Japanese church. . .

So yesterday, we finally had our program's inaugural dinner. It was actually a tea ceremony. The tea house that we went to was in the '64 Olympic Village. It was really nice and was surrounded by a great little garden. Our group was too large for the house so we had to split into two groups. We spent half our time learning about and participating in the ceremony and then the other half was spent in the garden. It was a really relaxing time away from all the concrete and masses. Thankfully, our ceremony was the shortest possible, but they can take up to four hours. The tea they served us was a frothy green tea. Frankly, I'm pretty sick of the stuff - everything here has a green tea flavor to it. Yes, even the ice cream. Thankfully, the sweet cake that they served before the tea was a kiwi flavor though. After our ceremony was over, they allowed us to take a bunch of pictures and for some of the smaller girls to dress up in kamonos.

After we had some lunch, a couple of us headed over to Shibuya. I wanted to see one of the busiest intersections in the world. The light has two cycles, one for vehicles and one for pedestrians. Each time the light turns green for the pedestrians, several thousand people cross the space. The best way to describe what follows is two waves crashing into and through each other because no one touches anyone else. It is really wild. I'm going to try to go back at some point and sit in the Starbucks and get some pictures from the third floor. I have a video of it, but I can't seem to get it to load on here.

The next logical question is "why are all these people at this location?" In Tokyo, Sunday is the national day of shopping. When I say this country worships the act of shopping, I say it with all seriousness. I am convinced that they go to "church" where the head pastor is Christian Dior with a support staff of Louis Vuitton, Tommy Hillfiger, and Prada. And of course, Dolce and Gabana are altar boys. I honestly could care less if people go to an organized building on Sunday for what the establishment calls worship and I can't sit here and judge thousands of people in one general swoop. The veracity with which these people shop and consume though can really put America to shame in some respects. There is no reason whatsoever that a t-shirt should cost 9000 yen (roughly $90). I guess to fully understand my emotional tirade, you would have see the shear numbers of people and experience the ridiculousness of the number of stores and everything.

To give some more imagery of the hyper-state wwith which everything exists here, this is a picture of Akihabara, the electronic district. My site for my project is in this area so I'm pretty well acquainted with it. This is at 9:30 at night on a Thurs. To take this picture, I'm standing in front of a six story arcade/club (Club Sega). In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that everything here seems to be a restaurant. The picture below is of the major street that I walk down several times a day to the metro. It's about two blocks from our hotel and every business in this picture is a restaurant. The majority of retail parcels are about 12-16 feet wide in the city, but I have eaten in a couple of places where I can touch both walls at the same time. It's all a little nuts. Oh, and I've eaten in each one of those establishments at least once.
In an attempt to make sure that we get our projects done here, the faculty have pretty much canceled the rest of our excursions and we're doing studio all day until we leave for China. I'm spending at least 9 hours a day in here then I usually head back to the hotel, get dinner, and then end up working some more until I go to bed. The joys of cramming an entire design project in two weeks of time.