Enoshima

This weekend I wanted a quiet weekend, so I took a solo-trip saturday to enoshima, a small Island near Kamakura, about 1.5 hours west of Tokyo... See below. Also included, two photo's of me for all my fans out there... :P (or my friends who are starting to forget what I look like)




The next day, sunday, Juan was here, a Spanish friend of mine who I know from Beijing and who now lives in Hong Kong. So I gave him the Tokyo express tour at a suicidal rate and schedule which was straining even for my (i hear infamous) standards and at the end of the day ate together with some of our JPP group at a way-over-the-top-but-still-heaps-of-fun-athough-i-would-never-admit-it-Ninja-restaurant, which was hid away in the narrow corridors of a dark ninja dungeon. Was good food, and the ninjas performed life-threatening tricks such as "pick a card any card" and "hold this elastic band oops now it's gone".

The Disney and Trash weekend

Although to some people "Disney" and "trash" are basically considered synonyms, Disney and I go back a long time and it was only a matter of time before I would break and go to Tokyo Disneyland. I found three other victims of whom two had never been in Disneyland (I was shocked). We stayed from 10.30 am until 10pm and ran through the park in the rain as raging lunatics to be able to do all the rides. We covered it all, from space mountain to the tea cups, which we did just before dinner and that was not a good idea (well maybe better than after dinner though).

The next day was gomi zero day. All of us had to show up in Harumi to pick garbage. The biggest challenge of it all was to, well, find the garbage. Luckily, whenever bored, we could enjoy ourselves with monstrueske-sized tangerines and also a swing, as shown on the photos. In the end we had a barbecue. We made one more stop somewhere near Yasukuni shrine to have our picture taken for the JPP alumni book and then I headed into the park and had a relaxing afternoon with in the background people walking their dogs and bunnies. Yes, bunnies.

the Rock and Baseball weekend

And quite a heavy weekend it was. A few months ago we met a couple, who were in a rockband in a small bar in Shinjuku. We promised them to once see one of their performances and we decided it was time to do so. They were one of the two acts of that evening in the Shibuya O-Crest. Ignorant as I am, I was unfamiliar with the obvious theme of the evening: ‘motor disco’. Not having heard their cd yet, I was curious what kind of pieces of musical art a band called “Boogie the machmohtaaz” would make.The answer was: very loud music. It was indeed a strangely interesting stream of music. The band played a genre somewhere between hardrock, boogie, disco and Daft Punk. Simultaneously, the leadsinger entertained us by doing funny dances in his golden suit and shouting boogie number one, while the girl in leather was the more serious type, to busy to smile as she was concentrating on striking the right chords on her keyboard. The third member of the band, the drummer, suddenly left his drum kit for what it was and frantically ran a few laps through the audience in order to knock over some tables, in effect victimizing several innocent beer bottles. The underlying meaning of this little outburst was a bit lost on me (and the rest of the audience for that matter).

It was fun, and I do think there was a moment that the crowd seemed to be on the verge of trying to go wild (although I could’t tell for sure, taking account of the fact of it being Japan and all: the audience didn’t dance a single step, shout a single word or do any other of those kinds of unacceptable things, only clapping when absolutely necessary in response to the band’s polite “arigato gozaimasu” after every hardrock song)Anyway, it was a fun evening, and the band was really nice to us. They happened to have been standing near the entrance of the club the show begun, and after recognizing Evelien and me, they let us in for free by putting us on the guest list. Afterwards we had another chat and she said she was relieved it was over because she had been very nervous for this gig. It was a great evening nevertheless. So, being happier and deafer than before, Sjors, Evelien and I left the club and after one more drink somewhere in Shibuya we headed on home.

Saturday afternoon was spent quietly at a photography museum and reading a Murakami book at Amber café. Fulfilled my craving for steak at Outback Steakhouse, (a favorite chain-restaurant for which my mother and I should deserve some kind of gold card as we have eaten there at many different locations across the world). We then left for Daikanyama, a neighbourhood closeby. After a drink in a wannabe-trendy yet merely depressingly sterile white bar, Koos, Rene, Sjors and I went to the samurai.fm party in club Unit were we stayed until 6 in the morning. I wasn’t too drunk, which was useful, as a certain neighbour of mine needed a bit of additional navigation to get home…:)

Next day we had a ball at the Tokyo dome. The drinks were taken care of by "beer-girls" wo were competing against each other for customers, running up and down the stairs with a complete beer tank strapped on their back....respect!
The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants baseball team beat the Hokkaido Nippon-ham Fighters. Go Giants!

Tokyo weekends

Tokyo weekends

Since most of my weekdays are spent gazing at a computer screen in utter apathy, weekends in Tokyo are precious. The last months have begun, and the number of weekends is getting less and less. You can notice that all of us are getting a bit edgy and maniacally planning each weekend.


The "BBQ weekend"

A Japanese friend of ours, Kosuke, invited a few of us for a barbecue at his house northwest of Tokyo. And what a barbeque it was. Good food, sunny weather, Jack Johnson and Bob Marley music, and Sandy, the laid-back house dog…the mood was set.
We ate non-stop from 2.30 pm to midnight, and I even roasted raw Brazillian coffee in a pan on the barbecue and grinded it by hand in the coffee mill - I’d guess it was about 100 turns for one cup. Bit less convenient than pressing the button of your Senseo/Nespresso-machine (the roasting and grinding in total took about 45 minutes).
Around midnight, Kosuke and Kosuke’s friends should have gone to sleep but no, without anyone noticing we somehow left the house and suddenly found ourself singing karaoke. Interesting differences in westerners and easterners singing karaoke I must say. While our japanese friends chose ballads and tried to sing as emotional and on-key as possible, we sang on a totally different level, the louder the better, with a sound-quality somewhere on the spectrum between a cow in labour and a cat being strangled.
After a while we though that it was taking quite a while already and that “the karaoke staff should have already told us that our time is up” when we realized we had rented it until morning so after singing until 3.30 we were knackered and stumbled to Kosuke’s house.

We were woken at 9.30 when it was announced to us that we were going to the onsen (hotsprings) nearby. Jolly good fun but a bit challenging to sit in hot baths and saunas with half a hangover and without breakfast. But it was really relaxing and Kosuke and us agreed we should set up an onsen in Holland, Japanese style. And, naturally you should also be able to do Karaoke while bubbling in the onsen.

In the afternoon we said goodbye to Kosuke and spent some time at the Sanja festival in Asakusa, one of Tokyo's biggest festivals. Then, I went home and fell into a deep sleep.

Travelling japan

The pictures in the last post were made while my mother was visiting in Japan end of april and beginning of may. We had such a great time, both in tokyo, and on the road. Walking around the old shops of Takayama, seeing temples and crowds in Kyoto, the beach, samurai houses and friendly temple owners of Hagi, the breath-taking Atomic bomb dome and thousands of paper cranes of Hiroshima and the straying deer and most famous japanese shinto-gate at Miyajima.Too much to describe, but a picture says a thousand words they say. Luckily I made no less than 1500 pictures that week....

Quakes and more Flowers

At 7 pm today, a quake 'hit' Tokyo
After verifying that it was not just due to plain 'windyness' from the schnitzel I had for lunch that caused me to move on my chair, I realized that I was experiencing the first quake I have felt in Tokyo so far. Several of my classmates already felt a quake once or twice (it can be very local), but I somehow kept 'missing' it. Although the news has even reported about it today, my life didn't exactly flash before my eyes; my table just moved a bit for a second and it was over (luckily). It was a 5 on the richter scale but in Tokyo it was a 2 since the epic center was somewhere else.

The theme this week was still sakura, as this week was 満開　'mankai', full bloom of sakura. This week was again filled with sakura experiences but I promise this is the last time I'll write about this crazy Japanese season.
This weekend, especially Saturday, I spent the whole day running around in Tokyo trying to catch as much sakura as possible, since in the future the weather might become cold and windy (a period called 花冷え、hanabie lit. flowers getting cold). Futhermore, during weekdays there is not much time due to the traineeship.
And thus, I raced through the city on Saturday, and first went to Ueno where the whole of Japan plus a hell of a lot of Chinese tourists seemed to have gathered with the same purpose. However, this is expected when going to popular Ueno and it actually contributed to the atmosphere. So, I walked along the crowds and enjoyed both the myriad food stalls and cherry blossom at the same time.

After a while, Vivian accompanied me and we went to our next stop: Sumida river, a famous spot for flower watching. Now on the riverside, things were a bit more relaxed than Ueno. At Sumida, there was more room for people to sit down on their blue tarpaulins and enjoy the flowers while having a beer. I refrained from doing this myself as I was more interested in seeing as much sakura-places in Tokyo to really get an idea of what is really going on during this season, and because my team at Canon promised to hold a hanami, a promise that has not been fulfilled yet and I wonder if they forgot.

After Sumida, Alexandra joined us and we headed out to a different part of the city, Yasukuni. At this controversial shrine, the atmosphere was absolutely amazing, with tables filled with people, food and beer under sakura trees as far as the eye could see, with music and dance and that late afternoon at Yasukuni now definitely belongs to the top 10 most 'gezellig' scenes that I have seen in the world so far.

Already nearing sakura-overdose, we crossed the street to find more sakura on the west side of the imperial palace, where a massive queue of at least a few kilometers existed. Even the Japanese where impressed. And if Japanese are impressed with the length of a queue, this must mean something. I asked why they were queuing and the answer was simple. Because the trees will light up. Ok, exciting as that seemed, we decided not to stand in queue for several hours in order to see those trees light up. Maybe some other year.

Afterwards we headed out to Roppongi to go to an evening festival, but due to misinformation it had already ended before we got there. So, we finally ended up in a pub for a beer or two with Stephan and Jojanneke, who where in the neighborhood, and called it a day.

Spring is here!

The Sakura (cherry blossom) has begun! And thus starts the most beautiful time of the year in Japan. The whole city is talking about nothing else but Hanami, a much-loved Japanese activity which basically involves two elements. Sakura and booze. Whilst filling oneself with liquor, one gazes at the beauty of sakura trees and ponder on the meaning of life while quoting classical Japanese poetry. Ok maybe the last part not so much, it's basically just the boozing and looking at blossom. But once you look at the pictures below, you see what all the fuss is about. It is absolutely stunning and Tokyo has a pinkish hue.

For the rest things are going well. I've integrated well at Canon and I've been working on quite useful and rewarding things lately which means I'm moving up in Canon-society (the first weeks were a bit like 'robert here go stare at these numbers for the whole day while we have meetings all day'). I'm having fun and my collegues are very relaxed and have all worked at at least two continents and know how the world works. Also, I've been strategically forcing my collegues to speak as much japanese to me as possible, which is sometimes hard since their English is pretty good. But sometimes for the sake of content we sometimes still switch to English, which is fine as it's still a bit hard for me to understand processes of 'static electricity loaded onto paper when exposed to laser beams and then attract negatively-loaded toner which is then tranferred via conveyor belts and finally fixed with ceramic heaters etc etc.' in Japanese. I know, I've let you all down.

For the rest it's all a matter of getting used to the strictness of the work environment. Start 8.15 and when the big-ben bell sounds through the speaker at exactly 8.30, the colleagues around me stop talking and do not communicate until lunch. After lunch, same bell, same story. And walking around or getting coffee is not really appreciated unless you are already on the way to do really essential things such as going to the toilet, or the copier. Culture shock, as in holland the most interesting gossip is told around coffee machines whenever someone feels like spilling their guts. For the rest, interesting people here. The IT-guy came up to my desk at Canon last week and confessed to me that his 5-day work week at Canon was just a 'side job'. His real job was being a magician during weekends. He proved it to me by doing a cool trick with merely two elastic bands.
---
Being a good samaritan, the rest of the week is spent partying and hanging around in parks listening to indie bands, or tanning at artifical beaches, watching irish st. patrick day parades with Japanese in leprichaun outfits, drinking chili-pepper soaked vodkas at small bars, ordering unidentified things on menu's on a daily basis, going to ghibli museum, being abducted by rich chinese women at naka-meguro who want to be my tour guide, going for ice-cream at Ice-cream city near Piazza Maccheroni (a kitch plastic indoor version of Rome's Piazza Navona).

Will try to keep out of trouble!
Robert

At the extremely-popular-hard-to-get-tickets Ghibli Museum with my Japanese friends I met back in Beijing

Evenings in Tokyo: one of the memorable dinners with my JPP-buddies

Non-leprechauns were also allowed to show their stuff at the yearly St Patricks day parade

First Days at Canon part 2

This second day was again busy as hell. A summary.

from 8.30 to 11am
Canon schedule: address change for foreign registration at city hall
Realization: we were done in 5 minutes, which left us over two hours with our supervisor to kill time at a temple somewhere until our next appointment.

from 11pm to 12am:
Schedule: arranging Canon pass at canon HQ
Realization: again done after 5 minutes. Had to kill time with supervisor with cappuccino and food until 1 pm (lunch was 12 to 1).
1:00 to 2:00
Canon Gallery official tour

2:00 to 3:00
kill time at canon gallery playing with binoculars and high-end camera models

3:00
I finally got to meet the people of my division. They seem great. Naturally I had to do an introduction again today. ("he can speak japanese!"). I think I made a good impression and they seem to have been looking forward to greet a new trainee. They're even arranging a welcome party for me friday evening.

4:00
Home. Dead tired, as you may expect.

Seeing the HQ of canon was shockingly magnificent and everything I imagined it to be. I won't put in too much detail as it is not allowed, but it's a whole little corporate campus paradise where the grass is green, the buildings are superdeluxe, as is the restaurant and the (free) hyperclass fitness and swimming center for its employees... yay!

Also, (completely off-topic) Coming back home today we discovered there is a monstrous supermarket two meters away from the dry cleaner where we already dropped off some clothes yesterday. This is shocking as we have been looking for these kinds of obvious signs of civilization but could only find 'mom and pop stores' and had to walk 20 minutes for the nearest supermarket which is now reduced to 5. How could we have missed this.

And continuing the story of yesterday; I only scored two business cards today. I'm losing my touch.

First Days at Canon

@Shimomaruko, march 3rd, 2008

I haven't written anything these last few weeks and there is much to tell about for example the trip we made to Kyoto last week and the week in Tokyo before that, when Vincent (friend who came over from Holland) was in town. I'll write about that soon, but first, some recent developments....

Two days ago It was time to say goodbye to the Asia Center of Japan, the hotel in the heart of hip Aoyama where I where I stayed during these past two months. Now that the Kansai Trip is over, the final (and largest) part of the JPP Program is about to begin: the 5-month internship at Canon.

Consistently, the day before yesterday I moved from hip Aoyama the day to the small suburban town of Shimomaruko, 40 minutes west of Tokyo, where Canon's dormitory is located.
It's more roomy than my room in the Asia center, even with own washing machine and dryer. I am on te minus 1st floor, which means a tropical view of a high concrete grey wall one meter behind my window. Oh well, at least they made a concrete ditch let some light in; I feared the worst when I was suddenly ushered to take my bags to the -1 basement floor. Although the futon I sleep on is hard and furniture is scarce, I think with some work I'll be able to make a home out of it for the coming 5 months.

I had my first day at Canon today, together with Sjors, a fellow JPP-student -and recently, neighbour- who will be doing an internship at Canon as well, but at a different division.
We started the day at the christian time of 8.15, which will be the normal time to start the day these coming 5 months. (In return, I will not be expected to work much later than 5 pm). So we were escorted upstairs to the HR division and before being able to take off our coats we were introduced to the division and to us were whispered the well-known 4 syllables that referred to an activity that we had to do sooner or later on the day: 'JI-KO-SHOO-KAI', an obligatory self-introduction speech of about 1 or 2 minutes in Japanese (hm so this time it turned out to be 'sooner' rather than later). Still shocked by this sudden event, Sjors and I were taken to a room where we but on the were educated on the history of Canon, the company's keywords (kiiwaado) for doing business, and also many educational and promotional movies. We were educated by the general manager, mr. Kasamatsu, who gave us two a special treatment by giving us private lessons talking in Japanese which he luckily tuned down a bit for foreigner ears (later on we attended the exact same story in a lecture hall where he lectured to the normal Japanese trainees who also had an introduction that day, and was suddenly unintelligable. The confidence in the level of my Japanese which I built up being able to understand everything Kasamatsu san said to us privately before, was broken into pieces.

Also, we were given a manual with useful hints such as:

'please don't be late',
'during working time, your time belongs to us',
'don't think about your private live after five during office hours',
'don't blow your nose with a loud trumpeting noise',
'take a bath every day'

After lunch we had to do yet another Jikoshookai in front of a bigger audience. I'm getting used to it, but it's not my favorite I must confess. Will probable have to do another one on thursday when I start with real work at my division: global accounts marketing department of business office imaging products (simply: want-to-sell-copymachines-to-foreigners-division).

Although Canon is a global company, in many divisions a european face still evokes (mostly positive, but cliché) reactions, such as:

- "Man, they are tall!"
- "Wow, the foreigner knows how to use chopsticks!"
- "Your Japanese is really good" (after us having said: 'konnichi wa' (hi))

The people at Canon seem friendly and what I can judge in one day, I'll think I'll have a good time here. It was a good day. I also broke my previous record of amount of received business cards during one day. Four.
For a culture that basically revolves around business cards this is a bit disappointing. I'll try harder tomorrow.

Lesser Known Tokyo

@Tokyo
6-13 feb

Now that I have been here for a while, the feeling of having to rush to be able see as much as possible in the shortest amount of time (a feeling that I often get when visiting a country as a tourist) is subceding. Also, Having seen many of the more obvious spots of Tokyo, lately I have spent some more time in more 'local' areas of the city. And still, in these local areas, there is so much to see! Tokyo seems to be getting bigger each day and more and more interesting neighbourhoods keep popping up.

Also, many of the neighbourhoods have some kind of theme, such as: Kanda, the 'book'-neighbourhoud, with the newest books on design, but also obscure anitique bookstores full of English literature of current topics such as the 12-band Great Sovjet Republic Encyclopaedia, collecting dust in a corner near old scrolls and maps of old Edo-Tokyo. Walking past literary cafe's and dusty books, the scenery suddenly changes sports: a whole neighbourhood solely filled with big stores selling snowboards, tennis rackets and sweaters.Then, turning the corner, I end up and Ochanomizu, a university area. Here the theme was: Rock. They dedicated the whole neighbourhood to the selling of used guitars and rare vinyl rock albums. Tokyo is big enough to dedicate a whole neighbourhood to a 'niche'.Feeling completely lost, I followed the river and after passing an Orthodox Russian Church (why shouldn't there be one?) I stood on the bridge and had no idea where I was. The streets were empty an as the sun set I took some pictures of the river. Then I a saw some lights around the corner. I suddenly realised it was the shop where I bought my mobile a few weeks ago. I turned the corner and was teleported to crazy, nerdy, crowded Akihabara 'electric city', full of streets where they sell anything that has a power plug.

Kagurazaka was also great. It's the old geisha quarter of tokyo and its tree-lined streets have a characteristic feel to it. Several minutes after arriving at Kagurazaka I discovered a small gallery, so I decided to go inside. I was welcomed by a lady in her sixties who was having tea with her friends in her own gallery. After having seen the paintings, she invited me to come sit down an have some tea, and of course, piles of questions came from the woman and her friends. She immeadeatly grabbed the chance to photograph this foreigner that had entered. After she discovered I was from Holland she showed me her Holland photo album and said she went there last year to paint. I asked her if she visits europe, on which she responded 'no, not very often. Just once a year or so.' Seemed like a good life she was leading, travelling around and painting.
A few days later she e-mailed me if I would like to join some of her friends for a home cooked meal. Unfortunately it was on wednesday during noon break, so I was at Ginza for my Japanese lessons. Nevertheless, until now, the Japanese people that I have talked to are very friendly and If we exchange mails, big chance that you are invited for some event or other.

In the same week we had an excursion to Taisei, where we were educated on what measures can be taken to prevent a building from being damaged during one of Japan's earthquakes. We were also given a virtual reality tour of several buildings with their new VR technology. Several days later we went underground, to visit an immense pipe where drainage water is collected during periods of high raiunfall to prevent Tokyo flooding. It was an amazing experience which the average person living in Tokyo would not have the chance to see.

Thus, again a week full of adventures. Now, the time of full studying at JNI is coming to an end and we're off to Kansai soon. But first, this week my friend from Holland is coming so it's gonna be even less sleep and more sightseeing this week. Looking forward to it.

On the Japanese version of 'Albert Cuyp'

Temple near Kagurazaka, Tokyo's old geisha quarters

Industrial urban hipness between Ochanomizu and Akihabara

Me and Uotani-san at her gallery

One of the many rock shops at Ochanomizu

Meanwhile, 60 meters below Tokyo...

Tuna Eyes

Saturday, Febrary 2nd, 2008

Although, the topic of this post might be interpreted as being poetic, in reality it is, well, not so much, as you will discover.

Had some coffee with Kaoru, who I randomly met in a Persian restaurant during lunch in a neighbourhood called yanaka (谷中）. She, her friend, three of my classmates and I met up at to have some coffee. We had a great time and moreover it was culturally and linguistically correct as we spoke (or attempted to speak) japanese constantly. It was a lot of fun and although our conversations were limited by the language, it was nice to meet up with some of Tokyo's locals. As it was saturday, all the coffee shops were extremely crowded, even in the low-key neighbourhood where Kaoru took us. We finally managed to get a table in the open-air, which in spring is nice but in winter maybe a bit too adventurous.

Around 5pm we said goodbye to Kaoru and her friend and went on to have a very interesting meal. You see, after our early morning adventure at tsukiji during this week, Suzuki-san invited the whole group to come to his sushi restaurant near Tameikesanoo station to have a good meal. He made a special deal with us that he would make some of his specialties for a fixed, student friendly price.
What unfolded upon the table was above anyone's expectations, in a (mostly) positive way (this addition of 'mostly' will become clear soon).
First, to ease us into the meal, Suzuki-san served French cheese, carpaccio to start out with. But then a genuine fash carnaval began, and it started with a bang: the first specialty that arrived was braised tuna head.
And thus; one whole tuna head lay on the table. Suzuki-san told us this was a very expensive special dish that was hard to come by. The flavour was very good but there was one catch: aside from some nice tender 'foreigner-friendly' tuna meat, we all got a large portion of braised tuna-eye. Yes, tuna eye stew. You can imagine that getting accostumed to the feeling and texture of eating a cornea or optic nerve is somewhat challenging. Oh well, another meal to put on the list of guess-what-I-ate. Finally, everyone stood tall and ate their portion, so our culture-barbarian-gauge has dropped somewhat and for that I am happy.
And from then onwards, it was sushi paradise once again, It's unbelievable how Suzuki-san went out of his way to make this amazing meal, and such an amazing amount that he must have spent the whole day for us.

Afterwards he let a few of us 'wield' the sword he uses to prepare his maguro (see photo). And then, after our last tea, we gave suzuki-san a self made present containing a photo of suzuki-san and us, and some stroop-waffles, and some drop (licorice). I guess drop to him might be close to what tuna eye is to us ^_^. Thank you Suzuki-san!

It's a bird, It's a plane, no....it's the head of a tuna

Samurai Sjors-san

Tsukiji! (築地）

Friday, February 1st, 2008

This first day of the month was started early today. I was woken by the nice automatic-voice lady wake up call at 4 o'clock in the morning. I wondered why on earth was this brute disturbance of my peaceful sleep necessary? Then I remebered. The answer was cold and fishy. Today was Tsukiji Fish Market day and all the action happens around 6 am and somehow the Japanese fisherman refuse to hold it a bit later so that I could sleep a bit later. But they are forgiven.

So me and 3 classmated waited for the first metro to come at 5:08 and as you can see in the photo below, they were pretty much in the same state as I was. But it was going to be a great morning, as we were going to be accompanied by one of Tokyo's fine sushi-chefs, for whom the market was basically his home away from home.

I have never seen so much fish and tuna in one place (which is not very shocking as it is the world biggest fish market and my fish experience is limited to the sort that has vegetables and potatoes next to it). Before the auction started, Suzuki-san, our suchi-chef explained what you should look at when buying a tuna, while pointing at tunas more international than the United Nations, one coming from Spain, New York, South-Africa and Australia.

As the auction started, the buyer started raising hands and we had to stay on the side for a while with several other tourists. As I tried to make an overview picture of the auction, I acidentally raised my hand holding my camera. That almost cost me a whole tuna (around 10.000 euro) but luckily the auctioneer wasn't paying attention to me.

Afterwards we had to run some errands in the fish market because Suzuki-san had to get some ingredients for his shop. He was a steady customer and we were treated to coffee, tea and fish by his suppliers to keep us warm. The atmosphere was not unlike the collegues on the markets where my mom sells her clothing. Just a bit more fish on this market, though.

Afterwards we naturally ate some sushi nearby whiich Suzuki-san helped us order. Vast amounts of raw fish were eaten by us at around for breakfast around 07.30. I wouldn't trade my cereals for it every day, but I think it was one of the best sushi meals I ever ate. I will never be able to eat sushi in Amsterdam again, I think.

Asahi Shimbun (朝日新聞）

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

An educative trip was planned for our group today. Asahi Shimbun, one of Japans largest Newspapers, opened up its doors. We were given badges and were escorted into a large office space where journalists were busy writing their new scoop of the day. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take foto's in the office; seen as a leftist paper, the office has been the target of several assassination attacks of right-wing groups and Asahi Shimbun therefore does not appreciate their staff being photographed. So I refrained from shooting them as well (with my Sony).
Next, two giant presses were shown in the basement, which can spit out an average of 60.000 editions per hour. There we were given a preview of this evening's edition which was not yet available on the street. The next room showed the packing and handling of the papers. We were allowed to shoot there, so at least we have evidence of having been there...

Old style Tokyo & Old Skool 8-bit clubbing

It's sunday today. Went to bed at 06.00 and woke up at 13.30 so am a bit jetlagged today. Hung out at Yoyogi park and did some homework in the cafe, takin it easy. An excellent evening to write some tokyo stories.

Saturday, 26 Jan

Started the day off in Yanaka (谷中）, an old Tokyo neighbourhoud far away from neon and crowds. The wooden houses and pop-mom shops reminded me of a mixture between the Beijing hutongs and a sleepy French town, and life's a lot slower around these parts of town. It's a breath of fresh air to know that these kinds of places still exist in Tokyo, to give some counterbalance to the Ginzas, Shinjukus and Shibuyas.

I walked around the neighbourhood and crossed the cemetary, which are much more open places than in Holland. Here people just walk their dogs here and supposedly also go Hanami (blossom) viewing in spring, as if it were a park. It's not a place which you'd rather avoid or really need a purpose for going as is the case in Holland. Still I decided not to stay here and get a suntan or something, so I went on with my expedition.
I stumbled upon the neighbourhoods shopping street, called Yanaka Ginza (which may have been a bit over the top to call it ginza (after the most expensive designer store street)). Everything looked so delicious and I was hungry. But I still don't really understand how things work here. Although there an amazing amount of food stalls and people take their food to go, nobody eats it on the street, it's just not done. So with bags of snacks I would have to travel hours to either find a place where nobody's paying attention or take a 60 minute subway ride home.

Desilusioned by this unpractical impairment, I had to walk past the whole street of goodies and find a restaurant. There would probably be some good authentic old-style cooking nearby. I mean, this is one of the most low-key part of tokyo how hard can it be?

And yes, five minutes later I was sitting in a Turkish chairless tableless restaurant with persian rugs on floor and from wall to wall, with pillows and people smoking water pipes. I must have walked too far heading west. And, I will never use the common term, 'he speaks dutch like a turk' again, as the waiter was turkish and rattled at me in fluent Japanese and was surprised I didn't really rattle back that much, because I still speak Japanese like a Turk... I mean, well, a Dutchman. Anyway the food was great, all kinds of turkish and persian 'tapas' were being handed out to everyone in the restaurant whenever they made something new. And I since was by myself that day, soon enough I made friends with the other Japanese guests, the first people I really had the chance to talk to here in tokyo for a longer amount of time in the 'wild', instead of either being introduced to or already knowing them from before. Bit scary, eh.

So after this authentically Japanese gastronomic experience I decided to head back to crowded Shinjuku, where a mcdonalds is a mcdonalds, a department store is a department store and a noodle house is a noodle house and where things are more normal.

There I went to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, a super-high governmental building in west-Shinjuku. As you can see in the pictures was much better than that clouded day in Yokohama. And, not unimportant, it was free. It was really amazing, as I was there during sunset and the view made me forget the 200 Korean tourists who enjoyed the view with me that day. For a moment.

As the day came to a close, 15 of my classmates and I prepared for an encounter with Japanese retro gaming culture. Yes, A party from 12 .00 to 05.00 in the theme of '80's 8-bit famicom (=Nintendo NES) music mixed with the wildest beats. There was also an contest of who could finish level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. the fastest. Having done this level over 1000 times as a kid, I knew I was going for gold. You could only try once and the only thing that mattered was time.
So me, being a pro in this game, started my turn at one of the consoles near the entrance of the club, while a Japanese staffmember of the party timed me. Two seconds. I let mario jump right in the arms of the first goomba and that was it. I guess the pressure was too much.
So a classmate tried next and ran into the same goomba. Bad day for the dutchies.
Luckily the party was great. All kinds of bands performed. And 350 Japanese +16 Dutchies went wild. 'Sexy Synthesizer' was my favorite. Didn't have my camera that day but will try to get some live footage from classmates.

Wow this has become a long story, hope you are still with me, reader, will keep it shorter next time. Will just stay at home the coming week so that the stories get shorter ^_^ (=the smiley used here in Japan) // Sayonara!

Kill Bill

Friday, 25 jan

Had dinner today in the restaurant that inspired Quentin Tarantino's restaurant in Kill Bill. It's name in Gonpachi, and is located in in a wooden house the middle of Roppongi, the expat area of Tokyo, between neon and high buildings. The restaurant looks great and you have to slide wooden screens to suddenly see a restaurant full of people devouring yakitori and ramen. Very authentic. Except for the part that is was full of foreigners, which is not supposed to be like that: I saw it in the movie :)



But where's Uma?


Having a great time....

Yokohama 横浜

Snow in Tokyo yesterday. Bad weather, windy, very cold and slippery. So why not go to Yokohama? It's more southern, about as south as the distance between Amsterdam and Utrecht, so tropical weather awaits us. Not so much.

So I went to Yoketown with two of my classmates. Yokohama has a lot to be proud of, for example it has the highest tower in japan named appropriately, the landmark tower. It was raining and the top of the tower was in the clouds: excellent circumstances to go up to the 68th floor observation deck, as you get a whopping 300 yen discount (2 euro's) when it's raining. Also we got a free drink, and being Dutch, that really convinced us to spend 700 yen on this adventure.

Spending a few seconds to get to the top (the building has the world's second fastest elevator, surpassed only by the recently built tower in Taiwan), the view was, well, interesting. It was a fun game to take a picture exactly in the seconds that a hole between the clouds would come up. Anyway we could still see part of the view and it was a cool experience, and supposedly the night-time view is great, so i'll definately come back.

After that we spent some time in a widely built mall and in a picturesque shopping street that reminded us of some french provence town. You can really feel you're outside of Tokyo, as it's less crowded and somehow built more spacious.

Of course, myself being 'chinese' according to practically everyone, I went to the largest chinatown in Japan which is based in this city. When at breakfast I told my classmates I was going to check out chinatown in Yokohama, someone said, 'ah, going back to your roots, eh'. And I must admit it was nice to be amongst the chinese again. The agressive hawking of 'hello, postcard, hello map' was something i missed in Japan :).
Also got my mobile engraved, which I bought a few days ago. We went to the stall and it cost 2000 yen to let him engrave a phoenix or dragon by hand. He spoke to us in english. After I asked him if he spoke chinese, my unpleasant chinese bargaining skills came bubbling up and I kept complaining and shouting in mandarin until the poor old man was left only 500 yen. But he liked us so I think my karma is still ok.


The 700-yen view.


no comment



One of yokohama's shopping streets. I have no idea why I'm pointing.


chinatown. complete with kitchy laterns, which I endorse.




name of art piece: boku to keitai (me and my mobile)

Karaoke! カラオケ！

Sunday was a slow day, as we drank a bit too much beer during a karaoke session saturday evening. We managed to get a room for 16 Dutchies, and after quite a few pitchers we were nearly breaking down the joint, dancing on the table singing golden oldies such as: macarena. Hm, I guess you had to be there :)
Although it was a hell of an evening, there was no Japanese in sight so since I decided I should make a bit more effort integrating, so I got in touch with a few Japanese classmates from my time in Beijing to avoid becoming a sleasy dutch expat.

Embassy Paati (大使館のパーティー）

It's been a while since the last post. We have been sweating for our self introduction speeches and the new classes that have started at Japan Netherlands Institute. Last thursday we finally gave our speeches in Japanese in front of all contact persons of the companies we are placed at (which is Canon in my case). After this nerve-wrecking event we were treated to a dinner party at the house of the Dutch ambassador, a colonial mansion where we were served french delicacies and chatted in japanese and exchanges name cards with our business contacts. Life was tough that evening. But we survived. The Dutch bitterballs and cheese were kept in the freezer for now. Perhaps on Queens day?

Friday we were dead tired and after class just bummed around in Tokyo.

Saturday I decided I needed a break from tall buildings and the crowds so did a solo trip to a beach park as the weather was sunny and not to cold. There I sat alone on a pier, reading my travel guide and pondering about life's difficult questions, such as where to go for lunch. Returning back to town, I was ready again to face the urban, kanji-filled jungle.

SUMO!

Nothing like a good sumo fight to get your mind off things, such as the introductory speech we need to give on thursday in front of our host companies in Japanese.
Being totally ignorant in the field of sumo, I was surprised that the average sumo fight lasts about ten minutes, of which ten seconds actually involve wrestling and the remaining 9.50 minutes is spent with scaring and staring, throwing salt on the floor and trying to get the opponent out of its concentration. But it's a great thing to see and when the fight really starts, the crowd goes wild and a few seconds later someone hits the floor and a new match begins between two other sumo wrestlers. Myself being a total sumo culture barbarian, I had no idea who the sumo wrestlers were, exept for when it was the yokozuna's turn (grand champion of last year). Not so hard though, since the whole audience started cheering at that time and the announcer said 'yokozuna', so I got the hint. Anyway it was great!

Oishii Sushi!

We were treated to professional Sushi today by the Japan Netherlands Institute today! They invited one of the most famous Sushi chefs in Tokyo and Sushi was made in front of our eyes from scratch in the classroom. The maguro (tuna) was excellent as we got the most tender (and expensive) part of the tuna called otoro. Ate raw sea urchin for the first time. Last time too probably. Think I'll stick to refined otoro, ebi and salmon. Oishii!
We were invited by the Sushi Chef to come with him to the inner circle of Tsukiji fish market somewhere in the future, which is the largest fishmarket (and even largest food market) in the world. The most interesting are the auctions, which are held in the inner circle, held at 5 a.m. This was a very special offer of the sushi chef because the inner circle is strictly off limits to the public, only for real wholesale buyers. And since none of us intends to buy a 10.000 EURO tuna...we could use the sushi chef's connections...

It also was 'Seijin no Hi' today, the coming of age day which is held once a year. Women who become 20 dress up in kimono style and become an adult. We stumbled out of the instute after our fourth serving of sushi and went to the temple to look for them, but the seijin no hi party was all over. Luckily we met some of them in the picturesque Tokyo Chikatetsu (subway).

Looking forward to tomorrow: sumo season's on, and will probably watch one of the sumo fights with some classmates. Will refrain from entering the competition this year, hope to get a chance next year.