Sunday, July 11, 2010

'Can there be art?' & I throw a House Party!

"Good evening, and welcome to masterpiece theater.." lol! I always wanted to say that! =p

So just when you thought I'd take forever pulling together another post and had given up hope, I prove my critics wrong once again with a bigger, better post full of wit, charm and great pictures! Take that, suckers!

This will be broken into 3 parts:
- Spending a day with my Mother's friend who was in town from Finland
- More interesting & unique things I have seen in-and-about Tokyo, and..
- Pictures and some light commentary from my first House Party!

Without further ado.....

My Mother's close friend Eeva and her friend were on a tour Japan of and happened to be in Tokyo for one day. We proceeded to get together on a Sunday morning to visit a modern art museum in Roppongi Hills on the 53rd floor of Mori Tower, take pictures from the roof, eat Italian for lunch, blueberry waffles and ice-cream for dinner, and explore a bit of the extreme fashion styles that flourish on the streets of Tokyo.

Let's start with the museum, where we were kindly allowed to take pictures of everything except 3 secret exhibits that you may never see o.0! The show was entitled: 'Can there be art?' (and you will soon see why...)

Some.. interesting sculptures..








It's a tree! This is actually really cool & creative







Entering the 5th dimension..








Um... yeah. What? It's "Art," dude..











Crazy highway in the sky











Bulgy building











This building reminds me of the military skyscraper in Akira that they brought Tetsuo to at the start.










Wavy building







Amazing in real-time, like the blood-stream of the city.








Me, Eeva & friend at the top of Muri Tower in Roppongi








Moving on to phase 2 of this post, here are some interesting things I've seen in Tokyo in the past month that I happened to catch on camera.

Something I'm testing at work shared from MIT's CSAIL..








A totally waterproof phone! So cool (if not really useful)








Fashion never sleeps, especially at the women's fashion university right next to my office (Claudia, this is for you!)






Here's a video (Facebook link) showing how baseball hitting cages work in Japan -- they actually have video simulating various windups, the release point, etc. So cool to watch in person, it was like there were real pitchers out there!

Funky sculpture











They dropped by from another planet, but had to go... got a couple numbers though ;)







4 stories underground in the Tokyo station on the metro, people still need their butts! Amazing...






This is cool, you can try different shoes on in the streets through Augmented Reality at the Gucci sneaker store






White Lotus (I like fancy cars, what can I say! Saw a Ferrari too but it was too fast for me..)







And finally, pictures I snapped at my very first house party, which I spent quite a while preparing and planning for in my attempt to make a good first impression on my guests. Thanks to everyone who came by, I look forward to hosting all of you again someday soon =)

Sunset from my deck before guests arrive








My co-worker James and his gal








Early arrivals!








Now the party's started..









On the deck








Random shot








Hey, close the fridge dang it! Electricity bills, grumble grumble... (j/k!)







The fine cheeses we sampled that night








Hey hay hey!









Suzuki san (my co-worker) and his voice actress friend










Leave your shoes at the door, please!








Peace y'all!









Sarah & Jennie









Me and my guests








Okay, parties over I'm drunk... (but still having a great time!)








Well that's it for now, but there's plenty more to follow -- thanks for dropping by and don't be shy about clicking on the 'comment' link below!