Baseball in Tokyo

Went to a pro baseball game at the Tokyo Dome, home to the Yomiuri Giants. They have the same colors and logo as the San Fransisco Giants, but the similarities to them stops there. The Tokyo Giants are the New York Yankees of Japan completely. Everyone hates on them, yet they have a ton of fans, and more money than they know what to do with. Yomiuri is the company that owns them, and haven't been called the Tokyo Giants in some time, as the other Tokyo teams got mad when they did. Tonights game was against the Saitama Seibu Lions.

I bought my tickets a kiosk in a convenience store. It was the hardest thing I had to figure out yet. It was all in Japanese, and I was really surpised I managed to pull it off all on my own. You can buy all kinds of tickets from these things, movies, music concerts, and of course sporting events.

It was pouring rain the day of the game, but it was OK as the stadium is a dome with fake grass. A lot of the baseball parks are, probably because it rains so much in the summer here. It is weird going to a baseball game and not having the National Anthem at the start, also no 7th inning stretch. It was a very interesting game. Nothing happened until the 5th inning when the Lions scored two runs. Bottom of the 5th the Giants had a man on first and second, then this guy hits a home run. Later The Lions get a run to tie. Then no scores and the game goes to overtime. I haven't had this happen at a game before. This was kind of bad as it was getting to 10:00pm and the subways close at 11:00pm, but I've never want to leave a ballgame early, especially when it is tied up. Lucky the Giants do some thing at the bottom of the 10th. A guy steals 2nd, they get a base hit to put him at 3rd, and another base hit to win. Almost a 4 hour game, at 10:00 I get out of there to make it back to Ueno.

Lots of fans.

Super loud Lions fans. They had a guy with drums and a trumpet player.

Nose bleed section for ¥1800, not bad.

Mascot games and of course t-shirts cannons later on.

Messing with the tilt shift setting on my camera.

Final score.

Tokyo Tower

It was sunny with blue skies all day, but oh not when I want to take picture of Tokyo Tower. I was really worried it would start to rain at any moment. Fortunately it cleared up when the sun went down.

Senso-Ji Buddhist Temple

Took a walk to the nearest big temple while it is still sunny here in Tokyo. It's supposed to rain the rest of the week. I also got to tryout and miss use my spiffy new fisheye lense attachment. Now my camera looks super cool as I pretent to know how to use it.

This temple is tourist central. Why too many people, and it is mostly tourist souvenir shops, which is OK because I am a tourist in need of souvenirs. Yes I'm just like the rest of them now, looking at trinkets I don't need, lugging around said trinkets in many shopping bags, stopping randomly in peoples way to take a picture. All I need is my fanny pack.

In have no idea what that building is.
Gold sperm?

The Tokyo Skytree. For another day.

Famicom

I always told myself if I ever go to Japan I am going to buy a Famicom, and by god I did. What is a Famicom you might ask? It's another name for the 1983 Family Computer, but in the US we know it as the good old 1986 Nintendo Entertainment System NES. For what ever reason they completely redesigned it for the US market, and even the game cartridges are different. The US games all came in the same grey plastic with bad artwork (OK Zelda did come in fancy pants gold). Famicom games came in all different colors of the rainbow, and the artwork on the labels is awesome. Looking through all the games I felt like I was back in the local video rental store when I was a kid, and wondering what was a good game or not to get. I picked up Gradius 2, a space shooter that only came out in Japan, and Dr. Mario a tetris like puzzle game. Dr mario was always a favorite of mine. It is unlcear if Mario was getting his PhD while working plumber jobs, or he is an unlicenced practitioner. Of course i played the Famicom back at the hotel. Dr. Mario didn't work at first, I had to do the tried and true blow on the bottom of the game trick every kid from the 80's knows.

I was lying low at a hotel for three nights, and now I am at my latest Airbnb place, a super cheap dorm booked for two weeks. "What if you don't like it?" my dad says. "Well, whatever" I say. Yeah whatever. This is the worst place I have stayed. My room has two bunk beds, but instead of a mattress or any kind of padding, the guy laid a blanked on the wood as a substitute and called it a day. So it is the same as sleeping on a wood floor. Then on the bunk below me a guy lives here permanently, stowed away like a hobo living under a bridge. He snores. He snores so loud, like a goddamn cartoon character. My earplugs do nothing. To top it off somebody in the common area was cooking food at midnight, using a blow dryer at 1:30 am, and then final stops rustling around at 2:00am. I seriously considered taking my camping gear and go sleep on the roof, which we have access to. After zero sleep, in the morning I promptly canceled next week here and booked the hotel I was at before to replace it.

I still have a week here unfortunately.

I am done with Airbnb, and I will never use them ever again after this trip. You just can't know what your getting into. They also forget to mention you cannot cancel on the mobile version (all I have), and for whatever reason it must be done through a PC. I was lucky there was a PC here or I would have had a lot of trouble. It was all in Japanese so it took some time, but I got it (thank you goolgle translate). Even though I canceled a week ahead Airbnb keeps their fee, so I'm out $15 for nothing. Bunch of horseshit.

Camping in Tokyo

No I wasn't being a bum in a park, there is an actual campsite in Tokyo on the bay. I had a lot of time to kill so I want to Kasai Rinkai Park, which is next door to the Tokyo Disney Land. I didn't have any desire to see Disney Land. Surprisingly it looked like they had all the same rides as the one in California. I was planning on seeing the aquarium in the park, but it was closed on the one day I am there. It's a nice park and I my comeback for night pictures of the gaint ferris wheel.

In the afternoon I get out of the park and takw the train one stop over. The park and camp ground is on a huge man made land mass. The area was all industrial, with a golf course, and shipping trucks driving all over. I had and hour walk to gett all the way down to the park and campsite at the end. As a walk there is a single huge wind turbine in the distance that I know is at the park. I was so hungry and tired, the wind turbine slowly got bigger and bigger. I finally made it to the park and ate dinner under the giant turbine silently turning in the wind.

The campsite is at the very over looking the ocean. Camping is a loose term here, as you can see in the pictures it is next to a highway bridge. People come here to pretend to camp. I saw a guy spend a lot of time putting up a tent, take it down, then and leave. Maybe he was practicing. Planes flews over constantly, making their decent into the airport. A construction crew worked on the other side of the trees behind me until nightfall and I wake up to their noisy jackhammer in the morning. This feels more like a place for people to feel homeless for a night than an actual camp ground.

Japan sure does have a lot of ferris wheels. This one was the biggest so far.

You can see the wind turbine in the distance, my destination later on.

My final and most remote campsite.

Tokyo on the other side of the bay.

Long exposure showing the planes landing flight path.

Green Tea Ice Cream

Today I am back were I started almost two months ago. I booked a capsule hotel for cheap, and the area it was in is the same as when I first arrived in Tokyo. On that first day I got off the bus at Tokyo station and walked north a long way looking for a hostel. At that time I had no idea were I was going to stay for the night, and had no idea what I was doing or what to look for. It feels so long ago, but today I walked familiar streets and everything is natural.

Green tea is big in Japan so they have a lot of other things like candy or bread in that flavor. I'm not really big on tea, so normally I wouldn't pick up a tea flavored ice cream. The first time I had it I thought I was getting mint chocolate chip. After the first bite I was confused as to what the hell in was eating. It's pretty good, especially with chocolate. Pictured below is this ice cream sandwich thing I get every time. This is the first time I have seen it in green tea. The standard one has the basic ice cream cone but in two waffle shapes enclosing vanilla ice cream with a layer of chocolate. Because the ice cream is inside you don't have to worry about melting all over. Then there is an all chocolate version only sold at Mini Stop convenience stores that is amazing. I always try and hunt that one down, but it is hard to find. These things need to come to the US, seriously, the are good.

Lucky Camera

I lost my beloved camera the other day in Nagoya. That sucked, but I'm in Shinjuku Tokyo now, a huge shopping area. I read it is the best place to shop for electronic's in Japan and even better for a camera. To make matters more complicated though, I need to find the exact model that is now completly old tech wise. Back home I have a deep water encloser for under water pictures that only fits that camera, and that thing ain't cheap.

I was disappointed with Shinjuku honestly. Besides clothing stores, there are only big name department stores all selling the same new models as any other place in Japan. I guess a good place to buy the latest stuff. I needed a camera only store with a guy sitting on old stock for any hope to find my camera. I walk all over, then search Google maps. Only one place comes up that looks promising. Lucky Camera, and the website says he buys and sells old film cameras. The only place so far I might have a chance of finding what I want. On the way there I pass the first camera specific store have seen. With Nikon logos all over it looks like a Nikon store. Inside there it is though, the old Olympus E-PL1 in cherry red 17000 yen ($166 abouts). I'm ready to buy it, but this wasn't Lucky Camera. I should go see what he has before I buy, maybe they have one cheaper than here. So I end up at Lucky camera that is down the block, and would you know it, right in the window for 16800 yen there it is a E-PL1 S. Wait. Why is there an S? It looks exactly the same as my lost one, but there is that S, mine didn't have an S. I've never heard of the model. I look online and find out it is a slightly upgraded version, with a better lense, battery, iso stuff, and it only came out in Japan. So yeah I got it. Lucky Camera lived up to its name for me.

While looking around for dinner I find out It was apparently a festival day. I've always wanted to go to a Japanese festival thing. They are usually always the same no matter were you are in Japan. People gather at the shrine and there are lots of booths selling food and carnival type games for kids. A Japanese version of a carnival in a way. 

I'll never let you go I promise!
Even though it was released only in Japan, I managed to set it up in English.
That's the mini lense I had to re-buy next to it.

Oh yeah I was at the planetarium to kill time in Nagoya
I'm not really sure I've been to one before.
This was one of the largest in the world apparently.

A man juggles a tea cup with an umbrella.

Goldfish catching game. A must have at any Japanese festival.
You try to catch the fish with a circle of wire covered tight with paper.
The paper gets wet and easily breaks under the fishes weight so the game takes skill.

I don't know what it is, but it was good.