I'm at home, in Tokyo, with my kotatsu and INTERNETS

Yes, I has my kotatsu heated table, some internets, some hot milk tea, and some Gardettos. What more do I need, besides maybe someone else to be under the kotatsu with me?

Packing sucks. I am bad at it. I was up very late and slept for one hour or so before heading to the airport. The flight was fairly uneventual; I watched the movie "Sixty Six" which was surprisingly good considering the premise (a boy's bar mitzvah is the same day as the World Cup finals), and then I slept for a few hours, and then I listened to my iPod, tried to do crosswords, and zoned out a lot.

I managed to actually fit my laptop bag into my big backpack and so didn't bother having anything shipped once I got here. It's really surreal to be back in Japan though, let me tell you. I spent most of the train ride sending "I'm home!" text message emails to people.

Got to Akabane station, got a cab... the driver was this uppity old dude who was first like "I CAN'T HELP YOU WITH YOUR BAGS" as I put them into the car and trunk, and then I told him where I live and he's like "where the hell is that?" and actually drove the WRONG WAY at first until I basically told him how to get here. When he got to the top of the hill he actually refused to turn right onto my actual road. Man. But it was still better than walking my shit up the stairs or hill, I'm sure.

Unpacked a bit and then decided to go to Akihabara for the sole purpose of Getting Internets. Really. I went straight to Yodobashi Camera and their E-Mobile stand and spent like 2 seconds pretending to be shopping around and then was just like "fuck it, yes, I want e-mobile, but will it work with my new laptop from America?" The totally friendly but spazzy and English-deficient guy was like "no, of course it won't, sucks to be you" and I'm like "wait, I HAVE the laptop with me, can we test it?"

So I whip out the mini-HP, we test it, and sure enough it works! So he's like "ok, we can sign you up for our service, BUT keep in mind there's about 20 notes of "if you use our e-Mobile gadgets with your heathen computer and its English-speaking weirdness, and something breaks, it's NOT OUR FAULT" in our contract," but... I didn't care. Signed up for a year's contract worth of it. It's gonna run me like $60 a month for 7.2 Mbps download and 1.4 Mbps upload or whatever. The cool part is, it's a USB gadget, so I can basically have internet ANYWHERE! (Well, anywhere a cellphone would get reception.) The bad part is that I'm kinda running out of USB ports; on the big laptop, I have 3, so after the mouse and the internet I only have one.

I did ask if there was ANY English support for this thing and the guy's like "not really. Umm, we have a guy here who grew up in the Phillippines for a few years and kind of speaks English, want to talk to him?" So I did. He was probably a Sprint 6 (the lowest you can be and study with a native teacher at GEOS; like Laura I think I subconsciously level-check everyone) but he was helpful in knowing the proper vocabulary to explain papers to me like "and this is the warranty..."

I had to go around for 45 mins while they actually set it up so I looked at laptop bags (there were some cute ones for mini-HP's that ran around $20) and camera lenses (they had a Nikon D700 there to play with, with one of those nice 24-105 lenses attached to it. Sigh.

Got katsudon on my way home. I'm in Japan. Gotta get to Heiroku sushi sometime and see if anyone does a doubletake.

I am REALLY tired now, so I'm gonna go to sleep. Hard to believe I stayed up until midnight really -- that's what having the internet will do I suppose.

Cold day

The problem with having internet and a cold house is that I don't feel like moving from my position at the kotatsu and actually doing anything productive. Oops.

So today I went down to the Shibuya area to hang out with Westbay and another guy and chat about Japanese baseball stuff. I ended up inheriting a whole bunch of old meikan, which will take me quite a while to go through I'm sure :) Discovered that Kanemoron's real name is actually Hideo, seems he changed it in his first or second year as a player. That's nuts.

I tried to go to Heiroku for lunch but it turns out that this week they are having a "renewal" and basically remodelling the store. Oops! I ended up getting lunch at a Matsuya by the station I met Westbay at (before he arrived). A ricebowl with fried pork on top, plus miso soup, is still pretty good for 380 yen when you think about it... this is my fast food.

After Shibuya, I went to the Tokyo Dome. The store was closed, but I stopped in Yamashita and got the 2008 Fighters photobook and the 2009/3 issue of Pro Yakyu Ai. Seems I'm gonna have to go to Shosen to catch up on a few interim other magazines. Also got my first Stitch of the year on a whim when I put one coin dammit into a catcher. See, it's just destiny.

I got sushi for dinner at the kaiten place by Suidobashi station and it was yummmmmy. It's great to be back here in some ways.

Came home via Akihabara. Is it me or is there no Bic Camera there? I ended up back at Yodobashi and got the laptop bag I had pondered yesterday, for the mini-HP, and ALSO got a USB hub, so I can't complain about lack of ports anymore. Whee. Tried to combine my two Yodobashi cards, turns out I have to wait a few days until the one from yesterday is entered into the system. Amazed I could explain the situation in Japanese and understand the problem as well...

I am home. Have been sitting under the kotatsu since I arrived pretty much. Like I said, this is a problem.

Also, I left my scarf in Shibuya. Oops.

Need to wake up early but don't want to move into my cold bedroom.

I should make a locked post with some other stuff about todos and whatnot.