Tokyo Blog

6955 // Blip Festival 2007: The Videos from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

This musical interlude is from an old 6955 (Jason DeGroot of Polytron) performance. It’s a remixed version of the title theme for the long-awaited indy game title Fez. Jason used to be based in Tokyo and here he’s wearing a King of Games hoodie he must have picked up here - featuring Zelda.

A long time ago toilets in Japan were very different to how they are today. I went into Lawsons convenience store in Yokohama once, and used one of the traditional style toilets, now something of a rarity. It was as if someone had embedded a urinal in the floor instead of mounting it on the wall. This is probably not as bad as it sounds if you’re wearing a yukata, but if you’re wearing trousers, it’s just not a good system. Before you know it your keys and mobile phone are out of your pocket and on the floor (if you’re lucky). I struggled through OK by hanging onto the pipe in front of me. Things have since improved though. Driven by the Japanese love for labour-saving devices and technological mod-cons, and possibly an obsession with hygiene, toilets made a quantum leap to what they commonly are today. Now, urinals know when they’re in use, and flush themselves after you’ve finished. Toilet seats are heated, and there are lots of additional features. Sometimes, the toilet will have a small extractor fan somewhere under the seat, and you can make use of a wash feature followed by a dry feature, with a second wash option especially designed for women called bidet. All that remains to do now is to pluck up the courage to actually use these additional features.

The Japanese beer series continues with a new Sapporo breweries offering that I picked up from the local 7/11. It had been a busy day working on a hot, humid day, so I wanted something refreshing and beer-based to take the edge off the wired feeling that comes from excessive hours in front of a computer display. Once the raster burn had faded from my retinas I checked the catch copy on the front of the can, and what a beauty!

“The superb aroma of Sapporo Baisen is created by a unique malt roasting process. This roasted malt is blended with pale malt for a flavor experience so thrilling it even smells delicious.”

Genius strap-lines aside, the flavour is pretty much what you’d expect from any Japanese beer. It’s strong, at 5%, and crisp, much like usual lager beer. I couldn’t taste any distinctive differences to usual Sapporo beer, except it was possibly more bitter than usual, and lacked the usual sweetness I’m accustomed to when drinking lager. I couldn’t decide the whole time whether this was a good thing or not.

Threadless have been making amazing T-Shirts for ages now. I even had a go at designing one myself, but it didn’t get printed! Now they’ve teamed up with Twitter to create a new line, in which people’s tweets get printed onto T-Shirts based on the number of votes they get from users. This news coincides with my own decision to finally join Twitter. I was totally against it for the longest time but pressure from peers has made me buckle. You can follow me: Tokyo Blog on Twitter. This blog is where the real meat will be found, but if you care about what I’m having for lunch or what trainers I’m wearing on that particular day…

Witness the pure genius which is the Japanese Smoking Manners sign campaign. Littering with cigarette butts is a real no-no here, and so it should be. Smoking whilst walking down the street is prohibited in Japan, as you will see from the gallery, courtesy of combinibento. What a find. Thanks to Mike. The picture above is a super rare one, taken at Marines Stadium, home of Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team.

Gashapon are small toys or novelties dispensed from vending machines here in Japan. They usually pop out in plastic ‘eggs’ and it’s completely random as to which one you’ll end up getting. Me and Mike piled numerous yen into a Gasha in Akihabara in order to get our hands on these mario trinkets. We got blocks, ghosts and shells in abundance, but didn’t get any power-up mushrooms or drain pipes. There’s no Mario in the collection by the way, which I thought was weird, but I’m happy just to get these to use as ornaments. They also double up as mini money boxes - useful for all the un-spendable ¥5’s and ¥1’s cluttering up my jeans.

When in Shinjuku the other day, I spotted this turtle climbing the wall of a building. I thought it was so well painted that I should get a picture of it. The kanji character on the turtle’s back says 勝 (katsu) which means win. If you look closely, there are other, smaller turtles scaling the building, as if climbing a hill. So I think the meaning of the character relates to some determination to achieve - possibly that of the company housed in the building.

I picked up these two beauties the other day. The orange one is the Sobu Line watch and the other is for the Yamanote Line. They only cost ¥500 each, and show a list of the station names along the length of the strap. They’re pretty bad quality as they’re so cheap, but I’ve been looking for a brightly coloured plastic watch for ages and being able to check the stations on the JR lines and see the time simultaneously can’t be bad.

I’ve seen these all over Tokyo. Shibuya, Akihabara, Harajuku, Naka-Meguro and now this one, in a grungy underpass in the heart of Shinjuku. I’d heard about the mystery of BNE, but had never bothered to look into it properly, so I did a little research. It seems that the phenomenon is indeed worldwide, and the artist, whoever he/she maybe has great taste in cities. So far these stickers, and other BNE works, have been spotted in Hong Kong, San Fransisco, New York, Kuala-Lumpur and of course Tokyo and more besides (including London, no doubt - in fact I think I saw some on my last visit home on New Year’s). Authorities are furious, but mostly everyone else is plain curious: who is the mystery bomber? A news article from ABC investigates.

A printing company somewhere on the planet, responsible for running these off, must know the answer? Leave your own insights in the thread.

If you don’t want to die from ramen abuse, I suggest switching to soba. This place in Ginza is one of my regular haunts. It’s cheap, fast and actually tastes pretty good. The buckwheat noodles are served in a soy-based soup with spring onions and Japanese pickles. In winter the soup is hot, and I add lots tougarashi shichimi (7 flavour chilli seasoning), eat the noodles then drink the soup. Now that the weather has become hot and humid, I usually get them cold, with less soup, and add lots of wasabi. It’s a healthy lunch, and you can get a dinner set for around ¥500.

The Blue Hearts bursting out of the Shinjuku live houses and onto prime time TV in the 1980’s. I especially like the VHS tape glitches before they play.

These monks walk very slowly, exercising, or showcasing, their mastery of the zen principle of self control. Every next step is preceded by a quiet sounding of the small bell they carry in their right hand, the bowl in which they collect contributions gripped in their left. I’ve never seen anyone actually give a contribution to these buddhist monks. When I saw this one, I wanted to give him some money, but as so often in Tokyo, I found myself worrying about misunderstanding something and causing offense (how much do you give a takahatsu begging monk anyway?).

Intelligence: 8
Stamina: 7
Speed: 1
Resistance to Alcohol: 1
Sleeping Ability: 6
Combat Skill: 1
Voice Volume: 1
Magic Points: 9
Gold: 2

Looking from the window of the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line subway train on my daily commute to work I noticed this gloriously dated mural in Suehirochou station (which will spit you out in Akihabara, electric town should you take the main exit onto the street). I had to step off the train and get a picture of this retro masterpiece (above).

Train Through Tokyo II from Stephen Smith on Vimeo.

This is a video I shot during a train ride from the center of Tokyo to the airport (1hr 20mins or so away). It gives a good impression of the Tokyo cityscape, the buildings, logos and colours of the city rushing by. There’s also a few more videos from this series on my Vimeo.

This is a Japanese kid, featured also on Japanese TV, who wants to challenge the wildcard spot in the YouTube beatbox champs - and he think he just might do it. He’s even better than the godfather of noise: Rahzel!