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20th - 31st Jan, France / Norway

well, I can't say I want to talk too much about this week. I went back to France for some really bad news resulting in me being quite depressed after that, and then I flew to Oslo. 
So yeah, no blogging there, shit happens, it's life etc. Thanks to friends and family for the support.

Asakusa

A much more traditional area of Tokyo, with an immense market (where you can buy Kimono - got one for my sister ! ) and other stuff.

Also a nice temple and two huge sandals, because you know, huuh , well , giant sandals make cool ornaments !

If you walk a bit further from the station, you can also see the famous "giant golden turd". It's really big.

I really didn't stay very long there as I had to take my flight for France, but it's a great area.

lol

Kyobashi, and more Ginza & Shimbashi

More Ginza ! I really love the fact they close the street on weekends so people can stroll around Ginza quietly. They should do the same in Champ Elysées sometimes.

Also Zebraman 2 ! woohoo

I also bought a Final Fantsay XIII soft drink ( "Elixir" nice reference for those who know the games !). can't tell you if it's good or not, it's so awesome I haven't drank it yet.

13th to 16th January

13th jan :
Takanodababa : I went for a jazz concert with Tom, a friend of mine. The music was very nice, the food good, and I met an Air France pilot who was such a sweet person that I didn't mentioned how much I hated his company ( and believe me, I had a hard time restraining myself on this one).

14th :

Moving out !
After an incident without gravity ( because it's Japan : we left a bag in the street in Komagome, and when we went to get it back almost an hour after it was still there !) , I moved to my new place in Tokyo. yep, Tokyo Tokyo, as in "the area Tokyo in Tokyo", the center. It's very small, and Uber-awesome ! This is so much better than the other place ! Everything is modern, clean, practical, I have a big and comfortable bed, and toilets with heated seat and ass washer ( or whatever it's called :-) ) and other functions ! And I'm on the eleventh floor, with a nice view ! so cool. SO COOL.
Super happy on this one as you can see.

16th :
Soyo and I went to see an art exhibit where Julien Langendorff ( http://www.julienlangendorff.com/ ) , one of my best friends, was exposed (not sure about the english term I use here). The gallery was in an apartment in the south west of Tokyo.

The owners were awesome, we talked quite a lot and at the end they took us in picture and ask to write something on the pic.
Here's the result (as you can see, Soyo did mine & dressed me as a Kebab dealer -awesome !

I asked the owners for recommendation or food and they directed us to a wonderful Italian restaurant. Really nice evening.

Harajuku again

I had to go find some snow jacket so I went back to Harajuku.

I think so far I've never been in such a crowd. It was so packed we moved extremely slowly, in the station and around. As usual in Japan, everyone was very respectful and behaved, but I have to say I wasn't feeling too comfortable.

Of course, I checked the cosplayers while I was there.

This time, there was a guy dressed as a nazi (ref pic). It's very shocking ( that's the wanted effect ) but it doesn't have the same signification here that it does in, well, about everywhere else in the world.
They see that as a big joke (there was even a popular J-pop band who dressed as nazis ) . Anyway, it's not the place to discuss this controversy, I just thought it was worth mentioning.

I also had a look at the japanese Elvis again, and this time they had their daughters dancing with them. Super cute !

After that, shopping & hanging around 

Shibuya, Shimbashi, Ginza

Back to Shibuya !

I visited the various shops around Shibuya, and the Disney store - purely for cultural study,*coughing* - .

Check the disnay building, it looks like a Gotham city building :-) :

Mickey & Minnie mouse wear Kimonos, and owl costume. For those of you unfamiliar with Japan, it's very common to see a character ( real or not, from a video game, a manga, some advertsiment etc) wearing a "something-costume".
Mario has a racoon suit, this guy in an advertisement has a bear costume, Onizuka in GTO http://miyoreizeixsaeko.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/largeanimepaperscans_great-teacher-onizuka_valkorn_929283.jpg has a monkey costume etc.
it's called "kigurumi" in Japanese apparently

And the aforementioned disney character :

Can't wait to go to Disneyland Japan by the way :-)

And then, a visit to Shimbashi, the ultra-modern business area.

I entered the Dentsu building, where I took the glass elevator to the 48th floor. You have a great view of Tokyo and the Shiodome center during the fast ascension, it's frightening and amazing !

I then went to the Hama Rikyu park, where I saw a falconry show. It was pretty cool, the birds were doing various tricks.

In a very "Simpsons gag" moment, a falcon was thrown out and instead of doing its trick just disappear in the nature and never came back :-) I laughed a lot.

After that proceed to visit Ginza for some "Gin-Bura" ( it's a specific word for a walk in Ginza, literal translation seems to be something like "Ginza strolling" ) , and its luxury shops and wonderful architecture (check the pics !) : I especially liked the Tokyo international forum, a place for conference and shops.

I also visited the panasonic showroom, where I discovered panasonic was not only making dvd players but a lot of stuff for the house ( think Ikea for rich people, with high technology ).

After that I went home and realize I got the most stupid suntan ever on my feet, square shaped (Note : you can't see well on the pic but it was very, very dark and contrast a lot with the rest and look stupid )

Happy New Year !

Happy new year, may it be a good year for you and me ( edit : 2010 started rough for me, hope you're doing better !).