It’s Friday. In just a couple hours I’ll be on a ferry heading to my favourite place… Tofino.

The forecast for the weekend: Rain, rain and more rain. But when you’re in a wetsuit, surfing in the ocean in the rain is a glorious experience. Who cares about rain when you are already wet?

Our tarps and tent have always been 3-season and very waterproof, so rain isn’t much of a downer when we are out there. Another side benefit is that there are always less people out camping and surfing when it is raining. I love waking up, hitting the surf on the rising tide (whenever that may be), and then spending the day in the tent with Allan… reading books, watching movies on my Zune, or just being together. I sleep best when there is rain pattering on the tent.

If you’re going to live on the “Wet Coast”, then you have to suck it up sometimes, let everything go… and just enjoy the rain for what it is.

In other news, this past weekend I picked up an underwater housing on clearance from Leo’s Camera. I purchased the Ewa-Marine U-AX housing for my Nikon D90 DSLR, but really any DSLR should work in this case. Everywhere I looked online the prices were $250-500 US. And amazingly… it was only $175 CAD at Leo’s on Clearance. No returns, but hey… at that price you just can’t say no. (They still have some if anyone is looking for one!)

I actually have a Fantasea (har har) brand camera housing, but it’s quite heavy and bulky… and as I realized, best used for scuba diving. The real problem is I couldn’t adapt the housing from my D50 to the D80 and eventually my D90… and so the video controls don’t work on it.

So this new housing will hopefully give me the flexibility of changing the video settings and other controls, while still leaving open the possibility of later changing cameras.

So let’s hope the surf videos and photos turn out with this. I’ll let you know the full review when I get back!

And yes, that HD surf video I promised… it’s still coming I’ll combine the footage with the stuff I get this weekend to put together something cool.

Hope everyone has a fabulous long weekend!

We’re finally on the last leg of our trip. On Thursday night we flew into Tokyo, Japan. It’s very different from Korea and definitely overwhelming.

The airport was awesome. Duty free electronics! Where do you see that anywhere else? Seriously discounted DSLRs, mini computers, MP3 players, harddrives, everything. And no tax. Gahhh what a deal. I decided not to buy anything since I wanted to save my money for actual Tokyo but now I kinda regret not picking something up after seeing how RIDICULOUSLY expensive everything is in Japan.

On our drive from the airport to our hotel, I was informed by my boss that 7-Eleven convenience stores were owned by this Japanese company. Weird. It’s strange seeing 7-11′s everywhere. Oh yeah, and the steering wheel is on the other side in Japan and cars drive on the left.

In Japan, it seems to be that there are a lot of celebrities doing B-list ads. I suppose they are getting paid a lot and figure that the general North American market won’t ever get to see this stuff. It’s hilarious. Tommy Lee Jones of all people advertising a canned coffee drink on the top of a building. These particular billboard is all over Tokyo. It’s strange.

George Clooney apparently doing an ad for Honda. Saw this one in the train station. WEIRD! They don’t really interact with any of the product, it’s usually just a picture of their face.

Our hotel is the Tokyo Bay Intercontinental. I actually liked our hotel in Korea a lot better, especially since this one doesn’t have as many amenities. And the buffet isn’t nearly as good. But it’s a pretty nice hotel, especially for Japan since rooms and hotels are normally pretty small (and expensive) here.

It’s nice to have a high tech toilet that has a heated seats and powers up (vroooooooom) whenever you sit on it, but it’s also weird. Also — don’t press the buttons. EVER.

The subway and train system in Tokyo is ridiculous. It’s huge. There’s so many different lines, some above ground, some below, and some high speed (bullet trains). It’s hard to know where to go, especially since it is almost always fully in Japanese. Good thing I have my boss with me, and he’s lived in Tokyo before so he knows where he is going.

Pretty much everyone takes the train in Tokyo, and people walk everywhere. I always can’t believe the women that are wearing 5 inch high heels and are walking everywhere, climbing stairs, and don’t look tired at all.

We went to Shibuya, where there is a huge intersection. I think it is the largest intersection in the world? (Supposedly). Anyway, it’s huge and overwhelming and definitely a good place to start in Tokyo!

We wandered around. There’s a strange mix of Japanese and North American in downtown Tokyo. There’s also so many people. That combination makes it very surreal.

We went into Tokyo Hands, a big department store in downtown Tokyo. They have just about everything and anything you could possibly want. They carry both Japanese and foreign products. How about a Star Wars R2D2 USB hub, or a humping dog USB hub?

I came across this section in Tokyo Hands and couldn’t resist snapping a picture. Boot stands! Why haven’t I seen this anywhere in Vancouver? (I’m sure it exists, but not as cool as these!) I’m going to pick up one of these to baby my Michael Kors boots. The only question is, which one to get? So many to choose from.

The title says it all.

We did a brief visit to Akihabara, the technology/computer/geeky/roleplaying district. There’s all sorts of gadgets everywhere that you’ll never find anywhere else. You can also find bins of computer parts, and video games everywhere.

There’s a ton of manga and comic book stores, some “safe” and some very pornographic! (Hentai)

Need an extension cord?

We only spent a little bit of time there, so I’m absolutely going to be coming back to this area. I still need to win this maid doll from the arcade, that I failed in grabbing with the “crane machine style game”. I don’t know why I want this so bad. I feel like it is a good representation of Akihabara and therefore a good souvenir. The advertisement tells me that she has “realistic feeling” breasts. LOL. Creepy.