Winter Break Part 2

Shane and I went to Harajuku, and boy was it packed with gaijin. Was a bit amazed, in spite of self. Lots of overpriced stores and pretentious little boutiques and coffeeshops that served eight-dollar cappuccinos. Ah, tourism.
We didnt buy anything, as we are both very stingy, but were very sad. I in particular wanted to find a shirt with laughable english on it, like Cheryl Lee's "truth without a lie" shirt from the Nagoya area. We did get to marvel at some fun-looking hairstyles. Also we questioned the fashion of Japan. Little fur pieces, like a brownish marmot wrapped around a girl's neck, is quite a la mode here. It's fake fur, but still. I like fuzzy things myself, but would stop short at buying marmot-lookalike. It does say a bit about the differences in culture. Much as the Asian population in general has some closed-minded ideas (this is a stereotype btw), we Americans have some of our own. Looking at some things people wore with impunity, I mentioned more than once, "whoa. That kid would get beat up in america" or "he'd get jumped in a parking lot for wearing that." People are mocked for expressing themselves anywhere, I guess. But not for clothes in Japan. Which is good as far as expression goes. But also bad, as no one seems to be able to tell the girls with the football-colored makeup that they look silly. Or is that against America's beloved freedom of expression? hmm...
Anyway, from Harajuku we frolicked along to meet (aggrevious spelling-wrong I am about to commit) Hen-Jan, Shane's Korean friend. She's very sweet by the way. She went with us to Yokohama's Chinatown, a bustling nightspot and lovely, lovely food. The signs are like a neon, comic-book expectation of a chinatown. The gates were neat, all very garish. We found a tabehodai (all you can eat!) with nomihodai (all you can drink) and gorged ourselves on the chinese food. Upon taking this very picture I was almost flattened by a delivery truck. But I think you get a good view and depth and color and all that, so I bear the truck no ill will.

It was the very next day we went to Tokyo Disneyland! Was very nostalgic but somewhat like Disney meets Orwell's 1985. The streets were so clean you could probably eat off of them and be in no hygenic peril. Yet...we never saw a street-sweeper.. There was english/Japanese on the signs, people spoke English, and of course the scenery was the same. Except, there were little things. For example, at a country-roundup sort of western place, the food they served was: curry rice. The exhorbitant food prices of Japan were unchanged in the park, which is a stark contrast to America wherein the food prices inside the park vary to the outside world by like ten dollars. So actually, the food prices were probably about the same. There was clearly nowhere near the sweeping wide-open spaces of America's Disneyland, but the people did not fill it, it wasn't the press of people that America's has to deal with. Except in the stores at night. Was reminiscent of riding the trains during rush hour, being thrust against strange people you dont know, oftentimes quite awkwardly. There were virtually no toys, which shattered the american illusion. What kind of Disneyland is that? Was all very nostalgic until that point. I remember fondly buying pirate swords with my friends that we in no way needed, waving them about and screaming "ARG!" probably annoying everyone to the verge of tears. There were no such children in Tokyo Japan, no such children-be-children attitude. Got the feeling it was more geared toward the adults than the kids. Another thing was odd. There were people in clumps or lines just laying on blankets or sleeping or sitting and Shane and I didn't understand why. Was it a line for a concert or something? No no, they were just taking a break. In the middle of the sidewalk. Nothing to see here folks!

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