A Week in Tokyo 33
Late again with this weeks A Week in Tokyo - usual drill with some photos more than a week old.
First up is a weekend in Hakone. This pic taken at Owakudani - ate two of the black eggs which means that my life is extended by 14 years - I think. More photos from this trip in a separate article.
Bump into some Youtubers who have an interesting way of promoting themselves - walking around Shibuya with signboards. Not sure exactly what they do but you can see their singing n dancing vids YouTube.
Grabbing some pasta lunch.
Looking for some 60cm doll clothes - only to find Ricca-chan stuff.
View from the local supermarket in Himonya.
Our new TEL-DHW4 phone by Sanyo. Guessing the price of this was the last giveaway question.
You will notice its a Sanyo and that would have lead you to look at the Sanyo site for the model. As we done this before, you would have then looked for this item on Kakaku.com.
The highest price for the phone is 21,012 yen (which I certainly would not have paid) and instead paid 10,100 yen from BariBari - although they lowered the price a bit now.
The winner of the Mabinogi Nao courtesy of HobbyLink Japan is Takerun who guessed 10,179 yen - only 79 off. Other close guesses by Wicked Clown (9,780 yen) and Raptor (10,541 yen).
Thanks to all those who participated and grats to all those who made it to the last round. More Giveaway Goodies soon.
Driving through the countryside back to Tokyo.
Spent lots of time in Shibuya this past week. Load of Internet related companies here.
This is the Hachiko entrance at Shibuya. To the bottom of the photo is the ledge that I sat on to record the sounds of Shibuya many moons ago.
More of Shibuya by night. The tall building to the left is a hotel that we stayed at before heading off to Seattle for half a year. You can "pretend" to be a hotel guest and casually go up to take pics.
Center Gai in Shibuya by night. Many people handing out leaflets will approach you with food offerings.
New Burger King that wasn't there last time I passed.
Had some Yakiniku - meat that you grill in front of you in the burner. I think this place was at the top of Isetan - dont go as the meat tastes like fresh tyre.
Yakiniku restaurant interior.
Seeing "please keep the toilet clean" signs is normal but this is overkill - taken at the Sakuraya electronics store in Shibuya.
As you can see - the walls are plastered with a "Thank you for keeping the toilet clean" posters.
Toilets are generally clean over here but still depends on where you go. The most smelly toilets I've come across are ones in Shibuya that are filled at that pee stench.
The most scariest toilets I've come across were the ones in the UK. There was one in Piccadilly which had men who just stood in front of the urinators while looking at other mens dolphins with a smile on their face.
The most annoying toilets ever were the ones in the US - they all had big gaps in them so that one can see who's inside - I just want to poo in peace!
Having a look at Vaio's "new" technology. Press video below.
Grabbing some cakes from Cozy Corner.
Tiramisu, green tea, strawberry and some other cake that I cant remember.
Grabbing some bento for lunch.
Pizza at that new place again - this one had yummy fish n garlic and an eyelash to top it off...
The eyelash was on the edge of the crust - I just removed it and continued to eat. Unless its a huge strand of hair in the middle of the dish, I usually just remove it and continue.
Luckily have not come across a meal with crinkly hair in it though ^^; The worst thing I found in a dish in Japan was a cockroach at a Korean restaurant. This was about 10 years ago. I remember whispering to the shop owner "there's a cockroach in the food" *points*. I remember her smiling and removing the dish. Wasn't charged for it. Not sure what I would do it it happened again - probably whip out a mega phone and broadcast it to all the other customers ^^;
What do you normally do when you find foreign objects in food thats served to you?
Burger at Kua'aina - the best burgers in town. Takes ages to make but worth the wait.
Out n about in Gotanda - the salary mans town.
Visiting web comrade Matt Romaine. Here we are at the top floor of the mansion that he stays at.
This room is for the use of all residents. Matt regularly uses this place for meetings.
And a peek at Matt's place. He is build Gunpla from time to time.
Matt's desk with his iMac and Macbook. Met matt when I was consulting for Columbia Music a while ago - thats where I got that Ninomiya Poster thats on our office wall. Actually have another different Ninomiya poster from them which I should probably dig out ^^;
Unix users will know of a text editor called VI - designed to be used on the command line and comes with ridiculous commands like pressing "J" to move the cursor down. This cup comes with all the commands printed on it - for the ultimate geek.
A peek at Matt's relaxation lounge with a great view of Tokyo.
And a step out on his balcony. Matt and I are working on bringing you a live webcam from this spot. We want it to be high quality so it looks like it will have to be some sort of digital camera that takes snaps every 15 seconds or so. Standard webcams tend to be low res and we don't want that. If you have any ideas on how to do this then let us know. We are doing research in the mean time too.
This is the sort of quality that we are looking for.
More views from Matt's gaff.
The mascot characters for Sato pharmaceutical. The pharmacy owners dress them up in different outfits depending on the season.
Been raining quite a bit lately. Was snowing this time last year.
Shibuya in the morning - Center Gai filled with trucks off loading stocks of goods and what have you.
The weather forecasting is quite accurate meaning that when it rains, most people are prepared with their brolleys.
Shibuya bus terminal. Amazon offices in the tall building to the left of the photo.
Overpass is made of concrete but it bounces up n down when a load of people are crossing it.
Meeting at Digital Garage. At the moment speaking to many companies who offer e-commerce payment processing systems which will plug into Mirai Gaia.
Very Yummy Katsu Teishoku lunch set - about 980 yen.
Mr Bond back in action. How is the new movie?
Many drink vending machines have warm beverages - the hot lemon ones are lovely.
Mikuru for lunch tastes so good.
Soup curry for din dins.
Filling up the bike tyres with 0 yen air.
Lunch at the Obaa-chans place round the corner.
Some figures waiting to be reviewed.
After lunch tea n cake. Notice how small the cake is. Portions over here can be really tiny at times.
I think Saber is going to keep her long curly hair for a while. Berry cuto desu.
This mornings office before dashing off for an external meeting.
Dollfie Aoi-chan to get some new clothes soon.
Not much change on the side here. Some new SAFS arriving this week though.
Have been waiting to control two different Macs with the same pair of Keyboard/Mouse but have not been able to find an application that allows me to switch between two machines.
