Weekend Update

[I've decided to drop the paranoia level down a notch and refer to non-work people by their complete first names] I'm finally back at work (and on the internet) after another intense weekend. Friday night I headed to Tokyo after work to meet Aditi for dinner. Our plan was to eat dinner, and then meet Gabe and some other MIT undergrad interns to go to a club in Shibuya. Because the trains don't run from 12:30 until 5:00, I brought a toothbrush and a change of clothes so that I could crash on Aditi's comfortable concrete floor rather than worry about catching the last train. Things got a little more complicated when the MIT crew didn't materialize in Shibuya until 11:00, at which time Aditi (along with Charles, Lisa, and Carl, who met us there) decided that it was too late to spend 2000 yen on an entrance fee. Since it's such an effort for me to get to Tokyo, I decided to stay. Fortunately Gabe said I could stay at his place (and he has a couch!) but unfortunately, my bag with overnight stuff was already at Aditi's. We made plans for me to retrieve my stuff in the morning. The ironic thing is that we didn't leave the club until 4 in the morning, so if I didn't have the bag at Aditi's I could have just waited for a 5am train and gone home. Instead, I walked to Gabe's house, slept from 5 to 9, and then walked to Aditi's to pick up my stuff. At this point it was 10:00, and Aditi left to go work on some slides. I was planning to meet Yuka, who is Ben's (Rice alum, in Austin) girlfriend at 2:00. There was no point in going home and coming back during a 4 hour window, so I took a short nap in Aditi's room and then got some lunch and wandered around Tokyo a bit. At 2:00 I met Yuka, along with her co-workers Satoko and Yoko at Shinjuku. Then we took the subway over to Asakusa, where we met Yuka's friend from college, Kenichiro. Since Yuka, Satoko, and Yoko work for the government in international affairs, they all speak excellent English. Kenichiro's English was not as good, but he was such a friendly and high-energy guy that I really enjoyed his company anyway. Besides, I'm the one who doesn't speak the indigenous language :P From Asakusa, we boarded a boat that took a scenic water route to a Japanese garden, and from there we went to Ginza to eat. I'm not sure what the name of the restaurant was or if I could ever get there again, but the food was amazing. Very small portions, but all elegantly presented. It was only about 3000 yen, too, which I think was an excellent deal for such a nice meal in this city. Since I'd only had 4 hours of sleep the night before I started getting a little tired, but I agreed to an hour of Karaoke before we called it a night. Normally when I do Karaoke with Americans everyone sings all the songs together, but we actually stuck to a one person per song arrangement. It was a little nerve-wracking, but I think that I pulled off "To Be With You" by Mr. Big pretty well. By the time I got home it had been 28 hours since I was last in my apartment. I had also walked several miles in a pair of shoes that I had selected more for their appearance than their comfort, and my feet were a mess. From now on, I'm only going to Tokyo in my running shoes, even if I intend to go someplace nice. I went to sleep at 12 and woke up at 6 so that I could make my way over to Disney Sea. This was perhaps a strange choice of activity, but I thought it would be interesting to see what the Disney theme parks in Tokyo were like. I met up with Gabe and two other MIT students, Lisa and Qi. A few observations: 1) There are more adults in the park than in America, where you would expect almost everyone to be there with young children. 2) Grown women in Japan wear Mickey mouse ears when visiting a Disney park. It was a fun day, but very expensive. Oh well, I think that you can justify any cost when you're this far away from home by claiming that it is a "unique opportunity." Also, I don't spend much at all on the weekdays so I have plenty of money here. Props to Carol and Chendi for sending email to my phone :-)