The Rest of Day 1- Japanese Food and Crane Games

Slow going since there's so litle free time on this trip! I have everything typed up for the rest of the week so I'm going to try to upload it tomorrow. After the trip is over I'm going to upload the better of the pictures, sketches, and videos (when i actually have a version of PS i can use. Stupid Elements.) For now here's the rest of day 1.

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Sketch-wise, I was really thrown off the day we went to the Meiji temple. Seeing a policeman come up and halt any progress in drawing was just really far too intimidating, and it stuck with me even in areas where drawing was allowed. I got a few sketches out, but nothing I really got in to or felt had any importance. I liked the Oni heads I found on one building though. The photos turned out better than the sketches.

After that was a short walk to Harajuku, somewhat of Japan’s equivalent of a fashion district. I split off from the group pretty fast though… It was where I was going to meet Ayumi, my long distant friend from middle school. I hate to admit it, but I was afraid I wouldn’t recognize her. I was early at our meeting spot (which I was relieved to find immediately after leaving the Meiji Shrine) and whittled the time away to draw a bit, after the small group that was entertaining my whim in helping me feel secure in such a busy street decided to pull out their sketchbooks. Before I knew it, she was sticking her nose below my sketchbook and I hadn’t even noticed. I recognized her, to say the least.

It was a strange feeling, seeing her after all this time (I’m estimating about four or five years since she last visited.) I can only remember a lecture given by C.S. Lewis talking about ‘true friendship’. He posed a theoretical scene, in which a group with common interests is brought together, and they may consider themselves friends, even after leaving each other‘s company for a while. True friends, he said, are the ones that when meeting each other again, act as if no time has passed at all. Ayumi and I left and returned to met each other quite a few times, but it’s always been the same feeling. No time has passed at all.

I hate how cheesy it sounds. But it makes me wonder what really makes a friend like that, psychologically or spiritually.

Anyway, she immediately led us down the main street of Harajuku, which I think myself and the others would have completely missed (at least for a little while) if she hadn’t presented it.
Lots of colors. It was pretty trendy looking. I saw a backpack that (three days later, as I procrastinate on journaling) I’m still thinking about and hoping to return for. Maybe it was a shame that I was too distracted about how happy I was to see Ayumi again to really check anything out, but we definitely made up for it.

She brought me to a very indie looking restaurant. It was in a strange back alley at the end of the street of Harajuku, behind an attractively graffiti-covered, abandoned apartment building covered in a strange structure of PVC pipes that were spray painted red.

She told me beforehand it was traditional Japanese food, looking a little concerned. Last we knew each other, I was much… pickier when it came to food. My attitudes have changed, but really I was just desperate to get my hands on something that would fit in with the whole experience. Contrary to the Japanese way, I jumped around a little and emphasized how much I really just wanted to do precisely what she was bringing me to. I don’t think she believed me, and her boyfriend who had tagged along seemed to be amused at the very least about my mannerisms. He didn’t speak a word of English, so he had no idea what we were talking about for most of the night.

The food was not good. It wasn’t even great. It was AMAZING. The restaurant specialized in a specific dish that I’ve completely forgotten the name of due to it being around seven syllables long. First of all, we had to cook it ourselves, which at first I didn’t know and gave me a bit of a scare when they brought around raw chicken. It was one of those skillet table tops and with the raw food, instructions on cooking it were taken. As far as I can remember what I was told, the dish is a mix of flour, egg, and water, and you can mix anything you want with it, as it seems to me most Japanese dishes are like. We had two entrees, the first with chicken and other curiosities, and the second I’m guessing had shrimp and squid.

They spent a while laughing at my inability to use chopsticks. Waitress brought a fork. Ouch.

We shopped around but the most exciting part must’ve been the crane games, which seem pretty popular here. The Japanese takes these things to the next level. There is no joystick with free movement, and the crane is not nearly as strong enough to pick up anything heavier than a cotton ball. The only movements are forward and sideways, and only pressed once. Since the point is not to pick up the object… You do everything you can to push it off.

There has to be an art to it, but I seriously spent 800 yen trying to get the strange snake keychain I now have on my camera. Ayumi managed to get probably $50 worth of candy from the candy machine, and her boyfriend got a stuffed animal, though with much toil and effort.

Learned how to ask ‘where’. “Doko” added to anything seems to help me get around.