Asia Trip Day 7 - Tokyo > Osaka (October 2015)

It's been six months since our Asia trip; time to finish posting trip photos.

Saturday 10/31

Today is a travel day. We are taking the bullet train (Shinkasen) from Tokyo to Osaka in the evening. Train tickets are actually pretty expensive. It would have been faster and cheaper to fly but the best fares were from Narita to Kansai which would add hours and lots of cost to the trip.

We checked out of our Airbnb this morning, placed our luggage in lockers at Tokyo Station, and went to see a few local sights.


Tokyo Station. It's our 3rd time through the station and I still got lost. It took forever for us to find enough empty lockers to store our luggage for the day.


Imperial Castle. After lunch, we went on a free tour of the East Garden given by volunteers in English. Here is their blog post for that day.


One of the tour groups. They broke us up into 4 groups. Their guide spoke perfect American English.


We left the tour after about an hour and took the train to Shibuya. There was a Starbucks nearby so we took a break. The workers kept coming over to tell us not to take pictures. I don't get why.


Shibuya scramble crossing. Lots of people crossing the street.


We then took the train one station to Harajuku Bridge. We were hoping to see people in crazy clothing but there was no one there. This is the Daiso on Takeshita Street (竹下通).


Fancy crepes


Heading back to Tokyo Station. Some had subway lines over 1km from each other.


Nozumi Shinkasen


Train interior. Top speed of the train was about 180 mph. Too bad it was dark so we could not see anything outside.

따끔

Sad song :(


따끔 (Sting) - MAMAMOO

English lyric I found online:

With only you missing from my life,
I thought I would be just fine
Similar to the feeling of losing a ring that I wore daily
But in the midst of meeting someone new,
Strangely I called for you
I really thought I erased all memories of you

You woo woo woo
What are you, that still,
I am full of thoughts about you

Once in a while when my eyes sting,
I know it’s just the wind blowing
But it feels like you are calling me and I cry
And when my heart stings like this,
By then I realize it is you who I still love

Woo~ I guess I got used to your warm hand
And how you stood to my left
While matching your pace to mine
Occasionally when I’m walking alone
The emptiness in place of your shadow alongside mine feels strange

You woo woo woo
You probably moved on and have forgotten all about me
But I can’t do the same, that is not easy for me

Once in a while when my eyes sting,
I know it’s just the wind blowing
But it feels like you are calling me and I cry
And when my heart stings like this,
By then I realize all of me still loves you

I’ve been doing great up until now, I have endured well
That’s what I’ve told myself

But when it gets too painful to tolerate,
what should I do then?
Thoughts about you may make me sting, but from now on
I will try my best to stay strong, all because it is you

ELSA

Eunji, Luna, Solar, Ailee

I don't think it's an "official" name for the subgroup but they should sing together more often. At least Solar got equal time for this song; the first time they sang together Solar didn't get any solo parts.



I've seen two out of the four in concert. Ailee was at a local Indian casino recently but I didn't get a chance to see her.

K-Hip-Hop

One of our analysts at work is a closet hip-hop rapper. It was on his resume when he applied and of course, we make him bust a rhyme during the interview, He hears me talk about going to K-pop concerts so he was curious. Instead of Girls' Generation or Apink, I showed him these two videos:


Sse SSe SSe - Yezi (feat. Gilme, KITTIB, and Ahn Soo-min)

They are some of the contestants on Unpretty Rapstar 2 on Mnet. I didn't watch much of it but heard is was rigged since some of the contestants already signed album deals with Mnet before the show, and of course they won... though the audience consensus was that the winner wasn't the best rapper. The show also starred Hyolin from SISTAR and Yubin from Wonder Girls. I'm beginning to like Yezi, and Soo-min is cute in the video.


Stand Up - Basick (feat. MAMAMOO)

I show him this mainly because of MAMAMOO. Anyway, I think the overall impression was favorable. He liked Basick but mentioned that it sounded a lot like Macklemore.

NEW2U Certified Pre-Owned

Who comes up with these names? Marketing MBAs? Anyway, after a few Twitter messages, T-Mobile agreed to send me a replacement for my dying HTC One M8. I have been with T-Mobile for 10+ years, including several years where I only needed a "home" phone number and would use ~5 minutes out of my 700 minute plan each month. The replacement phone arrived quickly and I have 7 days to return the old phone.

However, T-Mobile managed to send me a different phone. So instead of a HTC One M8, I now have a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S5. Both phones came out around the same time in 2014, and both were $650 new. Even though both are running Android 5, there are enough hardware and software differences that it's a pain in the ass to copy apps and data over to the "new" phone. I'm struggling to remember dozens of usernames and passwords, and there's no way to transfer chat/text history. Ugh.

Also the Galaxy S5 is slow. My HTC was a bit slow already but the S5 is worse. Here are some quick impressions:

- S5 is lighter and thinner, and has a replaceable battery. If I could replace the battery in the M8, then I would be posting this.
- The screen looks nicer than the HTC, and has a much higher resolution camera.
- Even though the battery is replaceable, it doesn't seem to last very long... and it comes with a USB 3.0 cable port.
- Sound quality is bad. The HTC had awesome speakers, but I guess everyone uses headphones to listen to music.
- S5 only came with 16GB vs. 32GB of on-camera memory. Good thing there is a micro SD card (I hate Apple).
- The refurbished phone came with free headphones! Surprisingly, the M8 didn't come with any. I have lots, but I like the cheap Samsung ones. I'm still using the set that came with my original Galaxy S9000.
- Already bought a new case since the old one won't fit. $11.99 from Amazon.

Again, beggars can't be choosy. Having a S5 is much better than no phone, or spending another $700 on a new one.

==========

One more thing: The S5 is supposed to be waterproof so in case you drop your phone in the toilet or something. To achieve this, the USB 3.0 charging port has a huge cover that is hard to open/close, especially if you don't have long fingernails. The obvious solution is to get an inductive charger back cover (or a thin insert) and charge wirelessly. I'll see how long I can deal with the fat cover for now.

==========

Well, I think I've copied everything I could off the old phone and reinstalled most of the apps on the new phone. I did a factory reset on the HTC and it's going back to T-Mobile tomorrow. Looks like I'm stuck with Samsung phones for now.

Taller Than You

Another MAMAMOO pre-release song. I think they're dissing each other about their heights.


1cm의 자존심 (Taller than You) - MAMAMOO

I met them at a fan concert a few months ago. They are shorter than they look in videos.

Crappy Smartphone

My first smartphone was a Samsung Vibrant (aka Galaxy S9000) and it worked well for several years. About two years ago, I replaced it with a HTC One M8. At the time, conventional wisdom was to get a Samsung Galaxy S4 or an Apple iPhone 5; I got the HTC to show some love for Taiwan. I also ended up buying a special case (dot view) and an external camera (HTC Re) for it.

Last weekend, I noticed that the phone was cracked along the edges, and the glass screen had a bulge in it. Most likely the internal battery went bad since the phone wasn't holding much charge either. Lithium ion batteries tend to heat up and swell as they deteriorate. I'm kinda pissed since the phone cost me $650 and only lasted <2 years, while several iPhone 4's and my OG Galaxy is still fine. The HTC phone still works but now I'm afraid it will catch fire or something when the battery finally dies. Debating whether to buy a battery replacement kit online (looks like it will take hours to open case and replace battery), or get a new (expensive) phone. Sigh...

Boob Grab

What's up with that? Fast forward to 5:10 in the video...

New MAMAMOO Single

I Miss You - MAMAMOO

Only audio so far. Not sure if they will release a MV when the new mini-album comes out later. No MV, but they performed the song on a few music shows.

Asia Trip Day 6 - Mt. Fuji (October 2015)

Friday 10/30

Another must see in Japan is probably Mt. Fuji. I had originally tried to plan my own day-trip to Mt. Fuji but due to time constraints, we ended up joining a guided tour. We bought the tour through Viator but I think several travel agencies sell the same tour organized by JTB. The tour was ~$100/person and included a nice Japanese lunch. We did have to get up early in the morning to take the subway to Keio Plaza Hotel near Shinjuku to get on the tour bus.


Our tour bus. One return option was to take the shinkasen to Tokyo Station, but since we wanted to look around Shinjuku, we stayed with the bus option.


First stop was the Mt. Fuji Visitors Center where we had 10 minutes (I hate these tours). It was still cloudy so we could barely see Mt Fuji.


Second stop was one of the 5th Stations partway up the mountain. Lots of people and very cold. This time it was more clear but the sun was behind Mt. Fuji so it was hard to take good pictures.


Lunch: this was probably the best part of the trip. Main course was some type of noodle cooked in a miso soup.


View of Lake Kawaguchi(?) from the restaurant. Too bad we couldn't see Mt. Fuji from here.


Boat ride on Lake Ashi


The boat ride was nice but very windy, and we still could not see Mt. Fuji


The final stop was supposed to be the Komagatake Ropeway, which would have taken us up the side of Kamiyama. Unfortunately, it was closed due to high winds so they let us into a small crappy aquarium next to the ropeway. Oh well...


After the bus dropped us off at the Keio Plaza Hotel, we walked to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office to visit their free observatory. We walked past a huge bicycle lot with individual racks and you pay at a machine. Much different from China where you give some random person to watch your bike and hope it's still there when you return.


I though about going to Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree but ended up here because it's free. This is looking northwest-ish.


Southeast view. You can see Tokyo Tower in the middle of the photo.

For dinner, we tried to find something to eat at department store food courts. Typically these were in the basement levels and served cheap and quick meals. Since it was Friday night, it was super crowded and after wandering for 10 minutes, we decided to find a nicer sit-down place, and ended up at Wako in the Odakyu Department Store. It was katsu restaurant, very similar to Kagura in Torrance. I got the $20 pork cutlet set and it was excellent.

Asia Trip Day 5 - Ghibli Museum (October 2015)

Thursday 10/29

One of the must-do things on the itinerary was to visit Ghibli Museum. Studio Ghibli is famous for producing animated films such as My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and many others. Almost every list of top animated movies contains several Ghibli films, most directed by Hayao Miyazaki. I probably have all his movies on DVD.

The museum is actually in Mitaka, which is about 25 km from Tokyo Station on the JR Chūō Line. To get tickets outside of Japan, I went to JTB Travel in Torrance 4 months before the trip and pay $5/ticket extra for handling. Reading online forums, overseas tickets usually sell out quickly since they only reserve 100 per day worldwide. In Japan, you can go to any Lawsons and buy tickets from a vending machine.


Since it was going to be a long day, we stopped by a few convenience stores to get snacks. Here is a spaghetti bun (that we did not get).


To save a few yen, we walked from our apartment to Ueno Station to keep the trip all-JR. The green train is the famous Yamanote Line which loops around Tokyo. We took the Keihin-Tōhoku Line instead to Kanda Station and transferred to the Chūō Line express.


Instead of Mitaka, we got off the train one stop before at Kichijōji Station. This was the street right outside the station. Ghibli Museum is about a 20 minute walk from either train station.


Totoro in the ticket booth


I heard they were very strict about enforcing the no photography rule inside the museum so I only have photos from the outside. This is from the rooftop garden.


Large robot statue from Laputa (my favorite Miyakazi film) on the rooftop


On the way back from Ghibli Museum, we stopped by Akihabara (electronics and otaku/anime/cosplay) and Ginza (shopping area). We stopped by the Sony company store and they had lots of cool stuff, including a $50 HD projection TV that projected from the ground up. There was a hi-res audio system (CAS-1) that was interesting but still not sold in the US yet. I also tried on a pair of MDR-1A headphones and ended up getting it back home for $300.


We were supposed to meet up with an ex-coworker who was also traveling in Tokyo but we were too tired. For dinner, we ate at Jonathan's, which is like a Japanese version of Denny's, that was next to our apartment. I had a hamberger steak... it was just ok. We also had to get up super early for our Mt. Fuji tour the next day so we didn't want to spend hours looking for a place to eat.

Asia Trip Day 4 - Tokyo DisneySea (October 2015)

Wednesday 10/28

Since we brought my two nieces (ages 8 and 6) along with us on the trip, I tried to plan as many kid-friendly destinations as possible. Also because we live next door to Disneyland (California), we decided to skip Tokyo Disneyland and go to DisneySea instead. I read a lot of reviews online and it seemed different and cooler than Disneyland. In order to beat the rush, we bought tickets online (a separate adventure) and tried to arrive before doors opened at 8am. This meant getting up at 6am and getting on the first of four trains by 7am.


Four trains, 54 minutes, and ¥650 to go 12 miles


Evidently, everyone else had the same idea. It seemed like all of Tokyo was in line to get in at 8am.


I read somewhere that DisneySea was very expensive to build. It was much nicer than Anaheim Disneyland.


It was nice inside too


We had Chinese food for lunch. It was mediocre and expensive, much like most food served inside theme parks.


Lots of water, in keeping with the "sea" concept


Tower of Terror. I guess there's one of these at each Disney theme park. We didn't get to go on the ride as it was already late in the day, lines were long, and looked like it was going to rain any minute.

One think I did notice was that a lot of Japanese visitors were dressed up, typically with couples or groups wearing the same clothing. This happens in the US, but it didn't seem as prevalent as in Japan. Here are some examples:


Gothic Mickey?


Maybe this is just their school uniform... but why? They're obviously not in school today. Weird.


Not sure what they're supposed to be... fairies?

We ended up leaving about 4:30pm and went to Tokyo Station to eat dinner at Ramen Street (inside the station). Most places were packed but we found a place with open seats and selected our ramen using a vending machine. Maybe it was a different style of ramen but it wasn't very good; other than Yoshinoya and Jonathan's (Western style restaurant), it was probably our worst meal.

LA Clippers vs. Houston Rockets

The last time I attended a NBA game, the Lakers were still a good team and the Clippers were terrible. So when an ex-coworker offered me a free ticket for tonight's game, I agreed to buy him dinner at the Staples Center. The hot dogs were pretty expensive but he had pretty good seats, and the game went into overtime with Clippers winning 140-132. Along the way, the Clippers made 22 3-point shots... crazy. Several times during the game, the Clippers were up by 10+ points but they had a lot of turnovers and the Rockets managed to hit a few last minute 3-pointers to tie the game.


Overtime

My friend said many celebrities now come to Clippers games instead of Lakers games.


Steve Ballmer (owner) and Conan O'Brien (guest?)

It was an exciting game but one think I really didn't like. Back when the Lakers had Shaquille O'Neal, there was a tactic that other teams would use called "Hack-a-Shaq". Basically, near the end of the game, the other team would foul Shaq to make him to to the free-throw line where he invariably bricked most of his shots. I thought this was used with time running out and the game was close. Now it seems that this tactic is used all the time during the game... DeAndre Jordan was on the free-throw line all night. I guess it's legit as in within the rules but it feels like cheating.


Clippers Dunk Team. My friend said he could do this... I think he would be seriously injured.

K-pop Crowdfunding

I've participated in a few (5) Kickstarter projects in the past, but primarily for techie products. One day, while browsing through /r/kpop on Reddit, I saw that Stellar was raising funds for their next mini-album on Makestar. They're not very popular in South Korea compared to other girl groups but they are well know for their sexy concept and having music videos and performances banned on Korean TV; this may be a way for their company to generate some pre-release publicity.

Anyway, I don't follow them too closely but have liked their prior songs. I ended up getting a signed CD for ~$25 (not bad) and ~$23 shipping (ugh). What I really wanted was a meal with the group but that would have been ~$850 + airfare to Korea + an interpreter. Now I need to learn their names and figure out how to tell them apart. Hopefully they will perform in the US soon.

They just released a new music video a few hours ago so this is probably the song I "helped" fund.


찔려(Sting) - Stellar

Some of their previous music videos:


떨려요 (Vibrato) - Stellar


마리오네트 (Marionette) - Stellar

Asia Trip Day 3 - Tokyo (October 2015)

Tuesday 10/27

Jet lag is a bitch. I woke up at ~2am local time and was pretty much awake for the rest of the morning. My two nieces were up at ~4am and we put got them to do their homework (since we had to take them out of school for two weeks). We decided to take it easy the first day so we skipped going to Ueno Park and the natural history museum. Instead, we took a trip to the local supermarket to get supplies, back to the apartment to drop off groceries, then to the coffee house downstairs for a light breakfast. Since I wanted to buy our Shinkasen tickets from Tokyo to Osaka early, we went to the JR ticket office in Ueno station. There we bought our train tickets (~$450 for everyone) and got Suica cards as well. Most sales counter staff understood some English so the transaction was pretty painless.


Ueno Station - Ginza Line

From Ueno Station, we headed to Asakusa and Sumida River.


Asahi Brewery golden turd along the river

After buying tickets for an afternoon river cruise, we went to check-out Sensoji Temple and grab some lunch.


Kaminarimon


Taiyaki (fish shapes pastry filled with red bean and other goodies)

After lunch at an izakaya (narrowing avoiding a whale restaurant), we took a boat cruise from Asakusa to Odaiba. It took about an hour and we crossed under a lot of bridges.


Cruising on Sumida River


Rainbow Bridge connecting Tokyo and Odaiba


Hotaluna - Our river cruise boat/spaceship

Odaiba is a shopping/entertainment area in Tokyo Bay. We got there kind of late in the afternoon, and spent an hour walking around. There were a lot of shops and restaurants but we ended up back at Ueno Station area for dinner. There are several food alleys south of Ueno Station but it took us awhile to find somewhere to eat. Most places were very small, and packed with people. We finally found a table at Tenya, a chain store specializing in tendon (tempura bowl). I think dinner was <$30 for all 5 of us.
Ginza at night from Shimbashi Station