snapshots and observations

Friday 23 March 2012

iphone pics from tokyo ( part one )







i've got lots of photos from tokyo to bore you with.
i'll start with the worst quality efforts... some shots i did with my iphone.

i'll split them into two parts.


1
i swear this girl was taking a photo of me on the sly with her phone.
i thought that was quite rude of her... 

what ?








2
this was on the jr line or is it called the yamanote line ?
i was on a journey from ikebukero to harajuku








3
this was taken a couple of seconds after the previous photo.
it shows the same next station, but in different writing.
i wonder what the story is ? japanese then chinese ?








4
a couple of seconds later... boom ! the sign and the announcement kicks in
using good old english... "the next station is... takadanobaba"

now trust me, you really need to hear how this word is pronounced.
funnily enough i have a video of it which i'll post in a day or two.

takadanobaba... damn, i love that word !








5
in tokyo, breakfast for me every morning consisted of a strong milky coffee
and a doughnut. the first day, the girl behind the counter pointed at the doughnut
and said something in japanese to me. i didn't understand so i just gave her
the thumbs up and she took it away to heat it up... what a touch !
i'd like to think i was like clark cable in "it happened one night"
dunking my hot doughnut into my coffee.








6
my friend satoshi is the manager of the stüssy store in ikebukero.
he's top man and not only that, he's a kind man too... he gave me
so many gifts that i thought it was christmas.








7
on my first evening in tokyo, i pulled an all-nighter.
my shoot was at 4.30am so myself, my translator and his sidekick stayed up
at a 24 hour food joint called jonathan's.
the thing i'm holding here has a button on it. you press it and a waitress comes
to your table to take your order. nice.








8
you can take the boy out of warrington...

check me out, eating chips with chopsticks like a boss !





3 comments:

  1. Just to let you know, regarding the station name on the screen... the first one is in Japanese characters (which are understood by meaning by the Japanese), the second one is in Japanese phonetic characters (which essentially just tells the Japanese how to pronounce the previous Chinese characters), and finally of course its in English for us westerners to understand (not that we understand the meaning, mind - it actually means 'horseground of Takada', Takada being somebody's name and horseground being, well, a horseground, for racing and whatnot, I would assume).

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    Replies
    1. Shoot, I meant to say, the first one is *CHINESE* characters!

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  2. thanks robert, it's a great sounding name anyway.

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