Takadanobaba and Nakano

Most of the words in the titles or these posts are names of places in tokyo. for the non japanese speaker japanese can be an onomanapia mouthful. try saying takadanobaba fast. takadanobaba is where i am taking free japanese lessons twice a week with teachers training to be japanese teachers.

awesome car ad in the station

dont know what this is called but its at hirokos fav place for this the next street over from my school. was delicious. you dip the noodles in the sauce and eat, like eating soba.

love how there are pitches of ICE water at most of these places. this one even has wat looks like charcoal in the bottom of all of theirs. is that good?

ping pong store, table tennis store for those more in the know.

staff gluing the rubber surface to the wooden "bat"

guess wat this is? a whole aisle of that rubber stuff that goes on the paddle. yea it gets that tech.

paddles.

couldnt tell if this was a church or not. would be rare if it was.

lots of crazy scooters here.

this looks like it was built by the ikea corporation for some TV special where they totally redo a poor families house and then they have to live with the horrible new house.

some f'ing "rock" weirdos smoking out back.

big box looks like a giant 1-3 year old's toy, like watever its called that comes before legos with super round edges.

mural of Osama Tezuka characters. Osama Tezuka is the godfather of manga and maybe anime? anyway Astro Boy was created by him, and they made a computer animated astro boy movie that is out now or will be very soon in the states. he has done tons of famous stuff. he is super smart too and was a work horse. even though i dont like how his stuff looks visually his stories were good and i am down with Osama Tezuka.

Hiroko said that this army of identical Jap-bots are probably in their 3rd year of college so probably some big company is recruiting and they are all just coming from that. there were tons and tons more all over the side streets too. it was weird. and in japan you look for jobs in your 3rd year of college and then finish your 4th year after taking a semester or 2 off to find a job. how weird and seemingly not productive. then again i will probably rescind those comments later after i learn how the Japanese way is superior. I've already learned why they sell 3 slices of bread in a loaf, its because it goes stale in like 1 day, and you are so g'darn busy that you won't end up eating it all because you have to be at work 12 hrs a day and go drinking with your office mates after work and don't get home til 12:30 am and then just passout and do the whole smashing yourself into the 7:30 am rush hour train thing.

coffe shop that time forgot. and wat does printemps mean? unless its french for something i am making fun of this coffee shop.

just opened

see how much of a hero osama tezuka is? there are even random pictures of astro boy and other astro boy universe chracters on the streets. he is higher ranked that public service announcements about not smoking

a super appropriate poster in the doorway of a video game arcade.

dj game. i will play this someday and be robbed of a dollar. how much to games cost in the US these days? last time i was a kid they were 50cents.

shop called extension rhythm. on the wall were lots and lots of various gross fake hair extensions. too bad this was blurry.

is this the 35-40 yr old japanese debbie lee again? i feel like i have seen her a few other times in other ads too but she has looked older like def the 40 yr old japanese debbie lee as opposed to the 35 yr old japanese debbie lee. check previous photo below for reference. guys? ey?

pet peeve: why the F do they rotate the maps in Japan! i'm not a smart guy so there is probably a good reason they rotate the maps so its always oriented in the direction that you face while looking at the map but it really really messes me up. i am used to maps where north is always north! as in at the top of the f'ing page!!!! not where north is south or north is east like it is here. am i dumb is this really the better way to display maps to the general public?

in Nakano off to the sides of the broadway shopping arcade there is a world of bars and restaurants that i have to def go back to. lots of awesome looking places like this 80's bar that looks like it had this michael stuff up way before it was cool to like micheal before he died. there was a we are the world record in the back.

and a neon party on sign! i hope this place rocks on the weekend.

a list of 80's songs in the jukebox i guess. how long will i be amused by english words written in japanese pronuciation? for a little while longer at least.

Only video could capture this magical alcove of bars and restaurants on some nakano side street. must come back here. there was a way awesome bar on the corner not in this shot with only 6 seats.

illustration in advertising on the train. something for some kids day crap.

I got this Yahoo! art book with my art in it today. had it mailed to Hiroko's house weeks ago cuz i was basically homeless for a while. cool to get mail from Singapore.