True Homeless Style
After the excitement this morning I really didn’t feel too comfortable with my original plan to pass out anywhere public. I called Kanako, and she offered me a place to crash for a few hours. I boarded a train bound for her section of town, but never made it. At some point I fell asleep on the train and woke up an hour outside of Tokyo. I stumbled around the station for a few minutes before finding another train heading back… where I passed out again.
I woke up at Shinjuku station around noon and determined that I had a passable amount of sleep doing the homeless thing on a subway. I called Kana to apologize for never showing up and then decided to head over to Yoyogi to relax for the afternoon. Mihye came to meet me and we spent a few hours people-watching before going for a cup of coffee. She eventually had to leave for work, and I fell asleep in the café for another hour before getting myself back outside. I found a manga café where I popped in for a ¥200 shower before heading back to Yoyogi to take photos.
Sunday is the day to be in Harajuku. A bunch of kids are out in cosplay and take great pleasure in posing for an endless flow of photographers. I spent over an hour meeting a few of the kids and taking pictures of their crazy outfits. Whenever that got boring I was able to find entertainment from the Tokyo Circus, a group of crazy kids dancing around doing their best to make people smile.
The last few times I’ve been to Yoyogi it’s been hard to ignore the total cacophony of two or more bands playing at the same time. Since it was my last weekend in Tokyo, I made a goal to find where they play and see how they could possibly hear their own sound amongst the others. I ventured further into the park. I passed the rockabilly guys and took a few more photos of them and their ridiculous hair before finding a wooded path near the street. Here I found the source of the music and was shocked to find that the bands set up no more than 25m from each other!
I kept wondering how they could even hear their own sound amongst the cacophony that made its way into the park, but it made more sense now. The path winds a bit, and there is enough foliage between the groups to help isolate them. The other key factor is that they alternate which direction they play towards. As you walk by each group you only hear the music being played by them, but further away the sounds mesh together into the noise of Yoyogi.
I found a band called Scarf and sat for a while enjoying their set before running into Ahmed Elmardi, an amazing Sudanese artist who I met at the Children’s Festival in Narusawa a month ago. We talked for a short while before I left for Shibuya to find out where I was sleeping for the night. I phoned Kanako and found out that the other Adam from the farm just got back from a week in Kyoto and Nagano. She invited me over to have an unofficial Earth Embassy volunteer reunion.
On the way, I ran into Ahmed again. He bought me food from McDonalds and gave me some great advice on traveling and succeeding as an artist in foreign countries before parting ways again. After arriving at Kanako’s we watched a twisted movie called Hard Candy before I passed out for a well-needed 12 hours of sleep.
Ahhh… homeless in Tokyo! Life can be an adventure if you want it that way!
Tags: - Music, - Photography, Asia, Harajuku, Japan, Japan: Toyko, Tokyo, Yoyogi
Adam Shane
hard candy was awesome.