10:15 PM

何で、ナーンだろう?

So, I recently made the discovery that Tokyo has declared plastic and styrofoam garbage "burnable." So much for the environment. I mean, unburnables garbage is only twice a month, and seeing how the majority of my trash is plastic, it seriously piled up. So seeing as how plastics are now "burnable," it makes my life a bit easier. But seriously, what idiot would think it's a good idea to burn styrofoam? I'm not entirely sure what that leaves for unburnables day--but, I guess that's why it's only twice a month.
We went to the Christmas Illuminations at Tokyo Midtown this past Thursday. It was a beautiful evening, and they held a party at this fantastic Indian restaurant, Nirvana, that overlooks all the lights. It was free-flowing champagne, and lots of yummy curry and naan, and desserts from all of the patissiers in Midtown. Sadly I forgot to take my camera along with me that day, so no pics--you'll just have to take my word for it.
In other news, it's almost Thanksgiving. I was trying to get a group together to go to Fujimamas, cause they do up a big meal on the day, but we couldn't get reservations *tear*  No turkey for Sarie.
I swear I had more to talk about, but as soon as I sat down my mind just went blank. Oh well.
New PV: Yuzu's new song, Shish-kebab.  Yeah...they're dorks. Get ready to smile ^_~

12:10 AM

Fire! 火事だ!

So there was this big fire over in Gaienmae this afternoon--apparently it was a company where they make explosives and stuff for movie sound effects...?

We could see the huge column of smoke from our office. There was ash all in the air and it smelled horrible.

11:40 PM

Let's play a game

It's called "how long can Sarah 我慢 before she gives up and turns on the heat?"
The answer, I think, is not long, cause it's getting freaking cold in my room. Sweaters and mass quantities of hot tea aren't gonna cut it much longer. {{(>_<)}} brr....
And the trains have been annoying lately, too. Yesterday morning there was some kind of a breakdown on the Meguro line, which backed up all the trains so it took me 40 minutes to get from Jiyugaoka to Shibuya (for the record, even on the local train that usually takes 15 minutes). So of course I was late for work. Not that I got in trouble for it, I mean it wasn't my fault, it was just annoying being stuck on the train for that long. And then in the evening that same day, it was super crowded again because of a 人身事故 "bodily accident" (Japanese euphemism for "we had to stop to scrape salaryman off the tracks").
But the weekend was fun. I got 2 free meals! Well, one free meal and one that was supposed to be free (but I'm a space case and forgot to get a receipt so I can't get reimbursed for it). Yeah.
The first meal was at this place in Ebisu that's having a renewal open, so they treated us to a meal! It was awesome. They're called えびす小町 Ebisu Komachi.We got a delicious tonsoku nabe (tonsoku is like pig feet--or leg maybe?).

Plus some other really yummy stuff like this cocoa-coated imo thing, and suppon and delicious charcoal-grilled chicken. Jason was with me, pretending to be press for the night. With the hours that guy works, he deserves a free meal.

Then, Sunday night I took Felicia along on my restaurant review at Yebisusan in Sangenjaya's naka-mise (which will be coming out in 766--which means I have to write it, like, tomorrow. Lol). I really like the atmosphere of the place.. casual, friendly, no pretensions. The tables were like plywood set on top of barrels, and you sat on stools. Kind of like some Korean bbq places I've been to.
It was a ホルモン料理 horumon ryori place, which basically means they specialize in....insides. Stomach, brains, heart, liver, tongue....grilled on a stick.
Mmm....hormones...

Of course, they have lots of normal food, too. Like Japanese-style fried chicken. (Japan is the only country where a pile of shredded cabbage and a blob of mayonnaise constitutes a side dish).
Enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon.

And another yummy nabe dish.
Felicia and I weren't feeling quite up to brains, so we opted to go for some delicious grilled large intestine on a stick (with green peppers).
The peppers were really good. Intestine as it turns out, is not so bad either. It mostly tastes like the sauce, which was really yummy. My only qualm is that it's rather chewy--though not nearly so bad as some other inside-y bits can be.
Ok, with that I need to go to sleep now. More fun stuff to report on later-- we're all going to the press reception for the opening of the Christmas Illumination at Tokyo Midtown on Thursday. Yes, Christmas Illumination. See, in Japan they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, which means they get to skip straight from Halloween to Christmas. But Midtown is gorgeous and there's going to be some fantabulous Indian food, so I'm happy.
It's really funny tho, cause apparently Omotesando Hills is having their illumination reception on the same night, and the Midtown PR lady has called like 5 times already to make absolutely sure we're going to their event, and not Omotesando. ;-P

10:45 PM

WTF シリーズ

Also, I think this is deserving of a place in my "WTF Series." It's a giant red dinosaur in a cage, that's currently residing outside of my train station. Don't ask me.P.S. took the pic with my cell phone camera. Hence the slight wonkiness.

9:46 PM

get a move on

It's a brand new office! Still workin the whole full-of-boxes look a bit perhaps, but it's bigger better and roomier! It's like a real office building, I have to ride up in the elevator with other people and everything. I'm definitely feeling the lack of fantastic yummy lunch places around every corner--don't get me wrong, there are some, but it's not the same--but it's actually not that far of a walk to get to the Omotesando area, so I foresee going to my old lunchtime haunts rather a lot actually. The only downside is the morning commute, which is now 20 minutes longer and involves a bus from Shibuya station. Bleh.  But it's really only a pain in the morning--evenings I've been walking from the office to Shibuya, which actually only takes about 15 minutes. It's kind of a nice walk, especially after spending all day sitting on my butt in front of a desk, it's nice to move around. Of course, we'll see how long that lasts once it gets colder. But I can always take the bus if I want.

Sunday I went to the school festival 浜大際 at 横浜私立大学. (same thing we went to with IUC last fall, where I met Jacky and Naoko and Ai-chan). Didn't get to see Ai, but Jason and I headed over and met up with Jacky and Naoko, and hung out with them at the festival for the afternoon. Much fun to be had! ^_^
There we are at an Alice in Wonderland theme cafe that one of the clubs was putting on.  Jacky was quite interested in the cat-girl.  ;-P Not the best picture, but I didn't take it, so. Anyway, it was awesome, and then we went to Thrash Zone after--my first time since like, June. Yum!

This issue of Metropolis-- my bar review! The Belgian beer bar I went to with Jason, Ben and Felicia is running in this issue. A little on the expensive side, but definitely worth it--well, except for that Pink Killer thing, that was just...gross.
Oh, and slightly awkward, but I'm in the podcast too! Yeah, Metropolis has a podcast, who knew. Well, I knew but I have to admit I never actually listened to it before now. Kong comes in every Tues afternoon and Hiroko and Beau always go in to record segments of it, but this week they asked if I wanted to come in, too! I was kind of nervous, I didn't really know what I was sposed to talk about--mostly just ended up being Keeping Tabs. Anyway, go to the Metropolis main page and scroll down to the Tokyo Metpod-- I'm on the most recent one, Nov 5. You can listen to the whole thing, or fast-forward to my part, which is about 3/4 of the way in maybe? Anyway, it's ok but it's SO WEIRD listening to it, I'm like "that's not what I sound like." lol.

finally (phew!) new PV. apologies to Rei & co (it's been a little less than a week for them) but my favorite wacked-out visual kei band, Acid Black Cherry, has a new pv out, called Jigsaw! Incidentally, this is not it. This is their second-to-latest PV, 20+∞ Century Boys, which only just got a decent version of it posted to youtube. (Jigsaw isn't posted at all yet, aside from the 30-second preview version)
anyway, enjoy! The setting is the band (dressed up as dorky high school girls) is staking out a concert waiting to meet...well, themselves...but there are three "cool" girls who keep getting in the way.  it's love.

8:39 PM

(ー。ー)フゥ

Boy am I tired!  It's been a long week.  Good, but just really long, mainly cause of 2 things--Metropolis's annual Halloween Glitterball that was on Thursday, and the fact that we're moving to a new office over the weekend.
Which mostly means that our office has been filled with boxes and other crap for days now--empty boxes to pack our stuff in, and boxes of beer, flyers, balloons--you name it--for the Glitterball. Craziness ensues.
So on Thurs, I spent the morning at a press conference for Hellboy 2, which would normally have been kinda meh, whatever (I mean it's not like I've seen the movie)--except that the director, Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) was *super cool*. He was talking about how Hellboy is "autobiographical." lol.

Anyway, he was a total rockstar.
So I got back from the press conference just in time to finish up a few things and then Hiroko and I headed over to Womb in Shibuya to help set up for the party. I swear, when I got there only an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open, and took a look around, it was like "there is no way we're gonna get this ready in time!" Cases of beer stacked 10 boxes high along one wall, folding tables in one corner, a thousand or so gift bags in huge piles.. it was ridiculous! But somehow, miraculously, we got everything set up and even had time to duck into the bathroom and change into our costumes. I was going for a sort of cowgirl theme--found a cheap hat at Tokyu Hands--perhaps embarrassing, but that was the only part of my costume I had to buy.  lol.  That's Hiroko on the left, she dressed up as Yoko Ono ^^
So I was scheduled to work the door handing out glowsticks from 7:30-8:30, but I got drafted into sticking on wristbands right at 7 when the door opened. It was ridiculous.  People had been lining up for a while already, and as soon as they opened the door it was just like the floodgates and all these people came pouring in. I heard later that 20 minutes after the doors opened, the place was at capacity.  And they just kept letting people in. The 3rd and 4th floors were supposed to be reserved for VIPs and special guests, but they ended up having to open those up to everyone cause it was just too crowded.
I mean, it was a lot of fun, and I got to hang out with my friends so I'm definitely glad I went. But--Seriously. Crowded.
So it's not like I stayed out past the last train or anything, but I got home really late. Steve had said it was ok for us to come in late on Friday, like at noon, which was cool, but I still only got to sleep in like an extra hour because I had to go all the way out to frigging Odaiba in the morning. See, we needed a photo from Fuji TV for the terebi article, and sometimes the tv studios get all annoying and for some reason can't/won't send a photo as an email attachment (cause that would be too easy) and instead they make you physically go down to the office and pick it up. Makes no sense but しょうがないや。
Got to the office around noon, only to find it everyone either gone or hungover, and the whole place looking pretty much like this:
Yup, it was a packing day. I'm all sad to leave our office :-(  not that the office itself is particularly nice, but I really love the area. And the new area, aside from being a pain in the butt to get to (gotta either walk 15 minutes or take a bus from the station) is, from what I hear, not so much with the tons of fantastic restaurants that our current place has.  It's gonna be really weird. We put everything in boxes, the movers are hauling it all over the weekend, and when I go in to work on Tuesday it will be to a different office.
I am gonna get so lost.

By the time everything was finished up, I was completely exhausted. But Fri night was the big party for the 1st anniversary of the Omotesando Gyre building, and we got invited to the MoMA Design Store party there. All the shops in the building were doing promotions and events and things--MoMA, Chanel, this organic restaurant called Cinegro was giving out awesome food...it was really cool.  And there were these very odd box-headed recycling people wandering around...? I didn't really get it.
And there was some sort of champagne lounge that had--well, champagne--and also a live performance by some duo called MCU. I tihnk they're newbies, like they're gonna debut in a few weeks or something? They were pretty good tho. They got everybody really into the show, dancing and everything. I took a video.  hehe.

New PV: another Fuma! well, technically his character was a Yasha but...
For those of you who don't know, I'm referencing the crack-tastic high school-sports-feuding-ninja-clans show Fuma no Kojiro that we subbed, and the fact that the twins (see last PV) as well as the lead singer of this band, Rei, were all in the show. 
Anyway, the PV is not the most interesting (fairly typical for a debut PV) and it came out several months ago--but I like the song and I don't have anything better to post this week.  lol.
enjoy!
(wow this was a long post)