Invasion

Luckily, it's only an invasion by cute, humongously-oversized-headed, monsters.
The first one we spotted was in Ikebukuro [池袋] near Sunshine City [サンシャインシティ].

Then, on Saturday, we were strolling around Harajuku [原宿] when we saw another! but this one was walking - well waddling - down the road.

It's okay though, we've found their weakness - small children are able to stop the invasion through aggressive hugging techniques.

Gas Leak at Todai!

I was vaguely aware of Yamada-san (our assisant prof.) walking up and down lab shouting something...so I slid one of the ear peices of my headphones off my ear to be able to hear what he was on about - my Sennheisers [PXC250] are very good at cutting out background noise, so I can keep my music low and still not hear people talking next to me...brilliant.

Apparently, there had been a (methane) gas leak in Engineering Building 14, which is just next door to ours, and the emergency services which had probably been hanging outside the building with lights a blazing added with the traditional safety guy on a loud speaker trying to warn people of the impending doom. Yamada-san was very kindly relaying what the loudspeaker dude was annoucing in a language I could understand and we were being advised that it would be wise to evacuate any basement areas. As Yamada-san reasoned that we were now on what he calls 'free time' we could leave if we wanted or stay, but he definitely recommended the 'leaving' option. 'Go home early', 'Relax', he said. So I did.

When I wandered outside there were a lot of fire trucks with their flashing lights on and a group of guys in safety gear loitering outside Engineering building 14, with a trolley in standby. On the grassy area near our ancient Ginko tree, there was a growing crowd of people who's curiosity had gotten the better of them and were flocking to the outskirts of the scene like moths to a light.

Sugo-san - our technicial/lab practical lecturer - saw me loitering very close the the building, and tried to coax me away...telling me where I was was 'more dangerous'. Which was probably true. If it were going to blow, I'd rather be far away.

Anyway, the emergency service guys were trying to cordon off the area using 'keep out' tape. The fire engines were blocking my usual route to Seimon gate [正門], but the gate itself was still open.

I had gotten half way home when I realised I had forgotten my wallet - which is not good when you need to actually buy stuff at the supermarket...so I headed back.

In the 10mins that I had been gone, the police had been busy closing off the main road, Hongo Dori [本郷道り] which runs just beside the University (and which building 14 happens to back on to) . They had also managed to whip up about 8 people with stumpy lightsabers to redirect cars. In front of my building, Engineering Building 1, a larger crowd had amassed - consisting of evacuated people from building 14, people who had decided that it was far more interesting to watch the free entertainment from the emergency services than work in their lab from the neighbouring buildings, and people who were on their way home but got distracted by the flashing lights.

The 'keep out' tape had also moved to claim much more ground and had swallowed the ancient Ginko tree.

I'm half hoping it will explode, so that I can have an excuse for a holiday...

A man who makes intruments out of vegetables!!!

This guy is SOoooo the duuuude!!! Was being a bit distracted by YouTube and came across this:



He's Japanese and has been on national TV with his vegetable instruments, there's mainly ocarina's made from things like carrots, mouli (the large white parsnip thing), broccoli and a mushroom...other vegetables feature too...its GENIUS!

link: here

better than Pachinko!

Tokyo, and nearly every town in Japan is littered with gaudy Pachinko Parlours, whose façades are plastered with flashing neon lights on every available space, bright colours, and signs displaying interesting forms of English. So, after giving pachinko a try in Kyoto [see earlier post here.] we weren't very convinced...

However, in Ikebukuro [池袋] we wandered into a Taito Games room; which was full of the standard UFO catchers - the grabby arms which are meant to pick up toys but usually end up just stroking them. Anyway we happened upon a heavily evolved version of the 'penny pusher' called GRAND CROSS

photo taken from here


It's based on medals (or tokens) instead of hard currency, which can be bought at machines nearby. Unlike, the traditional penny pushers that I was used to seeing at amusement arcades on seaside promenades where the coins are inserted at the top of the machine through one of three slots, and after bouncing off various pins ends up on the first platform, the tokens are inserted at table level and thrown by the machine at the first platform level. It is possible to adjust the aim of the token shooter, using a lever, you can aim for different parts of the first platform (in theory). On grand cross there are three holes in the sliding platform, which when the tokens are eventually pushed off they can fall into instead of landing on the second platform. If a token falls into one of these holes (called checkers [チェッカー]) then it starts off a fruit machine rolling on the screen in front of you. The fruit machine can let you win a variety of things: more coins (which are shot out into the platforms - and may in turn fall into the checkers to give you more plays on the fruit machine), feature (which i'm not sure what it does), normal balls, and special 'golden' balls. If you get a ball it will be rolled on to your lower platform. If the ball eventually falls off this platform you get to 'challenge the sattelite' - another level in the gambling lottery and one of the many stages to inch you closer to the gold or silver jackpot.

It's all horrendously complex and I'm not entirely sure I understand it all yet. Although, I'm certain that it is a wonderful way to be happy to waste your money.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk*

* please excuse the profanity.
Gory news guys... Three people dead just down the road from where I live... another horrific murder in Tokyo, but this time very VERY close to home. link HERE.

"Three dead in Tokyo family stabbing: police

TOKYO (AFP) — A 42-year-old Japanese man stabbed his parents and his wife to death, and also seriously injured his two sons during a family dispute in a quiet Tokyo neighbourhood, police and reports said Friday"

QUIET!?!? it WAS until this morning, when on my cycle to uni I was met by unusually busy traffic down our road, which was odd for a start, then camera crews and news teams crowded around city car park (also odd), with the other side of the block of the same building flanked by two, very serious looking, policemen.

...anyway, as exciting as that is, I have to go to bed now.

night night.

Yakitori [焼鶏]

Oh. My. GOD!

I have been to, possibly *the* best Yakitori [焼鶏] restaurant EVER!!!!

My Japanese friend, Koya, is leaving for America next Thursday, for ten months. So we were having a little goodbye party, close to Hongo Campus. It was a truly international gathering: Japanese, American, a Japanese that had lived in a lot of different places in American, Chinese, French, and British. The food was excellent, and it just kept coming. Of course, it being a student gathering, it was Nomihodai [飲みほうだい] (all you can drink). But that wasn’t the thing which made this particular Yakitori fanTABulous! It was the absolutely awesome waiter, called Kojima [小島]. Who, had a rather high pitched voice. It was Awwwwwesome! I really couldn’t tell if he was putting it on or it was actually his real voice. He was the *best* waiter EVER! Super-duper nice too. I could have taken him home and wrapped him up.

But then, we also noticed that all the other waiters seemed to have high pitched voices too. However, NONE of them were as good as Kojima’s [小島]!!! He RULES!

We spent most of the night planning how to excuse Koya’s ‘surfing’ into a civil engineering related research topic. I was all for correlating the amount of surfing that Koya does to reduction in Global Warming…I could tell that people were a bit sceptical at first, but I’m sure they’ll come around…

Another visit of this Yakitori is definitely in order.

Aaahhhhhhhhhh! AND! Not only did we have an awesome waiter, but they taught me a new Japanese ‘thing’. A way of sending people off, or saying ‘goodbye’: involves rhythmic clapping. Can only really be demonstrated. I shall endeavour to recreate it for you. I’m going to bring it to the UK with force! It will be Amazing!

Tiffin Reunion - part2c [Shibuya]

It’s Monday, so I head into uni and leave Emily to go to Asakusa before meeting the others for a day of sightseeing. I thought I would just go in and work on my presentation that I have to do each term to both my lab [Hongo Campus] and Koseki lab [Komaba Campus] so that they know what I’m doing and to show what I’ve been doing for the past 6 months; which isn’t much…ooops. Anyway, not so simple. At about 9am I get an email from Isobel saying that it’s actually today that is best for returning the tent (I borrowed a tent – *deluxe* apparently, but I never got to try it out so I wouldn’t know – for a climbing trip to Ogawayama; very good Granite I’m told, But the trip fell through; so no climbing.) and Isobel needed the tent back for some running event she seemed to be trying to pull together. I had obviously misunderstood the email she had sent earlier that morning so anyway, I went back to my apartment o pick up the tent then came back to uni for my 430 lecture then left, with the tent, to meet Isobel at Nagatacho. Had a nice but short chat then we jumped on to the Hanomazon line and I headed off to Shibuya to meet the Brits.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t had time to make a reservation with the restaurant, which is always packed. It’s a very popular restaurant and thus a reservation is really the best idea if you want to eat some thing that day; I was shown the restaurant by Amy – an unofficial mentor of sorts; Malaysian Chinese and doing a PhD at Todai as well.

This restaurant is pretty damned hard to find if you aren’t shown where it is. It has a very well hidden entrance which you have to walk through and behind a building to find. From under the small plastic canopy which covers the little walkway leading to the entrance to the left of you train lines are about a meter from you. Then, when you do get to it, it’s literally a hobbit sized wooden sliding door, which even I have to crouch to get through. Once through the door you enter a different world. The calls of the staff shouting orders and welcomes to customers, the smell and sounds of food cooking, and the busy chatter of the guests fills the air. There is a very small entrance area with a big flat-topped stone which steps up to the floor level of the restaurant. There are small cupboards for shoes and from the entrance area you can see the chefs counter with guests seated around. I try to explain to the guy who greets us that we want to eat there tonight but don’t have a reservation. He looks a little sceptical, in a friendly and apologetic way, and has to discuss with a fellow waitress who spoke English, that they didn’t really have space, but if we came back at 930pm we could be squeezed into a booth meant to seat 4. ‘paaaah! That’s fine!’ I say. So, we head off to Tight to await dinner. I personally thing that the wait will be worth it, even though I’ve not been in there yet…

I drop the girls off at Tight, then accompany Ian to Bic Camera so that he can buy himself a camera. He says he needs to replace his because it’s broken…I think he just wants a new toy...So, yeah, we have a little look at the selection, and try and work out how their labelling system for the camera specifications works. We harangue a couple of shop assistants for a while, trying to work out in broken Japanese what all the numbers mean.

Ian makes his choice pretty damn quickly and within about half an hour he’s chosen his camera…we then buy the thing and use some of the points to get a SD card, then head back to the bar.

We get to Tight to find Isabella, Laura and Emily a little tipsy, they seem to have found a new drink of choice…kahlua and milk, and have already made their way through 2 each. Tight is *packed*, which isn’t hard, but is fun to see. There are the most number of people that I’ve seen in the bar, ever, 9 (if I remember correctly). Squeezed into the bar and wedging themselves above the stairs by bridging between the wall and the banisters.

I could tell that Emily was hungry, because she started chewing on the coasters and asked me what time it was every 5 minutes…and when the time was nigh, we trotted off back to the restaurant. At the restaurant, we were led down some stairs to the basement where there was more seating, and were taken to a western-style seated booth, which happily seated the 5 of us. They took one look at us and handed us the English menu; which was great, because it had some pictures of the food too. We started with some salad; which apparently incurred a service fee, and it was tasty! The crispy noodle-like stuff was particularly ingenious, to complement the softness of the veggies, and topped with a lovely dressing. To follow that, we got hold of some, kimchee, fresh tofu, beans in black sugar, jimuchee pancake, and some fried veggies.
I had to take a break from the ordering to eat some of the salad before it all disappeared…then I ordered some Strawberry Shoujuu (fruit wine), as recommended by Amy as well as ebi mayo and negitoro-something-something.

Ian was enamoured by the selection of food, and proclaimed that the meal just went from strength to strength…then ranted a little about how amazing the sauce on the Ebi mayo was; I said ‘…well…it probably involves mayonnaise for one; on account of the name and tomato sauce…’ on the bright side he still loved it despite a dislike of mayonnaise. The Strawberry Shoujuu, seemed to go down well too, it actually involved real strawberries and had the general aura of something which wasn’t alcoholic. I’m sure this makes it very dangerous.

Time to go home and get some rest I think, they all have an early start tomorrow to get a train to somewhere which isn’t Tokyo. And yes, I’m applying the same kind of geographical ethic I have for the UK: where there is London, and ‘Other places which aren’t London’; Japan has a more complex system of: Tokyo, near Tokyo, and ‘Other places which aren’t Tokyo’.

I *love* this restaurant…something tells me that I’ll be here again…

Tiffin reunion - part 2b [Harajuku and Shibuya]

So, it's sunday the 13th and last night we agreed on meeting at Harajuku at 2pm on the account that I was refusing to get out of bed early on the account of having the plague. What ended up happening was that Is and Ian phoned to say that they would be late; issues with moving bags and checking in at hotels and all that palava. So, we rearrange to 2:45ish...In the mean time, Emily and I happen to pass through the Tokyo International Forum; which has a very cool market on sundays, there are stall selling yukatas, jewellery, Japanese crockery, antiques, handbags...a good way to waste a few minutes/hours. We get a little distracted and end up buying yukatas, which I've been wanting for ages...well since I stayed at a ryokan in Hakone.

This shopping excursion results in some unforeseen lateness, despite the fact that we were going to be early...we eventually get to the craziness of Harajuku station at about 3pm where we find Ian, Is and Laura in the mist of the throng. I then walk them to the bridge outside Meiji Jingu Mae to look at the cool kids hanging out in their crazy clothes and the statutory group of ‘Free Hugs’ placard holding people. Then on to Meiji Jingu and Yoyogi park itself; where I had been told that there was a Thai festival still on…we walked around in to the temple which sent the architects in to a frenzy at how cool the Japanese roofs are, lots of pictures ensued. The temple had a minimum of three weddings that day, we watched three of the processions with their immaculately dressed bride, groom, guests, and ministers.


We then took a little walk around to try and find the Thai festival, but after about ten minutes I decided that it wasn’t actually there. So, we headed to the depths of Harajuku to find the okonomiyaki restaurant that I took my brother to at Christmas.

We order several Okonomiyaki’s (with egg and flour), and a monjayaki (just veggies and some meat or seafood with a little water and starch). As soon as the first one arrives we get on with the business of cooking the thing so that we can eat the bugger. It’s great fun, everyone gets around to attacking the stuff on the hot plate with the spatulas. Emily was forced to defend her okonomiyaki with some spatulas to prevent contamination from the other meaty thing being cooked on the other side of the plate. The vegetarian option was damned nice, but there was a really good Jimuchee okonomiyaki which was rather small, but *very* good…






After finishing with the whole eating and whacking food with spatulas, we ventured out to the main shopping place in Harajuku; Takeshita Street. There are some pretty funky shops down there; very Camden-esque just with more sock shops containing more leg adornment items than you could shake a stick at. There’s the funky dog fashion shop too….with the little outfits for your tiny mutt. Emily and Is are very distracted by the shopping opportunities, and there is ample window shopping going on. We did stop to introduce Laura and Emily to the joy of Japanese Crepes; although the one they bought here didn’t look half as good as the one that Is and Ian managed to get in Ueno park.

After all the walking around we are all pretty tired, and Is, Ian and Laura have to go and sort out their bags and hotel stuff, so they head home from Harajuku but Emily and I drag ourselves to Shibuya on the way home to go have a snoop around and watch the crazy Shibuya crossing. We pause for a coffee at the Starbucks which overlooks the crossing before heading back home.

My Little Pony

I have a 'My Little Pony' bag. How utterly cool is that?!

I *love* harajuku.

Do you want to see? ....Of course you do!

Takes me back to the day... I remember one of my friends had one where you could crank the head from side to side and it's tail would grow.

Now all I need is a Transformers and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bag and I'm sorted...in fact I wonder if they make shoes in my size with those on them....hmmmmmm...

Romance, a la lonely planet...

Before I left for Japan, my brother very thoughtfully (he's sensible like that...unlike silly me) bought me a guide book for Tokyo and a Japanese phrase book. After a couple of weeks whilst I was flicking through the thing, to see what useful stuff it had for me, my eyes caught a section entirely dedicated to ROMANCE... yes, romance. I assume this is some of the *core* stuff you need when getting around a foreign country. Like: 'I take mushrooms occasionally'...yes, I can really imagine slipping that into a sentence at uni...

My favourite ones are summerised below:

under the heading of SEX:

- Don't worry I'll do it myself

- It helps to have a sense of humour

I would also like to point out that the phrase 'Sukoi!' means 'Extreme'...and can be a positive or negative thing, depending on context...so it could have been extremely good...ie amazing, or extremely baaad...ie aweful.

Quan pointed out the fact that under the heading of 'Love' [in the order of severity]

- Will you...

...Go out with me?

...Marry me?

...meet my parents?

...Just imagine the quality of the intimate moment that you're trying to create whilst working up the courage to ask someone out and having to pause, look down to thumb through your precious phrase book to come up with something like: will you marry me?

SURELY, if you need a phrase book to be saying that kind of stuff you'd be pretty much doomed. either that or it could work out beautifully because you really wouldn't understand what profanities they were shouting at you in the heat of a nasty argument, thus there would be less to apologise for etc...

It doesn't stop there. It get's better. The pièce de résistance was found by Miss. Annalisa J Carlotta under dentistry (of all things):

- Come back, I haven't finished!

- bite down on this...

TiGhT. Yes, so it is…

I* have found the worlds coolest bar. You may think that you have found the coolest bar, but you’re wrong. It’s in Shibuya, Tokyo (just so you know). It all started when I had been stupid and missed my last train home when we had been out in ‘What the Dickens’^. This resulted in a rather spontaneous all-nighter, the best place for which was Shibuya, so after leaping off the train in the direction of home, just as the doors were closing, we got on one in the other direction heading back to Shibuya. It was the last train of the night, so it was already past the point of no return. We headed up the main street and found a little standing-room-only bar, which was packed with bodies. It had a cunning sign stuck on to the glass of the window which as fast steaming up, stating that all beers were 200yen each. So, we ventured into the throng and ordered our beers. We ended up chatting to a really nice pair of blokes, one was Japanese and the other was Australian. The Japanese guy seemed to pick up straight away that I was British. Apparently I dress just like one. Nice.

Anyway, we asked them if they new any good places that were open all night, and the Japanese guy was really helpful and after a couple of beers he took us around Shibuya pointing out clubs and bars that he recommended, whilst the Aussie headed home. The rock bar that he suggested was unfortunately shut, but the route we took to the club took us past a 24hour jeans shop. Should you need to buy a new pair of jeans at 3am it is possible in Tokyo….all seems a bit weird if you ask me. So, he carried on with his tour of Shibuya and the conversation went towards the direction of:
‘do you know ‘drunken street’?’
‘Errr….no.’
So, we were taken back away from the main street and headed back towards the train lines. We turned down a little side street and then went through arches under the railway, the sides of which were lined with bicycles and motorbikes chained to the installed parking spaces. The path then turned sharply right into a well lit alley. The alley was lined with the railway bridge to the right and small two storey buildings on the left. The buildings were tiny, with blazing signs to advertise their presence, a lot of the places had the little Japanese curtains hanging over their door to advertise the fact they were in fact restaurants.

Our guide pointed to a narrow and tall glass door. But the bar upstairs was unfortunately shut. We continued to walk down the alley and peered into tiny box restaurants packed with people. These restaurants were amazing. They could barely fit the 5 customers squeezed around the counter. Let alone the cook and kitchen equipment which must have existed behind the counter. We vowed to return and so we did…

When we did make it back, the narrow glass door was open. It opened outwards on to the street and framed the white tiled staircase behind. The staircase can’t be more than half a meter wide, and the steps are quite steep. I pushed myself up the stairs to be met with the smallest bar that possibly ever exists. The stairs ended about half a meter away from the back wall of the room which contained the bar and I was met with a glass-clad wall. To I looked to the right and there were four people in front of the bar. There was *just* about enough space between the bar and the banister stopping people at the bar backing into the void of the stairs that I had just climbed up for a bar stool and a human to squeeze themselves on to the stool. Turning my back to the mirror I looked straight ahead to see the whole side of the room to be a window, which nicely framed the railway which ran a couple of meters away, almost level with the bar. I looked upwards to see a very cute little chandelier. The bar had two beer taps and a line of bottled spirits on the shelf near the ceiling. We seemed to have timed it just right, because, two guys were just about to leave. I had to go back out on to the street to let the people out. There was no way that you could pass someone comfortably. We managed to be seated by the window. There were two flat screens behind the bar playing a very strange DVD. It truly is an amazing bar, and it has a really cool owner and bartender who doesn’t speak much English, but seemed to understand some of my broken Japanese, we had a little chat, but we were mainly busy being in awe of the utter coolness of the place. We did wonder if the place can actually make enough money to keep itself going, it would be such a shame if it didn’t exist.

I’ll try and take my camera there sometime and try and take photos of it, but I have a feeling that it would be pretty hard to capture it well, something to do with the name. The best solution is to go there and experience it. TiGhT is definitely my favourite bar, and the owner/bartender is lovely and friendly. I going to go there to practice my Japanese with him as much as possible!

Apparently, most major areas in Tokyo have their own ‘drunken streets’, so maybe there are other cool bars around. But something tells me this particular one will be impossible to beat.

* I lie. I’m good at that.
^ It’s a very cool English pub in Ebisu. Great live music, lovely atmosphere and PINTS of Beer!!! Hurrah! You’ll have to look up a different post for this, because I still haven’t gotten around to writing about this either…