Archive for category Team Awesome Sauce
June 1, 2004 pt2 – I don’t understand medal games
Posted by Barniferous in Greater Tokyo Area, Life in Japan, Team Awesome Sauce on June 11, 2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RROI52SdMIg?t=2m47s
After dinner, we all went to Kawasaki. I needed to get some shift swap paperwork signed, so I left Code Red, Hippie, Flounder and Green at a nearby game center. Since I was in casual clothes, I couldn’t go into the building to meet the other teachers, so I hung around in front of the building waiting for them to come out. Japan is a very safe country, but there are always a bunch of homeless people hanging around in the trees near the entrance to NOVA, so it’s not the most comfortable place to hang around.
Eventually the teachers came out and I got my paperwork signed. I walked to the game center to find everyone watching Flounder playing a large medal game. The game had bouncing balls, flashing lights, video screens, and a coin pusher, basically total sensory overload. Flounder was trying to manipulate the coins in order to push more tokens towards his collector. There were a number of other medal games in the area – horse racing simulators, slot machines, card battle games, and others.
Using gambling machines to win money is illegal in Japan, but you can win prizes. One popular example is pachinko, which is kind of like a high tech vertical pinball game. To play, you buy a bunch of little metal balls and feed them into the pachinko machine. Using a knob, you attempt to fire the balls through the game board into a small hole. Doing this wins you more little metal balls. When you are done playing, you can exchange any balls you have left for a prize. The loophole is that every pachinko parlour in Japan has a nearby prize exchange shop, where you can sell your prize for cash.
I was not familiar with medal games, but I assumed that they would operate on the same principle as pachinko. Flounder won a huge number of tokens playing the game. He took them to the service counter, where the tokens were counted and Flounder received a card that kept track of how many tokens he owned. The next time he returned, he could use his tokens again to play the games and attempt to win more tokens. I tried to ask the employee where the prize exchange was. The employee tried to tell me that there was no such thing for medal games. At the time I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, or just not allowed to explain about exchanging prizes for cash. I promised Flounder that I would look into it.
Medal games can be a fun way to spend some time, but there is no way to win money. If you want to try to gamble for cash, play pachinko instead.
June 1, 2004 pt1 – Mexican pandas and fighting monkeys
Posted by Barniferous in Team Awesome Sauce, Tokyo on June 10, 2014
Code Red and I in front of a Mexican Panda
Our group slept in again, likely as a result of our previous night’s karaoke outing. When we finally got moving, we went to Ueno to check out a museum, the park, and the zoo.
Our first stop was Tokyo National Museum, which is located in Ueno Park. The museum is massive, with collections from Japan and other parts of Asia. We stayed in Honkan, the Japanese gallery. I took a Japanese history class in University, so everything in the museum was fascinating for me. I could have probably spent an entire day looking at all of the pieces from Japan’s long history and reading each and every single one of the displays. The other guys, having never taken any courses in Japanese history, were mainly interested in the swords and armor. After taking what seemed like hundreds of blurry pictures of swords and armor (due to glass cases and lighting), they dragged me out of the museum and on to our next destination.
The next stop was Ueno Zoo, also located in Ueno Park. Ueno Zoo opened in 1882, making it Japan’s oldest zoo. It currently has around 2600 animals from around the world. Since the five of us are from Canada, we were used to seeing huge zoos with massive animal habitats. The Ueno Zoo was a very nice zoo, but the animal habitats were much smaller than what we would expect to see back home.
We were pretty confused when we started seeing panda statues wearing sombreros and ponchos all over the zoo. None of us have been to China, be we know that pandas are not commonly associated with sombreros. It turns out that Ueno Zoo was borrowing Shuan Shuan the giant panda from a zoo in Mexico during the time of our visit. It’s always cool to see pandas live!
Other than the panda, the highlight was the monkey enclosure. We watched for at least 10-15 minutes while two monkeys were fighting. The fighting wasn’t life or death fighting, but more along the lines of WWE style play fighting. I would be happy to go to a zoo that just had monkeys, because they are always entertaining. The one lowlight for us was the polar bear enclosure. We saw two skinny polar bears walking around, definitely not enjoying the heat. I think we would have all liked to see an indoor, climate controlled area for the polar bears.
We stayed until the zoo closed, and then went to Roppongi Hills. The movie theater at Roppongi Hills occasionally has current Japanese movies with English subtitles. We wanted to see the new live action Cutie Honey movie, but the schedule didn’t work out in our favour. We ended the first half of our June 1 adventure at Saizeriya.
Travel tip: when you have a group of people that all like different food, find a family restaurant like Saizeriya or Gusto. The food is reasonably priced and there is something on the menu for everybody.
May 31, 2004 pt2 – Games and porn?
Posted by Barniferous in Team Awesome Sauce, Tokyo on June 9, 2014
Akihabara!
After spending a few hours in Asakusa, Team Awesome Sauce and I went to see Akihabara, the famous electronics district of Tokyo and centre of geek culture in Japan. None of us had ever been there before, but we expected to find lots of electronics stores, duty free shops, video games and anime models.
Akihabara is served by several JR lines as well as the Tokyo Metro. Since we were coming from Asakusa, we were on Tokyo metro. Subway stations in Tokyo are huge and can sprawl under several city blocks. If you don’t know which exit you need to take, you can end up a long way from your destination. That’s exactly what happened to us.
We came out of the subway in an area that didn’t have any of the brightly coloured stores that we were expecting. We wandered around for a few blocks while I took some abuse over not knowing where I was going. Eventually we found a movie and book store. Most stores in Akihabara are in tall narrow buildings, with different things on each floor. The first and second floor of the building had lots of cool looking movies. The third floor had porn. Lots of porn. The fourth floor was also entirely filled with porn, but not your typical, every day, conventional porn. There were several things that I will choose not to describe here. Let’s just say that you should love your pets, but you shouldn’t LOVE your pets. Japan has some strange obscenity laws that allows porn to contain all kinds of things that would be considered illegal in other countries, as long as the genitals are blurred out. After escaping the fourth floor we found that the fifth floor also contained porn, this time discount porn of a more conventional variety.
We left the store and eventually found that the electronics shops were conveniently located around JR Akihabara station. If we had taken JR instead of Tokyo metro we would have found them easily. I lost track of how many electronics and games stores we went into. Most of the electronics stores sold both Japanese models and export models of their goods. All of the game and toy stores had porn.
Akihabara is a really cool place to explore if you are into anime, video games, or electronics. You should never bring kids to Akihabara. Ever.
(2014 update) It’s amazing how much Akihabara has changed in the past 10 years. In 2005 the Yodobashi camera mega store opened in Akihabara, giving the other electronic chains some serious competition. In addition to game and electronics stores, the streets are now loaded with maid cafes. The area is always busy and crowded. Also, the porn is still everywhere.
So. Much. Porn.
May 31, 2004 pt1 – Banks and temples
Posted by Barniferous in Team Awesome Sauce, Tokyo on June 8, 2014
Senso-ji
The guys brought a lot of their money to Japan in Canadian traveler’s cheques. After a week of adventure, they needed to get more cash.
After breakfast we went to a nearby bank in Noborito with an English sign stating that they exchange traveler’s cheques. However, when we went into the bank, they explained that they would not accept Canadian traveler’s cheques without the original purchase agreement. They also would not exchange Canadian cash into Japanese yen. We realized that we would need to find a bigger bank, so we went to Shinjuku where we easily exchanged the money and got service in English.
Flush with cash, we headed off to Asakusa to see Senso-ji temple, the oldest and most famous Buddhist temple in Tokyo. Senso-ji was originally founded in 628 AD and has gone through many upgrades and changes over the years. During World War II it was destroyed in the American air raids. After the war the temple was rebuilt as a symbol of rebirth.
The temple is famous for its large gates and lanterns, but for me and my friends the highlight was Nakamise – the 250 meters of stores leading from the gate to the temple. Nakamise is one of the best places to shop for souvenirs. We navigated the crowds and everyone bought some proper souvenirs to take home. Code Red wanted to bring back a sword, but we weren’t sure if it would be confiscated by customs or not. After much discussion, he decided not to take the risk.
Mikuji stand at Senso-ji
At the temple, I played tour guide, repeating information that I had learned on my travels with The Penpal. I explained how to wave the incense smoke to cleanse yourself before going into the temple. I also explained omikuji – the small paper fortunes that you can buy outside most temples and shrines.
To get your fortune at Senso-ji you pay 100 yen, and then pick up and shake a large metal box filled with sticks. This makes an impressive noise. Eventually one of the sticks will pop out the hole in the top. The stick will have a number written on it – usually in kanji. You then open the drawer with the matching number and take your fortune.
The fortunes will range from excellent to terrible, giving detail on finances, romance, work, etc. If you get a good fortune you can keep it, but a bad fortune should be folded up and tied to a nearby stand. That way you can leave your bad luck behind. Green got the worst possible fortune, but instead of leaving it behind, he insisted on bringing it with him as a souvenir. For the rest of the day Flounder, Code Red, and Hippie debated whether or not they wanted to get on a flight back to Canada with Green if he kept his terrible fortune.
Senso-ji is a must visit if you are in Tokyo. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared for crowds, and bring a camera because everything is worthy of a picture.
(2014 Update) Does anyone still use traveler’s cheques? Those things are the worst.
May 29, 2004 – A night out in Roppongi
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Team Awesome Sauce, Tokyo on June 6, 2014
Once again we started our day off by sleeping and and playing video games. In the evening we went out to Roppongi to get a sample of Tokyo nightlife.
Our first stop was a really cool place off the main streets that served over 200 different types of beer from around the world. Thanks to my experience at the Maple Leaf Bar on the previous day, I had a taste for Moosehead. The bar had it, but it cost me 900 yen. Due to the prices, we only had a few drinks before moving on to our next destination.
There are almost too many options for places to spend your money on alcohol in Roppongi. Since we were on a budget, we decided to go to GasPanic. As we were walking down the street, we were approached by one of the many, many touts working the area. He started off by offering us 3000 yen all you can drink in his bar. We told him no thanks, we were going to GasPanic. The price quickly dropped to 2500 yen with assurances that his bar was far superior to GasPanic. We again declined. At this point he turned to small talk – asking where we were from. We told him Canada. Unsurprisingly, the tout had a cousin who lived in Canada and loved Canadians. Again the price came down. We told him that we would check out his bar on the way back to the station. He told us that we wouldn’t be back, and that we should go to his bar now.
At this point we decided to say no again and just keep walking as we now had a walk light to cross the street. The tout jumped in front of Flounder and grabbed him playfully to keep him from walking away. Flounder, confused, reached down and gave the tout a hug before we walked away. I congratulated the tout on his exceptional effort.
Due to the constant bombardment of touts and my unfamiliarity with the area, we ended up going into GasPanic Club instead of regular GasPanic. Despite being a Saturday night, the place was not very busy at all. The staff assured us it would get much busier later, but we wanted to catch our last train.
I convinced Code Red and Green to talk to two attractive Japanese females that were sitting nearby. I assured them that they could just speak English, because most Japanese females go to GasPanic to meet foreigners. Code Red was getting along fine, but Green called me over to translate after a few minutes.
I walked over and introduced myself to the nice young lady, who I will refer to as Maki. I explained that Green was visiting from Canada and I would try my best to translate for him despite my beginner Japanese. I manged to keep a bit of a conversation going for a few minutes. Maki wanted to know how old Green was, I asked Green how old he wanted to be. We settled on 25. Green asked me to explain to Maki that he was a famous soccer goalkeeper in Canada. I have never known Green to play soccer at all, but did my best to translate. After a few minutes, Maki stopped asking about Green and just started talking to me directly. Code Red gave up talking to his new Japanese friend, leaving me to talk to Maki while the guys drank beer in the mostly empty bar. Needless to say, we didn’t stay very long.
Our night out in Roppongi was mostly a bust, but we did have some delicious donairs on the way home and continued to laugh about Flounder hugging the tout. Also, I am way more successful talking to women in Japan, which does me no favours since I am not single.
May 28, 2004 – Watching the Stanley Cup Finals in Tokyo
Posted by Barniferous in Team Awesome Sauce, Tokyo on June 5, 2014
Watching NHL playoffs at the Maple Leaf bar
I woke up with a raging hangover from the previous night and the inability to find my glasses. Our plan for the day was to watch game 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs at the Maple Leaf bar in Shibuya. Hippie and I slowly got our stuff together, and then walked up the step stairs towards Jem’s apartment to collect Flounder, Code Red and Green.
When we arrived, we found that the other guys were just as tired and hung over as we were. I don’t think anyone in our group got more than 4 hours of sleep. We finally collected all of our belongings, making sure that the video camera was safe, thanked Jem and her roommate for graciously saving our drunk asses, and then walked out into the cruel morning air.
Descending a steep staircase on the side of a hill can be challenging at the best of times. When tired and hungover it is a very unpleasant experience. The stairs were spinning slightly below me and my eyes couldn’t focus properly. I was legitimately worried about falling down the stairs and coming to a sudden stop on the concrete far below. As a group we all stopped halfway down to catch our breath and regain our balance.
The 15 minute walk back to the station seemed to take an hour. At Hodogaya we got on a crowded rush hour train towards Yokohama. At Yokohama we got on an even more crowded rush hour train to Shibuya. The train was packed wall to wall business people, and the air conditioner wasn’t working correctly. We silently held on to to the handles trying our best to survive until Shibuya. When we arrived in Shibuya we took a few minutes to enjoy some fresh air before walking to the Maple Leaf Bar. Fortunately we scouted the location on a previous trip to Shibuya so we didn’t have to search for it while hungover.
The Maple Leaf bar is, as you might expect from the name, a Canadian bar in Shibuya. On the inside everything is Canadian flags and wood. The bar is not usually open in the morning, but they make exceptions for hockey playoffs. We sat down at a table and ordered the special Canadian breakfast: 1000 yen for eggs, bacon, baked beans, toast and a beer. The wonderful staff, noting our condition, made sure to keep bringing refills of ice water.
Breakfast and fluids helped us all feel like humans again. This was partially offset by watching the Calgary Flames lose to the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1. During the game a photographer was taking pictures for a story about Canadians around the world watching the NHL finals. Our picture ended up in the Yomiuri Newspaper and on the wall in the Maple Leaf’s washroom.
After the game we all headed back to Hello House for a relaxing and uneventful afternoon and evening.
(2014 Update) The Maple Leaf bar closed several years ago, which is a shame. If anyone can find a copy of the picture that was run in the newspapers of my friends and I watching hockey I would truly appreciate it. I have spent hours on Google over the past few years searching with no luck.
May 27, 2004 pt1 – Exploring Yokohama
Posted by Barniferous in Team Awesome Sauce, Yokohama on June 3, 2014
Near Minato Mirai
Due to another late night, we got yet another late start on our day. In the morning we did laundry and watched 3 episodes of The Simpsons in the Hello House common room. When we finally got mobile, headed out for Yokohama. We took Nanbu line to Kawasaki, Tokaido line to Yokohama, then changed to the new Minato Mirai line for Minato Mirai station.
We explored the area around Landmark Tower, and then made our way over towards Cosmo Clock. We decided that the five of us didn’t want to divide up and ride the romantic Cosmo Clock ferris wheel in groups. Instead we found ourselves in yet another game center. This one featured the incredibly cool (and incredibly Japanese) dog walking simulator.
Green selecting which virutal dog to walk
The purpose of the game is to successfully walk your virtual dog.The controls are a treadmill and a leash. The treadmill is used to walk your dog at an appropriate pace: too fast and the dog gets upset, but too slow and the dog gets bored. The leash is used to steer your dog away from hazards like other dogs, cars, and food delivery bicycles. It seems simple, but is actually pretty hard and fun to watch your friends fail at.
After getting our fill of the Minato Mirai area, we caught a quick train to Yokohama Chinatown. The area is full of delicious looking restaurants. The problem was that the menus featured Chinese food that I didn’t know how to read in Japanese, and there weren’t many pictures. Also, lunch specials in the area are quite reasonable, but dinner can be pretty expensive. After about 30 minutes of searching we finally found a restaurant with reasonable dinner prices that had enough pictures on the menu so I wasn’t afraid of ordering. The food was fantastic! After eating, we slowly worked our way back towards the station, and took Minato Mirai line back to Yokohama station to meet up with my coworkers for a karaoke adventure.
May 26, 2004 pt1 – Odaiba
Posted by Barniferous in Team Awesome Sauce, Tokyo on June 1, 2014
Once again we got a late start on the day, both due to recovery from the previous evening and because we are a bunch of guys on vacation. After we finally got moving, we headed out to Odaiba.
Odaiba is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay. It was originally created for sea defence in the 1800s, but has now turned into a developed area with hotels, shopping, and other fun things. Our first stop was the Fuji TV building, which looks like something out of an episode of Star Trek. We would have enjoyed the building more if we were familiar with any of Fuji TV’s shows. While we were wandering around, a group of school kids approached Flounder to ask him questions in English for a school project. I am sure it was intimidating for the kids to approach the giant gaijin, but Flounder is actually great with kids and had fun answering the questions.
We explored some of the malls and found a game center, which has become a recurring theme of our adventures. The picture above is from an awesome 4 player air hockey game that suddenly went into a bonus mode with multiple pucks. We also found a Biohazard (Resident Evil) 4D-Executer machine. The machine shows a 20 minute animated movie based on Biohazard, complete with 3D effects, a moving seat, and air cannons designed to scare the viewer. It was pretty cool.
After some gaming we ended up at Saizeriya to get some food. Saizeriya is a family restaurant that features a inexpensive Italian food and a regular, non-alcoholic drink bar. After our misadventures of the previous night, a non alcoholic drink bar was a good idea.
May 25, 2004 – Bad ideas at family restaurants
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Greater Tokyo Area, Hello House, Lux, Team Awesome Sauce on May 31, 2014
Flounder, Green, Lux, Me, Zoe, and Code Red after too much booze at Machida station
During the day we hung out in my room playing Playstation games and generally recovering from our adventures so far. In the evening we had plans to go to a family restaurant in Machida. Most family restaurants in Japan feature a “drink bar” for about 200 yen. A drink bar is a self serve soft drink area where you can enjoy free refills of coffee, tea, sodas and water. This particular restaurant also featured a 600 yen drink bar with alcohol. You read that correctly: for the low price of 600 yen a customer can mix their own cocktails. I think the intent is for customers to have one or two drinks with dinner, but there is technically no limit.
Yes, this does sound like a terrible idea in the making.
Lux and Zoe were going to accompany us to the restaurant. Before we left they took me aside and expressed concern that my friends would be in the restaurant all night taking advantage of the unlimited alcohol. They suggested telling the guys that there was a one hour time limit on the drink bar. I disagreed and tried to explain that the idea of a time limit would only lead to problems. I explained that I knew these guys, and a time limit would be a challenge to them. Lux and Zoe continued to disagree with me, so eventually I told them I would play along, but I assumed no responsibility for the outcome.
We all boarded the Odakyu line for Machida, and explained the “rules” of the drink bar. The guys were all very excited and started asking questions about when the one hour time limit started – from the time we sat down? from the time we order? I told them I would get the details at the restaurant.
We got a table for 7 and placed our orders. As soon as the orders were taken, everyone rushed the drink bar and started mixing drinks. We started slowly, with everyone checking their watches. By about the 30 minute mark there was always at least one of us refilling their drink at any time. For the last 10 minutes I am pretty sure that Green did not return to his seat at all. We all left full of delicious food and booze for under 2000 yen per person.
When you drink a large amount of alcohol in a short time, you can go from feeling completely sober to drunk in a matter of minutes. This happened for most of us on the walk from the restaurant to the station. We passed two large gaijins walking in the other direction. Code Red asked if they were Canadian like us, and the said that no, they were American Marines. Code Red responded “Go Yankee Go!”, to which Flounder added “home”. Our military friends did not take kindly to this, and suggested they would meet us later. Code Red, missing the implicit threat in the comment, answered “awesome! We will see you guys later!”. The marines clarified that it would not be a pleasant meeting. I believe Hippie and Code Red tried to apologize as we continued walking away.
By the time we arrived at the station, we were drunk and belligerent. While we waited on the platform, I noticed that a few train security officers watched our group from a distance. They seemed relieved as we boarded the train and ceased to be their problem.
When we returned to Hello House, Green removed his shirt and started walking around the house. Lux and I hung out on the stoop reflecting on the amount of alcohol that we all drank for 600 yen each. Eventually one of the other Hello House residents, a gay British male, came to the stoop to complain about Green walking around shirtless. His comment was “nobody wants to see that”.
Video games, cheap alcohol, pissing off Marines, train security, and unwanted shirtlessness. All in a days work.
May 24, 2004 pt3 – Burgers and Games
Posted by Barniferous in Greater Tokyo Area, Team Awesome Sauce on May 30, 2014
After a few hours of electronics shopping, we stopped for lunch at my favourite place near Kawasaki station – Becker’s Burgers. Becker’s was one of my favourites both because it was extremely close to Kawasaki NOVA, but also because they had pretty good burgers, if a little small by North American standards. The guys were all happy with Becker’s.
After eating, we went to a nearby video game store to look for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The newest chapter in the Grand Theft Auto series had been out for over a year back home, but had just finally been released in Canada. I found the game quickly, and we spent some time looking at the huge selection of giant robot games, RPGs that would never be released overseas, and pachinko video games.
While I was paying for my purchase, Flounder started playing a nearby claw machine that was loaded with folded pieces of paper. He caught one, and opened it to find Japanese writing that we couldn’t read. I showed the paper to the girl at the counter, and she told me that Flounder won a video game. We got to pick a game from “level 2” of the prizes. Since Playstation 2 Games from Japan won’t work on a North American Playstation 2 without modding, Flounder let me pick and keep the game. I chose a Japanese baseball game that looked pretty cool, because it was probably the easiest for me to start playing with limited language ability. We also got our picture on the wall with the rest of the prize winners.
We returned home to Hello House and spent the rest of the day playing Grand Theft Auto and having a few beers. Good day!
Drinking in Japan 
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