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Friday, March 05, 2004

We are in Tokyo. It is overwhelming and crazy and so much fun. We have had a good day of wondering around and taking it all in, but I am a bit drunk now from chilled red wine :) We went to Shibuya first which is crazy. We had a lot of fun rifling through all the Japanese PUNK music, from bands with excellent band names like MOSH PIT ON DISNEY with song names like RICEBALL ON THE HEAD and TAKE A SHIT (which turned out to be a ballad) put out by labels with names like PIZZA OF DEATH records :) The TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA turned out to be a kind of lounge music type of ska... Madness :) We are going to try and see some live music while we are here if we possibly can... The punk thing here is very weird. It's so meticulous. When I first came to Japan I was a teenager and I found the precision of things here really constrained. I remember the first time I came to see my dad I was dressed in something all ripped up... my dad was horrified, and the first thing he did was take me shopping for something socially acceptable... It's pretty hard to put your finger on what's so unpunk about the punks here but I think it must have something to do with that... How rebellious can you really be when everything has to be perfectly ironed and arranged? Still, maybe I just don't get it... :) It's pretty superficial really...
We actually went to this street which is kind of Tokyo's equivilent of Camden I guess... It was funny... We have taken plenty of pictures already which we'll have to put up :) Better was the second hand shop we found. It was a maze of crazy japanese fashion, uniforms, prosthetic masks, stuffed snakes, giant hats, and everything else you could possibly imagine. Including retro McDonald's crap. Unfortuately the Ghostbusters jump suit was too expensive for me :)
We went to Shinjuku tonight which is amazing. It's the business/red light district, and after dark it is beyond compare. It's like Times Square x 1000. Underneth the glowing flickering brash advertising every other door leads into a porno store. Or a mens club. Or maybe a straight brothel. Those other doors lead into massive glowing slot machine parlours. The stacked upness of Tokyo is hard to get over, too. A lot of the buildings have shops on three, four, or ten floors.
It's much harder to get my head around than the times I was here with my dad, because then I always had someone to rely on to work out what we were doing, but I feel like I am actually getting to grips with it a tiny bit. Doing anything is incredibly hard because of the language barrier etc... Anyway, it is absolutely FREEZING here so i will post more later... XX
  2:29 PM


Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Alternative Friday Five: (stolen from someone's blog :) )

1. How good is your penmanship?

Terrible :) I have appalling writing. Mike says he can't read it at all.

2. Have you ever seen a dead body?

Not in real life, no. I don't think so. Not knowingly. I know this is not meant to be that kind of question, but it makes me think about my mum dying. I didn't see my mum's body when she died, which is something I've always felt kind of weird about. When she was very very ill my family shipped me off to America to stay with my cousins, and when I got back she was dead. At the time I think they thought they were doing a good thing. It's true that my last memory of her is painful enough. But, I don't know. As it is I'm left with a strange memory of it. I got a phone call just before me and my cousin and my uncle Alan were about to go out. Without it happening around me it was hard to know how to process it. Ha. Like I ever processed anything that whole year. We went out anyway because it was easier that talking to people. We went to a concert actually. I felt numb. It was a strange night for me. Anyway. Ancient history.

3. How do you feel about being naked?

What, like, in front of people? :) It depends on the circumstances, doesn;t it? :) Generally I'm not so keen on it in front of strangers.

4. The perfect pizza?

My favourite is the kind with potato and rosemary on it you can get back home :) Overall I think we've had enough pizza for a lifetime on this trip.

5. Who would you want to be tied to for 24 hours?

I would say Mike except it's practically like that anyway :)

  3:11 AM



DUNCAN GOT OUR POSTCARD! and there's the evidence to prove it :) I am amazed because I wasn't even sure we put the right postage on it... I don't know how to say 'Ethiopia' in spanish so it was a bit of a guess :) If that isn't exciting enough for you you should check out his blog anyway because it's really good :)
  3:05 AM



Sitting in another internet cafe, feeling all weird because of the pulsing green screen :)

We are on the Gold Coast now, staying with our friend Frank and his parents. This is weird. We were feeling... actually really horribly sad because we had left Johnny behind, but seeing Frank again makes up for this a little bit. He is now SOBER, but all this confirms is it was never the drugs that made him like that in the first place :) The first thing he did when we got to his parents was make us sit down and watch these fucked up Richard Kern films with his girlfriend... :) Then we got on to reminising about when he stayed with us and scared off all our friends by consuming ungodly amounts of coke :) GOOD TIMES :) It is lovely too see him again. His girlfriend is also really very nice. He introduced us to her as 'dirty' but apart from putting up with the Richard Kern thing and Frank's drunken farting we haven't seen much of that, she just seems like a really nice person :)
Frank's parents are something else. They are just mad. In a good way, of course :) They have a really nice place too. Their apartment is the size of our old house but, you know, flat and on the 35th floor. It's terribly pretty here. We walked along the beach this morning and it's something else. How come Australia gets to be so pretty and lovely and warm and England gets to be dank and horrible? :) Still it was kind of cool last night and I have to say it made me miss being cold and getting to wear clothes without feeling suffocated.

Now, Johnny and Perth. Johnny is absolutely lovely in real life. He is actually just the same as on line. Really funny and very very nice. He talks less about submarines. A bit less :) The truth is that he will hopefully be coming to live with us soon and I can't help but think that this will be a really excellent thing. I reakon we will all have a blast :) *subdued excitement* We mainly just hung out really. But that was all good. I spent most of the time recovering from being bitten, and had to take antibiotics. Then I made a bit of a mistake and drunk anyway at Johnny's party. And then got stoned. Oops. I spent most of the night feeling horrible lying in the dark waiting to be sober. A bit dumb, huh? :) It was, though, very nice to meet some of Johnny's work friends (urr... the bit earlier in the evening... :) ). We also, on a different day, got to meet his friend Rachel who is absolutely lovely. Also very briefly his friend Mark, who picked us up from the airport :) VERY NICE FOLKS. Johnny's brother is also a lot of fun. We went to this pub with him and Johnny and they got drunk (I was still on the antibiotics at that time) and we talked about films and things and had a laugh. Overall we just had a really good time.
  2:16 AM