dannychoo.com - Danny Choo : Anime, Figures, Idols, Gundam, Otaku and Events from Japan

Hamburg

Sat, 10 May 2008 21:02:00 +0900

Its been two days since the conference and I can finally relax! The only pics I have from my talk was posted in this news item and will post more when I get the official photos and video.

Spent yesterday having a look around this gorgeous city of Hamburg. The buildings, greenery, lakes, rivers and weather are lovely and the folks here are so kind. Need to dash for a train to Berlin soon so I will only leave you with the photos this time.

My MacBook Pro decided to die on me before my talk at the conference. It boots up but there is no video output to the screen or external monitor. It does not boot up in Target mode either. Had stashed many Japan related photos on that machine to post but cant access it now so hope you don't mind the Germany related posts for the next few days.

By Danny Choo on 2008/05/10 20:02

Greetings From Germany

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:26:00 +0900

Been up since 2AM. Body clock still on Japan time.
Brought some Melatonin to help with Jet lag but its not working this time round. I know some lucky folks who never get jet lagged. Do you get jet lagged and if so what do you do to cope with it?

A few pics taken up to my arrival in Hamburg. This was taken at Narita airport. The translation in English for this one is quite bad - "Please respect our chefs and refrain from bringing food or drink into the table." What they actually meant is "don't bring food from other shops." Their translation sounds like you are not allowed to eat at the dining table ^^;

BLT for B'fast.

The lovely Kaho spotted at the airport bookshop. Kaho showing us her lovely smile below.

The Lufthansa food is rather yummy.

Catching up on backlog of shows - Ninomiya-kun, Minamike-okawari, Mop Girl, Macross and Geass. Macross is just so awesome.
The scene where Ranka does "Watashi no kareshi was Pilot" was so nostalgic.
Original "Watashi no kareshi wa pilot" by Min Minmay below.

Ranka version below.

Original remix below.

Hamburg from the skies.

Current Hotel. Will be staying at a few places including overnight on a train after the conference.

Pee, poo and wash area.

Haruhi will be on stage with me ^^;
Still tweaking slides for tomorrows talk.

Out n about for a few hours during lunch.

Gorgeous weather.

Fries and frankfurter for lunch.

Going back to hotel.
Will check out the venue tonight to go over electrics, lighting etc and then dinner with the other presenters. Other updates in the News Items.

By Danny Choo on 2008/05/07 20:26

A Week in Tokyo 14

Mon, 05 May 2008 21:56:00 +0900

The gorgeous Mikatan from Good Smile Company. Was there this week again to go over the final production stages of...

Reading up on The Otaku market which is currently valued at 1.651 billion USD.

On the way home from the Hobby Stock BBQ.

Indy! Looking forward to this. Trailer below.

Waiting for train. Most underground stations have barriers that open only when the train arrives. Wonder when JR are going to invest some money to do the same for their platforms - they should at least try to stop people jumping.
JR train fares are generally higher than underground fares too - greedy gits.

Do you have barriers between the platform and train on your region? I know they do in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. Not sure what its like back in London as I have not been for ages.

Haruhi Wonton Ramen - 900 yen.

A stroll in the local neighborhood. Its Golden Week this week which is why Tokyo is half empty.

Haruhi n chips n burger - all for 800 yen.

Ordering some sushi - 240 yen for two pieces.

Haruhi n Yuki play in the lounge.

Study time in lounge.

Shopping for groceries.

Gets me the Sanyo eneloop mobile booster so that I will have an extra 4 hours when I run out of iPod and NDS juice on the plane - 5,480 yen.

Fauna and dinner at home - fish n veggies.

Lunch with the Good Smile crew again.

This restaurant is run by Max Factory - they do great nan.

A few figures fall over after an earthquake - Good Smile offices.

Behind Mikatans desk.

Hair cut for 1,000 yen. I used to cut my own hair when it was long but chopped it all off when I started loose hair.

A photo in a bookshop of old Tokyo.

Another retro pic.

Snapped in the Matsudo area in East Tokyo where the Good Smile offices are.
The rent here is dead cheap - two floors for 42,000 yen per month. No key money or deposit required and comes complete with furniture and a loft - very rare indeed.
The catch is that its a 19 min walk from the station.

Prices of rent drop drastically based on the distance form the nearest train station. Folks who are thinking of living in Tokyo, have a look at my Tokyo Apartments article - learn what Key money is etc.
What is rent like in your region? I think I asked before but I didn't ask exactly how much you are paying. You is be paying how much per month?

Relaxing for a change in the lounge with my SAFS - Suddenly Acquired FigureS for those who dont know ^^;

A closer look at these two later this week ^^;

Some new houses for sale. These are called Tateuri where you buy the house with the land - you are generally paying more if you buy property like this. I recommend that you buy land and then build the house yourself on top. if you are looking to buy property in Tokyo, you can read my previous experience of buying a house in my Tokyo Property Purchase article.

These new houses cost 73,000,000 yen - there are two houses here.

Mikuru and some Chinese lunch - 800 yen.

Grabbing the latest To Love Ru manga. I should probably start to pick up Claymore too - 390 yen.

Preparing my slides for Hamburg. I used to use Powerpoint all the time in Amazon and Microsoft and must say that Apple Keynote pees on Powerpoint from an extremely tall building. Never knew about Keynote until I saw a guy from Google presenting in Tokyo other other day.

The "Week in Tokyo" series will take a rest until I get back to Japan so next week will be "A week in Germany." Will still continue to post articles but most updates will probably be in the News Items in the left column which you can also RSS Subscribe too. Will post stuff from my iPod Touch when I sniff some Wifi. Dont forget to check the Member News Items too for some cool stuff being posted.

By Danny Choo on 2008/05/05 20:56

A Week in Tokyo 13

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:19:00 +0900

Another busy week in Tokyo running around like mad man.

Photo taken outside Takadanobaba station. This place was our first hub when we came to Japan - lived on the Seibu Shinjuku line about 30 mins to the West. Brought back lots of memories just standing in this spot. Nine years it has been.

Not really a place to visit but is home to Waseda university so you see a load of students around the area.

One thing you may want to see is the amount of Tezuka stuff around - I believe his first studios were in the area. You can see his work decorating the streets and shops.

More Tezuka stuff - my fave being Astro Boy Atom. The last series of Atom was awesome - OP below.

Having some "Indo Ryori" or "Indian food" for a lunch meeting.
One thing I do like about Tokyo is the variety of international food available. In my area there is an English pub which does decent fish n chips (no savaloy though) and Italian, Spanish, Thai, Philippine, Korean, French and Chinese places to dine at.
Ginza has much more variety though - there are a few good Malaysian places there which I enjoy.

When I visit Shanghai however, I hardly see any international cuisine - a few Japanese and Korean places but thats it.
What is your region like? Do you have plenty of international nourishment establishments to dine at?

"This bicycle park is for customers only."

Have a habit of dropping figures because I fidget with them while thinking of database schematics and stuff.

The last figure I dropped was Mizuki-chan - ribbon fixed with some superglue.

And this is what I use to dust down the figures - a cooking brush picked up from a 100 yen store. Spend time every few days going through the Gunpla and figures doing dusting - its kinda therapeutic ^^;

Is having the Yakiniku - DIY cooking of beefs at the dinner meetings.

I've got a picture of me and Milla Jovovich somewhere - need to dig it up. Met her back in the UK when I was a groupie.
Is Biohazard 3 any good?

Walkies in Yokohama.

Want a boat - need to buy a plane first though.

Is having the sandwich for the lunch meetings. Sandwiches are known as "Sando" which is short for "Sandwich" but the Japanese often romanize "Sando" and write it as "Sand."
Have seen a sign saying "Have some delicious sand for lunch."

Out to get some groceries. That yellow sign means "medicine." A pharmacy is known as "Yakkyoku" [薬局[やっきょく]]。

No escaping these two.

The first drink I buy when I land in Seoul is Achim Haetsal - I think its a sort of rice drink. Tastes gorgeous. Luckily they sell it in Korean stores in Tokyo too.
Shin Ookubo [新大久保] has a large Korean population so if you are looking for good Korean food and groceries then thats the place to go - get off at Shin Ookubo station on the JR Yamanote line.

Is having some Kaisen Yakisoba for the lunch.

Stopping by at a local shrine.

Picking up some drinks from the conbini.

Hoshino Aki plays Wii Mario Kart. Mario Kart CM below.

Getting the Yamanote line.

On the move.

Posted this pic yesterday - enlargeable.
Member Gordon was wondering why some photos don't enlarge - articles with gallery photos enlarge while non-gallery articles only have 400px wide photos. I generally do gallery articles where photos may be worth enlarging.

Having some udon for din dins.

Going for some lunch.

A guard protecting his cones.

They are doing some decent Keroro goodies with the kids meal at Mc Dees - full list here.

A morning walk.

Visiting Joi Labs.

Some residential parking looks like this. 6 cars can park in this small space. There are a set of controls to lower and raise the bays.

This is the parking unit rising to show the third bay at the bottom.

By Danny Choo on 2008/04/26 19:19

A Week in Tokyo 12

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:03:00 +0900

Spent a lot of the past week in the office focusing on a client launch. The client is a name that you are familiar with and am excited to announce it - when the time comes ^^.

Photo taken at Naka Meguro - grabbing a taxi back home. Haven't used the taxis for a while and forgot that I even wrote an article about the taxi prices going up. It felt like every time I closed my eyes, I would open them to discover that the meter jumped a few hundred yen.
I was beginning to wonder if there was a camera which detected passenger blinks so that they could notch up the meter while one was not looking ^^;

Catching the last of the Hanami season (whats Hanami?) at Naka Meguro.

Many folks are out n about taking a stroll by the river.

This time its Hanami at Meguro.

Meguro River. Have some comrades at Disney Online working in the building on the left.

A hotel built in the shape of a castle on the left of the pic.

Meguro River goes on forever and is a great place for a stroll on a sunny Sunday - much more lively than the Sumida river walk.

At a ramen place.

Butter corn miso ramen for lunch.

Believe it or not but most Japanese are still afraid of using a credit card online. So much so that Amazon are selling these shopping cards at convenient stores - pay for them in cash and use the card number online to buy stuff.
When I was at Amazon, the credit card usage was extremely low which was why the COD (Cash On Delivery) project was of such importance - the "order and pay at the door when goods arrive" thingy. Do you have COD in your region?

I personally buy stuff online all the time wherever possible to save time trooping around town - hardware, figures...hardware and figures.

The only major problem I had was when I ordered something and requested it to be delivered on a particular day - did not arrive and was rather annoyed as it was a birthday gift.
The online store apologized and let us keep the goods without charge - was about 30,000 yen.

Mirei San arrived with some dodgy paintwork but Kotobukiya replaced her straight away.

Have you had nightmares ordering stuff online in the past? Any places that your fellow otaku should avoid?

The 100 yen white umbrella is so popular in Japan that you will always see them outside a restaurant on a rainy day. People usually pick them up from convenient stores when they forget their other umbrella. But because they are so cheap, many people don't bother to retrieve it after use.

Having some Katsu over lunch meetings.

600 yen for a bento box.

Yes I eat at home sometimes too ^^; And yes - there is always something to play with on the table.

Sorting through old warranties - a gullible Mac fanboi as you can see.

Found warranties going back 8 years!

Konata and Bistro lunch meeting.

Cute little bike - it needs some Mirai stickers on it or something.

Man about to electrocute himself.

Grabbing groceries on the way home. Apples cucumbers and tomatoes to be precise.

Thought I would have a healthy salad lunch - got so hungry after only a few hours ^^;

A load of manga in the bins.

I'm so glad they have Frosties in Japan. If you are in Tokyo - go to Costco and get these restaurant-use ones instead for much much cheaper.

Out n about on the bike.

At the park playing some badminton.

In the office with Fauna and RX77-D.

This weeks office. A few Ikea lights broke ToT.

Girls with wings on the right of the photo.

Need to clone myself so that I can spend time making Gundams orz.

Still the cutest figure in my collection.

Driving around town with the SOS Dan.

By Danny Choo on 2008/04/17 20:03

A Week in Tokyo 11

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:25:00 +0900

Another week in Tokyo. First up is a snap from the next office tour. There was a lot of sensitive stuff lying around so the company needs to go through the material and approve it. If theres anything left after approval then I will upload ^^; Can you guess which company?

When I first came to Japan, I refused to wait 10 mins for what I considered to be fast food. I then learned how nice the burgers are at Mos Burger and that they are completely different to what one would expect at Mc Donalds.

For example, rice replaces the bread with this seafood rice burger.

An example of how cigarettes are promoted in Japan.

Some Cha-Han for lunch - or "fly lice" as we used to say back in England.

Our car gets the Sha-Ken [車検] - a checkup to see if the car is road worthy and must be taken every few years. Each checkup costs about 70,000 yen. If the car is not inspected by the next checkup due date then one is not allowed to drive the car.

Currently playing Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword on the DS. I have the PS3 version and was skeptical at how a single stylus could control the main character and all the different moves. After playing it for a bit however, I'm still pretty amazed at how well the game is put together in terms of graphics, sound and gameplay.
Ninja Gaiden in action below.

Lunch, Meeting and Haruhi.

This is Taiyaki - its a snack where some read bean paste or custard is sandwiched in some batter and grilled in a mould the shape of a fish.

And this is what it looks like close up - sprinkled with some sugar power.

Posters for the Akihabara Entertainment Festival - ends tomorrow ^^;

At Bic Camera to check out the latest gadgets.

The view from the Starbucks in Shibuya.

At Hachiko where you will always find a load of people waiting around.

The absolutely yummy Maki Horikita.

More Maki. Yum.

Mac users - have you ever seen this message appear after your machine crashes?
I have my home directory on a different partition than my system folder - a habit that I carried over to Mac when I switched from Windows.
When the machine crashes, the partition that has my home directory is unmounted for some reason. After leaving the machine for 5 mins, the lost partition will remount itself and I'm able to log in again...

While the Macs do crash from time to time, they don't need restarting as much as my Windows machines did. When Leopard is booted up, its usually on or sleeping for a few weeks without a single restart.
Question for all users - how often do you restart your machine?

Bento for dinner.

One of the most annoying dramas I've seen. Saw bits of it now and then because my wife liked it ^^; How many of you enjoy Korean dramas too? The only Korean drama that I seem to remember was called "Icing" and that was over ten years ago when I first started to learn Korean.

Getting folks in Tokyo to smile while you take a picture of them is not difficult.

Especially when you are wearing something white n shiny ^^;

I notice more signs that display the station name in Korean and Chinese of late.
This reminds me of when I went to Seattle - they has signs at the airport directing passengers to arrivals in Japanese, Korean and Chinese - but no English ^^;

Italian lunch meeting.

Shopping for groceries.

"Sakamichi"[坂道[さかみち]] is the word for a sloped road and you can commonly hear this word in songs for some reason.

At a shopping center in Kanagawa.

At the Tamiya modeling studios.

Some kids pulling on the bears dolphin.

Picking up groceries before heading back home.

Some mango slush for dessert.

By Danny Choo on 2008/04/06 12:25

A Week in Tokyo 10

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:54:00 +0900

Time seems to be speeding up at a tremendous rate lately. Last week seems like it was only yesterday and yet so much has happened it also seems like it was a month ago.

Starting off this week with a photo of the Primarees that they wanted me to give to you - full res version available in the wallpaper pool. They decided that they are going to spell their group name as Primarees instead of Primaries. Those who know about the Primarees from this article would be wondering who the new girl in the middle is - her name is Amina who is the lead singer for the group. More from the Primarees soon.

Love Tokyo on a sunny day - always makes me think that I could be taking pics of figures on the balcony ^^;

Many of the train carriages enables one to see out the front. When I going to or from Akiba, I always take the first carriage to see this view.

Forgot to upload this at the time of the Wonfes - its my "event kit" which I'll be taking with me to the Tokyo Anime Fair tomorrow. When I first started going to these events, I used to take a huge ruck sack expecting to fill it with goodies.
I never seem to buy much at the figure shows anyway and shows like tomorrows anime fair hand out goody bags anyway - see my stash of goodies from last year.
The pouch thing at the front of the photo hangs off my waist. Always wanted to make my own but never got round to it.

At Ikea again to get more stuff. Tried out their food for the first time.

And here is what I had for about 500 yen with some Mikuru on the side.

Playing some Girls Love in the dining room.

Tis hayfever season - a daily dollop of honey in yogurt seems to help.

On my way to get lunch.

My wife and I both had chronic hayfever - the new air cleaner has helped quite a bit in cleaning the air of pollen and evil spirits.

I remember in the UK there was a shop called Mr Byrite which always had a "Closing down sale" sign on the front of their shop to get the punters in - they were there for years!
Looks like they do the same in Japan too - this shop has been here forever too.

Some of the restaurants in Tokyo have you pay before you eat. You choose what you want from this vending machine, choose whether you are eating in or taking out and then stick in your dosh. Tickets are beamed down into the dish whereby you exchange them for grub.

And this is what they gave me in exchange for my ticket - its called Nagasaki Chanpon. Looks like vomit but tastes like... vomit.

And why does vomit always contain carrots and corn?

Some tempura udon for lunch meeting. Tempura is deep fried battered prawns or vegetables.

Folks who read the News Items regularly will already know about this couple who play chess in the middle of a crossing with "my father has cancer - please give me money" written on the yellow sheet.

After a few rounds, the open bag starts to fill up with more money.

The white paper has the rules which say...
When 3 mins are over you loose.
When your king is taken you loose.
When you are checked I wont say "check".
I am Jamaica's number one chess player.

The yellow sign says...
My father is suffering from cancer - please give me money.
I must acquire 200,000 yen by the 18th of April when I return to Jamaica.
How much money do you have to spare for this couple?

4GB SD card get. My fave Haruhi Figma pose.

Manage to make the arms on the MG Wing Gundam.

Suddenly acquired eroge posters from the folks at Akiba Channel.

This weeks desk.

Under the desk. All those are eroge mags which I need to filter.

Bowl O ramen for dinner. I do eat out a lot but I find that its one of the ways that helps me fit everything into the schedule - by having meetings over food. How often do you eat out?

Some Kara-age - deep friend chicken nuggets.

Katsu Ochazuke - pork cutlet on rice - the pot contains a kind of soup which is poured over the rice.

A space to park your umbrella with removable keys.

Mc Dees Mc Flurry for dessert.

Tis cherry blossom season - many have started to blossom yesterday.

A new shelf for the Gundams.

The lovely Keiko Kitagawa.

By Danny Choo on 2008/03/27 08:54