Kit Kat flavors

Kit Kats are one of those fairly standard, not-very-exciting snacks in the US. It's a crunchy wafer coated in chocolate, and the biggest schtick about them is that they came 4 (or 2 for snack size) to a pack and you snap off each stick to eat. It comes in milk chocolate.... and that's about it. Sometimes you encounter white chocolate Kit Kats, sometimes in the Winter or near Halloween. Japan has all sorts of Kit Kat flavors. I've had purin (pudding/flan) Kit Kats, which were actually quite nice. I have seen packages of green tea, mango, and yuzu Kit Kats and know there are plenty of other flavors floating around. Anyhow, this past weekend one of my coworkers from Mountain View was in Japan (family vacation, visiting her brother who goes to school here) and we hung out in Shinjuku. At one point we ended up in a Taito arcade and amongst all the wacky toys you could try to win out of the crane game machines (Bunny dango plushies! Desk-sized Roomba knock-off! Mah Jongg sets!) were two machines where you could win candy. One of them featured a tall stack of Royal Milk Tea Kit Kats. We promptly spent about 800 yen trying to knock down the tower, and in the end scored two boxes of Kit Kats.
When you open the package it smells very strongly of royal milk tea. Like other flavored Kit Kats, instead of a chocolate coating you have a flavored coating, and this tastes like, well, royal milk tea. With a wafer in the middle. Exactly what it says on the tin. Delicious.

Unboxing Windows 7: Whopper Edition

By now most of the internet has heard of the Windows 7 Whopper. It is a cross-promotional deal between Microsoft and Burger King in Japan. Queue up all the old jokes about Windows and bloat, Vista and Blue Screens of Death, etc and what have you. Obviously, we had to go see this thing for ourselves.

We went to the Burger King in Shibuya, thankfully not too far from work. Above is a shot of the poster in the window. Obviously the poster-burger will look far better than the real thing. When I first saw this on the web I thought it was a clever Photoshop hack. Now I know better.

There were five of us on this expedition, so we bought two burgers. Sadly we did not get the introductory pricing of ￥777; apparently there was a line when the shop opened for folks who wanted in. We paid the normal price. That and a drink and a split of fries and onion rings made the lunch about ￥850 per person, not exactly cheap.

After about 5 minutes of fussing aroud and picture taking, we finally unwrapped the first burger. Then we spent another 5 minutes fussing and taking more photos.

And fussing...

And taking more photos... Someone dropped an onion ring next to the burger to get a size comparison. However, onion rings here are tiny. Or I've been spoiled by the mammoth rings at Mel's.

Finally got the second burger unwrapped. We took many more photos. In fact, a random patron who was walking by us paused, and also took photos. This thing demands photos be taken of it, to prove to the world that American fast food is utterly insane, and that the Japanese are even crazier for one-upping us. Or that you'll always find that one demented genuis in marketing who will be able to sell anything. There are photos of us posing with the burgers, but they are on someone else's camera. You folks are stuck with my Android shots.
Finally, we got down to the business of eating. Since there were 5 folks and 14 patties, we had to figure a decent way of splitting. 3 of us split one (2-3 patties each) while two of the guys split the other (3-4 patties each). It was a lot of burger. And while Burger King Whoppers are decent fast food burgers, I've had way too many meals at In-and-Out and Burger Joint to find eating my pair of patties (and half a bun) particularly enjoyable. As one of the guys pointed out, it was just the same taste over and over again. A bowl of ramen may have just as many calories, but at least you're getting noodles and broth and pork and fish cake and seaweed and green onions and maybe one or two other things, depending on the shop.

Shirokane Book-Off

When the guy who helped me move to Aobadai mentioned that Shirokane Book-off had a good selection of foreign language books, he wasn't kidding! Half of one floor was foreign language books, the majority being in English. I have reading material again, huzzah! It is also very conveniently located right next to Shirokanedai Station (only a few stops away) and even has a cute little cafe. I sense many weekends spent there.

Being a Tourist

So far I haven't done a whole lot of tourist stuff, mostly because I know I have plenty of time to do tourist stuff and have been focusing more on getting settled in and finishing up some projects at work.
However, the past week some webmasters from other offices in the Asia region (plus one from Europe) visited Tokyo as part of an onsite. And we got to do lots of touristy stuff together. I think being a tourist is more fun when you have others to share it with.
The first day we had dinner at a place called Arizuki for delicious motsunabe. The 'motsu' in motsunabe is for 'guts' but it's different from, say, tripe or related intestinal bits in Chinese cooking. It was soft and melted in your mouth. We also went to Roppongi Hills Mori Tower to enjoy the view. The building is massive, and the view from the top was grand. It's rather mind blowing to be on the 50th floor with a panoramic view, and realize that there are twinkling lights of roads and houses and cars and buildings are far as the eye can see (well, except for in Tokyo Bay.) The scale of this metropolitan area is huge.
The second day we went to Asakusa, where I found that the famous entrance had my family name on the giant lantern. Awesome. I later got a cell phone charm from the gashapon machine (and in doing so convinced some other webmasters to also get charms), and was able to trade to get a charm with the lantern on it. Now my phone has my name on it! We walked around Asakusa -- definitely need to go back with my camera and do some more wandering, and shopping. Once we were done we took a water taxi down to Tsukiji Market and got some tempura for dinner.
The third day we Saturday so we went wandering around. We first went to Hamarikyu Gardens [photo] and were able to partake in a tea ceremony. Then we moved to Akihabara, where we went to Yodobashi (all I bought was a USB charger for my DSi), failed to get coffee at a maid cafe (our group was too large, and we would have ended up waiting for at least 40 minutes), then wandered around Shinjuku and Kabukicho.
Monday a few of us went to Tokyo DisneySea [photo]. We went on a few rides (Tower of Terror was great at night) and I bought a Stitch plush because I've been wanting a Stitch toy for ages. DisneySea was great because it was all decorated for Halloween -- the Mediterranean/Italian areas had a great Masque Ball theme.
Friday was my birthday, so I went out to dinner with some coworkers. A few days earlier we were talking about Indian food (namely, dosa) and so we went to Dhaba India which had some really fabulous dosa (and equally tasty butter chicken.) Then we hung out and had coffee and tea and I received tea. I have been here a month and have already acquired a sizable tea collection. Mmm, delicious! It was a good birthday, spent with good company and with good food.
I am thinking of checking out the Shirokane Book-Off tomorrow. I heard that it has a sizable selection of English paperbacks. I hope it's better than the one shelf that Shibuya Plaza Book-Off had...

Daiso

I love cute dollar stores (or in this case, ￥105 stores). I got some dishes, a teapot, and a few other things, like hangars, etc. Still need to get more stuff... in time.

Moving Day

I have moved to my long term apartment in lovely Aobadai. Nothing really major, just got a van taxi, stuffed my boxes in the back, and unloaded at the new place, then spent an hour unpacking everything. I have some photos in my Picasa album.
The building is new and still has that new carpet smell. It's a mixed-use building so the first 20 floors are offices and 21+ are apartments. That means I have an awesome view! I have north-facing windows so I can see the lush greenness of Yoyogi Park, which is a nice bit of peace in a city of tall buildings (speaking of which, Shinjuku's impressive skyline is just beyond the park.) I also have a view of the Keio Inokashira line so I can watch trains coming and going.
The place is still mostly empty since all I shipped from home was clothes, books, and stuff like that. However, a UI designer who has been spending a year in Tokyo is heading back to Mountain View very soon, so I'll be getting a bunch of furniture and stuff from her next week. Right now the empty living/dining area reminds me of when we moved when I was 7, and the living room was empty, so my brother and I played soccer (with a plush ball) until my parents put in furniture.
Anyways, I'm probably going go to Daiso tomorrow and start picking up misc things one needs around an apartment - a set of dishes, a teapot... who knows. Daiso is always a fun place to browse. There's one in Sangenjaya which is one station away, but I hear the Harajuku one is bigger (granted, the Harajuku one is just plain BIG. It's 4 floors of cheap cutesy knick-knacks. Last time I went I was lucky to escape with only about ￥1500 in purchases.)

Mount Fuji, guys vs girls, and random other happenings

It's been a busy past two weeks, with getting a lot of material together for several launches, going to an engineering retreat, and finding an apartment. So, it's time for recap mode~!
Earlier in the week, I attended a 3-day engineering retreat at Fuji Calm, a small resort near the base of Mount Fuji.

(More photos in my Picasa album)
Basically it was a big group of engineers working on projects not related to our primary work -- 20% projects, tools and side projects, and the like. I was able to get out a working version of an internal QA tool I've been meaning to write up for months.
Now, this is an engineering retreat, and engineering is a male-dominated vocation. This has unexpected benefits for those of the double-X persuasion. The resort had public baths, one for guys and one for gals. The baths were a bit small, with room for perhaps 4-5 people at a time. There being only 3 gals (including me) we had it all to ourselves. I understand the guys bath was rather crowded at peak times (right after dinner and right before bed.)
Yesterday, I looked at another set of apartments and have come to a decision -- a nice new development in Aobadai, just a bit past Daikanyama where I know a bunch of folks live. This is doubly beneficial as one of these people will be leaving soon and I will be inheriting most of her furniture. It also appears to be disastrously close to a Book-Off.
I ran into some UI Designers last night as I was heading home and ended up joining them for dinner at Chibou, an okonomiyaki restaurant near the top of Ebisu Garden Place. The seafood okonomiyaki was quite good, and we also split one that had spinach, asparagus and cheese. It was tasty, but the texture of the gooey cheese took a lot of getting used to. We also got a great view of Shibuya. Definitely a place to keep in mind for later....

Flowing Noodles [流しそうめん]

Yet another crazy dining experience I had today: Nagashi somen (literally flowing noodles). Basically, you set up some bamboo tubes, stick handfuls of somen noodles, and send them down the pipes with a bit of trickling water. Folks then swoop in with their chopsticks to grab the noodles before they pass them by. It's tricky! The noodles can slip down those tubes rather quickly, and if there are a bunch of people around you can get into some interesting competition for a blob of noodles.
I think this is best explained with a video.
Verdict: Strange, but tasty.

Ramen

Had my first ramen today. We went out to Ichiran for lunch. Apparently this is my boss' favorite ramen shop in Tokyo, and he goes there whenever he visits. They serve Hakata-style ramen with the thin noodles. I didn't get any spicy sauce with it. It was plenty tasty without it. A bit of noodle, some pork, green onions and garlic, mm delish!
Ichiran is a tiny shop with little stalls for each diner. Not exactly the place for a sociable lunch! You get tickets for the soup and any extras if you want it (like soft-boiled eggs, extra noodles, nori, etc), fill out a form with how you like your soup (how strong, how much green onion, how spicy) and take it to an open stall, sit down, and get a steaming pile of noodles a minute later.
Apparently they're open 24/7. Dangerous...

One week down

It's been a week! The past few days have been quite busy with work getting a bunch of material together for several launches.
Thursday evening I went out with the other webmasters to a tiny tempura restaurant near Tsukiji. It was a tiny place, room for about 16 diners altogether. We sat at the bar and were able to enjoy watching the chef preparing each part of the meal - shrimp, fish, eel, soybeans, eggplant and mushrooms. It was quite lovely, tempura as an art form. I will have to get more information as it seems like a great place to bring guests to.
On Friday, a day after Google Japan posted a Doraemon doodle, big box of goodies arrived from the parent company chock full of Doraemon goodies. I ended up with two Doraemon manga in English/Japanese (it's set up to teach Japanese kids English and apparently you can go to iTunes and download some files so you can listen to it in English too.) The office is now filled with Doraemon plushies.
On Saturday, I moved to temporary housing at Oakwood in Aoyama. I also went around looking at apartments. My head is still spinning from the trip. We saw over a dozen places over the afternoon. I'm still going through and trying to figure out which ones I want to follow up with. I like the Daikanyama/Ebisu area and the Aoyama area, and Meguro is also not bad.
I also caught my first anime on Japanese TV: the new Jungle Emperor Leo movie.
Today (Sunday) I slept in late, then did a bunch of walking. First I walked from Aoyama over to Shibuya to get an idea of how long it would take if I decided to walk instead of taking the subway. Conclusion: definitely walkable. Plus, I need the exercise. I'll probably walk back and forth most days, unless there's some really bad weather or something. I also went walking around Aoyama, mostly up and down Ometesando. It's lined with shops, but of course, the one shop that enticed me was a Lupicia tea shop. So many tasty teas to look at! I need to get a nice little pot or one of those mugs with the tea filters first, but I will certainly be going back there shortly to stock up on delicious drinks. Everything else was window shopping. I also got a bunch of groceries at the supermarket so I can finally start cooking again! Speaking of which, I should start making dinner. Mmm...

A few more photos

The skies were much clearer today. You can actually see Tokyo Tower in this photo!

Not much happened today. But it's depressing watching the wildfire coverage on CNN. California burns every year, but it's always terrible. When I flew out to Tokyo I had to change planes in LA so I had an amazing view of the fire that's raging in the Angeles National Forest. That thing is monstrous. The smoke cloud billowed for miles. Ugh.

First day in Tokyo

Well, it's a good thing I flew in last night. There's a typhoon out there! Thankfully, things seem to be quieting down.
I haven't done any exploring because of the weather, and because it's my first full day in this city. I basically went up to the office, met a lot of people, drank a lot of tea, started setting up my workstation, and listened to the rain splatter against the window.
Anyway, here are a few photos from the view outside the window. Because of the weather it's hard to see much of anything (especially when there's all those raindrops on the window.) You can almost see Tokyo Tower. Supposedly, on a clear day you can also see Odaiba and Rainbow Bridge. We'll see about that...

View from the hotel during the day

View from the hotel at night