w00kie's ramblings

Category: japan

  • View from my new place

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    w00kie
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    Last night was the first clear sky sunset I could catch since we moved in the new apartment in Ikebukuro. 梅雨 (the rainy season – literally rain like plums) is not over yet so it was a lucky day. I can’t wait until the typhoon season – after a typhoon, the skies are like washed…

  • Eclipse excitement building up

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    w00kie
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    The solar eclipse craze is building up less than 2 months before the big day. This nice map resumes pretty well what you’ll be able to see from major cities in the country with and the times to adjust your schedule. (click to zoom) Better hope 梅雨, the rainy season, will be over by July…

  • Moving to the city

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    w00kie
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    After a bit more than 1.5 years since moving to my current place in 志木, it’s time to move again. I’ve set my mind on a tower mansion 2 minutes from Ikebukuro station in Tokyo and should get the keys by the end of June. The view from the living room should be like the…

  • Corporate flu prevention in Japan

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    w00kie
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    Since coming back from Golden Week vacations, my company has been sending flu-related information by email to all employees twice a week. Last week we had an employee coming back from the US get yanked into quarantine at Narita for a week because he sat in the vicinity of a guy with a fever. Today…

  • Chinese food is best in Chinatown

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    w00kie
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    In a previous post I was talking about driving all the way to 横浜の中華街 for a chinese lunch. Now I’ve finally gotten around to processing the pictures in Aperture and uploading them to flickr.

  • MOSDO – MOS Burger x Mister Donuts

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    w00kie
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    Mister Donuts x MOS Burger = MOSDO! Starting May 12, MOS Burger and Mister Donut will start a joint marketing operation mixing their respective products: MOS will have burgers with a hole in the middle of the patty Mister Donuts will sell  burger shaped donuts – reminiscent of Mamido burger I reported about a while…

  • Karting in Tokyo

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    w00kie
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    Last Tuesday I went karting with some friends in Tokyo, around 北千住. The place is called City Kart, you can rent the course for ¥36.000/hour on weekdays with 5 200cc karts which I think is a pretty awesome pricetag considering the location. It is right next to the 京成関屋 train station or 10min walk from…

  • Business cards and QRcodes

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    w00kie
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    Still on the same line of thought as my previous post, I was designing my 名刺 – well, more of outsourcing the design to my brother – and had a hard time with QRcodes that might be interesting to some people. So I wanted my business card to have the classic human readable info on…

  • Business card at a job interview

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    w00kie
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    Expanding on my previous tweet, this is of course from a Japanese “business practices and manners” point of view… When arriving at a job interview, as with any business meeting, your interviewer will usually give you his 名刺. It is considered polite in Japan to accept it with 2 hands, bow, place it neatly on…

  • Funny dog toys from Japan

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    w00kie
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    I’m going back home to Paris with the girlfriend for a week after Golden Week so of course the usual shopping lists start dropping in my mailbox. They are mainly filled with tech related stuff and gadgets that are quite a bit cheaper than in France (with a VAT at 20%, it’s hard not to…

  • Golden Parachutes or Organized Cartel: which is more popular?

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    w00kie
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    Last week my company, Valeo, made the frontpage of all the big newspapers (at least in Europe) as our CEO stepped down and was given a 3.2M€ “golden parachute” farewell bonus in spite of the company needing governmental aid to stay afloat. The French government promptly started working on a new law to ban such…

  • On my way to work

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    Japan is not only Tokyo with its crowded street crossings and neon lights. It’s also the old countryside, small traditional (and not so traditional) houses with rice paddies or vegetable farm in the backyard. I live in Tokyo (technically not but almost in the city limit) but I work in a factory way out in…

  • Obama at the Pachinko – YES WE CAN

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    w00kie
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    Took a photo of a sign for a pachinko in front of my train station: It says: Official Declaration – YES WE CAN WEEK Obama comes to New Daiei!? (that’s the name of the pachinko) The token black dude posing as a fake Obama in the photo reminds of Eddie Murphy’s sidekick in “Coming to…

  • Skull and Ice

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    Random shots I took lately while walking around Tokyo on the weekend with my trusty Nikon D60 50mm f/1.4. A skull chariot sculpture in Marunouchi. An abandoned ice-cream stand-sign in Koenji.

  • Driving in Tokyo

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    A friend of mine received his new car last weekend and we went driving around town all saturday night and sunday afternoon. Fun thing to do with a car in Tokyo: drive to Yokohama’s 中華街 to eat chinese food for lunch a Sunday afternoon after partying. It really got me into thinking I need to…