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I bought this Head Porter bag at the store in the Harajuku area of Tokyo. I've read a bit about them and and a japanese friend had one. It was the only expensive purchase i felt was worth it (as opposed to some jeans or jacket). I did the same thing in Switzerland and bought one of the Freitag bags which was 4 years ago and i still rock it. Maybe when I go to France i'll get a Goyard :)
These photos were taken between 6th ave and 8th ave on 16th street this past sunday.
Thick batter with slices of octopus cooked inside.
This is just octopus I had with Miho and the gang
Tokyo Girl, originally uploaded by sistereden2.
i didn't get any good photos of the people on the streets but i really want you to understand what i saw a million times a day. I promise this is not an extreme case. the it was the norm but only imagine a little more coverage on the arms cause it was colder.
heysus.
I'm much more interested in taking photos of people. i just didn't get a chance to focus my energy on doing it this trip. the next time i go thought, i promise.
I honestly felt a little too much like an outsider feel like i could take good photos.
I think i said it before, but i guess Geisha aren't' the easiest folks to randomly see. The first time I saw one she kinda ran out of a house and around the corner. I almost completely missed her. The next time was just before we went to Monkey Mountain. There was a group walking with a few men.
This is for you Nadine.
okonomiake
this is a discription i got from a web site:
This is a Japanese Pizza, made with sliced cabbage and a flour/egg based pancake mix. Toppings including pork, onion, mushrooms, cheese, shrimp, scallops, spring onion, etc. can be added. The ingredients will be served raw. It’s up to you to cook it.
1. Rub oil on the flat cooker in front of you. 2. Mix the egg mix, cabbage & toppings in the bowl provided. 3. Pour all onto the flat cooker and wait to cook on one side. 4. Flip over when golden brown until the other side is done. 5. Brush the brown “okonomiakeEsauce over the pizza. Mayonnaise, nori-seaweed, and fish flakes are optional as extras. 6. As with Italian pizza, you simply slice, serve and eat!
I'm not sure why I am so bad at getting things. I crack under pressure. I go out and buy the things i think are cool then i think about them and i wonder if anyone else would like them. For instance, i totally missed the chance to bring back Japanese candy. DUH! Why would i not pick some up. Okay, i had all intentions of picking some up but I thought it could wait for the airport. My train ended up being canceled while i was waiting on the platform and the other came an hour later. In that hour, I was walking around totally confused and thought i missed the train. i just hopped on the next train heading to the airport and hoped that the ticket man would let me be. I had to do a mad dash through the airport to get to my gate on time. Anyhow, here are most of the things i brought back. Some stuff i have people in mind for. If someone is really expecting a good gift from me (dad, ebony, mom, snipper, loren, aileen, mari, marcia, ajana, jillian, tyler, sonya, add your name here, etc) then my bad. come over and pick up something or just consider my steady blogging and staying up late to post photos my gift to you. it was a lot of work ;)
I'm so nervous no one will like the things i even considered not giving any of it out just to avoid letting someone down. oh man, why is this so hard?
i didn't think till i got home that i should have picked up this hat for Snipper (my step-dad) as well. ARGH!
mom, you like tea right? It came from the National Art Museum. I walked a LONG way to go to this place on tuesday only to find out they were closed. I went back the next day (be for my flight) to look for something.
Today is my last day in Japan. It's time to come home. (ps im writing this at home cause i didn't have anytime to blog in the hotel).
I have to figure out how to pack all this stuff (i bought an extra suitcase).
the plane riding outfit. this is what i left out and i packed up everything else
Back in Kanazawa.
I visited an old castle (or location of an old castle) that dates back over 500 years.
I didn't kow how to explain how to say it so i asked my writer friend (shout out marcia) to help me:
Listening to Radiohead's In Rainbows while looking out over a castle with 500 years of history is beautiful and melancholy in a way that reminds you of everything thats past, and everything that will come to pass and by seeing those two things, makes you more able to clearly see the present.
Perfect.
and a little update from japan expert Mish:
Kanazawa castle is actually I think the newest rebuilt castle in Japan. the building started in 1995 and I think was done a year or so later. till then the only "old" part was the gate- Ishikawa mon- on your first pic. actually the grounds of the castle used to house my university (Im sooo sad that they move the uni to the mountains in the middle of no where with way too much snow). so anyways, yeah, the original castle was destroyed in the Meiji restoration around 1868 or so....sorry to spoil the mood that it set you in.... there actually only three remaining original castles in Japan.
The best wayfinding in Tokyo. Every 1oo or so meters there was a new sign. The building is brand new (opened in the last year) and connected to it is teh Ritz Carlton. (I saw 1 Rolls Royce Phantom, 1 Bently big boy, and 1 Maybach all in a 1 minute span) beautiful.
My good friend aileen emailed me the other day and mentioned that she has family member ( i think niece) who really loves the J-Pop band News. So the last thing i did before my flight home was go on a hunt for something NEWS related. First i went to tower records and found a CD but i was looking for posters. Mayumita told me i should try harajuku. BINGO
I walk upstairs to a room filled with posters and small prints of j-pop boy bands. I had no idea what they looked like so i asked the lady if she could help me out. She spoke about 3 words of english and they were:
"Do you like boys?"
...only for the Aquino family.
They happen to have a piece of chocolate for all the days of the year. Today's piece neatly shows the day my Dad was born.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD.
another solid identity.
hot chocolate wine. sweet and delicious.
That is why i've put up a bunch of post in the past hour. My flight leaves tomorrow evening (i leave at 6pm and get to JFK at 5pm, the same day. yep, i'm going back to the future and i want to sleep as long as possible.
This is the best native food i've had thus far fried vegy dumplings.
no, i've still not had sushi here
uniqlo, the japanes H&M, has a t-shirt store here. The best thing about it is the way in which you can search for shirts. there is a station in the back with a screen that you can touch and move shirts around and add them to your cart then print out the location of the shirt. think huge ipod screen
I also found a few other nice tshirt stores. I wonder if the threadless shop in chicago is nice.
Beams T w/a conveyor belt display
graniph. german company (notice all the helvetica) there were a bunch all over the place.
the legendary bathing ape stores. maybe the originator of the super limited edition t-shirts that went for 100+ bucks. can you believe he just started with t-shirts? when they first started opening no one knew where they were. i'm missing busy workshop..it one of the harder ones to find.
they used to not let anyone even take a photo of the front of the store from what i hear. i took about 4 and a guy came out and politely asked me no more.
in the middle of the store there is a pool of bean bag bananas that kids can play in (do a search on flickr for one)
i just happened to come across this one.
the identity is still one of my favorites. even though folks say it is played out, i still really respect it and dig the brand.
Earlier this evening I was stressing out looking for an atm. None of them work with US cards except citi bank and i think one other.
It started when I attempted to get home from a long day of walking around. i was stuck somewhere quite a bit away from my hotel and i didn't have any money left on my metro card. I was at one of the largest stations and it was taking all of what was left of the little energy i had. By this time i don't think i had anything to eat except some chocolate which you'll see later. (I know, i know, mom, ebony, marcia, blazey, jillian and everyone one else who gets on me about not eating when i should, you don't have to tell me.)
once i found the information counter I asked about putting the 180 yen i have left in cash on my card or using my credit card. Neither would work. It took a minimum of 1000 yen (kinda like 10 bucks). 3 flights and 150 meter walk later i'm at an atm that won't take my card. great. i'm stuck in a post rush hour downtown and no convenience stores or other banks in sight. After walking a few blocks I hail a cab that takes visa.
35 dollars later and more walking i'm at a wired cafe drinking a little expresso and using the free internet to look up where a citi bank is. boom, got it. I give them my card and she says, nope. the wired internet cafe is cash only, word? i had to offer up my ipod for them to let me go. they didn't take the ipod just asked that i promise i come back tomorrow. this was all done with me speaking english and sign-language and her speaking japanese and sign-language.
cool, i have the location of the citi bank, now i just need to walk the equivalent of 3 or 4 NYC avenue blocks to get there. oh yeah, if you didn't know, only main roads have street names. the address are like this: Dogenzaka-ku 2-25-12. 2
2 is the zone (Dogenzaka-ku) 25 is the 25th block 2 is 2nd building on the block.
needless to say i was lost and ended up walking an extra avenue too far, on the wrong street. I did get to see a blow fish restaurant though, which made the entire walk worth it!). I searched and searched and eventually found it with the help of an information desk. I was so excited I took out 50,000 yen (cause i wanted smaller bills) then i took out another 50,000 yen. The second time i noticed that the balance was a lot lower than what it should have been.
FREAK!
i took out nearly $1,000 by mistake! i thought i was taking $50 each time. i hope the conversion back to USD will be close. I only need a few bucks to make sure i can get back home.
not only was the walk long, i also had to push through a gagillion people the entire time.
yay!
some of the best cruisers and road bikes i've ever lusted over. here are just a few i thought were interesting or just looked cool.
there was a girl who rode past on a dark colored bike with white sidewalls and a white chain, dope.
outside of the originalfake store:
I noticed that places that sold high end urban streetwear (mom, think fubu but 10 years later and much much cooler) streetwear kids usually had single speeds outside the stores.
they don't wear those massive locks new yorkers where. just a little lock on the back and they don't lock them up to things.
and no aileen, i didn't see one person who wasn't on a motor bike with a helment...but they all so have to ride on the sidewalks so...
This is for my fellow appreciators of good wayfinding/signage systems. Anything to do with exiting the metro is in yellow/black type. It is so easy to follow you just have to pay attention. I'm sure even if i didn't use the NYC transit it wouldn't take me that long to figure it out.
The best part of this system is that they name each exit with an alphanumeric character. So if there are four exits it will have A1 - A4 along with a map of the streets above. So much easier than saying southwest or northeast exit.
How beautiful is the typography? Does anyone know who did this?
*update: so i was leaving JFK and noticed their exit signs were similar (yellow and black) I guess i never noticed them because i never really needed visual cues other than the words.
This is my Tokyo ambasador.
She was surprised at how well i got around by myself. She mentioned that her boyfriend, who is also from nyc, was here last week (and once or twice before) and can be intimidated by going out on his own.
Her permed hair was one of 4 that i saw my entire time here. Apparently anything that isn't straight isn't looked at so highly at the offices or liked by many Japaneses men. I don't know about them but i'm all about short or really curly hair.
