So, I am back at the homestay. There is a lot to say, so I guess I’ll just say it all.
First, we met up at Tama Center where we took a train on to Shinjuku. Then our group of eight guys went to Kabuki-cho. That place almost reminded me of 6th street back home, except with guys trying to get you to go to their bar/strip club/izakaya. The place in and of itself was shady at best. We checked into a capsule hotel there, and went out to have some fun. We found a Hub just like in Machida there. The Hub is an english tavern, and apparently a chain of pubs. After a Tarantula and a Fuzzy Navel, I was feeling good. I think the Tarantula has strawberry in it. I bought one of my friends a Stairway to Heaven, which tastes like crappy black licorice but has 68% alcohol content, so you KNOW it’s good. The rest got some other drinks and a liter of beer (which came in what appeared to be a giant beaker) and food. Never get food at a bar/pub, it is expensive and in small portions. Anyway, we all drank and had a few laughs, then left. On our way back, an African guy came up and tried to get us to go to his bar. I told him, “we don’t want to buy what you’re selling. Go away, go bother some of those gaijin over there.” In my defense, I was a bit inebriated. So imagine a not-too-tall Chinese guy telling off this guy who was a head bigger than him. My friends thought I was gonna get shanked or something. But yeah, being awesome like I am, I was like… “whatever, you’re all just weak.” while I was staggering about.
Next day, we went to Harajuku. There, I took the others to Shakey’s, an American pizza place. For 1125 yen, you get a CiCi’s pizza type lunch buffet. In Japan where corn is a regular ingredient on pizza, this was a much needed change of pace. As always with a buffet, it was a free for all. Being here in Japan a while, my stomach has gotten used to eating smaller portions, and thus I was only able to eat 8 slices of pizza before I had to call it quits. For shame.
We walked up and down Omotesando Street. There are a lot of stores, but all are high-end clothing stores. The cheapest thing I saw was a 20,000 yen jacket. Everything else was much higher than that. The back alleyways have clothing stores too, specializing in more fringe and vintage fashion. After that, we went across the bridge to Meiji Jinja. The only other temple/shrine that I have been to since being here was Yasukuni, and I think that place is hard to enjoy with the museum right there inside its walls. Meiji Shrine on the other hand, does not share in Yasukuni’s disreputable image, but more importantly the fact that I was on vacation and not on a class field trip, was more enjoyable. Walking through this place, one wouldn’t believe that behind the trees was a large parking lot and Harajuku train station. Even in modern Tokyo, there are bit and pieces of nature still around. Despite quite a lot of people coming out that day to the shrine, it was very quiet and relaxing. One doesn’t appreciate greenery until you don’t see it for a while.
The temple itself is very serene and beautiful, but what struck me the most were the “votive tablets”, a kind of way to make a wish that the priests will try to pass on in their morning prayers. Reading a few, they were in many languages, like English, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, German, and Portugese, to name a few. The wishes ranged from joy in life, to a happy marriage, a loved one who was sick, wishes for solace from turmoil, and even a few marriage wishes. What moved me the most was that no matter what language people spoke, or where they came from, they all came here to ask whatever being of higher power they put their faith in to give them a hand in life. We don’t all have our lives together in a personally satisfactory way, although we all like others to believe we do. But all people wish for something, and all want the same thing no matter where you are from: happiness.
While we were there, there was a wedding ceremony. While I did not see the ceremony itself, it was interesting to see what the traditional dress is for a wedding party is. There is a kind of wedding hall elsewhere in the shrine, and they were headed there. Before that, they were doing some kind of prayer/reading in one of the open air areas in the main shrine area. It is kind of interesting how weddings in different cultures are similar in many ways. It is a celebration of the union of two people, so there is always food, people, a ceremony, and a procession.
Free hugs. These people were standing on the bridge into Meiji Jinja (I am guessing it is the Omotesando Bridge?) along with the people who dress up in fringe fashion who usually sit around there. Being in Japan for a month, I found that anyone offering human contact at all (and for free) in public was very weird, especially here. One of my friends took the offer, and I took a photo. I was tempted to take a hug as well (there was a very cute girl offering hugs), my friends had already started walking off again and not knowing their destination and it being crowded, opted to just move on. Later on in the manga cafe, where we took a 2 hour walking break, the quote of the day at japantoday.com happened to be a Japanese girl who was doing the “Free Hug” thing. The main article the quote came from is here. A lot of the comments in the discussion ranged from general Japan-bashing to bashing of the girl. But I think one thing was clear: In America, there is more of a connection between people sometimes, where you can just be standing in line at a store or on a bus and just start talking with someone next to you. People were always approachable. In Japan, it is almost unheard of to just talk to someone you may be standing/sitting next to in a train, or anywhere outside your home or group of friends for that matter. Also, people here don’t touch on each other on purpose much, if at all. Handshaking is considered a Western Custom and thus is “outside behavior”. This also reminded me of the strength of the ingroup/outgroup behavior of Japanese society. The people on the bridge that day were admirable, trying to bring a little humanity into the lives of people. The power of human contact can truely change the way someone’s day goes, and perhaps a bit of a stretch, their life. This can be seen by how important it is for a baby to be held and nurtured. While I don’t think that the Japanese way is neccessarily wrong, I feel that what these people are trying to address is worth thinking about and discussing for the sake of whether things could change in society for the better. I myself am not a hugging person, as many of you know, I usually don’t hug nor want one. But that was perhaps the one time in my life that I wished that I took them on that offer, if only to encourage them, to say they were doing something good that could change the lives of the people around them. Next time I go out there, I definately will take them up on that free hug.
After the manga cafe, we went to another capsule hotel in Shibuya. We went out but didn’t find any decent places to drink, and no one wanted to go to the Shibuya branch of The Hub. We did go to Curry House however. One thing here in Japan people love to eat is curry. This establishment is a chain in Japan, and only serves variations of Curry Rice, which is just curry and, you guessed it, white rice. You can get beef, squid, pork, chicken, whatever. Pretty much if you want it, they got it. I myself had a beef and squid curry which was excellent.
Next day, we wandered around Shibuya a bit before heading to Akibahara, the nexus of Anime/Manga/Electronics/Photography in Tokyo. Pretty much all the nerds come here. Being a nerd myself, I felt at home with the electronics and video games, not so much with the anime/manga. My friends wanted to check out a maid cafe and check out the Gundam models, but I was pretty much against paying to eat regular food with girls in maid uniforms serving me or going to buy models. Call me stingy. But being the third time out there, it was a surprise when I found out the cosplayers had come out of the woodwork, since the previous two times I saw maybe one or two.
From the photo, you can tell that I did not take a frontal picture of the maid. Well, I did (it is in my Flickr), but what I found most interesting was not the maid herself but the people taking pictures of her. Yeah, I am weird like that. Lots of guys were simply just taking pictures, like they would a statue in a park or some random object found in nature. There were cosplayers all along the street and people crowding around taking pictures of them. Some where posing, while others were singing and talking to crowds of people. The streets were closed off to vehicular traffic, so people were everywhere. Afterwards, we went back to Fuchinobe Station and ate a ramen dinner, then our travel group parted ways and headed home.
Today, I went to Summerland Water Park. It is partially indoors, and kinda sucky compared to Schlitterbahn back in Texas, which is perhaps the BEST water park in the world. But if you didn’t know better, well, this place would be the most badass water park in Japan. With a water slide, a log obstacle course thing, and a wave pool, it wasn’t half bad. But there was a LOT of people. Like walking around, you were either gonna run into or onto someone. Being a nice weather day today, I guess everyone had the same idea and decided to go out and enjoy it. I didn’t take a picture of anything because well, I don’t want to slide down a waterslide with my camera in my pocket and the lockers were on the other side of the place. I hope I tanned, because I can’t tell. I am a very pasty white.
The arcades here never cease to amaze me. While people in America were all mashing keys and dancing on squares, people here have moved onto more interactive things, like Taiko Drummer games, and one of the coolest things I have ever seen, CCG Arcade games. You buy collectable cards (the art on the cards are done by some of the big names in manga) and you place them face up on the play area. Some games are just straight up card battles, but the best one was Sangokushi Taisen, a RTS Card game. Both players place their units on the field and battle over objectives. It’s pretty cool to see people sliding cards around, or if you’re losing/wrecking shit, all over the place really fast, literally whipping your hands and arms about. I didn’t get a picture of it because people were all playing at them and I couldn’t get a good shot of the machine.
Too long? I hope you read it. If you TLDR me, Imma cut you. As always, check out my Flickr for more of my photos. I am more thoughtful in my blog than in real life, although I actually am if you approach me with the right attitude and a topic in mind. Making this post was tiring, almost an hour and a half. I will upload the rest of the photos at a later date. On a final note,
