Month: December 2003

A few notes I’ve taken recently.

• hhstyle.com
• Kei Matsushita exhibit: deska.jp
• Scandinavian design shop: Markte (2-28-28-5F Komagome – Closed on Mondays)
• Happy End – “Kaze wo Atsumete”
• ozone.co.jp
• Chungmu-ro Intermedia Playground (Chungmu-ro subway station in Seoul): 500 square meter passageway hosts a centre for new media art. Designed by Cho Slade Architecture and Kwang-Soo Kim.
• MONITOR UNLIMITED: Great design magazine from Russia, but published in English.
• Sfera Building in Kyoto’s Gion area (17 Benzaiten-cho, Higashimaya-ku): “culture house” with art gallery, design shop/showroom, book/music store, restaurant, cafe

I just made some slight changes that hopefully will make the site more user-friendly. All the blue text on the site is now clickable, except for the subtitle on the main page (“Thrills, chills…”). Titles and dates that were previously blue have been changed to gray.

I finally saw Sofia Coppola’s LOST IN TRANSLATION, and what a treat it was. It’s a definite must-see for anyone with an interest in portrayals of modern Japan. I of course loved the setting, but the characters were great too, and I fell off my chair laughing at the MATTHEW’S BEST HIT TV sequence. And what a soundtrack! I mean, how can you not love a film that includes tracks by My Bloody Valentine! But the song that is now stuck in my head is Happy End’s “Kaze wo Atsumete.” Great, great track. I need to get my hands on one of their albums.

Talk about survival ramen! A new shop in Saitama called Ra Senba has 4 ramen cooks, each one offering an original taste, and the one with the lowest monthly sales is out of a job, replaced by a new cook. The full article from THE DAILY YOMIURI is online.

Today’s outing starts out in Ebisu. I meet Robert Duckworth, laptopper extraordinaire and member of Tog, at the station from where we head to the Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum to check out the LEVEL X exhibit. It’s a look at the history of Japanese videogaming, with a strong focus on the Nintendo Famicom console. The show is mostly composed of boxes of old games on display, but there are a few stations where you can play classic games, some of them projected on a huge screen. Playing PAC-MAN and DIG DUG on a 10 foot high screen is something indeed. Well worth going, especially at the bargain price of 250 yen. A good buy is the book for the show, which is bilingual and offers an historical perspective for every game on display. You can check Patrick Benny’s site for his report on the show, which is accompanied by a few pics (I’ll add my own later). After taking in the show, a ramen hunger strikes us, and we decide to track down a shop mentioned in Robert’s ramen guide. Misreading my Tokyo atlas, we take the subway to Hiroo, only to find that the ramen shop, Kyujukyu, is closer to Ebisu station. The shop’s speciality is cheese ramen. I make the mistake of getting shouyu ramen, which doesn’t include the cheese, but after tasting Robert’s serving, I think I might have done the right thing. Although very tasty, it is a rather heavy taste. Then it’s off to Shibuya to check out a cafe I’ve been wanting to visit for a while. Jordi is located on the same street as the Uplink Factory, opposite the big Journal Standard store. The inside is quite cozy, with interesting furniture and a nice second floor view. The music played while there are remixes of Fantastic Plastic Machine. After coffee, it’s off to Belgian beer specialist Belgo on the other side of the station. The selection of beers is overwhelming, but I settle on a nice dark brew (see my Tokyo Boy entry). We then head our seperate ways, and upon returning to Ikebukuro, I go to bookstore Libro to peruse a few magazines. While there, I pick up this very attractive and compact guide to Tokyo architecture, a steal at 600 yen. A good day.