Do you like cos-play girls?

errrrrr, I mumbled, not wanting to insult the cos-play girl asking me. Luckily before I had to come up with an answer she had thrust a flyer into my hand with a breezy 'here you are' for what I am sure was one of Akihabara's finest tea houses. Didn't go though......couldn't understand the kanji, fnar. I was surprised to read that a lot of the cos-play girls who work in these places do it as part of their hobby. They get paid, the customers love it. Isn't that beautiful?

Tokyo makes everywhere look small. Every time I go there it's size just bowls me over. I've been in Japan 3 years, can speak a bit of Japanese and can read Hiragana and Katakana and have some knowledge of how things like public transport work here. Then I go to Tokyo and stand outside a simple train station and think, 'What the FUCK do I do here?' No big city I have spent any time in, London and Madrid mainly, can come close to how overwhelming the whole experience can be. Infact the first time I didn't really like it....now I love it. Becomes a bit of a cliche the amount of times you say it but just the sense of safety and ease you can walk down a Tokyo street that I never feel even in my home country's capital is fantastic. It's a brilliant place to people watch rather than wallet watch.

My mate has just moved to within a World Champion Strongman's throw of Yoyogi park which is a great place. It's ironic that the little space Japanese people have in their apartments, so that they are forced outside to do things a lot us take for granted such as practising a musical instrument, creates such a fantastic environmnent. Hundreds of people, rehearsing plays, playing games, singing, dancing, even one high school girl practising her Happyokai speech, on her own, on a rock. Bless.

And then there are the Otaku :) One of my favourite spots in Tokyo is next to Yoyogi, at the Shibuya entrance. Along here you can see hundreds of bands/singers/comedy groups plying their trade to anyone who'll listen. Again its a great atmosphere (all that equipment would be gone in minutes back home) and some of the Idol hopeful's attract some really handsome chaps.....

So go. You'll get lost in a station, see some freaks/beautiful people and get really dizzy looking up at/down from some stupidly tall buildings. You can take some photos too....