It's Christmastime in the City

After dealing with computer-mayhem on Sunday, I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Tokyo. Tokyo may have the longest Christmas season in the world. Festive trees and lights were everywhere, and there were lots of 5th Avenue style church displays. Contemporary American Christmas decorations were mixed in with red and crème paper lanterns running along the sidewalks. I’m a little overwhelmed by the consistent sensory overload but it also makes every block feel exciting. Fast food vendors were out, selling hot dumpings and okonomiyaki and yakitori. It smelled amazing. It put me in a festive mood. I'm excited to have the Motoguchis (the family who gave me the haishi) over for Thanksgiving.

I wandered around for awhile. I’m not really sure exactly where I went although I’ve tried to retrace my steps online. Two older men in business suits separately stopped me during crowded street crossings to tell me I was beautiful, that they made a lot of money, and would like an hour of my time to get coffee. On the one hand, I can imagine that this sort of thing would happen to Scarlett Johansen in Lost in Translation (which I still haven’t seen) which is flattering, on the other hand, I was surprised and somewhat offended. I can’t really figure out how much leniency to give because it’s really hard to flirt in a second language but there’s also a lot of hype about ”compensated dating” in Japan. I don’t know how much credibility this has or how common it ever was, but maybe there’s more blurring of the line between dating and prostitution.

I wound up near the Harajuku temple just at sundown. It was surrounded by a park that was very much like a more groomed version of the park I ran through the other day. Again, I was surprised by the contrast between the frenetic climate of the street and the elegant calm of the park just 20 meters away. I didn’t go in the temple because it looked as though something important involving dressed up people was going on but I’d like to go in a temple sometime soon.

On my way back, I got nervous the train was headed the wrong way, and asked my neighbors if we were going to Kikuna. They were very sweet, and from then on, they told me at every stop, “This is not Kikuna. There are seven more stops” etc. At one point, I buttoned up my coat and I think they were worried the ganji girl had misunderstood or was impatient, so they affirmed that it was not Kikuna. I get lost a lot, but have never gotten that much directional support before