TFI Friday's, Tower records, and Frog's Legs

Sunday 2nd July

I waited by the 'Hachiko the dog' statue outside Shibuya station for my friend to arrive. Actually, I don't really know her at all. She was one of the girls I did my training with in London, and lives relatively near Tokyo, so it seemed like a good idea to meet up. She had a co-worker with her. The three of us headed out in search of Tower records, which I have passed at least once on my adventures in Shibuya. Yet my prediction of its location proved to be incorrect. We forged through the crowds of punky girls clad in designer mini-skirts, excessive make-up and perfect hair, and guys in white vests, silver chains. In fact many of them had better hair styles than the girls. The effort that these people put into their appearance can be quite amazing. I guess they are the privelleged generation of Japan. They live off their wealthy parents, don't work, and just party. A responsibility-free group who pour money into the economy, buying the lastest fashions and parading them through the districts of central Tokyo. If Harajuku is for the freaks, Shibuya is for the chics.

We took a pit-stop at TFI Fridays, which as it happens is a five minute walk from Tower Records. The clientel was made up of at least 50 per cent Westerners. It was like being back home! The menu was in English, the signs were in English.... In a strange sort of way it was quite comforting. We ordered some drinks and looked out from the 6th floor, over the busy streets below. The last time my friend had been in Shibuya was for a mad night out, a week after her arrival in Japan. Unfortunately she had walked into a door and broken her nose, after too many drinks at the karaoke bar! She went to hospital, had to borrow money to have it fixed, and then had to go back to the karaoke bar at dawn to meet her friends. Oh dear. The poor thing had to teach with two black eyes for the next week or so....

We ascended in the glass lift on the exterior of the building, to the seventh floor of Tower Records. The floor was dedicated completely to English books which, for me was more like seventh heaven. We spent a good hour or so in there. I bought a couple of books and resisted buying many more, including: a flick book of the 'Napoleon Dynamite' dance sequence. (If you haven't seen this movie, you must.) I have to go back and get it some time. I realised that if I hung out here for a day, I would probably meet some really interesting English speaking people. I might try it one day and catalogue them all as an experiment. In fact I will. Perhaps next weekend.

I spent the last of my money in there, so we went in search of a place to cash a traveller's cheque. It was a Sunday evening though and we had no joy, so I had to borrow a few Yen to get me through the evening. We had a pub crawl around different English/Irish pubs in the area and chatted about our experiences to date. At nine we decided to go Japanese and pay a little less for our beer. We went to an izakaya just up from the famous crossing by the station. For the first time the menu for Japanese cuisine was in my mother tongue. Tonight they were serving: crab guts, raw horse flesh, fried edible frog, deep fried offal and sashimi squid. I think this is standard, but it was the first time I had seen it written down. So, not much choice for vegetarians or those who prefer not to dine on the raw, the peculiar or the innards.　My friends were neither of these, so bravely ordered up a dish of crab guts and frogs legs (attached to torsos may I add). At least there was no mention of the orange juice with fresh turtles blood here that I had heard about. Yuk. I think I picked at some mackeral and a strange extra thin gorgonzola cheese 'pizza' with honey.... not quite the best meal ever I must say! Funnily enough, my friends agreed.