End of days

Last day of the trip.
I spent it walking around Akihabara (or Akiba as it is more familiarly know here) and Shibuya.
Akiba to just browse all the junk there is collected in one place. It's amazing. There are shops selling nothing but old PC-parts that looks like they will not even work. And of course there are about one million stores selling manga, anime and all the hentai versions of them as well.

One store was selling old videogame, both cartridges and the consoles, and I found a Sega Mastersystem that I actually thought of buying. But something stopped me at the last minute.

Unfortunately they didn't have any cartridges for the Mastersystem. I could use some cheap ones to experiment on for trying to build something that connects the Mastersystem that I've got to the PC so that it can be used in creating weird noises together with the MSX...


Also found this store that had nothing but different keyboards in it (some hundred different types, including the different versions of HHKB of course), I guess at least one of my friends would have like that place. ;-)

Shibuya to browse for music and to eat (eating in Akiba - not so much). Also remembered to write a postcard to my mom, she's big on postcards and I have promised to write her one whenever I'm abroad for more than a day or two. Got to be a good boy you know...

Tonight I've been asked to join up for a punk concert, but I'm having second thoughts about that. I know that it will not end with just the concert and it will probably end up being really really really late. Guess when I have to leave my hotel for the airport? Uhu, at 6am...
Ah well. We'll see. At least I'll stop by Mother to say goodbye...

Now signing off, no more updates here. I'll be back in Sweden tomorrow evening.

Gnfrghlgnyff!

Today I felt like I deserved when waking up...
The reason is spelled "Mother".
What was supposed to be only a beer or two and some music for an hour or two turned into an all-nighter... At 5:30 I found myself having sushi breakfast/night-snack in Tsukiji with people from the bar. That was so not the plan... But I had fun.

Needless to say I slept 'til noon. Waking up and walking outside I was hit by the +34°C and high humidity - that is not a nice temperature to be a little hung over in. But after a double shot of espresso and a liter of water I was actually way more fit for fight than I thought I'd be. Letting the night play back in my head I realize I didn't have that many beers and they were all small ones (33cl), it just got very very late. God I'm getting old...

I managed to get a picture at Mother this time, which didn't end up all out of focus or just black, or at least of its "Current playing CD"-stand and a small selection of the liquor stash.

The CD on the stand in this picture is Type O Negative (or "Tipe O Negative" as it is indexed in the music menu...) - World Coming Down, and the song playing is Everyone I Love Is Dead. That's the only T0- record they have. Note to self - next time I'm going to Tokyo, bring T0- CD's and give to bartender.


And here I am at the bar. You can tell from my smile that I like this place, right?.. ;-) And yes, I'm wearing ear-plugs. I'm a wuss I know. But I'd like to keep my hearing for a couple of years to come thank you very much...

Photo taken shortly after I arrived at the bar. It was only me, one bartender, some Australian guy and a Japanese "salaryman" there by then, but some time after midnight the place filled up.

But even after recouping from the night quite quickly I spent the afternoon just walking around Shinjuku flipping through records, sipping coffee and watching people go about their lives. I managed to find that record store that I thought had closed the other day - turned out they had re-branded itself with a new name and the sign for the shop came up again today. I also found a nice little psytrance clothing and record shop in a basement some blocks away from the aforementioned record shop. Nice, nice, nice.
No records in my bag though - didn't find anything "out of the ordinary" or distinct Japanese.

Chocochip-macha cookies

Just a quick update before I head over to Mother.
I bought this bag of chocochip cookies in the AMpm on the corner "just for fun".

Macha (green tea), chocolate and cookie - what could possibly go wrong?

Nothing, as it turned out. They're grrrrreat!

Another day of contemplation

Today I took a walk through the backwaters of Shinjuku in search for record shops.
I found quite a deal of them, but not the ones I was actually looking for. One of them I think has closed, I found the place that matched all the descriptions and the lousy hand-drawn map but there was no record shop to be seen (on any floor, in any of the buildings close in or around the marked spot). Too bad.

I also took a walk through the parts of Kabikicho I haven't been to before, the utskirts of it and the eastern part. And having walked through all the winding small streets in the scorching heat I decided it was time to find some shade. Said and done - I was close to the Shinjuku Gyoen so why not enjoy the shade in a Japanese garden?

Not quite as beautiful as the garden earlier this week, but still a nice and tranquil place to unwind from the city (which can be seen in the background of that last photo). It's amazing how all the city noises just disappears as you enter these gardens. The only sounds you hear are from the crickets and the birds.

I found a tea house to rest my legs in and drink some macha. While sitting there sipping on my tea it hit me that I had a couple of old SID-tunes on my music-player (converted to mp3) that might just be perfect for this setting... A couple of tunes from Last Ninja - Wastelands, Wilderness and Palace Gardens, and some remixes. Oh yes. It was sweeet. A chill of perfectness was sent down my spine. It was like sitting inside the most fantastic game of my childhood.

The garden closed at 16:30 so I had to leave. I took the long way "home", making a circle outside Kabukicho and ending up in the northern part of Shinjuku and then pretty straight line back to the hotel. Stopped by Yodobashi for some TP-cables first.

Now it's time to hit the shower and head over to Mother. I feel like blasting my brains with metal tonight...

Just walking

Nothing much to report today.
I took a long walk around Meguro, not much to take pictures of there, just soaking up some "city buzz". Headed over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Tien Art Museum and watched their current exhibition - a Japanese artist by the name of Tosio Arimoto. Not much of my type of art, but at least one painting made me stop and gaze into its depth for quite some time.
After being all pretentious and artsy-fartsy I sat in the garden for a while watching people draw sketches of different trees or the house or whatever it was that they were drawing. Then of course I had to head down to the Meguro Parasitological Museum since I was in the neighborhood - it's such a weird museum you just have to visit it when in Tokyo, regardless if you have been there before or not. Just a quick stop.

After walking around in Meguro all day I headed over to Harajuku for some sushi at "my favorite place" (good selection, relatively cheap, and close to shopping) and then took a walk through the backstreets in search for something I hadn't already seen in Harajuku.

And to my surprise I found something I hadn't seen before!
I took a "wrong turn" and ended up on a street that seemed to go on forever in the wrong direction. But instead of heading back I said to my self - let's see where this one leads, I can always turn back if it's a dead end - and continued for another 10-15 minutes. I ended up in the north-east outskirt, and after starting my way back (on a different street) I found shops I hadn't visited before. Cool! One of them was a rockabilliy/psychobilly/swing shop. I bet my sister would have liked that one.

Needless to say I ended up with a couple of more t-shirts from this stroll in a new part of town. And since shopping takes soooo much energy I had to head over to the Harajuku Taproom for a nice and cold beer...

The first thing that happened when I walked in the door, apart from the usual greeting of a customer entering, was that one of the bartenders told me "We have a new beet today. Sit down and I bring, yes?". Uh oh... A regular in such short time? Ah well, the new ale was good, so I can't complain.

We got to talking about beer, about where I'm from, about beer from where I'm from, and ended up with the three bartenders making a list of good pubs/bars/tap rooms to visit in the Tokyo area - complete with "the master's name" where they knew him. Cool. Domo arigato gozaimasu!

One of the pubs - Ushitora - has over 70 taps with Japanese microbrewed beer! Oh yes - I definitely have to visit that one, and that was one of the places where they knew "the master" (probably translating to "owner", but I'm not sure, could as well be "just" they guy running the bar).

Otherwise, like I said - a slow day just soaking up the city beat and feeling "at home".

A day of tranquility and contemplation

Today I've been sitting in two different gardens for most part of the day. I was originally heading for Shinjuku Gyoen (the park in Shinjuku) but as I reached its entrance it turned out to be closed. In retrospect that was the best thing that could possibly happen today. Why? Because that made me take the train out to Komagome and walk over to the Rikugien park.
A truly beautiful Japanese landscape garden created on the theme of Waka poetry in 1702, an Edo period garden. I will let the pictures speak for themselves...

Have to break in here for a short while. Up ahead there is a bridge made out of two big slabs of stone. In the water below this bride there was a swarm of turtles/tortoises. When I first approached they were just floating still in the water, but when they saw me they started to swim back and forth, crawled over each and was making clucking noises as they bumped into each other. It was as if they were seeking attention. And as I started to talk to them, one swam up on the stone and started tilting his/her head to one side then the other, looking at me while I talked. Cute little fellow.

After watching them for a while I moved on on my stroll through the garden.

Of course there were stairs to climb...

And they led up on a 35m high hill. The view was really nice up there. I sat there for quite some time just looking at the landscape below and thinking of nothing...

No, that is not me, that is just some guy who also sat there in silence and watched the landscape.

After a while I stretched and headed down again. The man on the bench stayed.

In one part of the garden there was a small tea house (no one serving tea though, just the house) that was the only building in the garden that had survived the war. According to the guidebook it showed its true beauty in fall with all the red and orange leafs surrounding it. Ah well, didn't look all too shabby in summer either.

Another tea house (still no tea service) in the other end of the garden. There were some people sitting here, and two of them asleep on the benches. I tried to not disturb them as I passed through, and out of courtesy I tried to keep them out of the pictures as well.

Beyond these restrooms was a tea house that served tea though.

I sat down and had a cup of macha and sweets, a combination I can highly recommend.

The view was spectacular.

And this is how I saw it when not taking all the pictures. ;-)

Ok. This next picture is not just a picture of a rock in a lake. It is actually a dragon! Yup, a dragon at rest. At least that is what the landscape architect thought it looked like when it arranged it there. Just so you know...

Unfortunately the island in the middle of the lake was closed to visitors.

Ah yes. Almost forgot. There were lots and lots of big fat ravens in the garden. This was the only one I managed to take a photo of that didn't end up being out of focus.

And that concludes the Rikugien visit. Like I said, this was where I spent the major part of the day. The gardens close at five, I left this place at a little after two having spent four or five hours there. Since I had time to spare I decided to head over to another nearby garden.
The Kyu Furukawa Gardens.
This garden is a combination of a classical English rose garden, some French garden and then of course a Japanese landscape garden. Needless to say, the Japanese landscape garden was where I spent most of my time. The roses was not in bloom, otherwise that part of the garden would probably have been really pretty as well...
In this garden there is a house. A western style house designed by an English architect. I kind of looked like the haunted mansion. :-)

The rose garden but no flowers on the rose bushes.

On the view-point I found this little fellow and had to take his/her picture.

Here the tea house was closed. So no macha and sweets here...

There is a waterfall in the background there, hard to see it in the picture though and the zoomed in photos were all out of focus.

On my way out of the garden I saw this sign

Hm. No English translation for the warning sign about bugs and spiders and stuff... I wonder what it was that bit my legs. They are all itchy now and I've even managed to itch myself so hard I bleed in some places. Ah well. Probably just mosquitoes...
On my way back to the hotel I stopped by the Harajuku Taproom and sampled two more of their beers.
The Black Velvet Dark Lager:

Mmmm. Yummy. I could definitely drink more of this one. And probably get really drunk doing so. ;-)
And the Rising Sun Pale Ale:

Also a nice beer. But I realize I'm more of a lager kind of person than an ale kind of person. Still good though.

When I came back to my hotel room I found this really confusing note by the water heater:

What I believe it says is that I left some water in the kettle and the maid was not sure if it was to be used again or not so she left it in place and am sorry if that was the wrong thing to do. Wonderful English there, don't you think. :-)

And speaking of Engrish - this one is not so bad either:

And this one...

I was going to cross the street, but I was not sure if I had to go back in time to the night before and press the button in order to cross or not... Luckily someone else must have pressed it last night because it turned green shortly after taking this picture.

Now it is time for a much need shower (it was 36°C today and the humidity at least as high as yesterday) and something to eat.