Today, we go home. We are sitting in the hotel lounge until it is time to go to the airport later this afternoon. It has been a fantastic trip.
Yesterday, for our last day, we met back up with Dan, our American ex-pat friend. It's been lovely having Dan and Sarah to show us around all the places we might not get to see in the same way without the advice of a local! Thank you!
Dan, in addition to being an English teacher, also works as a photographer/publicity guy for a local band called Gacharic Spin. They happened to be playing a free show this Sunday in Akiba, so we met up with Dan to go see the show, which he was shooting. It was a pretty nifty event. It was sponsored by Roland synthesizers, so there was a display floor full of instruments you could play with. I think the point of the event was mainly to advertise for them, but hey, people got a free show out of it. Gacharic Spin puts on a fantastic show. The four women have a huge amount of energy (tiny women are fierce!) and their show is very physical. They jump and dance all over the stage, and really get their audience into the music. One of my favourite parts was watching fans (mainly geeky guys) dancing and singing along with the band enthusiastically. I loved the colourful costumes the band wore, too. On top of that they were all fine musicians, even if the music wasn't a genre I'd normally seek out (they have a kind of punkish, anime sound).
After Gacharic Spin finished their set, we were supposed to meet up with Dan, but we couldn't find him. I wove my way though the crowd twice, but no luck. Jon did email him from his phone, though, and we managed to meet up with him again shortly afterwards. For lunch, we had rice balls (onigiri) and star shaped tater tots from a street vendor. Mine was filled with Japanese plum, which was sour and delicious. Jon and I agreed it was one of the best "street meals" we've had. After grabbing food, we headed to see one of two statues of Godzilla in Japan. Jon has loved Godzilla since he was a little kid, so this was a pilgrimage he was determined to make during the trip. He was so happy to see the statue that Dan jokingly asked him whether we should give him a moment alone with Godzilla. We took many silly (and some less silly) pictures, and then made our way to Shinjuku to visit Yoyogi Park.
The best way I can describe Yoyogi park on a Sunday is an alternate universe version of the summer of love. The park has every possible activity you can imagine: every kind of cosplayer in their costumes; greasers with John Travolta hair dressed up in leather jackets, dancing with bobby socksers to the music of the 1950s; mimes miming; children practicing violin; people dressed like hippies playing folk music on guitars; people having picnics or taking naps on the grass; people having drumming circles; jazz bands jamming; ukulele bands practicing. It is a strange and marvelous sight to behold. After wandering around and taking pictures of some of the people performing, we parted ways with Dan and had lunch on the main drag of Harajuku, where I watched cosplayers walk by though the window as we ate.
It was a marvelous last day.We even made it up to 162 points at Mr. Donut, and got our mug! Our arteries suffered for that vessel.
Last night, we got a phone call to our hotel room from Tomiko, the hotel owners' daughter, like the rest of the staff here at Hotel Yanagibasi, has gone above and beyond the call of duty to help us out with everything from directions to learning Japanese to just chatting with us when she wasn't busy. Tomiko was calling to say goodbye because she would not be working today, when we checked out. Besides wishing us a safe trip home, she also called to tell us she'd left a left us a note at the desk. The note said how happy they were we stayed with them and was accompanied by a gift of two pretty sets of coasters with pictures of geisha on them. We will miss the friends we have made!
Japan is a marvelous, strange, complex place. I hope we can come back again...
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