Jonelle Patrick's Blog, page 64

2014 Tokyo Illuminations!

Tokyo Midtown

Once again, the holiday light displays in Tokyo were totally over the top! Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi led the way, with another lovely abstract creation set to a dreamy soundtrack. This year, the lights leapt free of the ground in glittering arcs, bounding across the ever-changing field of blue.

Since couples on romantic “illuminations” dates outnumber families by a wide margin, I’m not sure what Shiodome management was thinking when they screened a Disney-esque animated short movie (with fish and turtles) on the walls behind the flashing lights that rocked in time to the soundtrack, but fortunately it didn’t detract too much from the gazillion-light extravaganza.

Shiodome

And VenusFort in Odaiba (that eerie Caesar’s Palace lookalike!) actually had a mesmerizing display of “rain” cascading down around one of their Italianate fountains as the changing “sky” cycled through its blue twilight hour.

VenusFort, Odaiba

VenusFort, Odaiba

In the next courtyard, a starry tree hovered over holiday shoppers.

Even the Ferris wheel outside Zepp Tokyo gets into the act, with occasional snowflakes!

Odaiba

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix.

Jack The Ripper – The Musical

Purple crushed velvet, bejeweled fake fur, slashed to the navel satin shirt – somehow the Japanese version of the elusive old serial killer comes off as slightly more of a gay blade than history gives him credit for! But it gets better – this isn’t the original production of Jack The Ripper, The Musical. The world premiere was actually in Korean, which not only features a Jack who could double for a fey Inigo Montoya, all the cops are soap opera eye candy as well!

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix. And this isn’t the only awesome all-Japanese Broadway production of sing-along musical favorites! Check out the all-Japanese versions of Fiddler On The Roof, South Pacific, Amadeus, Peter Pan, and Ocean’s Eleven...

The Cocktail Truck

Gourmet food trucks: sooo last year! Bring on the cocktail truck! What could be more festive than a van dispensing libations to thirsty holiday shoppers on the streets of Shibuya? This rolling Smirnoff bar was serving up Mojitos, Cosmopolitans and the mysteriously named Caipiroska* when I last sauntered past the Parco store at the end of November.

* a sweet vodka-lime guzzler, according to my man, Bartender Google

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix.

The Japanese Bus Tour: A Cultural Experience of Epic Proportions

How NOT to use a toilet. This sign mutely admonished all comers at one of the Mall Of America-sized rest stops along the way.

I’d have to say that going on a two-day bus tour to the Ise Shrine has to rank right up there with staying overnight at a comic book café and going to a host club as a peak Only In Japan cultural activity. Allow me to highlight a few features of this once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Tour Guiding As A Martial Art: Our fearless leader had to be at least a second degree black belt in cat herding, because his 43 random tourists all efficiently filled out their bento lunch preferences on the first pass, showed up to board the ferry back to the shrine at eight in the morning, and were back on the bus five minutes before the time Sharpied on the windshield placard at every stop.*

Rest Stop Nirvana: Every two hours, whether we needed it or not, we pulled into the vast parking lot of  a waystation that featured everything a numb-butted bus traveler’s heart might desire: an industrial-sized convenience store, the opportunity to buy souvenirs as if we’d actually been to the local hotspots, heroically large toilet facilities, and platoons of vending machines dispensing all known permutations of tea and coffee.

Bentos, bentos and more bentos: In order to spend maximum time seeing as many sights as possible (in addition to a six-hour bus ride between Tokyo and the Ise Shrine, our tour crammed in a stop at a tourist megastore in the pearl-growing region of Toba, an overnight at a traditional inn on a small island off the coast, and a sojourn at the renowned leaf-viewing spot of Kariya), it was absolutely necessary to eat on the run. As in, here’s your box lunch and your chopsticks, gobble it en route in your seat, and swallow the last pickle before the guide comes through the aisle with the garbage bag.

The Group Photo: Why anybody would want to buy a picture of themselves posed in front of fall foliage with 42 random strangers is a mystery that I am still pondering with scholarly gravitas.

* All except for The Foreigner and her two Japanese friends, who appeared exactly on time and thus kept everybody waiting (mutter mutter FOREIGNERS ARE ALWAYS LATE).

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix.

The Dog Sandwich Vending Machine

Try your luck at this vending machine and you might get a Chihuahuaffle! Or a Corgi Cornet! Or a Filet O’ Pug!

Litte. Plastic. Sandwiches. With dogs in them. Wat.

Or, most horrible of all, the Fried Shiba Sandwich!

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix. 

The Newest Ways To Get A Small Face

Who knew that aluminum could be the key to that holy grail of pulchritude, the small face? Apparently, it has become the flavor of the month when it comes to head shrinking in Japan. Strap on one of these “aluminum head spa” products to minimize your watermelon of a noggin whilst you shower!

And in case it’s not your whole head you want to shrink, researchers have been working around the clock to deliver new devices guaranteed to work on your most hated overlarge feature. Behold the slightly Friday The Thirteenth-ish “Sleeping Hammock” and its rival, the “Face Lift Up Belt” (for jutting chins and incipient wattles), and the “Cheek Slim Belt” for unlovely wideness! All conveniently work while you sleep – if you can manage to get to sleep, that is, with your head trussed up like a prize Thanksgiving turkey…

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix. She hasn’t personally tested these products because her head is already so small, it’s been ridiculed in America, where people with large heads are rewarded with lucrative news anchor and movie star jobs.

The Latest In Headshrinking Appliances

Who knew that aluminum could be the key to that holy grail of pulchritude, the small face? Apparently, it has become the flavor of the month when it comes to head shrinking in Japan. Strap on one of these “aluminum head spa” products to minimize your watermelon of a noggin whilst you shower!

And in case it’s not your whole head you want to shrink, researchers have been working around the clock to deliver new devices guaranteed to work on your most hated overlarge feature. Behold the slightly Friday The Thirteenth-ish “Sleeping Hammock” and its rival, the “Face Lift Up Belt” (for jutting chins and incipient wattles), and the “Cheek Slim Belt” for unlovely wideness! All conveniently work while you sleep – if you can manage to get to sleep, that is, with your head trussed up like a prize Thanksgiving turkey…

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix. She hasn’t personally tested these products because her head is already so small, it’s been ridiculed in America, where people with large heads are rewarded with lucrative news anchor and movie star jobs.

Shibas, Shibas, Everywhere!

Coming or going, shibas are on the job!

What better way to carry home a sack of edibles than in this Shibafest of a grocery bag? The National Azabu “foreign” supermarket in Hiroo was renovated to be a sad shade of its former self, but this foodstuff-toter they offered right after the re-opening nearly made up for the loss.

Check out the bottom of the bag! Shiba-inus meet to solve ALL the problems of the world…

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix. 

Leaf Season-O-Rama

It’s hard to take a bad picture of this pond at Korakuen garden in any season.

Forget those pesky cherry blossoms. Leaf season is the BEST!

Fall is the only season in which the Nezu Shrine grand gate isn’t the most wildly colored thing around.

Gotokuji temple leaves change in quiet splendor.

Blindingly gold gingko leaves frame the lofty eaves of Gokokuji temple in central Tokyo.

Arisugawa Park does not disappoint.

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix. 

All You Can Eat Whoppers!

In Japan, an all-you-can-eat buffet is called a “viking” GO FIGURE. (Why don’t they call it a “vegas”? Then this promo could awesomely be called the Bi-Gas!) Apparently, however, while the “Bi-King” offers “free unlimited seconds,” you do have to buy a Whopper Combo (about $10) that includes a whopper, fries and a drink AND you have to finish that pile of food all by yourself (no passing it around your ten hungriest friends) before you can go back for another. And sadly – in case you were planning to come early and stay late, feasting on Whoppers for breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and midnight snack – the all-you-can-eat meter starts ticking the second you buy your Whopper setto and ends a mere thirty minutes later. So if you want to pound down enough to brag about, better practice your speed eating first.

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix.