Maid Cafes in Japan

As part of my Japan experience I thought I should visit a "Maid Cafe." These are establishments where the hostesses are dressed up as French Maids, school girls or some other outfit that meets the fetish-like needs of men. (Though I heard there are also "butler cafes" where men serve women.)

The Akihabara district in Tokyo has many Maid Cafes and you will see hostesses on the streets handing out flyers, kind of like in Las Vegas, but these flyers are G rated instead of X rated. It is not a coincidence that many Maid Cafes are in Akihabara, because this is the district filled with electronics shops, arcades and pachinko palaces, hence the audience of geeks who love Maid Cafes is there.

My friend Martyn took me to one of the most popular ones, the @Home cafe. We got drinks, played a little game with a maid and I had my photo taken and got my personal membership card (I wonder if it will be any good in the States.)

Others in the cafe also played table games with the girls, sang little songs and took photos, all entirely innocent, really. It was a fun experience that contributed to the sensory overload of all the amazing impressions Tokyo and Japan have to offer.

Inside A Capsule Hotel

I really wanted to stay at a Ryokan (a traditional Japanese hotel) but
the ones I tried were booked. So what else is typically Japanese? A
capsule hotel! So here I am inside my capsule. The first thing you do
at 9h Capsule Hotel here in Kyoto is take off your shoes, they're
stored in a locker. You then get some slippers and water and sent to
the 9th floor, if you're male. There you get a bigger locker for your
luggage and a pair of PJs in exchange. Showers, sinks, toilets and a
bath are available as are all required toiletries. Then you move down
to your designated capsule floor. The capsules are all numbered and
pretty spacious. They have alarm clocks, lights and a power outlet.
There's an upper capsule to each lower capsule, almost like a bunk
bed. The capsules have a pull down curtain, but no doors and you can
hear other people walk around. I'm happy I brought my ear plugs!

UPDATE: I slept really well inside the capsule, it actually felt a bit like sleeping in a small tent, albeit inside a building. The capsule is large enough to sit up in and it is pretty wide, about as wide as my 2 person back packing tent. Ear plugs are required as you will hear other people snore, pass gas, walk around, etc. The bath rooms are just outside the room with capsules. I'd stay in a capsule hotel again, if I'm only somewhere for a night and in and out quickly (as in not needing room to work, for example.)

Here are some additional shots of the 9h Kyoto capsule hotel, interior and exterior.

Amazing Food in Tokyo

Tokyo is a haven for foodies like me and I couldn't help feel a bit like Anthony Bourdain. Cruising the Asakusa neighborhood near Senso-ji temple and at Ueno Park I found great food stalls selling all kinds of delicacies. I wish I could have tried it all, but I limited myself to a serving of steaming hot balls that had octopus in them and were covered with mayonnaise and some other things (see photos below.) Less adventurous, but tasty anyhow, was a chocolate covered banana.

Near Ueno Station I found great sushi places filled with locals with sushi at 136 yen a plate. Another restaurant I ate at served whale in soy sauce...

Wishing On A Tree In Tokyo

The Japanese must be a pretty superstitious people, or at least it seems they are. Temples around Tokyo and I'm sure outside the capital as well there offer multiple ways to make wishes for good luck, health and prosperity. You see young and old take advantage of the opportunity and I don't blame them, after all it may actually work :-)

As I visited the Meiji Jinju Shrine in Yoyogi Park I saw a large tree and below it were racks with little wooden planks hanging from them. You can buy (of course, a wish doesn't come free) such a plank and write down your wish. Then you hang the plank on one of the nails on the racks surrounding the tree. For your money, you do get a plank that is pre-printed with an expression and the markers to write on the wooden tablet are provided as well.

I read and photographed some of the wishes from tourists. This bulleted list, my friend Martyn said. was obviously written by a Japanese person. (He said he could tell by the English language used on the tablet.) It seems there is no shame in wishing for all kinds of things.

Cherry Blossoms in Tokyo

It was obvious something special was going on as I strolled into Ueno Park on Tuesday. Maybe some festival, maybe a national holiday, maybe someone famous was giving a concert. But no, it was a regular day, there was nobody famous and no festival was going on. It was a special time though, throngs of people were gathering to picnic below the cherry blossoms.

The trees that line the wide paths of Ueno Park had all started blossoming and the Japanese see that as a new start, a fresh start of the year. Thousands of people had marked spots underneath the trees and more people yet were strolling through the park, taking photos of the blossom. I was told that the occasion also coincides with the start of a new fiscal year for many companies in Japan as well as a time when people traditionally leave companies or switch jobs and when the new school year starts.

Unfortunately, due to climate change, the trees are now blossoming in March instead of April/May, which makes it a bit chilly outside. It was good for me though, as I got to experience one of Japan's traditions. There are trees throughout Tokyo and people stop to admire the blossom everywhere, however Oeno Park has a large concentration of the trees, so I recommend you head out there if you happen to be in Tokyo late March/early April.



Spots for picnics get marked off early in the morning. People put in times that they will occupy a spot and build tables from cardboard boxes that are taped together with something like duct tape.

My coworkers told me it is typical for an office party to go eat and drink (beer and sake) under the blossoms at night or in the evening and have a junior office person mark a spot during the day or in the early morning.

On regular days these blue tarps would be what homeless people use to build a shelter, this day it was for folks who are decidedly better off.

Creative Parking in Tokyo

Space comes at a premium in Tokyo, so people come up with very creative ways to house cars and gas stations in the downtown area. This parking structure near a police station simply stacks cars on top of each other, I have seen other parking areas where cars drive onto a rotating disc and are spun so they can enter a lift or fit into a spot that otherwise would be inaccessible because of the angle.

 

 

The gas stations too are different than anything I have seen elsewhere in the world. Instead of pumps that you drive up to, the hoses drop from ceiling containers and attendants pull the hose with your choice of grade to your car.

Sights Around Tokyo Tower

One of my first questions to a Tokyo-based friend after arrival here was: "Did I travel to Paris?" We were walking around in the evening after I made it into town and between the skyscrapers was a building that looked very similar to the Eiffel Tower. I guess I could also have asked whether we were in Las Vegas, as this replica of the tower is a lot smaller than the one in Paris and more the size of the building on the Las Vegas Strip.

The next day I checked out the building from closer by and on the way I stopped at the Zojo-ji Temple, the first temple of this trip to Asia. The cherry blossoms are starting to appear all around Tokyo and they made this dreary, gray day a bit more attractive. Tokyo is a very walkable city and you can discover hidden temples, cafes and restaurants down many small streets. The paper notes attached to the strings in this photo are wishes that people first purchased at the stall next to it.

Walking around the grounds of the temple I discovered these scull-capped statuettes. I later asked my friend Tomoko what these represent. Apparently they are to appease the spirits and to remember the dead. People decorate them and give them caps so they won't be cold and it was pretty cold at night still.

Ego Alert: Joris on TV

The team at NBC Bay Area News came to McAfee a few times in the past three months and twice I was the spokesperson for segments related to cybersecurity. The first segment in February focused on social networking and the potential threat from publishing too much personal information online. This was linked to the Operation Aurora attacks that hit Google and other companies, where social media played a role in identifying targets. I talked to the talented Vicky Nguyen about this.



The second interview was actually my first live on air experience. I appeared on the six o'clock newscast discussing new numbers from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center on cybercrime. Last year, 2009, was the biggest year so far in terms of losses reported to cybercrime: $560 million in the U.S. alone (and again, that's what is reported.) If you suspect you may be the victim of a cybercrime, check out the McAfee Cybercrime Response Unit for help, including a link to the IC3/FBI. I hope to upload that video soon.

Starbucks Registers Run Windows 2000

Spotted at a Starbucks in Squaw Valley, these registers run Windows 2000, a decade old OS from Microsoft that has so many security issues that you might call it "swiss cheese." I hope Starbucks locked it down with whitelisting tools or other protection.

Epic Day At Northstar at Tahoe

Ramblings of a Dutchy on CNN

Loyal readers will know that while I was in Kauai in February there was a tsunami scare following the major earthquake in Chile. As I was evacuating I blogged an tweeted, putting on my old reporter hat. As this was going on I connected with several news agencies, thinking they might like to have some eyes and ears on the ground in Kauai as the story unfolded. As a result my blog was mentioned on the news in Sweden and internationally on CNN. The CNN team caught wind of my blogging through Twitter where I follow several CNN reporters. Pretty cool to be featured on TV and I love all the comments people sent in to my blogs from the spot on Sleeping Giant in Kauai.

Here's the CNN clip, sorry for the shaky images. It was recorded using an iPhone in front of a TV :)