In stark contrast to the serenity of the shrine, gardens and forest, the Jingu-bashi bridge outside the Meiji-jingu is the Sunday stage for a bunch of teenagers dressed up in the craziest fashion, posing for pictures and loving the attention they get from the hundreds of tourists happily shapping away, trying to capture each pose. I was really excited to see this display of characters, though I don't know much about the anime characters some of them were trying to emulate. While there were a few actual performers, most of them just sat around doing their makeup, or walked about waiting for someone to ask for a picture. It kind of reminded me of America's throngs of mall going teenagers, except with really awesome clothes. We walked thru a couple of times and saw an assortment of people, but I think had we hung out all day I could have published my own personal copy of Fruits.
After lots of gawking, we went into yo-yogi park to see the famous Elvis/Rockabilly gangs dancing and posing with their leather jackets, hoop skirts, pink cadillacs and harlies. We bought some Asahi beer and takoyaki (octopus bread--surprisingly delicous without the bonito flakes) and watched them dance around for a while. There were about four separate gangs, each dancing in a circle seemingly oblivious to everyone around them watching. It sort of felt like rockabilly dance off, but mostly they just seemed like they were in their own world of cool. They didn't really pose for many people, but were mostly concerned with who had the hottest twist within the gang. My favorite though was the old American guy twisting along with them.
After eating our picnic we walked over to the interior of the park and watched the Sunday afternoon shenannigans. There were loads of people, having picnics, playing baseball, breakdancing, hula hooping, sword fighting, playing badmitton--you name it. It was one of the most dynamic things I've ever seen. Everyone wasn't just hanging out, but almost every group was doing something creative. I am totally inspired to at least take my hula hoop out on the town every once in a while.
After we couldn't just watch anymore, we walked over to the shopping district where there were more people loaded into one sidestreet of shops than I've ever seen. We fought our way to the Daiso flagship store where we spent the better part of 2 hours, getting good deals and good presents. We went into a few more over crowded shops, including some high end second hand stores, but I was too overwhelmed to look much more. Soon we fought our way out of the alley and over to the subway stop toward Shinjuku.
Outside the subway, we found a huge department store. While most of the time I wouldn't think about going in, we'd heard about the amazing basement food stalls/courts and as we were starving, decided to give it a try. I've been in a couple department store basements like this before, where they sell gourmet items, usually for gifting but this was like the basement of Macy's times a trillion. Not only were there lots of pre-packaged foods to gift, but also loads of individual deli counters each offering specialty hot Japanese foods to take out and eat where you like. We bought a couple of samplings of sushi, some chicken and some sake and sat outside on some bank steps to have our picnic dinner. While not the most polite place to eat, we were really left with no choice having found no where else to go. So, you may be thinking that this sounds like a pretty boring dinner, but it might have been the second best meal in Tokyo (more on the first best meal on day 3!). The sushi was incredible--even the rice was better than any sushi rice I'd ever had.
In Shinjuku, we visited one of Tokyo's few gay bars, Advocate and had a drink before heading home. While it was mostly a gay men's bar, full of guys warming up for the huge sweaty man dance party we saw advertisements for, it was nice to feel like I was on Stark street, PDX again even though in reality I was being a super international Korean resident, Tokyo travelling queer.
After getting back to Asakusa where we were staying, we hit up the convenience store for some awesome Japanese snacks and sake. Best 7-11 chocolate ever, really. Unfortunately, we never really ate out to get to have sake in a restaurant, but we now have a really cute collection of glass sake cups from the store! I have to say, that as far as rice wines go, sake is infinitely better than soju or makorie--Korea's traditional rice derived alcohols.
Then, sleep!
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