Tokyo and tech through the eyes of a split pea

浅草サンバ祭り (Asakusa Samba Festival)

I checked out the Asakusa Samba Festival this past Saturday, in which my boss and another colleague participated. The photo gallery should speak for itself, but I’ll add that the crowd was definitely insane. I have never seen so many Japanese officers-of-the-law doing crowd control. They were polite as always, and seemingly ineffective at times, which makes me wonder if they were actually there for an ulterior purpose. One amusing comment I heard numerous times, always by a female, was how surprised they were to see so many females in the audience.

The earlier half of Saturday was spent stocking up from the Costco in Makuhari. It’s quite apparent that the Japanese haven’t found the beauty of Costco yet, since most of the shoppers were foreigners (or so it felt). More than 1/2 the merchandise is definitely foreign to the local Japanese, so that may be a factor. A lot of the stuff seemed like it was directly imported and thrown on the shelves. For example, a deconstructed office chair my mom bought had absolutely no Japanese instructions — inside or outside the box — so piecing it together could prove a bit of a challenge. At least it keeps the costs down. Sadly, even Costco doesn’t help keep living costs down comparable to North America’s — we ended up spending at least a 1/3 more than our most expensive trip to the one near Manhattan.