The Eatons in Japan!

Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
Hello everyone! Lisa and I are about to leave for Japan for two weeks of disorientation and giggles. We know only a few Japanese phrases, but we will be meeting up with a few Japanese friends who speak English, and from what we've heard, a lot of signage is in English. Our bags are packed, our batteries are charged, and our liquids are safely tucked away in the checked baggage. Lisa's sister Andrea will be house sitting for us, and will give Coco and Simon some company, so the cats won't hate us as much when we get home. Regardless, Simon will puke all over a rug or three, as is his custom when I travel for more than a day or two. We have a 12 hour plane ride tomorrow, which lands in Narita at 3am (our bodies time). The jet lag will be interesting.

Check this page over the next few weeks for our coverage of the trip!

Friday, August 18th, 2006
We are currently in Chicago's O'Hare International Terminal 5, gate M9 - that's only 4 Ms away from Jamie Hyneman's shop! We have about another two hours in the layover until we board the JAL flight to Narita - and then we'll touch down in Japan about 12 hours later. Of course, by the time you read this, it will be Friday, unless I can upload using this really flaky T-Mobile "service" - and yes - I put that in quotes to show my disdain. It's been a pretty easy trip so far, with Lisa and I flying out of Baltimore on a small jet, and flying over parts of the upper Eastern-ish US. We then met Dr. TaK for lunch in the concourse, and will rejoin him in Japan, as his flight was earlier than ours will be (was).

Friday was to be the day that lasted an extra 14 hours. Our second plane was a gigantic 747, with video camera broadcasts from a live nose-cam (pictured to your right) which also included lots of clouds over Alaska, a GPS-real-time map of where we were, current stats, personal lcd screens with 7 movies on-Demand, and more in-depth GPS as we got closer to Tokyo. By the 8th our of our 12 hour tour, Lisa and I were going bat-shit crazy. In fact, as I type this, we have been up for over 27 hours, but I wanted to update before we hit the Harajuku District tomorrow!

So, once we landed, we breezed through customs, arrived at the Shinagawa Prince to find a ROBOT TOILET that transforms into a bidet and has a heated seat, a view from 16 stories up, and redundant control panels for all lighting in the room within an arm's reach. Wooo wooo. More tomorrow!

Saturday, August 19th, 2006
WOW. We just walked for almost 11 hours. From Shinagawa station to the Harajuku district where we met up with Dr. TaK, then to Shinjuku where we finally met Goto-san. We saw so much today, I'll just have to show you in bullet points. First - the overall impressions of Japan - everything I thought I'd see I did, but the overall presentation was much more "realistic" than I had built up in my head. It's strange to fly to the other side of the planet and see and experience things in a very familiar context. We went to Starbucks - and the only thing that was different was the Japanese music CD being sold near the register - shouldn't that be Sheryl Crow? Heh. My Mocha Frap was exactly like the US version which was comforting, conceptually. The major differences I see in Japan are immensely positive - everyone has a high level of consideration of others, presentation is ever-present in their culture, and there is a logical and sensible air about the way things are done and laid out that I like. Take the trains for instance - these mass transit systems are incredibly well-planned, can get you anywhere you need to go, and are heavily traveled all day long. Yet, the cars are really clean - I mean like, immaculate. HUGE crowds of people criss-cross and never run into each other or create bottle necks. LCD screens in the cars tell you whch car you are in, which line you are on, what the next stop will be, etc etc - it's amazing.
Okay so - here was our day:
• Daylight view from our 16th story window, in Shinagawa.
• Kiddy Land, in Harajuku, which is 7 stories of amazing toys.
• A cool scooter which looks like a Low Boy.
• An even cooler scooter which looks like a Tron prop.
• Lisa (obscured by Dr. TaK), TaK, and I in the Kiddy Land elevator - I am taking a picture of the monitor in the elevator as I look at the camera on the opposite wall. Harder to do that you'd think.
• Blythe Cap'n Jack Sparrow, and an Anakin Skywalker Blythe custom, too!
• Huge Han in Stormtrooper Disguise Kubrick.
• Lisa on the Hello Kitty level.
• Hello, Jane pick up! I'm calling from my giant plush banana!
• I'm pretty sure this Mickey is off the style guide.
• Adorable Hirajuku fashion. We saw a lot - I didn't document much of it.
• Hirajuku Station, with some of the Saturday morning crowds.
• Lambtron cooling off in the shade,
• and camping it up with the fan, mere minutes before we heard...
• the loud BANG of a car hitting a scooter. The guy looked okay afterwards and was led to the curb to wait for the ambulance, but he could have been a LOT worse. He was NOT wearing a helmet, which is such an important thing to do when riding anything with two wheels.
• Once in Shinagawa, we visited some upscale department stores.
• They had some super-perplexing goods for sale.
• And there was a beautiful shrine nestled between two giant buildings.
• The path was lined with Ginko trees.
• Lamb posed near the HUGE doors.
• I took a photo of the smaller shrine building.
• Then I took a pic of the bigger building.
• The interior was gorgeous.
• Yet another smaller shrine was equally peaceful.
• Walking out, we saw a giant crab.
• Then we ducked down a side street and ended up in a Blade Runner-ish area with strip clubs and pet stores. That sad kitten was over $1,000US. Ouch!
• Finally, we walked back...

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006
Hello everyone! Wonderfest on the 20th was a wonderful success. I will have a page up soon with a gallery of the day, and a more in-depth description of the madness that was thousands of Japanese men, addicted to rare resin kits, unleashed all-at-once at 10 am. I would like to thank Goto-san once again, for all the hard work he has done for all of us. Also, the same thanks to Dr. TaK who has been a wonderful friend and excellent translator these past few days, as we bridged the ever-shrinking gap between Eastern and Western Maschinen Krieger fans and artists. So let's catch up, shall we? After Wonderfest, TaK, Lisa, and I joined all the MaK "hardcore" people at a dinner in Shimbashi, hosted by Oichan. I was invited to sit next to Yokoyama-san, which was a thrill and honor, and Lisa and I got "slightly hammered" on delicious (and deceptively smooth) Sake. Many model kits were admired, and I was brave enough to eat some raw tuna. Not something I will ever seek out, but hey - when in Rome Japan!

Monday, we traveled to Kokubunji where Yokoyama-san creates, and got to visit with Uron, the offical Maschinen Kitty, pictured above. Sekiguchi-san and Oichan were tere as well, truly making it a MaK event. Many thanks to the Yokoyama-sans for letting us into their home, and for letting a couple of nutty people ask endless questions and take reference shots of the original models! We got to see the test shot of the new Wave AFS, and Yokoyama's studio. I even saw models i didn't think existed any longer, and don't even know the names of. Once the interviews and reference shots were taken, we took a delightful walk in the suburbs to restaurant for dinner. Along the way, we passed the store where Sensei buys all of his supplies, and afterwards, were happy! Tak, Lisa, and I said our goobyes to Oichan and the Yokoyama's, and we went to bed happy to have seen a wonderful part of Japan.

Tuesday, Lisa and I met Dr Tak for one more excursion - this time to Akihabara, where all the antiquated and cutting-edge electronics are! This is the town where Lisa had a dance-off with Manziger-Z at the NINE STORY TOY SHOP! This is also the area where we went into this FOUR STORY model shop! They had every issue of Hobby Japan, just hanging on shelves like it was no big deal... since they also had ever issue of every other magazine ever printed, I guess it wasn't. This is the place that has the Comtesse model... actually they had TWO Comtesse kits, like it was new or something.

We also saw some Maid Café workers on our way out of Akhabara, and when we arrived at Kanda for interviews at Artbox, I once again felt like I was in Blade Runner - awesome. We met up with Sekiguchi-san again, and the guys from D3 Works and Love Love Garden, who were wonderful to talk to. They showed us Yokoyama-san's original AFS, Lunadiver, Cerberus, and others, and the new Schenkel and Kerberos that you see in the MaK Chronicles V2! Then, we talked to the residen Star Wars expert, and he showed me the unreleased Marmit Vader prototype! Once again, the toilets in the building were robotic! On our way back to the subway, TaK, Lisa and I had dinner in a cool underground restaurant, where we ate beautifully presented food. There was even fire! We then said our goobyes to Dr TaK, and came back to the hotel. I nursed my knee (old injury flaring up from all that walking), and this morning we're off to the Ueno zoo! Interesting sidebar - we got some aspirin from the local Pharmacy in Kanda - you can't get aspirin in the convienece stores like you can in the States. All those junk food vendors must have thought Lisa was crazy when she asked for medicine. More soon!

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006
Today was spent in Ueno and Asakusa, at the Ueno Zoo and the shopping-for-mothers district! The Zoo is home to the very famous Ling Ling, pictured to your right, and a bunch of other interesting and over-heated animals. Today was extremely hot and humid. Favorite things to see at the Ueno Zoo? The bones-on-chains, which I guess allow the visitor to watch the bigger predators eat within fixed locations - but to me it just looks like something out of a Frazetta painting. Speaking of, the foliage around here looks positively primeval! We saw some apes, and I ate a hot dog that came with a rather unusual bonus - a bread and butter dill pickle. WTF. Lisa was excited, so I gave it to her. Speaking of excited, this gigantic sea lion (easily twice the size of the other ones) was being quite the fish hog - butting-in during feeding time, making a crazy weird racket, and making the most belligerent faces. And speaking of faces, this polar bear photo says it all (probably because I added text).

Lisa got to sit in the "panda bear's" lap for this photo, and on our way out of the zoo we visited the 5-story Pagoda. Just outside of the zoo walls, there is a little selection of kiddy rides, appropriately themed for Japan. It was here that Lisa got an ice cream cone, and then lost most of the scoop to the harsh dusty ground. She was pissed at Ice Cream Kind, as this photo can attest. We spied a pretty man hole cover, too! Next stop was Asakusa, where we ate Indian food. I showed my disdain for chopsticks (because I have rudimentary chopstick dexterity at best), while Lisa excels. We shopped near this big lantern deelie, and then came back to the teeny and cute hotel room that we call home for two more nights! Then ... Kyoto!

Thursday, August 24th, 2006
And so ends our last day in Tokyo! We spent it shopping in Asakusa, where we saw this awesome T-Shirt, and back in Harajuku, where we saw this awesome Panda food. I also figured out that if we took the Ginza line from Asakusa to Shibuya, we'd save some time on the way to Harajuku and not have to spend so much time on the more crowded (but beloved) Yamanote line. We also got to spend more time giggling at the cat-themed warning signs. We then went to the breathtaking Meiji Shrine, where we saw all manner of beautiful architecture and peaceful idyllic places to rest.

Here's a close up of the wooden slats that show wear from the donations/coins. Here is a detail of the roof ornamentation, and here is a gigantic drum. Brass door details and a procession marked our exit from the shrine, along with the large overhead archways. Past the Shrine, we stopped at the bathrooms, which - lo and behold - are the very ones we were waiting to finally encounter! This was a floor model. Weird. Lastly, here's a view from the train, on the way back to the hotel. Tomorrow we travel to Kyoto!

Friday, August 25th, 2006
Hey kids! We're in Kyoto! We took the bullet train today, which was pretty cool, and are now resting up for the tour of Himeji Castle tomorrow! I took the time to finally upload a few small videos that came from my point-and-shoot - enjoy:

The sounds of Japan

Cicadas making their weird predictable noises, in Ueno.

This one is a little nicer, since it was shot in DV and I edited it a little.

Saturday, August 26th, 2006
Ooooh, we're in the middle of a huge thunderstorm right now - pretty cool! Earlier today we toured Himeji Castle, which is a 45 minute Bullet Train ride and 20 minute walk from the hotel. Thanks again to Miyoko for all of the planning she did - it has made our time here easy and nicely-priced. Kyoto is very different from Tokyo. Less hustle and bustle, and more beautiful - but also a good 15º hotter, which really sucks at the height of a blinding sun with high humidity. On the plus side, our hotel room here will let us drop the temperature in the room to 18ºC, as opposed to the one in Shinagawa, which never let it get below 77ºF - which was laaaame. I got a little pink today, and my Totoro handkerchief was soaked. I have some advice on travelling to Japan, and the first three things that come to mind is • bring sunscreen • bring a handkerchief to wipe all the sweat that will pour from your brow/neck/face • Mentally prepare yourself for small serving sized liquids. Once you learn how and when to getthe best value for your Yen, you'll reconcile the differences in your head much faster. Vending machines dispense the most delicious green teas and lemon waters, and they are in US-sized bottles for about $1.50. Or, beer from the vending machines for $3 to $5. Hell - we saw Chivas for $8 in the hotel hallway - it was delicious. But enough of this - you probably want pictures...

We started the day at Mister Donut. For those of you who don't remember or didn't have them locally, Mister Donut was a lot like Dunkin Donut, only it disappeared from existance some time in the late 1980s. Japan is crawling with US chains that I thought were gone - Shakey's Pizza is in Harajuku! Lisa experienced a "dough-saster" today at the Mr. D, when she purchased what she thought was an apple-filled donut. Imagine her horror and (later) stomache-ache when she bit into said donut, only to find it was filled with CHICKEN CURRY. We laughed a little, and she started to feel sick as we boarded the bullet train - but Lisa is a brave little soldier, and we carried on. Once in Himeji, we walked the main drag for 20 minutes in the oppressive heat to the castle, passing all manner of delightful sign-age. At this point she was feeling well enough to offer the British Bear some of her Coca-Cola Citra.

Once at the Castle, we spied fish! Big honking fish! In the distance, the castle loomed. We walked closer and entered the castle proper, for the awesome price of $6 a head. The steep paths showed the architecture from all sorts of romantic perspectives, and as we got closer I was thrilled to see the detail work and artistry from literally a half dozen centuries ago. And as you can see, I am a giant here. Other highlights include the various seals and symbols, amazing roofs, gorgeous land, and views of the main building from the courtyard. Once in the main building you took off your shoes, and climbed 5 treacherous stories inside the wooden masterpiece to see weapons, some astounding armor, and all of Himeji! And that was our day in a nutshell. One last thing - I will miss Coke Citra a LOT... we might bring some back - it's that good.