Cuteness overload

If there's one thing that I don't have very much of here in Tokyo it is downtime. However, that provides me the solace of knowing that I am getting the most out of this trip that I possibly can and that's a comforting thought. The downside is that I have very little time to tell you all about my experiences here.  

Sunday morning Ira, Tara, and I wanted to go to a flea market we heard about. We knew it was near the Meiji shrine but not exactly where. We left the train, took a few turns and ended up in the last place you would expect to see the three of us: Takeshita street. This is where all the Tokyo teenagers go to show off their incredibly neon and incredibly elaborate outfits. We received a few strange glances and an older woman whom was there with her teenage daughter informed us that this was not in fact the flea market.  We may not have blended in but we had a chance to take a few very interesting photos to show you what we had wandered in to. 

Ira bought the silver one in the middle. He said he's been looking for something to match his shoes for a long time. ;) Note the "no pictures" sign on the wall. Oh well, sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. 

Yes that's a DJ in the background and she was playing the most ear piercing-techno-pop-electronic-repetitive music I have ever heard. I am old. 

Yes, they dress their dogs too. 

Tokyo is amazing for many reasons but one of the most striking is that it only takes one block of walking to completely change your environment and within seconds we were relieved of the auditory and visual assault. We went from one end of the ambiance spectrum...

To the other. For some reason the younger hipper crowd did not find this park as appealing as their deafening day-glo district.  We, on the other hand, enjoyed the quiet. 

We continued our hunt for the elusive flea market until we found some very nice fellow Americans who informed us that there no longer was a flea market in the area. I can only assume that "this town ain't big enough for the both of us" applies to flea markets and bubbly teenagers as well as cowboys.  

Well, we're here and there's plenty to do in Tokyo. We had about 4 hours to kill until we were meeting our wonderful Japanese companions so we went to the closest approximation of a flea market we could find: oriental bazaar!!

I don't have a picture to share but it was three floors of the best shopping I've seen in Tokyo. We found many souvenirs that were all very reasonably priced; a hand-thrown sake set for $10 for instance. 

Finally it was time for lunch. I had the butter curry at Grandma's kitchen. Delicious!

Afterwards we met two new adult education students and made for the studio Ghibli museum.  As I feared, we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, so the outside will have to do:

Inside were countless authentic drawings done by Miyazaki himself. They were utterly gorgeous. We were also treated to a 20 minute short film that changes every week and can only be seen in the museum. It was beautiful. By far the coolest thing was found on the first floor in a side room. I will do my best to describe it and not over-dodgify the description. Picture a bathroom sized enclosure of glass with a 10 ft tall roulette wheel in the middle. The wheel had spokes (probably 100 or so) that radiated outward from the central axis. At the end of each spoke and along the base of the wheel (where the numbers are in roulette) were little 3d figures of Miyazaki's characters. Each in a slightly different pose. When you approached, the wheel was still and the lights were on so you could see all of the individual poses. The wheel then started spinning and the lights switched to strobe mode and instantly they came alive and were completely animated!  It was like a 3d flip book or hologram!!  Absolutely mind blowing!

We came back had yakitori: grilled meat on a stick. It was delicious!  One of the sticks was just grilled chicken skin!  It felt scandalous to eat but totally worth it. 

Today we had very little time in our individual schools because we went to visit the kindergarteners and students and the largest elementary school in Shinagawa. The whole day was magical!

We began with kindergarten and were shuffled into a large room where we were seated like honored guests. This was my view:

Just the act of them saying "hello!" in English was enough to melt your heart but then they gave us handmade gifts:

And THEN they sang "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" in English and I almost died. 

I mean really, this much cute should almost be outlawed. 

It's not even fair. 

As if that weren't enough, they took us outside and performed a super badass traditional dance to a wicked cool rock song with an amazing guitar solo. 

Post-dance was about a half hour of play time. This little girl became vary attached to me and showed me her alligator made from recycled materials. 

After this we were driven to the elementary school where I learned what Justin Bieber feels like. We were high fiving, watching students' present projects on Portland Maine and lobsters, eating lunch with them, and signing at least a hundred autographs!

We packed up and headed back to our assigned school which was completely uneventful by comparison. But I had worked up a sweat from all the fame so I got a drink. 

Now I don't know what a pocari is or how they harvest its sweat, but It's delicious!!