This week my company moved to a brand new office building in central Tokyo which is why I’ve been a bit busier than usually. Our new office has a fantastic view of Tokyo and even Mt. Fuji on a good day. This afternoon between meetings I took a few photos. They’re not that good so I’ll have to take my SLR to work some day and get better shots. The one above is looking towards Roppongi. At the right, you can see Tokyo Midtown and Roppongi Hills just behind it. At the far left is Izumi Gardens.

The view east from one of the meeting rooms. That cluster of buildings on the other side of the park is Otemachi. You can also see the Diet which is that pyramid shaped building near the centre.

And this shot is facing north-west. That’s Shinjuku in the background.

With the renewal of this site, I’ve decided to host all my images on Flickr from now on. I’m not going to bother moving all my older posts’ images to Flickr cause there are too many. I’m starting with this photo of Mt. Fuji taken from a small town on the west side of Izu last fall.

Google Street for Tokyo isn’t out yet so I’m starting my own series of street photos called “Guess the Tokyo Intersection!” This is the first installment and it’s soooo easy. I mean, c’mon, what gaijin could not guess this one, duh!!!

I was standing in front of the Docomo shop in Shimokitazawa looking at a girl when I heard the familiar sound of our beloved NA Roadster. Lo and behold a nice black one with the top down was making it’s way through the narrow streets of Shimokita. Now, if you’ve ever been to Shimokitazawa you’ll know that anyone in their right mind would never dream of driving in this area because of the narrow narrow streets and the large crowds. While it doesn’t appear to be so bad from the photo (above) it took this guy a few minutes to move 20 metres to this position. Too bad the street is a dead end.

While standing on the platform at Yurakucho station tonight and saw this sign for the Gohan Museum (Rice Museum) which is located in the International Forum. I must have walked right by that museum all this time without ever noticing it. Next time I should go there to eat some brown rice. That Lismo sign to the left is also very cool.

Another double subway ad. This one for Shéna Ringö’s new album Heisei Fūzoku. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of her songs but I thought that I’d post this photo to send some link love over to Brad. He’s got one of the best Shéna Ringö fan blogs.

Storage space can be expensive for a small business. It looks like this handyman keeps all his tools and parts in his mini-van. He can’t even use his rear view mirror. There’s a growing industry that caters to storage for your anime figures and other junk that you have to hide from your wife. Some of these companies are opening up under train tracks or in abandoned warehouses. Quraz has some storage facilities around Tokyo but their smallest space which is about 0.4-1 sq. metre, cost more than ¥5,200 a month. That’s quite a lot of money to pay for a tiny storage space. I can’t imagine what people would put in a small space like that.

Taken after some tiring convention, I don’t remember which one. Makuhari is quite far from the centre of Tokyo, half way to Narita, and in the early ’90s was designed to be an industrial city for high-tech businesses as part of the movement to de-centralize Tokyo to relieve population and traffic congestion. It didn’t work though and Makuhari is only half finished. This building is the WBG, World Business Garden and I used to come out here quite often for work. It’s a dull place but there’s a very nice big park and you can see blue skies. Except when it’s cloudy like on this particular day.

BTW, I found this very cool website while searching info about the WBG.

Taken at evening some months ago. I hope they make New Tokyo Tower the same color as the Tokyo Tower.

Getting tired of reading about Hong Kong? Here’s some cafe action in Shimokitazawa. My favorite cafe called ikaru-kan イカール館 has long since disappeared. It used to be above Zoff on the north side, there’s a staircase leading up to the shop. But now it’s gone. Even though it was a coffee shop, they had good food including the best chicken pilafe in Tokyo.

A sunset at Enoshima I took more than a year ago.

Saturday evening, I arrived at the train station to see swarms of kids dressed up for Hallowe’en. The community had organized a Hallowe’en event and invited kids from around the neighborhood to come and enjoy games, live music and trick or treating at every shop in the shotengai. They had a stamp card and a map of the shotengai. When they arrived at each shop they’d get some candy and their maps stamped so they couldn’t keep coming and milk the shops dry. There was also a very cool Haunted House constructed underneath the train tracks. I would have gone in but I wasn’t in a costume. It was the first time for me to see any kind of Hallowe’en celebration in this country beside drunken gaijin in Roppongi.