Today was the Culture Day in Japan, and to be consistent with the calendar, I went to hear Miss Patricia Petibon, a French soprano, at the Concert Hall near Shinjuku. The place is amazing and visiting it is a show by itself.

And as if Culture was not enough, Nature also entertained us with a sweet sun shining in a perfectly pure and blue sky. It was a beautiful day.

Base-ball : an alien sport for the Europeans. We don't play base-ball. We are bad at base-ball. We get bored watching base-ball.
But everything changes when it's your beloved university playing against its worst enemy - Waseda VS Keio !

For two weeks, the campus has been full of cheerleaders and base-ball-friendly association promoting the game, and it worked : without knowing nothing of the rules nor the special Waseda cheerleading songs, I went to watch the game. For a more serious and alsmost-pro preparation, see the feedback of Mogusa on the subject !

Let's kill the suspense : Keio killed us. But we had the most perfect sky - Konpeki na sora... - and the cheerleading experience is amazing.
A few funny (and unbelievable) customs about the Japanese supporters :
- After encouraging their own team, they always have a word for the opposite team ("Wasedaaaaa, Wasedaaaaa... and also go go go, Keio !")
- ... and the opposite team kindly applause (*_*)
- They can also sing the opposite team's song when they know it. And nobody hits them for that.
- When a ball falls in the public, nobody runs for catching it. People just wait for it to fall and then someone nicely go to pick it up.
- The cheerleaders come personnally to teach you the songs or the gestures if you don't know it. You have to shout and move a lot, but respecting the rules.

Waseda-Keio Baseball - Waseda Cheerleading - October 2009

 

You got it, it's extremely polite and civilized, and at the same time noisy and enthusiastic.
But if I have been convinced by the cheerleading, I am not a fan of base-ball, which is too static and slow compared to soccer or basket-ball or volley-ball. I still prefer our old-continent's favorite sports...

フランスにはハロウィーンはあまり人気がないので、全然パーティをしません。でも今年日本にいるので私たちも楽しみました。最初にクリストン喫茶店で食事をして、それからクラーブで踊りに行きました。みな面白いコスプレーを着ていました。楽しかった！

As I broke my camera just wo days before, the following images are the result of the expert eyes of Francesco and Jean-François... Merci, messieurs.

It's in Tokyo, it's an ice-bar when you can drink colorful vodka-coktails in heavy ice-glasses. As you have to wear the coat and gloves distributed at the entrance, you quickly look like a mix of drunk Santa and fashion spaceman - not so far from the truth, after all...
As we were quite numerous, we could get price reduction and open-bar, which makes the experience really more interesting than in the normal conditions : 3500yen, for one single drink. With nomehoudai, life is more beautiful... And when you get out, your blood suddenly warmed up and realize that you definitely drank too much...

More pictures in the ETP album !

４5００円以下の新しいルーク

The coat : The gallery you can reach from Nakano (Tozai line, 2 stops from Waseda) is full of shops more or less belonging to the same chain, and proposing last-year clothes for very little prices, mostly from 1000 yen to 2000 yen. I found this light coat, confortable and pratical with two larges pockets and hidden button to keep it nicely closed, among many others offering different designs but same price. For daily, seasonal clothes, it is a good adress. Except if you are afraid of messy second-salers shops.

The scarf : Amazingly long and worm, for only 500 yen, at the Chinese shop which is in the bottom of the little street on the right side, at the beginning of Takeshita-dori, Harajuku - just next to the purikura-hall. Many colors exixting, but black is eternal...

The tights : You can find robust, deep-black and long-enough tights in any 100 yen shop for 110 yen, which means around 80 eurocents - in France, I pay it almost 5 euros and it's never sure that they will pass the day. A huge source of useless stress, gone.

The shoes : It is not so common is Japan to find long enough, wide enough shoes, but I have been lucky with these ones. And their design fits perfectly the coat... For 2100 yen, I have new confortable shoes which can also transform into higher, just grey snickers.

TOTAL : 3710 yen...

I am afraid that I am purikura-addict. The following samples are just a small part of my collection.

The word "purikura" comes from "print-colors" and it is used to talk about the little photos you can take with your friends in Japan. It costs 400 yen (around 2,90 euros), you can choose the size and the number and share it with friends using the sissors available in any good purikura-hall. Usually the photo-cabins are gathered in a narrow, over-lighted and over-filled with loud J-pop music place forbidden to boys if they come without girls - it's unfare, but that's the rule.
In the cabin, you can stand with 4 persons. A girly voice encourages you to make funny faces in front of the camera and you have to hurry up adjusting your image in the frame because each shooting takes 5 seconds only. The more numerous you are, the more expert in time-management you need to be. For each pic, you can choose a background (once again, in the limit of 15 seconds for 4 or 5 shoots) and after the shooting you go behind the cabin to ad messages, symbols, drawing or whatever you want on your pics. It's printed very quicky and you can enter your mobile adress to receive it on your phone for free.

It is so funny to do that you can't imagine until you experience it. And the magic of purikura is : your skin always looks gorgeous, your eyes are amazing - the picture of dream that automatically makes you beautiful. I can't believe that it doesn't exist in France...