Today I got up early enough for an onigiri and miso soup breakfast (which according to my colleagues do not match) supplemented by the orange juice I’d bought on Thursday.  I headed out around nine o’clock to get in touch with my feminine side (i.e. do some shopping). 

First, I took the subway to Shin-Okachimachi.  On the subway I noticed a guy playing on his playstation mobile, which reminded me of yesterday’s suit-and-tie salaryman playing his playstation mobile with such verve and vigor we heard the buttons click across the aisle above the train noise.  I asked the guy manning the wicket at Shin-Okachimachi how to get to Kappabashi-dori, and instead of telling me to get back on and take the subway to the next station, which would have been closer, he gave me vague directions.  Fortunately, the area is used to tourists and has maps and signposts everywhere, and it wasn’t my first time either.  I didn’t make it to Kappabashi without encountering one of the black vans blaring allegedly nationalistic music and slogans – I can’t understand what he’s saying.  If you want the Yankee to go home, you’ve got to tell him in English. 

From Kappabashi I walked to Asakusa for more shopping and passed the wonderful denim store where I got my split-toe rubber boots.  Despite a recent appearance as Permit the Frog with those boots I had no orders, so I just peeked in to make sure they still had some, just in case.  At Asakusa one of the shop ladies told me that today was a national holiday by way of explaining the masses ambling around the shrine and the surrounding shops.  With that, she also explained the black van.  They come out more often on national holidays. 

I got more than my share of shopping done and after buying a hot lemon drink headed back across town, this time to Harajuku, the epicenter of youth fashion.  I find the term epicenter all the more appropriate as most youth there fall in the category of fashion victims.  They sport faux period costumes, frilly multi-layered skirts, colorful embroidered stockings, velvet tailored train conductor uniforms, pointy wizard hats, lacy bonnets, skull caps with cat ears and a skull design, and they’re probably shopping for more.  As soon as I start thinking about the product life cycle of this garb, it makes me sick.  What an accumulation of future waste, with precious little opportunity for use!  At least they entertain the passersby (purposely? unwittingly? contre coeur? the psychology escapes me). 

As usual, I succumbed to the temptation of a crape [sic] booth and ate my vanilla ice cream and apple cinnamon crêpe on the bench belonging to the booth and labeled “no smorking.”  My stroll down Takeshita street didn’t lead me to the perfect T-shirt I was looking for.  One came close, showing Colonel Sanders with a runny nose and the letters KFS, standing for kafunsho, the Japanese word for hay fever, but I wasn’t too impressed with the price.  Richärds (imagine gothic script) sold goth clothes; what “white trash charms japan” sold, I don’t know.  I do know that at the end of the street round a corner stood a Döner Kebap box, where I only resisted giving in and eating one (rationalising it as a valuable support of Döner culture in Japan) because the line was long enough for me to think about the consequences: nobody wants to eat a Döner walking in a crowd.  I walked back up Omotesando past a Japanese lady taking her two guinea pigs for a walk and past the former site of the Hiestand bakery, may it rest in peace.  Apparently (according to the Japanese Hiestand website) there may still exist opportunities to find their goods in Japan, but I couldn’t find an alternative direct sales outlet. 

I fought my way through the crowd onto the platform for the train to Shinjuku, where after using the facilities I took the closest and likely smallest exit on the South exit – one that goes directly into the Lumine building.  I passed the Seijo Ishii market and spotted what might have been dark beer at the far wall, so I walked in, but before I could get there I was completely distracted by the cheese display.  Cheeses from France! Denmark! Holland! Switzerland! England (hey, even Blue Stilton)!  Blue, yellow, orange, and white, they were precious in my sight.  They even had one for 2900 yen that closely resembled a Vacherin Mont d’Or, which reminded me of what I mustn’t miss when I’m back.  In the end I settled for a plain Gruyères, 510 yen for 135 grams, but I was beyond caring.  My confidence that a store that carried decent cheese would also carry decent bread wasn’t disappointed, although the selection wasn’t as wide, and so for a total of 720 yen I had a lunch of bread and cheese, seated opposite the store on a chair belonging to a soft-ice joint I’d patronized before not knowing what treasures lay in store a few meters away, staring at the store’s display of champagne and wine and trying to guess how the katakana spelling translated back into French.  “Dikemu” for instance I figured must mean “D’Yquem.” 

I headed to the Tower Records store with the goal of finding if a certain DVD was available, but it took me an hour to just get to that section because of all the time I spent on the way listening to other CDs.  In particular I spent a lot of time on the new Spitz album, which I almost bought – I’d describe their sound as “süffig,” but can’t find a good translation for that word.  It’s a combination of smooth, melodic, harmonic, upbeat, and anthemic components, and the skill of shamelessly using standard conventions nearly up to the point where they become overused clichés.  Other CDs I enjoyed included the New Cool Collective and Haggis Horns albums.  The DVD, it turned out, wasn’t available.  I also spotted a Morning Musume singles collections, but left it alone.  By an odd quirk I found out later tonight what the Morning Musume could have been with talent and funk in their blood: Tokyo Brass Style.  As much as I enjoy their sound, I still feel just a tad like a dirty old man for watching the video.  Irritating. 

Next I went to Kinokuniya, the bookstore, where I bought too many books, but Shusaku Endo’s books are hard to get otherwise.  I spent some time browsing through Alex Kerr’s “Dogs and Demons” and nodding at descriptions of how Japan has eviscerated its cities by replacing traditional structures with prismatic upward projections of tile, steel, and glass.  Walking back to the hotel afterwards through the faceless deracinated modernity of Shinjuku drove the point home.  If I didn’t know it was Shinjuku and couldn’t recognize the script on the neon signs as Japanese I’d have a hard time placing it.  Other browsing led me to discover that two books, “Uneasy Warriors” and “Securing Japan,” use the same photo for their jacket design. 

I dropped off my loot at the hotel and went back to yesterday’s suit shop, Sakazen.  I won’t bore you with details of me picking suits, but I got two suits for a little more than what I paid for my one suit in Switzerland last summer.  We’ll see how well they hold up.  They did reveal that I’ve put on weight.  What I’m looking forward to is seeing if the delivery to the other hotel I’ll be staying at in a few days will work.  If not, I’ll have a lot of money riding in some delivery van…  I’m reluctant to calculate the total cash drain today, but feel a bit better when I think that roughly 10% went toward gifts and books and clothing fall into the category of honorable purchases. 

On the way back to the hotel I stopped again at Lee’s gyoza place.  Because of the wikipedia research on NOVA yesterday I now connected the dots and recognized the guy on the wanted poster in the restaurant as the guy who’s suspected of killing a British NOVA teacher in March this year.  Unfortunately, I have not yet developed my visual discernment to the point of being any help with wanted posters in Japan.  I had Lee’s special gyozas and bacon/cheese gyozas with a coke.  From there I went on to Don Quichote (don kihoote), a discount store, where I bought drinks and chocolate.  On my way back to the hotel I discovered a love hotel with a particularly attractive and romantic name: Hotel SPECK.  But despite all the love hotels surrounding my (regular) hotel and the title of this entry I’m not guilty of any hanky panky – only Panky.