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08.17.02
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We enjoyed ourselves today at a small matsuri (festival) near our house.
They had the usual mikoshi (portable parade shrines), food stalls and
carnival games, but they also had a funky,
new-age drum ensemble performance and a karate
demonstration from a local school.
I managed to get quite a few nice pictures,
so you'll probably be seeing more of
this
festival here on Hunkabutta in the
days to
come.
08.15.02
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I'm on the train right now, heading home
from Sri's going-away party.
Sri, who is returning to school in the fall,
was a Blue Martini consultant that I've been
working with, on and off, for almost a year.
He was my lunch buddy, and I'm going to miss
him.
The party was at a chic little restaurant-bar
in Shibuya called Zaru. It was one of those
places with beautiful young people milling
about and the scent of gin and ginger in
the air, the kind of place that you step
into and then think to yourself, 'now this is why I live in the city.'
It had 20-foot ceilings with three giant,
neo-baroque chandeliers that were made out
of row upon row of upside-down wine glasses.
At the base of each chandelier was a light
that would gradually change color every few
minutes: from blue to green to orange.
Along the left side of the room was a sit-down
bar, parallel to the bar was a row of booths,
and the rest of the room was taken up by
black tables with white, round chairs.
The bar ran the entire length of the room.
Behind it, sunk into the wall, were four
industrial-size, chromed exhaust fans, one
next to the other, each slowly rotating.
On the opposite wall was a series of 8-foot
mirrors. With the fans on one side and the
mirrors on the other you were always perceiving
motion out of the corner of your eye. The
booths were raised and had fat seats that
were covered in white vinyl with chrome fittings.
They had that 1970's futuristic look to them,
all rounded corners and Scandinavian ergonomic
lines.
The dinnerware was traditional, rough-style
Japanese ceramics, bent and twisted and looking
like it was made by a peasant in a log hut,
but, in stark contrast, the chopsticks were
stainless steel and the cocktail glasses
were tall, slender and sophisticated.
If any of you are ever in Tokyo, maybe we
can go and check out Zaru together.
Well, my stop is coming up: Time to get off
the train.
08.13.02
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It's very late here in Tokyo and we're getting
ready to go to bed. We just finished watching
a movie: The Juniper Tree, starring Bjork. It was alright, though
I don't think that I'll be buying the DVD
anytime soon if you know what I mean.
We have a TV set but can't get any
stations
on it. We just use it with a VCR to
watch
movies. Sometimes we rent American
TV shows
too: ER, X-files, and Sex and the City.
However,
we're pretty out of date when it comes
to
TV culture. I don't really miss it
though,
and I don't think Karen does either.
One really nice thing about Japan is that
they prefer subtitles over dubbing in their
foreign language films, which is the opposite
of North America. What this means for us
is that we can watch almost any American
film or TV show that we can find in a rental
shop. The down-side to this is that we can't
watch non-English foreign films.
I'm going to leave you with that little Japano-fact
for now because it's time for me to go and
brush my teeth.
Until later...
08.11.02
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Karen got a new haircut yesterday: nice,
eh?
The Japanese take their hair very seriously,
and their stylists can be exceptionally
meticulous.
Karen's haircut took about two and
half hours
to do. Even for a man, it takes well
over
an hour. Barbers will apply a steamed
cloth
to your face, massage your scalp and
neck,
and maybe give you a shave while they're
at it.
Hair salons are often the largest, in terms
of floor space, of any business on a typical
street. The fronts of most salons are big
windows so that as you walk past you can
look in and see all of the cool, fashionably
dressed stylists.
I've been told that being a hair stylist
is quite a prestigious job. I believe this.
They have to do a long apprenticeship before
they can become certified. I've even seen
one stylist here with a pair of scissors
tattooed on her neck. It's true.
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