Monday, May 28, 2007
Tadaima, Singapore!
I'm back from my one-week trip to Tokyo and now I'm going to give a short (hopefully) account of some of the interesting things I saw and did in the land of weird and kawaii things.
Day 1. 22 May (Tue).
My family and I began our journey to Japan at around 8am in the morning. We travelled for about 7 hours economy-class on an ANA Airlines flight. I was quite excited sitting on the plane and looking out the window, as this was my first flight abroad since I went to Australia when I was 10 years old. The sight of Changi airport receding into the background and the clouds drifting by right outside the airplane's windows was pretty exhilarating. The experience of flying thousands of feet above the land and seas made me feel amazed once again at how human science and technology have made what was once unthinkable possible. I guess we take it for granted that we can travel all over the globe in airplanes but the fact that a humongous metal contraption carrying human beings can fly in the sky is a pretty amazing thing.
We touched down at Narita International Airport in Tokyo around 3pm and checked into our hotel in Ikebukuro in the evening. I had imagined the Sunshine City Crown Prince Hotel to be a rather new and impressive hotel because it was right next to a new gigantic shopping and entertainment complex called Sunshine 60, but it turned out that the hotel was quite old, small and dingy. My sis and I couldn't open the main door of the hotel room, the toilet door and the door that connected our room with our parents' at the same time because all three doors clashed. But the hotel rooms were quite clean and the best thing about the hotel was that it was very conveniently located near Otome Road, paradise for female otakus!
Day 2. 23 May (Wed).
My sis and I spent Wed exploring East Ikebukuro. We first went to the Animate store, which was 7 storeys of absolute animanga heaven. Manga and artbooks sold there were so much cheaper than those sold in Kino back here in Singapore, so I bought 2 volumes of NANA (I had actually wanted to buy books 15, 16 and 17 but in my excitement-induced confusion, I bought only books 15 and 17 by mistake), 2 Angel Sanctuary artbooks, the Peacemaker Touka Oboegaki and the first book of a new series called Kuro Shitsuji. And we visisted the (in)famous doujinshi level of the Animate and the collection of doujinshi sold was utterly overwhelming. I think it would have taken us at least 3 hours to browse through every single doujinshi on all the crammed shelves. Unfortunately, most of the doujinshi were based on FMA, Gintama and Gundam Seed, series which I have either stopped following or have little interest in, and the rest of the doujins were based on series I have not even heard of (being so out-of-touch with the latest anime as I have been in recent years). So I compensated by getting BL manga instead (and there were so many series I simply couldn't decide which to buy!). But I did fulfil my promise and bought ZQ a R18 doujinshi featuring EVERYONE x Hijikata from Gintama O__o
There simply wasn't enough time to see everything in the Animate. After rushing through all 7 storeys, we went to B: Lily Rose for lunch. B: Lily Rose is a cafe catering to female otakus who like BL, and all the "garcons" are actually androgynous females dressed up as males. We were served by Noriaki and Keisuke, who were far prettier and cooler than 'real' guys in Singapore. *____* And although the cafe was really just a tiny concrete bunker, the atmosphere was really cosy and friendly. The garcons seemed to be good friends with one another and their customers, and although they were rather short of manpower, they made the effort to decorate the place and the food very nicely with pretty little details like cut roses floating in wine glasses.
After lunch, my sis and I made our way to our first ever live concert in Japan. As I've mentioned before, most of the major J-rock bands had flown off to LA for the J-rock Revolution Festival, so we had little choice but to settle for an extremely obscure three-man live by three VK indies bands called Rozary, Tokami and ZEST, at this extremely obscure live house called Ikebukuro CYBER (which was nothing more than a tiny underground bomb shelter in a shabby side street). I didn't know how to book tickets in advance in Singapore, so I figured the only way I could do so was to book the tickets online under ZEST's name as part of their promotion. In return, my sis and I received a free CD recording of one of their previous lives (it sounds quite horrible, by the way). I was already quite embarrassed that we were getting the tickets at a cheaper price even though we had not even heard any of ZEST's songs before, but the most ironic thing was that we had to leave the live early because our parents were waiting and there was no way to contact them since we were underground, and so we missed the last 1 hour of the live which was ZEST's performance... =____=;
As expected, the music was not exactly spectacular. The opening band Rozary had about only 2 songs which they kept repeating over and over again, and then they came out for an encore that no one asked for and played the same songs again! But they had a very committed and organized group of fangirls dressed up as maids (!!), who danced along with elaborate choreographed actions and were led by an obasan who was dressed in a maid costume too! My sis suspected that she was the mother of one of the band members. She must be a really supportive mother indeed...
The second band, Tokami, was slightly more established than Rozary and thus had more songs to perform, but technically they were inferior to Rozary. The vocalist often started on the wrong key and the rhythm of the band was sometimes out of sync. But what's most important to me is that the band is sincere about making music, and I could feel that precious raw sincerity in Rozary and Tokami that is very often lost once VK bands become major and their music becomes polished. At first my sis and I just stood in the back of the live house because we weren't fans and we didn't know the actions to the songs, but the vocalist of Tokami began insisting that everyone join in and do the actions. He kept going, "ZEN IN! ZEN IN! ZEN IN!" and so we had no choice but to dance along with the fangirls (and there were other people at the live who were compelled to participate too). But it was good we joined in 'cos it made the live all the more fun! We basically followed the vocalist's instructions and copied the actions of the fans in front. We flipped our fingers, bowed back and forth, headbanged and whenever the vocalist went "AIYAIYAIYAI!", the whole crowd danced to the left and then to the right while waving our hands in the air. It was crazy and high and even though I'm not a fan of any of the bands, it was definitely a memorable first live experience.
Day 3. 24 May (Thur).
On Thur, my family joined a one-day tour around the whole city of Tokyo organized by a tour company. We first visited the Meiji Jinguu shinto shrine, then the Imperial Palace gardens and then we went on to Asakusa Kannon temple. We didn't dare venture into the temple as it was spewing out thick smoke from the incense burners but we managed to get some interesting wagashi like senbei and ningyouyaki at the Nakamise Doori. The streets were packed with little shops selling all sorts of snacks, sweets and trinkets and throngs of students on school excursions, and it would have been a lot better if the guide had given us more time to explore the area...
After visiting the temple, the tour group made its way to Tokyo Bay for lunch at a restaurant with a seaview, and then a short cruise on the Symphony Odaiba. My sis and I decided to step onto the deck of the ship and we were immediately hit by very strong sea winds. It was very fun taking pictures of the ship and Rainbow Bridge while trying to walk against the wind. And I didn't get blown away, despite my mom's constant joking that I eat so little I'll "piao zou" if there's a hurricane...
We ended off the day with our last stop at Odaiba for some picture-taking at the mini-sized imitation Statue of Liberty, and for some shopping at the nearby shopping mall. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to have a look around Venus Fort, which I've heard is a 'theme' mall with roman statues and an artificial sky on the ceiling that changes from morning scenery to night scenery. Shopping is more than consumption in Japan; it's an artform. ^^
Ok, that's all for today's post. I'll talk more about Mt. Fuji, Harajuku, Shibuya and shopping at a later date. Photos will also be uploaded soon!
kaoru said at 11:19 PM
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