Project 365 - Andras Csibi

173 - Farewell Party

2007-06-26T23:46:00.001+09:00

From left to right: Me (Budapest, Hungary), Jamie (Cambridge, UK), Thomas (San Francisco, CA)

Thanks everybody for coming out tonight to say goodbye the last time with a couple of beers, tons of sashimi, crazy-ass wasabi-sake, kombini power session, nomihodai karaoke madness, ultimate dancing fever, waking me up at the club, and sprinting away from juu-man-en bill. *

So all you fine buddies and dudes and mates, thank you very much for spending your time and experiences with me, I'll never forget you:

Zaki, Zoli, Milosz, Thimo, Felix, Tomi, Yasir, Javier, Matthieu, Melissa, Barry, Jamie, Thomas (in chronological order)

Make sure you contact me whenever you are near Hungary, you are all really welcome to stay at our house (we got an extra guest room).

* And thanks in advance for the HR people for calling me back for the second round even though they read this post about all the crazy things I do when partying. ;-)

172 - Waka-Sensei Fujimoto Harutaka

2007-06-26T23:41:00.001+09:00

Seven dan on picture (not exactly uniformly distributed though)
Just compare his stance with mine, and you will see how great the space is for development.

171 - No, We Didn't Actually Try The Restaurant...

2007-06-26T23:37:00.001+09:00

170 - Riddle

2007-06-26T23:34:00.001+09:00

Let's see who can find out what this weird thing is... Hints all over the site.

169 - Neko

2007-06-26T23:31:00.001+09:00

168 - Ready To Roll Out

2007-06-26T08:02:00.000+09:00

Part of the Toshiba Ninja Kame members ready to hit Tokyo. From left to right:
Derek (Hong Kong/Canada)
Felix (China)
Melissa & Matthieu (France)
Thomas (US)
Javier (Well guess)

Shibuya, Harajuku, Yoyogi koen, made wonderful pictures, and guess what , I won't show 'em.

Plug: Make sure you check out Felix's Picasa albums, they are AMAZING. He's a hobbyist with some huge lenses, and all sort of tricks producing postcard quality pictures. And the greatest - he licenses his photos under Creative Commons, so you can use his pictures on your blog, or whatever, just make sure you write his name and link his albums! Yeah, and you shouldn't sell them!

167 - Kamakura Beach

2007-06-26T07:51:00.001+09:00

Nice Saturday with sunbathing, and watching surfers struggle in those teeny-tiny waves.

Sidenote: Any beach I visit in Japan is full of jarheads. Okinawa is packed with these US bases, and in Yokosuka, which is just near Kamakura, there's a US Navy base as well.

166 - Surreal Street

2007-06-26T07:42:00.000+09:00

And I didn't even use Photoshop. My camera behaves weirdly sometimes, amplifying the light from the dark sky, making the otherwise hardly visible clouds stand out sharply..

165 - Tools

2007-06-25T00:16:00.001+09:00

Tools we use in order to achieve Real Ultimate Power. The blue tin can is filled with concrete, and was said to be used by Fujimoto sensei to strengthen his fingertips (nukite). I have never seen this, I think he practices shuto techniques with it (edge of hand), nukite sounds way too difficult.

164 - The Reason Why I'm Always Late

2007-06-25T00:02:00.000+09:00

...is actually not the queue you have to stand in to take the bus
, I just needed a title. I simply oversleep.

163 - Yoshinoya

2007-06-24T23:53:00.000+09:00

Fast food in Japan doesn't necessarily mean McD's. Yoshinoya is a very popular chain selling gyuudon, and other similar ball dishes (rice and some meat). It's quite okay, and way better for your health compared to a good old Big Mac.

162 - Shodan

2007-06-24T12:29:00.001+09:00

So this day I received my actual black belt. It has my name on it, as well as Shoubukai embroidered.

161 - D'oh! We're leaving already?!

2007-06-22T01:46:00.001+09:00

And the next day: Toshiba ...
Note how nice the weather is now that we are leaving.

160 - Beach fo' Real

2007-06-22T01:31:00.000+09:00

Now that's a real beach, even though you can't see the sand on the photo. We found it on Google Maps satellite map! Technology Über Alles! Few years ago you had to ask actual people for stuff like this (well we did, but they didn't know)

Zoli has some better pictures (including nice booties)

159 - Former Naval Headquarters

2007-06-22T01:04:00.000+09:00

Okinawa was a spot of major strategic importance in WWII -- due to its location you could bomb pretty much everything important from there without too much trouble. No wonder that vicious battles have been fought here with casualties like 100 thousand Japanese people and 12.5 thousand American soldiers. The Americans methodically scorched the whole island*, so the number of civilian casualties is extremely high.

This is an underground bunker, that used to be a Japanese Navy Headquarters. Quite spooky..

* Well, not that they had much of a choice. War's tough.

158 - Nemo

2007-06-22T00:52:00.001+09:00

... and his daddy. We have seen one family with scuba as well*, but this was taken in one of the coolest and biggest aquariums in the world. For more pictures check this link at Damn Cool Pics: Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium In Japan

* and by that I mean we've been with the scuba, not the fishes. Obviously. Pun not intented.

157 - Shimauta

2007-06-21T23:14:00.000+09:00

Shimauta is an Okinawan style, which ingeniously mixes traditional elements with new ones. The guy is playing a shamisen. (I know, you only recognize one if it's played by a geisha...)

Check out the video to get the a feeling. Sorry for the crappy quality.

156 - Open Water Diver

2007-06-17T00:40:00.000+09:00

155 - Stocking Up

2007-06-17T00:28:00.001+09:00

The first moment Ohno san (right) seemed utterly happy during the trip.

154 - Okinawa Golden Plage

2007-06-17T00:06:00.001+09:00

This was the best beach in Naha, capital of Okinawa. Well yes, it's a port town, but the hotels near nice beaches were quite expensive.

Fortunately we found a nice beach using the satellite view in Google Maps, which was 16 km from the hotel, so we could go there by some rental bikes on other days. And the fun part is that the bike rental was for free, thanks to some new policy in Naha City, they created several bicycle rental spots, offering bikes for free between stations. I'm looking forward to the day they do this in Budapest.

About the beach...Well, at least we didn't get sunburned while swimming in the shadow of the highway. How bizarre...

153 - Tokyo Bay

2007-06-16T20:52:00.000+09:00

So this morning we took off from Haneda Airport heading to Okinawa. Sayonara sunshine...

152 - Condomania

2007-06-13T21:35:00.001+09:00

The romance between two condoms, Emily and George.* How moving.

You can find these shops in many places in Tokyo, you can buy all sorts of weird condoms, and other funny things like penis shaped lollipops and key chains. Not bad for a nation being notorious for having sex only once in a month or so...

* No, I'm not making this shit up, the names are actually written in the bubbles. Yeah, those wacky Japanese. Who the hell is coming up with these ideas? 2 condoms in love promoting safe sex? What the heck do they use for that? Surely not an other condom, that is called a threesome and even less safe. And why is safe sex important for condoms anyway? And why Emily and George? Why not Hitomi and Takeshi? Why gaijin condoms? There's no such thing as a Japanese condom, or what?

Hell, this world can be so complicated sometimes.

121-151 Missing

2007-06-13T21:19:00.000+09:00

Since I accidentally deleted a bunch of photos I took during the first two weeks of May, and I ran a bit low on motivation anyway, I decided to go on a short "sabbatical".

I took the following photo (number 152) on the 1st of June.

Sorry for the delay, and thank you guys for checking back regularly! It feels good to make stuff I like, and even better, when other people like it as well.

So... The Project goes on!!

120 - Sunset @ Yoyogi Koen

2007-06-12T08:33:00.000+09:00

119 - Harajuku Girl

2007-06-12T08:00:00.000+09:00

Gwen Stefani sang a song recently about Harajuku Girls, praising their wicked style. Well sure, it is pretty wicked.

You can find them every day at Harajuku station, near the entrance of Yoyogi park, and Meiji Jingu shrine, but you might want to go on Sunday, when they are out in crowd. You should also check out Takeshita dori, a small street near the station full of shops selling these weird designer stuff. Usually this street is so full of people like the first row of a rock concert, and it's pretty funny.