Was walking along Setagaya-dori, on the way to my favorite Indian Curry place when I saw this. A small park dedicated to “Shirayuki Hime” 白雪姫 which is what “Snow White” is called in Japan. I’m guessing they built this park with the intention of putting a statue of something more important on that pedestal, but then ran out of money and just got Snow white and the seven dwarves from the local home centre instead. You can even see this park from space. Check it out.

Nearby was a house with the seven dwarves over the entrance. Some people just have no taste whatsoever.

In Tokyo, when purchasing large appliances or furniture you have to take into consideration whether the delivery guys will be able to bring it through your front door or not. In many Japanese houses and condominiums entrances are usually very narrow which makes fitting long or tall things into a home impossible. I know this first hand when a few years ago I bought a cool refrigerator that wouldn’t even fit into the entrance of the old building I lived in. However, if you want something bad enough you can get the delivery guys to haul it through the window like at this home I saw while walking around the neighborhood. Of course you have to pay extra for that special service and sometimes it’ll cost more than the item itself. I doubt Ikea would perform this kind of service. I couldn’t make out exactly what this home purchased, maybe some sort of shelf. But more interesting, just a few metres away was this Roadster with Mazdaspeed aero parts. I also just found out that my Roadster has already been sold. It makes me a bit sad to hear that…

Taken from a taxi just before my GR Digital went on the fritz. The Metro-Hat in front of Roppongi Hills was decorated completely with Windows Vista Ads. Wow!! Microsoft should have saved the money for their lame marketing and fixed some of the bugs I’m finding. And did you know that you can only have multi-language in Vista Ultimate? I wish I knew that before buying Vista Business. Apparently, I can download the English language pack but when I check on the website it says it’s not available yet. Well, if it’s already included in Ultimate why can’t I download it? **heavy sigh**

Despite Tokyo being a rather modernized city, just get off any station and there will be some kind of tall building complex being constructed, there are still small pockets of really really old houses hidden in the back streets of even the most modern business districts. This block of houses is near the office and I sometimes walk by them during lunchtime. They look like they were built before the war, but it’s hard to tell. I have a fondness for decay and admire these buildings for holding out.

In cities that were not bombed to hell during the war these kinds of houses are more common, but in Tokyo they are harder to find. You have to go down some deep dark streets to find them. While cycling around one night a few year’s ago, I discovered a small apartment complex beside the Kanda river just off of Yasukuni-dori. The place was completely covered in weeds and there were burned out cars and junk all over the place, it was very dark and it looked like a graveyard. The creepy thing was that there were lights on in the buildings and people moving around inside!! I’ll have to go back and see if it’s still there.

Here’s a wonderful blog with loads of photos of run-down buildings in Tokyo.

Gatchapin-Gatchaman was spotted again in Makuhari after the Tokyo Auto Salon. He/She/It was seen earlier in Shibuya and was here promoting the same UFO Catcher. Brad and I must have spent over ¥1000 trying get one of those guys. But we both failed miserably. I suck at UFO Catcher.

No, that’s not a giant red dildo. It’s THE Hot Pepper spotted in front of Shimokitazawa station. Hot Pepper is a FREE magazine full of coupons and town information like restaurants, shops, services etc. Guides are very important if you want to enjoy Tokyo. There are tons of excellent and obscure shops that you will never find by just walking around on the street. Unfortunately, most of the guides are in Japanese only so if you can’t read Japanese you’ll have to settle for Metropolis which by the way was the first real FREE magazine in this country, previously known as Tokyo Classifieds.

Years ago in Japan, FREE meant “not worth anything of value” and people were suspicious if you tried to give anything away i.e. there was always a catch. But for the current generation FREE simply means “Yey FREE! Yatta!”

Perhaps one the most enjoyable things to do in Tokyo is to walk around in the residential areas. Just walk. Get off at any station and walk as far as you can, go in any direction. Walk amongst the houses and narrow back streets. The narrower the street the better. You end up finding all kinds of neat places like this dark and scary shrine. I went halfway into the shrine but it was too creepy so I left. I’m been thinking about creating another blog with walking tours of Tokyo. There are already a few of these sites out there but I would create my own alternative ones. Like the famous crime scene walking tour or the weird convenience store walking tour. Something like that.

Shibuya is really crowded on sundays. When it’s raining the situation is doubly worse. But for some reason I found myself in Shibuya yesterday, on a sunday and in the rain. We took a cab from Sangenjaya and I knew I should have avoided Shibuya when just before Dogenzaka we saw at least 30 buses stuck in the traffic jam and not being able to get near the station. Even in the rain, the traffic isn’t usually this bad. Something must be happening. The taxi metre was ticking so we got out and walked.

If front of Mark City was a group of people preparing to carry a mikoshi. At Hachiko there was another group and another up the street near 109. Hachiko crossing was slightly blocked off. That and the rain was causing major gridlock around the area. Festivals in Japan are important so they don’t care if it inconveniences half the city.

In fact it seemed that yesterday was the chosen day for matsuri because on the bus home from Shibuya I must have seen at least a half a dozen mikoshi. The bus ride usually takes 15 minutes but because of the matsuri it took almost an hour. And at Umegaoka Station (above) there was even more mikoshi carrying action going on.

South exit of Shinjuku station on any night there’s always some band playing some generic pop song. I thought they looked a bit freaky standing in front of those posters of people and did a double take when walking past. Actually, they weren’t even a band, they were singing to some prerecorded music like karaoke but they were pretty good.

I will not be updating my blog for the next few days but I leave you with this exclusive snapshot. A giant woman rampaging the hokosha-tenkoku in Ginza today. Be very afraid!!

OK, here’s the uncropped photo.

Golden Week is a mixed blessing, isn’t it? You try to go anywhere outside of Tokyo and the traffic is insane. You try and go anywhere inside Tokyo and it’s packed with onobori-san. You can’t win. As you may have noticed, I didn’t do much of anything this week and to be honest I’m a little glad to be going back to the office tomorrow. Get back into the rhythm of daily life and all that. Here are some photos taken this week.

This poor little girl was stopped in Ginza and asked to answer some dumb TV Quiz show survey. The question was “Do you believe in the weather report?” The girl didn’t have a clue what “weather report” was supposed to mean and had a hard time answering.

(1) Students enjoying a moment of PSP networked gaming at Bic. I couldn’t see what game they were playing (2) Tamachi station looking very empty.

There’s this incredibly delicious waffle smell coming from the Cold Stone Creamery shop. It’s so strong you could probably smell it from the top of Roppongi Hills. Now I know why so many people have been lining up here since it opened last winter. Aroma Marketing. I didn’t eat any of course because ice cream is on my food hit list. But is this ice cream really worth waiting in line? Is it worth lining up to get fat? There are now four shops in Japan and pretty soon the novelty will wear off and there won’t be anymore lines. Remember all those Belgian Waffle stands? Where are they now?