Kitkowskiland!

I love the totally pure-indie indie scene in Japan, filled with guys and girls who basically write complete RPGs, photocopy or print them loosely, then sell them for like no more than $3 cost at local conventions. I often feel these days that the western scene is tainted by the fact that since one *can* make a buck, everyone feels entitled to do just that. I’m working on something on that front, though.

But for now, here’s a picture of the cover of “The Call of Moe“:

In this game, which uses the Call of Cthulhu system as a backbone, you play normal humans, salarymen, police officers and teachers who somehow come into contact with vile, dark tomes of otaku lore (basically your run-of-the-mill anime/otaku geek shit). From that point, you lose SAN. You keep losing SAN as you do things like:

Buy your first doujinshi (1d4 SAN loss)
Write your first doujinshi (1d8 SAN loss)
Attend your first Comic Market Convention (2d10 SAN loss)

and so on. This interior illustration of San Loss sums up the game pretty well:

Man, this is some self-referentual hilariousness.

Not much going on today: Currently on a Shinkansen (bullet train), currently going from Tokyo (the station) to Shin-Kobe (the station). Nothing much going on save for some rreading of manga, watching the scenery and the like. It’s interesting seeing the scenery change every few minutes.  Now I’ve got mountains to my right, a suburb of small houses to the left and shortly beyond that the ocean.

One cool thing happened this AM, though. So I’ve been in Gunma for about a week now, but there’s been no sign of Mount Akagi. It’s a giant mountain in Gunma (if you’ve seen the manga/anime/movie “Initial D”, that’s the mountain they do the drift racing on). It’s the symbol of the prefecture, and just a really distinguished landmark… when cloud cover doesn’t make it simply disappear. Every day I’ve peeked northwards towards the mountain, but haven’t seen anything. But this morning, the last day, I saw the top of the mountain peeking out of the clouds.

Anyway, on the train from Isesaki to Takasaki to hit up the first shinkansen (to Tokyo), Akagi was quite visible: Lots of mist and cloud cover, but Akagi peeked out like a mini Himalaya… It was about then that I realized that my camera was stuck at the bottom of my bag, so no pictures of Akagi this time around…

I’ll be on trains from 11AM until about 6:00 or so, but luckily most of the trip will be sitting in a rather comfortable chair.

I grabbed an eki-ben, this one teriyaki chicken with rice and vegetables, and between that and some wheat tea, I’ll be dealing some serious lunch from my seat on the bullet train.

For the rest of the weekend and until I leave I’ll be staying with Okiko and Yasuaki, some friends of Orie and mine from back in America: Yasuaki has a PhD in Cellular Biology, but switched careers to… Advertising: “???” is what I thought, too, but apparently it’s advertising for science-related businesses and goods, so that kinda makes sense. It was mostly because he, like a lot of other Japanese scientists who work or have worked in America or Europe, hated the environment of science and research in Japan: Very little experimentation is done, most is blind copying of already known results with only minor variance. Folks who really want to explore new things either flock to top positions at Tokyo university, are pushed into the dirt elsewhere in return for a stable job, or flee to other positions or countries. It’s a kind of downward trend that’s been accelerating recently. Science in Japan is being affected by this trend, and people know deep down that more experimentation (and more leeway given to those who want to experiement) is needed, but no one seems to be making the move to change the culture.

Aaaanyway, Okiko’s (who also has a master’s degree in biology, but is now busy being a mom) mother’s family comes from a line of Buddhist priests, so they apparently have a big house. I can’t wait to finally meet them in Japan, on their “home turf”.

(Okiko and her son Minato)
Orie has more things to take care of in Gunma, so she’ll be coming tomorrow afternoon.

Today I spent the day basically unwinding. In the afternoon I did some packing, then Eikichi came over and we hung out for the rest of the day, talking, watching TV and the like. At night, we went out for Okonomiyaki and Monjayaki (flavors: Soba-Monjayaki and “Gyoza Okonomiyaki” (basically niira onion, garlic, and ground pork).

After that we talked long into the night. It was hard leaving Eikichi, he’s my best friend in Japan and all - Knowing that we won’t be able to meet for another two years or so. Still, we’ll keep in touch as always over email and the like.

I was actually planning on sleeping in a little late, but for some reason I sprang awake when Eikichi’s first (of 3) alarms for work went off, and couldn’t get back to sleep after that. Watched AM TV (which is pretty fun, a lot of it consists of people reading from that morning’s paper on TV, and giving comments). Eikichi went to work, and I went to.. work.

Well, not at first anyway. I hit up Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku again, and gathered a bunch of small gifts for friends, and more for myself (I love picking up strange dice, cards, games, toys and Japanese goods in this place). Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to hit the stationery floor to pick up paper and writing goods, as I wanted to hit up Netapp (my company) to meet friends and head to lunch.

Got there at about 11:30, and while I planned on saying “hi”, sticking around and talking to friends, using the free wireless to send some emails, and head to lunch with buddies then splitting (at about 2:00), I ended up staying until about 5:30. Talked with friends, and then… I forget how it happened. A conversation with my buddies Hiroaki and Fumihito about filer (storage PC) performance (my specialty) led to one topic, then another… next thing I know, after lunch we’ve reserved a meeting room, and I’m giving a lecture in front of the entire support department on ‘advanced storage computer and network troubleshooting, from CIFS to NFS to SAN to WAFL to RAID, complete with demonstration of performance-analysis software tools, and hands-on demonstrations using real-world client data’. Originally penned for 30 minutes of ad-libbing, I went for about 2 hours from the basics to deep deep into core OS functionality and processes. And it was FUN. I came half way around the world for vacation, and found myself spending half a day enjoying work. Weird.

Anyway, with little time after that (I was planning on making a raid on a few ecclectic collectibles stores and Japanese stationery stores) before I had to meet up with Eikichi after work, I made a run to a place that he recommended to me called “Nakano Broadway”.

In Nakano there’s a traditional shopping arcade, like the more famous ones in Asakusa, Ueon, Kichijouji and the like. The thing is, at the end of Nakano’s hike is a 4-story building that used to be a department store, that is now known as “Nakano Broadway”, a 5-story (inlcuding the basement floor’s “fashion wonderland”) collection of… tons of shit. Mostly maniac stuff, any way you look at it. Dozens of little stores on each floor: One focusing on 80-s era anime laser disks. Another on US Army surplus uniforms and equipment. Another on airsoft weapons. Another on pulp samurai books. Another on games from the Famicon/Nintendo era. Another on track suits. Another on old gangster and samurai DVDs. Another on collectible robot figurines. 5 floors of that. I actually managed to See It All and get back to the station in about 30 minutes.  Mostly because in the end, it was a little too maniac out of my interests (frex, even if there was a TRPG store, it would focus on older collectible stuff, and I’m just not interested in collectibles all that much). Still, though, it was a cute experience.

On the way back, I bought some cold medicine, of the “do not drive heavy vehicles after swallowing” variety. I fought to maintain my stamina, though, and luckily didn’t become too drowsy.

Met up with Eikichi, we went to a unique place called “The Yoyogi Robot” ( http://www.ro-bo-ta.com/ ), a small theme bar with model robot toys plastered everywhere. THey constantly play theme music from robot and mecha-themed anime, while a TV constantly plays anime DVDs. There are some specialty drinks that are named after famous lines from various robot/mecha anime and the like. I ended up having a beer and a peach-cassis cocktail, and we both chatted up the barmaid: A girl in her mid/late 20s wearing a mecha pilot suit and glasses. She gave us each a card and stamped it with a stamp that said “Megane” (”glasses”), explaining that she’s a maniac for glasses. Cute girl in a “hot goth librarian” kind of way. Anyway, unfortunately due to creepy weirdos about they have a policy about no taking pictures of the barmaids, but you are allowed to take other pictures inside and outside the bar, so I did so.

THe stamp cards we received were funky: Basically, you get a stamp for every drink you order (and most drinks are 500 yen). You write a “code name/handle” on the card, and bring it. When you get 15 stamps, you retire your card and get a new one, of a higher military rank (captain, lieutenant, etc). The last rank is “Shogun”, and to get that rank you basically have to go through 10 cards. 150 drinks, at 500 yen per drink, I figured comes out to about $750 to become a Shogun. If ever I hit the lottery, I’d love to just pull out a fat stack of bills and be like, “148 drinks please” (basically buying rounds for everyone in the bar)..In reality, though, I can think of about 40 more interesting ways to blow close to a thousand bucks.

After that, we hit up Akihabara to get a carrying case for the dictionary I ordered, and then took some trains back to Gunma. Talked for a while, then took Eikichi back home, and crashed.

(Krispy Kreme, Tokyo Shinjuku : That’s a 30-minute line of people lined up to buy Krispy Kremes)
After some time, and being a little sick, and wanting to spend more time in culturally-rich Kansai, that I would cut down my time in Tokyo, down from 3 days to just little over one day (and one night). In that time, sightseeing and cultural activities (frex, I love to visit the Edo Museum, it’s probably one of the coolest historic museums on the planet) kinda go out the window in a mad dash of meeting friends and doing shopping.

With no other real plans, I went over to Akiba to check out some electronic dictionaries. Orie is going back to school (in America!) for a little bit, and needed one. Interesting thing is that the prices rarely change over the years (even when I was pricing them about 13 years ago!), but the functions keep inproving. After a lot of waffling and comparing definitions in Japanese and English for accuracy, I settled on the Casio XD-GW9600

Walked around Akihabara, visited some old haunts, namely the Yellow Submarine RPG shop there. By the time I left, the employees were walking me to the elevator bowing on their hands and knees at my passing. I figure two more trips like this and they’ll know me by name, even if I come to the store only once every few years. :-)

I hit up Kinokuniya as well, picking up a few Japanese language books. Unfortunately, there’s very few books that are written specifically at my level, so one of these days I’m going to have to break down and simply start reading Japanese novels and the like exclusively. But currently I just don’t have the patience.  I saw that Kodansha released the Advanced Grammar Dictionary, the long-awaited 3rd book of the set (Beginner and Inetermediate guides are shit-hot) that began some 13 years ago or so. It’s a solid, and I started cutting through it on the train.

Did a lot of walking around, visitng spots that have a lot of memories for me from back when I was a student in Tokyo 12-13 years ago, then living in the area 10 years ago. Certain smells, turning certain corners, seeing certain buildings, feeling a certain breeze on the bridge over the Shinjuku south exit train tracks… send me spiralling into a vortex of memories. Mostly good, some bittersweet.

A lot of what I found fun to do in Tokyo sucks now with the passing of my friend Satoru three years ago. It’s just not the same alone. There’s not much for me in Tokyo other than a little shopping and some minor sightseeing; I simply don’t get “Into the Scene” as much as I used to when Satoru was alive and we used to tear up the city long into the night.

Ate a crepe, one of those from a stand run by gangsters (blueberry and whipped cream). It was yakuzalicious.

At night, I got Eikichi after work and we hit up one of my favorite Japanese restaurants, “Tambo” (”Rice Paddy”). It’s kind of a rice specialty place, and the owners have their own ricefield in the boonies where they harvest the rice that is eventually sold in the store. That’s crazy-eclectic. Had a classic tekka-don style fish bowl with miso soup and sides, which then became an ochazuke (rice in a tea soup). Dee-licious. After that, we hiked it back past Akihabara to Kinshicho, where his apartment is. We talked for a long while, read manga, played PS3 (Yakuza/Ryuu Ga Gotoku: Kenzan, Metal Gear Solid, etc), watched some anime, and slept together in a 6-ricemat apartment where 4 of the ricemats are taken up by manga, figures, anime DVD and games. I slept on a bed of ricemat and manga, with a towel for a pillow, holding an airsoft replica firearm, mmmmm otaku life.

I found out Eikichi didn’t have Persona 4 yet. For that, I called him a traitor to his culture. But we agreed that it’s probably best to wait for it to come down in price a little, it’s still pretty high even in used stores.

Ahh, my cold was also starting to ramp up, so I ended up wearing a mask most of the day. In Japan they wear them not to “protect from pollution” as is commonly perceived, but rather sick people wear them so that they don’t spread germs to others out of politeness when they cough on the densely-packed trains and subways. This pic is for Daniel, who inquired into my “Dragonball Gangster Cut”:

Man, it’s been a whirlwind for the past three days. Two days ago I went to the Best Sento (public bath) I’ve ever been to, and believe me I’ve been to a lot. It’s a more recent entry in Maebashi called “Shichifuku no Yuu” (Waters of the Seven Fortunes). Normally in Japan, in Sento or Onsen, they crank the heat up so that only total maniacs can enjoy the bath. “Foreigners can’t stand the hot waters for long” is a commonly held position (even among foreigners), but the truth is that most Japanese don’t like the water all that hot either (43 degrees, etc). You can’t relax, you can’t stay in the water the whole time, etc.

After that, I went to get a haircut with Orie. The owner of the salon did me up like a Dragonball character in a punk rock show. I love it.
Went to a bookstore/game store (all bookstores seem to sell music, movies and games these days), and there I took a picture of the above: Something that’s been getting popular lately is this whole “Pen Spinning” thing. Basically pen tricks. If you hunt Youtube, you can find some really awesome ones. But there’s a number of books on the subject (in the counterculture section), and it just seemed like an awesome thing to write a how-to guide for. I like the one on the right: “THE SOUL OF PEN-SPINNING”.
Bought an armful of Japan-history themed PS2 games, some novels and manga (more manga, whee), then went to the sento. They had 3 large regular baths (about 41-42 degrees, which is the upper range of what I can enjoy, which in itself is awesome), a sauna (the saunas in Japan have TVs and speakers behind protective covering, so you can watch weird dramas while you are sweating your balls off), a steam bath and pool, 3 “barrel baths”, a jacuzzi bath at about 39 degrees (nice!), a waterfall bath, a bath where you lay completely flat with a rock for a pillow in about an inch of hot water, and of course the cold-water-bath.

I have a  love-hate relationship with the cold water bath. I always end up going in, haitng myself as I do so, but man once you slip in it feels SO good. I literally had a conversation in my head where I was like,

“Andy, fuck you. You are NOT going to go into this bath. You are not going to… OK, ok, fine, up to your knees. But that’s IT. Do NOT sit down. You are not going to sit do…SON OF A BITCH, why did you sit down? OK, whatever. You are not going to slide in up to your neck. You’re just going to stay where you are HOLY CRAP WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP IT NOW. OK, now you’re in up to your neck. You can bear this. You don’t have to move your arms and legs around in the water, just remain perfectly still and all will be OK, just don’t wave your arms and legs arHOLY FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME???”

It’s quite painful at first, but it feels so good once you’re in.

That night, we ate a korean-style hotpot (Kimchee Nabe), and afterwards I started prepping for going to Tokyo the next day.

One of the problems with keeping a blog while on a trip, is that you spend more time relaying the few experiences that you have, instead of spending that time experiencing more experiences. Writing about your life rather than living it. To that end, until I have some sit-down time, the next few updates will be brief I think. Not too many details. But if anyone has a question or wants me to talk more about something, hit me up and I’ll dig into more detail.

They’re totally uncategorized, but they can be found over here for now:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ziggurat/Japan2008#

I’ll caption them later. For now, that’s where I’m dumping them every few days.

Woke up at 2AM. We started driving at 3. Got to the foothills at 5:30. From there was a 6-km crunch straight up a mountain with a backpack full of food, drinks and extra clothes as needed.

My throat was getting worse, so I drowned the pain with gargling, Chinese medicine (kampouyaku), and about 20 CC-Lemon throat drops. I filled my belly with mucous and crazy-sweet lemon juice. Realizing that the only drinks we brought were Ripobitan-D (the stuff they based Red Bull off of, a classic Japanese “Wellness/Energy Drink”) and about a gallon of Pocari Sweat. Some bread items, but none of them *weren’t* sweet. So my stomach was touch and go for a bit, but by the time we hit the summit, not only had it warmed up a lot (it was about 8 by then), but my sore throat and stomach pains disappeared. Rock.

We spent a few hours walking the wetlands, seeing historic houses and the like as well, taking in the sights and especially the sounds of the Oze wetlands. Specifically, the fact that there ARE NO SOUNDS, and that it is perfectly quiet. If you live in Japan, and especially in or near the cities, this experience is about as rare as black pearls.

Hiking in Japan? Basically the same. The only thing that was obviously different between the US and Japan is the staple food (rice balls, but who couldn’t have guessed that), and the fact that everyone straps little bells/chimes to their backpacks. THey’re nice at times, as they take your attention off the strain of the hike, but other times it just seems like More Noise. In any case, they’re used as “kuma-yoke”, “bear protection”, apparently warding off bears with the sound.

After lunch (Calorie Mate, more juice) we headed back down the mountain. THe climb up, honestly, took me off guard: It was really steep, and even though I’d done far tougher hikes in the past,  I kept losing my breath. On the way down, it was easier on the muscles and energy, but there was a lot of shock in my legs/knees. THat night they were in pain.

On the way back down the mountain, we hit up a little traditional food place, and Orie and my dad ordered wild mushroom miso soup (really delicious, made with local picked mushrooms, about 5 different kinds), and I had something called “Tarashi-yaki”. I had never heard of it, and neither had Orie or her dad. It turned out to be a tough pancake slice with a kind of sweet miso and onion paste. It’s apparently pretty rare, at least in this area anyway.

After that, we went back to the car, and my dad figured it was an equal distance to drive straight back, or to make a line over to Nikko on the way back, so we took the Nikko route. You can look up Nikko on Wikipedia, but for now just know that Nikko is Awesome. I love going there, Especially to Toushougu, the Crying Dragon Temple and the like. Even though I knew we weren’t going to walk through those places (none of us had the energy), just driving though town would be nice. Since it was the fall, right at the time that the leaves are changing colors, the nature should be pretty.

We forgot that, even though it was a Monday, about half of Japan was thinking the same thing. Result? Crowded, crowded streets, bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles going through town and down breakneck-curve mountain passes. Still, it was rather beautiful seeing all the leaves, the lake and all.

On our way back, we hit a Save-On: I grabbed some NON SWEET tea, a “yakiniku mayonnaise” riceball (never seen one of these before), and we headed home.

After we got home, we grabbed bentos at the local bento place, took a bath and went to sleep early, aching from the exertion of going up and down the stairs to the second floor where the bedroom was.

Woke up this AM at 7:00, still haven’t totally shaken off the ‘lag. But that’s ok, I guess, because back in the US I feel like fried shit if I try to wake up earlier than 8:30 or so.

Anyway, today Orie is visiting friends in Maebashi (the capital city of Gunma), and I’m chilling out today with Eikichi at his place. His younger sister Miho just had a baby (a girl named Kokoro), and is doing the thing they do in Japan, where the mother returns home to her family for 1-3 months while the father lives by himself (or with other kids if they have them, not the case here with my cousin). The mother gets to relax and learns to take care of the baby while her family supports her and takes care of her. It’s an interesting phenomenon, and even career mothers and the like are expected to take off from work for quite a while before returning.

At Eikichi’s home (where he returns from Tokyo every once in a while), there lives his parents Yoko and Mikkyo. His father (now a grandfather) used to be like a super-yankee. Basically, a rebellious youth gang leader (but not about violence and drugs, more like about riding motorcycles, living outside the system, sticking it to the man, being a nuisance, etc). Now he’s totally a grandpa. A grandpa who still goes to hard rock/punk concerts, but he’s totally in “grandpa mode” now. Eikichi’s grandparents (who own the farmland and the house) also live with them. Wonderful people. They lived through the great war, which can do weird things to one’s concept of the enemy from back then (my grandmother used to go on and on about “the Japs” and how “they killed our boys”), but they totally love having me over. It’s really cool how people can overcome their surroundings. Anyway.

Now Eikichi and I are eating Japanese snacks and watching some anime he brought. Right now we’re on episode two of KAIBA (”Memory”). Joushua Neuman, this one is one you want to get your fucking mitts on. The anime style is REALLY weird, like the old-school style childish “Astro Boy” style of design and animation. But the story is 110% Shock:. Surreal as hell, all about this world where people have ther memories stores on little cylinders, and can trade them into new bodies, edit their memories, etc. Meanwhile there appear to be creatures that eat memories… now we’re on a side-story about a girl on some kind of generational ship, and is being interrogated for being a “memory smuggler”. It’s all not making too much sense now, but that’s apparently the point: the more you watch, the more it becomes clear. Eikichi’s seen all the episodes but the last two, and even he says there’s a lot that is left unexplained or up to the viewer’s imagination. I can’t tell if it’s “awesomez” or not yet, but it’s really quite interesting to take in. It really feels, aside from the visual qualities, like an action-y Greg Egan novel-made-anime.

Later today, Orie and I are going shopping again: There’s more culture to get my fix on (music, games, books, etc).

(UPDATE): Watched episodes of Paranoia Agent and Seto no Hanayome as well. We were going to watch Princess Tutu but he didn’t have the first disk with him. I told him about my friend Matt and our Anime Nights once a month, and Eikichi said that he’d love to meet Matt some day, it sounds like their tastes match a lot.

I loved Seto no Hanayome (The Bride from Seto (Sea)). It’s a comedy about a girl who is a mermaid, her engagement to an average kid, and her family (who are all gangsters) who are both trying to keep them together (for the sake of the girl), and tear them apart at the same time (because the father decides that he doesn’t want his little girl to go away with another man). Many Ls were OLed.

We decided to pack it in early to get ready for the next day, hiking in Oze.

I’ve realized that it’s been like forever since I used my wordpless blog over my LJ blog, even though all these posts end up over there (and can be commented on over there as well). I’m so used to getting all my friend-feed from Livejournal that I kept forgetting to come back here for my general posting (and subsequent crossposts to LJ).

Anyway, I’ve been in Japan a few days, and have posted some blog posts over there (zigguratbuilder.livejournal.com). I’ll be posting further updates here.

Go!