Eating Indian In Japan

After the all-nighter last night, I was in no rush to do much today.

I was in need of a spanner or wrench after trying hopelessly with the pliers I had to fix something. My first idea was to go to the closest 100 yen shop for a pair. They only had pliers, so reluctantly I kept going towards Shinjuku with my unwashed afro scaring away the natives.
I found an adjustable wrench at one place so I bought it only to find it totally useless as the nut was so hard to turn that it broke the teeth of the spiral part. For 105 yen I shouldn't be too surprised I guess.

I can't diss the 100 yen shop though. Apart from false advertising, it's cool what (usually) useful things you can find in these places.

How about a gas canister called "My Bombe"?

Don't get any ideas you crazy people.

Later that evening we had some great indian food in West Shinjuku at Bombay.

I thought I'd be able to get a picture of it from Google Street View but would you believe it's one of the few places the camera car didn't go down?

If you have Japanese fonts (OR A MAC haha), this is was the address :

東京都新宿区西新宿１丁目１８−１３.

(editor's note: Moved to 東京都渋谷区代々木1-53-4 田尻ビル as of 2021. Click on the address for Google Map).

Why should you go there?

I had the Bombay Thali set for around ¥2200. We had the cheese nan bread for an extra ¥200. Totally worth it.

How good does this look?

To top it off we had mango lassi. Mmm.. want.

The place was popular. It's pretty easy to see why. Just do it. Tell them Jimmy sent you, for no other reason than to get them to say "Jimmy who?"

Captain Stag

I've mentioned the Don Quijote stores before in this blog a few times, but I just found out not all Donki's are created equal.

You may remember a short while ago I tried in vain to find a tent for an aborted camping trip during my summer vacation. The good news today is that I found one, for an unbelievable price.

It helps to ask around for these things and I was told that there was a bigger Donki in Mizonokuchi.

It just so happens that I went to a going-away party for one of the Japanese staff in Kawasaki tonight, and the quickest way there was through here!

So.. I got a, get this.. "Captain Stag" three man tent for 1980 yen!

Yes that's right, CAPTAIN STAG! The price was too good to believe. I asked one of the sales people standing around for a price check. I thought the price was 3980 yen. She said it wasn't it, but I thought she made a mistake. Nope, right price. Sweeeet..

But that's not all folks. Oh no. I also got a sleeping bag for 999 yen too. Less than 1000 yen and yes, "Captain Stag" brand no less.

From now on another of my "superhero", split personalities will be from this moment hence forth, Captain Stag!

How was the party? Pretty good I have to say. We went to Tapas, a Spanish-style izakaya. The jugs of beer flowed like a river.

Somewhere between there and another bar we ended up where they always do. KARAOKE.

There was a lot of bad singing, most notably from me. My particular low point was The Pixies, "Debaser". After 12,000 yen, we paid for it till the early hours of the morning.

Hard Parts

I bought a headphone adapter for my Tytn II phone today at Mobile Plaza in Akihabara.

It converts the mini-USB port to a 3.5mm headphone jack and cost 819 yen. I had a choice to get one with a microphone and volume control for 2079 yen, but I thought this would be all I need.

It actually sounds really good.

Much better than I thought it would. It could easily replace my iPod. The bass is even more prominent than what I hear from my iPod. With a "cover flow"-like music player, it isn't all that different from the real thing.

The funny thing is, I almost left the store without it after paying. Oh.

It's a little bit tight with the headphone jack. I'll have to be careful not to rip the headphone sleeve off the end.

As usual I'm always on the lookout for English that seems out of place or gives me a chuckle.

This one's from a Book Off. Do you see that? "Hard Parts". hehe..

Unshaved And Dangerous

It's the last day before I head back to work tomorrow.

I think I'll need to have a shave before I get there don't you think?

The last time I shaved was on the first day of Summer Sonic. I haven't bothered to do it since then because, "I'm on holiday".

It's been endless nights awake, and one big long sleep in between.

Last night I hauled the gf's new laser printer ("rezabimu purinta" - sounds like Star Wars), from Yodobashi Camera in Shinjuku to her apartment. It was probably only about 12kg, but the box was big and by the time I got to the apartment my arms were aching.

She didn't want to unpack it last night. When I buy something new, I can't wait to unwrap my new "present". So this morning I got it out and helped her install it.

There isn't much room in the apartment, but we managed to find a place where it fits nicely I think.

Apart from that, a pretty low-key finale to these holidays.

The gf went to the 99 yen shop for some printing paper.

As you can see it says "free paper" all over it. It was 104 yen for the 100 sheets.

Not quite free is it?

Fantastic Story

What's helped me get around Tokyo a lot easier than if I didn't have it, is Google Earth and Google Maps.

I use it regularly to find addresses with no street names, and on my phone with my GPS.

A new feature I recently found out about is Street View on Google Maps/Earth. It's quite cool. You click on a street and it brings up an interactive 360° live photo.

I was thinking of doing the same 360° virtual reality (VR) panoramas with my camera. In the meantime this makes it much easier, but I plan to try this out for myself as well.

This is the street of our apartment. (I'm not going to tell exactly which one it is).

This is Yotsuya crossing with the Atre Building, and underneath there is the train station.

In the westerly direction is Shinjuku. The opposite direction leads you to the Imperial Palace, and the main Tokyo terminus station. It's a great location here in the middle of Tokyo and not too busy either.

So you can see this tool can be really useful. Want to see what an area looks like? I've used it to see all the places I used to live in (It's possible to see streets in Australia too). It brought back some memories.

Now I should have no excuse to get lost in Japan.

This was on a bus in Shinjuku today.

Being the "tourist" I couldn't help but take a picture.

I hope this fantastic story has a happy ending.

WM6.1 iPhone.. Sort Of

I haven't written for a few days because most of these holidays I've been sleeping. I know.. Too much excitement for lil' old me.

I had to abort a potential camping trip for lack of a tent (the cheapest I could find at short notice was 10,000 yen, which is more than I had in mind to spend for possibly the only camping trip I'm going to go on.)

I still want to climb Mt Fuji. It's hard to find willing companions wanting to go, but I WILL do it even if I have to go it alone.
So, in the meantime, I've been forever working on my phone to make it the best that it can be.

I've changed ROM again. This time it's Laurentius26 KDV10 TL.

The ROMeOS ROM was really good and minimal, but I think it's good to try a few others before I finally leave my phone alone. This one could be a keeper though.

It has a neat finger scrolling app similar to the iPhone, called Throttle Launcher. I had a bit of a headache with a continual start-up error, but I reinstalled it and it's been working fine ever since.

To make it a little more "iPhone-ish", I decided to replace the existing icons with iPhone ones. It's not perfect but I did better than I thought I would. I did a lot of editing in Photoshop to trim/resize about 60 icons. It took all day!

I even used the same wallpaper from my Macbook for the background.

Here's a video and some screenshots:


Note: Please don't ask me for Apple icons. Google it.

Just find the icons you want to use and replace/rename them in the "Pages" folder. Easy.

See You!

Bad Timing

I should've known but I didn't. Today was a REALLY bad day to wear my Japanese Sorry t-shirt. WHY? Click here.

Usually most people would get the humour, but I think it's akin to Australia's prime minister saying sorry to the aboriginies, and I'm not Peter Garrett.

I have way too much hair for starters.

Luckily, no Japanese said anything to me (Not that I would've understood it anyway).

This is just a mental note for myself next year. Don't forget!