A Week in Tokyo 50

Going to get back into the rhythm of doing these more often or I'll not only have big gaps in my life, each episode would end up with too many photos. The past A Week in Tokyo episodes have been close to 80 photos and what with 400 comments like the last one, I'm guessing loading time for some of you will be painful - or is it? Are ISP's in your neck of the woods offering faster connections?
This article contains 63 photos which amounts to about 15MB and took about 13 seconds to fully load on this end. How long did it take on your side? You can force your browser to do a full refresh by clicking refresh and holding down shift or CTRL.

Anyway, first photo snapped while riding the bicycle on the way to Jiyugaoka.

My end-of-year cleaning out (called Nenmatsu Souji [年末掃除]) spilled over into the new year. Here I'm sorting out stuff on the books and document shelf. Got rid of a lot of stuff which was nice but just sitting there on the shelf which I never look at or use - get rid of stuff that you don't want so that you can easily find the stuff that you do want.

My most used two drawers in need of desperate organization - the stationery and electrics. Electrics are supposed to be all bagged - USB cables in one bag, LAN cables in another and so on.

Dug up these Vodafone sim cards which I picked up back in 2005 which was the last time I went back to the UK. Not sure if they work ^^; Are Vodafone still around in the UK?

A load of event passes. Kept and couple and got rid of the rest which were just gathering dust.

Electrics drawer all tidy-ish. Ended up with zillions of USB cables that I've been accumulating over the years which just take up space - got rid of over half of them.
Stuff that takes up space makes it difficult to look for other stuff - and making space for new stuff that you really want then becomes a chore and more time consuming.

Smaller boxes used within drawers to organize stuff.

The first few days of the new year are filled with festivities and special offers. Here we have some value tempura packs.

How about some free rice wine? You have to be over 20 to drink though. How old does one have to reach to drink in your neck of the woods?

After ordering our charms at the shrine on new years day, its time to go back and collect them.

And this is my charm that the shrine prepared for me. I carry it about my person at all times. It protects me from evil spirits and level 9 demons. If you look closely you can see Seams of Time glowing around the edges.

Priests make their way back to the main building in the shrine grounds.

Chris was back in the UK for a while over the holidays and brought back some lovely PG Tips.

The director of a documentary for Canal Plus came over to Tokyo to scope out the scene before filming a feature length documentary about Tokyo. It seemed that for everything Tokyo that he was searching for in Google, dannychoo.com always crop up in the results ^^;
Will be filming with his crew later on Q2 but wont be aired on French TV until Q3 or Q4. The French version of dannychoo.com should be up in Q1.

LOL at the ad for Canal Plus below.

This weeks Mc Dee kiddy meal freebies are Naruto and Hello Kitty. Never personally got into Naruto myself but I hear that a load of folks outside of Japan was brought up no it - does that include you?

If you like discount on food then beknowist that Mc Dees always has discount coupons which you can use just by displaying them on your mobile device to the person serving you.

Been having a long bout of nice weather lately. Very cold though.

Been seeing a load of these signs lately - "Closing down sale."
Things seem to be picking up for Mirai Inc though. What line of work do you work in and are things picking up or down?

Shelves are a great way to display figures and save space around the desk too - got this Clear Rack for the corner - can fit 3 Nendoroids on it.

Difficult to see in the photo but cracked my thumbnail in half by slamming it in the table leg ^^; As usual, I use super glue to glue it back in place and its almost healed now.

A bunch of folks protesting in Shibuya - they say that Japan would come to an end if foreigners were given the right to vote.

Photoshoot for BMW Magazine in Shibuya.

Then its the Coming of Age Day in Japan which I still need to write about. The girl on the left was really sweet.

Do you find yourself feeling more peckish than usual when programming? Must be all the processing going in the brain that demands more sugar?
Love Japanese snacks - I remember them being so expensive when living back in the UK and had to travel to North London to some shopping center to get them.

Bandai came over to the office which marks the beginning of some very exciting stuff indeed for dannychoo.com readers!

New drama starting tomorrow - Tokujyo Kabachi with the lovely Horikita Maki.

Not sure if I see the point of this - its asking people to press the emergency stop button if they see somebody fall in the tracks - usually from being drunk. Me thinks it should be more about stopping people from falling in the first place.
A few years ago, a tourist died from trying to save a drunk who fell in the tracks. The drunk guy lived.

Passing a Mabo Tofu restaurant in Ebisu.

Having some Hainan Chicken Lice in Ebisu. Ken Lee has photos taken on the Tokyo Live Blogger night.

They even got instructions on how to eat - "just focus on the myriad of bursting flavours" ^^;

Out n about keeping up with the latest at figure.fm on the iPhone version.

Gift from Steve Nagata - Milk tastes better in Mio Mug.

About to reshuffle the shelves around.

All the girls gather on the table to chat while I work on the walls.

I'm using the Clear Racks from Amazon which enable the shelves to mount on the wall with a couple of pins.

The small holes can be filled up with some pritt which I use also use for Dollfie eye sockets and keeping stuff in their hands and wot not.

Those bars outside the window are so annoying!

The new shelf layout snapped earlier this week.

Was featured on a TV program called O-Japan Senryaku which talked about Otaku and Japanese Pop Culture. They used a snap of the office for the duration of the whole show ^^;

They had a panel of otaku-types including the boss of Toranoana.

Numbers portraying the otaku contents market showing how much potential there is outside of Japan. Much of the show focused on the overseas market and also covered Japan Expo in Paris - a convention which was attended by 160,000 last year.

Was introduced as the portal for Japanese Pop Culture.

Footage from the last Tokyo CGM Night with KANAME on the left.

There is a lot of content that I want to share with more folks around the world and the only thing thats preventing me from sharing more is the lack of localized versions of dannychoo.com.

Two movies currently showing in the theaters at the moment - One Piece and Nodame.

New years sales going on at Northport.

Some Taiko drumming to wake up folks who had a long new year holiday. How many days did you take off?

Rollerblading around the neighborhood at night. Still trying to look for decent boots with removable wheel chassis.

Train dodging.

"Dont sit here if you don't have any business with the shrine."

Discovered this shrine on our last outing to Jiyugaoka.

Many folks still in holiday mode up until the second week of the year and are still paying their new year respects at the shrines. The TV also full of special programs that don't regularly show.

Unmanned omikuji boxes - stick money in and pull out a fortune.

Not common knowledge but in Jiyugaoka there is a small gathering of buildings called La Vita - commonly called "Tokyo's Venice."
If you woke up in the middle of the square then you'd probably wouldn't know that you were in the middle of Tokyo. Some of the shops are beauty salons but they do have one restaurant by the gondola.

Get there from Jiyugaoka station.

A shot of one of the alleys in La Vita.

Probably would be nice to visit on a Summers day while sipping some Teh Tarik by the water.

Jiyugaoka is where you would go to see a load of predominately young females shopping for apparel or eating at one of the snazzy cafes. There are also a load of zakka stores too. Zakka is the word used to describe ornaments, kitchen ware, accessories and general bits n bobs.

While folks over here are generally law abiding citizens, there is one thing that many don't really take notice of - the "don't leave your bicycle here" signs ^^;

I don't particularly remember seeing anything to suggest that underage smoking is a problem in Japan but the government spent a load of money implementing a system called TASPO.
TASPO is a card that folks carry around which they would swipe against a cigarette vending machine in order to purchase a pack of puff.

One has to be 20 years of age to legally smoke. Is underage smoking an issue in your neck of the woods?

Biking back home in the morning on a cold n crisp late afternoon in the evening sun.

Every year we get these charms from Meiji Jingu in Harajuku. This time round its the year of the Taiga and apparently it has to be yellow.

Back hurts when I'm standing for too long but there are days when I just need to be out n about for prolonged periods - to the rescue is this hot sticker sheet which heats up to 48c that helps ease the pain.

And we also spent a night in Karuizawa which I still have to write about ^^;