THINKTANK

Yesterday we had our first real Tama Orientation. We got to check out the campus, meet the faculty, and most importantly of all, hang out with the students!

Foto Gallery Chapter II

The day kicked off with with a quick bus through “downtown” (if you want to call it that) Hachioji, and then a transfer to to another bus that took us on to the Tama campus. This place is freakin’ huge! I mean this place was massively big as each department pretty much had its own building, each building felt like at least two Art Centers stacked up on each other. Each department also had its own gallery, clean restrooms on every floor, and really polite students and faculty that were able to guide us, show us around, and maybe give us a demo or two. RAD.

Wada-Sensei said that the schools population was about 70% girls and a good many of them were super cute. I cant wait to really start school and scope out some of the “talent” ;p. on the other side of things the work that was show cased was really humbling, as they just have a different mentality and approach when it comes to art and design. is there anyway I could get a transfer?

The night ended with a super cool dinner and drinks with Ikezaki-sensei and Wada-sensei as well as the rest of the tama gang. Hopefully last night was a reflection of things to come as there were good vibes and good mingling all around. :D

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Much of the Monday was spent inside as some of us slept in and the rain poured down. We had a chance to snag our free hotel breakfast which seemed like a typical travel breakfast with a japanese twist (miso soup)… after breakfast, some of us crashed or a few hours, while shin and ran you to run some errands…

Our day didn’t really start until night where we met up Kaoruko again, as well as two new faces, Shinsuke and Sakuro… we hit up this pretty nice Okinawan food joint to have some sampled pork, this weird/cool seaweed salad thing and a few drinks.

After hitting up a Lawsons down the street to get tanked, we head off to Womb, a pretty rad night club located in Shibuya’s love hotel district (yea… love hotels)… the club turned out to pretty cool and almost surreal… supposedly named the 2nd best light show in tokyo complete with giant disco ball, laser, fog and stobes… it was a polite club environment that spanned between 3 floors, the top one with a bar overlooking the main dance floor. The entire vibe was insanely different compared to anything i’ve ever seen in LA… blasting J-pop with hyper lyrics, mixed in with house versions of oldschool US pop songs… i believe i even heard a remixed version of little mermaid; surreal. beer cost just as much as they do in hollywood and also supply an ample amount of redbull vodka… Clubs in japan stay open until around 5am since the train system shuts down around around 12 o’ clock and people are stuck. ont he other hand, Mc Donalds stays open 24 hours as well as some rawmen houses to accomadate the clubbers that wander the streets at odd hours of the night… this was our chance to try the interesting Mc Pork that we had seen on a train as a couple days before.

My Verdict: for 100yen, at 5 in the morning… it’s a complete steal, quality Mc Donalds at its best. Although quite greasy, the pork patty itself is actually a lot less greasy than any fast food place in the US, and the bread is totally different and very soft. The patty was complemented by lettuce and some weird Japanese sause; DEEREASHIOUS!

The train ride as well as the walk home was killer. I haven’t been that tire since high school preseason. sweaty, humid, and 76 degrees = gross, smelly and bad times. As soon as we got back, we showered up and passed the heck out…

Today, we woke up to the sound of thunder and the flash of lighting. though we slept in until 1 this afternoon, a lot of us were still completely burned from the night before. ugh. We picked up some grub from lawsons across the street as the rain was coming down at 45 degrees and just causing all sorts of havoc below. For lunch I made some instant noodles… damn they were gooooood… from there we jumped on the trains to Akihabra the electric city, to scope out some electronics shops, figurine stores, maids handing out flyers, otaku, and 5 storey porn stores… there’s no shame in porn here in japan. I’ve never seen so much “Material” in my life. Insane. Nelson was so disturbed he had to constantly light up… I left all the picture taking on that front to Alex.

Raining on and off, we met up with Jyuri for some dinner … we were going to check out a maid restaurant (where all the waitresses dress up as french maids?!), but it turned out to be too expensive so we hit up a very fancy restaurant japanese (what else is there?) that speciallized in some pretty traditional.healthy foods. man that meat is expensive, but it was well worth it. i think it was the most delicious meal i have had since i’ve been here (next to the rawmen of course)… Phew that was a long post. time to sleep.

Tomorrow I hope to fill up on free breakfast and hit up a gallery or two, and maybe a Muji store! 2 more days until Tama orientation. Super excited!

No pictures in my post tonight, but i’ve uploaded some pictures from the past two days.

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The first real day in japan. after staying up all night i thought we would be totally jet lagged and wouldn’t wake up before noon, but it seems that our midnight binge drinking had helped most of us get a few solid hours of sleep in before we woke up at 11am :)… we had already missed the free breakfast the hotel provided but the convenience store took care of that problem; seems that coke, pastries, aloe vera pudding, and beef jerky make for a fine breakfast experience. (oh, and coke is totally different here as well… like the mexican coke back at home, the aftertaste is crisp and non-syrupy)

After eating back at the rooms, we headed out from our hotel in Omori to Omotesando, Aoyama, and Harajuku via two train transfers. it’s pretty amazing seeing the difference between our homebase city, being much like a quiet pasadena of sorts, and the wild and extremely packed streets of harajuku (see new pictures from dsc_0077 to dsc_537)… i thought last night was pretty mind blowing, the harajuku district is everything you hear and then some… fashion freaks, style, and high end retail mixed with thrift store like clothes shops; pretty dynamic.

I’ll have to admit that upon getting off the plane yesterday i was pretty dissapointed with “quality” of women that walked the streets… but man, after today, i am completely mistaken. the women here are absolutely gorgeous (see bootycam pics mixed in; this is for you danny/bob/fay/kev) haha. these people are all style from head to toe and extremely influenced by western culture… but they take it to the extreme… i absolutely felt under dressed the whole day… how do these people walk around in heels, multiple layers, and hats all day long in 90 degree weather with 72% humidity; it’s crazy!

On the architecture/environment side of things, this is the place to be. the walkways, stairs, elevators, and designer retail are very accommodating (almost as much as the people)… saw the famous Tod’s retail store(designed by one of our instructors at tama) as well as the Aoyama Prada store… amazing amazing design, the story that they tell is very throughout and emotionally moving… the amount of detail is overwhelming.

Speaking of overwhelming, Shin Sen Gumi hakata rawmen back in san gabriel has nothing on this place… i’ve been waiting months to experience japanese rawmen and it’s well worth the wait. Tonight we tried some “mid-range” chain store rawmen… it was like an onion; so beautiful it makes you want to cry… i cant wait to try some hardcore rawmen stand stuff.

Alright, it’s been a long day. time to past out and start all over again.

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**I was finally able to fix my blogger and get it back to english (thanks to google’s translation site) so I can finally post in confidence.