I took out my 50mm f/1.4 lens for the 1st time in a few months. The great thing about shooting primes is how it changes your perspective and gives you all new images to see and shoot in the same places you have been. I always recommend people shoot prime lenses vs. zoom lenses. The trick to getting used to shooting primes is stick to one lens for a week or two and learn to 'see' at that focal length. I talk more about this in 10 things I learned from daily shooting.

I've been diving into my Japanese studies a lot lately. I want to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Exams this year in July and August. I have never taken them but I figured it's a good way to get me to focus on building a larger Kanji vocabulary and work on more advanced Japanese grammar. I started taking intensive classes at Meguro Language Center. They use a lot of the standard books that other schools use but they have built a ton of resources, practice exams, drills to accompany the materials and really drive it in. If you are in Tokyo I would highly suggest checking them out.

Today's Configuration: Leica M10 with a Summicron 28mm f/2.0, Summilux 35mm f/1.4 and a Summilux 50mm f/1.4.

Meet Gyula.

We haven't caught up for a while and he was passing through Jiyugaoka so we decided to catch up for lunch. After lunch, we stopped at one of my favorites places, Alpha Beta Coffee Company. There is always great music playing and you can have specialty brewed coffee, tea or beer. They also have some good small sandwiches.

Sweet Home Jiyugaoka...

I found these awesome Allen Edmond Wingtip shoes in the back of my closet. I had forgotten I had bought them. I love when I find things like this. I think they are very stylish. If you have never worn Allen Edmonds they are awesome. Once you wear them out you can send them back to the factory and for $75 they will strip and clean the leather and re-sole the shoes giving you an amazingly comfortable pair of shoes. I've done this to probably 10 pairs of shoes with them. All of my dress shoes are Allen Edmond.

This is a proper use of a traffic cone. There is a clear and present danger and the traffic cone alerts you to this. Unfortunately, not every traffic cone use case in Tokyo follows the same logic.

I headed over to Daikanyama to meet a friend for coffee and I decided to grab lunch before we met up. I've been trying out Tokyo's various burger places and this is one I always wanted to try. It was fantastic. You can follow along on my Instagram. If you have never been to Tokyo it might surprise you to learn that Tokyo has so many

Waldo seems a little too easy to find...

Often there are pop-up stores in train stations in Tokyo. I found this DVD and CD one pretty funny. Tokyo still has DVD rental shops all over. Imagine Blockbuster Video still being on every corner and you'll get the idea.

Soon it will be Spring and I look forward to seeing outside here.

Another example of a business that makes no sense in Tokyo. This parking lot had maybe 10 spaces so at 100% occupancy they can make $50 an hour. Rather than have automated parking that locks the cars in until they pay they have an attendant. This guy must make $15 an hour or so consuming 30% of your hourly revenue. If that building wasn't there you could probably fit in 3 or 4 more automated spaces. If you add in all of the costs of running the business paying for the land, taxes, etc it must be very hard to make a viable business.