Japan 2006, Part 6

Day 6

Day 6 was another day where Roy had conference. So, the 3 of us decided to go to Shibuya and Shinjuku. At Shibuya we went to the busiest intersection in the world, Shibuya Crossings. The reason why is because there are 3 intersections going at once. Also, it's located in the middle of 3 or 4 major department stores. We really had no plan to go anywhere specific, so we headed the nearest department store. This particular store had 7 floors of stuff. On the fourth floor, we found ourselves in the gaming floor. All the PS2 games here are either not released/not going to be released in the U.S. The other 2 had to drag me away from the floor as I saw the new Dragon Ball Z! Over here it's called SparKing! Neo! but over in the states it will be called Tenkaichi 2.

Continuing with our aimless wandering, we entered a Sega game room. They didn't have many games, but there were 2 floors of pachinko machines. Pachinko is like Plinko in The Price is Right. I tried one which had the Fist of the North Star theme. First of all, I have no idea on how to play a pachinko machine, so I inserted my 100 yen and pressed all the buttons. Things were happening, but of course I had no clue what. I finally realized that there was a knob on the right side that controlled the balls that shot out from the top. There were also buttons that had me choosing characters on the screen. I was just pressing all the things that were lighting up. Apparently I didn't win anything because it just came up with a big game over. After playing with the pachinko machines, I wanted to go to bookstores to find a specific book. I didn't find it; however, I found lots of other interesting books. It would just be what you would find at a Border's or something, but I found a lot of photo books of actors and actresses. If I lived here, I know I'd have a nice collection of singers and actresses. I managed to film a couple minutes of us walking down the busy streets of Shibuya, but we entered quite a few buildings, that I really didn't have time to stop and video tape my surroundings. We only spent a couple hours there before we headed to Shinjuku.

Shinjuku is another big shopping area in Japan. The headquarters of the JR rail system as well as the DoCoMo phone rental companies are located. Right out of the station we headed for the Times Square department store. This is a high class place because everything there was super expensive. $700 glasses, and $5000 watches were common site in the store's 8 floors. If anything we got good at in Japan, it would be window shopping. With $40 underwear and $213 ties, we had to use that skill extensively in that store. The great thing about this department store is that they have several stores that are right next to each other. So all you had to do was walk across a hall and you would be in another store. The store we wandered into was called Tokyu Hands. It was 8 floors of outdoor gear. It had really cool stuff like a backpack that looked like a turtle shell. About this time it was getting late because we had a banquet to attend to. We decided to skip a second trip to Akihabara and head straight to Shin Yokahama station and eat the ramen museum.

The ramen museum was a lot more than I expected. The first floor where you entered was an exhibit of ramen history, types, local flavors, etc, etc. They also had plenty of souvenirs. On the basement floor, it was a whole different world. The surroundings itself was a setting of Japan in the 1700-1800s. As you came in, they gave you a brochure where you would pick from a choice of 8-9 ramen stalls. In the descriptions, they'd explain where that specific ramen came from, and its uniqueness. Everything looked good, so we just picked a random one. Ordering here is a little different from any normal thing I've experienced. There's a vending machine in front of the store and you had a choice of what you wanted in your ramen. You'd press the button by the picture and it would print out a ticket. You'd give this ticket to the hosts and they'd yell it to the guy who was cooking. It took about 6 minutes and they gave you a HUGE bowl with lots of beef (at least in my order). I'm so glad I ate there because it's the first time I've eaten ramen that hasn't been processed and cooked under 3 minutes. A very filling meal, we headed back to the hotel for a small break before going to the planned excursion.

The excursion led us to a place called Sea Paradise, which is a huge theme park. We went with the conference group to the reserved show. I managed to video tape the entire show. What I found really neat was when the dolphins would push the ladies through the water. The routines had them being launched in the air, as well as dolphins jumping over a boat. They also had a routine where there was a lady trying to clean the deck, but the walrus was giving her a hard time. It was pretty funny watching them go through it, as well as amazed in how they managed to train the animals to do what they did. The finale of the show had about 9 dolphins jumping in groups of 3 through the air in synchronized motions. I never realized how high dolphins jumped. At the end of the finale, they did a routing to the song YMCA where the animals danced around to the music.

After the exciting show, we were led to the aquarium where we had our dinner. It was held in a room enclosed in the main aquarium so we were able to see the fish swim by. The food there was also as good as the banquet, complete with sushi and sashimi, which is ironic because they had signs saying protect nature. There were no set tables because they wanted to walk around and enjoy the aquarium. Past the room surrounded by fish, there was aqua tunnel that led into the exhibit of other marine life. Some to note were the king crabs and their long legs. I remember seeing these in California for Kuya Larry's wedding for $60 each. I also got to view the shark tank where they isolated 3 or 4 sharks in one aquarium. Scary looking things up close, I would die if I ever see one open its mouth to show all those teeth. Moving on, there were smaller aquariums holding various fish, corrals, jellyfish and seahorses. One particular one caught my eye because it had shark eggs and their development. One was actually in the final stage before hatching and you could see the little thing moving around in there. Further down we got to the deep sea creatures, including some fish with no eyes, and octopi. There were also some deep sea jelly fish. These things looked so foreign that it looked out of this world. Sea Paradise has a very big collection of marine life, somewhat like a Sea World, I wouldn't mind coming here again and enjoy all the attractions. It was unfortunate that the trip was late at night; most of the park had already closed down by that time. After the dinner, we hoped on the bus and headed back for the hotel.

At the hotel, we did our usual night routine. Hugh passed out on the floor as Roy and Phil wanted to go back down to the lounge for a couple of drinks. After a few hours they came back and decided to get room service. I was already half asleep, but when they mentioned something about ordering food; I woke up and wanted to order with them. I decided to order just a hamburger, which ended up costing me $18. The other 2 ordered a half bottle of champagne which cost them $62. Roy, with his paranoia of being caught, wanted us to hide in the bathroom when room service arrived. So when the time came, we both rushed into the dark bathroom waiting for kuya Phil to get the food. I thought I'd like to mention it because it was such a retarded thing to do. After all that, I did enjoy the great $18 burger. It was another interesting day.