It's a windy and uphill hiking trail a large part of which goes through these shrine gates. It's very pretty. And there are a lot of gates! It was a hike! There are graves or something along the way. Very spiritual. We sat out early, but didn't get there until 10:00 or so so it was already packed with tourists. However the people thinned out the higher we went.
There were things to see left and right. The most memorable thing however was this old man sitting on the stairs covered in blood with a bandage covering this head and eyes. Judging by the amount of blood and bandage placement I want to guess he lost his eye. D: The rest of the hike was great thought. We got a good way up then got ice cream and I guess made a wrong turn because we ended up going down and eventually on the other side of the hills.
After that we went to the bamboo forest. So pretty. Oddly reminiscent of kung fu movies like House of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger Hidden dragon. So pretty though. On an odd note, I ran into a girl I saw at the train station next to where we're staying. We definitely shared a moment. Saw her a couple of times. She smiled back but I got the vibe she didn't want to have a conversation. Sigh.
Oh well. We pressed on and ended up in Monkey-land. Wow it was cool. Good hike. Beautiful view. And Monkeys! Japanese monkeys! We saw their feeding time. Fighting over branches. Saw them get satiated and then groom each other. Got lots of good photos, too. Finally figured out how to use my zoom lens to get good effects!
After that Alan and Annmarie went to get soba or something and Bria and I went out in sought of sushi. I think we definitely won that round, because we didn't find anything in the touristy part of town but I got asking around for a post office and so we went there. Directions took us outside of the touristy area and by a school. School! Kids! We found Japan's missing children! They have so few these days so hearing children laugh was like a godsent! But I digress. We got to the post office and mailed some post cards to friends and family. Loved the experience. Such friendly staff. The postage was super cheap, too. Only 70 YEN per card. That's a lot less than a buck. So good.
So there we were, walking back now to the train station through a normal Japanese neighborhood when we came across a small mom-and-pop corner store with sushi. It look good and I ordered a bento box for like $7. But then.. I noticed that I could buy a sushi tray for $12. Like 20 pieces of sushi for $12. Salmon, fish eggs, octopus etc. Holy ****. The chunks were big. They hand-made it for us. The lady was very nice as well! Best food ever! Bria had a pork bun earlier so she didn't order anything. Then after she saw what I got, she had to get some too. And she did. So good ^..^
After that we just wasted time at the Kyoto Station. I went up and down the 10 stories of escalators. We went to a super pricey department store. I so want a $350 umbrella now and a $700 travelling bag. Amazing quality. There are some things money *can* buy.
After a while Alan and I split off from the other two and we walked to the local grocery store. It smelled like Whole Foods. Was kind of expensive. He got oranges and I got peas. Both didn't taste the way we expected. They were expensive, too. Oh well. It was interesting nontheless. What was more interesting was how many California-grown fruit there was. Guess some things just don't grow in Japan. Cough *tangerines*.
I relaxed at night and watched Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 2 on Netflix. I can't recommend it, but it was oddly fitting for a falling-asleep tourist in Japan.
Today we're going to Osaka. Lots of things to see there.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Kyoto
Dear diary:
Yesterday we got to Kyoto. We have an apartment that takes up the whole floor. It's got a balcony on the inside and a balcony on the outside. The view is nice too since it's on the 6th floor. It was already dark so we just walked down to a temple and took photos there. There were bats everywhere! Na-na-na-na-na BATMAN!
Then we walked to the Kyoto tower. I went up to the observation deck. The rest of the gang went to the lounge to drink instead. I didn't feel like drinking again so I just walked around after and went home. Or, should I say I ran home. I remembered what my PT guy said about getting light exercise to get some blood flow to sore muscles. It was just over a mile and with some breaks and through mild pain I made it back. Woo.
I slept on a bamboo floor on traditional Japanese mats under a silk blanket. Best. Sleep. Ever. I woke up after 6am though so the sun was already up. But it was huge and I have a balcony facing East. I miss that so much.
I dressed up today. New pants, clear collared shirt, clean shaven and not wearing glasses. I don't want anything obstructing my viewing pleasure.
I thin the gang wants to go now.
Yesterday we got to Kyoto. We have an apartment that takes up the whole floor. It's got a balcony on the inside and a balcony on the outside. The view is nice too since it's on the 6th floor. It was already dark so we just walked down to a temple and took photos there. There were bats everywhere! Na-na-na-na-na BATMAN!
Then we walked to the Kyoto tower. I went up to the observation deck. The rest of the gang went to the lounge to drink instead. I didn't feel like drinking again so I just walked around after and went home. Or, should I say I ran home. I remembered what my PT guy said about getting light exercise to get some blood flow to sore muscles. It was just over a mile and with some breaks and through mild pain I made it back. Woo.
I slept on a bamboo floor on traditional Japanese mats under a silk blanket. Best. Sleep. Ever. I woke up after 6am though so the sun was already up. But it was huge and I have a balcony facing East. I miss that so much.
I dressed up today. New pants, clear collared shirt, clean shaven and not wearing glasses. I don't want anything obstructing my viewing pleasure.
I thin the gang wants to go now.
Tokyo
Dear diary,
I'm hung over. It's 09:00 local time. I'm laying in bed waiting for benadryl and pain killers to kick in. Pain killers for the aforementioned splitting headache and antihistamines for the Guiness I finished last night with. When I got home I was so drunk I didn't have the energy to chug water like I usually do.
So, yesterday. Still in Tokyo. I woke up early, around 05:30 to go to the fish market by 06:00 like Alan had wanted. After soaking and blogging we sat out and got there by 08:15. Had to take a subway to get closer to it. It was a couple of bucks. Same deal. I didn't know there was a JR station a few minutes walk away. At the fish market Annmarie quickly found where good pieces of tuna were sold on top of some rice so it looked like really-really expensive sushi. Alan had some too. It looked overly meaty, but fresh fish was delicious and it was the kind that just melted in the mouth, so totally worth it. I kept walking and ended up having a bowl of fish over rice. I think I either ordered the wrong thing or the waiter took the wrong number, but I ended up with a third spicy tuna, which I of course didn't eat. Alan made a point later that I should have called him over. He loves spicy food and would have happily ate the remains.
We reunited after everyone's had their food. Annmarie and Bria went to the Gibli museum or something like that. In the mean time I was spending the day with Alan. We had a blast together. Alan wanted to go to the maid cafe. I wanted to go to the closest observation deck. However before we could go anywhere I needed to get my legs fixed. The aches have gotten so bad the idea of going somewhere didn't seem exciting anymore. Stairs felt like hell. I needed something. I looked up pharmacy and only got like 3 listings around. Then I looked up "pharmacy" in Japanese and googled that and got like 40 results around which included all of the convenience stores. I needed a middle ground, but didn't know how to search for it. I figured I would have better chances finding something besides a convenience store was to go to one of the pharmacy places.
Inside a pharmacy was a regular Rx-only window with no over-the-counter things around. I asked where we can find "ankle braces" or something like that. The nice lady behind the counter drew us a map to the closest "Drug Store". It was just a few blocks away. I looked at the bonding isle for a while. I made a comment out loud saying that I didn't know whether to get large or medium size knee support. To which someone said they will help me right away. The guy appeared back a few minutes later apologizing that he couldn't find a tape measure and asked if there was some other he could assist me. Such great service!
I bought 2 compression socks, a pair of compression sleeves and a knee brace. Well, that and some chocolate. I was checking it out when the woman at the register suggested that I can buy it duty free if have my passport. I said sure and they quickly told me to go to the back of the store so they could process that for me. 0.o The register at the back was behind boxes. A lot of boxes. It was clear that they don't get to use it very often. I thought I needed to show them my passport with a temporary visitor stamp, but they stapled an export invoice to it and bagged my braces into a duty free bag. Sigh. They didn't have ankle braces.
Alan wanted to go to a nearby park and I needed a place to put the stuff that I bought. I don't know the name of it but it was really pretty there. It was large, too. There were trees and flowers and a 300-year old tree with a rich history etc. Entrance was 300 yen (about $2.75) and totally worth it. We walked around and took photos. The knee brace came off because it didn't fit me very well. While we were taking photos there was a loud announcement followed by sirens and people running for the exit. I think it might have been a tsunami warning. We felt safe with all the trees around, though. Some of them were tall so could probably hold onto them and not drown. And nothing would fall on us so I felt relatively safe. Of course, nothing happened.
After the park, we went to another park. That one was my idea. It had an archery range and it reminded of Woodley Park Archer Range that have Japanese Gardens adjacent to it. But this one didn't seem tourist friendly. Firstly, they were shooting from long-bows, dressed in traditional Japanese outfits and none of the signs were in English. That park, however had a pond with lots of Koi fish. So many Koi! And they were all coming up and opening their mouths at us. It was like they thought we were going to feed them. So weird.
I want to write about the observation deck, a temple and dudesville with all the anime characters, maid cafes etc. I need to rant about how terrible it is drinking with coworkers and I'm mad at Bria. Hint: it's because she thinks trash talking about someone in front of them is acceptable. But, I am feeling the benadryl kicking in and need to just lie down and close my eyes for a little.a
---[ A few hours later ]---
So after the park we went looking for an observation deck. Luckily there was one about a block away at the World Trade Center. Going there was exciting. For once I was happy signs were in English. The staff there extended to us the same courtesy everyone has been but this time in English. I must admit that people getting up from behind their desks to call the elevator for you feels so-so good. The cost was only about $6 and the deck was located on the 41st floor. The view was amazing. What was even more amazing was that there was like nobody there. Maybe another 4 people on the whole floor. Well, at the half of it that we were allowed to hang out on. The other half had a wedding ceremony. Beautiful ceremony!
We took many-many photos. Some were looking out. Some were looking down at the parks where we just were. Some were of us lounging around. The music was incredibly well fitting. I felt like a kind of the world. Quite a happy place. We moved chairs toward the windows and sat there looking out at the sunny Tokyo. Out of one of the windows I noticed a temple. That's where we headed text. It was only a few blocks away. We went to the holy site. Took a photo of the holy things and headed out.
Alan wanted to go to a place with Anime, Tech and Arcades ... and we did! It was so cool. Well, at least until I realized it strongly reminded me of college. The gender ratio was like 50-1. That being said it was cool on so many levels. Everything was multi-story! There were so many electronics shops. It reminded me of this low-level electronics store called Phils(?) on University Ave, but x1000. I wanted to seriously look into everything there but no where to put the loot. :(
After walking through 6 stories of arcades we found L4D2 (Left for dead 2) and Alan got a computer with credits in it! I insisted he played. I sat next to him and played as well. I don't know what treasure chest he uncovered but he got 2000 time points. In the mean time I paid $1 for every 250 life points. We were having a good time. Then someone nearby started smoking and Alan didn't feel so good anymore.
We walked around a little and then went in to see "Maidream" (maid-dream). We got a little spooked because there was like nothing in English outside about it. So instead we went one floor up to the porn shop. And oh-my-god was it full of things I've never seen before. Perhaps I shouldn't call it a shop because all of the DVDs were rent-only. You find what you want to watch, put it in a basket, lock yourself in a room for up to 2 hours then return DVDs when done. And their collection was enormous. I mean... it kinds of puts internet to shame. Just saying. I found it very interesting that there was a rack with films like San Andreas and Point Break right next to a rack with hardcore rape fantasies. 0.o Japan.
So two hours later... j/k. Inspired by the porn viewing service we went to the Maid Dreaming where we were greeted by little girls (think 4'10" or shorter) in school uniforms who put silly ears on us and explained the menu to us. I rejected the idea of getting a combo with gifts or deluxe combo where you get your own maid outfit. So we just had food and took photos with the girls. No touching. Apparently.
After that we went to another 8-storie shop thing with figurines and posters. I wanted to get a silk thing for my door, but they were like $70-$140. I mean I like posters but I wasn't ready to spend that much on it and then struggle to carry it fro the next few days. Instead I got some figurines. Picking them was difficult. I'm extremely unfamiliar with anime now. There were some things I did know like Naruto and One Piece, but whatever I got had to fit in with my fairy collection so I got some skinny girl statues. I needed to rank up enough for $30 to use the credit card, so I walked away with four (4) of them! :P
Alan took the elevator down and I took the stairs. I ended up on the basement level in a long line for a Japanese cultural show. Ooh. I wanted to go but Alan wanted to go back. I guess.
Long story short, we got back to the hotel, told the girls we were going out drinking and they joined us. We had a hard time finding a good place to drink. Annmarie owed me drinks so I had 4 shots of Zubrowka (Polish vodka) at a British Pub. The we went onto a new place. Same thing as before: lonely Japanese bartender who charged us WAY TOO MUCH for our drinks. Before we left we noticed a sign on the door that $20 are added to the bill per person. 0.o I didn't notice until I had already offered to pay. My treat. After that I said I wasn't paying anymore and someone else should get the next round.
Bria had the next around but only if we had gone to a Texas Steakhouse. I went. Got salmon, too because I needed something to absorb the alcohol. There and just before going there Bria kept talking shit about everything, but mostly about me. Kept saying I make more than them so I should play for drinks, and that my manager at work doesn't like me, or after she got the bill how she was picking snacks but not my food. And of course it was all back-handed, in third-person, talking to the rest of the group. And this is while I was sitting right next to her. 0.o I gave her $20 for the salmon (which is more than the cost) and after we left we went our separate ways.
They went home. I went to another bar. Man I hate drinking in bad company. So tired of people going home and leaving me drunk behind, too. But that's a conversation for another time. After the other bar, when it was only 00:38 there weren't anyone on the streets anymore. Was pretty empty. GPS kept giving me faulty directions home. So that was fun. At least I got to see how people live a little from the outside. And after I got home.. I undressed and crashed. You know the rest.
One thing I'd like to point out is that in the morning Bria kept making snarky comments like "I told you there will be nobody there. You should have gone to Red Lights district" when I wasn't even talking to her. I didn't want to cause drama so I just didn't talk to anymore that morning.
Since then we had more shitty food. I had good dessert and now we're on a train to Kyoto.
I'm hung over. It's 09:00 local time. I'm laying in bed waiting for benadryl and pain killers to kick in. Pain killers for the aforementioned splitting headache and antihistamines for the Guiness I finished last night with. When I got home I was so drunk I didn't have the energy to chug water like I usually do.
So, yesterday. Still in Tokyo. I woke up early, around 05:30 to go to the fish market by 06:00 like Alan had wanted. After soaking and blogging we sat out and got there by 08:15. Had to take a subway to get closer to it. It was a couple of bucks. Same deal. I didn't know there was a JR station a few minutes walk away. At the fish market Annmarie quickly found where good pieces of tuna were sold on top of some rice so it looked like really-really expensive sushi. Alan had some too. It looked overly meaty, but fresh fish was delicious and it was the kind that just melted in the mouth, so totally worth it. I kept walking and ended up having a bowl of fish over rice. I think I either ordered the wrong thing or the waiter took the wrong number, but I ended up with a third spicy tuna, which I of course didn't eat. Alan made a point later that I should have called him over. He loves spicy food and would have happily ate the remains.
We reunited after everyone's had their food. Annmarie and Bria went to the Gibli museum or something like that. In the mean time I was spending the day with Alan. We had a blast together. Alan wanted to go to the maid cafe. I wanted to go to the closest observation deck. However before we could go anywhere I needed to get my legs fixed. The aches have gotten so bad the idea of going somewhere didn't seem exciting anymore. Stairs felt like hell. I needed something. I looked up pharmacy and only got like 3 listings around. Then I looked up "pharmacy" in Japanese and googled that and got like 40 results around which included all of the convenience stores. I needed a middle ground, but didn't know how to search for it. I figured I would have better chances finding something besides a convenience store was to go to one of the pharmacy places.
Inside a pharmacy was a regular Rx-only window with no over-the-counter things around. I asked where we can find "ankle braces" or something like that. The nice lady behind the counter drew us a map to the closest "Drug Store". It was just a few blocks away. I looked at the bonding isle for a while. I made a comment out loud saying that I didn't know whether to get large or medium size knee support. To which someone said they will help me right away. The guy appeared back a few minutes later apologizing that he couldn't find a tape measure and asked if there was some other he could assist me. Such great service!
I bought 2 compression socks, a pair of compression sleeves and a knee brace. Well, that and some chocolate. I was checking it out when the woman at the register suggested that I can buy it duty free if have my passport. I said sure and they quickly told me to go to the back of the store so they could process that for me. 0.o The register at the back was behind boxes. A lot of boxes. It was clear that they don't get to use it very often. I thought I needed to show them my passport with a temporary visitor stamp, but they stapled an export invoice to it and bagged my braces into a duty free bag. Sigh. They didn't have ankle braces.
Alan wanted to go to a nearby park and I needed a place to put the stuff that I bought. I don't know the name of it but it was really pretty there. It was large, too. There were trees and flowers and a 300-year old tree with a rich history etc. Entrance was 300 yen (about $2.75) and totally worth it. We walked around and took photos. The knee brace came off because it didn't fit me very well. While we were taking photos there was a loud announcement followed by sirens and people running for the exit. I think it might have been a tsunami warning. We felt safe with all the trees around, though. Some of them were tall so could probably hold onto them and not drown. And nothing would fall on us so I felt relatively safe. Of course, nothing happened.
After the park, we went to another park. That one was my idea. It had an archery range and it reminded of Woodley Park Archer Range that have Japanese Gardens adjacent to it. But this one didn't seem tourist friendly. Firstly, they were shooting from long-bows, dressed in traditional Japanese outfits and none of the signs were in English. That park, however had a pond with lots of Koi fish. So many Koi! And they were all coming up and opening their mouths at us. It was like they thought we were going to feed them. So weird.
I want to write about the observation deck, a temple and dudesville with all the anime characters, maid cafes etc. I need to rant about how terrible it is drinking with coworkers and I'm mad at Bria. Hint: it's because she thinks trash talking about someone in front of them is acceptable. But, I am feeling the benadryl kicking in and need to just lie down and close my eyes for a little.a
---[ A few hours later ]---
So after the park we went looking for an observation deck. Luckily there was one about a block away at the World Trade Center. Going there was exciting. For once I was happy signs were in English. The staff there extended to us the same courtesy everyone has been but this time in English. I must admit that people getting up from behind their desks to call the elevator for you feels so-so good. The cost was only about $6 and the deck was located on the 41st floor. The view was amazing. What was even more amazing was that there was like nobody there. Maybe another 4 people on the whole floor. Well, at the half of it that we were allowed to hang out on. The other half had a wedding ceremony. Beautiful ceremony!
We took many-many photos. Some were looking out. Some were looking down at the parks where we just were. Some were of us lounging around. The music was incredibly well fitting. I felt like a kind of the world. Quite a happy place. We moved chairs toward the windows and sat there looking out at the sunny Tokyo. Out of one of the windows I noticed a temple. That's where we headed text. It was only a few blocks away. We went to the holy site. Took a photo of the holy things and headed out.
Alan wanted to go to a place with Anime, Tech and Arcades ... and we did! It was so cool. Well, at least until I realized it strongly reminded me of college. The gender ratio was like 50-1. That being said it was cool on so many levels. Everything was multi-story! There were so many electronics shops. It reminded me of this low-level electronics store called Phils(?) on University Ave, but x1000. I wanted to seriously look into everything there but no where to put the loot. :(
After walking through 6 stories of arcades we found L4D2 (Left for dead 2) and Alan got a computer with credits in it! I insisted he played. I sat next to him and played as well. I don't know what treasure chest he uncovered but he got 2000 time points. In the mean time I paid $1 for every 250 life points. We were having a good time. Then someone nearby started smoking and Alan didn't feel so good anymore.
We walked around a little and then went in to see "Maidream" (maid-dream). We got a little spooked because there was like nothing in English outside about it. So instead we went one floor up to the porn shop. And oh-my-god was it full of things I've never seen before. Perhaps I shouldn't call it a shop because all of the DVDs were rent-only. You find what you want to watch, put it in a basket, lock yourself in a room for up to 2 hours then return DVDs when done. And their collection was enormous. I mean... it kinds of puts internet to shame. Just saying. I found it very interesting that there was a rack with films like San Andreas and Point Break right next to a rack with hardcore rape fantasies. 0.o Japan.
So two hours later... j/k. Inspired by the porn viewing service we went to the Maid Dreaming where we were greeted by little girls (think 4'10" or shorter) in school uniforms who put silly ears on us and explained the menu to us. I rejected the idea of getting a combo with gifts or deluxe combo where you get your own maid outfit. So we just had food and took photos with the girls. No touching. Apparently.
After that we went to another 8-storie shop thing with figurines and posters. I wanted to get a silk thing for my door, but they were like $70-$140. I mean I like posters but I wasn't ready to spend that much on it and then struggle to carry it fro the next few days. Instead I got some figurines. Picking them was difficult. I'm extremely unfamiliar with anime now. There were some things I did know like Naruto and One Piece, but whatever I got had to fit in with my fairy collection so I got some skinny girl statues. I needed to rank up enough for $30 to use the credit card, so I walked away with four (4) of them! :P
Alan took the elevator down and I took the stairs. I ended up on the basement level in a long line for a Japanese cultural show. Ooh. I wanted to go but Alan wanted to go back. I guess.
Long story short, we got back to the hotel, told the girls we were going out drinking and they joined us. We had a hard time finding a good place to drink. Annmarie owed me drinks so I had 4 shots of Zubrowka (Polish vodka) at a British Pub. The we went onto a new place. Same thing as before: lonely Japanese bartender who charged us WAY TOO MUCH for our drinks. Before we left we noticed a sign on the door that $20 are added to the bill per person. 0.o I didn't notice until I had already offered to pay. My treat. After that I said I wasn't paying anymore and someone else should get the next round.
Bria had the next around but only if we had gone to a Texas Steakhouse. I went. Got salmon, too because I needed something to absorb the alcohol. There and just before going there Bria kept talking shit about everything, but mostly about me. Kept saying I make more than them so I should play for drinks, and that my manager at work doesn't like me, or after she got the bill how she was picking snacks but not my food. And of course it was all back-handed, in third-person, talking to the rest of the group. And this is while I was sitting right next to her. 0.o I gave her $20 for the salmon (which is more than the cost) and after we left we went our separate ways.
They went home. I went to another bar. Man I hate drinking in bad company. So tired of people going home and leaving me drunk behind, too. But that's a conversation for another time. After the other bar, when it was only 00:38 there weren't anyone on the streets anymore. Was pretty empty. GPS kept giving me faulty directions home. So that was fun. At least I got to see how people live a little from the outside. And after I got home.. I undressed and crashed. You know the rest.
One thing I'd like to point out is that in the morning Bria kept making snarky comments like "I told you there will be nobody there. You should have gone to Red Lights district" when I wasn't even talking to her. I didn't want to cause drama so I just didn't talk to anymore that morning.
Since then we had more shitty food. I had good dessert and now we're on a train to Kyoto.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Tokyo
Dear diary:
So yesterday after we got to Tokyo we went to Mark's place and stayed there. He's a friend from overseas... or so he wants us to tell his neighbors if they ask because I guess he's not supposed to be AirBnb-ing the place. :P The walk there was cool, but also warm and uphill. My feet are tired. Every time I pass a massage place I think harder and harder about going in instead of exploring more.
We dropped off our stuff and went for a walk. We quickly realized we wanted to do different things and split up. Alan and Annmarie went to get cake, Bria got Ramen and I went looking for something to eat. I didn't find anything. But I did strike a conversation with a couple of girls. I laughed very hard when I found out they were also from LA. What are the chances? Must be pretty decent. They recommended a few places. Got a copy of their todo-list. Cool that they did all the work.
Bria had finished her lunch and we walked around. Took photos. Checked out adult stores. So much cool stuff I appreciate and sadly can't bring back with me. Oh well.
After the four of us met up after that went to a park with a temple. It was impressive. I've missed tall trees. It's one thing to see monumental gates on the screen, but seeing them in real life is a different game. We payed our respects to some sacred thing.. and then got kicked out for sitting on sacred stairs.
Then we walked through the fashion district. I wanted to buy shoes, and a hat... and maybe something else. But everything was kind of expensive. I saw a lonely lady advertising for a money exchange place. She looked so miserable and I was running low on cash. So, I went up and converted some currency. The thing was on the 3rd floor, past lockers and bathrooms, where behind glass sat another lonely-looking person. They both looked so delighted to see a customer. Yes, the first girl went up with me so she could smile and bow as a thank you for my business. That level of customer service is so refreshing. Makes me want to go back to LA and never tip for anything less than that kind of service. I wish. :(
The night fell. Annmarie and Alan took the train back to go to sleep. I wanted to continue exploring. However Bria wanted to go for a walk too so she tagged along. She my walk short but she was desperate to go home and after I got back I didn't feel like going out again. Alan wanted to go to the Fish Market in the morning so I figured I might as well get some sleep.
I tried running a hot bath , but the water was freezing cold. So I just crashed. Turns out the water heater shuts down and needs to be turned on each time you want to use hot water. I didn't know. I spent my morning soaking in a bath. Of course. The bathrooms here inspire me to have a better one back home. For example a sitting bath tub probably uses up less water and seems a hell of a lot more convenient and water efficient. Go Japan.
Today, Bria and Annmarie are going to an anime museum and Alan and I are going to be exploring.
One more thing; I was dreaming that I was in my grandparent's house back in Postavy. My sister Olga and her two kids were there. Then, there was an earthquake and the thing began crumbling down. My evacuation training kicked in and I got everyone escorted out before running in and trying to control the falling objects. When I woke up I found messages from friends asking me if I'm okay. Apparently there was an earthquake somewhere in Tokyo. Maybe that's what I felt. Or maybe it was all the thoughts.
So yesterday after we got to Tokyo we went to Mark's place and stayed there. He's a friend from overseas... or so he wants us to tell his neighbors if they ask because I guess he's not supposed to be AirBnb-ing the place. :P The walk there was cool, but also warm and uphill. My feet are tired. Every time I pass a massage place I think harder and harder about going in instead of exploring more.
We dropped off our stuff and went for a walk. We quickly realized we wanted to do different things and split up. Alan and Annmarie went to get cake, Bria got Ramen and I went looking for something to eat. I didn't find anything. But I did strike a conversation with a couple of girls. I laughed very hard when I found out they were also from LA. What are the chances? Must be pretty decent. They recommended a few places. Got a copy of their todo-list. Cool that they did all the work.
Bria had finished her lunch and we walked around. Took photos. Checked out adult stores. So much cool stuff I appreciate and sadly can't bring back with me. Oh well.
After the four of us met up after that went to a park with a temple. It was impressive. I've missed tall trees. It's one thing to see monumental gates on the screen, but seeing them in real life is a different game. We payed our respects to some sacred thing.. and then got kicked out for sitting on sacred stairs.
Then we walked through the fashion district. I wanted to buy shoes, and a hat... and maybe something else. But everything was kind of expensive. I saw a lonely lady advertising for a money exchange place. She looked so miserable and I was running low on cash. So, I went up and converted some currency. The thing was on the 3rd floor, past lockers and bathrooms, where behind glass sat another lonely-looking person. They both looked so delighted to see a customer. Yes, the first girl went up with me so she could smile and bow as a thank you for my business. That level of customer service is so refreshing. Makes me want to go back to LA and never tip for anything less than that kind of service. I wish. :(
The night fell. Annmarie and Alan took the train back to go to sleep. I wanted to continue exploring. However Bria wanted to go for a walk too so she tagged along. She my walk short but she was desperate to go home and after I got back I didn't feel like going out again. Alan wanted to go to the Fish Market in the morning so I figured I might as well get some sleep.
I tried running a hot bath , but the water was freezing cold. So I just crashed. Turns out the water heater shuts down and needs to be turned on each time you want to use hot water. I didn't know. I spent my morning soaking in a bath. Of course. The bathrooms here inspire me to have a better one back home. For example a sitting bath tub probably uses up less water and seems a hell of a lot more convenient and water efficient. Go Japan.
Today, Bria and Annmarie are going to an anime museum and Alan and I are going to be exploring.
One more thing; I was dreaming that I was in my grandparent's house back in Postavy. My sister Olga and her two kids were there. Then, there was an earthquake and the thing began crumbling down. My evacuation training kicked in and I got everyone escorted out before running in and trying to control the falling objects. When I woke up I found messages from friends asking me if I'm okay. Apparently there was an earthquake somewhere in Tokyo. Maybe that's what I felt. Or maybe it was all the thoughts.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Sendai
Dear diary:
Yesterday I spent the day in Sendai. Right now I'm on a bullet train back to Tokyo. It's about an hour and a half to in total so I have time to write a little. I should probably nap, but I didn't write anything this morning and it's been a sad morning.
So, yesterday we got to Sendai, had touristy food at the train station. Walked to the local park and saw what was left of the cherry blossoms. Apparently they had heavy rain and it's all pretty much gone now. After that we went back to the train station and had more touristy food. Then everyone in my party went to take a nap and I went to visit Olesya. I started walking through this cool gate I saw. I thought it was just a building with a mall in it, but it was... wait for it... infinite. Or at least the thing was so long I couldn't see the end of it. I got a good picture of it from above. There were things to do left and right. There were so many interesting looking people left and right. So awesome. There were suits (or people who I call 'suits' because they're all dressed like they're going to a job interview) and non-conformists and high school students etc. My eyes kept wandering.
The hospital where Olesya was staying was 23 minute walk and I was excited but not super-particularly looking forward to it until I realized that after I got to the other side of the promenade I'd already passed the hospital. I wanted to hang out there more but I wanted to visit my friend. When at the hospital I was supposed to sign in.. but since I couldn't read anything in Japanese I just kept walking past people like I knew where I was going and ended up in the maternity ward, found her room and found her! Happy moment! We chatted for hours. So much to catch up with. So much to talk about. Eventually I got really sleepy. It was 4am in LA and I was collapsing. I had to call it a day and walk back.
I was excited to tell the sleeping gang about the better parts of town but everything was closing on the way back. Well, everything except the red lights district. Which was interesting, but I wasn't adventurous enough to potentially run into a money pit. I got back to the hotel and ultimately Bria and Alan decided to sleep and no go out. Annmarie and I went to explore the night life. We didn't get too touristy... a shop here a weird Japanese sex shop there, and then... the ******ing ******ing. I can't remember the name of the bar. It was a basement hole in the wall. Everything covered up with stickers. Everyone covered in tattoos. Very cool vibe. Nobody spoke a word of English. It was fun. The bartender showed us the photo albums of his visit to West Coast of the US. Interesting things. We had a couple shots each and it came out to $40. Wait what? We had this much alcohol at the touristy part of town earlier that day and it came out to $12. Yeahp. We paid the fucking tourist tax. Ultimately the price is okay, but being taken for chumps didn't feel good.
I'm not sore how long we were out, but it was cool. I would have loved to spend more time there. Sadly some of the gang are hellbent on going to Tokyo. So we left. Otherwise I'd be exploring more. While they were having beef tongue I went to the observation deck in downtown and took photos. There's so much more left to be explored. I've only really been to one store... one flower shop and one hat store. I wanted to see more. Oh well. More reasons to come back I guess.
This morning we woke up early and went to the local Cherry Blossoms festival. Sadly... there weren't many trees in bloom there either. Looks like we missed the season. This was in a town about an hour away from Sendai and I wanted to at least check out the city. But Bria was cold so we headed back. Something was wrong. Maybe it were the winds or something else happened, but the train back went at 20 km/h for a while before coming off all together and off-boarding us to other trains. That was interesting. We were up at the front of the train so we got a good look at the rail tracks. Got some good photos, too, I think.
Yesterday I spent the day in Sendai. Right now I'm on a bullet train back to Tokyo. It's about an hour and a half to in total so I have time to write a little. I should probably nap, but I didn't write anything this morning and it's been a sad morning.
So, yesterday we got to Sendai, had touristy food at the train station. Walked to the local park and saw what was left of the cherry blossoms. Apparently they had heavy rain and it's all pretty much gone now. After that we went back to the train station and had more touristy food. Then everyone in my party went to take a nap and I went to visit Olesya. I started walking through this cool gate I saw. I thought it was just a building with a mall in it, but it was... wait for it... infinite. Or at least the thing was so long I couldn't see the end of it. I got a good picture of it from above. There were things to do left and right. There were so many interesting looking people left and right. So awesome. There were suits (or people who I call 'suits' because they're all dressed like they're going to a job interview) and non-conformists and high school students etc. My eyes kept wandering.
The hospital where Olesya was staying was 23 minute walk and I was excited but not super-particularly looking forward to it until I realized that after I got to the other side of the promenade I'd already passed the hospital. I wanted to hang out there more but I wanted to visit my friend. When at the hospital I was supposed to sign in.. but since I couldn't read anything in Japanese I just kept walking past people like I knew where I was going and ended up in the maternity ward, found her room and found her! Happy moment! We chatted for hours. So much to catch up with. So much to talk about. Eventually I got really sleepy. It was 4am in LA and I was collapsing. I had to call it a day and walk back.
I was excited to tell the sleeping gang about the better parts of town but everything was closing on the way back. Well, everything except the red lights district. Which was interesting, but I wasn't adventurous enough to potentially run into a money pit. I got back to the hotel and ultimately Bria and Alan decided to sleep and no go out. Annmarie and I went to explore the night life. We didn't get too touristy... a shop here a weird Japanese sex shop there, and then... the ******ing ******ing. I can't remember the name of the bar. It was a basement hole in the wall. Everything covered up with stickers. Everyone covered in tattoos. Very cool vibe. Nobody spoke a word of English. It was fun. The bartender showed us the photo albums of his visit to West Coast of the US. Interesting things. We had a couple shots each and it came out to $40. Wait what? We had this much alcohol at the touristy part of town earlier that day and it came out to $12. Yeahp. We paid the fucking tourist tax. Ultimately the price is okay, but being taken for chumps didn't feel good.
I'm not sore how long we were out, but it was cool. I would have loved to spend more time there. Sadly some of the gang are hellbent on going to Tokyo. So we left. Otherwise I'd be exploring more. While they were having beef tongue I went to the observation deck in downtown and took photos. There's so much more left to be explored. I've only really been to one store... one flower shop and one hat store. I wanted to see more. Oh well. More reasons to come back I guess.
This morning we woke up early and went to the local Cherry Blossoms festival. Sadly... there weren't many trees in bloom there either. Looks like we missed the season. This was in a town about an hour away from Sendai and I wanted to at least check out the city. But Bria was cold so we headed back. Something was wrong. Maybe it were the winds or something else happened, but the train back went at 20 km/h for a while before coming off all together and off-boarding us to other trains. That was interesting. We were up at the front of the train so we got a good look at the rail tracks. Got some good photos, too, I think.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Flight to Japan.
Dear diary,
I'm on a plane. I think technically the dates are all wrong now because in my time zone it's the 14th right now. I slept through the 13th. Well, tried to. My seat barely reclines which sucks on a 12 hours flight. Also it took me a very long while to figure that I can shove the pillow into my hood and that way I can lean against whatever. But yeah, I'm on the plane now. We land in an hour. I'm excited. I also would like to take a shower but I don't think that's in the cards for me.
So, situation first. I'm sitting by the window. There's no one sitting next to me. There's a guy on the other side of the empty seat. He's not friendly. Bria is sitting right behind me in the exact same configuration. We had an idea of sitting together but since we all just slept I think this worked out better. I definitely took the extra space. That's where my bag is. :P The flight went by very fast. I mean all that tossing and turning happened, but I don't remember much of it. Yay.
I only managed to watch one movie. The Revenant! What does that word even mean? I remember when I saw the trailer for it and I wanted to see that in the movies. Then as time went I kept not seeing it and not seeing it and then it came out on DVDs, I had it at home.. but never watched it. Yeah. Glad I didn't. I'm sorry to say it, but it was boring. The acting was amazing. Camera work was phenomenal. The score was very appropriate. It would have made a great short.
I was going to go to Tempest last night, but Chris did the math and said that I should be heading to the airport instead. He was right. I went to a movie screening last night with my flatmates and Peter (Chris's friend). A movie by Luc Besson. I like going to screeners. In the right company, the wait becomes fun and then there's the movie that can be good or bad or just... different. The best part of the whole experience was that they got me falafel like I asked. I skipped dinner at work and was happy to come to line and enjoy a meal. Then I realized SubWay was right there and I had one of those as well. I knew a had flight coming and allowed myself to gorge. Maybe I should stop eating so much. Maybe I should stop putting myself into situations where eating so much is the right thing to do.
I haven't run the OkCupid messenging thing in a while. I don't have time to go on dates... while in Japan, so there's no purpose. My friend Jake runs Tinder at his destinations if he's flying somewhere. Sounds appropriate. But I'm not going alone so I don't think that would have been a good use of my time. Also instead of preparing for the trip to Japan I went to Tahoe, so I made my bed and now I'm going to lay in it. That being said I do have one meet and greet scheduled for the 26th. I don't even remember with who anymore. I'll have to look it up when it gets close to that date. I guess that's enough security to know that I don't have to seek out a date like right-now-right-now.
I feel like I need to start worrying about what I'll be doing in Japan. I need to visit Olesya since she's giving birth any day now. She was supposed to be our host in Sendai but she's in the hospital... for the forementioned reasons. As far as what we want to do in Sendai: there's a cherry blossoms festival. I want to see that and visit my friend. Then I think the group wants to head back to Tokyo early on Friday. So that should be interesting.
----
I'm on a plane. I think technically the dates are all wrong now because in my time zone it's the 14th right now. I slept through the 13th. Well, tried to. My seat barely reclines which sucks on a 12 hours flight. Also it took me a very long while to figure that I can shove the pillow into my hood and that way I can lean against whatever. But yeah, I'm on the plane now. We land in an hour. I'm excited. I also would like to take a shower but I don't think that's in the cards for me.
So, situation first. I'm sitting by the window. There's no one sitting next to me. There's a guy on the other side of the empty seat. He's not friendly. Bria is sitting right behind me in the exact same configuration. We had an idea of sitting together but since we all just slept I think this worked out better. I definitely took the extra space. That's where my bag is. :P The flight went by very fast. I mean all that tossing and turning happened, but I don't remember much of it. Yay.
I only managed to watch one movie. The Revenant! What does that word even mean? I remember when I saw the trailer for it and I wanted to see that in the movies. Then as time went I kept not seeing it and not seeing it and then it came out on DVDs, I had it at home.. but never watched it. Yeah. Glad I didn't. I'm sorry to say it, but it was boring. The acting was amazing. Camera work was phenomenal. The score was very appropriate. It would have made a great short.
I was going to go to Tempest last night, but Chris did the math and said that I should be heading to the airport instead. He was right. I went to a movie screening last night with my flatmates and Peter (Chris's friend). A movie by Luc Besson. I like going to screeners. In the right company, the wait becomes fun and then there's the movie that can be good or bad or just... different. The best part of the whole experience was that they got me falafel like I asked. I skipped dinner at work and was happy to come to line and enjoy a meal. Then I realized SubWay was right there and I had one of those as well. I knew a had flight coming and allowed myself to gorge. Maybe I should stop eating so much. Maybe I should stop putting myself into situations where eating so much is the right thing to do.
I haven't run the OkCupid messenging thing in a while. I don't have time to go on dates... while in Japan, so there's no purpose. My friend Jake runs Tinder at his destinations if he's flying somewhere. Sounds appropriate. But I'm not going alone so I don't think that would have been a good use of my time. Also instead of preparing for the trip to Japan I went to Tahoe, so I made my bed and now I'm going to lay in it. That being said I do have one meet and greet scheduled for the 26th. I don't even remember with who anymore. I'll have to look it up when it gets close to that date. I guess that's enough security to know that I don't have to seek out a date like right-now-right-now.
I feel like I need to start worrying about what I'll be doing in Japan. I need to visit Olesya since she's giving birth any day now. She was supposed to be our host in Sendai but she's in the hospital... for the forementioned reasons. As far as what we want to do in Sendai: there's a cherry blossoms festival. I want to see that and visit my friend. Then I think the group wants to head back to Tokyo early on Friday. So that should be interesting.
----
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Entry 2016-04-12
Dear diary,
Today I leave for Japan. I'm excited and terrified at the same time. Right now I really should be packing but I'm procrastinating. It's not as bad as things were before I had my taxes done, but still I'm reluctant. I have so much to do and so little time. Sadly, work suffers. I'm kidding. There's nothing sad about that. I'm transferring teams and nobody is going to care if I work less than normal 8 hours today. I'm constricted on the upper end because I'm going to a movie screening and that's something I much more enjoy than working, so I'd rather do that. I also haven't decided if I'm going to play soccer today. If I am (and I should) then I will only end up working a few hours. I'm okay with that. I can always make it up on the plane!
Yesterday I went on a date. I thought she was the most American looking person.. only to find out she was born in Ukraine. That made me laugh. This makes for a good 4-streak of Soviet women. Cool. I wonder what's next. The tea ended the way it always does. I left it up to her to message me again. I don't think she will.
Afterwards I went to the gym. Oh that was good ol' fun. Broke a sweat. My legs didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought they would. Snowboarding did wonders for my hip. :P I spent half of my time there talking with Daniel about meaning of life and how to work on work-life balance. I was surprised. He's working 18 hour days! And when I found out he makes enough to feel good about himself... that doesn't make him stop working even though he misses Tempest etc. I hope I've parted some wisdom onto him. And I hope I'm right.
That's all for yesterday. I guess I'm back to the routine. Update from flight to Japan tomorrow!
Today I leave for Japan. I'm excited and terrified at the same time. Right now I really should be packing but I'm procrastinating. It's not as bad as things were before I had my taxes done, but still I'm reluctant. I have so much to do and so little time. Sadly, work suffers. I'm kidding. There's nothing sad about that. I'm transferring teams and nobody is going to care if I work less than normal 8 hours today. I'm constricted on the upper end because I'm going to a movie screening and that's something I much more enjoy than working, so I'd rather do that. I also haven't decided if I'm going to play soccer today. If I am (and I should) then I will only end up working a few hours. I'm okay with that. I can always make it up on the plane!
Yesterday I went on a date. I thought she was the most American looking person.. only to find out she was born in Ukraine. That made me laugh. This makes for a good 4-streak of Soviet women. Cool. I wonder what's next. The tea ended the way it always does. I left it up to her to message me again. I don't think she will.
Afterwards I went to the gym. Oh that was good ol' fun. Broke a sweat. My legs didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought they would. Snowboarding did wonders for my hip. :P I spent half of my time there talking with Daniel about meaning of life and how to work on work-life balance. I was surprised. He's working 18 hour days! And when I found out he makes enough to feel good about himself... that doesn't make him stop working even though he misses Tempest etc. I hope I've parted some wisdom onto him. And I hope I'm right.
That's all for yesterday. I guess I'm back to the routine. Update from flight to Japan tomorrow!
Monday, April 11, 2016
Entry 2016-04-11
Dear Diary:
Yesterday was a good day. It rained only a little and despite the horrible visibility I had a lot of fun snowboarding. Dwight didn't go. I went by myself. At first I thought I'd have no problem finding a buddy to board with, but after the rain started it was just a few of us left on the mountain. I could recognize people in line because there were literally so few of us. But that didn't matter because being 20 feet apart meant we couldn't see each other. I must admit, it was kind of cool snowboarding in the clouds. But I also wish I could see where I was going. I stuck to familiar trails most of the day but I did venture out mid-day to find food. And it was scary. It was scary mostly because I couldn't see turns coming, at all! And when I would come to a big sign saying "SLOW DOWN" I had no idea what was coming next. So, I fell. Only a couple of times thought. The good thing about all that was the snow was soft. Much softer than I anticipated. Yay slush!
When the lifts were closing down we sat out to Reno. I wanted to see the drive around the Tahoe lake from the Nevada side, but I fell asleep. We only had enough time to get dinner before our flight and I found an all-you-can-eat sushi! And it was good! Well, I liked it. I think Dwight felt 'meh' about it. He told me that if he wasn't with a vegetarian he would have gone to a steakhouse. I don't blame him. But I also don't get him.
On the flight back I listened to podcasts and he tried to get some sleep. After he woke up we talked about privacy again. We're polar opposites when it comes to privacy. I'm idealizing total transparency and he doesn't trust anything or anyone. He feels that I took some control away from him when I posted photos of us from our EuroTrip 2014. He's asked me to delete photos of us from Facebook. I didn't. I told him that he's welcome to get them untagged, or just delete his profile. But he's got issue with the company (Facebook) having the photos on their servers. 0.o I want to understand why people feel like their photon projections are their property somehow. ...and how to fix them. :P
So it's Monday. I have agreed to go to a movie screening with Alina and Chris (my flatmates) this Tuesday. I was going to go to Tempest, but now I'll try to do both. That's going to be tough seeing how I have the flight to Japan later that night. Sigh. I haven't started packing yet. I don't think I need to worry about it to much though. Just need to buy some good travel underwear. Everything else I can buy there. Pretty sure.
In other news: I should have another meet-and-greet today. Thought she didn't reply to my last message, we had already made plans for tonight prior. Maybe she's not big on textual communication. I guess I'll find out. Or maybe it's something else entirely. At first I was psyched. Then kind of nervous. Then I didn't care. And now I have nothing. So much has happened since then that I don't even have a clear image of who I'm meeting. Which I think is a good attitude to have going in. It's not like we are what our profiles paint us to be.
P.S. So the result of my talks with Dwight is that I won't be posting photos of us on the trip. :(
Yesterday was a good day. It rained only a little and despite the horrible visibility I had a lot of fun snowboarding. Dwight didn't go. I went by myself. At first I thought I'd have no problem finding a buddy to board with, but after the rain started it was just a few of us left on the mountain. I could recognize people in line because there were literally so few of us. But that didn't matter because being 20 feet apart meant we couldn't see each other. I must admit, it was kind of cool snowboarding in the clouds. But I also wish I could see where I was going. I stuck to familiar trails most of the day but I did venture out mid-day to find food. And it was scary. It was scary mostly because I couldn't see turns coming, at all! And when I would come to a big sign saying "SLOW DOWN" I had no idea what was coming next. So, I fell. Only a couple of times thought. The good thing about all that was the snow was soft. Much softer than I anticipated. Yay slush!
When the lifts were closing down we sat out to Reno. I wanted to see the drive around the Tahoe lake from the Nevada side, but I fell asleep. We only had enough time to get dinner before our flight and I found an all-you-can-eat sushi! And it was good! Well, I liked it. I think Dwight felt 'meh' about it. He told me that if he wasn't with a vegetarian he would have gone to a steakhouse. I don't blame him. But I also don't get him.
On the flight back I listened to podcasts and he tried to get some sleep. After he woke up we talked about privacy again. We're polar opposites when it comes to privacy. I'm idealizing total transparency and he doesn't trust anything or anyone. He feels that I took some control away from him when I posted photos of us from our EuroTrip 2014. He's asked me to delete photos of us from Facebook. I didn't. I told him that he's welcome to get them untagged, or just delete his profile. But he's got issue with the company (Facebook) having the photos on their servers. 0.o I want to understand why people feel like their photon projections are their property somehow. ...and how to fix them. :P
So it's Monday. I have agreed to go to a movie screening with Alina and Chris (my flatmates) this Tuesday. I was going to go to Tempest, but now I'll try to do both. That's going to be tough seeing how I have the flight to Japan later that night. Sigh. I haven't started packing yet. I don't think I need to worry about it to much though. Just need to buy some good travel underwear. Everything else I can buy there. Pretty sure.
In other news: I should have another meet-and-greet today. Thought she didn't reply to my last message, we had already made plans for tonight prior. Maybe she's not big on textual communication. I guess I'll find out. Or maybe it's something else entirely. At first I was psyched. Then kind of nervous. Then I didn't care. And now I have nothing. So much has happened since then that I don't even have a clear image of who I'm meeting. Which I think is a good attitude to have going in. It's not like we are what our profiles paint us to be.
P.S. So the result of my talks with Dwight is that I won't be posting photos of us on the trip. :(
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Entry 2016-04-10
Dear Diary:
I've been thinking about giving the posts here a more meaningful titles. These past few days have been eventful so that seems appropriate. I'm not sure what I will do when the titles start sounds like "Another boring day at work". I guess I can add them later along with other meta-data. But that's in case I want these to be discover-able and I'm not sure I do.
So, this morning I woke up at Heavenly Village. It's a good feeling. Waking up after a good night of sleep. It was chill, dark and very-very quiet. The wake-up part was good. I missed this. It's a little dry up here but not enough for nosebleeds or whatever. That's good. What's not good is that I kept waking up all through the night. Same as before: I think my thoughts were trying to escape. Or rather.. I didn't like my thoughts. Or maybe it was the drinks I had last night.
I just realized I can use this to track if I'm drinking, how much and for what reason. So yesterday I had a shot of vodka on the mountain because we were freezing. Like hands shaking from cold... The shot didn't help. And in the evening we had a 45 minute wait until we could get seated at a local pizza place so we went to the bar next door. Dwight had a beer and I had a double-shot of vodka.
That aside I had unpleasant dreams because last night Dwight asked me if I was sad. More specifically he asked if I was sad about my "girlfriend situation." The answer was "yes" and the explanation that followed kept me thinking about the subject to this very hour. So I dreamed about Cate and women in Minsk and childhood friends. I kept waking up and telling myself that what I really shouldn't do is look up how any of them are doing. It's not food for thought. I have the comfort of knowing my past and should keep my eyes on the future.
As for what happened yesterday: we got drenched. It rained. It rained so heavily I was completely soaked on the very first lift up. I haven't even sat my snowboard on the slopes yet. From there the weather only got worse. The winds picked up and it started snowing. And the temperature fell (obviously, from the snow). So it was unpleasant to say the least. The fact that I forgot to bring a hat really made things worse. Much worse. Snowboarding bare-headed gave me a bad headache and if I used the hood it covered most of my vision. I could prop the hood up with the goggles but then horizontal rain going straight into my eyes etc. was also unpleasant. Eventually I put the goggles over the hood which meant I couldn't hear anything. And my goggles had the reflective coating coming off unevenly which resulted in darker patches that seriously obscured my vision.
But overall I had fun. It was good to hit the slopes again. We spent most of our time on green trails because Dwight can't carve well. That's all good. With the crammy weather I didn't want to get injured on top of everything. After Dwight was done for the day I hit the closest blue trail and enjoyed it. It was figuratively orgasmic. It's been raining/snowing all day so by the end of the session there was fresh powder. 2-3" fell while we were there. For a brief moment precipitation had stopped and the winds died down and I was about to enjoy a serene ride down a beautiful slope with so much snow. The conditions were perfect. They were so good I came down twice before heading out. Everything hurt and I was wet. The second run didn't feel quite as good but still felt amazing.
I could go on about going to multiple restaurants to find anything vegetarian that I could eat, or how there were a lot of flat trails that we couldn't board through and had to walk, which sucks in rain. Or about how I wore a trashbag for the later part of the day to at least protect from the winds. But instead I'll just say that after that I crashed. I lay in bed in wet clothes for a while before finally getting out of them and taking a warm bath. Then we went shopping. It would have been nice to go out. See a show or find people to hang out with. But I needed to buy snow pants and something to cover my head. I don't know when I became such a consumer. But I got worn out and ended up buying gloves ($25), pants ($90), neck cover ($35) and a hat ($18). I'm keeping the trashbag, too.
It's past 09:00 and I should get ready for the slopes again. I'm going. Already got my tickets and gear. It's going to rain again. This time I'm more prepared. Time to show the mountain who's the boss!
I've been thinking about giving the posts here a more meaningful titles. These past few days have been eventful so that seems appropriate. I'm not sure what I will do when the titles start sounds like "Another boring day at work". I guess I can add them later along with other meta-data. But that's in case I want these to be discover-able and I'm not sure I do.
So, this morning I woke up at Heavenly Village. It's a good feeling. Waking up after a good night of sleep. It was chill, dark and very-very quiet. The wake-up part was good. I missed this. It's a little dry up here but not enough for nosebleeds or whatever. That's good. What's not good is that I kept waking up all through the night. Same as before: I think my thoughts were trying to escape. Or rather.. I didn't like my thoughts. Or maybe it was the drinks I had last night.
I just realized I can use this to track if I'm drinking, how much and for what reason. So yesterday I had a shot of vodka on the mountain because we were freezing. Like hands shaking from cold... The shot didn't help. And in the evening we had a 45 minute wait until we could get seated at a local pizza place so we went to the bar next door. Dwight had a beer and I had a double-shot of vodka.
That aside I had unpleasant dreams because last night Dwight asked me if I was sad. More specifically he asked if I was sad about my "girlfriend situation." The answer was "yes" and the explanation that followed kept me thinking about the subject to this very hour. So I dreamed about Cate and women in Minsk and childhood friends. I kept waking up and telling myself that what I really shouldn't do is look up how any of them are doing. It's not food for thought. I have the comfort of knowing my past and should keep my eyes on the future.
As for what happened yesterday: we got drenched. It rained. It rained so heavily I was completely soaked on the very first lift up. I haven't even sat my snowboard on the slopes yet. From there the weather only got worse. The winds picked up and it started snowing. And the temperature fell (obviously, from the snow). So it was unpleasant to say the least. The fact that I forgot to bring a hat really made things worse. Much worse. Snowboarding bare-headed gave me a bad headache and if I used the hood it covered most of my vision. I could prop the hood up with the goggles but then horizontal rain going straight into my eyes etc. was also unpleasant. Eventually I put the goggles over the hood which meant I couldn't hear anything. And my goggles had the reflective coating coming off unevenly which resulted in darker patches that seriously obscured my vision.
But overall I had fun. It was good to hit the slopes again. We spent most of our time on green trails because Dwight can't carve well. That's all good. With the crammy weather I didn't want to get injured on top of everything. After Dwight was done for the day I hit the closest blue trail and enjoyed it. It was figuratively orgasmic. It's been raining/snowing all day so by the end of the session there was fresh powder. 2-3" fell while we were there. For a brief moment precipitation had stopped and the winds died down and I was about to enjoy a serene ride down a beautiful slope with so much snow. The conditions were perfect. They were so good I came down twice before heading out. Everything hurt and I was wet. The second run didn't feel quite as good but still felt amazing.
I could go on about going to multiple restaurants to find anything vegetarian that I could eat, or how there were a lot of flat trails that we couldn't board through and had to walk, which sucks in rain. Or about how I wore a trashbag for the later part of the day to at least protect from the winds. But instead I'll just say that after that I crashed. I lay in bed in wet clothes for a while before finally getting out of them and taking a warm bath. Then we went shopping. It would have been nice to go out. See a show or find people to hang out with. But I needed to buy snow pants and something to cover my head. I don't know when I became such a consumer. But I got worn out and ended up buying gloves ($25), pants ($90), neck cover ($35) and a hat ($18). I'm keeping the trashbag, too.
It's past 09:00 and I should get ready for the slopes again. I'm going. Already got my tickets and gear. It's going to rain again. This time I'm more prepared. Time to show the mountain who's the boss!
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Entry 2016-04-09
Dear diary:
I feel motion sick. That's because I'm writing this in a car. Dwight is driving the Lincoln Navigator we rented last night. Yeahp. They ran out of cars at Hertz and after an hour of waiting they gave us their last car. This monstrosity that fits 7 people and requires 2 steps up to get into. It makes me wonder why we even got a hotel. I mean... I just wanted a warm bed and the seats in this thing do the trick.
So yeah, we're in Tahoe. Crashed at Marriot for a few hours then hit the road from Sacramento. I forgot that not all hotels have free WiFi. The staff was nice though. And before I continue and just feel like I'm leaving reviews, I'll stop.
It's been a nice trip so far. The girl in line to the airplane last night kept turning around and looking at Dwight and I. I was talking about relationships and everything else under the sun. Dwight was an introvert. But we managed to keep the conversation going through the flight. I started crashing at the airport since I didn't have dinner but one Caprese sandwich later I was up and chatty again.
I was dreaming last night. I dreamed about buying a sword. I think it was for a movie or something because some of the swords were hidden in umbrellas and I thought that's only useful for assassinations. Then somehow from the sword store I started to try to figure out who worked for Doctorsoft. That one silly startup I worked for a long time ago.
Speaking of Doctorsoft. I had to look them up because I applied for Global Entry program. It was surprisingly difficult finding out where I worked/lived in the last 5 years. Thanks GMail for having PDF search capabilities. Apparently the whole company's staff is different now. Literally nobody who used to work there works there now. The philosophical question is: is it still the same company?
About snowboarding: it's raining all day today. Almost half of the lifts are open. Most of them were open in the beginning of the week. I'm slightly frightened that it's going to be a horrible experience snowboarding today. What an expensive trip. I've already told this to Dwight, but these trips make me appreciate Los Angeles more than anything else. Memories are nice. But mostly it makes me long for sunshine, songs etc. Thought I do realize there are good times to be had here as well. The pine forest with a river running along the road make for a great view.
Speaking of motion sickness.. it's really getting to me.. so I'm going to stop.
I feel motion sick. That's because I'm writing this in a car. Dwight is driving the Lincoln Navigator we rented last night. Yeahp. They ran out of cars at Hertz and after an hour of waiting they gave us their last car. This monstrosity that fits 7 people and requires 2 steps up to get into. It makes me wonder why we even got a hotel. I mean... I just wanted a warm bed and the seats in this thing do the trick.
So yeah, we're in Tahoe. Crashed at Marriot for a few hours then hit the road from Sacramento. I forgot that not all hotels have free WiFi. The staff was nice though. And before I continue and just feel like I'm leaving reviews, I'll stop.
It's been a nice trip so far. The girl in line to the airplane last night kept turning around and looking at Dwight and I. I was talking about relationships and everything else under the sun. Dwight was an introvert. But we managed to keep the conversation going through the flight. I started crashing at the airport since I didn't have dinner but one Caprese sandwich later I was up and chatty again.
I was dreaming last night. I dreamed about buying a sword. I think it was for a movie or something because some of the swords were hidden in umbrellas and I thought that's only useful for assassinations. Then somehow from the sword store I started to try to figure out who worked for Doctorsoft. That one silly startup I worked for a long time ago.
Speaking of Doctorsoft. I had to look them up because I applied for Global Entry program. It was surprisingly difficult finding out where I worked/lived in the last 5 years. Thanks GMail for having PDF search capabilities. Apparently the whole company's staff is different now. Literally nobody who used to work there works there now. The philosophical question is: is it still the same company?
About snowboarding: it's raining all day today. Almost half of the lifts are open. Most of them were open in the beginning of the week. I'm slightly frightened that it's going to be a horrible experience snowboarding today. What an expensive trip. I've already told this to Dwight, but these trips make me appreciate Los Angeles more than anything else. Memories are nice. But mostly it makes me long for sunshine, songs etc. Thought I do realize there are good times to be had here as well. The pine forest with a river running along the road make for a great view.
Speaking of motion sickness.. it's really getting to me.. so I'm going to stop.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Entry 2016-04-08
Dear diary:
Yesterday was somewhat eventful day in a sense that I got big news that will shape things at work for the next couple of years. The powers above have decided to dissolve my team and instructed us to find new teams. To me that came as a surprise. For the past few months we were told that they would find us a new project to work on once we finished the one we're currently working on. And now... now I find myself e-mailing anyone I know to see if they have an opening on their team. That means in addition to finding a partner in life I also need to find them at work. Matchmaking at work! FML.
It rained yesterday. It wasn't too bad but enough for nobody to want to go to the gym. I went. I also do on Thursdays. Josh doesn't go anymore. But Liz told me she will start coming every Thursday. I was kind of looking forward to seeing her. I wanted to let her know that I finally remembered her name! But, she wasn't there. Neither was anyone else. It was very empty. Which is good for trying thing, which I did. I had all the trampolines to myself. I did weights, too. Stuck to lower weights though. Don't want to get injured before my snowboarding trip. On the way out I talked to Natalia for like an hour. Just ranted about work. She did too. She reminded me of how bad it can be. I should be thankful that no matter what I won't be hating coming in to work. I hope.
Speaking of the snowboarding trip. I still really want to go. But the logistics of it are stressing me out. Late night flights. Midnight drives. Four (4) hour sleep cycles. It's going to be a mess. I wish Dwight had more time for vacation. Personally I would have loved to take today off. Maybe yesterday, too. Just have a dramatic meeting where they dissolved our team and then take off for the slopes. "Yeah, dude!"
On a personal note. I'm finding it hard to "adult" recently. Yesterday I had to resubmit my state taxes because the IRS didn't like some 1099-B that was filled out. In the process of fixing it I realized that I had missed my real estate taxes on deductions section. So now I have to file 1040X (Amendment to return). Sounds simple... but the forms are so daunting. I ate a whole thing of pasta last night to give myself the boost I needed to get started. I almost went for the bottle... but it wasn't chilled, so maybe for another day.
I went to bed around 2am and noticed that someone on OkCupid (OkC from now on) had messaged me. Their opening line was "Sorry!". Hm. That's a new one. I think she meant "Sorry for the delayed response". But I always presumed that if someone messages me weeks later it's because they were drowning in messages or had other things to deal with. Which is fine. I understand that people can be busy. I'm busy too, these days. But I've long realized that I don't want to have anything to do with with people who are too busy for me. This going to sound selfish, but it's good advice: if I'm not a priority for someone, they fall on the back burner... waaaaay back burner.
I miss writing. Keeping a diary has always kept things organized. It's also lead to a lot of drama when it comes to keeping it public. And as an advocate against privacy, this is something I can do to show an example that most things can be kept public. I hope I can keep this up. And I hope that it doesn't cause too much drama down the line as my friends and family start reading these.
Yesterday was somewhat eventful day in a sense that I got big news that will shape things at work for the next couple of years. The powers above have decided to dissolve my team and instructed us to find new teams. To me that came as a surprise. For the past few months we were told that they would find us a new project to work on once we finished the one we're currently working on. And now... now I find myself e-mailing anyone I know to see if they have an opening on their team. That means in addition to finding a partner in life I also need to find them at work. Matchmaking at work! FML.
It rained yesterday. It wasn't too bad but enough for nobody to want to go to the gym. I went. I also do on Thursdays. Josh doesn't go anymore. But Liz told me she will start coming every Thursday. I was kind of looking forward to seeing her. I wanted to let her know that I finally remembered her name! But, she wasn't there. Neither was anyone else. It was very empty. Which is good for trying thing, which I did. I had all the trampolines to myself. I did weights, too. Stuck to lower weights though. Don't want to get injured before my snowboarding trip. On the way out I talked to Natalia for like an hour. Just ranted about work. She did too. She reminded me of how bad it can be. I should be thankful that no matter what I won't be hating coming in to work. I hope.
Speaking of the snowboarding trip. I still really want to go. But the logistics of it are stressing me out. Late night flights. Midnight drives. Four (4) hour sleep cycles. It's going to be a mess. I wish Dwight had more time for vacation. Personally I would have loved to take today off. Maybe yesterday, too. Just have a dramatic meeting where they dissolved our team and then take off for the slopes. "Yeah, dude!"
On a personal note. I'm finding it hard to "adult" recently. Yesterday I had to resubmit my state taxes because the IRS didn't like some 1099-B that was filled out. In the process of fixing it I realized that I had missed my real estate taxes on deductions section. So now I have to file 1040X (Amendment to return). Sounds simple... but the forms are so daunting. I ate a whole thing of pasta last night to give myself the boost I needed to get started. I almost went for the bottle... but it wasn't chilled, so maybe for another day.
I went to bed around 2am and noticed that someone on OkCupid (OkC from now on) had messaged me. Their opening line was "Sorry!". Hm. That's a new one. I think she meant "Sorry for the delayed response". But I always presumed that if someone messages me weeks later it's because they were drowning in messages or had other things to deal with. Which is fine. I understand that people can be busy. I'm busy too, these days. But I've long realized that I don't want to have anything to do with with people who are too busy for me. This going to sound selfish, but it's good advice: if I'm not a priority for someone, they fall on the back burner... waaaaay back burner.
I miss writing. Keeping a diary has always kept things organized. It's also lead to a lot of drama when it comes to keeping it public. And as an advocate against privacy, this is something I can do to show an example that most things can be kept public. I hope I can keep this up. And I hope that it doesn't cause too much drama down the line as my friends and family start reading these.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Entry 2015-04-07
There's something about the symmetry of number 4 and 7 that made me think today was the day to start blogging again. I was laying in bed last night trying to fall asleep. Watching YouTube videos when I a video by ViHart on logarithms came up. So I watched it. I tried not to watch anything that would make me more awake, but ... it was just so tempting. After it I got up and sat on the computer for a couple more hours. I only managed to go to bed at 04:00. Yes. I'm suffering from insomnia.
Which brings to me to why I'm keeping a diary again. I need therapy and writing is therapeutic. The clues that I need it are all too loud: I started skipping small talk on dates and just talk about issues. I started admitting to coaches at the gym that I need a life coach. Secretly, I still just think I can pull my shit together. And this is another attempt at doing so.
For posterity, I think it's fair to quickly sum-up what's happened since the last time I kept a diary. On log-scale, of course: in increasing detail. So...
- 2011-04 Went through a traumatic break-up.
- 2011-10 Started dating Krystle
- 2012-05 Moved in with her.
- 2012-06 We broke up
- 2012-10 Moved out and into my condo
- 2013-01 Started my job at Umbrella Corp
- 2013-08 Moved closer to Umbrella Corp
- 2013-09 Started seeing Katie
- 2013-11 Stopped seeing Katie and started seeing Cate
- 2013-12 Officially became a couple with Cate
- 2015-12 Agreed that thing with Cate wasn't working out
- 2016-01 Started seeing a physical therapist
- 2016-01 Officially became single
- 2016-01-14 Went snowboarding for a couple days
- 2016-01-17 Started losing sleep
- 2016-02-13 Insomnia set in
- 2016-02-14 Saw Cate for the last time
- 2016-02-21 Flew to Bay Area for a few days.
- 2016-03-04 Flew to Seattle for a few days
- 2016-03 Turned 29. Ate cake.
- 2016-04-05 Took the day off work to go to a Museum and try to catch up on sleep
- 2016-04-06 Did my dad's and my own taxes. Ate cake.
That's about all you/I need to know for context. Since I started work at umbrella corp I'm struggling to keep active. During stressful times like right now I need to consume a lot of glucose just to power the brain machine up in my head. The problem is of course that I don't expend other things I consume. It's not for the lack of trying. I just keep hurting myself at the gym. A lot. I spend the weekend nights not sleeping mostly due to pain. Usually it's just random thoughts that keep me up. But over the weekend it was pain. Ordinary pain. And nothing's broken.. it's just muscle and joint pain. Over... and over again. It's perpetuated by the fact that I eat sugary things so I don't have get headaches at work. Then I feel like I *NEED* to work out. I can't sleep if I don't. I feel all jittery. And I can't sleep two nights after that if I do, because I'm in pain.
Tonight is a gym night. I was there two days ago, too. I took it easy. I made a goal of trying to do cardio. Jump on the trampoline. Walk here and there. Not use weights more than 5 kilo in the weight area. We'll see if that helps. I'm going snowboarding this weekend so I'm being paranoid that I will be too injured to ride down....
This is the part I dislike: ending the entry. I still have so much more to say, but I should be at work in 30.
Note to self: talks about dating life!
- Victoria
- Elleh
- Sara (Crazy downtown)
- Bonnie
- Miranda
- Sarah
- Gabby
- Mariya
- Katie
- Ilona
Which brings to me to why I'm keeping a diary again. I need therapy and writing is therapeutic. The clues that I need it are all too loud: I started skipping small talk on dates and just talk about issues. I started admitting to coaches at the gym that I need a life coach. Secretly, I still just think I can pull my shit together. And this is another attempt at doing so.
For posterity, I think it's fair to quickly sum-up what's happened since the last time I kept a diary. On log-scale, of course: in increasing detail. So...
- 2011-04 Went through a traumatic break-up.
- 2011-10 Started dating Krystle
- 2012-05 Moved in with her.
- 2012-06 We broke up
- 2012-10 Moved out and into my condo
- 2013-01 Started my job at Umbrella Corp
- 2013-08 Moved closer to Umbrella Corp
- 2013-09 Started seeing Katie
- 2013-11 Stopped seeing Katie and started seeing Cate
- 2013-12 Officially became a couple with Cate
- 2015-12 Agreed that thing with Cate wasn't working out
- 2016-01 Started seeing a physical therapist
- 2016-01 Officially became single
- 2016-01-14 Went snowboarding for a couple days
- 2016-01-17 Started losing sleep
- 2016-02-13 Insomnia set in
- 2016-02-14 Saw Cate for the last time
- 2016-02-21 Flew to Bay Area for a few days.
- 2016-03-04 Flew to Seattle for a few days
- 2016-03 Turned 29. Ate cake.
- 2016-04-05 Took the day off work to go to a Museum and try to catch up on sleep
- 2016-04-06 Did my dad's and my own taxes. Ate cake.
That's about all you/I need to know for context. Since I started work at umbrella corp I'm struggling to keep active. During stressful times like right now I need to consume a lot of glucose just to power the brain machine up in my head. The problem is of course that I don't expend other things I consume. It's not for the lack of trying. I just keep hurting myself at the gym. A lot. I spend the weekend nights not sleeping mostly due to pain. Usually it's just random thoughts that keep me up. But over the weekend it was pain. Ordinary pain. And nothing's broken.. it's just muscle and joint pain. Over... and over again. It's perpetuated by the fact that I eat sugary things so I don't have get headaches at work. Then I feel like I *NEED* to work out. I can't sleep if I don't. I feel all jittery. And I can't sleep two nights after that if I do, because I'm in pain.
Tonight is a gym night. I was there two days ago, too. I took it easy. I made a goal of trying to do cardio. Jump on the trampoline. Walk here and there. Not use weights more than 5 kilo in the weight area. We'll see if that helps. I'm going snowboarding this weekend so I'm being paranoid that I will be too injured to ride down....
This is the part I dislike: ending the entry. I still have so much more to say, but I should be at work in 30.
Note to self: talks about dating life!
- Victoria
- Elleh
- Sara (Crazy downtown)
- Bonnie
- Miranda
- Sarah
- Gabby
- Mariya
- Katie
- Ilona
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