Tokyo Blog

Karaoke is better than I expected having done it twice now. Both times were after a night out and lasted until daybreak. You drink beer and sing a few songs with your friends. I did ‘I Want to be Adored’ by the Stone Roses, ‘The Way You Make me Feel’ by Michael Jackson (very difficult and a bad idea), ‘It’s so Easy’ by Guns n’ Roses, ‘Burning Down the House’ by Talking Heads, and ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ by the Clash amongst others. So you take one hangover and add stressed vocal cords into the mix for good measure.

Recently, a few tracks have been perfect to listen to walking around Tokyo, or for riding around the underground train network. The tracks that best fit Tokyo life for me, now, are Spying Glass by Massive Attack, Parks by Four Tet, She Moves She also by Four Tet, Journey by Gentle People remixed by Aphex Twin, My Angel Rocks back and Forth again by Four Tet, Untangle by Lusine and a few tracks by Boards of Canada also. I’m pretty sure Four Tet is a bit of a Japanophile judging by the influence present in his tracks. All of these are getting a lot of listens on my MP3 player right now.

Izakaya are a highlight of living in Japan. We went to one the other day and the food was nice, and not really that expensive. We had a boat-load of Sashimi to start with and beers, followed by Tempura. Then a woman came into the private room you get for your group, and showed us the freshest fish they had in stock. They were laid out on a tray made from woven straw and each fish had a small wooden sign with the name written on it. We couldn’t read the names so we just chose a good looking one and asked to have it poached in some sort of soup. You can ask to have it prepared in a few ways, like stir-fry or grilled. When it came it was the nicest fish I’d ever had but wasn’t big enough for everyone to share really. In Japan it’s customary to eat the soft part of the fish’s eye (avoiding eating the eyeball), so I did and it was horrible, but it’s supposed to be good for the brain so I washed it down with beer. We chased this with posh Sake which you drink from a glass placed in a small open top box (like a square cup), and the Sake is made to overflow the glass and run into the cup around it. This means that when you start to drink you have to leave the glass on the table and drink the first bit out from there. Then, after, you use the contents of the square box to top the glass up.

We also ordered Udon and squid ink risotto and maybe something else, I can’t remember. Came to about £70 for three people.

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.

AQ Interactive (no relation of AQ design works it would seem), have developed an emulation of a KORG MS-10 for the Nintendo DS! You interact with a ‘replica’ of the original real-world interface of the KORG MS-10 via the touchscreen. You can also hook up several DS’s via Wi-Fi. As if the original noise from this machine wasn’t lo-fi enough, now you can appreciate a new level of alarm-clock radio tweet through the insufficient built-in speakers of the Nintendo’s super popular handheld device!

When I arrived in Tokyo, not so long ago, one of the things I noticed were whole shops dedicated to the sale of small bottles, the contents of which I wasn’t sure about. Whilst watching TV, I noticed the ads that were showing this stuff, and realised that they’re somewhere between a herbal remedy and an energy drink. The bottles they come in are often made of brown glass, which gives them the appearance of a bottle of medicine (which I’m sure is intentional). They are targeted mainly at the salaryman, banking on the fact that these guys will be burned out, stressed out and in need of something to give them a ‘boost’, or just keep them alive for one more working day. They normally contain a mix of vitamins and traditional chinese herbal supplements, but also sometimes contain such things as viper tincture or other exotic extracts believed to increase virility. You can get one variety that’s a massive hit of garlic, and another which is supposed to enable you to consume more alcohol. I can’t read everything written on the bottles, but I fully intend to buy some for experimentation. I’ve never tried having 4000 times the RDA of a vitamin before, and really want to see what happens.

This is possibly akin to the local police department’s tendency to have cute manga-styled creatures as their mascots, but I absolutely love any country where this is possible. In a nutshell, a cat named Tama that hung around the station a lot was appointed stationmaster of Kishi Station in Wakayama Prefecture. After a period of loyal service the railway rewarded the cat with a new office, complete with a ventilation fan and a toilet, and promoted the cat to division chief-level. In a statement, the railway said it recognised the efforts (their words) of the 8-year-old feline and promptly moved the cat up the ranks.

I’m starting to believe that I too can get a job over here now. After all, mine and Tama’s Japanese comprehension are probably on a similar level.

Via Metropolis Mag

Before I came to Tokyo in mid January this year, I just happened to be in London for the grand opening of the new UK flagship Uniqlo on Oxford Street. Uniqlo had already branched out into the UK a few years before, but despite flash interiors, was met with mixed feelings from British shoppers, due to the fact that they insisted only on selling fleeces and simple trousers of various colours. A specific line of products had not been created to target the British market. That was the case, until they re-launched in London.

When I went in there, on the second day of the launch, the stuff on the racks was a mix of graphic design T-shirts (the famous UT range), brightly coloured ultra modern stuff, and classic fashion (suit jackets, scarves and neckties). I personally loved it. The shop was huge, and the upper floor had a winter range in consisting mainly of the Japan-imported fashion for shiny puffy coats (the ones containing down). I could have bought a lot of stuff and was happy because I presumed this was the ‘genuine article’ lifted straight from the Tokyo stores. Knowing that I would be living in Tokyo shortly, I was pretty happy that I was going to have somewhere to shop for clothes that I knew I liked, plus I always liked the brand ever since Kashiwa Sato took control of it during Uniqlo’s resurgence.

I was also an avid shopper at Muji. I was always in the store in Birmingham when I visited the city, normally buying clothes (until last years summer and autumn seasons came along, which were a little bit weird). You could get good stuff from there which wasn’t expensive, and although it was fairly simple, it was good for work.

How shocked I was then, when I visited both the flagship Yurakucho Muji Store and the (presumably) flagship Uniqlo store on Ginza’s main strip. Uniqlo was the most disappointing. Probably because it had the most to measure up to. The equivalent UT project T-shirts I saw there weren’t great, and there was a section which was unfamiliar to me, that sold American College apparel and slacks (most of which was very kitch) a la mid-90’s Gap! Gone was the quality outerwear I had set my heart on upon seeing it in the UK, and this had been replaced by a much smaller, and much less appealing range of coats and jackets.

Muji wasn’t so bad. The stationery was still there and, in addition, you can get Muji food, Muji kitchen appliances, and loads of other Japan exclusives, not to mention the Muji bike. However, I’m talking about the fashion, and that wasn’t as good I didn’t think. There were suit jackets and long sleeved tops, but they looked cheaply manufactured in comparison to the UK range, and they have to lose the French folk music (it sounds more like fairground music). Most notably absent were my two favourite products of theirs: The two tone watches (the white one rules; it has a perforated strap. I have one, but it’s on it’s way out), and the Muji flip-flops. They have flip-flops at the Muji in Japan, but they are no way near as cool. The one’s in the UK have a transparent ‘thong’ and come in more colours and prints. The ones I just bought in Japan ready for summer, I don’t like so much.

Does this mean that Muji and Uniqlo are actually better in the UK? Maybe it’s just because my tastes are different. I tried to be subjective and judge it properly, but that’s definitely what I think. If I come back to the UK at christmas, I’ll go shopping there before I come back to Japan, get one of those sweet coats.

Gake no Ue no Ponyo will be the eighth film by anime virtuoso Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli. Apparently, this time (and it’s obvious from the posters you see in Lawson’s combini), the animation style will be based on watercolours, a bit like the previous Ghibli offering ‘My Neighbours, the Yamadas’. It’s in production now, in fact, looking at the date, it should be in post-production at least - the film comes out in Cinemas across Japan on July 19th this year (2008).

It sounds pretty trite when I write it like this, but the film is about a Goldfish Princess called Ponyo who really wants to become a human, in chasing her goal she meets and befriends a young boy called Sousuke (who’s character is based on Hayao Miyazaki’s son Gorou when he was 5 years old - Gorou has since directed feature-length anime ‘Gedo Senki’ for Ghibli). I’m sure it will be a great film. Hayao Miyazaki doesn’t seem to be able to put a foot wrong, especially in the latter part of his career. So it looks like this year, I’ll get to experience a very important Japanese cultural event: A nationwide opening of a Miyazaki film at a cinema in Tokyo, with all the queues and crowds that normally come with it. Tanoshimini.

When it comes to Japanese fast food, there are so many restaurants you could mention, but the two that stand out as the most ubiquitous and the most iconic, are Matsuya and Yoshinoya. I go to both often, Matsuya more than Yoshi’s I would say, but only because Matsuya is closer to where I live. Both restaurants mainly serve Donburi (a bowl of rice with food on top), which often include thinly sliced pork or beef, wakame (seaweed), kim chee (korean spiced cabbage), and sometimes a (very) soft poached egg.

Personally, I love this kind of Donburi, and you can get one for between £2 - £3. Not only does this make it cheaper than a UK fast food restaurant (like McDonalds or Burger King), but also a million times healthier. You could probably eat this stuff for every meal, Supersize Me-style, and not suffer too badly from it, and have a good time doing it!

Writing this has got me in the mood for Donburi, so I’m going to finish up here and then go to the Naka-Okachimachi branch tout de suite!

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!

Last Sunday, and the Sunday before that, I went to Yoyogi Park with a couple of friends. We were going to come from Harajuku and check out the Harajuku girls, the Gothic Lolitas, the Punks, the Rockabillys, and other sights at the entrance to the park. After that we skirted the park in the direction of Shibuya, staying on the pavement that circumnavigates the boundry. Along the way we were checking out J-Pop bands, solo singers and street sellers who gather there every week.

It wasn’t until further on that we started to hear loud bass lines from up ahead. We carried on a bit further, rounded a corner, and then came to a wide area on the pavement where there was an entrance leading into the park. In the entrance there was literally, a wall of sound. Cabinet speakers piled up into a stack. The turntables were facing this about 10 metres away. This, apparently, was the free outdoor party at Yoyogi put on by the DJ’s from Champion Bass.

They were playing all English music, from London and Bristol’s dub and reggae influenced Jungle music scene of the mid 90’s. On rotation was Congo Natty recordings from the Rebel MC, and many classic older pieces featuring vocals and samples from Jamaican music, with stuff from Top Cat, Tenor Fly, Barrington Levy and Supercat (all London based with Jamaican heritage).

There were people there who, you could tell, this kind of music wasn’t usually their thing, but the atmosphere was so good, the weather was so nice, and the music was so infectious that everone got into it. We quickly shot over to Shibuya to the Family Mart, picked up some Yebisu and some Asahi and went back to join in, and danced until they turned off the PA.

I don’t usually link to sites I find which I think are worth looking at, but I might start putting up a few links from now on. The site in question is a found photographs site called dog’S faint. Weird name? Wait until you see the snaps.

It’s 1.59am over here by my computer’s clock in Tokyo and we just had a pretty big earthquake. Well, it was big by my standards. I’ve felt one at least once a week, but only very slight tremors. Before I noticed the earth moving you could hear rattling coming from the overhead electric cables that festoon the streets. Soon after that you could feel the slow back-and-forth movement. Pretty scary considering the big one may be on it’s way. I waited a bit to see if it was followed by another (a sign of a larger earthquake on it’s way), but it never came, so I’m going to bed.

UPDATE: Here’s the official line on the quake from CNN. Incredible, because it was 6.8 on the scale! I guess I shouldn’t have been so blazé about it after all.

I thought I’d post some info on this place, as a recommendation to those in Tokyo, and as a point of interest to others. It’s in my neighbourhood of Okachimachi, but it’s more towards the Ueno end, but still an easy walk, and an even easier bike ride. Problem is, once you’ve spent the night at The Warrior Celt your ride home is always one filled with risk taking and overconfidence. They serve English beer, as well as Japanese and some European beers. The people that work there are really nice and so are the regulars. It’s way too convenient for me actually, and I probably go there in the evenings more than I should. After all, the beer in Tokyo is expensive: ¥1000 a beer, which is around £5! Having said that, it’s nice to have a local to drink at. I feel more welcome at this pub than I ever have been made to feel at any English pub I can think of, so now I’m like my Grandad always was, work through the day then up the pub for a few pints of a nighttime, and in Tokyo no less.