Revolves Around Money

Tokyo is way too expensive. Everything interesting to do cost way to much money. Do I wanna go to a bar and drink with friends? Sure it would be a good time, but I am not spending $6 for a beer or a shot of something. Today for instance, I went with Mike and Steve to play some darts after eating dinner. Alright, so you pay per person per game right? That's how any sane person would run an amusement place right? Well that is one third of the cost of playing darts at whatever messed up place we went to. First of all you have to pay per hour for being in the facility. Fine, then the darts are free right? Nope, another 100 yen per person per game at the board. Fine I'll deal with it, 100 yen isn't than bad. No it doesn't stop there, halfway through the first game one of the staff guys comes around and says we have to buy a drink. Are you serious? I did not see any sign outside that said only people 20 and over (the drinking age in Japan) can enter. It is not a bar. We were not informed at the front desk that we would be forced to buy something or asked to leave. We just wanted to play some darts! I hate Tokyo.

So anyway, aside from that it was a decent day. I went with Aaron to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. It is the showroom for all of Miyazaki's movies and other pieces of work. There was a bunch of cool stuff. We watched a short flick that can only be seen at the museum. There was a room with projectors everywhere, little and small, projecting images and moving pictures on various different things. There was also a little exhibit about the evolution of movies from past to present. There were a few rooms devoted to the children's story of the 3 bears, ones that replicated Miyazaki's actual film studio, a giant cat bus, gift shop, and various other cool trinkets. The only problem was you are not allowed to take pictures inside the place. Ugh. Well I took a ton of pics of the outside of the museum. The weird thing was, Aaron booked tickets through a tour group instead of just getting tickets to the museum. We had to go to Hamamatsucho and wait for everyone else to gather. Then we traveled together all the way back through Shinjuku to Mitaka. What a waste! The other people on the trip were all foreigners, which didn't bug me at first, but the way over was really weird. Everyone was in Japan on vacation for a couple days, a week, little longer, but none of them actually were staying in Japan. I was also the only one that could communicate anything in Japanese. I had a nice talk with the tour guide. Speaking of tour guides, she was really nice but didn't really do anything. She took us to the museum and let us go free for a couple hours. Then we headed back together. Not much of a tour. The museum was really cool though and I would like to go back.

I met up with Steve afterwards and had Yasube. The only thing I missed in Niigata is the food from Tokyo. Sure the food is excellent in Niigata, but I didn't have too much of a choice of what to eat. Afterwards Mike said that he got back from China this morning. I called him up and we decided to go play darts. Mike and Steve both had a lot to say about China. From what they said, it is a really dirty place and the people are really against foreign people, moreso than Japanese. I kind of don't want to visit anymore.