w00kie’s ramblings

I updated my blog template so that the header displays a random photo selected from my Tokyo by night set.

I'm not sure yet if I like it, so I'll leave it on for the next few days and then decide if it stays or it goes. If you have any suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them as soon as I'm sober, in January next year...

Every blog about Japan has to have a token post about stupid engrish in t-shirts or signs: here is mine.

That's a nice specimen I've spotted in a diner/bar at a 忘年会 we did last week.

This Saturday I went to 丸の内 around Tokyo station to see the Christmas lights and, much to my girlfriend's dismay, I took a bunch of maniac photos with my trusty Ricoh GR Digital.

I had seen an advertisement for the Christmas lightings in the train. It's an event called Lightopia. They lit up the 2 Marunouchi buildings in emerald green, put a bunch of candles on the Wadakura park next to the Imperial Palace and of course dressed up all the trees on the street to Yurakucho.

But the real thing I wanted to see are those Citysphere contraptions on the square in front of Tokyo station's Central Marunouchi exit, but it won't be up until December 26, tomorrow. I'll have to go check it out again next weekend.

Second raffle, same time, same place. This time they had 52 units up for the taking and 254 people showed up. A friend of mine had come to help me out, giving me a second chance to get one.

But of course, since I'm officially cursed, they ended up calling all the numbers around our tickets, but not ours. So finally it's been 3 weeks since launch in Tokyo and I'm still desperately looking for a Wii.

This morning they had a raffle for 30 units at my local 7eleven Holdings' Itoyokado (that's a department store). I got there at 9:45, grabbed a ticket and came back at 10:30 for the results.

They had distributed 74 tickets that were supposed to count only for 42 units since families were supposed to have one ticket for each person but only take one Wii. But of course, it got out of hand and none of them would give away their tickets if they won. One chick redeemed 4 winning tickets... Of course, with my luck, I got nothing... Bastards...

A photo I took yesterday outside my office. There are huge condensers for the aircons that cool/heat the big factory under my office, they make plumes of water vapor that catch the lights at night and give the whole place an eerie feeling.

Took this photo saturday morning when I came back from Shinjuku empty-handed. The sun was just coming out over the horizon behind me.

That's it, it's official, the verdict has been given: I'm cursed.

Today at lunch time we went out with a friend to an electronics shop deep deep in the countryside, 15 minutes away from the factory where we work, hoping to score a Wii so we could play some Wii Sports goodness for a week before he leaves for a business trip in Europe and me in China. We had the perfect target, almost 30min by car from the nearest train station, they had to have some stock left.

We park the car next to the entrance, not many people buying TVs or fridges at 12:15 on a Monday. I go straight to the games corner, spot the Wii display and check out the little holders where they have the cards you bring to the counter to get your machine... All empty...

That's when I turned around and to tell my buddy and I saw a mother and her 6-year-old daughter holding a Wii card in her hand.

I missed it by a couple minutes. Meanwhile I see reports all over the japanese blogosphere of people just stumbling on mountains of Wiis, lying there for the taking...

So I went to Shinjuku's BicCamera at 5am on Saturday morning (btw, it's incredible the number of puke puddles you can find around Koenji in the early morning...) hoping to score a Wii. Here is a map of the line I found there:

The line was closed, BicCamera people were watching it every 15 meters with big signs saying SOLD OUT and there was a cop at the back of the line in case to support them. We asked the Bic guys who told us the first in line had been there 3 days and they sold out Friday night a 8pm.

People there we're really organized. I didn't see any cosplay but they were all sitting on carton boxes, covered in space blankets (the gold-aluminum foil kind) with stacks of Boss coffee cans and cup noodles, playing on their DS lite in their finger-cut gloves.

So I just gave up and went back to bed. To my dismay, I later heard half a dozen reports of people buying Wii all over the weekend in various places (Don Quichotte, Kiddy Land, etc.) but I couldn't find one myself when I woke up again around 4pm and went around little electronics shops in the suburbs.