meet me in Takadanobaba

Late start again! Oh well. We've been planning on going to the Tokyo metropolitan museum of photography in the Ebisu neighborhood, but didn't get around to it until now. It's well worth the trip. In particular the world press photo 2005 contains some of the most powerful and disturbing images I've ever seen on film. If you get a chance to catch this exhibit you really should, it's traveling all over the world.

After hanging out in Ebisu for a little bit we head over to Shinjuku station to meet Cameron and some his friends for dinner. We get there before everyone else, but Cameron arrives shortly with his friend and co-worker Steven, who is from the states, followed shortly by Sonya, who is a swiss national studying fashion. Sonya stuns us all a little bit with her sinead o'connor hairstyle. She tells us that her hair was falling out due to stress over school, so she decided to shave it all off.

We set off to an izakaya for food and beers. While we're digging into bacon wrapped asparagus and egg smothered udon noodles, another friend of theirs, Jay from L.A., shows up. It turns out that they all met at japanese language school here and hang out from time to time. Jay is a hilarious smart ass so he and I hit it off quite well. I get scolded by our japanese waitress because I ventured to the bathroom without wearing the restaurant-provided clogs (you have to take off your shoes at these kind of establishments and I didn't see the clogs). I apologize in my best japanese. We eat a lot and drink a lot as is customary.

I invite the whole crew over to the jam session at Jazz Intro, near the Takadanobaba station. This place is so tiny it's ridiculous, but the music is hot and Aki is there. We all settle in as best we can and I end up sitting in on a couple of numbers, once with Aki. Everybody has a lot of fun.

Sonya invites us all to her place, which is somewhere just outside of tokyo proper. We catch the last train at 1am, which is full of red-eyed drunks, pick up some snacks and beers at the local 7-11, and go to Sonya's apartment. Her place is bigger than Ryan's sub-studio in minami izu, but still tiny by american standards and standard by japanese standards. We all flop down where we can and chat, watch lost in translation and happiness, drink, and generally enjoy ourselves until the wee hours of the morning.


observation: even when you leave tokyo proper and venture out into the neighborhoods of the tokyo metro area, the population density is the same. It seems that in tokyo at least there is no respite from the overwhelming crush of your neighbors.