frankie_needles (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} frankie_needles) wrote,@ 2005-07-15 23:03:00 |
|
Look Ma, top o' the mountain!
We planned on waking up early to leave minami izu, but it doesn't work out that way. Ryan gets up as he has to go to "sports day" at his school, which is actually the last day of school before summer vacation. We see him off and then Annie too a bit later. I jump on the computer and to update my blog and Henna goes back to sleep. It's sunny and humid outside, but very relaxing. A few hours later Ryan comes back and we decide to head to the bus station to take the bus back to Shimoda Station. We're not looking forward to the sweaty 15 minute walk to the bus station.
Fortunately, Ryan's landlady is in the parking lot and it turns out she is on her way to Shimoda to go to work. She offers us a ride and we gladly accept. During the ride she speaks her best english and we offer our best japanese. It works out pretty well. She tells us she's going to visit houston soon with her husband.
Before we getting on the train back to tokyo I get a chance to go to the shimoda station rope car park. I ride a rope car up to the peak of a small mountain and once we disembark on the peak I unexpectedly find a breathtaking view of a bay on the other side. It's totally awesome. I snap a bunch of souvenir pictures and head back down the mountain so we can jump on the train.
On the first leg of the train trip we're both knocked out. I find myself sleeping with my head back and mouth wide open. We switch trains to a Shikansen, a bullet train, and, yes, they go very fast. It's hard to tell how fast they're going except when we pass other trains, and then it sounds like we're in a wind tunnel.
Once back in tokyo we get ready for a night out on the town. I finally talk to Aki, who is a young japanese jazz bassist I met at an elephant room jam session back in austin. He lives in tokyo now and I've been trying to hook up with him and check out more jazz clubs. He tells me he's going to a jam session from midnight to 5am at Jazz Intro, the same club we tried to find last monday. Henna and I decide to go to a rock club first and then perhaps meet up with Aki.
We head out to this punk rock club in the Ebisu district called Milk that is recommended in my travel guide. The cover is 3,000 yen each (yikes), but two drinks each are included. We drop the cash and go in. The club itself is very cool, with two different basement levels. The first band is kind of mediocre. The second band, called Triol, sounds a complete nirvana knock-off, but I liked them better anyway. Henna starts fading fast around 1am so we decide to head back to the hotel.
As we waited for a taxi (yes we had take a taxi again) we saw this tall and absolutely hammered white girl who apparently spoke fluent japanese arguing with her japanese boyfriend as he tried to physically put her in his bmw sports utility. He puts her in and walks around to the driver side, and she gets out the car. He puts her back in and has one of his friends hold her door shut while his buddy apologizes to us and the other onlookers. We laugh and jump in our cab.
observation: I haven't seen a single american car in japan, but I have seen mercedes and BMWs. Weird thing is all the mercedes i've seen how the steering wheel on the right side like they were destined for the american market (japanese folks drive on the left side of the road). Also, there seem to be many more aggressively styled japanese (nissan, toyota, etc) sports sedans here. I think they make them bland for the american market.
We planned on waking up early to leave minami izu, but it doesn't work out that way. Ryan gets up as he has to go to "sports day" at his school, which is actually the last day of school before summer vacation. We see him off and then Annie too a bit later. I jump on the computer and to update my blog and Henna goes back to sleep. It's sunny and humid outside, but very relaxing. A few hours later Ryan comes back and we decide to head to the bus station to take the bus back to Shimoda Station. We're not looking forward to the sweaty 15 minute walk to the bus station.
Fortunately, Ryan's landlady is in the parking lot and it turns out she is on her way to Shimoda to go to work. She offers us a ride and we gladly accept. During the ride she speaks her best english and we offer our best japanese. It works out pretty well. She tells us she's going to visit houston soon with her husband.
Before we getting on the train back to tokyo I get a chance to go to the shimoda station rope car park. I ride a rope car up to the peak of a small mountain and once we disembark on the peak I unexpectedly find a breathtaking view of a bay on the other side. It's totally awesome. I snap a bunch of souvenir pictures and head back down the mountain so we can jump on the train.
On the first leg of the train trip we're both knocked out. I find myself sleeping with my head back and mouth wide open. We switch trains to a Shikansen, a bullet train, and, yes, they go very fast. It's hard to tell how fast they're going except when we pass other trains, and then it sounds like we're in a wind tunnel.
Once back in tokyo we get ready for a night out on the town. I finally talk to Aki, who is a young japanese jazz bassist I met at an elephant room jam session back in austin. He lives in tokyo now and I've been trying to hook up with him and check out more jazz clubs. He tells me he's going to a jam session from midnight to 5am at Jazz Intro, the same club we tried to find last monday. Henna and I decide to go to a rock club first and then perhaps meet up with Aki.
We head out to this punk rock club in the Ebisu district called Milk that is recommended in my travel guide. The cover is 3,000 yen each (yikes), but two drinks each are included. We drop the cash and go in. The club itself is very cool, with two different basement levels. The first band is kind of mediocre. The second band, called Triol, sounds a complete nirvana knock-off, but I liked them better anyway. Henna starts fading fast around 1am so we decide to head back to the hotel.
As we waited for a taxi (yes we had take a taxi again) we saw this tall and absolutely hammered white girl who apparently spoke fluent japanese arguing with her japanese boyfriend as he tried to physically put her in his bmw sports utility. He puts her in and walks around to the driver side, and she gets out the car. He puts her back in and has one of his friends hold her door shut while his buddy apologizes to us and the other onlookers. We laugh and jump in our cab.
observation: I haven't seen a single american car in japan, but I have seen mercedes and BMWs. Weird thing is all the mercedes i've seen how the steering wheel on the right side like they were destined for the american market (japanese folks drive on the left side of the road). Also, there seem to be many more aggressively styled japanese (nissan, toyota, etc) sports sedans here. I think they make them bland for the american market.
