Long time without posting…

It’s been way too long since I last wrote something.

But, in my defense, we’ve been pretty busy. Highlights?

• Yoko’s cousin’s wedding in Niigata.
• Work, lots of work.
• Yoko’s brothers wedding.
• More work.
• Moved house.

And Mia has teeth now! She is very chompy.

Two weddings in the space of about 5 weeks, both out of town, so we were away for the weekend. Both great though, took heaps of photos, really happy with how they turned out. Will think about posting one or two on Flickr. Weddings in Japan are quite the event, very impressive.

Also, I finally got around to getting a new camera… I’m back with the Nikon brand again! One shiny new Nikon D90. Am most pleased with it. Have been really enjoying Black and White again…

And we’ve moved.

We’re now living in Kachidoki, only been here about a week, but loving it so far. It takes a bit longer to get to work, but it’s a much bigger apartment, in a really great part of Tokyo.

It’s on the 57th floor – second from the top in this photo.

The view is great, maybe even better than the view from our old place in Shibaura.

We went for our first good walk around the district today, had lunch in Triton Square, then walked around the parks there, then walked up to Tsukishima and explored some of the backstreets near “Monja Street”. Very cool, great way to spend a Sunday. Posted a couple of photos from the day on Flickr.

 

Anyway, will try and post a little more frequently.

On my desk...

On my desk...
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

I noticed how reflective the iPhone really is the other day when I put it down on my desk... so I thought I'd take a photo of it. I really don't like taking still life photos that much, so I don't really do it that often. Usually I don't really like how they turn out, but am reasonably happy with this one. It also reminded quite a lot of one of my friend's photos which I really liked.

So how is the iPhone? I've had it for quite a while... its damn good. In fact, to not clutter the internet with more of the same, Thomo has already summed it up pretty damn well.

What else is going on? Not much, hanging out at home for a while (I'm on holiday!), playing with Mia, catching up on some sleep, trying to avoid reading Bloomberg, and going snowboarding this week, so it better start snowing tomorrow, because it's a bit lacking at the moment. The forcast is for a white Christmas which will be fun :)

Afternoon Tea With a View

This one is also from a couple of weeks ago. We went to Tokyo Dome, and ended up having afternoon tea in a bar / cafe thing on the top floor of the hotel there. Was a pretty impressive view, and some pretty tasty food.

Tokyo Dome is the big building on the left, the amusement park is part of the greater Tokyo Dome attractions, this shot is looking vaguely north towards the outlying parts of Tokyo, not that you can tell, a Tokyo seems to go on forever!

A Mango, A Bridge and a Crane.

Like the title says...

A mango, an expensive mango. A $157 mango.

And on a completely different subject, a damn big crane. Have been wondering all week about what the thing was parked over the other side of the bay, it looked like a large piece of roadway on a barge. Turns out that's exactly what it is. It is part of a new bridge, and this huge crane is going to lift it into place. To give some scale, the little boat in the foreground is actually a ferry, not a small ferry either, if you look closely you can see quite a lot of people standing on it's roof.

Some random photos from the weekend...

Lately, at the end of a nice clear spring day, the view from our apartment has been pretty nice. The sun gets reflected back off the buildings on the other side of the bay. Finally managed to grab a photo, it isn't the best, had to push the ISO to 3200, so its pretty grainy...

This is 4 shots glued together, the end result isn't to bad.

And on a completely different subject...

For the last few weeks there has been fire boats in the bay doing strange, choreographed, well, something. Including using the funky water cannons. Interesting.

Anyway's, on Saturday it became obvious why. They were rehearsing for some demonstration of fire boat goodness.

Including shooting fluorescent colored water from their water cannons. Didn't quite grab the camera quickly enough, but managed to catch the tail end of the spray.

Mmm, technicolor... 

Sunday afternoon at Zojoji temple

We went for a stroll around Zojoji temple this afternoon. It is only one train station away - but you could walk there if you wanted. Was a bit of a random encounter, because we were on our way back from a Hanami festival, and had to change trains at Daimon to get home. It was lunch time, so we decided that we may as well go get some food and explore around Daimon a little bit... we ended up following the crowd to Zojoji.

Anyway, lots of people, lots of Sakura, and lots of Jizo... very colorful and bright, but quite sad when you find out what they represent.

And on a completely different note, well somewhat related as it is also has cherry blossoms, we saw this last weekend. There really is a lot of rivers / canals / water in Tokyo... almost everywhere you go your only a short walk away from a river or canal. Pretty cool, especially at this time of year, because quite a lot look like this.

It's snowing in Tokyo!

It's been snowing here in Tokyo all day. Very cool! Have to go out later, could be interesting...

Has been a while since I posted, but have some more to post later today...

Lazy...

Ok, I've been lazy. No posts in a while. Why? (excuses time...) Its been busy at work, those databases in my last post have been a pain. Apart from that? Ive been in Thailand as well for a holiday ;)

Anyway, some stuff I should have posted a while ago:

First off, we went and visited the National Science Museum. Really cool, heaps of interesting stuff, and really cheap (not like museums in .au), is good to see this stuff being made available to all for next to nothing. They've got all sorts of stuff, from dinosaurs, through to some of the earliest computers, and even a section on space flight. Oh and they have a real missile launcher in their back yard! And the roof terrace with umbrellas that sense you coming and automagically open is worth seeing.

Next Up, Tokyo Tower.

We had a visitor come to stay with us, so we got to do the tourist thing (hah, as if we still aren't tourists ourselves!). So we took her all around the place, including Tokyo Tower. I hadn't been there before either, so it was pretty interesting.

They have a section with a glass floor! Cool. The other pic is looking towards the west... the big building on the right is Izumi Garden Tower, which happens to be where I'm working, my window looks back towards Tokyo Tower. The big building on the left is Roppongi Hills, and in the center is Tokyo Midtown, and behind that, in the distance is Shijuku.

The pictures are taken from my phone, so they aren't the best... didn't really feel like dragging my camera around with me though.

Typhoony... is that a word?

It should be a word if it isn't, because that's what it is outside.

That big swirly thing, i.e. Typhoon Fitow is going over the top of us right now.

Getting home was interesting... a rather exciting taxi ride. People walking down the street we fairing much worse though, some were getting dragged away by their umbrellas, and some people are almost wrapped up in their umbrellas as the wind folds them around them.

Schools and such all closed at midday today, and are closed again tomorrow... unfortunately I don't get a day off work, I have heard that we would have a great view of the "flying futons" from our house. Oh well, maybe it will still be windy on Saturday.

Oh and we cant open the doors to our balcony, the wind is pushing them so hard. Lucky the glass is like an inch thick.

Lazy Sunday Shopping...

So after our funky day tour, today was some lazy Sunday afternoon shopping. A quick monorail ride from home and over the bridge to Daiba and into Venus Fort (there's an English link near the top).
Ive been wanting to try the camera on my phone for a while now, its not too bad, but the quality isn't brilliant... good enough for blogging though ;) And Ive got to say, damn its hard to hold steady.

So after a really nice lunch at the place below, which had some really cool ambiance, we spent the afternoon wandering around in the mall, pictures above. All I can say is, wow, what a cool place. Oh and hey, its full of shops, and its all on sale at the moment. Nice.

So it's the weekend... "Day Tour!"

So we went on a day tour. Its hot and its summer, so lets go somewhere with a pool. In fact lets go to a place that specialises in water. So we went to Spa Resort Hawaiians.

A day trip, a day trip bus tour, everyone else does them, so why not us? So off we went, on the bus at 8:30 am, a quick pit stop at a huge roadside "facility" (way more fancy than the ones in Australia!) and then at about 11am arrive for our 5 hours of fun in the pools. Check out the link above, it's a pretty cool place. It feels a little run down, and it was pretty crowded, but damn it was still cool.

This poster is in the front window of the entrance hall thing. I'm still not sure what "Doctor Fish" are, or what they do for you, and for 1500 yen I wasn't really that interested in finding out... especially when there were water slides, dozens of pools, hot tubs, onsens etc etc to play in.

So after a long day of swimming, well mostly lounging in the hot tubs, its back on the bus to head back to Tokyo. Another half way pit stop in another huge roadside thing, complete with Kitty vending machine. And then back to Tokyo by about 7pm.

One day tour complete.
Neat.

Typhoon and Earthquake... all in one 3 day weekend.

So we got the double whammy for the long weekend just gone. Saturday and Sunday was typhoon warning, it cleaned up Okinawa, but was a non event here in Tokyo, well we got some rain but that was about it. Then at just after 10am on Monday we had an earthquake. It was only about 3 on the Richter scale here in Tokyo, but it was over 6 in Niigata.

It seems that the nuclear power plant over there didn't fare quite as well as one would hope...

Even though it was only small here in Tokyo our building got up quite a rock and roll, up here on the 36th floor we were swaying around for a good minute!

Trains...

Coming from Sydney, and having been a cityrail commuter in the past (and as a result ended up being the first owner of such distinguished domains as www.f*ckcityrail.com etc) I was really worried about having to commute to work on a train. Even more worried when I found out I have to catch two trains to get to work. Even more worried having heard stories of how crowded the trains are in Tokyo...

What a pleasant surprise! Ok the trains are crowded sometimes, but they come every few minutes! Ive never had to wait more than about 3 minutes for a train. I don't even have to worry about timetables and such, because they just run like clockwork every couple of minutes. Pretty stoked at how quick it is to get to work, I spend more time walking to the station than I do on the trains - first train for one stop, then change platforms, second train for 2 stops, then into the lift (without leaving underground) up one flight of steps, then I'm at my desk. All done in about 30 minutes, 10 to 15 of which is spent strolling through the crowd to get to the station!

Also, Tamachi station, I have to walk through it in the morning to get to my station (Mita). Wow, to say it is incredibly crowded in the mornings is the biggest understatement ever. It is a non stop stream of people packed in shoulder to should all going different directions! And I have to get from one side to the other... so glad I don't have to go into that station, my station is nowhere near that crowded. Will try to post a pic of it soon...

Rainy Season

I'm confused. I keep hearing that it is rainy season at the moment. People are complaining that its hot and humid and rains all the time...
The only thing is that to me it doesn't really seem that bad, I don't really think its rained all that much (it rains for a day every few days, but not really pouring rain, just damp). Ok it is pretty hot and humid outside sometimes, but I've pretty much managed to avoid that. The only time I really have to be outside at all is the ten minutes walk to the station in the morning, then ten minute walk home at night (the building I work in has a train station inside it, so only need to go outside at the "home" end of the trip).
I suspect its going to get wetter and hotter yet, will have to wait and see...

Renting in Tokyo

So we've found our house, as mentioned before, but I thought I should explain how we found it. It was a very different experience to looking for somewhere to rent in Sydney.
We had two agents that worked with us (they both spoke really good English aswell), we told them how many bedrooms etc and price range then they send through a heap of floor plans. You pick some and say "hey, I'd like to see these ones", then they come and pick you up and drive you around all afternoon and show you the apartments! Not like Sydney where you have to do it all yourself, here you have the same person who comes to you each time and takes you out to see everything. It makes house hunting very easy! and there is so much to choose from aswell!
Ok, so I may have a slightly easier experience than some (being an expat on relocation arrangement), but still, damn, what amazing service. But when you do decide on a place you do have to pay "agent fee" (like a months rent) but still, pretty damn good value if you ask me.
It actually made finding a place to live fun.