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It was cool! 73 F! And cloudy! So I wore my black shirt with polka dot collar, the one you had me get for nice occasions, Shiver, that I've never had occasion to wear. I took the JR Yamamote, which circles central Tokyo, to Yoyogi, The JR is elevated, so you get more of a view than the subway gives, though I didn't notice anything very special. Oh, but before all that I had breakfast at Sushizanmai again, our standard platter, plus broiled o-toro, plus Joh-anago, high quality sea eel. Which seemed the same as their normal eel, only 3x as much of it. Their normal eel is different than the eel we usually get in the US: longer, and with a much lower sauce to eel ratio.
I'd been told to get off at Yoyogi for cosplayers/fashion, but I think Ai was off by a station. I went walking through Yoyogi park, which has the Meiji shrine, though I don't remember if I actually went to that; I veered left to stay near the street. It's an impressive park though, where elves would live: bigass trees with little undergrowth. Asian elves, because there's something about the trees... y'all would appreciate this more if I uploaded photos, wouldn't you? Tough. In the cloudiness and rain there was an E.T. aspect to the whole experience as well.
Then I reached Harujuku where the cosplayers/teen fashion victims actually were. I didn't see anime con style cosplayers; rather, there were a whole bunch of groups, with their own uniforms, doing various song and dance numbers. Some Chinese movies are my best prior reference. It was pretty near, and I took some video of unknown quality. Some of them were using traditional Asian music... some used rap.
There were various fashionistas around as well, though I've got nothing specifically to say about them. And it was raining while all this happened. I should try again next Sunday... Performance stopped at 4pm, I looked around a bit, then walked around the south edge of the park, where there were a lot of street performers, small bands of teens or youth playing their stuff. Most were male, and dressed up -- one punk, one in suits. No pictures at all, sorry. One tiny group of a male keyboard, female drummer, and female singer, apparently competing on talent not fashion, as they wore normal clothes. Or maybe just performing for their friends, because the singer handed something to me but not the other spectators, so I figure they either got one earlier or were friends.
And those two girls tittered behind her back at Streetwalker Girl after she walked by. There have been ranges of shoes and skirts and colors, but she was all in hot pink, with a tight dress falling off her shoulders, and stopping just barely below her butt. I was going that way anyway, so got to follow her a bit, so saw her meet up with some guy in a big performance/fair area. Boyfriend or daytime client, I have no idea. Now, I'd love to have someone wear that for me, so I can't really make fun of her and feel honest, but still, I had reactions of "..." and "!!!"
Then went walking through Shibuya, looking around at people, popping into one clothing store. That looked expensive, lots of things and shoes or boots going for $300+, and a baby-doll T-shirt made out thin material, almost nothing, with some environmental message and a $50 tag. (5000 yen of course, I'm converting for my readers.)
Then shelter from rain and my hurting feet, in a Starbucks, where I did some kanji practice. I still suck, but I'm starting to recognize some things, or their pronunciations. Especially on the trains, I'll see how the sound comes from those characters. Of course readings vary, so I can't reliably predict which sounds will go with the characters -- maybe no one can, without learning the specific name? -- I also got to see the high trust society at work, with an employee leaving some customer's cell phone at the seat by me in order to reserve the seat for the customer.
For food, MOS Burger across the street, as mentioned by mlc23. The onion in some sort of sauce was different but really, nothing special -- fast food burger.
More walking, then a trip to Roppongi, the nightlife area. Nothing too special to report from walking around; some allegedly Nigerian guys pimping their strip clubs. I found a dim sum place in Roppongi Hills, some huge complex; at $10 for two shrimp dumplings, it seemed a rather expensive dim sum place.
Went by a bookstore. There was a really thick magazine that seemed devoted to where to get sexual services, as best I could tell. I saw a young children's book, the one with the caterpillar, only in Japanese. Found the light novels section, saw Suzumiya, didn't buy, found Juuni Kokki, did buy the first Youko volumes, saw Maria-sama, didn't buy. Lots of manga, all sealed in plastic. Dennou Coil seems popular, also Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye, despair-teacher).
I tried a club, and found that rum-and-tonic and Asti champagne may be added to my short list of drinks I not just tolerate but like. Certain of my friends who've been amused by my facial contortions when I try their drinks will appreciate the rarity of that.
The Yamamote took half an hour to get around to Yoyogi; I suspect the subway would have been faster. I went home after 1am though, so no subway -- even Tokyo doesn't beat NYC in that respect, where they use the ubiquitous express/local track duplication to run local service all night while being able to do maintenance on one track or another. Taxi took $30 and some negotiation of the language barrier. The automated GPS screen helped assure me that he wasn't taking any unwonted detours.
Bonus tangent: steampunk culture, starting out with adoption by some African-Americans.
I'd been told to get off at Yoyogi for cosplayers/fashion, but I think Ai was off by a station. I went walking through Yoyogi park, which has the Meiji shrine, though I don't remember if I actually went to that; I veered left to stay near the street. It's an impressive park though, where elves would live: bigass trees with little undergrowth. Asian elves, because there's something about the trees... y'all would appreciate this more if I uploaded photos, wouldn't you? Tough. In the cloudiness and rain there was an E.T. aspect to the whole experience as well.
Then I reached Harujuku where the cosplayers/teen fashion victims actually were. I didn't see anime con style cosplayers; rather, there were a whole bunch of groups, with their own uniforms, doing various song and dance numbers. Some Chinese movies are my best prior reference. It was pretty near, and I took some video of unknown quality. Some of them were using traditional Asian music... some used rap.
There were various fashionistas around as well, though I've got nothing specifically to say about them. And it was raining while all this happened. I should try again next Sunday... Performance stopped at 4pm, I looked around a bit, then walked around the south edge of the park, where there were a lot of street performers, small bands of teens or youth playing their stuff. Most were male, and dressed up -- one punk, one in suits. No pictures at all, sorry. One tiny group of a male keyboard, female drummer, and female singer, apparently competing on talent not fashion, as they wore normal clothes. Or maybe just performing for their friends, because the singer handed something to me but not the other spectators, so I figure they either got one earlier or were friends.
And those two girls tittered behind her back at Streetwalker Girl after she walked by. There have been ranges of shoes and skirts and colors, but she was all in hot pink, with a tight dress falling off her shoulders, and stopping just barely below her butt. I was going that way anyway, so got to follow her a bit, so saw her meet up with some guy in a big performance/fair area. Boyfriend or daytime client, I have no idea. Now, I'd love to have someone wear that for me, so I can't really make fun of her and feel honest, but still, I had reactions of "..." and "!!!"
Then went walking through Shibuya, looking around at people, popping into one clothing store. That looked expensive, lots of things and shoes or boots going for $300+, and a baby-doll T-shirt made out thin material, almost nothing, with some environmental message and a $50 tag. (5000 yen of course, I'm converting for my readers.)
Then shelter from rain and my hurting feet, in a Starbucks, where I did some kanji practice. I still suck, but I'm starting to recognize some things, or their pronunciations. Especially on the trains, I'll see how the sound comes from those characters. Of course readings vary, so I can't reliably predict which sounds will go with the characters -- maybe no one can, without learning the specific name? -- I also got to see the high trust society at work, with an employee leaving some customer's cell phone at the seat by me in order to reserve the seat for the customer.
For food, MOS Burger across the street, as mentioned by mlc23. The onion in some sort of sauce was different but really, nothing special -- fast food burger.
More walking, then a trip to Roppongi, the nightlife area. Nothing too special to report from walking around; some allegedly Nigerian guys pimping their strip clubs. I found a dim sum place in Roppongi Hills, some huge complex; at $10 for two shrimp dumplings, it seemed a rather expensive dim sum place.
Went by a bookstore. There was a really thick magazine that seemed devoted to where to get sexual services, as best I could tell. I saw a young children's book, the one with the caterpillar, only in Japanese. Found the light novels section, saw Suzumiya, didn't buy, found Juuni Kokki, did buy the first Youko volumes, saw Maria-sama, didn't buy. Lots of manga, all sealed in plastic. Dennou Coil seems popular, also Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye, despair-teacher).
I tried a club, and found that rum-and-tonic and Asti champagne may be added to my short list of drinks I not just tolerate but like. Certain of my friends who've been amused by my facial contortions when I try their drinks will appreciate the rarity of that.
The Yamamote took half an hour to get around to Yoyogi; I suspect the subway would have been faster. I went home after 1am though, so no subway -- even Tokyo doesn't beat NYC in that respect, where they use the ubiquitous express/local track duplication to run local service all night while being able to do maintenance on one track or another. Taxi took $30 and some negotiation of the language barrier. The automated GPS screen helped assure me that he wasn't taking any unwonted detours.
Bonus tangent: steampunk culture, starting out with adoption by some African-Americans.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-19 14:56 (UTC)From:(Sunday might have been affected by Comiket.)