A Week in Tokyo 31
06-01-2009
www.dannychoo.com Views 128
image ID#23862 The last A Week in Tokyo installment for 2008. This series started over a year ago back in November 2007 with the aim of sharing my life with you in Tokyo. There are other articles in the category like A Week in Shanghai and A Week in Los Angeles but thats because I'm personally using this category to keep track of my life too ^^; Am a bit late this week so some of these photos are more than a week old. Starting off with some trooping shenanigans at a Samsung festive booth in Shibuya. The Japanese typically associate Japanese brands with high quality but being expensive. They also associate foreign brands such as Samsung, Acer etc as being of "reasonable quality" and low price. What seems to be happening of late is that many Japanese are caring less about going for Japanese brands and rather pay less for reasonable quality - which is obviously worrying the big Japanese brands. Analysts say that Japanese electronic brands must lower their prices or they wont be able to compete with the "invasion" of the foreign brands. How do you feel about this? Are you a "Japanese brands are the best and the rest is average" type of a person? image ID#23863 Out n about in Shibuya. Before I continue, Mirai Gaia is now dishing out all photos in a larger format. The original photos are 800px wide but I'm forcing them to be about 790px to fit in the right column. IE users may see jagged edges in photos - all other browsers will see smooth scaling. I'll probably remove the right column soon but thinking about how to design the UI. There are about 35 large photos in this article. Lemme know if you have probs viewing. I'm aware that some of you are on slow connections. image ID#23864 On the move - name the train line. image ID#23865 Out n about at Sakuraya Hobby kan in Shinjuku checking out the latest figure releases. image ID#23866 Bento box lunch set - 700 yen. image ID#23867 Folks in Japan who observe the news will know that there is a lack of part time workers especially at food chain restaurants. Was surprised to see that Mc Dees were handing out "join Mc Dees crew" leaflets. Day time shift is 950 yen per hour. Night time shift is 1,187 yen per hour. Speaking of restaurant jobs, previously worked in a Japanese restaurant called Benihana's back in the UK during my university days and personally recommend working at fast paced restaurant for life experience. Benihana was the first place where I worked with a variety of people with different jobs - bell boy, chefs, waiters and so on. I was a hall waiter. I experienced being shouted at by managers, customers, experienced messing up, crying, laughing, working long late hours and rushing home past midnight on roller blades to do homework for the next day - and the pay was student pay (peanuts). But I knew it was worth it because all the money I saved each year was used to pay for a ticket to Tokyo. Part time jobs in a restaurant really does wonders in terms of life training and preparing ones self for the realities of society. One of my previous managers at Amazon was a bartender and by chance got a job at Amazon as a Technical Program Manager (!) He didn't previously have a technical background but was always on the ball and basically got things done. He later became a director and currently manages hundreds of development teams at Amazon. He said that he learned a lot about getting things done during his bartending days. Amazon interviews are tough but its more about getting the answers right when asked about how one would handle priorities. So here is a question I was asked when interviewing for the position as Website Manager - how would you answer. There is a correct and incorrect way of answering and you do not have to be technical to get it right. Just because you are in an interview, don't answer in a way that you think others want you to answer. How would you answer? You are currently working on rolling out a site feature and your staff is all occupied with the rollout. A business owner (lets say it was Marketing) tells you that they need a website feature built urgently and that they can expect thousands of incremental users leading to millions of dollars in sales. What do you do? image ID#23868 This is one of the reasons why Japanese folks complain when they make trips overseas - cigarettes in Japan are very cheap indeed - 300 yen for a pack. While many other countries proactively warn of the dangers of smoking, the Japanese advertising agencies glamorize smoking. I probably should go round taking some pics of the ads as an example. image ID#23869 Setting up my neighbors new Mac. Apart from evangelizing Macs to my friends - I do it to my neighbors too ^^; image ID#23870 Testing out some dark shots with the Lumix LX3. image ID#23871 Oseibi [お歳暮] is are end of year gifts traditionally given by the Japanese. Got some from comrades at Hobby Stock - box O coffee related stuff. image ID#23872 And something from the box - instant coffee without the need of a coffee machine. image ID#23873 Banana Tempura for dessert. image ID#23874 Mos Burger straps up for grabs to celebrate a Merry X'Mos... image ID#23875 Teriyaki Mos Burger. Quite yummy indeed. image ID#23876 Got this USB LAN adapter for the MacBook Air as the wireless connection is quite crap. Plug n play with no drivers required. I recall my Windows days where I would battle with resource clashes and driver problems every time I wanted to add a new device. image ID#23877 At Ozaki-senseis gaff with Samurai Girl getting ready to leave. image ID#23878 At Tokyo Big Sight for Hobby Complex. image ID#23879 Curry Katsu lunch before taking off for home. image ID#23880 Dont know why the Kentucky menu has to be so complicated. They probably should change their strategy and simplify things like Mc Dees. image ID#23881 Christmas lunch ^^; image ID#23882 Old and the New. image ID#23883 Been doing a lot of cleaning at the end of the year. image ID#23884 Tofu Chige lunch set at Matsuya - 500 yen. image ID#23885 Cream cake n afternoon tea. Left the UK ten years ago but make sure to keep the tradition. image ID#23886 This weeks kiddy meal goodies at Mc Dees are Pokemon balls. image ID#23887 Mamamia!!! Another suddenly acquired Dollfie shaped box arrives! Wonder which lovely lass is inside... image ID#23888 Apart from the end of year cleaning (known as Nenmatsu Oosouji [年末大掃除], I've been trying to utilize space efficiently starting with figure bases. Here I have glued the plastic foot base to figma bases - stand perfectly well and can still be removed from the base. The bases at the front of the photo are the hideously large default one for each figure. Have a load of spare figma bases so I can do this easily though. The original bases are binned. Can now put two figures where Tomoe used to stand. Tomoe review and Nanael up soon. image ID#23889 The not incredibly attractive original Kemeko white base replaced by a figma base. image ID#23890 More end of year cleaning on the third floor. image ID#23891 Box O unwanted stuff. Those Kemeko heads are spares. Will give lot to the next person I meet. image ID#23892 Now that my job has evolved to a point where I get figures sent to me every month, I need to start being picky about what stays out on display. The more figures on display, the more time needed to maintain (dusting, wiping) them. And while I wipe them, some drop on the floor and I need to fix stuff thats fallen off ^^; At this moment in time, I cant invest time to send these out to readers. besides, I'd rather have you own new stuff instead. More giveaways soon. image ID#23893 The more stuff I have, the more time I need to look after them - even if they are just in some cupboard. The reason is that they take up space - which is space taken away from storing other stuff. I then need to make time to make space for other stuff. I usually consider whether I have looked at or touched the item within the last year and whether I would care if it just disappeared one day. If the answer is "no", I usually get rid of it - the neighbors get first choice. image ID#23894 More retired figures to add to the current bunch. Nice figures but not as nice as some of the others. image ID#23895 Taken this morning - comrades from Singapore. Jason Ho who does the animation for the Star Wars Clone Wars TV series and Vong YongHow - another CG type who worked on Bandai's Freedom Project. Akihabara News - Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) Japan Probe - Japan news and entertainment (Subscribe) Kirainet.com - A geek in Japan (Subscribe) View the full sized images/comments for this item at dannychoo.com Feel free to join/add Danny Choo and see what else the little bugger is up to in his other networks.
image ID#23862 The last A Week in Tokyo installment for 2008. This series started over a year ago back in November 2007 with the aim of sharing my life with you in Tokyo. There are other articles in the category like A Week in Shanghai and A Week in Los Angeles but thats because I'm personally using this category to keep track of my life too ^^; Am a bit late this week so some of these photos are more than a week old. Starting off with some trooping shenanigans at a Samsung festive booth in Shibuya. The Japanese typically associate Japanese brands with high quality but being expensive. They also associate foreign brands such as Samsung, Acer etc as being of "reasonable quality" and low price. What seems to be happening of late is that many Japanese are caring less about going for Japanese brands and rather pay less for reasonable quality - which is obviously worrying the big Japanese brands. Analysts say that Japanese electronic brands must lower their prices or they wont be able to compete with the "invasion" of the foreign brands. How do you feel about this? Are you a "Japanese brands are the best and the rest is average" type of a person? image ID#23863 Out n about in Shibuya. Before I continue, Mirai Gaia is now dishing out all photos in a larger format. The original photos are 800px wide but I'm forcing them to be about 790px to fit in the right column. IE users may see jagged edges in photos - all other browsers will see smooth scaling. I'll probably remove the right column soon but thinking about how to design the UI. There are about 35 large photos in this article. Lemme know if you have probs viewing. I'm aware that some of you are on slow connections. image ID#23864 On the move - name the train line. image ID#23865 Out n about at Sakuraya Hobby kan in Shinjuku checking out the latest figure releases. image ID#23866 Bento box lunch set - 700 yen. image ID#23867 Folks in Japan who observe the news will know that there is a lack of part time workers especially at food chain restaurants. Was surprised to see that Mc Dees were handing out "join Mc Dees crew" leaflets. Day time shift is 950 yen per hour. Night time shift is 1,187 yen per hour. Speaking of restaurant jobs, previously worked in a Japanese restaurant called Benihana's back in the UK during my university days and personally recommend working at fast paced restaurant for life experience. Benihana was the first place where I worked with a variety of people with different jobs - bell boy, chefs, waiters and so on. I was a hall waiter. I experienced being shouted at by managers, customers, experienced messing up, crying, laughing, working long late hours and rushing home past midnight on roller blades to do homework for the next day - and the pay was student pay (peanuts). But I knew it was worth it because all the money I saved each year was used to pay for a ticket to Tokyo. Part time jobs in a restaurant really does wonders in terms of life training and preparing ones self for the realities of society. One of my previous managers at Amazon was a bartender and by chance got a job at Amazon as a Technical Program Manager (!) He didn't previously have a technical background but was always on the ball and basically got things done. He later became a director and currently manages hundreds of development teams at Amazon. He said that he learned a lot about getting things done during his bartending days. Amazon interviews are tough but its more about getting the answers right when asked about how one would handle priorities. So here is a question I was asked when interviewing for the position as Website Manager - how would you answer. There is a correct and incorrect way of answering and you do not have to be technical to get it right. Just because you are in an interview, don't answer in a way that you think others want you to answer. How would you answer? You are currently working on rolling out a site feature and your staff is all occupied with the rollout. A business owner (lets say it was Marketing) tells you that they need a website feature built urgently and that they can expect thousands of incremental users leading to millions of dollars in sales. What do you do? image ID#23868 This is one of the reasons why Japanese folks complain when they make trips overseas - cigarettes in Japan are very cheap indeed - 300 yen for a pack. While many other countries proactively warn of the dangers of smoking, the Japanese advertising agencies glamorize smoking. I probably should go round taking some pics of the ads as an example. image ID#23869 Setting up my neighbors new Mac. Apart from evangelizing Macs to my friends - I do it to my neighbors too ^^; image ID#23870 Testing out some dark shots with the Lumix LX3. image ID#23871 Oseibi [お歳暮] is are end of year gifts traditionally given by the Japanese. Got some from comrades at Hobby Stock - box O coffee related stuff. image ID#23872 And something from the box - instant coffee without the need of a coffee machine. image ID#23873 Banana Tempura for dessert. image ID#23874 Mos Burger straps up for grabs to celebrate a Merry X'Mos... image ID#23875 Teriyaki Mos Burger. Quite yummy indeed. image ID#23876 Got this USB LAN adapter for the MacBook Air as the wireless connection is quite crap. Plug n play with no drivers required. I recall my Windows days where I would battle with resource clashes and driver problems every time I wanted to add a new device. image ID#23877 At Ozaki-senseis gaff with Samurai Girl getting ready to leave. image ID#23878 At Tokyo Big Sight for Hobby Complex. image ID#23879 Curry Katsu lunch before taking off for home. image ID#23880 Dont know why the Kentucky menu has to be so complicated. They probably should change their strategy and simplify things like Mc Dees. image ID#23881 Christmas lunch ^^; image ID#23882 Old and the New. image ID#23883 Been doing a lot of cleaning at the end of the year. image ID#23884 Tofu Chige lunch set at Matsuya - 500 yen. image ID#23885 Cream cake n afternoon tea. Left the UK ten years ago but make sure to keep the tradition. image ID#23886 This weeks kiddy meal goodies at Mc Dees are Pokemon balls. image ID#23887 Mamamia!!! Another suddenly acquired Dollfie shaped box arrives! Wonder which lovely lass is inside... image ID#23888 Apart from the end of year cleaning (known as Nenmatsu Oosouji [年末大掃除], I've been trying to utilize space efficiently starting with figure bases. Here I have glued the plastic foot base to figma bases - stand perfectly well and can still be removed from the base. The bases at the front of the photo are the hideously large default one for each figure. Have a load of spare figma bases so I can do this easily though. The original bases are binned. Can now put two figures where Tomoe used to stand. Tomoe review and Nanael up soon. image ID#23889 The not incredibly attractive original Kemeko white base replaced by a figma base. image ID#23890 More end of year cleaning on the third floor. image ID#23891 Box O unwanted stuff. Those Kemeko heads are spares. Will give lot to the next person I meet. image ID#23892 Now that my job has evolved to a point where I get figures sent to me every month, I need to start being picky about what stays out on display. The more figures on display, the more time needed to maintain (dusting, wiping) them. And while I wipe them, some drop on the floor and I need to fix stuff thats fallen off ^^; At this moment in time, I cant invest time to send these out to readers. besides, I'd rather have you own new stuff instead. More giveaways soon. image ID#23893 The more stuff I have, the more time I need to look after them - even if they are just in some cupboard. The reason is that they take up space - which is space taken away from storing other stuff. I then need to make time to make space for other stuff. I usually consider whether I have looked at or touched the item within the last year and whether I would care if it just disappeared one day. If the answer is "no", I usually get rid of it - the neighbors get first choice. image ID#23894 More retired figures to add to the current bunch. Nice figures but not as nice as some of the others. image ID#23895 Taken this morning - comrades from Singapore. Jason Ho who does the animation for the Star Wars Clone Wars TV series and Vong YongHow - another CG type who worked on Bandai's Freedom Project. Akihabara News - Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) Japan Probe - Japan news and entertainment (Subscribe) Kirainet.com - A geek in Japan (Subscribe) View the full sized images/comments for this item at dannychoo.com Feel free to join/add Danny Choo and see what else the little bugger is up to in his other networks.
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