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.
Monday, November 19, 2007
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18 comments:
Good to see a new post
:)
lolll at the cockroach thing. at least it didn't fly! :O
This could seriously have been about my year in Shanghai. I mean, every single word - except for the whole recycling thing, in China they just throw garbage wherever they please. Bu the rest... oh my. Our booker, Shadow (all the Chinese people who know English and want to be like "Westerns" take on American stripper names), had a wonderful way of not getting any jokes or sarcasm, ever. My favorite time was when my (guy) friend had a red t-shirt on that said "I enjoy Cock" (looked just like the "I enjoy Coke"-one), and he asked Shadow if she liked his shirt, and she was like "yes, it's so nice, it is like you enjoy being happy!" Oh anyway, I could write for hoyrs about our toilet that didn't work so we could only pee in it, if we did more than that (or flushed paper) it would all start coming up again... OMG, I feel sick just thinking about it. So I'd better stop now. Trust me - in a few years you'll be SO glad that you went, it has its ups and downs but when you get some distance to the whole thing, it's an experience of a lifetime (huge cliché, but at the same time, true). Love reading your blog, you're an amazing girl!
LOVE, Annika
inconsistent internet probably sucks the most... no no. jobs sitro, internet, coldness, drain, bashing heads ETC .../SORRY
id alternate from cigarettes to coffee every 30 mins. and when you go into mcdonalds point at your cream and hold up 2 or 3 fingers. YAYY problemooo solved~!!
are you still going to blog when you get back to the motherland? DO IT! taylorinnyc! :D
The trash can thing drove me nuts too & everything is till so clean! The chaotic sidewalks drove me batty as well.
I think you would do better in Europe at this point...you were just starting to take off with editorial work. NYMM should send you to Paris or London...
I'm sorry to hear about all of the little mishaps, but glad to know you're still alive! I think any time you move to some place new, the little things are likely to be more overwhelming, since it's 10x harder to take care of yourself. Sorry to hear you aren't getting much work! I would think they'd LOVE your look over there?!
Take care! Hope everything works out.
aw
i went to madrid for a season and i can relate to everything you're saying.
its frustrating and you'll look back on it thinking you hated it, but it's a nice chance to grow and learn things.
i'm very glad to be back in ny though
wah wah wah
the garbage thing sounds annoying as hell! and the cockroach of course..hang in there, hope you book some jobs soon
i love your blog so much! i found it through your lj! please keep updating!! i'm going to link you!!
Ah, I always wanted to model in Japan and now you're making me think twice about it! lol!
But either way, I don't guess I would. I'm only 5'3" and I don't think I'm exactly what they're looking for.
Have fun and let me know when you find undies in a vending machine! I've heard there are even "used" ones in there. I'm curious o.O; I can't help it.
Sorry to hear things aren't going so well.
Heat: take a picture and I'll try to help translate it. (Hey, it could be worse, at least it's not the toilet that's covered in undecipherable buttons.)
Coffee: Try Mr. Donuts, they give free refills.
Good luck with the work! Gambate, ne!
yeah, i heard the internet connection there sucks.. makes no sense though since we rely on them for like all of our electronic needs.
are you still with bart?
Love love love your blog.
Hope it got better for you...
Merry Christmas, as they say.
:D
Jasmine, I cannot agree with you. I'm from Madrid. We have coffee everywhere (we have places named Cafeteria and Bar) but not Starbucks 'cos we don't like american coffee. We'd rather prefere italian, capuccino, expresso, cafe au lait... We have cantrashes each five steps, and we walk on the left side, right is for cars.
Taylor, be quite, sure it's just a bad day and you'll be nice tomorrow.
Jané.
update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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