w00kie's ramblings

my head

Hi 👋, I’m François

I’m a French engineer who moved to Japan after my studies and will soon hit half of my life spent in Tokyo.

  • someone fed my N+2 “whale brai…

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    someone fed my N+2 “whale brains” last night… there is no such thing, probably was 白子 which is fish sperm – he was not amused… (^O^)/

  • karuizawa road trip tonight, Y…

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    karuizawa road trip tonight, YAY!… but have to finish house-cleaning first (-.-;)

  • trying to find a nice onsen ry…

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    trying to find a nice onsen ryokan for 4 in Hakone the weekend after next… i am not a good travel agent

  • New look for the blog

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    I’ve updated the design of the blog to a totally different look. I’ve had the previous one forever, and though I was refining it and adding little details all the time, I wanted a radical change. Here’s a screenshot for archival purpose. Goodbye green, hello black…

  • Obama at the Pachinko – YES WE CAN

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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…

  • JLPT Fail

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    For all the hundreds of people waiting for their JLPT results to arrive and coming to my blog via google searches, know that this year’s score slip has arrived yesterday in Japan. As I was expecting, I failed level 2 again for lack of studying… JLPT 2008 score: 217/400 Vocabulary/Kanji: 58/100 Listening: 81/100 Grammar/Reading: 78/200…

  • What is your job?

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    I have a private mailing-list with my closest childhood friends which we use to keep in touch now that we’re spread all around the world. One of them, who recently finished an MBA at Waseda and has yet to jump into the business world, started a thread asking all of us to describe our jobs…

  • Daddy’s gift

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    Yesterday we received a Christmas present / New Year’s gift from 愛子’s father. Around a Kg of 和牛 – Japanese beef from Yamanashi prefecture. If you’re thinking “meh, it’s just meat…”, stop right there, retail price must be over ¥30.000 (almost 300€). Straight in the frying pan with some delicious garlic. Look at those beautiful…

  • Christmas dinner

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    Christmas dinner at home after a horrible day at work.

  • Alone at work for Christmas

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    It’s christmas day and I’m at the office, working… Actually, it’s nothing unusual for Japan where the 25th is a day like any other day. But this year is special: you should know that I work for a big French automotive parts manufacturer, and this is not a very fun time for us. Car production…

  • AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G

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    Received my self-christmas present this weekend and tried it out over the weekend in a 新宿３丁目 wine bar. It’s the new 50mm f/1.4 lens from Nikon and the bokeh is to die for.

  • JLPT Level 2

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    I took the test last Sunday at Surugadai University in Hanno, way out at the feet of the mountains west of Tokyo. Usually I’m assigned to Saitama Daigaku which is 10min of taxi from my new place, but I guess this year they thought I was too close and needed to suffer a bit more…

  • Why do Japanese octopus wear headbands?

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    I’ve been wondering about this for a long time: why are たこ always represented wearing 鉢巻? I mean, I understand the mouth, but where does the headband come from? Is it because hachimaki is a symbol of hard workers and the tako with its 8 “arms” must be good at multi-tasking? Photo courtesy of kamoda