Wallowing in the aftermath

I write this is aftermath of an all nighter...

I caught up with Stewie who followed the trail of beautiful women into the orient 3 years ago and never returned. Stewie took me on a tour of the different species he had encountered and their habitat.

Main habitat: A gigantic shopping mall, contained with 1 building shooting up into the sky, only featuring girls fashion clothes of all different styles and fashions and relatively cheap prices (so i heard) and thats it. Nothing else except clothes. The building was struggling to contain all its inhabitants.

Species:

One such species is the mumba, easily identified by peroxide affected hair, an orange tan complexion and the inability to wear clothing that covers anything below their butt cheeks

another such species is the school girl, societal pressure and strict regulations mean that all girls who attend school must wear a skirt... where I say skirt, I of course mean a large loose fitting belt made out of a heavy cloth that generally covers the waist region and attached parts, thats about it. This is the only species not tending to be found wearing height altering apparrel (high heels).

There is also a strange propensity for the wearing of long black socks.... I have not yet determined the significance of this particular mating display.


In his travels he had also found the wonders of shibuya, which has the really big intersection of which a picture was taken from the middle of... lots of electronics, huge tvs and watches in the side of building lots of lights, hidden away stores filled with obscure manga memorabilia including man sized robot suits and women sized suits/dolls, as well as minature ones in various states of (un)dress, not to mention a staggeringly huge collection of general meorabilia and used manga (hopefully not too sticky) as well exactly how perverted the people who create manga are exemplified for example by the character sketes from the artist who made neon genesis evangellion. Imagine if you will one of the girls from the anime every way possible. Specifically all the poses facial expressions everything he thought of for that character before actually making the anime...

His tour extended to Shinjuku of which we explored to the early hours of the morning. This particular habitat is know by its bright lights numerous of which are red, excessive amounts of bars and clubs and resturants. The lights, oh the lights. Everywhere small narrow winding streets with symbols emblazzening themselves on your retina does not make for easy navigation especially once so much alcohol has been consumed walking in the middle of the street and taking photos of taxis instead of getting out of the way seems amusing.

The full gambit of the area was tasted, ex-pat bars, seeing drunk japanese girls be carried out of pubs, resturants politely ushering us out after we had outstayed our welcome, scored free booze and the drank all the stuff you had to pay for. There was the general open air exploration and then penultimately kareoke, of which once you pay the entry fee you get free booze and kareoke until you decide you cant be arsed any more! After Kareoke the only slice of shinjuku we had yet to sample were the clubs.

Due to the currently altered state of stewarts inebration and female tendancies, in spite of the fact that an afterhours club was discovered... by myself!!! with a line!!! at 4:30am! and looked fairly interesting as the only person who knew about it was slightly unable to walk and remember his own name, not disimilar to the current party comprised of us (stew, ross and me) Stewart preffered to get something to eat and a taxi home...

That such a venue existed in the area we were in was a suprise to stew and ross, the local predators, so the find was quite a prize. This was especially impressive as this area wasnt the gigantic skyscraper full of 24hr clubs,pubs and other things related to the first 2.

By the time dodgy drunk food had been consumed we could catch the first trains home.

This marks the end of the first week (or so) in Japan

To date I have seen Ueno, A humoungous version of vic market, with expensive branded stalls strewn throug everything else

Akihabaru, the electronics district, I am still convinced the whole district was some strange wet dream. As well as being full of geeks, geek supplies (CHEAP) and everything a computer or electronic hobbiest could ever want generally for a good price, they even covered things i hadnt considered, such as minature model building galleries, manga minature model parafanellia and maid cafes attached to a small (large) store so you too can collect all the supplies you need to clothe your own 'maid'

Amussingly enough I saw actual school girls looking as if they were considering buying a school girl costume...

baffled.

Yokohama a pretty cool city, a very cool china town soooo much bigger than melbournes with some cool stuff in it, such as a t-shirt that had written on it in japanese "i love hentai" i will probably be going back there to pick that up :p

Also had some cool gardens etc...

The shopping malls - well to start with they are everywhere, they are all like light versions of everything i have so far described... except for the pub/club stuff

I got an awesome camera in one... olympus FE 230 its pretty awesome and tiny and a lot cheaper than in aus!

Kamokura is the only place i have yet to mention so far. To get there we took an old train, so old it looked a lot like a melbourne tram. It was pretty cool, by the ocean. Black sand beaches with birds of prey flying over head. Fascinating.

I mean a beach thats black looks kinda wrong and dirty, but when you look closer it is gleaming and glittering black sand.

Around the beach were hawks or eagles, hovering overhead, possibly looking out for being fed, and will swoop down and snatch stuff off the ground around you if there is stuff there. So much cooler than feeding seagulls or pigeons.

At Kamakoora was also a narrow pedestrian paved road full of traditional japanese shops full of handmade paper, crockery, kimono clothes as well as second hand kimono and yokata shops (I picked up a pretty cool Yokata, kinda like a casual kimono, however I am having trouble finding an inexpensive belt for it as well as appropriate sandles in a large enough size) as well as a small art gallery, knives... everything. At the end of the street there was a huge and impressive buddist temple.

I believe that covers just about everything to date except the Onsen (translated: japanese hangout for freedom space and relaxation)

Onsen more literally translated is hot spring. It like a health spa, with massages and stuff like that available as well if you order it and pay for it, most people come to get naked soap themselves up on a little stool with the most advanced hand held shower system ever! digital temperature displays and analogue adjustements for your handheld shower and lots of liquid sop stuff and a towel.

After you have convinced everyone that you cant get cleaner they have pools filled with black water. All the water is coloured black . It is opaque! There are digital readouts for all the pools temperatures. Some are calm, some bubble and jet, some are cold some are hot, some are ridiculously hot, some are inside, some are outside.

Did I mention everyone is naked!! All you get is a little towel which people look at your strangely if you happen to let it fall into one of the pools.

Oh and they keep the naked girls where the naked guys cant see them :(

It is very calming and relaxing. It felt the most spacious and luxurious place I have been to so far in Japan.

Apparently Kana's family will be taking me next weekend to a bigger more famous more luxurious one where you also stay the night near mount fugi

And now before my fingers fall off I will continue to recover.