Andy in Tokyo

Snow-kyo

Well, I was convinced that the snow we had earlier this month would be the first – and last – for Tokyo this year, but I woke up this morning to find yet another covering of the white stuff:

Mutant Strawberries

Bought some strawberries today. I think they may have been grown in Chernobyl:

Snow Way

Last night’s snow was more robust than I had expected. The roof of almost every house between my home and office was covered with it this morning. The road-bound stuff didn’t fare so well, though:

Word of warning: leather-soled shoes + snow = certain death.

No more snow is forecast for the rest of the week. Chances are we won’t be seeing any more in Tokyo for the rest of the year, which is a shame. I was looking forward to seeing ‘proper’ snow, especially considering England has been having its whitest winter since 1980.

Snow hits Tokyo

The first snow of the season has arrived here in Tokyo. Unfortunately it’s not cold enough for it to lay, which means an unpleasant trudge through slush to the train station tomorrow.

Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo

Continuing with our birthday tradition of spending a night in a fancy Tokyo hotel (see last year’s post on The Peninsula), this weekend my better half and myself stayed at the Mandarin Oriental in Nihonbashi.

Rooms are very spacious. Starting from 50m2:

The bed is a decent size:

As is the TV (a 42 incher). You can watch both Wowow and Star Channel movies in full HD, which is ace:

If it’s your birthday the hotel provides a free bowl of strawberries, which is nice. You can see the bathroom through the vertical blinds in the background. The bathroom mirror is on rails so you can move it out of the way when you want to see Tokyo from the bath:

The bathroom itself has a solid granite sink:

All the knobs and handles are polished to within an inch of their lives:

The bath is a solid granite affair. Easily big enough for two:

I filled our bath with hydrochloric acid. It cleans the pores, deep down (to the bone):

The toilet is, as you would expect, a high-tech Toto super-loo:

Features abound:

The shower has a selection of free stuff by Aromatherapy Associates. My wife assures me that their stuff is the business:

Back in the bedroom, we have a yoga mat and brolly in the cupboard:

More views of the room. Wifey can be seen sat on the sofa, exasperated by my photo-taking antics:

Rooms come fully-loaded with booze:

Snacks:

More booze:

And, erm, stationery:

Oh and you also get a pair of yukata’s and fan for poncing about the room in, feeling all imbued with the spirit of the samurai and all that guff:

We thought “Bollocks to it!” and ordered a room-service breakfast:

Green tea pancakes with maple syrup. Very nice:

And an omelette with assorted fried bits and bobs:

Finally, the view. Our room was on the 30th floor, which is the lowest. Bizarrely, the front desk is on the 38th floor, which means to get outside you have to take one lift from the 30th to the 38th floor, then get in another lift that takes you to the ground floor. Our room was facing east, towards Asakusa. There were a few cranes in the way as they’re building something next door:

Construction of Tokyo Sky Tree is well and truly in progress. The finished article will be 634 metres tall, falling some way behind the awesome Burj Khalifa:

The sumo joint:

Looking left:

Looking right:

The same view at night reveals a fancy ferris wheel:

And some very bright crane lights:

Oh and one more thing before we wrap this little photo tour up. The customer toilets on the 38th floor have a “pee on the plebs” feature which I had to take a video of (I don’t normally take videos in toilets, you understand, but this one was special):

All in all, the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo is a top-class hotel with a fantastic view, and I highly recommend it.

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Merry Kurisumasu!

Best wishes to everyone. Have a great day and get stuck into the important business of opening those prezzies!

Christmas Lights in Marunouchi

As with every December, the Christmas lights are up in Marunouchi. Looks a lot quieter in this photo than it really was:

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Japan, like any other country, has an abundant supply of products for the follically challenged male. Do you find yourself weeping in the shower at the sight of your beloved hair flowing down the plughole? Have you been desperately trying to glue your pubes to your head with Pritt Stick? If you answered “Yes! My God man, yes!” to either of these then you might want give the following options a whirl:

Spray-on hair
Essentially a can of hair-coloured spray that dyes your scalp and thickens your remaining strands, thereby miraculously giving the appearance of more hair. The biggest downside to this one is that a bout of exercise will leave trails of brown-coloured sweat soaking into your shirt collar. Plus you also need a fair amount of hair remaining, otherwise you run the risk of people mistaking your head for a conker.

Hair restoring lotion
This miracle of modern science usually comes in a special applicator-head bottle thingy (ie, you massage your head with end bit). Apparently, it treats the root cause of the problem (ho ho!) by encouraging hair follicles to grow. Too much application can, however, lead to a rather sore scalp and the unfortunate office nickname of “Cherry Head”.

Fake hair
This is my favourite, purely because the TV adverts have people with enormously long bits of fake hair stuck to their foreheads, arms, and other entirely random places. They spend much of the advert yanking at it while pulling an “Oooh look, it’s soo strong!” expression at the camera. In short, great for bungee jumping fanatics.

Glue-on wigs
Live in a wind tunnel? Watch a lot of tennis? Then you, my slap-headed friend, need a glue-on wig. This is for the man who has lost enough up top to justify physically sticking a Yorkshire terrier-sized hairpiece to his dome. I, for one, would like to see what this particular option looks like after a day of 30-degree heat and 100% humidity.

The hair transplant
If it’s good enough for Mel Gibson then it’s good enough for the common man. Quite expensive, though, and a poor job can leave you with a strange pattern where the hair was implanted. In some circles this option has earned the nickname “The Chucky”, for obvious reasons.

The barcode
Some men will forego the above options and sweep the last remaining tendrils of hair over the top of the head in a, err, sweeping motion. This look has been falling out of favour in recent years, probably because women are sick of spending their weekends with a wispy-haired pillock:

As for me? Well, when the time comes to shave-it or save-it I’m going to stick with creosote and Kiwi shoe polish.

Shibuya’s Hachiko Crossing comes to London

Well, that might be overstating it somewhat, but I was interested to see that design agency Atkins has revamped Oxford Circus with a very Shibuya-esque spin. Now all that’s needed is people. Lots of people:

Some neon lighting wouldn’t go amiss, either:

Tokyo: The Imperial Palace and Marunouchi

Here, ladies and gentlemen, we have Tokyo’s Imperial Palace complex. In the late 1980s some (very optimistic) calculations made this 3.5km² patch of land worth more than all the property in California:

It is said that from this castle’s windows the emperor likes to shout obscenities at passers-by. It is also believed that he is fond of throwing milk bottles at geese:

People walking towards Marunouchi from Yurakucho. The woman in the bottom right corner seems to have spotted me. She must have hawk-like eyesight:

Marunouchi by day. The elliptical structure in the centre-right is the Tokyo International Forum:

The same view by night:

Organic Japanese Beer

The LOHAS movement is a big deal in Tokyo, especially among the young, well-heeled Nakameguro set. Although it seems that many people view it more as a fashion statement than a “lifestyle of health and sustainability”, plenty of companies have realised that serious money can be made by going organic. Thankfully, this also includes breweries:

The verdict: A little bit on the bitter side but worth a try. However, for this kind of money (about ¥300 a can) I think I’ll stick to Suntory’s Premium Malts.