Japan may seem familiar to Canadian visitors, but after a visit to a few of the stores there you realize that you are a long way from home.
Photograph by: Issei Kato, Reuters
Drunk teens partying in Pikachu costumes. Torrential thunderstorms. Barfing on the floor of a studio while wearing a poufy, white designer wedding dress. A strange, unrefrigerated zero-calorie yogurt drink.
7-Eleven selling racks of manga. Devices in convenience stores that make people look Caucasian. Steven Seagal movies. Green tea ice cream. Male models. A motel-style apartment reminiscent of the United Nations, complete with an American Obama-enthusiast, an Irish tourist dude, and models from France, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, France and Russia.
What do all these have in common? They're a part of the adventure the two of us have had in our seven-week stay in Tokyo.
We came to Tokyo at the beginning of March for a modelling trip. It was Kate's third time here, but for Leah, who was "chaperoning" for the last three weeks, it was the first time in Tokyo. Our mom came with us for the first four weeks to set up the cramped, one-room apartment. For two young girls living alone, Japan is definitely the best place to be.
You know the city is fairly crime-free when there are vending machines on every street corner -- containing beer and cigarettes no less -- and no one breaks into them in the middle of the night. Sure, things can get a little exciting the first week of April when the cherry trees bloom, the local parks erupting in canopies of beautiful pink flowers. All the teens come out late at night to throw huge parties under the trees, blasting J-Pop music. And yes, more than a couple are known to don a Pokemon mask.
When Kate is not working, the two of us usually walk to Harajuku, the local teen hangout consisting of a street packed with countless clothing stores. Instead of letting loose on the weekends by going to house parties or chilling at a friend's house like Canadian teens, the Japanese kids come out to Harajuku in the wildest costumes imaginable. There's the adorable girl wearing a poufy, pink tea-party dress complete with a bonnet, to the creepy guy with purple hair, emo makeup and Matrix-inspired jacket.
Any shopping excursion requires the average Tokyo teen girl to curl her hair, apply three layers of makeup, accessorize her micro-miniskirt and don the highest pair of heels she can get her hands on. Yes, even in amusement parks or riding a bicycle, in Tokyo high heels are a woman's best friend. Why do the girls back home throw on a pair of jeans and a little lip-gloss to meet their friends for lunch, while in Tokyo a simple outing is enough reason to spend three hours in front of the bathroom mirror?
Maybe it's because the idea that women are objects to be admired is stronger here than in North America. Or perhaps looking nice just means more -- even Japanese boys always have their hair styled to perfection and dress impeccably.
For a tourist in Japan, walking into a convenience store is an adventure unto itself. Everything from green tea ice cream (bleh!), to pancakes with mushed beans in between them (surprisingly tasty), to strange milky-white yogurt drinks line the shelves of a 7-Eleven. (Just remember to refrigerate that yogurt drink -- or else if you're like Kate and have a photo shoot for the cover of a wedding magazine ... well, things might get a bit messy.)
It's not just the food that's different; there's a pair of nylons that boast they can burn 430 calories for every hour you wear them (tried them, didn't work) to contacts that can make your eyes purple, red, or black. But the most disturbing products we saw were designed for the small minority of Japanese women who wanted to appear more Caucasian: A device that makes your nose more upturned, another device that widens your eyes, another that enlarges your mouth, and special powder to make your skin whiter.
Tokyo is a huge, non-stop city, and despite the workaholic-attitude of the inhabitants, it's full of kind people, ancient culture and modern pleasures.
Whether we were dashing home through a wild thunderstorm (trying to avoid everyone's umbrellas which, held by the shorter Tokyo-ites, kept getting caught in our hair) in order to catch the Steven Seagal movie (basically the only English movies played), texting each other fervently because Kate was shooting with a French male model and Leah had just been stuck in an awkward 15-minute conversation with our middle-aged American neighbour Rick, or editing our novel under the billowing Sakura trees while drinking our (refrigerated this time) yogurt drinks, Tokyo was one big adventure.
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