Tokyo Blog

This is what it looks like as you exit Inaricho Sta. at around 5.30am after staying up all night in Shibuya. I’d forgotten I’d taken this picture. I just found it in my camera. The wind is pretty strong in Tokyo at the moment, and it blows into the entrances and exits of the metro stations. As your walking out feeling delicate after not sleeping, or having just woken up after half-an-hour’s sleep on the train, it chills you to the bone. I’ve done a lot of not-sleeping recently, and I’ve also got into the habit of sleeping on trains in the early hours of the morning and riding past my station, out into the suburbs and beyond.

Did you know there was such thing as a U.F.O Catcher expert? Well, apparently there is, and in these videos via Japan Probe, they show some special techniques in acquiring prizes from these usually frustrating video arcade attractions! I thought it would be relevant as I mentioned the U.F.O. catchers in my recent post about my hunt for Street Fighter IV in the game centres of Akihabara.

Before I returned home to the UK for christmas, I went shopping in my neighbourhood of Kotobuki for Christmas presents. My neighbourhood is famous for, amongst other things, toy companies and toyshops. You can see the famous Bandai HQ from my balcony. As it was, most of the presents I bought turned out to be Japanese toys. The best thing I bought turned out to be a Kendama, which is a traditional Japanese ball and string game with a body of wood shaped like a hammer on which you can balance the ball on 3 points, as well as a spike on top, which you can also get the ball onto (if you’re extremely good). You start with the ball hanging on the length of string and then you jerk it up and catch it on one of the cups on the hammer. You can then flick it up again and rotate the hammer to switch to a different cup, then the spike and so on. You can make up your own combinations, and even balance the ball on other parts of the hammer, like the angle of the cross formed by the intersecting pieces of wood. Modern kendama experts have gone even further than this, and switch between holding the ball and catching the hammer to visa versa and so on - even doing tricks where you swing the ball and hammer simultaneously like nunchaku, then catch the ball or hammer in differnet ways. So now I’m in training to become a more competent Kendama slinger. Check out the pros on YouTube.

As promised, I hit the streets of Tokyo to find a video arcade that had the new Street Fighter 4. The obvious choice of starting place was Akihabara, or Electric Town as it is also known, a mecca of otaku culture bristling with pachinko parlours (パチンコ店 / パチンコ屋) and video arcades (ゲームセンター) as well as, of course, the myriad consumer electronics stores.

I first arrived at Taito Station, the most likely place to find the newly released machines.

This place has 6 floors of gaming with a different type of machine on each. On the ground floor (known as the 1st floor in Japan) they had the UFO catchers, and on the floor above they had the photo sticker machines (プリクラ / プリント倶楽部), and above that the dance and music games, and so on.

On the ground floor though, they also had a floor guide at the foot of the escalator.

So it wasn’t difficult to find (thankfully I knew the location of this flagship game centre because I had been here before). I made my way through the building via two escalators and an elevator from the 3rd floor to reach the 5th, which is easily my favourite floor because it has all the beat-em-ups.

So here they were. A bank of 8 newly released SFIV cabinets.

It wasn’t busy because it was in business hours, but there were a few guys in suits on the far side and a couple of guys on my side. The Japanese cabinets only accommodate 1 player per machine, but if a player starts a game on the machine opposite yours, you have to fight against each other in 2 player versus mode! This is a great idea as you can have way more 2 player battles, and against complete strangers. I gave someone the Ken treatment and I could see him out of the corner of my eye afterwards, peering around the machines to get a look at who beat him. This adds a new kind of dynamic to the whole idea of arcade games, and I like it! 2 player bouts are always more enjoyable than fighting the CPU.

The characters were cleared easily, but the end of game boss, Seth, ate a couple of credits. I gave up after that and went home. I wasn’t about to waste any more money, so I made my way back downstairs to the front of the arcade.

Outside, I found this interesting machine facing out onto the street.

This is Taito’s Space Invaders 30th anniversary novelty called ‘The Happy Button’. The idea comes from the playing style adopted by most players of space invaders, one of the few games to feature backing music consisting of only 3 notes, which is to pound the fire button constantly in the hope of hitting an invader. All you have to do is press start and you get the countdown 3,2,1 before you have 10 seconds to hit the button as often as possible. I gave it my best Track n’ Field vibro-arm and got a pretty poor 81 presses. Such a simple idea, but it’s hearing the legendary missile sound FX again that makes it all worth while. After two worse attempts, I cycled home.

When I was in England over Christmas, I saw some old photographs that reminded me of a computer my parents bought me when I was younger. It was the mid to late 80’s and I was probably around 9 or 10 years old when I got my first computer, this Oric 1 you can see above the text. Compared to all the breeze-block fashioned personal computers of the time, I think this was a design icon. Smaller and thinner than its counterparts and packing the same sound card as the one found in the Atari ST.

The computer used to be kept on a drawer that slid out from the video cabinet beneath the TV. In order to use it you had to squat or kneel in front of it. I used to play Hunchback or Zorgon’s Revenge when no-one was using the TV, or try to program it by guessing at the syntax. Zorgon’s Revenge used to give me the creeps in much the same way as Quo Vadis and Jet Set Willy. The games themselves were very surreal, and when you mixed this with the garish graphics and garbled, contorted sound there was something disturbing about it. A bit like the old Vectrex at my nan’s house.

I experimented with many of the early personal computers during the 80’s. My friends all had a different one: an Acorn Electron, a VIC 20, an Acorn BBC, a Dragon 64, an Amstrad, Commodore 64. They all sucked, but without them I probably wouldn’t be where I am now, so I have a right to be sentimental.

I’ve been using this retro flip style clock for my Mac recently. You can get yourself one over at 9031.com. I’m liking their retro site with the floppies etc. To install (if you use Mac), drag the .saver file out of the disk image and directly into the screen saver pref pane.

It’s certainly very useful to be shown what time it is full-screen whenever you’re not using your computer, but I’m still looking for a screensaver that just says the words “GO TO BED”.

Maybe not soon, but Tokyo story has to change. I really love how it looks now, but there’s little scope for it to grow. For example, I want to add more categories but at the moment this will destroy the arrangement at the bottom of the page. Also, as permanent new items need to be added towards the top of the page, I will need more pixelspace in which to plant them. Right now there’s nowhere for them to go, so I need to address that also. I would like to maybe monetise the site to pay for the increasing hosting costs too, which would require some space at the top.

You’ll notice I’ve already updated the site for 2009, but expect bigger changes to follow as the Tokyo Story Blog expands to include new features. I want to do some ‘programmes’, a series of posts relating to a certain subject. I also want to put together a radio podcast or mixtape. There’s some ventures of my own and those of friends starting up soon for which I’ll want to reserve some space too, so stay tuned.

I’m now the very proud owner of a work visa for Japan. When I originally came here on January 15th 2008, I entered Japan on a working holiday visa for 1 year. The term of this visa, therefore, was due to expire in January 2009 (about now), so I was sailing pretty close to the wind getting it switched. The rules state, that a British national with a working holiday visa cannot change their visa status. So, when I first entered the immigration office in Shinagawa hoping to do just that, I was massively deflated. Then, after me utilising my best Japanese, and saying ‘Sorry’ and ‘I am being rude’ and ‘If you would be so kind’ many times throughout our exchange, the lady at the counter gave me the forms to apply for a certificate of eligibility. A certificate of eligibility is usually the first step in acquiring a visa to stay and work in Japan. I filled in the forms using the info my boss had given me, and took them to a different counter on another floor. To my dismay, I was greeted with another “You’re a British working holiday visa holder, so you can’t change your status”, but after checking my application she said that my application will be filed for approval, but I may not have enough time left for the process to complete. I had to await the certificate of eligibility in the mail, and hope that it comes in time. I also had to return the following day with my degree certificates which I hadn’t bought with me that day.

When I came back to Tokyo after my Christmas break I had an undeliverable item notification waiting for me from the Japanese postal service. The notification told me that the letter had been sent from the immigration office! So I piled down to the local post office with the slip of paper and collected my letter. That was the day I got my certificate of eligibility. Then, the next hurdle presented itself to me: it said I had to use the certificate to get a visa in a Japanese embassy in a country other than Japan. I had to leave again. I also spoke to a friend who confirmed that this was true, and advised me not to waste my time taking the certificate to immigration, as it I would not be able to get a visa from there. I wanted to try anyway, so I did return to the immigration office in Shinagawa, and I took my certificate of eligibility with me. It was the first day of business of the new year, 5th January, so the place was total pandemonium. Never the less, after a three hour wait and 4 counter visits, I proved my friend wrong. I got a visa to live and work in Japan. Then I had a load of Japanese food and got drunk with my friends.

What a crazy last few days that was. I’m struggling to stay awake as I write this post as it’s now after 6pm Tokyo time on Friday 2nd January 2009, and I haven’t slept properly since New Year’s Eve. In fact, I’ve been traveling for most of the last 24 hours with a nasty hangover and an even nastier cold. I was completely blocked up when I got on the plane which resulted in massive pressure building up in the tubes of my head and now my ears are blocked too. Just to top it off, I got my UK mobile phone nicked during the festivities of New Year’s Eve which I spent on the streets of London, something I won’t be doing again.

Anyway, it’s nice to get back to Tokyo and get set up ready to attack the coming year. I’ve got loads of exciting work coming up in the first quarter of this year, and I’ll be launching a major new flash site over the next week or so, so look out for that. Once I get some sleep and a bowl of rice I’ll be OK.

So here I am on a flight out of Tokyo, heading back to the UK for Christmas and New Year’s. I’ll be catching up with old colleagues and old friends, and seeing my family of course. It’s been an amazing year in Tokyo and I’ll be back January 2nd to tie up a few loose ends and meet some prospective clients before heading to Kores. Until then, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and thanks for reading Tokyo Story!

UPDATE: I just watched The Mongol starring Tadanobu Asano on the plane. It’s a really good movie.

Here’s how it looks when I stand on my balcony (at night), in my new neighbourhood of Kotobuki. I’ve only had chance to have a short look around, but already I can tell this area is going to be so much better than Shinagawa (which I can’t recommend at all; too boring and no atmosphere). Already I’ve found an old paper merchant, a german beer bar, a small shrine nestled between old buildings, and a retro camera shop, and that’s just on my street! A little farther afield, and you’ve got a traditional Japanese toy shop, an incredibly old-looking bookstore, and lots of shops specialising in the model robot kits you can get over here. There are several toy companies on my street, and you can see the Bandai headquarters from my balcony, so it would seem, unbeknown to me, that I’ve moved into the area of Tokyo specialising in toys. Christmas shopping is going to be much easier, but I’ll have to take less clothes with me when I return to the UK for the holidays. I fly back to Japan on New Year’s Day. I thought it would be a nice idea to be sipping champagne at 30,000ft on a Virgin Atlantic flight to Tokyo on the first day of 2009. Time will tell if I’m right or not, got to watch I don’t get into too much of a mess welcoming in the new year.

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.