Tokyo Blog

I saw an advertisement on the train for a new iPhone app developed by Tokyo Metro, so I decided to download it. You won’t be able to ditch your Jorudan (Norikae Annai) app just yet, but it’s a worthy addition to your tool set for navigating around Tokyo. You can search for your nearest station (Metro only), explore the map of the Tokyo Metro network, find information about in-station facilities and exits, see a map of the inside of each station, and of course plan your journey from one place to another by Metro.

When you fire up the app, you are presented with a screen showing the symbol for each metro line. From here, clicking on the appropriate icon will give you information on service disruptions. This page is therefore totally useless unless in the event of some huge natural disaster as I’ve never experienced any service disruptions during my journey in the 3+ years I’ve been here. Another word of warning is that you will probably need to read some Japanese to use this app properly. Most of the functions are pretty self-explanatory, but the route planner is somewhat hard to find, but if you tap around you should work it all out.

As I said, this won’t replace your main Tokyo train app, because you can’t get the time of the next train and you can’t get the time of the all-important last train. Also, it doesn’t cover any other lines apart from the Tokyo Metro. It’s still worth downloading though I think, and the design is not too bad (better than Jorudan for sure).

When I was at the cinema this week, I saw the trailer for the new Studio Ghibli movie Kokuriko-Zaka Kara (From Kokuriko Hill), due out in Japan this summer (2011). Unfortunately UK, US and the rest of the world probably won’t get to see it until much later – as much as a year judging by what’s gone on with The Borrower Arrietty, which has now finally got a cinema release date for 29th July 2011 in the UK.

It would seem that this new movie is about the life of a girl living in Yokohama, the large port city conjoined with Tokyo. In the story, based in the 60′s, her father had gone missing at sea and her mother often worked abroad as a photographer so she spends her time hanging out with friends in the many school clubs and after school activities common for students in Japan. When the time comes for the school clubhouse to be demolished to make way for preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the friends unite to defend it from the wrecking ball.

There’s absolutely no way of passing judgement on this until it comes out this summer, but I’m disappointed by the lack of supernatural themes, wizards, giant beasts, airships, robots, ghosts and so on, and there’s more than an outside chance that this could be a schmaltzy and overly sentimental offering from the once great studio.

EDIT: I’m just messing around because actually, I was a big fan of Mimi wo Sumaseba and Omohide Poro-Poro.

JAL often collaborates with famous brands on its in-flight meal offerings. It was only this April just gone that I was treated to a tub of Häagen-Dazs as a part of my in-flight meal. JAL’s newest collaboration sees it teaming up with Japanese fast food outlet MOS Burger. It will be served in Economy and Premium Economy classes and will be called Air MOS Burger. This is only available on flights departing from Japan to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Frankfurt and London. So if you’re on one of these routes, do your bit to continue JAL’s extraordinary bounce-back from bankruptcy and fly with them. You can try this novel in flight meal and check out the fleet’s new livery having by now gone retro and reverted to their old logo.

Like any traveler, I love stumbling across relics from a bygone age, so I couldn’t help but take a picture of this Sony battery vending machine when I came across it on the street in Tokyo. It’s the only one I’ve seen of these, but there are lots of other examples of slightly antiquated technology dotted around the city and lots of bizarre vending machines besides. From looking at it, I would say it rarely gets used, if ever, but only stands now as a monument to a time when people’s need for batteries was at its highest in the 80′s or 90′s. I really like the multicoloured stripes on it.

For the first time in the 3 years I’ve been living in Tokyo I finally attended a Sumo tournament at Kokugikan, the official venue of the sport in Ryogoku, east Tokyo. I have a basic grasp of the rules but don’t know much about the ceremonial nature of this ancient traditional sport or its relationship to Japan’s national religion, Shintoism. All the same, I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle and soaked up the atmosphere. The building is worth visiting in itself, being a huge octagonal arena; modern, but in the Japanese architectural style. It embodies much of an Edo period Tokyo and is popular with elderly men turning out in their droves wearing sports jackets and trilbies, gold-rimmed glasses and smoking cigarettes, perusing the seemingly undecipherable match programmes. The area around the Sumo arena and the train station bears all the hallmarks of ‘shitamachi’ Tokyo – the old part of the city, with seedy hotels and shabby drinking establishments with their tumble-down facades and dated signage.

Now is the time to go to the Sumo tournaments as the official governing body was recently indicted with widespread match fixing. As a result, and bizarrely, the sport has been required to offer tickets at massive discount as punishment. Fans willing to get themselves to Kokugikan around 8.00 AM will even be able to get free tickets, albeit for the worst seats. My ticket was ¥1500 (about $18 / £11) which may sound expensive, but is usually sold for about three times that price. The most expensive seats (sunakamuri-seki / masu-seki) can cost as much as ¥45,000 (about $550 / £350). An exhibition of status for the ranks of Tokyo’s heads-of-industry and underworld. On the one hand they do get a free Bento, Sumo merchandise and complimentary green tea, but on the other, they have to assume the Seiza position for the whole time (cross-legged on a large square cushion known as a Zabuton). Incidentally, these cushions have a secondary use as a projectile, thrown in the direction of the Dohyou (ring) when things get exciting – usually when an underdog beats the Yokozuna (current Grand Champion).

Things I enjoyed most: The extravagant signature Yukata and Kimono of the match officials and the Rikishi (wrestlers). The Yokozuna’s exhibition (a choreographed set of moves which included a lot of stomping of the feet). The thing which struck me most was the fact that you could virtually mingle with the stars outside the entrance as they came in – they all have a particular odour, possibly of wax used to set their Chonmage (topknot hairstyle). I mean, you can tell when a Sumo wrestler is around even before you see them.

“Dosukoi!”, as E.Honda would say when he wins a round in Street Fighter II.

Whilst out in Yurakucho I spotted this MUJI Book on sale in their Tokyo flagship store. The book has been released to commemorate MUJI’s 30th anniversary and offers an insight into the history of this unique ‘brand’, covering the products and the philosophy behind them. It also includes input from designers including Naoto Fukasawa, Kenya Hara and Takashi Sugimoto. Lots of great photography and whitespace throughout!

Despite having gone spectacularly bankrupt last year I can say that Japan Airlines’ standards haven’t slipped. The price however, has. Which is why I flew with them when I traveled from Tokyo to London this past Monday. I’m not leaving Tokyo permanently as many chose to do after the recent quake and in light of the continuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, but only returning for 2 weeks to see family and friends. I’ll be back in Tokyo from 26th April.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to recommend JAL to anyone thinking of flying to, from or within Japan. Before I traveled with them I had heard good things about the service, interiors and the food and can now confirm that this is deserved.

I was only in economy this time, but the seats were roomy enough even for me and one of the first things that struck me was the exterior camera during taxi and takeoff. That was pretty interesting to watch and helped to kill the time between leaving the terminal and reaching cruising altitude. Once we were above the clouds and the camera was switched off I checked the movie selection, which was great. Norwegian Wood, Space Battleship Yamato and samurai movies from the Japanese cinema selection; and Black Swan, The King’s Speech, Tron: Legacy and The Tourist from western cinema which I thought was pretty decent.

After one hour came the first of a number of oshibori – Japanese warm scented towels. These should be provided by law on all flights I’ve since decided. The service was actually the best thing about the flight and typically Japanese. All smiles and politeness with even the bags of rice cracker snacks delivered with orchestrated elegance.

The meal choice was Hayashi rice or seafood (sorry, I can’t remember exactly what as I chose the hayashi rice). There were lots of small dishes to accompany the main Hayashi rice dish consisting of inari, pickles, dumplings, vegetables, even sashimi. They also gave us Haagen Dazs ice cream for desert, and I was really suprised to get miso soup too.

To complete a very Japanese flying experience I also recommend Asahi beer (because they always seem to have the cans with the special livery) and the electronic versions of Mahjong, Go and Shogi. Or Pacman for that matter.

People gather in Shinjuku’s central park in the aftermath of Friday’s earthquake

Well it’s the end of Sunday now following the huge earthquake that rocked Tokyo and the horrific events that then unfolded north, closer to the epicenter on Friday. Throughout the weekend I’ve been watching the news reports constantly monitoring the situation in coastal areas of the country and at Japan’s stricken nuclear facilities.

Before I write on I want to offer my condolences to the families of people who lost their lives in the disaster, the number of which are forcasted to be in the 10′s of 1000′s. Friday was a dark day in Japan.

A diagram showing where the earthquake happened, it’s relationship to Tokyo

I was literally just stepping out of Tokyo train station when it started. I was just arriving at the pedestrian crossing that faces the tall buildings of the Marunouchi area. Because of the renovation work taking place at Tokyo station there are temporary floors and scaffolding everywhere – I was standing on one such piece of temporary floor that felt hollow underneath so when the ‘quake began I wasn’t sure what was going on. I thought maybe it was vibration from a passing truck but the rocking quickly became more intense and people started to scream and run into the street. All the traffic had stopped so I quickly did the same, partially because I was worried about falling debris from the station building but mainly because I wanted to be on firm ground.

I ended up in the central reservation of the wide street that passes in front of Tokyo station. Those around me were mostly office workers. It was Friday afternoon at 2:46pm so very busy in that area. As we all looked up the buildings were swaying violently and I, like everybody else, thought this was the big one – the giant earthquake that has been overdue in Tokyo for the best part of 30 years. I’m from the UK so I’ve never experienced anything like it before and didn’t know what was best to do – this was the first 30 seconds of the earthquake. After that, what seemed to be an already huge earthquake got stronger and there were gasps and shouts from the crowd as the buildings made long deep groaning noises, the traffic light post at the crossing jerked back and forth violently and on one building a hanging servicing platform slammed into the wall repeatedly. I think the event lasted about three minutes but I couldn’t have estimated the length of time because I was kind of in shock.

After that, all the transportation was down so people were just milling about trying to contact friends and relatives but with little success as the communication networks were also badly effected. I was unable to email, SMS or call at that time, so I used the Facebook app on my iPhone to contact people. Guys with hardhats came spilling out of the buildings with sophisticated-looking equipment to assess the damage. I was freezing after 2 hours of standing around in the street so I walked following the train line until I reached Yurakucho where I had some Thai food in a small restaurant beneath the train tracks. Strong aftershocks continued throughout my meal although the staff in the restaurant seemed indifferent. From there I wandered over to Ginza and then as night fell I went to a pub that I knew had a TV and that’s when I realized just how bad it was in the north of Japan. I was unable to get home that night and so I spent it on the floor of a friend’s house.

As I write this from my apartment in Tokyo, I’m still kind of on-edge as my building continues to wobble almost constantly due to aftershocks. There is a 70% chance of further huge aftershocks possibly reaching up to magnitude 7. If this does happen in the Kanto region where Tokyo is located I have no idea what will happen but I at least have some idea after what happened on Friday, so I hope to God it doesn’t.

I recently put up a new series of photographs of Nakagin Capsule Tower here in Tokyo as a follow-up to my original Nakagin Capsule Tower post from way back. The original series was shot on my old compact which I’ve since upgraded to a DSLR. The difference is huge with this new camera. The camera was in fact first bought because I was invited to display the pictures in a gallery in Berlin but I needed to re-shoot them in order to get the quality and size of print necessary for the space. That later fell through anyway, so here is the series originally intended for the gallery on my Flickr.

This is the movie I made to celebrate the millions of neon lights in Tokyo. In Tokyo you can’t see the stars at night due to light pollution, but that’s OK, the Japanese made their own constellations. Next time you’re in Tokyo at night, remember to look up!

This great music video for the song Nothing to Worry About by Peter, Bjorn & John features the Tokyo Rockabilly Club. People will probably know them as the guys who rock out in Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. Check it out – the guy’s got a motorcycle in his apartment!

Currently showing in cinemas throughout Japan is the movie adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s literary masterpiece, Norwegian Wood. The story is set in 1960′s Tokyo where the main character, Toru Watanabe, is a university student. In the book he develops relationships with two very different women – Naoko, who suffers from depression and Midori who is lively and outgoing. I read the book shortly after I came to Japan and I remember one of the cover notes read something like:

“Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami’s writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility.”

The book was brilliant, but I haven’t seen the movie yet. What reviews I have heard seem to rave about it, so those in Japan should make every effort to catch it before it closes. Those outside Japan, watch out for it when it comes to DVD this year.

In a similar move to the stricken Swiss national carrier back in 2001/2002, when they appointed media maverick Tyler Brûlé and his company Winkreative to reposition the brand, the similarly stricken JAL has also sought to bring back the glory days by reintroducing their original logo; the red crane on white. The crane is a symbol of Japan, and in the logo is found melded into the red-circle-rising-sun of the national flag. As well as inspiring national pride it also has the retro appeal that worked for Swiss. I’m all for it personally and can’t wait to see the first repainted 767′s on the tarmac in Narita airport appearing through April. I’m on my way back to the UK around that time with any luck so I’ll be passing through the airport then and will try to get some pictures.

I don’t usually put techie stuff on here, but I wanted to talk about what, in my view, is the best web development environment you can have for a freelancer or a small team, especially if you’re pushed for space and have a restrictive budget. Now I don’t care what other people think but I believe that if you’re involved in designing interfaces and user experiences, and especially if you’re in any way involved in typography, you should be on a Mac. I live in Tokyo, so space is at a premium, therefore I use a MacBook Pro to save space and also to give myself the option of working in a cafe or while traveling. After all, with the right amount of RAM the MBP is as powerful as a desktop, give or take. Having said that, for design work the screen on the laptop is probably not sufficient, so I also have an Apple Widescreen Cinema Display. I usually run the MacBook Pro in clamshell mode when it’s connected to the Cinema Display, although it is of course possible to use the laptop screen as a second monitor. I have a wired network at home because speeds are reliable that way, and I don’t want to be bathed in constant radiation living in such a small apartment. At the center of this is the network hub which is in turn connected to the broadband router. The network hub allows me to easily add other machines to the network should I be working with someone else on a project and also connects to the server which is a Mac Mini. The Mac Mini is perfect as a server as it is small, silent and energy efficient. The great thing about Mac OS X is that I can schedule it to shutdown and startup at any given time. Right now it automatically shuts down at midnight (I seldom work past that time nowadays) and then restarts at 8.00am. This saves power and is therefore better for the environment. When the server starts up, Apache and MySQL start up automatically too and I don’t have to do anything. The server sits on a bookshelf and has no keyboard or mouse connected to it. If I need to administer the server, I just open up Mac OS X’s screen sharing feature and do everything through there. Backups are made through Mac OS X’s Time Machine to an external HD, so client’s work and all other data on both the workstation and the server is safe should anything happen. Couple this with SVN version control for scripts and it’s all I will ever need for my home development environment. It’s not even that expensive!

If you hurry to the cinema in Tokyo now, you can still catch the live action version of the original animation series Space Battleship Yamato. It was released in cinemas around December 1st but will continue throughout January. I’d actually meant to post something about it before Christmas, but forgot, what with the mayhem of celebrations. Not that it’s a big deal though, as I’ve heard negative reviews and, looking at the trailer, it seems like it’s going to be one hell of a cheesy movie! On the other hand though, the design of the Yamato stays roughly the same, adhering the uniquely Japanese tendency in sci-fi to give existing or traditional technology futuristic capabilities. On the bridge of the Yamato is the captain compete with naval uniform and hat, after all, the Yamato was based on the real World War II battleship of the same name. And if you take a look at Galaxy Express 999, you can see an intergalactic steam train. You can also see blimps and propeller planes from a parallel universe in some of the works of Studio Ghibli. This is something I really like about Japanese anime and sci-fi, although I probably won’t be going to see this live action version of Space Battleship Yamato. Steven Tyler has done the soundtrack and it’s full of cheesy rock ballads, which is an immediate fail. Here’s the trailer: