This is just for my sister

Remember that episode of Golden Girls where Rose complains that Miles is really boring... and he takes her to a button museum???
Well, I found one here in Tokyo near my home. The sign above proves it. When you come over, we have GOT to go!

Mon Dieu! The video for this song is not how I remember it at all.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=qDJR5sADwmg

I was shopping in my favourite shop in the world (Uniqlo) last weekend, when this song came on in the background. It has now been more than 14 years since I lived in France, but I still know all the words to this song by heart. And I never even tried to learn it. It was just on TV and radio all the time.
I remember Ophelie Winter as being so hot and so cool at the same time... and the song is certainly catchy as hell.
What a shock, then, to go onto youtube and find that Ophelie was channelling Jennifer Saunders in her best skit mode all through the video. Seriously, look at it and try not to imagine it as some comdienne taking off a popstar.
The scary thing is that I think everyone involved was being deadly serious.
So basically, shame about the video, but still a kickin' song.

Things that exist in Tokyo

Proactiv Solution vending machines: for all your zit-related emergencies.
P.S. I actually saw a woman buying the stuff, so amazingly there's a market.

Can you spot the moon?

I like this photo because I've lined it up so the full moon looks like one of the street lamps. Can you tell which is which?

Well, there goes 17 years of vegetarianism...

So an outsourcer took me and my colleague out to dinner the other night. I guess the idea was to try and sweeten us up in case we ever get anywhere in the company - he wants to make sure we'll use his services, right?
Business in Japan is very social, as you all know. And then there's the whole thing of 'face' and making sure that relations stay smooth and that nobody gets offended.
This guy takes us to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Tokyo: a very swanky members only club on the 20th floor of a skyscraper in Yurakucho. We're led to the best table in the house - right by the central window with 180-degree views of the night skyline. Amazing!
We get through a few pleasantries, exchanging business cards, all that kind of thing, when the guy asks what we'd like to drink. I go first and ask for an iced tea (being that I no longer drink anything harder than an OJ). If you could have seen the dude's face. He was not happy at all. Japanese business dinners tend to be very boozy affairs, and this guy definitely felt his face 'threatened' by the fact that I was not partaking of the wicked expensive wine and sake that he was pouring down his and my collegaue's throat. So 'Strike 1 against me,' I thought. This was not going well.
Then it comes to ordering up the food. Now, bear in mind that this is a 70 year old company president taking two young(ish) pups out to his private members club. Never mind that he is our outsourcer. According to Japanese etiquette, it was clear that he would be doing the ordering. We didn't even get a look at the menu.
So first course, what comes out? Six oysters on a dish of ice...each! And not your cute, mini Irish oysters - big monster Japanese oysters from Iwate, as big as your hand.
A glance was exchanged between me and my colleague - she knows I'm a vegetarian - and I just signalled, "It's all right." I decided to take a hit for the team: better to swallow a but if fish and keep a good relationship with this guy than make a whole thing of not partaking of his generous offer and causing a whole kerfuffle.
In the end, the oysters were fine. They just take like the sea. And the lemon definitely helped. And after one or two goes, I could shuck like nobody's business. My only concern was that they'd awaken some long undiscovered seafood allergy and that our business meeting would end in the emergency room with me in anapylactic shock. But I was grand.
A little later, the guy looks at our empty plates and says, 'Seeing as you both enjoy fish, why don't we move to the sushi bar next door. I'm great friends with the chef. Usually you can't get a table, but he always finds room for me.'
Oy! What did I do to deserve this... Cut to about two hours later and me polishing off like my 20th piece of sushi. I lost track of how many different types of fish he wanted us to try. As he got drunker and drunker, he just kept repeating how happy he was to be able to teach some youngsters the 'elegant' way to eat sushi (apparently I was putting them away like a country bumpkin).
The funniest part of the whole night was when my colleague, who has a really good heart, suggested we should order some salad on the side. She was hoping that I could focus on this while she did her best to polish off the raw tuna, abalone, urchin, fish eggs, shrimp and God-knows-what-else. So, the salad comes out and there is about two leaves of lettuce per bowl, with the remainder being made of up of sashimi, mini fish eggs and scallops! Not even a cherry tomato or slice of carrot to help me out.
I polished off everything put in front of me save a slice of cold omlette and some rehrdrated gourd! Yay me!

OMG Muji are now stocking an adult-size onsie!

Is it totally wrong that I am seriously considering purchasing this mansize onsie - see picture above. Childhood memories of zippered onesie goodness are flooding back.
There is such a great blackmail photo of me, my sister and brother lined up in our colour coordinated onesies ready for bed. Thank god this was in the age before digital cameras.
I think I was like pushing ten, so I mean the age thing is kind of a moot point already. When it comes to zip-up onesies, when you're no longer a toddler, whether you're 10 or 33, what's the difference, right?

Another foodie weekend

I spent my glorious three-day weekend enjoying what Tokyo does best - great places to eat out. On Saturday, I hit up a vegan slash vegetarian restuarant in Azabu Juban. Such v-friendly restaurants are v. rare in this city, so I felt v. spoiled to have a whole menu to choose from. Azabu Juban is where where all the achingly cool people hang out. I felt well out of place; the staff and other customers alike were all black clothes, weird wooly hats, and retro medical-card glasses. If you've ever been to a trendy part of Tokyo, I'm sure you can picture the type.
I had a bit of a melancholy moment over lunch: at the table beside me were a group of young ones who were a little loud (i.e. drunk) and talking rubbish. They seemed just like the kind of people I would enjoy hanging out with. I wanted to be their friend. I wish it could be like when you were a kid, and you could just go up to someone and say, "Do you wanna be my friend?" Although this is really just waffle on my part, as I was never able to do that even as a child.
Then yesterday, I went all high altitude and had a delcious Italian meal on the 30th floor of a skyscraper looking out over the sprawling city. Not only was the view amazing, but they had the best desert I've had in ages (not hard, considering I don't usually order desert). It sounds a bit weird, but - take my word for it - it was good: a whole banana and vanilla-icecream calzone with chocolate sauce and fresh mint. A nice strong double espresso on the side, and I was a happy man.
Today, I saved a bit of money by cooking at home and just treating myself to coffee and cake in the afternoon. In Akihabara, they have this new donut shop that's known for its weird and wondeful taste combinations. It was a bit exxy, but totally worth it in the end. I got the matcha an-donut (a regular donut filled with sweetened azuki bean paste covered with a powdered Japanese green tea glaze). This mixture of East and West produced a donut that was deliciously sweet on the outside, yet bitter to the core...just like me.
All in all, a gourmet few days.

More invites

Talk about either feast or famime: after languishing in the social doldrums for years, I go and get asked to TWO 'High Society' engagements in one week.
Today, I was invited to dinner by one of our outsourcers to the Foreign Correrpondents Club of Japan - a very swanky private members club where all sorts of movers and shakers go to do business. If my brow gets any higher, it'll disappear into my hairline.
George Soros, the Dalai Lama, Digital Socks... Yes, I think that rolls off the tongue quite nicely. Top of the world, Ma!

A belated invitation to the top table...

I will soon have lived in Japan for six years: in that time, it's fair to say that I have not been invited to join the upper echelons of society.

Two months in my present company, and look what arrives in the post! My grandfather would be so proud.

Of course, with the sorry state of the world economy (and Ireland's) at the moment, the reception will likely consist of a bag of Tayto and a cup of Lyons Gold Blend.

Not to worry - I'm from good working class stock and give the proper value to a nice bag of crisps and a grand cup of tea.

Tokyo Tower Version 2.009

Here is a snap I took of Tokyo Tower today. Loving the addition of a festive 2009. I'm also loving the reflection of the Tower that I captured in the nearby Atago Green Hills skyscraper. It's all very 'Bright Lights, Big City', which I missed while living back in Dublin.
Tokyo Tower is the new Mount Fuji for me. By this I mean that it's the thing that makes me remember I'm living in Japan. When I lived in Kanagawa Prefecture, I would be walking along, going through the daily grind, when all of a sudden beautiful Mount Fuji would pop up out of nowhere. Seeing this sight, I'd stop what I was doing and take a moment to change my way of thinking: I'd make myself realise that I'm not just going about my daily chores, I'm living in an amazing place that I had long dreamed of coming to. Now that I'm a resident of downtown Tokyo, my chances to see Mount Fuji are few and far between. But, as I said, the gorgeous tower above does just nicely.
By the way, a lot of people ask me why I came to Japan in the first place. I often spout off something about the unique culture, the mixture of old and new, the welcoming people. But the truth is, my interest in Japan can all pretty much be attributed to this 1994 TV ad. Click on the video below.

My Assassins are not so okeley dokeley...

I wasn't going to put this picture up here for fear of turning this blog into a foot fetishist's dream, but my big sis said I had to. These are the new runners that I just bought - yet again, at a whopping discount - and I love them.
I think they are tastefully gaudy. My sister is not so sure. I said, "Well, at least I won't get run over (alluding to their fluorescence)..." And she said, "Unless it's by some driver who just can't stand to look at them any more." The cheek!
You can see that I have put the picture under a screenshot from an episode of the Simpsons. For the nerdilingers in the audience - *ahem* little bro *ahem* - it's from epsiode 216 'Bart's Dog Gets a F'.
When I was a child slash teenager, there was such a thing as the overpriced, aspirational super sneaker... Nike Air Jordans, and the like. I never had a pair. In my pubescent, square-eyed mind, the 'Assassins' worn by Ned Flanders represented the epitome of the flashiness that such shoes were all about. I long dreamed of owning a pair.
Turns out that you can't really trust childhood memories or dreams: thanks to the wonders of the Interwebs, the picture above shows that said 'Assassins' are a lot more subdued than the runners I ended up buying. I guess the gaudy grew in my mind with age.