I finally found a new gym. I had a bunch of things I wanted in a new gym: not too easy, not too hard. Too easy seemed to be all over, and Crossfit definitely seemed too hard. I was thinking maybe taking up BJJ, or doing yoga, but really wanted a pullup bar and a rope to climb, two things that are easier to find at a Crossfit gym. So when an old friend told me to join him at a Crossfit gym he’d been sneaking off to I finally relented. And they have a not-quite-that-long rope to climb!

So far it hasn’t been too bad but I haven’t been going for a full week yet. They have several “levels” of workouts and I’m old and lazy enough to stick to the easiest level. Even I ran 2½ miles tonight which is two miles more than I’ve run at one time in for years. Now I’m just hoping I don’t hurt myself.

When the gym closed I set up a Facebook page for gym “alumni” so we could talk about where to go while our gym is on hiatus. We’re hoping it’s just a hiatus anyway. But not that many people are posting about where they’ve been and how it was. I wonder if they’re just doing what I’m doing, which is next to nothing, still kind of depressed that the old reliable gym is gone. I made it to Five Rings Jiu Jitsu once with my gi and my workout gear, thinking I’d decide which to do when I got there. Nathan, THMFIC at Recreate, was telling me I should start BJJ. Last Saturday morning they were having a gym exchange so I could only do the fitness class. It wasn’t what I expected – lots of stretching before warming up and just the workout. But the workout was pretty good.

Anyway, I’ve only been to one place, for one workout, and even though I spent $140 on a gi for BJJ I still haven’t gone to a class. I guess I went a couple of times back at Portland Judo but that was a year-and-a-half ago.

I guess I’ve had excuses: a stomachache last week that almost made me go home from work, a headache (from allergies I hope) this week that almost made me go home from work, and today, not wanting to get beat up on my birthday.

OK, so birthday. I figured this is my only chance to score some free stuff but all I did was go to another building at work to get a free beer and pretzel (from the “our company isn’t as awful as you think” committee). I really just went to work and hoped it wouldn’t be too awful. It wasn’t. Happy birthday to me.

I was a little hung over this morning, mostly tired with a weird feeling in my stomach. Weird like having to poo a lot weird. I decided it was a nice morning and THERE WAS NO MORE GYM TO GO TO so I should just walk there anyway and look inside. That was a weird feeling. The parking lot was completely empty, and so was the inside of the gym.

I figured as long as I made it that far, I should go visit some of the other gyms in the neighborhood. I went to Planet Granite, which I found when I was trying to find the Immigration Office. My mom has to get her green card renewed next year or so, and she was worried about not being able to find the new office. I wandered around inside and, luckily, was able to use their bathroom. I ran into someone I who was in my pre-med classes at Portland State – she’s a dentist now. But the class looked boring when I looked over. Lots of squats and lunges.

I next went to a new crossfit box and it was full of young people and one told me they do the WOD off the crossfit blog every day. Sounded like death and I’m too old to be keeping up with all the 20-year-olds.

Finally, it wasn’t much of a detour to go to one of the bazillion yoga studios in the neighborhood. My New Year’s resolution was to start doing yoga, so I may do that. Yet another year I put something reasonable as my aspirations and actually follow through on it.

I may not have attended the most classes at Recreate Fitness but I may have spent the most hours there of anyone who wasn’t an official employee. Today I went in just before noon to dismantle things and at least make sure they could haul out as much as possible. I can’t remember what I did, but I didn’t finish until almost 7PM and I’m dog tired.

I probably spent a couple of hours going up and down ladders. TRX anchors, speakers, rope climbing ropes, all came down. I carried a mini-fridge down the stairs and being a dummy I checked the contents AFTER I got it down. The stereo was boxed up. I got everything I thought was mine out of there (ladders, tools, etc) and that barely gave me enough time to go to a ham radio club meeting. After leaving the meeting early I got a text message from a co-worker who serendipitously let me know that I had a 9PM customer meeting. That left me just enough time to have a nutritious dinner from Jack-in-the-Box. What a day.

I forgot to add that I felt like I split my pants while doing all the climbing and lifting. I forgot about that and went out to get coffee. No screams from children or the homeless people camping on the route to the coffee shop. When I finally went to the bathroom I found out why. No rip in the pants. A HUGE RIP in my boxers. Well, if I didn’t put it on my blog no one would’ve known. And since no one reads my blog NO ONE KNOWS. Hahaha.

This isn’t the first time I quit Recreate Fitness, but this is the first time that Recreate Fitness quit me. The lease on the second space is up and real estate in Portland is nuts so they’re on hiatus. I’m afraid that the hiatus may be longer than expected but why worry about things I can’t control?

I took a break a couple of years back when I had a midlife crisis. Well, mostly bummed and midlife because, well, that’s supposed to be 40 +/- 20 years according to the intarwebs. (Seriously, 20-60?) Anyway, I’m on the immature side so 50-ish doesn’t seem to far off from midlife. Back to the non-math part of this, back a couple years I had an inkling that THMFIC wasn’t really feeling it any more and he was going to eventually close the gym. At the same time I went on a couple of dates with someone from OkCupid, she disappeared, and I realized that in 20 years I’d only gone out with two or three people from online dating sites and that meant this was probably the last time I was going on a date, EVER. So I tried to delete my Facebook account, put my name in to join a prestigious athletic club with a five-year waitlist, and started taking Judo instead of going to Recreate.

That was a bit of a mistake on my part. Everyone gets injured at Judo, and if you’re older (and you’re bad at Judo like I was) it takes longer to heal. I would’ve kept going, but there were reasons. And I found out that the only way to find out when things were happening at the dojo was to have a Facebook account. The injuries won out and I went back to Recreate.

There were some good things that came from my hiatus. I spent more time at work and that was good (and bad). More work means you get better reviews but it also means they expect you to do even more work. Constant improvements is the way of corporate America.

So here I am, old and on my way to becoming feeble. No more gym, a place where I used to spend a lot of my time. I’m thinking of taking up the banjo. Won’t anyone stop me?

Every time I think about going to the gym more than a couple times a week, I seem to get sick. Fortunately not really sick, but bad enough that I have to sleep more rather than exert myself. Today I wasn’t feeling bad at all but it turns out it’s my buddy Il’s birthday which I can never remember. Turns out he’s jinxed that way and his wife even had trouble convincing herself it was today even though she wished him a happy birthday early this morning.

Usually Il’s birthday means our annual ritual of gluttony at Ringside. This year they didn’t have the proper plans in place so we ended up getting fried chicken (a big plus) at Popeye’s (usually not so bad). So not only didn’t I make it to the gym, I went to the opposite of the gym. Did I eat sensibly? Of course not, I was at Popeye’s. And I couldn’t not go to Il’s birthday dinner, even if it was at Popeye’s.

Did I mention that I weigh more than I ever have before? Oh well. My New Year’s resolution is to do some yoga. I keep talking about it and even looked up some schedules for beginners classes. Maybe I’ll even make it in the door.

Here we are in 2016. I wonder how many posts I had. I could probably install some sort of analysis tool or I could COUNT THEM ALL BY HAND and know there really weren’t that many. Blog schmog. I really haven’t been saying much lately. And why?

I think I decided at some point to let everything go to seed. About 20 pounds ago I realized I was pretty darn fit but who saw me nekkid? Just my doctor and he really didn’t give a shit. So I quit the dieting, ate more Mexican food, and put a nice pot belly over my abdominal muscles. To be honest, I didn’t go to the Mexican restaurant any more often, but I did eat more when I went. And then at some point I actually went on a couple of dates, got immediately dumped, and decided to change things up. So I quit the gym altogether and started Judo. That wasn’t great for my health either and had to quit after a year because I kept falling on my head.

So here it is, a couple years later and I haven’t been to the gym all that much because of this and that (vacation work and illness. I also received the double-edged boon of being promoted. More money, more problems. I’m going back to the gym now and I’m falling back into the old groove, or so I hope. At the very least I hope this muscle soreness and lack of cardiovascular endurance go away.

Anyway, my name is Todd (actually Hisashi) and I am a repeated keyboard buyer. I’ve purchased about ten keyboards in the past year and they cost me about $100 each. I’ve tried V60 keyboards (60% – no number keys/arrows/etc), V80 keyboards, Cherry MX Blues keyswitches, Cherry MX Brown keyswitches, Alps keyswitches and even some full-size keyboards. I’m even about to try some Cherry MX Clears. I need help. But really, as a guy who spends most of his waking hours in front of a keyboard, I’m searching for an unachievable goal: the ultimate keyboard. I think I need a better hobby, but I suppose I spend a lot more on ham radio. More about that later.

Time to go home!

Sorry, but my Paul Bassett coffee wasn’t enough to keep me going on a day where I got up at 6:30AM JST on Thursday after a fitful night of sleep (due to drinking too many tasty Japanese microbrews) and went to bed around 4:30PM JST on Friday. My watch told me I got up at 6:30AM and went to sleep at 10:30PM of the same day, but that’s what time zones will do for you.

So these pictures are late.

I also found out that taking my morning medications with Aquarius Lemon leads to an upset stomach. My check out time wasn’t until 11AM and my flight wasn’t until 5:30PM, so I had time to go to Paul Bassett for breakfast and do some last-minute shopping in Shinjuku at Yodobashi Camera and Odakyu’s athletics department, though I didn’t end up buying anything.

I arrived at the airport very early because there’s plenty of last-minute shopping and food BEFORE YOU GO THROUGH THE SECURITY GATE. Got to the airport early enough to do some shopping there and hit my usual exit lunch at Fujiya. This actually calmed my stomach. Also, see that empty coffee cup? They keep filling it up at the Fujiya in Narita, unlike most Japanese restaurants.

Oh, the set also came with dessert because why not?

I got back to Portland and had lunch in the middle of the night in Japan. I was fading fast and took a quick nap in the afternoon.

Got close to eight hours sleep and I feel jet lagged. But it’s good to be home.

Expect this to be the least coherent of my entries for my trip to Japan in 2015.

I got up this morning not know that exactly to do. I had several possibilities: buy a pair of $200 jeans at Momotaro in Koenji, eat a hamburger in Koenji, and go to the Cheese Festa in Ebisu.

I talked to my sister, who talked me out of spending $1891 for a seat upgrade on my flight back to Portland. She also suggested I go to Hoshino Coffee for pancakes, but they didn’t sell them until lunchtime.

Fortunately they sold French Toast in a breakfast set.

Then it really was off to Ebisu to the Cheese Festa. You got coupons to try four different cheeses, three of which weren’t that great. It was also incredibly crowded.

The Cheese Festa was held in the Subaru building event space.

I realized Ebisu is also where Blacows is, the place that eataku has the best hamburgers.

Honestly it was a disappointment. It never seemed that great when I went there there three years ago and they’ve only gone downhill since. They don’t butcher the meat on-site and there’s no longer any indication of which cow the meat came from. The meat tasted like Japanese hamburger meat (pork & beef?) and it was tough like if they salted the meat beforehand.

So after that I did what I usually like to do: wander around Tokyo. I went from Ebisu to Daikanyama, to getting lost in Shibuya. Look at the weird things I found.

I had to get coffee and this was smooth and had a peppery taste to begin with.

I also got a free energy drink on the way back to the train station.

The PDX beer bar made me want to buy some Japanese beers. I went to the Watering Hole in Yoyogi to start off.

They sent me on to Baird’s taproom.

And then I thought it would be a good idea to go to Zoetrope where I talked to a couple from London and a single guy from Manchester.

And that, so far, is that.

Wow, I really have no pictures today.

I started out the day with a message from an old high school classmate who I actually met at a summer science camp in 3rd grade. He writes self-help books of sorts. (Is that what you’d call Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? Because he translated that into Japanese back in the day.) We spent the entire morning talking in the club lounge of the Ritz-Carlton. Not quite my regular breakfast spot.

I’m not sure why I felt I had to eat lunch after that, but I went looking for the pumpkin sandwich I had a couple of years ago in Akihabara but the Donq bakery didn’t have it this year. I used the intarwebs and found an interesting-sounding Japanese curry restaurant but couldn’t find it and ended up eating Nepalese curry.

Then it was time to wander around Akihabara. I found a bunch of stuff I kind of wanted to buy but I bought nothing. I got ideas for a couple of things that I knew would be on eBay for much cheaper.

I made it back to my hotel in time to find that another old co-worker was free, but he didn’t get up until 3PM and couldn’t go to dinner until 8. Since he was laid off from Renesas he’s been doing a lot of nothing. We went and talked for a while over dinner and it was good catching up again.

That’s yet another day in Tokyo!

I’m coming down with my usual Tokyo headache that I think has two causes. One is the pollution here. It’s not that noticeable but I’m sure it’s here. I’m also running into more smokers and that can’t help.

My mom asked how fancy my current hotel is and it’s different fancy than the Mitsui Garden Hotel Premier Osaka. It’s like flashy fancy. The lobby has 3m tall ceilings and a balcony with a giant godzilla head.

I mean seriously, WTF? Giant godzilla head? (I was taking that picture amongst a group of Russians and like my sister said, don’t f*ck with the Russians. It’s my estimation that any one of them, the Eurotrash kind or the gangster kind, can have a person killed without much trouble.)

I got a slower start overall because I was tired and it’s not a surprise. It’s hot and cold here and I also got a lousy night’s sleep the night before. I finally dragged myself to Paul Bassett and had two cups of coffee and a croissant. It went well with my morning medicine and three Advil.

I honestly can’t remember the order of crap I did today. I think I tried knocking off what I thought was the LAST ITEM on my mom & sister’s wish lists – an item for my mom that I actually put on the list myself. A gift for my mom, not a wishlist item. But then I realized my sister had an ADDITIONAL item that I needed to take care of. So that’s it, I headed the southside of Shinjuku station where I went to Tokyu Hands. Then it was off to Ginza to the used camera (and watch) store. I spent an hour drooling at watches and keeping myself from spending hundreds or even thousands on a used watch that may or may not work. Actually, I think I also was in Keio Department store looking at Grand Seikos. They’re making Hi Beats again and they’re almost as much as the watch I have now.

Anyway, I left the used watch store with nothing more than when I arrived except a desire for more watches.

I realized I was pretty hungry and that wasn’t going to help with my headaches. Ginza is a weird place (full of high-end stores) and I wasn’t finding any normal-sounding restaurants. So I went to the first place that was on the way to the Apple Store (and the world’s biggest Uniqlo) which turned out to be a Spanish place. The lunch set ended up costing around ¥2000 even though I swear it was only about ¥1000 in the display outside. But it came with a decent sized salad.

And some appetizers.

And finally the dish that reminded me of taco rice, actually. There’s crumbled ground beef under that egg.

I said no more selfies, but I had to prove that I went to the Ginza Apple store.

After that it was off to the Uniqlo to buy my sister’s shirt. And a souvenir t-shirt for me. And some more underwear. And a pair of sweatpants. Uniqlo has that kind of effect on anyone and this one had TWELVE FLOORS.

I’m not a fan of carrying around shopping bags so I went back to the hotel room.

I realized I had receipts from Tokyu Hands that totaled more that ¥10,000 (about $80 now) so I went to get my sales tax money back. I’m kind of a communist so I don’t really mind paying the tax but, hey, they’re offering it. I’m also a poor planner so I spend more than ¥10,000 at places like Uniqlo and Yodobashi Camera, but never on the same day. So I end up paying the consumption tax of 8% and liking it.

On the way back I went to the soup restaurant that we’ve been going to every year for a while now. Here’s the “anniversary special”. They’ve been in the Mylord building since 1985! Keep in mind it looks like a lot but all the portions are tiny.

So I went to the other “traditional” place to go: the parfait shop. Because everyone needs a parfait glass full of soft ice cream topped with vanilla ice cream and a slice of tiramisu. Keep in mind this is the small parfait and there were giant ones topped with a vanilla cone (imagine this one with a cone of vanilla ice cream stuck into the top.)

After that it was time to buy my train ticket out of town (not waiting until the last minute) and then bought a clock for my mom and headed back to the hotel. I was only off by two blocks and I had all sorts of creepy people coming up to me asking if I wanted this or that (pr0n DVDs, time with some questionable women, etc). I knew my hotel was on the edge of the seedy area of Tokyo but it’s really on the very edge of it. Not that it’s that dangerous in Japan. Just don’t f*ck with the guys who look like they shouldn’t be f*cked with. And don’t f*ck with the Russians.

The fancy hotel failed me. There was a group of young people on the floor and they made a loud noise every single hour all night long. Either leaving the room or just making thumping noises. I did not get a lot of sleep last night. But I knew I’d better get something to eat because I was on the way to Tokyo, and the train takes a while (10AM – 1:30PM or later). I had breakfast in the fancy hotel’s restaurant and it was as good as the first time.

After that it was a long ride on the shinkansen back to Tokyo. I fell asleep for a while and a guy showed up and left while I was half awake. When I got to Tokyo it was cold and rainy! Osaka was cold at night but ~75°F during the day. I bet it wasn’t over 60°F today in Tokyo. I bought a ¥200 umbrella and got to the hotel which seems even fancier than the last. No big bath, but the lobby has multi-story-high ceilings and a giant Godzilla head. I’m not sure why they have a Godzilla head.

Anyway, I sat in the room for a bit until I kicked myself in the butt to go get some coffee. I almost just went to Mister Donut again but I figured, hell, I’m in Tokyo, one of the biggest cities IN THE WORLD so there must be better options than that. I found a place that was highly rated using google and man did they take themselves seriously. No pictures were allowed but I got an OK to take a picture of my cup of coffee. They even have Kopi Luwak coffee for ¥3000/cup and I’m tempted to try it.

After that I went to Nakano Broadway, an otaku paradise. Google it if you’re curious but there’s all sorts of old anime, monster, and science fiction figurines and toys. Also some really fancy watch stores and I have a weakness for watches. It’s not the kind of place where they want you to take pictures, so I don’t have any pictures. Oh, they also had Fire King for those who know what that is.

I went googling for places to eat and I found a yakitori place near the hotel. It was tiny, and coincidentally three Canadian-Asians came in. One works here in Tokyo. I guess that’s a detail that’s neither here nor there.

Of course I forgot to take pictures of some of the things I got, like something that was supposed to have a fertilized yolk with it, and bonfire (chicken butt.)

My seat was right at the window of the grill.

Even the chicken wings are cooked on skewers.

Afterwards I went walking through the rain looking for a whiskey bar that’s right by the hotel I usually stay at. It’s right next to the Jazz record store that closed before I could go and it was closed on Sunday! I’ll try again.