Two Quick Cuts (Tokyo)

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(1) Pictures: Harijuku and a park in southwest Tokyo. There's a video also.

(2) An unrelated story: You meet people all the time on this sort of trip - many for just a conversation. This one black (yes, it's relevant to the story) girl I met while working on Yalla on one of the hostel computers, for example. She told me that she'd been working in northern Honshu (that's the big middle island) for the last year teaching English to kids. "How did you find it? How were the kids" I asked her. She smiled like she knew why I asked, "that's the thing, kids are kids, anywhere. They were so rowdy and I had trouble controlling them. None of the other teachers controlled them either." We talked about how hard it can be travelling and living alone, especially in a country like Japan. She remarked that "people stare at me. I work in a small town and they stare at me like they haven't seen me around for the last 11 months! I know they have." The talk shifts to religion next, about how the Japanese are Buddhist and practice Shinto too. They don't exactly believe "in a higher power" she puts it, "how empty their lives must be. I just can't understand how I could live like that." Upon seeing my face, she adds "well, I would never tell them that!"

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Photos

Elvis 1
This is where the Tokyo youth on Sunday go to let loose

Tokyo Subway
So clean