Tokyo Blog

I’d like to put up this link to Justin Hall’s site about his time in Japan. The site might look a bit dated now, but his style is interesting. The site is a sprawling mass of interlinked pages, which means you have to explore the site in a very non-linear way. Some content you might never get to see unless you take a certain ‘route’ through the hypertext. This guy was documenting his life online before blogs even existed, and his writings about Tokyo and Japan were one of the things that inspired me to go to Tokyo in the first place. The other major influence of course being Jean Snow.

I finally managed to get inside the new H&M store in Tokyo’s famous, upmarket shopping district of Ginza. It was a weekday evening, so I was confident I would be able to get in. However, come on a Saturday and you will still queue 150 metres down the street. No exaggeration.

Despite the fact that there was no queue, the shop was packed. The first thing to strike me was the floor plan near the elevator. Three floors of women’s clothes, with only the basement dedicated to men. I was on the ground floor (which is known as the 1st floor in Japan), and had already seen the women’s clothes on display when I came in, and I was already thinking that it was, as I feared, going to be very different from H&M in the UK. I already expected this to be the case based on my shopping experiences in H&M stores in Barcelona and Lille, both of which were quite different from each other. I went down to the basement level and looked through the racks for a bit, but nothing really jumped out at me. H&M in the UK is definitely more adventurous than it’s Japanese counterpart. In Japan, H&M is more like Gap. No bright colours, no design prints, and a muted palette. Most of the stuff is either black or grey, and verges on smart-casual. Last time I was in the UK H&M stores, it was more like a cyberpunk 80’s revival. The two couldn’t have been more different. Zannen.

I did an interview for the web designer review site Spicy Web Designers. I haven’t got much else to say, I just wanted to share the link. Thanks for reading!

When I left the UK economy looked like it might be on the verge of recession. In fact, there was talk of a global recession in the not too distant future. I didn’t realise how much this was going to affect me though. The pound against the yen is my biggest woe. When I arrived in Tokyo, it was up at 215 yen to the pound. Now it’s plummeted to 174 yen to the pound! This is crazy! It’s bad for me, because I sometimes get paid in pounds and then move it all to my Japanese bank accounts. Looks like I might need to put my prices up. Down with Labour.

UPDATE: I know it’s not necessarily the fault of the Labour government and that there is a bigger picture, but I just like to dig them at any opportunity because I don’t like them.

I know H&M have been in Tokyo for over a week now, but I didn’t bother to post about it before, because I hadn’t been there to get any pics at that time. However, I was in Ginza on Saturday, and got a shot of the frontage. The crazy thing is, they’re still queuing up the street to get in. Police and security are controlling the crowds. Maybe the Rei Kawakubo gear dropped already?

They’re not particularly exciting, but I took some pictures the other day when I was out and about in Shinagawa. I took a trip to the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, that just so happens to be in Shinagawa, inquiring about how to start a company in Tokyo. It turns out that people with working holiday visas have a hard time changing their visa status at all, but some Japanese companies hold enough sway over the authorities to make it happen for you. The other interesting point, is that you can’t join a company like this, or even change your visa status at all, after you have less than 4 months left on your working holiday. It just so happens I have 5 months and 5 days left on mine as of writing this post, and I sign a contract of employment on Friday! Phew. Extended play.

I’ve moved again, this time to Shinagawa. What you see above is the view from my balcony. Could you believe I’m on the ground floor? The reason it feels elevated from this persective, is because my apartment block is situated on top of a hill, and the ground drops way steeply at the back of the apartment, where the balcony is. The neighbourhood always seemed like a business district to me, but with expensive restaurants and shops to cater for those clocking out. It wasn’t a place I ever came to often. I only came here once before to see Kage Hinata ni Saku at the Prince Cinema. I’ve had a good look around now, but have found only skyscrapers and hotels, the odd expensive restaurant, and high class shopping arcades. Where’s the sushi? Where are the izakayas? It’s a fashionable district for sure, and I’m glad to be exploring a different are of Tokyo, but there will always be a place in my heart for Taito-ku, and the areas of Ueno, Okachimachi, Asakusa, Minowa, Iriya, Yanaka and Nezu. By far the most atmospheric towns in Tokyo.

It’s not a big deal though. Meguro, Gotanda and Ebisu are still only a stone’s throw away.

Every now and again, I do something ‘touristy’ in Tokyo. I certainly didn’t get round to see everything when I was here in 2003, and I’ve still got loads of stuff to see. So, on a steaming hot Saturday afternoon armed with a bento and my camera, I went to somewhere I’ve been wanting to go for ages: Korakuen.

My apartment is getting turned into office space, so I’m getting turfed out. I didn’t mention my expired contract before, because I thought it would give me the freedom to move out whenever I wanted, but it seems to work both ways. I need to be out of the flat by the end of July. The question now is: where to go? Shinjuku, Meguro, Nakano and Kichijoji are all likely candidates, but I quite like living in Taito, so maybe I will find another place around here.

Now the new site has been indexed, I checked how it was doing on Google. Suprisingly, the search term ‘freelance web designer tokyo’ landed me on the first page! I’m worried that things are going to get busy in the foreseeable future, so I’d better get my projects finished.

It’s nothing much, but I decided I had to put something up ‘in front’ of my blog. My blog doesn’t really mention my freelance web design work, so I had to rectify that by creating this site. The work on there is somewhat lacking due to the fact that I have only just started freelancing in earnest. Expect at least one new project a month in the portfolio from now on (give or take). There’s lots of freelance web design work lined up, but I’m still accepting new projects, so please get in touch via the new site at Stephen David Smith (dot) NET.

I just checked stephendavidsmith.com, and although it was owned by someone else at the time of me buying this domain, there was no hosting associated with it. Now, however, there is a fledgling protfolio site on the other side of that .com URL. I just wanted to point out that it has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I thought it was worth mentioning as the discipline of this other S.D.Smith is similar to that of mine, but I just wanted to ensure there was no confusion, capiche? Actually, I’m a bit upset about it.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, a new site destined to reside in the root of stephendavidsmith.net (that’s here), is due to be launched by me, advertising my freelance web and multimedia production services. Give me one more week, and I’ll have it up. In future you will be able to find your way here from the new site, or come directly to this blog at stephendavidsmith.net/tokyostory.

A new piece of work I did for one of my freelance clients is now up! Sure Languages is a language services company (i.e. translation and interpreting) based in the beautiful city of Bath, UK. They’re superb at what they do, offer great service, and are a nice bunch of people to boot. Which means, if you require language services, no matter where you are in the world right now, talk to these people. They’re extremely professional, and very efficient, and their new website isn’t bad either!

Still so busy, so very few posts have gone up recently, I know. I did manage to upload some more pictures or Kusatsu though. We all took cameras, so there are various images on flickr right now, taken from everybody’s pooled snaps.

After a period of intense hard work, the light at the end of the tunnel came in the form of a trip to a famous Onsen resort town called Kusatsu in Gunma prefecture, to relax and unwind. It was my friend Sam’s birthday, so a bunch of Japanese guys he knows organised a birthday outing. An Onsen is a bathing pool filled with naturally heated mineral water, which is made hot by the volcanic activity below the surface. The water bubbles up naturally in ponds and springs all over the area, and even flows in rivers in places, emitting a strong sulphuric odour. We got a coach from Ikebukuro in Tokyo, 4 hours’ drive up Japan’s so-called ‘Romantic Road’. We stopped off first after about 2 hours for a break at a service station and me and Trent bought some salted barbecued pork for breakfast, then we carried on until we left the highway and began to drive through small towns and villages. After about 3 hours we stopped off at a Manju factory. Manju is a small dark brown cake filled with sweet bean paste. These were free to try so we wrangled two each. Each time we stopped the Japanese guys bought loads of supplies; the first time we stopped they bought Chuppa-Chups (enough for the whole group), rice crackers, sweet tofu jellies, crisps, and literally bags of other snacks and confectionery. Second time, at the Manju factory, they crossed the car park to a grocery stall and bought two packs of oranges and a bag of tomatoes that we ate whole, like apples, rapidly as the coach was about to leave.

When we arrived at the hotel in Kusatsu, our hangovers had been removed by force feeding ourselves the fruits of the Japanese guys’ shopaholicism (this was Saturday morning, and we had to be up early - 7.00am). We checked in and then donned the traditional Japanese gear you get given at Ryokans and Ryokan Hotels. Ours was the latter, but the outfits were good. We all put on a Yukata (cotton robe), tied it with a belt off to the left side (where you wear you sword), then covered over with an overgarment for the Yukata. I forgot the name, but it is short on the body, ties in the middle of your chest and has enormously wide sleeves, with a concealed pocket in the sleeve of each side where you can store other weapons. So I put my Nike baseball boots on, Trent put on his white leather loafers, and we hit the town straight away. We stopped off at every shop on the way to try out the Japanese pickles, which were amazing, and then headed up to the main Onsen of Kusatsu where we hung out for a couple of hours. You have to take off everything, and go in stark naked, of course. The water is only just tolerable at the near end of the spring, but as you head down towards the far end, it gets even hotter and massive clouds of steam come at you over the water, carried by the wind. Actually, it felt like I was cooking alive, but afterwards I felt extremely invigorated, and the healthiest I’d felt in ages. We went to an old woman’s shop on the way back for green tea and some Konyaku, which is a vegetable or bean-based jelly covered in Miso. More health was imparted. Then it all began to unravel as we kicked off the Nomikai; Sat around a table in the hotel, we threw down lots of beer and sake and then had a second Onsen at the hotel. This was also amazing: a small but equally scalding pool in a rock garden at the top of a wooded hill, patches of snow here and there on the way down.

After that more drinking, a Japanese evening meal, more drinking, a bowl of instant Ramen from the supermarket plus dried fish and squid, more rice crackers, more crisps, miso mackerel, tinned horse (yes, tinned horse), 3 litres of red wine and more manju. The next day we had Onsen again at the hotel spa, a huge Japanese breakfast incorporating the dreaded natto, and then rehydrated from the vending machines in the hotel lobby. Kimochikatta da yo! View the meagre flickr offerings here.