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· · · Tokyo
Shinjuku Cameras ·
I didn’t have to take off for my first meeting till eleven, so I cruised into Shinjuku around 9:30 to see what I could do about the slow-camera problem. Which turned out to be about perfect, since it’s Yodabashi’s opening time; so I got a leisurely look at the stuff with help from the staff. I gather the normal Yodabashi experience is wall-to-wall crush ... [10 comments]
Dirty Rainbow ·
I snagged the front center seat on the Narita bus so I had a panoramic view forward; the haze of jetlag and post-speech letdown was biting hard as the Nissan Diesel grumbled up onto the Rainbow Bridge. The architectural madness around Tokyo Bay soars white on cream on beige on black in the filtered sun against the shit-coloured Tokyo November afternoon sky and when you’re weakened you can kid yourself that it all fits together and makes sense somehow, but it doesn’t. It can’t be photographed and it can’t be described, you have to see it and you still won’t believe it. It’s just crazy, that’s all. [3 comments]
Narita T2 ANA Lounge ·
If you travel a lot on Star Alliance and you’re heading out of Narita, I’d like to recommend the ANA Lounge in Narita Terminal 2, out at the far end around Gate 44. It’s one of the nicest I’ve seen anywhere. They have lots of space, comfy chairs, secluded cubicles if you need to buckle down, decent WiFi albeit with slow DNS, excellent draught beer from a way-cool automated pouring machine, a selection of fine sakes, vegetarian sushi, and—this is just beyond brilliant—an Udon/Soba bar where a couple of wrinkled old guys will fix you a bowl on demand. There are few items I can think of that are more proactively therapeutic against a 10+-hour flight than a bellyfull of light warm salty Japanese soup and noodles. If you’re feeling burned out and have four or five fine sakes that tends to counteract the benefits though. Hmmm, upstairs there’s an ANA “First Class” facility I didn’t have sufficient status to get into. The mind boggles at the delights that must lie inside. [1 comment]
Immediately Upcoming Gig ·
My colleague & buddy Bob Brewin has been yanked away from his scheduled gig at Web 2.0 Expo Tokyo and I was strongly kindly requested to fill in. So, I show up in Tokyo Tuesday afternoon and come home Thursday suppertime. Oh joy. I like Tokyo but this is suboptimal. [5 comments]
東京 XII: Changing ·
I’ve been coming to Tokyo since 1991 or so, and while Japanese culture is often called insular and set-in-its-ways, the changes have been dramatic ... [6 comments]
東京 XI: Lounging ·
On the Tuesday evening before I left, we had some pure fun, attending the “Developer’s Lounge”, organized by Sun but attended by a menagerie of geeks, every flavor. Think of a short unconference with free food and beer ...
東京 IX: Working ·
This is just a thank-you to a few of my Tokyo colleagues, but it has my favorite picture from the whole trip ... [1 comment]
東京 VIII: Shopping ·
Whatever you may say about Tokyo, whether you like it or not, it’s a great place to shop. For selection not bargains; there is lots of stuff you just won’t find anywhere else ... [3 comments]
東京 VII: Drinking ·
The last couple of months I’ve been in both Tokyo and London, and I visit Silicon Valley all the time. Tokyo and London are like each other, and unlike the Valley, in that they have a business-drinking culture. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that in the Valley you have to drive everywhere, and you’d have to be pretty booze-hungry, or just suicidal, to load up before getting behind the wheel on 280 or 85 or 237 or 101 ... [1 comment]
東京 VI: Recharging ·
Tokyo is big and fast and intense and it’ll make you tired. And, many months of the year, hot and sweaty too. Fortunately, it offers a solution for these problems ... [5 comments]
東京 V: Playing ·
I don’t know what Japan’s largest export is, but I think its most important export is culture. Pop culture to be precise; there are few places where as you walk the streets you see things you’ll see on fashion catwalks and in TV-show backdrops and and Paper pages this time next year; and Tokyo is one of them ... [3 comments]
東京 IV: Phoning ·
Here’s a travel tip: When you go to Japan, rent a phone! It doesn’t cost too much money or time and it simplifies life incredibly. With remarks on Japanese phone culture and a completely unrelated picture ... [2 comments]
東京 III: Traveling ·
Tokyo is huge any way you measure; one of the world’s largest cities by population and not built up that high, so it sprawls forever across the Kantō plain. Even the city’s core, which I would roughly say is everything inside the Yamanote JR Line or walkable from one of its stations, is pretty vast. Most times, though, you don’t notice because everywhere you go, you go by train, often underground or with not much of a view ... [5 comments]
東京 II: Eating ·
Among all the astounding things about Tokyo, for me the single most astounding is the food business. The number of restaurants and cafés and lunch counters and bakeries and bars and street vendors beggars description. In my experience, most of them are good ... [5 comments]
東京 I: Visiting ·
Tokyo, you know, it’s like this. After I’ve been there 48 hours I start to go crazy, and there’s this question: how do the people manage? I mean the lousy weather and the endless concrete and the absence of silence, never a rest for the eyes or ears either, and the crowds and the crowds and the crowds ... [2 comments]
Tokyo ·
Here I am in superultrahypermegaTokyo. I’m tired ... [3 comments]
People in Tokyo ·
Last Thursday and Friday I had a bunch of meetings with people in Tokyo and Chiba and thus there are stories and pictures ...
Tokyo Maytime ·
I’m here in Tokyo to attend the WWW2005 show. I’d thought about trying for a geeks/bloggers gathering, but I’m only here briefly and the Sun Japan people have set me up with a bunch of meetings; mostly with people who’d like to hear about blogging and syndication. I thought it would be easier to show than talk, so herewith some words and pictures about this trip to Japan ...
Asakusa ·
I just posted some old snaps of Japan’s #1 tourist attraction, and while I was digging through the pix ran across these, of Asakusa, a Tokyo shopping district whose name written phonetically in English would be “Asaxa.” Japanese words transcribed into English contain many instances of the letter “u” which are not pronounced even though Japanese will insist furiously that they are there (a consequence, I think, of using syllabics for phonetic readings). Asakusa is really nice, a good place to shop, eat, and drink, and if you’ve ever seen anyone’s tourist snaps of Tokyo, you’ve probably seen it; but perhaps not these. [Updated: A note on Japanese pronunciation.] ...
Tokyo Transit Maps ·
I'll be going to Tokyo for a W3C TAG meeting in November, and we're doing some logistics now months in advance to nail down the meeting location. I love the place, and a late-fall trip has the advantage that you can do some Christmas shopping, you just can't beat Tokyo for that. Anyhow, this note is just to give you a look at some way-cool transit maps I ran across ...
November Tokyo ·
The sci-fi analogies are overwhelming, streaming in on 100 channels labeled "The Sprawl", "Blade Runner", "Fifth Element", you name it, Shibuya in the 8PM rush in the rain, neon everything flares brilliantly off rain-drenched cars and awnings and streets. Everyone (everyone, everyone) has an umbrella. I have a leather jacket and a broad Australian Akubra and feel pretty immune to the rain and more maneuverable than the umbrella'ed throngs but every Japanese and even every other gaijin, even the seedy street merchants and black dudes striking homie poses outside the gym-shoe store, has an umbrella. I resolve not to mind standing out ...
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