Japan
I'm still on an extended trip away from Lex, so that means lots of updates.
I'm currently in Japan. I'd like to tell you what city, but I don't remember the name. I think it's pretty small. It's between Tokyo and Niigata and known for things like mountains and hot springs.
Hot springs, for those who, like me, were unacquainted, are natural places where hot water comes out of the ground because Japan is volcanic in nature. People build structures around these hot springs with pools/baths so they can charge people to use them. The way it works is that you go to a changing room, take off your clothes, wash yourself, then go to the hot springs naked to relax. Clothes are not allowed in the hot spring bath. Then it's just a natural hot tub with new water constantly flowing in, and you sit in it outside, in this case, on a mountain/hillside.
When I say, "in this case" that is to indicate that Gau and I hung out at one for the last few hours. Getting out of the hot bath, wrapping a towel around yourself, and sitting in the mountain breeze chatting feels really good, and has a pretty nice view.
We're currently staying at a bizarre traditional Japanese style in. We seem to be the only people staying here tonight, but maybe there's another room of people that I haven't seen. I'll check the door..
Based on the 5 pairs of shoes at the door that aren't ours, I would say at most 4 other guests plus the owner's sandals. (This being traditional Japanese style, you have to leave your shoes at the door).
This means we get a lot of attention.
Let me back up and get to this part of the story in chronological order.
Monday after the GP I met up with a group of Czech players and wandered around the mall for the afternoon, hung out in the apartment they were renting for the weekend in the evening, and then headed to the night market/strip club/red light distract at night, where we met up with some English guys. Some hooking may have occurred, but personally, I spent my money on a falafel.
The next day I found out that the mall I'd been at all along had a food court area that had a stall that only served vegetarian food and had a variety of interesting curries available for ONE USD each. Man I wish I'd found that place before my last meal in Bangkok. Then I went to the airport very early relative to my flight because it was when the guys I was with were going (for a much earlier flight) and hung out with them for awhile then killed time at the airport. Eventually I flew to Japan.
I'd arranged to meet Saito at a station in Tokyo near his house at noon, so I took slow trains and got there two hours early and hung out and waited. He and Gau arrived on time and we went back to his house and I took a shower. While I was showering he arranged a draft. Turns out Tokyo is one of those few cities in the world with more good players than Madison (not surprising), and a Saito draft is something like a Finkel draft. This is to say that during this random afternoon, he was able to find us an 8 man, and everyone in the draft other than us (Gau and me) and one other guy (who I think had the best record on the day) had won a PT (Saito and two of the others had all won only the same PT though, PT Charleston, a team PT). The point is, the draft was entirely very good players. When you're drafting with the same people in every draft, you can get a lot of drafts in very quickly, because you don't need to wait for someone between every draft, and we got three drafts in that afternoon before dinner.
Saito took us to a fairly traditional Japanese dinner. We ate in a room upstairs where there were no waiters or other customers and we sat on pillows on the floor at a low table. Everyone but me shared everything and when they wanted stuff they just yelled down the stairs at the waiter. After dinner, everyone went home and we went to sleep pretty early.
Today, Gau and I still didn't have any accommodations or travel arrangements for the rest of our time in Japan, so we took a train to the central tourist information center for Japan in Tokyo to get that worked out, and find something interesting to do today.
We each bought a $200 pass that lets us travel as much as we want on any 4 total days over the next month and used the first day to get half way to Niigata to the town I'm in now. The lady at the tourist information center booked us a hotel here and a hotel in Niigata. She also told us that we should call this hotel when we were getting on the train and they would pick us up a the station and take us here. She also said that we could order breakfast there for about $5-8, but they had to known in advance to get the ingredients.
So we took the super fast train and got here and there was an old lady who spoke reasonable English waiting to take us to our hotel. When we got there she showed us around (we didn't see any signs of anyone else--staff or patrons) anywhere, and she took us up to our room (which was ocmpletely empty except for a small table in the middle and a floor of straw mats--this being a traditional Japanese style hotel, our beds were futons that were folded up on a shelf) and she brought us some cold water and some glasses while we discussed what we wanted to do.
We told her we were going to get some dinner and got to a hot spring and asked if she could recommend anything nearby. So she asked us what we wanted to eat, drove us to a restaurant/hot sping place, came in with us, helped us order our food, left, and told us to call her when we wanted to come back. When we got back, she made sure we were all settled and had everything we needed and she went to sleep. Incidentally, we ordered breakfast, since it was clear she'd be cooking and she understood my dietary restrictions, so I guess we get to wake up to a home cooked Japanese meal tomorrow. Then we get to wander around a pretty area with some mountains and stuff, and take then train the rest of the way to Niigata. All told, I'm surprisingly happy with this side trip.
Also, the power on my computer is running out (I'm in the lobby because they don't have wireless internet, but I'm on my laptop because their computer is in Japanese, and it's not plugged in because, while outlets in Japanese are the same style as in America (luckily) the outlets here are all only 2 prong--The lady here dug around to find us an adapter, but Gau is using it up in his room to watch stuff on his computer while I use the internet down here) so I should probably get this posted.
Lex, when you read this, I miss you, and I love you, and I'm sad that I haven't gotten to talk to you in awhile, but for some reason I only seem to be able to get on when it's early in the morning there or when you're at class or something like that.
I'm currently in Japan. I'd like to tell you what city, but I don't remember the name. I think it's pretty small. It's between Tokyo and Niigata and known for things like mountains and hot springs.
Hot springs, for those who, like me, were unacquainted, are natural places where hot water comes out of the ground because Japan is volcanic in nature. People build structures around these hot springs with pools/baths so they can charge people to use them. The way it works is that you go to a changing room, take off your clothes, wash yourself, then go to the hot springs naked to relax. Clothes are not allowed in the hot spring bath. Then it's just a natural hot tub with new water constantly flowing in, and you sit in it outside, in this case, on a mountain/hillside.
When I say, "in this case" that is to indicate that Gau and I hung out at one for the last few hours. Getting out of the hot bath, wrapping a towel around yourself, and sitting in the mountain breeze chatting feels really good, and has a pretty nice view.
We're currently staying at a bizarre traditional Japanese style in. We seem to be the only people staying here tonight, but maybe there's another room of people that I haven't seen. I'll check the door..
Based on the 5 pairs of shoes at the door that aren't ours, I would say at most 4 other guests plus the owner's sandals. (This being traditional Japanese style, you have to leave your shoes at the door).
This means we get a lot of attention.
Let me back up and get to this part of the story in chronological order.
Monday after the GP I met up with a group of Czech players and wandered around the mall for the afternoon, hung out in the apartment they were renting for the weekend in the evening, and then headed to the night market/strip club/red light distract at night, where we met up with some English guys. Some hooking may have occurred, but personally, I spent my money on a falafel.
The next day I found out that the mall I'd been at all along had a food court area that had a stall that only served vegetarian food and had a variety of interesting curries available for ONE USD each. Man I wish I'd found that place before my last meal in Bangkok. Then I went to the airport very early relative to my flight because it was when the guys I was with were going (for a much earlier flight) and hung out with them for awhile then killed time at the airport. Eventually I flew to Japan.
I'd arranged to meet Saito at a station in Tokyo near his house at noon, so I took slow trains and got there two hours early and hung out and waited. He and Gau arrived on time and we went back to his house and I took a shower. While I was showering he arranged a draft. Turns out Tokyo is one of those few cities in the world with more good players than Madison (not surprising), and a Saito draft is something like a Finkel draft. This is to say that during this random afternoon, he was able to find us an 8 man, and everyone in the draft other than us (Gau and me) and one other guy (who I think had the best record on the day) had won a PT (Saito and two of the others had all won only the same PT though, PT Charleston, a team PT). The point is, the draft was entirely very good players. When you're drafting with the same people in every draft, you can get a lot of drafts in very quickly, because you don't need to wait for someone between every draft, and we got three drafts in that afternoon before dinner.
Saito took us to a fairly traditional Japanese dinner. We ate in a room upstairs where there were no waiters or other customers and we sat on pillows on the floor at a low table. Everyone but me shared everything and when they wanted stuff they just yelled down the stairs at the waiter. After dinner, everyone went home and we went to sleep pretty early.
Today, Gau and I still didn't have any accommodations or travel arrangements for the rest of our time in Japan, so we took a train to the central tourist information center for Japan in Tokyo to get that worked out, and find something interesting to do today.
We each bought a $200 pass that lets us travel as much as we want on any 4 total days over the next month and used the first day to get half way to Niigata to the town I'm in now. The lady at the tourist information center booked us a hotel here and a hotel in Niigata. She also told us that we should call this hotel when we were getting on the train and they would pick us up a the station and take us here. She also said that we could order breakfast there for about $5-8, but they had to known in advance to get the ingredients.
So we took the super fast train and got here and there was an old lady who spoke reasonable English waiting to take us to our hotel. When we got there she showed us around (we didn't see any signs of anyone else--staff or patrons) anywhere, and she took us up to our room (which was ocmpletely empty except for a small table in the middle and a floor of straw mats--this being a traditional Japanese style hotel, our beds were futons that were folded up on a shelf) and she brought us some cold water and some glasses while we discussed what we wanted to do.
We told her we were going to get some dinner and got to a hot spring and asked if she could recommend anything nearby. So she asked us what we wanted to eat, drove us to a restaurant/hot sping place, came in with us, helped us order our food, left, and told us to call her when we wanted to come back. When we got back, she made sure we were all settled and had everything we needed and she went to sleep. Incidentally, we ordered breakfast, since it was clear she'd be cooking and she understood my dietary restrictions, so I guess we get to wake up to a home cooked Japanese meal tomorrow. Then we get to wander around a pretty area with some mountains and stuff, and take then train the rest of the way to Niigata. All told, I'm surprisingly happy with this side trip.
Also, the power on my computer is running out (I'm in the lobby because they don't have wireless internet, but I'm on my laptop because their computer is in Japanese, and it's not plugged in because, while outlets in Japanese are the same style as in America (luckily) the outlets here are all only 2 prong--The lady here dug around to find us an adapter, but Gau is using it up in his room to watch stuff on his computer while I use the internet down here) so I should probably get this posted.
Lex, when you read this, I miss you, and I love you, and I'm sad that I haven't gotten to talk to you in awhile, but for some reason I only seem to be able to get on when it's early in the morning there or when you're at class or something like that.