I think it’s finally sunken in that I’m going to be here for good for a couple years. I’m slowly getting my routine down, starting real work tomorrow and somewhat know my way around just by walking everywhere. I’ve grown accustomed to the “slow” lifestyle of walking everywhere, which will only get faster once I get my bike when my household goods arrive. I’m hopefully going to get my permanent housing situation figured out this week too, which will only further validate my long-term existence here.

Anyway, week 2 flew by pretty quick. Being in orientation all week has allowed me to get a quick summary of all my Japanese classes I took in high school and college. I still need to work on my Japanese conversations, but class was definitely helpful. My instructor was very knowledgeable, and is actually a descendent of a long line of samurai ancestry. He’s 61, but has taken good care of his health as he could pass for a 40-year old, and could literally beat anyone down if he really needed to. I’m a bit anxious to spectate at one of his martial arts classes during the weekends.

As a class, we visited Odawara Castle to get a better understanding of the Japanese culture and history. I’ve been to a couple castles when I last came to Japan in 2003 with a tour group, but I don’t think I learned the things I did this time around. All of the castles in Japan were strategically built with multiple levels of defense, including moats, gates, and isolated fields before finally being able to make it into the main castle grounds. I don’t understand how any army would’ve made it to the main grounds based on the way the gates were built. If you weren’t shot down by an arrow or bullet while trying to charge through the large wooden doors at the first gate (not to mention getting your legs severed from swords being swung from slots at the bottom of the doors), you’d most likely be killed at the next couple repeats at the gates ahead. The castle was well maintained and displayed a ton of ancient artifacts, samurai armory, weapons and documents. Unfortunately, photography was forbidden inside the castle, so there’s a large gap in my gallery below.

There was also a Keirin race track in Odawara on the way to the castle, which I’m looking forward to visiting in the future to hopefully either ride during an open track day or watch one of the actual races held there. In addition, I’ve eaten at countless places this past week, I’d rather not go into detail about everything other than the fact that all the food was awesome.

Saturday was probably the most exciting and tiring day for me, seeing one of my coworkers off to his journey in Korea, and then venturing out to Shibuya/Harajuku to go on a shopping rampage… For the less-“hip” people, you probably won’t understand anything else in the post, but Bape (Bathing Ape) and Kaws both worked together on a new collaboration tying Bape’s Milo gorilla mascot and Kaws’ Dissected figure. It’s been a couple years since both teamed up to produce a sick piece and it was definitely something that caught my eye once I heard the figures would be released exclusively at three different Bape stores in the Tokyo (Aoyama, Harajuku and Shibuya, all within a 1-mile radius of each other) area and OriginalFake (authorized retailer for Kaws items) in Aoyama. Each Bape store carried an exclusive colorway: brown, black or white, and OriginalFake stocked all three colorways. I ended up standing in lines all day, 2.5 hours at Bape Aoyama for the brown vinyl figure (where I was only able to obtain 1 since they sold out shortly after I got in line again to try to scoop another one), 1 hour at Supreme (a clothing store that originated in New York, but is largely popular worldwide and highly exclusive to people who shop the brand) in Harajuku for its Spring/Summer collection release, and 1 hour at OriginalFake at the end of the day after I heard they would be selling additional figures after 4:30 to people who didn’t have the special pre-release tickets. OriginalFake has got to be one of the craziest stores I’ve been to; once making it to the front door after standing in the long line, I was greeted by what looks to be at least a 10′ Kaws Dissected statue behind a huge display glass. On the left is all the historical Kaws vinyl figures, Kaws Darth Vader and Storm Trooper, etc; every collector’s dream, just amazing…

Hopefully I won’t be going on any big shopping sprees anytime soon. It was definitely a memorable experience. Till next week!