Zombies. Day 1

I told you I'd get around to it... eventually. This is going to be an epic post.

Last we left our heroes it was Wednesday and I had just drank.. I mean used my own blood to culture some peripheral blood mast cell progenitors. Delicious eh? That day ended quite late as it was already 6 by the time we finished and I still had to culture some THP-1 cells so it was veerrry late by the time I got home.

Next day, I accomplished pretty much nothing at work. I was still waiting for my LAD-2 cells and my own cells were culturing as were the THP-1 cells. So I spent the morning learning Japanese and spent the afternoon planning out the weekend fiesta (David's trip to Japan). That ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. I got home late again... but no worries. At work my internet is faster and I have a printer to use. So twas worth it.

And so it begins.

We had 2 + 1/2 days to see ALL of Tokyo. And in hindsight, David, Maciej, and I... rocked Japan. Throughout those two days I believe we did what most people do.. in a week.

Friday morning.

Woke up later as I didn't have to go to work and rearranged the room slash cleaned to make room for another person. Around 11:30 I headed out. David's flight wasn't scheduled to actually get in until 2, but I didn't want him to get there and have no idea what to do, so I thought I'd get there a few minutes early (and yes it does take roughly 2 hours to get there).

Bus to Shibuya. Bought a couple of PASMOs--our "fast pass" card for transportation in Tokyo (the information counter lady spoke a little English, I spoke a little Japanese). Yamanote Line to Shinagawa. Switch to Narita Express for the Airport. One problem though. I didn't know where I was supposed to buy my ticket for the Narita Express, the fast train where you actually have assigned seats and such.

So I didn't. I had gotten to the platform a bit earlier than when I thought the train was to arrive (12:50) but saw there was an unlisted one that happened to be leaving just as I got there. So I hoped on. The train was fairly empty, so the guy whom I imagine was checking tickets just passed on by. I was nervous out of my mind though (am I gonna get kicked off?). On the train there was this American guy living in China was chatting away. He was talking to the Japanese Olympic softball team on there way to Beijing. Yep, they were on the train too.

On the train to pick up David

I get to Narita (having only paid 15 dollars to get there instead of the regular 30) and walk up the steps, look at the arrival board and it says Flight 85 from Seattle is now in Customs. I had gotten there a full hour early. There was no way David was already there, right? Lo and behold, once I looked down from the board I saw the sharply dressed Minnesotan (he rode first class) standing around trying to figure out where to go.

He went to the money exchange and I just slowly walked up behind him casually and said "nice haircut". Then of course came the usual "TIM SOO".



Then after David had cleaned up and such we took the Narita Express to Shinjuku (there wasn't one to Shinagawa or Shibuya for another hour) and headed to my place. (All the while David's saying "I can't believe I'm in Japan!")



After navigating the crazy metro, we made it back to the apartment. (I think David was tired from all that plane, but he hid it well... probably b/c of the Japan excitement).

What does David do right after he's cleaned up and showered? Facebook. Yep. Facebook. Turns out Facebook is the same in Japan as it is in the states (except that the ads are in Japanese)... imagine that.



Our choices were to chill around the area so David could fight jet lag and head to bed early, or go to a Odaiba (a little far away, but awesome)... David chose the latter.

After the 40 min train ride over there, we got onto the Yurikamome line (a slow line meant for sightseeing) and got a GREAT scenic view of Odaiba (check out David's or Maciej's facebook pictures, I'll get around to posting mine eventually) and got off the line at the beach front.

Picture of us on the scenic train ride.

Some of the views from the train.

When we were inside the bridge (the same bridge in the picture below)

("sunset" in Japan)

On one side was a beach (there were LOTS of couples... and us three guys) and a boardwalk, on the other side was this HUGE building, the Fuji TV building. I swear Japanese people just dislike the insides of buildings, because numerous buildings had the middle just cut out of them. This one also had an observatory ball in the middle of it, sadly it was closed.

Fuji TV Building... where's the insides?

Beach, Mall, Fuji-TV building. Not bad eh?

Walking around on the boardwalk.

Fake snoopy. Impostor! (David immediately mentioned Peanut's TRUE Minnesotan background)

Japan is pretty at night, no?

Long story short we finally hopped back on the train and headed for Oedo Onsen (a hot springs spa complex). It was very nice, and cheap... or so I thought. I thought 19 dollars was cheap for a very very luxurious hot springs complex (complete with Sauna and outdoor spring), free tea, small food court inside, etc., but apparently it's even cheaper elsewhere in Japan. This is how it works. You walk in and put you shoes in a shoe box and take the key for your shoe box. You go up to the cashier and pay and get yet another key for a locker in locker room 1. You go to the Yukata station and pick out your Yukata of choice. Then go to the locker room and put all your stuff away and change into your Yukata (took us a little while to figure out whether we were supposed to be naked yet). David and I didn't bring our cameras after the locker room step so only Maciej has pictures of the inside.

Us all decked out in our Yukatas

Then, you go out with two keys and (after exploring a bit), go to the hot springs area. Oh by the way, there were also small shops and carnival games and hot stone massages, sand massages, other massages... but these all cost extra and took more time. So we go towards the hot springs to locker room number 2, where we put key 1 and key 2 away and get key 3 for locker 3 and then get naked. Then we headed into the hot springs. Twas heavenly... The hottest was 45 degrees Celsius and the coldest was 20. We went back and forth for about an hour and a half, hit up the jet stream hot spring (nice eh?), then the sauna, and then to the showers. It was kinda creepy though. There was a side room with a massage area... and the masseuse was a older woman just standing there. Granted the bottom half of the windows were blurred so she technically shouldn't have been able to see us... unless she walked over to the window. Ah well. We're pretty. Hot springs. Relaxed. We headed on back... almost.

After all those keys, I was bound to lose one. I lost my shoe key. Oh yeah, and I'm retarded. We looked through every single shoe box multiple times and we didn't find my shoes (you could see inside the shoe box w/o the key), leading me to think someone stole it. So 5 employees and one hour later (all the while I kept saying I thought the shoes were taken b/c we couldn't find them), someone found the key somewhere, turned it in, and found them in a box that we had looked in... multiple times (actually I didn't look in it because I wasn't tall enough, but still). Headed back with shoes (thank goodness) and went for home.

Being awake for 2 days straight finally caught up with David. Apparently he didn't know he fell asleep.

And my friends. That was day 1.