Home, Sweet Home

My first weekend in Tokyo was a bit quiet. Shortly after writing my last post I received the key to my new abode for the next three months. I made my way by rail to Kuramae, a little area about 20 minutes walk from Akihabara and about the same distance from Asakusa. Off the train and I looked at my map striding confidently off to the new place. But it wasn't there. I managed to get myeslf lost somehow. A nice lady seeing I was foreign started to give me directions but she wasn't using any terms I recognised. I told her gave her my thanks and walked in the general direction she had been pointing. Then a man came running up to me saying "Hoteru hoteru..." I said "no Sakura House" and he told me it was over the road, contradicting my initial map reading. That would explain why im lost, then. So over the road I went and found the place like that *clicks fingers*.

Up eight small flights of stairs and open the door. Inside is Sami, a Canadian guy. He's sitting in the dark watching some cartoon on TV. We introduce ourselves and I go to dump my bags in my room. When I return Sami has disappeared and the TV is swittched off. There doesn't seem to be anyone else about so I turn the TV on and flick through the 50-odd channels. Then I hear a noise and a guy in a camouflage jacket steps into the light and introduces himself as Leon, an Australian Manchester United fan. He's the guy I have replced, and he was hanging about waiting for his mate to turn up to help him take his stuff to his new location.

I chatted to Leon for a while, he gave me some cultural pointers and warned me not to steal a bike in Japan.

My roommtes appeared a bit later on. Onder is a Turkish laptop collector, who goes to Akihabara every day to pick up parts for his many broken laptops which he fixes in his spare time. He showed me his laptops and said he'd help me fins a cheap one the next day. My other roommate is Thai guy whos name I still havent got the hang of. Cheung or Kung or Kan or something. His English is not brilliant, but it's enough.

I haven't met all of the other guests because they all come and go and most of them seem to keep themselves to themselves. There are two girls. One Mexican girl I haven't had a chance to speak to yet and a Bulgarian girl. Her English is very good and her Japanese is pretty nifty, too. She was telling me that we have a ghost and that the other girl had taken a photo of it... I've yet to see this photo so I won't judge yet, but I'm sure it was just the curtain.

On Saturday Onder took me to his street in Akihabara, where he spends his days walking up and down. Here there are dozens of shops all dedicated to selling used and broken laptops, and parts from broken PCs and laptops. He helped me find a cheap used laptop for 80 quid and the only thing wrong with is is a broken USB port. It has two anyway, so one broken one is not even a problem.

For anyone who doesn't know, Akihabara is geek central. Everyone from Anime enthusiasts to Laptop collectors gather here to indulge their particular interests. One such being Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), an anime series based on a series of books about a high-school girl, bored with her life and struggling to fit in, who creates strange and interesting people and situations simply by imagining it.

The series is famed for it's ending credits which involves a dance routine that millions of Japanese people, could perform backwards in their sleep. This video was taken about a month ago when a group of online chatroom friends decided to meet up in Akihabara in costume and perform this dance.

This is awesome, and watch it right until the end becasue something amazing happens:


Anyway, I got my laptop and we decided to go back. And in the space of bout 5 minutes it went from nice and sunny to thundering, lightning and pissing with rain. We got back, soaked to the bone, and I spent the rest of the day playing with my new toy.

Sunday was sunny again but that wasn't going to fool me. I took my coat with me this time. I went to pay a visit to Asakusa Shrine which was packed. There are rows and rows of shops and stalls leading up to the shrine all selling souvenirs and food. The shrine itself is impressive and I got some photos but I need an external CD to plug into my laptop so I can uploal my pictures.

Inside the actual Shrine there were hundreds of people all bunging coins into a big pool or something. I didn't really enjoy it much because it was too packed. But it's just a short walk away so I'll have plenty of chances to go back when I can see in front of me and actually enjoy the attraction. Also I know where to come to stock up on souvenirs now aswell.

This week is Golden week, a string of public holidays and a time when most Japanese take time off work and go places so everywhere will be really busy.

Today I haven't done a lot, this has taken over an hour and the only other thing I've acheived is learning how to use the washing machine. It's a difficult thing to do when you can't read the washing powder, but I think it went ok. It should be dry by now actually, so I'll report back to say if it has shrunk.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to Akihabara again and pick up a cheap CD Drive and a Doner Kebab... Yep, they have real Turkish kebab joints just like the ones back home. So I'm happy.