Day 10, July 11,
2002
So I actually can get cable internet/tv and phone at my
apartment. It’s
gonna run about $80 a month total, which is about what it is in california. At any rate, for the increase in my ability
to conduct my “normal” modern life, it’s definitely worth it. Better yet, they’re going to do the install
on the 15th, which is, in case you didn’t figure it out, is day
14. I signed up for it today at work
with the help of Nagata-san, a very nice woman who works in the facilities
department. Boy did I ever not
understand most of the talking that went on between her and the cable guy. I have none of that vocabulary. Connect, fee, installation, cancellation,
service levels, options, charges, long distance, good lord. What a lot of new words. Spent most of the day doing some heat testing
for a circuit element that is going to replace an older element in a
high-temperature device. Basically, when
you have a tool in a really hot environment, plastic ICs melt. Not a good thing, but sort of funny to
imagine :) Not so if you’re the field
engineer who just had a $150,000 tool kick the bucket in a 4-inch wide hole 5
miles deep. Anyways, it involved a lot of
heating in a VERY slow oven and the taking of many oscilloscope readings. Totally, completely, and utterly
mundane. I loved it. So relaxing :) Not what I want to do for the rest of my
life, but fine for the moment. I took a
look at the Stanford Joint Program in Product Design webpage today, and it
looks like it would be a good place for me in a few years. In the meantime I should probably spend some
time improving my drawing skills. Not a
minor proposition, that.
Also did some more looking around at bike stuff online. As it turns out, the Deore shifting gear is
actually a few levels below the LX stuff on my bike at home, which makes it
rather less appealing. Cycling equipment
is one of the few arenas in which price and length of useful service are
honestly strongly correlated. I asked
Mark Siminoff from IDEO about it, he used to work for Specialized, so we’ll see
what suggestions he has. The sheer DIY
spankiness of building by mailorder is pretty appealing, I must say. Of course, then I have to get it home at the
end. Too much to think
about at the moment.
The typhoon came through last night a while after midnight.
It was a pretty wimpy typhoon.
Couldn’t have been winds over 40mph around here. Attempted the poundcake for
the second time, too. Worked much
better, although I’d say it was more of a mega-muffin than a poundcake. A bit too fluffy, owing to
using a whole egg in a very small batch.
Still, it is quite tasty. I’d
like to try the next one with one of these cultured yogurt drink products I’ve
been keeping in my fridge. Very good stuff. I’m
really surprised at the quality of the dairy products, actually. The milk is great, and only a little more
expensive (~ %30) than in the states. I
have some gruyere that I bought out of sheer curiousity. I’ll try that in a day or two when I’ve
finished off all of my other leftovers.
It’s amazing how rarely one can cook when one lives by oneself. At least in the quantities I’m used to
cooking. Maybe I should try this whole
cooking one serving at a time bit. Nah. Seems like you’d waste a lot of oil that way anyhow.
I think that starting this weekend I’m going to keep track
of all of my expenses for a couple of weeks now that everything has
stabilized. I’m curious how much I’m
actually spending. I spent more around
$150 on groceries in the first 10 days here, but most of that stuff is still
here – cooking oil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, potatoes, onions, noodles,
rice, etc. Rice is really pricey here,
did I mention that? Easily
several times as expensive as in the US. Something about Japan
having high tariffs to keep Japanese rice competitive on the internal market.
Day 11, July 12,
2002
More of the same at work today. Baking, soldering,
recording, lather rinse repeat. I
went with Nagata-san, Nicolas (another intern, from Paris),
and another woman to the city hall to get my temporary alien registration proof
form. Nicolas has an apartment about 100
yards from the train station. Pretty nice, although it’s probably smaller than mine. Oh well.
I get peace and quiet. I’ve been
thinking about future plans quite a bit since I’ve been spending so much time
baking circuits at work, and I’m starting to plan around applying to product
design schools in a few years. Stanford
requires at least a year of non-school before application, and most people
there have 4 or 5. It seems like a good
place to aim for me. Near SF, very cool
program, and forces me to go and do some serious self-improvement to ready
myself for public scrutiny again. I’m
really not ready for that right now.
Jobs, sure, but school applications in an art/aesthetically competetive
environment is pretty terrifying to me.
Sven, who graduated from the program last year and is now fulltime at
IDEO (he was an intern last summer), said the portfolio requirements are very
loose, but the standard is high.
Spending all this time doing very little of consequence has made me
realize how much I’ve been out of creation mode for the last four years. I think that’s what I’ve been missing. I’ve been feeling like Goldmund minus the art
for the last couple of years. For me
craft and art are definitely distinct but both necessary. Caltech was perhaps not the place for the
latter. Spent a couple
of hours of waiting time at work trying to get my mind rolling again on the
creative design tip. It’s amazing
how surreptitiously creative thought slips away from you in the midst of other
activity – I don’t know how I managed to be so unproductive for so long without
noticing it. I think a lot of this
realization has been brewing for a while.
Probably since Burning Man, but especially in hearing all the various
neat projects Gaspo is working on. He
and his posse have definitely got the majority of “the way to live”
nailed. Flying and
gadgeteering. Right
on.
It’s a Friday night, so I think I’m going to go and try to
catch up with some of the aussies. Nice to think that I don’t
have to be home at any particular time.
Of course, once the last trains leave you’re committed to being out till
at least 4:00am when they start to run
again. Could be
interesting. Too bad I have to go
find a payphone just to call them. Oi. Only three more days of that. Then I will be wired to the hilt.
Okay, so:
The payphone didn’t want to let me call the numbers I needed
to, so I decided to go to Machida
station and just wander around a bit. I
met a couple of guys, one australian, one seattlite,
out in front of the station. We talked
for a while, and tehn wandered off to find some food. We met Jen at work, but she was going home,
so we went looking for food some more.
We ended up at an English Pub themed bar where Karl, the australian, was curious about the fish and chips. Incidentally, they’re both exchange students
over here for a few months, Karl graduating in just a couple, Lucas graduating
at the end of the year. Nice
fellows. Anyhow, we found seats in the
bar next to a japanese couple, the guy, Ryo, just moved back to Japan having
studied jazz bass at the hollywood Musicians Institute. He actually knows about Rocco. Far out. His girlfriend, Mizuki, is a financial
analyst or something along those lines.
I had an Australian beer. Quite tasty. Victoria
Bitter, I think.
After we left the bar, we were walking down the street and
ran into guess who? My
boss, Miyamae-san from Schlumberger.
He bought us drinks at one of his favorite bars a little ways away, and
we talked together for a couple of hours, and then caught the second-to-last trains home.
Miyamae-san lives in Machida,
so he doesn’t have to worry about all that.
Pretty freakin’ weird.
I am beat. Good
NIGHT.
Day 12 July 13, 2002
Woke up around 9. Nice, because I went to bed a little after 1am. I think I’m
finally on about a normal sleep schedule.
It was raining lightly when I woke, up, but it seems to have
stopped. It’s still overcast,
though. Not really sure what to do with
myself today. Probably:
Do my Japanese homework
Keep grinding on the project idea file
Buy an umbrella
Go out tonight to some exciting Tokyo
locale.
Finish setting up pictures so I can upload them at work on
Monday. I think I’ve got it all figured
out. Unfortunately, I haven’t really
taken all that many thrilling photographs.
My heart just isn’t really in it right now – too many other things to
think about. Also,
with the frequent overcastness.
So I went back to Machida again
today and acquired an umbrella. I found
an “American Used As Is Clothing” store, too. This country is totally Emo heaven. They had racks upon racks full of the kind of
clothes I search for all over SF and LA.
Very pricey though, 1800-3800 yen.
Also went to a smaller music shop to look at guitars some more. They have cheapies from about $85, but I
didn’t get the chance to play them. I
think that that will probably be the way to go at the moment, since it really
looks like I won’t be able to find a guitar I like at a reasonable price
here. S’okay. I did some more bike shop looking, as
well. It’s really tough to decide how to
approach this whole bicycle problem.
Poundcake now much better: 250g
flour, 150g sugar, 1 egg, 100g butter, ¼ cup yogurt drink (other yogurt would
probably be fine, or milk)
Bake in low oven (325ish) for a while, maybe an hour or two. Greasing pan not a bad
idea. Check on it from time to
time – when a knife comes out clean from the bottom, it’s done.
While my poundcake was in the oven, I started in on Russell Banks’
Cloudsplitter. I got about 10 pages in
before the building started shaking. Washing machine? Dryer? Nah, earthquake.
4.0ish.
Trifling little earthquake, if you ask me. I love being from California. I get to be snooty about so many different
things. Drag queens? Bah, go to the Castro. Earthquakes? Bah, 1989.
Snow?
Well, no state’s perfect :)
I tried to improvise a pancake recipe this morning, but it really ended up
more like a dessert crepe recipe. I
think I need a fluffing agent. Maybe a second egg.
I decided to wander south of Machida Station today to see what’s down
there. It had the look of a “next to a
big shopping area” sort of little restaurant district that no visitor would
ever bother with. Always
a good sign in my book. And what
did I find but a very good Cambodian restaurant and a Thai place that I will go
to tomorrow or next weekend, since it’s only open for lunch. About the size of my closet at Steuben
house. At the Cambodian restaurant I was
served by a very flamboyant cambodian guy in a pink
shirt with matching headwrap. Takes all kinds, even in Japan,
apparently. That made me
happy. I also picked up an all-japanese
pamphlet entitled (romanized here): “kanagawa esunikku resutoran mappu,” which
translates rather directly to “Kanagawa Ethnic Restaurant Map, in case you’re
not up on your Engrish. Apparently
there’s a Mexican place in Odawara. That
definitely merits a little adventure to the deep south of the prefecture. Not expecting much, that’s for sure. The majority of places in the pamphlet are
Indian, with a number of Peruvian and southeast asian
Chinese places as well. Pretty weird,
though – there are more ethnic restaurants than this in a one-block radius in
almost any commercial district in LA. Nothing African, sadly.
Hopefully I can convince the Nigerians to cook for me at some
point. Oh, and for you Noe-Valley dwellers,
there’s Thai place called Swat Dee not too far from my town.
Day 13 July 14, 2002
I set out this morning to explore the park across the street from my
apartment, only to discover that it isn’t so much a park as a completely (no
open gates anywhere, and the one that I saw had a completely overgrown path
behind it) fenced in forest area behind the Sagamihara city museum and the
Japanese National Film Archive, which are on the other side of the block where
I can’t see them from my place.
Apparently the Japanese Institute for Space and Astronautical Science
Research is also over there, one block past the museum. It’s pretty surprising what can hide so very
nearby when you A: don’t read very well and B: weren’t born here. The museum looked to be mostly closed today,
although there were a few people trickling in.
I think they have special arrangements on Sundays. Also, more stuff is closed here on Sunday
than in the US.
I forgot to mention this earlier:
Japanese toilet paper rolls have single sheets approximately three times
as long as American ones. Very disconcerting.
Today’s recipe:
Simmer together for a while:
Half onion, in strips
1 Tb soy sauce
1 cup water
Fistful of Bean Sprouts (Soba Western?)
1 small chunk black sugar
dash of fish sauce
Prepare:
1 bundle somen noodles, boiled and drained
12 fishcake slices
put the noodles in a bowl, use fishcake to
decorate around the outside edges
Verdict
Well, I wouldn’t really recommend using bean sprouts in something you want
to be salty. Maybe just don’t cook
them.
At present there is a live broadcast on from San
Francisco Civic Center of some
NHK (Japan Television) program. A lot of very bad singing, and a lot of pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and
Fisherman’s Wharf, too. Reno said he
was going to be in SF from the 13th to the 22nd… I wonder if his dad is wrapped up in this somehow? Honestly,
I’m a little surprised that they were able to find ~5000 Japanese people in San Francisco, I’ve come
to think that the Japanese population is almost non-existent in NoCal. It seems to be a kind of massive
international-broadcast Karaoke show where they interrupt each performer with
chiming church bells after about a minute.
Um, whoa.
Now it’s the 49ers cheerleaders.
This is straight FUCKED up.
Okay, so it was a Karaoke *Contest*.
Somebody won.
After wandering for a couple of hours to the south and east, I found a few
neat things:
- Fuchinobe Park and
Sagamihara Stadium are about 2km away.
- The
district directly south of me about 1.5km seems to be almost exclusively
populated by hair salons, both men’s and women’s.
- Even
further south, maybe a half-hour walk away, there is (drumroll, please) a
used furniture and other crap store.
I found a few small tables that might serve nicely here. They only had one office chair, which
didn’t seem to be adjustable height, so I may have to figure that out some
other way, but the tables were not very expensive, maybe $20-$30. They also had some marginal used moutain
bikes, and a very beat up old Yamaha guitar for
$30. F-441L, whatever that
means. In the eletronics section
they had an in-box original Famicom system. That’s the original Japanese Nintendo,
for those who didn’t already know.
$68. They had N64s and
Playstations for less. I guess the
collector market exists in Japan, too.
- Very
near the used stuff tent (the whole building is a sort of mega-tent
structure) is a small looking college called Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku. Curious.
The school that those two fellows go to is somewhere else around here,
I think. So many schools. I passed a couple of Elementary schools
as well.
- A
supermarket that’s much closer than the Sanwa I’ve been going to, and
which has comparable selection at possibly slightly better prices. It’s called Coop.
The reading of that as they’ve translated
it is “kohhpu.” Heh.
Day 14, July 15,
2002
So I came home from work early, and the cable guys were waiting
outside. An army of
young dudes sporting red coveralls.
They’re working on it right now.
Perhaps I’ll get to post this when I’m done writing it! I think I may bite the bullet and spend the
500 or so bucks to get a nice Specialized A1FS this weekend. From what I’ve seen online at work in my spare
minutes, it looks like $500 is actually a pretty good deal. However, I was also told that yahoo.co.jp has
an online auction site, so I’ll check that out too. If I do get the one at the nearby shop, it
may even be sooner, if I can find time in the afternoon to get to Machida before the
shop closes and ride it home. I have
only the vaguest idea of how to get back on surface streets from there, but I
figure with the GPS and the train tracks I can’t miss. I also know a few of the major roads
now. The one nearest to me is “Juu-Roku
Go” i.e. 16-go, i.e. route 16. Those little suffixes for streets, numbers,
addresses, train/bus lines etc are some of the most important elements of
day-to-day communication.
I REALLY need a more comfortable chair.
This thing is killing my back.
Maybe tomorrow afternoon I’ll go grab that $15 office chair at the
second-hand tent as a piecemeal solution.
Okay, I am WIRED. All I need now is
a cellphone :)
For my home phone, sorry no answering machine, from the US, dial:
011 81 042 852 1980
New recipe:
Simple Cheese/Onion Risotto
~one serving uncooked rice
just < 2 cubic inches of gruyere shredded or chopped
half an onion
sake
put the rice in a pan, add a bit of water,
and start simmering, stirring constantly and adding water so that there is
always some liquid. Use sake liberally
instead of water for a more serious flavor.
When the rice is not quite al dente, add the onion, sliced into thinnish
strips.
Cook until the rice is done, maybe a bit on the underdone side, add the cheese, stir and heat until a bit drier, then serve
in a nicely sculpted mound in a bowl. Coat
liberally with salt and coarse black pepper, more pepper than salt, and enjoy.