Honda & Kaori

Today I had the priveledge to attend Honda's wedding reception at the Hikari Room at the Imperial Hotel in Hibiya.  My first Japanese wedding, and I'm very impressed. Wish the all the best, and thanks for a great afternoon! 

Cocoon Dinner

Long time since last, so visited cocoon for dinner last night. 

Dinner in Yokohama

Good food with a cool open kitchen and not at all expensive. One grilled salmon, one burger and 2 local beers landed at 4500yen or so. 

Yes and then me trying to make fun silhouette photos when I got back home. Not a complete success.

Imse spider

8 legged company, and not Odin's horse.

Smørrebrød in Finland

Looking back it seems like this weekend have been slightly food focused. But after the pizzas on Friday eve, there were some drinks in Roppongi too, and things got sufficiently out of hand. Then had lunch with Mr M, followed by a short fika and a walk around Shibuya with Mattias, whom I have not seen for more than 10 years and used to study with in high school. He was here with his office on a architecture study trip. After that been soup, no photos, but you all know what it looks like. Now back to the topic proper bread with nice toppings. 

Daikanyama is the location for this very cozy cafe that makes you feel you were back in a confused designer happy Scandinavia. We tried the smörrebröd set, and picked salmon and shrimp. The shrimp were a bit fresher than most original and the salmon a little less smoked a little closer to its origin (not the Scandinavian version but its ocean origin), but it was all good. If they want to improve further they should push Carlsberg and a shot of gammeldansk onto their menu. But don't get me wrong, it is well worth a visit and rye bread, you do not come across that every day here. 

As you can see, they are really doing what they can with the Nordic feel. Keeping it light and birch-y (カバノキ）inspired, even if the shop is located on B1. 

And no, I'm not in Finland, that is the shops name. (Disclaimer to avoid confusion and upsetting parents of being in closer time zones than I actually am. 

Pizza in Yoyogi-Uehara at Enboca

Really tasty Pizzas, with lots of unusual toppings. We tried okra, fennel, four types of cheese and a fig pizza for desert. There were six of us, and that is probably a very good number of people since you really want to try many different pizzas. 

First start were steamed veggies. This was without a doubt the fancies and most creative selection of steamed vegetables I've ever seen. Sweet potato, pumpkin, peanuts, lotus root, lily sprouts, ginko nuts, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, roman broccoli and several other things that we were not even sure what they were. The whole thing was served on a bamboo mat on top of a a water bath.  

And I hope baby sister sees this, edamame served on pizza oven roasted on the branch, giving them a slight wood smoky taste. I also taught the girls the eeeeeedamame, eeeedamame!!! song. 

Dance Show at Velours

The ladies were really good, and for once it wasn't completly packed at the venue. 

 Ladies in white, Diana have trained them well!

Lamps with prisms are pretty things. 

Not as cute as the girl on stage, but I had dressed up a bit too - best way to get a normal Thursday to feel a bit more fun. And the observant person can see parts of the dress I will wear at Honda's wedding lunch. The even more observant person notices that it is the same dress that I wore for my cousin's wedding back in 2006, but hardly have used since then. Fits fine, only need to fix one of the shoulder straps and I'll be laughing. 

And a monochrome close up on the hair, might use those roses for the wedding too. 

All the Way Home

According to google maps, the shortest way goes via Takanawadai's (did not see Trisha) and Shirokanedai's small dark back streets, passing Ebi Garden Place, through Ebisu and finally up long the Yamanote rails towards Shibi. Some observation; takanawadai = raper's-ally-potential, Ebisu = might-want-to-move-there-some-day.  

So made it home, safe and sound and today is both HIMYM and House day, evening saved.

Saturday

After slow starting and with breakfast at 1pm in Shibuya, there was some walking. Maybe not the best weather, but almost managed to stay clear of the rain completely. 

Purple Nails All Around

...Don't know if I'm comin' up or down. Kind of simlar to before, a bit shorter and a bit more lavendery.

Belgian Food Again

Milkshake

Burgers and milkshake with Gustav and PO at Arms close to Yoyogi.

Shanghai Before Dark

Shanghai Nights - ネオンの輝く上海の夜

Meet the Jetson's in Shanghai... a TV tower that eats Tokyo Towers for breakfast, and I suspect is linked up to some inter-stellar communication network, or maybe can be used if we need to but up an artificial atmosphere on some other planet. Communistic Retro-Futurism; I hope it is a genre, if not, it most definitely should be! 

On my knees at Grand Hyatt's parking lot - to capture vertical and horizontal stripes. Boy in Blue. 

And for second year in a row, my b-day was celebrated at a Hyatt hotel - 86th floor this time. 

Both food and service was okay - not Japanese OK, but OK for China/Sweden. Roasted baby potatoes with Norwegian salmon. 

I'm almost sure a neon lit up skyline of the Pudong is mandatory. Did not bring the good camera so, grainy iphone-experia it is...

Huangpu is doing a "the river runs through it" on Shanghai. You can take the subway underneath, you can go on one of the river boats, or you can enjoy the Shanghai Sightseeing tunnel... 3 times... 

After b-day dinner and drinks, Chinese karaoke; better artist selection but worst song selection. Better UI, good with original videos... worse size of beer pitcher. 

And walking home at 12 midnight, looking for a bar... finding only Massage places... suspecting that SH goes to bed early... Shanghai is apparently not a city that never sleeps (although lady CC says it is possible to rock the night away :)). 

Upside-Down Drumming

Me, Lu and a few others at Zepp on Odaiba (Mötley Crüe was there too).

Hanabi with Hanami

This year most of the local fireworks were cancelled, but Tsuchiura was still on. It did not really feel like hanabi season since it was October 1 and kind of cold outside towards the end. 

After the display Itoko had takoyaki, I tried the banana instead (would have been better deep frozen with a bit of bitter chocolate on, now it was kind of too sweet). 

Then before heading back home towards Tokyo we had a quick stop at a bar and chatted with some of Itoko-chan's friends.