tokyo decaDANCE!

Somehow I will make it through this month.

Yesterday I spent most of the day wandering around Shinjuku trying to find the Closet Child (used reseller of Gothic and Lolita clothing) from memory. Not really an effective strategy as I had never been there before. I was trying to find a shirt to match my 3000Y used skirt to wear to Tokyo Decadance that night. Clearly I was not very successful.
I did find the Marui One weirdo building that only has weirdo brands in it (like Angelic Pretty etc.)
For some reason they were also having this extremely compact Evangelion art exhibition and t-shirt sale.


In my wandering I also passed these giant costumed guys. It sucks to be alone at times like these because I would've loved a picture with them but there was no one to take one.

I finally just gave up and went to the Harajuku Closet Child where I had seen this one shirt that matched but I didn't necessarily want to buy it. I caved and purchased it, and it matched perfectly with my outfit. Of course I don't have any photos.
I accidentally walked to Shinjuku instead of Shibuya. I asked the police officers where the place I was going was and they were like, uhhh. This map, it says Shibuya right there in English, right? I was really embarassed so I quickly ran to the train station. It was already after midnight and if I got lucky I might catch the last train. Well, I was lucky, and I barely made the LAST Yamanote line bound for Shibuya. I got off the train and got a bit turned around, but made it to the right intersection.

I found the address of the place I was looking for, but it turns out you have to enter through the back. Fortunately for me I ran into some pretty awesome looking Trump themed people (since that was the theme of the party although not my theme) and they helped me find the entrance.
I was afraid to take any pictures because there were signs all over the place saying not to photograph someone unless you've asked them. It was really loud and I was afraid I wouldn't be heard so I didn't ask. But there were a lot of photographers (most of them really nice, some of them really creepy) so I'm sure out there somewhere are pictures.
There were so many foreigners at Tokyo Decadance. None of them had even bothered to dress up. I guess they just figured they were going to this really big stupid party but in actuality it was this really tiny awesome tiny dance floor playing electronic and industrial music. I chatted with this one fellow who was in the Air Force stationed in Japan. He told me he wasn't really into this techno stuff. I really wondered why Tokyo Decadance was the party all these people decided to come to. I mean, really, no effort was put into their attire. The air force fellow tried repeatedly to get me to dance with him, and I rejected him repeatedly until he finally gave up. The foreigners were the worst too. I'm sure the Japanese felt the same about me, but at least I wasn't trying to feel up their ladies. I just went to dance, but these guys were really hell bent on grabbing and groping which the Japanese girls were really not up for. It was really unfortunate.
There was a stage in front of the DJ booth where at first all these kinda homely sad people were sitting.

That was right in front of the dance floor, so it was extremely unfortunate.

This fellow in this strange outfit got up there and did all these para-para moves which was really fun to watch.
There was an Alice and Wonderland kinda striptease thing.

It was really bizarre.
There was also a tap-dancing clown and this really awesome violin player.

After that was this really really sad magic show, and I don't drink so I wasn't drunk enough as everyone else who appreciated it much more than I did.

I have some really bizarre blurry pictures of people from that night.
The club was really awesome though.




Those guys were really the only people industrial-dancing to Sisen's set other than me, although I'm crazy so I don't think I count. When I asked to take a picture of them, they were like, uhhh, freak? sure?


Lights on! They're kicking us out at 5:30AM.

All in all, a good night had. I really enjoy DJ Sisen's music although I did not necessarily appreciate all the bizarre staging. It was also fun to dance with some awesome folks but not so fun to have to fight off creepy english speaking guys trying to get action. I didn't come to meet any guys, I wanted to make Japanese alternative culture kind of friends, but that didn't happen. I wonder if all these other American and European tourists hadn't caused suspicion for all of us based on the way they were acting.

There is some serious baby-mama drama going on in my hallway between the British guy and his wife. The British guy stays here so he can work while she lives out in the 'burbs with their daughter. Although she just said "my daughter"
And now piano playing while the baby-mama complains about how unclean everything is.
This place is so bizarre.

Next up, early morning Harajuku! I didn't take any pictures today, I'm no good.

a beautiful day!

I don't quite know why but every time I sit down to write these entries, I open my window and I hear this very faint marching band music. It's really strange and it has been happening every day now.. I thought it might have been the Laos festival (or something?) in Yoyogi Park. But then I couldn't find anything. Although I also haven't really found Yoyogi Park. Somewhere out there a marching band is practicing and I know it.

I finally went to Tokyo Sea Life Park yesterday! I love aquariums. This one did not disappoint and fortunately there were not 40,000 people visiting the animals (like the Shedd is constantly full) so I was able to enjoy myself.

There was a couple school groups of really small children there, but I was able to distance myself from them (man were they loud!) Seeing how the animals kinda would've lived in their kinda natural habitats is a lot of fun. I do feel bad for them sometimes when their areas aren't clean and (in this case) they are essentially food for the other fish and there is no way for them to get away. This Sea Life Park was not a nasty horrifying aquarium. Needless to say that I now have an entire folder of pictures of fish, which I will not bore you with, but instead here's the Park's most notable exhibit, their school of Tuna.

They had alot of smaller tuna but four really massive (must've been 400lb-ers) tuna. You can see in that picture their size versus the poor guy in charge of cleaning their tank. I'd actually be afraid of them, they are almost entirely muscle (as I was just eating the other day... nom nom nom).

There was also an outdoor penguin exhibit, which I thought was really cool. I mean, these guys are just chilling out, outside with their own private pool. There were at least fifteen penguins too. The children loved them.


Suction-guys under a starfish attached to the glass.

Obligatory cuttlefish. There were two cuttlefish in the tank, evidently male and female, because after I snapped this photo they decided to mate. I have some really dark pictures of them mouth to mouth exchanging their fishy-fluids. I don't know how often you all see cuttlefish mating, but I was a little confused at first.
After that I wandered over through the beautiful outdoor section into their freshwater pond. There were frogs.

Sneaky frogs.
As I was leaving the park I ran into this bird. He was trying to be sneaky too, but it wasn't working.

I have a bunch of pictures of him sneaking around. The park around the Sea Life park is noted for it's bird watching goodness, but this was the only bird I saw in my whole wandering around the park.

I did get to sit on the sea shore across form Disneyland. I accidentally got off at the Disneyland stop because nothing had signs on it. I thought for about two seconds that maybe this means that I should go to Tokyo Disneyland. No. No it doesn't. Not with the ticket price of 4500Y. Maybe someday. Maaaaybe.
The tide must've been high because of the weird rain the previous day but now it had just left all kind of weirdo beach debris and some dead fish. I have a bunch of pictures of dead fish because I was really shocked at how big they were. They were not your tiny dead fish, they were really large. I thought someone was fishing and had just gotten bored with them and left them, but no, it was definitely from the tides. Poor fish. I won't... amuse you... with pictures.

There was also a small field of poppies for people like me who take really close up pictures of flowers. After that I figured I should probably leave and head back to the ranch but I flipped through my Grutt pass book and noticed that one train stop away there was the Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome. Given that I have easily already gotten 2000Y worth of my Grutt pass book and admission to this Greenhouse was essentially free, I decided to go check it out.

It was really beautiful inside, with your usual assortment of tropical plants. They had highlighted the different plants they had that were fruit producing, like pineapple and mango, although most of them did not have any fruit at the time.

These pineapples were working on it.

There was an entire room of Pitcher Plants. I don't think I've been happier in a greenhouse. Pitcher plants are my favorite, hands down, of all carnivorous plants and really just any bog plants. I do much prefer bog plants to most others. I'm not really a tree or a palm person. The door at the entrance was broken but I pried it open anyways to enjoy this entire room of carnivorous plants. The colors found in these guys are just so lovely. I also enjoyed the way they hung them in fairly tiny planters from the ceiling. I'm sure my roommate would freak out, but it really would be a fantastic insect kill in the summer.

Here they are outside. So cool!
There was even an herb garden. I was so happy to smell the calming oils from the Lavender plants.

There was also a huge area of thyme so I stole some for thyme-y potato breakfast this morning. Yum.
As if this place could get any better...

THEY HAD CHICKENS! Just chilling out!


and they were silky chickens at that! Oh, so cute.
I tried to get closer to them, but the rooster was like "WHAT."
So I think they might've had chicks. D'aww chickens so cute.

I headed back to the train and happened upon a REAL supermarket! I bought a large variety of mushrooms because they were on sale and a variety of other food because I need food. I headed back to my dorm and decided to empty out my mail box. It was stuffed FULL of menus. I decided to make collages out of them. I'll post them in the future when I finish all of them. I think I might make them into some kind of print. They really fuse this weird concept of cultural appropriation that I find really fascinating about being a foreigner in Japan. I took all these really bizarre Italian food menus and cut out the pizzas. What does it mean to patch together these sort of cultural re-appropriations? I don't quite know, but I find these things really visually and texturally interesting. It's sort of my own boro, of the modern day. Taking what is cheap and readily available to me and making some kind of patch work with it. I'll just have to reapply that in fabric in this screen printing class and see what it comes out like. I'm into these weird visceral reds and yellows these days. I think it was Barb that got me hooked with her crazy awesome photography of my hands.

Last night, as some of you who also read my livejournal or check my facebook status are aware, was another ridiculous party thrown by the very rude person who lives next door to me. I am still very angry about this party because it did not consist of people who live in this section at all. And I'm sure other people who actually live in this section were very angry about this, as the girl next door to me must've been because she was blasting r&b until she must've fallen asleep or something. I wrote another letter to Sakura H-dawg that they will hopefully respond to, although I guess when it comes down to it, I don't really care either way. This place is a bit too much of a craphole, but in a fairly nice area. After the washing machine fiasco of prior and the complete inability of the holding company to do anything about this noise issue (it seems I'm not the only one complaining), I'm certain that if I end up here in Tokyo again, I'll ...try to figure out a better situation?
Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In the mean time though, tonight is a Tokyo Decadance party at Trunp Room. I don't have an outfit prepared at all, but I'll figure something out before then, hopefully.

my current savior.

my saving dryer.
thank you, dryer, for being there when i needed you.

today's non-existant agenda

I'm not feeling too well today so I'll just take it easy. I went out and walked through Meiji Park. I ate a sad excuse for lunch.
Now I'm going to do my laundry and relax.

I got this weird notice stuck in my door from Sagawa Transport Company. I have no idea what it says but I have deciphered that it is a missed delivery notice of a bill of some kind. It definitely does not have my name on it. -_-

Adventure in Guest House!
After the weirdo notice I decided to try to do laundry and make myself some curry. Being in the land of curry I thought making curry would be easy. I was partially correct. I picked up the supplies and set off to make said curry, figuring that I could also laundry at the same time.
Hah! Laundry! Hah!
I put in what felt to me like 4.5kg which was the capacity of the washer. I exchanged enough coins to be able to laundry properly. Or so I thought.
In the middle of the rinse cycle the thing stops and hasn't worked since. So my clothes are sitting in there, sopping wet, while this shitty machine is totally broken. Awesome. I tried to wring them out as much as possible, and put them in the dryer. I put them in for an hour, splitting them apart so as to hopefully dry faster. That was over an hour ago. I'm not going to use this washer in the future, it's garbage. I've wasted probably 1000Y in coins just trying to get this thing to work, but it's now (two hours later) STILL not dry. I don't know quite what to do about this terrible machine, but I guess I'll just keep trying. One of the lovely fellows who happened upon my terrible laundry catastrophe told me not to worry about the machine. They are old and they break. He also told me not to worry about this random notice, Sakura House will deal with it. How'd the guy get in anyways? I was wondering that myself. As I was making curry, the two gentlemen from Montreal came back from job hunting. Evidently they assumed that they could just arrive here and find a job. Great idea guys! And they don't have degrees nor do they speak any Japanese or fantastic English. Oh lord. So they were trying to figure out how to gyoza so I showed them. As I was showing them, the other guy from Canada whom I'd been introduced to at the magical midnight all night on the night of my arrival party showed up. Someone had stolen his gyoza out of the fridge. No one had any answers on the washer, but all agreed that this place is a shithole. We also had some pretty awesome other conversations and I feel good about some of the people who live here. I've only met maaaaaybe 5 or 6 out of everyone on this floor, some people are not very friendly. I'm hoping my laundry finishes itself please jesus because I'm running out of coins. And I don't really have anywhere in my room to hang it. that will be next, figuring out how to hang it so it dries overnight in this room... oi.

This weekend is a Tokyo Decadance party at Trunp Room. The really tall Canadian guy who I met before was talking about how awesome Trunp Room is as a place to party. I think he's a little weary of me because I wasn't all "LEMME GET REALLY DRUNK WHEN IVE JUST SHOWED UP" on that day when I met him but he doesn't seem to care too much. He's a freelance graphic designer who just happens to live in Tokyo. He really likes the music and the party, I think, so that's probably why he's here. Yesterday the heavy accented British guy who teaches English to tiny children showed me a picture of his tiny child. He has a wife out in the suburbs and is teaching English to bring home some cash. He also commented on how awful this place is.

I'm not quite sure how all these pieces fit into place yet, but when I figure it out, my laundry will probably be dry.

yesterday's art

I wasn't expecting to be heading to any art museums but this Grutt pass has really made them accessible to me. Yesterday I went to Ueno to see what there is to see.

In Tokyo, Salaryman and Elementary school kid both text message on the train!
My first stop was the National Museum of Western Art.

I really wanted to see what Japan would have and how Japan would present western art. Well, I was a little let down, I'd have to say, although the collection was small, it was also poorly put up. There were holes in the wall everywhere. Really poorly patched up and shoddily painted. I felt like they could use a lesson from the master house painter My Mom.

Theodore Meets in the Wood the Spectre of His Ancestor Guido Cavalcanti
Oh snap! That horse looks crazy. After passing through this museum I became very aware of how fantastic the Art Institute's collection is, even if it's horribly expensive to get in. You really get a bargain though, because here I would have paid 500Y to see this small museum, but in Chicago, I'd be paying $20 for 15 times as much, and even better pieces. It was an interesting contrast. The goal of this museum was to have Western pieces on view for Japanese artists to be inspired by. The final room, as a tour guide for small children let me and everyone else in the room know, had a Pollock. I'm not one to care for Pollock, but that seemed to be the museum's pride, was this one Pollock. I found this painting by a Japanese artist in more of a western style to be much more interesting.


After that I headed to the National Museum of Nature and Science. I am totally jaded by the Field Museum, but this museum wasn't a tremendous let down. It had a really interesting section on Japanese history, although it was all in Japanese, so I had no idea what was going on.

They had these wax models of Japanese history that were just amazing. Their detail was fantastic. I could've stared at these things for hours and continuously noticed new detail. It was really cool. They also talked about domesticating animals.

Chicken wall!!! Yeaaaaah!!
There was another section devoted to global history. I was really impressed by the layout of these sections. It was really neat.

The museum was FULL OF CHILDREN. They were very loud and it made things... less fun.

But sometimes amazingly awesome. I caught these kids posing for a photo, too bad the lighting was terrible. After that I headed to the Former Tokyo Music School. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it was an important cultural property, and for that it was interesting.

There was also a giant flowering bonsai exhibition in the park.

This cat was trying to tell me to turn around because of this.

This guy wasn't very good at being a circus guy, but he was really trying. He did some diablo tricks and just seemed to be enjoying himself. I watched him for about an hour. He wanted me to stay there because then he wasn't just some freak, he could draw a crowd. It was fun. He did some stupid dice crap and did some awesome chair stuff.
I headed to Ikebukuro after this juggling man to appreciate some cats because I was starting to get mighty lonely.

The top floor of the Ikebukuro Tokyu Hands has a room where you can go hang out with cats. It was fun. I hung out with the laziest, biggest cats I've ever seen.

Lazy mega-cat.

I won't subject y'all to too much of these because there were probably 20 cats in that room. And they were all really miserable.

Ikebukuro at night. I enjoy this anime called DURARARA!! which takes place in Ikebukuro. I enjoyed walking around the same places they walk through in the anime and imagining one of the main characters, Shizuo, lifting vending machines to send them crashing down onto people. I did get a little lost, but it was fun none the less.
My eyelids are droopy today again. I'm still really sick and it's hard for me to get over this cold. I think I'm going to head to Yoyogi park to see what all the ruckus is about (there's someone with a megaphone that I can hear all the way over here). I'd say, I'm maybe four or five blocks away from the park, and there must be something really awesome going on, hopefully with awesome food and awesome sauce. After that I'm off to the Sea Park! Today will be fun!

Hussein Chalayan is a bit of a household name in artschool fashion. When you start fashioning art-school kinda way people start going, "oh, have you seen the work of Hussein Chalayan?" Before yesterday I could say, yeah, you know on the web blah blah blah but now I can say that I have, in person, and his quality is fantastic (incase you were wondering). You might be saying, who is Hussein Chalayan? And why is he even remotely interesting to me?
You might be familiar with this classic coffee table that unfolds into a skirt.

I have been exposed to this image over and over again but I never saw it within the context of the show and collection he had designed for it. I was only exposed to his more sculptural end pieces, such as the one he did with LEDs, not his other pieces. I also never knew his inspiration. I always assumed he simply knew he wanted to make this pieces and as a sculptural fashion artist, he just did. But I was wrong. He made huge collections to contain these pieces based on very unique and personal concepts. This show in particular was inspired by the movement of people. How would you take your personal belongings when forced to move? Chalayan was inspired by his personal background (as his most powerful collections often are). He is Turkish but studied at Central St Martins in London. His people were forced to move during periods of strife (among other things). Given that most of my readers are scholars of history, I don't think I need to delve deeper into this subject.
You can see some of the way the exhibition was laid out on Chalayan's personal blog here
I was just so excited to use my GRUTT pass yesterday at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo but because I care about Chalayan, I had to purchase the special exhibits pass that also got me into the museum. The main exhibit was trying really really hard to show some pieces from the permanent collection. I've read that this collection is huge. The space that the museum takes up is MASSIVE but the exhibit space for their permanent collection is really small. The premise of the exhibition is best summed up on the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo's website "This exhibition, entitled ‘Plastic Memories’, focuses on the theme of memories that have been removed from their original context of ‘place’ and ‘time’, becoming raw material for the artists to reshape through the power of their imaginations, thereby throwing a light on one aspect of ‘contemporary art’. Numerous different kinds of memories have been brought together, they do not necessarily spring from personal experience, some are communal, in the form of history, while others reside within materials or locations."
It's an interesting concept and it was really neat to see some of the pieces, although others needed a bit more of an explanation for me. I'm not sure if that's the way things were intended or what. The neat thing about the MCAT is that you can pick up cards about the artist and the piece after certain pieces and have that little bit about what you enjoyed. So often we just get the little tidbit program about everything, not just the ones we are fascinated by, so this I enjoyed. Photos were not allowed in the museum.

I passed some awesome dogs on my way there. Dogs in Tokyo are horrifyingly expensive. I later wandered into a pet shop in Roppongi because I thought it would be a nice contrast to head to the Mori Museum. Stupid cats are close to $4000. I know it's Roppongi, I know, but this isn't unusual. Today I think I will head to Ikebukuro's Tokyu Hands to go appreciate some jaded cats because I'm so damn lonely.


Telling me the direction to go in.

I headed to Roppongi on this very crowded train. I got off, wandered around for awhile, before I finally went to the Mori museum. I tried to go the the National Museum of Art but it's closed on Tuesdays. I also tried to go to a couple more museums in that area, but they were also closed. The Mori museum is kinda expensive so I wasn't extremely excited to pay for it, but as I go closer to the area I happened upon this huge free 3D concert sponsored by Sony.

I had this crisis for a second about what I should be doing and then I stopped. I have all this time and not a lot of money, so I might as well go see some weird free concert thing and some crappy bands of never heard of for free.
There was an insect that was a little too excited about my decision and flew into my shirt at this moment (meaning, there was this suicidal insect...). He met quick death.

Stupid perverted insect. He tried to chill out in my shirt, but no. That is not allowed.

Here's me with 3D glasses on. Embarassing. I stuck around for two bands (photos were not allowed) Pidgin and Scandal before the concert ended.
It was fun and I was tired so I decided to head back to the ranch. When I returned I tried to take a shower only to find my towel on the floor and my soap missing. Finally I went to Tokyu Hands and bought a new towel and new soap. I also found some of those weird flavored toothpaste (they had all the flavors) and am bringing them back for certain special people (who like curry flavored toothpaste). If you have any specific requests for toothpaste flavors, please let me know.
I'm still coughing ridiculous amounts. It is very muggy outside. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do today yet, although I do have a lot of options. Maybe SeaPark? I don't know.