kenleewrites in 日本

I was invited by Danny to join in on a Japan Blogger Dinner. I didn’t know what to expect before I went, but it was great and I did have a good time. There were many bloggers, youtubers, web designers, people from google, mozilla etc. The who’s who of the net was in the same room with me! ^^. Most were gaijins, but there were also a number of Japanese bloggers too!

I bumped into Neil and Glen (hope I got the spelling right) on the train going there. Be sure to go check out their sites!

Photos from the party. Kinda regretted only bringing the compact. Note to self: bring SLR for important events. Anyway, photos didn’t turn out too great, but here’s some of them.

There were loads of food and beer; there was even a second round of pizza. We had a round table going and everyone did a jikosyoukai 自己紹介. A self introduction.

This is Yongfook. He’s a web producer and I know him because he did the new look for JapanToday. That’s one of the places I go to grab my daily slice of news. I think he has a good brew going with Sweetcron… He loves to cook too btw.

Here’s Gen Kanai. I’ve heard of him or read about him before somewhere. Name rings a bell, but I don’t really remember. I’m glad I had a chance to meet him though. Nice guy.

Here’s Shingo trying to jam on the iPhone guitar. You should check out his page, he does live gigs online from his room. He’s been on a world tour too! the Merce Death World Tour From My Room! Pretty neat stuff. If you’re into music, jam with him in his “World Jam Band”.

There was another Japanese guy I spoke to who also is a fan of drifting! He keeps a Drift Diary. He also happens to write apps for the mac and iPhone. Most of the people in the room were mac users…. and there were quite a number of iPhones too! I’ve never been in a room filled with so many iPhone-carrying folk. ^^. I also met Peter from J-list.

We had loads of beer. I only had like… 2-3 cans.

Here’s our wonderful host Danny with Kagami in his pocket having a lotus. Apparently the Good Smile guys tell me that he’s always with a figure in his pocket. ^^

This was probably the last photo I took, that’s Vicente (left), Andy and me. Yeah, I was there in a Japan Adidas (by the way, did you know All Day I Dream About Sex ^^) jersey; it had a Japanese flag on the front and JAPAN spelt out in big capital letters on the back. I get mistaken for a Japanese sports representation at times. ^^

There were many other bloggers, youtubers etc, but I didn’t get everyone’s URL and contact. I hope Danny’s sending out the list so that I can update with some links.

This gathering has been quite an eye opener for me. I felt really humbled looking at what others have done, are doing and will be doing.

Souvenirs from the dinner. Google brought some keitai straps… unfortunately I don’t need any since there’s no place to hang it on my iPhone (apparently that’s why iPhones aren’t selling well in Japan). Oh! Just remembered. If you would like to learn Japanese for free, check out iKnow!. They have a pretty good system which tracks your progress and what not. They were giving away pens…

This is probably by far the best souvenir though. And it would make a great corporate gift I think… well, I guess it also depends on who you are giving it to. ^^. Will write more about it later after I’ve opened them up. My very first SAFS (Suddenly Acquired FigureS)! woo hoo!

To sum it all up, me had fun! I feel really motivated to go out and do something! Anything! When’s the next dinner gonna be?

Related posts... maybe:

1. Tokyo Live Bloggers 2009 Dinner
2. Tokyo CGM Night
3. Graduations in Japan
4. Google Chrome Japan
5. Tokyo CGM 4: Faces

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