A Week in Tokyo 40
These past few weeks turned out to be one of the most busiest periods since the start of Mirai Inc. Interviews, TV filming, events, networking, beta launches, iPhone apps and preparations for the Tokyo Figure Show. Wont be anywhere near the scale of the Wonfes but then again we are catering for a different audience.
So its been a whole month since the last A Week in Tokyo. Had to make a decision to blog a bit less so that I could get more of the bigger significant changes out to Mirai Gaia which you can see under beta at figure.mirai.fm.
Starting off with a photo session for a future publication.
I think this is the first time that we see Patrick out of his cosplay gear - the author of the Otaku Encyclopedia.
Haven't seen a manual camera for ages. The film for this particular camera costs a bomb apparently.
Back from a round of shopping at Costco.
Hiyashi Chuka - cold sour noodles with a few ice cubes.
Flicking through some mags just before grabbing some milk. Some convenience stores tie up the mags and some don't.
In the evening watching one of my fave TV programs - Gaia no Yoake. A business trends show. Today they talk about how tidying up can save money in these economic times. For example, one of the companies featured had employees who spent a few hours each day looking for stuff.
Those few hours were added up in cost and they worked out that the salary of 2 employees were going to waste.
While both of my parents are notorious for keeping a load of crap around the house, I tend to get rid of as much as possible to save time. For example, while the figure and gadget samples are free - there is a cost of keeping them - my time.
I could stock them in the retire cabinet but when its full I then need to make time to find/make space to put more "free" stuff. If I spend an hour sorting out boxes of stuff that I don't really want then I've wasted X yen. And the more stuff I have, the more difficult it is to find stuff - thus even more time is wasted.
Get rid of the things you don't want so that you can find the stuff that you do want.
Filming with BBC World - being sent a DVD copy and will upload as soon as I get it.
After over 10 years, SPEED is back - used to listen to their tunes when I came to Japan as a visitor.
At Lalaport having some Laksa.
At many shopping malls, the more you shop, the more free stuff they give you. In some cases they give you goodies...
...and in some cases they give you monies.
Looking through the glass into a smoking chamber.
At night when shops close up at Lalaport, some shops are left like this - with just a rope at the front. I' sure all of this would be gone if this was Hackney in London.
Ramen and Chahan set.
Out n about by day in Gakugei Daigaku - another bustling area which we discovered recently. About a 20 min walk from where we are.
Gegege no Kitaro goodies at Mc Dees.
Gakugei Daigaku station.
A newly discovered lake that comes complete with row boats and huge carp fish.
Got hold of more Clear Racks for the figures - available at Amazon Japan for 2,480 yen each.
Some freshly make Omusubi for dindins. Also called "Onigiri" - rice with a filling wrapped in dried seaweed.
Spent an evening actually learning aperture and other SLR settings. Do an image search with the word "diagram" on the end like aperture diagram - the diagrams may help you absorb the knowledge quicker than just a block of text - helped me a lot.
Looks like its that time of year where politicians grab their megaphone and shout out loud on the streets.
Some health food is good once in a while.
The lads playing around with the iPhone Mirai Clock app.
Just before visiting the 1/1 scale Gundam in Odaiba. Having some Indonesian food with the lads while browsing on the Leopardized Dell Mini 9.
"Oshibori" are the wet rolled up towels that many restaurants hand out to customers. They always remind me of a restaurant that I previously worked in where one employee used them to wipe his armpits and shoes! Those oshibori would then go in the wash and then be served up to customers again - so if you see a crinkly hair in your oshibori then you know where its been ^^;
Katsu and my fave Japanese soup Tonjiru made from swine stock.
At the launch party for the Otaku Encyclopedia.
Frankie and his moesome Nice T-Shirt.
Picking up some Mr Donuts.
A Ramen place filled with manga for the customers to read.
Shio Ramen. "Shio" = "Salt."
Picking up my armor from dry cleaning.
Tis the jolly mosquito season meaning that the Mosquito Defense Systems need to be activated. The bottle of liquid goes into the dark purple dome thing which heats up the liquid. When mosquitoes come into the immediate area, the hole at the top shoots out a 200.5volt bolt of electricity at the mosquito - a burning smell remains in the air until the liquid perfume absorbs it.
Minced up cow with nasu.
The coffee shops over here like to make their logo look as similar as possible to Starbucks.
BLT Sand served up my Mikuru. "Sando" (sometimes written as "Sand") is short for sandwich.
Slice of eel on rice - some love it and some hate it.
Katsu to take out from Saboten.
Getting rid of that PC that I've had for many years. Nice case that alone does not warrant keeping it. Chris carried it home with him on the train!
This van patrols the area watching out for folks who steal recyclable materials or dump rubbish without permission.
Throughout Japan, we can only throw certain rubbish out on certain days. For example, in our area, we can only throw out combustible (burnable) rubbish on Wednesday and Saturday. We would be in toraburu if we threw out stuff on another day or try to hide combustible rubbish with non-combustible for example.
Occasionally see TV crews out n about getting opinions from the public about things like what they thought about some famous person having an affair with the nextdoor neighbor etc.
Chahan for dindins.
Been spending a lot of time on Mirai Gaia over at figure.mirai.fm. We need to upgrade the Good Smile website, dannychoo.com and otaku.fm too.
My old Fujitsu laptop which I've been trying to get rid of. The thing about getting rid of computers is that you cant give it to a novice user because they will ask you stuff about it all the time - the point of getting rid of it is to save time and space. But all the experienced users who I asked to take it away (for free) didn't want it!
When I was a PC user, I couldn't understand why Macs didn't have floppy drives.
Choosing which games to get rid of. Have not finished any of these!
And this is where I take my second hand games - Book Off. The prices displayed here is what they pay for these games.
Back in England, I used to drill holes all over the house to put up shelves. So when we bought our house in Tokyo, I got hold of a wireless drill - used it a total of once! Houses in Japan are generally not made of brick but of wood meaning that you can easily drill holes with a manual drill - or just push and twist a screwdriver through the wall.
Also bought myself an electric saw at the time which I used only once too - need to get rid of both.
The step down transformer is an interesting story. When we moved to Seattle from Tokyo (which you can read about in the Working at Amazon and Microsoft photo article), we bought 2 (count em) heavy duty step down transformers which were powerful enough to power a fridge or washing machine. Amazon shipped all our stuff to Seattle but little did we know that apartments in America came with dishwashers fridges and washing machines! Most apartments in Japan are pretty much empty when you move in.
For the 5 months that we stayed in Seattle, our fridge and washing machine stayed outside on our balcony. Before coming back to Tokyo, we gave the fridge to a comrade and brought back the washing machine which we still use today. Have no idea why these step down transformers came back to Tokyo with us! Need to get rid of everything in the photo.
Haruhi snaps some pics of tempura and zaru udon lunch.
Some places display plastic representations of food and some just use real food wrapped up.
Walnuts are supposed to be good for the brains and some folks say that its because they look like brains. They also taste like brains too.
Olympus E-P1 - The Lumix LX3 killer? Currently costs about 90,000 yen.
When buying electronics in Japan, look for the cheapest price online of what you want and make a print out and then take it to Bic Camera. More often than not, they will match the price.
Playing around with the Gundam Fix Figurations that I dug out which reminded me how cool they are. Did they stop making these since their Robot Tamashii line?
