Gimme gimme gimme

I'm not sure why these contraptions are called "UFO Catchers" but they could named worse so let's just shrug and move on. I blew 500 yen on trying to grab one of those bears before giving up. David gave it whirl and I was ready to kick him in the shins if he actually got one. Luckily his shins survived another day.

These machines are tricky bastards as the bears are placed precariously over the exit slot's edge, as though just a nudge will have it teeter into my hands. No. Not the case, as my lost 500 yen will tell you so.

In many areas of Tokyo and Kyoto, there are arcades devoted to UFO Catcher machines and some people are ridiculously good at it (and must have a lot of times on their hands.) I saw one man with a shopping bag brimming with won goods. The man also looked to be in his mid-30s. But that's a topic for another day.

Dead leaves on the dirty ground

In Kyoto, we caught the changing of the leaves. In parks and shrine areas, it looked as though someone took a giant paintbrush and made sweeping arcs against the green trees so that smears of red and orange stained the leaves. It was a pretty sight, very contrasting.

Walking through the city of Kyoto is a dichotomy of old meets new. I can be strolling down a boulevard where stores like Lacoste or Starbucks line the streets to find a geisha in complete uniform and makeup. I was pretty perplexed and wished I were shameless enough to whip out my camera to snap a picture of her. Instead, I kept walking to the world's best gyoza shop in the world. I have no idea what it's called but that just means if you want to try the place out, you'll need to buy me a plane ticket to show you where it is. My written directions will be useless.

Kyoto reminded me of Los Angeles. I'll be the first to admit that LA is a wasteland, devoid of warmth and nature. But I know that there are pockets where such beauty exists. Beyond these groves of trees were houses cramped next to each other and street hawkers screeching their wares. Just like LA.

Rilakkuma

When I get married, I want a bride and groom version of Rilakkuma on my wedding cake instead of the usual human versions. I found my new obsession at Kiddyland in the hip Shibuya district of Tokyo. It's 7 floor of childhood goodness, ranging from Hello Kitty to Winnie the Pooh and friends to anime geek out merchandise.

Rilakkuma is one of the newest Sanrio characters. And let's be honest, we all had our favorites. (Mine was Kerropi!) But we all grow up and out of our childhood loves. In my case, I roamed towards bears and I sorely wished I had bought the giant three feet tall version. Even if it would have run me a few hundred bucks. Even if I would have needed to buy its own seat on the airplane. I mean, look at this plushie:

It's 59850 yens. In US dollars, that's about 650. 650 for a bear?!?!?! YES.

No underwear in the machines

I seriously tried to find used underwear in a vending machine. Alas, my search was without rewards as I could only find drinks and snacks the machines. Thankfully, Japan lived up to its Godzilla myths by including an image of one on a vending machine. Other machines had images of Tommy Lee Jones. That was a bit too "Lost in Translation" for me.

The best part about the vending machines was that as you added coins, the buttons would light up beneath whichever items you could afford. And one machine even thanked me for my purchase with its cute "Arigato gozaimasu!"

Ramen

This was the first restaurant we ate at in Tokyo. It's a ramen shop in the Ueno/Asakusa district. We walked through a few hundred alleys in search of a place to eat before we found it. Please ignore my windswept hair as it was raining that day. There was a small lobby to the restaurant where you ordered your food from a vending machine. By that I mean, the machine dispensed tickets with your order that gets handed to the waitstaff. Luckily, this one had pictures so I had an idea of what I was getting.

I wish they had such machines in the US. No more doing math to split bills or hoping you have enough money to pay for your food.

Lover Nails Heart Give Smile!

I adore Engrish for its creative as well as reckless use of the English language. Grammar rules be damned! Case in point:

I wish writing Engrish slogans were an actual career instead of someone's honest attempt at the language. Though, I bet my Japanese essays are wonderful examples of a terrible student's use of the Japanese language.

King's Cup

Sometimes, okay, a lot of the times, I bought drinks from vending machines because their bottle designs were fascinating. Or I wanted to squash rumors I've heard about said drink.

Coke was bought for the simple novelty of it's can while Pocari Sweat was purchased based on name alone. What does the latter taste like? Well, the name sure doesn't lie.

Faster than a speeding bullet

(The landscapes whizzing by me.)

Tokyo to Kyoto can be a two and a half hour trip if you took the bullet train. So we did. Or else the trip would have taken about six hours by car to cover the 300 or so miles. No thanks. The bullet trains are fast but you can't really tell when you're riding one, much like sitting in an airplane. The landscape passes by as it would at any speed and I just more or less watched it do so. But try walking to the restroom and peeing at such a speed. They had handrails in the bathroom stalls to hold onto.

On the way to Kyoto, my friends and I were either asleep or listening to our iPods for the entire trip. As we approached our destination, we tried to figure out how to get to our hotel when the three girls in front of us overheard our voices and proceeded to make small talk. They were from Atlanta, visiting, and thought we weren't Americans or English speakers for whatever reason. David said we were from California and one girl replied, "Oh, gracias."

I think I stared bug-eyed after hearing that and really wanted to reply, "California's still apart of the US, not Mexico." But I didn't want to be a bitch in a foreign country so I'm saving my snarkiness for my American friends.

Food on a stick

Food from street stalls have never let me down. That or sausages but the latter is a story for another time. In Prague, David stopped us to buy these pastries that were rolled onto hot metal cylinders for their shape and then dunked in brown sugar and cinnamon. In Vietnam, it was fishballs or dried squid on a stick. Don't judge my eating habits until you have tried either of these snacks.

But the blue ribbon goes to the marketplace in Ueno where we found fruit on a stick. A giant pineapple spear for 100 yen? Sold! Give me ten!

(Hand drawn) Word to the Wise

An advertisement in the Akasaka district. I have no idea what they're trying to sell me but whatever it is, so long as I can wear a ninja outfit while riding a panda bear with a hot looking princess behind me, I'm sold! And I'm holding a ninja star! Best part of the ad is the rooftop fight behind the princess. Sugoi!

But there were many advertisements featuring cute drawn figures or plain odd ones. Here are warnings I found throughout the city:

Train ettiquette.

The pigeon would like you to know that he "can get food by myself!" So don't patronize him with your handouts.

P is for Pagoda

One of my life goals is to see a pagoda. So:

Check. Done. Next.

This would be the first of many pagodas I saw. Did each lessen the majesty and awe of the buildings? NO. Look at them! I only wished that we could had walked through one so I can finally see how one gets to the next floor. But I didn't want Japan to deport me on the basis of breaking and entering historical sites.

Next time.

Jetlagged

David, Angelina, and I arrived in Tokyo after all the airport lines and train stops around 8 pm. After dinner, we made a very valor attempt to go to bed at 10 pm.

Six hours later, I woke up and realized, "Shit, I'm jetlagged and can't go back to sleep." My shuffling around woke up Angelina and our whispering alerted David of our conscious state. So at five am, we sat up in our beds, bleary-eyed and ponderous of our next actions.

So we high tailed it to the Sensoji shrine. At 6am. On a Saturday morning. Because we're bloody brilliant.

There were three shops opened and seven people walking around at that time. It didn't help that we made up three of those seven folks. Deserted and quiet like a zombie film, we ambled down a large (and closed) market street to the shrine. The closer we go to the shrine, the larger of a waft we got from the incense.

We came back five hours later to do souvenir shopping and that same ghosttown street turned into a regular hustle and bustle avenue. As if a shrine deity snapped his finger and Poof! People!

We look like giants

I joked around that in Japan I would tower among the Japanese female population as a 5'3" giant. I was close to doing so. But mainly in our hotel where the doorways were really short. I am not standing on my tippy toes in that picture nor am I wearing five inch heels. That's me in all my five foot three glory.

As we walked through alleys and marketplaces, I reigned over these tiny obba-chans* with their crooked backs and four feet eight statures. I only wondered, Where did they buy their clothes? At the Tiny Clothes Emporium?

*grannies

Sardines

Japanese hotel rooms are notoriously small. I had warned my traveling companions beforehand so we all braced ourselves for the worse and luckily had low standards. This was our room, just enough for a full size bed and a twin on the floor. Walk space was nonexistent as you can see to the left of the picture. Behind us was the bathroom about the size of a closet and I banged my knee on the sink while trying to get out of the shower. But the bathroom made up for it with its heated toilet. Something that I would thank the toilet gods for many times in our trip.

Tales from Nippon

December is a frigid month where I tend to spend my days under bed covers and wish that the holiday season was over. It's too much and too overwhelming. Lights, people, parking lots, and this crunch for time. No, thanks.

So because I didn't blog any tales from when I was over in Japan for my brief stint, here's an entry for each weekday of the month retelling an event.

The Tokyo Metro is amazing! And with Ang's handy dandy book, we were able to figure out transfers and final station destinations easily and quickly.

They need maps for the city tacked on every street corner though or GPS system attached to the legs of tourist because our second to last day, she and I ventured to Shibuya and got pretty lost. I didn't realize it until our fifth alley, but we were in the Love Hotel district. When I did, I couldn't stop laughing and kept peering any any couple that walked down the alley, curious if they had stayed for a short rest or a full night stay. Now I regret not taking pictures of the hotel signs that ranged from Princess Hotel to Love Romance.

Sadly, that wasn't the only red light district I ventured into during my stay in Tokyo and Kyoto. Though, in my defense, it was the only one that I walked around in unintentionally.

Deutschland!!! 2010!

Don't be fooled, I'm not actually going to Germany next year, although I would love to during June to watch the World Cup along side the German folks. Then we'll all cheer and hug each other when they win the Cup. Like they should have in 2006 against Italy. Four years later, I'm still fuming over that game. HOW??? WHY??? Mainly, how did Italy score those two goals in overtime? Within five minutes of each other? My heart sank and I felt it break into a million tiny pieces, while my mom cheered and shouted "Goal!!!!" In her defense, she shouts that every time a team scores.

FIFA had the group draw a few nights ago and I've been charting my proposed winners. The first two countries listed are the ones that will advance.

Group A: France, Mexico, South Africa, Uruguay,
Group B: Argentina, Greece, Nigeria, South Korea,
Group C: England, United States, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Ghana, Australia, Serbia,
Group E: Netherlands, Cameroon, Denmark, Japan
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, Slovakia, New Zealand,
Group G: Brazil, Ivory Coast, Portugal, North Korea
Group H: Spain, Chile, Switzerland, Honduras

So Cammie's prediction:
France will easily sweep Group A but the real game to watch for is SA v Mexico. It's hometown advantage for a ranked 118th team vs 15th rank team with some instability in their last few qualifying matches. I hope South Africa comes as the winning underdog in this round, or at least in the opening game.

Argentina is the favored team for Group B with Greece following up. I say Greece because I've heard good things about their defense boys. Now here's hoping that they live up to the hype.

Oh Group C, you will have an interesting match for me. Everyone in the freaking world will be the England v US as it's got a storyline fit for a telenovela. Previous teammates that have to battle it out on worldwide circuit? Holy soccer balls. Donovan, Becks, show me whatcha got!

I know that Germany will lead this group but it's a toss up for who could also qualify. Ghana's strong but we'll see what happens on June 23 when they play each other. But Australia, oh Australia, you seem like a wild card.

Netherlands will be the top qualifier but it'll have to earn that spot in its match against Denmark and Cameroon. Cameroon's my dark horse for this group as they're normally a solid team but the Dutch might say otherwise. Japan is my complete dark horse. They won't come out as qualifiers but they might shake things up for Denmark and Cameroon.

Group F is straightforward. Italy will be top qualifier and I don't care too much about the other 3 teams. So it'll be a battle between Paraguay and Slovakia. New Zealand, I have no idea how they even qualified for the World Cup.

Group G is the Group of Death this year. Blood will be shed on the field between Brazil, Ivory Coast and Portugal that I honestly don't know who will qualify. I do know North Korea shouldn't bother coming to South Africa for these matches. Just give those other countries their automatic 3 points.

Finally Group H. La Roja is the top ranked team right now so I will be very surprised if Spain doesn't qualify. Switzerland and Honduras are pretty weak teams so Chile got lucky in the group draw. What happens after this group, I can't say but I don't see them advancing any further.

So, we've done the round robin matches. Let's move onto the Round of 16, alright? Then single elimination! Just kidding. I would need to draw an actual chart but I'll say right now, if the US clears Group C, I will have a heart attack in the Round 16 as they will then play Germany. I wouldn't know who to cheer for! My home country (Donovan, Dempsey, Howard, Team USA!) or my beloved Deutschland (Ballack, Klose, , don't let me down!) Ahhhhhhh, I'm going to have a breakdown now as I figure this out.

God, and the sad thing is, the World Cup isn't happening until June. I've got 186 days till then. And I also bet you didn't know I loved football this much.