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28-09-08 Hibiya Park, Harajuku, "Dragon House"
Saturday was a great day. Woke up around ten after a good nights sleep and got my things together to head out to Hibiya to wander around the park for a few hours before meeting with Bryce and Akiko to go to Harajuku. The park was fantastic. It was a really nice day outside and the park is a good size, right in the middle of Hibiya. It was nice to just head off somewhere by myself and wander around for a while. The park actually has remnants of the old Hibiya Gate, which was part of the outer wall of defenses for the Edo castle. Apart from that, it was filled with little monuments that had been put up for various purposes. One was in honor of Dr. Jose Rizal on the centennial anniversary of Philippine independence, another which is a really neat carved image on the from of a slab of stone was in honor of Nordic navigators or something.
The subway exit I came out of was right on the edge of the park at one of the main entrances. There is a big plaza with a fountain that looked quite nice and it is all positioned between a long field (that you can't walk on :( ) and a stage that has an arc of seats around it. I wandered down the side of the field and then around to other parts of the park. Throughout, amidst plenty of beautiful trees, were little ponds and "lakes." One had a nice fountain that had a little statuette of a phoenix on top. I was able to just sit and enjoy it all, watch the gigantic fish swim around in the water, take pictures while being idle and take it all in. I absolutely love when there are beautiful places like that right in the middle of a huge city. Buildings stretching up above trees not even a quarter mile from where I was sitting. After wandering around for a while I started to hear music, of the sound check variety, coming from the stage near the fountain. I wandered over there to find out that it was the beginning of the Tokyo Music Marathon. All that I saw of it was three different performances there, but the whole festival is supposed to be going on for at least a week or so with different musical performances around Tokyo. The first person up was a girl singing what I can only describe as pop ballads, second was a guy whole played some instrumental numbers on his guitar, some electric and one on acoustic. The last act I saw was actually two people from France that were singing. All in all the acts were pretty decent, especially since they were just small time local (except for the French perhaps) artists that were getting a chance to perform. Will had joined me part way through and we went down to meet Akiko and Bryce to head off to Harajuku.
Harajuku is one of the fashion places around Tokyo, so it was a lot of fun seeing the different styles. Everything from what looked like hardcore goth punkers to the Harajuku girls in their lolita style outfits. We wandered down a few streets, one of which was one of the more famous strips that had tons of clothing stores and other such vendors stretching along the road. To describe it as a road is a bit excessive I think, as it really was a bit more of a wider alley. It was still interesting to see the huge variety of fashions even though it made me feel extremely under dressed in my T-shirt, shorts, and Reefs. I like to think that I was just representing the “Bum” style since it seems so unrepresented. While wandering around we ran into a couple of the other exchange students who told us about a bunch of the Hosei students involved in music that were meeting up at the Boissonade Tower on campus to just hang out and have a couple drinks. So, after we were done in Harajuku I came back to the dorms to change my pants (which had gotten some soup on them at the place we went to for lunch). On the walk from the station to the dorm we saw our landlords and talked with them on the way. According to them Tokyo Disneyland is pretty close to our dorm, within 45 minutes on foot. It was fun to talk with them as we went, well Bryce did most of the talking, but I still partook as much as I could.
Met up with Will near campus and we went over to the tower and met up with everyone. We sat around in the first floor seating area for a couple hours and talked, in mixed Japanese and English, about whatever came up. After this, a few of the girls headed off to a club (which I heard was pretty fantastic, had a pool and everything!) and I went with a group of the Japanese students to, what they called “Dragon House.” Dragon is the nickname of one of them, so it was really just heading over to his place near Shinjuku for a few more drinks and conversation. This was the point where I really started trying to keep my conversation in as much Japanese as I could. I was quite happy that I was able to for the most part, only using English when I had absolutely no idea how to explain something in Japanese. It was also a nice boost that I was able to understand most of what they were saying in Japanese (they were also using English from time to time). So I sat and talked about whatever came up until one by one people started falling asleep, and at some point I too eventually became friends with the floor until they woke us all up to head on home. It's times like that which give me confidence that I might not be a complete idiot when it comes to Japanese, and besides it was a lot of fun.
Saturday was a great day. Woke up around ten after a good nights sleep and got my things together to head out to Hibiya to wander around the park for a few hours before meeting with Bryce and Akiko to go to Harajuku. The park was fantastic. It was a really nice day outside and the park is a good size, right in the middle of Hibiya. It was nice to just head off somewhere by myself and wander around for a while. The park actually has remnants of the old Hibiya Gate, which was part of the outer wall of defenses for the Edo castle. Apart from that, it was filled with little monuments that had been put up for various purposes. One was in honor of Dr. Jose Rizal on the centennial anniversary of Philippine independence, another which is a really neat carved image on the from of a slab of stone was in honor of Nordic navigators or something.
The subway exit I came out of was right on the edge of the park at one of the main entrances. There is a big plaza with a fountain that looked quite nice and it is all positioned between a long field (that you can't walk on :( ) and a stage that has an arc of seats around it. I wandered down the side of the field and then around to other parts of the park. Throughout, amidst plenty of beautiful trees, were little ponds and "lakes." One had a nice fountain that had a little statuette of a phoenix on top. I was able to just sit and enjoy it all, watch the gigantic fish swim around in the water, take pictures while being idle and take it all in. I absolutely love when there are beautiful places like that right in the middle of a huge city. Buildings stretching up above trees not even a quarter mile from where I was sitting. After wandering around for a while I started to hear music, of the sound check variety, coming from the stage near the fountain. I wandered over there to find out that it was the beginning of the Tokyo Music Marathon. All that I saw of it was three different performances there, but the whole festival is supposed to be going on for at least a week or so with different musical performances around Tokyo. The first person up was a girl singing what I can only describe as pop ballads, second was a guy whole played some instrumental numbers on his guitar, some electric and one on acoustic. The last act I saw was actually two people from France that were singing. All in all the acts were pretty decent, especially since they were just small time local (except for the French perhaps) artists that were getting a chance to perform. Will had joined me part way through and we went down to meet Akiko and Bryce to head off to Harajuku.
Harajuku is one of the fashion places around Tokyo, so it was a lot of fun seeing the different styles. Everything from what looked like hardcore goth punkers to the Harajuku girls in their lolita style outfits. We wandered down a few streets, one of which was one of the more famous strips that had tons of clothing stores and other such vendors stretching along the road. To describe it as a road is a bit excessive I think, as it really was a bit more of a wider alley. It was still interesting to see the huge variety of fashions even though it made me feel extremely under dressed in my T-shirt, shorts, and Reefs. I like to think that I was just representing the “Bum” style since it seems so unrepresented. While wandering around we ran into a couple of the other exchange students who told us about a bunch of the Hosei students involved in music that were meeting up at the Boissonade Tower on campus to just hang out and have a couple drinks. So, after we were done in Harajuku I came back to the dorms to change my pants (which had gotten some soup on them at the place we went to for lunch). On the walk from the station to the dorm we saw our landlords and talked with them on the way. According to them Tokyo Disneyland is pretty close to our dorm, within 45 minutes on foot. It was fun to talk with them as we went, well Bryce did most of the talking, but I still partook as much as I could.
Met up with Will near campus and we went over to the tower and met up with everyone. We sat around in the first floor seating area for a couple hours and talked, in mixed Japanese and English, about whatever came up. After this, a few of the girls headed off to a club (which I heard was pretty fantastic, had a pool and everything!) and I went with a group of the Japanese students to, what they called “Dragon House.” Dragon is the nickname of one of them, so it was really just heading over to his place near Shinjuku for a few more drinks and conversation. This was the point where I really started trying to keep my conversation in as much Japanese as I could. I was quite happy that I was able to for the most part, only using English when I had absolutely no idea how to explain something in Japanese. It was also a nice boost that I was able to understand most of what they were saying in Japanese (they were also using English from time to time). So I sat and talked about whatever came up until one by one people started falling asleep, and at some point I too eventually became friends with the floor until they woke us all up to head on home. It's times like that which give me confidence that I might not be a complete idiot when it comes to Japanese, and besides it was a lot of fun.