'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!

Hong Kong Trip!

Hey all, so sorry for my delinquency =/ I'd like to thank Scott, and everyone else for continuing to post comments, it's so great to hear from you! If you are reading this now, please drop me a short line at the end to let me know what's happening in your corner of the world!

It's been a busy month, but here are the major updates:

- Went to Hong Kong over a weekend to see my friends Wes and Bae
- Started playing serious Go! (19x19 board)
- Have not been studying much Japanese, but making small ground here & there
- Have started running, roughly 2 times a week
- World Cup 2010! (well I guess everyone knows about that.. I'm excited!)
- Steadily expanding my wardrobe and experimenting with Japanese fashion...
- Joined a summer soccer club (have my 2nd game tomorrow night after work)
- Tokyo is Heating Up! It's been very hot & I hear this is just the start =0

Okay, as they say talk is cheap, so here is the incontrovertible evidence of my life over the past month, starting with my trip to Hong Kong!

Day 1: Wes on the left & Bae on the right looking bad-ass on the streets of Hong Kong.





Wes decided to take the rest of Friday off, so we went for a cruise on his boat in Hong Kong harbor -- the weather was beautiful. Note the silver chain and pendant around my neck, this style is very "in" for Japanese men - go ahead and zoom in if you like ;)

I get to drive the boat -- it was choppy, but I think I hit around 40mph!










Here's Wes wheeling & dealing with his Blackberry -- as they say, "you can take the fund-manager out of the stock-market, but you can't take the stock-market out of the fund manager" (I don't think anyone says that actually)

Catching some rays! We anchored near a small island with a beach that you can see in the background, which I swam to for fun! Had a close encounter with a large jelly fish when I swam back, but I managed to avoid its creepy gelatinous tentacles.

View from Wes's roof-deck (good thing we went boating the day before!)






Slick architecture; each skyscraper is crazier than the next in HK. I particularly like the ostentatious gold building on the right, it's sort-of like the John Hancock in Boston. Supposedly built by Donald Trump at some point in the 80s.






Human hive (scary)...








Market scene 1: I don't know what everything is, but it's colorful and interesting.... expand the picture for a better view!




Market scene 2: note the shark fins! I've heard shark fin soup is a delicacy but didn't get to try it (this time)





I love this shot -- it's an emblem marking King George's Park that has been overgrown by vines; simultaneously a vivid metaphor for the now ancient ways of British colonialism as well as symbolic of the harmony between nature and man on this tiny, mountainous island (about 6 million people live in HK by the way..)

At the entrance to one of the many excellent restaurants I feasted in all weekend -- I think we ate the red fish in the middle of the upper tank (it was steamed to perfection!)



Street life part 1: outer wall of the Louis Vutton store







Street life part 2: a parked lotus








Street life part 3: neon sign








Oh yeah, you know we had to go clubbing in style =p I found out later our crew drank 8 bottles of Belvadier that night 0_O!








Wes's right-hand man Kel (who's also a police-force detective) points to the skyline from a pier we were chilling on in the Hong Kong harbor




The Zoroastrian building in downtown HK -- I immediatly spotted the Faravahar on the last morning on the way to the airport. (Zoroastrianism = my religion fyi)



Well, it was a whirlwind weekend tour and all too short, but I know someday I will return to Hong Kong... For now, it's back to Tokyo!

Okay, this is what I mean about Tokyo fashion... Didn't pick these bad boys up because I'm already tall enough as it is over here, but these are some pretty damn crazy shoes..







"My Adidas and me, close as can be, we make a mean team my Adidas and me.." (my new soccer cleats, same as Messi wears!)





The end-position of my first full-sized Go game. I won this game (I'm Black) by 93.5 points. There are roughly 10^170 legal end positions in Go, more than the number of photons in the known universe.






Street performer: This guy had a huge crowd around him, it's hard to tell from the pictures alone...









...but he's standing completely still like a frozen statue -- it was really cool in person.









And finally, my first video post is a two-person band performing very enthusiastically outside the East exit of Shinjuku station -- I make a quick cameo at the end (ok, you'll have to follow this link people; apparently Facebook uploads videos faster and better than Blogger >.<) Now, please leave me some comments!!