The Majesty of Mount Fuji ♥

If you’ve ever wondered about the sheer size and majesty of Mount Fuji, I took this photo of the Tokyo metropolis from the window of JL43 bound for London Heathrow yesterday. It was quite a sight!

I’ve just spent a week in Japan for Tokyo Design Forum, and to give my eldest a memorable first trip outside of Europe. Our time away delivered on both counts: we returned home hugely inspired and in awe of what we saw there. I’d last visited Japan in 2004, which was pre-iPhone and I needed a combination of paper map, guide book, and friends to find my way around. This time, we just searched Google maps and tapped Start to find our way from A to B with minimal stress.

The city had changed a lot, not just architecturally and technologically, but also culturally. And of course in terms of there being far less video game arcades and retro games being much more difficult to find. We had more luck outside of Tokyo city centre, but it was still relatively slim pickings compared to the suitcase full of WonderSwan, Katamari, and other game stuff I brought back in 2004.

In the short week I managed to fit in the 2-day conference, presented my latest game Serenity at Tokyo Indies, made new friends, and we managed to fit in trips to Sanrio Puroland, café capyba, teamLAB×Planets (which could easily pass as Electroplankton: The Exhibition), a Kawase-style day trip to Kamakura to see Kōtoku-in and the Daibutsu, a pilgrimage to picopico café home of Lexaloffle Games and PICO-8 (especially meaningful to me as I’m the longest active user! bbs?uuid=6), toy hunting at Nakano Broadway, UFO stationery and stickers at Hands and Loft, the most impressive shopping experience of my entire life buying 3D-printed homeware at Isetan Shinjuku, and naturally buying far too many capsule toys. A successful trip as any otaku would surely agree!

RFA

So I’ve decided that this year I’m going to take advantage of the generous UK-Japan visa agreement and live in Japan for a while. Please get in touch if you think you might be able to assist in some way. ありがとうございます！