day 68! sick

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As most of you are well aware of by now, I am no longer in Asia, but am still retroactively trying to complete my travel blog. :) I fell behind during my last few weeks in Japan, but tried to keep posting for days that had already gone by (but from the perspective of me writing a post as if it had just happened that day). I guess that maybe a bit deceptive, but I feel like it's a better user experience that way, and I do believe that I've upheld the integrity of each post. :) Unfortunately as I fall further and further behind though, I am slowly forgetting some of the little enjoyable (painstaking?) details of each day........ hope the posts don't get too bland from here on out (since all posts are 2+ weeks late!)

Almost there!!!

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And with that demoralizing introduction, I will continue the brutal and undeserved ravaging of your tender emotions by saying that once again (for a record-breaking 2 days in a row) I have no pictures for today!! I spent another day lounging around in bed, only taking a break from my sloth to drag myself to sushi and eat some salmon. :)

day 67! sick

So I believe I fell asleep while trying to make plans for the next day. I woke up early in the morning and posted that I was feeling crappy and that I'd let everyone know if it got better, and maybe we could at least do dinner in the evening, but in the end I didn't update my post. :( :( Which I felt bad about, but I did feel quite ill. 

I went back to sleep til noon, and kept sleeping and sleeping. When I wasn't sleeping, I was blogging or surfing the internet. But I definitely didn't feel like moving or being energetic or seeing anyone~ And if no one else made plans, I sure as hell wasn't gonna go out of my way to do it. The sickness felt a bit like whatever it was that I caught in Taiwan, very respiratory system-related. I don't think the changing of humidity and constant switching between AC-purified-air and rainy-outdoor-air suited my California nose very much.

And that was pretty much my day. Spent indoors, ignoring everyone hehe. Edwin had an orientation session for his classes, so he was gone for part of the day as well.

Sorry! Epic fail blog day. :)

day 66! shibuya

Woke up feeling preeettttyyy shitty. Throat was raw, stomach was roiling...I chugged a bunch of tea and got online. Taiga and Chris were both asking me what my plans for the weekend were, since it was my second to last weekend before leaving Japan. As much as I wanted to see them, my stomach really really did not. But I gathered my resolve (and intestines) and said sure, let's meet up in Shibuya at 1pm. And then I promptly dragged my feet getting ready, which is to say that I stumbled around like a drunken sailor, and didn't actually start walking to the train station til 1pm, so I was a good half hour late. Fortunately (or I guess it's actually kind of a bad sign), Chris just expects me to be late when we meet up, and Taiga was a good sport about it so they weren't too mad. :x


We met in front of Shibuya 109, and they were both clamoring for food (stomach: "nooooooooooo don't do it"), and we agreed on a well known spicy ramen place right across the street (stomach: "gg go find a toilet").

It was popular enough that there was a line outside, during lunch hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon.


It's not actually a ramen place, the sign says "tanmen", which is like ramen but I guess it's less oily? I'm not sure what the difference is, but I know there is one. :) Anyway they're famous for it being very very spicy, and you could choose bowls from level 0 to 10. Taiga, who's a pretty big fan of spicy food, got a 6 and the top layer was just a film of red oil. :o Chris got a 5, and Edwin and I got 3s. I tried a sip of everyone's and while Chris's is already a bit spicy, it's manageable. Taiga's was spicy after just one sip though so 6 is definitely not for me. >< The 3 was nice and actually barely spicy. In my condition...it's probably just what I needed. I mean I pretty much skipped the noodles and just drank the broth, which perfectly satisfied my craving for something oily and warm. Ahhh toilet. We shall meet again, some other day.

The inside of the restaurant...it's actually pretty big for a noodle place. But as you can see it's not really configured for large groups. We had to wait a bit for 4 consecutive counter seats to open up.

A level 3! Mmmm mmm oil. :)


After eating, Chris' girlfriend Asami joined us. I think most of you have already heard, but she was actually originally my friend from one of the international courses I was taking during my study abroad. I randomly invited both her and Chris along to some dinner annnnd I guess they hit it off! Because it's 4 years later and they've survived 2-3 years of Sweden/Japan long distance. Anyway I'm not close to her and I don't talk to her often or catch up with her, but it was nice to see her again. She's really cute and sweet and conservative, kind of like the "ideal" Japanese female. I do think she is one of the prettiest Japanese girls I know though, and if you've ever been to Tokyo, that's really saying something....


We had no plans in mind, so after getting some coffee (honey latte come to meeee!~!~!) we agreed on some darts. How exciting! I've never played darts before.

This particular darts place (suggested by Taiga) was nice because there was no drink minimum required. A lot of darts/billiards halls will require you buy at least 1 drink, to keep their business out of the red when troops of bored young Japanese people come in to just slowly kill time. It's a bit obnoxious though, cuz every drink will be like $5 for a tiny cup, and most of the time you don't even feel thirsty! So this was nice, though it was a bit of a walk from the station.


So if you haven't played darts before (which I hadn't), it's pretty simple. There are many many different darts games to play, but they all follow the same general rule: throw darts at that target and try to hit stuff. Each "slice" of the pie has a different point value associated with it, from 1 - 20. The larger green/red circle around the circumference gives you 2x point value, and the smaller one in the middle is 3x. Of the two bulls eyes in the center, the outside ring is worth maybe 50 points, and inside circle is 100 points. But that can all change depending on the game.


The first game we played was called 501. We split up into two groups, since we had reserved 2 machines, and it was Chris/Asami/Taiga and me/Edwin (the darts noobs). You get 15 rounds each of 3 darts per round, and your goal is to get your point total down to exactly 0. So if I hit a "10" with my first dart, for example, my total would be down to 491. Then if I hit the 2x ring for the 2 point wedge, I'd be down to 487. And after 3 darts, you switch off with the other player. If you get your point total to less than 0, like say you're at 10 points, and you hit the 18, you automatically go "bust" for that round, and play passes back to the other player. When it gets back to your turn, you start back at 10 points again. So basically at the start of the game you want to try to whittle down your total in as large chunks as possible, and then when you get closer to 0 you try to be more precise about which numbers you hit.


For me though, I was lucky every shot if I didn't peg someone in the throat or something, so it was less about trying to win, and more about trying to hit the target at all. In the end neither of us won, but we both got close to 0 thanks to some lucky 50 point bulls eyes. :)


We rotated for another game (each game cost like 200yen or 300yen to play, so they were cheap) and it switched to Chris/Taiga/Edwin and me/Asami. Boys vs girls! We played 701 instead, which is the same as 501 but you get more rounds and of course, you start from 701 points. It was nice but, I dunno, Asami is really quiet. And for some reason a lot shyer about speaking English than she used to be, so I was maybe a bit more tense during that game....


Then one more rotation brought it to Taiga/Edwin/me and Chris/Asami. For this game though, we picked this really really fun game that Taiga suggested called Kunitori, which means "taking countries", or "capturing countries". It's basically darts Risk. :D :D Fun!


The screen shows a map of Japan, split into 21 different regions, with a point value assigned to each region, and 1 extra for the bulls eye. You can capture regions by either getting two darts into the same slice during one round (e.g. two darts into the "10" slice) or by hitting the 2x or 3x for any slice. Once you've captured a region, if anyone throws a dart into that slice, they lose points and you gain points. The more consecutive regions you capture, like if you own 4 that are right next to each other, the more points you get. You can also take back a region from someone else if you hit the 3x slot?? Or something like that. So this game is really big on accuracy, which is not so much my expertise. :3  To put it mildly. To be more specific, for some reason when I try to aim at something I just miss the board entirely. If I just try to hit anything in general I'm usually ok, but in this game it means you end up feeding people. D: Anyway I loved the fact that this was more of a "game" game, and I liked the mechanics but it was a pretty miserable game for me~ Even when partway through the game, Taiga switched players with me, so I suddenly was in 1st place, it didn't help at all.....

Taiga was quite impressed by Edwin though. :( Booooo it's not fair. Why does he beat me in every game we play. :(

And Taiga is just a champ. He gets really intense and focused when it's his turn, and when he throws his movements look the same. That seems to be important, in darts.

The happy couple. I believe Asami whooped Chris in their game. And boy oh boy does Chris love losing. XD XD XD

After darts, we decided to get some dessert. Taiga looked up places on his phone, and the #1 dessert place in Shibuya was this gelato stand back at Shibuya station, in the food area of the department store (I've taken pics of it before). The gelato looked really good but I wasn't feeling it too much...

This juice seemed way way way more appealing. :) Unfortunately it was 400yen for a tiny tiny tiny cup so. >( Damn it Japan.

Maybe the gelato would have been a better way to go...

After that, which didn't last long, we still couldn't think of anything to do. Honestly I was feeling pretttty sick. My stomach was gone but I had a bit of a sore throat and my head was starting to hurt. I think just due to being out late for the last few days, lack of sleep, bad weather...it was all starting to add up. So I would've liked to go home. But you know, it was still early, and Tokyo-ites like to stay out all day. Like, it's not worth it to get out of the house and walk to the station and take a train somewhere unless they're gonna be there a while, so you can count on any hanging out to turn into an all day thing. :|


They turned to me to choose, since I was leaving soon, but I had no good suggestions for them. I said we could walk to Yoyogi Park and look for things to do on the way, and if not we could walk around in the rain, but Taiga vetoed that plan byyyy acting very surprised and making it seem like I was insane for wanting to do that. :o 

So we decided to karaoke. Yaaay I love karaoke! What a perfect thing to do when you don't feel like walking, and it's rainy outside. :) It was a bit hard finding a balance between our group because there were very few songs that all of us seemed to know, with Asami being one extreme (almost all Japanese songs) and me Edwin at the other extreme (only English songs) and Chris and I at a weird middle ground since we both seem to prefer the ol' classics and golden oldies. I still can't believe no one except Chris knew Livin' on a Prayer.... -_-;;


Highlights during karaoke included:
- Taiga singing Lithium by Nirvana. Those lyrics are so so so...Taiga.
- Asami sang some English song, by Eric Clapton maybe? I forget. It sounded great though.
- Chris Asami and Taiga sang this weird Japanese song with a crazy music video called something Radio something or other. The lyrics were printed in the video like clipart, and I vaguely remember a dancing bear that was really cute....
- Edwin sang. Period. That's a success in my book. :D

We only did 1.5 hours but it was actually just about right. Asami had a coupon, too, so it ended up being only about 1000yen/person. It was 8pm though so we all decided to go home, and even though I had a lot of fun with em, it was kind of like thank god....  I really did feel terrible. Singing loudly for everyone's sake (they weren't exactly a rowdy group of people so I had to compensate. Thank god for Chris...) didn't help the sore throat at all either.


Well so I didn't feel like eating at all, so we just dropped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up some discounted bentos/foods, and then headed back early and rested for the rest of the night. I had told Ayano (who didn't make it out to hang out with us) and Taiga and Chris that I would let em know about my plans for tomorrow, so I started researching where we could rent bikes and possibly go biking. Never finished before passing out though....

day 65! takadanobaba, iidabashi

I may have uploaded this to the wrong album, but oh well. I didn't really get a chance to take a good look at my hair until after I got home from the contest. It got....quite a bit shorter after the actual cutting part happened. :) And it's asymmetrical on both sides! I'm not against it, but I preferred my hair a little longer, I think. Oh well. Hair grows back.

Also there's a hidden pink splotch of hair at the nape of my neck. Easter egg! Haha.

Oh yah and I got a bug bite there the day before the contest. FUUUUUU mosquitoes. Anger. I've been having this problem in my room where for some reason, my AC starts putting out funny smelling air if I leave it on for too long. So I just leave my window open instead, which is better for the environment anyway, but then mosquitoes come in! And they seem to only come out when I'm sleeping, those sly motherfuckers. So I've kept my door closed but then the room is stuffy. :( :(

I think that my sleeping situation has been by far the worst aspect of this Asia trip. In Taiwan it was that cardboard bed with razors instead of springs, and fucking cockroaches raining from the sky. *shudder* My bed in Japan is really pretty decent, and I love the comforters, but the fucking mosquitoes............................I will slap a bitch. I have developed permanent bags under my eyes from this trip.

Nothing a little sushi can't fix though. :) Well actually sushi doesn't fix it at all but gorging oneself on raw fish is oddly satisfying. One of my protips for life. Take notes people.

I sleep pretty late most nights, partially out of terror of the swarms of bugs that are sure to descend on me as I sleep, but mostly cuz, you know. Internet. It does mean that I wake up late, around noon or so, to find Edwin bored and waiting for me to wake up so I can tour guide. Yah I really am the worst. :x I'm not going to have any positive Yelp ratings after this trip.

We're usually pretty hungry by afternoon, but are terrible at deciding what to eat. 4 times out of 5, I will eventually say "sushi?" and he'll say "....I could eat sushi." So sushi it is! It's gotten to the point where I know all the workers there, both for lunch and dinner shifts. I'm sure they recognize me despite my attempts to hide my identity through multiple hair changes, but are too polite to show it. But they judge. :( Oh how they judge.

Anyway I've tried quite a few of their selections over my like 10 meals at this sushi place, but my favorite thing by far is salmon. So I took a pic of 3 of the kinds of salmon sushi they offer here -- plain salmon, salmon + sweet onions & mayo, and grilled salmon. So good. T^T

The plan for today was to go to Ikebukuro, which I've already mentioned earlier in this blog so I won't go into details. It's only 2 stops away from Takadanobaba, and even though it's a bit dirtier than other parts of Tokyo, it's pretty cheap to shop there so I like it. :) It's also a big transit point (it's sort of the gateway to the northwest area of Tokyo) so a lot of people filter through here.

We went to Sunshine City again (the place that Kurt and I stumbled upon the fashion show) and  passed by this pastry booth. They sell shuu-cream's here (sp?), which are a popular dessert snack in Tokyo. You guys are probably familiar with it -- it's what Beard Papa's sells. :) Beard Papa's is originally from Tokyo...

Behold! The Chocolate Cookie Puff!

Made a loop of Sunshine City, and I did some lightening fast shopping so as not to bore Edwin. :x Actually I don't think he minded the shopping too much, it's pretty fun to look at the crazy clothes here even if you're not buying any, but I'M not comfortable shopping with people so I tried to keep it to a minimum. :)

Sunshine City also has an aquarium and planetarium on its top floor. I do love aquariums so I wanted to go but...tickets were like $20 and by the time we got there it wouldn't be open for so much longer, so we decided that the lovely waterfall fountain in the entrance was enough for us and we left. lol.

Still, humans are...kind of amazing. That much water, sitting on the top floor of a high rise building? I don't know how it can handle so much weight. :o My mind boggles.

By around evening time, we'd had enough of Ikebukuro, but we had another hour to kill til our next activity. :o My friend Mark (from college, at CMU)'s birthday was next week, so he was having a little birthday shindig starting around 8. Part of the reason I picked Ikebukuro for today was cuz there's a subway line directly from Ikebukuro to the birthday location, which saves us some transfer time and money. Yes I know, I am a crafty cheap asian. It's ok Edwin appreciates it as well. ;3

Since we had some time to burn, we stopped by this KFC to get something to drink. Now I've never been a fan of KFC but they seem to love it in Japan! I think I see more KFC's here than at home, even. And the ones at home are pretty ghetto and dirty, but here they're you know, decent enough to sit in at least. :) They've also been advertising these fruity smoothie drinks called "Crushers" that look like they absolutely do not belong at KFC, being vaguely healthy looking, but I'm guessing it's a Japan-only offering.

They have 4 flavors: berry, strawberry + banana, mango + apple, and chocolate cookie something-or-other. Edwin tried the berry and I got mango + apple and....sweet Jesus they were delicious. O_O We got a punch card for buy 5 get 1 free, and I'm pretty confident that we will fill it before I leave Japan. ^^ Since we're both milk tea deprived, and these are the next best thing.

Hung out for about an hour and then hopped on the subway to Iidabashi, where Mark was waiting with a few friends to walk us all over to the bar. We went to a small bar called Mine, which apparently Mark frequents often, and so is friends with the bartenders there. They'd set up a nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink) course for us, with some small portions of food to eat while we drank. We got a really really cute room, in the back, that was semi-private. I mean overall the whole bar was about the size of a 1BR apartment in California, lol, and the small room was the size of a closet but you know, it is Japan so I was pretty delighted with the setup. :)

The food wasn't bad! Though there wasn't a lot of it. There was a salad, these little roll things...

...and a plate full of sausages?? Lol. And yes yes, we all made the proper obligatory sausage jokes.

At the start of the evening we had about 6, but people kept trickling in as the night went on, and we were expecting I think 15 altogether?

There was Kyle, Mark's ex-housemate, who is this loud friendly Australian guy that I actually met last time I was in Japan, although he totally didn't remember me. Kyle had been searching for a Japanese wife 2 years ago, because he wanted to stay in Japan after teaching English, and it appears that he was successful because Kyle's wife joined us as well! Toshi, a Japanese guy with exceptional English as well as his new bride came along as well. The two married couples sat on the other side of the room though so I had limited exposure to them.

On my side of the room there was Edwin, and Eric, who I met last time at the Szechuan hot pot dinner.

Before long, Lulu and Phil joined us. They're both part of the graduate degree program at Waseda that Mark went through. Lulu's Taiwanese, but went to college at NYU, and Phil is Thai and has a strong Thai accent. They're both kind of hard to place ethnically cuz they're so international. Actually everyone there that night has just been all over the place, it was kind of inspiring. :)  ALSO, Phil's name totally isn't Phil, it's FILM. All Thai people have insane first and last names, and so they all pick quirky and cute nicknames to go buy, and Film is, Film. Totally heard Phil though.

Jerry was another Taiwanese guy at the grad program, and his sister Wendy joined us later, I believe she is also studying somewhere in Japan. So there was a big group of Taiwanese people in the middle of the room, and Chinese made its way into a lot of conversations. O_o Eric is also  Taiwanese, but has never been to Taiwan. He grew up in Thailand (and speaks that as well as fluent Mandarin AND Taiwanese), and his Japanese completely trashes mine as well. But thanks to living in the States for a long time he has flawless English so basically, FUCK YOU ERIC you make us all look like lazy stupid amoebas. No I'm kidding. Eric's cool. :x

Didn't talk to Jerry much but in my never ending quest to make girl friends, I tried chatting with Lulu and Wendy (who are good friends) as much as possible. It wasn't hard cuz they're both really sweet and cute! Lulu is really classy and very NY-looking, and Wendy is well O_o super hot and very sweet. Hahaha actually she thought we were going clubbing so she came in wearing a really cute outfit. She assumed we were going clubbing because she saw Film's name on the guest list. What a rep.....

A blurry pic of everyone. I think at around this point, I took it upon myself to take pics and document Mark's bday, since I figured he'd want some memories. It's impossible to take pics of your own bday party, since you're so busy entertaining and everyone's so focused on you.

I forgot to mention Yamada-san! He was introduced to us prior to arriving by Mark describing how he's a ridiculously huge and tall Japanese person. That sounds absolutely nonsensical but it's true! Yamada wa yama da. (A terrible Japanese pun, please don't hit me over the head with a fan). He's Mark's boss at work apparently, and I really liked him. He's super goofy and good at torturing the night's intended victim, but you can tell he's a really good guy and kind of motherly. Anyway that's him in the glasses.

Jerry's the one in the Snickers shirt, Kyle is behind him. Jean came in a bit late as well, she's standing next to Jerry. We were a bit far apart so I didn't talk to her much either but she was super sweet and nice! Also American, I would guess from the accent.

Wendy's peace-ing, and Film is next to her. And the pale ginger in the front is Mark. :p

We had a nomihoudai course for 2 hours, and we did try to make the most of it. While we were eating we mostly had cocktails, but they were just way too weak so I started ordering stuff on the rocks. It was still all fruit liquors (mango liquor, peach liquor, etc) so very very delicious and still kind of weak, but it was a start.

And then the shots came...oh god the tequila shots. A fun video of everyone trying to well, kill Mark. If you can't hear what they're saying, here's a transcript...

Everyone: What do you want to drink, Mark?

Mark: I don't care, anything but tequila.

Everyone: SUMIMASEN!! Tequila shots onegaishimaaaaasu!!

Mark: FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Aaaand now everyone is happy happy. I think Mark is unintelligible at this point. Here he is with Jerry and Eric.

At one point we ordered about 20 tequila shots and all had em together. Then they tried ordering 26 shots, 1 for each of us and 13 for Mark to drink with each of us. I think I had to step in at this point and say NO, NO MORE DRINKS FOR MARK. I don't mean to be a party pooper at all but I could see him half-retching as he forced down shots already, and seriously, since when is projectile vomit EVER fun??? I don't understand the need to make people puke. Drunk, yes, puke/death, no. So I played the role of the party pooper mom, fetching water and trying to deflect as many shots as possible. Sometimes by acting as a ghost drinker for Mark....that was not super pleasant. Me no likey the tequila.

Also hahaha, Mine ran out of shot glasses since we were ordering so many. Japanese people are more of sippers/nursers, they don't really have the whole shots mentality there. (Since a few beer makes them puke all over, I shudder to think how they would be after 1 or 2 shots). So typically bars aren't equipped to handle 15 crazed foreigners downing shots. At one point, the sweet little girl that was on the floor for the night had to come in and crawl around the singing and dancing revelers to fetch the strewn shot glasses to take back and clean for our next order...I felt sorry for the bartenders for the night so I started trying to gather the shot glasses. Yah I know I really know how to have fun. :D But I noticed Yamada-san doing the same. We started carrying out the glasses to the bar and he was like "Why are we doing this??"  and I was like "ahahaha I don't even know!" Just thought it was cute and kind of Japanese. Doing things out of unspoken inferred social obligation. Ah well.

Our 2 hours ended before long, and Mark said normally you can extend by 1 hour for an additional 1000yen, which everyone was amenable to. But when we went to ask about it, they said that we wouldn't be able to do it. I think...they lost a ton of money for this bday ^^; Not a ton, but they weren't really earning any. Another hour and I'm pretty sure we would have emptied their inventory. So. Makes sense I guess. :) We just ordered a la carte instead, it's only 500 yen per drink which isn't terrible. Started doing mini-rounds of drinks among a few people instead of as a whole group.

From left to right, Mark, Film, Lulu (squashed), Wendy.

Ahahahahaha. We all gathered around for a group shot that Film took for us. 3...2....and then he swings the camera back at himself and takes this shot. AHAHAHAHAH! My favorite picture ever. Jerry commented that he looked like my favorite character, the llama/alpaca. AND HE DOES!! Omfg. I can't stop laughing when I see this pic.

(left to right) Edwin, me, Mark, Lulu, Yamada, Wendy, Taku, Kyle, Kyle's boobs.

Forgot to mention Taku, he sat at our table. Half Japanese, half...? Thai I think. Also has lived everywhere, and is no working in Japan.

Slightly more presentable. :) Except for Film.

Can't really call it a successful night without some male-on-male action.

People starting leaving and also going out to the bar to drink (it was really crowded and loud in the back room). Saw a white guy and Japanese lady drinking at the bar...turns out they're also regulars, and so they're friends with Mark. Invited them to come back and say happy bday to Mark, and they ended joining us for the winding-down portion of the evening.

So here's Wendy (how does she look great in every photo???), French guy, Mark and Jerry.

And then the night got a bit odd. At this point we were all sort of done drinking, and we all sat around drunkenly talking. Half the people were out at the bar, but the regulars sat down for a heart to heart with Mark. I wasn't there for the beginning of it but the Japanese lady for SOME reason really wanted me to date Mark. Who knows how that conversation came up, but I'm guessing it's because I was trying to take care of Mark and bring him water and stuff, so they all thought aww how nice she must like him. (Why can't people just be nice to each other without questions about romantic interests popping into everyone's minds??) Anyway she was actually quite insistent about it, for a Japanese lady (though she spoke very good French so she must have lived abroad for a while) and was very direct. It was kind of awkward but I was pretty buzzed so I just blew right by it. She kept saying dump the boyfriend, come to Japan. And I was like uhhh no? O_o what the hell lady. I know she was just trying to take care of her friend Mark but still that's sort of fucked up to say to someone you don't know, don't you think?? She kept saying to Mark "You can't go on like this". Anyway it was very surreal but I remember that went on for a while. :/ Awwwwkkkward.

Since we started at 8pm, the time for the last train arrived quickly, but I made an executive decision to just miss it and take a cab home later. Never taken a cab in Japan before! :) It's relatively expensive, but ok if it's just once in a while. I just hate how jarring it is to be chatting and hanging out happily, and then for people to jump up and be like LAST TRAIN GG SEE YA.

Can't think of any other real highlights for the evening. But basically chatted a lot with people and it was a really really fun night other than that weird nonsense at the end. Mark's friends are super fun; Film, Yamada, and Kyle especially are that loud, fun type that you want to have around when you're out. :) Japanese people call them "mood makers". But everyone was really nice and friendly so it was a good time. I remember snatches of making it back home; had to give my wallet to Edwin and ask him to pay for the cab cuz I couldn't count at that point, and then it started raining on the walk home...but it was pretty soothing when you're all flushed and drunk. Stumbled into my room, chugged some tea (it is Japan after all) and passed out..........

Didn't puke. ^^v I win again!

day 64! contest

The day of the contest has finally arrived!!!


Oh Meg. I do not think she slept well. She kept tossing and turning all night (and consequently I did not sleep well). It didn't stop her from being absolutely impossible to wake up in the morning though. :D Went from some polite "Megu-san?" "Megu?" to *SHAKESHAKESHAKE* "MEGGGGGGGGGGGGG OKITEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" O_O I was worried we wouldn't make it.


Arrived at the salon a bit before 6 (after stopping for coffee), and the building wasn't even open (so Meg smoked). There was another stylist, the one doing the red-hair model('s hair) waiting there already. Doors opened at 6, and we ran in and got started right away coloring in the red a bit darker. Katagiri-san somehow managed to wake up and drag herself in early to help as well. She's so nice. :3


As time dragged on, the models started coming in one by one. I was the only one doing last minute stuff to my hair though, guess that doesn't make Meg look too too great. :) At one point a bunch of people were trying to help me get ready; I had 3 people all touching my hair at the same time! I think it's safe to say that by the end of this experience, everyone in the salon had groped my hair at least once.

After hair it was makeup time. Meg got some of the other salon girls to help do it, since she was busy doing HER makeup. /)_(\

Oh what a flattering pic. This is me with foundation and white powder all over my face.

Huge chest of makeups!! Had to take a pic cuz it's very pretty and it made me think of Janet.


Makeup partially done, but no time to finish cuz we had to make it to the competition by 9am! Everyone at the Miq salon traveled together, and the whole place was closed for the day. Of course Meg and I were the last ones out, not cuz we were getting ready, but because she couldn't find the shoes that I was s'posed to wear. If I hadn't prompted her, something tells me that she would have forgotten them altogether. ^^;;

I forgot exactly what station the contest was at, but it was one transfer and quite a few stops away by subway. Once at the station, we stopped by a convenient store so everyone could pick up food.


That girl with the teal jacket that's squatting on the floor near the bags is another one of the models, blue-haired-model-san. :) I know I know, I thought it was an odd name too but I wasn't about to tell her that.


You can also see red-haired-model-san (cousins??) behind the girl in white.


Predictably, Meg exited the convenient store last. Actually we crossed the subway gates without her. Oh also, she lost her ticket and had to borrow 100yen from me to get a replacement. O_O;; Is my hair gonna be ok!??!

The contest took place in a big hotel. Here's us all standing around trying to figure out where to check in. Most of the models got hustled off right away to change and get ready. There was a room off to the side that looks like it's used specifically for that purpose, since there was a whole wall of chairs and individual mirrors, like what you might picture backstage at a theater looks like.


It was my first time trying on the outfit in its entirety, so I was a bit nervous. Red miniskirt + black tube top/bandeau + see-through black flowy top + black patent high heels + heavy gold chain necklace. Eep! It actually didn't look so terrible though.


Then Meg went to work finishing my makeup and fixing up my hair. I was the last one there, and we actually missed the entire first event cuz we took so long.


So apparently the hair cutting portion of the contest is just one of the events -- the last one -- and the first one that happened was for the greeters/hostesses of the salon. I started getting a clearer picture of what this contest was about cuz honestly even after a whole week of hair coloring I still had no clue what I was supposed to do. So there's a salon company, Miq, with maybe 8 different stores strewn across Tokyo. The CEO of the company throws together this contest every year as a sort of fun way to bring all the branches together. It's kind of a unique event; I don't think many other salons here do this thing. For this year, they paired the event with Vidal Sassoon, the hair company, and so the judges would be from Sassoon, and there would be lectures and stuff from Sassoon hairstylists.


So the first event was for salon greeters, where they had someone pretending to be a new customer to the store, and the greeters would go through their normal welcoming dialogue with explanations for what options they offered here. Kind of cute. :)

By the time the first event was over, I looked like this. :) Aside from a bit of color for my lips, this was pretty much my finished look, going into the competition. Consistent with everything else so far, I DEFINITELY felt like I had more of a classy, elegant makeup/look than a lot of the other girls there. I felt so spoiled though cuz some of the other models did their own makeup, esp the ones that had male stylists. Well the ones from OUR salon didn't, the other salon girls just did theirs, but I saw some other models come in and do their own.


A lot of their outfits, as well, just looked like straight up punk/goth?? Complete with chokers. And everyone had crazy hair coloring, but I actually wasn't a fan of any of the neon green/blue/pink/orange hair colors. :p Go figure. More than once in my head, I thanked Meg for having pretty "conservative" (by Japanese standards), but elegant taste. Even though she didn't do most of my makeup herself, she directed it, and again I'm glad I got the big muted matte brown look rather than bright pink eye shadow. I know that that's a look in high fashion, but only if you put on crazy amounts and do it all edgy...otherwise it looks like you're going out for a night of bondage????


Anyway I really liked this photo, the composition of it and everything, even though it hardly looks like me anymore. :)

Also, the crazy feather eyelashes that Meg bought turned out to be quite a boon. :) Initially she kinda tried putting em on but they looked absolutely ridiculous cuz they were sooooo huge and feathery. Like a bird had hatched on my face. And she was going to say forget it, but I had an idea that if we cut just a bit off of each one and used it at the corners of my eyes, it would have that big feathery look without being over the top. I think the end result was pretty cool!!!

With my eyes closed, you can really see how much makeup was used as eyeshadow....haha. One thing I took out of this experience, though, was that I really want to learn how to do makeup better. Not only am I getting older and starting to develop bags that I need to hide, but in situations like this?? I felt completely helpless and useless.


Well we finally finished, and went to join everyone else in the giant auditorium. Meg had me put on my jacket, to sort of hide my entire look from the rest of the competition. :x Rowr!

The next event that was happening was called "curl". Like they kept saying "curl" this, "curl" that. I believe that "curl" means old fashioned perming, with rollers and all. So everyone started with a mannequin head, they had 30 seconds to "block" the hair, which is when you section it off and pin it back, and then a few minutes to roll the hair. You're judged by how quick you finish and what the quality of your end result is.


This pic is of bijin-san (I don't know her name, but bijin means "beautiful person" in Japanese) during the curl event. Oh, not everyone participated, but a lot of people did. It did seem to be a bit of a team event, kind of like relay racing. They also did two rounds of curling. I wasn't clear on how everything got divided up though.

Another salon employee (the girl) during the curl event.

And a short clip. They played loud, electronic eurodance type of music so the whole thing felt kind of fun and crazy. :)

This is all taking place in an auditorium, and I'm sitting back in the seats. People are free to go up to the stage and cheer on their salon-mates though, which explains all the people gathered in the front. It also made it a more fun atmosphere. I sat back though cuz my shoes were uncomfortable to stand in and I couldn't easily talk to anyone else. I took the chance to try to chat with the other models from our salon though. It felt kinda like we were all sizing each other up, the last few days, but since we weren't really competing (not personally) there really was no need for cattiness. :) I couldn't say much but just tried to say that their hair and outfits looked nice. What girl could still be catty after hearing that?? :) Blue-haired-model-san was pretty cool, she was really upbeat and punky. Red-haired-model-san had pretty cool hair, I thought, and she was cute, but she was the least friendly. Green-haired-model-san, who was the halfie though, quickly became my friend. :D She's half Dutch, half Japanese, and apart from having very decent, pretty much fluent Japanese, I soon found out after an awkward stilted conversation that she spoke quite good English with a cute accent (her dad grew up in South Africa). YAY! I also found out that she just graduated high school. I am in a competition with 18 year olds. What. the fuck. She was sweet but a bit awkward maybe, but once I heard about the age thing it sort of made a bit more sense. Her face was really lovely and mature, especially with the makeup, so I was taken aback.

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After the curl event came the final part: the hair cutting contest!

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this portion, for obvious reasons. All the models and stylists climbed on stage, which had something like a 8 x 4 grid of just folding chairs. There were no mirrors or tables for the stylists to use, although they had cables running to each chair so stylists could blow dry and use flat irons. Stylists had to bring any and all tools that they would use, including plastic apron, scissors, hair dryer, spray bottle, etc. They had 50 minutes to do the haircut and styling, and then would come the judging.

All the models had to do was hold a sign with your number on it, and sit still. :) Yatta! I felt bad that Meg was flipping the fuck out and I was like nah it's cool cuz all I had to do was sit around. Haha.

The countdown went off, Cascada started blaring, and all the members of different salons jostled and crowded around the stage to cheer on their friends and look curiously at the other models. It was pretty fun! I was in the 2nd row, and blue-hair-model-san was getting her cut in front of me so I watched that a bunch, and tried to sit up and straight, smile at Meg, and look decent for the cameras.

Oh my god though, the first thing Meg did was hack off a shitload of hair in the back. I could feel it falling all over the apron and I was like "NOOOOoooooooooo O_O Can we talk about this first?!??!" I figured the whole bottom was a jagged, shaky, nervous line lol.

The stage was hot, with all the lights shining on us, and hair dryers going off everywhere. Meg worked quickly and before I knew it we were down to the last 5 minutes, and she was muttering "I'm done already...now what do I do?" What she did was keep frying my hair with the flat iron to kill time hehe.

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When all the scissors were put away and the stylists had left the stage, it was time for the judging. There were two judges from Vidal Sassoon: Marco-sensei, this tall white Italian guy that spoke with the strangest accent I've ever heard, and an older Japanese lady that I guess spoke Italian but also English, and did all of Marco's translating for him. They started on opposite ends, went around to each model and had us stand up, brushed our hair a bit, and made notes.

It doesn't SOUND all that hard? But man it was nerve-wracking! They turned off the awesome music so it was dead silent in the room. All the stylists had collapsed off-stage and I could see Meg finally relaxing in the auditorium seats. All eyes were up front, and watching the judges move slowly up and down the ranks. Every time a model stood up, it was just hundreds of eyes staring at them in the dead silence.

I'm going to trip and fall. I just know it. O_O Where do I look? At the judge? Off in the distance? Do I smile? Need to relax, I look too stiff. Can't relax! Gonna trip!

And they walked around hella slow so there was plenty of time for all these thoughts to jog laps around your head. Marco-sensei brushed my hair a bit, especially the bangs. Made a few indiscernible faces. The baa-san-sensei had me spin in a circle so my ugly butt and horrible legs were facing an entire audience of people DX DX THE HORROR!!! But then it was done and I relaxed. :)

After judging I thought we could go back to our seats but they led us off stage, single file, to our original dressing room, and had us stand in 3 rows. Then they said that based on what happened in this room, it may be possible that some of the eventual results would become apparent to us, and that we could by no means discuss it with any of the stylists. Promise? We promised.

Marco-sensei started calling out numbers, and had those people come up to the front of the room, and baa-san-sensei directed them to the left or to the right side of the room. I wasn't sure if they were selecting or eliminating, but after a few numbers were called out I was pretty sure they were selecting. :) Because the models being called forward definitely had what I would consider some of the nicer haircuts there. I couldn't figure out what the left/right divide was for though. They called about 10 names, and I was one of the last ones called forward. :D

One thing that was kind of awesome was that the two judges were communicating in English. And while none of it was crazy talk and it was simple enough for everyone to be able to understand some of it, they probably weren't aware that there was one (actually two) people out there that perfectly understood all of it...........I think I got to hear a bit of additional insight. :)

Well so Marco-sensei pulled a girl forward and said "To me, this is number 1. Maybe she [indicating another girl] could be number 1, one of these two, but I think to me this is number 1." Then, and I forget why, they sort of separated us into top 5 out of 10 and the bottom 5 out of 10. It sounded like they wanted to use the bottom 5 as teaching examples maybe? I don't know. But when they were talking about top 5, they included #26. That's me!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well done Meg. :D I was so happy for her. All that indecision, all that hard work, staying up so late...I knew she could do it. She has good taste and my hair did look good (I stole a peek at it in one of the mirrors).

So I had no idea what place I was exactly, just that I wasn't 1st, and that I was in one of the top 5. And even if she didn't end up winning an award for it? I knew I could tell her that she almost did. So I felt really happy about that.

We were all dismissed then, and we met up with the rest of the horde, who were all eating bento lunches. I had hamburg bento, yum. :3 Finally had my appetite return to me.

After lunch, which ended at around 1pm, we had a whole series of things lined up before we got to the awards ceremony later in the evening at around 7pm. I'm. so. curious!!!!!


First Marco-sensei gave a lecture about the basics of Sassoon hair styling. It was actually pretty interesting, it was a scientific/geometric/methodical breakdown of head shapes, hair shapes, angles, and types of cuts that can be used. It's something I think I would typically find interesting, but I'll be honest and say that my 3 hours of sleep + hamburg bento caught up with me and I dozed through the entire thing. As in, you know. Head whipping back repeatedly, dozing off.

After that hour of torturous accented lecturing, Marco-sensei did a live hair cut for everyone. I imagine that was a lot more exciting for the stylists to watch.


Oh I should mention that part of the reason it was so boring was that I had to hear everything TWICE. Once in the weird English accent, and once translated into Japanese by baa-san-sensei. Yawn city.

The result of the live cutting. I'd honestly have to say that I did not like it one bit. I don't know what her hair was like before but he sure as hell didn't leave her with very much left. It looks like a boy's haircut, and it's all thin and plastered against her head. O_o

Short intermission while Marco-sensei prepared a mini show for us. A few of the event coordinators got on stage and did/said Japanese-y things. Like they started a chant: "Sassoon! Sassoon!" and had us all clapping and chanting. This is Yokokawa-san, Meg's senpai, leading his own version of the Sassoon chant. So bizarre! :) It's hard to understand Japanese culture/humor.

The show! Marco-sensei had cut 3 girls' hair the day before, and this morning they had gotten makeup and styling done to put on this show for us. It was pretty short. Just some music playing, they appear on stage, and walk around and pose and show off their hair. I think these hair styles were a lot cooler than what he just did, but I guess these ones also had time to get styled/made up.

My favorite haircut was the girl in the middle. :) Apparently she is actually friends with green-hair-model-san!

All of this took place over the span of a few hours. Next step was to move out of the auditorium into the banquet room, where we would eventually have the awards ceremony. We spent a bit of down time waiting in front of the banquet room.

Within the banquet hall, tables were grouped by salon, and here is our Takadanobaba table. There was a table full of yummy Japanese foods that were all covered up. :x

This is green-haired-model-san (on the right) talking to tall-fashion-show-girl (left). See!??! Does she look like a high schooler to you??

Finally the awards start! I was kind of impatient to get home at this point, but sort of resigning myself to spending my whole evening here. The awards for the greeter people -- Takadanobaba's greeter took 1st place! It was a lot of fun cuz even though it's one big company, of course everyone is cheering for their friends and their own salon. :)

Bijin-san took 3rd place for the curl competition! She was so cute and ladylike when she got her award. She just looked so pleasantly delighted. :D I think I love her.


We had a number of other people win small awards as well, but I don't know anyone's name and I don't think it's too meaningful to post a bunch of pics of random Japanese people standing on a stage so I will pass that. :)


Their awards system is funny though, they have a pool of 4 silver medalists, 4 gold medalists, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, and a grand prize winner. So not everyone wins an award but like half the people seem to??? Maybe 1/3rd.


Then awards for the hair cutting competition.


And......................


!!!!!!!!!!!!Meg got 3rd place!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D


It was a little nerve wracking walking up on stage just the two of us but it was really gratifying cuz Meg was really really happy. At lunch time she had begged me for results but I had to tell her that I promised not to say. So I was really looking forward to her getting some sort of award. :)


Blue-hair-model-san got a gold medal, but my friend didn't. :( I liked her hair, too! Actually, interesting side note, since each salon is at a different station in Tokyo, and each station in Tokyo (to varying degrees) have their own sense of fashion, as well as cost of living = general income level, it stands to reason that each salon will have slightly different styles! Like, if you work at the Takadanobaba station, it's likely you live near Takadanobaba or at least go there often, and spend Takadanobaba-level income on Takadanobaba-style fashion. It's a really subtle different since we're not talking about Harajuku vs Chiba (the countryside) but I think the difference is slightly visible. :) Like the super goth girls, I'm sure they came from an area where that sort of fashion is more prevalent. Lucky for us, Takadanobaba has a lot of college students, thanks to Waseda University being nearby, and it's a relatively privileged school so the students do have a bit of money. I think those are all contributing factors as to why everyone in our salon had quite decent hair, in my opinion.

This is the girl that took 1st place though, and her stylist. Actually when Marco-sensei pulled her forward, I checked out her hair and was like "crap". I do have to agree with him though. The hairstyle is actually quite "plain"? It's just a bob cut. But. It was exceedingly well done; there were two layers, one with a straight blunt cut and then a top layer that had a more feathered layer-y edge. The bottom layer was green and so you could see a fringe of green through the featheriness. Hard to explain, but take my word for it, it was great execution. I know squat about hair and even I could see that. Plus, more importantly? It was a very appropriate cut for her face. She looked really cute with it. :)

After many many awards, we cheers'ed and we ate, and everyone went around congratulating everyone. I felt like an impostor, getting congratulated for doing nothing. Everyone was just so nice though, it was really sweet. :)


Then they had these cute interlude where they dragged up this year's newcomers (recent hires) and had a member of the salon read out a letter. From that person's mother.


The letters were SO SO sweet, some were funny and teasing, but many were saying how happy and proud their mom was of them, and how they want them to be safe and healthy and happy. It was so Japanese and so cute. A lot of people cried. This girl is from our salon, she's really cool hehe. When she heard I was from California, she started singing and dancing to "Welcome to the hotel California". On a train, no less!


And here she is sobbing like a little kid. :) Awww.

Me and Meg, her with her trophy, and she gave this big present that we got to me! She said all she wanted was the trophy. I said I probably couldn't even carry it home to the States with me and she was like just open it and see, at least.

After more speeches, food, and congratulations, we finally all left at around 9pm. Long day! Took some final pics. Here is my awesome and amazing and super sweet team!!! Katagiri-san on the left, Meg in the middle, and cute chipmunk-san on the right. It was a short time and I could barely say anything to them but I liked them all, very much. :) Thanks guys!!

Then stumbling back to the station, met up with Edwin for a late (quick) dinner, accompanied by stories of how the competition went. It was really too bad, after patiently sitting through (playing DS through) all those hair dye sessions, to not be able to come to the final event...! Boo. :( But actually he got to skip all those lectures so I guess it was a blessing in disguise. -_-;;


Also thanks to the weirdo hair, outfit, and makeup, everyone stared at me like I was some crazy clown hooker. The guy behind the counter preparing meals could not stop staring and laughing about something with his coworkers. I know they were talking about my weird getup cuz I heard "foreigner" a bunch of times. Oh and cuz they were very taken with the fact that we were speaking English. I think they were all placing bets on what the story was here. :)

It occurred to me at some points during the evening that this, all this, the competition, awards ceremony, and all...it really reminded me of my experience of joining the circle (club) for Wind Ensemble, back during study abroad. I had a rough time of it then, because people were a bit xenophobic and not too friendly, but I did feel a lot more immersed in that part of Japanese culture. Japanese people are all about teamwork. Working hard together, collective group experiences, and then celebrating hard together at the end of it. That's why most people join circles. It's not meaningful just to go out and meet a bunch of random people and drink a bunch. What's the point of partying if you're not celebrating something? So they drink after group rehearsals, after a tennis match, after any sort of long day of working together, and they celebrate together. It's really nice. :) And since my first experience wasn't great? Well...it felt like I got a do over. And maybe on top of these people being friendlier, I could also tell that I've gotten more comfortable with myself, and around other people, because even though I felt a bit lost in translation and out of the loop at times, instead of shrinking back and getting shyer, I was ok with it. :) And I kept trying to communicate. I don't know, it was a personal/spiritual realization for me maybe, and kind of nice to know that things have changed.


All in all. The crazy hair experiment was just that, an experiment. It was a gamble, and with Meg as a variable it's really anyone's guess how it would all turn out. But I'm so soso glad I did it. Not only did I get to try a bunch of hair styles that I'd never have had the money or guts or knowledge to try, but I ended up with a relatively decent cut, and awesome coloring job, a lot of great memories and a set of super sweet and nice friends. True, there's a good chance I'll never really talk to or see any of them again, but I'll remember them and they'll remember me. :) And when I think of my Japan trip 2012, there's no way I won't somewhat think of The Crazy Hair Experiment.

Take a chance on things guys! Life is just a collection of experiences, gotta catch em all! XD