tokyo: day 6

today:

- brunch at CoCo curry. (boasting the hottest stuff around)
- a walk to yodobashi to buy earphones
- some shinjuku department store named pepe looking for yukata
- akihabara to look at used macs and to purchase a psp
- drinks and beer food with yu ki and friends at ebisu
- fighting the crowd on the yamanote line back to shinjuku at midnight
- coffee at jonathan's family restaurant
- home





running back from lunch


some of the hottest curries in tokyo...


... and here's the proof


even the traffic police don't know what the hell a tuk tuk is doing on the streets of shinjuku


don't let your kids run off with alien men


what a feeling!


they have all kinds of jobs here


only in japan, caucasian man bonding with japanese boy while watching a movie on a crowded train on a psp


akihabara (aka electric town)


with limited shelf space, one needs to get creative with displaying goods


for seng: gps units for motorbikes


gotta love the metal fro on the pachinko brother


and then it starts raining again


dinner with japanese photog yu ki and friends at an awesome little jump called enjoy!house off ebisu


the funky bartender/owner right out of a 70s movie


randy's crush of the night sitting behind him with her male friend


the homeless go to bed


it's hard to imagine a city like tokyo saddled with homeless people down on their luck, but beneath the glitz, charm and wealth of the city, shinjuku station is one of the many places to house the destitute when night falls.

not everything that glitters is gold.

tokyo: day 5

i am happy:
- i haven't succumbed to greed and buying more camera equipment that i don't need.
- that i've walked all over the city these past few days without too much grumbling.
- that i've actually kept on top of updating this blog during my time here.
- that i am here with good friends, all of whom are having a blast
- that there are vending machines on almost every street corner that dispense refreshing beverages
- that i am keeping within the budget set aside for this trip (for now)
- that i am shooting for fun again

and now, back to the regularly scheduled photo display



yodobashi camera store, a photographer's mecca


nice to see someplace that stocks lots of film


people watching


a throne that washes you after your business... AWESOME


mac store


kids really DO exist in tokyo


believe it or not, an (almost) empty train


new shoes for the two of us


randy's opinion of nyc after this visit


unbelievably fresh seafood


broadway in nakano


tokyo tower


the ride up


the view from the tower


enjoying the view


smsing everywhere


looking down


offices (ugh)


sushi.... unfortunately, not ours


normal stuff for dinner, shishamo, grilled squid. then it gets adventurous with fried chicken cartiladge...


... and raw horse meat...


... and barbequed fish fins...


... and raw squid ...


... washed down with sake ...


... which caused everyone to get a little loopy...


... some more than others...


... in craziness that continued in a 24 hour office supplies store


... topped off with the surreal sight of a mechanical manniquin diverting traffic away from a construction area.


only in japan.

tokyo: day 4

exhausted and a little sloshed.

the fact that i managed to edit, resize, put borders, upload and html code each picture manually is amazing.

words to follow.



on the way to shinjuku train station






sake barrels on the way to the meiji jingu mai shrine at harajuku


a cleansing ritual






cosplay fanatics at harajuku






the entrance to harajuku dori




























dinner and drinks ala "lost in translation"


corrine helping out with the song choosing at post dinner karaoke


martin and that sweet child o' his


corrine, the guy whose name i forgot and kenji

tokyo: day 3 (fireworks)

abi suggested a separate entry for the fireworks, so here goes nothing.


fireworks. on a scale unlike any i have ever seen at higamatsuyama hanabi.






getting a little creative


deciding to hell with it, and going completely experimental/artsy


and running with it


full-on experimental...


and on...


and on...


last one... i promise

day three is almost over with the exception of the winning eleven league going on in the living room.

haranjuku, shrines and flea markets to follow tomorrow.

tokyo: day 3

we finally got to sleep in... well almost. randy, erny and beng started pottering around at 9:30, and i assumed it was time to get up. except that the two of them sans randy went right back to bed. spent a great morning slacking off, chilling in the apartment and gaming a little with randy. then martin came over at about noon, and the slackers didn't get off the infernal gaming machine till almost 2:30.

conveyor belt sushi followed (the cheap stuff here is better than anything you'll get back home) and after stuffing ourselves, it was off to ikebukuro to look around. ok i am going to confess that one part of tokyo is beginning to look like every other part. shops, neon signs, many many people. you get the picture. headed off to tasaka for a fireworks display that martin promised would put anything we'd ever seen to shame and worth the long trek out to the suburbs. he wasn't joking. so we enjoyed almost 2 hours of continous fireworks and didn't end up getting back to tokyo till midnight.

getting out the wrong exit at shinjuku station is a big no no. nothing is really connected and you have to go around the whole building unless you want to pay to reenter the platforms.

good dinner, shopped for breakfast (a cherry turnover that came highly recommended) and now we're back in the room... at 1am.

here are the pictures.



finally.... our first sushi lunch


my share of the bounty


4000 yen (S$60) for durian?!?!?!?


randy happy with his new shop


the streets of ikebukuro


hardcore hat shop


good idea #1: suckable ice cream in a packet


descending into sunshine city (yeah it's underground)


t-shirt shopping (that ended up making us late and having to rush out to tasaka for our date with fireworks)


going batty after getting lost in shinjuku station


one shouldn't drink too much without a ride home


the long walk home

tokyo: day 2

playstationed till 3am, shot the breeze till 4, and didn't crash out till 4:30am or so expecting to sleep in after our exhausting day. no such luck. martin seemed to have forgotten that we were running on fumes and dragged us out of bed at 8am to hit the streets.

first stop, big camera (what an original name for a camera store!) in shinjuku where randy, wanted so much to be one of the guys, bought his very own ixus 50 (or ixy 55 as it's known here in japan) and the day quickly went back to hardcore street pounding. after a subway and monorail ride, we finally hit odaiba (tokyo bay area) for the good design presentation 2005 exhibition which turned out to be pretty cool, after we got over getting lost that is. spent the rest of the day wandering around the area before heading back at 11pm.

bloody tired... and it's only been 2 days.



disposable cameras at big camera


suaned


window display


tokyo big sight (don't ask me how they came out with that name)


lunch


gdp 2005


bags with built in tvs. what will they think of next?


grass in a frame. exciting stuff


colorful stuff


looking up at big sight


passed out in a tent... at a department store


gambling for a psp


racing sia!


gambling japanese style


toyota mega web


dai-kan-ransha (stream of starlight ferris) wheel, the tallest in the world


the long ride home

at long last... BED!

tokyo: day 1

so after the typhoon scare, and the 7 hour flight that felt much longer than it really was thanks to yabbering northwest airlines flight attendants, we finally made it to tokyo. it's been a bloody long day, (two hours of sleep in the last 40 hours) so i'll just post pictures for now. depending on how busy we are over the next few days, all i might end up posting will be pictures anyway.



airborne


the wanker in front who kept putting his seat in the reclining position


a bit of india in japan


spaghetti sandwich? ugh


maintain handsome part 1


confusion


more subway


home away from home


maintain handsome part 2


bengbot


shinjuku in the accursed rain


and more rain...


martin... and even more rain...


the apple man's bike

yawn.... that's it for now... let's see if i can keep it up for the next week.

last minute stress, wow and a laugh

stress:
consolidating my camera gear for my trip to tokyo (leica m6, hasselblad xpan and canon ixus) when i suddenly realize that i can't find the xpan. retracing my steps, i remembered getting it back from ernest, and remembered that SOMEONE ELSE borrowed it though i couldn't for the life of me remember who, and whether it was before or after i lent it to erny. to cut a long story short, many phone calls and smses later, i almost leave for the office in a last ditch effort to check and see if it's there when the nagging feeling comes back. i go back to my room, search high and low, and discover it in a camera bag under the cupboard.

wow:
spin courtesy of abi. not for the broadbandless, it'll still take awhile for those with fast connections, and it's worth the wait.

a laugh:
insider blog on a certain war photographer

space filler: slipknot

i'm not a fan of metal music. well maybe the fake sell out sort like metallica, but the heaviest i usually dabble in is rock. i still don't understand it, but i have to say that when slipknot put on the first metal concert in singapore and the fans came out to play, that they put on a damn fine show. the raw energy and passion displayed by both the band and the fans blew me away.

what can i say, it was a blast.

ps: finally!!!! i can start clearing my leave! more to follow.

saddle sore

for those of you who didn't hear the screams of joy from me at around 1:30am on august 10th, you'll probably not have realized that i am finally freed from the shackles of the national day parade. since then, it's been rest, relaxation, some critiquing in school, some planning for japan, oh, and chicken rice balls in malacca.



don't ask me how that got started, for i have no clue. "it's more about the ride than the food," says seng, and i agree. except that it was one bitch ass of a ride. of course it didn't help that we decided to take the small roads instead of the highway up. that translates to about 250km (155 miles) of traffic, crazy malaysian drivers, messed up roads and pollution (with no sign of the straits of malacca that we are supposed to see being on the 'coastal road' and all).

of course by this time, our asses are sore (being the pampered singaporean pansies we are)

2pm, and we crawl into malacca, ravenous and spend the next hour looking around for the famed chicken rice balls. at least lunch was pretty damn good.



then the journey home, this time on the north south highway which should have been a breeze if seng's scooter engine didn't keep locking up if he travelled at more than 100kph for an extended length of time. at least the time we took to give his bike a rest was put to good use.



my arms are burnt, my ass hurts and i can't wait to do it all over again.

space filler: thick skinned

*playing wth phonecam on the roof of the office*
david: what are you doing man?
me: what do you think?
david: think you've been in the sun for too long.
me: why?
david: i mean, what could you be taking pictures of?
*shows david picture*
david: eh! not bad leh!! quite nice
me: why did you think it would be bad? sheesh.

bad english

no not the band, but the title of the report i received from a student not too long ago.



i know it's not fair, but just looking at his title made me not want to delve any further into his paper. i eventually did grade it of course, but not before some heart-wrenchingly bad grammar almost did me in.

ps: four days to national day and the return to normalcy

yesterday's lessons

had to cover the president's star charity show last night and i learnt that:

- marion raven (pictured above) is not only gorgeous, but also has a fantastic voice. if marketed right, she'll go far.
- sylvester sim can't sing to save his life. warbling notes and a breaking voice does not a singer make.
- we have no local talent to speak of. everything entertaining (fei xiang, the abovementioned ms raven, cirque du soleil, deanna yusoff etc) was decidedly NOT singaporean.
- watching local celebrities make complete asses of themselves was not as entertaining as i expected. it was downright painful and embarrassing.

ps: dear mr mediacrap senior security guard, please don't show me how important you are by restraining my movements on stage after we are off the air. if the president's own security officers have no problems with me getting that close to him, then neither should you.

space filler: quiet time

sometimes it's important to take a step back, soak in the beauty around us, and be content.