sorry guys

I apologise for the recent inactivity on the site, I’m actually  holiday these days and the internet over here isn’t so great. There might not be anything new up until I return back to Tokyo, which will be next month lol. Check back then, I’m probably going to post a lot of my photography if I have the time… Kyoto is quite simply amazing!!!

When drink names go bad…

Someone’s running out of ideas for new drink names methinks!!

Neat view of Tokyo

Sorry guys for the recent inactivity, work has been hectic to say the least. Anyway, to get back into the swing of things I’ll start off by posting a photo which was taken in an observation deck of ‘toucho’ in Shinjuku. Toucho is pretty much just the Japanese way of saying Tokyo Metropolitan Government Centre, it might be an abbreviation but I can’t really remember properly lol! Anyway, the best thing about the observation deck is that it’s free, which is great compared to other places such as the Tokyo Tower and Roppongi Hills which charge around 1500 yen I believe.

The Pillows still rocking on

I’d like to share my 2 favourite songs from the well-known rock band, The Pillows. They’ve been around for a while and have really established themselves in the rock music scene here in Japan since their debut in 1989. Awareness of their music in America drastically increased after their music was featured in the famous anime FLCL. Since then they have played a few times in America and I’m sure they will return sometime in the future. Admittedly I haven’t heard much of their music, I will have to take the time out to listen soon! For now though, enjoy! (By the way,  Avex owns the rights to this music, unfortunately the record label took down the video on youtube a while back, but it’s reappeared, let’s hope it stays this time!)

Ladybird Girl

Scarecrow

Super cool temple in Aoyama

I don’t know the name of this temple or anything about it at all to be honest, but I thought it looked really cool so I really enjoyed capturing it on camera!

Interesting buses

It’s a well known fact that the Japanese have a love of all things cute, or kawaii. When you’re in Tokyo you even add taking a ride on a bus to your daily in-take of sugar-coated ‘kawaii-ness’ …erm, I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

Jolly pig

This pig seems to be really enjoying himself! You can find him above an odd looking restaurant in Mita!

Gackt - the iconic star of Japanese rock

This man needs no introduction, but just in case you’ve been living in a cave for the past decade, I’ll give one! Gackt originally rose to fame when he was in a visual kei band called Malice Mizer, however in 1999 he decided to launch his solo career, and I think that really was a good idea because his solo music is much better than that with his former band (just my opinion! :P) Gackt is pretty much one of the most successful Japanese musicians and he has formed a solid fanbase outside of Japan. He’s also done his fair share of voice acting, being featured in Final Fantasy and the New Fist of the North Star, and he even got his own video game, called Bujinkai. Lastly he also wrote the script and starred in a movie called Moon Child (I’ve seen it and my honest opinion is that I thought it was shit, but hey, his music still rocks!) Here are my favourite songs:

This is the 6th day single version of Mizerable, I prefer it to the original:

The opening of Shin Hokuto no Ken (New fist of the north star) The song is called Luna:

This is an awesome live performance of Black Stone:

Last, here’s a brilliant live performance on piano of his great song, Last Song:

The beautiful Reika Hashimoto

Today I’m featuring the very beautiful Reika Hashimoto on the site. Fans of Japanese cinema might recognise her as she was in one of my favourite movies - she played the ass kicking martial arts girlfriend who continued to rise from the grave in Survive Style 5+!! She’s got a slightly exotic look to her which I think is really hot - she’s actually half Spanish and half Japanese. These days she does a lot of modelling for fashion magazines and it looks like she is becoming even more successful as she has just started to be featured in a big advertising campaign for new mobile phones. It’d be good to see her featured in some new movies soon!

On a sad note…

Well, as you should all know, Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally out but alas, I don’t have a PlayStation 3 I went to Akihabara today and the area is full of MGS4 related advertising, check out these pics:

One big store in Akiba (Asobitcity) is even selling the US version of the game, although stocks are very low now. I don’t know if I can buy a PS3 just before I leave Japan, I have savings for it but there’s a lot of travelling I’d like to do, ah well, I’ll have to wait and see, but I have to say that this is the first game which I can finally say is worth buying a PS3 for.

But on to a much more serious note- today was the first time I had been to Akiba since the horrific attack that happened there. The atmosphere was a bit sad and there was an area on the main road for people to pay their respects to the deceased. Obviously there are a lot more police in the area also. I consider myself lucky that I wasn’t there that day, I actually go to Akiba quite often when I’m free. I don’t want to bore you with all of my thoughts on this topic but I’ll just say that a lot more needs to be done in order to solve the problem that Japan is facing. There are some sick bastards here in Japan now (just recently one guy was arrested for pushing someone off the platform and into an on-coming train) and policing, whilst important for stopping these psychos, just isn’t enough on its own. There’s a serious problem with communication here in Japan, and I think that might be one reason why some people become a little crazy in the first place- there’s a build up of a lot of work related stress and other possible factors, and most people have no one to talk to about these problems. In school there’s a considerable amount of pressure on students to do well in their exams and a lot have to attend cram school (which I guess is another reason why a lot of students kill themselves). There also might not be enough communication within the family. Anyway, I haven’t done enough research into this problem to provide a solid opinion but what I can say for sure is that there needs to be some considerable change in Japanese society for things to improve.