Japan is changing

12th of Jun, 2006ce* in: diary, japan

It appears that the newst law in Tokyo has come into effect, and it’s to do with traffic.
Before, in the past, one could ride ones bike to where one pleased and just dump it with a lock on the wheel. Now one has to take ones bike to a designated spot and clamp it to a machine or pay a space rental fee. This is the same deal with motorbikes, where once before, parking your scooter anywhere was easy and legal, now it’s totally out of the question and illegal!

Shibuya has changed a lot since I first came here in 1999. I’ve only been living in Japan since 2001 but since that time a lot of the things I loved about Japan have gone or changed for the worse. Here’s my anal list:

• All night game centers were closed. Game centers now close at midnight
• Tabacco vending machines close at 11pm
• Beer vending machines are totally removed
• smoking is banned in busy places like shibuya (although no one cares)
• PSE law comes in to ban consumer electronics over 5 years old
• traffic law comes in to ban slinging your bike anywhere you please

So I guess next it will be a ban on smoking in public places, including bars and resturants. This will be a hard ban to get through parliment but it will go through sooner or later. It’s shame really because I only just started smoking again this year, and if the ban was implemented last year I wouldn’t have given a monkeys.
Still, I would welcome it, I would have to change my routine. Fags are so cheap here, at just 270yen a pack. That’s about 1 pound 25 pence.

I may end up moving to the countyside… actually that doesn’t sound so bad.

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Japan hot and cold

2nd of May, 2006ce* in: diary

Yesterday was 33 degrees celcius!!
Today it’s 15 degrees.

We’ve been having a lot of thunderstorms and earthquakes recently.

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cheeze

6th of Apr, 2006ce* in: diary

Well, this may not be discovery of the century or anything, but I have discovered something that has changed my life.

For about a decade, or maybe longer, I’ve had terminal acne. Sometimes it’s barely noticeable, other times, and especially in my early twenties, it’s truely rife. I always used to get it around my cheeks, eyebrows and nose.

Now one starts to wonder after such long periods of time where this acne comes from? And if it’s not hormonal, what exactly is the catalyst? At a young age when my acne first started I was prescribed a very large bottle of pills. However at that time (around 15) I could hardly be bothered to do my homework, let alone take a pill every day. My pairents, at the time, didn’t really seem to care about making me do homework or reminding me to take some pills - they were in the middle of divorce - so that particular avenue of help did little to find a cure.

When my acne became rife, I tried everything to make it go away. Creams, pills, lotions & potions. Nothing seemed to work. So I thought, maybe it’s diet, and stopped eating all sugary foods. Nothing happened…

Until I moved to Japan.

Some 4 years later, I have moved back to Japan again. I did get some acne living in England in between (I lived in Japan for only 1 year the first time) and it was starting to get rather bad. However now I have found the solution! Cheeze! By taking cheeze out of my diet, (and it has to be said; there are few foods here that contain cheeze) my skin is now acne free!!

So in the end, it was diet. Something so simple, that cannot be affected by drugs. Only thing is… I love freaking cheeze!!

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the biggest liar I have ever met

30th of Mar, 2006ce* in: diary

One of those days where you work hard and then use your male given right to drink heavily at the pub with buddies feeling good and warm inside, knowing that you’re rewarding yourself for a days hard graft.
I guess yesterday could be considered such a day, and seeing how live so close to a drinking hotspot known as shibuya, I hopped into a cab for the 2 minute journey to my local 200 yen bar where waiting friends had stories and tales to share.

My thousand yard stare took about 3 beers to wipe off and I was ready for the craik!

A friend of mine had befriended a lone american tourist who was in Tokyo for the day, this guy in turn was talking to a Japanese girl. Apparently he had been talking to her for quite a while, in the quest that all men share, of playing the lets-go-to-a-love-hotel. She came into the bar some 2 hours earlier, misstook him for some guy off the internet she was meant to meet and plainly walked up to him asking “are you clark?”.

To which he said “yes” and lied to her for a few hours. Eventually her questions hit dry land (I think he was probably rumbled by A: not being from israel, and B: smoking… “but you don’t smoke!”) Myself and my friend joined in the converstation at that point and it was all good fun. Clark had stood her up anyway, or was in another bar, or both. She didn’t seem to mind that he played a trick on her and they swapped emails, some kisses, and a no-you-can’t-take-me-to-a-love-hotel.

Turns out this guy was pretty handy with a camera so we got some shots of the nights proceedings. Wide eyed and bushy tailed gringos always cause the most mayhem here in Tokyo, whilst us who can speak a small out of lingo are there to pick up the peices, narrowly avoiding beatings or stabbings from Japan’s underworld.

So enter the “biggest liar”. He shouted to us from far down the street as we pub hopped after a belly full of indian curry (with the largest naan you have ever seen in your life!). “Oi!”, “where are you guys off to? Lets go!”. He bought us a round at the destination pub, with his bewildered Japanese friend in tow, who incodently was a raging homosexual. (However not as proud as my neighbours are, but that another story in it’s self) Latching on to me the drunk fucker proceeded to tell me how he own’s two houses here in the city, deals drugs, and is wearing a gun under his coat.

OK so at this point, not taking any chances I tried to play along. Turns out most if not all was bullshit, he started appologising to me and I told him to “be true to yourself” and “only project the image of who you are”. This was pleasantly confusing enough to make him latch on to the American guy while I enjoyed my free pint. He then dissapeared, only to return 5 minutes later with fists full of batteries demanding a photoshoot! The results were hilarious. This daft twat was posing his poor little heart out while his flamboyant aibo made a quick break for it. The barman later told us that he spent 80,000 yen in the bar the previous day (some $800) and was his new best friend.

Rich idiots with no friends, entertainment for the poor.

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Manga Kissa

23rd of Aug, 2005ce* in: diary

Japan is good, Tokyo is mad, Summer is hot!

I’m killing time in a “Manga kissa” before I go to pick up my monthly wodge. I’ll explain a little: Manga is the Japanese word for Comic, Kissa is a shortening of Kissaten which means cafe. In actuallity these places are heaven for killing time, and very affordable. For about 1.50 GBP an hour you can get free refil drinks, your own cubicle with computer and internet, access to a library and a very very comfortable chair which they hope you fall asleep in so that when you finally rouse, you’re digging deep in those pockets for 8 hours kip. Being open 24 hours a day, they are semi comfortable if you get stuck in a part of Tokyo you’re not able to get out of when the trains stop running.

That is, if you can mutter the required Japanese from a mouth that took in copious amounts of Japanese alcohol. I guess they’d help you over pay, so kind.

Well this certainly brings back memories from when I first came to Japan. 5 years ago I first started this Diary in Japan, in a Manga Kissa. Unfortunately those pages have been lost in the mysts of time.

I’m closer to working out what I want from life, and my level of Japanese is reflected in this casual mentality. I’ve been in Japan for almost 5 months, with nothing particular to do. It’s driving me mad somewhat, however everything is coming together now, making sense of the chaos!

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Come to Japan

5th of Apr, 2005ce* in: diary

I’ve decided to come to Japan for a bit of an adventure. I’ll be studying Japanese for 3 months and then trying to put it into practice for another 3 month, which puts my return to the UK date at Oct 3rd

Again, I’m on a voyage of self discovery, trying to understand what I want from my existance on this planet. I managed to save a shedload of cash from my previous job at Babel for this exact purpose, the plan has been burning away in my mind and soul for what seems like eternity.

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Nissan create Cube screensavers

10th of Mar, 2005ce* in: diary

Wow!
Nissan have really impressed this time with their decision to hire three of Japan’s top interacive designers to do something special! As the site is in Japanese, I’ve linked these fantastic screensavers here for download:

Kenji Sanro: cubeman
windows | Mac OSX | Mac OS9

Koichiro Tsujikawa: cube clock
windows | Mac OSX | Mac OS9

Groovevisions: GRV2213 (my favorite)
windows | Mac OSX

The first two are 3d screensavers made in director and the third is done in flash. Cube Man is a couple of cute little cubes bouncing around, which you can map your own pictures onto. Sugar cubes is a little more entertaining and very original, little ants come out of a hole every minute to rearange a clock made from sugar cubes. The third one is amazing. Seeing a car being driven around from a Spy Hunter perspective, with seemingly random simple yet wonderful terrain.
(Nissan Cube)

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paintball

6th of Feb, 2005ce* in: diary

“Probably the best fun you can have with your clothes on!” - I overheard someone say when we were on the bus taking us back from paintballing, deep in the Sussex countryside. A drizzly day proved to be one of the best days out I’ve had in a very long time! For the uninitiated, “paintball” is rather simple; two teams battle it out armed with gas powered guns that fire small balls containing paint. On impact these paint balls explode and render the target “dead”.

We played 7 exhilarating rounds, split into two teams (white and yellow, I was on the white team), pitched to capture flags, storm strongholds and capture objects from downed airplanes. The rounds were 15 minutes each and team member can come back to life at 5 minute intervals if shot. Round 1 saw me pick off 14 yellow players and capture their flag, successfully returning it to our base and winning the game! All of the other games were frantic, getting the adrenaline flowing and the blood pumping! Round 6 saw us capture the Yellows stronghold by use of smoke grenades and a lot of crawling on the ground. The final round I volunteered to run to the downed airplane through a swarm of bullets and capture the briefcase, which I only just managed to do before diving into a pile of leaves to hide the goods!

My whole body now aches, being shot by paint balls is quite painful at first. Fun soon makes up for that minor drawback, which was had by all! This will be my final outing with the staf at Babel Media, and what a way to go!!

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Farewell to Babel Media Ltd, more time for DADAKO!

24th of Jan, 2005ce* in: diary

After a few months of contemplation, I’ve decided to resign from my job as Art Director of Babel Media Ltd. This is to pursue my carrer as a fulltime illustrator and go back to Tokyo to study Japanese for 6 months.

I’ll be leaving Babel on the 28th of Feb (2005) and I’ll be travelling to Tokyo in April. As droll as I’ve made it sound I’m super fucking happy!!!

So, watch this space. Because the Dadako brand will be getting a major update! I’ve been considering how to pimp my goods for a while, a collaboration and shop are on thier way; to sell T-Shirts, wall art (cheap posters!!) and soft vinyl resin toys! Finally I have time for what I’ve always wanted to do, but it really has taken this long for me to go out on a limb and make the Dadako idea into reality.

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white christmas

24th of Dec, 2004ce* in: diary

A thoroughly enjoyable Christmas mainly for the fact that it snowed on Christmas day!! Taking a 6 hour journey and changing trains 4 times, I finally ended up in Exeter St.Davids station laiden with luggage, although the fun didn’t stop there, an hours drive to dartmoor and the middle of nowhere (where my mum lives).

On Christmas Day, we were all leaping for joy as a thick carpet of snow had fallen overnight. Two tescoes shopping bags later and my boots were made for walking.

Merry Christmas dudes!

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