Day 2 - A Date with Dani in Harajuku and Shibuya

"Tokyo is an ugly city. It's almost as if they had an ugly contest. You walk around the corner and you see a building which seems to say - 'You thought that was ugly? Check this out.'"

-Dave Barry, 'Dave Barry Does Japan'

I was so excited when I woke up on Sunday morning - I was finally going to meet up with Dani! I hadn't seen her since ... probably ... the first day back for our Sydney uni mates (March 1). Our arrangement to meet up in Harajuku for lunch turned into a wonderful long day of shopping.

Also, what better way to muffle the disturbing memories of Yasukuni and the complex, though-provoking, but overall depressing questions it raised ... than with a day of total narcissism and self-indulgence? Ah, retail therapy.

Together with Megu we braved the main shopping strip of Harajuku. It was a lot like herding cattle, and an interesting experience of how pushy Japanese people become when they want to get somewhere (e.g. to a shop) and you are in their way.

There were not many cosplayers out today:

However, the main focus of the day was of course the shopping.

The three nicest things I bought:

(1) This adorable t-shirt

(2) This bag.

It's really really soft.

(3) This leather bracelet

The colours match the timber beads on the Pandora bracelet that Flynn's mum gave me. And they're both leather, so I wear them together.

(4) These toy (lomographic) cameras from 'Camera Cabaret' in Shibuya

Lomographic cameras take the most beautiful effects. And though there were some really pro ones in the store for 5000-10,000 Y, these ones were only 2600.

Photo credits: here and here

I think I prefer Shibuya to Shinjuku.

Was the Denny's in 'After Dark' in Shibuya? I can't remember...

And it's more beautiful at night.

I sadly didn't have the energy to brave more than one floor of the legendary 'Welcome 109'. But it was more than enough.

Somehow I dragged myself away from these shoes and bought a beautiful belt

I'm really getting into the pink thing, huh?

And now ... the obligatory Japlish gag.

Megu is really into a kind of rocked-out version of gosurori (gothic lolita) fashion; the below is her favourite brand.

She asked me to translate the logo. It was ... a little difficult.

I should really start studying for midterms, but I just want to take a moment to talk about gosurori. Not being part of Europe, the Japanese have no gothic history to draw on, so gothic lolita comes purely out of something I talked about towards the end of this post - their highly subjective fantasy of what Europe is or was. Likewise, the 'lolita' part of the name doesn't have too much to do with Nabokov's character. While the term roricon or roritacompurekusu (lolita complex) describes a genre of manga focusing on sexual attraction to young girls, gothic lolita fashion isn't really very sexual at all. Goth-lolis don't show much skin; they are what Jane Eyre would look like if she stumbled onto the Nosferatu set.

To quote the reliable source of wikipedia:

"Adherents present themselves more as Victorian children or porcelain dolls and prefer to look "cute" or "beautiful" rather than "sexy". Most Lolitas agree that the term 'Lolita' does not necessarily have anything to do with sex at all...The irony of the name could be considered in that the fashion was created to fight the growing exposure of the body and skin in today's society; specifically in regards to young women...One follower of the Gothic Lolita fashion explained: 'We certainly do not do this for the attention of men. In fact, the fashion frequently alienates them. Frequently, female sexuality is portrayed in a way that is palatable and accessible to men, and anything outside of that is intimidating. Something so unabashedly female is ultimately kind of scary—in fact, I consider it to be pretty confrontational. Dressing this way takes a certain kind of ownership of one’s own sexuality that wearing expected or regular things just does not. It doesn’t take a lot of moxie to put on a pencil skirt and flats. It’s not, as some commentors have suggested, some sort of appeal to men’s expectation that women should be childlike, or an attempt to pander to pedophiles. Pedophiles like little girls. They don’t like grown women who happen to like dresses with cakes on them. I’ve never been hit on by a pedophile while in Lolita. We don’t get into it because it is some sort of misplaced pedo complex or anything, and the objective isn’t simply to emulate little girls, despite the name Lolita.'"

Speaking of cute things; Dani and I also found a shop which creates these amazing, elaborate (and expensive - they're custom-made) phone cases.

Lastly, another hilarious poster that is all around Japan. This is an advertisement for a movie called 'Daarin wa gaikokujin' - My darling is a foreigner.

It's based on a manga.

The trailer is hilarious too.