Scenes from Japan

It has been brought to my attention by the J-Blog Licensing Committee that although I have been blogging on things Japan-related for quite some time, I have not yet included the obligatory picture of a passed-out salaryperson sleeping in an inappropriate position on a public conveyance.

So, with no further ado, I present you with "Unconscious Guy With a Briefcase and a Tie On the Floor of the Last Yamanote Line train to Ikebukuro":

More amusing pictures of people sleeping on Japanese trains can be found

• here
• here
• here
• here
• here
• here
• here
• and so on ad infinitum

Parking in Tokyo is a perennial problem due to the city's notorious lack of space, which calls for all sorts of creative solutions. Not even the humble bicycle is excepted from this quandary, and many places are now adopting a clever mathematical algorithm recently developed at the renowned University of Charinko which enables easy insertion and retrieval of the maximum amount of bikes in the minimum amount of space.

I'm not normally a fan of random graffiti,but felt unable to resist taking a picture of this one on Yamate-Dori near Hatsudai.

As the weekend draws near, it's a certain bet you can find ThePenguin down in the mosh pit of one of Tokyo's many "live house" locations showing the locals what he's made of.

Last night it was the turn of a new location, "Fever Popo" next to Setagaya's Shin-Daita station (one stop from Shimo Kitazawa) to see ThePenguin strut his moves ^[*]. On the playlist were (apart from some guys I missed due to being fashionably late) were:

Four Minutes til Midnight,

Tance Boy (箪笥ボーイ, actually three girls and one boy), and of course

Sunset Drive.

A fine time was had by all, and though I am of course a Sunset Drive groupie, I was quite taken by Tance Boy, who successfully combine hard(ish) rock and unpretentious fun.

^[*] To and from the bar for purposes of purchasing beer.

Normally Mount Fuji is not usually visible from Tokyo, mainly due to the omnipresent heat haze, but despite being a very hot day today it has been quite windy, meaning the air is very clear, and Japan's highest mountain can just about be seen poking up from behind some clouds. (Click on the image for a larger version).

Seen the other day at Gotanda Station. 

"The Penguin" and "Roppongi" are not necessarily words you hear often in the same sentence, but as the unofficial backup concert photographer for these guys (i.e. the only person usually sober enough to hold and operate a camera) needs must be and last night I found myself at Club Edge, a live house location at the less disreputable end of Roppongi's main strip towards Azabu Juban.

Nice venue, though as it is on the second basement floor accessible (as far as I could see) through quite a narrow entrance way, the words "fire trap" spring to mind. More seriously, the bar ran out of beer at around 10pm, but not tequila, and as it has been more than a decade since The Penguin last had any involvement with this particular liquid, and The Penguin had evidently forgotten the hard-learned lesson of that era, i.e. the advisability of avoiding that devilish concoction at all costs.

The Penguin will not be going into details but would like to emphasise that the forehead injury was sustained as the result of a vicious and unprovoked attack by one of the walls in his apartment.

...a great place to...

...hold a barbecue...