Hello, Here's a little post about something that might interest you. This could be useful information for anyone wanting to live in Japan, or even just visiting, in case something happens to your glasses.
I was pretty nervous about getting new glasses in Japan.
The eye exam was the most stressful part because I though a miscommunication error during that exam could be really bad for my eyes.
I check a little on the internet, and a lot of people gave their own experience, all pretty positive, about getting glasses in Japan. And it was really that easy for me too.
I went to Jins in shinjuku station, because it was the easiest to access for me, and Jins was recommended a lot on other websites. The selection in that shop was a little small, but I think the other Jins should be bigger than this one.
Took me about 20 minutes to decided which frame I wanted, then I went to see them and told them which ones I wanted. They brought me to the eye exam space, and made me do the classic eye exam things immediately. Instead of reading letters you had to tell where the whole in a circle was located, for example think of "c" as a circle, so you would have to say "right", and the circle became smaller and smaller.
There was 0 waiting time, and the exam went smoothly. They also had English speaking staff on place.
I bought the Jins PC lens, which are more expensive (2000 yen per lens). I'll make a review on those soon, after trying them more.
They didn't have my lens on site, so I had to come back about a week later, which was the only small bad point about all this. Beside that everything was super easy, no stress at all, quick and actually pretty cheap.
Showing posts with label Tokyo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tokyo. Show all posts
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Monday, December 8, 2014
Living somewhere
This was the first room I had in Japan, in my first youth hostel during my first trip.
I rented it for the whole duration of my trip (2 weeks) but I only stayed there 1 week, the other week I was traveling around the west part of japan, but I left most of my luggage in that room.
Looking at it makes me nostalgic....
The feeling you get when you get into a new place for the first time, completely lost, knowing nothing, traveling around and discovering everything as you go with no one to guide you.
I'll never get this feeling again. Even If I leave japan for a long time and come back, I'll know my way around. I won't ever feel lost again in Tokyo. I won't ever see Japan again with those eyes.
Getting used to live somewhere makes it it normal. Even if I still can't speak Japanese well, I've gotten used to living here. It has became my daily boring life.
This is not a post to say that I don't like Japan anymore, it's just to say that, living somewhere makes it seems normal, so I can hardly find something I'm excited to share on this blog anymore. I still do fun stuff from time to time, but I wasn't blogging about everytime I went to play with my friends, or went shopping when I was in Canada, so doing it here just because its japan kinda feels redundant.
This is to explain why I'm not posting lately, but that doesn't mean I'll stop posting. I have a couple thing coming soon that maybe I'll feel like blogging about, so keep checking from time to time please!
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Shimokitazawa's curry festival
In the end I didn't eat so much curry as I expected I would.
I actually eat the Curry tsukemen quite often, so it wasn't really a special dish (delux had a boiled egg and rice with it), and the teppan Curry was just curry made in an Iron pan. Both were pretty good.
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| Tetsumen's Delux Tomato Curry Tsukemen |
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| Sakura-ya's Teppan Beef Tendon Curry |
I actually eat the Curry tsukemen quite often, so it wasn't really a special dish (delux had a boiled egg and rice with it), and the teppan Curry was just curry made in an Iron pan. Both were pretty good.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Comiket 86!
Here the comiket 86 post that should have been done 3 days ago!
From August 15th to the 17th, at the Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba, the 86th Comiket was held.
As always, There was a crazy amount of people (total attendance of the week-end was 550,000 persons) and as always, it was way too damn hot!
For those who don't know Comiket... I've explained it before so go read there.
*This part of the post might be good information to anyone getting their hands on a circle ticket and who don't know how things will work with them)
This time I was really lucky and got my hands on a circle ticket (circle tickets are given to the members of the circles that will sell goods at the comiket so that they can enter earlier to set up their tables. Sometimes they have too many tickets so some people give it to their friends or sell them). So since I had a circle ticket I tough I wouldn't have to line up at all at first. While walking past the big lines outside I felt really happy to have this ticket. I had one worry though. I wanted to use this ticked to go close to the Corporate booths so I could get hard to get items faster. But would they let me go there? on my ticket, the booth number was in the eastern hall, and the corporate booths are on the western halls. Also a lot of blogs around said that people using these tickets to line up earlier was frowned upon.... well I don't know if that used to be true. but that's clearly not true anymore.
When you arrive at the TBS door with your ticket, they just take it away, so now you're inside, and you can walk anywhere. So I just followed up the directions to the corporate booth, and then I saw... that there's actually a fucking lot of people using those tickets to line up in advance for corporate booths, as there was already big line ups inside the big sight.
This made me realize how many people there are, and how useless it is to just "come early". Comiket is crazy.
This is a picture of the top of the outside lines, seen from inside:
The ticket in the end was a great help, In 30 minutes I had already done 3 corporate booths, and that's probably before people who arrived at 7am (1 hour before me) outside, would even have entered the halls.
After the intensive shopping, I met my friend at the cosplay area. She was cosplaying Haruhi, and was cute doing it as always.
This picture is when I realize I got burned pretty badly by the sun on that day,
On day 2 I went with another friend, It was his first comiket, and he's a touhou fan so he came with me on the touhou day.
He said he enjoyed it, and I'm sure he enjoyed it.... as much as you can enjoy it.
Comiket is fun, but it's a really hard event so you kinda hate/love it at the same time.
I was also supposed to meet my other friend who was cosplaying again on day 2, but couldn't because of bad rain timing, and being stuck in a line to ship my stuff home for 2 damn hours (I got out of that line 20 minutes after the end of the event, which gave me the opportunity to take this picture)
Empty Comiket seems so weird O.o
For day two we got there kinda late (11am is the perfect time to arrive if you want to get inside without doing any line up, anytime before that you'll have to wait) and got stuck into that line up after shopping, so I didn't even have time to take cosplay pictures... but I got a picture of one of the 4 areas before it started to rain.
On a side note, there are 4 cosplay areas in Comiket, this is one of the less crowded ones. The 2 closes to the entrance are so crowded (especially the one in the garden) that it's almost impossible to move from one cosplayer to another when taking pictures.
You literally have to push your way through. It's annoying, and exhausting, both as a photograph getting pushed, and as someone trying to move through.
On day 3 I went alone, and had a little less shopping to do.
So I had time to enjoy it more, and check more cosplay and take more pictures.
Here's some of my favourite cosplay pictures of the week-end, you can see the links to the albums at the end of this post.
Day 1 cosplay pictures: (Google+/Picasa)
Day 3 cosplay pictures: (Google+/Picasa)
Day 1 Google+ Story Version
Day 3 Google+ Story Version
Finally here's a picture of all my C86 loot, including also the stuff I bought for a couple of friends oversea.
And that concludes my Comiket 86 report.
Hope you had fun reading it.
From August 15th to the 17th, at the Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba, the 86th Comiket was held.
As always, There was a crazy amount of people (total attendance of the week-end was 550,000 persons) and as always, it was way too damn hot!
For those who don't know Comiket... I've explained it before so go read there.
*This part of the post might be good information to anyone getting their hands on a circle ticket and who don't know how things will work with them)
This time I was really lucky and got my hands on a circle ticket (circle tickets are given to the members of the circles that will sell goods at the comiket so that they can enter earlier to set up their tables. Sometimes they have too many tickets so some people give it to their friends or sell them). So since I had a circle ticket I tough I wouldn't have to line up at all at first. While walking past the big lines outside I felt really happy to have this ticket. I had one worry though. I wanted to use this ticked to go close to the Corporate booths so I could get hard to get items faster. But would they let me go there? on my ticket, the booth number was in the eastern hall, and the corporate booths are on the western halls. Also a lot of blogs around said that people using these tickets to line up earlier was frowned upon.... well I don't know if that used to be true. but that's clearly not true anymore.
When you arrive at the TBS door with your ticket, they just take it away, so now you're inside, and you can walk anywhere. So I just followed up the directions to the corporate booth, and then I saw... that there's actually a fucking lot of people using those tickets to line up in advance for corporate booths, as there was already big line ups inside the big sight.
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| Shaft line, at about 8am, 2 hours before the oppening |
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| This is the line I was in, at 9:30, 30 minute before opening. |
This is a picture of the top of the outside lines, seen from inside:
The ticket in the end was a great help, In 30 minutes I had already done 3 corporate booths, and that's probably before people who arrived at 7am (1 hour before me) outside, would even have entered the halls.
After the intensive shopping, I met my friend at the cosplay area. She was cosplaying Haruhi, and was cute doing it as always.
This picture is when I realize I got burned pretty badly by the sun on that day,
On day 2 I went with another friend, It was his first comiket, and he's a touhou fan so he came with me on the touhou day.
He said he enjoyed it, and I'm sure he enjoyed it.... as much as you can enjoy it.
Comiket is fun, but it's a really hard event so you kinda hate/love it at the same time.
I was also supposed to meet my other friend who was cosplaying again on day 2, but couldn't because of bad rain timing, and being stuck in a line to ship my stuff home for 2 damn hours (I got out of that line 20 minutes after the end of the event, which gave me the opportunity to take this picture)
Empty Comiket seems so weird O.o
For day two we got there kinda late (11am is the perfect time to arrive if you want to get inside without doing any line up, anytime before that you'll have to wait) and got stuck into that line up after shopping, so I didn't even have time to take cosplay pictures... but I got a picture of one of the 4 areas before it started to rain.
On a side note, there are 4 cosplay areas in Comiket, this is one of the less crowded ones. The 2 closes to the entrance are so crowded (especially the one in the garden) that it's almost impossible to move from one cosplayer to another when taking pictures.
You literally have to push your way through. It's annoying, and exhausting, both as a photograph getting pushed, and as someone trying to move through.
On day 3 I went alone, and had a little less shopping to do.
So I had time to enjoy it more, and check more cosplay and take more pictures.
Here's some of my favourite cosplay pictures of the week-end, you can see the links to the albums at the end of this post.
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| Matsumoto from Downtown |
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| My friend as Haruhi |
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| Black Hanekawa |
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| Nagato Yuki, this is a Auto-Awesome gif created by google from a couple of pictures I took |
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| Sadako from the Ring |
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| Ui and Yui from K-On! |
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| Jibril from No Game No Life |
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| Persona |
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| Bakemonogatari |
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| Kill la Kill |
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| Windows XP, thank you! |
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| Tamako Market! |
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| Not completly sure, maybe Conan? |
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| 2 sides of Hanekawa |
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| Niku |
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| CCHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN |
Day 1 cosplay pictures: (Google+/Picasa)
Day 3 cosplay pictures: (Google+/Picasa)
Day 1 Google+ Story Version
Day 3 Google+ Story Version
Finally here's a picture of all my C86 loot, including also the stuff I bought for a couple of friends oversea.
And that concludes my Comiket 86 report.
Hope you had fun reading it.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Lil Update
Hello everyone! here's just a little update, Nothing big happened yet, so I didn't post many thing. The first few weeks back were pretty much me settling back, and trying to find an apartment, then settling into said apartment.
You can see the pictures of the apartment here: apartment
As you can see it's quite bigger than what I had last time, and it's about the same price, though the other one came with a fridge and a bed and a desk, this one came empty. The main advantage is that it's a 2 minute walk from here to my workplace! That pretty much means I have now 2 extra hours per day since I don't have to commute anymore.
Getting an apartment suck in Japan btw (unless you use a company specialized with Gaijin). Japanese real-estate agency are fucking thieves. My appartment rent is ~68000 yen per month or so, that'S fine, but in order to be able to get it, I had to first pay the first 2 month (february was already halfway through so 1.5month) which is fine, then 1 month for deposit, that I should get back when I leave and 20000 yen for insurances. These are the normal fee that I accept to pay, and understand why they exist, the followings though, are where it gets ugly. 1 month "key money" which is pretty much just money you give to the owner of the place as a gift, 1month agency fee, same thing but for the agency you used to rent the place, 20000 cleaning fees for cleaning the room before I get there (oh btw when I'll leave I have to pay 30000 yen cleaning fee so they are charging everyone twice for cleaning, which mean the same cleaning is being paid twice), 15000 yen for changing the key (which in all reality should be like 2000 yen) + some other samll fees I don't remember.
So right now I'm living on a pretty low budget for a while.
Though I said nothing much happened, at least 2 things did happen that were pretty nice, I met a friend from Google+ in Akiba, I was able to see Tokyo covered with snow, which was pretty nice (pics here: Snow In Shimokitazawa) and I met a friend from Quebec I had not seen in like 12 years or so (since high school).
It's kinda weird, I haven't seen him for 12 year, and I meet him in Tokyo, to then learn his sister is actually one of my friend and he's also a friend of one of my Ex Gf... We were kinda close for a while without even noticing it, yet we had to be on the other side of the globe to meet again!
That's all for today!
Here's a little pic to help you through your day!
You can see the pictures of the apartment here: apartment
As you can see it's quite bigger than what I had last time, and it's about the same price, though the other one came with a fridge and a bed and a desk, this one came empty. The main advantage is that it's a 2 minute walk from here to my workplace! That pretty much means I have now 2 extra hours per day since I don't have to commute anymore.
Getting an apartment suck in Japan btw (unless you use a company specialized with Gaijin). Japanese real-estate agency are fucking thieves. My appartment rent is ~68000 yen per month or so, that'S fine, but in order to be able to get it, I had to first pay the first 2 month (february was already halfway through so 1.5month) which is fine, then 1 month for deposit, that I should get back when I leave and 20000 yen for insurances. These are the normal fee that I accept to pay, and understand why they exist, the followings though, are where it gets ugly. 1 month "key money" which is pretty much just money you give to the owner of the place as a gift, 1month agency fee, same thing but for the agency you used to rent the place, 20000 cleaning fees for cleaning the room before I get there (oh btw when I'll leave I have to pay 30000 yen cleaning fee so they are charging everyone twice for cleaning, which mean the same cleaning is being paid twice), 15000 yen for changing the key (which in all reality should be like 2000 yen) + some other samll fees I don't remember.
So right now I'm living on a pretty low budget for a while.
Though I said nothing much happened, at least 2 things did happen that were pretty nice, I met a friend from Google+ in Akiba, I was able to see Tokyo covered with snow, which was pretty nice (pics here: Snow In Shimokitazawa) and I met a friend from Quebec I had not seen in like 12 years or so (since high school).
It's kinda weird, I haven't seen him for 12 year, and I meet him in Tokyo, to then learn his sister is actually one of my friend and he's also a friend of one of my Ex Gf... We were kinda close for a while without even noticing it, yet we had to be on the other side of the globe to meet again!
That's all for today!
Here's a little pic to help you through your day!
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| Picture of the March page of a calendar I ordered before leaving Japan |
Monday, December 23, 2013
Shinjuku Gyoen, WUB expo, and last meeting at work.
Hello, I've been really busy living my last days in Japan, been trying to finish everything I have to finish, and do as much as possible while meeting as much of my friends for last time, so I didn't write here for a while.
I have material to write here for the next weeks, and also I can see a lot of free time coming up, so I should post these shortly.
For now, this post is about the events from the week-end of December 7-8.
I'm not so much into hip-hop, but these dance are usually nice to see once in a while.
They did really good, it was entertaining and nice to see.
I enjoyed myself!
I'm a poor photograph so most of my pictures from this event are bad, but anyway a dance is nice to see when it moves, not on pictures, so it's not so bad.
I wish I had a good picture of her though =/
Here are some of the best picture form the event:
You can see the full album here: WUBExpo2013
Every week one person has to give a presentation, about anything (usually programing related) in front of everyone else, and this week was my turn, my subject was "Otaku Culture in Canada". It lasted a little too long, but I think people appreciated it.
After this I took a picture with everyone there.
First here are some pictures taken from Shinjuku Station to Shinjuku Gyoen... If you know your way in Shinjuku, you can notice that we actually got lost and went the wrong way!
At first when you get there it's actually a little boring, it's pretty much just trees
We started our way to the left from Shinjuku's entrance so the next thing to see was the Greenhouse... It's a greenhouse, not so interesting, and too hot and humid!
Next to the greenhouse is a Japanese type garden with a pond. I really like this kind of garden.
A little father away after passing another kind of garden (see the full album for pics of this) we found an interesting tree and decided to have fun...
There's a french garden in Shinjuku Gyoen, but we didn't find it, and we also didn't go at the mother&child garden (this name is out of my memory, it might be wrong).
We went to a Chinese style building, with a view on another pond
Finally we walked back to Shinjuku Station where we went to do some Karaoke and eat Shabu-Shabu!
You can see the full album with all pictures from Shinjuku Gyoen here: Shinjuku Gyoen
We had a lot of fun that day, and The Shabu-Shabu was delicious!
That's it for this post! thanks for reading!
I have material to write here for the next weeks, and also I can see a lot of free time coming up, so I should post these shortly.
For now, this post is about the events from the week-end of December 7-8.
W.U.B. Expo 2013
on Saturday 7th, One of my coworker (really cute girl) had a dance show, so I went to see it. It was Waseda University Breakers (Waseda university hip hop style of dance club) expo, where they show what they have been practicing all this year.I'm not so much into hip-hop, but these dance are usually nice to see once in a while.
They did really good, it was entertaining and nice to see.
I enjoyed myself!
I'm a poor photograph so most of my pictures from this event are bad, but anyway a dance is nice to see when it moves, not on pictures, so it's not so bad.
I wish I had a good picture of her though =/
Here are some of the best picture form the event:
You can see the full album here: WUBExpo2013
Last meeting at the company
This wasn't my last day at work, but it was my last week-end meeting where all the part timers are there. It happened right after the dance show.Every week one person has to give a presentation, about anything (usually programing related) in front of everyone else, and this week was my turn, my subject was "Otaku Culture in Canada". It lasted a little too long, but I think people appreciated it.
After this I took a picture with everyone there.
Shinjuku Gyoen
The next day I went to Shinjuku Gyoen with 2 friends. Shijuku Gyoen is a garden (pretty much a mini-forest) that used to belong to the Emperor. It has many kind of gardens and trees. It even have a greenhouse with plants made for other climate.First here are some pictures taken from Shinjuku Station to Shinjuku Gyoen... If you know your way in Shinjuku, you can notice that we actually got lost and went the wrong way!
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| My Friends! |
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| why are we here... nice bus lol |
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| Doki Doki! |
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| The entrance |
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| the different types of leaves |
We started our way to the left from Shinjuku's entrance so the next thing to see was the Greenhouse... It's a greenhouse, not so interesting, and too hot and humid!
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| Sausage Tree! Didn't you know Sausage came from trees? |
Next to the greenhouse is a Japanese type garden with a pond. I really like this kind of garden.
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| Ducks! |
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| A rock who's form is perfect for sitting, as demonstrated by my friend. |
A little father away after passing another kind of garden (see the full album for pics of this) we found an interesting tree and decided to have fun...
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| Twisted tree |
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| It looks strong... |
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| Let's climb it! |
There's a french garden in Shinjuku Gyoen, but we didn't find it, and we also didn't go at the mother&child garden (this name is out of my memory, it might be wrong).
We went to a Chinese style building, with a view on another pond
Finally we walked back to Shinjuku Station where we went to do some Karaoke and eat Shabu-Shabu!
You can see the full album with all pictures from Shinjuku Gyoen here: Shinjuku Gyoen
We had a lot of fun that day, and The Shabu-Shabu was delicious!
That's it for this post! thanks for reading!
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