Tokyo Trip

Well back from Tokyo. Some random thoughts from the trip:

Favorite things: full bars on my phone no matter what neighborhood I was in; trains were all within 1 minute of schedule; everything I ate was tasty (salads with eggs for breakfast!); cute bartenders (all the bartenders I encountered were girls; the guys just handled the food); I could read menus easily enough; taxi drivers were always helpful although not one of them spoke any English, coin lockers (very useful)!!!

Annoying things: whenever I gave an unexpected answer to someone, they assumed I didn't know Japanese instead of thinking I meant what I said; Taxi fare is 5 times the train fare for the same distance (trains stop running past midnight so you're stuck unless you stay up until 5 AM); the restaurants in Namjatown had very pushy waiters (I suppose that's just because there weren't any other customers within a mile of the place though.)

Neighborhoods visited this trip: Ueno-Okachimachi, Harajuku, Shibuya, Koenji-Minami, Asakusa-Kaminarimon, Shinjuku-Kabukicho, Ginza, Nihombashi, Odaiba, Ikebukuro, Tokyo Dome City, and suburb-wise Saitama City (only for the train museum though) and Kichijoji.

Transit: Only took trains of course, since within the city for 99% of the trip this time. Flew in to Narita Airport (note: you can go through Haneda from Los Angeles now, but the times worked better through Narita). The Skyliner only takes 45 minutes to the city now. Took a couple of the Subway lines, and the JR lines. Tried the day pass once, but it didn't seem worth it (about $15 when one-way fare is only about $2 anyway, plus if your ticket ends up with two holes in it from a faulty ticket gate, it won't work any more and the staff won't replace it.)

Fun discoveries: Koenji-Minami is a fun shopping district where you won't encounter any English at all. Good for practice and lots of interesting toy stores, clothing stores, electronics stores, everything. Really discovered a lot more of Ueno than I had ever before; there's a lot of fun places along Okachimachi-Chuo-Doori. This is where I discovered the Hub Pub, a British-style bar that's a chain throughout Tokyo. Decent prices and decent food. Played Pachinko for the first time. Didn't win. Denny's has a completely different and better menu for breakfast as well (tried their dinner last time).

Regrets: Didn't go to any manga cafe's this time; missed going to a club in Shibuya (will have to do that next time); skipped the fugu restaurant that some people had offered to take us too (maybe should have at least looked); didn't get a chance to head to the Ebisu restaurant; wasn't brave enough to enter any of the sex shows.

Rides: Rode two ferris wheels including the giant one in Odaiba, plus the roller coaster at LaQua which is quite a drop.

Pictures will be coming! A great vacation over all. Biggest regret was that it was so short, but it feels nice to be back in LA.

Didn't forget!

No, I didn't forget to write last night! I got distracted by a lovely meal at a local wine bar. First time I've ever tried Antelope, and it was quite good. That's a very tender meat. Who knew. It's not like Elk at all if you've had that (one of the other non-cow meats I've eaten). It's kind of like lamb but not as flaky. Order it medium rare or you're going to be laughed at. We had quite a discussion with the owner about various foods of the world, and started talking about the worst things we ever ate. We came up with Durian (apologies to my Thai friends!) and a runny cheese that no one knew from I believe Sweden. Speaking of cheese, the cheese with the meal was excellent as well. Very interesting delights from all over the world, and some goat's cheese as well. A very good night!

Has it been that long?

Wow, I haven't written anything on the blog in months. As I start to get on a better plan to lose a little bit of weight and exercise more, I think I should add writing to my list. Writing has been my distraction for years since I sat in the church at seven years old lost in my own thoughts as the minister droned on and on about the same story I had heard 10 times by then (and I've never been big on religion so it made my eyes glaze over doubly fast). I used to pull out the pencil they kept in the pew for new guest registration, pull out the inserts from the current week's progam, and write and sketch on the back of them any ideas that popped into my head. Usually they'd end up in the trash at the end of the service, but occassionally I would save the ones I liked most. In high school, I never had the greatest of grades, but for some reason my English teachers always seemed to like me. They must have realized I had that creative spark somewhere buried deep inside and for some reason I was trying to keep a lid on it. I *failed* English twice in high school, and my English teacher *still* thought I was one of her smartest students. She encouraged me to take more writing classes in college. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of writing classes there (Embry-Riddle didn't really have the funding for a lot of elective classes). That's how I ended up doing art history instead, which is an interest of mine as well. I still sketch random stuff to this day. The one English class I *did* end up taking in college, I received a B in, but got an A+ in the creative writing portion. I always made my public speaking teacher laugh as well and she gave me an A, but I usually got lower marks from the students, probably because on the first day of class I decided my name-tag should read "God." I figured the students already knew my name well enough by then, so why not have some fun. Did I mention that Prescott is the most conservative place I've lived? So fast-forward to my current job, where I haven't had to write anything at all except for computer programs, and my writing skills have been waning. Last year, on a lull at the current job, I started to pull out my old stories and notes and random scraps of paper where I would write down scenes that would be great in movies, and started to take a serious look at professional writing. I was offered a job shortly thereafter (which due to the nature of the publishing business may or may not be going through at this point) but it made me think that there may be something to this. However, the key to writing is *to write* so I've decided I need to just put in the time and write in this blog at least once a day and continue searching for more writing jobs (if I got one, I can get another.) This is somewhere that I've long aimed my creative energy, but never focused it quite enough. I end up with scraps of incoherent scenes that probably made sense at one time, but no longer can be found in my memory so they end up in the trash once again, forgotten with my ramblings and drawings as a young child. I intend to keep the blog updated with my random thoughts for the day, and plan to post any interesting news about my current or future writing jobs here. I should place in a call for the current one to see if the project is still going ahead or not, but either way I intend to write at least something every single day, even if it's no more than "Has it been that long since I've written something?"

Planned LAX Rail Misses the Point Entirely

So I'm looking through the measure R documents to see the future rail projects. There's the Expo Line coming soon (near my neighborhood). Some other lines that look interesting. And now my eyes rest on the LAX extension. The Green Line, opened in the 90's, has a stop called "Aviation / LAX". It's not within walking distance of the Airport, so there's a shuttle bus from the station to the terminals. The train line curves south instead of heading to the Airport. So, there is a plan contained in Measure R to extend the line to the Airport; or so I thought. Apparently the plan is to extend the line from Aviation station to Lot C -- a parking lot that *still requires a shuttle bus* to get to the terminals. Why can't the MTA figure out how to build the train to the *TERMINALS*. Building a line from one parking lot to another where they both require shuttle buses to get to the Airport *anyway* misses the point of direct Airport service and is a waste of money. $330,000,000 according to the report.

Quit Complaining

If you moved into a house by the railroad tracks, don't complain when trains come by. You knew where you were moving to. Seriously.

Metrolink continues to be stupid

Message to Keith Millhouse: No one wants to ride a service where they'll have to wait four hours when they miss a train, even if it was free. Cutting the number of train services in a day will discourage more and more riders and you won't have anybody to pay the fares.

Writing Scams

Now I have only started learning the logistics of professional writing, so I've only heard a couple of stories of scams here and there, but as I perused the classifieds for jobs that would require a writer I noticed a scam right away. A person who claims to be a producer asked for a *COMPLETE SCRIPT*, and he says he'll pay later, *IF* he decides to make a movie with it. So he wants a writer's service for free. Nice. And, he says if he makes the movie, he'll *split* the writing fee with you. So when he does decide to pay you, you're only getting paid half. My favorite line of the whole ad, "This is not a scam!" That disclaimer saves you every time!