The world is tilting…

I arrived back late UK time on Friday, and went straight out to Tech Noir. It was a really good night, although again I drank too much and felt horrible on Saturday. I think it was a lot to do with the jet lag though, as I’d not slept for 34 hours, and then ended up going to bed about lunchtime Tokyo time. I slept on the sofa at Emma’s during the afternoon a bit, and couldn’t really even face the Japanese food we’d got.

While I was in Tokyo, I bought a PSP as I found a shop selling them for about £40 in Nakano. I got Monster Hunter Portable for it and played that on the way back, although it’s the Japanese version and I had to try to translate the kanji, but it’s a great game. Yesterday I bought a few more games for it; Loco Roco (ロコロコ Rokoroko), Lumines II and Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. I’ve blogged in another blog about Puzzle Quest, but Loco Roco and Lumines II are brilliant games too! Lumines II is like Tetris on crack, with an amazing soundtrack, and Loco Roco is just the strangest, cutest, weirdest and best game I’ve ever played. In the game you use the L and R buttons to tilt the world, moving a little blob (Loco Roco) around the world using gravity and little jumps to pick up berries, but you also need to find “Mui Muis” and “pickories”, while avoiding the spikey “burrs” and “Moja” that eat Loco Roco. You can also use the circle button to split the big Loco Roco into loads of little ones to fit into little gaps.

There are also mini-games such as Mui Mui Crane where you use a arcade crane to pick up Loco Rocos and Chuppa Chuppa where you control a “Chuppa” and launch Loco Rocos to another Chuppa and that one launches it too.

It’s just so addictive, and last night when I went to bed, I could see tilting worlds and jelly-like Loco Rocos jumping about. Like all great games, Loco Roco is really simple, although gets really difficult at higher levels. It’s control mechanism is simple, but brilliant. Also the game designers have put in the ability to edit worlds, and even using the underlying signal architecture, see the Crazy Secrets in Loco Roco.

Strangely the tilting world metaphor is quite apt too, as my world does seem to have tilted recently…

Kill Bill and the earth moved!

Yesterday I was in Marunouchi, which is pretty much the center of Tokyo in the Chiyoda ward. Imagine an area comprised of a load of insurance company buildings, and you’ve pretty much got it. The area is just next to Ginza, which is just north of where I am at the moment. It’s strange that over the past couple of weeks I’ve got a really good idea of the geography (or is that topography) of Tokyo. Each time I visit an area, it fits into the surrounding places like a jigsaw. The weirdest thing is when I’m in a completely different area, but realise that I’ve arrived in somewhere I know really well, and another bit of the puzzle clunks into place. It’s really weird that I knew nothing about Tokyo two weeks ago, but now I can find my way around pretty well.

Marunouchi also has the Imperial Palace, and the Imperial Palace gardens, which are really lovely – although it was so hot again that I couldn’t walk around them too much. It’d be nice to go back again, but when it’s less than a million degrees. Cherry blossom season is supposed to be the best time to see the area, and there is a walk all the way through the park which takes quite a while. I did have lunch in a fantastic place called Aroyna Tabeta, which was braised pork with rice. The restaurant is in half of a railway arch, and really quirky. It’s authentic and reasonably priced Thai street food, and well worth a visit if you’re around there. It’s right next to the Tokyo International Forum, under the railway arches [3-7-11 Maranouchi, Chiyoda-ku].

After that, dinner was in a restaurant called Gonpachi in Nishi-Azabu, next to Roppongi. The place is a Japanese restaurant, but inside it’s design is really fantastic. I recognised the place immediately, and apparently it was the inspiration for the restaurant in Kill Bill, where the big fight scene happened. I had tempura, some beef and chazuke, along with a load of other small dishes. Along with a few Shochu drinks, it was a great meal. Afterwards I met some people and we went to Gaspanic, a club in Roppongi. It’s a lunatic place, where the women are agressive, and if you stop drinking, you have to leave. Even the staff check your drink, and if it’s too low; you either have to buy another, or leave. It’s a truely mad place! (^ ^)

Speaking of drinking – there are three important Japanese drinks; nihonshu, shochu and awamori. “Sake” is another name for nihonshu, which is brewed from rice and fermented. This is about 20 percent alcohol. It’s served warm or cold, but it’s generally the cheap stuff that’s served warm. Daiginjo is the really good nihonshu, but it’s expensive. Shochu and awamori are both distilled, so much stronger – about 50 percent. Shochu is made with rice too, but it’s sometimes made from barley or sweet potato. If it’s distilled once, it’s honkaku shochu, although it’s often distilled multiple times for a drink to mix with fruit juice. Shochu is a really nice drink mixed with juice, although by itself it smells evil! I woke up about 4am after only sleeping for a couple of hours (I’ll explain why in a sec) and took some headace tablets, as I’d had some Asahi beer too (^ ^). Awamori is distilled too, but made with imported Thai long grain rice, and comes from Okinawa. Okinawans drink it with ice and water.

The reason I woke up last night about 4am, was that I was aware that something was happening. The air conditioning was on, and making it’s usual sound, but it felt like I was sleeping weirdly and could hear my heart beating in my ear. I realised that I was wobbling slightly in bed, and a vaigue though passed through my mind. I heard from a friend this morning that it was an earthquake of 4.5 on the Richter scale. So I’ve experienced my first Japanese earthquake!! (^o^)

Today I’m going to fly around Shinjuku, Akihabara and Shibuya – although it’s so hot again today that I might come back before going to Shibuya and have a shower and cool down. I want to head to a sushi place in Shibuya that I’ve heard is really good.