This blog post will be the final post with my Leica M Monochrom. This camera has served me well for the past five years. It has traveled the world with me. But, I'm enjoying shooting the Leica M10 and ready to move on. I'll start posting some M10 images soon. More on why I'm changing in my last post.

My friend Steve was in town from Taipei. Whenever he is in town, we always try to meet up. This time was no different. We started off in Daikanyama. A fun place to walk around.

Today's Configuration: Leica M Monochrom with a Summicron 28mm f/2.0

I often wonder about the viability of some businesses in Japan. Some of the stores I see I struggle to understand how they can do a profitable business. This store is another example. It's a pen and pad store right outside of Daikanyama Station. They sell thin paper notebooks, post-it notes, and ballpoint pens. I would think their average sale would be around $10 or so.

Daikanyama is one of the expensive areas in Tokyo. How do they afford the rent and to pay for the staff given they are probably making $5 per sale? Their rent has to be $7,500 a month in that neighborhood which means they need 1,500 sales just to cover rent. Maybe it's possible but seems unlikely.

I think many of these are hobby businesses and the people running them are not concerned if they are making or losing money with it.

After a short time, we headed from Daikanyama to Shibuya to drop some things off at Steve's hotel.

Steve's hotel room had this great view overlooking Shibuya.

Then we headed to Shimbashi. I haven't shot in Shimbashi in a long time, so I was excited to get to explore Shimbashi a little bit.

Meet Steve...

The perfect Tokyo cruiser...

The name of this bar is amusing. The Japanese name is 立ち飲み, pronounced tachinomi, or stand and drink. The owner has translated the name into English as Touch know me. It is easy to understand how this happened but the English name might have a different meaning they think they intending.

Meet Shaun and Jeff. Shaun is working on an interesting project photographing dancers.

Donald Trump recently visited Tokyo. I had a bird's eye view of this departure from my desk. It was pretty interesting to see. The central highway that goes through Tokyo was closed down. This precession was 23 black SUVs, Sedans and the two President Limos. Circling above were 5 Black Hawk helicopters. I could also see a few military plans flying a bit higher up. It was all quite a production.

Shake Shack opened up in Roppongi. I don't mind admitting I visited twice in the first week. It's really good. I do like the strategically placed McDonald's sign telling you if you do a u-turn there is a McDonald's 350 meters back. It's worth a visit.

Thanks for stopping by today...

Be well

Dave