Soundtrack for the evening stroll around Shinagawa station. Revelation for tonight: A great tasting bowl of curry Udon a few blocks from the station was almost half the price of a Chai tea at a tearoom in the station shopping centre.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Touchscreen Vending Machine
One of the new drink vending machines at Shibuya station that does pretty much the same thing as the older ones: Spitting out drinks in exchange of coins or electronic signals.
Nature 1, House 0
The occupants might have forgotten to trim the hedge lately. Kind of fascinating how the artificial urban shapes still stand out among all that natural foliage.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tsuru Included
Small personal touches and encouraging letters from school kids around the world went into some of the boxes. Hope they cheer someone up.
Food to Tohoku @2nd Harvest Japan
Hoping to do something more concrete for those affected by the March earthquake and tsunami I spent 3 hours this morning making and filling up food boxes with other volunteers at Second Harvest Japan. They had the goal of making 350 boxes today, and the afternoon shift is probably done with that soon. Later all will be loaded into a truck and driven up to Minami-Soma.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Omotesando Koffee
If you find yourself around Shibuya with a craving for coffee, this is the place you should look up. Superbly smooth, yet flavourful double espresso (350 yen, a cheap price for that quality) in a great setting. The home baked cube-cakes (the cube theme is pretty prevailing) served out of a coffee filter were really good too. The only downside perhaps is that the location is very quiet, so there won't be much people watching to be done. Those who do find their way in probably are like-minded coffee fans.
Kunitomo -san of Omotesando Koffee
Masterful Barista and owner of Omotesando Koffee. Very nice and talkative person too. Had a nice chat about the interior design, the branding of the place, his idea to make the counter into a pop-up café anywhere after the old house it's in now will be torn down at the end of the year, and a bit about the coffee culture in Finland
Omotesando Koffee Entrance
Behind this inconspicuous gate on a backstreet near Omotesando I found some of the best espresso I've ever had in Japan, and pretty much anywhere else that I can remember. And being located in a nice old house with a tiny garden to enjoy your coffee in is always a plus too. Great atmosphere.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Safecast @Tokyo Hackerspace
Had an inspiring and informative evening at the Tokyo Hackerspace tonight. Long discussion on radiation (not surprisingly) and introduction to the great citizen effort to provide independent and trustworthy info on radiation across the areas affected by the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. These weatherproof, GPS equipped radiation measuring devices made at the Hackerspace can be fitted to cars, taking geotagged measurements as volunteers drive around all of Kanto and eastern Tohoku. Readings are collected and visualized at safecast.org providing anyone with information on the actual situation on the ground in Japan.
Tokyo Sky Tree
The Tokyo Sky Tree kind of looks lower than it's 634.0 meters would suggest, until the top section starts going into the rainclouds. Then you realize that topmast is actually way up in the air!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Hokkaido
Driving to our onsen of choice earlier today. Just got back via the best kaiten-sushi place in this part of town, and now chilling with a cold beer and a stupid TV show that I almost understand (but not sure if I really want to). That's pretty much as good as a Hokkaido day gets in July
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Alphabet Issue
I know that it's difficult to separate "R" and "L" around here, and have sort of become indifferent to the multiple examples of misspelling all around, but this one just baffles me. Did this Asahikawa shopping mall order it's banners and stands from different places with different AD's and Copywriters? The banner maker seems to have been better at English than the stand maker, in that case.
Paper & Engraving
Dropped by Koji's friends glass engraving shop too. Mainly doing custom stuff for gifts and companies. Pretty impressive quality, and gave me some ideas for future use of this technique in product design too.
www.glasscreate.co.jp
Moerenuma Park, Sapporo
First time for me to visit, as it is quite off the public transport grid. Thank's to Koji for thinking of driving there. Nice open spaces and funny sense of scale. Plus some fine architecture and landscape elements by Isamu Noguchi.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Single Serving Coffee
How to brew your individual morning coffee. Again, not the most ecological way perhaps, but then again there's no need to run a full on coffee maker for just yourself. Tastes much better than instant coffee too.
Yakiniku
More of a protein based dinner last night. There's some beef, chicken, onion, squid and shrimp frying here. Later lot's of other stuff was added, some of which you would never see in a Finnish barbeque setting.
Retro Electric Fan
This thing might not be very eco, but it sure helps keep the room temperature sensible. Real 70's vintage too, and working perfectly.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Design Details
Universal Design detail distinguishing Japanese shampoo bottles from treatments and conditioners: Line of small ridges up along the sides. Makes them easy to recognize if you're sight impaired, or the stores have turned off all lights in order to save electricity.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Mt. Fuji, Capped
Spotted the elusive Fuji from the plane window on our final leg up to Asahikawa. Fell promptly asleep again soon afterwards, and woke up well into the landing.
Tohoku Special Menu
A restaurant at Haneda airport had put together a full menu of Tohoku foods for support. They sure need it, but we were not really hungry enough to eat through it so opted for lesser stuff (Tendon and Udon)
In-Flight Entertainment
Took a while to get the connection up and running here in Asahikawa, but now it's all good. Flew a newly painted Finnair A340 to Tokyo, and apart form the exterior graphics the on-screen stuff had got a bit of a tweak too. This section was by far the most interesting, and would be even better if combined with the front camera and with little less tacky graphic design.
Managed to semi-sleep pretty much all the 4-5 hours between the meals, and the Kindle and the latest Monocle issue kept me busy too, so guess I'll have to watch Rango on the way back (if it's still on)
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