More Dated Festivities ~

This is from the Waseda school festival. A lot more famous, and just generally bigger than the one posted below. Happened around the same time.

Apparently a lot of celebrities attend, but since I'm not up to date on my Japanese celebrities, I'm not sure whether I actually saw any...

The Model U.N. protecting member nations from giant octopodes for generations.

Rokurokubi (ろくろくび）or Long-Necked Woman, some kind of Japanese monster. Not quite sure where the terror is.

All of a sudden I felt a slightly unnerved...

This guy maybe?

Some deep-fried icecream, with strawberry sauce and chocolate sprinkling. You are jealous. This is a fact.

It's been a while...

These were taken at Toyo's school festival, which I'm pretty sure was sometime before Hallowe'en...

There were a shit load of food stalls, this particular one is takoyaki

There were also a shitload of people, but I think I'd gotten over the population density at that stage.

Obviously being in Japan there's going to be a Pikachu wandering around.

The Elmo came as more of a surprise.

And of course an obsequious monkey.

Obligatory Engrish Post

I figured I'd throw in some ridiculous French as well.

SD what I did there?

I finally got a microSD for my phone so I can upload the random variety of pictures I've been taking. Unfortunately while fiddling with the settings to make my phone save to the SD automatically, I noticed I've had the picture quality on the lowest setting... So everything thus far will be tiny...

I Excel at Camera Forgetfulness

I haven't been doing much but go to college lately, but when I have done/seen things I haven't had my camera on me... So here's some pictures from my balcony to keep this post colourful!

Noh Woman Noh Cry

I went to a Noh workshop today in Toyo. It was free, and these shows have tickets going for €100 usually, so I figured this'd be a good taster to see if the real thing was worth paying for.

It wasn't exactly 'my thing' but maybe a professional performance would change my mind about that.

Anyway, there were no cameras allowed during the actual performances, but there was a bit in between where they took a guy from the audience and dressed him up that we could take pictures.

まじFucking超めんどうくさい！

I've been taking a load of pictures on my phone rather than bringing my camera around everywhere. The only problem is, the phones here don't come with all the cables (or even a charger) as standard! So I've yet to get them on to my laptop...

There are some good ones if I recall though, some sneaky shots of Engrish on t-shirts and the like!

I Did a Food

Delicious sand burger.

So much potato!

Ploduct Pracement!

Dancers in Harajuku

They were doing better stuff before I took the camera out... And as soon as I put it away a fight broke out between The Sharks and The Jets! I have the worst luck.

Vietnam Flashbacks

Went to "Vietnamese Festival 2010" in Yoyogi Park today! Had some delicious, if not a bit expensive, food, and walked around for a bit. I also saw a poodle wearing shoes but wasn't quick enough to get a picture.

The bridge on the way over. Pretty accurate.

Rare Poodelous Japonicus Velociraptor.

Pretentious dragonfruit.

Finish him!

My first Asian food battle!

Thialand vs. Vietnam

Ellie Goulding'd Have a Fit!

I can't really look up most days 'cause the sun is too bright, here and at home... Everyone I've ever been actually. Kids from 'The Others' eat your heart out!

Anyway, night time is tall time for me 'cause I don't have to choose between looking at the ground or squinting. So on one of my frequent night time gazes to the heavens I noticed there are no stars here. None.

It's kind of surreal, I don't think I've ever been anywhere with as much light pollution. I don't know why people moan about this kind of thing though, it doesn't really impact your daily life in any way.

(If you don't get the title)

Tokyo Toyko? Like Tokyo Tokyo in Tokyo?

I went to Tokyo the other day. Although I was pretty sure I was already in Tokyo, so I'm not sure if this is like central Toyko or what. :\

We were here to see the imperial palace (or the grounds, whatever we had access to really), but it turns out they close on Mondays and Fridays, so we just got to look at the perimeter. So that was a pretty scenic 8km.

My battery died just after that last picture, which pissed me off to no end because just after that I saw hummingbirds! I didn't know they had hummingbirds here, I thought they just had a word for it 'cause they exist. :S

I'll come back here when the grounds are open (with spare batteries too) so I can get some proper pictures.

Dirty Foreigners!

I haven't updated this in a while because I've been busy, tired, drunk, or all of the above.

So here's some pictures from Shibuya taken last week!

This guy was here all day talking about how foreigners are bad and should leave Japan.

I'd love to know where his megaphone was made!

Here's the obligatory picture of 'shitloads' of people, since it's what everyone imagines when they think of Tokyo.

I couldn't resist taking this picture. The cow just looks soooo smug! Especially considering she's on a tin of some sort of artificial milk! Dizzy bitch!

First look around my Tokyo Apartment

My Apartment

Balcony

Living Area

Living area part two: Now with kitchen!

My room

My room, again...

Vertigo

Found a viewing deck on the 60th floor of a building behind my hotel (model of the building shown above), not bad on the second day to see pretty much the entirety of the city from 60 storeys up.

That white building there is my hotel. The building that the day before had me amazed at the height of the 29th storey I was staying on.

Nothing much else to say really. The pictures should speak for themselves:

The Tokyo Sky Tree in construction off in the distance.

A building that looked a good bit taller from my hotel room.

Fit For a Prince

Headed straight from the airport to my hotel, The Sunshine City Prince Hotel in Ikebukuro. There's not much to say about it really. Pretty standard hotel stay, apart from my head nearly scraping the ceiling as I took a shower.

This was the view from my window, which to be honest was probably the highest window I'd ever looked out of (until the next day).

Below the window there was a driving school. Pretty good idea, much better than having a load of learners on the road straight away.

Airports, and Buses, and Death , Oh My!

Well I made it through Dublin airport quickly enough. Nothing of interest there really. I was hoping their new terminal would be open but no, I had to plod through the old one.

Then came Schipol. There were so many tulips I had to take a picture! I mean, there were more stands selling tulip bulbs than there were information desks!

Narita. That was interesting. I got off the plane (the one in the picture if you hadn't copped that by now) into a stifling heat and thought "holy fuck, I might actually die here." Only to later realise that the airport's air conditioning was keeping it comparatively comfortable to the outside world. I think I'll be finding out the melting point of an adult Irish male over here.

Shooting Babies!

Soon I shall be taking up new residence in Tokyo, but with two weeks to go until I fly half way around the world and a number of annoyances are starting to crop up:

1. I've still got to get my suitcases and shit sorted so I can actually pack!
2. I've still got to get boxes for the crap I'm not taking, pack away said crap, and decide where it's going to be for the next year.
3. I've been informed I'm flying on a notoriously bad airline for long-haul flights.

Whoopee...

On the plus side my ever-loving mother has given me a camera as a going away present. A 12 megapixel Fujifilm Finepix AV 120. It's got a special mode for shooting babies. I've yet to try it out, but anything with a specific setting for shooting babies is already a winner in my book.