Hunkabutta Archives
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.

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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.

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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...
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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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