Last night I spent quite a few hours wandering the streets of Koenji with Christian, looking specifically for pearl-buttoned press-stud shirts in the zillion excellent second hand clothes stores there. Naturally, we worked up quite a thirst and ended up at one of the many street bars under the train tracks drinking draft beer for hours. Something he and I seem to be making a habit of.
Koenji rocks. If you haven't spent a day or 2 exploring there, make sure you add it to your list of things to do in Tokyo. It's on the Chuo-Sobu line, just west of Nakano. Full of great shops - junk, collectibles, clothes, cheap food and alcohol - many of the restaurants spill out onto the streets, with tables set up on stacks of milk crates and planks of wood. The one we were drinking at actually had rules, including no drunks, no "picking up strangers" and no fights. Never seen that before.
In other news, I have had some emails from people saying that when they click through to the blog page from their RSS readers, they are only getting a white screen - is this happening to anyone else? Apparantly it's only started happening since I adjusted my RSS feeds. Also on the site front, the new gallery is so close to being ready I can almost taste it. Only a week or so to go. Can you believe it? No, neither can I. But it's TRUE!!!!! :-)
frangipani wrote this on October 11, 2005 12:22 AM
Comments
Due to the proliferation of comment spam, I've closed comments on all older entries. If you would like to leave a comment for this post, please email me directly at martine {at} frangipani {dot} info and I'll add it manually. Thank you and sorry for any inconvience caused.
Aaah natsukashiii! I stayed with a friend for a couple of days in Koenji last year - and it sure does rock. Had great tapas one night in a great little place run by a Japanese girl and her English partner. can't for the life of me remember the name tho.
On October 11, 2005 11:16 AM,
Juggs said:
Those are GREAT photos!! Love the colours and textures.
It's official!,...you're my official photographer for my next Tokyo doco next August!,..that's if ya keen?
same as nicole here... all i get is a white screen when viewing your site in firefox on PC. let me know if you'd like help troubleshooting.
hey! i'll be in tokyo in late november! i mentioned to kat that we should all get together. let's try to plan something.. a night of drinking at a local izakaya or similar :)
On October 13, 2005 12:29 AM,
toan said:
nice pix. i like it when photos are taken, at night, sans flash. for some reason, i like the green color complimenting the red in night photographymartine, do you shoot multi-frames or single frame? if the lighting is especially low, shoot multi-frames. this way, at least one image is sharp.
Juggs, of course I'm keen! As if ya had to ask : )
Working on the mysterious white screen, it definitely has something to do with the new RSS code. Really busy this week, no idea when I'll get a chance to address this one so I apologize for the delay... Thanks to all who sent in some trouble-shooting ideas.
Gleek, excellent, Iseya in Kichijoji will fit the bill perfectly. Looking forward to meeting you.
Toan, I like the green colour too. I shoot single frames usually unless there is a lot of action happening.... but I'll try the multi-frame thing next time I'm shooting at night. Thanks for the tip.
I'm having the same white screen problem in Firefox 1.0.7 Mac... Looks fine in Safari, though. Hrmph!
On October 14, 2005 1:13 PM,
Uncle Don said:
Upturned beer crates? Martine!
This would go to prove you would
drink anywhere.
Are they the ones that leave squares
on your bottom?
On October 14, 2005 7:22 PM,
Juggs said:
I love the beer crates...it has a feeling of truth, honesty and realism to it. Unlike the small bars on street sides here back home that may as well have a big neon sign that says "FAKE" on them.
I really want you to take me to that exact bar when we come again next year Marty.
kudos to the best unknown genius in tokyo, dr dave, for spotting the firefox problem and showing me how to fix it. dr dave rocks. next up: a moblog,
under the guidance of the same unknown genius! woohoo.
On October 17, 2005 12:58 AM,
Thiago Simões said:
Hello. I am a Brazilian, and I have studied some Japanese. I was surfing on the Internet when I came across your blog. I'm here just to say I loved it, and expect a frequent visitor from now on. :) I love Japan, and I intend to go to Shibuya someday... it looks like the Paradise for me. Unfortunately I just do not have the money, so your blog helps me to soothen the desire of going to Japan. Keep up the good work, it's superb. Congratulations!
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.frangipani.info/blog/nav-commenters.gif)