May 5th '07 Part 1: The Quest for Wifi

The events this morning have caused me to want to create my own super rant blog. You can see that here. My first post there is about Nintendo's magical online abilities. (/sarcasm)
Anyway, this morning was spent looking for a place I can get online with my Nintendo DS. According to Freespot.com, there are numerous free Wifi hotspots that are even compatible with the Nintendo DS all over Japan. The website showed 4 in my area. I picked the one that looked closest, and me and a friend set out on a zany whildwind adventure through the rural Fuchuu city. Our destination: Freespot user Tokyo West Hotel.
The Hotel was located in an area called Shiraitodai. So... naturally, our first thought was to head for Shiraitodai station.
BOY were we wrong.
The magically unhelpful thing was... we had an address. Its address was:
Shiraitodai 6-12-8
...get it?
The Japanese adress system is explained in my rant blog, here. Check there later.
Well, we were to all sorts of places. We had to head for area 6... which... god darn, was RIGHT near a different station we use, Tobitakyu. We ended up going to Tobitakyu after an hour of walking... when it only takes 20 minutes from TUFS to walk there directly. Wow. So... we look around... and later found out we were walking the wrong way the whole time. We were so confused about the adress system... ok, theres Shiraitodai 6-42 over there, and Shiraitodai 6-20 over there, and behind us theres Tobitakyu 2-30 over there, oh and to the right is Shiraitodai 3-25 over there... THERE WAS NO ORDER! We were lost around the Shira-Tobi area for about say 2 hours.
In our wanderings, he took some interesting pictures... I like the kids playing in the empty trash cage...

So... after asking directions for like the 3rd time... we... find it. We actually found the hotel. And it was only a 10 minute walk from TUFS! WE SPENT 3 AND A HALF HOURS LOOKING FOR A PLACE THAT WAS 10 MINUTES AWAY!!!

Exhale... inhale... exhale...

So we checked it out. FREE. WORKING. WiFi. Every floor. I could use it outside the door, in the lobby, outside on the steel stairs... and thats what we did! We took an elevator for the top floor, sat out on the stairs, and chilled. The Wifi worked on my DS. But my laptop's network card is acting all funky, I couldn't get it to work. =(. But it SHOULD HAVE worked. Just gotta fix it.
We didn't go on the roof... on a full clear day we'll try and see if we can see Mt. Fuji.






It was kinda scary sitting on the stairs... didn't wanna loiter in the lobby... but it was peaceful. Nothing but the wind and the city and... a 10 story drop below us.

Pics:



So... any of you out there play your DS online? Wanna share friend codes? Send me an email of which games you play and we'll share friend codes.
So after all this, we geared up for the Fuchu City Children's day festival! Next Entry!