Adventures in Den Den Town!

June 19th, 2010: For our first weekend trip in Japan, we went locally to Nippombashi, also known as Den Den Town because of the plethora of video game, manga, and anime stores in the area.

We left the house around 10:00AM and walked to the Sakurai train station. We took a train to the wrong station (Shinsaibashi, was it?) and ended up walking the rest of the way to Den Den Town. In the small underground shopping area that we walked through after getting off the train, we had lunch at a small ramen shop. I got the cheese and tomato ramen, which is pretty much just pizza ramen. It was very delicious but a little spicy. At first I thought it was just the temperature, but towards the end it was still making my lips tingle. For my first ramen experience in Japan, it was great.

After eating, we left the underground shopping plaza and started walking to Den Den Town. Along the way, we passed by several temples that were all in a line. On one side of the street, there were ancient temples and graves, and on the other (where we were initially walking) was modern day shops and other buildings. It was interesting to see the clashing time periods displayed on the same street. I took many pictures of all the different temples we passed by, and I had taken about 100 pictures before we even got to Den Den Town!

As we were approaching Den Den Town, we could tell it was the place we wanted to be. There were many signs, including a giant one with a Gundam on it. As we got closer, we could see many familiar characters and many colorful stores. We decided to just go at it by walking down one side of the street, stopping at various game stores. Our main goal for our trip was to find and purchase a used Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and some GameCube controllers. A secondary goal was to find a rice cooker for the house and potentially a microwave.

We stopped in almost all of the game-related stores we passed, each one being similar to the last but each being slightly unique. For example, there were some modern department-type stores that mostly sold new games with some used classics and other stores which specialized in only retro games. To my surprise, many of the used Famicom, Super Famicom, and Game Boy games were all in their original boxes! I would assume that the store sealed the box back up, but the fact that they had games in their original boxes in very good condition was fantastic. Many of these stores also had a lot of game-related non-game items like keychains, figurines, and other toys. One store even had original Game & Watch systems, but they were extremely expensive.

I had an absolute blast looking at all the game stuff, most of which is unobtainable in the States. I had to resist the urge to purchase everything that interested me, but I did buy two things. The first thing I bought was a Pokéwalker case (that consists of a rubber case and a strap with a clip) for 780¥. The second was a Japan-only DS game for 980¥ called Irodzuki Tincle no Koi no Balloon Trip, a sequel to another non-North America DS game called Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (which is what I thought the game was when I purchased it). When we got back, I started a list of things that I should get when we go back, such as the original Pokémon Green for 300¥.

We ended up finding a used Wii and used copies of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. I was pleasantly surprised that the store clerk unpackaged the Wii box and let us make sure that everything was there that needed to be there. We also bought four GameCube controllers, each a different color, for about $20 each. I decided to fully purchase one (the orange one) instead of just splitting the cost so that I could take it back home and have a fairly newer one. We didn't, however, purchase a rice cooker that day; we went to another department store in Umeda to get that and a microwave. When we were done shopping and looking around, we hopped on the train and rode back to Sakurai Station. At the end of the day, my Pokéwalker read 21,444 steps, which is roughly equivalent to 10 miles worth of walking!

Everyone else really enjoyed the trip, even if it was a lot of walking. I expressed interest in coming back a few more times before we leave in October, and the others thought it was a good idea. I'm not sure when we'll go back, but at least I know what kind of cool stuff exists there!
(Check out all the photos of the trip, from Temples to Triforces, here!)

(Next time, Week 2: "Getting into the Swing of Things"!)

Good Morning Osaka! (6/17/10 - 6/18/10)

June 17th, 2010: I am in Japan! I can't believe it! It's too exciting to express excitement, if that makes any sense. I am not overly culture-shocked or anything, but the sheer amount of things I'm going to experience in my 4 months in this fascinating country is completely incomprehensible. I start off my first full day in Osaka by getting showered and dressed and heading to the Toyonaka campus of Osaka University.

The whole group took bikes (rentals, they came with the house!) to the campus and got lost a bunch of times on the way. We took the wrong map (the realtors left a map of how to get to campus, along with many other helpful laminated posters) but managed to meet Prof. Lindeman at the campus. The bike ride was about half an hour long which isn't bad, but we currently have found a much quicker route. The original route we took contained a lot of hills, and the combination of the oppressive sun and my lack of exercise prior to a physically exhausting bike ride almost made me black out. At one point, I had to stop and gasp for air while everything got fuzzy around me. After a few minutes and a trip to a nearby vending machine to get water, I was back on the bike. I have not had the same experience since then, and I am actually greatly enjoying the morning and evening commute.

At the Toyonaka campus, we walked around with Prof. Lindeman for a bit, beginning our walk by grabbing drinks at the vending machines near the Cybermedia Center where we will be situated. I got a Calpis Soda, which is like carbonated yogurt. It sounds odd but is actually pretty tasty, especially since it doesn't leave that sticky feeling in your throat like most American soft drinks. I also learned that Coca Cola made in Japan does not have high fructose corn syrup in it like it does in America; instead, they just use pure sugar.

After getting an informal tour from Prof. Lindeman, we went up to the 5th floor of the Cybermedia Center and met Kiyokawa-sensei, who has been very helpful in our preparation to come to Japan. Kiyokawa-sensei gave us a brief tour of the lab and we met some of the lab students on the way.We then went down to the cafeteria to get lunch with the students. I had some rice and Japanese fried chicken pieces with bottled green tea. The chicken is pretty tasty and I guess it's their version of chicken nuggets. Honestly, they taste like really good Kowloon chicken fingers in ball form. I'll have to take a picture next time I get them. The students gave us a more formal tour of the campus, telling us where we can buy different things, how to use the library, and where to get money from an ATM (which accepts my card!). We didn't stay much longer after the tour, but we did pick out where we wanted to sit. Ultimately, everyone but one ended up in the same room, so I guess it didn't matter that Khoa and I called dibs on the room with all the games set up.

Since we still had half a day to spend, Prof. Lindeman took us on the monorail to a small shopping plaza off the Senri-Chuo stop. There, we saw our first McDonald's and looked for some more stuff for the house. Although we didn't find much, we did go into a Target-like store that had a grocery store built in it and found a kid's arcade which had lots of Pokémon stuff for me to photograph. After taking the monorail back, we grabbed our bikes from the university and biked to a Wal-mart-type store to buy what we needed for the house. With some more household items, we biked home. Over dinner, we discussed how we were getting to campus on Friday; some of us wanted to walk and some waked to bike. There was also talk of buying a used Japanese Wii so we could play Brawl and just to have a console in our 4-month home. Shortly after dinner, we all went to sleep, exhausted as usual.

* * *

June 18th, 2010: I still can't really believe I'm in Japan! It doesn't seem too strange, but it's still pretty exciting.

Today, we woke up early and biked to campus. Five of us took our bikes and two walked to campus. Taking the main road, the trip took about 20 minutes, which was a decent amount shorter than the first time when we got lost. In the lab, we pretty much sat around for a while not doing much, although we did get set up on the wireless. We met with Prof. Lindeman and talked about our MQP, which was initially the "Cyber Clock" idea. Prof. Lindeman's initial idea was that there would be a big LCD display at OU and WPI that displayed the time in a unique way, most likely through user-generated content. Through our discussion though, it seemed like we wanted to do something more substantial.

We ate lunch at the cafeteria again after our meeting, and when we got back to the lab we mainly just hung out with Prof. Lindeman's second daughter, Momoko (age 7). A long period of time went by where we didn't accomplish much, and we left campus around 5:00PM. Unfortunately, it had started raining and we had to bike home in the rain. It wasn't too bad, besides the fact that our clothes were drenched and we couldn't see for most of the ride home. Luckily, we were able to get dinner at the bento place down the street so we wouldn't have to prepare a meal. While eating, we watched some Japanese TV and it was everything we could have hoped. Nothing made sense and that is why it was enjoyable. I learned that the Pokémon Sunday show is on every Sunday morning at 7:30AM, so I'll have to wake up early some time and find out what channel it's on.

(Check out all the photos from 6/16/10 to 6/18/10 here!)

For our first weekend trip, we decided to go to Nippombashi, also known as Den Den Town. Den Den Town consists of a ton of different electronics, comic book, and other types of shops and is a haven for anyone who's into Japanese culture. We figured we'd be able to easily find a used Wii and a copy of Brawl there, and it would be a great place to just walk and look around.

(Next time, I will recount our trip to Nippombashi. Stay tuned for my next blog post, "Adventures in Den Den Town!")

> To Be Continued...

And So It Begins: A Summer in Japan

I finally got around to putting my written down notes online! I figured I'd split them up into separate entries since they're going to be long at first. Once I get into a routine here, I'll probably only update with weekend trip recaps and other interesting things.

On June 15th, 2010 I woke up at 1:30AM EDT in Saugus, MA, took a shower, and made sure I had everything I needed for my trip to Japan. In about 5 hours I would be boarding a plane to California, and in a little over 24 hours, I would be in Osaka, Japan. I said bye to my mom and at around 3:00AM I left home with my dad and my sister Amanda.

We arrived at Logan Airport at around 3:30AM and got some breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts because everything else opened at 5. I had a sausage, egg, and cheese croissant with a watermelon Coolatta before checking my luggage at around 4:00AM. I met up with everyone else who was going (with the exception of one student who flew in earlier) and I bid farewell to dad and Amanda as I went through security around 4:30AM. Going through security went extremely smoothly for me, as did all of the traveling to Japan.

When we were all checked in, we waited at the gate to be boarded. It was about an hour and a half to two hour wait, but we were able to pass the time by chatting about the trip and video games, of course. The sun began to rise around 5:15AM and it's early rays peered over the horizon and through the windows of the airport, blinding any who dare stare in its way. First class was boarded first, and by 6:30AM we were among those finding our seats on the plane. I sat between Liz and Paul, and Jared H. and Sarah sat across the aisle. Jared I. was somewhere up front because he purchased his tickets separately.

Shortly thereafter, at 6:45AM, the plane took off for a direct flight to San Francisco International Airport, and the tired WPI students quickly fell asleep. I slept off and on during the 6 hour flight. I decided not to use my electronics too much in order to conserve battery life for the next flight; going from SFO to KIX takes about 11 hours. At 8:57AM EDT (we were probably in the Central or Mountain time zone by then) I was awake enough to not be able to sleep any more and I watched, or blankly stared, at the in-flight entertainment. There was a show on called "Doing DaVinci", where a bunch of guys aimed to build some of Leonardo DaVinci's inventions. Most of the rest of the flight is blurry in my memory, mostly because I spent the rest of it either staring at the TV without headphones or dozing in and out of consciousness.

At 12:45PM EDT, or 9:45AM PDT, we landed in California. I decided to keep my watch on Eastern time until we were actually in Japan so my notes got a little screwy. Our layover was pretty quick. We had to walk a while from where we landed to where the next plane was taking off. At 1:32PM EDT/10:32AMPDT we were waiting to board the plane we would be on for the next 12+ hours or so. At 11:00AM-ish PDT we boarded the plane, and at 12:20PM-ish PDT we took off from SFO. This plane was much bigger than the first and I had a little more room because I was in an aisle seat. I did, however, need to get up a bunch because the two girls next to me needed to use the lavatory multiple times. About an hour into our flight, 4:15PM EDT, dinner/lunch was served. I chose the orange chicken, which came with a roll and butter, a salad, and a cookies & cream brownie. At the time, the meal was satisfactory, but looking back it was pretty nasty. I guess I was just tired and hungry and didn't care what I was eating. At 4:50PM EDT we were over the Pacific Ocean. I had been pretty much staring at the on-flight GPS map that told us where we were, how long the flight was going to take, when we would land, etc. and decided I should play some DS games. I started with Picross 3D, which I obtained about a week before I left the States, and later played Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for a while. At 9:00PM EDT, snacks were served to the passengers of the plane. We were given Sun Chips, mini pretzels, a lemon cookie, and a Kit Kat. I ate the first two and saved the last two (at this time, I still haven't eaten the last two).

At 9:15PM EDT by my watch, we crossed over the International Date Line. The little TV in the back of the seat in front of me is very handy in determining the plane's location over the ocean. At this point, I had been on the plane for 6 hours, more than halfway to Japan. I decided to nap a little bit after playing more Picross 3D so that the jet lag wouldn't be so bad. At 1:42AM EDT I made another entry into my journal about the the last bit of the trip. About an hour before we landed we were served another meal, which was veggie stir fry with strawberry yogurt and raspberry shortbread cookies. I had seltzer water with my meals and snack on the flight to make the overall meal better. The food was still pretty gross and I was realizing it more as we got closer to Japan. It didn't make me physically sick but it still makes me gag a little when I think about it. My journal skips to 4:41PM Japan time because of all the landing business, so I don't know exactly when we landed. I'm guessing we landed around 2:15AM EDT, or 3:15PM Japan time. We got our bags from the baggage claim area and went surprisingly quickly through customs. Prof. Lindeman was waiting for us on the other side and we took some photos at the airport.

We took a shuttle bus, the "Airport Limousine", from Kansai International Airport to a bus stop near our housing arrangements. The bus ride was about an hour and a half, but it was nice to sit and watch the sites of a new land. I was trying to put my hiragana/katakana memorization to use by reading the names on the passing buildings. The view of the clouds over the hills in the background was very beautiful, as was the industrial city scene in the foreground. We were greeted at the bus stop by what I'm guessing were some people from the Osaka University who picked us up and brought us to the "Big House". There, they (along with the realtors) gave us a brief tour and told us everything we needed to know about living in the house, such as how to handle garbage, how to operate the bath and washing machine, and general rules about living here. After they left, we went out with Prof. Lindeman to locate the nearest grocery store and pharmacy, as well as a bento restaurant where some students decided to grab dinner. I decided that I would try to spot all the Pokémon-related items I could find and photograph them when I can. When we were done shopping, Prof. Lindeman took off for his own apartment. After everyone had inspected the house and finished eating, we quickly passed out from exhaustion, anticipating the next 4 months that we would be spending in the Land of the Rising Sun.

(Check out all the photos from 6/16/10 to 6/18/10 here!)

Summer vacation is almost over!

That's right. In roughly 8 days I leave for Japan, which means my summer vacation is technically over! I mean, a 4 month trip to Japan could be considered a summer vacation, but I'll be working on a project for school and not relaxing all the time.

As far as the plans I had made for the month and a half of vacation that I had I accomplished a decent amount of what I wanted to. Here's the breakdown/postmortem (I guess) of my summer break:

>WEEK 1 (May 5th - May 9th): Planning
This week was really only 5 days, so I didn't really get much done. Obviously I put together this plan but that didn't take more than a day to do. It acted more as a "get settled in at home" few days.

>WEEK 2 (May 10th - May 16th): Pokémon
I trained some Pokémon! I planned out a team a while ago but never got around to actually making it, so that's what I did during this week. Each day, I bred and trained one Pokémon from an Egg to an Effort Ribbon. During the week I thought about the team as a whole and realized that there were some weaknesses that could have been overcome with other team options, but for the most part I stuck with my original plan. I only ended up training 5 Pokémon because of the weaknesses I noticed, but I used the extra time to raise them to level 50 (with one at level 57). Unfortunately, I did not use my team against human opponents but I started testing them in Battle Tower double battles. If you're interested in battling, I may have some spare time before I leave on the 15th. Let me know if you're interested and send me your friend code! Here's my Pokémon Platinum code: 0860-9118-0984

>WEEK 3 (May 17th - May 23rd): Portfolio
This week was devoted to renovating my website and populating it with some of my recent art. I looked at a bunch of HTML and CSS tutorials (mostly CSS) online, downloaded the 30 day trial of Dreamweaver CS 5, and went to work. Having never used CSS before and only knowing some basic HTML tags, I ran into some issues during the week. I was able to overcome most of them but I'm afraid my site still has a few bugs. I tried to keep it as simple as possible so that it would be easy to navigate and easy for me to create. I think I succeeded in general design-wise, although the colors may be a bit to vivid. I received some great suggestions by fellow WPI students, most notably Alex Schwartz and Elliot Borenstein, and from WPI professor Britt Snyder. The things I will be changing in the future are the color scheme, font, maybe the contact page (just some tweaking), and giving the site more of a focus towards what I want to do when I graduate.

>WEEK 4 (May 24th - May 30th): Play
Since Super Mario Galaxy 2 came out on the 23rd and it was mailed to me on the 24th, this week was all about collecting Power Stars in outer space. By the end of the week, I had collected the first 120 and had beaten the game. With the $20 GameStop credit I got for buying it at GameStop, I purchased No More Heroes 2 and played that for a little bit. During the night I played Psychonauts like crazy on Steam and managed to beat it the following week. I also played some Team Fortress 2 and some other games, but the week was mostly filled with SMG2 and Psychonauts.

>WEEK 5 (May 31st - June 6th): Personal
I realized at the beginning of this week that I should have make a more tangible plan for it. Leaving it open just left me hanging around and not getting much accomplished. Like I said earlier, playing Psychonauts (and NMH2) leaked into this week and I didn't end up thinking about packing as much as I would have liked. Saturday was my sister's graduation from Saugus High School, followed by a small party at the house, so we were busy preparing for that towards the end of the week. I did manage to get to the Japanese Embassy in Boston to apply for my visa, and it is expected at my door tomorrow (along with a copy of Picross 3D that I got for $0.80 from lockerz.com).

>WEEK 6 (June 7th - June 13th): Packing
This is it! The final week! I will be actually packing my bags and getting last minute stuff together/done this week. This includes going shopping for clothes and other necessities, possibly cleaning up my room a bit, and making sure I have everything I need for my 4 month stay in Osaka. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, including the actual flight. I just have to remember to fully charge my laptop, DS and DS lite, and iPod Touch for the 17 hours I'll be on a plane!