April 26, 2006
It would be exactly my luck that my website goes down while I am on the other side of the planet unable to do anything to correct it. If you've tried hitting Accipiter.org this past week and got nothing, that's why. It's fixed now, and in case you haven't guessed, I'm back home.
Allow me to pick up where I left off. I ended up getting transferred into an internet-capable room (praise jebus), although it didn't do me much good for updating my site since my DSL modem needed a simple power cycle. Stupid Bellsouth. Anyway, I made my way to the Edo-Tokyo museum as planned, and it was incredible. The exhibits they have on display are top notch, and it was well worth it just to walk around and read about the region's history while looking at the amazingly detailed miniatures. I also made my way to Sunshine City in Ikebukuro, and was able to get an incredible view of Tokyo from the Sunshine 60 observation deck. The elevator was pretty awesome too; it went from normally-lit with the doors open, to night-glow when the doors closed and the elevator was in motion. I also checked out Amlux while I was in Sunshine City, which is pretty much just a big Toyota circle-jerk, but it was fun nonetheless. I got myself strapped into a VR car and experienced Toyota's new super seat belts that tighten up when the car senses an imminent collision.
I eventually made my way over to Ueno to see the sights there, and found the Ueno Toshogu Shrine, which was built in 1650 and had many portions subsequently rebuilt several times over. Ueno is also home to a gigantor stone lantern. At 6 meters high, it's one of the largest stone lanterns in Japan.
The next day I made my Shenmue pilgrimage and headed down to Yokosuka to check things out. The game is astonishingly accurate with regards to the locations (Yokosuka Harbor, Dobuita, etc.), so after having played Shenmue for so long I almost felt at home walking through the streets of Yokosuka. I also paid a visit to Kamakura (which is near Yokosuka) to see the Great Buddha. I can't emphasize how goddamn huge that thing is when you actually see it sitting in front of you. What's even more interesting is that the inside is also habitable (in fact, back in the day homeless people used to take up residence here), so it's pretty crazy to be inside of it.
I enjoyed Tokyo night life for two nights at a famous club called Gas Panic. The evenings started off slow, but without fail, regularly graduated into people dancing on the bar. Other miscellaneous exploration included Shibuya Crossing, Harajuku Station, NHK studios, Akihabara, Roppongi, and others.
Overall I have to say it was a fantastic trip, and certainly a smashing introduction to international travel. Hello new album!
(00:04)
Update: It would figure that I'd come home to about eight hundred billion different system failures. Not only did I have to rebuild this very webserver from scratch (which was lots of fun, by the way), I have at least one other server that's dead in the water.
In the meantime, I've transferred the primary webserver files over and everything should be running normally. No doubt I missed a few permissions issues here and there, but I'm working on it.
(13:44)
Update: Okay, both primary and support servers have been rebuilt and everything should be back to normal with the exception of some user accounts on Beverly, but the content is there.
(21:30)
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