Japan! (Tokyo, specifically)

Tokyo has been a blast! While I lived Alaska for its quiet peacefulness and remoteness, Tokyo’s flashy and busy streets appeal to me. That’s because unlike LA or probably any other American big city, it’s super clean and all the buildings are broken apart with a ton of greenery. 

It feels like everyone in Japan is hurrying somewhere. Every morning, tons of people with steel in their eyes and regularity in their walk brisk-walk across the street, an army of white dress shirts and dark jeans, or these strange poofy pants a lot of japanese women wear. Case in point, in japanese  escalators, people who are riding the escalator without walking stand to the left, so that people who are rushing can walk up the escalator on the right. The subways are jam packed at 7 in the morning and 8-9 at night. So jam packed that on the first day, I was literally being squished against the glass door like a cartoon character. 

But it’s beautiful! I feel so at home and I’m not even Japanese. The people are super nice. The streets are so clean. Even the architecture is more clean and beautiful than LA’s grey bleakness. Another thing, there are are vending machines absolutely everywhere. Oh, and cheap seafood. Today we had conveyor belt sushi and it was crazy cheap. A good meal of conveyor belt sushi back at home for three would cost about 150$, but here it was 40$. And it’s delicious too, and fun to watch the chef make sushi right in front of you.

 I had a delicious clam soup for a dollar and twenty cents. Everything I love that’s so expensive at home is suddenly wicked cheap. The comics I read, the fashion I like (though japanese clothing is all too small for me, so I can only look), the art supplies I want, the food I crave. 

I’d probably sound like a crazy rambling tourist to the locals, haha. It makes me think about how all this can be normal to someone. Of course, not every local is as happy as I am. I’m so overwhelmed by everything I don’t even know where to start.

We have been so busy for the past three days. Every single day we’ve been rushing from place to place because there is so much to see. I’ve been walking about 8 miles a day because Tokyo is all walking, subways, and buses. 

Yesterday we went to something called an interactive digital art museum. I think it was called TeamLab Borderless Worlds. Now, you might be thinking, what the hell is an interactive digital art museum? 

This place was insane. The purpose was to let people get immersed in the experience and to quote them “experience art with your body”. It was like a maze, some of the rooms were hidden behind curtains and props and it was really a sense of exploring to find the next thing. Each room was a piece of art- yes, the room itself. Let me show some examples.

Those are all light projections. The cool thing is, there was some kind of program behind them, because if you stood on the “rock” in the center, the water would actually part around you. The projections would change often into something even prettier too. 

Then there was this room, which, you cant really see it, but you could stick magnets onto the wall and these magnetswould interact with the light projections. For example, you could stick a tree magnet on the wall and it would sprout a ladder. Then, the light-projected people would climb the ladder. You could also stick house/barn magnets and light projection cows would come out of them and headbutt the light projection people everywhere. 

One last room description: I didnt get a good picture of this one, but there was a room with a light projection aquarium on the wall with fish and squid and turtles and stuff swimming around. The interactive part of it was that you were actually given a drawing template- and you could draw your own design on your fish, or shark, or whatever, then the attendant would scan it and it mmwould fall into the aquarium and swim around. 

Overll, it was super immersive and fun. By the time I came out I was tired beyond hell, which shows how much fun I had. 

Today, we went to Harajuku, the center of Japanese youth culture, Shibuya, famous for Japanese night life,  Nakano Broadway,!and the Meiji Temple. I’ll admit that I went on a mad shopping spree. I’d say that I’m somewhat reserved in shopping normally, but all that goes out the window when I’m finding myself in several stores worth of what seems like everything I’ve ever wanted in my life. OH, yes, and we went to the Studio Ghibli museum! The craftsmanship of the place was astounding, so meticulous, so much detail put into their work. There was a wall of just concept art and I was amazed and inspired, I bought two books showing storyboards for their movies, and I want to study them when I get home. 

I have so much more to say, but I’m beyond tired. I have been for a few days; with no big breaks in between, the soreness from two days ago is still there, and it builds up. I’ve learned to ignore the constant leg soreness. My mom’s been going on fiery rampages over how tired she is though.

Now is the time for bed.