Konichiwa !
It's been 3 weeks now and I haven't given much news about my trip in Japan. I'll pass on the details but I've had a lot of work and some other time-consuming, boring stuff I won't detail here. Here is a post I rushed a bit, sorry again if typos / bad expression. On a related, annoying note, pictures are not so good, something is wrong with my camera focus & contrast, even in automatic mode :-(
Anyway, after a rather long trip from Paris ( which, in a classic Air France fashion got delayed 4 hours ), I arrived in Tokyo. The express train has seats that turns 180 degrees automatically so you're seated in the right direction. Sweet !
First shock : Yes there is a LOT of people in the streets, the tubes, the shops and yes, they don't speak English. I mean they really don't. Of course this doesn't include my colleagues at Opera, but in shops, restaurant etc you'll find yourself having to explain things with signs, pictures etc. Which is ok most of the time, since people are overly nice, patient and always willing to help you (I guess there's a lot to learn here for westerners ...). For the restaurant, my trick is either to go to restaurants with pics in their menus, or to look at people's tables and orderthe same food as they have :-)
Illustrated : A lot of people.
Speaking of food, I guess this is worth mentioning : The food is delicious, I eat extremely well every day. The service is fantastic, what a refreshing change from France & Norway. Food is fat though, and I should really going back to the gym very soon or you'll meet a 20 kg heavier version of me when I'll be back.
The new office in Japan is spacious, and the colleagues are very nice to work with and to go out with.
On my first day I was invited to a very nice restaurant with the BBQ in the middle of the table, eating wonderful food & having a lot of drinks.
...which was followed the next day by "Friday beer", here composed of strange food ( Algae for instance, fish flavored cookies and more classical junk food ), good beers, wine and stronger alcohols. For the non-initiated , Friday beer is a social event in Opera Software consisting of , well, drinking beer, eating junk food & blabbering with your colleagues & then go get proper food and then maybe party again.
One of my colleagues, ( Go ) heard I wanted to go and see Nikko during the weekend, a nice area in the country-side, and suggested we rent a car and have a road trip to go there :-)
You imagine my answer, so here I am, a few days after I arrived, going on a road trip to the "country side". On our way out of Tokyo, Isaw kilometers of buildings and constructions ... Tokyo is truly gigantic.
Nikko was wonderful : Panoramic view from the mountains, beautiful autumn colors everywhere, a nice walk along Chuzuki lake in the middle of the mountains, and of course the shrines of Nikko.
The Toshogu shrine is famous, and if you look at the pic, you'll understand why. The shogun Tokugawa, a famous warlords in his time, was buried there so he could rise again and defend the area against evil spirits from the north and other enemies, which is pretty badass.In western world equivalents, it' worth at least 2.5 Santa Claus or 0.8 Jesus Christ.
On an unrelated note , on the car's GPS the vehicle is not represented by a car or a triangle, like on our occidental GPS. It's a duckling flapping its wings :-)
The next day, I visited Shibuya in Tokyo.
Shibuya is a popular shopping / hangout area, you've probably seen the famous crossing at the station exit, where thousands of people cross the street in a 3 minutes ime-lapse ( this is the firt pic I've posted ) . Very busy and very nice area. I visited several of those centers filled with crazy games.
Pictures are forbidden so i don't have much to show there either, but yeah it's exactly as the Japanese Cliche of noisy, crazy arcade rooms, with "normal" arcade games, and dancing, singing, DJ-ing, drumming etc games.
Young people in Shibuya are usually dressed like those cover boys, with a mix of trendy / heavy metal look. And of course, the hedgehog haircuts ;-)
In general, I'd say Japanese are very fashionable : whatever style they have, from traditional to Japanese extravaganza, they assort their clothes very well. And yes, there are many cute girls in Tokyo if you want to know !
Not so fashionable : Fish costume
Later in the week, Izakayas (one of those restaurants where you share food and drink many beer and spend all evening ) after the friday beer. The next day, a visit to Ueno park. Nice park with on one end very traditional houses and on the other end the neons and busy shopping streets.
oh, something I forgot to mention : Pachinkos. I'm not sure how to describe that : Sort of mix between a flipper and slots machines with electronic display with apparently storyline and very strange animations. It makes a lot of noise, they're everywhere and japanese are crazy about them ( ranking third in the japanese economy if I remember correctly ! ).
After that, I went to Akihabara. Akihabara is a nerdgasm, a whole district dedicated to video-games, mangas, Maid cafes (...which I haven't tried yet, in short it's cafe with cute maids in traditional style that are overly nice with you ), and computer parts.
After visiting shops where people play old school games (like really, really old school games ) , I watched a Gran Turismo competition. Then I bought a PS3 & a screen :-)
The next day, I was invited for food at a Mio (a colleague of mine)'s place, outside Tokyo, in Shinyurigaoka (新百合ヶ丘 !).
The food was extraordinaire, and in such enormous proportions I didn't eat anything during 24 hours after that :-) . Really nice dinner, and the opportunity to meet more Japanese and international people (Norwegians, American, and Finnish -or do you say Finn ? Can't remember ...).
Another great weekend in Tokyo !
Next week, we had a seminar with the Japanese team. The buidling we were eating in was pretty interesting (cf picture) . Then we went to some Izakaya with a cool aquarium with live crabs.
Next day I went to sunshine city, a huge shopping center in Ikebukuro, went on top in the 60th floor and admired a wonderful view of Tokyo by night. Sadly, pictures of it really sucks. I also saw a nice "One Piece" exhibit there, and visited a Totoro dedicated shop :-)
Then I went out in Shinjuku, a trendy area of Tokyo.
Next day, I went to Harajuku. Harajuku is 1) A very busy, crazy shopping street 2) the place where cosplayers gathered 3) The place where japanese rockabilly's dance on rock music. CRAZY ! I guess pictures are worth a thousand words for this area.
Also, in the Yoyogi park, I could admire several barrels of Bourgogne wine ( Burgondy ) sent from French wine producers. Bourgogne wine is apparently very appreciated. Can't argue with that, they definitely have good taste ! :-)
I then visited Otsuka ( not much there, except good sushis) and went back home.
Next day, I've visited my own area ( Komagome ) and visited two japanese style gardens. Again, wonderful views of autumn leaves and nicely arranged gardens.
Last but not least, I was invited to a Karaoke for a norwegian colleague goodbye party, Annchen, who was doing the same program as I do here in Japan .
Well, I had a lot of apprehension, but it was really awesome ! A lot of fun, I even sang, twice ( admittedly I was pushed by Floriant, who by the way demonstrated karaoke skills in French, English and Japanese) :-) "Au champs Elysees", and "Bohemian Rhapsody " by Queen :-D
Note : I saw many improbable songs in the catalog, ranging from Blind guardian, Audio Slave, Cradle of Filth (!!) to Chemical brothers ( There's like 2 sentences per song on those ! ) .
Happy times !
So yep, that's it, that my adventures so far. Today I went to this Sushi on rail place, delicious as usual. The concept is simple : On a rail, different sushi (and other food, such as clams, oysters, fish , desserts and fruit etc ) are passing in front of your table. each one has a price, determined by the color on the plate it's sitting in. At the end, the waitress just count your plates and then you pay. Fun bit : They have a sort of plates scanner : they hover it on the pile of plates and it calculates how much each one is and then calculates your bill. Awesome !
This weekend I missed the international robot exhibit sadly, but I met a people at an international event for expats in Tokyo.
This week I plan to visit an art exhibition in which my good friend Julien Langendorff is part of.
Oh one last thing : I've experienced earthquakes. It was strange but ok (those were small) however the big ones are apparently pretty scary. Also, my colleagues here keeps telling me "THE" big one, which is long overdue apparently, will kill us all, as if it was a reason to not worry ... I'm not sure I follow the logic there but I try to not think too much about it.
More pics :
Alright, that's about it, come and see me or give me some news !
Note : if you're crazy enough to go that far, I'm also planning to go to French polynesia somewhere in January / February. Let me know if you're interested !
Tristan
