Weekends over, soon!

Allright!

Saturday
Here is a link to Google maps, to show where abouts I live, in the center of the map above the Ropponiitchome subway station, is where I live. See Map

No crazyness this weekend. Started this saturday with getting up late, ate my last bananas from my fridge. Went to Starbucks and had a americano and cheese and ham baguette. Then I sat there sketching 'til my coffe was cold, then I sketched for another hour. Not publishing any sketches at this point, maybe later.

Then I started walking, went to a cemetary, cemetaries are interesting places. Almost no people there, that where alive there is. Quite, except for the ravens, that always can be heard in the weekends. Tokyo is really quite in the weekends, if you keep away from Shibuya and Akihabara. Definetely going backto the cemetary later, when the cherrie blossom blooms its going to be really pretty.

Then I walked up to Gaienmae. To eat on a place called Eat, I had their Kobe Burger. Which was recommended on a website. Cosy little place, about 2,5 metres wide and 6 metres long. Dressing; good, medium done burger; good. Thought I ordered a Coke, however the waitress gave me a Corona. Ok... I'll have a beer.

Then I walked to Harajuku, this was quite a walk I might add.

Standing on the curb awaiting the green light to cross the road (with a couple of hundred japanese in my back), I got a feeling of standing on a battle field, think William Wallace. Watching the other side of the road where people where getting ready to charge our side when the signal turns green.

Then the signal turns green and the charge begins. See movieclip

Well, I only bumped into a few people.

After that I went to Akihabara, to look for a nwe pair of headphones. This proved however to be hard, hi-fi seems not to be of great interest there. Mainly it is about; Iphones, Ipods (most people do not buy good headphones for these devices, it is clear) mobile phones, cameras and laptops. Stereo equipment and quality headphones was harder to find. Infact I did find one pair of Bose headphones, but they where over my budget and butt ugly. So I gave up and went home.

Home to Roppongi, I acctually live between Roppongi and Akasaka. Roppongi is more of a sins nest and Akasaka is more of place for government offices. It is nice and quite where I live anyways.

Sunday
Today my goal was set, I am getting myself a new pair of headphones. I went to Shibuya to track down some headphones, in Shibuya there are alot of music stores so I thought I would have a good chance to find a pair. However, it seems I am hard to please. Looked through Shibuya without finding anything. Saw a lot of clothes, bags and stuff.

Went to H&M in Shibuya, the store looked really nice and people seemed eager to shop.

Took another sketch and coffee session at Starbucks.

Then the quest for the perfect set of headphones where on again; I picked up the guide book. I figured I could give Akihabara another chance, a place called Electronics Town should be able to fullfill my wishes. However, again I could only find stores with mobile phones and laptops.

I gave up and headed for Ginza, the fcentre of Tokyo, where all the big offices are. Went to the Sony building and showroom. To look at the new Sony line-ups. And there they were, at a mere 3900 Yen, a good looking, good enough sounding and fabulously comfortable pair of headpones. So I bought them. Sony MDR-570LP:

The outside of the casing is of aluminum, nice , and the pading is very cumfy, super nice. Be jealous, they are only sold around here for now (I think).

Now I should be going to bed,

/Johan

Pictures; camera, 2010-01-31

Listening to Judas Priest – Eat Me Alive while uploading this, funny song.

Local temple, close to my place.

Local temple, close to my place.

This is where I go when walking to work, nice eh?

Rocker kids look the same everywhere it seems, could be Stockholm, Umeå or London.

Cemetary, Roppongi

Cemetary, Roppongi

Art gallery, Harajuku

Art gallery, Harajuku

Art gallery, grafitti, Harajuku

Tokyo is vending machine Mecca, Akihabara

Pictures; phone, 2010-01-31

Pendant lamp Muji, to bad I haven't seen this in Sweden

In Japan Muji also sells "food"; bags of sauce

Freshness Burger.

When I want "freshness" I don't go for burger. Would be more appatizing with "Fatness Burger", then I would have considered going here for lunch.

Yodobashi Akiba

Grown men playing computer games outside Yodobashi Akiba, best electrics store I been to sofar. The others are just confusing.

Crazy Earphones, Yodobashi Akiba

Didn't buy these earphones.

Sofmap, Akihabara

According to my guidebook this store had everything; asociated with electronics. It didn't. It sucked, 6 storeys with laptops and 2 storeys with Erotic dvds.

Vertu, Ginza

I dropped in at Vertu, to look on some phones... God they are fugly! Anyone who buys a ugly mobile phone for ~1 600 000 Yen (~136 000 Sek) is retarded. The one who buys an even uglier for 11 800 000 just deserves to burn in hell. http://www.vertu.com/

Saturday adventures

Heading out soon, lazy saturday morning. Hello to my happy friends in Stockholm!
Cheers!

Pictures 2010-01-30

Only in Japan could a fire hydrant hatch be so cute, or?

On todays shopping list are batteries for my shaver

Grocery store in Roppongi

Finally found a grocery store close to work, it's in a big crossing up in Roppongi. Prices varies alot, some things are just crazy expensive other not so. Ofcourse I have forgotten what its called. I saw their bananas lying outside the store and was suprised when they weren't that expensive. When I walked in to pay I realised that they had a pretty nice range of fruits. Which is suprising, I thought, because the rest of the shops I have seen so far only sold gigantic apples that cost about what a draft beer in a swedish pub costs. The I realised that people where coming down a narrow staircase with baskets filled with groceries, turns out that the store had 3 floors. However my apartment does not have any kind of utensils, pots or nothing (which I remembered just before I was to pick up a package of lovely Barilla pasta). So I bought Beer, Bananas and candy. (see pics below)

Asahi time.

So, bananas and beer, maybe I have a vitamin B12 deficit.

Listening to canadian music, for you who have Spotify: The Rural Alberta Advantage – The Dethbridge in Lethbridge (Do not worry it is not death metal). Thanks to my canadian friends who introduced me to The Rural Alberta Advantage.

If anyone thinks my pictures look crappy its because im snapping away with my Nokia, most of the times.

Waaaait a minute I forgot to transfer a picture earlier:

Found this picture in a japanese Bag-Nerd magazine, this is the only picture in that magazine that have a kind of sexual reference to it (if you look closer you can see she has an unbuttoned blouse. Now you might think, so what? Well, the bag is a swedish Haglöfs backpack. A model that, I thought anyways, was aiming for swedish moose hunters. Random, very random. On the other side of this spread, there are close-ups on the different compartments and such of the backpack; so it is still kind of serious.

Happy hunting!

Pictures 2010-01-27

4 kinds of beverages; water (de-clorinating), OJ, Asahi and a slosh of Coke

My favourite japanese candies (got addicted to them in New York)

My washing machine

Larger road towards Tokyo Tower, Roppongi

Customer meeting

Got my baptism of fire today. A big part of making business revolves around meetings, ofcourse, and so it was my turn get a feel of Japanese business culture today. It was the first time I went to a meeting, for a pretty common design and prototype discussion, and having 8 people scrutinizing and overseeing the meeting. Karazy, fun though. Did the whole thing, exchanging business cards and so on.

Hierarchy is something that is ever present in business life and one of the first things you really notice, as a swede atleast. Second thing is that people are so polite, that I feel bad when beeing such a dick, only because I can't say the appropriate phrase. On the other hand, the language isn't that similar to swedish, but I think they keep that in mind and later when they go home and tell their friends of a totally lost Swede. A combination of the two above topics; politeness and Hierarchy puts me in another strange place:
I am equally nice and polite/rude to everybody and I am a temporary joker in the hierarchy, that I am not sure how works.

Might come back to this subject, I'm sure I will.

Darn my headphones are busted!

One thing I did not reveal in the last publication was that my headphones are broken. I snapped the plug when getting up in the seat in the airplane. So now I only get sound in one ear, catastrophic, now I must buy a new pair.

I spent the sunday walking around; familiarizing myself with the surroundings and seeing some attractions. See photos further down...

So far I have only eaten noodles of different sorts and a burger at McDonalds. I don't know what Japanese people eat for breakfast, I haven't seen anything I would like anyways and haven't been able to find a supermarket around where I am staying,so far. I will explore the back alleys of the neighbourhood the coming days, to see I can find anything with a better assortment of goods than 7-11.

Also, there is a german sausage restaurant I pass to work, awsome.

Problems with technology; quite often we have "pictograms", in Sweden anyways, on our appliances and remote controls, so you don't realy have to read on all buttons. Not in Japan. Luckily the flush button on the toilet is manual (muscle powered). But as you all may have heard toilets here have so much more to offer the user (my apartments toilet); 2 washing programs for the under carriage + 1 extra program if you are a girl (have not dared to test any of them yet), ass heater and (atleast my toilet at work, which luckily has a bi-lingual sticker on it) has a button for "strong odour control". I don't look forward to using the washing machine... I screwed up the settings on the airheater, gets warm atleast. Oooooh.... and the bathtub has a remote and I think you can time it to pour the bath for you (me, I am happy that I managed to turn the warm water on).

Damn, it's late.

Good night!

Pictures 2010-01-25

Sunday-rush Shibuya (sunday means less people than on weekdays)

Shibuya, busy busy

Something that New York lacks; Japanese Rock'n'Roll-dance-gangs (Yoyogi Park)

This rocker got warm in the spring sun and had to take his jacket of

Dancing

As we say in Sweden; this guy was mostly "softing" with a beer

Dance dance dance "stop and pose" dance dance dance....

Entrance bridge to the Imperial Palace

The mote surrounding the Emperors palace

Amazing National Diet Building (their congress, parliament or similar...)

To the left of my desk I see Tokyo Tower

View from my desk (Roppongi Hills Mall)

Amazing round furry bed (sadly not in my apartment)

Pictures 2010-01-23

Japanese soap

Japanese gameshow


Train view

Train view

Train view

Going to Japan

Time for the first report,

So, I flew off to Japan today. Cool, I am going to work here for three months for my swedish employer; to start a design department at our Japanese office. Enough of that.

I have arrived and I am safe and sound. Allthough very tired. The trip started with me flying to London, changing fligts to the Japan flight. Then we flew back towards Sweden and over Stockolm...

I had brought my contact lens-case with me on the plane, however the liquid emptied itself and I was forced to try to sleep with my contacts in. They are not the kind you are supposed to sleep with. When i woke up after a few minutes sleep I saw halos around every light source and the eyes were all gooey, sweet.

In the end I arrived to Narita, Tokyo airport and managed to buy train ticket and subway card. By now I was perty tired. Got of at Shinjuku station and took a taxi, that miraculously found the right house straight away. He even gave me a discount of 200 Yen on the 2200 Yen the meter was on.

Ofcourse I forgot the socket converter at home, for the laptop, so i did a little DIY converter of a rice cooker cord I found.

Tomorrow I will do plenty of touristy stuff! Hopefully.

Oh... the weather today was awsome 10 C(warm), clear, crisp and sunny.

/Johan