November 29, 2003
Had a nice day at work, taught some kids who were really well behaved and didn't want to bite my leg this time. When I finished work, I felt compelled to buy cleaning goods and hit Donki to pick up the necessities. When I got home, I went through the bathroom and the kitchen. One hour later, spotless, and I'm quite proud of myself. Finally, my weekend, tomorrow is my one day off until Wednesday. I'm going to get freelance done and run errands all day, that is, after I sleep in late. I hope everyone is well in America, Hong Kong, and anywhere else I have friends!

fig. 7: My messy cupboard, full of random sauces and spices.

November 28, 2003
I can't even begin to explain how releived I am. The new Funk gallery navigation works and looks reasonably cool, and the photo galleries aren't messed up in any way. Things worked out for Katrine and her disfunctional Japanese laptop(which she nervously returned this morning with success), and I was able to get a good chunk of freelance completed today. I also made it to the last train tonight, after enjoying some excellent spinning by my friend Tomo in Sangenjaya. I just wish I could have stayed longer. So many cool things are happening, but I can't divulge too many details right now.

November 25, 2003
I figured I should write somewhere that I just spent the past 6 hours updating this site with new photo galleries. I'm exhausted, and I'm still not finished. I have another two galleries to go, and I have to modify the map page to accomodate Asakusa. It's worth it though, and the future of this site is even cooler. This coming January, I plan to pull all the video off my site, and begin offering a free DVD to anyone who writes me an e-mail requesting it. The DVD will contain edited footage of Tokyo, and hopefully if I can figure out the program, a new, full screen photo gallery of hi-resolution photographs.

Today I left my apartment only once to walk up the street and buy lunch. It's been cold and pouring rain all day, and I didn't feel like dragging myself out. I made fried rice for dinner and just finished a few minutes ago. I do want to go out later when the rain stops for a long walk.

November 21, 2003
After finishing work, I went back to Shimo Kitazawa with Dheerna and her housemate, Rachel, cooked dinner for us. As a gift for Rachel for cooking, I got her a bottle of wine which we shared after dinner. She's a great cook! She made this interesting dish with tomatoes, meat, potatoes, and all sorts of nice stuff, it tasted so good. Both she and Dheerna are from England, they're so cool, and have great taste in music(and they're both amazing chefs!!!). After dinner, I returned home to finish my freelance work and write another journal entry. I hope all is well in America, please keep in touch!

fig. 6: Jon, clenching his beer, fearing the camera.

November 19, 2003
8:00AM: Woke up at 8:00AM, took shower, ate a cookie, cleaned my room and raced over to Akihabara to meet Katrine and David.
10:45AM: Met Katrine and David in Akihabara, convinced Katrine she needs to buy a Macintosh laptop computer.
12:00PM: Ate ten-don for lunch, ten-don is tempura covered in some kind of sweet sauce over rice in a bowl. This was not healthy in any way, but it was delicious.
1:00PM: Bought a DVD+/-RW drive so I can finally start sending movies home on DVD.
4:00PM: Met Hodaka in Roppongi. Had coffee, a nice dinner of miso ramen, and had a delicious green tea parfait for desert.
7:00PM: Walked to a theatre and watched a musical dance performance conducted in the gymnasium of a high school. The performance lasted for roughly an hour and left me slightly dazed, as it was a whirlwind of abstract dance and music combined with strange sounds and spastic movement. I enjoyed it though, as with most performances I've seen in Japan, this one was exciting and unique, definately a good time.
11:00PM: Wondering how I was able to manage waking up at 8:00AM and why my day was on such a tight schedule!

November 17, 2003
O.K., a lot has happened and I haven't been updating this thing. I went to Design Festa yesterday in Odaiba, and it was amazing. I met a ton of exciting new artists and had a great time watching the performances. Right now, I have a ton of freelance work to do, and can't spend too much time updating my site. When I have the free time, I'll be adding new photos to the Ebisu gallery, I'll be adding the Asakusa gallery, and I'll be adding Design Festa to the Funk Gallery. This will likely come later this month. Cheers!

fig. 5: Inside Donki-hote, the Donki penguin is a smooth player

November 13, 2003
Another whirlwind day. I'm looking forward to getting paid this Saturday. My plan is to hit Akihabara this coming Wednesday and buy a DVD burner. Then I'll finally be able to send home the movies I've been making. I met up with Katrine and her boyfriend who is visiting from England for a month. We went to see Kill Bill and had drinks at a retro-bar not far away. Kill Bill was funny, not for the humor within the movie, but for the experience of watching it in Japan. My Japanese friends kept telling me that the spoken Japanese in the movie sounds really funny. I didn't believe them until tonight. Every time a Western character spoke Japanese, the entire audience broke out laughing, even during the serious scenes. For example(not to give away any secrets about the movie), there's an especially violent scene, in which Japanese dialogue is exchanged between Uma and her opponent. At first I thought the audience was laughing at the violence, but they were really getting a good laugh at hearing Uma attempt their language. It was a violent movie, but I enjoyed this one, and would consider seeing it again.

November 11, 2003
I recently learned that the giant golden poo thing is in fact supposed to represent the froth on the top of a beer. I have never seen beer do that before, so I still question the intent of this structure. I had a good day yesterday, I went to Donki-hote after work with my friend Seth, and I bought a new heavy blanket since it's just about winter season now in Tokyo. Unfortunately, the blanket I chose has a pattern that will likely blind you if you stare at it too long. I won't go too far into descriptions, but it's black and white checkers with random circles patterned into it. At least it's comfortable, which is really all that matters. I just finished packing my lunch for today. I'm going the route of the peanut butter sandwiche with strawberry jam today. As a good little American, I packed a bunch of snacks and goodies into my lunch bag as well. Today I will enjoy a peanut butter and jelly sandwiche, a small bag of wasabi peanuts, and a bag of tiny dried whole fish. I'll probably drink green tea with the whole thing, which will make for an interesting combination. I can't think of anything else exciting to share. I made a brave attempt to clean my apartment last night, and I feel that I was almost succesful. Until I discovered the sweet potato I left in the closet since the day I got here. It seemed to have formed it's own ecosystem around it's corner in the closet, which I had to dispose of and clean in a stealthy manner. Mind you, I make a solid effort to clean every day, just sometimes I go a little further than others.

I suppose I could share my dream from last night here. I dreamt that I was back in America again, and that my old teachers recommended I return to art school in New York. Strangely though, this art school appeared to be out in the countryside, and when I returned home, I was greated by cows, chickens, my family, and a ringing cell-phone. I answered the cell-phone and it was Brian, my best friend from New York. He was surprised to talk with me, and warned me that my new art college was crazy. That was when I looked into a mirror and realized I was dressed like a yeti, a big blue one. I couldn't figure out why I was dressed like a yeti, only that it was meant to be some sort of disguise. That's as far as my dream went, I woke up to the sound of my alarm. I have to stop eating sweet rice crackers before bed.

fig. 4: There it is, in all it's glory, the giant golden poo-thing

November 9, 2003
Woke up today at 11:45AM, and realized it was raining out. This was going to be my adventure day, I was going to Asakusa to take photos, but now the weather wanted to put a stop to my plans. I walked outside with my umbrella, and thought, "screw-it," and off I went to Asakusa. I had a great time, and the bad weather made it even more interesting. I'm not sure if I can explain much about Asakusa. You see, as I mentioned earlier, I like to pick a spot, go there, and get lost and figure it all out from the ground up. This was essentially what I did in Asakusa. First, I walked out of the train station and towards this building with (what looked like) a giant golden poo sitting atop the roof(I kid you not, it is indeed poo-shaped). I crossed this bridge which was not unlike the bridge connecting Boston to Cambridge over the Charles river, to get a closer look at this golden poo building. I know there's another name for the building, and likely it's famous for something, but for me, it was a giant golden turd, and it was really shiny, so I had to take a picture. As I crossed the river, I took in my surroundings and really couldn't figure out which way I was supposed to go to find the famous stuff. I like to watch the swarms of people and, like a flock of pidgeons to a breadcrumb, they usually lead me to the right place if I follow their movement. So I was drawn back to the otherside of the bridge again, and followed the crowd(which, surprisingly was mostly Westerners), and wound up entering this massive plaza of shopping and food and historic scenery. My stomach usually does the driving when I'm exploring new areas, and of course, without fail, my first stop was the hot cracker stand. What the heck is a hot cracker you ask? It's a name I made up for a little biscuit thing which is probably made from rice, and baked on a rack over an open fire. I had to try one, and was handed a fresh off the fire cracker which was big, and delicious. As soon as I finished it, my faithful nose picked up another good scent. Ignoring some more beautiful scenery, I made my way over to another stand where chefs were frying little green tea and sesame cakes/donut things. I had a green tea cake and it was filled with green tea paste, holy crap it was good! I knew it was fried, so I only had one, but dang, if I wasn't trying to watch it with the unhealthy food, I would've eaten ten of those things. Finally my nose decided to take a break, and I began browsing through the numerous shops on my way up to the massive temple, called Senso-ji temple. There's a lot of history behind this massive temple, but I'll leave that up to you to research and examine, as I prefer to talk more about the experience of being there rather than the historic significance of its existence. The environment was amazing, rain was lightly coming down, Japanese music playing in the background, and hundreds of people flowing through the streets. My camera got a lot of use, and held up well to the weather conditions(I will forever recommend Sony digital cameras). Again, I wound up buying more gifts for my relatives, though I may save them for the holidays.

Dinner was probably the most exciting for me. There were tents scattered outside around the temple, and restaurants lining the streets, but I wanted something tasty and I wanted to sit outside. I picked a tent, walked up, and ordered myself a beer and okonamiyaki. Okonamiyaka is this mess of stir-fried vegetables, batter, eggs, and just about whatever the chef feels like throwing in there. It's covered in a sweet okonamiyaki sauce, and some people like to put mayonaise on top(which I find a little disturbing, as Japanese people like to put mayo on everything, even pizza!). The okonamiyaki that I got was filled with tiny, tiny whole shrimp, cabbage, bean sprouts, some random vegetables, and egg, and it was covered with a thin slice of pork and the okonamiyaki sauce. Again, hoo-HA! It tasted great! The tiny shrimp things were excellent(if you looked close enough, you could see their little eyes!), and it was the perfect dinner for that kind of weather. I'll post photos of all this when I have more free time.

After returning from Asakusa, I called my friend Johanna, and met her and her friends at a bar in Ebisu called ZuZu(?). I had a drink and met a few other teachers working for the same fine establishment as myself, and chatted it up for a bit. During our conversation, I was reminded by one of them that a design convention is taking place next Sunday in Odaiba. I haven't been to Odaiba yet, so this gives me the perfect reason to go there and spend the day. I learned about Odaiba a while ago, but haven't made the effort to go there as my funds were low at the time. I've heard a lot of exciting things about Odaiba, so I wanted to go there with a little money. One of the many things I've been told, was that a building in Odaiba, I'm not sure which one, has devoted two floors on the 6th and 7th floor to being an exact replica of a Hong Kong shopping area. It's called "Little Hong Kong," and whether it really exists or not is something I plan to find out. I'll keep everyone posted on my wandering as usual. Also, on another note, it's almost Christmas, so please start sending requests if anyone wants anything from Japan.

fig. 3: A metal samurai sits atop a building entrance in Ebisu

November 9, 2003
The dates are a little off if you haven't noticed. I mark the date when I begin writing my entries, so I may be writing about my day at 3:00AM on the 8th, but I'm really writing about the events which occurred on the 7th. Whatever. So today wasn't special in any way, though I did try to see the new Matrix Revolutions tonight. I wasn't able to get tickets though, so I wound up buying a beer and sitting outside the theatre under one of probably five trees in all of Shibuya. As I drank my beer, a can of Asahi Super Dry, something strange occurred. This odd fellow walked up to the wall in front of me, and began singing, or maybe it was yelling, I wasn't quite sure. I looked around me to see if anyone was noticing this guy, and it seemed that only a group of young punks took a notice, as they began laughing and staring at him. This man continued to belt out classic toons, such as, "do-ray-me-fa-so..." while randomly hitting notes on his harmonica. I must admit, it was entertaining to watch this fellow make a complete fool of himself as I enjoyed my beer. Nevertheless, after about 5 minutes of it, it became somewhat disturbing, and I began to question his intentions. No sooner did I finish my drink than my old friends Glenn, Ivan, and Tomo appeared, and of course they took notice of this performer as well. I walked over and greeted them, and just as I turned around to avoid a few people, the performer dashed out into the crowd, pulled a Michael Jackson moonwalk, grabbed his crotch, howled, then ran off into the night. I'm quite happy to have found my friends again though, I quite missed spending time with them. For those of you who don't recall, I met a band of roaming artists who threw parties by the Tamagawa river. At times, I would join them, along with about 20 or so other people, and together we'd throw a party which would usually last overnight. I look forward to hanging out with them again, now that I know they're still around.

Tomorrow I was invited to see a DJ perform in Ebisu with one of my new friends, Johanna, who's from California. I met her at work, and had a refreshing conversation with her over a drink at one of the local bars near my school. It's nice to talk to someone with an American accent once in a while, as it gives me the opportunity to talk at full speed and utilize my full arsenal of slang once again. She went to school at B.U., so it was a lot of fun talking about our old haunts, like Anna's Taquiria and Kenmore Square. I'm hoping that some of my other new friends can join us tomorrow at this club. Of course, I'll post any photos, should I decide to take any. Speaking of which, I'll be adding the Gotanda gallery soon, which really isn't too exciting. Along with the Gotanda gallery, I will be adding another page to the Ebisu gallery. Seeing as I never bothered to open my tourist books until after I visit a spot, I never knew about an entirely different section of Ebisu in the direction I never walked. There's a massive plaza with a lot of amazing architecture. I'll likely post it tomorrow, because I'm minutes away from falling asleep right now.

November 8, 2003
Again, I arrive home late and found myself at the convenience store on the way back. I've recently been exposed to a thing called "oden." At first I wasn't sure if I'd like it, it's this giant metal thing that's filled with soup and random tofu things floating around. It looked really sketchy at first, though it's a little more organized than my description. Well, the tofu things are in all sorts of interesting shapes, some of them have little hot dogs stuffed inside, and some of them have a strange meat cake within. I decided to try the meat cake wrapped in cabbage and a few of the tofu hot dog things, and damn, I've been eating this stuff every other day now. Tonight I tried the tofu thing that was shaped like a little sack with a knot at the top, the knot was made of another kind of tofu or some wierd vegetable. Inside was a sticky rice paste thing, it was also quite tasty. I think the cabbage thing was the best, especially the meat cake inside which is a perfect rectangle shape. Even the soup that these things float around in tastes good. To buy oden, you have to use one of their utensils to fish the things out of their soupy home. I had my doubts at first, I mean, come on, wierd shapes of beige material free floating in a hot yellow liquid just doesn't sound or really look appealing. However, my goal is to eat everything, and I'm very happy I tried it because now I'm addicted to it, whatever it is.

fig. 2: The whole family, playing cards together

November 6, 2003
Mailed out birthday gifts to my sister a few days ago. Nothing exciting really going on, I'm just working. I guess I'm still confused by women. I'm sure I confuse them just as much, but recently I've been thrown a few good puzzles and just can't seem to figure them out. I don't know what to say, I suppose it's all just part of life and the whole learning experience, but I doubt there's anything cosmic to the whole thing. I really miss my conversations with my best friend John, he could always shed light on otherwise confusing subjects. His opinions were always backed up by some warped logic that made it ever so enjoyable to let the discussion last a good few hours. I know my logic is also quite spacey, but our conversations were always of a grand scale. I miss sitting in our living room together, talking about the most daunting questions, each of us grasping a hot cup of tea or cold bottle of Ting. Well, I hope that when I return one day, in the not so distant future, these experiences of ours now will fuel further debates and even more exciting conversations. I miss you bro.

On a different note, I've made a few new friends at my new school. As I mentioned below, I've met a cool girl from England named Dheerna. I've also met this nice fellow named Keppa, who's a New Zealander. I had lunch with Keppa a few days ago, and I went to Dheerna's apartment the other night for dinner and a game of cards. We had a lot of fun, and I met Dheerna's roomate again, Rachelle, who's equally as cool. Maybe if some of you visit me here in Tokyo, you'll get to meet them. Speaking of which, have any of you considered visiting? ;)

fig. 1: Jon's new haircut, now he looks like a military man

November 2, 2003
I finally got my haircut, thanks to my friend Dheerna, it was just getting totally out of control. I didn't do much for Halloween, I was too tired from work. I'm planning to mail out a whole bunch of stuff to people after my next check, it's just hard to find the time (and patience) to go to the post office. Of course, English is rarely spoken, so I have to pull out whatever Japanese I've managed to learn to get by. My birthday's come and gone, and people still think I look 30 years old. I had Indian for dinner tonight with my friend Dheerna, it was really tasty. There's a great Indian restaurant in my neighborhood that's run by these great guys from Bangladesh. The food was the tastiest I've had in a long time, I love spicy food! Not much else to say, it's just been a busy day. I'm trying to save, so I haven't been going out much.