A Week in Tokyo 48
Its been about 3 weeks since we got back to Tokyo. This post covers a few days running up to the Singapore trip and the past few weeks.
Tis been a load of fun for the latter half of this year with so much progress on building the brand and business. Our 2010 schedule already looks packed until March.
Starting off with a day at Shinjuku. This place always brings back memories of our first honeymoon in Tokyo. Will be our 13th wedding anniversary in a few days ^o^
Zooming back in time to pre-Singapore trip. Wifey wanted to take this pic of me trying to do an impression of puchi Kyoka.
The T-shirt was given to me by CNN after the broadcast last year.
Thai for lunch around the corner.
Trying to make a wall mount for figma with di:stage.
Lovely day in the neighborhood.
The lovely Horikita Maki.
One of her new CM's below.
Moyashi Ramen - about 800 yen.
Really need to replace many of the straps on the armor. The boxes that hang off the belt fell off just as I was packing for Singapore.
A friend sent over a box of seafood just for giving them my dads signature ^^;
At Narita airport. Armor packed into the black suit carrier. Tis hand luggage.
Crossing over to Singapore. Didn't do much traveling abroad this year and completely failed to make our Canada trip. Will make sure we do more flying next year. One things we want to see in Canada are the Aurora lights. Anybody here seen them? Where do we go and what season?
Had an incredible time in Singapore with great friends for the AFA 09.
A week later and we are back in Tokyo. Didn't spend enough time in Singapore but looks like I will be back there in February. That reminds me that I need to sort out a venue for Singapore CGM Night.
Our first meal back in cold rainy Tokyo was at the local Ramen place.
Gyoza...
...and some pipping hot butter corn ramen.
Some Mc Dee's for brekkie.
Lunch with Kurot.
Tokimemo gets the pachinko treatment.
Tokyo MX TV came round to shoot a program to be broadcast at the beginning of next year. The program features dannychoo.com and what I get up to ^^;
Tokyo MX TV also came along to Tokyo CGM Night (Otaku Ver) which I still have to write about ^^;;;;;;
Tokyo CGM Night 6 was just awesome. Special guest was KANAME.
Yakiniku for dindins.
Yoshinoya for lunch.
I've not been feeling well - the schedule started to take a toll on the body while I was in Singapore. Still not feeling 100%
Doctor said I had done in my throat which was affecting my whole body. He stuck a camera down my throat through my nose! T'was an interesting experience.
He tried to give me as much medicine as possible like all doctors do because they get a commission on how much medicine they give out. I told him I didn't need any pain killers so managed to cut down the prescription by one set of pills. As soon as you mention "slight pain or discomfort" then they will try to give you a painkiller - if you don't need it then say so! "Iranai" [いらない] is what you say when you don't want something.
What are doctors like in your neck of the woods? Do they also try to prescribe to you a whole cabinet full O pills?
The bottle Nanoha is holding was some antibiotics which last a week on one gulp.
Installed a second optic fiber Internet connection at the beginning of the year - you can see what the installation process was like in the Japan Optic Fiber Internet article.
Learned a lot about hosting from the office - how to set up the routers and how to serve many sites from one IP address with requests being dealt with a single Mac Mini.
We pay about 5,000 yen per month for an unlimited bandwidth 1GB connection making hosting very cheap indeed. But the time needed to maintain the systems ends up costing much more.
We decided to let SliceHost do our cloud hosting instead. We are currently running dannychoo.com, figure.fm, otaku.fm, goodsmile mobile and cospasea on Slicehost.
Love the Thai food!
Forgot to take photos of inside the tin. The most yummiest cookies I've ever tasted from the Cookie Museam in Singapore. T'was a pressie from comrade 0ne. He also got the Laksa cookies for us ><;;;
This year our shopping arcade gets Christmas illuminations.
After dinner coffee n pie.
On the way to a meeting in Shinjuku. Haven't been wondering around that neck of the woods in ages.
On me way to the Hyatt Regency Tokyo with the help of the iPhone and Google Maps - would be lost without it.
Am coming cycling around here in the mornings when I get my new bicycle.
Lunch in Shinjuku with Bushi Road. Expect to see more of them around here.
Lovely sunny day in Shinjuku.
Interesting how the "you are here" spot is always worn down from people poking at the map.
The Tokyo Mode Gakuen building. One of the coolest looking schools I've seen. Their commercials are the coolest too.
Folks in Japan generally like to wear what everybody else is wearing. If something too radical comes out (fashion, goods) then nobody will use it because they will stand out too much - until somebody on TV uses it and then everybody will think its normal.
Back alleys of Shinjuku.
Another back alley near the West exit.
Throughout the day you will see folks standing outside Alta - the big screen outside the station. Tis where they shoot Waratte IItomo and a popular meeting place. You may see some celebs walking in between the hours of 10 and 12.
Electronics store Sakuraya will give you 20% worth of money in points on purchases made at their store. Simple calculation - buy something for 1000 USD and you get 200 USD to spend on what you want on your next purchase.
Do you get good electronics deals like this where you are or do they slap you in the face with a wet dog offering you 1 cent on every 100 USD you spend?
Bear hall Lion - window full of yummy plastic food.
Secondhand cameras n lenses.
Bunny suit for babies.
At Tokyu Hands looking at the cases wondering if I could use some for the figures.
Lucky Star figures at the UFO Catcher center.
Kinokuniya Shinjuku. They had the O'Reilly books under "Nature" - most probably because the books were sorted based on the animals on the covers.
Shinjuku station with the PSP screens.
Tangerine Calpis tastes....no so good.
Pizza for dinner for a change. Looks good!
...But ended up looking like this. Still tasted fine though.
Was talking to KANAME and saying that how AFA10 should have a butler cafe for the ladies too - he agrees.
Puchi Kyoka's ahoge bites the dust @o@
Dont think super glue will work for too long.
At the Nagasaki place for lunch.
Mayonnaise fried prawns for dinner.
Shopping for groceries.
Picking up only a few bites to eat. After checking out, you would normally bring the basket over to tables near the entrance where you would bag everything up yourself.
Travel around the world in 80 days on the Peace Boat for 990,000 yen.
The cake was for Aoi-chan.
Professor Layton gets the movie treatment starring the lovely Horikita Maki and Mizuki Nana. I always get stuck on that game!
Dolls Party 22 last Sunday - full report here.
At Meguro for food.
Soup Stock for dinner.
Grabbing some HeatTech from Uniqlo.
Heading back home.
Nice girl on poster.
Last Tuesday was the People vs George Lucas movie filming.
BMW Magazine is a lifestyle magazine with a 4 million worldwide readership. Was recently asked to be featured in the magazine and they came around this week for photos and interview.
The feature is about life and trends in Tokyo.
The boss and tech folks from AmiAmi at the office.
The guy on the left is Ricky. He saw that I mentioned that AmiAmi launched their English website and that they will be looking for English speaking folks to work in Tokyo. Ricky took the initiative to contact AmiAmi and got the job!
Figure cleaning. Slight rearranging but most of the figures that are still on display have been here with me for ages.
Office this morning.
Need bigger office.
