I was riding my bike around Adachi-ku Sunday and came across this danchi (danchi = low-rent, often public apartments, this one run by Tokyo prefecture) that apparently has a lot of Filipino residents who must work at the local factories:
Another great find on yesterday’s trip was this cheap supermarket ABS Wholesale Center (located here). They had my favorite cheap Chilean wine (Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon) for only 530 yen! It is usually around 700 or 800 yen at Ito-Yokado.
I will be in Tokyo Saturday and Sunday. There may be some sort of meetup, so interested parties please get in touch.
Update: Adam seemed to think I wasn’t providing enough information so here ya go/
It looks like we well be meeting 8pm to go to some izakaya in Shinjuku, with “we” so far including me, Adam, Joe, Curzon, Ben and a couple of outstanding maybes. It would be really cool if any of the regular commenters on this blog cold make it so we could finally meet in person, so get in touch regarding details.
UPDATE from Adamu: Now the venue has moved to Shibuya @ 8pm on Saturday. At any rate, don’t show up without first contacting me or Roy:
adamukun AT gmail.com
or
roy.berman AT gmail.com
Hello everyone, Benjamin here. I’m Roy’s old friend from summer camp who researches gambling in Japan. I haven’t been posting much but once the program I’m in ends next week I hope to start contributing.
I’m putting up a quick post now because I’m on the cover of Metropolis, Japan’s largest English magazine. Or rather, the article I wrote about mahjong is, but that’s still pretty neat, right? If you live in the Tokyo area, you can pick up Metropolis whereever there are large quanitities of gaijin. If you don’t live in Tokyo, here’s an online version.
I’d also like to take the opportunity to (shamelessly) plug a few lectures I’ll be giving in the Tokyo area this month.
June 3rd 4:45pm
Queen’s Square Yokohama, Queen’s Mall 3F Minato Mirai Gallery Presentation Room
(accessible from Minatomirai and Sakuragicho stations)
Free, open to the public
June 7 2pm-4pm
Marchao Mahjong Parlor, West Exit, Shinjuku
1500 yen, includes use of the parlor until 10pm. This is a great way to start playing!
RSVP to benkun [at] gmail [dot] com, attendance limited
If you’re interested in any further info, contact me at the address above.
To fellow bloggers and blog readers in Tokyo, Trans-Pacific Radio, which makes Japan-oriented podcasts, is holding a live edition of its political commentary series, Seijigiri, at the Pink Cow in Shibuya this Thursday at 7:30pm. To quote the men themselves:
The event will open with a presentation on Trans-Pacific Radio, followed by the live Seijigiri. After that, there will be a special announcement and demonstration of TPR’s most recent project.
The live show itself will involve Garrett, Ken and the audience. The essential concept is that Seijigiri and the audience will have no barrier between them, and the show will be an interactive event.
We hope to see all of our listeners on Thursday June 4 and look forward to doing the show with you!
The Pink Cow website is here. You can RSVP at meetup or facebook. I plan to attend.
I have just booked a trip home for the summer. I will be flying from Kansai to Newark on August 18, flying from Newark to San Francisco on September 10, and flying from San Francisco back to Kansai on September 15. While back home in Montclair, New Jersey (that’s the NYC end of the state) I may also take a brief trip down to DC at some point, so anyone in any of those areas who wants to meet up, please drop me a line.
Aside from that, I am also planning to take a trip over to Korea either before or after my visit back home to visit some friends there and do a bit of sight-seeing, so if any readers in Seoul want to meet up then, also feel free to get in touch.
After Adam started I decided to give Twitter a shot, as did Joe, so I’ve installed the app on my iPhone and added links to all three of our feeds to the sidebar.
<p> <li><h2><strong>Twitter</strong></li></p> </h2>
<p> <a href=”http://twitter.com/Mutantfroginc”>Roy’s Twitter feed</a> </p>
<p> <a href=”http://twitter.com/Adamukun”>Adam’s’s Twitter feed</a> </p>
<p> <a href=”http://twitter.com/RedJoe”>Joe’s’s Twitter feed</a> </p>
Taken with my mobile phone Friday night outside Ayase station.
Note: In case you can’t read this, it says “pee.”
【中村あゆみ】 翼の折れたエンジェル (Ayumi Nakajima Nakamura, “Tsubasa no Oreta Angel” (Angels with Broken Wings))
This song from the 80s has a definite “Japanese woman sings Bruce Springsteen” feel to it, right down to the E Street Band-style saxophone. For lack of anything better to do, I listened to this song about 20 times on the way back from the US recently. You might remember it was used in a recent beer commercial, though I forget which one.
After following Neojaponisme’s experiment with Twitter for a while, I’ve decided to get in the game myself to respond to others’ tweets and post my own brief comments and linkage.You can see my page here and sign up for the RSS feed or join Twitter yourself to follow me! Here’s a sampling:
AdamukunWhy support Hatoyama for DPJ? These insane flash animations of course… http://bit.ly/Llcyu
AdamukunMatsumoto Kiyoshi record sales/profit. 3 cheers for garish yellow signs http://bit.ly/X4aHm
AdamukunRighteous old-school Sesame St. crayon-making video! http://bit.ly/14dYyeA friend of Mrs. Adamu’s brought us these “Khaotan” puffed rice crackers – “the traditional Thai snack” according to the package. Unlike many Thai snacks, these were actually not too sweet. They had a more subtle flavor that complemented the taste of the crunchy rice without overwhelming it.
We ate all the actual crackers already (Mrs. Adamu was especially fond of them), so here’s a random picture from the Internet to show you what they look like:
Hailing from Lampang in northern Thailand, Khaotan is part of the “One Thambon One Product” (OTOP) program sponsored by JETRO, an organ of the Japanese government. JETRO provides funding and expertise to help local areas develop their products for export to places like Japan or New Zealand.
My favorite part of Khaotan was the extensive personality assessments on each face of the package. On the back is a chart of personalities based on the day of the week you were born (this day of the week system is pervasive among Burmese people as well), and a list of male/female personality types lines each side. The part about female personalities struck me as especially harsh – they have about twice as many different types as the men, but almost every type is just a different shade of dishonesty, vindictiveness, or irresponsibility. Just in case you can’t read the photos I will transcribe them for you:
The prediction according to the day of birth
Sunday: Smart at thinking and live happily until the end of life
Monday: Always cheerful and when death comes, one is supposed to be in heaven
Tuesday: Be brand and no fear of any danger
Wednesday: Clean and clear and can make dream come true
Thursday: Lots of properties and wealthy
Friday: Lots of fun till others envy
Saturday: No sad at all and has many followers
Types of male
One who is a typical male
One who is slug
One who is fed by wife
One who is a gallant
One who is inferior
One who is a sluggard
One who keeps himself from others
One who is indolent
One who is always in bad temper
One who runs away from and comes back home several times
One who cares family and relatives
One who is patient
One who has many wives
One who is praised by others
One who has hospitality and sacrifice
One who works hard for the better life of his family
One who is easy to persuade
Types of female
One who is lady
One who is dirty or lazy
One who is pregnant before marriage
One who appreciates the bandit as a hero
One who tells husband lies
One who has many lovers
One who enjoys the entertainment
One who always sleeps
One who loves complaints
One who loves to order others
One who loves to plead
One who is a liar
One who is of easy virtue
One who is too mentally calm
One who is touchy
One who is hasty
One who helps others but neglects her
One who is diligent
One who is good at words
One who participates the nonsense wander
One who blames others
One who has a big mouth
One who goes against others
One who is extravagant
One who is fierce
