day 63! harajuku, shibuya, takadanobaba

Wednesday of this week, I had another appointment with Meg, but again it was at 8pm after her work was over, so I had the morning to go around.

Since Edwin hadn't seen Harajuku yet, I thought it might be nice to go and walk around there, since it's a district with a very distinct style and feel to it. Took the Yamanote line to Harajuku station, which is only about 5 stops. 

Right when you exit the station, you see one of the entrances to Takeshita-doori. Saw the sign for "AKB48 Official Shop Harajuku" and had to pop into see what sorts of horrors of idolatry resided within.

Yeeerp. That is 48 different dolls, for each of the girls in the group (actual pictures provided for comparison). I wonder if anyone actually owns the whole set? More likely that you'd just buy the doll for your favorite 1 or 2 girls.

And if the dolls get old, here are posters, clear plastic file holders, pencils, etc.


But really, the fact that there are 48 of them is kind of a smart business idea. I heard that their most recent single became the highest selling single (of all time, in Japan?) thanks to one clever tactic: they included some special edition photos of a random girl in each single. That way, die-hard fans had to buy many many copies of the single to collect the photos of their favorite idols. Diabolical, no???

Walked halfway down Takeshita-doori just looking around, not buying anything. But of course this gem caught our eye. :) Crepes! They used to be a Harajuku-only sort of snack, and there are two stores that have been open on Takeshita-doori for ages. More recently, crepe shops have popped up in Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro...pretty much everywhere.


Every store has like 50 different choices, since it's just the same few ingredients rotating their way through all the crepes. Some have ice cream scoops in them, others even have tiny slices of cheesecake. There are also savory kinds, but I never get those (ice cream crepes ftw!).


It's the perfect food for girls shopping around Tokyo though, because it's sweet, not too filling, pretty "cheap", and you can share with friends. Most importantly though, it's cute and stylish-looking, with ties into France, a culture beloved by Japanese people.

Mmmmm chocolate ice cream :o :o Haven't had ice cream in a while!!

A bit further down Takeshita-doori, this costume shop has been open a long time too. I don't know how the hell they stay in business; I haven't seen a single person buy anything here, only people taking pictures, but 4 years later it's still here. The costumes they sell are seriously wacky, kind of like Halloween meets Vegas meets pirates meets bondage.


Walked the rest of the length of the street, still just looking around, no shopping. Since we didn't know what to do next, I took my usual route back to Shibuya. Took him to my favorite department store + museum, La Foret (I went there before and took some pics of it, earlier when Kurt was here).

But still found some awesome window displays to surreptitiously take pictures of. Crazy moose all decked out in bling. I don't know what line of work this falls into...interior design? Graphic design? But I'm so entranced by this sort of thing. Marketing + people + art + whimsy....I'm just really fascinated by it. :)


We stopped by one store, they had these awesome rings that looks like a little stag's head popping out of your hand. Really cool and unique, but had a hefty price tag of $200. :o

Crazy sunglasses! I've yet to see these worn anywhere but if I were to, it would probably be in Harajuku. :3 Edwin left his sunglasses at home so we went to buy a pair yesterday, in Shibuya, and I was lamenting how there weren't any cool sunglasses to try on. They all looked the same. If only I'd come here first...

A more ordinary store, no bizarre deco near the front, but still really well lit and nicely laid out. :) And all the bags are so unique!

Ok back to weird storefronts. This store barely has walls, and yet they erected a tower of confetti to serve as one side of the store. Who does this?? Whose job is it to shred and lay out confetti all day??

Spotted a Lawson and popped inside to buy tickets for Ghibli. These red Loppi machines are the ones you use to order tickets in advance, which is required for going to the Ghibli museum. This time since I bought tickets well in advance, there were plenty available for next week. Yatta!

A little tiny restaurant/snack shop next to Kiddyland in Harajuku. The words "French Toast" caught my eye and I knew right away that...in about 15 minutes I'd be eating french toast. :x

I was correct! There were a few different toppings to choose from, berries, cherries, etc. but I wanted marmalade. The marmalade was actually made fresh, and the orange peels were quite zesty.

Another counter seat with a mirror over it. BLONDEEEE!~ My eyes aren't closed btw, that's just how I look when I'm looking down. :(


Did a bit more walking around, and then decided to eat a proper meal. I know, I know, we haven't done anything today except eat crepes and french toast and other girly snacks. >< But we have!! I just don't remember to take any pics as proof. D: But take my word for it, we hadn't eaten any real food yet so we went off in search of some "new" Japanese food that we hadn't had a chance to try yet.

Went with tempura. :) There's a fast food chain here called Ten-ya, where you can get tempura. You can either get a ten-don (which we now all know means tempura on rice), or you can get tempura with other meal sets. I chose to get zaru soba + tempura set, which is kinda like what Kurt and I and okaa-san had for our fancy dinner in Kyoto. :)


Took a while to figure out how to order what we wanted, there were too many possible meal combinations and I guess I couldn't interpret the menu properly. In the end we had to go with the English menu. :x I am shamed desu.

Made it back to Shibuya! Saw this fake food display at a restaurant/cafe near the station, didn't actually eat there but I had to take a picture when I saw the price tag on it. $40? Holy crap. It is quite an impressive collection of fruit though.


Wandered around Shibuya for a while, went to Shibuya 109 and did a bit of shopping -- bought two different tops at a store called Cryx. Eventually it was time to head back to Takadanobaba to make my appointment with Meg.


Today was the last day before the contest so I figured it would take all night. My hair was completely bleached, blonde, and ready for dye; they had to add whatever color they wanted in my hair tonight, as during the actual competition there would be only time to cut hair. Meg was also going to do whatever last minute preparation cutting she might have time for.


But as I'm sure you've all surmised, Meg was Meg, it took us half an hour to get started, and even then she wasn't sure how she wanted to color it. She was still wondering out loud "what about blue? blue is good. or should i do red?" Oh, also, I finally got to see some of the other models! Up til now I'd only maybe caught a glimpse of one. For SOME reason, none of them ever seemed to need to stay in the salon as long as I do. :| Nope. But today, they were all gathered. I couldn't blatantly stare at any of them, but I saw one girl with this nice blue color in her hair. She was super skinny and very modelesque, with a very interesting looking face. Another girl who looked like hapa. And at least one more girl that had crazy red in her hair. Compared to my bright blonde.... I don't know. Can't say I didn't have at least a second or two of hesitation. :)


In the end, they separated my hair into a bunch of layers, painted gunk all over all of it, and I had no idea what it would look like til it was done.


But.....once it was all washed out:

(front)

(side)

The coloring took ages, even with the help of another really nice nice girl there named Katagiri-san. I couldn't figure out her relationship to Meg, whether she was senpai or kouhai. She spoke politely but not deferentially, but she did go out of her way and took extra time to help Meg out. I dunno, but her presence was very calming. :) She felt quite motherly, almost. She knew that I didn't speak Japanese too great, so she would just always ask me, slowly "How was it? Did it burn? Was it ok?", referring to the bleach. Over the last few days most of the stylists there had seen me pop in and out, and had witnessed my hair transformation, and so now instead of not-so-subtle curious glances, I get smiles and head bobs. :) It's kinda nice.


But yah, most people don't know my background, or how Meg found me, or that I'm not Japanese, so I'm always a little worried that they think I'm rude cuz I don't address anyone or say anything. Katagiri-san is nice though, and I'd been saying hi and giving her a smile and a wave when I see her. Meg had another senpai too, Yokokawa-san, who seemed pretty nice and indulgent of her. She originally told me, during her first proposal, that she would have her boss fix my hair for me. Then later, when she was discussing what to do with my hair with Yokokawa-san, he asked "will you fix it later?" and she was like "well I'll fix the color" and he said "and the cut?" and she was like "eheeee :3" and he was like *facepalm* lol. But then he kinda laughed and said ok, ok fine. He also helped trim my bangs, and shaved off all the hair near the nape of my neck, as part of the "pre-cutting" process. He seemed very dependable and kakoii though, so I liked him too. Actually today, we were going to grab coffee before going to the appointment, and I was going to pick up an extra cup for Meg and one for Yokokawa-san. Even though it was his day off, he said he'd come in for a bit to help, and even though I know it's not my responsibility, it was really nice of him so I wanted to get him some coffee. In the end though, we didn't have time to pick any up before 8pm. Edwin offered to run out at some point to pick some up cuz even with his DS he was bound to get bored during an evening full of hair dye. :p But Meg told us that Yokokawa-san wasn't coming today so in the end we didn't get coffee with him! Agh what a mess. Err this is boring though isn't it, I'm just blurting out people's names and talking about coffee.... ><


Anyway after the coloring, there was pretty much no time for any additional cutting. Also the pink in my hair was supposed to be red, but it would take a couple of doses to get it to a really brilliant red. Meg decided she'd do another dose early the next morning, and maybe some cutting if she had time.


We rushed out of the building, last minute, at 1am. Everyone else had left the salon already, and apparently they close off all exits at 1am, and we managed to sneak out just as the security guard was closing the last gate. :o


I had offered Meg to stay at my place if she needed, a few days ago. Cuz I knew the night before the contest would be a late night, and the station that she lives at is not Takadanobaba, so she said she'd stay at a senpai's (Yokokawa-san's) house. But I was like oh, if you want, I have two beds! I guess I just figured it would be easier, and I wanted to be nice cuz I somehow sort of like Meg. I didn't think she would take me up on that offer...but....Meg is maybe not your typical Japanese girl? :) So all during the night she kept saying "It's ok if I stay with you?? You sure?" and I was like "Yes Meg it's fine. :)" 


So...at the end of the night, walked home with a Meg in tow. We were both pretty tired, and we had to get up early the next morning at around 5:30am to get to the salon for last minute coloring and still make it in time to leave for the contest at 9am! Gah. Meg. How can I model if I don't get any sleep?? No haircut will look flattering on a face like this: =_= oh dear....


That, and, Meg needed to shower, but didn't bring a towel. She didn't have pajamas. I'm PRETTY sure she knew she'd have to stay at someone's place, but she still didn't bring any of her stuff. ^^;;; Hahaha. We also stopped for coffee and cigarettes on the way home.


I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into, but after a whole week of ridiculous hair procedures, tomorrow is finally the day. We'll see how it goes!!

day 62! shibuya, takadanobaba

Announcement! Today is my official 2 month asianniversary. I've been gone from home for 2 months! It doesn't sound that long, and honestly it doesn't FEEL that long thinking about it right now, until I go back to pictures from day 1 and day 2. Wandering around Taipei with all my siblings and my family, fresh with the excitement of being on vacation and in Asia. I tried not to lose that feeling, but I know it's dwindled, somewhat. :) I do like to browse back to those pictures though, to remind myself how lucky I am to have had this opportunity to be here, and of all the things I've experienced thus far, and to not take the rest of my trip (short thought that may be) for granted.

That said, I decided to spend the day doing what I've been doing for most of the past 2 months: shopping. Principles be damned. The stuff I saw at Forever21 was too cute and affordable to forget about, so I went back to Shibuya, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.

The Forever 21 in Shibuya is HUGE. It has 5 floors, and while each floor isn't a warehouse, it's big enough to take me a good 10 minutes or so to make a loop and pick what I want to try on. Each floor has its own fitting room, and you're only allowed 6 items at a time, so that really slowed me down. :/

They have a lot of cute dresses out right now, it being summer and all, and I was keen to get some of those since they look really loose and comfortable. It's interesting, I feel like a lot of the clothes in Japan are sort of loose fitting. They tend not to wear things skin-tight, or if they do, they'll layer something loose over it. It's pretty different from the American style of tank top + butt hugging jeans, but I sort of like it...it's still attractive but in a more demure, tactful way. Boobs, butt cracks, arms, legs hanging out everywhere just doesn't look very graceful now does it.

Unfortunately the dresses were a bust. Loose flowy fabric makes me look I'm expecting a cloth baby any minute now. :( But I did find a bunch of other stuff that I liked, and I walked out a couple of hours later with a huge sack of loot. O_O Maybe more like a barge. Haha no I'm kidding, but I did get about 10 things, mostly shirts.

Felt too guilty to do much more shopping after that, but I DID feel like eating. :) Edwin was free so we met up and wandered around trying to find food. It's hard because both of us are pretty amicable eaters, and don't have much of a preference, but in the end we went to Pomme no Ki, which, according to the sign outside, is famous for it's omu-rice. Omu is short for "omelette" and rice is rice. Omu-rice is when they make fried rice, and wrap it in egg to make an omelette of rice. I used to have to make omu-soba (you guessed it, soba wrapped in egg) at the okonomiyaki restaurant! :)

Here's the menu, they had about 3 pages of different kinds of omu-rice! They also had pastas and casseroles but looking at the plastic food outside, the omu-rice looked HUGE and delicious so we both wanted that.

You can see at the bottom of the menu that there are 4 sizes of omu-rice, and it tells you how much rice and how many eggs go into each one. I got a S size, which is 2 bowls of rice and 3 eggs. Edwin was going to get an S as well but I badgered him into getting one size bigger cuz I'm sick of him always eating as much as I do even though he's so much bigger! XD Yes. Horrible isn't it. So I did the honorable thing and made him size up so I wouldn't have to size down. :3 ke ke ke.

Here's mine! Omu-rice + katsu + curry. Don't let looks deceive you, that plate was huge. The omu-rice was the size of my face (har har <insert planet jokes here>. quiet, whale.)

Here's what Edwin got, it was 2 different flavors, 1 was like cream of mushroom, and the other was "hayashi" sauce? It was a flavor included in a lot of the options but I don't really know what hayashi sauce is. I sampled a bit of it, and it was really good!! But I can't compare it to any other flavor I know. Something like a strong beef stew or something.

It was a bit of a struggle but we both finished. :3 I had to eat half of his but we got there. Haha no I'm kidding. I tried but I had to give up after I threw up. Nope kidding again. We finished with only minor sweats breaking out.

Felt like walking around to digest the omu-rice. Saw a Crocs shop in Shibuya, with little Croc men to greet you.

Took Edwin to Zara, hoping that maybe we could find something on the men's floor that would spark his interest, but not only are the clothes extravagantly expensive, they were all a little too out there, I guess.

They did have cool graffiti-like artwork along the walls of the staircase though.

After some more walking, it was time to go back to Takadanobaba for my daily hair appointment. On today's agenda was bleach round #2.

Mostly the same drill, they covered my hair in foul acidic stuff, I sat there for a while (should I be worried that my scalp didn't hurt as much?) and after a while Meg washed it out of my hair about 20 times. I thought orange hair was going to be about as shocked as I would get, but lo and behold, blonde blonde hair is just about as far from orange as orange was from black. Never in a thousand years would I have thought that I would be blonde, or even look ok as a blonde. Especially since most asians that I see go blonde, I'm not a fan of. Even the ones that look good, I feel like would look better with normal black hair. But I really didn't hate it.

And that's why I'm so glad I went through with this whole hair experiment. It was a risk and it could have been terrible, but at least I'd know, then. And it wouldn't be as bad as PAYING to get it done, and it being terrible. But instead I got to try it and I DO like it and now that option will always be open to me. :)

Anyway. After the bleaching, they started in on the cutting. The day of the contest would be the actual final cut, but for the time being they were going to go ahead and get started on shaping the hairstyle. Or, in Meg's case, on visualizing what possible hair style she might eventually want to get around to doing. lol.

She called in lots of different coworkers to help her think about/discuss what the might do. Cuz that's how she is, she's always saying things like "I'm so screwed...omg...please help me!!! T^T (actually that face really suits her)" and her coworkers kind of laugh and are like "meg will be meg" and help her out.

Then she debates back and forth and moans and deliberates, and says "oh well, may as well cut". Then picks up her scissors and snips the whole bottom off. I'm like ?!?!?!??! WOMAN PLEASE. O_O don't you 'whatever' my hair away. lol.

It wasn't any huge changes, but they cut off the permed, curly part at the bottom, so I had a blunt bob. She also trimmed my bangs quite a bit wider so they were no longer hiding my eyes. And shortened it quite a bit. She was wondering whether or not to have my eyebrows show, to which I prayed NO because my eyebrows are really distinctive and I think it'd be really creepy to have them show.

She also cut some "staircases" (?) in the hair. She kept saying that word, and I think she wanted to have one half of the hair be very like rigid and square, so it looks sort of like a staircase, and the other side be more fluid and wavy. Yah, it's fashion, go figure.

But in the end, it turned out ok. I mean, she's still brainstorming and this is not the final bit at all, but she fixed it so that its somewhat ok to be seen in public (even though the two sides aren't symmetrical) and sent me home.

I'm starting to get the feeling that although she frets and runs around like a headless chicken a lot, Meg is pretty competent. When she starts doing something, she really does focus on it and give it her best. So I am relaxing a little bit, but I feel like I am in good hands. Also, even though she wears makeup and eyelashes and has brown hair like your typical Tokyo girl, I really like her hair and clothing and everything. They're very...pretty but not too girly or crazy? So I trust that her taste is aligned with mine. :)

Tada. You've all seen it on Facebook already but here I am as a blond staircase.

And so ends day 3 of the Crazy Haircut Experiment.

day 61! takadanobaba, ikebukuro, shibuya

So today, my appointment with Meg was set for slightly earlier, at 3pm. The reason being that Tuesdays are her days off, so she didn't have to wait until 8pm to get off work before we could meet up. According to what she'd told me yesterday, we were going to spend the day doing makeup and shopping for the outfit for the contest. Basically something like a girl's wet dream, right? :p I was a bit apprehensive though, cuz I'm not sure how I feel about spending a whole day doing that, and with other people. Also with Meg being Meg...I never really know what to expect.

Since today was going to be kind of long and boring, I told Edwin to go play somewhere, and that maybe when we finished (I figured it would only be a few hours), we could go hang out somewhere or something, I'd call and let him know.

Didn't do much in the morning, woke up leisurely (read: late), slowly showered and got ready, and then headed out.

Got a call from Meg saying that it would be closer to 3:30 (this is getting to be a bit of a pattern....). When I got there, she had a friend waiting with her. She'd mentioned that we'd go shopping with her friend, which made me a little hesitant cuz oftentimes the more girls you add to a party the loopier it gets. But! Her friend was super super sweet. Her name is Mari-chan, and she had a baby with her!!! I asked, the baby was 5 years old. And when I said she looked way too young to have a baby, she said "Oh, but I'm the same age as Meg, we're friends from high school. I'm 24." and I was like ehhhh!?!?!?!? 24!! So young, holy crap.

Anyway she used to work in the beauty industry as well, I believe at a hair salon, but since she had her baby, she's been off work. I asked if she wanted to go back and she said of course she misses it from time to time, but for now, with the baby, she probably won't be able to. So when Meg called her and asked for her help with this project, she was really excited. She was really sweet and young, but somehow very motherly as well. :) Wait what am I saying, she's younger than me................damnit. -_-;;

Anyway they spent quite some time discussing what to do, and slowly put foundation, and then white powder on my face. This took about an hour. I don't know how that could possibly take an hour, but it did. I think because they were bouncing the baby up and down, and feeding it, and taking their sweet time. Yes I was bored.

I took a pic of this pretty palette that they had though. :) When I saw all the glitter and sparklies, my ovaries swooned a bit. I figured you'd be excited about it too Janet, but somehow I'm betting that you've seen it before and know what company it's from already. Amirite? :D lol. Anyway it's that NYX brand that I know you've mentioned to me at some point. IT'S. SO. PRETTY. O_O I was hoping they'd dip their fingers into all the colors and take turns smearing it all over my face, and then I'd have an awesome rainbow sparkle face, but no. :( I barely got any. I KNEW I SHOULDN'T HAVE COME, WHAT'S EVEN THE POINT.

Well first, what they did was discuss back and forth what kind of makeup and what kind of look they were going for. And for that, they needed to know what sort of haircut they were going for. And for THAT, they needed Meg to have her shit together, and to have some plan of attack, but Meg was like "I have nooo ideeeaaaa" and so we were left with nothing. DX I'm starting to get a feel for Meg's personality; I don't quite know how to say it but she has a cute whiny personality. :) And I mean that in the best possible way. Every time I come, she kind of runs/shuffles up to me in a piteous way and makes an aggrieved face and says "I'm sorry!!! I'll be done in a second!! Hold on a second ok??" Like she makes faces like she's having a tough time and please pity her, but not in a pathetic way or anything, just as in she's usually all over the place, cuz she's a bit of a mess, and irresponsible to boot. So she has to ask others to take the slack for her and so she makes her sad apologetic grimaces, but it's a habit for her cuz she's always like that. I don't know, as much as it can be taxing to always be waiting on her, I don't find her unlikable. It's hard to explain. :)

Anyway, in this case we were once again both (me and Mari-chan) left hanging because Meg had no idea what she wanted to do, and how can you do makeup for a haircut/style/look that you don't even know? Cute, edgy, punk, goth??? So they randomly smeared a tube of white shit on my face (harharhar ok enough giggles) and made a mask over my eyes. Then they smeared sparkles under my eyes. I now look like a drag queen that has been dead for a week.

Tadaaaaa. Tolja.

That's Meg in the bottom corner. I caught her by surprise, she doesn't look great in that pic. :x But you see how even when caught off guard her face is kind of grimace-y????

That's Mari-chan to the right, with her baby sleeping and an awesome sling to support the baby's head. We seriously need to put those on airplane seats.

That girl in the middle is another person that works at the hair salon. I'd seen her the day before, while waiting for Meg to come fetch us, and I totally did a mental gasp cuz she is SO freaking pretty. D: Holy good god. It's hard to see from the picture, but she looks like a model. And she doesn't seem stuck up either, she seems very dignified and lady like. SHE'S SO PRETTY WTH AND IN THE MEANTIME I'M IN THE FRONT LOOKING LIKE A WARM GLUESTICK FUUUUU.

Oh and that is the white mask I was talking about. What a weirdass look. They kept saying that they needed to add a splash of color, somewhere, but I never got anything added. Just sat there for hours looking like....that. lol.

Well eventually they'd had enough, and decided that they couldn't move forward until the concept was more solidified. So they led me to the bathroom to wash 3 hours of makeup off me, and then Meg told me to go hang out somewhere for 1.5 hrs (guhhhhh -_-;;) while she did some research on what look to go for (do it yesterday damnit!).

I was starving at this point, so I called Edwin, and he'd conveniently gotten back from doing whatever he was doing, and was ready for food. While I was waiting for him to come meet me at the station, I went to Uniqlo (at the station) and shopped a bit. Got some shorts and some leggings (that look like skinny jeans). Uniqlo is amazing....the only store in the world I could find shorts and "skinny jeans" that don't make me look like an amputated elephant. ^^v

Met up with Edwin, and we went to a ramen place somewhat near the station for an early dinner. I went for soba, since I thought it might be a little healthier, but what I ordered was the only soba they had on the menu, "abura soba".

I realized when the food got here that abura soba means "oil soba". It's just soba noodles sitting in like sesame oil or something. lol! I mean don't get me wrong, it was freaking delicious but it was probably the only thing on the menu that was more unhealthy than ramen. XD

By the time we finished eating, it was time to meet up with Meg. I found her with a worried expression on her face near the station. It's comforting, really. My hair, in the hands of a worried butcher. <3 hehe. She said we needed to go to Ikebukuro to check some manicure-something-or-other. (I realized a few days later that manicure is their word for hair dye? Really, Japan??? -_-;;)

We got to Ikebukuro, walked a ways, Meg realized she doesn't remember exactly where the manicure thing is, and gets a bit lost. We wander around, ask for directions, then she picks up the scent and finds her way to the shop.

Just as it's closing. :p My disquiet has cemented and is now a small pebble in my stomach.

She asks the store owner if she can just peek inside, real quick, she just needs to take a look at some blue color, but they refused her. So we left the store, and both agreed that it was a little uncharitable of them to be so stingy. Then she asked if I was thirsty, said she wanted a drink, and we went to the convenient store, where we then got an ice cream for me and coffee for her. She said we could go enjoy them in a park somewhere and I was like ok....

I'm a little confused at this point wtf is going on. She'd said we were going shopping, and yet...I find myself eating vanilla ice cream in a park with no grass. Also she's like is it ok if I smoke? And I said "sure..." so she drags me over to the smokers area of the park, which is the most depressing place to be I swear. Just a bunch of silent people in suits, smoking silently next to giant garbage ashtray vents. D: Maybe people here just like to smoke solemnly, but to me it looked like they were all willing themselves to death by tobacco. *sniff*
But it's ok I have ice cream....

Meg said she has another friend that will meet us for shopping at 8. That's another half an hour from now so I thought we had half an hour to kill, and I ate my ice cream really slowly so we wouldn't just sit awkwardly. We had a very strained, illiterate conversation, and at one point she asked me "Are you able to finish that? Don't worry if you can't, we can just throw it away" and I was like "Oh it's ok I can finish it". I thought she was just being polite but....as soon as I finished it she hopped up and was like Ok let's go! I was like...but it's not 8 yet....

/)_(\

Actually she had another pit stop in mind, and I think she was waiting for me to finish before going to it. I, on the other hand, had no fucking clue what was happening, so I was trying to eat as slooooowly as possible to match what I THOUGHT was our 8 o'clock deadline. gdi.

The pit stop was for eyelashes. :) As we walked she said "can I go look at some eyelashes?" and I thought she meant eyelashes for herself. I kind of rolled my eyes in my head cuz so far today we hadn't gotten anything done, and it was kind of a waste of a day. But when we got to the Shu Uemura eyelash bar inside the Seibu department store makeup area, I realized she meant for the competition.

There were sooo many crazy eyelashes at this place. They were all really awesome but I don't know how normal people would ever have a chance to wear them, on a day to day basis.

Still they were kind of fun to look at. But Meg debated and deliberated for ages, since, not having a clear image of her desired final product, it was difficult to decide what sort of eyelashes would match. In the end she picked these black feathery eyelashes. Like, the eyelashes were actually tiny tiny down feathers. Wild. Also, 2300yen = $25 ish. Yowza.

By then she'd already contacted her friend saying she'd be like an hour late (oh, Meg). We went to Shibuya instead of Harajuku, as planned, because it was almost 9 o'clock and Shibuya stores stay open later. We ended up in the Forever21 store in Shibuya, which I'd vowed not to go into (principles!!!), but which made sense in this case cuz they have a variety of cheap but fashionable looking clothing. Walking around, though, I have to admit that they had a lot of nice stuff there, and I made a mental note to come back and check a few things out. :x SH. Don't tell the principles.

Meg's friend arrived, and I'm sorry to say that I don't remember her name. She's Meg's kouhai from the salon -- kouhai is the opposite of senpai. I shall name her Ann.

Ann seemed a lot more put together than Meg, and she was a really good sport to help out even though it didn't seem like Meg pointed her any direction at all as to what to look for. Meg cycled through all the colors ("green is really nice! but blue is really cool too... nah, I guess we should go with green. but isn't red more 'competition-like'? black might be good..."), and what we ended up taking to the fitting room was mostly black. Unfortunately they didn't like either of the two outfits they picked out. They did make me take off my tights and walk around in ridiculously tall shiny patent high heels though, and it kind of terrified me that they were like "ohhh yah her legs look way better that way!" I might be weird in that way but, baring of midriff is ok, even baring of arms I think I could live with but...bare legs? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I will fight to the death to not have to go out bare-legged. :(

Welp. The time is now 9:50. They are running back and forth across the store frantically trying to piece something together. Meg says that I won't have a chance to try it on, we'll just have to buy it, and I am even more petrified. You...want me to go out in front of hundreds of people in some outfit that I don't get to try on? I am grateful that you believe I am one of those people that can just, wear whatever they want and it looks fine, but sadly I am NOT, and most things that I try on do not suit my body type! O_O And they definitely don't know my body type so I had 0 confidence that they would pick something appropriate.

And they didn't, because they went with a red miniskirt (mistake) and this strange black see-through backwards-vest. Like, it's a vest, but it opens in the back? And there was no mention of what I wear inside so I assumed that Meg would forget to decide that part and I would just have to go bare-chested. Good.

Then they spent the last 10 minutes running around looking for gold jewelry (mistake) while the F21 people got increasingly less and less polite about telling us that we had to finish and check out. In the end the outfit cost about $80, the shoes being the most expensive part, and I didn't get to try on any of it. Oh, but of course Meg was the one that paid for it since it's her contest....but we'd never explicitly gone over that sensitive detail so I'd kind of wondered.

Well, and that was that. I got back home at around 11pm, feeling a little like I'd wasted my day due to Meg's inefficiency and unpreparedness. Sigh. At least when I tried on the makeshift outfit, I could look at myself without cringing.

I'll be damned if I have to wear a miniskirt without tights though.

day 60! takadanobaba

Oh boy. Today was a bit of a slow day. Since we were out all day the day before, hanging out and seeing fireworks, and then getting home took a while, I totally ended up sleeping in this morning. Ok, til afternoon. :( And there was no stopping me cuz I didn't set an alarm, and of course Edwin is too polite to come wake me up and be like dude it's 2pm already gtfo.....


I had originally thought I could go to some different area of Tokyo, either go explore a new place or maybe show Edwin a new part of Tokyo that he hadn't been to yet, but thanks to the greedy sleeping it was a bit late by the time we got to the station. :) I think we had some sushi for dinner.


Anyway since I don't have a great recollection of what happened during the day (I got too behind on the blogging, sorry!) and it wasn't anything groundbreaking, I'll skip to the part I do remember. ;)


At around 7pm, went to Excelsior to get some daily coffee (yay) and waited for an appointment I had at 8pm. If you remember, at some point last week, some girl stopped me at the station and asked to cut my hair for some contest. Well, I had really gone back and forth, back and forth over whether I should do it or not. My main dilemma being that I had JUST gotten my hair cut and permed, and didn't want all that money and effort to go to waste, but on the other hand, I didn't want to waste this opportunity either. A couple of days ago, I had gotten a call from the stylist, whose name is Meg, and dropped by her salon to chat with her (and also to make sure that the salon was real and that it wasn't some scam). And one way or another....I found myself agreeing to let her cut my hair. :)


Originally it had only sounded like I'd put in a day or two, maybe, one to prepare, and one for the day of the contest. But the schedule she'd drawn up for me required me to go to the salon almost every evening! I was a bit miffed about that, but I guess curiosity is a strong motivator. Also not being a quitter. :p


So today was my first appointment, where I thought we were just gonna meet up and talk about what things would happen in the upcoming week.


Nope! Wrong.


Hehe. When we got to the salon (I told Edwin it would only take a bit, so he tagged along. My bad!), Meg wasn't ready for me quite yet. The reason the appointments were in the evenings was cuz that's when she's done with work, and has time to do her own stuff. So we sat in the waiting area and waited, while everyone looked curiously at us. I felt sorta out of place. :S And more and more uneasy that I shouldn't be doing this at all...


When Meg finished up, she took us to this private room in the back. It's kinda cute! It has a normal salon chair, but there's a TV and a small playstation to play games on. I figured this is where the employees to when they want to take a break, but I later found out that they advertise these "koushitsu" or, "private rooms" to customers who prefer not to get their hair cut in the main salon area. For a bit extra, you get some privacy and entertainment. Cute idea!! Never seen anything like it before. There is an adjacent private room for 2 people, in case you want to get your hair cut with a friend. ^^v

Waiting in the private room for Meg, who by now is running like 45 minutes behind schedule. Oh long black hair, I miss you so.


Soooo I was wrong about today being just discussion. :) Looks like Meg wants to get started right away! In a way it's good, there's no more room for wishy-washiness, or qualms about whether this is the right thing to do or not. Oh no.


It's bleach time.

I've never had my hair bleached before. It smells absolutely terrible. Like....well, bleach. And maybe ammonia. It makes your eyes water a bit, and it wrinkled my brain a little, thinking about how much damage this would do to my hair, if the chemicals in the white goop made my nose sting so much just from smelling them. Oh dear. But there's no turning back now....


Soon after combing it in, you can see my hair starting to change color already. Of course I couldn't see it at the time, I was trying too hard not to breathe.

It took almost half an hour, but she painted it into my hair bit by bit, layer by layer, and did the roots of my hair last. I had heard about how much bleaching your hair hurt, and was surprised at how little I felt. I figured I was just abnormally strong or had a very desensitized scalp from all the hair pulling I'd undergone as a child.


...but really it was just that they hadn't painted my scalp yet. Holy shit it hurt!! I know I'm nonchalantly sipping coffee in the pic, but really what I'm thinking is AHHHHHHH motherfucker it feels like Satan is skinny dipping in my braaaaaaaain. T^T


They were really nice about it though, they kept asking does it hurt, does it hurt. Don't push yourself. Let us know when it hurts. I think Meg was worried that my Japanese was so bad that I wouldn't be able to communicate it and that I would faint in the chair or something.


Well, Meg-san. Can you translate AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRGRHGRGRHGRHGRHGRHGRHHHHHH into Japanese for me okudasai? :3


Well, at least it's working. You can see all the colors are slowly getting leached out of my hair. :) Isn't it a bit fascinating though? Normally when you dye your hair, it's like you're adding MORE to it, you're giving it more color. But bleaching your hair, they're taking color out of it. Well....that means that all asians are blonde, doesn't it? We just have extra color on top of that. It's just funny to me cuz I've always thought, in a self-centered fashion, that blondes were asian hair dyed blonde, not that asians were blondes dyed black (phew tongue twister). I tried to focus on these more interesting aspects of the honored and revered school of bleaching, as thousands of tiny daggers pierced my skull.


Eventually I had to cry uncle though, and Meg took me to get all the bleach washed out. She washed my hair at least 5 or 6 times with different nice smelly goopy things. I know there was shampoo and conditioner, as well as treatment. Treatment is some stuff they use to treat your hair so it doesn't get too damaged when either coloring or perming your hair. Fight chemicals with chemicals, eh? :) She had promised me, when she had originally told me that the contest required that I color my hair, that she would take care of my hair and make sure it didn't get damaged, so I did appreciate that.

Hair has been washed and dried, and now we do a bit of eyebrow bleaching so it doesn't look too odd. :) Orange hair and black eyebrows make me look like a unibrow'ed jack o' lantern that escaped from Sesame Street.


So the goal is to get ALL the color out of my hair, which would mean turning it blonde. As it is right now, it's still retained a bit of color which is why it's orange still. Meg said that we will have to go through the bleaching process again to get the rest of the color out.


As it turns out though, I don't hate it! When she'd told me, earlier in the evening, that with only 1 dose of bleach I would be orange-haired for a day I was like what the fuuuuu. -_- Y U NO TELL ME THESE THINGS EARLIER! I'm starting to get a strong feeling that Meg has been painting a pretty picture for my benefit.


But surprisingly, it didn't look that bad. :) I've had one experience, last time I came to Japan, of getting my hair colored to that brown color asians are so fond of. It looked alright, but as it got lighter and lighter it looked crappier and crappier. So I was pretty worried, from experience, that blonde hair would look absolutely awful on me.

But I dunno. Meg said that it suited me, and I'm inclined to somewhat agree. At least, I didn't scream when she took the towel off my head for the first time.


Haha actually it was kind of funny, when she washed the bleach out of my hair she was like "uwa, gaigokujin mitai!" ("wow, you look like a foreigner!") and then she kinda chuckled and muttered "maa, gaigokujin dakara ne" ("well, I guess that's cuz you are a foreigner"). hehe. We both laughed at that one.

Orange hair.

And that was day 1 of Crazy Hair Experience 2012. :)


to be continued....

day 59! shibuya, zushi

I had made plans for today, Saturday, to meet up with some of the TCK guys (Taiga, Tatsuya, Yuta, and Ayano) to go see fireworks in Zushi. :) Well, I say "plans" but really since it's these guys it was just a lot of expressing of interest, and then no concrete agenda for how that might come about. Usually Tatsuya's the one that gets the ball rolling but I guess this was just too last minute. To be fair though, a lot of the confusion was over whether or not the show would actually happen. When I saw the forecast, it had said there was an 80% chance of rain, and Tatsuya said that if it rained the show would be postponed til Sunday. So it was all up in the air, even the morning of, whether it would happen or not.


Actually I had invited Chris to come along, and to bring Asami as well, but since our plans were shaky and last minute, and Asami said she didn't want to watch fireworks in the rain and it would be too expensive to go with a risk of it being cancelled, so the two of them didn't come. :(

In the end we decided the morning of, to meet up in Shibuya at around 1pm and head to Zushi together.

Another meeting in front of Hachiko. There are some cute baa-chan's meeting there too, Shibuya isn't just full of young hipsters. :)

I was running a bit late (typical...) but Ayano has to come all the way from Chiba so she's usually at the tail end of the procession. We got a message from her saying she was at Hachiko, but couldn't spot us, so I went to find her. I spotted her sitting off to the side, and ran up to her and was like "oh my goood ayanoooo!!!!" and she just kind of glared at me like I was crazy. lol, it took her a second but then she was like "oh my god steph!!" haha. It was funny, but it's hard to remember that look of polite disdain. :) So Tokyo. Everyone in Tokyo that isn't your friend seems like they slightly detest you, somehow.

Us at the Shibuya crossing. Taiga's in the striped shirt and Ayano is in the rust colored shirt at the bottom. We were hungry so we're headed for food. Ayano suggested Indian food and since I haven't had that in a while either I was all in. :)


We were seated on the second floor, and the ordering method was kind of strange. They had those machines that sell tickets, like fast food places do, but instead of using those, the guy took our order directly, then took our money, then came back later with five little piles of change for each individual. Kind of odd.

Also he didn't ask if I wanted naan or rice, and I ended up with this HUGE piece of naan. It was really good though. :)

I got chicken tikka masala (yes yes, yawn boring, I know. But I love chicken tikka masala so sue me). It was quite good and tasted quite normal. But I guess Japan does have a pretty sizable Indian population so it's not too surprising.

I think I'm talking to Taiga in this picture, or maybe I'm just bored and staring out the window. Btw all these pics with orange dates in the lower right corner are stolen from Edwin's stash. :x So there might be a few pics of me mixed in for once...

Tatsuya looks bored too. Was no one happy to be at lunch!??! Well, to be fair he is an incredibly fast eater so he's probably been done for a while at this point and wants to get going.

Having finished lunch, we started walking back through Shibuya, and passed by this nonsense happening outside Shibuya 109. They often to promotions right in front of the building, but mostly I've seen stuff for singers and other "talents" as those sort of people are called. This one was for Monster energy drink (ughhhh America needs to stop infecting the world so much), and there were a bunch of scantily clad young ladies dancing and hanging out drinks to people. I'm sure they were just trying to earn some money to support their college degrees and bright, budding careers so...I guess it's ok. :p


Nah I'm kidding. I guess I was a little surprised because I rarely see people here that are dressed sluttily? I guess? Even if a lot of girls wear really hot or attractive outfits, they still tend to be conservative. Like maybe skin tight, but at least their skin is covered. This definitely looks more like the Western version of "hot", wearing very little on the bottom and very little on top.

Got some coffee at Segafredo (a chain), and passed by this little kiosk that's right near the Shibuya crossing. Taiga said that this cigarette kiosk is the highest grossing cigarette kiosk in all of Japan. I'm not sure how he knew that, but I'd believe it. This area gets incredibly high volumes of traffic, and plus, when do you often buy cigarettes? When you're about to go hang out with friends for a while, and smoke and drink. Or maybe going clubbing. And Shibuya's a good place to come to for that sort of thing. :)

We saw a Krispy Kreme store (when I first came here, they had just opened their first two stores, and they were incredibly popular. Apparently since then, they've opened quite a few additional franchises), and Ayano asked if we wanted to check it out, cuz she works at Krispy Kreme for her part-time job, and she wanted us to see what work was sort of like for her. Of course, this wasn't her actual branch, but just to get an idea.


I've actually never been inside a Krispy Kreme before. :3 I've only had them when people brought them to school or work or something.


While we tried to decide what to do, Tatsuya realized that he'd left his camera battery at home. Since he'd brought his fancy camera -- as well as a nice zoom lens and tripod -- to take pictures of the fireworks, he of course really wanted to be able to use it. We went to see if he could buy a new one, but it was 5000yen, so in the end he decided to go back home and get it (after many "mendokusee"s, which means "what a pain in the ass"). The rest of us decided to head to Zushi, which is about an hour away, and meet Tatsuya there. It was still only about 4pm, and the fireworks started at 7:45pm, but we did want to get a spot reserved first.

Us, partway through the train ride there. Taiga was actually originally not going to come to fireworks, and was just going to meet us for lunch in Shibuya, but we badgered him into joining us! XD lol. He had a test the next day that he needed to study for but we were like "you can study on the train" "you can study after fireworks", and before you know it he was saying stuff like "it'll take us about an hour to get there" (emphasis on the "us" hehe) so we knew we had won. Yatta!

We arrive at Zushi station! As you can see, it's sort of gloomy and overcast. I was still very skeptical that the show would actually happen, but Tatsuya insisted that it wouldn't rain. And Tatsuya knows everything and is always right so I believed...! :) Still quite a risk though, with a 1hr travel time, and a transportation cost of about $10.


We met up with Tatsuya and Yuta at Zushi. I also went to get a tarp for us to sit on, so our butts wouldn't get sandy. Oh yah, cuz Zushi is really near the coast of Japan, and the fireworks would be held at a beach. :)

From the train station to the beach, it was about a 15 minute walk down a very quaint little street. Not little I guess, it was quite wide, but the stores were all quaint! No Forever 21s here. Not even any Uniqlos here. It seemed like a pretty traditional town, a little inaka-ppoi (country-ish) but not in a bad way.


There were a few stands set up on the way, in preparation for the fireworks, selling snacks and toys and such. These things are apparently "yoyos" that people play with, and they're pretty much balloons filled with a bit of water, decorated, with a string attached to it that you use to bounce the yoyo up and down.

The beach was really pretty; the water was kind of shit but greenery is always nice. When we got there there was still plenty of spots left. And thank God people were already getting ready for the show cuz it meant there would actually be a show!

This is our little 5x5 tarp. :) When I went to the convenient store I couldn't find any tarps at first, didn't know how to ask about it, and almost bought 10 individual "large plastic shower sheets". lol! I have no idea what those even are. Thank goodness for tarp.

Once settled in, me, Edwin, Ayano, and Yuta went off in search of food/snacks/drinks while Taiga studied and Tatsuya prepared his camera.

We passed by a lot of people that were beach-bound, and while most were in regular street clothes, there were a few girls wearing yukatas, which is always a pleasant sight to see. :) Some guys were as well! I wish the tradition was observed more, because a crowd of people with over 50% in yukatas would just be amazing to see...

Somehow picking up just a few food items, as well as walking to and from the beach took us more than an hour. Mostly because we had to wander slowly through the crowd. Actually on the way in, we saw a place selling sushi and Yuta wanted to get some, and we said we'd come back and get it later. Well when we went back for it, all of it was gone!! A whole table piled with sushi, all gone. Crazy how much food a crowd of thousands will go through.

The show started with some announcements, including the theme for this year's show, which was I believe something along the lines of "Power for Japan". The first bit of the show was rather dull. Individual fireworks going off one by one, some special fireworks that are made to look like shapes or characters, such as a heart, and we saw a Doraemon. I think this part they were still in the testing phase though, since it was pretty slow.


Oh and this pic wasn't from the boring part, I just picked an arbitrary fireworks pic. I have a ton of pictures of fireworks but I randomly picked a few different ones cuz it would be too boring and tedious to load all of them here. :) I also stole a few of Tatsuya's cuz he got waaaay better shots than I did.

These were fun! like little fireworks shrapnel. I like how messy and chaotic they are.

Soooo Japanese fireworks are kind of fucking amazing. I mean sure who doesn't love fireworks, they're all great but, they're nothing compared to the insanity of Japanese fireworks shows. I think due to the sheer number of people that will attend a Tokyo show, they are just able to pour way more money into it, and since the resulting show is amazing, the next year even more people come, so they put even more money in....you get the idea. :) But yah, Disneyland fireworks are great, but here it'll be like 20 coordinated, choreographed fireworks exploding at the same time.

Multi-colored fireworks...

...odd-shaped fireworks...

...and I'm going to name this one the Dandelion firework. :)

So the show was AMAZING, and even though it was not as big of a show as say Yokohama fireworks or Sumidagawa fireworks, since Zushi is pretty out of the way, I think it was better than both of those. :) The music played a large part in that. All in all it was 6000 fireworks (vs Yokohama's which is about 10000), and it was sososososo amazing. I'm so glad we came to see it. I took some videos to show you guys, they're posted at the end of this entry. Please excuse my constant exclamations of how much I'm enjoying the show. :x


After the show, Ayano had to go to the restroom so I went to stand in line with her. Zushi's beach is not really equipped for a crowd of this size, so there were only a few portapotties for every thousand people or so. How retarded is that?? On top of that, no one seemed to be in much of a rush to finish. People would take like 5 minutes, knowing full well that there was a long line of desperate people that had just spent the last 2 hours drinking booze nonstop, waiting on them.


Still, the situation was a bit hilarious. We had maybe 20 or 30 people in front of us. At first everyone was polite and chatting, but as time went on you could see people getting more and more desperate and unable to hide it. Ayano straight up told me "yea it's reaaaal bad" so I told her to go sit on some steps to the side, and I'd wait in line. Guys were lining up along the beach, pissing into the ocean (lucky bastards), and some guy like stripped and peed on a lamppost right outside the bathrooms.


There were two girls behind us, and one of them had to go quite bad. As bad as Ayano if not worse. They struck up a conversation about it and it was really cute haha. They went from commiserating like "why is it taking so long? what are people doing in there??", to like "maybe if we hop back and forth, it'll look like we're dancing." "yea! if both of us do it it won't be so weird". and comparing strategies for how to stop pee like "if you kneel and sit up straight it helps" "really? i should try. ..... oh it's working!" and me and the girl's other friend were both kind of laughing but also feeling really sympathetic. Cuz honestly who hasn't been there before?


Then we heard that there was another bathroom nearby, and Ayano sprinted off to try her luck there. We finally reached the front of the line and I told the other chick to go first cuz I wasn't really in a bad place. It all turned out ok, and I dunno, the pee conversations might end up being my most vivid memories of Zushi fireworks. ^^

Yuta with the sushi he managed to get, and Ayano, prior to the fireworks. (Girrrrl you better put down that beer cuz you're gonna need to pee real bad soon).

Candid shot of us all waiting around after the show.

And a group photo thanks to Tatsuya's elaborate tripod setup. What a cute pic. ^^ If I remember correctly he took the group pic of us all 4 years ago at the Yokohama fireworks show, as well.

After the crowd thinned, we headed back to the station. Yuta and I got into a big argument (sort of) about my impending hair situation. It was kind of silly but he was basically saying that I should spend the rest of my Japan trip going around and seeing things and making memories, while I was saying that I don't come to Tokyo for those things, I came here just to hang out and reminisce. And really for me, the hair thing will be something of a memory. Moreso than if I took some long expensive train ride out to the countryside to see a hot spring somewhere. Anyway it was a friendly debate but in the end I think we were a bit aggravated with each other, me because I don't know why he was nagging about it so much, and well, that kind of sucked. Taiga and Tatsuya tried to calm things down a bit but I was also a little annoyed that no one tried to help, or say hey Yuta it's none of your beeswax. :3

But it's alright, we got on the train, and I just talked with the others and before long we were all back at home.....

That last little bit aside, it was a really fun time, and a great experience, and I'm really glad we went. :) Ladies and gentlemen, Zushi 2012 fireworks!!!