The Day of Baseball and Sorting my CV Out.

(see the comments section for the corrections to this post regarding Japanese language)

So today was the 'printing all my junk out' day that I had planned.  I aimed to get it done well in advance, but didn't have the motivation really; then I suddenly woke up in a cold sweat last night worrying about what would happen should I not  be able to print anything out, or I not be able to find where the station is.

I tried printing my CV off in the hostel, but it wouldn't download the files from Hotmail for some reason.  I then ventured out into the world of internet cafe's here.  It's absolutely crazy.  The one I went to was half internet cafe, one quarter manga cafe, one quarter DVD rental place.  It's absolutely incredible.  Everyone has their own little booth, and a sliding door thing so it's very closed and private, entirely unlike the internet cafe's in Europe.

So I had to print out a few things, which I did, and then went hunting for the printer.  (The clerk spoke no English, and my Japanese isn't good enough to ask for the printer)  So I'm walking around this place, prying into all the nooks and crannies, and I found a food vending machine, a drinks machine, floor to ceiling racks of comics and books and an awful lot of nerds playing games I've never even heard of before.  All in all, it was quite an interesting, albeit minor glimpse into the world of geek culture here.

Also, they open 24 hours, and 8 hours is 1500円, so if I can't find a hostel for whatever reason I can stay at one of these places.  Some even have showers...




The baseball thing is a bit hit and miss though.  I'm not really sure whether it's today.  The symbol for day is sun, and the symbol for month is something else.  So I stood at the sign outside the stadium (it's right next door to my hostel) for about five minutes, trying to figure out the time and date of the match.  As far as I can figure out it's at 6PM tonight.  I think.  I'm really not sure.  A couple of friendly looking girls (of indeterminate age; if I've not said before I have no idea how old women (or men for that matter) are here.  (Use of double parentheses, slap on the wrist!)) so maybe I'll ask them.

Oh no, it turns out the girls next to me smoke!  Ewwwww.

However it also turns out they're incredibly helpful, despite not speaking any English.  So today is １０月５日。  The fifth day of the tenth month!  Amazing!  So yeah now all I need to decipher is whether it's a home match or away match, I'll just turn up and see what's what, I have the right date for something at least.  If anyone is interested, month is pronounced tsuki, day is pronounced hi.  I think.  Maybe that's just the way it's typed on the keyboard.  Who really knows with this language?  I think they just make it up as they go along just to confuse foreigners.  'Haha that'll confuse 'em,' kind of thing.

I'm amazed at the number of people that smoke here, and how socially accepted it is.  I wonder if they've had the health nazi/health terrorist propaganda we've had in the UK.  If they have, and they continue to smoke then I have to say, I'm impressed.  They're worse/better than the French for ignoring health based criticism.

Does make my eyes sting though... annoying.

Anyway, I've figured out how to ask where kamiooka is at the ticket  office, so I'm off there now.

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So the match was fantastic.  I really enjoyed it.

I went into it wanting to hate everything about it, but it's completely different seeing baseball live, opposed to watching it on television.  Another important factor, I think at least, is that the baseball I've seen on tele has been American; this sport was very much Japanese.

There weren't many people there because it was absolutely pouring down for most of the match, thank god I had an extremely waterproof jacket on!  But the people who did attend were in good voice and high spirits.  Interestingly they segregate fans into home and away quite vociferously, and upon asking several member of the 'help desk,' staff, in English, what's what?  They relented and found someone who spoke English.  So I bought a ticket, chose the home fans section and headed on in there.  Everything is so orderly, it's unreal.  Both sets of fans has a band playing songs, but they take it in turns to do this.  And when your side is batting you have to sing different songs, depending on who it is that's batting!  Nuts.  What's even more crazy is that everyone knows every song.  There were maybe a dozen of us who didn't know the songs.  All the kids, men and women were singing all the songs for all the different batters.  All the pitches were cheered as if they were the last in a grand final.  Fantastic stuff all round.

I was a little disappointed to find the beers here aren't served in 2 litres buckets like in America, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the manner in which the beers arrived; more on that later.

I was also surprised by the number of balls that ended up in the crowd.  I calculated, before I even sat down, how many rows up and down, and how many seats left and right I could reach, should a ball find its way to me.  Using my super foreigner powers I was able to sit down in an empty row and keep it for the entire match giving me the perfect opportunity to catch something coming my way.  Unfortunately again, the nearest ball was three rows down from me, too far.

If you were wondering, five seats left or right, one row below me and four rows above me is my estimated catching range.

A man even came round to make sure we were all ok when the ball in our general vicinity, and martials blow all kinds of whistles to warn you!  Cool.

So onto the pictures!

So I took this because of the history China and Japan have.  I'm surprised they're allowed to do business here, it's quite surprising to see these banks around.

Having said that, the area I'm staying in has a massive Chinese population, and a big China town.  It's also really expensive, which is  surprising because the Chinatown in London isn't as expensive as here, and the ingredients have to be sourced from much further in Europe... Strange.

As one of my friends suggested, the Chinese who've moved over here must have gained a taste for louis vuitton bags.  Every woman has one here.  As far as I can tell prices start at one hundred pounds.  This is where Japanese money goes, it seems.

A random picture of a pond, with the ubiquitous carp in its reasonably clear waters.

So where is this I hear you ask?

It's inside the stadium grounds of course...

There's actually a park inside the stadium, it has all kinds of benches, green areas and this pond.  Amazing.  Imagine a koi pond inside the wembley grounds or twickenham.  Weird no?

Ok so they're doing some work on the top floor of this tall building.

I only noticed this when they started leaving, but a group of them were sitting on the edge where that one guy is now and they were eating lunch or something.  That net looks suspiciously like something for catching tools rather than people.  Health and safety seems to be self imposed here.

So dragons are everywhere here, in their shrines and temples, and like this little guy, pieces of art depicting them are commonplace too.

I love all the different styles they have, from the really mean looking ones to something nice and tame like this guy.  His spikes and spines are all rounded off, presumably because there's a kids park within 20 metres of here, so impalement is probably quite likely.

So they do have the health police here too!  It turns out people just ignore it.

I can't read the sign, but I'm pretty sure the picture is reasonably clear.

Close-up below.  (kind of closer anyway)

Poor kid.

Ok so no sooner had I left the, 'smoking kills children,' sign, than I came across this sign here.

It's even in English, that's how serious they are about enforcing this law.  It's talking about a large shopping street that I was standing on, no smoking on this street.

And then I found this:

A guy, sitting opposite the sign, looking at it.  Smoking.

This made me laugh, and was also deserving of two pictures.

A wide-shot of the scene as I looked on laughing.  I'm surprised the view isn't shaken from me chortling to myself.


It turns out there are lots of signs telling people not to smoke, don't do this, don't do that.

But people only seem to follow the ones that make sense.

Awesome.  Of course being a foreigner I break most of the rules all the time, and people just look miffed without ever doing anything.  This holds its own separate set of problems.

NOB Hair Design.

This picture needs no further explanation.

So a few days ago I took a picture of the biggest building in Japan.  I also thought, (I might have written it as well) that it was a little disappointing height wise.

However, when I was walking around Yokohama I noticed that you can see it from almost anywhere.  It really is gargantuan.  It's the width and depth of the building as much as the height, it's an imposing structure.

The shape is also peculiar, and seems to be completely different from any other skyscraper I've seen.  The four corner are far more pronounced than the sides between them, and it looks as if they're four separate towers holding the whole thing together.

So we now move onto the baseball pictures.

This was just before the match started.  I was in the white half of the stadium, the reds were our opponents for the day.

I later found out the reds were the hiroshima carps, but I still don't know who we were.  I couldn't read the name on the board, it was too difficult!

So the stadium is pretty empty in this picture.  It filled up a lot more, but was still nowhere near being capacity.

Everyone also had the full body poncho things, which I should have bought in hindsight because my legs got very wet.

What most people didn't think to bring though, was a little towel to dry the seat off!  I remembered this, and got some envious looks!  Strike one for the foreigner.

So the stadium pretty much looked like this, only with people milling around all the time.  People were constantly up and about the whole time, getting drinks and food.

They even sell noodles here!  Instant noodles in a polystyrene pot.

So one of the players on the opposing team managed to hit the ball out of the park, over the stand in this picture.

According to the statistics man it was a 150m hit.

It's really annoying to see that the runs the opposing teamm scored were all from foreigners though.  This is Japan, and Japanese baseball, essentially dominated by Americans.  My team didn't have any foreigners, and we lost.  I wonder if the two things are related.  Looking at the league tables it may well be.

Ok so this isn't the best shot for seeing the beer delivery girls, but it is the best shot for seeing the things they have to carry.

These poor girls take these big heavy things of beer all around the stadium for most of the match, and they look way too big for them to carry.  Plus they all got completely drenched.

Then they have nutters like me taking pictures of them!  What a crappy job...

Two innings in and the carp have got a run.

The stand you can see to the left of the scoreboard is where all the carp fans presided.

So this star shaped mascot was firing toys and fluffy things into the crowd during the intervals.  Normally teams swap round in under 2 minutes, but every third innings they take five minutes or so, enough time for these guys to come on and do stuff like this.

They had cheerleaders too, so this part is completely american.

So I managed to snap this beer delivery technician before she went on her way.  I didn't force her to do the bunny rabbit ears; it's a reflex action here.  Photograph, do the ears.  It's automatic, like tying your shoelaces.


But you can also see how much it's raining in this picture, so like I said before, it must suck to be these guys on a day like that.

I guess there's always the remote possibility of being slugged by a ball to liven your day up a little.

Ok so this particular girl freaked me out.  She was Japanese and she spoke Japanese fluently, but she had blue eyes.

They stood out so badly, she felt like a Japanese albino or something.  Really creepy.

So this is moments before the guy running back to first base gets out.  D'oh.

I was initially surprised by how accurate their throws were, but then I remembered they have mitts that essentially make it more difficult to drop a ball than catch one, which is why the scores are always so low I guess.

Ok this is another picture of the devils bride.

You can more clearly see her eyes in this one.

Freaky.

My camera is nearly out of batteries at this point, so nearly at the end of the pictures.

This is a little past the halfway point, and the carp have 3 runs, the whites have none.

Unfortunately that's how the game ended, despite us ending the final innings with a runner on second and third, with a batter everyone seemed to rate.  He struck out...  Loser.

It's also worth noting that all their runs were homeruns...  So our fielding was pretty good, it's just that our batting and bowling (pitching) were pretty shoddy.

So this is the scoresheet, and despite it being only the seventh innings, this is how it ended.

The last three innings are the best though, because everyone has had a few drinks and is quite well spirited by this point.  The small crowd made absolutely tons of noise.  I don't know whether it's the stadium design or that face the crowd are cooped up in offices for most of their lives, but the noise was fantastic, as was the general atmosphere.

So this was another breaktime performance.  I don't think there were any cannon this time, but the little star did about fifty backflips just to make his way onto the pitch, and by the time he made it all the others were leaving, so he just ran off.

He must have been dizzy!

Another view of the various mascots.

One of the benefits of being on the losing team on this occasion was that all the half-time action occurred on our side of the pitch, being the home team and all.







Ok so now we move onto the movies!




So this is a view of the enemy.  Those flags are actually pretty huge, and one of the guys carrying it got blown over, which was quite funny.  I didn't capture that part on tape though.  This is just a shot to get the sense of the minimum level of activity of those guys, at all stages in the match.  They were jumping around for hours.  Beats going to the gym I guess.




So I luckily managed to catch a catch.  One of the home team caught a carp out!  Wooo!  Well done him!

It didn't really help in the grand scheme of things, but I think it proves my 'good fielding, poor everything else,' theory from earlier.



The crowd favourite song of the night.  I've  no idea what everyone is singing, but this particular song was the crowd favourite for sure, and everyone loved singing it over and over again.

I've also just noticed the kids looking at me thinking, 'what the hell is this stupid foreigner doing,' which I didn't notice until I played it back just now.  Oops.



So this is one of the cheerleading intervals.  They weren't firing anything into the crowd this time, but they were all doing a surprisingly well rehearsed dance routine.  I'm amazed at how well practiced these guys seemed to be.  And even in the pouring rain they were enthusiastic about it.  Good Job!

So  that was my day.  I'm definitely going to watch another baseball match, it's a sport I thought I'd hate, and still continue to hate watching on the television, but turns out that I love watching it live.

So Yesterday I Visited a Museum...

So basically I visited a museum.  It was an art museum, with exhibits mainly from the mid 1850's onwards, depicting Japan and Japanese life through the eyes of a number of different people.  It was a general museum, but the exhibitions seemed to have a pre-occupation with foreign influences upon Japanese art, and the work of foreign artists interpreting Japan itself.  All in all I found it quite interesting, and I found the Japanese public reaction to the western influence extremely interesting.

Some of them thought the paintings drawn by Japanese in a western style, oil paintings from the turn of the century for example, were quite vulgar and un-Japanese.  I thought they were pretty decent, some of them had taken the crazy pills before painting, but they weren't as dysfunctional as Picasso.  The kind of painting you have to stand well back from in order to appreciate that it is actually a horse, and not a colour blind attempt at a cloud.  That kind of thing.

Some of my fellow museum goers thought the Japanese artists lacked something their western counterparts did.  At least I think this is what happened.  One of the couples kept looking between two of the pictures noting differences, and they seemed to me (with my handicapped  understanding of Japanese) to be looking upon the Japanese effort unfavourably.

So we have a situation where the Japanese don't like Western Style paintings, and don't like Japanese who have been trained in such techniques.  What did these peoople like?  Who knows, but I don't think they would have found it in that museum.  The exhibits went from the port opening in Yokohama, and the various interpretations of the opening, (western drawings, paintings, eastern paintings, calligraphy, etc.) all the way to the crazy modern pictures that are nothing more than splodges of paint randomly 'painted' onto a canvas to look like... love.  Or hate, or apathy; who knows.

Generally speaking I found a lot of the paintings, regardless of artist, to be quite skilfully drawn/painted, but I found few that I really liked.  I think the obsession with yokohama having its' 150th 'opening its' borders' celebration is what drove this particular collection, but I was kind of underwhelmed.  A lot of the Japanese style trinkets on display seemed quite generic, and even the ceremonial Kimono display, that pretty much symbolises Japan, was rather disappointing.

Its' bacon was saved however, by the photography section of the museum.  The photographs they had on display were absolutely fantastic, showing life from back when people still lived in wooden huts, up to the ubiquitous rocker phase that happened, by the looks of things, everywhere in the world at the same time.  (And is still going on in Ueno park!)

To me this little slice of life was the most interesting part of the museum, and I think the art was somewhat underwhelming.  I can say the photography section saved the experience though, and I must admit to being inspired by the photographs on display!

At this point I would like to say I'm livid beyond imagining.  I have spent an hour and a half writing a massively detailed report on what happened, and why it happened; but the website has had a hysterical spastic fit and deleted it all.  Good job blogspot.  Good job.


So I guess I'll just write it all up for another couple of hours again, I've got nothing else to do at the moment anyway.

Of course being a museum I wasn't able to take any photographs, which is a shame because I'd like to show you how awful some of the pictures were, and how good one or two really were.  On the way back from the museum, while looking for something to eat we heard some music.  So we went to investigate.  We happened upon a street performer the likes of which I've never seen before.  If I had to describe his and his performance, then I would say I couldn't.  You have to see it to believe it.  And so I will now present to you, with a newfangled piece of technoqiwizadry I've found, his performance in a number of acts.



So this guy had a sign up saying, roughly translated, 'the performance begins in 10 minutes.'  Seeing this I was fully aware that this was a part of the act as it were.  He was sitting down clothed at you see him here (with only two legs at this point) and some music started playing.  My companion, and presumably most of the Japanese audience were confused as to what exactly was happening.  This kind of audience manipulation worked extremely well with the Japanese audience, as it took everyone a minute to adjust to the fact the sign wasn't true!  He uses this  again in a later video.

I feel I must mention the sound designer, as the music was absolutely fantastic, and fitted the performance perfectly.  It really was something quite brilliant.  If anyone knows what the first song is please tell me!



This is as direct a continuation as I could ma
nage with my camera.  It only takes video for three minutes, and then spends a sizeable amount of time processing and saving that information.  Unfortunately you miss a bizarre sitting thing he does, where he crosses his legs and whatnot, but of course there are four so it looks strange - strange to say the least!  (I'm running out of words along the lines of weird, strange, bizarre etc...)



So at this stage we see his other 'study' into Japanese psychology.  Whether planned or not, I found this particular part really interesting.  He holds cards up giving different instructions throughout his performance.  This particular instruction is for the right hand side of the audience to move to a more central location.  This particular instruction made sense to the people on the right, because they were actually standing on a path and generally obstructing the public, whereas we were sitting on a group of raised steps in an amphitheatre kind of design.  So once these people moved, (he doesn't speak for this part) he took the same piece of paper over to the other side and, in a comedy manner (as you can see in the video) flips it over and asks everyone to move more centrally.  At this point no one moves, and he does the theatrical bit you see on the video.

Now by the stage of him begging I'm laughing because the Japanese people there didn't even acknowledge that they were being asked to move.  They didn't look him in the eye!  Their reluctance to move was quite astounding.

So I was the only one in the audience laughing...Awkward.

But it turns out he was anticipating this reaction.  Although I don't have it on camera he holds up another card that read something along the lines of, 'Ok, stay where you are.'  Roughly translated.

The audience laughed at this...



So at this point we return to more traditional street performance fare.  He manages to keep things feeling original however, by combining a number of disciplines.  The 'robot dance' + mime + his amazing music creates a performance that my camera doesn't do justice.

This section of the performance went on for a long time, but it was varied enough to keep it more than interesting!

So he eventually moves onto the next video, which requires a little explanation.

After his techno mime he pulls a glove out of his box of tricks, and it takes on a mind of its own and attacks the audience; eventually becoming stuck to his face.  At which point he asks a member of the audience to hit him on the back of the head with a mallet.  We pick it up after he's been hit...



So I stopped filming after this point, but he carried on for a good while.  I wish I'd been able to stay to see the performance that was after it; if it was half as good as this guy, it'd be amazing.

I couldn't take picture in the library, so these are mainly of the street performer, with a couple of random pictures thrown in for some reason.

So this is a view of the seating area.

The arrangement worked out really well, whoever designs these places in Tokyo is really clever, or really lucky.  Either way he earns his pay.

Ok so he does this little 'warmup' skit after the four legged animal, and he uses the legs from the previous bit, putting them over his head and doing stupid stuff like that.

Stupid stuff like this!

It's all done very well.

This is the volunteer from the video.  He was used in a number of different skits as well.

This looks like a small, little brother version of tower bridge.

I don't really understand what it's doing here, or why they put it there.

This is the tallest building in Japan apparently.  I spent a while lining this picture up, and I think it came out quite well.

I also like the lights and whatnot, pretty!

Ignore the finger, look at the curved escalator!  I've always wondered whether it was possible to have one, and now it's been proved possible!  Simple things...















Ok so after two writings it's up and running now.

Be sure to check out the post below here:

Naree's Videos!

So the Lost Travel Buddy Made This:

So Naree, the Australian council sponsored companion with whom I shared a few excursions had to document her travels with a video camera.  I asked her to show me the evidence of her documentation, and she produced these:


harajuku from Naree Vachananda on Vimeo.

This is our trip to harujuku. I haven't had the chance to watch this all the way through yet, but the production quality is pretty good; and the content is pretty interesting too.

I'm still not sure why the Australian council let her have money for doing this because, frankly, it all seems like too much fun to be serious work.


ueno park from Naree Vachananda on Vimeo.

So the soundbyte at the beginning is pretty stupid, and I sound dumb but hey, they were a really fun couple of days.

She's also got a website full of these kinds of videos, check them out if you like psychadelic artsy contemporary dance stuff.

As Naree might say, 'far out...'

All Hostels are not Created Equal!

So it's time to regail you with my tales (sadly, photoless) from the last few days; then onto a hostel review!

So the day before yesterday I went out shopping for a tie, as I forgot to bring my own and I have the interview on Friday and all.  So I took my friend along to interpret my wishes, and being female, I assumed she would impart some kind of magical fashion sense onto my tie choice.  Except I made a few crucial mistakes along the way.

Firstly, I forgot to bring my sole shirt with me, so there was no material to compare the tie against.  This was easily overcome however, as I pulled out a blue shirt from a rack, much to the dismay of a shop assistant whose purpose in life, presumably, is to do such things for one.

A note must be added here to say, I was not in an extremely expensive shop.  This  is simply normal customer service here.  There are always three people on hand to help every customer, and this may go some way to explaining why prices here are what they are.  In petrol stations for example, upon requesting a refill, someone pours your petrol, while any available attendants clean and buff up any shiny surface.  It's 50's america style service, times ten.  Would you like a cigar after your shave sir?

So after pulling apart their carefully crafted customer service system within five seconds of walking through the door, me and my partner proceeded to search for the perfect tie, upon which we hit on snag the second.

There's no accounting for taste.  There are no plain ties in Japan.  Apparently it's not fashionable at the moment.  The feminisation of men in Japan is complete.  Or the Italianisation, if you prefer.  Armani suits and all that junk, belong in armani stores with appropriate price tags.  I just want a plain cheap tie!  What's up with all the stripes and patterns and polka dots?

So we bothered the assistant again, who then had to search their wardrobes for a plain tie, and after a lengthy process of behind closed doors escavation, brought with her three ties.  One of which was plain.  That is the crisis of taste that is happening in Japan right now.

Anyway, I picked the plain one, I think it'll go well with my shirt, all is well.


The Great Hostel Review!

Ok so not all the hostels I've stayed in are great.

Firstly we start with the new Koyo in Taito-ku, north Tokyo.  It's a twenty minute walk from Asakusa which is a great place to visit (for most, it's all temples and whatnot), and is generally indicative of the ease by which you can access the city from the location.

So it's well placed to experience Tokyo then.  The hostel itself is quite old, and feels a bit like the old 60's prefab places in England that were so in vogue, but fell out of favour as quickly as they were put up.  Inside it looks old, with linoleum floors and great big metal fire doors everywhere.  Here's the kicker though, the people who both work there, and frequent the place, are absolutely amazing.

The staff are friendly enough that one treated me to lunch, and one of the others talked to me at length about nothing in particular, just because I was persistent...  Patience is a virtue.  If I had more Japanese under my command I'm sure I could chat to the cleaning staff for as long as I wanted too.  It's worth noting that the rooms are also quite old and shabby looking, but the staff are constantly cleaning something, so the whole place is clean; just tired looking.

The other travellers who frequent the place generally fall into similar categories as me.  Some had just started their trips around Japan, some were at an end, waiting to head to Narita.  Tokyo is the entry and exit point of Japan for most people, so it's definitely an ecclectic mix.

Of the Japanese who live in the hostel; there are  tons of homeless Japanese as I've already said in a previous post, so most of the hostels hire rooms out to the low paid workers in the area.  Infact, most hostels originally started as work houses for those very people and have since converted into tourist hostels.  Therefore, the number of native Japanese in these places is quite high.  Unfortunately the kind of person who lives in a hostel is one who isn't always able to find work, and is therefore very poor, so some might be put off by their less than kempt initial appearance - however, they pretty much keep to themselves, besides the occasional hacking cough...

So the new Koyo scores an 82/100, primarily for its' friendly staff.

The second hostel is called, 'Yokohama hostel village,' and on initial observation seemed promising.  As with a lot of things, initial observations proved wrong.  The sole female receptionist staff was very nice, friendly and extremely helpful.  The other male receptionists were bullish and quite blunt.  They weren't rude per se, but I expect their kind of service in England, not really Japan.

The facade and interiors of the rooms were clean and well kept, and were in a Japanese style; so futon and tatami floors here.  Depending on personal choice, this may be preferable or otherwise.

All in  all, I only really saw native Japanese workers who are less than forthcoming with conversation in this place, bar a couple of americans whom I chatted with for a while.

Essentially the clientele here seem to be rather boring, and there's no communal area to meet people in the same way as the new Koyo.

The cleaning staff are basically a bunch of boys, and are rather aggressive in their cleaning and communication habits.  They're not pleasant, and this annoyed me considerably on my final day.  Also, the internet is both slow and difficult to connect to here.

All in all, 55/100 - It's clean and nice looking, but that's about it.

So I've only been a day in my current hostel and will give it a couple more days before I review it!

Special mention:  Aizuya bar - open 8AM - 12AM for  breakfast, 8PM-12PM for dinner and drinks.  The staff here are really nice, it's an extremely small place and has a very nice atmosphere, again entirely  generated by the staff.  Really great place!

The Zoo!

Well I ended up heading out with a friend to the zoo. Unfortunately it was raining, but in this case it was definitely a cloud edged silver lining, because there were virtually no people there. We wandered round, nary seeing a soul the whole time. We also got front row seats to animals being fed, the otters for example, that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see for the massive throng of people that usually attend these kinds of places. Sometimes I can't really see why Tokyo has the jam-packed reputation it does, and in other instances, like the shop window I'm looking out of right now, I can absolutely see why this is the most populous place on the planet.

If I get the job I'm interviewing for I'll do a bit on average apartment sizes and amenities here. I know exactly what they're like, but some people may well be dismayed at seeing them... I can feel my parents shock at seeing the tiny spaces and cramped conditions I might land in.

So the zoo was really fun, but we ended up walking around for absolutely ages, walking around the entire place, up and down the plentiful number of stairs that exist in this city, and generally becoming very tired...

So we stopped and had lunch in a western style pasta place, they're abound in pasta here, I think it's because of their obsession with noodles. Pasta and noodles are similar, so let's just modernise our diet by pretending to eat western food, but still secretly eat noodles by any other name! This is alright for me, I love pasta, noodles, rice and all the noodle soups, but I could see it being a serious struggle for others.

I would also recommend eating western style in a proportion of about 1/3 versus Japanese style here, because you never really eat western. The pasta places for example, serve either a timid pasta that's kind of tasteless, (without sauce often!!!) with a few bits of indescribable meat on top, or a noodle/pasta crossover that presumably started life as pasta. These places are really cheap, around 4 pounds for a lunch. (Free water provided in most places, served at your table, and even if it's not free it's like 100 yen for each cup) Then you have your 'proper' restaurants that are more expensive, but still have some bizarre Japanese twist to them that's better experienced than described.

After this we played some drums, the game I love but still haven't taken pictures or videos of... Damnit!

Onto the pictures!

So I know it's kind of random to go to the zoo, but being out and about in the rain is no fun.  Especially considering it rained all day.  It's not a torrential kind of rain, it's just persistent.  Like it's trying to be annoying.

Another similarity to England then!

So about the animals, this zoo specialised in cute fluffy things.

And birds.  Lots and lots of birds.  But unlike fish, they don't seem to eat that many.

My companion was even surprised when I mentioned that we eat pheasant, (a few were displayed in one of the bird sections, and I commented, in Japanese, that they are delicious.  The look on her face was one of disbelief in me speaking Japanese, and pain in the thought of eating them.)

So this is literally the best picture of the lions I could get.

If I had a better camera...

But yeah they were pretty wet.  Even hiding under the tree they ended up becoming bedraggled.  It was also funny to see the group weakling sit out in the rain, while the rest were under the tree.  Space is tight even for the animals in Japan!

So the rain rather spoiled this particular shot.  They had quite an interesting setup for the otters; they fed them in this tank that had a little platform for them to sit on, and it was connected to their main habitat by an otter sized pipe, housing a completely independent water system that then fed their main pool via a waterfall.  All in all, it was an immensely complicated system that provided for an amazing close up view of the animals eating.  Typically Japanese, extremely complicated and intricate, but it seemed to work quite well.

Another shot of the otter.  It's mate came and nabbed a few fish, but beat a hasty retreat, barely staying in the feeding box for more than thirty seconds.  This guy ended up just lazing around on the platform rolling around and playing to the audience.

They didn't seem to mind us intruding upon their meal but they were aware of us as they kept watching us move around.

Look at those hands!  Their feet look like their hands too... Weird.

Again, if I had a better camera...

He looked entirely comfortably just sitting there like that; I'm amazed at how quickly they move though.  As soon as he became uncomfortable he was across the enclosure in a few easy bounds.

Ok so this is the tiger.  No zoo is complete without a tiger.  Whether through luck or judgement they placed the dry spot in his cage right next to the window, so easy pictures abound!

There's no way of avoiding the reflection though, I tried taking this photograph from about fifty different angles.

One of the gorrillas in the enclosure, assuming what must be a really uncomfortable pose.

They used to have panda called ling ling here, but it died last year.  Such was the draw of the panda that they had signs up everywhere saying, essentially, 'we no longer have the panda,' and immense numbers of panda merchandise all over the place.

I'm amazed the chinese gave them one in the first place, but damn them for not giving them another one!

The most sorry looking polar bear I have ever seen.

It's almost enough to forgive them for all the baby seals they've torn apart and eaten.

They were in a special misted zone to keep them cool, and I therefore think they spend their entire lives wet.

On a side note, some of the enclosure designs were quite interesting...

I don't really think these things are cute, but my zoo partner did.  Maybe it's a Japanese thing.

All their cartoon characters here are round and fat, and this thing is pretty much devoid of sharp edges and is definitely well fed, so maybe it just fits that aesthetic.

I include this for the name alone.

In something of an editorial oversight I managed to take terrible pictures of the jackasses themselves.

If you notice in this picture, the autofocus on my camera has somehow managed to focus upon the fishing line they've put over the enclosure to stop other birds interferring.

How did it focus on that?  Really now?  That's just unbelievable.

Stupid camera...

Oh, and that penguin is a jackass.

Spot the chameleon!  How good is that camouflage.

I think it was a little cold for the lizards, even here where the lowest temperature I've experienced so far has been 20 degrees.

He still did the crazy eye moving in different directions thing.  That freaks me out every time I see it, but it's the kind of fascinating event that you just have to watch.

He  didn't change colour though... Is it chameleons that do that?

Isn't this just the ugliest thing you've ever seen?  I don't even know if it has eyes!

It's the largest amphibian on earth, and I've a feeling it's native to Japan, although that's another unverifiable fact.

The Japanese word for salamander is upalupa/うぱーるーぱ(I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling) and it really tickled my funny bone to hear the parents going around telling their really small children, in really silly voices the names of these things.  It sounds like oompa loompa, I think that's why I liked it so much...

Strange... yeah I am.

BOO!!!  So they had a random crocodile in the tank to the right after you walk through into the main building.  I don't remember seeing any warnings, so seeing it there came as a bit of a shock.

For some reason it also took offence to me being there, because after a bit of gormless staring on my part, he came right up to the glass, ala this picture, and did some menacing staring of his own.

Whatever I had done wrong, it enabled me to get some good pictures.

This is a long shot of its' body.

Those scratches are teeth and presumably claw marks; not from the guests I can assure you.  No one bar me was within three feet of the tank for fear of a Godzilla-esque breakout I think.

How ugly  is this turtle!

I can't remember the name of it, but it's certainly the ugliest thing in this part of the zoo.

Its' entire body is shaped to make it look like bits  of rock and seaweed; personally speaking I'm not sure how convincing the illusion is, but as long as it's happy that's all that matters.

This looked like some kind of river alligator, but I wasn't about to jump in there and try the water to find out.

Also, for some reason, this thing didn't have English labels.

Maybe it dropped out of high school early and didn't take the mandatory English classes.

Stay in school kids.

This is my favourite thing in the zoo.

It's a Galapagos tortoise, the kind Darwin tried to bring four of back home to England, before him and his crew became hungry enough to eat them.

He kept the shells though, what an inspirational naturalist.

To really get the correct sense of scale I took a photo with my friend standing in front of the enclosure, it

looks something like this.

I can see why the crew in the Darwin expedition were riding them all round the island.  I can't imagine them going very far on them though, in the entire time we watched it; it didn't even twitch its' legs, let alone try to move.

And instead of moving towards food that was too far away it strained and strained to make itself longer.  How lazy!  What a life!

But yeah he was awesome.

And that was my trip to Ueno Zoo.