filed under "things i never actually thought i'd get to hold in my own two hands" are a bunch of albums by j-pop singers and bands that i discovered in high school. these bands had a huge influence on my taste in music today, as well as like fifteen thousand other things, from the way i dressed back then to the places i went in tokyo this april. my goal was to buy at least once cd that i loved back in the day, whichever was available or cheap.
i've probably mentioned on here a bunch of times that yuki's album prismic is and has been my favorite album of all time (yeah, that means it goes over all pet shop boys albums and even over tangerine dream's optical race and lily on the beach, which is REALLY saying something) so you can probably kinda fathom the sheer joy i felt when i found a used copy of it sitting on the shelf in the book-off in shibuya.
the first time i listened to it i was probably in 10th grade, years and years after it had originally come out. i remember it heavily influencing the way i wrote (what would then be) the first half-assed draft of circus of nero, which was at that time called "Цирк" because i was a russian nerd. it was also the reason i started a project called "good times" which i found the original pages for a few days ago. i'm thinking about revamping it now, it seems salvageable in a way, i probably have yuki to thank for that. she was the reason i dressed, acted, wrote, and drew the way i did back then. her music is what pushed me to improve, to live up to the sound that i wanted to mirror in my story.
i bought the cd and held it close the whole train ride home. i didn't listen to it when i was in tokyo, i waited until i got home to unpack it from it's original box and look over it. it came with the little booklet and everything. it's one of the items that i treasure most in the world.
66db brings back memories of redesigning capital into a (still shitty) new character, i u mee him reminds me of taking my sister's colored pencils to draw in my math notebook. curse reminds me of roleplaying russia in some shitty private gaia threads. there are a lot of old memories there, but now it's also attached to a bunch of new ones. 66db sounds like the marunoichi line on a busy afternoon, i u mee him is a rushed day to find gifts for people in the sunshine mall in ikebukuro. curse sounds like the last rainy morning i spent in roppongi, trying not to cry as i looked out the window at the little speaker that would play the weird chimes every afternoon at five pm.
the number one spot in the "things i never thought i'd get to hold in my own two hands" category was yuki's masterpiece album prismic. but here it is, sitting on the shelf above me. and i'm happy.
30.8.14
1.8.14
shigatsu, pt. 2
of all the places i went to and hung out at in japan, i spent the most time in shibuya and akihabara.
akihabara was the first place i really visited and branched out to. while i was usually being very route-conscious and adhering strictly to mental maps and directions, by the end of the month akihabara was the only place i was totally unafraid of exploring in full. after a while i ended up just exploring, wandering around, checking things out away from the main roads. i ended up there a lot, returning for presents for people because it was great for shopping. that, and i was kind of afraid of being out by myself at night, but i trusted the akiba area and was ok with being there after the sun went down.
weirdly enough, i had very few experiences with people there. most places, like shibuya and harajuku, have stories of interacting with people attached to them, but with akihabara i spoke to almost no-one. kind of fitting, since a lot of people there seemed to be the same way.
i think the don quixote in akiba was my favorite one out of all the ones in tokyo i visited. it was 8 floors, i think, with the top floor being the akb48 cafe or whatever it was, and the basement/ground floor being a pachinko area. the mandarake there was really tall, this ominous black building down a kind of side-alley. and there was a shopping center, apparently it was a "hobby lobby" that was several floors of anime and game shops. the top floors of most buildings were maid cafes or places where people wore those ball-jointed doll masks.
shibuya came up frequently, especially near the tail-end of my trip, and it initially confused the shit out of me. i exited at the hachiko gate every time, but i never found the hachiko statue until the day before i left the country. the streets in shibuya are really windy and hilly, and most of the time i was there, it was raining. i bought an umbrella at the donki there, and i got super lost trying to find the forever 21. i spent a lot of time at tower records.
it weirds me out because i feel so distant from these places already, but i essentially spent a month there. while i did try to go somewhere new every day, i'd also usually stop in akiba or shibuya on the way back to get something, because they became somewhat of a second-home away from temporary-home. i didn't like going to the same conbini multiple times in one day so i'd get food in akiba or shibuya and then bring it home with me. the day didn't feel like a success in terms of vacation because i only really feel accomplished when i get someone a gift, and both places were perfect for that.
it rained a lot in shibuya and i miss that. i miss seeing the people with their clear umbrellas and hearing the same kyary song on loop.
akihabara was the first place i really visited and branched out to. while i was usually being very route-conscious and adhering strictly to mental maps and directions, by the end of the month akihabara was the only place i was totally unafraid of exploring in full. after a while i ended up just exploring, wandering around, checking things out away from the main roads. i ended up there a lot, returning for presents for people because it was great for shopping. that, and i was kind of afraid of being out by myself at night, but i trusted the akiba area and was ok with being there after the sun went down.
weirdly enough, i had very few experiences with people there. most places, like shibuya and harajuku, have stories of interacting with people attached to them, but with akihabara i spoke to almost no-one. kind of fitting, since a lot of people there seemed to be the same way.
i think the don quixote in akiba was my favorite one out of all the ones in tokyo i visited. it was 8 floors, i think, with the top floor being the akb48 cafe or whatever it was, and the basement/ground floor being a pachinko area. the mandarake there was really tall, this ominous black building down a kind of side-alley. and there was a shopping center, apparently it was a "hobby lobby" that was several floors of anime and game shops. the top floors of most buildings were maid cafes or places where people wore those ball-jointed doll masks.
shibuya came up frequently, especially near the tail-end of my trip, and it initially confused the shit out of me. i exited at the hachiko gate every time, but i never found the hachiko statue until the day before i left the country. the streets in shibuya are really windy and hilly, and most of the time i was there, it was raining. i bought an umbrella at the donki there, and i got super lost trying to find the forever 21. i spent a lot of time at tower records.
it weirds me out because i feel so distant from these places already, but i essentially spent a month there. while i did try to go somewhere new every day, i'd also usually stop in akiba or shibuya on the way back to get something, because they became somewhat of a second-home away from temporary-home. i didn't like going to the same conbini multiple times in one day so i'd get food in akiba or shibuya and then bring it home with me. the day didn't feel like a success in terms of vacation because i only really feel accomplished when i get someone a gift, and both places were perfect for that.
it rained a lot in shibuya and i miss that. i miss seeing the people with their clear umbrellas and hearing the same kyary song on loop.
13.5.14
shigatsu, pt. 1
i figure i'll write these posts and drop them off here, since this blog used to be lie a dumping ground for my feelings and thoughts and i'd put a lot of effort into writing what went on here, and now i don't really do that, since twitter makes it easy for me to just shit out posts really fast. but i feel like it's somehow important that i write this stuff out in depth so i don't forget it. i've basically forgotten how to write out long posts as this point, but i still want to try at least?
this year i spent the month of april living in japan.
idk where to go with this, aside from repeating my usual summary of "it was amazing, i've wanted to go to japan for almost ten years, blah blah blah" all that shit. i'm not a very accomplished person to so speak, it took a lot of effort just for me to make it out of high school and through three semesters of japanese in college. so, while something as simple as an overseas trip might be a normal thing for some people, it's big for me. i never thought id' really go, i thought i'd hype myself up and then chicken out, or end up not having enough money to go. but i went.
it's very different. different in a lot of ways that i could spend years explaining. random little things were the most shocking differences to me- the assigned movie theater seats. the strict obedience of traffic laws. the anime section of the conbinis.
i knew i'd go and see lots of things, but i think my favorite parts of the whole ordeal come in two parts. the first part was daily life. now that i'm back here, i miss the routine i had while living in japan. go to the family mart in the morning and get water and snacks. wander around and go shopping for the day, or stay in and watch tv. go to 7-11 in the afternoon and buy dinner and food for the evening. come back to my room, talk to my family, lipsynch songs and look out the window until i'd go to bed.
when i left, i thought my favorite parts of my trip would be the amazing things i saw. the things i saw were really amazing, but in the end, i feel like the daily life, the routine, the schedule, the mundane things like shopping for food and saying hello to neighbors were the things i'll miss the most. i got to experience a life i essentially do not have- i was living on my own, fending for myself, only half-comprehending the world news, going places i've never been before. sitting on the subway for hours, watching the stations pass. it was almost like being a new person for a month.
i thought about taking pictures of the mundane things i'll miss- the alcove by the ramen shop in morishita made for a parked car but overgrown with little flowers and a wall of moss, the roof where people would go out for a smoke in roppongi. but i didn't. it felt weird. it felt like how i'd feel if i went around taking pictures of the floor here. it's a floor, it's just part of my life. i'm trying to describe this as best i can, but i can't really.
the second part of the things i'll miss was every single person i met.
i started the trip scared and depressed. i came out of canada in a good mood, but after getting to my room in tokyo, i almost didn't leave for two days. the culture shock overwhelmed me, and on top of the fact that i'd never lived by myself before, i had no idea what to do. i went to sleep crying and woke up crying for those two days. i wanted to get back on a plane and go home, but i just cried harder because i had no idea how to get back to the airport. i just wanted to leave. i sat on the computer and waited for my friends and relatives to get online so i could talk to them on skype because i just wanted that contact.
on the third day, i somehow got myself pumped up enough that i got on the shinjuku line and ended up in iwamotocho, which is next to akihabara. i walked around akihabara for a day and it was like something just clicked in my head. i didn't really have anything to be afraid of. people in japan are, for a lack of better words, good. they are good people.
i want to send flowers to every single person who helped me that day, and for the rest of the month. every train conductor that i asked for directions. every family mart cashier who smiled at me. every shopkeeper who knew to attempt speaking broken english to me. the kids at the zoo who giggled and told me they liked my hair. the guy who stopped me to sell me a kebab and the old lady who walked with me in ueno, talking too fast for me to understand what she was saying. the british guy and two girls who sang beauty and a beat with me outside tower records in shibuya. makoto, the flight attendant who became my friend, jason, the guy who helped me onto the train at okachimachi station. every passerby who helped my carry by suitcases up the stairs. the man at the hotel, who was one of the kindest people i've ever met. the guy with green hair that got my water bottle when i dropped it in the street. every single person, every single encounter. they were all so nice. i loved interacting. i loved the strange situations that i managed to get into in that month, and i loved the strangers i met in those situations.
i have this weird, surreal feeling about the entire trip. i can't exactly say why. it feels like i was outside myself for the entire month.
the feeling of culture shock left as quickly as it had come to me. it was like suddenly understanding a concept of 'home' that i'd never felt before. home outside of home. home with people whose names i didn't even know.
japan introduced me to a lot of things. this new comprehension of the concept of being home, a lot of food, a lot of strange stores. a lot of words. a lot of anime. a lot of music. a lot of open-mindedness, a lot of patriotism. a lot of respect for trains and timeliness and public courtesy. singing toilets and other ingenious bathroom fixtures. remote controls that count up to twelve.
it's hard to describe it all.
i spent the first half of the month in koto. koto is part of old tokyo, a lot of old, weathered buildings that still have that fragile sense of prettiness, next door to ten story apartments built in the last few years. koto used to be a big sumo area, and lining kiyosumi-dori there are, apparently, still a lot of sumo training areas. sometimes i'd see guys who are very obviously sumo wrestlers dressed in normal clothes riding their bikes to the parco down the street next to the station.
i felt a sense of nostalgia for koto without ever having been there before. my view from the window had me looking out over a residential street where i could see high rises in the distance. it felt so weird to be there, looking out of that window. every morning i'd wake up and open it and stand there for a while, even though it was cold, i still felt compelled to do it. nothing really changed, people and cars came and went, and i felt like i was trying to remember it like it would be some kind of childhood memory to me.
i spent the latter half of the month in roppongi, in an apartment on the sixth floor of a building that looked out over roppongi hills. my rooms were weirdly silent hill themed. the hotel in koto had me in room 302 for the time i was there, and from my roppongi room, i was directly facing the konami flagship headquarters, which was coincidentally almost always surrounded in mist.
i felt differently about roppongi than i felt about koto. koto felt like a memory. roppongi, from the second i stepped out of the train station, was home. i got off the train and immediately fell in love with it. it has a mixed reputation, from being a seedy, creepy area full of misfits to being a trendy shopping complex. the area has tried to revamp itself and come off with a new vibe. my cousin told me she stayed away from roppongi because it was scary. it is, most likely, my second favorite place in the world. i missed roppongi the day i got there, knowing i'd have to leave.
this is really long and i'll talk more about stuff later or when i feel like typing more up. i feel sad writing this because it's making me miss japan dearly, and i've only been back for two weeks.
this year i spent the month of april living in japan.
idk where to go with this, aside from repeating my usual summary of "it was amazing, i've wanted to go to japan for almost ten years, blah blah blah" all that shit. i'm not a very accomplished person to so speak, it took a lot of effort just for me to make it out of high school and through three semesters of japanese in college. so, while something as simple as an overseas trip might be a normal thing for some people, it's big for me. i never thought id' really go, i thought i'd hype myself up and then chicken out, or end up not having enough money to go. but i went.
it's very different. different in a lot of ways that i could spend years explaining. random little things were the most shocking differences to me- the assigned movie theater seats. the strict obedience of traffic laws. the anime section of the conbinis.
i knew i'd go and see lots of things, but i think my favorite parts of the whole ordeal come in two parts. the first part was daily life. now that i'm back here, i miss the routine i had while living in japan. go to the family mart in the morning and get water and snacks. wander around and go shopping for the day, or stay in and watch tv. go to 7-11 in the afternoon and buy dinner and food for the evening. come back to my room, talk to my family, lipsynch songs and look out the window until i'd go to bed.
when i left, i thought my favorite parts of my trip would be the amazing things i saw. the things i saw were really amazing, but in the end, i feel like the daily life, the routine, the schedule, the mundane things like shopping for food and saying hello to neighbors were the things i'll miss the most. i got to experience a life i essentially do not have- i was living on my own, fending for myself, only half-comprehending the world news, going places i've never been before. sitting on the subway for hours, watching the stations pass. it was almost like being a new person for a month.
i thought about taking pictures of the mundane things i'll miss- the alcove by the ramen shop in morishita made for a parked car but overgrown with little flowers and a wall of moss, the roof where people would go out for a smoke in roppongi. but i didn't. it felt weird. it felt like how i'd feel if i went around taking pictures of the floor here. it's a floor, it's just part of my life. i'm trying to describe this as best i can, but i can't really.
the second part of the things i'll miss was every single person i met.
i started the trip scared and depressed. i came out of canada in a good mood, but after getting to my room in tokyo, i almost didn't leave for two days. the culture shock overwhelmed me, and on top of the fact that i'd never lived by myself before, i had no idea what to do. i went to sleep crying and woke up crying for those two days. i wanted to get back on a plane and go home, but i just cried harder because i had no idea how to get back to the airport. i just wanted to leave. i sat on the computer and waited for my friends and relatives to get online so i could talk to them on skype because i just wanted that contact.
on the third day, i somehow got myself pumped up enough that i got on the shinjuku line and ended up in iwamotocho, which is next to akihabara. i walked around akihabara for a day and it was like something just clicked in my head. i didn't really have anything to be afraid of. people in japan are, for a lack of better words, good. they are good people.
i want to send flowers to every single person who helped me that day, and for the rest of the month. every train conductor that i asked for directions. every family mart cashier who smiled at me. every shopkeeper who knew to attempt speaking broken english to me. the kids at the zoo who giggled and told me they liked my hair. the guy who stopped me to sell me a kebab and the old lady who walked with me in ueno, talking too fast for me to understand what she was saying. the british guy and two girls who sang beauty and a beat with me outside tower records in shibuya. makoto, the flight attendant who became my friend, jason, the guy who helped me onto the train at okachimachi station. every passerby who helped my carry by suitcases up the stairs. the man at the hotel, who was one of the kindest people i've ever met. the guy with green hair that got my water bottle when i dropped it in the street. every single person, every single encounter. they were all so nice. i loved interacting. i loved the strange situations that i managed to get into in that month, and i loved the strangers i met in those situations.
i have this weird, surreal feeling about the entire trip. i can't exactly say why. it feels like i was outside myself for the entire month.
the feeling of culture shock left as quickly as it had come to me. it was like suddenly understanding a concept of 'home' that i'd never felt before. home outside of home. home with people whose names i didn't even know.
japan introduced me to a lot of things. this new comprehension of the concept of being home, a lot of food, a lot of strange stores. a lot of words. a lot of anime. a lot of music. a lot of open-mindedness, a lot of patriotism. a lot of respect for trains and timeliness and public courtesy. singing toilets and other ingenious bathroom fixtures. remote controls that count up to twelve.
it's hard to describe it all.
i spent the first half of the month in koto. koto is part of old tokyo, a lot of old, weathered buildings that still have that fragile sense of prettiness, next door to ten story apartments built in the last few years. koto used to be a big sumo area, and lining kiyosumi-dori there are, apparently, still a lot of sumo training areas. sometimes i'd see guys who are very obviously sumo wrestlers dressed in normal clothes riding their bikes to the parco down the street next to the station.
i felt a sense of nostalgia for koto without ever having been there before. my view from the window had me looking out over a residential street where i could see high rises in the distance. it felt so weird to be there, looking out of that window. every morning i'd wake up and open it and stand there for a while, even though it was cold, i still felt compelled to do it. nothing really changed, people and cars came and went, and i felt like i was trying to remember it like it would be some kind of childhood memory to me.
i spent the latter half of the month in roppongi, in an apartment on the sixth floor of a building that looked out over roppongi hills. my rooms were weirdly silent hill themed. the hotel in koto had me in room 302 for the time i was there, and from my roppongi room, i was directly facing the konami flagship headquarters, which was coincidentally almost always surrounded in mist.
i felt differently about roppongi than i felt about koto. koto felt like a memory. roppongi, from the second i stepped out of the train station, was home. i got off the train and immediately fell in love with it. it has a mixed reputation, from being a seedy, creepy area full of misfits to being a trendy shopping complex. the area has tried to revamp itself and come off with a new vibe. my cousin told me she stayed away from roppongi because it was scary. it is, most likely, my second favorite place in the world. i missed roppongi the day i got there, knowing i'd have to leave.
this is really long and i'll talk more about stuff later or when i feel like typing more up. i feel sad writing this because it's making me miss japan dearly, and i've only been back for two weeks.
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