Blog and Portfolio of Tokyo based web producer & illustrator, Hawken King.
I’m sick
31st of Oct, 2006ce* in: diary
Not sure how I got it but now have a stinking cold. Or “Kaze” (ka-zay) in Japanese.
In a bid to kill myself off early, I’ve opted to coming into the office, a good 20 mins from my home, because of an urgent request to send data to a client. Unfortunately the data is on my broken back-up hard drive, which I am in the process of fixing. It’s tough. The recovery process takes about 8 hours and then the actual shifting of data takes a lot longer, about 20 hours I guess, to move the data from one hard drive to the other.
Still, I’ll be the wiser for it. Always back up to DVD every month!
To the left is my new invention to curb my torrent of snot, which seems to be draining out of my face in a hurry. The more that drains out and I suck back in, the more I snease and cough. And splutter. And infect the others in this office.
Tonight is “designers week” here in Tokyo, to which I have been invited to the opening bash (which is invite only) and I can’t go! I swear I got in this state from drinking in the first place, so maybe it’s just as well that I am giving it a miss.
OK. Time to rest now. I think I have a fever.
ever have one of those days?
20th of Oct, 2006ce* in: diary
OK here’s an indication of what I look like today.
nothing special, a bit of creative shaving and my jacket. But hell, why was everyone looking at me on my way into work?
There’s paranoia (easy to have in Tokyo, where everyone looks at you any way because 99.99% of people are Japanese) and there’s people looking at you, directly in the eye. No looking up and down, which sometimes happens and is rather annoying, like someone is scanning you (as some of my tall Japanese friends can attest, first people look to see if they are wearing heels). I counted at least 10 or 15 people look me directly in the eye on the metro and literally stare with a burning gaze until I had past them, as if I had a giant sign above my head or something. In the end I had to burst out laughing, just as the Nth person was staring at me (sadly she was a very pretty girl, that’s omotesando for you). I must have given HER paranoia!
In tokyo, where you see girls dressed up as dolls and mohawk punks working behind the counter of convenience stores, one would think that a tall foreign man might go unnoticed.
Oh to those who I told I was going to shave my head today; apparently I’m not allowed. :/
flight sketch
5th of Oct, 2006ce* in: diary, sketches
I really don’t enjoy flying, unfortunately. Usually it’s take off and landing, the bit in-between is OK. However this has not always been the case, I have clocked up well over 200 hours in the air - on everything from Jumbo Jets to small passenger light aircraft. My nerves come from an incident that happened in 2003. I was on a 747 coming in to land in Amsterdam from Tokyo. It was a long flight, I guess everyone was looking forward to the descent. The seat-belt sign came on as we hit some turbulence, most people returned to their seats, I feel sorry for the ones that didn’t as moments later we hit an area of what some call an “air pocket” (although it’s disputed what to call them). I have no idea how far the plane descended in those few seconds, with the entire plane’s occupants screaming it was hard to tell what was going on. I guess it was a close one, any lower and we might have been at risk of landing strangely.
(more…)
okinawa
I spent a long weekend in Okinawa (Japan’s most southerly islands). The countryside and seaside really reminded me of Cornwall in the UK.
While there, I picked up inspiration and new Japanese words. Also I was able to turn my phone off for 4 days, and not see a computer. (not sure they have computers in Okinawa, much like Cornwall) Indeed, this was very relaxing for me.
Photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hawken/sets/72157594312167743/
Some of my favorite moments were spent in the sea, canoeing and snorkeling. I do have a film taken by the snorkeling instructors (who appear to have one of the best jobs in the world, considering I saw at least 3 girls bare their breasts by accident while taking off wet-suits, in just one morning.), when I get this scanned I’ll post it up (minus any breasts unfortunately).
fishing in the bins
22nd of Sep, 2006ce* in: diary
I’m an avid recycler, I love nothing more than separating my garbage. I even scrape the little bits off plastic trays or from the inside of cans, even going so far as to wash the cans. Knowing that not that many people do this does get me down, and often people visiting my apartment will just throw mixed garbage into my bins. Or better still, miss the lining bag completely.
The only reason I do this? Well, Japan is rather hot in the summer. If you don’t separate your waste foods from what it came in, it will stink the place out, as different types of garbage are picked up on different days, with burnable (waste food & waste paper) being the most frequent.
A few days ago I half ate some potato snacks. I folded the bag and put it aside to eat later. In a cleaning frenzy that bag went into the bin, complete. Remember feeling bad at the time because plastic is un-burnable garbage therefore needs to be separated.
Fast Forward a few days and I’m drinking beer, wondering what I can eat. I search the house high and low, but no snacks are to be found. I even considered cooking something… however watching a film and cooking are not mentally compatible in my world. Instinctively I went for the potato snacks I had been munching on a few days previously, turfing out the bin to find them. It’s safe to say that I was drunk at this point. I knew it was wrong. My thoughts ranged from “what the hell are you doing?!” to “mmm, snacks”. I knew it was wrong. Finally, discovering the snacks I poured them onto my sofa, the bag stank like ketchup and ashtrays, but the snacks were safe. The snacks were safe.
With no real side effects, I ate 5 day old snacks I found in my bin.
What the hell is wrong with me!
voices in your head!
15th of Aug, 2006ce* in: diary
I watched a documentary a few weeks ago about people who could “hear” voices in their heads. At the end of the documentary they concluded that we all have an inner track, which is basically the part of the brain that talks to it’s self, and to a certain extent tells “you” what to do. The difference with these people is that their brains have somehow made wrong connections, ending up with the inner track talking to them as if it were another person.
I sometimes hear voices in that semi-sleep state before one loses consciousness and falls into deep sleep. And indeed, yesterday, I heard those voices having a conversation in my head. One truly remarkable thing, is that one can’t control these “voices”. They just have some kind of automatic track - talking about things you couldn’t even imagine, or mundane things that are of little interest.
Thankfully in this period before deep sleep, they don’t actually talk directly to me, it’s more like I’m listing to the radio or something. I hope one day I can steal some cool ideas!
power black out
14th of Aug, 2006ce* in: diary
at about 7am this morning, not when I usually wake up but for some reason I was up and watching a crap movie on my computer, the electricity supply in the building was shut off. At first I thought it was my trip switch (sometimes goes if I’m using the air conditioner too much) but under closer inspection none of the switches were down. Secondly I thought it might be because of my bills… that seemed far fetched so I checked all the meters outside, none of the dials were spinning so the only possible logical explanation was that somewhere, someone has fucked up!
I live near two stations and I could hear trains running, little did I know that the whole of this area (some 800,000 homes and offices) was disconnected due to some buffoon piloting his crane barge into Tokyo’s main power cables. They got it all fixed by about 10am. My apartment came back to life, somewhat interrupting a wonderful game of New Super Mario on my DS. :)
great Uncle King, RIP
10th of Aug, 2006ce* in: diary
In-between masses of emails from clients, I got a rather sombre and sobering email from my mother notifying me of my great Uncles death. He was involved in a car crash some weeks ago in New Zealand, when an oncoming motorist had a heart attack and veered into Bob’s car, hitting him and his wife.
He had been making a recovery after surviving the induced coma that the doctors administered, even sitting up and eating, however a few days ago he suffered a massive multiple organ failure and passed away. It’s very sad and hasn’t really hit home yet, I only met the guy once when I was a kid, while he was on holiday in the UK.
Bob King setup his own company in New Zealand a very long time ago, selling computers. His company is now run by his son. Bob also has a two brothers(?) and a sister (his sister being my grandmother) who survive him.
I’m saddened because not long ago he sent me an email asking how I was getting on in Japan and if I would like to come to New Zealand to meet the estranged tangled limbs of what is the King family. He also talked of my blood-relative now deceased Grandfather, who I only met once. I grew up knowing my step-grandfather. Bob said I shared similar characteristics to him, and as my fathers blood-side isn’t so strong in defining my features (certainly doesn’t explain my beer-belly!) I was deeply intrigued. I wrote a reply to him, however this must have been after he was involved in his fatal accident, as I get family news last, being distant as I am. He took the secrets of my grandmothers first husband with him!
Not being able to contact him before his death is of great pain to me.
my name in Japanese
11th of Jul, 2006ce* in: diary
recently I was told some nice kanji for my surname, which is “king”. So my full name is:
宝剣「ホーケン」(hawken) –> syllabic = ho-u-ke-n
金具「キング」(king) –> syllabic = ki-n-gu
The names don’t really sound like Japanese person or family names, but the phonetic meanings are interesting. Hawken means Treasure Sword and King means to have gold or Gold Implement.
A friend of mine is called Ben. Unfortunately this literally means “poo” in Japanese phonetics. However his surname is Thomas, in Japanese this is syllabically “tomasu”. So ben+to = bento!
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