Hally

Seen at Shibuya Seco lounge 28 August
Going to a Hally gig is like spending time in the bedroom of a nerdy kid at school. He gets out his synthesiser and you are given a terrifying look into the heart of his twisted obsession. Looking puny yet majestic in a tight red shiny jacket and sunglasses: Hally throws samples of 80s tracks like 'Tainted Love' into what sounds like an industrial cement mixer. Notes that doodle all over the place like the line in an etch-a-sketch picture and dirty computer game bleeps lend a jumbled Weird Science genius to this 8-bit audio assault.

Monkey on the loose in Tokyo

Yesterday morning commuters in Shibuya station were amazed to see a monkey perched atop a departure board. Many people gathered to take a snap of the little tyke before the police turned up with nets. They were unsuccessful in their attempts to snare it and the monkey ran off in the direction of Yoyogi. To date the monkey is still at large! BTW it is extremely unusual to see monkeys in town but this may be a result of a recent rise in the native monkey population.

Liquid metal magnetic sculpture

Sachiko Kodama is a physicist turned artist who makes these incredible moving sculptures. Check out the video that I just found on Japan Probe.

Win a free trip to Japan

Marui is offering a prize of a trip for two to Japan to foreigners who have an interest in the country. To win you just need to design an outfit with a Japanese twist and send three pics of it in. Click here for more details.

Food

I really want to learn to cook Japanese food as my repertoire of recipes is sadly lacking and just found this great blog called Just Hungry written by a Japanese woman living abroad. But it looks perfect for this English woman living in Japan. Going food shopping tomorrow. Yum!