My Trip to Tokyo part 2

In case you missed the first part of my trip to Tokyo, you can catch up here. Now time for part 2!


Cryssy and I woke up on Saturday feeling as refreshed as one can be with a 13 hour time difference. It just so happened that Saturday was my 25th birthday. Best birthday ever? I think so. Of course I didn't get my currency exchanged, so our first line of business was to get myself some yen. Way to plan ahead, I know. I printed out maps, translated them, planned things to do while we were there, even got international calling & data, but didn't get my currency exchanged. We hit up the subway and took it one stop to look for the currency exchange place.

Travelers hint: Figuring out how much money subway tickets are is a pain! Prices vary depending on how far you go, how many transfers you have, etc. You could buy a ticket to get on the subway for 140¥, but end up owing 180¥ when you get to your stop. It just sucks having to find a machine and adjust your fare. I highly suggest you get a Suica card. It's like the metro cards you can find in NYC or the Tap card here in Los Angeles. You load it with increments of 1,000¥ and it automatically deducts the correct fair. You can get them at the machines in most subway stations. As a plus, some convenient stores such as 7-11 and Family Mart will let you use your Suica card as payment.


We made it to the currency exchange place, only to find out that it was closed. Of course we didn't immediately know it was closed until we played charades with one of the neighboring stores. (Charades works great when you don't speak the native language.) We just happened to show up on a holiday weekend. A quick stop to the ATM at 7-11 fixed my money situation, and we were on our way to get our tickets for sumo.


As we were on our way to the subway station to go to Ryogoku, we saw what looked like a giant arcade. How can you go to Japan and not check out their crazy arcades. We walked in and were received a warm greeting. We wandered around and all we saw were slot machines and other gambling machines. Confused, we wandered up to the 4th floor and discovered more and more of the same. This was a giant building dedicated to gambling and for 10AM, there were a fair number of people already in there. MADNESS.

Ryogoku Kokugikan (sumo arena)

Ryogoku was a beautiful area centered around the sumo arena. Sumo is only done 3 times each year and definitely worth seeing. Show up early to buy your tickets as prices will go up and availability goes down the longer you wait. Tickets start at 1500¥ (abour $20.00) and go up from there. We ended up paying 3000¥ per ticket (about $40). The matches earlier in the day are the amateurs and they work their way up from there. After purchasing our tickets, we decided to wander around Ryogoku and discovered some really beautiful areas.


From Ryogoku Kokugikan, we found the Kyo Yasuda Garden. Trees, a little pond, and beautiful animals, this was definitely a nice place to check out. This was less than 5 minutes from the sumo arena and definitely worth a visit. Get out of the sun, find some shade, and soak in the scenery.

You can take a break from reading and enjoy the scenery too ;)

The next spot, Yokoamicho Park, was just as beautiful as the first. It has a beautiful traditional Japanese style building dedicated to earthquake and war victims. We went inside and paid our respects and walked around the outside, enjoying the scenery. Also a great place to see if you find yourself wandering around Ryogoku.

One of the many amazing things about Tokyo, is that there are an abundance of vending machines. You can't walk two blocks without finding a plethora of vending machines carrying a variety of delicious beverages. Soda, milk tea, water, and a number of other anonymous Japanese drinks (what they are, I may never know). There are plenty of variations of beverages which never make it to the states, like the grape Mountain Dew on the left. You can also find vending machines that carry an assortment of snacks as well as cigarettes. That's right, cigarettes in vending machines on the street. I'm not quite sure how they work, but they are there. If you're a smoker, one thing to know is that you can only smoke in designated areas scattered around the city. You aren't supposed to smoke outdoors, which is probably why the city was so clean. There are actually more places to smoke indoors than there are outdoors. Weird, I know. Just some food for thought.

We made a few more stops throughout the day and saw some really neat things, but the highlight of the day and perhaps the entire trip was the actual sumo wrestling. We wandered back to the arena later in the day to see the higher end wrestlers compete. I really didn't know what to expect, but let me tell you that this was intense. It took a few matches to understand what exactly was going on, but both Cryssy and I were really getting into it. There's an ceremony that the wrestlers go through before they actually wrestle. It's almost like a choreographed dance with stomping and clapping and even some salt being thrown around. You can't help but to be amazed with sumo, a tradition that has been around for centuries. Watching these athletes in their traditional garments along with the referees and other officials in beautiful garments. The whole experience is just awe inspiring. Check out more pictures below from our first full day in Tokyo. Look for the next post coming soon!

Mother Nature Themed Giveaway

Hey Tribe! The time has come for you to win a SpiritHood as well as a 17×17 inch print of this amazing illustration done by Cryssy Cheung. Peep the rules to enter!

• Visit Cryssy Cheung‘s Facebook fan page
• Find the post with the picture above and the words “Mother Nature is dying. How do you show your respect for Mother Nature? Post your reply for a chance to win a 17x17in print of this piece along with a SpiritHoods of your choosing.”
• Tell us how you show your respect for Mother Nature
• Tag SpiritHoods in your post
• Contest will end Oct 1st 12:00PM PST

Contest is now open to Twitter users too! If you have Twitter and Facebook, enter twice for double the chance to win (once on Facebook and once on Twitter). Here's how to enter on Twitter.

• Follow both @CryssyCheung and @SpiritHoods on Twitter
• Tell us your favorite thing about Mother Nature (eg trees, forest, desert, etc) and a brief description of why
• Mention both @CryssyCheung and @SpiritHoods in your tweet
• Include the hash tag #loveformothernature
• One entry per person! Multiple entries will be disqualified

Be sure to follow her on Twitter for more updates on this contest and check out her website for more artwork. www.cryssycheung.com

Originally posted on SpiritHoods Blog 9/19/11

Great night with a few @SpiritHoods

Wooooow! Last night I ended up going to Boardners which is turned into Club Moscow on Wednesdays.

Before I left the house, I decided to grab a couple of the extra SpiritHoods that were provided to us for just such events. Throughout the night I met tons of awesome people all in awe with how awesome these SpiritHoods are. Some guy from Australia even was trying to negotiate wholesale prices so he could sell them overseas! I gave him the SpiritHood business card and told him to talk to them. I'm just an avid supporter of the brand. Anyway, I was able to snap a few pictures of people in these SpiritHoods. There were some pictures taken by a professional photographer, but you'll have to catch those on my Facebook and / or Twitter. 

Follow me on Twitter and friend me on Facebook!

Originally posted on TalkNerdyToMeLover.com 12/16/10

@SpiritHoods Visits @TeamCoco

It all started off as just another Wednesday in the office. I stumbled in, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, desperately trying to remember the events of the previous evening when Alexander stopped me. “Morgan,” he said as I prepared for a lecture, “We’re going to Conan O’Brien!” This quickly snapped me out of my AM stupor. “YES!” I screamed in his face, forgetting he was a foot away from me. Before Alex could recover from his perforated eardrum, I was off making phone calls and seeing who we could get together to go visit everyone’s favorite ginger. Alas, the super team was assembled. From left to right, myself (Morgan), Olympia, Alexander, and TalkNerdyToMeLover.com‘s Jen Friel.

For those of you that missed the fun last month on Conan, here’s the picture recap.

I was stricken with the gorgeousness that was the guest lineup. Just beautiful people all around. Jon Hamm, Miranda Kerr, and Ke$ha.

Mmmm. Our super group muscled our way onto the screen. We had a very serious talk with Conan’s people. Alexander even threatened to streak. After some yelling, crying, and pleading, we reached an agreement. Here’s the outcome.

That’s right, we were on Conan. After the show, Ke$ha put on a private performance  just for us. We were kind enough to invite 500 of our closest friends. We rocked and rolled and clapped until our hands bled. With a sigh, it was all over. The fun, the glamour, the excitement; all done… for today.

Originally posted on the SpiritHoods Blog 5/20/11

My #E3 Experience

For those of you that don’t know what E3 is, it’s the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Once a year the biggest video game companies get together and showcase all of the big projects on the horizon. Now, I’ve been a jock, I’ve been a musician, but one thing I have and always will be is a nerd. I remember walking up to the TV screen for better aim (yeah, some would call this cheating) with that horrible orange-plastic gun for Duck Hunt. So yeah, I’ve been playing video games for a while.

Wednesday, the 2nd day of E3 started just like any other day. Wake up, run 25 miles, do 1,000 push-ups and sit-ups, and then take my private helicopter to work (I wish that any of this actually happened). I did work-ey stuff as soon as I got there. I might have danced a little bit, but that’s a normal occurrence around the Den. After a couple hours of slaving away, Ashley and his assistant Jenny saved me. “Let’s go over to E3. We have passes waiting.” Little did Ash know, but I was already in his car by the time he finished the sentence. I can move pretty quick when I need to. Fast forward through $25 parking and trying to figure out where to get our passes and you have us walking into E3, me for the first time. I was like a little kid in a candy shop. I didn’t even know where to begin. It was like Vegas, but you don’t have to worry about strippers stealing your wallet. Here was what I saw when I walked in.

Ashley, the seasoned E3 vetran in our group, was cutting his way through the crowd while Jenny and I were stunned at the lights, the crowd, and all the awesome video games waiting to be played. We fought our way to the Nexon booth to meet with some of our business contacts. We made custom hoods for Nexon’s game Vindictus. Last year Nexon just tossed hoods out into their audience and as you can imagine, people went crazy. A little bit too crazy in fact. Punches were thrown, names were called, and I think someone’s finger got bitten off. Madness. They had their own stage where they held raffles twice a day. Here’s Jenny and I hanging out with one of the booth babes modeling the custom Polar Bear we made. 

Day 2 (my first day) of E3 was a lot of fun. We met all kinds of cool people as well as some of my Twitter friends. As day 2 came to an end, my energy was at its end. It was time to go home and get rested up for another day filled with adventures.

I didn’t want to miss any E3 action on day 3, so I showed up bright and early before the actual expo opened with a few extra of the Vindictus hoods, hoping to figure out how to make good use for them. After meeting with the peeps at Nexon, we decided I would run around and hand them out to deserving people wearing Nexon t-shirts. Oh boy, what pressure! I met up with my friend Adam (@violent_gamer) as I needed a partner in crime. We frolicked, skipped, and even did some walking throughout the day. We got some hands on time with a lot of the games. We played with confused pets, blew up helicopters, manipulated the force, and destroyed Alien hordes. 

It was a pretty busy day considering it was Thursday. Nexon ended up announcing that someone from SpiritHoods was at E3 and that they were going to be handing out hoods to people wearing their t-shirts. Holy crap, they are talking about me! I felt like I was famous! Not because people asked for my autograph or anything. It was more because I had people stalking me the rest of the day. I have to give a shout-out to the final guy I gave a hood to. The announcement that I was at E3 was made at 1:00PM. Immediately after, I had people asking if I was the person from SpiritHoods. One gentleman in particular came up to me wearing an inappropriately tight t-shirt. He explained that he was wearing his girlfriend’s t-shirt because he wanted the hood so badly. 4:30PM rolls around, and I run into this gentleman still wearing his girlfriend’s t-shirt. He suffered a day of asphyxiation just so he could win a SpiritHood. I was so impressed I couldn’t say no. E3, I am going to miss you. Until next year, adieu.

Originally posted on the SpiritHoods Blog 6/13/11