Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

by the Flaming Lips from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Hello from Tokyo! Yup, I have been in the land of the rising sun for the past four days to assist on a research study for Google. It has been a fabulous time. But before I get into Japan, I should explain what happened before I got here. Last Saturday, I flew up to Seattle for Erika and Viktor's Wedding. It was a great time seeing all my old SI mates including Sylvie, Jones, Diana, Aiko, Apete, Rasika, & Olga. I wasn't in Seattle very long but definitely enjoyed my time. The wedding itself was great, although my new DKNY suit looked great it probably wasn't the best choice for a sunny, hot afternoon wedding. I did drunkenly tear up the dance floor and yes, even smoked a cigar with the groom. While I was honored by the gesture, I later regretted it as in cigars pretty much make your mouth taste like crap. My photos are up on my flickr.

Getting to Japan was an adventure. Correction, getting from Seattle to SFO to my flight to Japan was an adventure, and not a cool adventure like Adventures in Babysitting but the crappier kind like those lame choose your adventure books. My flight to Japan from SFO departed at 1:30 on Sunday. So I booked a flight back from Seattle at 7:30 that morning to arrive early enough to transfer terminals, pass security, check-in and all that jazz. Now remember, Erika and Viktor's wedding was on Saturday and ended around midnight, where I ended up drinking beer and wine for about four hours non-stop. So I vaguely remember getting an automated call from Orbitz telling me that my flight was on time. So I woke up around 530 and then grabbed a town car airport and arrived at 6:30ish. So I get in, ready to check in but no the flight is delayed until noon! A "generator" problem they say so I get pretty much shoved into the long wait line to rebook. And apparently I cannot get to SFO on United before noon on another flight because of "weather." Note to United customer service representatives: That excuse may have worked in the past but now that people have say an iPhone where they can check flight statuses of the airport in question and see that no other flights are delayed into SFO can really blow your excuse apart. So I wait another two hours to rebook and then I get another flight but not to SFO but to Oakland arriving at 1130. I fly through SEATAC to my new flight, anxiously wait while my flight gets to OAK late at 1145. I run through OAK airport to meet Jinah, who has gone the extra mile and agreed to drive me to SFO in time for my 130 flight. So literally Jinah guns it to SFO while I try to check-in online at the JAL website and thanks to her awesome driving, I arrive at 12:25 and able to check and get through security in time to catch my flight.

Now I didn't really do much research about Japan before actually going there. One thing I do remember is reading Dave Barry Does Japan a long time ago. Now I don't remember much of the book, but one of his recommendations was to fly to Japan business class and have some else pay for it. And I have to say I followed this recommendation and 110% agree. You see, folks Google has this program where they place caps on the price of my flights you can take for business travel. If you go under the cap, you get to bank some of the savings to apply to future trips. So all those trips I took in years before on behalf of Google to say, London, New York, Long Beach, Seattle, Chicago, Washington DC, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, Minnepolis, and Philadelphia where I was in cramped economy class and in one case, was forced to move to the back seat in order to balance the weight on the plane paid off in that I have plenty of cap savings. So I said what the hay, and used some of my savings for this trip and I have to say it was well worth it. I think I gained 10 lbs on the flight over and probably drank about 9 green teas. I got one of those bed seats so I actually slept for part of the flight.

I am staying in Shibuya, which for lack of a better term, is crazy. After I checked into my hotel room, I walked around for 45 minutes where I got my fill of Pachinko parlors, about a million restaurants, boutiques, and places of less than good repute. I also did check out a record store where much to my amazement people do actually still buy music in Japan. I also for the record did check out Burger King and McDonald and did see their different Japanese menus. Seeing that it was about 6 AM PST, I called it a night. I have to say my first 30-48 hours of Japan were rather hectic as in I was going on field studies in and around Tokyo, which combined with travel to, the actual study, plus travel back and debrief ate much most of my first two days. An unfortunate side effect is that I subsisted on Japanese snacks and rice balls/bento from convenience stores for those days. Much to my ever-lasting gratitude, my fellow researchers, Audrey and Judy have taken me out to lunch/dinner the past couple days. Now that the work week is almost over, one of my other coworkers, German, is going to take me out to see some sights. Here are some observations that I have made of Japan during my first few days here:

1. Japanese people are not short. I don't care what you saw in Lost in Translation, I have seen plenty of tall Japanese people.

2. Wearing sunglasses has a negative connotation as being connected to the mafia or being a prostitute. Needless to say, I haven't wore my shades since I got here.

3. Japanese coins are so much easier to understand than UK coins.

4. Yes, mobile usage is crazy here. Just spend even an hour on the train and you can see that mobile rules here.

5. As my coworker Aaron found out, don't even try to cross a street when the walk sign is red.

6. Tokyo is not an old city but it is also not the gleaming tower city of the future stereotype that gets attached to many other cities in Asia, particularly in China. I had a chance to visit some of the other areas in the city and found some of them quite quaint (comparatively).

So that is all for now, I will hopefully have much more to report later after I get to see some more this weekend. Until then, peace.