Tokyo Weekender Magazine

So I got back from Vietnam yesterday, around midnight.  I've spent today doing work stuff, uploading/downloading/reloading/side-loading photographs, going to the gym (I lost 4 kg's!) and generally catching up on all the stuff I should have been doing instead of eating frogs.

When I got back I had this magazine on my doorstep:

I didn't take the pictures this time.

 It's an article I wrote for Tokyo Weekender magazine last month, you can check it out by clicking here.

I've not read it since I sent it in, nor have I looked too carefully at the pages in the book - if I look at it and find a phrase I don't like or a spelling mistake then there's no changing it.  It's better to have the image of what I've written in my head be my truth, there's just no way I won't find something wrong with it if I do have another look.  Ignorance is bliss.

On an unrelated note I'll get the photographs done and put on here soon.  The computer is working on archiving, resizing and converting about 80 gigs worth of pictures and videos, and that's going to a NAS over the world slowest network connection so it's taking a while.  The jpg's will be ready by tomorrow (I accidentally off-loaded all the storage to the NAS, so every picture has to be pulled back onto the PC, edited, then saved back to the NAS which is monumentally innefficient) at which point I'll have a look through and decide which ones I want to work on and which ones can be stored away, never to be seen again.

I think I'll probably used about 200gigs by the end, with video editing (video editing is a black hole of storage usage, the space is gone before you even realise you needed it) and image manipulation (I think that's what the cool kids call photoshop these days).

Anyway, the pics will come slow and steady over the coming days/weeks (read: months).

Legs

So last Saturday was the first (maybe the second?) proper training session of the year.  We'd done a lot of fitness for a couple of weeks prior but the entire squad turned up for the official beginning.

We played a few different games, aimed at skills and fitness to try and get into the new season at a run.

It was surprisingly cold so I obviously went for short sleeves because I'm a fool.

I think I had my hands crossed for 90% of training to try and keep the extremities warm.

We also played a game of 7's against a local team, I scored 2 but my hamstrings are incredibly sore again - I need to start stretching, massaging and hot/colding once again.  This seems to crop up once every few months, achilles tendinitis perhaps?

A game of 7's right after training isn't exactly a great idea so I scored our only points before I limped off.

The first one was from the kickoff, I handed off a couple and ran as hard as I could, just about making the line ahead of their team.

This is from the kickoff, bad achilles and all.

The training went well, the fitness was okay, I just need to figure out how to buy a new pair of legs and I'll be good to go!

Damnit

So school doesn't start for another couple of days, but guess where I am.  Unfortunately my criminal ineptitude means that not only could I have stayed at the festival (photographs incoming) for a lot longer, I could have properly thanked those who helped me out over the weekend.  It was excellent.  On the Saturday we had a Lion training session in Summer heat that shouldn't be legal - then a superb barbecue hosted by a fellow Englishman on his penthouse terrace (whom I'm asking for a job, which is a shame because his abode is something to aspire to and I don't want to seem like a kissass).

The training session consisted of me trying my best to stay in the shade; on a rugby pitch.  As you may imagine that didn't work out well.  Nor did the sun-cream that kept removing itself due to my incessant sweating.  I ended up being burned in more ways than one, because the fitness session we had at the end caught me off guard.  It was (what seemed like) an incredibly simple concept, do ten sprints over 50 (or so) metres, broken up by a minute or so rest.  Each set of sprints was conducted in pairs, so we left the line five times.  The execution was quite fun - a race between two teams to pick up cones scattered around the pitch and then feed them onto a pole placed on the halfway line.  Getting the cone and placing it onto the pole was the first sprint, with a few seconds rest while you're threading a surprisingly difficult needle, then sprint back to your team.  I didn't know when we started, but the losing team had to buy drinks (non-alcoholic) for the winners.

It caught me off guard because I was trying my hardest.  On the final sprint I ended up just flopping over the line and collapsing in a giant heap.  Afterwards, as cliche as it might sound, my legs were jelly.  They barely responded to commands and whether it was the heat or the exertion, I felt awful.  It took about twenty minutes for my body to behave normally again, which is a long time to remind yourself of the old american frontier literature, where they take glee in pointing out to the reader that overworked horses are sent to the knackers.

One of my friends was performing at a concert on the same day.  Unfortunately he was playing at a place that cost forty quid to enter, on the other side of Tokyo, at the same time as my training finished.  To cap off the impossibility of going to see him, all the tickets were booked so I couldn't get in anyway.  It's a shame because I'm not normally interested in music and events like that, except when a friend or acquaintance is involved.  He's the guy I went swimming with a year ago, whose shorts were far too small.  I was thinking about buying a cheap pair of kids shorts to give to him.

So I ended up wiling away the interminable hours at a barbecue, forcing myself to eat sausages and burgers provided by a fellow Englishman who goes by the name of Liam.  The burgers were particularly good as they were chunky things - none of this macdonalds style american nonsense.  The sausages weren't so good as they were the american style nonsense; but they were edible.  I'm thinking about having a spare key secretly made, so I can sneak onto his patio and chill out without the need for a pesky invitation.

Unfortunately I lost track of time (something I do with alarming frequency) and missed my last train home.  I therefore had to stay around the team captains house (again) so I could play in the small 9's tournament being held at the gaijin home ground.

It was a lot of fun, but somehow hotter than the Saturday which meant a lot of hiding under the various tents people had erected.

Our club were banned from our own competition by the council (the long arm of local politics reaches far in Japan) because one of our players threw their boots away in the wrong rubbish bin a month or so earlier (evidently boots are not combustible) necessitating a divide within our team.  A few of the Japanese players went to a team in blue.  A few of the foreigners went to a different blue team, and the rest of us went to a team that goes by the name 'dandelion.'  With this stoically branded team, we would embark on a six (or so) game campaign to win the title.  It's worth mentioning that me and Bati (a Fijian guy who is over forty) initially went to the light blue team and were rejected, turned away like the fat kids in school.  This was to fuel for us to burn while playing.

The games went by surprisingly quickly, with the green team consisting mainly of foreigners (for some reason they'd turned up to this tournament with few players, most of whom weren't even willing to participate) and spoonfuls of luck.  We won every game of the league stage, meaning we went into the knockout competition for the top prize.  The matches were seven minutes long (there were ten teams, so a lot of matches which was the reason for the short games) with no turnaround at half time.  The scrum situation was bizarre, with the attacking team picking however many players they wanted, the defending team being obliged to match that number.  Any fewer than five people became an uncontested scrum so everyone opted for four men each time.  It was quite strange.  There was an eight man scrum at one point, which meant there were no players in the back line.

It was exceedingly hot, but a lot of fun.  It wasn't particularly serious so it made a nice change from the other competitions I play in, and there was a great atmosphere among the foreigners, even though we split up into different teams.  We didn't end up playing the light blues (a crying shame, in my opinion) but we did play the dark blues in the final.  A couple of our Japanese players were playing for them, and were dominant in their previous games.  We were expecting a tough game, which they delivered due to a late fightback after we went a couple ahead.  Bati, a veteran in sporting terms, has this incredible ability to turn on his Fiji within the short format game.  It's often said that Fijians go through spaces no one else could, but it's not true.  I watched him actively make space, where none existed before.  He's not the fastest guy, but he has a psychic ability to split defence despite there being more than enough people to cover him. In the final he took a defensive line of five people, and walked between two of them to score.  When he got the ball, one of the defenders was actually standing right in front of him, but Bati mesmerised him, telepathically forcing the opposition player to move out of his way without so much as a touch.

Mojee, another Fijian, is much more direct.  At four foot nothing and a hundred or so kg's, he essentially makes like a temple of doom boulder and bowls people out of the way.  A pretty effective combination.

Anyway, after the tournament I was escorted to a local public bath by an american who has studied Japanese for a long time, and who has lived here long enough to know all the customs and traditions.  It's not the first time I've been to one, but it is the first time I've been so filthy when going in so he imparted practical knowledge unto me, for which I am grateful.  The first thing you do is clean off, showering away the grime so that you can enter the hot baths to chill out.  Unfortunately I never got past the cleaning off the grime part as I couldn't get the dust out of my grazes.  I spent a fair while rubbing down the cuts and scrapes, quietly cursing the fact I eschewed taping in favour of vaseline.  I also have some nice blisters on my feet - nice enough to take a couple of photos tonight I think.

After that we went to a massive festival - the biggest one I've ever been to by a long stretch.  I'll write about it at a later date, but for now, that's all you're getting!

#EDIT#  The other pictures are now annotated.

7's and Mitaka

So I went for some rugby trials last week.  They were for the Japanese national 7's team (crazy) and were a ton of fun.  It started really early, so I had to stay in Mitaka overnight.  It's now my new favourite residential area in Japan, there's tons of green space, museums and interesting spaces.  Really nice.  Anyway, pictures!

There are also a lot of flower shops in Mitaka.  I don't know why.

A bed of purple things.

This guy is all over Japan.  He's one of the candidates for some kind of election (who knows what?) and is one of the religious leaders here, apparently.  (That is to say, he's religious in his outlook, not necessarily a priest.)

This is a typical small shrine, found all around the country.

This is someones garage entrance, interesting design lives!

I can't remember what kind of food this is, but it looked pretty delicious.  It was before the restaurant opened so I didn't try any, but the guy was kind enough to let me take a picture.

Some old cameras.  Not my area of interest, but they were quite interesting anyway.

A random chef.  He smiled afterwards, honest!

They try to pretty up the streets in any way possible.  (Fake) copper lanterns count as prettying, apparently.

More flowers.

Yet more flowers.

Bill and Ben, Japanese style.

Even more flowers.

A tall building.  I've no idea why this one building was so tall, there really were no other buildings of the same size anywhere near this area.  With all the flower shops and parks, I've got to assume this area has a lot of money floating around.

People don't like their pictures being taken, but they don't mind their dogs being shot.

One of the dancers from the original YMCA group.

Like a bicycle stand, but for mopeds.

I bought a few things from this shop.  It seemed to be a local craft shop, with products made by the local knitting circle that I stumbled across.

I had to shoot at 24mm because the shop was tiny.  Not the most flattering angle, but I couldn't fit any other way.

This is a fairly typical sight regardless of where you are in Japan.  They love neon and flashing lights.  The question has to be, if everyone has showy signs with lights and music, how does anyone get an advantage from putting on such displays?

I wondered whether this extremely interesting arch was man-made or a happy accident.

You can just about see the house on the left has a green roof.  That's actually grass, and any near horizontal surfaces are covered in grass and plants.

On the way to look at the Ghibli museum (I didn't have enough time to go inside, just had a look around) you pass through a park.  The park emanates the kind of whimsy feel you expect from the movies; it's a good fit.

This is the exterior of the museum, at closing time.

Another dog.  Like I said, no one likes having their pictures taken, but everyone loves their dogs being photographed.

There were a couple of old fashioned buildings hidden inside the park.  This was one of them.  It was quite late by the time I'd made it to the park, so everything is a bit dark and blurry.  Whoops.

I poked my head over the gate to take this, nearly impaling myself in the process.  They had barbed wire wrapped around the gate which I felt was somewhat approaching overkill, especially considering this looks like a religious building.

This is one of the lakes in the park.  Again, it's quite dark but there's nothing that can be done about that considering the lateness of the hour.

A bridge leading to another shrine.  Pretty self-explanatory really.

Guess what this is a picture of.

This guy was taking pictures of people as they passed over the bridge, with his giant camera.  I managed to take his picture before he could take mine.  Score one for the novice.

This grilled chicken restaurant is immensely popular, and according to the local shopkeepers is packed every single night.  That queue is heading downstairs, then upstairs, then downstairs into the restaurant, or up for takeaway.  Mental.

The perfect example of an 'almost,' picture.  The only one I managed to take of this dog that was in focus, and I missed the head.

This shop was dedicated to all things English.  I've no idea why.  Who would want to run a shop like that?

They love cute things, even if they're borderline terrifying like this guy.

He's the brother of the YMCA guy from before, but I couldn't manage to get him dancing.

The streets around the next station (I walked from one to the other by accident, I was just wandering) are extremely busy.  The people have an ability to part when a bus is bearing down on them, even if it's coming up from behind.  They don't need to look, and the buses are actually damn quiet.  The same thing for cars and bicycles.  This leads me to the conclusion that they must be ninja.

There aren't many estate agents that employ such pictures to sell their houses.  It's relatively unique, if somewhat confusing.

Yet another flower shop.

So I stayed in a capsule hotel, which is basically a coffin with a curtain.  Mine also had a computer, but it was too dusty/old to do anything without sounding like Concorde was landing next door.

The coffins double up.  One up, one down.

My shoes were horrifically smelly, needless to say they lived outside.

There weren't many people at the trial, but the ones I met were pretty nice.  By met I actually mean talk to, because the atmosphere was pretty standoffish.

There were three foreigners, one aussie, me, and this guy, a Fijian.  Pretty handy as you might expect from a Fijian.

The Toshiba factory complex is massive, and has one huge free standing tower right in the middle of it.  No one could figure out the purpose of it, I'm pretty sure everyone agreed it was phallic.

I don't know why the two guys in the middle were doing the haka.  No idea.

All that haka made them sleepy.

There were a few caged kittens on the way back to the station.  I don't know whether they were being exploited for charitable reasons, but the locals couldn't get enough.

The long walk back home.

The train racing a car, on the way back home.

Red lights mean walk, right?

A random bar on the way back home.

And that's it.  Next time I head out into the wild I'll take some more pictures, but for the last three days I've been exceptionally lazy (I've not been to the gym once!) because the buildup to this particular weekend was quite hectic.  Recovery time.