Red Sky, Blue Sky

A group of kyuudou students

  

After the amusement that was Akihabara pop culture, we took quite a scenic train ride through the veritable forest of orange-lit skyscrapers and high-rises to Odaiba, the Tokyo Bay area.

The first happy accident we discovered was just outside the train station: a couple of twisted red slide-like tubes.
We then proceeded to prove the theory that all college students revert to small children when given an empty playground.

 

Elliot/Manfred (Thomas) above, and Momo-chan/So Rim below, discovering their inner children

We found a pretty little beach on the Bay where we watched a blazing watercolor sunset behind the Tokyo skyline.


Besides the gorgeous view, the evening was pleasantly cool, and despite all the people who came to enjoy the small stretch of beach, it was a quiet, pensive sort of place.

 

We also met a couple who was resting from taking their rabbit, Lemon, for a walk.



I thought Lemon was really sweet and docile for a rabbit...I mean, clearly domestic, but all the pet rabbits I've ever met were rather cantankerous...

Once it grew dark, we wandered over to Palette Town, a shopping area including a Ferris wheel, a Toyota showroom, and an outlet mall. As we searched for the food court to grab some dinner, we passed by the end of some sort of Hawaiian music festival.

The inside of the outlet mall was rather...Vegas, with pseudo-classical architecture, sky murals on the ceilings, and illusionistic murals on the walls--the kind where sunlit stone patios lined with Greco-Roman columns are painted beyond the plane of the wall. After we'd eaten, some of us wandered through the overpriced outlet shops and expensive (and some imported) clothing stores, including Levi's.

I found a piece of furoshiki, traditional Japanese wrapping cloth, whose design I fell in love with...I probably will never actually use it as furoshiki though. It just reminded me of how I imagine designed of Reiko's tattoos. But by the time we were done wandering and met up again though, we were too tired to try out the Ferris wheel, and decided to head back to the guesthouse.

Another interesting subway/train ad...

What do you get when you mix maid girl voices and turtles? "Look, you're really cute, but I can't understand what you're saying!" (~ Finding Nemo)

After we ate lunch, we split up into groups, and thence, the Sun Young, Momo, So Rim, and I ventured out to explore the strange world of Akihabara. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've heard people refer to Akihabara multiple times as "nerd central." Famous for its numerous electronics stores (as well as catering other goods to the various otaku communities), it's a pretty fun place to wander around in. And it's not at all short of interesting sights, even if the game supplies, anime figurine, or book stores aren't you're thing.

Take for example, this, uh, "pop life department" store. (Yes, it's a sex shop. A five or six floor sex goods shop.)

 

The Korean girls were rather intrigued by the shop, which isn't surprising once you learn that there's really nothing like this in Korea. Honestly, I don't think there's anything quite like this in America either...I mean there's Adam and Eve's and Spencer's...but even they have some level of discretion, and tend to be at least slightly tucked away.

This store was very blatant, out in the open, and--pardon the pun--naked.
And the people are pretty unabashed about going inside for their shopping, whether they're middle aged men or young couples. We of course were giggling madly throughout the entire tour.
I might have cackled a few times.
(There was just some really amusing stuff to be found there...)

Maids and...cat-girls hawking their cafes...I wanna see a ninja restaurant. Or that prison lock-down one Amy Steinberger wrote about in Japan Ai.

 

We also decided to go to a maid cafe, for the sheer experience of it. We picked out one that wasn't too expensive, compared to the entry fee prices for some of the other ones we'd heard of. Incidentally, we basically got what we paid for...a fairly mediocre maid cafe experience, but an experience none the less.
Maid cafes are exactly what they sound like--little cafes where girls dressed up in various styles of French maids serve you tea, cake, ice cream, or what-have-you.
To be honest...most of the maids we didn't find particularly cute. And one was particularly annoying...mostly because she spoke with the little-girl voice which is considered "cute" by some people. (In Japan, cute...to the point of excessive young-girlishness, is rather popular in general.) In my opinion, the most attractive girls there were working in black shirts, pants, and aprons making food in the kitchen. And that girl who seemed to be dressed like a waiter. There are actually garcon cafes too, which are pretty much the same as maid cafes, but cater more to the female crowd.

The food was cute though. (And overpriced.)
Turtle matcha parfait.
I was merciful and ate the candy head first.
I would have taken pictures, but they're not allowed--only polaroids with the maids that you pay for. I had to sneak this one through clever use of checking my cell phone.

A couple of other glances, walking around in Akihabara

And thanks to Akihabara's Book-Off, I found my first Sailor V manga--volume two of the 1st edition. If I'm lucky, I'll find (or if I must, order off of Amazon Japan), the other 2 volumes of the original edition and the 2 volumes which comprise the newest KCDX edition. I also found two more Pretear volumes, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside--three down, one to go.

Thunder Gate: Two Go In...wait-

We skidattled out the door just in time the next morning to head towards Asakusa Monday morning.

But then we ran into a case of sardines on the subway.

 

Before WWII, Asakusa was one of the most prominent pleasure quarters of Tokyo; it wasn't just a center for brothels, but for music halls, (Western) theaters, and especially kabuki theaters as well. It never fully recovered from the bombings, however, and so there are only a few clubs and such left today. After we finally arrived at Asakusa station, we went about halfway across the bridge over Sumidagawa River to have a look at the Asahi Breweries building...which looks like a beer. With some weird golden thing over it. And there's a water bus/cruise, which seems like it might be a fun way to get in and out of Asakusa.

 

And then there's Sushi-Go-Round

 

Here's Nakamise, a very crowded shopping street that runs from the Kaminarimon Gate all the way down to the Hozomon Gate at Sensou-ji temple. We found a little shop to the right of Kaminarimon Gate which sells some Studio Ghibli merchandise. It was mostly Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service stuff, but I bought a glow-in-the-dark kodama hair-stick and a little kodama cell phone charm--I'd call it a bell, but it doesn't really ring or tink, it just clicks like their heads do in the movie. (*Dies from the morbid cuteness*)

Also--this shopping street has been around since the Edo era. Today, there's still lots of good shopping to be found here, whether you're looking for traditional souvenirs or the cheesy kitschy stuff. It felt kind of like the Marketplace in Charleston, only it was more open-air and packed to the brim with tourists and customers.

 

Kaminarimon Gate, with its famous large lantern: people go up and touch the carving of the dragon on the bottom of the lantern

"She does know that Bloody Skulls are non-alcoholic, doesn't she?"

After a short jaunt back to the guesthouse to freshen up, we went back out into the night, first to Roppongi Hills. There we found a fascinating spider--with an egg sac--sculpture outside Mori Tower, where we bought tickets to go up into the observatory and Mori Arts Center.

Their current exhibition was quite fascinating and thought-provoking. "Can There Be Art?" includes a variety of media, photography, sculpture, installations, and performance art from many different modern artists in Japan (some are well-established and others are new faces on the art front.)The name of the exhibit derives from Furuhashi Teiji's question about whether art can exist directly with society outside of the boundaries of the art world.

Teruya Yuken's Notice-Forest pieces are on display, that is, there are little paper trees constructed from the side of a paper bag, which serves as the "window" for the light source as you look inside the bag from the mouth. We didn't get to see the actual performance part of it, but there's still the brilliantly spray-painted skateboarding ramp constructed by HITOTZUKI (Kami+Sasu). One of the last pieces is appropriation artist Yasumasa Morimura's (who is probably the most well known Japanese artist in the West, out of the entire group) A Requiem: Laugh at the Dictator, which is essentially Morimura performing as Charlie Chaplin performing Hilter in Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator. Takamine Tadasu's piece Baby Insa-dong, a long string of sheets of photography and text, was rather though provoking: in it he describes issues of racism and other troubles that arose when he was dating and getting married to his Korean wife, who was born in Japan. (In case you didn't know, Korea and Japan have some major beef, pretty much like all of the Asian countries have some form of beef with each other.)

The pieces I found myself most closely engaged with were those of UJINO, which are a combination of sculpture and sound performance art. One room was full of these contraptions, installations comprising instruments, wires, electrical equipment, cars, lights, and random props, which popped, whirred, flashed, and purred in a strange symphony of light, motion, and sound. (See the Rotators Installation Views for a better idea, perhaps...these aren't the same installations I saw at the Mori Gallery, but you'll get the picture.)

The Tokyo City View at the top of Mori Tower (left) was also pretty inspiring, although it's terribly annoying to get a non-blurry shot.

 

Some of us spent the rest of the night back in Shibuya. Margot, Sabrina (les française), Elliot (Cali), Thomas (Deutchland), Momo-chan, Sun Young (S. Korea), and I went to Club Atom, and thus I had my first clubbing experience. I'd recommend it if you're in Tokyo and you like clubbing. The experience still seems a bit surreal to me.

Admission is 1000 yen (about $10) and ladies get two free drinks (which are half ice, anyways.) There are a few different floors, each with a slightly different atmosphere: one is more like a bar, another is more like a sit-down nightclub, and the top level is pretty much a dance floor. And well...it's a club. It's dark, slightly deafening, and crowded full of really genki Japanese youngsters. And it feels pretty safe, as safe as I can feel in a room packed with people I don't know, anyways. (After you stay here a while, you find that Japan in general feels like a rather safe place...of course there is crime, but theft isn't as big of an issue. And then you see the Japanese falling asleep everywhere, in all sorts of public places I wouldn't dare shut my eyes in the US. Back to the subject...)

The people are friendly, and the bouncers are all very kind, large black men who speak very good English. And the dancing isn't skanky. In fact...on the main dance floor, it felt more like people "dancing" at a rock concert...only there was a DJ and no band. Basically jumping up and down and rather non-sensual boogieing. Apparently on the bar-level dance floor there were some people with skills, but the floor I spent most of my time on was full of people who reminded me of the nerdy white-kid dances--you know, from middle school. Because by the time high school came around, our nerdy white-kid dances had grown some eccentric character, might have even passed as cool. The music was entirely too loud, as music in clubs is wont to be, but there was a nice mix of Japanese and Western popular music-turned dance music. The dance version of He's a Pirate (from Pirates of the Carribean) sticks out the most in my memory. That and techno Can't Take My Eyes Off You--of course, all I could think about was Velma's little song and dance version.

I suppose what struck me as so surreal were the interactions. After losing track of and then relocating Margot and Sabrina, I stood by them and was friendly and personable since two young Japanese men were buying us drinks...They were dressed in suits, said they were graduate students, spoke decent English, and seemed nice enough. The surrealness occurred when I was conversationally occupying Margot's spot while she went to the bathroom, and the guy and I were talking about our majors, etc, and then he asked if I could do an animation or video of his cell culture project..."Be still, my beating heart. Of course, I'll get right on that animation thing." Of course I didn't say anything remotely Still not sure if that was a moment of culture shock for me...or if it was more of a club-culture shock. I don't really have enough experience clubbing to understand these transient interactions which I find so strange and bizarre.

After leaving the club sometime after 2, the French girls and I wandered until we found a Mc Donald's, ate some food, and fell asleep at our tables. We weren't the only ones either--Micky D's was filled with people, some studying, some just socializing, and many snoring and drooling on their arms. We woke up once the Korean girls found us...I think they just happened to find us there, because it was one of the few restaurants open 24 hrs, but again, I was asleep. Once the subways started running around 5 or 6 (in Tokyo, they shut down after midnight), we made sure the guys got back all right, and slumped back to the guesthouse to catch a few more hours asleep before we had to skidattle back out by 11 am.

Interesting family on a subway sign...maybe an ad

Walking Outside and Between the Lines

 

After the stroll down Omote-sandou shopping street, we stopped for supper at Subway. This is how the menu looks in Japanese--ordering works pretty much the same way. It's just...

The 6" sandwiches seem a bit smaller here than in the states. I kind of wish I'd bought a footlong.

And here is our first sight of the Shibuya shopping district, which is a zoo in the afternoon and evening. Darth Vader's the current slogan guy for Docomo, a big cell phone company (or more officially, a mobile networking company) here in Japan. Walking around Shibuya, you can sometimes see the hilarious and bizarre Darth Vader Docomo commercials. (Haha, I can has visual aids.)

He says: "I am searching...searching for my boss...Where is my boss?"
The advertisement apparently directs people to a website where they can upload their name and photo, and then watch a short video of Darth stalking around the streets, and finding their name and photo on a screen. Then he says "Sorry, you are not my boss." The real boss has yet to be announced.
I'm not being facetious, either. The "real boss" is supposed to be announced sometime soon.
I pretty much lol-ed when I read one of the comments on a short online article about the ad campaign: "Luke...I am your cell phone service provider!"

 

This is a crosswalk, by the way, when the traffic's stopped. The big intersections here actually have 6 crosswalks: the four which create a square, and two diagonals cutting directly across the streets. When the pedestrian lights turn green, people pretty much just go in any direction they need to. We popped upstairs into a Starbucks to get better shots:

 

Ok, this might be a bit cheesy. It was just right there in front of me.

 

A one-woman band playing outside a pachinko slot machine place

 

The guy in the ad looks so...

 

Shazbot!

 

And a couple of fashion shots. This first girl is wearing a fairly popular peasant/summer dress and leather jacket combo look.

 

This second girl caught my eye too, but I actually don't see this look quite nearly as often as the flowy, frilly hippie chic look: a fairly toned-down Goth style.