hiya,

it’s been a strange August, just a lot of things happening. But came out of it ok, although slightly tired and not wanting to move from my bed/apartment.

What a boring git.

Mostly working, eating, trying to sleep and at the end of it – absolutely hating airplane food. Sent out postcards, met up with people, listened to my ipod. Came back home, packed again, tried to do laundry. Caught taxis, buses, trains, connecting flights, made notes, wrote emails, took photos. Lots and lots of photos. Smiled at customs people, got my luggage, went in and out and in and out and in again.

Saw my family, got sent to the airport, picked up from the airport. And again and again and again.

Working at london time in Vancouver.

Vancouver Pride Parade.

Eating fantastic seafood around vancouver.

Feeling absolutely shite when I couldn’t get my Japanese visa in time.

Playing company softball in the rain.

Flying/travelling for more than 24hrs.

Loving the weather in Msia.

Loving the 25m infinity pool with the view of Spore river.

Cycling in Holland, eating pickled fish in a bun.

Walking through the red light district.

Humongous carbon footprint.

Singing crazy singstar (karaoke) at home with colleagues.

London borough markets for coffee and eats.

And now I’m writing this email on a sunny sunday morning in london, with sunshine pouring in the window.

Soon I have to catch the ferry down the thames for a bbq in Greenwich..

Late already! eeks

Hope all is well, write soon
Shi

Happy New Year (a few days late for Christmas) (~_~)

Was back to Tokyo recently for some work stuff. Quite full-on, would work till past midnight then back to the hotel to work til about 4am. The whole thing wrapped up on the 24 th so instead of heading back to warm Malaysia I extended a couple of days…so yes! My first Xmas eve and Xmas day in Tokyo! Just arrived back in KL a couple of hours ago so forgiveness if my email sounds slightly incoherent and the image I sent lacks a linear visual theme – blame it on the jetlag heehee. I really wish I could write a long email about everything in Tokyo but this week is going to be crazy busy!

So let me sum it up in few sentences:

In Tokyo Christmas is the season for shopping, dating and christmas lights (but not trees or ornaments, just lights)

Very nice Xmas cakes because it’s more a Japanese tradition to give cakes than turkeys.

The Harajuku freaks can’t show obscene amounts of cleavage, fish net stockings and Gothic lolita french maid costumes because it’s too cold.

Besides looking like a tourist with digital camera, I blended in perfectly with the 1000s of other Tokyo-ites taking photos with their cameras and keitai.

Very yummy getsu-ramen at Shibuya for Xmas eve dinner and….

Very yummy French crepes on Omotesando for Xmas brunch (thank you Denise!)

Asahi beer.

And I was very happy to be back in warm Malaysia after all that.

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2006,

Shi.

Hey there

This weekend passed in a blur – last weekend in Tokyo for a bit. Going away dinner for me and another colleague who is being posted in another prefecture (different area in Japan).

Went to see hanabi (fireworks) at Sumidagawa River (’tis the season for hanabi..) with D, a Dutch expat who’s been in Tokyo for a while. It was pretty good, not as crowded compared to other hanabi, and all the Japanese girls were in yukata, which was really pretty – so we had a good time admiring girls’ outfits , but my all-time favourite, I think best of all the outfits I’ve seen in Tokyo was the goth yukata. Even her obi (sash) was all goth, with lace and teardrop pearls. Very cool. I wish we went in yukata too, but it’s a really difficult thing to wear and tie properly. Drats. Fireworks were great! 1 hour of fireworks (and sitting on newspapers on the road), there were some like golden streamers, star bursts, crazy alien rockets but the most stupendous was one that sounded like a great waterfall, and then the whole sky would turn red as a fountain of thick columns of light (about 10 storeys tall) gushed out…I love fireworks. As usual, there were police with megaphones telling people where to sit and walk – it is really common in Tokyo. Which is good, because there are so many people at these events that it would be chaos if there weren’t. Everything was really orderly and clean plus no garbage on the ground after. Finished up with a tops dinner (thanks to D’s superior Japanese skills) and cocktails in Japanese restaurant before going home.

Odaiba on Sunday for the Miraikan museum – long name is National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Coolest museum for little kids, you get to manipulate a 2-storey high globe with LCD screens showing changing weather patterns, temperatures, change the planet… and just swivel the whole thing, fast forward the years..and of course other stuff like Assimo (freaky how humanlike he moves), spider robots kids can manipulate with Playstation controls, VR…I think the Malaysian science museum has something on tadpoles turning into frogs. Hmm. And the Fuji televion building had some summer festival at the bottom with the weirdest giant elephants and celebrities heads, policegirl uniforms for Japanese girls to take photos in (although being Japan, the skirts stop ½ inch below the butt) And the Statue of Liberty with the Rainbow Bridge in the back. Dancing Elvises also on tour in Odaiba seaview deck.

Went to Omotesando on a mission to find Herzog and de Meuron’s Prada building before leaving Tokyo – and found it. It is now one of my 3 favourite Tokyo buildings. Love the treatment of the façade, the intersital spaces where stores rooms can be hidden yet appear if needed, the slanted planes with images projected at an angle so that person on the street can see catwalk show projected from the 5th floor, uber-cool creamy white honeycomb structure and custom made glass panes. Love the effortless cool. Then cooled down the hot Tokyo night with green tea frappucino on the 2nd floor while people-watching the Shibuya crossing.

Tired now. 3 days left, working till I leave. Will let you know if there is a second chapter of this Tokyo tirade.

Later,

Shi.

Hey there

Bit different weekend. Went off work an hour early (woo-hoo, 7pm!) on Friday because there was a neighborhood get-together. The businesses in the area pay an annual sum and that pays for barbecue, beer (mmmm..Asahi), chicken wings, nibblies, watermelon & shaved ice (japanese summer dessert) and fireworks for kids and kids at heart. People had tatami mats on the road, shoes off, eating at low tables, with lanterns strung up and kids and families everywhere, not just salarymen. It was fun and food was good. Had an interesting conversation with my colleague’s friend whom I asked why Japanese eat whale meat? He thinks that since Indonesia has so many whales and Japan so few, it justifies why they should hunt whales there..besides, whales eat lots of fishes at one go (with their huge mouths) Before I get any angry emails about what he said – yes, I do know that whales eat krill and plankton. I’m not sure if whales do eat sardines, but I doubt that the harpoon boats stop to ask the whales before they fire. This issue is touchy but from my personal experience, chinese people are also taking sharks to extinction (shark fin’s soup) and eating exotic clams and fish in protected dive sites and marine parks so I don’t want to point fingers at other cultures when my own is flawed as well. But I wouldn’t make whale stew or eat shark fin soup anytime soon.

The next day, got picked up at the Hilton (3 mins walk from my apartment) at 503am sharp. I sleep in my swimmers, T-shirt and boardies with packed backpack on the side so that the only thing I have to do in the morning is roll out of bed and head out the door. The purpose: surf at a spot 2 hours drive from Tokyo. After having to take the train and walking everywhere, it was great cruising on the elevated highway past Shibuya, Roppongi, Rainbow Bridge, Odaiba, Tokyo Disneyland…boys were checking surf reports on the radio and on their keitai (handphone). Taro-san’s 5’8″ was pretty short, but the wetsuit was a perfect fit – dunno how the heck he ever managed to fit into the wetsuit?? The surf was not as small as I was worried it would be, but pretty cruisy waves were good because I’ve been landlocked for the past 7 months. Nice shoulder to head-high sets (Japanese guy sized) in the morning that got blown out in the afternoon but still surfable. Really such a difference surfing in Japan – after the surf, they got out huge containers of water and a wooden rack (like the bathhouses) and took turns rinsing off. All the cars there had gallons of water in their boot, and all (no exceptions) the surfers stretched before going in. Post-surf we had soba or rice sets in a noodlehouse for lunch (complete with central rock garden, koi and bonsai) Taro-san called my suggestion of Macdonalds “dame-mono” – no-way food – Awww shucks.

Surf wasn’t as crowded as all the stories I’d heard but there were a lot of drop-ins. Japanese manners still pervade, and no one was shouting or hooting. The boys parked for an afternoon nap right in front of this Japanese chick sunbathing, who glared at us for perving. I was innocent, but she glared at me as well anyway. I didn’t understand why she didn’t just go down on the beach instead of lying in the parking lot sunbathing (???) – but then I noticed the nice manicure job with sparkly daisies she had on her feet. In this case its possible to go to the beach without actually going on the beach.

We had shabu-shabu when we got back to Tokyo at 11pm. Cool restaurant called Butaya (Pig shop) with so much kawaii piggy memorabilia – only in Japan. We had pork skewers, pancetta, pork in sauce, salad, shabu-shabu and noodles, felt like a real pig at the end of it. Got home about 130am. 2 different friends described Tokyo-ites as being “robot-like” but I think that they also like to laugh and joke a lot – only when they’re with their friends. It’s been good to see things from the other side. And compared to my past warong/little hut/meat pie/fish&chip post-surf lunches, the noodle house was really impressive. Heck, the noodle house was impressive, period.

Got fireworks and want to go to this cool robot/tech place in Odaiba next weekend and I also have to pack because my flight is next Thurs.

It’s been such an unreal experience in Japan.

See yall.
Shi.

Hullo..

Yet another slow weekend. It was raining crazily on Saturday night but before that, I went to an excellent acoustic live music session by Eric, a friend’s friend, who came on with fresh original scores and then wrapped up with an encore rendition of Halleujah. Surprisingly he’s still unsigned but he is so good it should only be a matter of time. Unfortunately before Eric came on a couple of Japanese bands were on, and after the accordian player’s set I really wanted to leave straightaway. Luckily Eric came on right after and my night got heaps better. Tokyo bars are really interesting, they’re mostly in the basements, or narrow 3m slots in the street, but I think that after a few stiff drinks, no one really notices how close the walls are anyway….

The weather was really good the past few days but after Saturday night’s storm the weather is horribly hot again. Went to the Edo-Tokyo Museum and it turned out to be much better than I expected (I had very low expections, the Malaysian museum has permanently scarred my perceptions of what museums are). The Edo-Tokyo Museum was interesting because it gave an insight on current items and practises in modern day Japan that are linked to practises dating back to the 1600s…I wish that they had given more explanation to WHY Japanese people are so ready to accept and assimilate Western culture because the rest of Asia (or at least South-East Asia) have mixed reactions towards Western culture – but I guess it’s not something someone can explain in a museum anyway. Museum design was pretty good, it looked interesting and impressive from the outside but inside it took backstage to the displays without being boring.

Visited the supposed Sumo Stadium next door because I read that they had a permanent exhibition, but all they had were sales on second-hand(I think they were) designer handbags and jewellery. I’ve never seen so many out-of-season Chanel/Vuitton/Gucci/Hermes/Tiffany etc stuff before. I might have bought something but the hordes of grandmas and grandpas kinda tipped me off that the stuff they were hawking weren’t super-cool… But they kept the most important thing open at the Sumo Museum, that is the GIFTSHOP where you could buy sumo shaped cakes, sumo mugs, sumo dolls and Hello Kitty Sumo mugs. Kitty-chan gets everywhere in Japan, the other day I bought a Kitty-chan snack! It had Kitty-chan on the front, and pink sparkly cereal puffs that tasted like Super-Sugary-Fruit-Loops.

My next foray into Japanese desserts shall be to try a parfait (dessert). You see Japanese girls all looking dreamily at the plastic parfait displays all the time. They are essentially 7 cubes of fruit, a dollop of whipped cream and a teaspoon of icecream, all arranged in kawaii manner and presented with the kawaii price tag of 800yen (US$7.50) . In comparison, a bowl of noodles costs 350yen, a Starbucks tall coffee costs 350yen and Haagen-Daaz costs 262yen. 1/20 a melon and a teaspoon of whipped cream must be awfully expensive in Tokyo.

After the visit to the (giftstore) of the (so-called) Sumo Museum, I looked at the Kanto Earthquake Memorial (it took less time than expected) but I had also seen Philippe Starck’s Asahi Hall (aka the Giant Golden Turd) from the train and proceeded walking..and walking…in the general direction. I found the hall after walking in the direction of the Japanese men swilling Asahi beers. Afterwards I realised that I had walked all the way to the Asakusa temple once I saw all the tourists and cheap souvenir stores.

No email last weekend because I somehow managed to get lost in all the red-light district in all 3 places I went to (Ueno, Roppongi and Shinjuku) I think I’ll try to get myself on a dive boat to a deserted tropical island with white sands somewhere off Malaysia when I get back Aug4.

Ahhhh…

Shi.

Heya

It has been really really hot in Tokyo lately, I’ve been becoming like har gau dimsum (a steamed shrimp in soft skin) Went to Disneyland last Saturday and it was more enjoyable than how I remembered the last times I went to the other Disneylands, think I was more cruisy this time (ahh yes getting old now) as compared to riding the triple looper 7 times in a row in Dreamland Gold Coast…anyway…

It was good. Went on Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, stood in a few lines, saw parades, had a bunch of Japanese girls screaming “Kawaaaaiiiiii!!! Kawaaaaaiiii!!” into my ear going nuts over a squinty eyed Elvis impersonator and saw too many girls (and their boyfriends) with fake animal ears (Marie, Minnie, Dumbo, Bambi, Stitch…), lots of 50′s Americana, Hawaiian stuff.. families laying mats on the ground to wait for parades. And saw a totally excellent Light Parade when it got darker. Fireworks got cancelled because of inclement weather, but then I joined the mob of Japanese people buying gifts from the giftstore and got bumped, shoved, elbowed and stepped on for my efforts.

For some strange reason there are a lot of the tanned blonde Japanese girls in Disneyland…

So I decided to go to Shibuya and check them out in their natural habitat.

I didn’t get any photos of the girls (yeah, I’m useless), but I got a photo of the Hachiko Crossing and a mob of angry pedestrians swarming over a helpless bus before the snippy Starbucks lady told me off (Advice: photos not allowed in Shibuya starbucks, so do it quietly)

Anyway going to get some rest, the combination of hot weather and then coming into cold air-cond is wreaking havoc on me.

Take care,

Shi.

Hullo..

It’s been another interesting weekend, but a little better this time because I got to sleep in sat and sun so got some rest instead of walking around all day on the weekends. Went to see the Yokohama International Ferry Terminal and it was AWESOME. It’s got to be the only large scale project that is so open to the public and so radical in design – subverting ideas of floor, wall, folding into each other, space and the natural and manmade – exciting and really inspiring. Especially when you see the freedom that people have to do on the roof garden and the level of interaction….a coffee cart and lounge chairs with stylish Japanese couples sipping lattes and enjoying the view of the bay, people on the roof garden watching a wedding on a docked yacht, dogs in hooded ensembles and stylish outfits chasing each other on the grass, Japanese couples making out on the lawn, a group of mates enjoying a carton of beer, 50Japanese students taking group photos, babies crawling on the paths and trying to push their strollers off the roof…

It is an awesome building and the roof garden is the best bit (best to go on a weekend evening). Again, too many pics to email out so check them out here.

www.flickr.com/photos/folio

And on Sunday went to Kamakura and visited a shrine, temple, temple in a cave and a giant Buddha. The temple was really cool, it had a huge golden buddha in it and there was a queue from the entrance to the top of the hill to see another Goddess on the top of the hill so I didn’t bother visiting that one. I also went to my first Japanese beach at Kamakura and immediately thought “No wonder Japanese go nuts when they get to Bali”. But gotta hand it to them, they are really stoked with whatever there is. Maybe 20 guys out on longboards surfing the knee high wind chop, it looked really fun but I don’t think I’ll be going surfing in Japan anytime soon, they’re still in steamers (3mm wetsuits) and I didn’t bring nuthin but a bikini. Whheee-ooo…I am tired.

I wonder where to go next weekend? I’m seriously considering…Tokyo Disneyland…I mean, why not? Happiest place on earth where Mickey and friends speak fluent Japanese.

Take care and talk soon,
Shi

Hiya..

It was a really interesting Saturday morning, went to Tsukiji and Ginza on Saturday. Tsukiji was such a cool experience because I have never seen so many animals from all over the world. I saw the reddest garoupa in a tank (red is an auspicious colour), with live squid next to it, pufferfish (fugu I think) piled up, frozen tuna as bigger than a german shepard piled up, live lobsters scuttling in sawdust trays, crabs, live abalone, sea urchins, rainbow prawns,octopus (dead, they are too intelligent to deal with alive) gigantic clams still squirting water and their squishy bodies breathing, barrels full of squirming needle eels, long eels, more fish…

The first thing that I noticed before I walked in was that this is the first fish market that smells like the ocean and not fish. A lot of the sea creatures there are not indigenous to Japan but some are from tropical oceans in Asia. Also the scale of it was mind-blowing because maybe 2 days ago, the fishes could have been still swimming in Asia but this morning they were in Tokyo (not a good way to see the world). So behind this concrete market with its pockmarked concrete floors　and puddles everywhere is a network of fishermen, middlemen, dealers, shipping, air shipping, and of course people with the means to keep a fish alive for 2 days in a plane.

Pretty mind-blowing, especially when you see the size and numbers of uber-high quality fish in the market, but once you see the amount of tuna being eaten everyday in the Tokyo restaurants, sushi joints, kaiten sushi etc, it makes sense. But it also made me wonder how much of Malaysia and Indonesia’s reefs are being harvested, and how can the reefs be sustained by such large scale consumption?

So over my breakfast of tuna and rice, I pondered some issues, not including the over-consumption of apex predators such as the tuna and the impact of its loss on the ocean’s ecology.

The stores were still closed so I walked to the Imperial Palace. It was a foreign invasion of another kind, the invasion of the Japanese palace by Koreans, Chinese and their own Japanese countrymen! They came in their hordes, led by generals in cream A-line miniskirts and blouses, waving flags and shooting with digital and disposable cameras. Swarming on fences, scenic vistas and marching through pedestrian crossings before bundling back into their vehicles of war – the coach buses.

The Malaysian army in comparison was small, consisting of a single individual on foot.

I also found a totally amazing building, the Tokyo International Design Forum (its an architectural thing) and made my way to the Sony shop where I abused Aibo and pulled his poly-synthetic tail. Gotta say, I’ve never seen so many 20-something white guys go straight to the Playstation level and start discussing the merits of a video game in great detail. Also the only level where little kids can leave dad for the day. I actually didn’t like Ginza much because they all sold these pink fairy dresses and pointy high-heels and I can’t afford to buy any of the clothes anyway. I listened to some music at the Apple store and another cd shop and I made myself a key chain at the Nissan showroom that now hangs on the keyhole of my front door.

The population of Ginza during the day was roughly 95% middle-aged women, 3% Japanese husbands (they are the ones in charge of carrying the kids) and 2% foreign tourists.

Got home all tired but strangely satiated. Dunno where to go next weekend, but I still haven’t seen the Yokohama International Terminal(its an archi thing), Kamakura and Chiba. Less than 2 months to go…

Touristy Shi.

hullooo

Nice slow weekend, good change after shinkansen-ing between Tokyo-Kyoto last weekend. Went to a house that’s just been completed by the company, slept in and went to the 7-storey bookstore in Shinjuku. Went out for drinks with people in the company Friday night as a belated welcoming and got royally soaked Saturday evening, rainy season is starting in Tokyo now. House in Tokyo was really interesting because the house plan is closely linked to a Tokyo style of living (duh we’re in Tokyo) but it was very differently designed from say a Malaysian or Australian plan. Also little details, facade etc. Will put up more pics on www.flickr.com/photos/folio check it out

Went to the technology department at some of the Tokyo malls and drooled over techie stuff They’ve got an Olympus MP3 player that with a Darth Vadar slick black front and touch-sensitive face for all controls, smaller and lighter than an Ipod. There is a Sony Vaio desktop, but looks like a laptop with attached speakers at the back. When the keyboard snaps shut, it acts as a hifi with slick black plasma console and when open, it’s a desktop with plasma screen. It would have been even cooler if you could just undock the desktop from the speaker and use it as a laptop and even cooler if they could have could use an ENGLISH operating system…but they can’t. They even have a Panasonic MP3 player that is a 2cmX2xm silver cube (yes, it is that small) and let’s not even get started on the handphones, cameras, video cameras, lens….

The downside is all the cool techie stuff (except for Ipods) are in Japanese. The way I use Japanese gizmos here is through trial and error, in fact all the software I use in the office is in Japanese. But most options on the menu bar is in the same place and order so it’s alright. It also takes me awhile to decipher where plastic/paper/tins go if there are no icons, and I still point to the photos to order my food.

One of the redeeming things about my apartment is that I have an indirect view of the Shinjuku park. The bad news is that I have to go back to KL in 2 months time because the offer in Tokyo fell but am going to hunt again.

Resolve to get myself to Tsukiji (fish market) next week the Sony store and the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

Laters,

Shi.