Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Now for the next installment of the account of my trip to Japan.
Day 4. 25 May (Fri).
On Fri, my family and I joined another day tour organized by the tour company, this time to Mt Fuji and to Hakone. However, it was rainy and cloudy all day long, and as a result we couldn't see the famed summit of Mt Fuji at all. Nonetheless, the view from the coach window was simply amazing. We could see thick white mist rising from the verdant slopes of the towering hills surrounding the road as we were driving through Kanagawa, and when the coach climbed up the mountain all the way to the 5th Station, we were actually driving right through clouds and not through fog as I had thought. For someone who comes from a country where MOUNT Faber is lower than Bukit Timah HILL, it was an awe-inspiring moment.
After visiting the 5th Station of Mt Fuji, the tour group made its way to Hakone to see the Oowakudani Valley, which used to be called "Great Hell" as there was once a natural sulphur leak and all the vegetation on the slopes had withered away. We got into a contraption similar to a cable car called a "rope way" (because of his heavily-accented English, my sis and I thought the tour guide said "role play") and moved up from the bottom of the valley to the top. However, because of the bad weather conditions, the windows of the carriage were all fogged up and we could hardly see a thing. Moreover, the carriage was also swinging from side to side a little dangerously because of the strong winds. The winds were so strong that when we had to make a dash between the rope way station and our coach in the unsheltered carpark, my sister's umbrella turned inside out and some of the stems became severely bent. No wonder we saw many broken 100 yen umbrellas in the rubbish bins at the rope way station.
At the end of the tour, my family had to make our way back to our hotel on our own from Shinjuku station. And guess who I bumped into at Shinjuku station? Brandon and Roger's friend from NUS engineering (sorry, I don't know his name...)! It was really weird 'cos I had just spoken to Brandon on the phone during the 3-hour bus ride from Hakone back to Tokyo. And then I thought, "Hmm, I haven't seen Shao in a loooooong time too..." and when we were walking into Sunshine 60, I met Shao and Joyce coming out of the building!! The population of Tokyo is more than three times that of Singapore and I managed to bump into people from the same group of friends within 2 hours - how amazing is that?!
Day 5. 26 May (Sat).
Sat was Harajuku Day! The narrow Takeshita Doori was so packed with crowds, we could only inch along, and it was really difficult to simply cross the street, which was no more than approximately 2m wide, just to see the shops on the other side because of the endless flows of human traffic going in opposite directions. And because we were unfamiliar with the ways of Japan, my family always ended up walking in the wrong direction against the thick stream of shoppers... ^^;
But even though I detest crowds (which is why you seldom see me out at Orchard on a weekend), the trip to Harajuku was definitely well worth the struggle. The shops there sold the coolest and most cutting-edge clothes and accessories, and the shop attendants in La Foret were all dressed up in the newest collections of h. NAOTO, Black Peace Now, Alice and the Pirates and all the other famous Visual Kei brands. There was even this shop attendant who had long, bright pink hair and was wearing a cute, puffy black skirt and pink and black make-up, and it was only when the shop attendant said "Irrashaimase~" that we realised HE WAS A GUY. It was a pity we were in the crowded shop and could not snap a picture of him... ;___;
And most of the customers were also decked out in all kinds of funky and quirky outfits. We saw sweet Lolitas with pink strawberry-patterned, frilly dresses and huge bows on their heads, and gothic and punk girls with chains and tatters and tartans. If only shopping in Far East was more like this...
My sis and I had intended to take pictures of the cosplayers as well, but we could not find them at all! According to photographs uploaded on sgcafe, the cosplayers congregate on a wide pavement, but Takeshita Doori and Meiji Doori were anything but wide. I asked Brandon later and it appears that the cosplayers hang out near the Meiji Jinguu shrine. So no photos of Japanese cosplayers... =____="
At the end of the day, my feet were pretty sore but I managed to get several interesting pieces of clothing. I also realized that clothes sizes in Japan are extremely small, and most of the VK brands sell clothing only in the female M size (which is equivalent to an S size in Singapore), so I had to resort to buying M size men's clothes. It seems that both Japanese guys and girls are pretty skinny... shopping for clothes in Japan makes me feel so FAT!!! >___<
Day 6. 27 May (Sun).
On Sun morning, my family made a trip to the Seiyu supermarket near our hotel to buy some (relatively) cheap fruits. The fruits were so perfectly shaped and laid out so prettily one began to suspect they weren't real. The red cherries in the boxes were all of the identical size and shape, and were lined up in neat rows like beads on a string. There wasn't a single deformed fruit in sight at all. And there was so much variety to choose from! Buying fruits here in Singapore can be such a bore when all you ever see whenever you walk into NTUC is orange, apple, pear, orange, apple, pear, orange, apple... ok, you get the idea.
We bought a box of cherries, a box of strawberries, two 'authentic' Fuji apples and two peaches. The fruits were absolutely delicious. Never have I tasted such sweet and juicy and firm fruits before. Now when I think about the hard peaches and raw strawberries I have eaten in Singapore, it makes me want to go back to Japan again...
After shopping at the supermarket, my sis and I went to explore the other anime and manga stores around the Animate. We stumbled into the pornographic manga substore of K-Books meant for guys accidentally (who could blame us when the sign outside the store read "K-Books Premium Manga"!?) before we got to the main store, which was dominated by BL doujinshi meant for girls (hehe). K-Books was something like the Japanese equivalent of Comics Connection, with all sorts of anime merchandise scattered randomly all over the place for customers to dig through, but with much more variety and better quality than Comics Connection. My sis bought a Trinity Blood bookmark from K-Books only to realize later that the bookmark had the Animate logo on it and the label "NOT FOR SALE"... O___o
There simply wasn't enough time to visit the other manga stores around the area, such as Mandarake and Manga no Mori, and it was such a pity because manga in Japan is quite cheap (and second-hand manga is dirt cheap). But we decided to spend our lunchtime at B: Lily Rose again. This time, there were more garcons on duty and you could see that all of them performed different BL roles. After our meal of nagomi, we requested to take polaroid pictures with some of the garcons (photography by customers is not allowed and so you have to fork out 500 yen for a polaroid). My sis was, as usual, fine with anything and anybody, so I asked a very kawaii garcon called Haru to take a photo with her. As for me, I chose the more masculine Keisuke, who was wearing glasses that day. Much to our surprise, the garcons decorated the poloraids with colourful marker pens, lending a very personal touch to the pictures. It seems these garcons have to be skilled at cooking, mixing cocktails, waiting tables, cosplaying, interior decor, chatting with customers, taking photos, drawing on omu rice, drawing on polaroids... wow.
In the afternoon, we took a train down to Shibuya to meet Brandon for some sight-seeing and then dinner. I've long heard of Shibuya's reputation as a very lively and colourful nightspot, but really being there and being swept along by the crowds on the world-famous road junction with three diagonal zebra crossings was pretty exciting. And at night, the multicoloured neon lights and the giant billboard screens lent a phantasmagoric air to the whole area. I once read a newspaper article in which the journalist described Tokyo as a place of "organized chaos". I think that's a pretty accurate description. The highly distinctive fashion styles of the individual shoppers in the crowds and the jumbled array of colourful lights and the haphazard sprouting of buildings tall, short, wide and narrow, all contrast sharply with the orderly way in which the crowds cross the street and the unbelievable cleanliness of the public toilets. One really gets the feeling of being a flaneur when one walks down the streets of Tokyo. (Though in the final analysis, I do prefer Orchard's logical layout and address system because I'm a total idiot with directions...)
Brandon brought us on a quick tour round the shops, including Shibuya 109 for girls and Shibuya Men's for guys. He warned us that going into Shibuya 109 would be rather intimidating, and he was right. It wasn't a shopping mall, it was a disco with flashing strobe lights and thumping techno music and lots of garish gold and silver stuff on display. I have no idea how anyone can pick out the clothes he/she likes in such surroundings... @___@
And what was really, really funny was that the first thing that greeted us when we stepped into Shibuya Men's was a small section selling Hello Kitty character goods. O____o
And I got my first (and maybe last) taste of the Shibuya-kei fashion style. I had always wondered where the Ganguro people ("black face" or in other words, the inverse of the Gothic Lolita) hung out at if Harajuku was already taken up by the Visual Kei people and Ikebukuro was dominated by Otome fangirls, and now I know. I guess Shibuya-kei is something like the Japanese equivalent of the Ah Lian and the Ah Beng. During our very quick rounds in the shopping malls, I saw many overly-tanned girls and guys with big blond hair and white make-up and flashy outfits. Definitely not to my taste at all, but at least they are confident about dressing up in whatever extreme fashion they like and are not slaves to convention.
Day 7. 28 May (Mon).
Our last morning in Japan. By this time, I was so sick of the breakfast offered at the hotel, I only ate a piece of bread and drank a small cup of soup. As part of our flight and hotel package, we were entitled to breakfast at the Lobby Lounge and the Bayern cafe at the hotel for all 7 days of our stay. In true capitalist fashion worthy of the critiques of Althusser and Adorno, the hotel gave us consumers an illusion of having a choice when in reality there was no choice at all, for both restaurants served the exact same breakfast buffet for all days of the week. It got really sickening to see the same fat-filled sausages (eww), the same cream of potato soup and the same cabbage salad with 99.9% cabbage and 0.1% carrots and lettuce everyday. And I absolutely detest cabbage! It didn't make things much better when I realised that most of the salads sold in the convenience stores and in restaurants are cabbage salads!!! =___=
After the last breakfast (thank god!), my family and I took a leisurely stroll around the shops in the neighbouring Sunshine 60 building, which up to then we had not had a chance to look through because shops in department stores in Japan generally close at 8pm. Now I don't think I can bear to go to Orchard for a long, long time. The shopping mall seemed to have an endless number of shops selling all sorts of things, from cheap but well-designed clothes at Uniqlo (they actually sell T-shirts designed by avant garde artist Kusama Yayoi at only 1990 yen!) to cheap but pretty jewellery (at only 315 yen per piece for all items!) to cute and delicate glass ornaments to quirky home decor and lifestyle accessories (like butter knives in the shape of blowfish!) ... the list goes on and on.
And everything was so kawaii! Friends of my parents have told us that everything is expensive in Japan and that there's nothing to buy at all. They must have been walking around with their eyes blindfolded. The problem about shopping in Japan is not having nothing to buy, it's wanting to buy EVERYTHING! And food and goods in Japan are really not that expensive as perceived, but perhaps wanting to buy everything makes the total cost pretty high... *___*
So after some last-minute shopping, we boarded the limousine bus (which is technically a coach, but here once again we see the Japanese tendency to assign totally different meanings to English loan words) and headed for Narita Airport. After a 7-hour flight, which seemed shorter and less tiring than the flight to Japan, I'm back in sultry, humid Singapore again. Although the trip was quite enjoyable (I say "quite" and not "very" because of certain circumstances that have made me wary of taking another holiday with my family), it's still feels great to be back home. =D
kaoru said at 7:22 PM
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