Whew! We just came back to Tokyo from Kyoto. We were there for such a short time, but it was fantastic! We definitely had some of the best food of our trip in Kyoto, and if I ever figure out how to turn some of my video into web-friendly clips or even static photos, I’ll post much more about our dining experiences.

So, the first day we browsed the downtown shopping district and took a quick walk through the Nishiki Market. I probably should have made an effort to spend more time there, because even only a quick glance revealed that the place was amazing. But as much as I love food, I’m really weird about browsing through markets. If I know there’s something I want, that’s one thing. But just ogling rows and rows of foods can be a bit wearying because something about wanting everything always makes me walk away with nothing. I can’t really explain it, I’m just strange like that :-P

Anyway, back to the main narrative: so we browsed the shopping district and then had lunch at a very nice soba place that had been recommended to us. It was good, for sure, but even really good soba noodles strike me as a teensy bit bland, so while it was a good lunch for a hot day, it wasn’t on my list of things I’ll especially miss about Kyoto.

Afterwards, we trekked out to Arashiyama, which is just outside of Kyoto proper, but is a lovely little town with several temples, the lovely Togetsukyo bridge which spans the Oi River, and some great food. Our first stop was the Tenryuji Temple because we wanted to see the bamboo forest adjacent to it. We strolled through the temple garden for just a little bit too long, however, and the bamboo forest part actually closed before we got to it. Yeah, go figure. Anyway, the garden was quite nice as it was, so I had no complaints. And we even heard the monks of the Temple come out and chant (evening prayers I guess?) so it was overall a pretty nice experience.

Then we set out to find the kaiseki restaurant where we had a reservation for dinner, called Nishiki (but located nowhere near the famous market). We were afraid it was going to be hard to find, so we set out rather early. But happily, we found it straight away! Despite being an hour early for our meal, they welcomed us in and thus began a most fantastic meal.

I had picked this place because it got good recommendations from some Chowhound folks and was much more reasonably priced than many other kaiseki places. But seriously, even the Chowhounders positive recommendations did not do the place justice. The food was delicious, beautiful, and always surprising in the delightful combinations of flavors. We were impressed with pretty much everything they put in front of us. But what also impressed us was just how wonderful the service was. Even though we speak virtually no Japanese and their English was pretty limited, they still went out of their way to explain everything to us and answer all of our questions. And they were kind enough to take a picture of all of us together as we were leaving. Really, I cannot recommend this place enough and if I ever make it back to Kyoto some day, I will absolutely return to Nishiki.

The next day was our big date with Kokedera, the Moss Temple. This temple is super-exclusive. Unlike other temples in Japan, you actually have to write ahead and as for an appointment to go see the temple. It’s not a private appointment–we were admitted with about 60 other people–but it’s still not something you can just pop in on. Anyway, we had to attend about a 15 minute prayer session (apparently we were honoring our ancestors or something?) and then write a little prayer ourselves to leave at the temple before we could proceed to the moss garden. Sadly, they don’t let you take pictures for any of this part, so all I can share is the actually moss garden itself.

While it definitely wasn’t the moss’s best season because I think it’s been a little dry in Kyoto lately, it was still beautiful. What I wouldn’t give to have a garden like this one. There were lovely trees, bamboo groves, ponds with huge koi, and of course tons of different mosses covering almost everything. Some were so green and soft looking that it took pretty much all my will power not to reach out and touch them. The garden may not have been that big, but for me, every second I got to spend in it was worth it. I could easily have spent all day just sitting and staring out at the moss, especially since I can’t seem to keep my terrarium most at home from looking like it’s constantly on the brink of death.

So after the moss garden, we met up with a friend of Talia’s who lives in Osaka. She became our gracious tour guide for the rest of the day, and managed to find us a lunch that had some special kinds of tofu, including a black sesame tofu. Tofu is apparently something of a regional specialty in Kyoto. I found the texture to be a little odd myself and very grainy. I guess this is one of those cases where I’m a little too used to the cheap-o tofu to be able to fully appreciate the really good stuff. Still, I appreciate having the chance to try a pretty uncommon dish.

After the tofu consumption concluded, we headed over to a dessert place we had seen down the street and were blown away by their delicious ice creams and shaved ice concoctions. I had a mango shaved-ice dessert, but Cecelia and Adam got an ice cream parfait that was drenched in black honey. While my dessert was delicious, theirs was mindblowing. Seriously, I would kill someone to have that again. Thank god Cecelia ate too much tofu to be able to finish her dessert so I got to plunder some of the remains. :-)

Then, because the best time to take your clothes off and get into a steaming hot bath is right after you’ve eaten a huge meal, we headed off to a sento. Okay, so that wasn’t probably the best time to head to a public bath house, but we had to take advantage of having a guide who would keep us from making complete asses of ourselves. So we found a sento nearby our hotel and commenced the Japanese bathing experience, which is to say we cleaned ourselves at little shower stations first and then very slowly tried to coax our bodies into the *incredibly* hot water. It was pretty difficult to do, even allowing ourselves time to acclimate. And we didn’t stay in the sento for all that long because we were pretty sure we were going to pass out by the end. Still, aside from some skeptical glances by the strict matron who ran the place, it seems we managed not to horrible offend anyone while we were there. And since the sento was filled exclusively with a bunch little old Japanese ladies, we knew it was the real deal.

After the sento, we needed food an drink, so off to the Gion district to scare up a meal and a drink. The Gion district is supposed to be the more traditional part of town, and is one of the primary areas where you might catch a glimpse of a geisha. However, our impression of it is that it was almost entirely a tourist trap now. Most of the people we passed were American and European tourists, and there were definitely no geishas to been seen. So we walked up some side streets where we saw some locals hanging around and managed to find the most fantastic little hole in the wall restaurant ever. It was a little sushi and tempura place that was surprisingly underpopulated when we arrived. But it was some of the best, freshest sashimi any of us have ever had and… we had horse meat, which was quite delicious! Good thing I’ve never been a big fan of horses, lest I feel guilty about eating them or something ;-)

As for today, I’m hoping to hit Jimbocho before it gets too late today because I’m a total nerd and I want to see the district that made Maggie & Michelle swoon in R.O.D. :-) More posts to come.

Right now I’m on a bullet train speeding toward Kyoto, so I thought I’d take this chance to write up a bit about the adventure that was climbing Mt. Fuji. Our original plan was to climb Fuji in the evening and through the night so we could see the sun rise on the summit. However, realizing that we probably didn’t have the stamina to stay up all night and do this, we changed the plan a bit and decided to just climb during the day on Monday. But actually getting to Fuji was somewhat logistically challenging and we didn’t arrive at the mountain until almost noon, and would have to leave at around 6 to catch the last train back to Tokyo. Even if we were in the best shape of our lives, we realized we probably still wouldn’t have made it far up the mountain on that schedule. So, thanks to the English tour guide who was on the bus we took up to the 5th station, we found out that we could still book a hut up near the top of Fuji, stay overnight, and resume our hike in the early am to make it to the summit by sunrise, which is exactly what Cecelia and I did.

Things started off pretty good in the beginning. The paths were lovely and not too challenging, and there were some lovely, misty clouds that would sweep across our path every now and again, bringing much welcomed bursts of cool air. We were going fairly slowly, but by the time we made it to the 7th station, we were still feeling pretty good. That’s where Talia and Adam parted ways with Cecelia and I and headed back for the day, while Cecelia and I carried onward toward the summit. Even though it was around 3pm when we reached the 7th station, and our hut for the night was located at the 8th station, we still had quite a ways to climb to get there. At least 3 more hours of climbing, in fact. All the talk we’d seen in the guide books and from word of mouth suggested that while Fuji was no walk in the park, children and grandmas did it all the time, so we figured we’d be okay. Well let me tell you, no grandmas I’ve ever known could have made this hike! Honestly, I wasn’t even sure we were going to make it to our hut by the end of the night. On the way up the mountain, you alternation sections where you’re climbing up on steep slopes covered with gravelly bits of hard volcanic rock and sections that have you scrambling on all fours to find a path among large rocks and small boulder bits with sharp, craggy faces. By the time we finally reached our hut at the 8th’s station, we were utterly exhausted. We inhaled a meal of curry rice and downed some warm sake (because really, how many other times in our lives will be able to sip sake at 3,300 meters?) and then headed to our bunks with countless other weary hikers to catch a few hours of sleep before heading for the summit.

Sadly, sleep evaded us as it did for apparently everyone else who stays at those huts on Fuji. I don’t know if it was the tiny, hard “beds” (in reality sleeping bags spread out on wooden boards), the fact that even though were we exhausted, it was only 7pm when we laid down, that we inhaled a huge meal immediately before trying to sleep, or just the unsualness of the situation in close quarter communal sleeping, but I didn’t manage to catch a single wink of sleep before we resumed the hike at 2 am. Still, just laying down for a few hours had been some rest, and the scores of other people, most Japanese in fact, climbing at that time spurred us onward. It was slow going that first hour though. By the time we got to station 8.5, I really didn’t think I was going to make it. It wasn’t muscle fatigue holding me back (that wouldn’t set in until the climb back down), it was breathlessness. By this point, even though we still had about 2 hours to climb to the summit, we were still already high enough up for the oxygen levels to be considerably lower than at sea level, which I’ve been living at for the past 10 years. So for a while there it felt like you had to take 3-4 steps, stop to catch your breath, take another 3-4 steps, catch your breath again, and repeat that until you reached the next little landing, where you would then sit and catch your breath for a few minutes before moving onward again. It was definitely an exercise in patience, frustration, and misery. But there was something heartening about the fact that everyone was else suffering in exactly the same way. By this point on the mountain, there were certainly people in better and worse shape, but no one was flying up with ease. Everyone had to stop to catch their breath at some point or another, and most of what you could hear on the mountain was profound silence punctuation by the scuffling steps and the huffing and puffing of everyone around you. And yet, we all carried on slowly and steadily to the top.

And eventually, we too made it to the top. It wasn’t quite sunrise by the time we got to the 9th station, but that’s definitely where I got my second wind. I knew we were going to make it at that point, and spurred on by Cecelia’s encouragement and some appropriate tunes from Better than Ezra on my iPod, we made it to the summit. We saw the sunrise, which was absolutely amazing. It’s funny—we weren’t quite at the tippy-top when the sun started coming up, but pretty much everyone on the mountain just stopped where ever they were and watched those first rays of sunrise for about 20 minutes before carrying on. We snapped lots of photos in that moment and just took in the fact that we were sitting above the clouds, watching the sun creep up over the horizon. Then, one last push and voila! We had reached the top. It was a crazy experience, punctuated by moments of complete fatigue and dirty toilets, but it was absolutely worth it. I now fully appreciate the Japanese saying that goes something like “everyone should climb Mt. Fuji once, but only a fool does it twice.”

The hike back down was considerably less exciting, and was actually far more fatiguing than the climb up. Our legs ached, our feet were blistered, and our shoes (and probably our lungs) were filled with the rusty colored dust of Mt. Fuji’s ashy rocks. On top of that, we were hungry and dehydrated, since apparently, they don’t sell *anything* at the stations that are on the path down the mountain. And while it does take less time to get down, it’s definitely more brutal, not just because you’ve already climbed up before you come down, but also because the trails are slippery as hell–you have to calculate every step, and still expect to slip and slide.
Still, after some 24 weary hours of time spent on Mt. Fuji, we returned to the base of the mountain, stinky but successful in our attempt to reach the summit. Although it is days later and walking up or down even the slightest incline now causes us an almost comical amount of pain, it was still worth it, 100%.

Most of my time so far has been taken up by the conference, but once I gave my paper this afternoon, I was free, free, free! First stop: Akihabara. My god, words cannot describe the hustle, bustle, and general overstimulation which is this district of Tokyo. We wandered around for a bit, just taking in the overwhelming presence of the barkers trying to lure customers in, young women wearing maid outfits and cat ears handing out sales flyers, flashing lights, televisions blaring anime trailers, and the absolute hoards of shoppers (otakus, gaijin, and bargin hunters alike) packing the sidewalks. Truly, words cannot do justice to experience of seeing the place.

We spent most of our time wandering around and being dazed by the sites, but we did go into a few places and browsed their 6 or 7 or 8 floors of goods. Pictured below is the Yodobashi store we went into. The picture doesn’t give a good sense of scale, but the store is *huge* and pretty darn amazing.

As usual, food was a key part of the experiences of the day. I did finally get to experience my first yakitori restaurant, which was fantastic. Unfortunately, I was so hungry at the time I forgot to snap any pictures. But chicken hearts are now definitely on my list of unexpectedly delicious foods :-) I did, however, think to snap pictures of the delicious custard-filled mochi I picked up from the much beloved FamilyMart. Mmm, delicious!

Ohayo gozaimasu!

Tokyo… we’re here. Definitely not a fan of the 12 hour flight (especially when the woman sitting behind you keeps coughing one little dry cough roughly every 30 seconds. Seriously, they’re called cough drops. Use them.), but that’s all water under the bridge.

We arrived in the late afternoon, but didn’t manage to get to our hotel until rather late. Let’s just say that trying to make transportation decisions when you’re sleep deprived is not very effective. So no great pictures if the city yet. But there’s a temple near our hotel, which we will likely photograph later, and maybe check out the Tokyo Tower, which is also nearby.

For now, our only real adventure involves a trip to the FamilyMart, which apparently just opened and explains why people shout greetings to every cusomer who walks in the store. But we got ourselves a classic Japanese breakfast: rice balls.

This is one of the ones I had. Sadly, no one explained to me that there are simple instructions for opening the package, so I kind of made a mess of mine. Still, it was delicious, even if I have no idea what it was filled with.

Big surprise: making games and writing chapters is hard! Although I have no fruits yet to show for my labors this past month, rest assured, dear readers, that my work has not all been in vain.

The chapter update:
Unfortunately, little overtly useful progress has been made toward a completed chapter, which is more than a little frightening. On the plus side, I did manage to complete a teaching statement for job applications (I know, not such a high priority task, but it would need to be done eventually) and I’m making progress on the introductory chapter to my dissertation. I know that most people prefer to write the introduction last, so that what they’ve written actually fits with what they thought they were going to write. And often, I am like that myself. But for the dissertation, one of the most difficult parts about writing has been that at any one time, I’ve felt like I was being pulled in several directions all at once. I think having a clear statement of what I see as the point of my dissertation will actually make it easier to decide on what the point is of each individual chapter. Of course I will likely revise the introduction again at the end, but I’m not exactly flying blind right now–I’ve been steeped in the research for years now, so I do have a vague sense of where things are going. Even a provisional chapter that tries to hammer those ideas down should be useful. Bottom line: estimated date for completing the intro chapter: Friday, July 9.

The game update:
I had an idea for a fairly simple, but kind of quirky action platformer, but found out that this was a considerable challenge from a programming perspective (for me at least). I want to blame Flash in part because it was clearly not software designed with tile-based side-scrolling in mind. But in fairness most of the blame lies with my computationally-challenged brain which was getting its ass kicked from here to Tuesday trying to figure out why tiles weren’t rendering properly and why the collision testing was ridiculously out of alignment.

I’m not sure at this point how seriously I should continue to work on this game. On the one had, I do really want to figure the programming out because it would obviously be useful to have a workable side-scrolling engine. However, it’s possible that I would want to scrap the current engine anyway, since one of the reasons that the programming may have been fighting me is that it was not altogether well-suited to my project in the first place. I think it will depend on whether I come up with an idea for a more interesting/workable alternative game. I have no qualms about abandoning a project that just isn’t working if I have a better project to invest myself in instead. But right now, that better project has yet to emerge.

I know I’ve taken an extended hiatus from the blog, so undoubtedly people have stopped reading. No worries. But for those still out there, glancing at the site occasionally, I’m sharing my *big plans* with you. Okay, they’re not really big plans. They’re ambitions. And I’m making you a part of them.

Over the weekend I was thinking to myself that I would like to not lose the few scripting skills I acquired building the Flash game I recently made. I also would like to do more work with making games as a hobby anyway. But saying you’d like to work on something and actually working on it are two different things. So I am setting myself the Game-a-month challenge. That’s right, at the end of every month this summer, I want to have a new game available on the Batty Media site. They may not be great games. In fact, they likely won’t even be good games. But perhaps there will be a few gems every now and then (like when Jonathan Coulton did his Thing a Week project), and at the very least, working on them will keep me developing my skills.

All that being said, I do also still need to eventually finish graduate school. As in, sooner rather than later. No, really. So in order to feel okay about setting myself the Game-a-month challenge, I’m also setting myself a Chapter-a-month challenge. This is not to say that ever chapter I have left to write can and/or should be done in a month. But I’ve got two drafts now that definitely should be finished up, using no more than a month for each. And I have another paper that I want to have in a polished version before the end of August. So, for the summer at least, I set myself the Chapter-a-month challenge.

Wish me luck!


I don't know how much work I'll continue to do on this, but I've decided to create a "brand" for myself since I entered a game design contest a few weeks ago and manages to net a runner-up award. Anyway, I figure now is as good a time as any to debut Batty Media and link to the game.


I hope everyone is making the most of their holiday season. Even though I'm in Chicago this Christmas, courtesy of the internet, much merriment was shared between me and my folks today. We watched each other open presents via video chat and spent much of the afternoon shamelessly launching koopa shells at each other in playing Mario Kart over the Wii network (note to Nintendo: make more games that you can play with your friends online!!). In short, a good time was had by all. While it wasn't quite the same as being at home, it was pretty darn close, and it involved no waiting in line at the airport. Yay!

Yes, I’ve been a very bad blogger. You can just add it to the list of things I’m bad about: I’m a bad dissertation writer, a bad housekeeper, a bad remember to go to the grocery store-er, etc.

So, a quick update for those that still check in here on occasion. It’s been a busy quarter despite not teaching or really taking any classes. I went to a couple of conferences and gave a few talks and workshops. One of the major conferences in my field happened to be in Phoenix this year, which gave me a great excuse to actually be home for Thanksgiving. Still, the conference itself took up a large chunk of time, so it didn’t feel like that long of a visit. But, conferences do provide a bit of incentive to get some written work done, and I do occasionally work on the dissertation, although its frustrating and requires more self motivation than I can usually muster on a daily basis.

I went a little crazy this fall with all the great video game deals retailers have been offering to get people to spend money that they don’t have. But I think Demon’s Souls was totally worth it, even if I haven’t been able to play it as much as I would like. I mean, we’re talking about a game that’s so hardcore, it has no pause button. You’ve really got to make sure you have a good couple uninterrupted hours to play this one.

Um, let’s see, what else has been going on? Recent events include a fantastic and gut-busting cookie exchange with some friends (pictures of my slightly sad efforts below).

And I’ve also been on a terrarium-making kick lately. Yeah, I know they’re all the rage on etsy and other DIY blogs, but I really do like the idea of having just the teensiest patch of green in the apartment to get me through the bleak Chicago winter. So far, I seem to be successful in getting the moss to grow, but I still need to add some decorative elements and maybe a few other little plants to make them really snazzy.

So, that rather sadly sums up the past few months. Rest assured, a lot of eating, drinking, and general merrymaking also went on, but none that seems especially blogworthy. Hopefully, the holidays will bring new and noteworthy adventures (and trust me, finishing a dissertation chapter or two would be new and noteworthy). Stay tuned. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Some not-so-perfect-looking Buttered Rum Meltaways.	Two different peanut brittle attempts, one which I seem to have burned slightly.
My little jar terrarium. Look at the thriving moss!!	Don’t even try to tell me the samurai isn’t a nice touch.

I can’t believe it’s Monday. Maybe because I don’t usually do much with my weekends, and this was a fun-filled, jam-packed weekend. Or maybe because I’m daily traumatized by how quickly the time is going and how little work I’ve finished. Regardless, it is Monday and before I force myself back on the road to productivity, I want to share a few highlights from the weekend.

The fabulous Dragonslayer & her hubby were back in town this weekend, which meant much eating, much merrymaking, and then some more eating. Saturday we made the pilgrimage to that glorious emporium of delicious encased meats, Hot Doug’s. The wait was of course insanely long, but it was worth it as usual. I brought my camera to document my glorious, cheese smothered dogs, but as soon as my food arrived, I forgot all about trying to take a picture and wolfed them down. I know, I’m an animal. But I think Hot Doug’s brings out the ravenous animal in all of us.

So Saturday was a brilliant day of eating and chatting in the 2 hour line, in which I got sunburned because my skin hates me. Then the merrymaking continued on Sunday when a group of us made a trek out to the ‘burbs for the most amazing Pig Roast/wedding reception ever!

Yep, there it is. A full roasted pig. Not only was this conceptually amazing–there was this special roaster, with a special pig holding contraption–but the end result was a perfectly tender and juicy roasted pig. Man, it was good stuff!! Not to mention all the other good stuffs that accompanied the pig. There were salads, cheesy potatoes, surprisingly tasty sauerkraut noodles (I’m not a huge sauerkraut fan), corn muffins, fantastic baked beans, and of course desserts! Honestly, just when you had completely stuffed yourself on one course, something else fantastic was unveiled and you had to stuff yourself just a little more.

But the best part, I mean aside from getting to see Dragonslayer and her urban cowboy’s glowing faces, was the bouncy castle! Since this was a big family/neighborhood potluck kind of party, there were a fair number of small kids there, and the hosts wisely decided they would need something to keep the kids occupied. So they rented a bouncy castle. What they may or may not have realized in renting said bouncy castle was that the grown-up kids were eyeing it the whole time, just waiting for the tikes to abandon it, even for an instant, so that we could move in for the bouncy kill! Ah, what fun was had. At least for about a minute and a half before we were all rolling on the ground, huffing and puffing like a bunch of old geezers. But still, it was awesome and ridiculous and topped off what was already a pretty amazing evening.

Today, however, the good times are simply good memories. There’s work to be done, and pig that’s probably still being slowly digested. But it who could ask for anything more than a weekend spent with good food and great friends (and a bouncy castle)?