Tokyo – random happenings.

 Our little neighbourhood.  One of approximately a million streets that look like this.

It’s hard to know how to start explaining what this is. It looks like a scene from Tron, but it’s actually an internet cafe (well sort of). 200 Yen gets you a 2 square metre booth in this place for about half a hour. Inside each one is a leather sofa / bean bag / floor mat, a PC, a TV, a DVD player … and a packet of tissues. Places like this are the only places to use internet in central Tokyo, although people also come here to hang out, watch TV or even catch a quick nap.

Arcades full of these machines were all over the place. We couldn’t really work out what they are. You buy a bucket full of little metal balls and feed them in the machine then sit in front of it as the balls trickle through the machine whilst a video (which could be anything from a cartoon of Terminator to a kids pop video) plays on a screen. Nobody was available to explain.

The lengths people go to to dress up / pamper their dogs was amazing. Just check out this little fella getting his bits groomed – couldn’t be more relaxed. Something for the weekend sir?

… maybe just a collar.

Can I try this on please? Yes, as long as you where this make-up proof Burkha first! No one is allowed to try on clothes without first donning one of these flannel mask things.

Perhaps I’ll just take these 5 toe socks then. Tell me, are suitable for business use? Yes – it says right there on the label.

Eat dessert first – especially when it’s under 500 Yen.

Place your bets.

On our last day in Tokyo we took ourselves down to the Keirin track to check out some multi-coloured track action.

It was just us and the old guys.

We couldn’t really work out how to fill out the betting slips so we chose between us and left money out of it.

The thrill of the chase.

And the winner is …

Dinner – top secret location.

There’s not enough room in Tokyo to put everything where you can see it, so a load of the good stuff is hidden on the 5th floor of some apartment building down a side street that you would never find unless your friends from Tokyo take you there – like this restaurant that Lotta’s friends Eiko and Ikuko took us to for dinner. It was one of the few that allowed ‘foreigners’ (like us) to dine.

Our new friend Laura arrived that day. The weird series of coincidences that explain how we know her is like a soap opera episode. We’ll save that for another time. This is a picture of her eating a tiny fish.

Laura brought these pink flamingo lensed glasses with her – they pretty much stole the show.

 Liamski.

 Eiko and Laura.

Chris.

 Lotta.

The food was excellent. This is an omelette full of noodles. Presentation is a must.

It might be controversial to say it, but black people are something of a novelty in Japan. It’s not as if the Japanese are running over trying to touch people’s hair, but they’re not shy to ask if you’ll pose for a photo with the obligatory two fingers pose. Liam is a good sport and kindly obliged. We all got in on the act.

Fix up!

OK, this could get nerdy so if you’re not interested in reading bicycle themed rantings, skip to the next post. I (Chris) was pretty excited about visiting the home of Keirin racing and witnessing first hand the whole Tokyo fashion bike thing.  It’s not all as you’d expect though.

In the same way that people in Europe and America are getting all excited about their NJS compliant Keirin bikes, the Japanese are going nuts for high end Italian techno bikes – the first bike store I could find was a Colnago outlet in a fancy mall. I bought a new cycling cap and looked at some carbon rims with pictures of turquoise turtles and fishes on them. Somebody needs to sack the Colnago art guy.

I took more photos of bikes on the street than was really necessary – most of them were unremarkable. This one I quite like, although I have to wonder why you would spoil a perfectly decent Keirin bike with riser bars, or mount a top tube protector without drop bars or put it in a position that wouldn’t protect the frame even if you did have them. Funny thing fashion.

This sort of sums up fixed wheel bikes in Tokyo – brightly coloured velocities and a Supreme spoke card. Part of me thinks it’s fashion gone wrong and part of me secretly likes it. If only I’d got a picture of the guy with the white aerospoke and matching BMX bars on a Keirin frame (you heard it here first).

Side note – considering how fashion conscious this lot were, there were surprisingly few people riding brakeless. I even saw a bracket attached to a Keirin frame to accomodate a rear brake … oh and most of couriers I saw were riding regular geared road bikes.

Breakfast of Champions.

Getting up at 5.30am to go to a freezing cold fish market and eat raw fish may not be everybody’s idea of a good way to start the day, but we’d by lying to say this wasn’t one of the best breakfasts we’ve ever eaten.

This bloke may look like one of Santa’s little helpers but he cooked a mean fresh eel Teriyaki and Sashimi tuna…

… and did his best to teach us a little bit of Japanese and show us some traditional writing. “Onikashimas” or something like that. We weren’t great students but we tried.

Tokyo Beach Party!

It may have been man made, desserted and freezing bloody cold, but it was a beach and it was the first beach of our holiday – time to celebrate!

It also had a replica statue of liberty which was put there to celebrate “French Year in Japan” if that makes any sense.  Apparently the New York one was built in France.  You learn a new thing every day.  (Edit – Lotta already knew this and we’ve since been informed that so does virtually everybody else in the world – except Chris.) 

Tokyo from above.

We took these pics from the top floor of the Government Building in downtown Tokyo. Neon as far as the eye can see.

The next day we took this from the top floor of the Tokyo Meridian hotel. A quick tip if you want some good view photos – skip paying good money to go to a viewing gallery when you can pop to a top floor fancy hotel restaurant, decide you don’t like the exorbitant menu and grab a few pics before you leave.

Gardener’s Corner.

The next day we checked out the Imperial Palace Gardens, which were pretty impressive …

… except for the fact that you’re not actually allowed to go anywhere near the Palace. Maybe we were a bit lost in translation …

… although we did meet this cool guy with a great vintage camera.  Japanese people love taking pictures and having their picture taken.

Self portrait, which might make up for the fact that we failed pretty spectularly to take any decent photos of the actual gardens.

Jazzy Sport party at The Cross.

Our second night in town and we managed to score another guest list, this time for Jazzy Sport’s club night celebrating the release of Ray Thought’s album on the Jazzy Sport label. This place kind of reminded us of Plastic People in London – very small but great music on a good sound system and a cool bunch of people. A big thanks to Ray for hooking us up with some free records down at his store in town, not to mention putting on a decent show. His DJ, Grooveman Spot, is one to look out for.

Our mate Liam was also in town so we got busy with the Cuba Libres.

Lotta and Liamski

Praise be.

Just around the corner from the hotel where we stayed was Asakusa buddhist temple.

Unlike some of temples we saw last year in Hong Kong and China, which seemed to be tourist attractions as much as anything else, tons of local people come here to pray every day.  It’s also an excellent place to sit and eat supermarket Sushi.

Nu Rave Valentine! Faline Party.

There’s only one way to wear your hair at a Tokyo nu rave fashion party on Valentine’s day and that is in an enormous braded heart shape. This guy gets the prize.

Tokyo vision 2009.

Eiko and Lotta

Eiko’s photo shoot for Elle girl.

This is Uffie and Japanese fashion kids go nuts for her. We have no idea why because she was rubbish live and her set was all but devoid of any memorable moments. You could summarise the cliched tedium of her appearance like this – whiny voiced electro rap cover version of Audio 2’s Top Billin, some Fanny Pack style electro chanting and then talk rubbish over a load of top ten jiggy rap hits. Creative genius. . . or maybe Chris was just grumpy because half a Guiness cost five quid. 

… anyway, they were offering free nail jobs so at least one of us got their money’s worth.

We both made new friends. . . A dude who wanted to practice his English and a guy who was apparently an extra in a Jonny Depp movie respectively.

Our camera also failed sometime in the first week and we lost a bunch of photos so we pinched these from Sanna’s blog ‘The Vagabond Set’;

Lotta and Sanna.

Eiko.

Eiko’s friend Ikuko.

The future’s so bright.

Rebel yell.

Happy Valentine

So we arrived in Tokyo on February 14th . . . and it was freezing bloody cold. This is the most romantic photo we have to mark the occasion.

No better way to celebrate than a plate of raw fish!

Fed and ready for action!

“Life is short, eat dessert first” (Jacques Torres)

In 15 hours we will be sitting on a plane to Japan.  A week later we leave Japan for Sydney.  Another week and we will be in Thailand before finally moving on to Hong Kong and China about three weeks later.  It goes without saying that we will be taking some photos and here is where you will find them (well some of them).  Toodle pip.  See you in a couple of months!