７月２４日 Day 122: Mori Tower and Golden Gai

Today, I went to Mori Tower in Roppongi with my family friends. We at kaitenzushi at Roppongi Hills which was DELICIOUS and then went to see the view from the observation deck. Sadly, there was a high risk of lightning storms, so we couldn't step out onto the famous helipad to see the most awesome view of the greater Tokyo area.

Instead, we saw this cool exhibit called "Seeing Nature" featuring all these cool pieces that had to do with seeing the environment in new ways. It's been so long since I've been to a museum, so I really enjoyed myself...

Feathers and fluff disguised as snow.

Paper mache gopher holes.

Since it's my last weekend in town, I decided to go to my favorite place in all of Tokyo, Shimokitazawa, one last time. I walked around, visited all my favorite stores indie/hippie/trendy second-hand stores, and left knowing that I will someday return.

Later that night, my dorm friends and I decided to go to Golden Gai, a cool bar district in Shinjuku. The first bar we went to was a drag queen karaoke bar. Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves watching Japanese drag queens in green wigs drunkly slur their way through "My Way" whilst trying not to disturb the contents of their stuffed bras.

Then we went to a significantly smaller bar called Ace's. It sported a 6 seater counter and a wooden shelf full of brightly colored spirits and mixers. The bartender was a stone-faced Japanese guy in a pageboy hat who didn't know how to make a Manhattan. I got a Beefeeter on the rocks instead.

Around 3:30am, I was talking shop with the bartender for a while, getting a slightly self-satisfied "I'm-so-hip-with-my-Beefeeter" kind of buzz when I decided we should start thinking of our next destination. The other two people seated at the bar, a white girl with her Japanese boyfried, overheard this comment and immediately asked us where we wanted to go and if they could come with.

We didn't know, we wanted to see where the night was going to take us, we insisted. The girl was persistent, she kept asking, probing, interrogating (in English, but she spoke to her boyfriend in Japanese). Her boyfriend sat next to her uncomfortably as she kept at it. Finally, I said we were on a tight budget because we were students and didn't want to go anywhere expensive. She insisted on paying for our drinks at Ace's so we could accompany her to her friend's bar afterwards. She tried to pay with credit because she didn't have cash, but since it was a small bar, they only took cash. Her boyfriend paid for us all. I think the total tab was about ¥6500.

Frugal and stupid, we accepted the free drinks and proceeded to follow this crazy girl to her "friend's" bar. She started walking towards Kabuki-cho, the red light/yakuza district and we hesitantly and cautiously followed behind. While she babbled on about how she had graduated from UCLA, how she was the lead singer of some hardcore band, and how many host clubs she had been to in the past year, I tried to practice some Japanese with her boyfriend.

In the 10 minute walk from Golden Gai to Kabuki-cho, I found out that this guy was a 35-year-old film assistant for some anime studio and that this girl had picked him up at the Nerima train station that very day. It was their first date. I grew increasingly worried as we drew closer and closer to the heart of the red-light district. My friends knew where we were going and kept saying, "We should just run, let's just run for it right now... this is so weird, she's so crazy... Where are we even going?"

Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst, we watched the girl ask a Nigerian guy for directions to "Hiro's place." The Nigerian led us to an underground entrance, the girl ran straight in with him, her boyfriend that she had just met didn't follow. Neither did we.

"I'm going home," he said.

"Why?" I asked nervously.

"Well," he said scratching the back of his head, "I've got work in the morning and don't really want to stay out that late."

"...Are we in some kind of dangerous place right now?" I quietly queried.

He looked in the direction of the underground entrance, "Well, I'm sure if she's taking you in there that it's probably safe..." he trailed off.

"...But?" I said.

"Other places around here aren't."

After explaining this conversation, my friend Alex said "Let's get the FUCK out of here!" So we ran out of Kabuki-cho, hid in a Matsuya, and then decided to walk from Shinjuku to Shibuya to kill time and catch the first train home at 5.

Definitely one of my more memorable nights here. Great way to spend a Sunday morning!

７月１８日Day 115: Summer Sale Season

Hollllllly crap. Just got back from summer sales in Harajuku-- only one word can describe it: CLUSTERFUCK.

In Japan, everything has a season. Right now, it's summer sales. Everything, literally EVERYTHING is on sale... and not at a whimpy price either. Everything is 30-70% off, it's like black Friday-- ON CRACK.

This is in LaForet, they needed to put up a net barrier to prevent theft/general mayhem.

Shop girls and guys were literally yelling themselves hoarse trying to get people to buy things.

いらっしゃいませ〜！ゆっくりごらんくださ〜いませ〜！

It was a fucking jungle in there... and in other stores like Forever 21, H&M, and Zara. Basically all the places I frequent. ;_; I had to get out, so I went to Yoyogi Koen with the hopes of finishing my last required reading, Murakami Haruki's A Wild Sheep's Chase, and tanning in the sun.

I inadvertently stumbled upon the Japanese rockabilly population dancing at the entrance.

After photographing and watching them do the twist for a while, I then inadvertently stumbled upon my friend Nick and his friends from home playing football, err-- 'scuse me soccer, in the park.

We chatted for a while, and then walked to Shibuya for a good hour of ping pong followed by dinner at Pepper Lunch.

All in all, not a bad day. Just shows you never know where you'll end up when you're wandering aimlessly around Tokyo on a Sunday.

５月２９日 Day 65: FML

God, today was just all kids of fail.

I guess it all started last night err-- really early this morning. My dorm mates and I were all pretty sloshed, and decided to make a massage train after a long night of low budget drinking courtesy of Circle K and McDonald's. What seemed to be a nice, relaxing, and likely one of the most surreal experiences of my life ended up being the most painfully rude awakening this morning.

Since I'm always the one giving massages rather than receiving them, my shoulders were in complete and total agony from actually being attended to... and I was slightly hungover, which didn't help things. -___-;;

Then I got a haircut. Going to the salon was fun-- I spoke nothing but Japanese, got my gray roots covered and was talking shop with a lot of the girls, explaining how there are only 2 months left in my trip with sooo much left to do. They all seemed so nice and understanding, telling me places I had to see before I left and how much better my Japanese has gotten, yada, yada, yada. More like...イヤーだ！I must have dropped some sort of bomb that caused THIS to happen:

God dammit, I look like a freakin' soccer mom. I'm praying that it looks better when it's wavy-- and doesn't make me look like a drive a minivan. I look like I'm 20, going on 40. GAWD.

I think I said something along the lines of,

Me: My friends from out of town are coming tomorrow, I want to show them how "Japanese-y" I look.

Hairstylist: What do you mean, "Japanese-y?"

Me: Well you know, cute and fashionable.

Hairstylist: *Bwahahaha... foolish kid thinking she's knows what it means to look Japanese...* cough cough I know exactly what you mean!!

Or something like that. Nah, just kidding. They were really nice, but it's COMPLETELY different from the picture I had shown them which looked something like this:

Ugh. Whatever. As the Japanese would say, しかたがない。Shikata ga nai. It can't be helped.

After that amazingness, I went to $hibuya and decided to go aimlessly wandering around for a while since it was about 1:30 and all the rest of my friends were still sleeping off their chu-hai and beers. Plus, there are only 2 months here and I've basically gotten myself into a painfully predictable groove of going to the Sendagaya Flee Market or Shimokitazawa every Saturday and cleaning my room and doing homework on Sundays (and you all thought I was blowing off this blog because I was doing something interesting...)

First, I went to Loft, my favorite "everything" store. It really makes me feel comforted looking at their beautifully designed furnishings and housewares. Shit-- this hairdo might be more fitting than I'd like to admit... Anyway! I bought some new green headphones because I thought my old ones were broken. Turns out, my iPod is what's broken, not the headphones. So not only did I waste money, I found out my iPod only plays music in my left ear! YAY.

Then I went into Shibuya 109, hoping to finally have the stamina to see all 9 floors of frilly, overpriced goodness. Got through 6 floors and 70 bucks and decided to call it quits.

It's weird how many boater hats I tried on today. Of course, none of them fit really well, and of course, they all looked terrible on me because I'm not a brown-haired 60lb Japanese girl in a floral romper and a jean jacket. But somehow... I wanted one. It's really weird how seeing everyone wearing something makes you want it... and it'll be something you'd NEVER wear-- like this flippin' boater hat.

Click this to make it bigger.

Another thing I can't stand about Japan is how you basically get bullied into buying things with kindness. People are so nice to you, so flattering and so accommodating, that it's basically impossible to say no once they've caught you gawking at something. In these types of situations, my friend Jordan simply says, 高すぎる(taka sugiru) "It's too expensive," and just walk off. I admire her complete shamelessness. And her spine.

Today, this really nice (slightly cross-eyed?) girl saw me eyeing a lacy 60's looking top. The conversation basically went like this:

Wonky-Eyed Shop Girl: Irasshaimase~

Me: . . . *touches cute top*

Wonky-Eyed Shop Girl: Do you like it? We just got it! It looks just like what you're wearing right now. You have such a cute style. It goes with your leggings. I'm wearing the same one in pink! I'm wearing it as a dress, but you're taller than me so you can probably wear it as a shirt! And since summer's coming soon, it'll be perfect! You should try it on! What color would you like? Pink? White? Navy? You're already wearing Navy~ is that your style!? Is that your favorite color?! It's cute, isn't it?!

Me: . . . yes, it is cute.

Wonky-Eyed Shop Girl: Oooooh you should try it on, I can tell it's your style!

Me: . . . Well . . .

Wonky-Eyed Shop Girl: The fitting room JUST opened up! You can try it on now!

Me: . . . Well . . . ok.

In the dressing room.

Me: Goddammit, how the flip am I going to get out of buying this?

Wonky-Eyed Shop Girl: How does it look, oh honorable customer??

Me: Uhhh...

Wonky-Eyed Shop Girl: Let me look at it.

Me: *Hesitantly opens the curtain*

Wonky-Eyed Shop Girl: (*≧▽≦) KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~ KAWAIIIIIIIIIIIII~!!!!!!!

Me: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Well, here's the shirt that goes along with this awesome story:

Yes, it's hanging from my water heater controls. I'm in college and am getting increasingly more broke by the minute. Don't judge me.

Beautiful craftsmanship... better be for frickin' $60...

Well, at least I have an outfit to meet the Inouyes with.

( ・_・)

４月４日 Day 11: Happy Easter~!

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT AND SHOULD NOT BE VIEWED/READ/DISCUSSED IN FRONT OF CHILDREN or PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIKE TO SEE LOTS OF PICTURES CONTAINING PHALLUSES.

Today, I went to a fertility festival, Kanamara Matsuri, in Kawasaki, it should have been called PENIS FESTIVAL because that's essentially all it was. Sculptures, foods, and shrines dedicated to the PENIS.

Now, why would I go to a place like this you ask? I propose to you this question: Why WOULDN'T I go to a penis festival? It was so uniquely Japanese and so amazingly hilarious and beyond belief! I'm so glad that I went.

About 14 of us from our dorm went together. This one guy, Nick (who's been here since September), organized it and we all came, completely unaware of what we were about to see. We met at 8am, tired and out of it, some people were still jetlagged having only gotten here on Thursday. It took us about an hour, 3 train transfers and ¥1000 to get there, but oh when we did...

The first thing we saw were these absolutely gorgeous cherry blossom trees (and hard core liquor) in full bloom. In Japanese, cherry blossom in full bloom is called Sakura Mankai. In Japan, sakura are such a huge deal that people have picnics on tarps where they sit and drink alcohol underneath the trees all day. This is called Hanami. Some spots are so coveted, that company employees are paid to stake out a spot at 8am and wait until 5pm until their coworkers finish so they can drink under the nicest sakura tree. That's what I thought this fertility festival was going to be.

We're in Japan. Guess again.

The next thing I saw were a bunch of old guys hunched over carving penises out of daikon. Can you get more Japanese than that?

Over in the distance was this massive pink penis that they paraded down the street later.

Don't get me wrong-- this was a legitimate fertility festival, not just a bunch of gratuitous phallic imagery. In the recent years, the festival has also been a way to voice AIDS awareness.

There were a lot of couples there who were trying to get pregnant. In the shrine, they had priests praying and chanting over them. There was a lot of incense present, so I didn't go too close.

I seriously doubt these kids knew what they were eating...

These kids (my friends) did. There were no shortage of penis (and vagina) pops, long sausages, and other penisy food. One thing we all noticed was the fact that we (as well as all the other gaijin tourists) were pretty much the only ones buying all the penis merchandise while all the old perverted Japanese men took THOUSANDS of photos.

My friend Jordan and I chose to be classy and bought penis and vagina bandanas.

Here are some awesome penis candles.

Penis sake.

Penis... from A Clockwork Orange!

More penis sake glasses etc.

This festival was UNBELIEVABLY crowded. I was being pushed and shoved all over the damn place like it was Tokyo rush hour or something! It was full of people of all colors. TONS of foreigners, the largest amount of black people I've EVER seen in Japan, young Japanese families with their children, and of course, old Japanese pervs with professional DSLR cameras.

I'd like to think every demographic was pretty adequately represented.

Seemed like the ero-ero (perverted) feeling followed us, because we went shopping afterwards and saw these err... pillows.

YAY JAPAN!