Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

Psymeg & Chooch

Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan is the blog of Simon Gibson, a New Zealander living in Tokyo, Japan. Focused on New Zealand, Japan, web design and other shiny things.

Cute as Pie: Salivating Sushi

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Some great photos of maki-sushi from toxel.com. Yummy!

Rolling sushi so that the ingredients make a pretty picture is quite an art form. You can see more pictures of scrummy sushi here.

Freakdance Records T-Shirts

Well spring is sprung, the rat is out of the hat, and no amount of platitudes could really fail to convince you that you need:

a freakdance records t-shirt

freakdance-records t-shirt

They only have a 100 of these, so get in quick.

Here is what they have to say about all this it glows in the dark goodness:

NEW FREAKDANCE RECORDS SKULL CRACKER T-SHIRTS ARE HERE!

The good-ole Freakdance skull logo has been revamped, reborn and brutally sodomized by label hustler Jere Häkkinen (Luomuhappo) - he has handpainted & re-sketched our company logo by hand and transformed it into a brand new level of fartistical approach!

These brand new Freakdance Records (TM)(C)(R) skull-cracker t-shirts are now internationally available from our webshop in colours such as … well, as Glenn Danzig would put it: “Black, black, The black is back, I am the blackest of the black of time!” - But don’t you worry, in the midst of all this blackness, the beautiful white print on these babies does not only glow in UV light alone, but THESE SHIRTS GLOW IN THE DARK AS WELL! Now how cool is that, you can spook out your acidhead friends in dark rave caves?? HUH ??

Take a look at the shirt here: http://www.freakdancerecords.net/images/fdpaita2_large.jpg

The price is 15 euros a piece and the total print has been limited to 100 copies, so get yours before they disappear from the face of the earth. The shirts are only available for men for the time being, but we will get some models for the ladies very soon! :) Be patient, o’ titted ones! <3

For our Finnish customers / HUOMIO SUOMALAASET PEOPLE!!!: order two CD’s, get the shirt for 10 euros. It doesn’t get any cheaper than that, and if any of you hippie bums still have the nerve to complain about the prices, we’ll hit you in the face with a hammer. Offer valid inside Finland only, sorry.

Our international web shop is at http://www.freakdancerecords.net -> mailorder

If you don’t want one, you can always order one for me for my birthday. It is only 6 months away you know!

Hiroshige’s Kage’e - Shadow Prints

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Above is a print by the Edo period printmaker Hiroshige depicting a hawk. It is in the style of Kage’e or shadow print, something I hadn’t seen before I stumbled on the post Kage-e: Shadow pictures over at the Pink Tentacle blog. You can see more shadow prints at that page.

I love the way it is so delicately clever.

Barcodes the Japanese Way

We have all seen barcode tattoos, and have probably heard about evil satanic barcode conspiracies (they mean 666 and represent the end of the world of course!) but Japanese company Design Barcode KK (デザインバーコード株式会社) has taken things a step further by taking the barcode and reworking it into the package design as a whole.

I found these while looking at Dark Roasted Blend - a collection of weird and wonderful things. They have some very fascinating photos:)

Tokyo’s Penguin House

A nice video from National Geographic showcasing Tokyo architect Yasuhiroi Yamashita’s Penguin House. It is quite fascinating to watch this and to see how he utilises the height of rooms to give a greater feeling of spaciousness to the houses he works on.

What interests me with Japanese architecture is how they manipulate space and light to create some beautiful living environments. Little in the way of traditional building techniques and materials are evident - for me, I would rather go all the way - completely traditional, or on the other hand something like the penguin house.

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