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Dan has been taking some short videos and he wanted me to post them here.

This is one of the view from the window on one of the trains:

This is one of Ben playing at an arcade called Big Box:

This is one of the “scenery” at Big Box:

This is one of Dan playing Streetfighter the first day at another arcade:

And last, but not least, this is a video of Ben playing at the first arcade:

We were on the subway a lot today because we were going to places on the other side of the city.  Even though this was a pain, it was also good because I think we are finally getting the hang of getting around.  We started the day with the Tokyo National Museum.  It turns out that the museum is in this really neat area with a bunch of museums, a zoo, and a nice park.  The museum was full of katana swords, kibuki costumes, samurai armor, pottery, and Dan even got to see some real live Hokusai paintings!  He took a lot of great pictures that are under the piictures tab.

After the museum, we went to an area called Asakusa where there is a famous temple (you might recognize the red lanterns), lots of shopping stalls and supposed street performers (though we didn’t see any).  Before we went to the temple, we decided to try a okonomyaki restaurant where you cook savory pancake type things (with various toppings) on hot plates in the center of your table.  The best part, in my opinion, was that it was a japanese style restaurant, so we had to take our shoes off, put them in a bag, and carry them to the table and we got to sit on thin cushions on the floor.  It was so cool!  After lunch, we went to the temple, and it was neat too.  We took some pictures and bought lots of souvenirs!

After that, it was back on the subway to try to find Tokyo Tower.  We paid to go all the way to the top and there are also some good pictures of the view.  It was cool to look out onto Tokyo Bay because we haven’t gone to see the water yet and it hardly feels like we are on an island!  After the tower we took three trains back home and rested for a minute before deciding we couldn’t possibly go anywhere far for dinner.  So, we found a very close thai restaurant and then came back home.  Ben and Dan crashed hard (this was about 8pm), so I decided to go down to our cafe, have some tea and plan for tomorrow.  Right now, Ben and Dan are still sleeping (it’s 10:15pm) and I’m thinking they are done for the night.  Another long day tomorrow.  We are having fun, but it is definitely nonstop!

Today was a busy and moderately confusing day.  We got up early and had our continental breakfast, which is a little on the skimpy side if you ask me.  It consists of four types of bread and coffee and tea.  So, we supplemented with a Starbucks we found at our first stop (FYI- you can’t use your American Starbucks gift card in Japan).  We wanted to go to the government buildings first, but we were too early, so we decided to find the Shinjuku Gardens and then come back.  Well, we found the Shinjuku Gardens, but they are gated in and we couldn’t find the entrance.  So, we walked and walked and walked until we found it… and it’s closed on Monday.  Oy.  So, then we decided to go the Meiji shrine nearby, which was open and was awesome.  The grounds were beautiful and the temple was very peaceful.  Dan posted some nice pictures from today on flickr (if you click the Piictures tab above).  At the shrine, I bought a good luck charm for students. 

After the shrine, we made our way back to the government buildings by way of Harajuku, which is like the Champs Elysee of Tokyo, with all of the high end shopping.  We also found a nice curry shop and a nicer pastry shop.  But on the way to the government buildings, Dan spied an arcade with Streetfighter IV(!).  So, he and Ben got whooped by some guy about 15 times before we decided to leave (pictures are also posted from the arcade).  Even after losing though, Dan was decidedly energized.  He was loving it.  Finally, we got to the government buildings which have two observation decks on the 45th floor (pictures from here too).  It was a nice view and it suddenly made sense why we keep getting lost.  Tokyo is ginormous.  We could see a faint outline of Mt. Fuji too!

Then, we came back to our hotel to take naps, and rest a while.  When we decided it was time to eat dinner, it was about 6:00.  This was the most difficult part of the day and the reason for the post title.  We can read next to nothing here and there are not that many people that speak English.  We also cannot read the street signs and our maps do not have street names anyway, so we just sort of figure out which direction something is and starting heading that way.  It’s not very efficient.  It’s also sort of disconcerting that there are all sorts of warnings on things in our hotel room and we just have to hope we aren’t doing anything wrong, because we have no idea what they say.  So, anyway, we go to find a soba restaurant and the hotel has three recommendations on their website, so I write them down and I think I am good to go.  But, none of the restaurants have their titles written in English letters (and that’s all the hotel website had), so we are left staring at signs trying to translate on Dan’s iPhone and having no luck.  Then, when we finally decide just to go in some place, they don’t have an English menu, so we have to point at signs of food, but we are all scared of getting something gross, so we are trying to ask what is in it, but the guy there doesn’t know English.  He finally solicits the help of a woman at the counter, who helps us and then shows us that to order you have to pay at a machine and then punch in what you want (which we would have never figured out).  We did end up with some good soba noodles, but I felt like a moron.  We were very disruptive.  It’s hard when you can’t read, very hard indeed.  Before the lady left, she wrote down how to ask for hot and cold soba noodles in English and kanji, so next time might be a bit easier (nice, huh?).

After dinner, we went to a nearby grocery store to get some fruit and snacks.  It was fun to see the crazy things there.  There were lots of things that I couldn’t identify.  Then, we had a repeat ice cream trip to the am/pm and came back to the hotel.  Dan and Ben decided to go back out to play more arcade games, but I stayed in to relax and write my blog.  While I blog, I am watching some tv that I can’t understand, but there are two guys wearing FBI shirts and playing tricks on people, so I’m guessing it’s some sort of comedy show.  More adventures to come tomorrow!

Well, I’ve had my first night of sleep in Tokyo and I feel rested and ready to take on the day.  I’ve showered in the ultra tiny shower and am waiting for Ben to finish so that we can go down to our free continental breakfast.  Yesterday was a travel marathon.  Once we got to Chicago, we were told that the plane to Tokyo had a water leak and they had to fix it, so we would be delayed 30 minutes.  I thought the worst, but it was really only 30 minutes and we were on our way.  The flight was long, but didn’t feel as long as I expected.  Dan and I sat next to each other and Ben was right in front of me, so he turned around to talk when he got bored.  I worked on a paper for class, then read magazines, watched The Hangover, listened to some podcasts, learned how to count to ten in Japanese using my phrasebook (ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, shichi, hachi, ku, ju!) and slept on and off for about two hours.  Dan had a bunch of episodes of Dexter on his iPod and watched those most of the time.  Ben made friends with a young Japanese guy sitting next to him who had just come back from visiting his girlfriend in Chicago.  After we got off of the plane, we changed money and found the train we needed pretty easily.  The machine to buy our ticked was all in Japanese and we were freaked out, but we found an English button eventually.  There was also a really nice man on the plane who talked to us and wrote out how many stops we had (on a napkin) so that we wouldn’t miss our stop.  He told us that he had been to Boston and Washington before, about forty years ago, “before you were even around!” The subway was a little bit of a problem though because when we got there, we got on the wrong train and took it for about four stops before deciding to turn around.  We corrected it and made it to our hotel without any problems.   There was another man on the second train that also asked if we needed help and let us know when we needed to get off.  People here are very polite.

The hotel is in a really cute neighborhood and we explored a bit before finding a noodle shop to have some dinner.  It was alright, but I made the mistake of ordering noodles with seaweed (which is in miso soup, which I like), but the smell made me a little nauseous… very fishy indeed.  Ben and Dan had pork noodles, but the bowls were huge and we were really tired and ready for bed so none of us finished our meals.  On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at an am/pm and found a bin of ice cream treats and they made us laugh because they had softserve cones perfectly packaged in their own plastic containers and a waffle looking thing that was really cake cone material shaped like a waffle and filled with ice cream.  Dan got that.  When we got ready for bed, it was only 10:30pm in Japan, but it was 11:30am at home, which means we had been up for about 28 hours with only a little bit of sleep on the plane.  We all feel much better now and have a full itinerary for today.  I’ll write again tonight!

Subway ticket machine

Ben on the train next to a sleeping guy.

Dan and Ben at the subway stop, right before we got on the wrong train.

Dan and I at the noodle shop.

Seaweed noodles

Dan with his waffle ice cream, in our tiny hotel room!

I don’t know what movie that’s from, but I reserved the right to say it the past three days and have been taking advantage of it every chance I could.  This morning has been pretty smooth so far (knock on wood).  I got up for a short run, then Dan and I finished packing and Ben and Matt showed up at around 9:15am.  Matt dropped us off at the airport and we checked in.  The airport is eerily empty for a labor day weekend, but it meant we got through security super fast.  Now, we wait.  First stop, Chicago, second stop, Tokyo!

Waiting!

Tonight, I found another reason to love Columbus.  It’s a hot dog place Dan found out about when he was reading some reviews for the top restaurants in Columbus (in various categories).  It’s called Dirty Frank’s and it’s on Fourth St. downtown where all the tall buildings are.  This place has all different types of hot dogs with crazy and not so crazy toppings.  For example, Dan and I both got the “Ohioana” which has corn salsa on it.  And Dan got a second one called the “Classy Lady” that had crushed potato chips and cheese (he really loved that one)!  As my side I got a fried leek, which was amazing, lightly battered and sweet, and Dan said the fries were great.  On my list to get the next time we go (and many more times after that) are the Chicago style, the Beano, the Sriracha Slaw Dog, the Sauerkraut Dog and the Hot Bollywood (with mango chutney!).  You can see the full menu if you go to their website.  Oh, and the best part (for me) is that you can sub a tofurkey dog for a regular dog, so I can eat every single thing there!  And I forgot to mention that they have rootbeer floats made with Jeni’s ice cream!  We didn’t get one, but it’s also on my list.  Who wants to visit?

The Ohioana and fried leek. Yum!

I have a few best friends.  One, is Marcy.  One, is Beth.  I think my sister counts too.  And I am married to another one.  But, I also have a best friend that I couldn’t live without.  She (yeah, I think I’ll go with she) connects me to a world of friends, information, entertainment and allows me to create, plan, and dream.  I actually probably spend more time with her than I do with all of my other best friends combined (unless you count sleeping, then Dan probably wins).  She’s also the holder of at least half of my brain.  I’m talking about my mac, of course (and her baby, the iPhone).  They are both keeping me company right now, when I should probably be doing other things.  I don’t know when I realized that I really really like my computer (like, friend like).  I think I might have realized it at some point in San Diego when the lack of internet rendered my mac nearly useless.  I felt impotent and out of control (that’s a quote from Clueless).  So, maybe it’s not the mac itself, but what it allows me to do in combination with the internet.  Anyway, what I’m getting at is that at some point along the way, my computer, changed the way I do things.  I didn’t always have the need to be connected to the internet, but now I do and it made me think of this quote from Marshall McLuhan (educator, philosopher and scholar), “We become what we behold. We shape our tools… and then our tools shape us.” So, “we” have crafted computers and the internet, and now these tools are shaping us, the way we communicate, the way we store information, the way we think, the way we do many many things.

I’m doing a little study on blogs and in one of my interviews, a fellow blogger listed a bunch of blogs that she reads, and on one of those blogs, I found a video which led me to this video (how’s that for connections?).  It was created by a professor at Kansas State that has created the Digital Ethnography Group.  His name is Michael Wesch.  It’s an interesting take on how digital text has changed so much of what we do, and it’s only 5 minutes long, so take a look.

And, this naturally, leads us (well, me and others in education, anyway) to start thinking about how this change is affecting education and how we can’t really have changes in the way we communicate and live without having changes in education.  But, Michael Wesch thought of that too, in a video I think is even more interesting than the first.

And, last, but not least Micheal Wesch posted the following talk (and the initial video I found) on his blog.  It’s about a half hour long, so skip an episode of Judge Judy and watch it (that’s what I did).  It’s pretty thought provoking too.  He calls this one “The Machine is (Changing) Us.”

Work was crazy busy today and we even got a visit from the local TV station!  Luckily, I had just stepped outside for lunch, but my coworker got to be on the evening news.  I watched it and she did a good job.  It was about our brochure on the “young gifted child,” which you can see here if you’d like.

Dan went home to Cincy for the evening, so I was left to my own devices.  I had some leftover silken tofu that I needed to use up before the trip so I found this recipe for scrambled tofu.  I modified it a bit, but it turned out great and was super easy!  Check out my handiwork (sorry, the nice camera is with Dan).

Scrambled tofu!

I also made a great deal of progress toward packing for our trip to Japan.  I have pretty much everything packed that I don’t need for the next few days and I made a list of small items I still need to buy.  I’m pretty proud of myself.  And, speaking of progress, check out how far along my blanket is…

My purple blanket

I think it’s more then half way there!

It was a very nice day today.  The morning most definitely felt like September, and I liked it. I had about a million errands to run and it was a perfect day to drive with the windows down, so that’s what I did.

I went to go get my new parking pass though, and found a line of about 100 people.  That was not a good start to the nice morning.  I had to get to a doctor’s appointment, so I left.  Another day.  At the doctor’s appointment, there must have been two Laurens and when they called me in, I was the wrong Lauren, but they went ahead with me anyway.  As a result, I was in and out in 30 minutes.  Unfortunate for the other Lauren, but good for me.  Yay for common names.  Then, I went to pick up free tickets to see Greg Mortenson speak in October.  He wrote the book Three Cups of Tea and I read it a little while ago.  I think all of the incoming freshmen were supposed to read it and then come to this talk.  It should be pretty neat.  After that, I went on a hunt for a bookbag to take to Japan with me and finally found one at Dick’s.  It’s a brown plaid Northface one and it has a laptop sleeve in it.  Hooray!  Then at 2pm, I had the second fitting for my dress for Marcy’s wedding.  The dress had a little train that Marcy wanted hemmed off, so there was some confusion about exactly how to best do that, but we got it all figured out and the dress is really nice.  Then, I dropped off the recycling and mailed a package for Dan.  There was a really crazy lady at the post office that was dressed sort of like a colorful Mary Poppins bag lady who kept yelling “yooo hoooo!” to the post office employees and forgetting what she bought.  It was quite the spectacle.

One more day of work, then two days to prepare for Japan!  “Wooo hooo!” said the other crazy lady (me).

I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog (or in real life) that I love NPR (National Public Radio).  My Cincinnati station was my absolute favorite because it had interesting shows all day and only played jazzy music after 8pm.  Around here (and in Canton), the NPR stations only have news and shows on during the morning and evening commute and the rest of the time they play classical or off-the-wall music.  Not that I have anything against classical or off-the-wall music, but when I get in my car to go anywhere anytime during the day, I like to be able to switch on a good news story, or hear a movie review or hear an interview with an interesting director or musician or something like that.  I became accustomed to it in Cincinnati, and that’s what I like.  So, there have been a few things I have found to remedy my bleak situation.  The first thing I found were NPR podcasts, which I download to my little running iPod and listen to on my runs.  The second thing I found was an application on my iPhone called stitcher that allows you to stream different podcasts from different channels, of which NPR is one.  I would use this on my walk to and from work.  The thing is though, I don’t always have time to be sure that my iPod is up to date with the latest podcasts and stitcher can be a little buggy, freezing up from time to time.

The other day however, while walking to work and listening to stitcher, NPR advertised its own application on the iPhone!  So, I downloaded it and it streams all of the current NPR programs and even has a backlog of about a month, so if I want to listen to Your Health and one episode isn’t enough for me today, I can listen to five!  Okay, so I also admit that the NPR app has frozen up on me a few times and there is no way to pause the dang thing without starting the podcast over, but I am fully confident that these glitches will be fixed and an upgrade will be available soon.  Yesterday, I saw an article sort of like this one that included this information:

“Traditional radio, like newspapers, faces a bleak future, with audiences turning into portable media and radio ad revenues plummeting. National Public Radio, though, is beating the odds, growing while other broadcasters and news sources are collapsing.”

I heart you NPR.