Finally the Rockabillies

Jealous? You should be. I feel like I've been baptised or something; but to be frank, these guys are nice to everybody. They don't mind people taking pictures at all, but the one thing they do frown upon are video cameras. There were actually three groups there: the guys in black and denim, the guys only with black (also featuring a girl), and the swing dancers (lame). The history of these groups is confusing as a bunch of them were weeded out by authorities in the 80's. It's impossible to say who the originals are, but I didn't feel any real hostilities between them. No friendliness either, though.

Today was another muggy day, but these guys go on for hours by taking turns. I think I can understand the draw of this lifestyle. We did find cosplayers too and I cannot understand the draw of their lifestyle. Was totally not impressed by them. For the most part, I think that they're just high-schoolers who leave home with suitcases in the morning, change somewhere, and then hit up Yoyogi Park for some attention. They just sit around and chat.

Ok, so doing this completely out of order; we met up with Kevin and Carlos around 1 pm and found D and Miwa soon after. The plan was to hit up a Vietnamese festival and then have some lunch and beer in the park. The Vietnamese food was alright, but we're pretty used to that stuff in Chicago. I had never tried Vietnamese beer, but along with a Singaporean beer, it was all very unspectacular.

We hung out in Yoyogi Park for a while though and had a good time. There's so much random activity going on there. First thing was this guy practicing his Australian giant bong-shaped instrument. We figured out what it was called later when Carlos blurted out, "Didjeridoo!" Of course!

There was a guy practicing his whip cracking, a saxophone somewhere in the background, and plenty of bongos. On our way back we saw a couple wannabe comedians; one was doing a sketch in English that made no sense and the other was apparently playing Charades by himself. D described it best when she said people just come to the park to do whatever they want.

We left the park thoroughly amused. We wandered around Harajuku for just a bit and stopped for some takoyaki, too. While in line, Kevin was asked which way Omotesando was in Japanese and the look on his face was priceless. Why him? Least Japanese looking Asian ever. If Kevin read our blog, he would've known not to just wolf down the fresh octo-balls, but I think we all enjoyed his reaction to the liquid hot magma that oozes out of fresh takoyaki.

We decided to reenter Yoyogi Park to check out Meiji Jingu before heading to the Square Enix store. We trekked through the woods all peaceful-like and cleansed our hands before entering the premises. It just happened that there was a wedding procession going on at the time, so everything got super quiet.

It was universally understood that you shouldn't be loud as they pass, but everyone secretly just wanted to yell, "Congratulations!" at them. Something about being married does this to you. Before I could care less whenever I see a bachelor or bachelorette party, but now I always feel an obligation to wish them well. These guys will be fine cuz they're rich. It can't be cheap to do your procession at a famous shrine. Just sayin.

It had been around 1pm when we met up and it was 5:30 when we left Harajuku for the Square Enix store. Kevin was super excited about the whole thing and although the store was smaller than expected, I have to admit, some of it was pretty damn cool.

We successfully found where Sephiroth was entombed and I think everybody who enters that store wants to know how to buy him. We somehow left without buying anything, but I felt like I should buy something for Taeil. If you want, Taeil, you can smell like either Sephiroth or Cloud with special FFVII cologne. Would it be cool or way too nerdy if someone smelled you in passing and asked you what you were wearing, and you were forced to reply, "Cloud."

We ended the day with some kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi in Meguro. At this point in time everybody was pretty tired, but a few of us were ready to throw it down in karaoke. Still that was some of the most exhausting eight hours we'd all experienced, so karaoke has been postponed til tomorrow.

These kids have been ripping through Tokyo at a torrid pace. Let's slow it down a bit tomorrow.