Sitting on crutches

I am a bit unwell today, and as such am sitting down writing of my travels. The crutches fortunatly are metaphorical.

My meanderings through Japan have resulted in my disruption of more than a few places.
Initially after my foray into the nightlife of Tokyo which first shook me up and laid me out I ventured forth once again into the big city. Feelings of dread tormented me on the massive and regualar trip from Kamiooka (a suburb within yokohamma) to near the centre of Tokyo (around 1.5 hours)

As we alighted the train vestibule we were immediately assailed by a wonderous gaiety of human fashion all being agressively dsiplayed!

Harajuku has a reputation for having the wierdest and strangest fashions loudly displayed.
To start some background information. Japan is fashion mad! Everywhere you go, this is mostly the girls, because the guys when they are around are mostly in suits, most of which are black (and cut way to skinny to suit me ). Well the girls wear clothes almost to suit a personal style that tends to fit in one of my different fashions. I'm not talking about girls dressed as maids or giant mecha. It just seems that there are so many different styles available. In melbourne and especially brisbane it seems like there are only so many different clothes available. Eventually or immediately you see someone else wearing the same clothes, or clothes that have a similar cut, a similar pattern, stuff that just looks the same.

That isnt really the case here, upon consultation with my local guide (Kana :p) finding an outfit that you see someone else wearing is close to impossible. There are so many different shops, brands and outlets finding the same clothes is difficult especially since not all outfits cater for all of the styles. It creates a very diverse visuals whenever you walk the street.

In shinjuku I have previously mentioned a shop where girls congregate in wearing the extremes of fashion. Normal fashions, and mostly slightlier sluttier or risque fashions.

The only part of fashion of Japan that remains constant is that most girls like wearing long black socks or stockings some of which go almost all the way up the thigh. I suppose in those cases its finding the clothes that let the top of the stockings still be visable.

Anyway. Harajuku. It even at the station had more extreme fashions, tending towards cosplay(looking like cartoon characters), gothic (black with lace), punk(black with pvc and metal or tartan), lolita (looking like a little girl in a maids outfit). It wasnt quite as extreme as i was lead to believe, but it was still highly prevelant. I also have not actually made it to the area on a weekend where it apparently goes off and squeezes the life from you (this is more a result of the sheer number of people you expect to have there on such an occasion.

The streets were filled with clothing shops to cater for everything. Heaps of Goth, punk, lolita and combinations of the above were prevalent, costume shops, underwear shops (with cheap price tags, kana exploded with delight) as well as lots of normal fashion outlets, expensive retro opshops (similar to what you can find in aus, although some of there stuff was very good and more expensive than retail shops in the area). Fast food outlets dripped from the seems between clothing shops. The most impressive ones were waffle shops. The have a plastic 3d display that shows all the different waffles they make in creamy fuity cakey glory.

Its a nice place :p

more later