I am soooo so late !

Things have been a bit crazy busy since I'm back, but I promise I'll do the final update to this blog.

I'll be back

Hi,

I'm sorry for the lack of updates, I've been very busy or tired after going out during the weekends and I had to work in the evening with my colleagues in Oslo several times, not leaving much time to update the blog.
I've been partying a lot, I went to Kyoto, Nara, saw the magnificent cherry blossoms, and went to Okinawa  amongst other things, and this weekend apparently I'll be on a yacht and then in an amusement park :-)
Expect an update next week.

Things I didn't do and won't be able to do :
- Go skiing in Japan. Basically I missed the opportunities or the hangover was too much too handle to go :-)
- See a tuna auction at the fish market : I wanted to do it this month but it's closed to tourists until the 10th of May
- Hakone. Too bad I miss this one too, it's apparently a great place.
- The snow monkey in Nagano : ref. skiing above...

Things I want to do before I leave :
- Try Matsusaka or Kobe beef
- Disneyland Tokyo
- Yokohama
- Go to this huge electro music club, Womb

- Play this guitar-hero style game with drums :-)

- Go to a maid-cafe in Akihabara !

By the way, I'm back in Oslo the 10th of May after a week in France. I'm gonna miss Japan but I'm also happy to see the people here and in Paris.

So, see you soon ;-)

Cat ghost-house !

I was telling you earlier that Japan is obsessed with cats (I love them too so that's fine ). Here's a good example.
Today is a bank holiday in Japan: After waking up super late, I met Luca and went for some food. Original plan was to go to Ikebukuro for some shopping and then Komagome, my "old" place, for some Onsen time :)

But we stumbled upon Namjatown.

We had no idea what the hell this was, it looked like a food / massage / videogames / fair / kind of thing, and of course in a traditional Japanese way the videos outside made it even more confusing.

So we entered the place and discovered it was a cat-themed ghost house :-) It was super fun, some of the stuff were actually "scary" ( as in " surprised " ) , and we had a lot of fun there.

There were many things we couldn't understand but it was cool anyway.

Some pictures :

Trop malsain !

Ghost cat ! 

... etc etc , cats overdose :-)

Don't ask, I have no idea what he was doing wih the huge canon

too bad I could buy the creepy walking head, but I got a plush version of the black cat on the right !

Toilet showroom, penis-shaped building and culture time

I went for a stroll in Shinjuku, originally for shopping although in the end I just end up walking around and visiting stuff.

Check the insane queue for ... Krispy kreme donuts ??!

Being a fan of modern architecture & buildings,  I headed towards them and saw this :

"ok the form is phallic but you can't really say it looks like a penis ... Wait, what ?!" :

Ahahah it couldn't be more obvious except maybe with a second speric structure at the base. I'd like to hear more about this building, there must be an interesting story behind it. anyway, the view from said building .

Anyway, after that I moved on to the next building, in order to visit the Toto showroom . Toto is the famous japanese toilet manufacturer, the one producing all these crazy toilets fitted with gadgets.
You can see toilets with movement sensor so they open and close the toilet automatically , or flush when you leave  and the "classic" heated seat, "ass washer", air blowing device, automatic deodorant and all the weird stuff.

...Even LCD screens and remote controls ! ahah

View from the Toto showroom, with a really strange structure in the bottom left which looks like a "hollow volcano" 

Weird mixe : Tall and new building, big road with several level and a train line, a some traditional houses lost in the middle.

More buildings :

After that, it was supposed to be robot time, so my next stop would be the opera city tower, where the NTT electronics center - or some name along those lines - is. Unfortunately, it was closed for renovation. I hope the robots are the ones doing the renovation. 

So I went for a art exhibit instead, "Elements" by Cecil Balmont and other artists & architects. They were guests of the gallery, which also had a permanent collection. Pictures were forbidden but it was really a nice expo with installations and stuff. It was mainly about architecture,  and also patterns in nature.

Later on I had some coffee on top of the tower, with a view over Shinjuku by night. The picture is horrible because of the mirror effect in the window, but if you looks closely (click ont he image for a bigger size) , you can see the view behind. It made me feel like I was in the movie Blade Runner or something :-)

House Party !

( sorry for the very bad pictures, there were taken on my phone )

I've been invited to a house party, at Johan's place . Johan is a Norwegian friend of Tom, so the party was a nice mix of Japanese, Norwegians, Swedish, and French ( 2 others than me ) .

House parties are rare in Tokyo ( in comparison with the Europe for instance )  because most people have small houses or apartments.

It was a big old scruffy house, really nice, lost somewhere in the west of Shinjuku.

House party "a la Japanese" are similar to the ones in Europe, except of course for the snacks, which are weird (sea weed, meat croquette, sea food etc). Also, some guy ( sorry, can't remember your name ! ) were showing us his movie, which looks interesting despite I couldn't understand much of it :-) Oh , and a few people Dj-ing there also.

Mwahaha :-)

lol too :

Mandatory "v" !

hey, remember in the Q&A session I was telling you about a cat musical ? look at that and laugh :

A walk around the imperial palace

Nice fountain area next to the imperial castle. there was a wedding in the building just behind the fountains. Great spot I'd say.

I like this picture. It looks like the new, huge building is eating the old, small one.

Because they need the space so badly, there are parking spots with lifts so you can park 2 cars in the same place :

Imperial palace 

For some reason this cherry tree got his blossoms well before the time ...

Bars, clubs etc

After a short "Friday night beer" at the office, I moved in Shibuya for some fun at Rock No Cocoro, one of my favorite rock bar in Tokyo. I met John and another French guy , and after a few drinks we tried the New Lex in Roppongi and the Lugano even later.

Good places, were models and celebrities hang out. Really cool evening* 

*sorry for the short description but I don't want to talk too much about going out ( the drinking etc ) in a public blog, not just for this event but for all of them in general. I guess you understand (ref. stories about Facebook / Twitter harmful for your future employment and this kind of stuff related to private life ).