Sorry for the lack of bloggage last night. I just wasn’t feeling it. Here are some of my thoughts from yesterday:
- Akihabara is still the coolest place for electronic gizmos
- Akihabara hokosha tengoku (pedestrian’s paradise) kinda sucks since Sawamoto Asuka was arrested
- If you dress up like a maid and hand out stuff on the street, do you really expect people not to take photos of you?
- Old (weird) Japanese guys still like to walk behind beautiful women, pretending to smack them on the ass with every step.
- Why didn’t I spend more time in Ueno when I lived here
- Asakusa during Sanja Matsuri is nuts. If you go there with anyone you don’t wish to get separated from, bring a rope.
- If you want to see the famous 100 kilogram lantern that hangs from Kaminarimon, don’t go during Sanja Matsuri… the ubiquitous “they” pull it up to make room for the mikoshi (floats carried by throngs of crazy Japanese people in happi and tightie-whities).
- There is a such thing as just too damn much walking.
And now, I pose a question to my 3 readers: Have you ever lived in Tokyo by yourself for an extended period of time? Do your experiences echo mine, or are they completely different?
Tokyo can be, in my experience, a truly lonely city. The problem is… I don’t think it *has* to be. It’s been socially and culturally *programmed* to be so. People still communicate within their chosen groups, but otherwise bounce off each other like bubbles in the wind. They may notice me… some may even want to say “hello”… but none would dare do so. None over the age of 5, anyway. At that point, they have yet to be ruined by society.
At this point, I find myself asking… if it’s so lonely here, why do I love this city so much? Living here and coming as a visitor are really not all that different. Even when I lived here, it seems I was just visiting.
Off to shower, shave, don my suit, and head off to an early-morning meeting at Sony HQ. I probably won’t take many pictures today. In the meantime, enjoy my photos from yesterday.