A Troy in Tokyo

After the last few days were spent by the Japanese telling us that the Super Typhoon Lan was going to be this catastrophic event, people were being told not to come to work and chaos would reign. I watched the typhoon come in last night, but other than thick cloud and some angled rain, it didn't seem all that bad. Of course now if I check the Japanese news I'll probably learn that hundreds were killed, entire villages swept away and thus I'll be made out as a bit of a dick, but waking up this morning nothing could have been further from the truth! Devastation across the land Aside from some wind, this sky would be the clearest I've seen in a long while; typhoons certainly seem to clear the air! Should I go out and get groceries today I won't need to wear my togs which is a relief! As a follow up to yesterday's week in review, there was a particular highlight from last week that justified a blog post of it's own - Beer Mountain. Tokyo is a huge me...

Been a busy week here in Tokyo, with a bit more of a walking expedition being made with friends to various parts of the city, and realised I haven't written one of these for a while - there's likely to be a bit of a flood coming shortly! David and I went for a wander through the Komaba campus of Tokyo University, which is next door. He'd heard of a good supermarket close by, and we thought we'd go have a look. Winding our way through the multitude of nameless streets on the outskirts of Shibuya, my eyes were caught by some of the quirky buildings - Japan seems to have a propensity for having perfectly mundane, boring buildings, next to a spectacularly bright and exciting one, as seen below:  Walking further down the street, we discovered something that I have only seen on YouTube - Mario Karts in Tokyo! Basically you can dress up as a Mario character and drive one of these karts around the streets of Tokyo, as if you were in th...