The tikit did NOT get a ticket! - what's not to love?
Japan here I come - spotted in Brooklyn
Meeting photographer Art Brewer on the plane who knows fellow Bike Friday customer and photographer Dan Milnor - small world! We talked geeky film things...
Meeting Richard Gregg http://www.worldcycle.org, a vet of 12 years around the globe, and Bike Friday owner Jeff Gilbert at Gotojuki Station. Can't believe I got my bags all the way from the airport to here!
Ebisu chef Isamu tried to help me find Hoisin sauce in a supermarket where I could not read a single thing. We didn't find it. He found it later somewhere else.
Not bicycle ormotorbike parking it says. It doesn't seem to staop anyone!
Asian titles are quite "literal"
Fashion ahead of food: groovy Shimo-Kitazawa
Jeff checks the map - Tokyo's a labyrinth!
Roads are not named, the blocks are simply numbered
We were heading for that Kitazawa Park, that greenspace
The park on the map that was colored green.
500 yen bento box - about $6- the cheapest way to eat net to 300 yen curry rice
Bento box, 500 Yen ($US5.50) - cheapest way to eat in Japan next to curry rice.
Meeting a fellow small wheel cyclist - one of millions
Tons of bikes that *look* like a Bike Friday. They have names like "Chevolet" and "Hummer" and "Field Beat"
Bento box delivery bikes
The tikit in Takadanobaba, Shinjuku-Ku - visiting the Blue Carrot (!) Bookshop
It's says 'Karaoke Lounge" - lost in translation!
Couldn't resist this sign, since I am riding a tikit
Jeff's Swift locked up to a railing got a 3000Y "warning" by the parking police
Next time he'll fold it and bring it inside!
Interesting small wheel bikes abound.
A popular Japanese lef fashion - creates a strange tan ... It is considered polite to wear stockings
Night commuting
Groovy Shimo-Kitazawa, Setagaya-Ku ward.
Interesing name for a used PC shop
The Japanese way of saying "don't blow smoke in people's faces"
Anything US still holds some cache in this country
Stylin'!
ILet's get a good look at this before the lights change ...
I feel very frumpy in comparison ...
I was too timid to get her to face the camera!
The total look, with prevailing ambience. This is Tokyo!
Bike parking at the station for late nite sake drinkers and 'salarymen' - they work (or pretend to work) til 9pm, then take the train home - perhaps traveling for an hour or so.
Bento box delivery boy
Electronic signs diagram where the holdups are
A wedding church for the non-religious to marry and get good photos
Fashion rules
Jeff couldn't tell if this was couture or Halloween costumes. Maybe both!
Pink is the new pink!
Good Day used English bookstore owner scores a coup
The architecture - or rather building works - intrigue
A building shaped like a ship
A suburban shrine
810 yen special includes a parking tikit!
The Times-Squarish Roppongi Hills area. Many Pichinko parlors spotted - electronic gaming/soft 'gambling' centers. Google it - fascinating.
You have to ask directions all the time to get by
R burger - basically an asian filling between two anemic buns. Claims to be injected with Marine Collagen. In Chinese we call it a bao.
Everyone asks directions at the local police box. Just make sure you don't rely on one person. Japanese like to be helpful - sometimes sending you in the wrong direction.
The camera doesn't show up how glittery their shoes and skirts were.
One of the hills we went around in Tokyo
It says "bicycles excepted"
Aha! First glimpse of trad dress, "probably returning from working in a restaurant or bar," said Jeff.
No "You are Here" to help us navigate our way.
This map was in English. Hooray!
Elizabeth Yun set up her Korean curtain making business Idea For Living in a little apartment rather than an expensive shopfront, transacting on the internet. this is called 'SOHO' business in Japan.
... but have a bottle of water instead!
Shibuya Ward - there are 23 in Tokyo. I dare you to find your way around! I just tagged along behind Jeff, a former native of the area.
A bicycle parking station.
European castle in expensive Ebisu - brought over from EU and reassembled brick by brick. It houses a restaurant. Rents in this area run $US8000+ for 2 bedrooms.
Window detail of the mansion.
The Ebisu Palace - like being in Disney world.
Real estate ad. 63,000 Yen ($US700) a month for this odd shaped studio, plus 1 month's "gift money".
This one is $US1100 a month and requires 2 months "gift money" and 2 months deposit. An expensive business, sleeping in Japan!
An pre-war business, making sliding doors for tatami rooms
Looks like a Japanese speakeasy
This area was tonkatsu - fried food - as far as the eye could see.
Riding home at night, half sized bike lanes on both sides.
Waiting to see a gal in a kimono ride a bicycle ...
More fascinating urban farmlets
The tuba, sorry, tikit prepares to board the train to Shinjuku
This pass cost me almost $US330. It gets you from A to Z at 207 km/h
I kid you not ...
It's worth a second glance!
Is that a Normal Foster tower, Dave (my NY architect)
View form the Citibank 19th floor who couldn't change my dollars for Yen at 7pm because I wasn't a customer
Valet parking at Takashimaya Times Square
They keep an eye on it til 6pm, then you're on your own til 11pm
As a result they get a lot of 'mamacharis' - mother who ride bikes to shop til they drop
In Takashimaya food court I bought the least expensive treat - 105 Yen, and was given green tea.
Red bean filling
Excess packaging rules - this is a single scoop of rice.
A creperie, popular with teenagers
Calvin Klein style posters feature geeky cool Asian guys in place of Marky Marks et al - a refreshing change to the western eye
A glassy cone at the Harajuku Burberry store
Interesting art exhibition about boxes in the MOMA Design Store
The tikit takes a detour to the Moleskine exhibition at MOMA
A comic book store offers big promises
Muji, the stylish but affordable Japanese homewears store, makes its own stylishly unadorned off-white bicycles.
The salary men head home around 9.30pm each week night.
The local train at oh, 10pm on a weeknight.
Japanese teapots for one can be had from around $10 to $500+
GINZA, glitzy Tokyo epicenter
The sweet counter in the basement of Matsuya department store
Good green tea ice cream at Matsuya department store. Color corrected? Let's not think about it ...
The Yakitori stands down under a bridge near the Sony building.
Extremely tasty, and best washed down with sake.
The stalls run into alleyways.
Ats Nakamura introduces me to Tantun soup, like laksa but a thick sesame broth instead of curry and coconut.
Only in Japan - a lip expander to give you "Holly wood lips"
This one makes your face smaller and less jowelly.
Muji, the stylish but affordable Japanese homewears store, makes its own stylishly unadorned off-white bicycles.
The salary men head home around 9.30pm each week night.
The local train at oh, 10pm on a weeknight.
Japanese teapots for one can be had from around $10 to $500+
GINZA, glitzy Tokyo epicenter
The sweet counter in the basement of Matsuya department store
Good green tea ice cream at Matsuya department store. Color corrected? Let's not think about it ...
The Yakitori stands down under a bridge near the Sony building.
Japan is the land of minutiae on overdrive - this is a mini curry rice meal. You can remove the ladle and the flavor cubes from the box.
Curry rice, the staple of Japan urban families (and skint backpackers - and let's face it, most of us are skint in Japan).