Day 7 - Tokyo [part 2]

We finally got to harajuku station. As the train left we saw that on one side there was this immense vegetation and on the other side civilization, not just any place but the famous Takeshita Dori street sign. I hadn't taken a picture with the sign before so T took a quick snap to register the moment. The last time we were here we came in a very busy day and not so early in the morning so we knew it would be a totally different experience (a lot better obviously as we both dislike crowds).
We headed over to the street and right on the left side I noticed a small souvenier and random stuff store and i saw something that I know my brother would love but I'm always afraid to get, I don't know why but I always imagine they'll stop me at customs and I'll get in trouble in Europe and I don't want to risk it hahaha.
That's right, that's a list of flags you can get and in between them, there's a Nazi flag. No, my brother isn't a nazi, he just studies the world ward II history like a maniac for some reason and I'm sure he'd like one for that reason (yes sounds stupid that I'm explaining this but trust me there are a LOT of idiots surfing the web (I've actually been called nazi for liking a certain clothing line from a lolita store that has a militar feel and an eagle as an insignia ._.).

Anyway other than that I found a pair of glasses that look like something from a sci fi movie. There were three colors available and i'm still not sure i made the right pick but i loved them and had to get them. Stupidest buy ever I'm sure. You tell me, yes right? haha

Anyway we continued walking down the street waiting for 10am until for some reason I re-checked and found out that the stores opened at 11am instead. BUMMER! We were just so tired of doing nothing by this time that this sounded a bit bad. So I took my camera out and thought of the girls (especially Vânia who keeps bugging me about this post -_-;) and took some pictures of stuff i find interesting around there.

This was awesome, they later put this manequin outside but i found it to be a lot better up there, with its hands against the glass as if saying "let me out!". I love this kind of mask, i really want to find a Crazy horse white mask while in Japan but unfortunately I don't think there's any way i can fit it into my bag anymore and of course i can't walk around with a horse mask in the airport and plane all the way to portugal (although that would be super cool and slightly jackass like).

Since its impossible to keep formatting my post like this and have enough stuff to say i'll just leave you guys with some pictures of nice details as well as things you'd like to see like some store fronts and stuff like that.

A random cute store that had all sort of funky looking bags such as bunny bags, clock bags, matrioska bags, camera bags, radio bags, car bags, etc. Cool huh? I never got in but loved the store window. If i could carry some I'd get a bunch for the shop and myself, but there's just no way they'd fit my super loaded bags.

The top floor store is a 390yen store with used clothes, you can find everything there from vintage to regular clothes. This is probably where those clothes labeled as "second hand" come when you see harajuku street snaps and the like. There are a bunch of these, some are pretty expensive but not this one.
The botoom floor has, as you can read, Sex Pot Revenge which is one of my favorite japanese punk labels.

The famous Closet Child store, one of them but of course this is the Harajuku branch. As you can see its not located in the ground floor but the 1st, 2nd and third and last floors of this particular building. On the first floor you can find everything from all the sweet lolita brands (as well as aatp and iw), on the second floor you will find goth brands and punk as well and on the third floor (and this was a huge change from last year's visit) its now an otome/classic lolita floor selling stuff like milk, etc, shirley temple and of course all the classic brands, mary magdalene, victorian maiden, etc. It's amazing and Vânia would sell her kidneys to get all the stuff there. :|

As you can see the stores were all closed and usually you can't take a picture of anything without having a ton of people in front of everything so we were super early.
This is Liz Lisa, a gyaru oriented fashion store that is also popular with teenagers and overall fans of cuteness. You can always find something nice there.

I took this picture not because of what it is but because i loved the funky tiled they used for the outside walls, reminded me of kubrik lego pieces and modern art. I loved this.

Picture taken in front of the famous Laforet shopping mall. They always have super creative displays and this year's are no exception. There was also a huge yellow Christmas tree in front but i can't display every single photo here, guys.

We were tired and it was getting chilly so I asked for a small snack and a warm drink. We went back and picked this small café which I had found to look like it had the most delicious menus and cozy environment. Since it was the 24th I felt super happy that they were playing xmas songs (must have been the first time because usually I'm very annoyed by those) but also some funky brazillian tunes that make anyone happy and serve as the perfect environment lounge music.

Since you're always complaining about how gross the food looks here, i decided to include a picture of the front's advertisement for some strawberry yummy looking sweet cakes and lattes and whatnot.
Still, being a bigger fan of non sweet stuff than sweets myself, decided on a cup of hot coffee and milk and an egg/ham small toast. Tasted like a dream!

After that we stayed indoors for a while as it wasn't time yet and we chatted a bit about house prices around there and also about the fact that I hadn't seen a lot of stylish people yet. T reminded me to look closely at the girls walking around with their friends. At first I didn't get what he meant or what I should be looking for but some time later I finally noticed that most teenage girls were carrying trolleys with them. Of course! I had forgotten that they come from home looking all normal and boring and then change in staircases and toilets into their harajuku personas. In the end most of them end up being nothing more than cosplayers which as you know is not something I highly approve of as it makes it hard for me to keep trying to convince the entire world that i'm not a freak and that lolita isn't cosplay. To some, it really is. Anyway it was time so we got up.


I only a handful of lolita girls on the way and as you know i'm much too polite to snap pictures of them while they're aware and i'm also too shy to take pictures of them with their permission (aka I'm a big creep) so I only have there two shots of lolitas in Harajuku for you, both sweet, both wearing pink (and one looks like my friend Chérie which is creepy).

Anyway I went to closet child and got some things some people asked me to get: lucy, hana, lolilove mostly and then tried some things on. Fell in love with a meta dress and bought it which was a disgrace because i didn't want to spend more money. Also got some boleros, necklaces to match the new outfits and a shirred mmm shirt. Lost my breath when i saw twinkle journey in blue live. God its beautiful! And also cried because they had fantastic dolly jsk in white and the macaron black shirred op which i always adored. Both way out of my price range for that day though. You can see what i got later on my poupee if you are curious. Win! XD

It was time to head back to Shinjuku. It was the connecting point for the final destination we had for the day. So, and because there was still some time, we decided to head over (finally!) to a cyber café and rest as well as get ready for the show.
Cyber cafés in Japan have everything. Yes, everything. It's incredible I've never seen anything quite like it. Unfortunately I was a bit stressed out and tired to remember to take pictures of the inside but i'll describe it the best I can.
They are confortable, they provide a wide variety of reading material (especially manga) and movies. They operate 24/7. You can find food there, you can find drinks there and they willl actually offer miso soup for free there as well as the normal hot tea. Most of them now not only have bathrooms but also showers you can use. Some of them actually have beds where you can take a nap. We saw a cyber café the other day with a tanning machine, yes a tanning machine... etc so just imagine! No wonder there's a group of people sleeping there nowadays, its cheaper than paying rent and its confortable enough. o.o

We left, walked a bit, visited maruione again and saw some pretty kickass moi meme moitie head to toe coordinates. One of the girls was wearing my mmm dream coat and i cried a bit haha. People stared at me all the way but i felt neatly dressed which was a good feeling.
We headed over to Liquidroom which we couldn't find at first. I told T the best thing to do was follow moitie wearing people but he didn't listen so we wandered a bit before finally reaching the place.
We got in and there was a bunch of people there already. The place was confortable, clean, sort of fancy for what you are used to see in european metal related band events at least and there was even a nice looking coffee shop where we had a coke and i smoked a cig. Some other japanese lolitas were smoking cigarettes so i felt at home. In your face haters! XD No but really? I thought we had this idea that lolitas can't smoke because of japanese lolitas? Thank god its a lie.
We bought a small flier for a load of cash (seriously mana?) but I was told that was the thing to take home from that gig and i couldn't carry a poster so... and just looked around in awe for a while.
I really wanted to take pictures guys but to be honest I didn't know anyone but still didn't want to be the rude oddball so i didn't take any secretly. Sometimes I wish i was a bit more politically incorrect in that kind of situation but I really am very respectful. It's a shame really, it was a room almost completely filled with head to toe moitie wearing people. It was incredible, I had never seen so much moitie in my life! Thank god I went with iron gate too, there was another girl in the blue one but i didn't see a lot of people wearing it at all, tons of people wearing divine cross though, even the sendai edition and the new velvet ones so if i went with that i'd look like everyone else. I was also the only person with white hair as you will see. Didn't have time to cut the bangs though, i'm not sure i will, i'm scared to ruin the wig to be honest.
I asked T to wear something a bit proper so he let me change his attire for a sec, nothing much, i just made him put on a vest, a tie and lent him my bag since it matched the colors and i couldn't use it anyway. He looked so toned down but so cute!


I will not write a detailed review of this concert because there's already better ones to be found throughout the web even in portuguese and by people who know a lot more and will share a lot more details than I will. I will only say a couple of things in form of a tiny list:
- It was fairly empty compared with concerts I've been to, even their berlin concert in the past and I guess i thought Mana was bigger in Japan than he actually is.
- They didn't play just stuff from the new album (which sounded ok to be honest btw) but also stuff from previous albums, the most known songs.
- They wore the same outfits they wore in their last show.
- They had a special performance in the end for xmas and mana came out wearing a black santa outfit. They made us call him mana-santa-sama (which made me laugh as hell) and said made us scream "me-ku-dix" instead of "merry christmas which was ridiculously hilarious as well.
- Everyone got a "special present" at the way out.
- I waved the Portuguese flag around.
- 1/5 of the audience was foreign, that's what i call dedication guys!
Only picture I took at the concert, before they started to play of course. You can see some lolitas. If you try you can find someone dressed in a very "odd", she was foreign btw. There was also a girl dressed in the worse way possible acting ridiculous and super lame and then to me the winner for odd characters was a girl who was in full moitie, super quiet all the time, sitting along in a corner of the room and that when the show started screamed like crazy with a very odd strong voice losing her "kawaii" and girly side in a second after that. Talk about double personality weeeeeirdddd people. Everyone was friendly and i missed to see /find the only person I wanted to see there, a girl named Sarah I met in tokyo last year and who i actually like and did wish to see again. Tough luck.

These are the tour goods they gave each one of us. Obviously there's a program for the liquidroom, then theres a bunch of visual k flyers, etc, the D+Sect flyer, the pamphlet I got which is tiny and was super expensive and the Christmas present: the moi dix mois signed postcard.
They all look the same I guess.

Anyway we left, happy, tired (we had been tired the entire day though as you can see by my dark deep eye circles). We were super hungry too so we went looking for something fast, hot and cheap to eat.

Found this tiny restaurant that only served ramen so it was perfect. Well actually it ended up not being so perfect because the ramen was a bit sub par for japan to be honest, i was slightly disappointed because it was my first this time, I adore ramen and i can tell easily if its good or not actually (which is something I can't do with most dishes here though).
After this we went to the train station. Fortunately the trip back was not going to be by bus but by train! We took the total of 3 trains on a trip that lasted 9 freaking hours during the night. Still in comparison it was a lot more confortable and I managed to sleep most of the time.

We got to Nara, got in the bus, returned home and fell on the futon like rocks. We were beat. All that, just to attend a Moi dix Mois concert. Insane, right?

Love,
Jo

Day 7 - Tokyo [part 1]

"Woke up" at around 6am which is the approximate arrival time (6.30) and watched the outside scenery as the bus kept advancing. Our stop wasn't the last one so we had to pay attention. We got at Tokyo station which is situated in the heart of the city, one of the most important office areas of Tokyo.

We took our small back pack and headed over to the train station entrance. On the way we found an opened dinner, one of those 24/7 open shops (Nakau) that mainly offer Gyudon which is exactly what I had. T prefered the typical japanese breakfast set.
Outside the shop everything was extreme propaganda (as if at that time of day they really needed it -_-;): the super bright lights, the million ads for special prices and menus, the absolutely annoying music that was put on repeat!!!
When you get into these fast food joints in Japan 30% of the time (not sure if you're aware) you don't go to the employee and order, you just pick the dish you want from a machine, press the button, insert the cash and then you get a ticket that you then can hand over to the person at the counter. A lot faster and a lot more efficient. Of course it might be a problem when you don't understand what it says on each button.

That's my Gyudon, it was so good, i was really happy but then again i was starving. They also served hot tea and you can ask for a refil, even when your dish only cost around 2.5 euros.
Another thing thaqt really makes me happy when I'm in Japan is the free Beni Shoga and Gari. They just have it around in small containers and you just take as much as you want and I love that stuff in a very unhealthy manner actually. I can be home watching a movie while eating it and nothing else. Yes I do realize i'm an oddball.

This is what the sky looked like when we arrived, it was super early and that is also what pretty much every building in the area looks like, tall, modern, businessy.

After eating we were a bit confused as to what we should do to kill some time, so we went to Shinjuku again because it was on the way to our final destination which was Harajuku.

Time for the JR train adventure again.
We got some special tickets that lasted the entire day so we had to only use JR trains to get to where we wanted.

We got there and it was just so windy and cold outside! We tried looking for a cyber café because someone handed us a flyer with some decent discount and we could chill out online for a bit and even rest a while but we couldn't find it anywhere.
So there we were freezing and lost and without having a place to go.

While walking around I took pictures of some interesting (for me at least).
This is the lid for their underground systems, a man hole which for some reason sounds like a very funny thing to me which made T perplex. :P

It was cold, empty with only some people wearing their salary man outfits (but they are far more stylish than the portuguese type, I assure you) and heading out to work. Some people were really sleep walking and I felt really sorry for them for a while until I remembered that i'll be on the same routine from the 10th January onwards.
Since we could not find the internet café and I was really sleepy I asked for some machine bought strong coffee, asked for the strongest and was expecting something super sour and heavy but ended up with a very mild sugary café late instead. These machines are very interesting and conveniente. Not only they are everywhere, from the busy city centers to the small regional localities, in some temple site (i mean everywhere) but also very easy to use.
Only focusing on the ones that sell drinks they usually offer water, tea, juice and a wide variety of coffee. They are divided in lines and each line has a color. The red colored lines offer hot drinks and the blue colored lines offer cold ones. Just like any other machine all you have to do is put in the cash, choose the product and get it in a sec. For tobacco and maybe liquor you do need to have a special card you can buy, like a permit, or use your cellphone. Super handy except for smokers :P.
After this we got back to the JR station and headed over to Shinjuku, another tall building, commerce and business areas, one of my favorites because its where my favorite Maruione and Closet Child stores are located.
I didn't go there to shop though as I had been there on my very first day but to spend a bit more time sight seeing as it was still very early in the morning and nothing was open yet.
On the right side you can see me giving a perspective of just how tall buildings are there, that one being one of the tallest: Tokyo Metropolitan Governmental Building. You can climb up to the top to have a city view which I highly recommend and have done in the past. It's actually free of charge and they have some souvenier shops up there with some cute things as well.

We saw a lot of people going to work at this time, it must have been the busiest hour to be honest, so many... just so many... its incredible how many citizens this city has.

T found this ridiculous thing that apparently can't be new as he knew exactly how to make it work. A Christmas Gazebo that can be used for pictures and also works as a "happiness bell". You get in, step on a green circle and then a bell will ring giving you happiness o.o? Anyway its really pretty at night I guess.
Of course I fond it to be quite tacky and took pictures of it while laughing a lot. Just felt a bit silly in the middle of all those serious business buildings and people when absolutely nothing else even remotly linked to Christmas was to be found. Because we were cold and bored and also pretty sleepy we looked for a nearby Doutor Coffee shop which we found very soon. It's a shop you can find in many locations and their cofee is actually quite good so I love it there. It also usually has a room for smokers which i find to be very convenient especially since its practically impossible to find a place to smoke in the streets of Tokyo.
After chatting and resting it was finally nearly 10 in the morning and we decided to head over our destination.

On the way there nature called and I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I remembered some of you might never used one of those fancy japanese toilets and decided to take a quick snap of the buttons and break it down for you.
Well even though you can find a ton of different types of toilets in public bathrooms I'll only be focusing on this one. I first saw one when I was staying in Shanghai and it took me some time to understand how to operate it but its actually quite simple as all you have to do is look at the pictures, really.
The music button is just that, it'll play sounds while you do your business, what sounds? Usually flushing noises or noises of running water. Why? Because its considered a bit embarassing to pee while there's someone else in the next toilet. I totally love this concept.
The pink button is the bidet button. It'll basically throw clean warm water at the front zone of your private parts.
The blue button with those sexy buttocks is for sending the same type of jet to your rear end in order to get you clean after you know what.
The stop button is, obviously, for you to stop whatever function you had activated before.
The seat can and will probably be warm in the winter and there are other functions depending of how high tech this toilet is. Fabulous hein? Yes no wonder Madonna and other international celebrities have been reported to have bought one to take home when they came to visit. I want one too one day.

Well after I was ready to go we finally started walking the long way back to the station. Shinjuku station is huge and I think anyone will feel very lost if alone there for the first time. There was this American couple there who said (and I clearly heard this) "I don't even know if this is JR!" as in *We're super lost!* - and mind you the only reason I didn't ask T to wait and help them was because he was ahead of me and I didn't want to get lost during morning hours when its madness.
Anyway I saw this add and fell in love, I think key makers need to copy this in Portugal right now. I fell in love with the cross and crown keys in a sec, even if they do cost like 20 euros to make :X

Anyway stay tuned for [part 2]. This post is taking forever to make due to me being kinda weak right now. I'm sorry for that. <3

Love,
Jo