Thursday, May 20, 2004
I'm now in Tokyo. Hurrah! If you're wondering about the post times and dates... I'm writing this well after the fact, but adjusting the post dates and times so they're filed under the correct date. So even though the last two posts were written at the same time as this one, since they're covering specific dates I've listed them under those dates.
I went off to Yokohama today. We have a flat in Yokohama, so I used to spend a LOT of time there as a kid (I'm not staying in the flat because I don't want to deal with cleaning it -- and I doubt my grandfather would give me the keys anyway). I had heard that there was a new subway there, ending close to my house in Motomachi... but I didn't realise how close until I got out. It's literally two minutes walk from my house, between the Chinatown gate and Meidi-Ya by Yamashita Park. I got out, stood and gaped for a bit. I couldn't believe it. I even chanced the rain and whipped out my camera for a few shots. Pity though that the camera couldn't capture the weirdness inside the station: You know the beeping noise escalators make periodically when you get off at the end? The ones in Yokohama don't beep, they let off seagull noises. Weird.
After that, I walked through Chinatown to Motomachi (Chinatown naturally holds little of interest to someone from Hong Kong, though I was amused to see what looked like bauhinias -- our national symbol -- planted there). Down in Motomachi there's an awesome bakery called Pompadour there, and they serve something we've feasted on forever... cheesebread. It's just a loaf of French bread with bits of cheese inside, and it's absolutely delicious.
I then took a cab to the new part of Yokohama, Minato Mirai, built up in the last 10-15 years out of old docklands. The Queen's Mall there has what is easily the most RETARDED layout in history. There are "blocks" of shops called "At! 1st" etc, each with different floor listings. Which might imply that they're in seperate buildings, or seperate sections of the mall. Instead they're all right next to each other on the same floors. And some escalators go to some stores and not others, and one restaurant literally had no visible means of entrance. Ridiculous. What WAS cool though was that alongside picking up some neat things for the kids from the World Sports Store (no Nakata shirts for me though... and a crazy over-emphasis on Matsui over Ichiro) there was a Harry Potter Collection store on the bottom floor. The store itself was really high-end -- lots of Harry Potter art, vases, crystals etc -- but what was awesome was that the store was way down in the third basement, and if you look down on the roof of the store from the floors above you can see a Quidditch pitch up there! It's about as cool as the giant inflatable Snoopy marking the entrance to Snoopy Town, which I avoided because I knew I'd blow my entire budget there (though I feel really bad about not going now, because... it's Snoopy...).
The last thing I needed to do in Yokohama was eat tonkatsu at Katsuretsu. Now, this was really starting to bug me, because the usual Katsuretsu we go to is in a rather anonymous location (naturally, once I relayed this to my family they shouted at how easy it was and proceeded to give me proper directions... which is all good, but it'd have been nice if they told me all that YESTERDAY) which I'd never find on my own. But I do remember there being one somewhere in the massive underground mall near Yokohama Station. Where exactly, I didn't know. And to make matters worse, there were TWO giant underground malls, and both rang familiar bells in my head: Lumina and Diamond. Unlike yesterday, I guessed correctly, because I picked Diamond and it was there. So good. So, so good. For the uninitiated, tonkatsu is a fried breaded pork cutlet. It's fairly common outside Japan, but the difference between tonkatsu outside Japan and inside is apparent the instant you bite into it, because this literally MELTS in your mouth. So nice that I had two, and have absolutely no regrets.
Then it was off to have a few drinks with the Tokyopia crew at their regular Thursday gathering. My relationship with Tokyopia is a really weird one. I think I was the only member of the site that actually wasn't living in Tokyo when it was founded, and though people have moved out to LA now, I'm still one of the few who's a regular member of the "community"... but one who's actually never met 90% of the current crew. I swap emails with them every day, I've played with them on Xbox Live... but never met them until now. It was really good to finally match faces to names, especially since they were all awesome people and I had a great time there. I took a few pictures too, but there were so many cameras being waved around that I had no worries about a lack of pictures from the night!
Last note from today: Yesterday I said it rained like mad. For the most part, it was a drizzle today. But then at around 2am I decided to head off to the convenience store for a few Cokes, and it was like the apocalypse or something, POURING with rain and windy. It definitely looked like a typhoon was upon us, which I'd heard before but never really believed. It's not a strong one by the feel of it so far, but my fear is that it'll be close enough to give me a turbulent take-off. I'm seriously worried about this and I really hope it veers away as soon as possible...
Posted at 2:44 AM
