For those who care

April 2nd 2017

Prelude — China, once again

About four in the morning German time at the airport of Beijing. An elderly Chinese man who's been cleaning the floor here is probably seeing all the clichés about 'weird Europeans' confirmed as my sister is dumping the contents of her bag on the floor ('throwing' might be more accurate) while my father is shouting instructions that mostly fall on deaf ears — the passport is missing. Since emptying the bag does not produce the desired effect, the hot-tempered half of the family remains on the brink of collapse for a while before the passport finally shows up safely in a side pocket.
I walk past the old man, smile and try to wordlessly communicate "We aren't all like that" — he laughs back.

Going Somewhere 2k17 — Tokyo Edition

How did you survive the last few months without a blog to read? Hardly, I imagine. But here we are again: Going Somewhere Two-Kay Seventeen, live from Tokyo.
This time with less text, more pictures, different characters and a much more exclusive, cooler audience ;)
Akihabara

The epicentre of Japanese weirdness.
Who wants to see their clichés about Japanese people confirmed no doubt comes here — between huge stores selling manga and collectibles of all kinds (cards, figurines, dolls, ...) you will also find 'Maid Cafes', in which you'll be served and entertained by submissive maids in schoolgirl / manga style costumes, as well as various J-Pop groups.
Oh, and of course there's also some of those... what are they called again? Right, 'Porn Mangos' (quote my dad).