Fashion is more important in Tokyo than eating or sleeping, which is why everyone is so skinny and snoring on the trains. No matter the age or job, no one leaves home without properly dressing. For girls, this means stockings underneath jeans (often times in the summer as well) so that not even the tops of their feet have a skin flaws or discoloration. Since it is winter, the pink scarves impeccably match the pink iPods (I'm talking about the men). Sea foam green gloves clutch a Starbucks cup steaming to the brim with a green tea latte; Or gingerbread latte if one happens to be wearing brown gloves that day.
Elementary school teachers are allowed to wear casual clothes while at work, however the same decorum applies. Teachers wear full suits, ties, stockings, hair styled for an hour in the morning. They come to work either by being crammed on a train or riding their bikes, then go into the school locker room and change into gym clothes. Granted the workout gear they wear are the matching Adidas and Nike track suit sets. Math, Japanese and Chorus teachers look like PE coaches. At the end of the day, they enter the locker room and reemerge into a formally dressed citizen of the runway.
I don't have enough clothes to wear three different outfits a day, so I just come in normal clothes, teach in normal clothes, then leave in my same clothes. Normally, I feel like a slob because I don't have the hair and make-up done that indicates it took me three hours in the bathroom, which is very attractive here. I need to move somewhere beachy after this.
Showing posts with label Tokyo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tokyo. Show all posts
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Sunday
Because I have been trying to save money I have been ridden to my house reading books and watching movies perpetually. Given that, yesterday (Sunday) spontaneously sparked into the most fun I've had in a while. I planned on going to Yoyogi Park (Tokyo's version of Central Park where the famous Harajuku girls stand in costumes) for a picnic before winter freezes over entirely. As I was leaving the house, my friend Yoko called me and offered me three tickets to see a football game (soccer) that day, Tunisia versus Mexico. I've been dying to see a professional game, so I jumped on the three free tickets she offered me.
I met Glyn and Phil in Shibuya where they were watching THE boxing match of the year with Floyd Mayweather. I watched the fight with them-- I was the only American in the entire bar I realized as I was the sole person clapping for Mayweather who was fighting a guy from Manchester, England. After, we went to the fairly uneventful football game, although perfecting the timing of the wave synchronizing flow with the audience was worthy of my concentration. We drank a bottle of champagne, then headed to an izakaya. An izakaya is a restaurant that serves very small plates like tapas that are shared with beer and sake.
Yoko, Phil, Trev, Glyn and I played a brainless drinking game that requires Bruce Lee noises. Laughing hysterically, we caught the attention of our neighboring table. They asked if they could join our game; unheard of for Japanese people. They joined us and we played games and laughed; they taught us cheers to degrade your friends in Japanese. The entire restaurant was staring at us. That's the serendipitous instance that made me fall in love with travelling.
Today, I'm back at work and going home soon to be a poor hermit again. :-)
I met Glyn and Phil in Shibuya where they were watching THE boxing match of the year with Floyd Mayweather. I watched the fight with them-- I was the only American in the entire bar I realized as I was the sole person clapping for Mayweather who was fighting a guy from Manchester, England. After, we went to the fairly uneventful football game, although perfecting the timing of the wave synchronizing flow with the audience was worthy of my concentration. We drank a bottle of champagne, then headed to an izakaya. An izakaya is a restaurant that serves very small plates like tapas that are shared with beer and sake.
Yoko, Phil, Trev, Glyn and I played a brainless drinking game that requires Bruce Lee noises. Laughing hysterically, we caught the attention of our neighboring table. They asked if they could join our game; unheard of for Japanese people. They joined us and we played games and laughed; they taught us cheers to degrade your friends in Japanese. The entire restaurant was staring at us. That's the serendipitous instance that made me fall in love with travelling.
Today, I'm back at work and going home soon to be a poor hermit again. :-)
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Earthquake Mullet Helmet
This morning while I was cutting construction paper in preparation for Christmas card making, my vice principal started an earthquake drill for the kids to practice. I walked out into the hallway to see what the drill consisted of in case there is an earthquake someday and I need to take cover. What I saw in the halls was something out of a low-budget sci-fi movie from the 1970s.
Most of the kids had been outside playing, so they were still in their gym uniforms: Tiny shorts not even Brazilian girls would wear in public, knee-high socks and -----helmets made of pillows on their heads!! Yes, the kids were sporting a cloth cap fashioned like old knights' helmets that covered their heads and the back of their necks like a mullet. They had them in different colors: sky blue, pink, yellow, whatever they picked out with their moms at the "Useless Things That Will Absolutely Never Save Your Life" Store.
Just in case you have never seen a photograph of Tokyo, the city is a plethora of high-rise office and apartment buildings (ironically called mansions in Japan). In the event of a real earthquake students all over Tokyo are going to walk outside and stand in the street conflagrated by 50 story-high steel and concrete buildings, confident that their pillowed mullet helmets will cushion the impact of buildings falling on them. I'll be the basket case crouched in a door frame too scared to cry or scream.
Most of the kids had been outside playing, so they were still in their gym uniforms: Tiny shorts not even Brazilian girls would wear in public, knee-high socks and -----helmets made of pillows on their heads!! Yes, the kids were sporting a cloth cap fashioned like old knights' helmets that covered their heads and the back of their necks like a mullet. They had them in different colors: sky blue, pink, yellow, whatever they picked out with their moms at the "Useless Things That Will Absolutely Never Save Your Life" Store.
Just in case you have never seen a photograph of Tokyo, the city is a plethora of high-rise office and apartment buildings (ironically called mansions in Japan). In the event of a real earthquake students all over Tokyo are going to walk outside and stand in the street conflagrated by 50 story-high steel and concrete buildings, confident that their pillowed mullet helmets will cushion the impact of buildings falling on them. I'll be the basket case crouched in a door frame too scared to cry or scream.
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