Work Work Watching!!

Ready? Clear!!

Something at the gym tonight reminded me of another Kaisha plus. We have defibrillators! The gym story will follow but for now let's turn our focus to the defibrillators. I remember getting an email a while ago announcing their installation and thinking, shit that's exactly what I want, someone from the Kaisha shocking me with a defibrillator if I ever go into cardiac arrest. Fuck me! I don't think anyone is even qualified to use one let alone assess whether one needs to be used. Is this common in North America and I just don't know about it? At the Kaisha we are too serious about our work to fool around but it this was back home I'd probably be playing Grey's Anatomy and screaming "clear!" at my co-workers while waving the paddles around like a maniac.

I suppose it's a good thing, I mean with all the stress and long hours some one's bound to need it eventually right?


Where oh where did this stylish and sexay rubber slipper come from? Sorry to change the subject but once I start thinking of the Kaisha my mind floods with happy memories. One of the Professionals must have left it here. I've seen a couple secretaries wearing cloth slippers and slip on shoes around the office (obviously not if they're meeting someone from the Outside) which is pretty cool, no? Why wear heels all day when you can shuffle around in slippers and not pick your feet up off the ground which makes for a very annoying shh shh sound when you go down the hall?! Unfortunately some of the male Professionals wear these tres cool rubber slippers around the office. I suppose they should be allowed, after all they give their life to their work, at least their feet should be allowed to look like they don't care. It just doesn't streamline their overall look when they wear designer suits or tailored shirts with these industrial age monstrosities.

I'm proud to report however, that the ladies of the Kaisha do not ever wear shoes like this:


I had to wear something reminiscent of these sandals when my heel snapped off that time. I couldn't get my feet under my desk fast enough lest I be shunned for my shoes! These sandals are for nurses but are also classic OL shoes. Head out around Otemachi or Nihonbashi at lunch and you can see all the lovely OLs prancing around in these weird platform creations. Now that's hot.

Salaryman sandwich

Has anyone gotten a sneak peak at Tokyo Metro's "Please do it at home" campaign poster for August? I caught a glimpse on my way home tonight and it's great! A real action shot of a guy getting sandwiched between the train's closing doors. I've never gotten sandwiched because I generally consider it bad form to run for public transportation (and blinking pedestrian crossing lights). However I did once break down and throw my bag into the train carriage in an act of desperation. The bad got sandwiched and some nice man shoved it out from the inside. Sweet. The Tokyo Metro site doesn't even have August's poster up yet but I will hopefully get a visual tomorrow!

More hanabi and dried fish

I just couldn't get enough so I went to watch the Sumida River hanabi on Saturday night. A few women at work invited the Other Foreign Girl and I to enjoy the fire flowers together, because really, oohing and aahing for one full hour is best done group style. There were no VIP seats like Yokohama the weekend before so we sat on the hard concrete with the rest of the plebians. Part of the road along the river is closed off from 6pm so when we arrived our Japanese co-workers were lined up on the sidewalk opened tarps in hand and chomping at the bit for the road to close. As soon as 6 hit and the last car drove by we experienced a mad dash of thousands into the middle of the road where groups threw down their tarps to snag a good spot.

Once we settled, I think the co-workers were a little surprised when I pulled out an ice-cold Asahi from my cute yukata bag and cracked it open. A couple of them apparently drink (and for some reason not that night) but the way they reacted you'd think we weren't sitting in a sea of Japanese people getting drunk as fuck waiting for the show to start. I was doing as the Romans do, but apparently not the nice lady ones. I seriously need to find some cool Japanese female friends but after the last couple years they have come to feel like the holy grail: non-existent and the stuff of legends.

The fire flowers were nice, I thought Yokohama was cooler but there were some cool graffiti-style ones and crazy pyrotechnic shooters that looked like they belonged on the stage at a Rolling Stones concert. After the show and some more unlady-like Super Drys later, we said sayonara to our co-workers and headed out for a drink in one of the more traditional areas of the city before going to dirty-ass Roppongi for a yukata party at Havana Cafe. Topped all that off with some cold zaru-soba at a nearby cheap-and-nasty and I somehow made it home.

The next evening the beau and I went to Anbai (あん梅), a himono restaurant in Juban. Himono refers to dried fish and when the beau took me there for the first time I was seriously worried we were going to be eating those tiny dried fish that salarymen eat with their beer on the train ride home. Luckily I was dead wrong and it is now one of my favourite restaurants in Tokyo. The fish is filleted and put out on the roof to dry for half a day and then marinated, grilled, whatever as usual. I don't know what makes it so tasty but it just is. The dried fish is a small part of the menu and they have a lot of other fish and Japanese food. I'm not so hot at describing this but I did find an article on it featuring the owner whom the beau knows and is a super nice guy. The only thing I would say that differs from the article is that himono at Anbai is not cheap. We ate a lot and had several drinks each but our bill was 13,000 yen and is usually in that ballpark. The best dish in my humble white opinion is the gindara saikyoyaki which is some kind of sablefish that has been marinated in Kyoto-style miso and grilled. It doesn't even seem like fish but some heaven sent delicacy. MM MM.

After Anbai we headed over to Prego for some more drinks and as an added bonus, were shown pics from a recent party with the manager and two other guys standing naked in the bar. I know more guys who get naked when they're drunk here. It's a bit like streaking came to Japan late and is only now catching on. Good times.

I heart my Kaisha #2

If I didn't have enough reasons to heart the Kaisha, I discovered another one today: sneak peaking. I just had my cascading stripper hair cut off over the weekend to just below my chin. When I say cascading I'm talking, I could hide my nipples with it like Alanis Morisette in that super old music video. Why do I remember that you may ask. Well let's just say I had the unfortunate experience of fooling around with a high school bf while that video was playing.

So aside from a few brave souls who !shock horror! actually came to talk to me about my hair, there was a lot of double-taking and sneak peaking around the file cabinets today. Even my "secretary" snuck some looks but didn't bother coming to say hi. They must think I am so out of it on my little white cloud (pun intended) that I don't notice a damn thing. I was hoping I would catch one of them gossiping about me so I could turn around and tell them I had woken up like this and was going to the doctor to have it checked later, but haven't yet had the pleasure. I'm still waiting for the day when I decide to go dark and really scare the shit out of them. The only person who was really straight with me was the cleaning lady who, when she came around to collect my garbage said, Oh you cut your hair eh? That style is good too. This coming from a rough but sweet 60 plus lady who either grunts when I thank her or is super sweet, telling me I've lost weight or that she likes my hair in that clip.

Well if a drastic hair cut won't work I don't know what will. These people won't talk to me!!! I didn't even get to show off my knowledge of the term ime-chen which is short for imeji- chenji or image change and popular with the young folk these days. I'm going to make these people love me if it kills me! I'm already plotting how to ambush everyone at the Kaisha personally and individually to deliver souvenirs from Canada. No I am not due in Canada until next week hurrah! but I have been counting the number of omiyage I need and we are looking at over 60!! So I will probably buy some ghetto maple cookies and take them round. I am planning to stop by everyone's desk or office on my floor when I get back, whether I know them or not. At least if I give them a cookie they won't be able to think I'm a bitch, even if they still refuse to acknowledge my presence.

Here's hoping and more on the weekend later!

Capsule community

As I wrote a while ago, I was going to reveal the identity of the prey in my architectural hunt and I have finally gotten around to it. If you want cooler picture from artsy people I suggest searching on Flikr or google images because not only was I working with my little digi cam, I was doing so under the influence of a Brazilian waxing which does not lend itself to movement or creative thinking.

Anyhoo the Nakagin Capsule Tower (中銀カプセルタワー） was designed by Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972. Located in Shinbashi near Ginza, it is not a capsule hotel but an apartment building consisting of stacks of 2.3m x 3.8m x 2.1m capsules. People still live there today but the courts passed down a final decision last year and the structure is slated for demolition (when I'm not sure). What's worse is poor Mr. Kurokawa died last year asking that his building not be torn down.

The tower is located along a main street with a highway overhead, making it a bit difficult to get a good look at it and limiting most photos to a worm's eye view. It's clear it has fallen into disrepair and is in need of a good wash, but it is still very cool. Looking at it again further reinforced my wish to be one of the pod people living up in their concrete tree houses. The tower reminded me of the kind of place Wes Anderson would use in one of his movies. Probably because of the ship/airplane-like 70s interior of each capsule box and the eccentricity of the building as a whole and probably those who live there. Here is a picture of the interior.

If you visit the tower, there is a capsule on the ground floor that you can peak into to see for yourself. That and a whole row of vending machines and a couple signs warning people to keep out. No fun!! If you were walking along at street level I can see how you might even miss the tower, as there is a convenience store on the ground floor and the wackiness doesn't
start until one floor up.

Due to the core structure of the tower, each capsule is a detachable single unit but I doubt they plan to do anything of the sort and will probably just come in with a wrecking ball. If you like kooky architecture or want to imagine life as one of the pod people, check this cool tower out before it comes down.

As one reader beat me to the punch in pointing out, there is even a blog out there written by someone on the inside! It's in Japanese but if you're interested check-check-check-check it out.

I say hambaaga, you say hambaagu

Recently the beau and I worked up an appetite for some meat and headed down to a burger joint we had just discovered in our neighbourhood. Burgers in Japan fall into either the hambaaga category or the hambaagu category, the latter of which is a Japanese hamburger which is usually a grilled patty with some kind of gravy, ponzu or demiglace sauce served with veggies and rice. Despite never being a fan of rice with my burger instead of fries, I long ago lost the "I say hambaaga, you say hambaagu" battle with the beau. As with most things concerning food and drink, I have to bow to his superior palate. I can now think of nothing better than dipping a bite of hambaagu in some sauce and washing it down with some rice. Heaven I tell you!

But it is also inevitable that I still sometimes crave hambaagas of the bun and fries variety. Burgers are certainly getting gourmet here but first you have to wade through all the teriyaki burgers, katsu burgers and McPorks. I'm sorry but does "McPork" not sound dirty and wrong to everyone else? Anyway we went to Brozers' in Ningyocho and waited outside for half an hour for a table. It has recently been written up in a couple magazines or else all the trendy Japanese scenesters would not be going to Ningyocho to wait in line for burgers. I too, am anti-line, but as I hardly eat red meat outside of restaurants, I wasn't going away without a fix. I went for a standard cheeseburger that came with three onion rings and some fries (1000 yen) and it was quite tasty. The patty seemed a little thin but I was stuffed afterward so I guess it was just right. Tasted like North America. I'd go back.

I have still never been to Freshness Burger because the name puts me off, and although burgers should be fresh, it still strikes me as an oxymoron. Mos Burger, Japan's other burger chain, is great though. They cook to order and a chalkboard in each store lists where the vegetables used that day came from (all farms in Japan). Fresh natural veggies and Aussie beef is what they pride themselves on and their website even lists all the farms around Japan that they buy from. Again, the cheeseburger is good stuff.

The Mos cheeseburger comes with tomatoes, onions, mayo, mustard and this zesty meat salsa sauce stuff. Eating the thing is a whole other game and it's impossible to do it without a mess. But a tasty mess nonetheless. Mos also has rice burgers which I've never seen anyone order because come on, Japanese people don't go to a burger joint looking to eat rice.