August 28, 2005

Randon Trip to Japan: Part Three

After arriving back in Tokyo after our Beach Party adventure in Kamakura, we decided to head back to Harajuku Station to see all the kids that hang out on the Bridge of Harajuku on Sundays for "cosplay" (costume play).

Cosplay is totally bananas. It's a bunch of teenagers and young adults that are super into dressing up as fantasy/goth characters from anime shows and video games.

There are all sorts of different styles and sub-genres of cosplay. Here's Mike D. rocking out with a girl dressed in like run-of-the-mill cutesy-type outfit.

Here's two girls wearing what's known as Sweet Lolita style outfits.

Gothic Lolita style. (I swear I'm not even making all these style names up. Check out the insane guide to all this cosplay nomenclature on wikipedia!)

Punk Lolita!

I wasn't able to find anything describing the use of military outfits...so maybe it's a whole new style sub-genre in the making! Exciting!

Gothic Lolita!

The girl on the right has Wa Lolita style (incorporating traditional elements of Japanese clothing, like the kimono, into cosiplay).

I'm not sure what style this is, but whatever it is, it ruled.

Smile on three! One! Two! Three! Perfect! Hahahah.

There were even some Western cosiplay afficianados there. Somehow, it didn't quite work as well. (I'm still kind of like 30% convinced that the girl in the middle is really just a freshly-shaved Mike Doyle in drag). Hahaha.

Mikie just watched us walk around asking all the people if we could take pictures of them and laughed. Hahah. After the leaving the bridge, we walked down Takeshita Street to check out some of the world famous fashion shops...

...like the world-famous "Nudy Boy." Haha.

We ran into this dude wearing a MADE t-shirt so I snapped his pic to show my buddy Josh.

After walking around a bit more, we decided to grab a quick, pre-dinner snack.

mike doyle — Smoking. Eating. Drinking. No big deal. This was our last night in Japan, so over dumplings we decided to make the most of it by not going to bed that night!

We stopped in a bookstore and I lamented not having found this book until after the beach party.

Then we did some souvenir shopping. Mike score this awesome bottle of Chinese liquor that had a lizard on the label...

...and a lizard IN THE BOTTLE! China's all like: "Oh yeah, Mexico...we'll take your worm in a bottle and motherfucking RAISE YOU!"

A few hours later and we decided it was time for the "real deal" dinner. Since it was our last evening meal before we'd have to fly home the next day, we decided to go all out and order...

...every single dish on the menu that sounded interested. We got one, two, three, four...

...five, six, SEVEN appetizers....

...and then for my main course I had the Japanese version of bi bim bap!

After dinner, we walked around Shibuya and I finally managed to spot real live ganguro girls! (These are girls who lighten their hair, dye their skin dark brown so it looks like they're tan and wear all sorts of shiny, brightly colored trashy outfits! They're stereotyped as being "skanky and dirty." Mikie told me that the treatments they get to dye their skin brown are expensive and so after they get it done they don't shower often because they want the effects to last a long time!) Ganguro means "brown face." Hahahaha.

I just googled ganguro and found out there are even more sub-genres of ganguro then there are cosiplay! Check out this site that has links to all the different types of ganguro styles!

Mikie wanted to take us to a cool lounge she'd heard good things about, but when we stopped by, we were told that it didn't open until 1:30am! So we decided to kill some time at a nearby "game hall" that had ping pong tables! (Andy dominated all of us).

We were all still feeling pretty stuffed and sluggish from our huge dinner, so we tried to wake ourselves up by chugging...

...the largest cans of Coke I'd ever seen!

A little past 1:30, we left the game hall and headed back over to check out the bar! It was indeed, a pretty rad place.

Hahahah.

This girl showed up...

...and I subtly tried to tell her that I thought she was cute, but something must've been lost in translation.

We left the "red bar" around 3am and Mike pissed all over the place. Classy!

Afterwards, Mikie took us on a tour of Kabukichō, Shibuya's infamous red light district.

There are hundreds of little prostitution storefronts and each of the entrances are plastered with pics of the girls that are available inside that night. (Mikie told us that the whole area is pretty much off-limits to tourists. You can walk around there and stuff, but none of the houses let their girls sleep with foreigners).

They even all have websites where you can go online and see what girls are available to make sexytime so you can decided whether it's even worth your time to head down there! Insanity! (Look: www.pre-girls.com!)

Hey, at least it's not called "Yellow Box."

After hookerville, we decided to grab a few beers at a small cafe that we found open!

Suntory Time!

Even though it had only been about 5 hours since we'd finished our HUGE dinner, we were drunk so it seemed like a good idea to get burgers. Hahaha. Over burgers, we decided that we were going to visit the Tsukiji Fish Market (the largest fish market in the entire world!!!) as soon as it opened (which was only a few hours away).

Mikie had to leave us around 4am (she had work the next day). As a parting gift, she wrote kanji on all of our forearms...

...she refused to tell us what she'd written - she simply instructed us to each show our forearms at a sushiya (sushi shop) after we'd toured Tsukji Market. (I forget what they all ended up saying - I think Mike and Andy's both said something like "Give me the freshest piece of maguro (tuna) you've got." Mine said something like "I'm a dirty boy and I want sex."

Which is totally true.

After we said goodbye to Mikie, we realized that it was only 4:30am and we still had a good 90 minutes to kill before the subways re-opened and we could head to Tsukiji Fish Market. One of the few places open in the area was a Cybercafe so we decided to hop in there, check our email and catch a quick nap.

Nappity nap nap! While Andy and Mike napped, I called Meredith to tell her that I would be heading to the airport in a few hours to head back to NYC and that I was so excited to see her! Meredith then told me that she wanted to break up! Nooooooooo! So after a horrible 45 minute conversation, I finally managed to convince her to not break up with me until I'd at least gotten home and we'd gotten a chance to speak in person.

(Here's something I learned: Deciding on a whim to leave the country for over a month on less than two days notice isn't this best way to tell your girlfriend that you care. Who knew!?)

Ninety minutes later, I woke up the snoozing boys and we paid for our naps and then headed for the subways...

Monday, August 29th

...but not before we chugged as much complimentary espresso as we could. (I downed a quick shot and then put 3 more in a to-go cup for the road. Hoo-ah!)

Mike waves goodbye to Grancyber cafe.

Shibuya crossing: near deserted!

Not only had this guy passed out near the station, he'd also managed to thoroughly wet his pants! Nice job!

We made it to the station a little past 6am...

...grabbed the bags that we'd stashed in a locker waaaay earlier the previous night...

...paid our subway fare....

mike doyle — ...stopped so Mike could take a picture with this awesome ad (ahahahaa)....

...then we sat down and had to figure out how the hell to get to the Tsujiki Market from Shibuya. Oooof.

Somehow, we managed! People in Japan totally follow the rules so no one would even think to rip down or fuck with these totally unprotected paper advertisements that are just hanging from the subway ceilings. (That should would last, oh, about 3 minutes here in NYC).

Hahaha. White people are so stupid.

We got off the subway and after a little bit of wandering, managed to find our way towards Tsujiki Market! After navigating a 1/4 mile stretch of road that was filled with huge forklifts all carrying huge amounts of seafood at high speed in all directions...

...we finally made it to the entrance.

< DAVID BRENT> Into the fray!

The place is fucking enormous! I couldn't manage to find any info on the sqaure footage of the facility (Internet! Why you fail me?) but I did manage to find out that 2,888 TONS (yes, fucking TONS) of seafood are sold here EVERY DAY! (Ok, Internet - you've redeemed yourself).

Giant disembodied fish head. (I put my lil' footsie in the frame so there'd be some perspective).

Yep, another fish head. (I think these are both from huge Northern Bluefin tunas). "Hey, where the hell's my body at, yo?"

"Oh! There it is over on the table! LOLZ! Nevermind!"

"Ow! Me have headache!"

The three of us basically just wandered around this place for an hour checking out all the crazy kinds of seafood on display and watching all the buyers and sellers furiously negotiating prices in Japanese. Check out this crazy guy!

And look! Octipi! It was just like going to the aquarium (except everything is dead!).

After the market, Mike and Andy went into this sushi-ya to show the taisho (Sushi General!) what Mikie had written on their forearms and were served delicious sushi and sashimi.

Beyond having a stomach-ache from the four espressos I'd drank, I wasn't ready to eat sushi at 7:50am. (Well, that and also because I didn't want the guy in the shop to read my arm about how I wanted to fuck him and end up getting fileted with his knife). So I just sat on the curb and read while I waited for Andy and Mike to finish eating.

After their meal, we headed back to the subway so that we could go back to...

...Rob and Atsuko's place to pack up all our belongings and then head to the airport. (*sniffle*).

Tokyo to LA.

We boarded the plane...

...had some motherfucking bi bim bab (yes!)...

andy b, me, mike doyle — ...and then 11.5 hours later, we were back in LA! We hung out for a bit at LAX on our layover, then said our goodbyes! Mike went off to hang out in LA for a few days, Andy went and caught his flight up to San Francisco and then I hopped on a plane and...

...headed to NYC. Over Nevada.

Obligatory plane pics.

Running away from sunset.

One more.

Almost 24 hours after leaving Japan, I was in a cab on the BQE headed back to NYC (and Meredith's apartment to try to convince her I could be a better boyfriend...which I somehow managed to do).