Are the vendors official reps or licensors from Japanese companies, or are some of them selling knock-off merchandise? A lot of oriental people were there -- are they Japanese staff flown over for the event or are they local (US) citizens?
I used to take the Narita Express because it goes all the way to Shinjuku. Nowadays I take the Odakyu Limousine Coach because it goes all the way to my local station in Kawasaki, then it's a 10 minute walk up the hill to my house. People arriving in...
Petrol is £1.20 per litre in the UK now. However there are no motorway tolls. I'm surprised more people don't travel by train for Golden Week. I have horrible memories of being stuck in traffic jams in the UK and Japan. The train is so much easier.
When I visit Japan I hire a phone at Narita as soon as I get through Immigration. I always use AU KDDI because the first time I did it they were the nearest booth and they have a loyalty scheme. The cost is higher than the Softbank cost but goes down...
My school uniforms; Prep School -- dark grey shorts for younger boys, long trousers for older boys. Black blazer with green piping. Cap. Light grey shirt. Regulation tie (can't remember the colours.) Public School -- Single breasted, single vented gr...
The impression I have of Otaku culture is that it is fairly narrowly centred around anime, manga and to some degree games. The spin-off goods are figurines, models, dakimakura, DVDs, CDs, and related services. Cool Japan or Japanese Pop Culture would...
The kind of massage you would get depends if it is an aesthetic salon or an "esute". Judging by the advertising I guess the latter, in which case you would get a lovely relaxing massage but you had better not let your wife know you went there.
There's modern Japan right there. Despite that Japan is supposed to be a Mecca for electronics, one of the big chains is closing. Visitors from the UK will quickly see that most things are cheaper at home, although London is generally a more expensi...
This one time the wife and I hired a car from Nippon Rental and went to Hakone for the weekend. It snowed and because we did not have tyre chains (thanks to Nippon Rental) we were unable to get out of the hotel carpark and we had to spend a fortune o...
Tokyo is indeed dreadful for free WiFi. It's also pretty difficult to find paid-for WiFi (like at Starbucks a few years ago.) Fon is worth a go though most of the access points are in homes rather than businesses.
Ha ha! I'm off to Japan tomorrow (Boxing Day) and I have 17 packets of assorted English tea in my luggage. Wife's request. I go to Japan loaded with tea and return loaded with o-sembei.
One time I was on a train in Tokyo. Some little boy did something naughty, I think he pulled the emergency handle. There was an old man on the train who told him off good and proper, and made him apologise. Then the train guard came and told him off...
Hot Stuff! I have a soft spot for Tamaki-chan and I have two other figures of her. I had better not get this one as my wife will disapprove even more than she already does.
There are no Love Hotels in the UK but it's not unknown to rent rooms in proper hotels for "lunchtime meetings". Personally I love Love Hotels. They are well worth a visit with your special someone.
Magazines and newspapers are suffering from websites. What's important is whether a business like Sabra can transition its regular readers to a subscription for a website instead of buying the magazine. The problem many media businesses have on the i...
My bike cost about £600 including the add-on basket, lights and security lock. The basic frame is a Ridgeback Avenida 8, with 8-speed Shimano hub gears. It's the style called hybird or town bike. The frame is a bit like mountain bike and it has flat...
I've got three film kits and for digital I just use a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35. My two key rules about buying a camera are (1) no pop-up flash, (2) must have optical viewfinder. That's why I haven't bought the new Olympus. The battery on my Lumix ten...
London Underground has got basically three problems. 1. It was the first underground railway and a lot of the system was designed and scaled for Victorian needs. The population has increased and people have physically got larger. The only way to deal...
I've got several British bank accounts and two credit cards, and a Japanese based HSBC Premier bank account and credit card. I can't remember the credit limit but it's millions of yen. The bill has to be paid quickly though. When I'm in Japan I pay f...
In Japan the ATM machines typically charge for dispensing cash. Plenty of people minimise the fees by withdrawing their entire month's cash spending allowance in one go. Japan is a much safer country than most for street crime, so it's not as risky t...
There's a similar view from the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower restaurant just under the art gallery on the top floor. The lunch is surprisingly reasonable if you choose the set menu.
There's always someone in Japan handing out promotional material, usually packets of tissues or money off vouchers. An decent size railway station usually has one or more promotion staff outside. As a gaijin, you have two options. You can either igno...
In the area of my house in Japan, each resident is required to maintain a roadside planting box of flowers or shrubs. Here's my house. You can see the hedge and in front there is the low shrubbery fronting the road. It's all green because it was rece...
If the Japanese Health Minister wants his population to eat breakfast he should arrange it so they don't have an each-way commute of over an hour every day. When I'm in Japan we usually have salad, toast, fruit, jam, and sometimes an egg or bacon. It...
That happens of course, think of California Roll sushi. Remember too that India is a huge country, including Pakistan, Ceylon and Bangladesh in the continent. From the North West Frontier, to the Deccan to the Carnatic is thousands of miles, many lan...
Shibuya like most cities and areas has good and not so good locations. For example, Shibuya has some major roads and an big entertainment district near the station -- these are noisy places to live. The other main factor is the actual size of the roo...
