Spent the day in Shinjuku with Aiko, and it was bloody cold. Ended up going bowling and of course their system is better, with cameras on every lane for instant replay action!
For NYE I joined Hajime’s family in Kokubunji. We went to the local shrine with music and theater, and rang a large bell for good fortune. Keeping us warm were Bonfires, Amazake (sweet Sake) and hot potatoes! I even had a go on a massive Taiko drum!
Went to a sort of job interview today, with Hajime playing translator, and me again noted as ‘Mochi Guy’. The company is pretty cool and would be a good place to work, but timing is bad. Their director who speaks good English is flying out to NZ, and they are starting a big project in June, right after I intend to leave! So it doesn’t look likely. The interview flowed into another end of year party. Lots of food and drink supplied. Also checked out more of the company and cool shit they’ve worked on. Check out the photo of mo-cap man! (If you saw LOTR, they filmed a guy acting out Gollem wearing a similar suit - this then gets used in the animation process.)
Enter Akiharbara (electric town). In 1 year this place has hugely changed, but it’s still the massive maize of electronic stores it was last year. I managed to resist buying a PSP, XBOX 360 and more before going to Overlord Pictures.Akyama San is the director of the J-Film ‘Hinokio’ we worked on last year. He opened up a trunk to show us the actual Hinokio robot model used in the film! Then on to a Nabe Party at another company who was working on Akyama’s Next film. With More food and drink and an old school Godzilla type movie - classic!
We got delayed on the train back due to an ‘accident’. Apparantly this quite often means somone has jumped in front of a train, but they don’t actually say that.
So how was the flight? Well ‘Transporter 2′ is 1.5 hours ill never get back.. Other than it was fine 
It was a balmy 0 degrees upon arrival at Tokyo, but I felt fine in just a t-shirt. Being heavily sleep deprived I was struggling. But i eventually made it to Tokyo station where I found Hajime and made our way back to his house (to be mine for the next week or so :)At night we went to a small Festival at Imagica (largest post-house in Japan). I felt the cold a lot more at night! I had a go at making Mochi (Sticky Rice) By hitting rice in a barrell with a large mallet. Now to a bunch of guys I’m known as ‘mochi guy’.Also checked out their sub company called Links Digi Works.
So how was the flight? Well ‘Transporter 2′ is 1.5 hours ill never get back.. Other than it was fine It was a balmy 0 degrees upon arrival at Tokyo, but I felt fine in just a t-shirt. Being heavily sleep deprived I was struggling. But i eventually made it to Tokyo station where I found Hajime and made our way back to his house (to be mine for the next week or so :)At night we went to a small Festival at Imagica (largest post-house in Japan). I felt the cold a lot more at night! I had a go at making Mochi - Sticky Rice - By hitting rice in a barrell with a large mallet. Now to a bunch of guys im known as ‘mochi guy’.Also checked out their sub company called Links Digi Works.
