Mr Chris's Grand Day Out

Well, yesterday was the complete antithesis of everything I was whingeing about on Saturday. It was the most fun day I've had in ages. The Swede didn't join me in the end, but that didn't matter. Let me recount my adventures...

Every day when I go to school I leave Suidoubashi station by the west exit. Yesterday I was feeling frisky so I decided to leave by the east exit instead. I was instantly confronted by this monster of a building.


Drawn by all that shiny chrome and plate glass, I ventured towards it. And behind it I found.... a theme park! That's right, in the middle of Tokyo, the city with the highest rent per square metre in the world, somebody's built a theme park!


I then got on a tube train to Shibuya. This is a trendy district, full of Louis Vuitton shops and beautiful people. Walking the streets in jeans and a t-shirt I felt deeply unfashionable. I was also quite grumpy about the number of gaijin that were crammed into Shibuya. It's strange but after a few weeks here I've really started to dislike gaijin, and especially tourists. Unfortunately, I am a gaijin myself, and I'm probably classed as a tourist too. Hence, I often feel quite ashamed of my foreign-ness, and this feeling is always increased when I'm walking round the gaijin districts such as Shibuya or Roppongi.

While strolling down Omotesandou I was approached by the assistant editor of Tokyo Graffiti magazine, who was eager to interview me. It turns out that interview was a bit of an exaggeration. I had to write down my worst feature on a little whiteboard, then hold it up while they took a picture of me. I have to tell you, it was quite hard to think of anything wrong with me :-) Apparently Tokyo Graffiti is pretty big, so I feel quite special now.

Next, I walked down Takeshita Dori. This is famous as a kind of punk/goth equivalent of Carnaby Street. I'm not the person to try and describe Japanese fashion to you. But this woman obviously is. Sadly, this street was also crammed with gaijin. Grumble, grumble...

Things were getting a bit hectic with all those people around, so I decided to chill out for a bit by visiting the Meiji jingu shrine. It's set in huge, luscious grounds, so it's easy to find a quiet spot to yourself. The torii (archway-thing) is apparently the biggest wooden torii in the country, so I thought I'd better take a picture.

While I was standing around gawping at the shrine, this procession came out of nowhere. No idea what it was about, but it was all very lovely.


I moved on to Yoyogi park. On a Sunday, this place is filled with interesting people. All the young'uns go there to hang around in silly costumes, play music, skate and do ridiculous things with a BMX. The goths are very well-defined into different cliques, and each clique sits in a little cluster on the ground. It's all very Clockwork Orange, the way each group has its own crazy uniform. Before long, I stumbled across these Japanese greasers dancing to Elvis. When I walked past 4 hours later, they were still dancing to Elvis. Different song, same dance.

All along the pavement, loads of local bands play impromptu gigs to plug their CDs or proper gigs. There are so many, all next to each other, that all the music blends into one big noise, but that doesn't really matter. It's all about the atmosphere.

I particularly liked this guy, who eschewed all traditional notions of music and decided to use acrylic paint as his instrument. While the rest of his band played this cool Pink-Floyd-esque psych-jam around him, he just painted. Moving on, I found a little hippy festival called 'Peace Smile' which was full of Glasto-style clothes stalls, chai tents and wacky characters. On stage, the band's entrancing djembe styles whipped the crowd into a state that I didn't think Japs could enter. I don't think I will ever see a crowd of Japanese people so excited and uninhibited ever again. Wow, that was pretty epic. See Rob, gotta keep the punters happy with lots of pictures. Only then will they read the blogger's meandering, self-indulgent monologues without complaint!

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I don't feel inspired
To write a haiku today.
Oh wow, I just did!