Shiftdown

Hello and welcome to Shift down the place for everything, anything, and nothing. Now I know I’ve been gone for a long time now. A months gone by and nothing from me. Well sorry but as i have said in earlier posts I am very good at procrastinating. But things are kinda hectic right now. As well as my 2 weeks in Japan. Which I’ll start tonight off with. So here it is  Road journal #1.

I had only been here for 3 hours but what a welcome……..8:00pm the sky was as bright as 12 noon. A shower of sparks filled my field of vision turning the sky to the richest gold.  A grand welcome to the place I had dreamed of visiting for the last 5 years. A life goal attained. A fireworks festival in Asaka. The most beautiful display I have ever seen. I have never seen fireworks like it anywhere else in my life.  But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Lets start at the begging where my journey started.

Los Angeles International Airport – 11:30am

I arrived curbside being dropped off by my mother. Now I have only flown once before. But international travel and domestic are completely different experiences. Now I am impressed at how easy it is to get your boarding passes at the airport however there aren’t many signs for first timers like myself. But the people are pretty helpful with information. I’ll admit it took me about 30 minutes to finally find someone to tell me how to get my pass and check my bags. But when I was at the machine to print them I had them in less than 2 minutes. Now I what I didn’t know was that all you do is leave your bags at the checkpoint and walk away. Which I thought was a little strange because what if somethings wrong? I don’t know what they would do. But I guess it just works. But I think it may be one of the reasons that luggage gets lost. Honestly I think the airport could be run so much more efficiently. Line after line I was making it closer to my gate. I had to wait in line to go up to go to the security check point and then another line at the security checkpoint.  Which I will admit the security checkpoint was a lot faster and less crowded than I thought it would be. I was very surprised. But it was good. However the line to get to that was fairly long and was taking a long time. I think I spent an hour in that line bored out of my mind.  But right after the checkpoints it was a breezy walk to my departure gate. However i was still nearly 2 hours early. Now normally at this point I would pull out my iPod, DSi, or PSP (even though i didn’t bring my PSP with me) but I had a 11 hour flight ahead of me so I needed to save the battery for the plane ride. And I am so glad i did. And what i didn’t know it that there are computer terminals in the terminals. I thought it was just Wifi. And I have to admit that the price isnt to bad i think. I mean I have seen more expensive prices for internet at internet cafes and Convention centers. In case you want to know its 25 cents a minute and there’s a 3 minute minimum. At 12:45pm I boarded my plane and waited for my departure at 1:30pm.

I have to admit it was a pretty peaceful flight. hardly any turbulance. And I had a lot of leg room. However It was kinda cramped on the sides. But i can’t complain. My only problem was the engine noise. I was in a window seat close by it so I had a hard time trying to cath some sleep. All in all I was only able to get about 4 hours of sleep. And not straight. it was like every other hour I was able to sleep for an hour. But It did help a little bit. But it is a killer flight. theres not much to see out the window except sunlight, clouds, and water. But when you come in for a landing, What a view. The food wasn’t half bad. And I have to admit i did eat a lil bit of everything. even the salad. Which is completely out of the norm for me. But during this trip i swore i would try a little bit of everything. Except fish. That was the only thing i could bring my self not to try. But after 11 hours I finally arrived…

Narita international Airport – Chiba, Japan – 5:45pm

Because of the 17 hour time difference I arrived the next day in Japan. Which was about 10:00pm the day before back here in Los Angeles. Now I have to say i love Narita so much more than LAX. I arrived and was through all the checkpoints in less than 30 minutes. The hardest parts was Immigration. But even that was fast. And with this big swine flu scare there were a lot of procedures to go through. The first was quarantine which was just a small paper telling you precautions and offering you a mask in case you felt you needed one. But since the scare at the time had settled down I guess they lessened the quarantine measures. I assume soon they will be screening people again since winter is coming along with flu season. Glad i was there during the off season. Next up was immigration. Which was easy except filling out the disembarkation card. It is also in English however it can be a little hard to understand.  Something I noticed about a lot of English in many places around Tokyo. And I have to say from the terminal through quarantine, Immigration, Baggage claim, and Customs, to the street level was not even a far walk. And another thing is that I walked through Immigration and my bags were waiting for me not even 20 minutes after I walked off the plane. And as soon as i walked out of customs my Bro Tom was waiting for me.

Everything is completely different than here in LA. The expressway, the buildings, the cars, the personalities, everything. But it is a site. The Express way is amazing. Its like a long stretch of road smoothly paved. One of the things I was amazed at is the entire way was sound proofed with a barrier (Or at least I think that what it was for, I’m still not sure exactly) so it did make things kind of hard to see from the express way. One of the things I though that sucked was that the express ways have toll booths. I think it costs about 35 dollars to get from Saitama to Chiba. Kinda steep seeing as you still need to put gas. But i have to say as much driving as we did during my stay we didn’t fill up very often. There cars are very fuel efficient. And I have to admit for as crowded a city as Tokyo the traffic was actually not that bad. However it did take 3 hours to get from the Airport to Asaka. But Tokyo is the most beautiful place at night. The city lights are astounding. I was even more impressed than i was in Las Vegas. Which Up until i went to Shibuya was my favorite city in the world.

Asaka, Saitama – Japan 8:00pm

Now where i began. As I arrived the yearly fireworks display was just starting. And i was greeted by my friends parents who were the most hospitable and friendly people I have ever met. I kind of felt as one of the family during my stay there and I felt very welcome. But I did learn a lesson.

1.) You should not drink if you have been awake for more than a day straight, especially 100 proof alcohol.

2.) It is a good idea to stay up until the time you would normally go to sleep in a different time zone. It really helped fight off the jet lag. Even though I did feel it 2 days later.

3.) Jet lag does exist……and it is a BITCH!!!!

I had three beers, 3 shots of 100 proof southern comfort, and a couple glasses of sake. Lets just say i have never been drunk until that night and it hit hard. And the wall behind me that i was leaning on was the only thing keeping me up right. I had been up since 7:00am in LA and did not go to sleep until 3:00amin Japan (technically 2 days after i left LA). I slept in until 12 the next day i think. however i can’t really remember cause I had a massive headache. Which i have to admit was the only hangover i suffered from even thought I had heavier drinking nights during my trip. I really can’t explain that one….. But my first night in japan was amazing. Probably one of the best nights in my life by far. And the begining of the best trip and the best time I have ever had…

Well I’ll continue the road journals as I try to get this back onto a regular schedule again. I am thinking I will start posting Shiftdown at night this way it gives me a chance to see whats going on in the world, games, and music. Plus i just have more time at night. during the day it gets hard with interuptions of other things I need to do.

So moving on. I have noticed that the economy just keeps getting worse. only thing is everyone keeps saying its getting better.I think that there just covering it up with false hope yet again. More and more i see places saying for lease. And some of the biggest companies have closed down. And even now that I am looking for a job I find that agencys are only accepting applications from about 30 people a  day. it is rediculos how bad things are. Even stores i go to have cut back so much as to have 3 to 4 people operating them at a time. I mean how are things supposed to get better when all we keep doing is cutting back. And then raising taxes, DMV fees, Gas prices. Slowly and surely I think we are going to turn into a third world country. Honestly we need to reevaluate everything. And hit the reset button. And it feels like we are avoiding the issue. I mean yeah i am all for a universal health care system but who’s gonna pay for it? Who is going to shell out the cash. And what good will it do when were all living in the streets anyway? We need to fix the financial situation before anything else. We need jobs. And I still would like to know where all this countries money has gone. And if it is the war then i really feel Bush should have a lot of his fortune taken and shelled out to pay for it since it was his brilliant idea. But in any case thats the issue that needs fixing. We need to stop focusing on what kanye did, or how MJ died and realize the truth that were all about to get fucked cause everythings closing down. The stock markets holding steady but its like craking glass, it’s just a matter of time before it shatters and we all fall through…

Well I was going to go on some more but Leno is gonna start (Thank god he’s back on the air!!) so I’m gonna end tonights post here. Oh and for the critics who were saying that The jay Leno Show was a rip off of the Tonight show…He fucking was The Tonight Show!!! he is just doing HIS thing. Why fix whats not broken. just cause you want to force people to like Conan, to assimilate them to him..Leno is the king of Late night and will always be. The only other king was Jhonny Carson. If anyones gonna fill Lenos spot at the 11:35 time slot it will be Letterman or Kimmel. Which I have to say Kimmel should have taken over the Tonight show. No offense to anyone but I just don’t find Conan funny. If you do thats fine but I just don’t think he can fill lenos shoes. And I hope that The Jay leno Show stays on for a long time and they don’t kick it off just cause Conan won’t be able to compeat. But my one critism for Leno is…Give the credit where the credit is due for your new segment of the star in the reasonably priced car. Top gear deserves it. And I still think you should have been the host of the American version that is supposed to start here. You couldn’t top Clarkson i think but you would come close. Well thats allf or tonight. Check back soon for another post of Shiftdown.