Category: Found

Discoveries, finds, or otherwise identified.

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Found Happened

Tokyo 2010: Odd Remainders

There’s this expectation most Americans have that there are many strange things that you will encounter in Japan. This is not untrue. An abridged list of these things, some of which have been mentioned previously in passing:

Snuggle Bear UFO Catcher

UFO Catchers filled with Snuggle Bear dolls.

Chelsea Hotel?

The Chelsea Hotel, in Shibuya.

Bloodtype Bath

Bloodtype Bath, previously mentioned, currently available at RanKing RanQueen in Shibuya.

hiphopsicles

Hiphopsicles, which “makes eight funky-fresh ice cubes”. Available at KIDDYLAND.

Tamagotchi Doughnuts

The Tamagotchi Store, which appeared to be selling Tamagotchi Doughnuts, in Harajuku.

Poetic Nail Clippers

A giant pair of nail clippers in our hotel room, with text that reads:

I want to sing with
a romantic scene.
It perfectly fits
my private time.

The Greatest Sign, Possibly Ever

A fountain, labeled as having “Naturally Pure Hudson River Water”, at Tokyo DisneySea.

Obligatory Japanese Toilet Picture

And yes, our hotel room did feature a Toto Washlet toilet, in its own room separate from the bath and shower. With “front and rear cleansing options” and a heated seat, it makes American toilets pale in comparison. I wish we could get one in our apartment.

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Found

Tokyo 2010: Fukubukuro

On January 2nd, as most stores re-open after New Years Day, they put out fukubukuro – mystery bags filled with whatever inventory they feel like, usually at a steep discount. All the major department stores seem to do these, as do many electronics stores and clothing shops.
While the Apple Stores around Tokyo were participating, I just missed the cutoff at the Shibuya store at around 6:30 this morning. *C’est la vie.*

Shibuya109, From Afar

Shibuya happens to also be home to Shibuya109, a large tower of fashion shops. It was clear almost immediately that girls were flocking here from around the area in the hopes of grabbing as many bags as they could carry. Every time the walk signal would light for the crosswalk, another swarm of Japanese girls would run across the street to get the best position in line.

Here is one such crossing:

That’s a security guard on a bullhorn you hear in the background; there were at least five of them posted around the exterior of the building to ensure that the girls ran the corridors in the most appropriate manner. Inside, I could hear girls posted outside of each shop shouting on their own bullhorns, trying to convince the horde to come to their store and run away with a bag.

Post Fukubukuro Trading in front of 109

As the girls start to emerge with the bags, many of them plop down in designated protected space, open their bags, review what they got and potentially offer items for trade. Various handbags, accessories, jackets and shirts were constantly thrust in the air and swapped. A block away, a van sat with a small posse of shoppers who seemed to have scored about 12 bags from the same store, undoubtedly destined for eBay.

All told, it is loud, frantic, and a sight to behold, with nothing comparable in the US. (Save maybe Black Friday, but I don’t think people get trampled for Fukubukuro.)

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Found

Tokyo 2009: Grappling With Technology

## iPhone

The horror stories are well known about what happens when you travel internationally with an iPhone and leave “Data Roaming” on. So both of our iPhones have been ratcheted down – data roaming off, email checking set to manual (just in case), etc. We’re bridging the in-room internet into wifi so we can still use our phones while we’re in the hotel.

But two odd iPhone things have come up during the trip that are worth mentioning:

Turns out you **must** have 3G turned on to get a cell phone signal while in Tokyo, even with data roaming off. I tend to keep it off, usually out of battery concerns, but also due to this whole international traveling thing. (If the data does have to go on, at least that way I’ll be rate limited.) But there’s seemingly no GPRS signal, so as soon as I turned 3G back on, I got full signal from NTT DoCoMo.

It gets weirder: despite the settings being the same across the board on both phones, Katie’s iPhone is not able to get a cell signal. The Carrier/Network Selection menu is displaying, it sees DoCoMo and SoftBank, but selecting either throws a “Network Lost” error message. This is baffling and, admittedly, troubling. Only thing I could find as a troubleshooting tip was running a Network Reset, which has done nothing. (If anyone knows a fix for this, I’d love to hear it.)

## Skype

Skype works like a charm on Katie’s laptop, but I really wish the app better defined the preferences. I had to turn off “Use Skype Access”, which is about as nebulously defined as you can get, before it would connect.