Pimm's in the (Inokashirakoen) Park

My buddy Daniel and I had a lovely picnic at Inokashirakoen in Kichijoji the other day. Well, by picnic I mean we got wasted on Pimm's No.1. Apparently this is a very British way to wile away a warm spring afternoon. You might think of it as the British equivalent of Sangria in the US. Basically you take a bottle of Pimms and mix in lemonade (we used ginger ale instead because CC Lemon is about as close to lemonade as you can get here), then put fruit and berries in it. Finally, mysteriously, you add peeled cucumbers (it is a British drink after all) which naturally over-powers everything else. After the third cup, though, it started tasting less and less like a liquid salad.

The passers-by were intrigued with the colorful pitcher, or maybe it was with the brashness with which two foreigners were openly getting hammered. A policeman on a bike went by at one point, purposefully straining his neck in the opposite direction.

Pig Flu Becomes Big Pain in the Buta

Let the panic begin. Today Japanese health officials made the decision to quarantine any planes arriving from the Americas. When they land at Narita, guys in hazmat suits board the plane and physically inspect every passenger (I imagine guys with flashlights lurking through a dim and dusty cabin- like a scene out of CSI). When they are allowed to deplane, they walk infront of a camera that can read their body temperature. People who are warm set off an alarm (either because they have a fever, or because they are steaming mad for having to sit on the tarmac for hours):

Read the story about the panic in Japan HERE

Personally I think it is just a ploy to get these policies permanently implemented so that foreigners can be regularly inconvenienced and harassed to the point where no more of their filthy kind come to Japan anymore. Then things can be like they were in Edo period. Happy, blissfully ignorant times those were!

I was made aware of the level of panic when I got an urgent email from the president of Teachers College, Columbia indicating that someone with the flu was touching a computer keyboard in the computer lab. In typical New York fashion, she said that it was too late to do anything about it, so the infected keyboard would not be publicly hanged. She said that disinfecting the areas the student went would be "unnecessarily disruptive to our students during this busy time of the year." So, basically, she is saying: we can't be bothered beyond sending this spam to the entire campus community. But, we want to be part of the panic-spreading fun.

Here is a picture of a Japanese tourist visiting New York. I'm sure if he gets on the E train he will be mugged for his swanky mask:

Read the story about panic in New York HERE

No Special Delivery

All my stuff was finally delivered from New York today and has overtaken my limited living space. It only took 40 days in a shipping container. The choice to use a Japanese company (Nippon Express USA) has proven to be a good one. Three guys showed up today with all 14 boxes, and counted each one as they gingerly placed them on a pad in our living room. They then opened each one to ask us if everything was there. They will even come back after we have unpacked to collect the boxes and packing wrap! Not a single box was crushed, or even dented as far as I can tell.

This is in stark contrast to when I moved to New York from Japan three years ago. I used normal sea mail and the boxes were delivered to us by the US Postal Service. One box was ours, that is, it had our hand writing on it, but inside there was a can of tuna fish with Koran writing, a fake Diesel bag and some books in Korean and Chinese. Some rather important things that started out in that box were nowhere to be found. Calls and a visit to the Post Office in Harlem (not surprisingly) had no effect. Probably the most disturbing thing was when the postal clerk looked at the return address written in Japanese on the box and asked if it was German.

Some Koran guy out there is wondering who those people are on the beach in Hawaii, when all he really wants to do is have a tuna sandwich.

Ayumi Hamasaki- in a Mustang!?

Spotted this video while watching MTV Japan the other day. It's Ayumi Hamasaki's new song called, strangely, "Next Level." I guess by next level she means not psychedelic trance. Perhaps she is referring to a desire to appeal to a more mature audience, like those in their later teens (kogyaru have to grow up too, I guess). Whatever the reason, it was interesting, or just perhaps unsettling, to see her driving a '65 Mustang through the California desert. Or is it really an animatronic Ayu robot in front of a blue screen? You can decide for yourself if you want by watching the video promo here:

Drunk and Naked in Japan? That's a First

Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, one of the 5 members of the hugely popular boy-band-entertainment-super-power known as SMAP, was arrested at 2am yesterday for doing something nearly every Japanese man has done sometime in his life: Get drunk and take off his clothes in public. In a country where comunal bathing is common place, the media drumming he is getting seems a bit over-blown. I can't count the number of times I have seen a Japanese man who has had 5 too many drinks start taking off his clothes. I remember one guy pull down his pants while a friend of his lit his ass hair on fire. A teacher freind of mine sang a little song about penises and at the end pulled his out. These antics were performed in PUBLIC and drew roars of laughter from everyone around.

So, what is it about a talento (celebrities) when they do similarly stupid things that they have to get crucified? A few years ago another of the members of SMAP was stopped for speeding, and the public out cry was immediate and harsh. Like Kusanagi, Goro lost all of his lucrative advertising gigs, and was banned from television for months. What's the deal? Here is an actual quote from Kunio Hatoyama, minister of internet and communications which hired Kusanagi for the switch to digital campaign:

"It's embarrassing. He is a character who is calling for public understanding of the cancellation of analog broadcasting, which will burden the people. I have no choice but to think he is a disgusting person."

A disgusting person? What about Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa getting drunk and attending the G7 meeting in Rome last month? Maybe he should have gotten naked too...

Walk (or Pedal) at Your Own Risk

To illustrate just how perilous the back streets are (and many of the main streets) in Tokyo, I shot this vid with my cell phone while walking to Mukashisakai station. As you will see by the way pedestrians scatter to the sides, cars seem to have the right of way (I think the guy actually swerved at me towards the end- and I'm standing on a curb!) You'll be lucky if drivers even look before they turn onto a street. I was hit by a car while riding a bike a few years ago because the woman was paying attention to merging traffic, not the 6'1 gaijin pedaling by. Luckily I was able to ditch my bike at the moment she gunned the accelerator (I was paying attention to her NOT paying attention). Bike was totaled, I lived to store away another of those "nutty nihonjin" stories.

Murakami's Inochi

My buddy Pete asked what the hell this was. The short answer is that it is a creation by Japanese "pop" artist Takashi Murakami called Inochi (or life, in Japanese). For any of you who don't know Murakami's work, it is very unique, drawing on Pop art, manga and classic Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Unlike most artists, he embraces commercialism (though with his own twist), even creating a line of handbags for Luis Vuiton.

The Inochi just finished an exhibit last week in Tokyo. When I went to the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum last year, they were playing this short video which was made to imitate a typical Japanese drink commercial:



You can read up on the Tokyo exhibit here.

Goldilocks Gaijin

Here is an example of when simply being foreign doesn't garner enough attention for some people in Japan. Spotted this guy crossing the street in Shibuya. When the light changed he skipped across like a little girl, curls bouncing and dress flowing in the breeze. Avaunt guard performance art? Or stupid moron? History will decide...

Don Quixote in Shibuya

Headed down to Shibuya to buy an iPod dock and remote at the Apple Store to the tune of $60 bucks. Afterwards I went to the bargain basement store Donkihote to pick up a few things.


In addition to a generic iPod dock and remote for only $10 (Doah!), they also stock all your daily necessities:

Like maid outfits for all those budding Lolitas -and there appear to be quite a few of them! I spotted two lined up outside a particularly popular McDonald's (though their outfits were too posh to have been purchased at lowly Donki.)

A few blocks away I spotted something familiar, but couldn't believe my eyes at first. It looked like somewhere in the OC. Outback Steak House in Shibuya? WTF?

post from cell- shinjuku

This should be a familiar sight to anyone who has ever hung out with me in tokyo. starbucks shinjuku south exit. hang around here long enough and you are bound to run into someone you know!

Sakura Candy

Here are some pictures from the ICU campus. This place is covered in sakura trees, and for about a week the whole place looks like cotton candy. For being in Tokyo, this is really a rural area (called Mitaka-shi). The campus is a do-able 20 minute walk from our apartment. When I get a bike it will be about 5. But a bike is lower on the list of things I need (a refrigerator is the next thing to tick-off.) I also need some place to put all my stuff I shipped from NY- which is now sitting in customs here in Japan (actually, I'm in NO hurry to have it). I'm glad I have an office at work so I can keep all my books and research OUT of the apartment.
For more info on where I work click HERE

New Digs in TKO

After two trips into Tokyo, I finally found an apartment. Rent is less than Manhattan, but not by much. The part of Tokyo I'm in, called Mitaka-shi, is actually about 20 mins from the center of the city by train. Therefore, it is considerably more residential and rural. It is still Tokyo, meaning the roads are about as wide as they were in the Edo Period! I'm thinking it might be safer NOT to get a bike- a car or even scooter would be safer because you would have the right of way (I know, it's screwed up).

There is an amazing Buddhist temple in front of Musahisaka Station (which is the closest station to our apartment). They do Zen meditation daily and I might look into that- I haven't done Zen for years and really miss it. I posted a pic of the temple above.

Gedowdaheah!

Here are pics taken on our last night walking around our 'hood of the Guggenheim.

Leaving NYC is bitter-sweet. As much as I loved the city, I never really "got it." "The Greatest City in the World!" Really? This is usually spoken by people who have never been anywhere else. And to my amazement, there are a lot of New Yorkers who NEVER leave the city. I think it is much too over-rated, and once I realized that, I was able to feel more a part of it. I loved our Upper East Side neighborhood, blocks to the park and the amazing museums. I think it would be a great place for people wealthy enough to enjoy it. But for the rest of us it made us poor just being there. I read somewhere that on my income I would have been upper-middle class in Houston TX! In Manhattan I was too broke to give our local bum a quarter. You really feel anonymous here- which is great after living so long in Japan. But I could never understand how people never seemed to remember you. Then one of the guys who works at our corner bagel shop saw me packing our suitcases into a taxi and asked if I was taking a trip. He seemed genuinely bummed I was leaving.