Sakura!

Today no big exploration trips. First thing I saw on morning was that White Rabbit Press hadn't been able to obtain concert ticket I had asked them to try to buy for me. This one would have been to concert of my favourite band from Japan but the thing had sold out in 5 minutes...Bloody hell! And this was for 3000 or so place concert hall. Anyway I then decided to head for the ticket shop just in case they might have got few to sale ahead but no such luck. Being in Harajuku I figured I might revisit the Yoyogi park while I'm here since it was like next corner. As the weather has improved it was much greener there(still no water in lake though) and sun had drawn lots of Japanese people out as well.

On the gate of the park there was this funny guy who had painted skin goldish and was painting faces of passerby's. Now this guy is genius when it comes to making great show out of such simple task. He was basically working at tempo of music, utilizing gestures more than speech for communicating, making ridiculously exaggerated ways to do everything(when he handed the finished product he would often look like approaching in slow motion etc). He was using various methods including own fingers to put paint where he wanted it. Everybody(including me) were laughing hysterically at the very funny performance.

Notice the red lips on picture and red lips guy himself. Yeah he did those by kissing the pictures :D Did also same for the face of a guy he drew. I definitely have to check if I could see him performing again. Good thing I took shot where his home page is shown.

The Homepage

Seems to be in Japanese though but for any Japanese who might be reading I recommend checking if you can get to see him in action.

Oh and he also seems to have done some nice preparations. He does seems to be able to speak Japanese(hey he probably IS Japanese) but after first picture he finished under my watch he took up sketch pad where was written text in Japanese(this actually threw me off thinking he's not Japanese. Later I heard him talk in Japanese). First text: "Okay next one". Flip page. "Model, raise hand." Nobody raises hand. Flip page, in smaller text: "Model...?". Still nobody. Flip page: "Are?" which is basically Japanese way of saying "eeh?". This actually got ripple of laughter out. Finally he convinced guy to be model. Later on there was pair of girls watching when he was looking model. One girl pulled up hand of other and performed snatched on it but the other girl retaliated by saying "draw us both"(above pictures are from this).

Then I started to walk around the park when I suddenly saw seducing colour of pink tree flowers ahead. Tempted by those sweet colours I found another pretty tree(well actually several). This time I wanted to know what this is so spotting young mother with little kids nearby I asked might this be plum tree. "No" was answer. "This is bit early Sakura".

SAKURA! Holla! This is what I have been waiting for and while it was still not on full bloom and only couple trees it was mighty beautiful sight :)

Rest of place was also showing signs of approaching summer as green was bursting out.

On the side of that thing was boy and girl(barely visible on the left side of the picture) doing some sort of speech practice. Maybe school theater performance or something. At least the girl was speaking out some sort of speech-sounding thing on loud voice. Sounded pretty good speech actually from the little I heard before continuing my way. Doesn't look like she's afraid of using her voice.

For light lunch I ate my first bowl of yakisoba(fried noodles basically).

No gourmet meal for sure but gave some energy to continue onward.

With this I figured time to head home so got back to Shoinjinjamae. Stopped by on nearby go salon getting my ass kicked again though seeing I was only given 3 handicap stones could have been doing worse. And I did make one move that actually surprised my opponent. This killed off 3 of his stones and secured huge area for me. Unfortunately just as I thought "I might be able to pull win off here" I screwed up and lost group of about 15 stones and gave him huge area on that area. Bummer. 110 to 70 or so final count.

Having now lived week here I have to say I rather like the area where I ended up living. I picked it up mostly based on a) price b) it was japanese style room c) it was available. Turns out I accidentally ended up in very decent spot to live. It's not ridiculously crowded for my taste. Actually the nearby streets wouldn't be that off in Finland either. There's 7eleven nearby for some food and drinks, station is nearby, there's even that go salon which is quite cheap at 300 yen for several games and the old guys there are at least interested in asking me questions. Guess they don't often get foreigners who want to play go as most of those probably go in bigger places to play :)

My home seems to be located near some sort of elementary school for the result that if I'm out around 8 of clock in the morning I get to witness veritable army of little Japanese going toward school with their very distinct school bags. Elementary school kids don't have uniform as such but the school bags are pretty standardized square looking things almost always red for girls and black for boys. Seen 2 pink one's on girl and think I saw some other darkish colour on one boy but not sure since I saw it only on passing.

High school students are of course ridiculously easy to notice due to the school uniforms. Seems they are using them practically all the time. Wonder what's up with that? Doesn't seem to matter what day and what time the high school kids are regular sight on the trains.

I might be getting couple face to face meetings with several Japanese in near future with idea of me helping them with English and them helping me with Japanese. Let's see how this goes. (And before anybody gets any funny ideas no these are NOT date-dates!!!)