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Kaaaawaaaaiiiiiii!
THE Fuji Television dog. And me. In the dome of the Fuji Terebi building in Odaiba Tokyo. Apologies for my long absence from this particular platform of expression, but I have been engaged in expressing myself in other such manners... The kitchen for example. MOre about that later.
On a light (and "moohaha") note... Nihongo no curasu ga nai. (trans - no more bleeding japanese classes left!). Yep, my semester in Japan is over - from an academic point of view. So, now I'm just floating about entertaining myself (and taking care of a lot of paperwork - I thought there was a lot to get in here, but getting out is even more of a mission) and will continue to do so until they kick me off this island.
Just before the nitty gritty part of the semester (ie last week) I was in Tokyo with the usual suspects. WE HAD A BLAST. T'was great fun. We did not dash around nearly as fast as usual, which was refreshing, but we still saw so much of that amazing city in a week. Shopping was a great highlight. We visited many peculiar (and not so peculiar) shopping neighbourhoods, and exhausted our shopping budgets and then some. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it!
Other highlights
JITENSHA
Finally... A little piece of proof that I can ride my bicycle while it is raing with my backpack in the basket and holding an umbrella. of the week included a visit to the red light (ish) district of Tokyo. Not particularly scary or impressive, but the setting of a book I read by Ryu Murakami earlier this year. A nearby batting cagewas the scene of some pretty interesting points in the story. Tosum up the area, there were (shock, horror, gasp!!!!) some gaudy cross dressers, some brothels with standard anime style building decorations and some pubs run by Nigerians. Nothing too sinister or outrageous. I was dissapointed, in fact. THere were many pretty lights, though, which was very impressive, but that was not particulary special to the Kabukicho area. The whole of Shinjuku is very bright and shiny with all its neon signs. Kinda the image of modern Japan that was in my mind before I came here. The whole of Shinjuku has a lovely vibe, lots of young people and little bars and night clubs, everyone dressed up to the 9s. Had I been better dressed and without my colossal backpack, it could have been a long night.... All the more reason to come back one day.
Odaiba was also one of my favourites. Very space age... it's this area that is entirely
Azabu Juban
Okonomiyaki.... By us! mmmmm DAISUKI! made up of land reclaimed from the sea. The iconic Fuji TV building was an amazing real-life version of one of my archi class lectures. the view from the monorail was also very cool. In Odaiba they have their own copy of the statue of liberty and a giant ferris wheel and a man made beach.
I also ate my very first Wendy's meal in Tokyo. The image of Wendy's in my mind has been given this sort of Halo-like quality from what I have been told by my American compadres. Twas good. Not gastronomically scrumdishilous, but good nonetheless.
A huge thanks to the Meyers who put us up (or put up with us...) in Azabu Juban for the week. it was lovely to spend time with a south African family... And for a change it was Jacqui (and Levi) who was out of the language loop.... Tee hee - I'm normally the linguistically befuddled one, here in Japan. Ek het alles verstaan, maar sy het nie Afrikaans verstaan nie. Tee hee. (then we left and came back to Osaka and i became the queen of foot in mouth once more....). My foreign friends had the opportunity to
try a few South African treats..... The "Bliksem" chilly went down rather well. Our American was a little too brave for his own good, which provided many a giggle. We also shared a bit of Kansai culture with our Kanto hosts by cooking up a storm of Okonomiyaki, Yakisoba and milk tart. Rather delicious if I don't say so myself. The Sake we were treated to was metcha umai, yo. Ja, so we could not have asked for a better geographic location(think Tokyo Tower out my bedroom window) in terms of transport etc. And the Tokyo Subway kicks ass in comparison with the Osaka Subway. I was feeling remarkably rich in fact. On what it would cost to get one station down the line cost in Osaka would get us halfway across Tokyo's sprawling metropolis. We quickly got used to the slight difference in the conductor's announcements from those in the Kansai, and were soon doing our semi-regular imitations.
Tokyo was phenonmenal and soooo busy. Everone says it's busy. But you don't really get the picture until you actually try to shop in Harajuku during golden week. Not for the easily flustered. Take as many peoiple as you think
Beeg Poo
On a boat on the river the lady who was giving a commentary on what we were going past etc, said that it was called the beeg gold poo. Gee I wonder why? you can jamb into 5 shopping streets, now times that by about 10. Then fit the finished product into one incy wincy shopping street. That's how it is all over Harajuku.
Aoyama was also cool. We went browsing through funky design shops and little artsy places and galleries. Also stumbled upon another one of my archi class subjects... The UN university (yes they have a university, no, even after going there, do I know who or what is studied there or by whom) building. It had a cool exhibition on a rather serious UN-like subject (child traffficking), which was interesting. The building itself was rather interesting, too. Very bubble.
Sad as it sounds, despite all the fantastic, interesting places we went to and contemporary culture we sucked up, DISNEY LAND was the coolest. YES. I have been to Disneyland. Moo ha ha, suffer little minions. I am the king of the castle, now. We actually chose DisneySea over Disneyland itself in the resort complex because it had scarier rides and more adult things to do. But, despite adult intentions we immediately reverted to acting like such kids the moment we climbed on the monorail with mickey mouse shaped
Carosel
Don't think I spelt that right, but anywho... DISNEYSEA - TOKYO!!! windows.... All excited and jumping about and such like. Rode the roller coaster way too many times (addictive stuff) and went on several journeys "to the centre of the earth." We also had the opportunty to be taken down into the world of Indianna Jones, 10 000 leagues under the sea and several other worthy pursuits. By the end of the day I was able to discern that, on account of the atmosphere and excessive spending in the various gift shops, that Japanese love of cutesy stuff like disney could probably keep the entire industry afloat. Exhausting. Great. I could go on for hours. Sad, really, coz that[s excactly what they want! They want you to come back again and again and ride on the fake gondolas in Fake (but very reallistic) Venice. I suppose Y5000 is not really a high price to pay to get "Venice", even if the boatman sings his Italian opera with a Japanese accent...
Apart from a certain someone almost missing his shinkansen and losing my umbrella cover (sniff, sniff) it was a relatively stress free week. Only comparable to the weekend in Kawaguchiko in terms of being a pure holiday. Kawaguchiko is a lake dorpie in the shadow of the Iconic Mount Fuji. We went there for 2 days before heading to Tokyo. the train ride took us out into the countryside that looks exactly like Miyazaki Animation backdrops, think totoro. Totemo Kiree, ne? the Mountain was elusive at times, but we had the opportunity to see it bright and clear a few times. It must have been quite hilarious to watch us bunch of foreign kids.... Every time "the big fuge" showed itself with any kind of clarity we intantly dropped our bags and started clicking away (me with my
Fujifilm lense.
Welll, we have explore my pre-tokyo and tokyo periods, but the post-tokyo bit has not been mentioned with any clarity. Hmmmmm Ja. It has been a fruistrating, sleepless week. I spent way too much time sucking 7 and a half pages about living in a matchbox zpartment out of my thumb and studying japanese verbs. Not particularly entralling, especially not after watching Kabuki theatre in Ginza and eating the freshest sushi near the Tsukiji fish market. So let me just stop there.
My final piece of Sumie is up in the exhibiton at Kansai Gaidai. Not a particulary impressive piece (that is, when compared to the crazily beautiful stuff others have done), but okay none the less... so if any of you want to pop over and have a look, it would be cool. Buy I try to understand if there is a significant amount of ocean that just might cause the journey to be a wee bit long.
Adios, amigos..... Blame my temporary lapse into spanish on eating an international feast with my dorm mates tonight....
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Lidia
non-member comment
Ello!
Ahh sounds like a blast. We're all pretty much under the influence of the "uni bug"- Yes it is once again exam season and everyone is stressed! So at least one of us is jolling around and enjoying life while the rest of us sit and stress to reach due dates! Enjoy the last fews weeks of your amazing trip and rememeber to come bach in one piece with loads of photos! :)