Spidey 3 tickets are booked for tomorrow, 1:10pm, in Cinecitta (Mum - the Italian place with the water and light show). I'm so excited. Oh, and the above motto translates as:
"One more enemy. It's myself."Personally, I prefer this to the English taglines -
"Next summer, the greatest battle lies... within"- but they're all great.
"How can any man fight the darkness... before he finds it in himself?"
There are only two names you need to know in Japan* right now: Spiderman and Avril Lavigne. Seriously, every corner you turn is a poster of one of them, and nearly every shop is blaring out a pop-rocking beat from the Sk8er Boi herself. Hachiko, the famous crossroads in Shibuya was hectic as usual, but with a web dominating the buildings, and the screens showing adverts for both the new album and the movie.
On top of that, Spiderman 3 is released here before anywhere else in the world, as well as having the premiere in Tokyo a few weeks back. Not quite sure why but maybe something to do with the Sony Corporation being based here.
Anyway, it was a baking hot day today and we went down to Odaiba, my favourite place . Incidentally, it's Golden Week - a week-long bank holiday - and, in Odaiba, Hawaii festival. We saw some performances near the Venice shopping mall, including some hula dancing and music, and then went to the beach.
Afterwards, we checked out the cinema to see if there was much hype for the release tomorrow, and it was insane. There were Spiderman related events everywhere, including a game where you shot arrows from an upside-down gun attached to your wrist (kinda worked). I hit Venom so I was web-slingingly pleased. We also went on the treasure-hunt set-up which took us around Odaiba, to the Fuji-TV building (with the ball hovering in the middle) and past a live performance by an up and coming nine-piece band plus DJ, Pistol Valve - a nintet? nuntet? At the goal, we were awarded stickers, and then had burgers while watching the sun go down past the Statue of Liberty, Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower:
As for Avril, she's in Tokyo promoting her album. She was on their live music programme this week, and wasn't half bad. She even learnt a few Japanese words to say to the fans, bless her.
*and I'm assuming the rest of the world.
Yesterday, being a Sunday, meant the Harajuku girls were out in force. We went to have look, and do the whole Shibuya/Yoyogi Park/performer Street/Meiji Shrine trail. We also saw a few weddings. Here are some of the interesting things we saw along the way:
Basketballman was probably the strangest performer. As suggested from the name, he had a lot of basketballs with him. He was stretching and setting up his equipment, in perhaps not the most orthodox of ways. He put the finishing touches to his set-up, but instead of starting the show, he stopped and packed it all up. Bizarre.
I joined the local library, and have been a bit book-crazy as of late.
A different kind of rental, and not so technologically advanced, but rewarding in ways that movies don't allow.
Thrilling, hey?
Blue skies.
I had the picnic blanket and food all good to go for a trip to Tamagawa (Tama River) - the dividing line between Tokyo and Yokohama, and a spot for hanging out along the riverside.
It started off stranger than strange. I'm not sure if it got stranger per se, but by the end, nothing would've surprised me.
On the first Sunday in April is a special festival in Kawasaki Daishi Temple; about 30 mins from my house. It was one of those events that would've been ruined if it had rained, but luckily this was pretty much the only hot day of the cherry blossom season. And I mean, H-O-T. Everyone got a bit burnt.
A group of us arrived mid-morning to be greeted by swarms of people. Maybe 10,000 in a small area; no bigger than maybe a football pitch. A quick scout around resulted in me realising that at least half were foreign, and that this was the most I'd ever seen in one go.
This was all due to the Kawasaki Penis Festival; endearingly coined "Dick-Fest". The ceremony, although only of recent years being a festival, has a long history concerning fertility and prevention of disease. Prostitutes in the Edo period would come here and rub phallic objects to hinder any problems that might, ahem, come their way.
However, this was largely ignored and the festival instead treated as a big joke. Statues were hugged, penises ridden by everyone - young and old, a vegetable carving competition was in full swing, and lollies were enthusiastically sucked. Everyone was happy and friendly, with one stall giving passers-by free alcholol to celebrate the occasion.
I'm not sure whether the number of young children present was such a good idea, but for being a reserved culture, they have very few quarms about the topic of nakedness and sex - evidently, it's not an issue which comes with any shame or guilt.
I bought plenty of souvenirs and smirked at the number of bare buttocks on display.
Then, it was time for the parade. This was crazy, and there was definite crushing whilst people were trying to get the perfect photograph. This poor bus was full of elderly people; a less-than-usual reason for a delay, don't you think?
We had a bit more of a look round, and I bought a slightly impractical dice as well as being given a choc-a-block calendar, before deciding to partake in hanami (drinking under the cherry blossom) somewhere.
Everyone had different destinations in mind and as haphazard plans go, we all split up. I stuck with some people from work, and stayed close to Shibuya as others who were working wanted to meet up with us later.
We ended up in a cemetery! It sounded just as strange to me too, but actually Aoyama cemetery (next to the baseball stadium) is a famous spot for cherry blossom. Although there were plenty of other groups doing the same, it did feel slightly wrong to be - literally - drinking on people's graves. Dr Ueno, the owner of the famous dog Hachiko, is buried there. It was rather charming, although when night fell, it became a bit creepy walking around, trying to find people. When our work friends couldn't find us, someone suggested splitting up to cover more ground. Have they never seen a horror movie? Idiot.
I've decided to stay in Japan for a while longer with a new job. But more on that later.
Tuesday was a little sad, but it was also refreshing to leave NOVA. I'll be honest and say that: the company is great for helping people make it to Japan, and in terms of setting you up without any serious problems they're great. However, the professionalism and backwards functioning leaves much to be desired. Just like with many corporations, being one of the little (but capable) guys is like smacking your head against a brick wall. Only you're not a karate master and there's no chance to break it. As much as I'll miss the students and the staff-room banter, I'm not sorry to be moving on.
Some of the students held a party for me on Tuesday, which was lovely. They brought pretty expensive food and some green tea, and we reminisced and talked about the future. One woman is quitting because I won't be there anymore. Slightly paradoxical since it effectively means that my effort to make her learn English is now wasted, but that's life. We had niku-man - steamed bread with a meat filling - and mochi - sticky rice sweets wrapped in leaves.
My final student happened to be a very low level that I've been soldiering on with for the year. As it happened, I hadn't seen her for a little while but talking with her, I realised how incredible an improvement she had made. It was a nice ending.
Following that, I bought some flowers for my Japanese teachers as my new job means I won't be able to take lessons anymore, and went to the volunteer centre. Unfortunately, it was the first day of their academic year so everything was a bit crazy. My teacher had a few minutes free so we chatted and I think she was pretty happy with my achievement and her success from last year. My Japanese is still not great but it's conversational. It was nice seeing all the new students enrolling and knowing how much fun they'd have. On the plus side, all of their trips and events occur on weekends, which I couldn't attend before but, with my normal person's schedule, I can still see the crew every now and then.
With a bit of time to spare as I didn't stay the full two hours, and with quite a lot of presents, I went home before meeting the teachers for drinks.
About 12 people came to the Izakaya and we drunk, planned some more parties (including baseball this weekend - that's right, it's back!) and they gave me a card which they'd all signed.
Many people had to work so theye went home, but six of us went upstairs for all-night karaoke. The usual singing and drinking was accompanied by a new feature, costumes. For £2.50 each, we could hire costumes for the night. They were all pretty ridiculous; James was an Elvis glam-rocker, Terry a monkey, Keiko a mermaid, Joash had a dress which he was assured was for men, Tenille a Harajuku-style goth, and I was a leopard. It was amazing, it came with a full body suit, gloves and ears. A little tight around places, a little revealing in many, but it made for some funny moments; especially my tail knocking over drinks, and Japanese drunk business-men using it in innuendo-ish ways.
5am, we stumbled to the train station, and I left Musashi Kosugi while the sun came up, and a new part of my life begun.
