On Thursday I was tapping away at some code when I got an IM from some Googler I didn’t know. He said I had a package up at reception, and I needed to come and sign for it. Huh, maybe it was some delayed birthday package? I headed down and lo and behold, it was these fellas.
What a treat. I was able to spend the next couple hours showing them around campus and having lunch.
The next day we had lunch again, plus a bit more of a tour. Hayden borrowed my bike and took it on a trail. He biked around until 7 or so, then we met up at my apartment, where we had a movie night, Emperor’s New Groove.
The next day we went out to see Arrival, which I highly recommend. Then we went off to see a park, and the Chihuly glass museum.
Really happy they were able to come drop in like that.
In other news, I won first place in my category for our company art contest:
As for the election. boy howdy. Here’s an interesting article that’s half-way relevant: I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup, on the country’s deeply divided nature.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. Getting back on the horse at work was a bit rough, but stable now.
Two weeks ago at Citizens Academy we got to take a tour of their jail.
This last week was graduation. They brought out their K-9 unit; we got to pet him, and afterwards have him come bite us on the arm, though we were wearing a protective sleeve.
A few of the others were light-heartedly jealous of how friendly the dog was when I got to pet him. 🙂
So many cop cars, little do they know that just 50 yards away is parked a car with.. *gasp* expired registration stickers! Slowly working on fixing that.
On Friday a couple weeks ago we got to have Nick Offerman over to talk about his new woodworking book. If you don’t recognize the name, he plays Ron Swanson on Parks & Recreation. Good times.
I’ve mainly been filling my evenings with Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a CGI TV show set between the events of Episode II and Episode III. Ostensibly for kids, though like Avatar: The Last Airbender, it is quite well made and appeals to an older audience. I’ve collated my best-of recommendations, if you feel like checking out only a few episodes.
Speaking of fantastically written children’s shows, apparently Young Justice will be getting a third season. Hip hip hooray to that.
There sure are some foggy mornings these days. When it’s not raining, that is, like it does all the time.
On Saturday we helped a family set up Christmas decorations for their regular mega-Christmas-party. Their kids had moved away or were otherwise engaged and couldn’t help out. Their house reminded me so much of Gram & Grandad’s place in Towering Oaks, the workshop, old wood smell, just great.
Why yes, I *did* immediately think of Jet and his hook swords.
Six strands chained together, on top of hay, in the rain. What could go wrong.
On Sunday we had Stake Conference. Their setup was waaaay more tech’d out than ours is back home. Three cameras, a subtitle machine, two A/V computers whose exact purpose I couldn’t discern, an array of mics suspended over the choir, the whole shebang. I believe they were streaming to another building, but still. Sadly I didn’t get a good picture of it.
I realized this last week that I’ve been playing a very dangerous game, by attending the Police Citizens Academy each week. Particularly, by driving and parking my car there, at Police HQ. I’d heard about the law that gives new residents up to thirty days to get their Washington drivers license, and I’d taken care of that weeks ago. But apparently it’s also necessary to get Washington plates within that same timeframe. In either case, my current registration is months out of date. It’s only a matter of time before the jig is up. At least my habit of backing in to parking spaces is paying off.
On Sunday we had ward council. It’s interesting going to those out here. I’ve been in ward council meetings back in Provo, but there was never a missionary presence. Having the sister missionaries here brought me back to how it was in Australia, putting together progress preports, coordinating with the Ward Mission Leader, filling in meal calendars, good times.
And that’s about all there was for this week. Till next time!
Oh, right, yeah there was this whole Tokyo thing. Better say a bit about that.
So I had planned on doing some work at my office the morning of my flight, then playing fast and loose with traffic to make it to the airport on time for my 1pm flight. But since there was a weather-related power outage that day, I ended up heading to the airport way earlier than I usually do, lining up with the recommended “2 hours ahead of schedule”. On the shuttle over I met this group heading to Texas for a “roller derby”, where they basically do laps around a track on roller skates while playing full-body-contact keep-away. One of the contenders was from Australia, and I mentioned I’d spent some time there. “Oh, why’d you spend time there?” “Well I was a missionary for my church, wanna hear all about it?” “Absolutely, sign me up for baptism.” Well, I’m sure that’s how it would’ve gone, except he never asked why I was there. So that nascent missionary opportunity never came to term.
I do love a good violin.
Oddly patriotic.
On the flight to LAX I sat next to a really bubbly girl who was good friends with some marketing executive at Google. She sent an email to him introducing me, because “it’s all about networking these days.” Well, I do appreciate her efforts, but the promotion committee wouldn’t give two hoots if I knew Larry Page himself.
At LAX I found a quiet corner and practiced my presentation with my advisor over the phone. I had at least couple hours until the flight over to Japan. After I practiced and browsed around for a bit, I decided to wander over and check out the gate. I still had an hour or so left, and it was only about 500 feet from the gate where I’d arrived, but just in case. Checked the departure board on the way; yep, same gave number as before; status: a big all-caps BOARDING.
I think the rule about connecting flights is, don’t guess at times, ever ever ever ever ever. Probably didn’t have enough ‘ever’s memorized. It was a couple days before I was over the shakes of almost missing that flight.
I guess I’m just not blessed with the ability to sleep on long flights. Even with Ambien, it was a no-go. Of course it was only on the way off that I noticed that they’d included a set of ear plugs and a sleeping mask in our seat pockets. Really felt like that guy on the cruise who only ate crackers.
I really wish I’d gotten footage of just prior to this moment. As the plane ascended through low cloud cover, jet streams formed and dissipated repeatedly over the wing. Very fascinating to watch.
My first exposure to Japanese culture.
It was only after I landed in Tokyo that I realized, after I’d replaced my regular socks with compression socks, that I’d placed my regulars in a disposable bag that I’d gone ahead and… disposed of. Well, shucky darn.
It was very late when I arrived. Before allowing us through customs they had us walk past a thermal camera, to detect whether we were showing flu symptoms.
I made my way to the hotel via subway. The cars made an interesting sound when they started moving, I think like the Vulture Terran unit from Starcraft.
The intersections on the surface were eerily quiet. No crossing indicator sounds. Later I learned that it was only in some locations where there were no sounds, though I never figured out what made the difference.
Luckily this was one of the less readable subway maps.
A shot from above looking down the middle of my hotel.
Really neat bed frame here, built-in alarm and lighting controls.
A portion of this mirror was heated, preventing steam buildup.
The lights only activate when there’s a card present in this holder. Makes misplacing them much harder.
I was feeling kind of nervous then; while all the advice I’d heard stated that US plugs work just fine in Japan, what I didn’t catch on to was that they only work for two-prong plugs. Ground pins don’t fit. Which was going to be a problem for me if I couldn’t charge my laptop. While rummaging around in my backpack for an unrelated reason, I happened across a two-prong Apple charging adapter, which has stayed compatible across models ever since at least 2007. Nice.
The next day I set out on an hour-and-a-half walk towards church. Figured it’d be a great way to see the city.
Space is tight in the city, so these mini parking lots are all over. Those flaps on the ground rise up when cars park, preventing them from leaving until payment is made.
On the right is the garden surrounding the Emperor’s palace.
These spiders were nuts. One of the few good pics I was able to get of them. The spiders themselves reached about 4″ wide, but the webs, they went up to about 30 feet wide, no joke.
Another decent spider pic.
Happened across a market sale on the way to church, being held in a shrine.
Neato.
Not sure why all these trees were labeled, but the way they went about it was genius. Springs would prevent the wrapping from eating into the bark.
You can make out the web in the sunlight.
Happened upon a marathon.
You can see in this pic that the police are armed with long sticks. Interesting. Also, that guy is shouting at them in some kind of rant. Funny to hear.
A passage under a busy street. I was expecting any moment to be attacked by Agent Smith clones.
Genius crosswalks. They indicate how much time left until it’ll turn.
Turns out the church was attached to the temple.
Met a missionary from Sydney, Australia.
A garden right next to the temple.
An armored van parked outside of the Chinese embassy.
These little carts were zooming about everywhere. There’d be ones branded for McDelivery, Pizza Hut, a whole range of foods.
Emergency firefighting water is stored here, in the middle of a range of apartment complexes.
Traditional Japanese food is great and all, but sometimes it’s nice just to have some good old-fashioned American Mickey-dees.
That night I met up with a group who was traveling from BYU. Their professor was rather flush with cash from grants, and so while their paper hadn’t been accepted to the conference, they traveled anyways. Which was great, would’ve been not nearly as fun without them to hang with.
This girls’ school was just getting out at like 7:30 at night.
This robot would eerily follow my head.
The blue flecks you see are rain drops falling down the middle of the hotel. I don’t think they should be doing that.
The next morning, after seeing the hotel’s sad excuse for a sausage and eggs breakfast, I headed to the convenience store next door, where I didn’t fare much better. Couldn’t read anything, so I picked out something that looked like it was made of meat, but ended up just being rice wrapped in some kind of sweetened sheet of… stuff. At least it was filling.
The large auditorium where presentations were held.
A second ballroom for a parallel track of presentations.
This is from demo night. I’m wearing a glove with some kind of black duct tape. They’re shining a laser at my hand, which you can barely make out. It’s producing a noticeable tactile response. And heating things up considerably.
The aforementioned laser.
That evening we headed out to visit Akihabara, otaku central. Games, anime, electronics galore.
Not part of Akihabara, but a very attractive set of signs.
We headed back from Akihabara to a hotel near the conference venue, where they had a great dinner planned.
Not part of the dinner. Found this on the way back. Would’ve liked to try it, but never had the time.
The next morning I set off to Tokyo Station to grab tickets for the bullet train, headed for Kyoto, several hundred miles away. I’d heard great things about it from the person I’d sat next to on the plane ride over, so I figured I’d spend a day there after the conference.
They do love their little dogs in sweaters. At one point I saw a dog waiting in a bike basket, while its owner was inside a store finishing up shopping.
I’m guessing water comes out when it’s not early in the morning.
The birds showed no fear.
For lunch a couple of us went off in search of authentic ramen.
Book stores galore.
That night we went to Shibuya Crossing, the busiest crosswalk in the world.
Chevron seven is locked.
I had to part ways with most of the BYU people at that time. A couple of them were staying through the rest of the weekend, so we went off to find some more sights to see.
Underneath the government building we went to the top of for the following pics.
The two BYU students who were staying through the weekend. I was actually her TA back in the day.
Next morning I was bound for Kyoto.
Figured I’d try out Japanese fast food at least once. Not half bad.
Oh goody, a packed one.
Here’s Tokyo Station.
And here’s a bullet train. The dichotomy is interesting, comparing this to the architecture in the prior pic.
A far cry from the crowded subway cars.
The great thing about bullet trains is how fast they go. The annoying thing about bullet trains is how fast they go through picturesque areas. You can just make out the gravesite this little town has set up on the hill. There were lots like it on the way.
I’d love to hear the story of how this sign ended up being necessary.
Interesting concept, you can see where a cover can be drawn over the entrance to this escalator.
Students getting ready to enter the temple.
A wooden sledge used to haul lumber down the mountains for construction.
Don’t ask why, but this rope is made of human hair.
I wasn’t allowed in to this area, but I really want to know what it’s for. You can just make out a couple water tanks on the far side.
This is the largest wooden structure in the world, apparently.
One of the more attractively laid-out hoses I saw in Japan.
You really have to note the size of the people standing just next to the temple to appreciate its scale. I can just imagine Mulan fighting on top of this structure.
This is another temple, somewhat nearby. It was not nearly as peaceful as the first one; there seemed to be a Buddhist graduation ceremony of some kind going on.
They support their ancient trees with these poles.
No idea what these flowers are for.
What I believe to be a couple of monks.
Totally reminds me of The Bourne Ultimatum.
This here is a travesty. It’s how a lot of their drinking fountains are designed, and I can’t understand how they thought it was a good idea from a sanitary perspective. Only a step removed from the way they used water faucets in Pawnee.
Regional train lines are a nice change from the subways.
It’s around this area that I actually accidentally stumbled across one of Kyoto’s red light districts. Oops.
I was pretty disappointed that I wasn’t able to get to this graveyard before dark, but it’s several acres large.
My childhood!
My last day I visited five places: the fish market, one of Tokyo’s large parks, Google’s Tokyo office, a massive graveyard, and a museum.
An interesting concept.
These car elevators were everywhere. When space is tight, Japan gets innovative.
I had one of those meat roll things in the middle. Dang good stuff.
As Obi Wan might’ve said, there’s always a bigger fish head.
Totally unhealthy.
Very expensive knives.
One of my favorite shots of the trip.
Nothing’s impossible in Tokyo, where pigs do fly.
A snack at Google’s cafe.
Google’s Tokyo office is on several floors of a huge skyscraper. This shot was taken from the 43rd floor.
Finally made it to a huge graveyard.
This feature at the museum is a giant sphere, inside of which are several projectors, casting a 360-degree film all around. Visitors walk out onto a bridge to view it. Not the best resolution or production quality, but it was massively entertaining.
These benches were so comfortable, I actually took a half-hour nap here. Lots of walking around that day.
Then it was time to grab my luggage and haul it off to the airport. I really hadn’t noticed how few elevators there were to the surface from subway stations, until I had to haul my heavy suitcase up several flights. These stations were deep – three escalators and two flights of stairs, in some cases.
Another amazing Japanese parking innovation. Would have loved to see it in action, but I had to get moving.
I find this warning hilarious.
And now I’m back. Still dealing with a weird sleep schedule, but I should adjust by tomorrow, if last week was any indication.
