Hissy Fit Against the Machine

First I must apologize for my California related entries petering off. I had some interesting (read: whiny, ranting) things to say, but that's not really where I'm at at this point. Since the trip I have spent my summer in Lansing (Monday - Thursday) and in Chicago (Friday - Sunday). There's no question that I have spent more time in this city this summer than at any other time, and I think I picked a good year to do so.
This may seem trivial, but Dark Knight came out this year, and while this maybe my perspective I feel like every one's eyes are on Chicago because of it. I mean, they literally are, the movie was shot here, but I really want to believe that people who aren't from the area are appreciating how beautiful the city is. They probably aren't, for whatever reason, but I am, and I like to pretend other people are as well. I feel like most Americans can recognize New York as the quintessential American city just from seeing it in movies and on TV. Chicago is truly a world class city, as well as a great American city, and it's good to see it get its due on the big screen.
Last night was another reason I was proud to be spending my time in the city. Some friends and I went downtown to stand outside of Lollapalooza to see Rage Against the Machine. I've loved Rage for many a year, and never got to see them live. I didn't have a ticket to Lollapalooza, but that didn't seem like a reason not to see them as long as they are in what is almost my backyard. A pair of my friends staked out a spot just West of the stage outside of what I think was the media entrance to the festival, they stayed there for most of the day, and we came down for Rage's performance. Walking down Michigan ave, and hearing Zack de la Rocha's voice echo off of buildings was one of the most surreal things that happened this summer. Walk/running down the street to the sounds of "Know Your Enemy," cutting through parks, in haste made my weekend.
We met my other friends at their spot during the second time Zack stopped the show and told the crowd to calm down. The spot was in front of some tennis courts, and quite a few people (maybe 200-250) had gathered to look at the screens on the stage through the trees. The sound was great, although we couldn't see much except ambulances and police going by on the street in front of us. After a few songs and some relative calm, the band went into "Calm like a Bomb." Someone in our little crowd yelled "THEY'RE LETTING PEOPLE IN!" and before I knew it I was running towards the allegedly open gate with a few hundred drunk sweaty freeloaders who just saw their chance to get $80 worth of concert for free. The adrenaline ran high until I was about 2 feet from being inside the gates, when I looked to my right and found myself staring up the nose of a horse. I looked up, paused, and turned around, walked back towards our spot, feeling quite defeated. It's not worth getting messed up just to get into a concert. The majority of the people who tried to get in the gate turned around after the very swift police reaction consisting of mounted officers, ATV's and eventually a few squad cars and a paddy waggon. I was reassured that my decision to turn around was the right one, when a friend of mine who did get in came back shortly after I did, reporting that the police were tossing anyone who didn't have a wristband. Later that evening I ran into a friend who was inside but had came out to stand with our little crowd. He said the sound was better where we were standing than it was inside, unless you were close, but close to the stage was were all the injuries were happening.
The small crowd calmed down after the little incident, and there were a row of mounted police permanently posted in front of us for the rest of the evening. I'm pretty sure the show was stopped early because there was a long pause before the last song, and the set was only 10 or 12 songs long. Our crowd was calm and the only other sounds beside Tom Morello putting his guitar through an oscillating wood chipper were the police helicopters flying overhead.
When the show ended there was the expected mass exodus toward the train. The returning crowds shutdown most of the streets in the loop. Every so often a person would yell something and the whole crowd would just start cheering for almost no reason. There was a man wearing a suit holding a bible, preaching on the corner, and to me, the true definition of faith was this man standing, preaching, and thinking he would reach some of the people in the drunk, sweaty crowd that surrounded him.
That evening was one of the many great memories I've made in the city this summer, and no matter where I've been or where I'm going there's nothing like being in Chicago in the company of good friends (or crazy concert goers).

San Francisco and Northern California

After long delay I finally have found the time and energy to give San Fran and Northern Cali a proper post. First things first. I flew in or Virgin America airlines, which was the best experience I've ever had on an airplane, hands down, and not just because the flight only lasted an hour. I really wished I could have flown on one of the Virgin America planes on at least one of the two 14 hour flights from Japan, but such is life. The planes were equipped with these lovely touch screen monitors that had a few gigs of music to listen to, movies from several countries, TV shows from several countries, a Google map of where the plane was and what was around it and other things. Since it was such a short flight many of the features were disabled, but apparently on longer flights, this computer is how you get your food and drinks for the flight. In addition to that, the seats were comfortable, provided a bit more leg room than the average coach seats, and there were little electric outlets and USB ports to charge your gadgets mid-flight. Very nice. Surprisingly the ticket price wasn't bad either, it was the cheapest one Orbitz pulled up for me at the time of the flight anyway, but if I ever fly a long distance anytime soon, it might be worth it to throw in another $50 or so just for this airline, especially if the flight is longer than 6 hours.
After landing in San Francisco, I was greeted at the airport by my friend Emma a native of these parts. I met Emma in Tokyo, we both attended the same school while abroad, and she was kind enough to let me stay with her and her family in Novato, a town north of San Francisco. The first time driving through the city from the airport to Novato was an exercise in contrast. I had just left L.A. where I was sweating buckets under a cloudless sky dominated by a merciless sun, and in San Francisco it couldn't have been more different. I was happy to have brought long sleeves, since it was a bit chilly, and the fog was so thick I barely noticed when we drove over the Golden Gate bridge.
I spent the next day in Novato, generally relaxing while Emma went to work. After she returned we visited a farmers market in Novato and went out to eat. The farmers market must be fairly popular in California, since this wasn't the first one I had seen. I suppose the farmers market is a pretty cool concept. People selling locally grown organic fruits and veggies to regular people, eliminating the middleman.
I spent the next two days in San Francisco, exploring and what not. The pictures will tell the best story here, but I did some touristy things as well as some cool, not so touristy things. I rode the ferry from Larkspur, which was a neat experience, especially seeing the commuters who use the ferry everyday to get to work. My first day in the city I walked along the piers all the way to Pier 39. For Chicagoans, think Navy Pier, but larger, and still a very active port, and you have somewhat of an idea of what Pier 39 is like. I visited the Fisherman's Wharf, a haven of seafood and other nautical goodness, and the Ghiradelli chocolate factory/restaurant. After eating myself silly at both places, I decided to walk it off on Alcatraz island. This was a cool experience, but the pictures speak louder and clearer than my words can, so look at those (they're at the end). At the end of the day I met Emma, her sister Mary and her boyfriend for some Chinese food and a walk through China town. To get to that area I rode one of the street cars, the old timey ones, where you can hang off the side. That was fun, but my already sunburned face became windburned. Oh well, it was worth it.
The next day I was planning on meeting up with my cousin Peter who lives in San Francisco. Pete lives a block from the (in)famous Haight /Ashbury district. But before I was to meet him for dinner, I had a day to occupy. Like the previous day, I took the Ferry into the city. I then took the bus from the east side of the city to the west coast of it. I was planning to walk up the coast along the beach until I reached the Golden Gate Bridge. On the map this looked like a nice walk, but it was much longer than I had anticipated. The coast of San Francisco is quite beautiful; long beaches, cliffs and rock formations guide a pedestrian along the coast. I stopped for lunch at a cozy little cliffside diner and had some clam chowder (the red) and some sourdough bread (they take pride in that stuff lemme tell ya). After that I proceeded to the Golden Gate bridge. I went through some neighborhoods and then through various wilderness preserves until I arrived to the bridge. The whole walk would have been 9 miles straight through, but probably close to 10 with my stumbling around and unintentional detours. The Golden Gate bridge was impressive, to say the least. I walked about halfway out and turned around, but the view of San Fran was great and the bridge it self is a marvel to look at. Although the walk up to the bridge was scenic and enjoyable, I was wiped out, so I took the bus to Golden Gate Park. There I visited a few places, because it would probably take a whole day to see the whole park. I visited the botanical garden and the tea garden, and I relaxed for about and hour at each place. After some tea and a few short naps in the park, I headed towards the Haight / Ashbury area near where my cousin lived. There is a really huge and cool record shop on Haight street called Amoeba, so I checked that out. Wow, I've never been in such a huge record shop. They had everything I could think of, some CDs that I've never actually seen in person because they are rare, imports or what have you. It was pretty insane. On my way down Haight street I got a call from Peter saying that he got off of work early, so I headed to his place. We had some choice middle eastern food for dinner, and hung out at his place catching up and such. It was good to see him, since I so rarely see him anymore.
The next day I sort of slept in, and that evening Emma and I went out to Wine country for dinner. We ate at a little French place in Sonoma called "the girl and the fig" which was just amazing. Everything we ate was flavorful and awesome; I can't even think of good words to describe it, just awesome. I had some chicken and Emma had these chickpea cake things. See the pictures. It was nice to get out of the city for a night, and the countryside is very pretty with all the vineyards and such.
Saturday, my last full day in California was also birthday of Emma's boyfriend Wes. Emma and I woke up early and I helped her make him breakfast. We had the most elaborate French toast ever, but it was pretty good. We spent the rest of the day in the city, going to various places until we got to Japan-town for dinner. We ate at Benihanas which was pretty cool. After dinner we went to Purikura, something that I had done a few times in Japan. Purikura is like those photo booths at the mall, but much more elaborate. There's the booth which can fit 4 or 5 people in it, and you take several pictures. After that they are sent to a pair of computers where you can write on them and edit them. It was pretty cool and nostalgic.
All in all this leg of the trip was very cool, and I'll eventually put up another post of all my rants about California as a whole, but for now I'm tired of writing.
Enjoy the pictures:
Album 1
Album 2

Southern California

After finally getting settled, it was time to see a little bit of California. We stayed in Glendale in a hotel for a few days, while Jamie lined up a place to live for a little longer. Our hotel was down the street from a Yoshinoya, which made me very happy. Yoshinoya is a Japanese fast food chain, that serves beef and rice bowls among other things. When in Tokyo, I used to frequent Yoshinoya and similar places after a night out. After reliving some J-Nostalgia, Jaime and I explored the area. Across the street from our hotel was a brand new outdoor mall. The first time we walked through it was very unnerving. There was a chandelier hanging above one of the streets; a full size, crystal chandelier. If that wasn’t enough, there was a giant fountain in the middle of the whole place, and music being pumped through speakers, the first time we went it was “What a Wonderful World.” It may sound nice, and I suppose it was, but we found the whole place to be a bit bizarre. It was called the “Americana” mall, and all the buildings were done in an old timey fashion. The centerpiece was a tower that had glass elevators one could ride up to the top of an 8 floor parking garage/condo. I took some decent pictures from the top of this place.

After thoroughly exploring this area, we decided to branch out a bit. I figured it was best to avoid any areas in L.A. that I’ve heard in rap music (sorry, Compton, Inglewood, Long Beach, etc.) so we went to Pasadena. We didn’t go there much, just to check out a store, but this area was very nice. I think ‘nice’ in L.A. usually translates to ‘expensive’ as most of the places (stores, food, etc) were quite pricey.

The next day (I think were at Friday here) Jamie had to start working, so I had a day to myself. I decided to do some touristy things, so I caught a bus to Hollywood, and got a hot dog at Pinks. I walked down Hollywood Blvd for what was probably about an hour and a half, but what felt like 4 hours. To be fair most of that time was spent waiting for my next bus to arrive, but I did see all the famous things, the Chinese theater, the Hollywood sign, some of the walk of fame, Kodak Theater, and some other miscellanea. Hollywood is a very contradictory place in my humble opinion. While it stands as one of the high points of American potential, working your way to the top and all, it all shows the very bottom of the barrel. I can’t name many places where you can see celebrities who make millions of dollars a year, and in the very same breath see someone passed out on the corner in the middle of the day.

After a long, sweaty wait for a bus, I headed south to go Pinks for a hotdog. I’m sure if you watch the Food Network or the Travel Channel at any length, you’ve probably seen this place on TV (the hot dog stand of the stars!). Anywho, I waited in line for a half hour for what was a pretty decent chili dog. Albeit, you could get a dog at least this good or better at any given hot dog joint in the city of Chicago or its surrounding suburbs, but whatever, now I can say I’ve been to Pinks, so there.

On Saturday we had some free time so we drove up to Malibu to see some of the coast. There’s a lovely road called Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) which does exactly what it claims, it runs along the Pacific Coast. We headed up this road to a beach called Leo Carillo. We saw many a cool sight on the way there, from the sandy beaches to rocky tide pools. We stopped at one of the later. I love climbing up and down rocks like a ninja-schoolboy so it was fun. The scenery was very lovely, which was a good thing because we got stuck on the PCH for a good 30 minutes because of traffic.

* * *

As I’m sitting on my flight to San Francisco, (btw Virgin airlines is pretty awesome, more on that later) I figure this is a good as time as any to jot down my overall reflections on the L.A. area based on my short time there. I’ll use a tried and true method, pros and cons.

Pros & Cons of Southern California

Pros:

• Great food, everywhere, from any place - Name any Asian country, there’s a place to get some of their food in L.A. Great Mexican food, decent Indian food, they really have anything and everything out here.
• Respectable public transportation - Busses were fairly thorough and mostly clean, and although I didn’t ride many trains, the few I did ride were clean and fairly efficient. Fares were low, lower than CTA anyway, probably due the little love affair the state of California has with democratic socialism. People actually use public transportation out here, so it was crowded sometimes, but that didn’t bother me, I did after all, live in Tokyo.
• People - The people were surprisingly nice, especially considering what I’ve heard about L.A. people being the rudest in the country (that was from someone who lived here, by the way). Granted I wasn’t even in town a week, but still, people were very cool. There were also people from everywhere out here, probably the reason for the diverse food. I’ve never heard so many languages spoken in the same place in such a short time as I did here. In two hours of walking around, I heard English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Armenian (I think), Hebrew (I think), and a few others that I couldn’t identify.

Cons:

• Food - Everything out here is very expensive, the food being the first thing you notice. Due to a number of factors, whether it be the nature of the food you like, or the fact that there aren’t many cows or farms in this part of California, or the location you are eating in, food ain’t cheap.
• Transportation - Sure, the public transportation is done well here, but the buses I rode don’t run nearly often enough, and when you are waiting for an hour for a bus (which I did once or twice) you really feel the heat. That and this area is made for cars, period. If you don’t have a car, you are going to have a hard time. The freeways here are completely insane. We once took two different freeways to get just to the carwash. Each one has five or six lanes, and a speed limit that’s rarely posted, but people ignore it anyway.
• Contradictions – I’m sure everyone is familiar with stereotypes associated with Californians being smug and stuck up about certain things. I find this to be very contradictory of some of the realities of being here. For an “enlightened” and “progressive” place, there are just as many social problems as anywhere else, maybe more. You could cut the smog around L.A. with a butter knife, in the same day you can see countless homeless people as well as people with money to spare, hybrid cars share the road with Hummers and Escalades, the list goes on.

All and all I’ve enjoyed my time in So Cal, it is a pretty neat place, and different enough from Chicago to make it interesting. As I’m off to San Francisco, I’ll try and keep an open mind and be ready for any new adventures.

So Cal Pictures

Day Three

As Jamie and I awoke from our much needed slumbers in Colorado, the sky cleared up, and our last leg of travel awaited. Utah took up most of our travels for the first half of the day. Very scenic plateaus, mountains and canyons lined the lonely, hot desert roads. The altitude was not as bad as in Colorado, so there were fewer headaches then on the previous day. After Utah came a brief trip through Arizona. I'm fairly certain we drove viewing distance from the Grand Canyon, but since I've never been there before, and there were no signs saying "Hey, Look over there, it's the Grand Canyon," it could have just been a sub-Grand Canyon. Still pretty though.
Las Vegas was the only real city we drove though on this day, and that was probably for the best. Driving on the expressways in Vegas is a nightmare, people changing lanes and zooming all over. It was like the Dan Ryan on a bad day, and we didn't know the lay of the land, so that didn't help. We did get off the highway and drive through the strip, which was an overload on the senses. Big shiny things everywhere, lights, noises; if the expressway wasn't enough to induce a migraine, the Vegas strip was. It was cool to see it though, and to see all the famous landmark casinos and such, especially since I don't know when I'll be out in these parts again. After Las Vegas was lonely, hot desert driving until later that night. We were greeted by Los Angeles' merciless freeways at around 8:00. These five lane monsters might as well have had no speed limits, and the people driving on them might as well have been blindfolded, because thats how they drove. After navigating the web of concrete and speed, we checked into our hotel in Glendale for some well deserved rest. We had finally made it, but just wanted to sleep.

Pictures are here:
Day Three Pictures

Day Two

After a hearty rest in Grand Island, Nebraska, we grabbed some hotel breakfast and hit the road for Colorado. Nebraska as a whole is pretty unremarkable. There’s cows, flatness, and things of that nature. The first few hundred miles of Colorado was the same sort of thing, but we started to see mountains and that was good for morale. We stopped in Boulder, CO and had lunch with a friend of mine, John. John was in Japan at the same time as me, and I haven’t seen him since. We ate at an odd sandwich place called “Cheeba’s” where all the items on the menu were drug references. Good food, but I felt weird ordering an “Afgani Sandwich.” Boulder is a very cool town. Home to a university, U of Colorado I think, Boulder is a very relaxed, laid back college town. John told us about going biking in the mountains, and doing all the nature-related things that the area offered. Bikes and pedestrians actually have precedent and right of way over cars in many traffic situations, so they are numerous.
Following lunch, we packed up the car and headed out. On the way out of the Boulder area I took a picture of a storm chasing us. The storm eventually caught up, but first we were lucky enough to have a scenic drive through the Rockies. As a passenger, it was very pleasant, but if I were driving, I wouldn’t say the same. The down grades and curves over and around cliffs are not familiar for Illinois drivers, who constantly revel in the flat. As we approached our destination town of Grand Junction, CO, the storm finally caught up. This was not fun. Luckily the mountains eased up and the driving wasn’t bad, but the rain made the already miserable situation of finding some fast food to cram into our gullets even more irritating. We finally settled in Grand Junction, and got some sleep, ready to tackle our final day.

Day Two Pictures

Cross Country: Day One

I've never driven across the great ol' USA before. Not East-West anyway, and I guess technically I haven't across the whole US, just west from Chicago, but anyway, I feel like I went through a rite of passage. I've seen the amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties, and such, so I feel a bit more American, or something.
The first day of the trip was the smoothest, not that any of the trip was rough, but this day was the easiest. We stayed on I - 80 pretty much the whole day. Since 80 runs all the way to San Fransisco, we rode it all the way to Colorado on the following day. On day one we made it from Chicago to Grand Island Nebraska. The highlight of the day was by far the Iowa 80 truck stop, the largest truck stop in the world. Yes. The World. This place was enormous. The picture from my previous post was from there. There were two trucks in the building, along with 4 restaurants or so, and a bevy of other things (see pictures). After that stop we rode through the rolling hills of Iowa, which were pleasant to look at, and easy to navigate and on to Nebraska. Nebraska welcomed us by offering the city of Omaha, which I found to be a cool little city. Most of the buildings were older, at least in the area we wandered around in. Old buildings are cool in general, and these were great too. The restaurant we ate at was in one of these and I love seeing the old, oddly placed doors, and hearing the floor creak every time someone approached.
After leaving Omaha, we got about halfway through Nebraska. As a whole, Nebraska is pretty boring, flat, in contrast with Iowa's rolling hills. Also, Nebraska smelt of cow dung in certain spots, which was lovely.
Day Two is next, pictures are here:
Day One Pictures

NEW POST! NEW ADVENTURE!

Yes, after a long period of idleness, I will be posting to this blog again. The title of the blog (Japanese for "Where is Mike Noonan?", and lousy Japanese at that) would seem to imply that this blog was just for Japan, and it sort of was, but if someone will read it, I'll post. The answer to the question that the title poses at the moment is Colorado. I'm driving to California with my cousin Jamie who got an internship out there. We've been on the road two days now, on day one we went through Illinois, Iowa and half of Nebraska. Today we finished Nebraska and got almost through Colorado. To be honest, I'm quite tired, and I can update in greater detail when I have the energy, but as a sign of good things to come, I leave you with this lovely picture.