After School

I visited a neat Hip-hop boutique called Dusty this morning, staffed with nice people, but let's be honest, I couldn't care less about hip-hop clothing.

The COOLEST place in Hong Kong is AFTER SCHOOL.
After School is a coffee shop, BUT WAIT - it's actually a design studio owned by this neat guy.
Poon Pokit, photographer/designer/coffeeman. I'm not exagerrating when I say the iced coffee he made was the best I've ever had.
Yeeeessssss.

Some more images to round out the wackiness of the place.

1960's school desks.

Nailed to the windowsill...
Doors everywhere.

Dude took a picture of me, taking pictures of him, whoa.

I just met Jackie Chan's son.

Yes I did. I went to Dragon I, the club which everything seems to revolve around here in HK, and Danny, who I met through an IntheMO connection, who is basically HK's goodwill ambassador, introduced us. Crazy.

Yay Miyazaki

They've turned music from Miyazaki's films into muzak over here. Insane I know. The first thing I heard was in the Mado Lounge in Tokyo, a high rise, fine dining-type place with an amazing view. A lounge, synth-heavy piano tune came on and I looked over at Hiro, our interpreter, and said, "Is that... Naussicaa?" Damned if he knew, but it was.

Now in Hong Kong, the main theme from My Neighbor Totoro is being played in cute little bells at the breakfast buffet.

This stuff actually works way better and taking Beatles and Billy Joel and turning them into Kenny G songs.

Typhoon!

The rain today is brutal, in an umbrella-destroying kind of way. I'm told this happens for days at a time. It's wet.

Getting Caught Up

Well I figured if I didn't start a blog for this, I'd probably never get around to making one. Right now I'm smack dab in the middle of my Grand Pan-Asian Tour, shooting, hip nightclubs, fancy restaurants and cool people for inthemo.com.

I'll get you all caught up over the next couple of posts, filling in the trip so far. Right now, suffice it to say, things is crazy. My producing partner, Maria Speranza, the organized one, has just left for the States because of a family emergency, which leaves me to finish shooting Hong Kong by myself.

Also, I'm going to backdate the entries so they appear as if posted on the day they happened. Hope this doesn't confuse anyone.

A preview of things to come:
Japan and giant green sheep
Tokyo AM/PMs
The best restaurants in Tokyo
Egoga wakadimasen!
How there are more airconditioners in Hong Kong than can possibly be a good thing.

Ah Hong Kong. This city is damn hot, and, justifiably I suppose, is the air conditioning capital of the world.

Check it out. Every building is like this.
EVERY building.

Okay, not EVERY building.

So yeah, hot. That said, it's a nice heat, even with the humidity, I gradually settled into it. It was like being in a sauna the whole time. Why is that good? I don't know. Maybe because I was in Hong Kong.

On the Night of the 16th, we found a place of such gloriousness that it needed it's own post.

Nihonbashi Yukari.

Sushi bar on the first floor.

Tatami rooms in the basement.

The chef, Kimio Nonaga, an Iron Chef, decorated the place with objects from his own past.
A piece of pottery he made in grade school.

And a painting by his father.

Tokyo Resautrant Day

July 16th. We started out with the typical high-end , proporting-to0have-some-famous-chef's-food place. L'atlier de Joel Robochon. This place was just stunning. I'll let the pictures do the talking.
The Facade.

The interior.

They also had a substantial pastry section.

Yummy.

Afterwards, we scaled the very same building. On the top floor...

The Mado Lounge, with it's amazing view.


The VIP room.
Continued in next post...

On Sunday, June 15th, we went to Harajuku, home to dessert crepes and Gothic Lolitas, and Yoyogi Park, Tokyo's Central Park. On Sundays, bands of many types just show up to play. I have some pictures that will illustrate much better than I ever could.The Plaza on the South side, just north of Harajuku.

I'll get my free hug, dammit, even if Miyuki here hates me for it.

Smile, little girl... please?

Summer lovin', happened so fa-ast.

Later died in a hair-styling related accident.

Yay J-Pop!

Harajuku

Afterwards, we went to Harajuku, where the kids hang out to buy clothes and dessert crepes.
We also met this guy.

The Night of 1,000 Clubs

I didn't go to sleep the night of Saturday, June 14th.

The New Lex Edo is the one club I'd recommend to anyone, regardless of the type of nightlife they prefer. Kind of divey, but fun and unpretentious, the real draw of the place is Bill Hersey, who has run the place for more than twenty years. Dude is cool. We chatted about how awesome his friend Javier Bardem was in "No Country for Old Men." We both synced with the "Night of the Hunter" parallel. Then he introduced us around and got us some food. Cool place.


Not much of an image, I know.

It is important to note that the next club, Velours, we had to return to twice more to finish filming. Velours is one of the most opulently decorated places you will ever see. The first thing you see is a wall of broken mirrors, hanging in a green marble hallway.

Down the hallway to the left is a line of tables and the dance floor, complete with a respectable stage and hip-looking dj booth, enclosed in a sound-proofed room. To the right is the bar, and past that (a part I did not see until me third visit the following week) is the VIP room, with lush couches, hanging art and much taxidermy. Of particular note were the stuffed peacocks in glass cases.

The DJ booth of the FUTURE.

Opulence.

Badass chandelier.

THEN. Then we went to Womb, a club that such and such a club magazine named the second best club in the world. They had a pretty crazy party going on, and we managed to get an English interview, which was nice. Then we shot the space, lord THE SPACE. Womb has it's dance floor, and three lounges on three different floors around it. The top one having it's own party. Yeesh. They barely let me use the light too. It was harrowing, but I think it will make a good feature.

Then we went back to Velours to shoot crowd b-roll.

2AM. We went to the last club, Warehouse, which had a bumping party going on. Lights, crowd, it was very exciting. The light was good enough that I thought I'd be able to get all my club b-roll done here. So I shot for a very long time. The sun was up before we left.

There is no respite in the MO

Saturday the 14th, sweet lord. Tradition has it that one gets Saturday off. Oh no. Not this one.

The day started late, as usual, and we shot an awesome Italian restaurant called "Sin." It was named so for the owners assertions that, hey, we all like sin. Tasty.

Mmmmmm. Sin-ful. Haha.

That evening was the Black Rose, a freaky S&M bar. You heard that right. They even have "wardrobe" onsite, in case you want to dress appropriately. It was not the easiest shoot, tiny space, and we were not allowed to shoot any customers. Yeesh. They performed a strange dance show set to "Welcome to the Jungle," which involved the female bartenders whipping their hair around and whipping each other. And lights. It was actually quite impressive.

I hear Quentin Tarantino likes to hang out there. Make of that what you will.

Then came the night of one thousand clubs...

No, seriously, it's cold in there.

OMG I can't believe I forgot to mention this. At 9pm on the 13th (see last post) we shot Icebar Tokyo. It's a bar. Made entirely out of ice flown in from Sweden (why?). You have to see it to believe.

Hiro, our super translator.



It was cold inside, oh yes.

Tokyo is Bigger than your city.

Alright so... Let's get on with this.

The third day of shooting, June 13th, began late with a restaurant in Roppongi named SIDEDOOR. It was essentially a steakhouse, with a lovely bar and comfortable dining room. It was... nice, but didn't leave a big impression. I'm sure the food is wonderful (we didn't try any).

We stayed around Roppongi (also known as Gaijin town) and shot a neighborhood feature on it, then drank coffee, and then shot 911 Black, a club.

We actually came back to 911 later that evening to get crowd b-roll and damn, if that place wasn't bumping. I am not the clubbing type, but I had a pretty good time. After shooting (complete with bodyguard to fend off angry peeps) they dropped us in the VIP room, gave us free booze, and... uh, pulled women from the crowd to hang out with us. I guess this is common practice, or an image thing. Anyhow, I had to inform the ladies that I was happily married, which killed the conversation. That and I don't speak Japanese.

Yeah.The floor!

Us and the manager.

Day 2 in Tokyo

Well, I'm home now, dead tired and watching Rashomon. So let's continue where we left off.

Day 2, Thursday, June 12

Pierre Garnier - The first restaurant we shot was a seedling of yet another prolific world class chef. It was... nice. Not really my bag of tea, but a fine restaurant, and still inthemo as far being very high-end goes.

An inthemo first happened here. At the end of the shoot, we were asked to pay for the food they had made for the video shoot. Usually, in the states and elsewhere, restaurants are more than happy to show off their eye-pleasing dishes. Even more, they often let us eat them after shooting.

The Offer of eating was extended here, which was nice, and then payment brought up halfway through. Maria (our producer) really did not know what to say.

Don't know what it is. Tasty though.

Birdland-


Later that afternoon we went off in search of our only other scheduled shoot, Birdland. Our guide/interpreter, Mitch, had a bitch of a time finding the place, which was because it was under a building in a tunnel leading to a train station (I think).


It was a yakitori joint (barbequed chicken on a stick), but the real attraction was the chef, Mr. Wada, who was a badass. We talked at length during his interview about Japanese cooking, and why they don't like the Michelin Star system. It's difficult for me to communicate, but from what he said, the idea of naming what was definitively "the best" was contrary to Japanese thinking, because it was prideful to even think you could know the best, given all that is out there. Anyhow, I thought that was cool.

Mr. Wada.

Day 1

So on Wednesday the 11th we went out to shoot our first restaurant. Disappointingly, it was a European place named Sant Pao. I went to Tokyo to shoot European restaurants?

Yes.

It was nice enough, the staff was pleasant, the chef was a really cool guy, and the food, though we didn't try any, looked great. It was a two michelin star establishment I believe.

Our booking was rather light so afterwards our interpreter, Mitch, took us walking through Ginza, a kind of upscale shopping district that resembled uptown Manhattan to my eyes. In there, we found a real "inthemo" place.

Mitch happened to know of a fabric company with a tiny showroom on the second floor of a nondescript building. Tatsumura, as it was called, was a purveyor of high quality silks and prints etc. They were also te supplier to the imperial household. That was interesting enough that we thought it would make a cool feature. It was our first completely non-english shoot and there was definitely something funky going on with the sound I was recording, but I think it'll make a fine feature in the end.

Next on our schedule was Ginza Toyoda. Now this was what I was hoping for in a Japanese restaurant. It was small, basically a restaurant in a box, three tables, and a small sushi bar. Mr. Toyoda, the very charming owner, showed us around (that lasted 3 seconds) and we got to watch them make some dishes, sushi like I have never tasted.

What a Japanese restaurant should look like.

O-EE-SHEE (sp).

Tangent: I was told b many people before coming here, that sushi in Japan was actually significantly different than in the States. It would be saltier, and taste "fishier." Well, despite the obvious quality of Mr. Toyoda's sushi, I couldn't really discern a base-level difference between Japanese and American Sushi.

Onward: After shooting the interview (all Japanese again), we sat around a table drinking tea, eating the demonstration food and chatting with Mr. Toyoda, who went into all kinds of detail about various aspects of Japanese cuisine (many of which escape me now, I wish I had written it down earlier). I wanted to cityhost him, but there were questions, in our group, as to the value of a non-english speaking cityhost, and Mr. Toyoda wasn't really interested anyway.

Afterwards, we split with Maria, and Mitch and I went to Yakitori alley to make a neighborhood featurette. Yould not believe this place. It is esentially a chain mall of small barbeque shops building under Tokyo's elevated train tracks. It's dark, smoky, full of neon lights and salary men stopping by for beer and barbequed chicken parts after work. It looked like Blade Runner down there.

Actually, a lot of Tokyo would end up looking like Blade Runner to me, but you should see this footage.

We rounded out a day by shooting a DJ cityhost at his radio station and turned in. I was dead. I would later get used to the equipment, but the first day of carrying it left my feet in a bad state.