Happy Father's Day!

So it is 10pm here in Japan on Sunday the 19th, which means the weekend is ending. My original intent for this weekend was to go out and enjoy the Tokyo nightlife and see some of the more popular attractions in the Tokyo area such as shrines and parks. So I finished clinic early on Friday and met up with my friend Arisa to go explore. -- Quick side note, I can't find a good translation for "to explore" in Japanese. The only combination that might work is the word for "exploration" with the "to do" verb. Turns out that modern Japanese only has roughly 40,000 words in common usage whereas English has 100,000 or more, so there are bound to be some translation errors. -- Unfortunately, Arisa hasn't been to many places in Tokyo either, so the role of navigator falls on me. But I found a really nice app for my iPod touch the other day for tourists in Japan and it is really useful for finding tourist attractions. Yes, I fully acknowledge that I am a nerd.

So on Friday Arisa and I went out and I was planning on going to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. After a few navigational errors, we were finally on the right path and made in there in good time. Sadly, the park was closed for the night. So then we walked back and went to Tokyu Hands (a Japanese department store) and found it in the middle of closing. Everything in Japan closes early! Even the trains stop shortly after midnight.

Okay, that isn't completely true. Plenty of places are open at night in Tokyo: bars, clubs, and a few restaurants and hotels. But mostly bars and clubs. So... yeah. Friday night ended pretty early once we realized everything was closed and took a train back (we both are on the Keio line from Shinjuku).  We met up earlier on Saturday and decided to go to Shibuya, a district south of Shinjuku. It was a nice day, so we were going to walk it and stop at Harajuku on our way there. Terrible idea. It started raining shortly after we left the station and neither of us had walked that far south before. We didn't get lost, but we got drenched. And the path we took was not a scenic route. After a good half an hour of walking through the rain, we found Harajuku and just decided to take a train the rest of the way. I hate rain. There is a really good reason I am in Claremont, CA for college: Claremont is a desert.

Shibuya was nice. We walked around looking for some statue (which we never found. Personally, I blame the sea of umbrellas in my way) and eventually wound up in a really small noodle joint in a basement off of a side street. Delicious. I was trying to follow Brian's method for good Asian food joints. The lower the health rating, the better. I am not sure how Japan's health regulations and such work, but that place was delicious enough to belong as low as a B in the US (assuming Brian isn't simply crazy and there actually is an inverse relationship between health ratings and deliciousness of food).

As for today, I stayed in and did some laundry and food shopping. And I watched tons of "How I Met your Mother". I blame my current obsession on my lack of ability to make jokes in Japanese. My humor doesn't translate well... But I am aware of that. I did go freelining for a bit though. I'm getting rusty. I can't imagine how much worse I have gotten at dancing. Speaking of that, the huge salsa event I've been waiting for is next weekend. I am super excited. The cover charge is kind of pricey, but I get two lessons, a drink, and full access to the buffet (soft drinks are free). The venue is a very nice hotel in Roppongi. I'll probably be one of the youngest people there again, but I'm getting used to that. I kind of like that everyone overestimates my age. Best to enjoy it while I can. I desperately need a haircut, and I'll only start looking younger and younger as it grows out. Maybe I'll try to find a barber in Roppongi that speaks English.

Ah, almost forgot. I met a British guy on the train on Friday. I think he is an English teacher here in Japan and he has been here for 9 years, so he knows Tokyo fairly well. He added me on Facebook and I might wind up meeting him and his friends next weekend so he can show me some nice places to visit in Tokyo.

One last thing, I want to give a huge shout out to my dad for Father's Day. I won't lie, I initially forgot. As far as I can tell, Father's Day doesn't exist in Japan (at least on the same day as ours) so I didn't have the usual warnings from shops and sales that it is coming up. My reminder came from Google earlier today. Wow, I have really lost touch on some things in the states. I'll be back in a month though.

Anyways, I wanted to say thank you to Dad (for those wondering, I am going to contact him directly too. I might temporarily be a blogger, but I'm not THAT bad). He always worked hard for me, my brothers, and my mom to provide for us. I remember there were times when I was a kid that he would work 16 to 18 hour shifts 4 or 5 times a week. Since my mom also worked a lot, he would wake us up in the middle of the night and drop us off at his mom's house on his way to work and we would go to school the next morning from her house. I don't remember all the details since I was only around 7 at that time (honestly, I could be completely wrong with that guess. I only know it was at an age I don't have much memory of). Either way, my dad always did his best to raise us. We didn't get pampered (okay, mom kind of spoiled us), we got hard lessons to make us better men. He taught us how to work hard and to always love our mom. We don't have to love him, but we have to love Mom because she devoted her entire life to us and she deserves respect. Growing up with a stern father was rough sometimes, but I know it made me and my brothers better men.

So for all the times you made me pay for my mistakes as a child, for all the times you reminded me I don't understand the first thing about life, for all the times you told me to shut up and work, for all the brutal hours of working at Keystone and Caterpillar breaking your body to bring home a paycheck, and for all the arguments and support and help, and for being a great dad and making Mom happy; thank you Dad. I love you. 

See you in a month,

David