Shibuya
Wow – where do I start? Such a lot has happened since I last wrote. Gordon flew in to Tokyo on 30th October so I went to meet him and we spent the Halloween weekend there. First off we checked out Shibuya – which is an amazing place. All the newest fashion and music is centred around this area – it’s definetly one of my favourite places in Japan so far. It’s full of little streets packed with shops, Izakaya’s (Japanese Style Pubs), clubs and restaurant’s which all converge onto the biggest pedestrian crossing you’ve ever seen! On one side of the street is a statue to a dog called Hachinko – it’s similar to the tale of Greyfriar’s Bobby – Hachinko sat and waited for his master everyday even after his master died and afterwards a bronze statue was put there in his honour.
This is where all the cool kids chill in the early evening and early morning (i.e. either side of club time 11pm-6am).
So Gordon and I checked out 109. This is a 9 storey shopping centre filled with mainly girls fashion shops. It’s an incredible experience – there are literally hundreds of smoking hot Japanese chicks milling about, Gordon and I barely said a word to each other as we drifted around it for 20 mins or so. After that we went to a few different pubs and Izakayas – in one we met a couple of Japanese girls from Yokohama and after chatting and drinking for a while we ended up heading to a Kareoke place.
They said they wanted to go to a club after but after Gordon and I murdered “Thriller” they strangely seemed to change their minds and headed home. Epic FAIL! Either that or there was some kind of misunderstanding, the jury’s still out on that one. Anyway Gordon and I were not deterred and we headed to a bar called Scramble to decide where to end our first night.
Womb was the recommendation we got from this amazing female DJ, so we took it and headed there and Am I glad we did?!? The place is BANGING, we went in (3500en each) and headed past all these lockers for your stuff to this wee room – I was well disappointed but Gordon said lets have a look outside and we found this corridor with beer vending machines which leads to a spiral staircase (if any of you have seen the film Babel you might recognise this club as the Japanese girl goes to it). Up the staircase there is a massive dancefloor and further up a big balcony bar and at the top a VIP room.
Womb
Cheezer
Lovely girl - Thought she was gonna take G to the Yakuza at first tho! Ha ha Just be careful who you bat balloons at in the future dude! :P
The whole place is very dark and industrial looking but well cool. Drinks are pricey tho 1000en each pretty much. But we started dancing after a bit and ended up meeting this Japanese girl. Who led us over to all her friends and we had a great night hanging out with them and dancing till 6am! When you go out the doormen tell you to be quiet as you’re in a neighbourhood and it’s bright and sunny – it’s kinda surreal.
So we got the train back to our capsule hotel and crashed from 9am to 4pm – then we got up and headed to Harajuku – it’s still in Shibuya but it’s another part. This is where all the crazy fashionable kids hang out and is full of cool shops like Volcom, Lois Vuitton etc and tiny little boutique fashion shops just off the main street. There is one area where the kids chill and they all wear extreme fashion like Doll Girl – all pink in big puffy dresses and pink curled hair, laced parasols and knee high socks, Goths, punks, you name it – the school girl fashion is interesting because there are two styles EroKawa (Erotic Cute) and Ayu which is just kinda cute looking – all big eyed and blonde hair. They stem from two famous pop singers and most school girls fall into one category or the other – it’s a big movement in Japan that attracts both admiration and criticism. (n.b. they don’t have to be actual schoolgirls to dress like this but most of them are). Then there’s the fellas who either look normal or like a Host. Hosts are guys who stand around bars and try to get rich women to drink there and in return for high prices they tell them how pretty they are and give them good company. They all have skinny jeans or shiny suits, bleached long hair and generally look like sleazeballs – Japan is strange as I’ve got so used to seeing men with handbags, pink cuddly toys hanging off their sparkli-mobiles and very feminine hair and appearance. However because it was Halloween it wasn’t so easy to tell the fancy dress from the fashionistas!
Gordon LOVED cups of ice you could buy in the Conbini! ha ha
Right opposite each other - Who'd have thunk it?
After some shopping we headed back to meet Jen and her friend Dan at the Capsule hotel. We got suited for Halloween (Gordon and I wore Kilts) and headed out to ageHa – to cut a long story short it was an AMAZING night!
We went to Shibuya at 11pm to get a free bus eventually getting there at about 1am as we had to queue for over an hour for the bus but even that was fun as everyone was in fancy dress and the banter was flowing (not to mention the Convienience store over the road keeping us in beers and chuhai’s). The we were confronted with the biggest queue ever but again made loads of friends and got pissed in the 2 hour wait. The club is insanely big and equally as good – I had a great night. We saw pole dancers – the best you’ve ever seen, Beyonces’ choreographer was dancing on the stage too, good music, a swimmingpool, a beach, a dance tent, a food area you name it….. Brilliant!
We left at about 7am and grabbed some food with other revellers in a local Donburi restraunt then headed back to the hotel for 9.30am. We slept till 11am and had to get up and go!! Tough day! – so we just headed for the Shinkansen and were in Kobe in 2 hours.
We took Sunday night off – and then had a night out in Kobe on Monday night. Which was good as always J
The rest of the week was pretty hectic as I was working Wed, Thurs and Fri but we had a few beers at night, cooked Japanese curry and stayed in one night, the rest of the time we ate out and we played football in Harbourland on Wed. One day Gordon came to my school and met some of the pupils and we had a game of football with them. Oh yeah we also went into a forest behind Hanayama and shot each other with BB guns which was really good fun!
On Friday we had a Kobe night out and on Saturday we went to Kyoto with Chris and his Japanese girlfriend/whatever Ria. It was awesome. That night we left Chris and Ria and headed back to Sannomiya to meet up with some Jet’s and some Japanese students to go to an Izakaya after eating drinking Gordon and I headed to Osaka to party the night away in a club there. Fun was had by all…
Sunday and Monday were spent in Sannomiya and we went with Alisa and Alex (two of my US JET friends) for Kobe Beef which was AMAZINGLY TASTY and had the Japanese photo booth experience for Gordons benefit. (Hell who am I kidding!?! I love it too!)
Then it was over too quickly Gordon got the Shinkansen to Tokyo on Tuesday afternoon and took his flight to Oz 8pm Tuesday night. Now my place is all lonely – but it’s cool – it’s Friday again and I’m at work looking forward to another great weekend – however it’s gonna have to be a cheap one as now I’m skinto! I shouldn’t have bought those Volcom Jeans in Harajuku, but they are so cool! J
Happy days,
I’ll make an effort to do more frequent and shorter posts!
