A Week in Tokyo 11

Lovely pictures. Why Im up this early on a Saturday...No idea...

I start it up in the morning and turn it off at night. I use it 12 hours a day. I run XP SP3beta, the installation is 3.5 years old and never crashes. It's not luck, you just gotta maintain it a bit and control your processes...

Danny you might know if this is true or not. Some mechanic guy told my roommate and I that in Japan they take out car engines after 30K miles to be replaced with a new engine. After that they can be purchased used and shipped overseas.

I called BS on the guy's story but he insists that it's true and we just have to contact some blah blah store to order one.

We already have another engine (for the roomate's broken turbo'd Mazda RX8) so it doesn't matter really but I was just wondering if there was any truth to that story of his.

gregory_gdp,
not heard of anything like that over here...

Mmm mango slush, pretty good but I still prefer Red Bean and Vanilla slush =D Had that in Taiwan couple times *yum*

Hey! Tamiya modelling studios! would sure like to work on my models on that kind of place one day. BTW, Mr. M. Tamiya has visited the Philippines a few times to grace our annual nationals(Tamiya being the main sponsor). Even shook his hand once.

over here the fly lice is called "chao fan". never heard of it being called "cha han" though". what dialect is that?

i use XP sp2 and sometimes it just shows me the legendary BSOD. my current installation is about 3 months old. The last XP sp2 showed a BSOD whenever I shut down my comp. <about 3 times a day>

OMG... it's WINTER SONATA again.... My sis and my mum are fans of korean doramas, so they spammed tat show a while back. I have gotten sick of it..

Smoking advertisements can't be found in singapore though.

What a pleasant week. I was almost expecting some more AFD chaos. What a contrast.
That Mos burger looks awesome. We have specialty burger joints here, but they tend to eventually resort back to the greasy mess.
I first saw Taiyaki in anime, and thought for the longest time they would taste like fish. Why are they shaped as fish anyways?
Hmm.. I'm on Windows XP and I hardly ever crash. Maybe when I'm heavily gaming it'll happen more often, but I always optimize to keep everything running smoothly.
Danny, that italian restaurant, its not in Yokohama is it???

A few comments:
- Hmmm, I'd really want to try MOS burger one day.
- This cigarette ad doesn't seem very cool to me. The way the guy nonchalantly smokes and how the cig pack is treated attest of it.
- You said Cha-Han? Wanted to post this video for a while. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiI_1f_eXjM
and another food-related one, just for kicks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GHSkDl_Oqc
(I especially love the part beginning at 1:19)
- Taiyaki? Uguu~! Sugaaaar Poweeeeer, it's over nine thousaaaand!! ~!! ^^; (Okay Danny, you can Sparta Kick me now)
- Did see some of Korean drama shows when I still was home overseas... Plots are so boring and characters are always exaggerating it. Hopefully they show some comic relief sometimes. I prefer my romance anime, thank you.
- The Sakamichi word is often used in anime as well, especially when the male character is depressed and singing to himself.
- This bear... don't tell me he's related to pedobear?! Nooooooooo~!!

And that's that.

You actually got a seat by the window in the starbucks in shibuya?!
always super busy whenever i went by.
And as much as I like mos burger, theyre way too tiny. If they made them bigger it would be a lot nicer.
And other then my mac crashing for stupid reasons (cause of weird hardware), I usually never have to restart my mac, and its usually on for about a week at a time. Though it does sleep for when im traveling about.

Btw about Korean drama, it was my mother that was watching it(and I guess she still does)... She would watch the series marathon-style, sometimes a dozen of episodes in a row and tell me how awesome they are.
I would mumble and nod as a response even if I found them boring to hell (hence the "see" not "watch"). ^^

Damn, the ms burger looks delicious... The McDees here used to have the hamburger buns made from rice now they aren't anymore...

When I think taiyaki, I think Kanon and then Ayu... Hey Danny, have you seen any little girls running away with taiyaki without paying before?

I only watch Korean dramas which are funny, like Coffee Prince... Never watched Winter Sonata but I heard from my teacher that it's good...

used to watch korean series..but got lazy as its 1 hr long and there are using 20 episodes..some noteable ones that i like are My Girl and the one with Rain inside (forgot name)

nowadays moving over to watch Jap dramas instead..short and sweet

hmm... i rarely reboot my machine...only reboot it when there is power failure or when it crash and self-reboot...
it this a bad habit?? now i do feel bad for my poor machine running 24x7x365...

I love MOS Burger's burgers, but they're on the small side and at a same cost (or higher) than Mac/BK. They need bigger burgers!!

Aaaahhhh more food pictures! Cha-han, Taiyaki and a nice looking bento!!! uguu~ must control no eating supper!! (hears stomach growling)

As for leaving the computer on, as long as I'm at home it'll stay on, but the longest so far I had it on (even when out) was about 3 1/2 weeks. Would prefer to reboot every 2-3 days though.

Good to see you out and about like usual. I love these tokyo week articles. Keep it up!

I usually watch korean movies rather than korean dramas...I only got to watch one korean drama before and that was Lovers in Paris. lol.

Maki Horikita is my second fave amongst the jap models/actress. ^^

I rarely restart my pc when I use it and most of the time it's because of a program I installed asking to restart the machine. I don't leave it on 24/7 though. I turn it off when I'm sleeping and don't have anything to download.

Windows Vista Home Premium notebook left on for 2 weeks, results:

- Anime can't be watched smoothly, even during normal events.
- Tabs on firefox took ages to appear after clicked
- Opening task manager resulted in system crash and rebooted.

From now I'm going to reboot after 1 week or so.

Btw. The burger = want, the fries = want too.

More info on the fries please! ^^

Ninja Gaiden for the DS is a sick game. I too am surprised as to how intuitive the controls are, considering the entire game is controlled by the stylus. Simply astounding game!

Sure a bit pricy this Sha-Ken ... thats cheaper in germany, if your car has no problems and such. ^^;

I switch my computers (Laptop and my main machine) off every night (or morning) when i go to bed since i can't sleep when something is on... well i can but it ends in horrible headache next day. x.X;;

Hmm all that food looks yummy... *goes to raid her kitchen yaay* ^^v

i would probably never turn off my computer if it didn't make my 4x5 meter room glow blue, and my current power supply is an older one with 2 80mm fans, so it's quite loud.

I want a Bento!!!

My PC runs 24/7 and the only time I will restart is when I install a new software/hardware

@home I my mac is only on when I use it. Usually 2-4 hours a night. @work, I use a PC which is on 24/7 and I only start it up after a crash and once every monday to clear junk out of ram. I asked them to buy me a mac!

btw, Nice photo's... what's with that trooper suite?

wow the pictures are really interesting i must say...i would love to go to the tamiya modeling school someday..thatd be amazing.

I also heard that one k-drama you posted up was really popular with the japanese women, and it was on news how they are complaining how japanese men dont have the "delicate" side like korean men do, you can find it on youtube...forgot what it was called tho. I think it was winter sonata or something

Shut down the PC when I´m done with doing what i wanted to do, electricity price is 2 high...
Hey Danny is that a typo or does the check up really cost 70,000 Yen? And how often do you have to have it checked, cause your car is not that old... In germany we have something like this too, new cars have to be checked after 3 years, older ones every 2 years and it costs about 90 Euros (14,391 Yen) each time.
Btw i´m getting a lil bit jealous ´cause u always take photos of your tasty looking meals,bentos... mhhhh Mango slush... Ima sugu hoshii!!!

"While the Macs do crash from time to time"
Last time my mac crashed and needed to be restarted due to the crash was when it was running OSX 10.2 (and yes I use the computer a lot and for all sorts of stuff). I have to say that I'm a bit surprised that you have stability issues. Just ensure that you have enough free space on your HD with the swap file (if you didn't alter it yourself it's the HD/partition with the OS itself) and you should be fine.

As for restarting: I never restart because the computer is odd or anything but I do shut it down at night or the noise will keep me awake. It's also dualboot so it's natural for it not to have a great uptime.

Hmm...looking for familiar faces. Good Smile, right? Do I get a cookie? ^^

Still haven't gone into a Mos Burger. I will do that this summer when I go to Osaka. I would wait 10 mins. for good food too. Lots of great items and prices aren't that much different from Mc Donalds.

Many people here think they are wining the battle against the tobacco companies. No, they are willing to give up on the American market because they are making more money elsewhere. Wake up people you are being duped.

Anyhow...I really like Taiyaki! Been awhile since I had one, two, three... ^^; I really like sweets.

Ooooh...Maki-chan! I admit it, Maki-chan is why I started watching Atsu-hime. http://www.nhk.or.jp/taiga/ I'm so sad...

No I really don't care for Korean dramas... I only like Japanese dramas.

I have had this happen with external drives where I have apps installed. I usually keep home directory where OSX puts it. I do move it under Windows as well.

I only turn my Macs off once a week. I do maintenance and like to shut them down and unplug them overnight. Other than that they are always on or asleep and never need to be rebooted. It's just a habit I've gotten into.

When it comes to my Windows machines in the past or my Windows partition now. Very good maintenance will keep away the BSOD. Problem is Windows needs A LOT MORE attention than OSX. One of the main reasons I quite using it as my primary work environment.

I better shut up or this will become one long comment. ^^; I don't make the kind of comment I did at one time.

I always enjoy these post Danny. I enjoy seeing your photos and daily activities. Also these post remind me I'm here and not there where I should be. Keeps me from slacking off.

People if you like these post be sure to checkout Neil Duckett's series "29 stops of the JR Yamanote Line" http://www.neilduckett.com/ It's really good!

Very nice posting as usual, brings back more nostalgic feeling for Japan. Summer Comiket is only four months away, dare I want to go to Japan again this summer...?

I don't restart my computer, my computer restarts itself...

I restart my rig running windows XP once every week or two. It's usually pretty stable. It's just taken a lot to get it to that point.

A car checkup is 70,000 yen? Not a typo, honest-to-Mirai-chan 7万円?!

That is RIDICULOUS. Emissions tests here in the US will run about $30, and general safety tests ran even less. I can't imagine that they do anything that justifies the charge.

I guess it gives new meaning to the term "highway robbery".

Good old 12" PowerBook still runs more or less all the time, with the occasional restart after software update does its thing.

Thanks for the great Week in Tokyo once again, Danny! ^___^

Mos burgers looks and sounds very delicious!

Haven't got Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword for the DS yet, but after your post reminder, I might have to go to PlayAsia and make an order soon.

I've never had that error message before on my mac, probably because I don't use partitions. I have experienced a few crashes when I've left my mac to sleep for too many days, though (just freezes when I try to wake it and then I just restart).

K-drama, Winter Sonata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Sonata) is like one of my all time favorites. It's melodrama and sappy as all get go, but man, did that tv-series have some serious cheesy twists. I hope that poster isn't a sequel to this (I think it's just promoted as Endless Love 2 right?)

That was a great post! As far as paying roughly $700 USD for a car checkup, that seems excessive. Of course, if all the cars on the road out here had to pass a stenuous test for safety and performance, then there would be few cars on the road. Also, since they give away drivers licenses free with every order of pizza from Papa Johns, Domino's, and Pizza Hut, people are driving that realy shouldnt be. Couple that with the fact that in Arizona you only have to renew your license when you turn 60!!?!?!?!!! Its like a Mad Max movie when I go to work.

Wow. Busy week for an Empire soldier. I've always thought of Tokyo as some sort of strange living being, huge and ever-active. I've never been to Japan, but thanks to you I can get to know so much about it. Keep up the good work!

LOL AT WINTER SONATA POSTERS!

Danny i heard the Korean wave is getting big among some many youthful Japanese

like BoA Kwon , DBSK and maybe a few Korean Dramas

but anyway , you covered alot more in Japan which im willing to visit , i knew Shibuya was a large shopping district , might have to spend.. 2 weeks there..

i know it wont cover alot but it should be enough

judging from the poster is there going to be a winter sonata sequel? with the original cast? O_O

ya i watched winter sonata. i was pretty decent.

i know there are going to do a japanese verison and a anime version but never heard of a sequel.

HMMMMM...Now I want to go to Japan more then ever. I want to try that Burger. It looks really good!!! I wonder where I can get it when I go to Japan?

No Typo for the car checkup - it was actually 4000 yen more. Once every few years though.

Mos burger is nice~ usually eat the teriyaki chicken burger, doesnt favour rice burger =X

Tamiya cars almost faded in my memories.. *figu overloading*

Here in Massachusetts USA, we have to do the car inspection every year, quite annoying. If your car runs fine, the inspection should take about 15 to 20 minutes. Btw, it costs 29 bucks in my state.

The Sha-ken is the equivalent of about 345 UK pounds - the three yearly MOT test in the UK costs about 50 pounds (10,124 yen)! Now I know why every car you see in Japan looks practically new...

WTF? Almost € 440 for a checkup? Are they pimping it out for you too? Don't have a car myself, but I'm sure the APK (as we call it here) is not anywhere near that expensive.

Also, tnx for teaching me something new: now I finally know what the fish-thingies are you see in many anime; the Konomi topping must have made it even better ^^

agree with u bout mos burger!

bout the signs too. my first trip to Japan was just after the world cup soccer and the signs were in english too. Next trip i noticed they were in Chinese, a couple of years later and they had korean too. Or was it korean first then chinese? ;)

I reboot my computer probably once per day.

Lovely photos by the way. That burger at Mos seems kinda tasty, I would love to try it as an alternative to the boring ones.

I reboot it about once or twice a month and put it in sleep mode when I'm sleeping or in transit to/from work ;p
I'm running window, and don't really have any trouble having it on so long.

Just came back from ayumi hamasaki concert and tomorrow is my last day in Japan ;( which I'll be mostly spending in Akihabara ;p

Never tasted Mos Burger before even though I passed by a few of them in Singapore. Should try some sometime soon.

That shopping center in Kanagawa is where I want to be; no squeezing pass overzealous shoppers in my bid for window shopping(FAIL)...

I'm not a big fan of Korean dramas, I prefer Korean movies (My Sassy Girl rulezzz :) ) but my wife just loves Stairway to heaven starring Choi Ji Woo the same actress that in Winter Sonata. personally I find Stairway to heaven annoying as hell, so the same would probably goes with Winter Sonata.

SEGA
is it see-gah or say-gah?

I almost never keep my computer running over night. It makes me feel like I am wasting energy. Although when I was downloading the entire series of the Powerpuff Girls (it was 12 gigs) I left it on for a week and it ran completely fine the whole time. I run vista 32 bit.

woooo mosburger! Damn I feel so dumb for not trying the rice burger in Japan cos it looks way better than the ones I had in Singapore! :P *droool*

That grocery store looks so cool!
And korean dramas I dunno I find them a tiny bit too violent sometimes, the last one I watched was Gong ^^ very nice fashion in that one!

Danny, you sure the bear has a dolphin?

I off my laptop whenever I am not using it, since it has been running for more then 2 years and I can already see/hear the wear and tear to the system fan and the hdd. No money to replace them now (>_<) if they go kaput especially the hdd.

Nice Tokyo trip Danny, wish I could have done that as well. But thinking of taking my 2 kg camera equipment ... *shakes*.

The weather seems so nice in Japan right now... It's snowing in France... I have 1cm of snow in my garden... T_T

Mac OS X is a very good OS who rarely needs to be restarted. My uptime right now is 14 days and I am using cpu/memory intensive software like Flash or Illustrator/Photoshop. Most of the time, I restart the OS once a week for my weekly back up with SuperDuper.

I restart often because I like to switch between windows and Ubuntu GNOME/Linux.

I've had a similar mounting problem with Ubuntu with my old SCSI drive. You might killing your drive by leaving it on too much.

My desktops I actually turn off or put in stand by. I could leave them in stand by but, Linux doesn't like coming out of stand-by mode. If I do leave them on I reboot them every other day. Clears up many problems that occur when running various programs

In Windows and on Linux I always have a separate partition for user data. Hard Drives break so easily these days it just makes sense to keep the data away from the rest of it.

Wah. You eat a lot. Haha Looks good though. When I visited Japan, they were always so bashful when i asked them to take pictures.

Man that's the good life lol.

I own a Taiyaki-ki, and I tell you, it is hard as hell trying to get the correct proportions and stuff just to make fully cooked but not burnt taiyaki at home >_>0

Looks like good food all around, arghs I gotta stop checking the site latenight where im succeptable to cravings.

Gotta restart my computer at least once a day, unless I'm torrenting, but even then I restart sometimes to keep it running smoothly.

That lunch looks so darn tasty. *is hungry now*
I usually restart once a day because if it runs too long I get a "running out of virtual memory" message. (I'm using windows XP). I turn it off before I got to bed though,

Another great article of "A Week in Tokyo" Danny! The pictures always impress me, wanting to be there.

Those rice patty burgers actually look good! The new Ninja Gaiden game for the DS has been successful, of what I've been hearing. Taiyaki looks good, I've maybe tried it but in another way...

Well, another great set, I love you Danny! (In a friendly way...)

@jonske: If you play old games like the first Sonic on Game Gear, the voice says SEGA the "Sé-Gah" way.

Gorgeous photos Danny. It's been too long since I've last been to Japan (2 years ago ^^;) I will always miss the food and the sites. The next time I go back I will make sure to rectify my greatest mistake-- not eating sushi at 6am at Tsukiji-shijou.

Maki Horikita is so kawaii. I reboot my computer once every week.

D_Blade: orly? i had a sega master system when i was a kid and also had sonic the hedgehog. cant remember it that too well tho. i always pronounced it 'see-gah'

I found walking up Sakamichi to be quite difficult due to pavement cyclists coming down them at great speed.

another great 'a week in tokyo' feature Danny ^____^

if you want some k-dorama, we have tons here being broadcast by local free tv. we also have some occasion j-dorama ^^

i only restart my machine if it needs to ^^;;;

Pedo熊 at SegaWorld...where children roam...hmm...

Taiyaki!!! I restart mine quite often cause I rarely use it and when I do its Windows Update poopin up telling me to restart. My Macbook Pro rarely has this problem, but thats because I use it more often ^^'