After watching the Saturday morning's session of conference (time changes make everything wacky), we decided to get out of the minuscule hotel room. We decided on Yoyogi park because I had heard that young people liked to hang out there and flaunt eccentric clothing styles. We had also gotten a tip from our Nice British Man (henceforth to be called "NBM"... if I ever talk about him again) that the cherry blossoms had just come out, so most of Tokyo was going to be out celebrating at one park or another.
What we didn't count on was this:
The flood of people leaving Harajuku station.
Or this (sorry for the video quality. Might want to take some Bonine before watching this one):
And definitely not this:
Love and AIDs? What does it mean Japanese taggers? What does it mean???
But I digress. The entire park was filled with people. Most were either seated on picnic tarps eating picnics and drinking sake under the cherry trees or playing frisbee/jump-rope/badminton in what little open space was available. There were some notable exceptions:
Line dancing? Kind of... The twist? Kind of that too maybe... Japanese people dressed like greasers? Awesome.
There was also this dancing group. Yes, most are cosplaying (which in non-nerdspeak translates to: dressing up like anime/video game/tv characters). And yes, the maid in the front row is a dude. Japan, I love you.
Jack Sparrow also made an appearance:
There was also the Lolita party:
We also saw a couple holding up their chihuahua to a low-hanging branch of a cherry tree to take a picture. Sadly, we did not get a picture of them taking their picture, but the idea was noted. Watch out Selphie.
And these three... well, these three are truly the winners of the day.
These three girls approached a picnicking group, plopped down their cd player, turned on Madonna's "Ray of Light" and started dancing. I love the masks. I love the dance. I love the fact that they never remove the masks and ran away immediately afterwards, indicating to me that they didn't even know the picnicking group that they had approached. Random acts of dancing. I think the world needs a little more of it.
And now, for your viewing pleasure: pretty things.
OMIGOSH. SO completely awesome. Any idea what Jack Sparrow was saying? Also, I LOVED the greasers and their line dance (which looks pretty fun!). I also love that that one greaser seems to have clearly been trying to capture some spotlight... nice how he casually walks in front of the American making the video, casually turns around... excellent. Dude, you ARE hot. You win.
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