coldest april in tokyo

strangely, it's been extremely cold this whole week in tokyo, but now that i think of the volcano in iceland, it may make some sense – it was actually snowing friday night when team nooka was out drinking at en izakaya late into the night [thanks reika for reserving us a room!]. of course, now that i need to repack and check out on my way to beijing, it's super sunny and nice outside.

so to wrap up the updates for this trip, and not in chronological order, a word-dump: had a great meeting with the creative collaboration team at graniph, the t-shirt i designed will drop may 1st. if you're in a city with a graniph shop, make sure to pick one up as they only made 1000 units. my friend tomoyo hooked that connection up and it was nice to catch up with her after the meeting. tinydinosaur, a tokyo fashion design lab, famous for using new fabrics and materials featured nooka in their latest tokyo fashion week fall collection. see photos here. mr. kudo can be seen in the foto on the upper right with his handmade lamps made from discarded umbrella wires – a really creative team and i am so flattered to work with them. they LOVE the nooka strips [get yours here or in japan, here]! visited a wonderful little shop near bankart museum in yokohama called gallo the living which features nooka prominently in their shop. the shop manager, hikaru is adorable, and the owner mr. hara is full of creative energy. we all had a lovely meal after visiting the shop at the amazon club which serves deep fried scorpions and other fusion fare. went out to a night of 5 bands at unit in daikanyama to see my friend immi perform some songs and a dj set [you can tell which foto is her i think], which was great. saw another band called soutaiseiriron which was also fun, the singer was übercool, she hardly moved. i made it to nigo of bathing ape fame's new curry restaurant called curry-up. it was excellent! and i wore my yellow jeans which kinda made it look like i work there. the pretty lady with the long hair is my friend and rising design star, hiroko takahashi – great to catch up with her and see some of the amazing press she is getting. we also compared travel stories.

i will not clog up the post with every business meeting and friend i caught up with, nor complain about how i haven't had a proper night sleep in 10 days, but seriously, check the links above to catch up on the ever changing pop-culture of tokyo – a great and inspiring city. the foto of the ocean is from a daytrip to atami where i soaked in a hot tub [rotenburo] at horai, a 160 year old mountain guesthouse that was sublime though....the kami-san, mrs. furutani was a pleasure and the food is beyond words.