Tokyo Post #4: Spotted!

Near Asakusa Temple, as I waited for the lights to turn green, watching the traffic go by. Suddenly this pops up, it almost seems as if the gent exerting himself is having fun too. It was a good test of camera reflexes for me.

Any explanations for this? Please do illuminate!

Tokyo Post #3: Ginza St.

A dear friend of mine, while giving me directions on how to spend time in Tokyo, said, Ginza is Tokyo's Park Avenue - only a much more evolved version of it. So I had high expectations of this epicenter of fashionista hipster joyful shopping fiends (yes!). And I wasn't disappointed. Where else can one find a) three huge depatos (department stores) or Haughty Happy Triplets (as I call them) - Matsuya, Matsuzakaya and Mitsukoshi - each with its own impeccable environs, merchandising, charms and attractions. All the stores have enormous numbers of staff - suited and subtly uniformed (I suspect). All are trained to perfection in making the customer feel like an honored guest. They do not show their backs at all, to the extent that I noticed one person backing her way out into an employee exit in a particularly busy section, and bowing as she went. A bit much, perhaps? I don't think so. Compared to these, the treatment that a customer gets at Nordstrom is kind of erratic, even somewhat dismissive...! And then there are shop-within-shops alongside several full-size stores for Prada, Bulgari, Longchamps, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Lanvin...the list is endless.

What is amazing is that the stores are full, absolutely crammed full. Of people buying stuff. On a stormy wet typhoon-beset Saturday evening. Perhaps much more so than ever in Manhattan, San Francisco or Beverly Hills. It is perhaps one of the surest signs of the ongoing democratization of luxury...or the prevalence of a globally extended consuming class.

But again, there's also this - a slow-walking, softly-chanting monk threading his way through the mass of fashionably-clad shoppers...how about that?!

Tokyo Post #2: At Akihabara

Over the weekend I expanded my wanderings around Tokyo, aided by the Metro. It's easy to use, though I hesitated a bit since it was all Japanese (Greek?!) to me at the entrance. The station lights shimmered tantalizingly while peeking in, I could see entire map displays with names in English neatly written up next to the kanji. But the tickets to travel came from vending machines, and the dispensers had little icons and words in Japanese only! Which dispenser to use for a ticket, how much should I buy? Or should I just get a pass, the kind shown in the picture on my Tokyo Metro pamphlet? One of my business colleagues had mentioned the pass, and then said but you can always get a ticket and if you fall short, just do fare adjustment. That sounded a bit tricky to me...so I asked the gentleman at the station, pointing to the Passnet card in the picture and then at the machines. He nodded, smiling, "ichi-ban, hai!" The first machine looked kind of dead, surely he meant the first one that was all lit up? I went to the second one and pressed a few buttons. Didn't realize there was a touch-screen, ended up with a Y160 ticket. The elderly gent opened a window and poked his head out, talking to someone else. I looked over at the other one, then looking carefully noticed a little Passnet icon on it. Ah so! I pushed another button and it came to life, asking for how much (I took Y1000), then dutifully spitting out my lovely little Passnet card! The gent looked at me, smiling. I smiled back and nodded, hai-hai! arigato gozaimashita! So sorry for thinking too much, stationmaster-san... when you say ichi-ban, it means ichi-ban.

My lovely get-out-of-insanely-pricey-taxi-hell-almost-free card

I took the metro to Akihabara and landed in Laox :-) the mega-mega electronics store (all 7 floors of it, include "overseas floors" for international voltages) and immediately ran into a huge bunch of my peeps - its India Time all the time in electronics land, hai-hai! Outside it was pouring rain, the umbies were all out, and so were costumed girls offering cards for something and smiling at everyone (they were dressed, as Fodor's said, as school-girls and are available to fulfill fantasies of all sorts for the otaku, Japanese geeks. Note to self: why hasn't someone introduced this service in Silicon Valley yet? We have geeks...). There was also this sign, that towered above all the umbrellas...

Yes, it's a billboard showing schoolgirl anime poses

So I looked up otaku, and it's pretty interesting. According to Wikipedia,

The term was popularized in the English-speaking world in William Gibson's 1996 novel Idoru, which has several references to otaku. In particular, the term was defined as 'pathological-techno-fetishist-with-social-deficit'.

In an April 2001 edition of The Observer, William Gibson explained his view of the term: "The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age's embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today's interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku-hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not."

More from Wikipedia on otaku here

Rings true, yes (think about this blog and your's too!)?! And then take a look at this, clearly New York excites a deep fascination within the Eastern imagination (I also noticed a "Times Square" in Hong Kong!):


And in the midst of all this modern stuff...a traditional road-sign, so cool!

Someone clearly provides excellent care and maintenance too

So much to see and then finally I took a break at Mos Burger (HAMBURGER IS MY LIFE" and "Japanese Fine Burger and Coffee") where I had a Mos Rice Burger with Coke - so yummy!

On the way back I hopped off at Ginza (it was raining madly, but I'd taken a raincoat + picked up an umby in the 7-11 below the hotel for 150Y) and as the evening came, the lights kept going on...it was so brilliant, that I kept smiling while zooming into shop after shop...! I've also been to see the Haughty Happy Triplets, that's what I've decided to call the three mega-monster department stores (depatos) - Matsuya, Matsuzakaya and Mitsukoshi. They seem kind of cool in a Juppie (Japanese Yuppie?) kind of way....more later on them...

Tokyo Post #1

Tokyo is brilliant. I've been fascinated by Japanese culture since I was fifteen and always wanted to visit! It's a great city and the epicenter of the world's second-largest economy - almost everything works very smoothly and politely. Most people work long hours as a matter of routine. Luxury-brand shopping seems to be an obsession, but along with that space and resource optimization is a constant part of life. I was thinking about that - the small but well-equipped cars, the big simple cellphones (to accommodate the script for texting). Basically lots of people fitted into very small spaces have to figure things out together and be very polite to get along easily! Perhaps there's a lesson there...

For instance, here's my hotel room, of course it's small - pretty much in the heart of the city. The nice thing though that there's a window (so it's not claustrophobic) and everything is literally within arm's reach! And then there are the details. If you look closely, the chair actually has a leather handle to pull at the back.

And my personal favorite - a single bedside console that controls everything in the room - the radio, air conditioning, clock with alarm and the lights (for the room and the loo!). Really convenient and fewer separate things for the hotel to keep track of!

A Saturday Morning Soccer Story

One Saturday morning I got a call from a friend. What are you doing? he asked. The usual, partly recovering from Friday night excesses (yes, I do still pay lip service to the stereotypical single person's lifestyle!) and getting into the weekend with a cup of coffee and newspaper. Well, he said, you remember mentioning that you were curious about the kids playing soccer? You mentioned wanting to take some pictures? So...your last chance to see them is today! After this, the soccer season is over and they switch to something else, as it grows colder. Ah so, I mumbled, cringing inwardly...I did want to take pictures and I was curious about the whole thing...but it had been a late night, I was feeling lazy and besides. So I took the address of the school, descriptions of the kids' teams and whatnot, mentioning vaguely that I'd probably be there if my place got cleaned up in time.

Just getting warmed up, Coach!

You shoot , I shoot!Next time, stay out of my way!

Allow me explain how this began. Most people with children are invariably talking about their kids' soccer. Some even coach teams. One fellow I met said that he had to be home from travel every Friday nights simply because he'd committed to coaching his son's soccer team. That's a sign of singular dedication to me, but to most folks this is normal. It's apparently an extension of the soccer moms phenomenon, which is pervasive, of course. A couple of those have even surfaced in my neighborhood - a bit surprising, considering the preponderance of condos and townhouses, of single people with erratic lifestyles and zippy cars. As a single person one doesn't really get to see what goes on with them or the kids (unless of course, one chooses to give up the single status - in which case an independent inquiring perspective would probably be out of question!). One could observe either from afar, as they ran about in their homes, or up close on the freeway (cursing, as the soccer mom in question makes yet another insane un-signaled lane change in her giant BMW SUV or Town & Country frantically trying to make her exit, lugging the mandatory coffee and cellphone while 3.5 kids and all sorts of soccer paraphernalia bulged precariously out of the back). The question is what inspires such dedication, what are the kids up to? Surely they're not really playing soccer with any seriousness, considering this is America and David Beckham looks for all the world like a man parachuted onto a desert island, trying to puzzle out why exactly he decided to come here. One would have to find out more.

Goal? Goal!

May I have another one, please?

With all this brewing in my brain, I decided to down my coffee, pick up my zoom lens and head out to the high school playground. As I drove into the lot, I felt like an interloper, an imposter, my little two-seater completely out of place amidst the minivans and SUVs. An illegal alien in a strange country. People stared at me. My singleness singled me out. I almost panicked, considering a possible hasty retreat. These were real children! What would they think I was doing? The kids would point and scream Stranger! Stranger! (note to self: this is what happens when one watches too many movies). Then I found my friends (with many bags and sacks in tow), they were busy pushing and praising, feeding and feuding. They gave directions, and pointed to teams in uniforms. Boys play teams of ten, the little girls teams of five. No scoring for the girls, they're encouraged to "just enjoy playing" by rotation. There were coaches and referees, regular soccer balls and goalposts. Kids warming up and kids chasing the ball like a swarm of bees. Kids running tongues out, kids doing self-goals. Kids showing flashes of brilliance scampering down the line to score while mommies screamed themselves hoarse (Kick it out! Kick it out!) with instructions from the sidelines. Some dads screamed at the referee too. I set about taking pictures, first the boys and later on the little girls...and something else happened...I found myself absorbed in the action. These kids meant business, it was real soccer!

The Top Hundred Cars of the 20th Century

As oil prices steadily move to the $100 a barrel mark, and global warming begins to shape decisions at different levels in governments across the world, here's a look back at the 20th century's best automobiles. The list is compiled by the duPont Registry and is based on reader votes.

Some of these are surprising, others not so. Since the Registry is based in Florida, there seems to be a definite (wealthy? elderly?) American bias here - how else can one explain the presence of the Viper, the Hummer, the Prowler, the Navigator, the El Dorado!

#1 is the Lamborghini Diablo. The Ferraris lead in numbers, and then Porsche (both the Boxster and the 911 Carrera). BMW shows up with the M coupe and the Z3.

Notable absentees include TVR, Lotus and MG!

Link to the list

The TVR Grantura - yet another IEBS!

Meet the TVR (mk-II Grantura)

The question is, would you buy this car? It requires more courage than money (available on Craigslist for the grand sum of $12,000). Why courage? Well, essentially because its the very grand-daddy of IEBS, it is TVR's firstborn - the Grantura.







Question is, why aren't any manufacturers making interesting cars like this any more?

I don't want to be unique!

It finally happened. I had a wisdom tooth extraction (my first), and as a result found myself on the (operating?) table with a couple of ladies (the dental surgeon and the anesthetist) peering and poking around purposefully in my mouth. I was given local anesthesia and some nitrous (laughing gas - about which I shall write separately), so I had a semi-detached view of the proceedings, despite the fact that the scene of action was a scant few inches away from my brain.

While I was lying there, the very competent Dr Wang was poking around, chatting away with her colleague making comments like this:
"Ah Mr D, just relax now!"
"Come now, open wider!"
"Nice watch, Mr D, that's a very nice watch - please would you put your hand down now!"
"Come now, this tooth needs to come out!"
"Oh, it's a bit tough to pull!"
"I'm not that strong you know, just a woman! But let me try here, ummm..."
"Need to try harder, open wider please!"
"Ok once more, uuuhhhhhhhhhh, goodness, strong bones, eh Mr D?!"
"Hey maybe I need to do weight training or something, yeah, hahahahaha!"
"Ah, excellent, well done Mr D, it's out now!"
"What? You want to keep it? Nurse, Mr D would like to have his tooth back..."
(Yes, I asked for it)
(And thank you again, Dr. Wang!)
(Sidenote: Dr Wang did a great job. Then she left a voicemail for me that evening, she was checking in on me as promised. And she reviewed progress the next day with a quick 5 minute check-up, which was reassuring. I'd definitely recommend Dr Wang to anyone in the Bay Area, even though she doesn't do weight training. IMO, she doesn't need it!)

As I lay there helpless, the thought occurred to me that of all the situations I've been in, this is one where I don't want to be unique in any way whatsoever! And it's probably very true for all of us! We want to be unique everywhere except on the operating table, or in any medical context, right? Every time I interact with a doctor for anything I want to be the most boring, most routine, most typical and most predictable case s/he's ever come across. Because that's where it's safe to be...I'll leave all the outstanding medical curiosities for someone else to offer, thank you very much!

By the way, I was googling around about some aspects of this experience, and I came up with a web-site that offers training to become "affiliates", as a path to earning easy cash by riding on the "teeth-whitening craze". Check this out! Next time you want to have your teeth whitened you may want to find out what odd-job background that person about to address your (not-so?) pearly whites has had, and how much relevant experience too! Because quite honestly, the picture on the web-site doesn't inspire much confidence now, does it? What were these good folks thinking when they put that in?!