MeSci

Harajuku did have musicians. Rock, punk and Jazz fusion bands slowly slowly slowly arrived to set up, chat, look cool, chat, drink, laugh, look cool, tune and look cool. I sat and waited, watching two old geezers play on electric guitars with tiny battery powered amps. They quietly strummed out the beginning of a few rock classics and then stopped, chatted, drank, and then played the same few chords again. The yoofs, after two hours, had sorted out their looking cool and had begun to make a few noises as they waited for the rest of their cool looking band to set up. Clearly, this wasn't going to start until much later. So off I went to the MeSci museum, also called Miraikan

What a find. This quickly became my second favourite museum in the world (the first being the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford). Yes, it is geeky, but in the best possible way. There is very little dumbing down here, if you want to learn about quantum wells, you go ahead madam, there is plenty to read, help yourself, it's an all-you-can-eat information buffet. As I toured the Information Science section a quiet, orderly swarm of children amassed in a semi-circle around a few static robots and a woman with a headset in front of a large screen. Something was awry... and that awryed something was the children. They sat, absolutely silently, attentively and expectantly with no fuss for 10 minutes. I've never seen such well behaved children. I couldnot decide if this was good or not. Were they already so controlled they had no will to run amok? Or did they have such presence of mind and respect that they controlled their more primal instincts? Finally, the presentation began. A short talk and then :



It's difficult to express what effect his has on you when you see it with your own eyes. I'd seen this before in documentaries and other such footage, but seeing it live is... spooky.

Meiji Jingū

Sunday now and I head to Shinjuku via electrotrainmotion and decide to walk to Harajuku as walking is good. Harajuku is not far South of Shinjuku and I'm told all the bands play there. Heck, I might join in, you never know. I orientate via sun and Yamanote line and pootle up a dusty path, still looking for wildlife and ever so slightly squinting in the clear sunlight which clashes and sprays from the shimmering road. Sitting calmly amongst driveways and houses, I see this:

Do I enter? Damn right I enter. The ubiquitous and officious guard is here too. Is he here to stop me? Is this no-go-jin? He kicks up dust, moves out as if to greet me and turn me away, and then turns on his heel, shuffles back and avoids my eye.

breathe it in. I felt I could stay here and be quite content for the rest of the day. Here, nature was at rest, respected and left to relax. If there had been anywhere to sit, I might have stayed all day, but the path is the way and the way is the path.

a little way along the path and it breaks into a fork. A little left is my destination, but hard right is curious. I follow a throng of voices, clicks, and footsteps and find yet another torii.

I have stumbled on Meiji Jingū, a shrine completed in 1921, bombed during WWII and then rebuilt in 1958. Nestled in amongst the forest it felt good to be there. A wedding happened to be in session and so I followed the party around for a while. It was an amusing sight, a Vanity Fair photo shoot and a traditional ceremony gatecrashed by hoi paloi, all at once.

Yes, do that

Wondering about I saw some surprising things I did. Most gone before I could whip out the camera. This one stayed put long enough. Can you read it? It's a club called "Club the Celebrity". That's a party I could really get interested in. It was getting late, so I thought I'd take one more 'tourist' snap before heading home as the trains dribble out at 10ish.