Japan is well-known for being uniquely weird, but this door found at Hanzomon Station really wins the prize. It actually took me almost a whole month to notice this door, even though I walked past it a couple of times a day.
Notice the emergency exit sign at the bottom of the door and the “押す” (osu, push) sign on the door handle. [click to continue…]
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As I was walking towards Ebisu from Shibuya together with two friends, we came across this weird looking building entrance somewhere in Daikan-yama. Either something got lost in translation, or perhaps that beam sticking out of the entrance adds to the appeal? That thing is not your friend at night after a few beers if you’re a tall western guy!
That white square in the glass is also a mystery…
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UppCon is the biggest Japan and east asian pop culture convention in all of Scandinavia, held in Uppsala, Sweden. This year, UppCon is teaming up with avex to bring some more great Japanese artists and bands to Sweden, and MinxZone is the first band to be added to the list. MinxZone consists of Yukari (vocals), Ayuha (drums) and Waio (guitar) and together they make some really great happy kind of pop-rock. The band started off as with street performing but is now signed on major label. This is going to be their first time visiting and performing in Sweden.
In 2008, MinxZone traveled to Australia and performed in many different cities there, and they even managed to get their song Vinyl Umbrella in a TV commercial for David Jones. The band also performed live in Vancouver at the Anime Evolution 2009 convention.
UppCon is a big event with around 3000 visitors. Besides bringing Japanese artists to Sweden they also have everything else a convention should have, such as movie theaters, cosplayers, games, contests, fashion shows, karaoke and pretty much anything you can think of.
UppCon:10 will be held in Uppsala, Sweden for three days (April 09 – 11). MinxZone performs on the 10th. I will be there this year and will cover as much as possible here on the blog, if you’re going, let me know so we can meet! 
UppCon:10 Website – MinxZone Website – Via New Nippon
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Yup, it has already happened, I’ve broken one of my New Year’s resolutions! And as promised, I have to give away a 1500 yen Japanese iTunes Store gift card every time I do so.
So which one did I break? Well, if you’ve followed my recent trip to Tokyo you’ve probably heard of the fact that I ate on McDonald’s. And I actually did it twice! But unfortunately for you it only counts as one 
Anyways, there’s a simple two-step procedure to enter the contest if you want to win this gift card.
The one who posts the funniest picture wins! And I’m the judge of that of course. You can post up to 3 pictures (all in one post or one by one by repeating the steps above).
The winner will be decided on Sunday, February 14 (next week). Choose your pictures wisely!
Please contact me via Twitter or Email if your comment is caught in the spam filter and hasn’t been approved within 24 hours. Also, if you don’t yet have a Japanese iTunes Store account, you can follow these instructions provided by austrian otaku to create one without needing a credit card or gift card.
Good luck!
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You might have noticed that when you have created your Japanese iTunes Store account, a lot of the music have romanized song titles and artist names. Now of course, to some, this is a big plus, but for people who are picky and like to use the correct tags, there is a solution. It’s a simple fix, actually all you have to do is launch iTunes in Japanese. Doing so also adds new functionality to iTunes which I’ll show you further down in this post.
This is a tutorial for iTunes on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, if you know how to do this on Windows, please let me know in the comment section at the end of this post and I’ll gladly add a tutorial for Windows users too. Also, if you don’t yet have a Japanese iTunes Store account, you can follow these instructions provided by austrian otaku to create one without needing a credit card or gift card.
UPDATE (February 7, 2010): This tutorial shows you how to do this without any third-party applications. There is an even simpler solution to do this, and that is by installing an application called Language Switcher. The application is very easy to understand, just launch it, select iTunes and the language you want to launch it in. Just like in the tutorial below however, this is not a permanent change, you have to repeat the procedure every time you relaunch iTunes. Thanks to Jenny (see comments section) for letting me know about this application!
UPDATE 2 (February 7, 2010): To do this on Windows, you simply just have to go into the settings of iTunes, change your language, relaunch iTunes and log in and out with your Japanese iTunes Store account. (Screenshot) Thanks to austrian otaku.
Quit iTunes.
Open up System Preferences and click on Language & Text.
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Went out to meet with some old classmates who’re currently studying in Japan. Ended up at an izakaya in Kichijoji where we had a tabehoudai (eat all you can).
Notice that the V-sign pops up automatically in all 4 pictures I’m in (and almost all other photos I haven’t uploaded here too )
I want that huge Jack Daniel’s bottle just above my head^^
Showed off my awesome music collection on my iPhone too, got some pretty old stuff on there that not many people my age know of. But the Japanese usually know most of them^^
And then when we were out of time at the izakaya, we went back to where all these university students live. [click to continue…]
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After hanging out on Takeshita Street for a few hours we went back home to leave our stuff and get ourselves ready for Roppongi. Even though many of you told me not to visit Roppongi, I had to see for myself.
Because of Marcus, we already knew where to go, so we could walk through the hordes of black men trying to get you in their clubs. Some of them are really persistent though^^
Our goal was GASPANIC, a chill place with a good mix of Japanese and foreigners.
Magnus on our way there, he got one really persistent guy chasing after him, sometimes they just don’t give up.
There are a few ways to get rid of them though, it’s not like they try to drag you in or anything, they just try to convince you to come by saying things like “it’s free”. I think it’s kind of fun to act along, ask them about the club and tell them I’ll come by later, that way they leave you within 20 seconds. Of course you can always ignore them, but that whey they just become an annoyance. [click to continue…]
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After walking through Yoyogi Park and seeing Meiji Shrine, we continued to Takeshita Street in Harajuku for shopping.
Takeshita Dori
The symbol of Harajuku and birthplace of many of Japan’s fashion trends, Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street) is a narrow, roughly 400 meter long street lined by shops, boutiques, cafes and fast food outlets targeting Tokyo’s teenagers. – japan-guide
Wasn’t too crowded around 2-3 PM, but it gets crowded around 5-6 (and always crowded on weekends^^).
Takeshita street is definitely the best part of Harajuku, if you like shopping that is. There are lots of awesome stores and everything is really cheap. [click to continue…]
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After missing my first meetup because of jet lag I was finally a few days later able to meet up with some friends! This time I met up with Magnus from my old Japanese class and his friend Lisa. As I hadn’t been to Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine yet I decided to join them.
We asked a guy who tried to sell his art to us outside the entrance, and apparently they are koi fish^^
Both this and the koi fish were placed outside Yoyogi Park in celebration of the completion of Tohoku Shinkansen Line.
My friends, Lisa and Magnus!
Me and Lisa! [click to continue…]
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Today I didn’t really have anything special in mind, so I just went out for a walk. I walked towards Hanzomon station at first but when I got there I noticed that there were still one direction I hadn’t walked in before.
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