food galore

Ok. some fillers, alright. more food. favourite food.
some references to earlier posts.

first up, the mosburger set with melon soda. gosh.

second one shows ramen. noodlesoup, if you want. there are endless variations of it in tokyo. originally imported from china. so you can't call it your favourit japanese food, really. i forgot where this shop was, but the bowl surely has something.

finally an example of "real" japanese noodle,
you eat it cold. very tasty, once you have gotten over the fact that it's eaten cold.

matsuri returns!

If it isn't another summer-festival-picture. repetetive topic, i know. but
everyone will excuse my determination to show just this last picture: a traditional happi ; )
no, happi does not describe the part of the body you are staring at.
yes, one doesn't wear long trouser with it. it is still summer, remember?
yes, one actually wears something below beltlevel.
no, he is not a single pervert. every true japanese man wears just a towel on these occasions. no joke.
remember, just like with sumo, the old saying applies: the fatter the bottom the less visible the string. let's sex things up, alright.

let's dance

Looks like a wicked art performance. but no, it's dead-serious japan.
these guys keep people from crossing the road. the road emerges out of one of seibu departmentstore's parking garages and as you can see it is behind a streetlight. the streetlight will switch to red for pedestrians automatically once two or three cars are waiting to get out. common sense in japan is that one person is there to warn pedestrians about streetlight suddenly (unexpectedly??) switching to red...
by the way, we are talking about tokyo where you'll whitness people around midnight waiting at streetlights on empty roads even in the most remote outskirts of the town or in pouring rain...
anyway, as i said you will get used to seeing one person doing this part-time job in tokyo, but like three of them, i figured was worth a picture.
in times where i question the meaning behind what i myself am doing all day long at my job... these guys in comparison must have a hard time reflecting.

the golden cock

Summer is season of festivals. this i mentioned earlier. i was able to whitness probably one of the last processions of this summer in shinjuku. the rain and fall are due.
shinjuku is the biggest town in tokyo, shopping malls, luxury brands, brothels, everything at hand, just as you like. a sodom. i don't know about you, but i thought the idea of a traditionally dressed crowd carrying the golden calv around shinjuku quite fascinating...(gucci-shop in the background)

food, once again.

Mos burger may be more expensive than mc donalds, and the value sets are miserably unvaluable, but their sauce on burgers is delicious like no other and makes mos my favourit hamburger chainstore of japanese origin.
now, japan is an ageing society. older people must be focussed by marketing if profits are to continually grow. secure the old for your products now, and be the winner tomorrow!
and mos burger wants the old!
that is why they introduced a lineup of soup and rice dishes targeting the over 50 crowd which is somewhat not at ease with the regular hamburger.

the picture shows a one of the new ricedishes. not too interesting so far?
now, take a look at the dish again. It's one of japans hillarious plastik displays - not the real deal! a piece of art i would say.

purikura?

Speaking of schoolgirls. Here is something i found. people who have seen a french movie with a strange girl as main character know that there is nothing suspicious about picking up pictures from people, even if they are schoolgirls, like in this case...
in fact, the purikura - as they are called in japan - are quite a phenomenon with schoolgirls, or girls in general for that matter. they would take these pictures of themself with their friends in special photoboxes that can be found in the average game center, and collect them in books. there is a great variety of machines. different backgrounds, for different ages, with different esthetics... the point is to take the pictures and afterwards edit them with a diversity of special effects, as you can see on the example. this is very refined and great fun, you use a pen on a touchscreen. in other words, divert interest away from your ugly face or embarrassing pose. to add a twist, a timelimit is given.

maybe i'll post my own collection, someday ; )

queen of japan

Some may have heard of the great news from far east. a possible heir of japans holy throne has been born. not a descendant from the current crown prince, but from his brother.
now, some may have heard about the controversy surrounding the crownprincess, who was put under so much pressure to give birth to a male child that she became depressed, had several miscarriages and will probably never give birth to any baby any more. despite all this, she managed to have a child in the end. a girl - unfortunately.
tradition says, a boy only can receive the crown. should constitutional rules change to make this little girl the future emperor? fractions pro point to history, where once there has been a female emperor(use google), to make a point for female rights that is. but fractions against had hoped for a boy and seem to be getting upper hand now. no immediate need to discuss this matter, as koizumi stated.
why such a fuzz, you ask. some of the greatest monarchies in europe have female heads... god save them. lets try to look at a little bit of background for a minute.

most of you dear readers might suspect (encouraged through ever reoccuring television footage about japanese perverted sexuality like the used panties lovers or obsession with lolita and schoolgirl sex) that all is due to the surpressed role of females in modern japan, the lack of emancipation. This might be a good thought. just to give one example, it seems to be common practice for a woman to get married and stop working right after in order to devote all of her energy to household and children management. Best example is the wife of the crown prince herself, poor darling...
we know that women are great mysteries of nature and men often announce they wouldn't understand women, or their actions for a fact. if western men are puzzled by woman, japanese men are downright frightened of them (usually, the woman approaches the man, like on valentine's day where girls give boys some sweets ;)
in my opinion fear of woman explains the fetish for schoolgirls and alike. they can be - if not understood - controlled and theoretically forced into doing whatever...
However, why can't a woman become the emperor in the opinion of old-geezer traditionalists? the answer: the greatest fears of japanese pair up: xenophobia and gynophobia.
The question tradionalists ask the public is: what if she traveled abroad and comes back with a foreign husband?

picture shows princess aiko, fishing. she won't become queen, it seems.

food

Interesting in terms of food is a comparison between what my favourite japanese dish is now and was four years earlier (when i lived in japan for one year as a student). back than it ought to have been ramen, a kind of noodle soup. i am sure ill come up with a picture one of these days. back than i spend most of my time in takadanobaba where a diversity of shops provided my noodle demands.

nowadays, i tend to struggle, recently i have replied to a question, i'd be favouring a good old cutlet. yeah, he is german, you might say. but no, having been through universal japanese assimilation processes the typical tonkatsu dish looks like above. merged with traditional tempura, the meal is ready to be eaten with chopsticks only. at this shop at lunch time you have free rice and soup refill for all in all 900 yen (6,50 euro). very delicious. don't forget that in japan free water or warm tea is served and refilled obligatory, as well.

another monday

nothing new to report, really.
note that i am working five or six days, from ten thirty to 11 at night, usually.
one can imagine that appearences are rare.
i'll use my stock of pictures today.

one of the fine things in tokyo is shopping. one might be surprised to hear such of a heterosexual masculine (which i hereby state). but, yeah the variaty, again, is more than satisfying. sideeffect: value of money is understood, amazing interior designs are witnessed (remember, i am doing architecture)

picture one shows floral ornament in "beams shibuya", the carpet on the other hand...
another picture of the above mentioned beams shop: the cafe on the second floor

yoyogi koen, adventures

having had no plans for activities today
i consulted the renowned metropolis, a free english weekly magazine for foreigners with dates and stories. i do actually appreciate this magazin once in a while despite it's relatively wide target audience, because reading the usual japanese magazines is a bitch (mostly because reading japanese in general is a bitch).
eventually, this lead to a trip to yoyogi park, where a celebration of another cool (japanese) magazine was held, more like a clubdance festival. it appeared that i was not the only foreign fellow who had read the info. in fact, i was quite schocked how influencial metropolis had become, seeing that nearly half of the people were foreigners. why complain, you ask? living in japan has one interesting point: it's the admiration by japanese for foreigners. obviously admiration wears out with a greater number of them in the same spot... ; )

yoyogi park features the 1964 olympic stadium complex by kenzo tange, which you can see on one of the pictures. this is a cheer to tokyo's application for 2016 olympics.

another picture shows an impression of the dance festival which attracted a bunch of esotherical japanese, neo-hippies you could say, and they wouldn't be complete without the original vw bus, would they.

lastly one should get aware that except for high-class and very cheap restaurants, all depictthe offered goods in some realistic way. often western people are amazed by the very realistic plastic imitates that can be found in front displays of restaurants. this determination to show beforehands what customers will get for their hard earned money goes to some extremes. at the festival a small stand of a homeless guy offered american style ice (crushed ice with a sweet syrup on top). at first i didn't get the exact meaning of the intention behind depicting different ice flavours by putting differently coloured balls into glasses, since the ice itself is neither spherical nor does it get served in glasses. than, i realized how cleverly one aspect of this particular type of ice is articulated: difference between the types is not due to taste, but colour... amazing stuff.

let's celebrate a new beginning.

well, well.
second post. don't let yourself be fooled by the time span between this and the former post. I AM ALIVE.
life goes faster in tokyo. i will really start off from now with this blog.
it appeared i have less and less time, and if not now, when else?

however, much has changed since last time. but that doesn't really matter i suppose since i didn't reveal anything at all about circumstances back than.

let's start by telling that i am an architect employed in tokyo. and this is my blog.

so let's observe for a moment the images above ;)
one picture shows a sweet i ate at one of those occasion in akihabara, well know to all the otakus and nerds all over mother earth. surprisingly for myself, there is some traditional excitement there as well. it's a salty apricote covered with a sweet jelly. and here is the deal with sweets in japan, if the description of it sounds akward already, the piece itself tends to be not much different in taste...

second picture shows the famous azabu juban matsuri from above. very nice setting.