September | 2013 | IKIMASHO!

The 9/11s storm the UN!

September 30, 2013 by joostay

Baltimore supergroup The 9/11s destroy world peace with a little help from the Jurassic Park soundtrack and Scatman John. “The 9/11s put the Hit in sHit. Pioneers in a psychotic new sound, Baltimore Diarrhoea Wave, these DJs are serious as a heart attack and will take no prisoners in taking over the world. “Formed in a dark corner of a Shibuya club, with their DJ partnership cemented by Poof Juice, DJ Golden Showers and DJ River Phoenix are ready to […]

Categories: Art Music & Culture • Tags: 9/11, 9/11s, asia, dickheads, japan, jurassic park, music, scatman, tokyo

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Lock & Load! Shooting Bar EA, Tokyo

September 29, 2013 by joostay

Drink booze & shoot the shit out of things, Tokyo style. Directly in front of me a nicely dressed woman is locking and loading an AK-47. Directly behind me my friends are doing the biggest shots of tequila I’ve ever seen. This is Shooting Bar EA – Tokyo’s BB gun shooting range, a place where the menus are chock-full of booze and guns, and pacifism should be left at the door. Hanging on the wall there are Glocks, Sig Sauers, Colts, […]

Categories: Bizarre/Unique, Tokyo Days • Tags: asia, bar, booze, drinking, games, guns, japan, kichijoji, nightlife, se asia, shooting range, tokyo, travel

The Curator

September 24, 2013 by joostay

At midnight Tokyo can feel like a dream. A silent suburbia awaiting the onset of sleep. Vending machines hum and glow, pulsating, while cats peer down from above. Mass tangles of electrical cables silhouette against the moon. By 1am most of the shutters in my neighbourhood have closed. Yet one store is always open. It sells toys. Old toys. Spin tops and paddle balls, wind-up cars and forgotten plastic treasures. Inside, the Curator sits content: a pupa encased in a […]

Categories: Tokyo Days • Tags: dream, japan, shimokitazawa, sleep, tokyo

Beautiful Bali: In the Shadow of Gunung Agung

September 23, 2013 by joostay

Beneath a sacred volcano lies a simpler way of life soaked in tradition The Balinese believe that Mount Agung is a replica of Mount Meru – the sacred Hindu mountain considered to be the central axis of the universe. Mythical tales tell of it being 672,000 miles high – with the sun and the all planets of the Solar System revolving around it as one single unit. It’s the be-all and end-all of everything. The centre of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. In short, a […]

Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, beautiful, coast, indonesia, nusa lembongan, nusa penida, se asia, seaweed farming, south east asia, sunset

Kecak: Balinese Fire Dancing

September 19, 2013 by joostay

What better way to spend the night than with a trance-inducing exorcism dance. It’s 8pm in Ubud and the wind is picking up. Sitting in silence in the grounds of a ruined temple I notice that the dark trees surrounding the perimeter are almost indistinguishable from the darker clouds above. It’s hot. Thunder cracks in the distance. A lone gust threatens to extinguish a long line of lanterns that climb the set of crumbling stone stairs. The weather dies down, and in […]

Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, dancing, fire, indonesia, kecak, ritual, south east asia, travel, tribal, ubud

THREE OLD BELFAST WOMEN TRAPPED INSIDE THREE JAPANESE BODIES

September 18, 2013 by joostay

Here grab those seats at the end there, Miu. There we go. Sit yourself down. That’s some weather we’ve been havin the last few days isn’t it? Weather?! Don’t you talk to me about that friggin weather, nearly got blown away yesterday. Typhoon. Did you ever hear the like of it. All the trains stopped n all, did ye know that? They were not, were they? Aye, they were n all. By jove, quare weather, don’t you get me started […]

Categories: Tokyo Days

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Neon Memories

September 14, 2013 by joostay

“I wonder if neon has memories,” she says as she jumps off the 35th floor of the Marunouchi Building. Falling through the night we close our eyes, the only sound the low drone of an eight-lane freeway about a mile away. “I never see any stars in Tokyo,” she questions. “Does that mean they don’t exist?” “Maybe,” I reply, absorbed by the reflection of the city in her eyes. Below us salarymen dot the warm pavement, a collection of uniformed […]

Categories: Tokyo Days

Ikimasho! 2013

September 11, 2013 by joostay

Ikimasho! featured in Bizarre Magazine issues #197 & #202 A narration of Takuhiro’s Shoes is to be featured in a forthcoming BBC documentary about identity. In June the Japanese National Tourist Organisation added Ikimasho! it to its list of ‘Great Japan Sources’ alongside The Japan Times and Lonely Planet. You can read a travel interview I did with Flip Nomad here. Ikimasho! was the first website to showcase Reach for the Dead, the new Boards of Canada video which premiered in Shibuya. 32,000 youtube hits. […]

Categories: Art Music & Culture, Art: stuff I've drawn • Tags: tokyo japan ikimasho blog

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Ghosts, Underpants & Stars

September 10, 2013 by joostay

What kind of place do you think the Land of Underpants would be? Let’s all travel to the Land of Underpants! I can still hear her wee voice. “This is ghosts… underpants… and stars…” Six words you don’t usually expect to hear in combination, especially from a softly-spoken Japanese woman in her mid-forties on a Thursday afternoon. As we are handed our tickets I’m hit with the sudden urge to ask her to say it again. Say it again, damn […]

Categories: Art Music & Culture • Tags: art, contemporary, fun, ghosts, japan, MOT, museum, stars, surreal, tokyo, underpants, weird

Wake up, gaijin-san

September 7, 2013 by joostay

I open my eyes to a world of crying cicadas and damp tatami. As I leave my wooden house a praying mantis blocks my path. I smile and say hello. It stares back, motionless, silent. “Where are you going, gaijin-san?” she finally questions. “I’m hungry. I need to buy some lunch,” I reply. “Would you like to join me?” Dressed in matching green we freewheel through avenues and alleyways, wind in our hair, smiles on our faces. “Can you smell […]

Categories: Tokyo Days • Tags: japan, journey, light, tokyo

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Indonesian Independence Day

September 4, 2013 by joostay

PROCLAMATION WE THE PEOPLE OF INDONESIA HEREBY DECLARE THE INDEPENDENCE OF INDONESIA. MATTERS WHICH CONCERN THE TRANSFER OF POWER AND OTHER THINGS WILL BE EXECUTED BY CAREFUL MEANS AND IN THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE TIME. DJAKARTA, 17 AUGUST 1945 IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF INDONESIA SOEKARNO—HATTA

Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: 1945, asia, backpacking, bali, denpasar, festival, independence day, independent, indonesia

The day I saw a body being burned in Denpasar

September 1, 2013 by joostay

A chance encounter with Ngaben – the traditional Balinese Cremation Ceremony. My curiosity is going to get the better of me some day, I swear. Cycling round the potholed streets of Denpasar I was prepared for the traffic, the pollution, the general insanity. Pure city life in SE Asia is often a free-for-all: people selling animals (dead or alive) on the street, kids playing in desolate alleyways, a general feeling of structured chaos. I’m used to it. What I didn’t […]

Categories: Travel: Outside Japan • Tags: backpacking, bali, buddhist, ceremony, cremation, denpasar, hindu, indonesia, ngaben, reincarnation, south east asia, travel

IKIMASHO!

Randomness from Tokyo & beyond…

Monthly Archives: September 2013

The 9/11s storm the UN!

Lock & Load! Shooting Bar EA, Tokyo

The Curator

Beautiful Bali: In the Shadow of Gunung Agung

Kecak: Balinese Fire Dancing

THREE OLD BELFAST WOMEN TRAPPED INSIDE THREE JAPANESE BODIES

Neon Memories

Ikimasho! 2013

Ghosts, Underpants & Stars

Wake up, gaijin-san

Indonesian Independence Day

The day I saw a body being burned in Denpasar