Last Day

Went out for dinner with the VP tonight. Went to a sushi place his friend owns. It's a small place, no sign on the door, seats 12. No menu, you walk in and the two guys there decide what you want to eat.

Anyways, I had 9 types of fish, all raw:

4 types of Tuna
Shrimp
Prawn
Sea Urchin
Summer Oyster (as big as both your hands together)
Periwinkles in the shell
Makerel (spelling)
Octopus
Squid
Who knows what else

Also had cold seaweed in vinager. Only thing the whole trip I didn't like.

Took 3 hours to eat.

Also had 5 glasses of Sake with it and 3 beers. VP has his own bottle at the place, kept filling it up.

Great time.

That being said, I'm ready to go home. I leave tomorrow at 4 pm TST. I'll land around 7:45 pm EST. Can't wait.

I look forward to my Dad's Saudi Arabia blog......

I've Died And Went To Heaven

So, this afternoon after work, we took a cab to Akihabara, "Electric City". This is a part of Tokyo that caters to the Otaku, "fanboy" in Japanese, "geek" in English. It is block after block of stores that sell nothing but video games, comic books, dvds, computers, computer parts, toys, action figure (Giant Robots!), all sorts of electronics. Gee, I wonder who would like that? Needless to say, Chloe and Alex have a present coming from Akihabara. Poor girls.

Here's the pics and the stories:



This is on top of a 20 story building. Inside is nothing but those crane arcade games. Each one holds a different stuffed Space Invader (like below):




Good Grief! It's Super Potato! I could have spent four hours in this store. This is on the outside of the store. Mario and Pac Man are about 10 feet tall. The store is full of old video game systems from the 80s and 90s. If I was alone, I would have bought about 10 of them.



Relax! Enjoy a maid service! What's a maid service? I'll answer that in a bit (not, it's not what you think....)

It'sa me, Mario! Big Mario statue inside of Super Potato. I got my picture taken with him. Christmas card coming.

Outside a maid service.

In Otaku culture, the guys are geeks. They don't get girls. So, they have things called Maid Cafes. What it is, is you go to a cafe. When you walk in, one of the girls below runs up to you and says "Welcome home master!" She takes off your shoes, makes you tea, and WATCHES you play video games. She also talks to you. That's it.

And, no, I didn't go to one. They don't speak English and don't really cater to foreigners :(

This is a makeshift shrine to a terrble murder that happened Sunday. A man drove his car into the crowd and then starting stabing people. 7 died. Horrible crime that everyone in Japan is talking about.

The tent is covering a ton of flowers left by people. There are also people praying outside.


Typical building. They have billboard for video games and anime the same way we have them for Hollywood blockbusters.

Note the maids on the right side, handing out pamplets outside the train station.
I hope you have a Magical Halloween this year! Billboard outside a building for that annual classic about Playboy Bunny Vampires serving drinks.


Well, that's it. I have one more full day in the office, and then I'm going to dinner with the VP at night. Sushi. Sea Urchin. Enough said.

Talk to you soon.

Day/Night in Office

I spent the day in the office installing equipment and meeting my Japanese counterparts. Extremely nice and polite people. By the end of the day, we were all yukking it up.

They then took us out for a Welcome Dinner. We went to a smallish (about 20 person place) where we were served 9 different courses of chicken, fish, pork, veggies, rice, soup, etc. Had a number of beers and some sake, which I didn't care for. Sorry, no pics, it would have been impolite at dinner.

Today we go to the office, and then hopefully to Electric City. I'll take pics of that.

I've got 3 hours of sleep tonight.

More pix from hotel

Here's the view of Tokyo from my room:


And this is a 10 acre Japanese garden/pool area below me:

Crummy picture of the outside:

Feel asleep at 10, woke up at 2 am for the day. Sun comes up here at 4 am, so I went for a walk until 6. I'm doing this blog now, waiting for my breakfast to be delivered. I need to be in the office at 10.

See you later

Made it to Tokyo

So, after a bad start (car wouldn't start, had to have it towed) I'm Tokyo. Flight was from Boston to Chicago with a 90 minute layover (thank god for the red carpet lounges) and then Chicago to Tokyo (70 minute delay) for 15 hours.

But, I'm here a Hotel New Otakni, where EVERYONE bows to me.

Some pictures:

Within 5 minutes of landing, my first broken english sign:



My Room, not too exciting:



The toilet has instructions. It also had a bidet. Yes I've used it.

Had dinner (noodles) at one of the 37 restaraunts in the hotel (Trader Vics). Hitting the office tomorrow. I'm off to call Renee. Good Night.

My Next Trip

5 more days until my trip to Japan. I will update this blog.