Weekend with Mai - Part II

Mai came down to Tokyo again this weekend. She arrived late on Thursday night, and while waiting for her train I went to her friend Yoshiko band's gig in Akihabara (now there's an exotic name for you, Rob). I'd already met Yoshiko on Monday, when we went out boozing in Shinjuku with her boyfriend and the bassist from her band. It seems that I've finally found some Japanese people who can drink as much as I can! We did nomihodai (all you can drink for two hours, for a fiver), and talked non-stop about music. Amazingly, Yoshiko's boyfriend and I have the same all-time top 3 bands. (Sonic Youth, Pavement and Blur, if you're interested). I also had fun teaching them the word "floccinaucinihilipilification".

On Friday I went to school and left Mai to hang around all day (sorry!). But in the evening we went to the Cirque du Soleil. What a spectacle! Who ever thought a circus could be so classy? Highly recommended, although I'm not sure it was worth 45 quid.

Mai is a big Disney fan (she can't help it - she's Japanese), so on Saturday we went to Tokyo Disney Sea. This is similar to Tokyo Disney Land, but with less land and more sea. Now, you can rant at me all you want about globalisation, capitalism and "the corporations, man" and call me a corporate whore for going to Disneyland, but still it was jolly good fun.

The Japanese have this tradition of buying "omiyage", i.e. when you go on holiday or on a day trip, you have to buy presents for pretty much everyone you've ever met in your life. This means that not only did everyone want to buy huge amounts of tacky Disney memorobilia, they had to. I bet the Disney corp loves this country!

Aww, ain't we cute? Here we are in the Mediterranean Harbour (or, in Japanese, the Mededoreeneearn Aarbaar).


The highlight of the day was of course the trying on of comical hats:


Oh, and I thought this picture was rather cool.


That night, we went out in Shibuya with another of Mai's friends. He was very cool, but the ratio of insanely fast, slang-filled Japanese to English was not to my liking, so I didn't get to talk to him much.

On Sunday, we went to the Mitsuo Aida museum. Mitsuo Aida was a poet and calligrapher who died in 1991. I'd never heard of him before, but now I'm smitten with him! His poems are very cool and his calligraphy style is really unique. It's not like any Japanese calligraphy I've seen before. As your attorney I advise you to check him out.


And finally...
I always knew they were up to something!

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Just like my hero
Trevor McDonald, I have
an "And finally..."