tokyo!!

as i sat thinking on the quick and easy shinkansen ride to tokyo, i wondered how long it'd been since i'd been in tokyo for a weekend rendezvous. and i figured out this: it'd been since august when i was coming home from the wholly-needed, indulgent, and hedonistic trip to the states. entirely too long!!!

so, tiffany, carrie, and i hopped on the shink after work on a recent friday. excited, anxious, and in good moods, we found ourselves in tokyo in just enough time to get to our hotel to change and beautify ourselves. in time to get us to the main goal of the weekend: franz ferdinand does the budokan in tokyo, japan! and so budo-licious it was . . . .

we arrive, and on the way to our hotel, we see a fabulous free service. carrie and tiff, being the fabulous glasses-wearing gals they are, stopped at the clean-your-glasses-yourself stand outside a spectacles megastore! well, as mega as it could be; it's tokyo - which implies jam-packed squished shop after shop. with wonder and amazement!




being the non-spectacles fabulous self that i am, i quickly and vainly took several shots of myself, happily in the city.


and all cleaned up


dying with anticipation, we pushed ourselves through the crowd


we had to be sneaky ninja-like to get some shots during the show. . .






and the flag. it came as kind of a shock. there it was, huge and in my face. i thought it was a little strange, over the top, and fantastically patriotic, but then i placed myself in america doing the exact thing in a similar type of venue, and realized that in many places, an american flag would be present.


post-show and exuberant


this man on the train to downtown was tickled with us


and then the next day, we found this sign in the station. japan has had problems with 'chikan'. chikan are grabbers - mostly men unleashing their grubby hands upon women. so to combat the issue, many railway companies have conceived of women-only cars, for the early-morning bone-crushing packed-in hours.


and at our selected restaurant for lunch. we were astounded and wholly amused by this lunch option, eventually passing on it for other, more delectable dishes. after i got home and was at work the following week, i showed a fellow english teacher the picture. we laughed and laughed, until she realized that it's actually a real flower in japan, and the legitimate translation is a 'rape blossom'. what a connotation that flower holds. wow.




and out for the evening!


we met 2 fabulous australians, newly arrived in japan for a snowboarding excursion


the aussie's newfound friend


and on our last afternoon of our very short trip, we made it a wendy's afternoon. which is fabulous because as bad as fast food is, when it's the only - shitty - american food place you can go to, it's oh so delicious! we don't even get these places in niigata - we have to make the trek to tokyo or other big cities. and this wendy's was exactly how all wendy's should be: equipped with draft beer. for about $3 no less! yessss.