avril does japan

it's getting late, but i'd like to get these pictures up.

anyway, hung out with my friend justin for the past week or so in tokyo. his dad works for reuters news service, so his family just moved here and he'd come to visit. took two days off of work plus a long weekend to get out and around the city. in ultra-quick fashion, here's my past five days:

in justin's folk's house, located five minutes' walk from Shibuya station, which was awesome for our evenings out (trains here stop at 1 am. which means if you go out, you... ahem... "go all night." so we were lucky that we weren't so restricted).


as insanely fashionable as it is crowded, harajuku is a must-go location in tokyo. it's the center of late teen/college age fashion. some of the popular "looks" are beyond the bizzare.


Shibuya crossing, busiest intersection in the world. 4 million people use these crosswalks daily.


ran into this translation on a tourist map outside the imperial palace. it takes a lot for me to laugh at Nihonglish these days since i see so much, but this is primo stuff:



Both being Red Sox fans, we checked out a Tokyo Giants game for a measly $10 standing room seats. it was wild.






standing room was, um, crowded


these are the professional cheer leaders hired by the stadium (the ones in red jackets and white gloves). they organize the crowds to cheer for their appropriate team. home team cheers from right field, away from left. you're only allowed to cheer during your team's at bat. there are untold numbers of possible song/gesture/sound combinations, and how these people still have lungs after nine innings of such energy I have no idea.



kids like baseball too.



BEER GIRLS. this is one of our favorite parts of Japanese baseball. these are near-perfect specimens of the young women of Japan. they carry half kegs of beer on their backs for nine innings, filling your cup whenever you would like.


gorgeous? strong? carrying beer? ...possible wife?

shibuya crossing at night. not for the epileptic, but a haven for the young and tragically sober. justin, like most foreigners, was disappointed by the quality of japanese beer. we stopped at one of the major chains' bars in the area during our evening. justin gave the Kirin Lager a "better-than-coors" rating. we then tried the Kirin Black, which is a darker beer which tastes remarkly like the Kirin Lager. Also on the menu was a Half & Half, which I had never heard of before, so we ordered a round.

the bartender filled the glass partway with Kirin Lager, the rest with Black, and handed us our two beers. that is just. plain. lazy. brewing