Today I went to Yoyogi Park, in Tokyo. It was a nice, sunny day so there were lots of people lying around in the sun or having picnics, joggers, people walking dogs, young couples sitting by the lake, kids with icecreams, people taking photos of the autumn leaves, and quite a few random performances. Lots of people were playing the bongos and other drums. They weren't busking or anything, just having fun. Some people were practising circus tricks - juggling and so on. Everyone seemed to be having a good day.
After that I went to Harajuku, the place famous for its Sunday freakshow. Girls dress up in outrageous costumes and hang out, and masses of tourists take their photos. Apparently a lot of the girls who come to pose in wild outfits suffer bullying at school, and so use this kind of wild cos-play as an escape... I also heard that the girls hope to get their photo in a magazine, as fashion photographers often come to Harajuku to take photos of the wacky fashions. At any rate, this is the first place I've been in Japan where there were as many foreigners as Japanese people.
There's no way to describe Harajuku. It was pretty funny and everyone was having a blast. As you come out the park, first you walk past this huge gaggle of girls who are wearing the most outlandish clothes - looking like video game characters, or Bo Peep, or goths, but looking quite self-conscious considering they are there to strut their stuff... there is this one Japanese guy just dancing in a really random way by himself, and then some foreigners joining in, and everyone laughing riotously... over here a couple of guys are playing guitars... nearer the station, several people are painting and selling portraits... everyone has cameras out... a guy wearing pink pyjamas, a pink hair bow and holding a pink bunny, is holding a sign saying 'Free Hugging'... lots of people run up to get a hug...
I liked Yoyogi Park a lot, and Harajuku was fun. I think Tokyo is a cool place to visit, but whenever I take the train through Tokyo I feel glad I don't live there. There's just endless tall buildings in every direction. Now, Yokohama is still more of a concrete jungle than Adelaide, but I think it's much nicer to live there than Tokyo. A more liveable city.
(I did see something cool in a Tokyo metro station - an automatic shoe-shiner. You pay x yen into the machine and stick your foot in. I saw a guy with his foot in there... hahah...)
After that, I attempted to go back to Yokohama to go to church (I liked the one I went to last week), but with the so-called 'map' I had, that would have been a miracle. (Maps of building locations seem to be uniformly hopeless. They have a few so-called landmarks - a bank or store - but no street names. I couldn't find any of the landmark buildings on the map, let alone my destination. The church doesn't have a regular building but has a couple of different buildings it uses. I found last week's destination with no problem, but this week...)
So I wandered lost for a while until it was half an hour into the service, then decided it was too late (I was no closer to finding it than when I started). So instead I walked down toward the harbour front. I had a nice walk; I found a random park, and the streets were lined with trees literally *pouring* off their yellow autumn leaves. It was very pretty.
Again, it was a nice day and, being a Sunday, all the families were out. There were heaps of couples with small children; I think they had some kind of event for children near Yamashita Park.
I really, really like Yokohama. I like the harbour area especially. There's lots of open air and it's so different to anywhere I've ever been before.
Last night I went to Korea Town in Kawasaki after work. I went with Jim - the other foreign teacher (not his real name) and a couple of students. We went to a yakiniku restaurant. I've never been to one before and it was a lot of fun. Basically they bring you trays of the meat you order and you barbecue them yourself on a grill in the table. It was really delicious and everything had its own sauce for dipping. I even ate tongue (Jim pointed out the imprint of the taste buds on the tongue!) and enjoyed it! It wasn't a whole tongue or anything, just a thin slice of it, barbecued and dipped in lemon sauce.
I was so happy, there's just something about eating a whole lot of delicious food. :) And it's not a meal you bolt down and finish - the meal lasts a long time and you savour it, waiting for each small batch of meat to be done and eating it while it's hot. The pork was great - you dipped it in two different types of sauce and wrapped it in a lettuce leaf, covered in spring onions and garlic... mmmm!
The students are advanced level students and we had some interesting conversations. We talked a bit about accents and Jim and I compared our own. (I always thought I didn't have a very strong Australian accent. But now, whenever I hear myself reading a dialogue in class after listening to the Americans reading it on the CD, I can hear how strong my accent actually is!)
I taught them Lenny's expression, 'my stomach is smiling'. :)
I am getting used to sitting at a table Japanese style (ie, sitting on a cushion on the ground rather than on a chair) and have had lots of chopstick use! Other than that I haven't done much socially with other people, but tomorrow I'm going to Kamakura with another girl from training (a different one to before; this girl lives a lot further away but she wants to go to Kamakura too).
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