Sunday, January 20, 2008

Wrap Up

Tokyo skyline

Somehow after what feels like an eternity on various airplanes and dirigibles I've made it safely home to Massachusetts. All in all, while I had a fantastic time in Tokyo, I'm happy to be home with punky monkey who seems happy to see me (won't stop licking my hand! but, too skinny!!). I'm happy the Patriots didn't up and lose while I was somewhere between Minneapolis and Boston. I guess I'm even glad I didn't mouth off to the border security guard who was castigating and mocking the non-English speaking Japanese waiting in the customs line. Good job with your career choice there, jackass.

Cultural highlights of the week were Kabuki and sumo. More enterntainment-wise, the last night's pre-flight box karaoke extravaganza and the Tokyo Pinsalocks at the Basement Bar were both great. I had some really fantastic food (all of it ordered by people more fluent in Japanese than myself) and got what I hope will be some interesting source video for a few projects I've got in mind. My overall media plan worked well enough though it looks like one of the Pinsalocks files did come up corrupted. I think next time I'll bring my own laptop to minimize chances of language OS confusion.

Thanks again to KPH for putting up with me. Thanks for the people who read here (and commented). We may post a few retrospective links here to other stuff but by and large, this is the retirement of q813 and resumption of more typical things. Thanks again for reading!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Correction


Deconstructing
Originally uploaded by -nanio-
I've been told it's not okonomiyaki, but monjyayaki. Suffice to say it's going to be the best deconstructing ever.

Off to the airport in seven hours. It's been brilliant.


UPDATE: It's here! Deconstructing Dinner: Monjyayaki.

Sweet sweet sweet strawberries


Strawberry buffet in Akasaka
Originally uploaded by -nanio-
There was an all you can eat strawberry desserts buffet in our hotel today. Ninety minutes of this means I cannot currently move and blood sugar is now peaking before the crash. This is really unusual here given the typical tiny tapas-style portions we've seen everywhere else. Came back up to the room and am watching Asashoryu make some bigger dude look bad over at day seven of sumo, debating how many more strawberry tarts it would take to qualify for the next tournament.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Last full day in Tokyo

flea market
Saturday morning and it's a gorgeous day here. Off to a flea market to do some last minute crap acquisition and then to the Imperial Palace for site seeing. There's some kind of all you can eat strawberry pastry thing after that at our hotel (don't know if that's a particularly good idea but hey). And tonight, finally, we shoot Deconstructing Dinner: Okonomiyaki. Totally psyched.


UPDATE: here!

Rock Club Dokken


Rock Club Dokken
Originally uploaded by -nanio-
The best we could do at our new home was a ultramini bar (exactly 10 seats) in Akasaka called Rock Club Dokken who's thing was blasting 80's death metal. The people there were way more into this than really could have been expected. A partial list of the bands we remember: Helloween, RATT, WASP, Dio, Armored Saint, Accept, Whitesnake, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest. There were many many more I had never heard of - D knew every last one (except the ones with girls in them).

After that we took an series of cabs in search of this elusive place in Shibuya we found in 2005. It's still an open question whether it was located or not because once we finally got there they wanted us to order three servings of food to stay. At 2am, and following several dinners and second dinners, this seemed too much to ask.

Basecamp Akasaka


From Akasaka Grand Prince
Originally uploaded by -nanio-
I've left Hitotsubashi-gakuen behind and have relocated operations HQ to the more metropolitan Akasaka at the Grand Prince. This hotel has upteen bars, cafes, massage places and supposedly an oxygen bar that will have to be sought out for breathing purposes. But instead of staying here I think we're going to roll out to either Roppongi and Ebisu, should be a fun night.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Sumo at Ryogoku



Originally uploaded by -nanio-
Today was pretty friggin awesome. I spent most of the day watching sumo at Kokugikan Stadium. I bought a fairly cheap ($35) ticket so got stuck in the 2nd highest nosebleed seat in the house but security wasn't particularly tight so I spent a lot of time moving around lower. The lowest level isn't actual seats, but rather a series of tatami mats. Sitting on one of those for six hours would have been a nightmare, and much more expensive.

Sumo is a really odd sport. The matches themselves are extremely, short, usually 10 to 30 seconds long. Before they get rolling though, the wrestlers go through the same set of rituals over and over in a way that would put Nomar Garciaparra to shame. Here one of them is throwing salt, something the advanced sumos do maybe 4 or 15 times repeatedly before each match for purification purposes. They also do some stomping motions and scrub their faces with a towel and act exasperated. The funny thing is these consistently repeated behaviors actually build anticipation much more than constant action would.

Media-wise, in all I shot an inordinate amount of sumo video, far more than anyone could healthily use in any sort of sumo retrospective. We'll see I guess.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Snow in Tokyo

When we left Domo-domo last night, it was snowing in Tokorozawa. We're talking minor, minor flakes, most melting before they hit the ground. Not much by some standards, but Keiko said it was the first time she had seen snow in Tokyo.

2008/01/23 update: Hara-san says it is snowing for real in Tokyo now.

Umibudo


Umibudo
Originally uploaded by -nanio-
Odd day today. Tried to find the punks of Yoyogi but failed for the most part. Apparently 4pm on a Wednesday is not the optimal punking hour, so I wandered around a massive temple (Meiji Jingu) in Yoyogi Koen instead. I finally found my punks down in Harajuku (on the endlessly amusingly named Takeshita-dori).

Afterwards went to meet KPH et al for dinner in Torkowozawa for the umibudo (sea grapes) pictured, in addition to some sweet potato sake and cheesy potatoe leeks pancakes. I got thoroughly bested in the drum game but vow vengence in the (near) future.

Tomorrow, sumo!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Ueno Koen


acrobats
Originally uploaded by -nanio-
All the museums in Japan are typically closed on Mondays. What I learned today is they are also closed on Tuesdays following a holiday Monday. So I watched acrobats in the park instead of going to the giant robot exhibit at the National Science Museum.