A stroll in the park

Today was a weird day.

Back in Sweden I probably would've called it something in the lines of... unbelieavable insanity. Here in Japan though, it's just slightly over average weirdness.

Me, Alexandra and Alex decided to go to Harajuku to shoot some cosplay action. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a thing where people (usually girls, but the creepy questionable japanese men are there also, of course) dress up as their favourite manga/anime/rockband and basically just go nuts.

The day started with our walk to the station, which was more interesting than usual because we met Kenji! Kenji is the name I gave our local turtle, swimming leisurly in a river next to our residence (You can see Kenji in a video at the end of this entry). We then took a detour through Yayogi park and were met with street bands, dancing girls, kanji calligraphers and all you can think of. Luckily I got my camera, so I uploaded both videos (poor quality due to website!!!!) and photos.

Just as a quick note: One of the strangest cultural collisions happaned this evening. We were down eating some late evening ramen, and I was fed swedish "princesstårta" by a japanese girl using chopsticks. Also, there's a rumour going around the dorm that japanese people are intolerant to liquourice?

For those who are curious, I bought a Full-HD 1920x1080 video camera with 10 megapixel snapshots yesterday in Akihabara. I don't use any of the HD-functions because it would take ages to upload HD-videos. I'm planning on shooting a pretty long "guide-through-Tokyo" video in HD, so if I were to send someone an initial copy, you could distribute it locally, saving me loooots of time. (aimed towards my peeps in Svea)

Let me know!

Here are some photos and videos of today's walk. (Click to enlarge!)

PICTURES
(Scroll down for videos)

Don't ask...

Well, technically they were allies back then, so...

Another example of japanese linguistic skills

Architectual design in Tokyo, this is an Audi building in Harajuku

Some random japanese guy decided to walk by and ruin my picture

Harajuku girl shooting harajuku girls

Someone really screwed the pooch on this one

The mushroom cut is very much alive here

Harajuku women sitting on the bridge

One of many girl singers

VIDEO

Turtle in the river

Active family vs. the Nintendo family

Harajuku girls

The King ain't dead

I... lack words for this one

Bonus video for Aleh in Sweden