My cousin, Mike, left for Iraq (via Kuwait) a little bit before Christmas, and he's posted a set of photos here.
Sounds like he's planning to upload more photos in the future, so check back again soon.
Labels:
family
Happy New Year!
Looks like someone is going to be getting a nice, belated Christmas gift.
Tenshodo, an upscale and storied jewelry shop in Ginza, was relieved of more than three million dollars worth of luxury watches during the New Year's break. Thieves drilled a hole in the concrete wall of the building, went down into the basement of the building, and absconded with some 200 timepieces.
Elsewhere, this time at the Shinjuku branch of Tiffany's, an English-speaking Asian man rushed out of the store with four engagement rings in his possession. He was not immediately apprehended.
It seems looks like some people have created their own version of "lucky bag" in the midst of the economic downturn. With nearly one-third of Japan's largest companies considering cutbacks in hiring, it is perhaps not very surprising that petty theft is on the rise.
Meanwhile, Joshua "Jake" Adelstein, a former crime beat reporter in Japan and author of the briskly selling Tokyo Vice, sat down for a very intriguing interview with the Japan Times in which he explained some of his views on what makes the underbelly of Japan (as well as the rest of the country, for that matter) tick. Japanese publishers reportedly won't go near the book at this point, so an English version is the only option for interested parties.
And concurrently, in Kobe, one of the subjects of Adelstein's book, the Yamaguchi-gumi of Japan's inimitable yakuza, went into overdrive in an attempt to appease the local population by handing out cash to children at the annual mochi-making (rice cake) event that takes place at the end of December.
Local police believe that more than 1,000 people attended the event last week during which some lucky children made off with as much as three hundred dollars.
'Tis the season!
Labels:
crime,
holidays,
Jake Adelstein,
life in Japan,
news,
Tokyo Vice,
yakuza
The picture quality isn't great on this one, and my apologies for that, but I think you can still read the sign pretty easily. It's the welcome sign for a small store in Karuizawa.
This shop is on the road that leads from Karuizawa shinkansen (bullet train) station out to the Ginza area of this quiet Nagano prefecture mountain town.
I have no idea what the shop sells (it was closed for the winter)...I'll let you take your own guess.
The apostrophe leads me to believe that it could be the owner's (nick)name, but regardless of whence it originated I'm sure that several tourists before me have noticed it while walking by.
Labels:
Karuizawa,
oddities,
out and about
Eight of us went to go see The Robert Glasper Experiment at the Cotton Club on Saturday night.
I first saw him perform at the same place back in April of this year, and it was great to hear several of the songs that I knew from his third album, In My Element, which was released in 2007. But that outing was a night with The Robert Glasper Trio, and this Saturday was a very different experience indeed.
Glasper's most recent album, Double-Booked (2009), is a solid and balanced slate of songs recorded by both The Trio and The Experiment. Saturday's performance involved songs by the latter with some intriguing covers thrown in for good measure (Radiohead, no less!).
Again, seeing and hearing the songs performed live adds several new layers of meaning to what I have been listening to for the past several months. And the band's playfulness and chemistry made for a very entertaining night that had my head rocking from the very moment that drummer Chris Dave started hitting things.
Also quite memorable for me was the liberal use of vocoder and keytar by saxophonist Casey Benjamin, and the connection between bassist Derrick Hodge and Chris Dave is truly a sight to behold. The grooves and riffs underpinning the Experiment's music makes this act an experience of both discovery and deja vu for any fan of jazz and hip hop.
Labels:
music,
out and about
The Beaujolais Nouveau just hit shelves a week ago, and the reaction was pretty muted compared too years past. On the left is a photo from my local supermarket, Seiyu, where all the expensive wine was deserving of in terms of presentation was a big unused cooler with an island made from a red, felt-covered box.
There's a write-up on this phenomenon and how it pertains to Japan here, and since we're talking about alcohol anyway, let me take a moment to pimp a project that I'm working on right now.
"Japan Eats" is a new website that tries to introduce a wider audience to Japan's varied culinary and alcoholic delights. I host a show on the site called Japan Booze Blind in which blind tastings are used as an excuse for drinking alcohol early in the morning.
The site just officially went live today, so please stop by and check it out.
Labels:
acting,
Japan Booze Blind,
Japan Eats,
video clip,
websites,
크리스토퍼 펠레그리니,
クリストファー・ペレグリニ
Saw this delivery guy doing a very delicate balancing act in order to work on some unknown problem with the light fixture at the back of the cargo bay.
Ever heard of a stepladder?
It's a little hard to tell from this photo, but he's got one of those hefty cargo straps rigged like a tightrope, and he used that in order to reach the problem area on the ceiling.
Didn't stick around long enough to see if he broke his neck on the dismount...
