Veranda, Odaiba

Never quite understood the allure of Odaiba, but I certainly understand the allure of sitting on a terrace, looking at the bay and the bridge and the other scenery (which is frankly pretty industrial, but we take what we can get, scenery-wise, here in Tokyo). The Hotel Nikko has a very civilized afternoon tea thing […]

Kiki, Kamiyamada (樹樹)

Saturday morning in Kamiyamada, I woke up early and spent the morning walking around, being cold and taking pictures of old buildings. The weather was beautiful and clear, but the day-onsen only open at 9 or 10 AM, and at some point I just got too cold. Fortunately there was this kissa…which was very ordinary, but this […]

Hakujuji, Niigata

True, I normally make it a rule not to go to places like this – but if you look closely you’ll see that Hakujuji was established in 1946 and is a Coffee Shop for the Exclusive Man. This being the morning of my birthday, old things for exclusive men seemed to be in order. Plus […]

Cafe Heimat, Otemachi

The basement of my favoritely-named ‘Nihon Building’ (I love the banality) contains all sort of sad little places. Here’s another one, to go with a sad rainy day. Rainy days, Mondays and anorexia always get me down. It’s a good thing today is Tuesday even though it’s the first day of the week. Things start […]