This morning started out with us going with Mari to a small art gallery in Kich
ijoji to see her work of art and meet the lady she collaborated with. When we arrived in Kichijoji, Mari was working on the wall hanging, so now to see the finished product up on the wall was great. We had our photo taken in front of the hanging and then went off to Harajuku for the day.
H
arajuku is a very popular place on the weekends. It has a huge park called Yoyogi Koen and years ago they used to close the streets off to traffic and groups of young people would gather together, dress up and dance to the music on their own ‘beat boxes’ all day. These days it’s much more sedate and there were only a few groups of ‘Rockabilly’ dancers at the entrance to the park. They aren’t 
allowed in the park, but dance on the pavement out front. See photos.
They are hugely popular with foreign tourists and Japanese alike. They were great fun to watch but Mari kept saying, ‘wow, they’re
all my age or older!’ She was right, they weren’t young, but as we went into the actual park, we found out where the young people were and what they were doing. They are all dressed up in their favourite Anime, game, or movie character costumes and doing what is now called ’cos-play’. Grant was mostly surprised that there were a number of men dressed up as cute anime girls, which is commonplace here. 
The park is HUGE and all through it there are groups of people doing their own thing totally oblivious of the others around them it seems. For example, as we walked around the park we saw many groups doing ’cosplay’, others were doing drama rehearsals, an
other group was singing, other’s played badminton, baseball and soccer. Then there were the groups practicing their musical instruments, like the trumpet and trombone players, the cello group, dance groups, martial arts groups, and lastly the ‘tree huggers’. Well, they weren’t actually physically touching the trees, but from a distance it looked like it. Not sure if they were receiving energy from the tree or giving it energy, but it looked very serene compared to the other groups. It was a crazy sight, but just seemed to work.
When I asked Mari why they all came out into the open she gave me a
simple answer, no backyards, no space in their homes. I love the Japanese culture for the fact that they have few inhibitions when it comes to singing/dancing/dressing up in public. I would find it very difficult to go into a park in Canberra and start singing away with a couple of friends, or doing drama in front of everyone there. Maybe Karaoke was the start of it, maybe not. I guess it comes back to everyone being in the same boat when it c
omes to ‘space’. It’s kind of like when I spoke to Itoh-san about there being no road rage in big cities in Japan, regardless of the fact that everyone is super busy and stressed. Driving down a street here would drive most Australians insane. It’s hard for me to describe what walking down a street is like, but again, it just works. When I asked Itoh-san why people don’t go crazy when a bike is parked so far out on very narrow road that a car has to slow down and make a real detour to miss it, or when a car does a 3 point turn in the middle of a busy street, or when the street is too narrow for two cars to pass each other, so one has to drive into someone’s driveway and wait while the car passes before it can continue on it’s way, etc etc. He just said, that everyone’s in the same boat, so they just get on with it. Wow, empathy at work on a large scale. Amazing considering the stressful lives they live.
After wandering through the park we braved the mad crowds and walke
d down Takeshita Dori, a famous street here in Harajuku. Needless to say it was crazy busy and by the time we made our very slow walk down the packed narrow street (see photo) the kids were tired, cranky and hungry. Mari and I decided that eating out would not be a good idea and so we all headed back to Kichijoji, and while Mari checked on the exhibition, we cooked a Thai curry for dinner. When she had finished, at the gallery, she came over and we ate a very hot meal together, giggling about how hot it was, as our noses dripped in unison!
With dinner over Mari's attention was again focused on the kitten, so we packed our pack of cards and huge bag of
1 and 5 yen coins we’ve been using to play ‘blackjack’ with, and headed over to her house to check on the kitten. We had a great time playing cards while the kitten played on the table batting the coins around, slipping on the cards and playing with the flowers on the table. Animals are so grounding. It was a tiring day, but another great one.
ijoji to see her work of art and meet the lady she collaborated with. When we arrived in Kichijoji, Mari was working on the wall hanging, so now to see the finished product up on the wall was great. We had our photo taken in front of the hanging and then went off to Harajuku for the day.H
arajuku is a very popular place on the weekends. It has a huge park called Yoyogi Koen and years ago they used to close the streets off to traffic and groups of young people would gather together, dress up and dance to the music on their own ‘beat boxes’ all day. These days it’s much more sedate and there were only a few groups of ‘Rockabilly’ dancers at the entrance to the park. They aren’t 
allowed in the park, but dance on the pavement out front. See photos.They are hugely popular with foreign tourists and Japanese alike. They were great fun to watch but Mari kept saying, ‘wow, they’re
all my age or older!’ She was right, they weren’t young, but as we went into the actual park, we found out where the young people were and what they were doing. They are all dressed up in their favourite Anime, game, or movie character costumes and doing what is now called ’cos-play’. Grant was mostly surprised that there were a number of men dressed up as cute anime girls, which is commonplace here. 
The park is HUGE and all through it there are groups of people doing their own thing totally oblivious of the others around them it seems. For example, as we walked around the park we saw many groups doing ’cosplay’, others were doing drama rehearsals, an
other group was singing, other’s played badminton, baseball and soccer. Then there were the groups practicing their musical instruments, like the trumpet and trombone players, the cello group, dance groups, martial arts groups, and lastly the ‘tree huggers’. Well, they weren’t actually physically touching the trees, but from a distance it looked like it. Not sure if they were receiving energy from the tree or giving it energy, but it looked very serene compared to the other groups. It was a crazy sight, but just seemed to work.When I asked Mari why they all came out into the open she gave me a
simple answer, no backyards, no space in their homes. I love the Japanese culture for the fact that they have few inhibitions when it comes to singing/dancing/dressing up in public. I would find it very difficult to go into a park in Canberra and start singing away with a couple of friends, or doing drama in front of everyone there. Maybe Karaoke was the start of it, maybe not. I guess it comes back to everyone being in the same boat when it c
omes to ‘space’. It’s kind of like when I spoke to Itoh-san about there being no road rage in big cities in Japan, regardless of the fact that everyone is super busy and stressed. Driving down a street here would drive most Australians insane. It’s hard for me to describe what walking down a street is like, but again, it just works. When I asked Itoh-san why people don’t go crazy when a bike is parked so far out on very narrow road that a car has to slow down and make a real detour to miss it, or when a car does a 3 point turn in the middle of a busy street, or when the street is too narrow for two cars to pass each other, so one has to drive into someone’s driveway and wait while the car passes before it can continue on it’s way, etc etc. He just said, that everyone’s in the same boat, so they just get on with it. Wow, empathy at work on a large scale. Amazing considering the stressful lives they live.After wandering through the park we braved the mad crowds and walke
d down Takeshita Dori, a famous street here in Harajuku. Needless to say it was crazy busy and by the time we made our very slow walk down the packed narrow street (see photo) the kids were tired, cranky and hungry. Mari and I decided that eating out would not be a good idea and so we all headed back to Kichijoji, and while Mari checked on the exhibition, we cooked a Thai curry for dinner. When she had finished, at the gallery, she came over and we ate a very hot meal together, giggling about how hot it was, as our noses dripped in unison!With dinner over Mari's attention was again focused on the kitten, so we packed our pack of cards and huge bag of
1 and 5 yen coins we’ve been using to play ‘blackjack’ with, and headed over to her house to check on the kitten. We had a great time playing cards while the kitten played on the table batting the coins around, slipping on the cards and playing with the flowers on the table. Animals are so grounding. It was a tiring day, but another great one.
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