Ninjas Sleep Here...

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NOTE: at the end of this posting will be a link to the full web album of all the pics we took at the hostel (with witty captions) since again, we took too many photos, here's a rough outline and some choice pics though, enjoy!
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after making it through the transit system and finding our way around the streets we happen upon the lair:

anita enters stealth mode:

and after locating our cubbies,

a game of peekaboo ensues:


we then take some private time to relax and enjoy our own spaces

a well earned dinner of gyoza, shrimp and udon followed. you can't see it in this pic, but there are a coupla glimples in the album linked at the bottom of the owner/waitress who beat down her son in the restaurant for continuing to squirt her with a water pistol - it was kinda crazy.

on our way back from dinner we tried to check out a pachinco parlor but it was waaaay too noisy, confusing and smoky to give up it's secrets this night - we'll definitely try again though.

ok, sleepy time for someone

oh hey, here's something of note about japan in general, it seems as though the streets and public spaces are very clean but there are not many public receptacles for putting trash in - i guess people just bring it back to their private bins. well they seem pretty mindful of recycling, but they seem to enjoy burning things even more - as can be inferred from the relative size of the "burnable" bin to the recycling one!

the following day or so (we were at the ninja hostel for 3 days) more silliness ensued. here are a couple action shots - more in the album at the end.



oh and apparently martito found a little friend - katsu bear!


here's a link to the full album and all our silliness:
http://picasaweb.google.com/marcbdg/NinjaHostel?authkey=2iSJSxgDqpI#

travelling to tokyo proper

OK, gameshow down, let's get to Tokyo now and find our hostel there. Oh, by the way, we're staying at the Khaosan Tokyo Ninja hostel - that's right, ninjas. We just need to find it (ninjas are stealthy you know, so they may have hidden this place). Anita looks confident though

oh, and we share a new experience, actually being able to see above everyone's head in a train car! wow, who knew the end of a train car could be so visible to us shorties. we could even hold on to those above the head straps with our mouths if we wanted to. well, probably not, but this is our version of how things went down!

After making it to our first transfer station we need some breakfast and a good cup of coffee. Beckers (sometimes called Becks) we find our new coffee love in Japan, strong, consistent and not Starbucks - which we could really find here if we wanted to.

we also found some croissants, OJ and eggs, a familiar breakfast.

So, we make it to the main Tokyo station not our final stop, but 1 transfer and 2 stations to go for the hostel. Wow, now this is amazing, it's like being inside of an anthill; split levels, people mover walkways, tons and tons of people all moving every which way

we actually had a 15 minute walk within the station to get from the line we arrived on to the transfer line we needed - that's probably close to a mile we walked inside of the station - that should give you a sense of how large this was.

here's our last transfer train leaving us behind at our final destination for the day, now we just have to find those ninjas and the cubby holes they sleep in!

Tokyo Gameshow 2008 - we made it!

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NOTE: at the end of this posting will be a link to the full web album of all the pics we took (with witty captions) at the gameshow, since there are way too many to include in a blog posting. what follows is a rough outline of our day and some choice photos, enjoy!
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so, i'll spare you the transportation details and we'll skip to the meat, so we found our way to the gameshow, yasa!
and found a giant robot that looks suspiciously like anita waiting for us outside:

We bought tickets from what appeared to be a scalper just outside the show, but he was selling them for what appeared to be face value and we got them for "a solid" (1,000 yen - or $10 usd). after getting inside through the mad amounts of people and getting a lay of the land - oooh, look, Street Fighter IV and a cute floating blue blobby guy

we got in line to try out a game, Raving Rabbids TV Party, with those cute crazy bunny things. This was a relatively short line with only about a 15 minute wait to play and Anita has the original version of Raving Rabbids and wobla loves it. This one was special. we got to do some neat new moves like 'brush the teeth', 'spray the deodorant', 'shave the chin' and what you see here known as 'swab the ears':

there were of course lots of people dressed up (here's just a few, more in the web album):




and we spotted some type of ninja game - but of course. so marc gets in there and decides to try his hand at some ninja skill - like jumping over tigers - to win some unknown prize; anita is quick with that shutter!

the unknown prize turned out to be a scavenger hunt map to perform a couple of feats all around the gameshow to ultimately win what looked like a demo cd or somesuch. the instructions were all in japanese of course and the show floor was way to crowded to actually try to do all of that in one day, so we moved on.

So, the games, there were soooooo many games, too many to blog about but you'll see a lot of em in the web album. Here are some we got a glimpse of: Metal Gear Online, Spacedriver Grid, Judgment, Basara Battle Heroes, Biohazard 5 - really wanted to get in to check this one out, it looked so cool but the line was over 75 minutes just to get inside a shrouded tent to even see gameplay outside of the trailer

Mirror's Edge, Halo Wars

and tons of others we didn't recognize or couldn't tell what they were because of the japanese titles. there were also huge sections for handheld games and mobile games, even a 'test library' set up to feel like a private library where you could sit and try out some mobile and handheld games. again, lines too long to really get into it. Marc did find a cutout of a cat without a line tho, so he jumped in
we end this posting with a tribute to the saddest lonliest man at the gameshow. apparently no one wanted to play his game and anita and marc weren't about to look uncool in japan either!

thanks for waiting, here's the album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/marcbdg/TokyoGameShow2008?authkey=UPLutBcHMtU#5257351568986062146

so much media!

just so you know, we're working on the photos and video of when we actually made it to the gameshow, the fish market, akihabara (the electronics market) and all engrish, food finds and cubby holes in between.

matane for now!...
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Greentea baum cake

We have been trying to capture our fearless leader Marc in his attempts to eat his way through Japan. I'm happy to share with you his episode #4 : `green tea got nothin on me` :

part 1



part 2

Reason #412 I Wish I Was A Man

So the step in the picture is really deceiving as ordinarily every toilet I have encountered there is no step. But really, dude, this is seriously a pain in the ass to have to deal with when your feet are raw like sushi from walking and carrying your bag all day, to then get to this. Marc said he is working on a diagram for me on the most efficient way to use this thing... stay tuned.

We must really love this blog

...or else why on earth would we be entering posts into it at 515am local time? Jet lag... nah. Its because we woke up early to go to the Tsukiji fish market!

We were about to head out of the hostel when I saw this on the bulletin board. Ahh, looks like directions to the market! It is, yes! Oh, also the schedule... we dont need that, we know its open...

Except it wasnt. Turns out this is the only Monday for the entire month that the fish market is closed... Guess I know what we are doing tomorrow at 430am.

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