Alex Cornell : Blog

NEW BLOG ADDRESS

2009-01-27T22:50:00.000-08:00

I have started a new blog, which is actually this same exact blog, but in a new location. That was confusing. The point is, I will no longer be using this blog site. Please update your bookmarks etc. Click the image below to be redirected:

Alex on iTunes

2009-01-23T15:16:00.000-08:00

Click here to check it out

Speaking of Tigers...

2009-01-21T23:20:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned, I love Tiger Lou. This is my cover of their song "Functions".

Tiger Lou

2009-01-17T23:34:00.000-08:00

I have never met anyone else that know about Tiger Lou, which is very sad to me because they are one of my favorites. Amazing! Their new album is taking some getting used to, but their old stuff will remain permanently lodged in my top 10. Listen to "Functions" or "The Loyal" to get an idea of what we're dealing with.

The Sixty One

2009-01-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

I don't really know what this site is, but you can listen/download some of my music there. Check it out, if you feel so inclined.

Funny story about the phrase "if you feel so inclined." I once asked a girl to dinner, randomly on the street in NYC, and I ended my little request with that phrase. It was wonderfully awkward. I felt like Woody Allen.

Magical Melodies of Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux

2009-01-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

Fall Out Boy is a new interest of mine. I know very little about them, know only a few songs from their past, and rarely listen to their type of music. I purchased their new album because I liked the cover art and I have been surprised to find some incredible stuff recorded inside. Almost every song on the album, save one, has a fascinating melody at work and I can't stop listening to it. I've always been a fan of their lyrics, and it's great to have this music to go along.

I made a little melodic tour of some of my favorite parts of the album. All are better in the context of the song, but if you only have a few minutes, this will give you an idea. My favorite is the third one~

"Fall Out Boy Melody Tour"

Furry Friends

2009-01-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

Hawaii - Day Eight

2009-01-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

Hawaii - Day Seven

2009-01-07T19:46:00.001-08:00

Hawaii - Day Six

2009-01-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

Today we visited a volcano. I have never visited a volcano before. On paper, this sounds like a scary idea, but in person it was actually quite pleasant. After a little road trip to the other side of Maui, we did a hike down into the Haleakala crater. The crater pretty much looks exactly like Mars, and absolutely nothing like Hawaii. It was very cold, and was situated at about 10,000 feet above sea level. Considering we started the morning basically IN the ocean, this was quite a change. No one got hit by any magma, and we all came out alive and just a touch sun burned. On the way down we got a flat tire and Gill and I got some more experience changing a flat, this time on a volcano. Definitely the most scenic change I have ever performed. Tomorrow will be spent back at sea level and will be our second to last day.

Hawaii - Day Five

2009-01-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

Day five already.

Today was a beach day, plain and simple. I tried numerous different strategies for de-sanding my towel without sanding innocent bystanders. None proved successful. We also did some ocean swimming while waiting for the sun. Eventually, this beach situation turned into a Happy Hour (which is always longer than an hour...) where we watched for whales and tried local drafts. The day was one of those slow ones that goes by super fast.

I've found that whales "breach" about as often as lightning strikes in a thunderstorm. It's not often, but enough that you can't afford to turn away for a moment.

Hawaii - Day Four

2009-01-02T02:19:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! Last night was much fun, and was my second official New Year in Hawaii. They do it right here. We started the evening with some excellent Thai food, recommended by Gill, at a place called Thai Chef. I was unadventurous and got pineapple rice. After dinner we did the Front Street bar circuit and stopped by three places before locking down at Oyster Bar for midnight. I fell in love at the first place, seriously, despite the tragically brief circumstances of our introduction. That is also a second for Hawaii, falling in love, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

t6 cveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeju <---- Koa just jumped on my computer and wrote this. We are trying to decipher its meaning, but we have yet to break the code.

Today was another beach day at the same place we were yesterday. It's a really great beach, mostly because of the huge waves, and I was excited to go back today. The beach itself is actually quite small and is accessed by a forest tunnel. There really aren't that many people that know about it apparently, so it was relatively empty and perfect for wave swimming. My ears got dominated while Gill and I were trying to learn how to move sideways along the wave curl, so that put me on the sidelines for most of the day. I did dig a giant hole though, that was pretty awesome. We were joined by Mike, Corey and Blake, who all got to do some wave swimming as well. At one point, I was throwing the football to Blake and Corey in the water, when a giant massive huge wave came upon them. It was hilarious for me, from the side, and it looked pretty scary for them. A wave day would not be complete without an event such as this.

Tonight we are grilling at Patricia's and Gill's place, so it should be a perfectly chill counterpoint to the craziness of last night.

Hawaii - Day Three

2008-12-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

Today was awesome. Gill, Mike and I went to a beach called "Slaughter House" which yes, sounds terrifying. There were massive waves that tossed me about, to and fro, and left me feeling completely excellent and filled with sand. I am not being sarcastic either, I love the feeling of being sandblasted, sun burned, and covered in salt. All of the above is super amazing. We did our best to body surf, but most of the waves were too big for us to really attempt anything noteworthy. I told Mike it would be a good idea to swim out past the break and pick the best wave to ride in from out there. We made it about halfway, got dominated by a mega wave, and then turned back. I did manage to grab a couple nice ones, but stuck to the smaller swells so I'd have enough energy to do New Year's Eve tonight.

After Slaughter House (still can't believe that's what it's called..) we went to the Mushroom Rock and the Ovaltine Pools. These pools are basically volcanic rocks carved out by the ocean over many years. The ocean down by the pools is extremely turbulent and looks a lot like a big bathtub being churned up by an energetic five year old giant. Every once in a while, a wave will crash up against the rocks and launch a wall of water into the pools. At one point, I was standing a little ways back with my video camera trying to get some cool shots of Mike and Gill as they were standing near the edge. Before I could warn them, an enormous wave crushed into the edge and towered over them maybe 10 feet. It looked awesome for about 2 seconds before I realized it was actually happening. Luckily, they were safe, just very wet, but Mike's camera may have gotten dangerously drenched. Well it did, but we are hoping he can dry it off sufficiently.

There are countless fireworks going off outside Gill's house. It sounds like we are under attack. The other night, when it was raining, it felt like we were in Jurassic Park hiding out from those nimble dinosaurs. Now we are showering and getting ready to eat some Thai food and do the New Year's thing. Our plan will entail multiple bars and other assorted night time activities.

pictures to come...camera is drying

Hawaii - Day Two

2008-12-31T02:09:00.001-08:00

I am about to pass out right now, so please excuse any unusual sentences. It seems my mind is still on east coast time and it's trying to tell me that bedtime was 2 hours ago. I guess I'm fine with it, but I'm not used to going to bed before 12am.

I think my last post left off right before last night "began". Of course at this point, another night has come and gone, but I'll get to that later. Last night was fun in a very unusual way. We had a tasty dinner, attempted to get the hostesses to come out with us (and by attempted, I mean made no attempts whatsoever), and discovered the difference between a Long Island Iced Tea and a Long Beach Iced Tea. In my opinion, the difference is that one tastes good and the other tastes like Sunday morning.

After dinner we took a shuttle into town to see what there was to see. The bus was going to drop us off at the most happening place, but it was empty, so we decided to just go home and call it a night. On the way back, the shuttle was going about 2mph for about 15 minutes before it completely stopped working. We took this as a sign that we should walk back to the "scene" and stay out a little longer. I put quotes around the word scene because the "scene" ended up being the four of us sitting on a leopard print couch in a basement nightclub. There were also two house dancers that danced around the club in their underwear and went to the bathroom an unusual amount.

I love it when night clubs play the music video along with the song. Of course this presumes that every song played in the night club has a music video, and by extension, that every song played is also an album single. Some people might find this annoying, but I am willing to deal with a disproportionate amount of mainstream music if it means I get to watch the appropriate video along with it.

------

Today was spent at the pool hoping for the sun to come out. It didn't, but we lounged anyway. We have determined that the weather report on this island is misleading in the same way that Facebook event RSVPs are. On Facebook, if people say they are "Attending" it means they are maybe attending. If they say they are "maybe attending" it means they are not attending. If they say they are "not attending" then they are in a different state and it is impossible for them to attend. Similarly, if the weather says it is going to be sunny then it is maybe going to be sunny. If it says overcast, then it is probably going to rain. If it says it is going to rain, then it will thunderstorm. This is irritating.

After a healthy dose of pool lounging, we met up with Gill and Patricia, who are new additions to our team of Maui adventurers. We had drinks with them at the hotel and then went up to their house to see their dog, Koa. Koa is a most energetic animal. He can jump, or perhaps I should say leap, as far as he wishes, and it is not uncommon to find him nibbling any and everything at all times. His tail looks like an antenna that receives messages telling him what to nibble. Mike took some good pictures of Koa, but I'll have those up tomorrow.

We all went to dinner in town and I continued my streak of eating way too much food for one meal. I learned that blue cheese is very intense when used in a burger scenario, and also that shrimps mixed with coconut are surprisingly delicious. We also continue to be the last people to leave just about every eating situation we find ourselves in. Our food clocks seem to be set about 2 hours behind the rest of the island.

Now I'm about to go to sleep in a neighborhood filled with vehicles. Never in my life have a seen so many cars parked on one street. Patricia tells me that there is no special occasion to account for the excess of cars, and that each residence on their street just happens to own multiple multiples of cars. It's weird because it feels like there is a party going on, but everyone and everything is completely asleep. Including me.

Hawaii - Day One

2008-12-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

I am listening to Kaskade on crappy laptop speakers in a hotel room in Maui. I am extremely happy right now.

So I realize that I am the worst blogger in the history of the internet. I'm fine with this if you are. I am going to try and be better. To get out of my no-writing phase, I am starting another day-by-day recap for my trip to Hawaii. It starts now. I am in Maui with 3 of my roommates and we are planning to have the best time of any four people that ever visited Maui. There is Blake, Michael, Corey and Me. We all are cool dudes.

Most of today was spent flying on planes and renting cars. I enjoyed this because I like to fly with large groups of people. Far superior to flying alone. Only drawback today was the airline- United is a terrible airline compared to Virgin America. If only VA flew everywhere. One saving grace is the "Rightbite" snack box which I find particularly fantastic. Blake thinks it's gross because the tuna is pungent. I think this is a bad reason to dislike the Rightbite and I will try to convince him otherwise as the trip progresses.

Right now we have discovered that our room, currently being occupied by four people, only has three towels. We decided that the last person to shower would use 3 hand towels as a substitute for a full bath towel. Success of this strategy is unlikely.

After we went swimming in the ocean we searched for a hot tub and found one with a ukulele player and a hula dancer. I was taught how to hula (spelling?) and lamented my decision to wear a semi see-through bathing suit on the hula stage. It would have been embarrassing if I hadn't been such an unbelievable hula dancer. Everyone was blinded by over exposure to awesomeness. (KFP)

Now we are plotting are assault on the nightlife of Maui. We are told one exists, but this has yet to be determined. Mike is taking a shower and Blake is putting on a V neck. Corey is on his laptop and is wearing a sea foam green shirt. If I could buy a Vepsa, I would want one with this exact same color. I am on my laptop writing and am also wearing a V neck shirt. People on Youtube often suspect these are the only shirts I own and they might be right.

I am planning on writing everyday we are here, so come back and read about our adventures! The photographs will be provided by my friend Michael Chang, who is a wonderful photographer. More photos and writing to come, 7 more days!

Are we dancer?

2008-12-22T13:43:00.000-08:00

Preview

2008-12-18T10:06:00.001-08:00

Hard cover perfect binding with engraved zinc plates. Inside is 84 pages of mega city goodness. Everything is done tomorrow. Two more versions to come in the meanwhile...

Lost!?

2008-12-08T20:43:00.001-08:00

Yes the blog has become uber boring. The support team has been alerted and steps are being taken to combat this.

Smash (not crash) Into You

2008-12-02T19:12:00.001-08:00

Today is my birthday

2008-11-16T21:24:00.001-08:00

I am 24

Lazy After(noon)

2008-11-13T16:49:00.001-08:00

2008-11-05T10:07:00.000-08:00

via H&FJ

All of a sudden music occurs throughout

2008-10-23T19:32:00.001-07:00

Music is better when it's loud

2008-10-21T21:30:00.001-07:00

Soapboxes and Palm Trees

2008-10-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

65 Days of Static

2008-10-06T23:01:00.001-07:00

It's amazing to me how good I am at deciphering why I felt a particular way, but how terrible I am at realizing it at the time. I find myself constantly wondering why I am feeling good or bad, whatever the case may be, then something will happen and I will realize "Ah ha! The cause of my emotional state!" It's really quite odd. It never happens before, always after.

Viva La Vida

2008-10-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

I love this song. I did a Youtube video of it once, but I wasn't very happy with how it turned out. I recorded another version with drums etc that you can listen to here:

"Viva La Vida" cover by Alex Cornell

If you like it, it is availible for download on my Myspace page and my Facebook page

Because she's going to have the nuclear codes

2008-10-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

Jamie Lidell at the Fillmore

2008-10-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

Saw Jaime Lidell a couple nights ago at the Fillmore. Where was everybody! I got there a little late and was worried I was going to be burried in the back somewhere, but I got front row because the place was empty! It was probably the best concert I've seen all year. Man! People! The opener put on a great show as well, Janelle Monae. I downloaded her CD and it doesn't quite compare to the live stuff, but it's still pretty good and worth a download or two.

Don't honk at me unless you are exceptional

2008-09-28T11:59:00.001-07:00

I'm wondering how successful a postage company would be if their competitive advantage was that they delivered on Sunday. I feel like you could clean up shop with a seven day work week. Maybe that's what I'll do today, start a postage company. I have no idea what that would entail. The way snail mail works is a completely mystery to me. I want to follow my next letter through the system, like those elementary school tours, and see exactly how it all goes down.

III

2008-09-17T01:57:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite artists, Milosh, just put out a new record that I am really enjoying. His music is tough to explain, but his website did a pretty good job I thought: "A musical journey of exile and loneliness, sunshine and birdsong. It was written and largely recorded during a year long stay on the tropical Thai island of Koh Samui". Anyway, I'm loving this right now, just reclining in my chair and thinking about other places. Great music.

Also, isn't it weird to call someone and hope you get their voicemail? I find I am hoping for this more and more. I do consider myself and above average "message leaver", but that's not really why I think I prefer it. I guess I like how efficient it is. You get right to the point, and they call you back if they want to. I don't know, I've always had a weird relationship with the phone.

Running Lights on iTunes

2008-09-14T23:11:00.001-07:00

So you may or may not know, but I used to be in a fantastically amazing band called Running Lights. Sadly, we are no longer, but the music lives on! You can now buy our EP over on iTunes (which is very exciting for us music minded people). Definitely check it out if you haven't already, I highly recommend it.

Running Lights 2007 EP

Oh how I love this song

2008-09-02T03:14:00.000-07:00

The Frames

The Night Air

2008-08-31T15:56:00.001-07:00

Wouldn't it be unfortunate to have a strange laugh? I was walking around the Slow Food Nation festival today and I heard the most abrasive laugh that ever has been. I wondered what I would do if I was forced to maintain a conversation with such a person. Would it be worth saying funny things at the cost of hearing the laugh? What would happen if that laugh was attached to an acquaintance of mine? All this got me thinking about my laugh. I think, all things considered, I have a pretty average laugh. It's not too loud, maintains a consistent feel throughout, and has a good proportion of smiling and hiccuping. Of course it would be awesome to have an enviable laugh, one of those real deep belly laughs, but they are hard to fake. I guess that's why people with bad laughs keep them.

The best thing to happen today was vanilla ice cream with peach compote. The best thing that happened last night was the Priscilla Ahn / Marc Broussard concert. I have seen them both before, but to see them on the same bill was very cool. I had really high hopes for Marc's show, and I guess it was really well done, but nowhere near the usual quality of the last 3 or 4 times I have seen him. It just felt like one giant intro or outro, like they were constantly getting ready for the next section but didn't know when to go into it. He had a new band, so maybe that was why. Priscilla however put on an amazing show and I think I am in love with her. I actually am. I'm moving to LA next week to propose.

Is it just me or has there been a serious drought of good music lately? I used to get about 20-30 songs a week, now my last MP3 import was one MONTH ago when I imported the MUSE Haarp disc. This is very distressing.

Loworks

2008-08-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite design companies, out of Japan: Loworks

Thomas Dybdahl

2008-08-16T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm just wasting a bit of time in my NYC hotel room and I stumbled upon this video of Thomas singing one of my favorite songs of his, "Still my body aches", in a hotel hallway in Paris. It's my understanding that the song had yet to be recorded and was still in a formative phase at this point. It is so cool to hear a song in this way, especially one that I love so much. Something about his voice is so unique and indescribable- easily one of my favorite singers.

Link to the recorded version

#3.1 - Thomas Dybdahl - Untitled
by lablogotheque

LHC

2008-08-01T17:07:00.001-07:00

Anyone worried this thing might turn into a black hole in September? I feel like someone should be worried.

Good Weekend

2008-07-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

Reminds me of my Master's Club Diving Squad Team days...

Twitter Tweeter

2008-07-23T01:27:00.000-07:00

I don't know how long this is going to last, but at least for the moment, I am now also posting on Twitter. Recently I have found myself much more capable of writing short little bursts of thoughts, rather than long, well-thought-out "ideas". Twitter solves this problem and gives me something to do when I am on the bus thinking about nothing. Why not write about it?

Me. On Twitter

And a picture from the Coldplay concert this past weekend (all I had was the phone..)

We were young and it was summer

2008-07-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

OK. This is very important. A long time ago I had an incredible t-shirt. It was not just any shirt, it had something special. I'm not sure exactly what made it so fantastic- maybe the color, the illustration, or the tag line, who knows. It was (and is) my favorite shirt to ever have come into existence. Of course, I have lost it. I know I had it in NYC two years ago. I know I had it in Durham one year ago. And I know I don't have it in San Francisco currently. I need your help. If anyone can find this shirt, anywhere, please let me know. I will buy it, barter for it, or even steal it using smoke grenades, I don't care.

But seriously, if anyone knows of a place where this shirt can be found, I will be very grateful. Originally, I bought it at Giant Robot NY but haven't had any luck at their online store recently. If located, email me at alex@alexcornell.com

-The shirt- (The only photo i have. Basically, it is a very simple drawing of a bird saying "We were young and it was summer". The man in the hat the bird is sitting on is saying "yep".)

We Could Watch it Fly

2008-07-21T01:46:00.000-07:00

I love the beach! I love the sun! I love everything!

Wallflower

2008-07-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Here I am! Every once in a while I am baffled by two things: 1) How infrequently I write on my blog. 2) Wow I swear I had a funny second thing and I literally just forgot it in the time it took me to write #1. Maybe that works anyway, I am baffled by how often I forget things. This is true. I forget things quite often. When it comes to calling people, I don't have a lot of room for error because I live on the west coast. So I have to remember to call people 3 hours quicker than they have to remember to call me.

I live on the west coast. I used to think about this all the time, but these days I could be living anywhere, at least according to my inner monologue. I used to walk around San Francisco and say "Look at me! Here I am in California! What luck!" I still do this to some extent, but I usually don't include the details about my location. At first I found this unusual because SF at this time of year, so far, has been worth noting during conversations with oneself. I guess at this point I've been here long enough that my location is a given when exclaiming exciting things.

Summer school is almost over. Basically two weeks left. After which I will flee to New York City for a couple weeks to bask in the fantastic heat wave and visit Rudy's Guitar Shop. Worth mentioning that Rudy's Guitar Shop is awesome but has some very cliche guitar salespeople. (meaning they are mean and evil, similar to most wasps or bees) But NYC is awesome and I can't wait to see it again. Even though it is technically summer out here, it doesn't feel like summer to me until I am sweating in line for 4am Cafeteria.

Some cool logos I saw recently:

Something Awesome

2008-07-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

I hate answering questions that start with "what is your favorite...". I can never think of a suitable answer that I don't want to revise within seconds. Despite this, I have finally found what I consider to be my 'favorite' book cover design. I am a sucker for simple, clever solutions, so I wasn't surprised by my immediate love for this one: (and yes that is the front cover of the book)

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Wallace Benjamin

Lake Tahoe Version Summer

2008-07-06T13:33:00.001-07:00

From Lake Tahoe

2008-07-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

But not of Lake Tahoe

Hold on to a Hotel Key

2008-06-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

I love San Francisco, but right now, I would rather be in Los Angeles.

Work

2008-06-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

Well after a very succesful paintball excursion yesterday, I am now staring down the barrel of a very aggravating design project. I had taken this project pretty far down one visual track, and had gottten the "go ahead" from my teacher, only to get sent right back to the begininng the next week. Legitmate reasons, but the sudden reversal of opinion cost me an entire week of time that I could have been spending taking the project another direction. Motivation is officially at an all time low, for this project anyway.

These posters are 2ft x 3ft so I'll only post tiny little pieces of each direction so you can get an idea. I liked "direction 1", but that one got torpedoed so now I'm sending "direction 2" out into the fray. I have a feeling I'll need a third option on hand, so that's the project for the rest of today.

Direction #1

Direction # 2

Losing weeks like buttons

2008-06-26T01:51:00.001-07:00

I am sleeping! (Not right now of course, but in general.) Finally I have kicked my rather massive case of jet lag and am back to dealing with my old problem of wanting to sleep too much. The jury is still out on which problem is better. I've also started reading "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" again. I've been meaning to read so many books over the past few months and I have this huge stack of "to read" books sitting next to my bed. I figure reading "A Heartbreaking..." over again will get me back in the reading mood and maybe I can finally move some of these other books back to the shelf. Next on the list is "Infinite Jest". I have started it like 4 times and always get distracted. Anybody else read this one? Worth it?

I have also started summer session, which is just as intense as everyone has been telling me it would be. Work work. Lots of work. I am just about ready to start working on my website redesign, something I have been waiting to do until I feel inspired enough. I also wanted to wait until I felt better about my design skills, which I do now, and feel like I can really do something I'll be happy with for the next year or so. As soon as a few other projects come to a close I will start the process. The main thing that was initially holding me back was that I didn't have enough new photos to use. That has finally been taken care of and I'll post one below. There are a million others, and they will hopefully be up soon on the new site.

I recently designed a series cocktail menus and was pretty happy with this design so I figured I'd post them. They come in threes and are exactly the same except for the title of each page, which spells "Lubricants" (as in social) when they are all lined up next to each other. The photo in the background is one I took in Tokyo of one of the many cloudly cloudy days.

*Update- An asute reader was keen to notice the use of 'Archer" for the font below. (on the title) A very excellent font from one of my favorite foundries.

Oh my oh my

2008-06-12T05:09:00.000-07:00

Ouch. So it's 5:10am right now and I am not asleep. I remember being in bed two hours ago thinking "wow, it would be really annoying if I can't fall asleep tonight". Well. It is.

I'm thinking jet lag is definitely to blame. The night I returned from Tokyo, having been awake for 35 hours, I only slept 6 hours. Last night, I slept for 13. What's the deal? Tonight it appears like I will sleep zero but I'm still trying to decide if that's my best play. Do I try try try to fall asleep anyway and end up waking up at 2pm? Then I'll just have the same problem tomorrow night. If I stay up all night tonight, the challenge will be to stay awake long enough to get back onto some kind of normal schedule by tomorrow. Hmm.

I think I'll just stay up all night. In the process of writing this I realized A) how remarkably awake I still am, and B) that Euro 2008 soccer is on TV in 3 hours. GO Italy!

And also, if you too find yourself awake at this ridiculous hour (or are abroad) then perhaps you would enjoy this song: (my soundtrack to being awake toooo late)

"Melodies and Desires" by Lykke Li

Home!

2008-06-08T06:35:00.000-07:00

Well not yet. I still have to pack and sleep, but I will soon be on another ridiculously long plane flight, this time headed for California. Sorry for the brief posting, but packing is turning out to be a bit more of a challenge than I thought. I might have to cut off a few sand bags

Why I often get turned around at train stations

What got me here (despite how big it was, it sure didn't have a lot of leg room)

A fantastic video everyone should watch

Toky..wait.. Kyoto! Day 13

2008-06-07T05:45:00.000-07:00

Phew! Back from 5 hours in Kyoto and 5 hours traveling. I took the bullet train, sans Douglas (who overslept), and got there around 12:30 this afternoon. It was intense, and definitely too short a time in such a beautiful city. (Parts of it anyway, other parts are ugly like fish) I basically flew around, trying to see as much as possible in the little time I had to sightsee, which was made difficult by the new and foreign subway/bus system. Somehow it worked out through a combination of guessing, following masses of people, and flipping coins. I don't think I made one informed decision on where to go. I had a map, but it was completely useless as they tend to be.

I started at the Nanzen-Ji temple in the southwest part of the city. This was one of my favorites and I got to see it relatively free of pesky crowds. (One thing Japan has plenty of is terribly annoying tour groups.) The temple has these massive wooden columns holding up the main structure that I obsessed over for some reason. Maybe it was because the wood looked like the back of one of my guitars, who knows. I walked around the temple for a little while, checking out the aqueduct and the surrounding sub-temples, and then made my way off to lunch. I was really conscious of the time and was constantly worried I didn't have enough of it. Especially at this first temple, I kind of blitzed through because I was worried I would soon have to be back at the train station to make my 6pm departure. (turns out I was right to worry, Kyoto takes forever to get around when you are on a bus)

Lunch was probably the best I have had so far in Japan, and it only cost $8! I went to Hinode, a recommended noodle shop from one of my books. So far, the recommended restaurants have turned out to be a bit of a letdown and aren't as exciting as finding a place randomly. Hinode is an exception. If anyone reading this is in Kyoto, GO to Hinode. The guy working there was fantastic and was thrilled with my terrible Japanese. He sat me at a table that was already full and made me point at the menu, which I am used to at this point. I got some udon noodles with beef and rice and it was easily the best lunch I have had since being here. The meal was perfect. However, there was an unexpected quality to the lunch that I was not prepared for. The noodles tended to splash broth everywhere on their way into your mouth and I found myself in a bit of a noodle splash war with my neighbors. It was impossible not to send broth flying every which way and we sort of had an unspoken competition to see who could get the most broth on the other people at the table. My noodling technique was never very good and I ended up receiving most of the broth. I just haven't gotten used to slurping, and that's really the only way to effectively "noodle". The rest of the people at the table had also all been provided "broth shields" (bibs) and were apparently savvy to the fact that a broth splashing war might break out. I think there might have been a conspiracy at work since I was provided NO broth shield and was sat at a full table of experienced splashers. Our table was the subject of much laughter as people pointed and looked at the foreigner covered in broth.

After lunch I walked away from the mountains (the only directions I retained from my waiter) and started looking for the Heian Jingu. I found it pretty easily, as it is pretty hard to miss. It's basically this giant collection of very orange pagodas in the middle of the city. I liked it alright I guess, but was much more crowded and didn't have the serenity of the Nanzen-Ji. It made for a nice photo though. After that I tried to find a bus to take me up to the Golden Pavilion. This proved to be impossible and since I was already freaking out about the time, I just hopped in a cab. This worked out really well getting there, but gave me a very bad sense of how far away I was going to be by bus. By cab, it took about 20 minutes, by bus on the way back, it took about 1.2 hours. Ouch. The Pavilion was worth it though, as you can see in the picture below. I almost ran around the trail because I wanted to try and make it to the Ryoan-Ji zen garden before I left.

So I made it to all the things I wanted to see and overall had a very successful 5 hour Kyoto experience. (10 if you count the trains...) It was definitely worth seeing and provided a really nice contrast to Tokyo. I have to say though, I would have loved to have been more relaxed walking around and had more time to explore. On the bus, I saw countless little streets, temples, and all sorts of things I would have loved to check out. Maybe next time :)

Kinkaku-Ji

Nanzen-Ji

Heian-Jingu

It's me!

Somewhere, someplace in Kyoto

The famous Zen Garden. (can zen gardens be famous?)

What it looks like the ENTIRE way to Kyoto

Tokyo Day 12

2008-06-06T03:33:00.001-07:00

-I've uploaded a lot of my photos to Flickr, you can check them out here-

Yikes I can't believe it's already day 12. The beginning of my trip feels like it was yesterday and forever ago at the same time.

I started out today with a little recon mission to Tokyo Station to figure out how easy/hard it is going to be tomorrow morning to get on the train to Kyoto. I wanted to make sure that there weren't any booby traps or hidden mazes in the way that would be a nasty surprise. After some snooping around I determined it looked extremely easy but am still inclined to think it will manage to be complicated somewhere along the way. We'll see. I'm going with my buddy Doug and we leave at around 9am tomorrow if all goes according to plan.

After the recon mission I headed to Daikanyama to make sure I hadn't missed anything the last time I was there. I'm starting to feel the end of my journey coming up, so I want to make sure I go back to all the cool neighborhoods I liked so much. Today I started to understand what people were talking about when they say Tokyo can get HOT. It wasn't killer, but I can see how the walk I did today would not be possible in a few weeks due to the heat. It feels like DC in June if you were to put DC in a sauna. It was sunny again today, which I thought might offer me some relief from the constant threat my eyes face due to all the umbrellas. Of course, people in Tokyo use umbrellas for the sun just as much as they do for the rain, so no such luck. I thought it was funny that I was wearing sunglasses not to protect myself from the sun, but to protect myself from people's unwieldy umbrellas, which they were in turn using to protect themselves from the sun. Full circle. I also noticed today how I get stared at significantly more by other foreigners than by the locals. I thought, being a tall american with giant poofy hair, I might get a few sideways glances from Tokyoites, but that really hasn't been the case. I find that us expats are the ones staring at each other saying silently "Hmm I bet that guy speaks English, maybe he can help me find this damn place." Of course they usually end up speaking German or French, but you understand what I mean.

At lunch my tried and true "point randomly and hope" method of ordering finally backfired. (bound to happen at some point) The waiter warned me that they didn't have an English menu and I chuckled to myself and casually waved it off like it wasn't a problem. I pointed about two thirds of the way down the menu, where I usually point when I am pointing randomly, and was not nearly as concerned as I should have been while I waited for my food. Around me I saw scrumptious looking pastas, rice bowels, and all sorts of very enticing looking meals. Surely mine was one of those. Well, it wasn't. My meal, if you can call it that, was some combination of grey goop, red goop, and eggplant. I love eggplant, so that helped, but my problem was with the various goops. I'm fairly certain the grey goop was egg, but I'm not sure why it was grey. The red goop remains a mystery. I did my best to make do with the eggplant and set off for some more Daikanyama. I found some of the vinyl shops I had heard so much about and admired some pretty awesome record covers. I hadn't heard of any of the bands, except for Justice, which they seemed to be obsessed with, but all the LPs were impeccably designed. (yet again) I also found a Honeyee magazine which was really exciting, but all in Japanese. Boo

After Daikanyama I got on the train to go to Shinkuku. I wanted to go up in the Metropolitan Government Building where they have two free observatories. It was one of the few remaining "views" I had yet to see in Tokyo. Getting there was hilarious. The subway was normal, crowded etc, but the tunnel to get to the building was cavernous and silly long. I thought perhaps I had walked to Kyoto when I finally arrived after being underground for the rest of my 20's. The view from the top is free (!) and is pretty cool. I didn't like it as much as the Mori building, but it was fun to see the city from another perspective. This one is very much "in" the city and has a lot of other tall buildings around it whereas the Mori kind of looks at them from a distance. If you saw the picture I posted earlier of the sunset over the skyline, I was in one of those buildings tonight. (so looking back the other way) After the observatory and wandered around Shinjuku looking desperately for a Mochi Ball. I never found one, and am still craving one to this day.

From the 45th floor

I think this looks fake

I was up there. (doesn't it look evil from below?)

The impossibly long underground land to get to the observatory

What I would have felt if I had found a Mochi Ball

Tokyo Day 11 (Nighttime)

2008-06-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

So today was a "break" day, but tonight was just like any other night. I decided to head to Daikayama tonight to check out this club called Air. Of course, like every club ever to exist, it has a lame, one word name. One day someone will come along and name their club a full sentence, but until then, we are stuck with these ridiculously named places like Air, Bed, Home, Wet, and Love. Seriously. (*note- my roommate is thinking of starting a lounge with a one word name that happens to be unbelievably awesome. I can't tell you the word just yet, but trust me, it's good. Better than Air, jeez. Imagine the best word you know, and that's probably it.)

Of course, it was raining again, and of course, I didn't bring my umbrella. Well, let me clarify, I forgot my umbrella a few days ago at dinner and have been umbrellaless ever since. So I didn't really forget it tonight, more like remembered forgetting it a while ago. I found myself in Shibuya looking for my bank: 7/11. I then went to Freshness Burger for what I have dubbed the "safety meal". Freshness Burger makes a terrific teriyaki hamburger and when I know I am taking a chance on my real dinner, I like to have a "safety" Freshness Burger just in case my real dinner is a catastrophe. I didn't need to worry tonight, as my real dinner was excellent, but it's always nice to have a back up. (and besides, Freshness costs about $3) After dinner I set off for Air. I had written down some fantastic directions for myself: "Follow train tracks and turn right". Of course, I didn't say which train tracks (there are countless) and I didn't say where to turn right. I wandered around aimlessly for the better part of one hour before I found it. It was actually to my advantage because the club really wasn't going off until 20 minutes or so after I arrived. The sound system was great, but I think the DJ was kind of a letdown. Perhaps they save the best for the weekends. Either way, it was fun to check out, and nice to be able to get a banana smoothie upstairs in the cafe afterwards.

Shibuya (which always reminds me of a dinosaur)

Air (DJ zone)

Banananana smoothie

Four of the four million vending machines around Tokyo

I found a yellow wall to match my yellow pants

Tokyo Day 11

2008-06-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

So today I am taking a break. No sightseeing, no shopping, no adventuring. I rarely do this while traveling, but I am also rarely moving at such an exhausting pace. Something about Tokyo I guess. Just now, on my way home from lunch, I spaced out and overshot my subway station by 4 stops. I think it's time. So today I'm going to lay low, plan my trip to Kyoto and catch up on some design work. (and hope it rains..)

Tokyo Day 10

2008-06-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

Its been pretty nice not having my email follow me around everywhere I go. I am deathly afraid to turn on my phone over here because I hear AT&T will charge you international fees given any opportunity. Walking around phone-less is quite liberating. (in the same way having your phone with you at all times is, but in a weird, equally opposite sort of way)

Today I moved up one of my "nice day plans" because the sun came out! It seems like this is worth mentioning in the month of June when plum rain is coming down most every day. I have scheduled certain days to be floaters that can be moved in case of a nice day like today. Other days are "rainy day plans" that involve things like shopping and/or napping. Around 12 I went into Harajuku to try and find Fujimamas for lunch, This place was cool, kind reminded me of some cafe in LA I can't remember. I really like it when a restaurant has the doors open, windows open, and you can't really tell if you are inside or out. I also had a great swordfish-ish dish and some rice, so that boosted my opinion of the place too. After lunch I went to see the Meiji Shrine, which was one of my few remaining "nice day" plans. The shrine, and surrounding gardens, were really beautiful and very refreshing to find amidst the Tokyo hustle. I was there on a really non-crowded day, something I have gotten used to, which made it that much better. There was a faint, and occasionally very loud, drum in the distance that sounded like it had to be 20 feet in diameter. It was almost as loud as the politician cars that drive around the city YELLING into loudspeakers and reciting unintelligible speeches.

I've been meaning to take some photographs of the people of Tokyo, but find it a little awkward to ask for photographs. I have learned how to ask (politely) for someone's photo in Japanese, but still find that it's a somewhat strange request. I really just want to capture the variety and complexity of the Tokyo population, but so far haven't been able to muster up the courage. I asked a few people today I guess, but I haven't been able to really take some of the pictures I would like. There was a really nice policeman who was describing the shrine to me today and he was excited to have his picture taken. Unfortunately, the lighting was terrible, but I tried to clean it up the best I could. (see below)

Now I'm back at my hotel and thinking about planning my Kyoto excursion. Either doing that today or saving it for a "rainy plan" day.

Prada building looks edible

Meiji

Gardener in the Iris Field

Entrance to the gardens

Will i ever go to bed?

2008-06-03T07:13:00.001-07:00

One of the (many) benefits of being in Tokyo is the unbelievable number of new and exciting things I come across. These come in many forms, and I always look forward to each day because of the infinite possibilities the city seems to hold. Today, I came across two design magazines I had never heard of before. (Perhaps they aren't carried in the US, or maybe I just missed them) These magazines are published bilingually and contain some truly fantastic work. The writing (so far) is terrific as well, and I highly recommend both if you consider yourself interested in design.

Plus Eighty One

Idea

I continue to be inspired by this wonderful city and look forward to returning home creatively rejuvenated and enlightened.

Tokyo Day 9

2008-06-03T03:59:00.000-07:00

So today was supposed to be a break day. It wasn't. My feet feel, again, like they are only still attached to my legs by an accident. If I have one more 8+ hour day of walking I think I might be doomed. Tomorrow, yes yes tomorrow will be my break day.

Anyway I am glad today wasn't a "break" day because it turned out to be another superb day in Tokyo. (Despite the serious rainfall) I finally invested (50cents) in one of those clear umbrellas, so my walking was much more accident free today. I started out in Ginza with the Leica store to check out some of the coolest cameras around. Of course they are prohibitively expensive, but still much fun to look at. It was neat to find an actual Leica store since I haven't been able to find one in the states as of yet. After Leica I got some pumpkin pasta with Clarisse and then headed over to Roppongi. I was feeling exceptionally tired at this point so I crashed into Nana's Green Tea for a pick me up. They do this green tea/coffee thing with rice balls and ice cream that is really amazing. Rice balls have the weirdest texture of any food I know, but complement green tea nicely. I chilled there for a while, just watching the rain come down and the people go by.

I debated going home, because of how tired I was, but was intrigued by this crazy looking arcade center on my way back. (called "Vortex" or something equally ridiculous) It was the first full blown super arcade I had been to in Tokyo so I needed to do some exploring. I found a number of exciting games, but my favorite was one where I banged these giant drums and got yelled at by these little cartoon noodles. They were really screaming at me to beat my drums, and I wasn't really sure when they were screaming encouragement or insults. I felt like my giant-drum banging skills were pretty good, but the cartoon noodles eventually disagreed and asked me for more money. I moved on. They had Time Crisis, which I've loved since I was a wee one, so I played that for the rest of the time. It was a really fun way to spend a very rainy afternoon; getting yelled at by noodles and shooting at electronic baddies.

After the arcade, the green tea/coffee kicked in and I decided not to go home. I found this bookstore amidst my wanderings that just might be the best bookstore I have ever been in. Wait scratch that, it IS the best bookstore I have ever been in. They specialize in graphic design, fashion, and photography and have literally every book/magazine in each field, from all over the world. I have never seen a better collection of books in my life. I went in thinking I would go just for a quick browse and ended up being there for the better part of 2 hours. It's not massive or anything, they have just filtered all the useless stuff out and left only the quality. The store smelled like the perfect mix of old books and rain if you can imagine that. I found myself in a tricky dilemma: I wanted to take home pretty much the whole store, but have no space in my suitcase and don't want to go over the weight limit. I felt like I was on an Apollo mission, landing on the moon, and we were worried about taking back too many moon rocks because our ship might get too heavy. But how could you go to the moon and not bring back moon rocks! I decided I would have seriously regretted not getting something there and would just end up carrying the things in my hands to make the weight limit. No 4million dollar extra baggage fees for me thank you very much. (I hate United) I ended up buying a couple of back issue "Plus Eighty One" magazines and a monograph of this Japanese graphic design firm.

At this point it was getting to be dinner time so I tore myself away from the store. On my way to dinner I realized that I really know my way around a large part of the city now. When I walk places, I find that I frequently encounter an area I have already been to, and that my "explored areas" are starting to overlap. I don't need to ask for as many directions as I used to that's for sure. I had Teppanyaki for dinner which was crazy good. I needed some serious nourishment after refusing, yet again, a day of rest. (That IS tomorrow Mom I promise) Teppanyaki just might be my favorite style of cooking. What could be better than steak, cooked to perfection, and cooked right in front of you? I also got complimented on my Japanese which was quite exciting since usually I am being scolded for how bad it is (with silent glances of disapproval!) Anyway my waitress said, and I quote, "You Japanese is very good! Pronunciation is correct!" If it had been America, she would have gotten a huge tip.

The cartoon noodle's accomplices

THE bookstore. (notice the alternate name; Tokyo Twilight Zone)

Teppanyaki

Tokyo: Purchases

2008-06-02T19:13:00.001-07:00

Bought these two shirts instantly

Tokyo Day 8 (Nighttime)

2008-06-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well I just learned a lot about street performing in Tokyo. (called "busking", but I wasn't sure how many people would know the term, sounds weird if you haven't heard it before). I went down to Shibuya, mainly because the Shibuya Crossing is reportedly the most trafficked pedestrian crossing in the world, but also because it just looks so damn cool at night. I thought it would be a fun place to sing, regardless of the outcome. I also figured, given that I would be playing for about 3,000 people per hour, making money should be nooo problem.

In theory.

Turns out Tokyo, as I suspected in my last post, is not exactly the best place to busk if your aim is to make money. That doesn't mean there aren't TONS of people playing and performing anyway. When I got down there, I found myself one of many many singers/guitarists performing for the masses. Only I was significantly outgunned. Most people there had amplifiers, vocal mics, portable generators, and huge posters with their names on them. And I thought I was advanced because I bought a guitar strap. I also noticed that absolutely none of them had any receptacle for money and did not appear to be expecting it in any way. No one even got close to the performers, but some periodically stopped and watched (while trying to make it look like they weren't). When I was playing, some people looked at me every once in a while, but mostly I was ignored. It felt great just to play and sing full volume again, so I really didn't mind the lack of attention. Once I realized how different the Tokyo "circuit" was to what I was used to, I was really just playing for myself.

I did a little but of research when I got back and it turns out that most street musicians and bands in Japan play on the street mainly for practice and to hopefully get noticed by record labels. They do not play for money and people do not pay them. Meanwhile there I am, trying to make my money back, with my little guitar strap and english language songs. I think I made $1 total. My guitar case looked very lonely with it's 4 or 5 little coins in it. Most of the night, I was regarded suspiciously, probably because I wasn't screaming J-pop into a microphone, but I think also because I didn't have the full setup that everyone else did. I didn't look very "official" next to the 5 piece band with the CDs for sale and the speaker cabinets. (It's worth noting that I was doing all of this illegally, while everyone else had presumably gone through the required audition process for a busking permit, so to be fair, I was a tad "suspicious)

Despite my monetary failings, let me just say that playing guitar in a place like Shibuya at night is incredibly exhilarating. The lights, the people, the sounds, everything makes it like no other "stage" I have ever been on. I was very happy to add it to the list of places I can say I have played and next time, I'll bring my PA system...

Tokyo Day 8 (Daytime)

2008-06-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

So so so so To Key YO. Today I went to Ochanomizu to see the crazy amount of music stores they have managed to pack into one block. I have never seen so many guitar stores so close together in my life. The density is astounding. (and obviously awesome) Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I was going to search for a cheap cheap guitar that I could buy and then make the money back by playing on the street. Well I found the cheap cheap guitar and it is awesome. Seriously sexy. I really lucked out with such a nice looking and great sounding guitar for what I paid. ($100) If you know anything about acoustic guitars, you know that "quality" usually doesn't even begin until about $1500 and up up up. This one breaks that rule and is actually much better than many more expensive instruments I have played. A real find. I scouted some places to play this afternoon and hopefully I will have success tonight. One worry I have is that Japan is not really a tipping culture, and I could see people being reluctant to pay street musicians. We'll just have to see I guess.

Also one thing about guitar stores in Tokyo: they treat you like you are the most important guitarist that they have ever come across. If you ask to see a guitar, they will take it down for you, polish it, tune it, possibly restring it, and make sure you have everything you need to test it out. They do this even when you are trying out the cheapest one in the store. Once you buy the instrument, they won't just let you carry it out, they will walk you to the door, bow, and then hand you the instrument. Buying a guitar in Tokyo was probably the best retail experience I have ever had. This is a the polar opposite of the salespeople in American guitar stores who they treat you like a discarded piece of lint they found in their sock. The salespeople at places like Guitar Center make me incredibly depressed just by proximity. They sulk around looking at you with incredible disdain and do everything they can possibly do to avoid helping you. After such a great experience here, I don't think I can ever set foot in a American Guitar Center ever again.

After guitar shopping I went to Harajuku despite the impending monsoon. (or so it appeared) I ate at another super hip (too hip for Alex) cafe, this one with giant pink walls and these really cool lightboxed photographs that made it look like Europe was outside the windows. This one, like Frames yesterday, had reduced visibility because of how much smoking there was. It seemed like a rule, and it might just have been, that you needed to have a cigarette (or something) burning at all times. I really am not used to smoking being legal indoors. They also had a whole bunch of CDs for sale, all of which had these things in common: I had never heard of them, fantastic design, and incredible typography. It was as if they had been picked just based on these criteria and nothing else. They may have been empty cases for all I know.

After lunch I explored Harajuku for the first time. I am definitely going to go back because i don't think I could have possibly seen it all in one day. It's a lot like SOHO in New York, but with a little more twisty streets. Shops everywhere of course. I found some of the coolest shoes I have ever seen at this one place, but of course, they were too small. I had anticipated not being able to find any shoes in Tokyo for this very reason. Unfortunately I have been right so far. I had the same sizing problem with an amazing sweater that basically had a bunny stitched onto the front (you'd have to see it, it sounds weird on paper but was cool in person). So the shops were great, but no luck buying anything really because of my verticalness.

They take guitars seriously in Tokyo

I knew I was missing something...

Hot

How could you not go into a place like this?

A store for freaks, or a freak owned store? It was unclear

Ometesando Hills: the most effectively laid out mall ever. It's basically just one giant spiral ramp with stores along one side. So you never pass the same store twice and you just keep walking up up up.

Vote

2008-06-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been trying to think of a name for what will eventually become my graphic design company. I've been thinking forever and I haven't been able to come up with a killer name just yet. I do not need it to be clear what the company does in the name. It just needs to be cool, and consistent with the feel of the company. At some point, I would like the name to be able to extend itself into a clothing line. There are other companies, like Rag&Bone, Nice Collective, Superfuture, Accept&Proceed, Karmaloop, and Invisible Jetset that all have names that I like. I want it to be sort of like one of those.

Anyway, this is where you come in. Below I have placed a little voting tool with some of my favorite names I have come up with thus far. If you don't mind, I would love to have some input as to which name you like the best. Thanks!

Click Here for Poll Online Surveys
| Online Polls
| Email Marketing
View MicroPoll

-with "Andever", the point is that it sounds like "endeavor" when you say it, but is spelled like "forever and ever"

-"Hey Typical" is meant to sound like "atypical" but read like you are yelling at someone for being typical. "HEY typical! yeah you!"

Busk (like dusk but more musical)

2008-06-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

So I can't fall asleep right now, most likely because of my weird sleep schedule from this morning. Anyway, I have been brainstorming all over the place while trying to fall asleep and I had a really fun idea. Tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday, I am going to do an experiment. I am going to go buy a cheap ($100) guitar from Shibuya and then try and make the money back by playing on the street. When I was in Greece, I used to perform on the streets and make about $40-50 an hour. It was much fun. Hopefully Tokyo will be equally successful. If it all goes according to plan, I should break even after 2 hours or so. Of course, there were times in New Zealand when I would make about 35cents per hour so there is really no telling what will happen tomorrow.

Back to sleeping...

Tokyo Day 7

2008-06-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

So I wasn't expecting much out of today, mostly because I felt like cement when I woke up from my 4 hour nap this morning. I was worried I might sleep though the day and I could tell it was going to be a beautiful one when I went to bed with the sun was rising in a flawless sky. Somehow, I got moving around 1pm and set off to find something to eat other than my normal croissant and water meal. I found a small waffle cafe (sounds good on paper) near the Imperial Gardens, my eventual destination. I didn't know this, but apparently they serve waffles cold and basically still frozen in Japan. This was not what I was looking for in my recovery breakfast. I trudged my way onto the grounds of the Imperial Palace and meandered my way about. It is a very nice garden but I didn't really think it was all that spectacular. It's a nice open green space, which is worth noting just because it's Tokyo, but other than that I wasn't too impressed. Take that with a grain of salt though because I was not feeling fantastic while I toured the gardens.

After the gardens I headed down to Naka Meguro for what I had heard was a pretty nice place to wander. It's basically a bunch of shops and cafes along a river and feels very much like France to me. I was officially on a "stroll". The weather was unbelievable and I really loved that part of Tokyo. It sort of felt like the real life version of how heaven is often depicted in cheesy 80's movies. A utopia of sorts. Not to say that all the shops were up my alley or anything, that was just sort of the vibe it had going on. Basically very consistent with the idea of a perfect lazy Sunday. One random thing about the place is the sheer number of tiny puppies that are running around. Every single person seemed to have a tiny little dog that was bouncing its way around the street. Kind of like how everyone carries an umbrella when it rains, in Naka Meguro everyone carries a puppy. I also saw a girl taking pictures with this really beautiful vintage camera., wish I had gotten a picture. The one place I really wanted to check out was called "Cow Books" because it has some pretty cool vintage magazines from Italy. Their selection rotates and I only found a few interesting titles today. I have started to really enjoy asking people where someplace is, because I find that it's where I have the strongest grasp of the language. I felt very proud of myself when I successfully followed about a kilometers worth of directions to get to Cow Books.

After browsing most of the shops I went to Frames cafe for another attempt at a recovery meal. Frames, is excellent, one of the best meals I have had so far. This was largely due to the superhero quality of the banana/acai milkshake I got. It basically torpedoed any residual hangover I was still nursing. I've gotten very used to just pointing at things randomly on Japanese menus and hoping for the best. Today I got lucky with really tasty rice bowl and that milkshake. (dinner however was another story) Frames is very "hip" and I think I might have been the most uncool person there. (which, in some weird "indie" way, might have made me the coolest person there)

After Naka Meguro I headed back to Roppongi to see if I could get up the Mori Tower for the sunset. On the way there I found a gourmet grocery store where you could buy cherries for $120. Yeah. I debated buying some raspberries but got discouraged by the $19 price tag. I (vaguely) remembered seeing the "Nana's Green Tea" shop sometime last night and went back tonight to get one of their tasty treats. I had read about them in Monocle and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I pointed at the menu randomly again and it was weird, at first I hated it, like for the first 5 seconds, then I loved it. It was the fastest acquired taste I have ever experienced. (I've been warming up to wine forever) Anyway it was really great and I highly recommend the option on the far left side of the menu, whatever that is.

I made it up to the top of the Mori tower where they have the highest open air observation area in Japan. It's really cool actually, you are able to get all the way on the roof where they keep the Heli-pad and walk around freely. Very awesome. I got up there at around 5:30 and decided to stick around for the next couple of hours to catch the sunset. The sky wasn't as clear as I had hoped and it wasn't for sure that the sunset would be visible through the haze. I waited for about 2 hours with around 30 other people all crossing our fingers that the sun would peek through at the end. It was crazy cloudy and it wasn't looking good. It felt a lot like being at a concert and being around thousands of people that are hoping hoping hoping for that second encore that you aren't sure is going to come or not. Our patience paid off in the end and the sun poked through the clouds for about 2 minutes. It wasn't the best sunset I've ever seen, but it was a fun experience waiting with all of those people. We really felt like we earned those two minutes.

Our two minutes of happiness

I keep thinking I'm in Paris with that Eiffel Tower looking obelisk back there

BEST cafe name I have ever seen

Paris.. wait I mean Naka Meguro

I couldn't get pole vaulting out of my head

Something that looked important

This guy was cleaning up shop with his little Bug cafe he had going

Tokyo Day 6 (Nighttime) (and morning unfortunately)

2008-05-31T21:08:00.001-07:00

Ouch

So I did it, I stayed out until the first subway train this morning. I went out last night in Roppongi with some friends of friends and somehow managed to stay out until 5am. (I got home at about 6) I left the club at around 2:30am and then wandered the streets, which were teeming with activity for the next few hours. Crazy stuff those Tokyo streets when the sun is rising.

Despite my (serious) lack of sleep last night I am up and ready to continue my blitzkrieg tour of the city. It's beautiful outside right now, and although the sun might kill me, I am going to head back to the Imperial Gardens then down to Naka Meguro to check out the shops along the river.

I wasn't sure if this meant he was Mickey Mouse, or if he just knew him

Sometime around 4:23am

Somewhere, someplace

Tokyo Day 6 (Daytime)

2008-05-31T01:29:00.000-07:00

Almost been a week! Still moving at full steam despite frequent complaints from my feet. My morning routine has become incredibly efficient at this point. Every morning I wake up around 8am, grab a newspaper and hit up a nearby cafe. I come back to my room around 10 and look over my plan for the day. I'm out the door by 10:30 every morning without fail.

Bidets feel strange.

This morning I headed to Shibuya to try and find the Tower Records. They have a great selection of imported english language books and magazine and somehow manage to do a better job than we do at choosing the best stuff to carry. Seriously being there was like going to a regular American book store with all the junk filtered out. I was looking for a guidebook of Kyoto because the more I research, the more it seems like my day trip is going to need more guidance than just my instincts. I don't want to miss anything awesome, and since I'll only be there for a day, I will need to move very deliberately. After getting the book I went over to the 109 Building to see some amazing t-shirts. I didn't buy anything today, but I am going back sometime soon for SURE to pick up some of the hilarity I saw. The only shirt I remember had "Smart Cookie? Lively Tutor! You are my best." written on it in a variety of fantastically terrible fonts. There was also a pretty sweet hat with "World Wide Famous" written on it. San Francisco isn't going to know what hit it when I come back with these clothes...

I met Doug and Laura for lunch in Shibuya and a quick muffin. (can't break the habit) We then set off for Akihabara, the geek mega city within the city. I didn't really know what to expect of this place, but it's basically a Best Buy on speed and seven cups of coffee. I guess it would be a great place to go if you needed...well anything, but I can't imagine shopping there for more than a few minutes before I needed to go to rehab. It was great to see, but I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon. (I did see some more of those HD camcorders I wrote about before, awwwsome)

It's Roppongi tonight, hopefully no more getting lost in the rain haha

Another cool store front, Meiji Dori

Doesn't it look like you could hop around forever on top of the umbrellas?

Me asking the rain to leave (politely)

Akihabara

Is that like 7 minutes in heaven?

I think these subway symbols look like candies. I only like to ride certain flavours

Tokyo Day 5 (Nighttime)

2008-05-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

So I am back, completely drenched and in no need of a shower because I just had one thrice over. The weather forecast called for rain, but I chose to ignore it. (bad idea) I went to Harajuku tonight, mainly to have dinner at this little organic place I had heard about, but also to go out to the few bars in the area that sounded good. Dinner went well, after a brief search, and I had some organic chicken teriyaki and some very very dry sake. It was at a place called the Crayon House which was packed full of people, and I had to wait about 30 minutes for a table. Good thing I had found some pumpkin soup at a shop underground beforehand.

After dinner I went in search of Den Aquaroom, which I had read about in one of my books. Lesson learned: do NOT go searching for a place in Tokyo without a map. Just having a street address is nowhere near enough information. Eventually I located it, with the help of a very nice woman, but found it to be completely booked for the night. I had heard it was a bar, but it seemed to be more like a restaurant that just happened to have a bar rather than a real bar bar. I wasn't phased, and set off to find the next bar I had on my list; Quons. This place was also impossible to find. Again, all I had was an address, and since they don't write the street addresses anywhere in Tokyo, this was essentially meaningless. I wandered around the backstreets of Harajuku for about 1 hour before I found it. Trust me, I would not have searched this long had I not gotten lost and run into it long after I had given up. It started to pour down rain about half way through my search and I found myself umbrella-less. I decided to go home but couldn't find my way there either. On my way back to the subway, I ran into Quons, only to find it to was booked for the evening. Next time I am not going to go looking for these "bars", but just skip right ahead to the clubs. These pseudo-bar/restaurant type places aren't so good for the solo traveler, especially one who is completely soaking wet. Anyway the rain sort of took the fight out of me and I have returned back to base.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy again and I am thinking about taking the day off from walking and doing some design work I have to do. My feet are really starting to feel the 12 hour + walking schedule I have had the last week and I think it's time for a small break if I want to continue at this pace for another week.

Crayon House

Found this while lost. My favorite car exists in Japan too!

Tokyo Day 5 (Daytime)

2008-05-30T02:13:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me mention that whenever you are trying to get anywhere in Tokyo, they will provide you with signs all the way up until the very last 200m or so. I can't tell you how many times I have been following a set of (very well placed) signs for about 3/4 of the way, only to come to the end and get completely lost all over again. Very odd. There are also no trash cans ANYwhere. Every once in a while you find recycle bin, but that's only if you are a magician. I think it's due to the fact that most Tokyoites just don't produce trash whilst walking. I, being a loud obnoxious American, produce trash while I'm going about my day to day. What ends up happening is that I spend most of my walks lugging my accumulated trash all about.

I started today like I start all of my Tokyo days; with a breakfast cafe hop. Similar to a bar hop, the breakfast cafe hop tends to last about 1 hour. During which time, I hit every major cafe that looks like it might have a croissant and slowly make my way to the subway. After I am throughly satiated I proceed to get lost in the subway (see picture below for explanation)

This morning I went to Mitaka, about 30 minutes outside Tokyo, to visit the museum of Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli is basically the Japanese Disney. (but WAY better if you ask me) Getting into the museum is quite a process as you have to make a reservation days in advance, show up exactly on time, and have submit yourself to a full body search before entering. (one of those might not be true) Either way it's very hard to get in. The museum houses the greatest display of sheer unbridled creativity I have ever seen. It's truly unparalleled. Seriously I thought the museum might take off into the sky and start flying around. It's amazing how much creative juice one studio is able to manage. I would expect it to explode at some point. (isn't that what happens?) I perused the museum for about an hour and a half (a long time considering how small it is) and then made my way back to Tokyo. That was probably my most complicated train trip to date, and good practice for my upcoming Kyoto journey.

Once back in Tokyo town I headed to the Imperial Gardens. These are right next to my hotel so I couldn't believe I hadn't been to them yet. Of course, unbeknownst to me, the gardens are closed every Friday so I ended up just walking the perimeter and trying to peek over the walls to see what I could see. I realized that I was really close to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel so I made my way over there to check out their bar. Like almost every building I have been to in Tokyo, the elevator in the Mandarin only has two buttons: 1 and 52. I love it, why would anyone want to go to any other floor? The bar itself is quite spectacular actually and I might like it just a little more than the Park Hyatt. Both have incredible views and service, but the Mandarin has a slightly better vibe. (Maybe it was the plush couch I was on, those have a tendency to sway my opinion...) To reward myself for a ridiculously long walk from my hotel, I got a glass of New Zealand wine and a fruit plate. I realized that I hadn't really had any fruit since I had been here, and what better place to remedy that then the Mandarin? The mango they served was literally the best I have ever had. I would venture to say it was the best mango ANYone has ever had and if you prove me wrong and I will buy you a cantaloupe.

Tonight I'm headed to the Crayon House for what I hear is the best organic meal in town. Sounds good!

I can't stress enough how much fun I am having in Tokyo. Walking around, taking pictures, and just enjoying myself to the fullest. If this type of thing is a job, I want it. Traveling alone is very efficient I have to say. I won't say I prefer it to traveling with friends or family (because I don't) but you really can't beat the efficiency. The amount of ground I cover in one day alone is crazy compared to what you can when there is a decision process between two people involved. It's almost been a week and I feel like I have been to just about every neighborhood I wanted to go to. (save Harajuku, but I'm saving that one) This next week will be a series of tactical strikes to the places I thought were the best and needed to go back to. I also am planning a day trip to Kyoto after I realized climbing Mt Fuji would be too complicated.

Me and the business folk, waiting for our train

This is why I get lost

My neighbor Totoro

The most inspiring workshop I have ever seen

Perimeter guard tower (I think)

The Mandarin Bar

Tokyo Day 4 (and night)

2008-05-29T05:27:00.000-07:00

OK I am seriously exhausted right now so excuse any word mumblings. Waking up at 4am really took it out of me today. Luckily it was a rainy day in Tokyo Town, so there wasn't as much walking around to be had. After the fish market this morning I came back to my hotel and chilled out for a few hours. I basically lay under my window looking at sky scrapers upside down while listening to Greg Laswell. This lasted until about 10:30am when I headed back to Ginza to see what it was like during the day. It was completely empty. It was raining really heavily and none of the shops had opened yet, so I assume this was the reason. I, of course, forgot my umbrella and stood out even more as the ONLY person in Tokyo without one. (Strange enough to be a 6'5 foreigner with a crazy poof of hair) I realized today that the clear umbrella is not just a fashion trend. At home, I always thought it was just some silly fad that umbrellas were going through (if they go through fads..) But here, it turns out clear umbrellas are a functional imperative. Since everyone carries one, and uses them withOUT discretion, it is very dangerous to be walking around without your full field of vision. Anyway, I went to a few shops (all waaay too expensive), an Alan Fletcher exhibit, and eventually ended up at the Sony building. It's basically one big walk-in Sony advert, but it was still pretty sick. The best thing I saw was the HD-HDD camera line up. They are these little camcorders that record HD video onto hard drives within the camera. I have seen these before of course, but not like this. The video quality on these was unbelievable. After drooling over those for a while I came back home to rest some more. I was feeling like a nap around 2pm. Yikes.

I waited until about 4pm to head over to Shinjuku, one of the crazier neighborhoods of Tokyo. I didn't really realize it was a "red light" type district until I walked around for a little bit. I couldn't read most of the signs, but I think I knew what they were saying. (eek!) My plan was to eat a quick dinner, walk to the Park Hyatt, have drinks at the New York Bar, and then go out in Shinjuku. I found a Freshness Burger and tried my first Japanese fast food joint. It was really fantastic actually, and filled its purpose of being quick and cheap. I wanted to make it up to the Park Hyatt before it got dark so I could see the view. I ended up making it there in time, but the view was less than spectacular because of the rain and fog. I felt like I was back in San Francisco. The hotel itself is stunning. The service, even just getting up to the bar, is like no where else in the world. Never have I had so many people in a row guide me, ask me how I am, give me things, and be all around pleasant to me all at one time. The New York Bar is great, and if you have seen Lost In Translation I'm sure I don't really need to describe it to you. I ordered a LIT, one of the drinks on the menu, and I still am not sure if it was meant to be a Long Island Iced Tea or a Lost in Translation inspired cocktail. Either way, it worked.

After touring around the hotel for a bit I wandered back to Shinjuku to find another bar. I found a few, all with their own eccentricities. One made me eat these little fish cube-like gizmos, despite my protests, and wouldn't let me leave until I had told them which cube was my favorite. I only remembered how to say the color "grey" in Japanese that ended up being my favorite cube. (tells you something about the cubes if there was a grey one...) I was getting very sleepy as my little bar hop went on and I decided to change venues. I figured I would try Aoyoma, since I hadn't been there yet and I had heard great things. Once I got there, I remembered I had heard great things about the shopping, not the night life. The streets were empty so I ended up walking, for no particular reason, the 3km or so to Shibuya. By the time I got there, I was flat out knackered so I caught the first train home. All aboard, the night train, tomorrow is a Studio Ghibli tour! Woot

Rainy day in Tokyo town

The view from The New York Bar

Park Hyatt pool (wish I had my swim suit...)

Shinjuku

Somewhere in Tokyo on a bar hop

Shinjuku (note the clear umbrellas)

Tokyo Day 4 (Tsukiji Fish Market)

2008-05-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

Normally, waking up at 4am to go see lots of raw fish might not sound too enticing, but to my surprise, it was actually quite awesome. (and I'm still on some crazy biological clock schedule, so waking up early was nothing) The subway was completely empty when I rode it down to Odaiba this morning, and it was kind of unnerving actually as I'm used to being packed in like sheep. I finally remembered to bring my iPod out with me this time, so my journey to the fish market had a electronica soundtrack. Getting there was extremely easy because as soon as you walk off the subway the smell of the market is overwhelming. Truly the smell of fish fish fish hits you right as the doors open. On the way there, it's hard not to get run over by the little men in the "fish transport mobiles" that seem to have no regard for their surroundings. It actually felt like they might have been trying to run over my feet, like maybe it's some kind of game they play where they get 5 points for one foot, 10 points for two, and win if they get all of you.

The Tsukiji Fish Market is basically one giant whole sale fish market where the fish come from RIGHT off the boat and go off to thousands of restaurants around the city. The market is in this giant warehouse-like thing and unfolds sort of like a supermarket. You can find just about every type of sea food I have ever seen (and lots I hadn't). Presumably you can buy this stuff, but I think you must have a restaurant to make off with any of the big catches. The tuna was the coolest to see because they were having a very animated auction to sell them. My plan was to get some sushi nearby, because it' apparently the best in the city, but I was NOT in the mood for fish after walking through the market. Too many things wriggling and flopping around for me to really work up an appetite.

It is pouring down rain today so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. It didn't matter at the market, in fact it kind of felt right given how everything was already soaked anyway. I felt like I fit in amongst the fish after being drenched on the way there. It's supposed to rain for the next three days so I think I am going to start doing all of the indoor things I had planned. I get up so early these days that I have to get used to having much more time during the day.

Tokyo Day 3 (Nighttime)

2008-05-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

So tonight I headed off to Ginza to check out this old-style Japanese restaurant suggested by one of my (many) books. I hadn't been to Ginza yet, and I am definitely going back tomorrow. Bright and dirty lights were somehow refreshing after today's old town excursions. The way Ginza was laid out kind of reminded me of parts of Florence. There are tons of really nice European shops, so that might also be why it's reminiscent. The restaurant, Omatsuya, turned out to be very difficult to find, tucked on a side street just behind the Sony building. They had five set menu choices, which is always nice to see because I would have no idea what to order otherwise. My meal was excellent and exceptionally bizarre (at least, for me haha) Here is what it consisted of:

Little cubes of something. I guessed chicken... hmm actually I have no idea.
Mini squids with all body parts intact.
Japanese potatos. UNBELIEVABLE. So tasty.
Grilled unagi and pork somethings
sashimi. and one giant raw shrimp. eyes and everything.
raw swordfish circles.
beef, cooked in a leaf, and covered with peanut sauce. *my favorite
vegetables that I have never seen before. and a cucumber.
soba noodles in miso broth. with a giant piece of wasabi for grinding.
rice cakes with chocolate liquid.
tea.

If that sounds like a lot of food, it was. I chose the least expensive of the set meals, and I think it was actually the best option. I saw some of the other pricier ones coming out, and they were far more intimidating. I would NOT have known how to eat a fish (with its scales still on) with just chopsticks. Also I should mention that i drank the miso broth for the noodles before the noodles actually arrived. I thought it was some type of soup broth until my waitress came with a big thing of noodles and looked very surprised to see me gulping it down sans noodles. At least it wasn't some type of steak sauce like I originally thought. It was very fun to slurp my noodles. Apparently, that is considered very polite here.

The food was prepared in sort of a collaborative way- each table had their own little stove with coals and a grill top that you or your waitress could attend to. The waitress brings you your food, unprepared, and depending on what it is, cooks it for you. It's a little awkward because some of the dishes take a while and you don't know whether or not to lend a hand. There were a few businessmen next to me and I was basically taking all of my cues from them. There were many times during my meal that I had no idea how to go about eating what was in front of me. When this happened I just peeked next door and saw what my (very drunk) neighbors were doing. Every once in a while I would elicit some applause from them when I spoke any Japanese at all to my waitress. They really got a kick out of the fact that I knew the word for "tea". Not sure why that was. All in all, it was a fantastic dinner, and definitely ranks #1 on my strangest meals of all time list. I walked around Ginza a little after dinner but had to come back early because I am going to the Tsukiji Fish Market tomorrow morning at 4:30am. (for the fish auctions and a fresh sushi breakfast) Time for sleep!

Tokyo Day 3 (Daytime)

2008-05-28T00:18:00.000-07:00

Today was a walking day, and a good contrast to the mass consumerism of yesterday. Today I focused on gardens, shrines, temples, and rivers. I started out pretty early this morning in the southeast part of the city at the Hama Rikyu Garden. It was basically me and 50 old people checking out the garden this morning. I can't decide if I prefer things to be empty, like they have been on these weekdays, or extremely crowded, like I hear they will be on the weekends. I guess for things like gardens it's better to be one of the only people there. I'm excited to check out Harajuku this weekend when it's supposed to be really packed. The garden was really nice and very peaceful, but the weather was kind of overcast, so I didn't stay for very long. I was loosely following a walking tour from a book I have, and I got on a water bus that took me on a tour of the Sumida River. This was pretty awesome actually, and definitely the best way to get to Asakusa (my eventual destination). You go under about 12 bridges and see a part of Tokyo that you would not be able to see on foot.

The boat plopped me off in Asakusa where I was promptly greeted by what is affectionately dubbed the "turd building". I love Phillipe Starck, but this building is a little crazy. (see picture below) I ended up eating in the Asahi Beer Tower, the adjacent building, for the great views and actually quite tasty lunch. I seem to be finding myself very high up in Tokyo so far so I have decided to put off my Park Hyatt visit to switch things up tonight, stay on the ground floor for once. After lunch I went to the Nakamise Dori to see the giant Kaminarimon Gate. It was exceptionally crowded here, but that made it seem that much more exciting. There were tons of shops selling all sorts of trinkets and gizmos, most of which appeared completely useless, but interesting none the less. The street alternated form smelling amazing to smelling terrible. I could never seem to find the cause of the smells, but I'm sure there were some foodstuffs somewhere. I also ran into some American tourists for the first time while checking out some of the shrines in the area. I have to say, I wasn't to happy too see them. It guess I was getting used to being the only American on the block.

After Asakusa, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I had planned to go to a few museums, but i wasn't feeling the whole "inside" thing today. I decided to walk a random direction and ended up walking to Ueno by accident. This was a fortuitous accident as Ueno has a great park in the middle of it. It's very similar to Central Park, despite being a lot smaller. I spent most of my time in the park searching for ice cream (I had a craving) and ended up mainly watching street performers. I wandered out of the park and into the Ameyoko, which is a craaazy street market type place. I just happened upon it, but had I known it was there I definitely would have sought it out. I love those kind of ridiculous streets filled with everyone and everything possible. I almost played Pachinko, but I got intimidated by all the noise. Maybe tomorrow.

Tonight I think I am heading to Ginza for a restaurant I read about. I am about to try and make a reservation in Japanese, we'll see how that goes haha

Tokyo Day 2 (Nighttime)

2008-05-27T06:28:00.001-07:00

So I have decided that my stomach is like my credit card: If there are too many suspicious international transactions it gets shut down.

Anyway tonight I went to Roppongi Hills with Doug and Laura. We found an interesting little Italian place called Veranda that served all sorts of stuff. I got sushi and pizza and Doug got pasta with a crab hat. He thought he was getting crab meat and pasta but instead he got pasta with a crab shell draped across it. It was very excellent. We then walked up to the Mori Tower to get a great view of the city at night. It is really unbelievable how massive Tokyo is. I have been very high up in many cities, and you can always sort of see the end of every one of them. Tokyo has no end. It is the forever city. I tried to take some pictures, but I didn't have my SLR so the ones you see below are on my designated "going out" camera. (which basically means it's small, cheap, and bad)

I am crashing early again tonight which I think is fine because I want to be rested for the weekend. Apparently the subway stops at 12am and starts again at 5am. That means I will have either a CRAZY night or an early night. Hmmm

Tokyo Day 2 (Daytime)

2008-05-27T01:03:00.000-07:00

Well I definitely slept for 12 hours last night. It was amazing, going to sleep at 9pm, waking up at 9am and feeling fully powered. This morning I found a little croissant stop up the street from my hotel which I have officially deemed my breakfast depot for the rest of the trip. Lots of fun little pastries that have outsides that completely mislead you as to what is to be found on the inside. Today I had one normal croissant and one other one that I thought was almond. It was covered in almonds, so I figured I might find some marzipan or something inside, but instead it was filled with cheese. Go figure.

Today I had planned to walk around Daikanyama and check out the shops. Since I was feeling pretty comfortable with the subway I wasn't planning on getting lost trying to get there. I learned that following large groups of people and assuming that they are going where you are going is a bad idea. I had to switch trains at one point and made the mistake of getting on the 'express' train that went express to somewhere very very far away. I had followed a big group of Daikanyama-looking people onto the train, but clearly I was mistaken. I was eventually able to get a train back the other way, but it was learning experience. Daikanyama is really awesome. It was very empty today, I guess because it's Tuesday, but I think that might be the best way to see it. I walked around for probably about 2 hours, just heading randomly in whatever direction seemed appropriate at the time. I found A.P.C, which is one of my favorite shops, so that was exciting. Everything was super expensive but it was fun to look anyway. I also found a guitar shop and was able to play a bit. I didn't bring my guitar on this trip, which I regret, so I have to stop into music shops once or twice daily to get my fix.

Eventually I meandered out of Daikanyama, by accident, and found a little Italian place for lunch. I had my best luck with my Japanese here because I had finally remembered how to talk about the weather. My possible conversation duration has now increased to about 6.2 minutes. I find that knowing the small amount of Japanese that I do is getting me into trouble because people assume I know ALL of the language during our 6.2 minute conversation. So when I run out of words they look confused , because they weren't privied to my conversation duration time. It's also funny because every once in a while I end up saying something completely random, just so I can use all of my sentences. Today, my favorite was when I told a store clerk my hobby was "reading". She smiled and (I assume) told me her hobby and then asked something to which I replied "the weather is nice today". I feel like one of those toys with a pull string on its back that plays all those pre-recorded sayings. "Somebody poisoned the water hole!" (Toy Story joke)

I loaded up on some Japanese-Italian food and headed out again. By this point, I had no idea where i was walking, so I just kept making turns where it seemed right. Somehow, I ended up in Shibuya, which at this point is the only other place I have been. It was really weird to have a feeling of "Oh I have been here before" in a place like Tokyo having only been here for 1 day. Shibuya during the day was a lot different and I was able to make my way around a lot better than last night. I am still getting used to walking on the left side of the street and find myself constantly running into people. Bikers are the worst because they assume I'm going one way, and I go the other, and then they get wobbly and fall off. It's really quite unfortunate. I went to the giant department store "Tokyu" per Paul Smith's recommendation but wasn't really all that impressed. It was basically like 2 giant Macy's put together. I did however find a youth soccer field on the roof which was pretty awesome and unexpected.

I finished the day on Meiji Dori which was a great street for shopping. I found I was constantly crossing the street to visit a shop that I spotted from the other side. I have adopted a policy of finding human shields to help me cross the street. Even though it's pretty clear here when you are allowed to cross, I still prefer to attach myself behind some unknowing soul and follow them to safety. Meiji Dori had some amazing shops, lots of which I would have loved to take pictures of their interiors, but they weren't allowing picture taking. (At least I don't think...I'm not positive I got the word for "picture" right. I may have been asking if I could turn off the lights, who knows) The clothes in Japan are fantastic. I want to buy everything I see because everything I see is so much better than what we have at home. The people here are also dressed much better than people at home too. I read somewhere that American boys like cars while Japanese boys like clothes. It shows.

After all that I have returned to my hotel where I am decompressing, planning tomorrow, and waiting to go out to dinner with my friend. After living in a house with 5 people, living in this tiny room alone is pretty different! I'm psyched to see some familiar faces tonight.

Paul Smith Store (Meiji Dori)

A.P.C Men (Daikanyama)

Lost somewhere outside Ebisu

Unfortunately, the groove workshop wasn't today

A cool exterior wall of one of the shops on Meiji Dori

Tokyo Day 1

2008-05-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

OK I'm going to try and write something 'journal-esque' every day for the next 14 days. Here goes..

I have arrived! It was a very long plane ride indeed (10 hours) but it really didn't feel like it. I had millions of episodes of The Office to watch, which passed the time pleasantly to say the least. After i got past customs I decided it would be best to wait to exchange my currency until I got into the city where the rates would be better. This was theoretically a good plan, but I didn't count on it being so difficult to find an international ATM. It was actually a pretty funny little adventure I had upon arriving at Tokyo Station. While looking for some way to procure the local currency, I somehow found my way to an underground shopping mall (felt like a city) and proceeded to get very lost. I had a few conversations in Japanese, which was actually really fun despite the fact that the ATM locations remained a mystery. Eventually i found a 7/11, which is apparently my new bank for the next two weeks.

I eventually made it to my hotel which is very excellent. It's got a really chill location, nice view, and is very conveniently located next to a subway line. When I was on the bus into Tokyo, all I could think about was falling asleep (seeing as it was about 4am my time), but as soon as I dropped my bags off in my room and I had to go exploring. I set off for Shibuya, since it is very nearby and very famous. I figured all the neon lights etc there would be a good way to keep me up until I eventually crashed. Getting there was surprisingly easy. The subway is laid out really intuitively and was very easy to figure out even in my sleepwalking state. It was so crowded on the train I loved it! There were multiple people working at the station that were designated "pushers" that made sure people fit into the cars when they arrived. Shibuya itself was awesome, at least for the two hours or so I was there. I didn't have much energy left after being awake for 30 hours or whatever, but I had to go and check it out. The Shibuya Crossing is tons of fun, and I think I crossed the street about 15 times just to see what it was like from each side.

I ended up having dinner at this tiny little underground restaurant that did NOT have any trace of english to be found. I wanted to practice my Japanese some more so I made sure to go somewhere with no english menus or pictures of food. My waiter spoke no english at all, which was what i was hoping for, but it led to some pretty funny interactions. Apparently I was supposed to pick up the phone that was sitting on my table when I was ready to order. Me being me, I just sat there patiently for about 30 minutes waiting for someone to come take my order. I don't know any words for food so I just had to basically hope for the best. I ordered randomly and I think (key word being think) that I had shitake mushrooms with fried pork, followed by some form of solid soup that may have had something to do with tempura. The second dish happened by accident because I think I ordered it while trying to say something else. I meant to ask for a glass of water and forgot the word and ended up ordering this other dish which was actually quite excellent. All in all a great dinner. One odd thing was my waiter followed me outside after I was finished. At first I thought "did I under (or over) pay? But then she kept asking me questions like "Otaku wa dochira desu ka?" Basically things like "where are you from, what do you do" etc. I wasn't sure if this was how waiters behaved normally or not so I just went along with it until I ran out of vocabulary. I feel like I have about 6 minutes worth of vocabulary for any given conversation in Japanese. After that, I have to either repeat myself or move on.

The weather is fantastic. 75 degrees and just a tad humid. Even though humidity makes my hair poof up like a chia pet, I miss it sometimes out in San Francisco where it's dry dry dry.

I am constantly being distracted by all the signs in Japanese. (which is, obviously, all of them) I have been taking Japanese for the last six months or so and one of the things I have gotten really good at is reading the two character alphabets. (not Kanji though) I've basically been muttering to myself these Japanese words that I can read, but have no idea what they mean. It really came in handy on the subway when I didn't have time to look for an english translation of the map I was reading.

Ahhh. Well I'm going to sleep, it's some ridiculous hour at home and I have been awake for way too long. Until tomorrow..

TOKYO

2008-05-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Japan here I come! I will be in Tokyo (and maybe Kyoto) for the next two weeks. I am unbelievably excited. I have had "japan" written on my white board to-do list for the last like 4 years. Today I am packing and planning, tomorrow I am walking and flying. I will be blogging the trip pretty extensively with pictures etc, so keep checking back over the next couple weeks.

Photo courtesy of Flickr

OK Cowboy

2008-05-23T11:41:00.001-07:00

Just doing some early morning trailer watching and really fell in love with this song from the "Water Lillies" trailer.

"Trahison" by Vitalic

High and Low

2008-05-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

It's late so I feel like posting the song I am listening to right now. This is one of my favorites of all time, top 200 definitely. It reminds me of the two weekends I spent in Los Angelas, but will probably remind you of something completely different.

"High and Low" by Greg Laswell

Viva La Vida

2008-05-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

Love the song, love the video. Can't wait for July 24th...(SF concert)

Places I Have Slept Vol. 4

2008-05-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

Some random grassy spot in London. This is what happens when I walk all day and eat a giant meal. I woke up with grass lines on my face, like the kind you get from the sheets on your bed, but this time from grass. It was odd.

U-Boat Classico AB1

2008-05-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not really a "watch" guy, but I love CLOCKS, like full on time-pieces. I hate anything digital. I like my clock to have hands, numbers, and look like it could stop a missle at close range. This watch below is the epitome of the "watch" as far as I'm concerned. The Helvetica of watches. One day I will buy one and be so happy I will just walk around telling people what time it is. Then I will walk around stopping missles at close range and people will love me forever.

If you feel compelled to make a donation to this blog, feel free to make it in the form of this watch. Delivery information will be given on request. Use the comments section to convey your interest.

Places I Have Slept Vol. 3

2008-05-22T01:27:00.001-07:00

This is easily one of my favorites; Giant Sail Boat, Greek Islands. Most of the reason is due to the boat's resemblance to an old pirate ship, but it also happened to be in the Greek Islands, which certainly didin't hurt. I spent one week aboard and ate a sea urchin at some point. There was much more amazingness had aboard, but that story is for another day.

Feltron Eight

2008-05-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

Nicolas Felton does some awesome annual reports on...himself. Check these out if you haven't already. You can view all of the pages on the web, but it's more fun to order a print copy and hold it in your paws

Places I Have Slept Vol. 2

2008-05-21T01:52:00.001-07:00

The second place was in Italy, in an attic in an apartment building downtown Florence. I only slept here for one night, en route to a Coldplay concert in London by any means necessary. It was about 105 degrees up in that attic and there was essentially no hope of falling asleep. There was also an unfortunate incident with the shower when the water cut out mid-soap/shampoo. I had to dry off while still covered in soap and shampoo. You can actually rub soap off pretty good, but shampoo does NOT come off without water. Needless to say, I smelled pretty damn good all night. All in all, that place was not home to the best sleep of my life, but it did have a pretty nice view -

Places I Have Slept Vol. 1

2008-05-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

I was just cruising around some of my old photos and I realized that I have slept in a large variety of places. I've done quite a bit of travelling and have found myself in some pretty awesome places over the years. Some places I have slept for extended periods, like my New Zealand house below, and others (like the floor of a Italian attic) I only slept in once. In the spirit of being random, I have decided to post pictures of a few of the fun places I have found myself sleeping as a continuing series of posts.

The first place is my house on Dundas Street in Dunedin, NZ. This house was seriously awesome. First of all, it looked like it was straight out of Dr Seuss. Second, it was right on the edge of a giant soccer field, which allowed for some rather fantastic afternoon soccer or rugby. It was always cold inside, and there was only one bathroom for the five of us, but that was all part of the charm. It also housed five fantastic people from all different parts of the world. I lived there for about 5 months and really miss it a lot.

Detonator

2008-05-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

Somebody go to my Youtube page and subscribe! I currently have 999 subscribers and would just love to have 1000. There may even be a prize for the 1000th subscriber! (hmm maybe not..but there definitely will be for the 2000th!)

Japan in one week!

Boston

2008-05-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well here I am in Boston, attending my first wedding ever. I almost didn't make it after a series of rather unfortunate airport related events. After 18 hours, and a quick unexpected pit stop in Denver, I am finally here in Bean town. I really hate air travel, yesterday just hammered that one home. And by the way, why don't they ask you those questions anymore at the check in counter? "Have you had your bags with you since you packed them? Did you pack your bags yourself?" etc. Do they no longer care about the answer? Maybe they just realized they were pointless questions to begin with and have since moved on to even more pointless security measures. My favorite is the liquid restriction. I think you are only allowed to bring a total of one quart of liquid on the plane, presumably to prevent against you having enough liquid to make some sort of explosive material. But I mean, if I really wanted to bring more liquid on, I would just get three or four other people involved and compile our little zip lock bags once we were through security. If the security measure is this easy to circumvent, it's clearly just there to make us feel safe. I had the privilege yesterday of going through "secondary" security, which basically entailed them scrubbing a little scrub over everything I owned. They don't even look through your things, they just scrub the sides of your bags (and you). I guess they are looking for explosive material residue, but what about dangerous objects? I think if someone gets flagged for secondary security, it might behoove them to at least poke around a bit and see if they have anything dangerous. Not that I want to have to sit there for any longer, but it would make a lot more sense considering two of my bags didn't even get x-rayed. Anyway, airports are annoying but traveling is awesome, so it's all worth it eventually. But I do love to complain about airports, what fun!

Mellowship Slinky in B Major

2008-05-15T11:32:00.001-07:00

92 degrees today. In San Francisco. Something is clearly up. I've just been on Google Maps plotting a walking route to take advantage of the weather today. I've got my D40 all cleaned and ready to take some shots today without having to worry about school or anything else. Should be a good day. Off to Boston tomorrow for a wedding, my first one actually. First one I have been to that is, not like the first time I myself am getting married haha.

This weather makes me miss NYC uncontrollably.

When it's over

2008-05-15T01:21:00.001-07:00

Today I finished my first year of grad school. This, was good. It qualified for a Snickers bar. I should mention, whenever something awesome happens I eat a Snickers. It is the one and only time I ever eat candy willingly. I dont think I've had a candy bar or a soda for the last 5 or 6 years, besides Snickers, but that's just when something really awesome happens, not just any old time. And no this is not a plug for Snickers. It just so happens that it's the best candy bar ever made. And I finished year one of grad school today. Apparently there is more than one year of this grad school business. Hopefully more Snickers bars to come.

If you want to laugh out loud, read the "Comments" section on any Youtube video. The things people say will make you uncontrollably happy. My favorite is when someone misinterprets someone else's sarcasm and thinks they are being serious. Chaos ensues. Seriously though, the shear stupidity of the average person is remarkable.

I may have mentioned it before, but I love the smell of cigarettes. Love. I would never smoke one, but something about the smell hits me deep. It's all about connotations really. Everywhere I smell cigarettes is usually someplace I have fun at (bar, concert, club, gallery, whatever) so they just always remind me of those types of places. Anyway, being done with year one of design school and all I figure I should post something I did. This is a poster I designed for a project where we had to pick some "issue" and make a poster. Pretty simple. I chose SMOKING, and took this picture of smoking gun shells with some ciggarettes. The smell was fantastic.

("thetruth.com" was included on the poster just for effect. they didn't actually have anything to do with it)

Like the Continent!

2008-05-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Pangea Day party today! Nice to get out of San Francisco every once in a while

Music Month #2?

2008-05-10T01:34:00.001-07:00

I'm about to have another one of those month pseudo-break type things. Last time, I devoted it entirely to music. That was great, and I still have a lot of ideas from it, but it was super intense. This time around, I'd love to just finish off all of the lingering song ideas I have from the last month, but there are a bunch of other awesome things on the plate. First of all, I'll be in Tokyo for a few weeks in May/June. That is going to be amazing and I will definitely be blogging like crazy while I'm over there. Next I have some serious web site work to do, on my own as well as a few others. Hooray for the laptop. Anyway, it's going to be an awesome month, hopefully some cool stuff will come out the other side. (official start date of "Awesome Month" is May 14th)

Where the Light Is

2008-05-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

So in December I flew down to LA for some amazing concert goodness. LA is amazing anyway, so the weekend was a fantastic success even without the concert, but was one of the best weekends ever because of it. I should mention that I love LA for any time less than 4 days. I have yet to experiment with the city for longer than that, and I hear conflicting reports on whether it's a worthy experiment. Anyway, we saw this John Mayer concert, which is coming out July 1st on DVD (directed by Danny Clinch!).

Sam Sparro

2008-05-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Man the UK is really at the forefront. Really enjoying Sam Sparro's new album while I chip away at my typography work. Check out this song:

New Clear Weapons

2008-05-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

Procrastination

2008-05-02T01:18:00.000-07:00

Give it a Go

2008-04-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

He is crazy and I love it

Bang Bang Rock and Roll

2008-04-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Louder than Before

2008-04-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

Absence makes the heart

2008-04-25T00:58:00.001-07:00

I'm a walking talking question mark

2008-04-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

Jamie Lidell is fantastic. Mixing glitch and soul is pure genre bending sweetness. Here's a clip of one of my favorite songs of one of his earlier CDs. His new one comes out the 28th April.

Alex Cornell : Blog

NEW BLOG ADDRESS

Alex on iTunes

Speaking of Tigers...

Tiger Lou

The Sixty One

Magical Melodies of Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux

Furry Friends

Hawaii - Day Eight

Hawaii - Day Seven

Hawaii - Day Six

Hawaii - Day Five

Hawaii - Day Four

Hawaii - Day Three

Hawaii - Day Two

Hawaii - Day One

Are we dancer?

Preview

Lost!?

Smash (not crash) Into You

Today is my birthday

Lazy After(noon)

All of a sudden music occurs throughout

Music is better when it's loud

Soapboxes and Palm Trees

65 Days of Static

Viva La Vida

Because she's going to have the nuclear codes

Jamie Lidell at the Fillmore

Don't honk at me unless you are exceptional

III

Running Lights on iTunes

Oh how I love this song

The Night Air

Loworks

Thomas Dybdahl

LHC

Good Weekend

Twitter Tweeter

We were young and it was summer

We Could Watch it Fly

Wallflower

Something Awesome

Lake Tahoe Version Summer

From Lake Tahoe

Hold on to a Hotel Key

Work

Losing weeks like buttons

Menu

Oh my oh my

Home!

Toky..wait.. Kyoto! Day 13

Tokyo Day 12

Tokyo Day 11 (Nighttime)

Tokyo Day 11

Tokyo Day 10

Will i ever go to bed?

Tokyo Day 9

Tokyo: Purchases

Tokyo Day 8 (Nighttime)

Tokyo Day 8 (Daytime)

Vote

Busk (like dusk but more musical)

Tokyo Day 7

Tokyo Day 6 (Nighttime) (and morning unfortunately)

Tokyo Day 6 (Daytime)

Tokyo Day 5 (Nighttime)

Tokyo Day 5 (Daytime)

Tokyo Day 4 (and night)

Tokyo Day 4 (Tsukiji Fish Market)

Tokyo Day 3 (Nighttime)

Tokyo Day 3 (Daytime)

Tokyo Day 2 (Nighttime)

Tokyo Day 2 (Daytime)

Tokyo Day 1

TOKYO

OK Cowboy

High and Low

Viva La Vida

Places I Have Slept Vol. 4