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 ).

Q&A session

I've been asked the same questions a few times, so here it goes for a first batch of Q&A.

Q : Is is true Japan is super-packed ?
A : Yes, the population density is high, but it's not really that bad. You all have probably seen a video like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk2R_mqV4ts but it's not like this anymore.
Also, the streets are large, the building and malls are spacious, and everything is well-thought in general in terms of space. I felt much more oppressed in London or Paris for instance.

Q : Red tuna ? Isn't it bad to eat that ? ( for the story : there's an embargo over red tuna fishing, but Japan refuse to stop fishing it )

A : No, on the contrary, it's delicious !

More seriously, I know it's bad, but really the fact I ate it or not won't change anything. 80% of red tuna consumption is done by Japan, one gaijin ( or even a 1000 ) who would refuse to eat it won't change this a bit, and may actually be disrespectful if voiced actively here. 

Q : Would you live in Japan ?
A : Difficult question. I really like it here, I love the places I visi or hang out to, the people, but to be very honest I don't really want to learn the language. And you need it to live here for a long time, you really do.

Q : Do you live in a closet in Tokyo ? 
A : My apartment is not big ( 21 square meters ) but I love it very much :-) there's a huge bed, and everything is conceived in a smart way. It's a great apartment actually, and it's located in the heart of Tokyo ( close to the imperial palace ).

Q : Do they really love cats that much ?
A : Oh yes. They're everywhere, "good luck cats" in restaurant and shops, cute cats in advertisements , clothing ,  in the street ( real ones I mean ),everywhere really.  Because they're so kawaii ( ref. previous post ). 
I think I even saw a sort of musical about cats ! I'll post here if I find about it.

Kawaii !

Kawaii, as you probably know, means "adorable"or "cute". It's a prominent aspect of Japanese popular culture.
You'll find all sort of kawaii stuff in advertisement, clothing, drawings etc

Here's a few ones I collected recently :

This is a game where you play drums, much like guitar hero, and it's AWESOME !

lol why does she have the phone on her head ? 

Street / building panels "warning" there's work going on there ( why the dog ?! )

so weird ...

Actually I can't say if this is supposed to be Kawaii or kinky, both are possible I guess ...

and cats again (that's a flyer for a msuic event), although his one is not so kawaii compared to hello kitty stuff. 

Thailand !

Short post about my trip to Thailand, where I visited a friend of mine I haven't seen in a long time. 
I've done the tourist stuff already during a previous trip, so I haven't traveled much while there this time, the plan was to stay with my friend & his girlfriend and enjoy amazing food and good parties :-)

First stop, Bangkok. I arrived in the evening, we went to a bar in the center for drinks and long talks.

Then we went to Hua Hin, 2 hours from Bangkok, a vacation place where Thai people go ( translation : Quiet, non-touristic and nice place ) we enjoyed relaxing times at the beach and wonderful food in the evening.

Mwahahaha this "jump picture" fails so much I had to put it :-)

Damien taught me how to play pool (like most of the stuff in Thailand, it's super cheap to play over there) , and gave me many useful tips. Thanks again man !

My friends are great food amateurs, so they dragged me into various places for some food tasting. Lucky me ! 

Food :
First evening we had delicious ribs ( with beer of course ).
Second evening we went to "La mer" ( not French despite the name ) where we had super good sea food.

At one of Hua Hin very original market (pictured below ), I had the best Padthai ( national meal ) I've ever had in Thailand.

My friends Damien & Tukatatt

lol when I see this horror I'm curious about the tatoos "kitty tatoos" makes.

 

After that, we went to Pattaya where Damien works part of the time. I enjoyed the beach for a few days, hitting the powerful jet-skis with him ( causing Damien some stomach discomfort :-) ) and drinking smoothies.

My hotel :

... I wish. The place was like an amusement park, with a river like in the aquatic parks  and mutiple pools

The nightlife in Pattaya is best described by this picture I took over there :

The place is basically like the red district in Amsterdam or Pigalle in Paris, just much bigger. The place deserve its reputation, I really wouldn't recommend it for a romantic excursion (even for the beach side ) , there are much better places in Thailand for that. 

This is the main street, next to the harbour :

Food -
Italian restaurant, with a plate of parma ham and cold meat, and pizza (with a good wine of course )
Belgian restaurant, x2, Where we had delicous steak with belgian beers

After that, i went back to bangkok for the weekend, for much party and more eating ( including a really, really good one that cost something like 25 euros ! ) .
We played pool, went karting ( and caused some havoc on the race :-) ) etc
We hit several clubs, although I can't remember the names. On sunday I came back at 9AM :-)

Seen in a bar's toilets :

lol

I took a plane later on and got super sick in Tokyo airport because of the plane food , a horrible mushrooms pancake. Quoting a friend : "Dude, mushrooms pancake ? What were you thinking ?" I don't know Anton, I wasn't thinking I guess :-)
The picture above is very appropriate for this too.

Note : Some pictures are missing, I'm still waiting for them.