After the Crash

Shopping is not something I ever do anywhere, except in Tokyo. Thus, it makes sense that my poor body should be overwhelmed by the experience. Or perhaps that was the jet lag and being unable to sleep past 5am. One of the two.

The day started out with another public bath with my mother and this time the Meggish also joined. We did girl talk while lounging around like dryads on the large wooden tub.

Once dressed we split up again into groups. I went off with my parents to Harajuku, where the Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art. The museum was small, but there was an interesting representation of how the woodblock paintings developed and grew in complexity from paintings, to black and white prints, to 10-color prints.

Afterwards we walked across the street and went to a sweet little French bakery. My parents were also sweet.



Then we voyaged out into the street. Harajuku, like most areas of Tokyo, is a mob scene on the weekend. My father decided to go back and rest so my mother and I braved the crowds to check out a Muji and UT.



By then, even with the prospect of Tech Support coming to hang out, I was crashing fast. He joined us and we picked out a few T-shirts and then headed towards the station.



There I saw the edge of some of the madness that was only the beginning of Yoyogi park. People were performing and dressing up and waiting for free hugs and all the people made me want to kill. I was tired, really really tired. I gave up on the idea of hanging with my boy and instead went back to the hotel to rest.

A few hours later J-Po and the gang that went off to Ghibli came back and I had a nice time chatting with them. Then the boy returned and gave me some Japanese craft books he'd found. After looking through each of them a few times I passed out, thankfully, until 6am this morning.