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Asia » Japan » Tokyo
November 11th 2007
Published: November 11th 2007
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What does one do when it rains in toyko? according to the locals it seems to be business as usual, except that everyone has an umbrella hovering above them and paper shopping bags are given cute little raincoats to wear.  The ladies are still just as glamourous and perfectly split-endless as ever! I made the mistake on my rainy saturday of visiting the aquarium.  Happy dancing fish right? thats what I was expecting! instead I got diseased and shivering marsupials, a gungy tank with two poor sea lions lapping back and forth, a performing penguin who fell off the stage and everybody just laughed, and loads of birds including pelicans with their wings clipped who could only stand cramed together in the fenced areas.  I just got too sad with it all and had to leave pretty soon.  It does make you appreciate that australian zoos etc are pretty advanced in animal welfare.

Anyway thats my vent over, I‘m glad to say that I had a much better day today, going on a tour through an area of the city that have some great architecture. I‘ll put a couple of pics in- went to the Global architecture headquarters, the Tadao Ando Collezione and the spiral building by some other guy.  The last one turned out to be a big disppointment- a spiral no more than a semi circular ramp directing you into the giftshop!  FLWright would be spinning! however, my visit was not entirely unfulfilling, because the centre happened to be hosting CHEESE FESTA 2007, where I was invited to HAVE A GOOD DAY WITH CHEESE!!!

And so I did.



After the archi(de)tecting, I headed down Omotosando st where all the top stores hang out, did not buy anything.  wandered into a store called Oriental Bazaar and quickly wandered out when affronted with all the fat, coughing americans in tokyo.  At Harajuku station saw the goth kiddies all dressed up in their makeup and costumes, then kept going to the Meiji shrine where they are having a festival called shichigosan.  children of 7,5 and 3 come out with their kimonos on to be blessed or something- all I know is they were too cute for words.

On the general side of things, 
food is going much better- i‘m finding plenty to eat and have sampled some japanese meals.
language has not changed much- the phrase book I have tells me how to say things, but not how to understand what is being said to me! 
hotel is awesome- the little chihuawa that lives there keeps coming out to look at me while i;m in the lounge, but it wont let me pet it yet.
shopping is fun- so much more respect for your money and your custom than in australia. A purchase of a hat at the department store went like this:

Lady: hello or something very smiley
Me: i would like this please.
Lady: smiley smiley talky talky (while ringing it up)
Me: look at the till and get the right money out, put it in the little wooden plate.
Lady: bow, smile, take the plate,put the money in, put the change on the plate, smile
Me: take the change, thankyou
Lady: something long in smiley japanese
Me: blank
Lady: handsignalling, smiley, something about a presento
Me: no! smiling because I understand, not a present, all for me!!!
Lady: puts it in a bag, puts a little bit of tape with the logo on it to close the top, puts the little rain coat on (it‘s raining) comes around my side of the counter and does a big bow, presenting me the bag in both hands, smiley smiley.
Me: take the bag, smiley smiley, nod back and say thankyou
Lady: smiley smily talky talky
Me: Bye!yay, i bought something.

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