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Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Ventured into Shibuya today to buy Christmas cards and a stocking filler for Butterbird. Shibuya is the most manic, crowded part of the city - come out of the station and you find yourself at Hachiko Square, which is like Piccadilly Circus magnified and dipped in neon, with the volume cranked up to eleven. J-teens pour across the crossing towards the world's busiest Starbucks and the 109 Tower, a fashion Tower of Babel that sells all the clothes a Tokyo girl could want. (Latest fashions include enormous socks worn with loafers, woolly hats and T-shirts adorned with freaky English - often a random word, like 'Genital'. I always mean to write down the things I see on T-shirts here but always forget, pathetically.) One of Japan's top boybands, the unfortunately named W-inds, released their new CD today, The System of Alive. They're a bit like Blue, on helium. Their admittedly-catchy single was blasting out of enormous speakers outside HMV, and girls were queuing to get posters and to take photographs. No, not pictures of the band - they weren't there. They were queuing to take pictures of the cardboard displays announcing their heroes' latest release. I battled my way past them, got my cards and the soundtrack to the Eminem film, 8 Mile, then headed home. I've just been good and written a bit more of my novel, but it's coming along very slowly. I need to do some research into evolution and DNA and other scientific stuff. I hate doing research. I'm getting a cold, just in time for Christmas. Soon, I'll be able to join the hawkers at the station. Hurrah. |