Monday, November 19, 2007

choto matane.

The honeymoon period between Tokyo and myself is o-v-e-r. Where, oh where do I begin?

Internet
Lets talk about a month of inconsistent internet? Okay so, once in a while I'll pick up a wonky connection in my apartment. In the corner. On top of my little fridge, which has become a little desk; with an ashtray and a coffee cup and water. And wrappers.
But more often than not, I'm outside on the ground in my hallway. But as of lately I'm outside in my hallway and f'ing shivering because its all of 50degrees now.

Right now I'm indoors, and it took 15 minutes for blogger to load. So yeah.

Walking down the street
DEAR TOKYO, PLEASE pick a side of the street to walk on. AND STICK WITH IT. At first I thought they were just fucking with me because I was a foreigner. Now Im just convinced that there isn't a social norm as to what side of the street to walk on. So Im weaving in and out of people walking right towards me. No one moves until we're about to bash heads. ITS SO ANNOYING. The stairs on the subways have arrows designating what side to stay on. Fuck that. The tokyans walk wherever they please.


MY BATHROOM FLOODING
Yes. My bathroom has started to flood. My shower doesn't have anything over the drain, so for a month all of my hair has been going into.. wherever. But now the drain on the floor is letting water in. The first time this happened I almost starting crying. 1. all of my stuff was wet. 2. i live over a cemetery and I thought some creepy little creature was coming to kill me. hahaaaaa One of my bookers came over to install a real phone (YAY) and supposedly put some drain-o esque stuff in the drain. Its not flooding now. But it looks like it may any minute now.

Heat
Everything that came with my apartment doesn't require directions. So whatever about all the japanese writing all over it. Except for this heater looking thing. I can't tell if its only air conditioning or what. Im not about to press anything for fear of my apartment getting more cold than it already is.
So, Im going to turn my stove on. Its not a gas stove, so I'm not going to die. But I might burn the place down. *knock on wood.

Shibuya
Once I loved you. A lot. I felt like I was in Lost In Translation. And the amount of people that cross the street at once has been rumored to be 10,000?! GREAT. I used to think the fact that the billboards all had sound was pretty bad ass. Now Im beginning to consider Shibuya the Time's Square of Tokyo. aka Avoid it like the plague. Its noisy. Its a lot of people. None of which seem to know where they're going. People stopping in the middle of nowhere to take a photo. Or just stopping in the middle of nowhere because thats just what people do around here.

Coffee
1. I love you because you're everywhere. Unlike New York where we can choose between Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts (#1) or a Deli. Or a real restaurant. But in Tokyo we have Starbucks, Tully's, Excelsior or however youd like to spell it, Dutour, etc etc etc. Lovely. BUT YOU'RE SO EXPENSIVE! =( At mcdonalds you're 100y = $1. But you only give me one little thing of cream. And when I ask you for more, you think Im trying to buy a carton of milk. =/

Garbage
YOU DONT TRASHCANS ON THE STREET. So you have to wait until you pass one out in front of a 7-11 or wait until you get home. You dont realize what its like to have to carry around everything. Empty water bottles. Cigarette butts. Wrappers. Gross gross gross. Tokyo takes everything beyond recycling too. Sort garbage between burnable and non burnable. Take the top off the coffee cup, they go in seperate bags, y'all. I've given up. Everything goes in one damn bag. SORRY. =/ And FYI now I can't take out my garbage after dark. WHY? Wellllllll. I went downstairs into the garbage room on the side of the building to throw out about 5 bags of garbage (not regular sized bags, like shopping bags). It was all sorted, I was putting them into their correct bins when the HUGEST COCKROACH BUG THING RUNS OUT. I drop everything and run. run run run and scream and totally wig out. so f'ing gross. soo gross. ughrhrhrhrhrrh


Okay as for things I still love;
I still love the shopping. But I've only bought Vintage and Uniqlo. Vintage shopping here is fabtastic. And the uniqlo is probably the same in new york, but I just never go in.

I still love...my manager. Though I wish she would understand my sarcasm, because sometimes she thinks Im being a pain in the ass and gets a little huffy with me. But then we kiss and make up and everything is fine.

I still love...mc donalds.

I love drinking champagne in the van out of a water bottle with the girls and then having a Guitar Catalog casting and all of us having too much fun.

I love a nameless model with my agency that passed gas during a casting. Turned beet red and was told by our passive aggressive manager 'its okay. go to the van now.'

I dont love the lack of work. I hate the lack of work, actually. If it weren't thanksgiving this coming week, I would've left tokyo already.

Im probably leaving early December. I dont really want to leave. But what can you do? Here to make money. Money isn't being made. Need to go back to the mothership.

Pictures when I can brave sitting outside in the wind.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

wholahay

Today I went shopping in Harajuku and spent too much money on crap. Again.
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
hi dressing room at chicago. Chicago is a vintage shop right outside of the metro.

They had cheerleading skirts for sale, amongst other normal pleated skirts.... I was dyinggg! I happened to be a cheerleader in highschool (captain of varsity squad when I was a sophmore what?! haha) Most people dont believe me. I don't see why they wouldn't. I think I'm totally cheerlead-y. Totally cheerlead-y in my own way, because the cheerleaders in my school weren't cool. We were girls like me. haha
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

I never really walk anywhere with intention. But today I really wanted to find the uniqlo to buy a cardigan. Wow! Way to be impossible! There was a uniqlo f'ing T SHIRT store. Where they sold tshirts. No one could tell me where the big store was. No one here speaks english here. It baffles me. Am I really that culturally self centered that I expect at least someone in a store to speak english? Japanese is impossible right now. I can pick out like 4 words; "cute" "okay" "really?!" 'no". Oh and "sorry". Not really all that useful.

So while looking for unqilo or a store that sold a cardigan for $30 that wasn't cheap looking or covered in weird english phrases that don't really mean anything, I passed a store called Hysteric Glamour. I've heard of it before. I don't know in what context but I went in. The women's store was downstairs. So I decided to fall down them. hahahaha It was all kinds of amazing. I wish I had someone there to document it. I felt like such a fucking tard. ANYWAY! They were having this thing with this artist called Niagara (?). It was very Taylor friendly. They had a little gallery upstairs where I managed to get myself there and back without humiliating myself. And I took a sneaky photo that actually came out in focus!!!
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Then I went into APC underground.
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
I dont know why its called APC underground besides the simple fact that its technically underground, but I think it had the same shit. I dont like APC in New York all that much, I don't know why in tokyo I would feel any different. hmph. BUT I DID SEE CHRISTOPHER AKA LAGERFELD STYLIST AKA JORDAN'S BOYTOY on the WALL. I asked politely to take a photo and they obliged. Because they spoke english. Someone needs to explain why Christopher is on the wall and I didn't know about this until right now. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he's French. Lanky. And hot.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us


And on my way to what Tokyo's twin to a dollar store, I turned down a random street because I saw this sign;
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
haha Amazing.

Then I saw this sign;
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
...and I got even more excited. I went in. It was tiny. But they had really old, really amazing Vivienne Westwood pieces. Most of the peices weren't for sale. Some were even in plastic bags with a polaroid of what the garment was on the outside when they really didn't want you pawing at it. I didn't take any pictures because I dont think I was allowed to. But that was a fun little pit stop. ^_^

There are lingerie shops everywhere. The underwear here is totally out of control. The bras are so overwhelmingly padded that they're more of a novelty than actually underthings. I almost bought this for sarah. But I had to stop myself. But I also might be going back to get it, because its the craziest thing I've seen yet.
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

HELLLLOOO! How do you wear that under anything... maybe you're not supposed to. Its a shag rug for your girlie parts. Its amazing. I should buy it. The more I look at it, the more Im obsessed with it...... hmmm.....

Now it gets kind of boring. I bought a diet coke! But it looked like this;
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
hehe. The bottle was aluminum or metal of whatever sort so it was all cold and delish. Its just so cute.

Came back to my apartment and found a note from a fellow model-y with a message on her compcard on my door to stop by. She lives downstairs...
I just thought it was cute that it was stuck to my door by a band aid;
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

So here are my goodies;
I've bought two plaid shirts since I've been here, and clear lensed way fayer shaped sunglasses. It took me to leave new york to become a new york cliche. I love it.

So. blue paid shirt 945y. Like 10$ Teal lacoste scratchy cardigan 2999yen Like $30. I realized everything I buy is grey. So today I bought blue.
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

I ended up looking either really bad ass or severely tragic. I'll take the former, thanks.

I had a day this week where I waited around my apartment for 5 hours waiting for my agency to figure out their shit. So I painted my nails.
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

smoke a lot of cigarettes
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

And danced around in circles;
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

all in front of the computer, obviously.

Now its 12.30a on sunday. I ran into a dude with my agency that invited me out, but I didn't go, obviously....

xx
tay

Thursday, November 1, 2007

how do i fix the picture in half problem? mind you my blogger.com is in japanese now.

(0_o)