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.

  • Shiodome 42nd floor

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    w00kie
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    This weekend, a good friend of mine invited me and his girlfriend to dinner for celebrating his yearly bonus. We went to the Oregon Bar & Grill, on the 42nd floor of the Shiodome City Center. The dry-aged charcoal-grilled steaks were extremely good, but came with just a small piece of mashed potatoes, nothing else.…

  • Not missing everything

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    w00kie
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    Maybe I missed the drunken parties under the さくら, but I still got to see cherry blossoms in Tokyo before leaving for China. Here are some photos that I took around 表参道…

  • Chinese sex medicine

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    w00kie
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    So when I got to my hotel room finally (after a ghastly 10 hours of travel), I checked out the bathroom and found the following room extras. Very Arduous, Very Long Haul Sexy liquid medicine for lovers This product is the pure Chinese medicinal preparation, refined many times and exquisite productive. It could enhance sexuality…

  • Back from China

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    w00kie
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    So I’m back from China and it wasn’t as bad as my colleagues led me to believe. Of course, I stayed only 5 days there and he spent 4 months. I doubt I could’ve stayed sane more than 2 weeks over there. Anyways, it was cold, filthy, totally disorganized and did I mention it was…

  • Missing the Hanami

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    w00kie
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    This week, the cherry trees blossomed all over Tokyo and the Kanto plain. This weekend, and particularly tomorrow since today was rainy, everyone is preparing to put down the blue tarps under the blossoms and drink themselves stupid. However, I will be waking up at 5AM to take the plane to Changchun in Mandchuria –…

  • Kani-shabu

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    w00kie
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    What’s better than the snow in Hokkaido? The food of course! Every time we’ve hit the restaurants over there, it was like we were discovering a whole new level of Japanese food. Say to a Japanese person you ate 蟹しゃぶ (crab legs splashed in boiling soup) in Hokkaido and you will see them shed a…

  • Snowboard in Hokkaido

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    w00kie
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    Last weekend I took the Monday off and went with 3 friends to Niseko in Hokkaido for 3 days of snowboard. Departure 8am on Saturday from Tokyo – Haneda, quick flight to Sapporo – Chitose, then 2h30 of the most excruciatingly slow bus ride I’ve ever experience. At 2pm we were geared up and on…

  • Definitely cursed

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    w00kie
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    After the Wii near miss and the lost sunglasses episodes, the events of this weekend do not come as a shock to me anymore… I came to Japan with my trusty 15″ Powerbook and an external 250GB Firewire 800 drive. I never found the time to set up the hard-drive around the house, so since…

  • The wonders of mashups

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    w00kie
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    Not much to talk about this week. Working a lot, preparing some business trips for next months. So I thought I should show you a little gadget that I’ve been playing with for almost a year now. I’ve been geotagging as many as possible of my photos on flickr and with this great mashup by…

  • The ASTRAM of Hiroshima

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    w00kie
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    One of the train lines in Hiroshima is called the ASTRAM. The name アストラム comes from あす meaning “tomorrow” and トラム which is tram in katakana. I was thinking of another theory but my girlfriend didn’t find it that funny… :) me: It’s the ASS-TRAM!!! *grins stupidly* 愛子: Don’t make fun of my city!

  • Huge rice scooper

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    w00kie
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    Here is my girlfriend in front of the biggest しゃもじ in the world: If you ever go to 宮島, you’ll see those wooden rice paddles everywhere. They are used to scoop the rice out of the rice cooker, at least before the wooden type was replaced by newer plastic, non-sticky ones. Souvenir shops sell big…

  • Temple stickers

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    w00kie
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    Still in 大聖院 temple, this gate was covered in these paper stickers. I don’t exactly know what they are for, my girlfriend told me it had something to do with sumo… Anyways, it looked really neat.

  • Ultraman and friends

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    w00kie
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    Taken in 大聖院 temple in Miyajima, I have no idea what they were doing there:

  • Hiroshima Report

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    w00kie
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    I’m back home, in good old Saitama. As usual, the trip went like a breeze, I arrived 20 minutes before my flight, checked in, passed security and boarded my flight all in one stride. Not the shadow of a line anywhere, a wonder for french guy used to american and european airports. Then once I…

  • Almost dead

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    w00kie
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    So I arrived saturday afternoon in Hiroshima, it’s now wednesday evening and I’ve only started visiting today… Why? would you ask me. Well as soon as I got here I fell sick with influenza type A as they told me at the hospital on my 2nd coming… I peaked somewhere at 39.5°C and was litteraly…