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.)