Tag: english

Shinjuku area, first impressions

March 26, 2010
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Earlier i hardly came to Shinjuku, reason for which is that Shibuya was (is) much more friendly, everything is easy to find there, and it has a y in its name, which is cool. I had no idea what kind of place my hotel will be in for this three days, but it turned out to be quite nice. It’s a bit difficult to navigate in the tiny streets surrounding it, but i managed to find it thanks to online maps.

I arrived, dropped my stuff, went for an atm, because you have to pay in advance, had a bit tasteless curry lunch at a nearby indian restaurant watching the Osaka sumo championship (i think Osaka, i guess championship), turned on music and had a “little nap”. That was around four pm, and i got up at around ten. Not the best thing, because though i have slept four hours altogether in the past few days, now i’m sure i won’t be sleeping anytime soon, although it’s already over midnight. And i went for a walk.

Already when i arrived it was apparent that this is some kind of korean district. All the shops have signs in korean as well, every restaurant is either korean or yakiniku (with the exception of three thai restaurants), which is probably also for koreans, and even the hotel has all the information and signs in korean too. I found a Don Quijote department store as well, i’ll finally have the opportunity to check it out (never been to the one near the university). Then had a turn, and forgetting where i am, headed straight towards Shinjuku.

It was at first strange that after one or two dark and quiet streets suddenly restaurants and bars (most having guys instead of girls on their advertisements, if you get what i mean) started popping up. Wondering just a second i realised that i know where i am, though not necessarily happy about it: the middle of Kabuki-cho, often named the red light district of Tokyo. Until i got out on the Shinjuku side (where there were visibly more girls on the adverts), i was invited pretty enthusiastically to a “massage” salon, a black guy tried to shake my hand (“hey yo Babylon soldier”, first time someone called me that, and though in spite of my hair, i’m not a rastafarian believer, i know what that means and to be honest, it filled me with pride, being called that) all the way to a “good bar”, soon after another offered a place with “really good japanese girls”.

At Shinjuku station the Starbucks’ were already closed, though i’dve liked to have a cocoa-like something. Ended up in a McDonalds, cheap dinner and headed back–this time for security’s sake (it was already almost midnight) by train. Found the hotel and here i am.

Nothing left

March 24, 2010
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Totally worn out after playing dota all night, meaning not a second of sleep, only a cup of coffee keeping me alive as i gather strength to finish my packing and clear my room of all the unnecessary junk. True, the chances of me cleaning my room totally before moving out are limited to choices including significant amount of capital being transferred in a defined time interval onto my bank account. But for now, i have everything i need in my sleepwalking state: coffee, music (though the plug converter for my laptop is dying, so i’ll have to buy that as well when i’m going shopping for electronics—i need a mini amp and a few batteries) and boxes to pack in. Okay, i lack one: space. It’s really hard to move around with my usual chaos and the boxes and the suitcase and the last laundry drying and… Oh well. I guess i should just focus there instead of wasting time online, reading random blogs, being coma-hyper because of the coffee a few minutes ago, and… work, work.

On virtual networks

March 22, 2010
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Last time i was playing around with wireless networks, trying to set up a mesh, which is apparently still in a very geeky level of development—meaning it works if you are a linux nerd and can and want to hack your way all down to the kernel, but even then it might be buggy. Now, on Windows that’s obviously not as easy as on linux, as there is no make to change the problem lines. Also, the mesh thing would need to be implemented easily and quickly, possibly natively, which is out of question for now. Or at least if Windows could (simply) set up an ad-hoc network without having to share an internet connection… On the other hand, since we’re moving out of the dorm, and will be spread all over Japan, it’s a natural question how to continue playing together. Using a server would be an option, but that wouldn’t give the other lan options of file sharing, and would probably work with one or two games only. The other option is to set up a virtual network. And i honestly tell everyone, it’s a pain in the ass to find one that knows exactly what i expect of it. That is, to handle networks just like Hamachi does, but without the 16 client limit, for free. Today i took my time and checked out “a few”: Leaf Networks, LAN on Internet, NeoRouter, OpenVPN, Remobo, tinc and Wippien. And naturally i’ve been using Hamachi for over a year now.

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おとといの旅

March 22, 2010
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Saturday i woke up late, as usual. And decided to do something interesting, for a change. I googled a bit, and found a few good guides for sightseeing Tokyo. I checked the interesting places on the map, decided on a best possible route, and set off. I started at the Yasukuni shrine, best known as the memorial place for all the japanese soldiers fallen. It’s close to the park where we were watching flowers last spring. It’s a shinto shrine with all there is to that word, torii, small other shrines hidden in the shades of trees, people praying, shrine maidens (first time i’ve seen the traditional red and white outfit outside of Inuyasha), though i couldn’t find the list of the fallen, which would’ve been interesting. After that i went to Shibuya, bought myself something in a sport shop, and walked off on the Aoyama ave, among all those fancy shops, all the way to Omotesando, where i turned my way towards the Roppongi Hills. I walked in small streets, in an apparently insanely rich environment (Ferrari and Porsche weren’t surprising), Nishi-Azabu (you know that, right?), and stumbled upon an antiquities shop. It had plenty of toy bears, i thought i’d buy one for my gran, but the cheapest one was 30 thousand yen (from sometime mid-20th century, which isn’t all that old). True, it had nobility walking sticks, and even pottery from 1600 BC (i didn’t dare ask the price of that). Soon later i arrived at Roppongi Hills, realised i’ve been close by before. Went up the tower, first to the sky deck, then the two exhibitions there. A guy, certain 小松原智史 was drawing the picture right there.

Punks at Kichijoji Club Roots

March 19, 2010
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A while ago the punk of the university, Daizo told us about a gig to come, mostly organized by him, with a few punk bands performing, including his. The date was yesterday, and it was a quite good gig, and a definitely great night. Four bands performed, none of which i knew, and we were also a bit late on the first. Yet, the party started up soon, and it was quite fun. There were classic punks with mohawks as well as “otaku punks”. The latter played the highest quality music there, but i just couldn’t get the crowd to move. Daizo’s band is him, another japanese guy and two foreign students. They played last, and least. Lots of chatting, and very few good tunes (and lots and lots of mistakes). Not the best ending after the previous bands, leaving a bad taste. After that we (Kang, Rado, Thiwanka and me, out of which i think it’s safe to say i’m the only “punk”) had a still not-that-great dinner at Matsuya (the best don is still Sukiya), but then came the change with discovering another Aladdin shisha bar there. Stayed there till the last train. Just when we arrived back i met Paul who called me to play dota. We won, but in a lame way (zero kills, 26 death). Yet the evening ended up great, and i get the feeling that today might be just as good.

AC/DC @ Saitama Super Arena

March 14, 2010
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I had high hopes. AC/DC is not one of my favourite bands, because most of their songs are the same, but i still know all of their old albums, and even listened to Black Ice—once, and that was more than enough. Still, as old school rock’n’rollers, i expected them to deliver a frenetic show, making me want to jump all the way to the stage and sing full power. Tremendous fail.

First, there was no show. At all. Hardly any visual effects, the lights were way too simple and/or not matching to provide any real experience, most of the projected effects were simply lame, the stage equipment, such as the intro train, the sickly disgusting Rosie doll, with the exception of the cannons for the finishing song For those about to rock (which, in my sense, should’ve come first), looked totally low quality and off. Bassist Cliff Williams and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young were standing all the time beside the drumset, playing, only going in front to their mics when they had to for backing vocals.

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HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR @ Club Quattro Shibuya

March 13, 2010
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Today after an afternoon of pretending to practice the songs (it wasn’t going nowhere as well as i wanted to, though i can play most of it, just mess up the rhythm all the time, and considering i’d be the rhythm guitar, that’s quite troublesome), having a really filling lunch and watching the seventh episode of the fourth Skins season, which i must tell you all, is very shocking, like very, but i’m not ms Scoledario (i was surprised that she dated O’Connell irl as well) to spoil everyone, you should just watch it, so after all this, i hurried off for Shibuya. I didn’t know where that Club Quattro was, but after finding it, i realised i’ve been in that building (although in the bookstore of the first floors) earlier.

This was my second High and Mighty Color concert. Since the last time, i got to know more of their songs, so in the roughly ninety minutes they played tonight, there was hardly a song i didn’t know. The show was great, the setlist was very powerful with a bunch of new songs, according to band members some songs having been written just for this gig. Of course they played their greatest hits (Pride, Ichirin no hana), and some that are not so much of popular hits, but are closer to me. The atmosphere was good as well, lots of jokes and laughs, which with the music, made this show what it was: great.

One thing that surprised me a lot was that both guitarists played on seven-stringed guitars. I hope they have transcribed for six-strings as well.

Play

March 13, 2010
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Between two tries at the song i’m learning, i decided to write about playing, games, on the computer, with other people. Usually we play by grouping together in a (common) room and then either with cables and a router, or me creating an ad-hoc wireless network for the purpose, or the combination of the two (which, to my surprise, works flawlessly as well). This way the only problem is stuffing that many people in one place, because even if we’re playing in a common room with big tables, fitting eight-ten people there is not easy. If it’s a normal room, then it gets difficult over two participants.

A high-power wireless network could be a solution, but apparently the structure of the building is inappropriate for that. At home, i could sit in the living room with my laptop and browse the net via the shared connection of the desktop computer – with at least two walls in the way. Here it’s not working, even though people can see the network, for some reason they can not connect.

Or, a virtual network. The most popular is definitely Hamachi, which i use as well. It doesn’t take much: install the little program, join the network and it’s as if we were connected via lan. True, the speed depends on the internet connection and even then quite limited, for games it’s still all right. Also, voip programs like Ventrilo can provide the speech freedom that even lan games lack (you can’t go shouting “hey he’s alone let’s gank him!” with all the enemy sitting around you). Setting up a Ventrilo server is easy as well, i managed in about ten minutes with downloading and configuring. Also, it works across Hamachi-like virtual networks.

Also, there won’t really be a chance once we move out of the dorm and will live far away from each other.

Going to sleep

March 13, 2010
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Is difficult to schedule well. Again it’s three in the morning, and i’m pretty sure i won’t be sleeping before four. Although, in exchange, i’ll just let myself snore on until ten or eleven. Then guitar, guitar and guitar, concentrating as much as i can. Now in the evening i tried to play Iron Maiden’s masterpiece Fear of the Dark and it turned out much better than i thought it would. Also, tomorrow is the High and Mighty Color gig in Shibuya, and maybe i won’t be going alone. Then sunday is more or less the same, church in the morning, guitar all day, then the AC/DC in the evening. Monday again, wake up, guitar, then go to the practice place and more guitar.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Anyway, today we played a bit of dota, and i got badly owned. To be exact, due to unforeseen circumstances, our team deemed unable to achieve victory. But at least i managed to get a nice build for my phantom lancer: Manta, Aghanim’s, Heart, and i was heading to get the Eaglehorn for my Butterfly when i had to rush home just to be late catching an enemy hero destroy our ancient. My demon witch was good as well, but the bounty hunter could counter me way too efficiently.

In the meanwhile, trying to consume as little coffee and yet stay as active as possible. And blog enough. (Also, just cut a new avatar, does it count as spoiler? I’m not saying where it’s from, because then it would be.)

Countries

March 12, 2010
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According to my stats, some of the top ten are as follows.

Hungary: i really wonder who these people are. I’m not related to Hungary in any way, except that it’s the country i’m citizen of, i was born and raised there, studied there and way too many people i love are there. I hope it won’t rot apart before i get home (not as if i hoped i could help much…)

UK: i guess this is due to the activity of my sister there, and also a lot of enthusiastic readers, hopefully. I love Britain, if i get rich once i really want to get a big old house somewhere in Dartmoor. Because it’s teh feel.

US: again, relatives and enthusiasts there. I liked it when i was there, but i don’t feel like living there for longer. Maybe for studying and oft visits.

Japan: i’m here, i have friends here, who apparently follow my posts not only on Facebook but here on the blog too (if not, then now’s the chance), and also (based on their occasional comments) my senpai also 読んでくださってます (are so kind to read).

Romania: after all, they’re Hugary’s neighbours, and according to my experience, they are very nice people. At least, the three who are here with the scholarship. Screw politics. Though, to be honest, i’ve never been there yet.

Brazil: i can’t help thinking of Brazil as “down there”, but i hope you can forgive my northern hemisphere narrow-mindedness. Here in the neighbourhood of the sixth floor is the only brazilian of our scholarship, he really amazes me time to time. If many of you are like him i wish you all the greatest economic (and all possible other) development.