Archive for May, 2010

he great thing about Tokyo is that one can switch pace dra­mat­i­cally in the blink of an eye, or rather, a quick change of JR or Metro sta­tions. A few stops away from the peace and seren­ity of Yanaka — the ceme­ter­ies and the tem­ples and the shrines — and we are smack in the mid­dle of Tokyo’s favourite and most upscale shop­ping districts.

Wel­come to Ginza.

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1. Where Angels Love to Tread (or Shop, Rather) • Ch?? Dori, Ginza
It’s the week­end in Ginza, when the cen­tral Ch?? Dori is closed to traf­fic and the pedes­tri­ans are free to roam the streets.

And roam is exactly what we do, albeit as happy vis­i­tors with­out a spe­cific plan in mind as other week­enders either pad deter­minedly to their favourite upmar­ket brand store or sit down at small tables and chairs in the mid­dle of the roads and sip on very expen­sive coffee.

There is always a film crew around; always a TV show or a doc­u­men­tary or a movie to be shot. We have watched some Japan­ese tele­vi­sion at night, after a long day of trekking all over Tokyo, and are amused by a uni­ver­sal yet unique humour in a lan­guage we did not understand.

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Some of their vari­ety shows are highly edu­ca­tional as celebri­ties stay on for hours at end guess­ing what the reporters and some guest stars are up to, either on a fish­ing boat in the mid­dle of the Pacific Ocean, reel­ing in all sorts of weird and inde­scrib­able sea crea­tures or find­ing new ways to cook, serve and eat these sealife.

If we are not care­ful, we might end up in one of these Japan­ese TV doc­u­men­taries our­selves: “Guess where do these for­eign­ers come from?”

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2. The Aber­crom­bie & Fitch Guy • 6–9-10 Ginza, Ch??-ku, Tokyo
Ginza is one of the most lux­u­ri­ous shop­ping dis­tricts in the world. All the big-name fash­ion brands are here: Louis Vuit­ton. Prada. Gucci. Fer­rag­amo. Tiffany & Co. Chanel. Dior. Yet the one name that rises above the rest is an Amer­i­can casu­al­wear retailer: Aber­crom­bie & Fitch.

Why Aber­crom­bie & Fitch, you might won­der? After all, every other female Toky­oite that passes by is car­ry­ing one edi­tion of an LV bag or another — one would not mis­taken in assum­ing that the French brand has sur­passed its com­peti­tors in brand­name recog­ni­tion. Ah, but Louis Vuit­ton does not have the tallest build­ing in Ginza.

Aber­crom­bie & Fitch does.

Thir­teen storeys high, with the first eleven floors as retail space and the top two floors for the office and staff quar­ters. Build­ing space is always a pre­mium in Tokyo, but more so in Ginza, for which “over­crowded” is the norm. This flag­ship store is the first and only Aber­crom­bie & Fitch out­let in Asia and a lot of brouhaha went along with its open­ing in Ginza last Decem­ber, Satomi tells us.

The lines of eager shop­pers that went on for­ever, for blocks and blocks. The loud elec­tron­ica music in the store that is akin to a con­struc­tion site in terms of deci­bels. The ever-present spritz­ing of their house brand cologne all over the premises by the staff. And of course, the staff themselves.

Oh, let me tell you about the Aber­crom­bie & Fitch guys.

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Appar­ently, the A&F sales staff are mostly made up of vir­ile, young men in college-casualwear, denim and sneak­ers and always a bril­liant white smile. When the store first opened its doors, the ladies (and some happy gen­tle­men) flocked to have their pic­tures taken with these Aber­crom­bie & Fitch guys, in all their shirt­less splendour.

Satomi asks me, politely as usual (so charm­ing and dis­arm­ing — I wish every­one was as seri­ous about deco­rum as the Japan­ese), if I’d mind tak­ing a pho­to­graph of her and one of the A&F guys. No prob­lem, espe­cially since the A&F door­man already struck a pose the moment he saw me aim­ing my cam­era in his direc­tion. These boys are not shy of get­ting too much atten­tion, evidently.

Devil notices the look on my face and reminds me that they aren’t con­sid­ered camwhores if it’s their job to look good. That’s true. Why can’t I get a job like this? For that mat­ter, why can’t I be good-looking enough to get a job like this?

Darn.

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3. They Scream for Apples • Sayegusa Honkan, Ginza, Ch??-ku, Tokyo
They scream for apples
These men stuck to the giant clock
Or maybe just the lat­est iPad
One can’t really be sure
With scream­ing men stuck to giant clocks.

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4. Leo • 4–5-11 Ginza, Ch??, Tokyo
Iconic.

That’s the only word to describe this Ginza land­mark with its curved gran­ite façade and its Neo-Renaissance style archi­tec­ture. This used to be the Hat­tori Clock Tower, Satomi tells us, before the Great Kanto Earth­quake of 1923. Now it’s the Ginza Wako store, sell­ing watches and jewellery.

This is where we wait to cross the street.

Across from us, is a huge adver­tise­ment screen and Leonardo DiCaprio’s famous vis­age comes on after a series of ani­mated sweet pota­toes (don’t ask). I find amus­ing how many big-name Hol­ly­wood stars get drawn to Japan to film a quickie com­mer­cial ad that will never be seen in their home coun­try (aside from the usual YouTube cult following).

Think the Guber­na­tor. Think Brad Pitt. Even Tommy Lee Jones have his Boss Cof­fee, which is a big hit in Japan. This is a phe­nom­e­non well cap­tured by Bill Murray’s sad-faced comedic movie star in “Lost for Trans­la­tion”, yet it’s thrilling to be here, in Tokyo, right now, and dis­cover it’s all real.

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I have this alarm­ing vision of Leo lead­ing a gang of Ginza boys — all-American Aber­crom­bie & Fitch rejects, of course — and invad­ing Tokyo.

Silly me. What non­sense. Amer­ica invad­ing Japan. Look­ing at all the labels and the brands imported from the States around me, it’s obvi­ous they already did.

Ah. But. No one does Amer­ica the way Japan does. Japan has a way of absorb­ing all the influ­ences and trends from the West and transform/fuse them into some­thing quite dis­tinc­tive, some­thing quite their own. And then the West notices this, and starts copy­ing Japan in turn — through the movies, the anime, the music, the fash­ion — and the cycle starts all over again.

The light turns green and we cross the street, en masse.

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5. The Odour of Oden • Otakoh, 8–6-19 Ginza, Ch??, Tokyo
We chat for hours over freshly brewed cof­fee and mille crêpe with sea­sonal straw­ber­ries at Le Café Doutor. Satomi and I have a lot of catch­ing up to do after ten years since we last met. Careers and ambi­tions, hopes and dreams, all the usual stuff. It’s nice to be able to take one’s time to do this, rather than to exchange weekly life sto­ries over instant mes­sages when one haven’t the time to meet close friends.

Why don’t we do this more often, I wonder?

We walk around Ginza some more, pop into some of the depart­men­tal stores — Mat­suya, Mist­sukoshi, Muji — and when we pop out some time later, it’s already night. And rain­ing. Thank good­ness for those won­der­ful trans­par­ent umbrel­las Toky­oites carry around with them every­where. (And with good rea­son, in spring.)

It is cold and dark and wet. We needed some warm­ing up, and fast. But where and with what?

Satomi has the per­fect solu­tion: Oden.

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Tra­di­tion­ally, oden (???) is a Japan­ese win­ter dish, a steamy assort­ment of tofu, processed fish cakes, eggs, seafood, daikon radish and other veg­eta­bles stewed and sim­mered slowly in a light dashi broth. How­ever, it is also eaten all year round, and Satomi tells us you can find cheap and con­ve­nient ver­sions at most con­ve­nience stores like 7-Eleven dur­ing the colder sea­sons, served in those ubiq­ui­tous white poly­sterene containers.

For­tu­nately Satomi has found us a table at a proper sit-down restau­rant and we warm our­selves first with some hot sake. Clear, slightly sweet and it sure does the trick of warm­ing us up after the cold walk in the rain earlier.

Next we have some finely-sliced sashimi dipped in soy sauce flavoured with diced spring onions and radish. So sim­ple, yet oh so good. We fol­low this with some menchi boru, which is minced crab­meat shaped into balls and coated with bread­crumbs that is then deep-fried. We squeeze some lemon juice over them to add some tart­ness and tap it lightly on some of the salt pro­vided. Deli­cious. We could like this every­day, seriously.

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The pièce de résis­tance comes last and is well worth the wait. A hot, steam­ing pot of good­ness. Satomi does the hon­ours of serv­ing the oden into smaller, indi­vid­ual bowls for us. The broth is light-tasting, del­i­cate and not over­whelm­ing. Won­der­ful so the taste of the oden pieces come across nat­u­rally — a clean, nat­ural flavour with no hint of Chinese-style MSG overdosing.

We sup­per and we chat and we chew, we drink sake and we dream of the years that have passed and all the years to come. The odour of oden per­me­ates the room; it’s an odour of nos­tal­gia and mem­o­ries yet to be made.

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By Stephen White 18/05/2010

A crook who modelled himself on a con artist played by Leonardo DiCaprio has been jailed for three years.

In a case of life reflecting art reflecting life, Alexander Da Silva aped the plot of Catch Me If You Can, Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film about real-life conman Frank Abignale Jr, by wearing an airline pilot’s uniform.

And the name “Romeo DiCaprio” was one of his many aliases.

With his boyfriend Jean Campos, Da Silva, 29, used fake documents to swindle £20,000 from landlords, banks and pawnbrokers.

At the time of their arrest Da Silva and Campos had 21 fake bank accounts, and they had used a computer to produce false bank statements and utility bills.

Manchester crown court heard that to get a tenancy in a luxury city-centre apartment, Da Silva used a passport in the name of Romeo DiCaprio and a forged reference from his alter ego, Alexander Olivier Adams.

It stated that he had been offered a job as an immigration officer.

Jake Gyllenhaal celebrated the Los Angeles premiere of his new movie The Prince of Persia at The Roosevelt Hotel’s VIP only lounge Teddy’s on Monday night, and RadarOnline.com spotted the dimpled hunk toasting with friends Orlando Bloom and Leonardo DiCaprio.

PHOTOS: The Stars Walk The Red Carpet At L.A. Premiere Of Prince Of Persia

The handsome leading men were all sipping scotch and in spite of the lounge’s no smoking rule Leo was puffing on a cigar!

PHOTOS: Gemma Arterton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paloma Faith, Kerry Katona And Sir Ben Kingsley At The London Premiere Of The Prince Of Persia

The film’s official after-party was across the street inside the Kodak Theatre but Jake – along with co-star Gemma Arterton and producer Jerry Bruckheimer – quickly left the bash and headed for the uber-exclusive lounge to really let loose.

Seth Green and his new wife Clare Grant also joined in on the fun, and it was clear to RadarOnline.com that the happy couple is still in the “honeymoon phase” since Seth, who never let go of his wife’s hand, couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

PHOTOS: Gemma Arterton’s Bombshell Style

The party was hosted by funny-man David Arquette, who not only hit the dance-floor but also took a turn in the DJ booth spinning for the celeb-heavy crowd. Dancing With The Stars alum Stacey Kiebler was also spotted enjoying herself with a group of friends in a plush VIP booth.

PHOTOS: Mens Fitness Picks Top 25 Fittest Men

Monique found a snapshot of our man with Leonardo Dicaprio.

Join the discussion here

Leonardo DiCaprio (EFE) The relationship between Leonardo DiCaprio and Bar Rafaeli just overcome another of his usual bumps. After two months apart, the American actor has resumed her relationship with former Israeli. To sample a button. Both were caught while performing the typical holiday shopping in Santa Monica, California. Although it went hand in hand or exchanged kisses, the American press has decided on its back.

During her shopping trip, they tried to go unnoticed. DiCaprio, 33, wore a hood over his head and a cap that partially covered her face. Rafaeli, meanwhile, carried a big sunglasses and hair pulled. They were accompanied by a boy with long hair and tracksuit.

The relationship between DiCaprio and the top has been somewhat turbulent. The couple began dating in early 2006. Last October, after overcoming several crisis, put an end to their relationship amicably. The model started dating another. And is that their professional commitments made unviable courtship. In fact, the actor has just returned from Morocco where he just finished filming a movie with Ridley Scott orders.

As the thermometer pushes to summer temperatures, Los Angeles nights are getting equally hot. The Ministry has the latest sightings from the nightlife dens to the lingerie parties.

We begin with Leonardo DiCaprio. Although he’s been out and about again with model gal Bar Refaeli, Wednesday night was all about his boys. The “Inception” actor rolled out to Hollywood’s Las Palmas with longtime friend Lukas Haas and actor Emile Hirsch.

DiCaprio donned his requisite baseball cap while his friends danced. Just outside, at Las Palmas’ newly opened Taco Stand, band members from Maroon 5 snacked and shot the breeze.

Over at the Hollywood Roosevelt, Nylon magazine hosted a bash with YouTube celebrating its May issue. Cover girl Vanessa Hudgens showed with boyfriend Zac Efron, “Twilight” lady Ashley Green popped in, and Brody Jenner and Kristin Cavallari taped a segment for “The Hills.” 

Just down the street at the W Hollywood (What? This is a busy town) actress Malin Akerman celebrated her 32nd birthday at restaurant Delphine. Close pals including Emmanuelle Chriqui toasted with Chopin martinis and snacked on oysters.

On Tuesday evening, above Delphine at Drai’s Hollywood, the beauties of Victoria’s Secret revealed their fifth annual “What’s Sexy? List: Bombshell Edition,” with hosts Miranda Kerr, Doutzen Kroes, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Candice Swanepoel and Chanel Iman. (Say that 10 times fast.)

Celeb admirers of the lingerie beauties included Jamie Foxx, Shaun White, Bryan Greenberg, Ryan Phillippe, Camila Alves and “True Blood” star Sam Trammell.  

In the same hood Monday evening, School Night at Bardot went up with performances from Angela McCluskey and Papercranes. Joaquin Phoenix came out to support his sister Rain (lead singer of Papercranes) with pal Casey Affleck in tow.

Daryl Hannah popped onstage to offer backup vocals with McCluskey.

– Matt Donnelly

Photo: Sam Trammell, we think, just learned Victoria’s Secret. Credit: Victoria’s Secret

Peep the latest sightings from the Ministry of Gossip. We also tweet live from events around town, which you can cop in story form on Facebook.