Monday, June 16, 2003
Still looking at a lot of blogs and trying to figure out whether it is a trend or not in Japan. Got e-mail from Sabrina, who does research on blogs and said that in a recent blog census, Japanese language blogs came in second to last, only 7 more blogs than Latin! Granted, a lot of Japanese could be posting in English, but still! I've been emailing the blog owners and have gotten pretty quick responses.
Friday night hung out in Ginza for a while, looking at different galleries. Fuji Salon had an especially cool nature and travel photography exhibit. Got home a little early, not many people hanging around except for Italian girl and French embassy girl watching a stupid movie. After they finished, I watched "Bounce Ko Gals", a pretty disturbing movie about high school girls that earn money, to the tune of 100,000 a session, by hanging out or having sex with middle age men. In this case, the Yacuza gets involved, in frustration of having their own sex and escort business cut in upon. In a sense, the Yacuza almost ends up being a good guy, threatening and lecturing the girls, but in the end letting them go and giving them their money back. There was a happy ending of sorts, focusing on the friendship of the girls helping each other out, quickly forgetting the other girl that got her eye gouged out by a would-be customer. What made the movie so depressing was that I know there's a basis in truth for it, with the articles written about it and murder cases I've heard about.
Saturday I ended up watching "Spirited Away" in the morning, finishing just in time for the Digital Eve meeting near Shibuya. Many giveaways on the street--kleenex,fliers and squeezable packet of ice cream. Got a little lost looking for the Crosstower Building and ended up walking around in circles looking for the little cafe meeting place. I found another woman, from New Zealand, also looking for the meeting so she got directions on her keitai and we finally found it. When we got there, the owners asked us all to move somewhere else since there were so many of us that we would scare away other customers (not that there were people begging to come in at that door and we were actually buying drinks, but...). So we all took off from Starbucks, where the supposedly 1 1/2 hr gathering turned into over 3 hours when I finally had to leave.
It was a pretty international group, one Kiwi, one Aussie, one Indian/American, 2 Chinese-Malay, 6 Japanese and me. I asked one of the Japanese women if she was involved in the Tokyo PC User's Group, and she said it was English only while Digital Eve was bilingual so she felt more comfortable there. There was quite a range of tech savvy as well--from housewives that just used the web to software engineers to marketing people for tech firms. It seemed like too short a time to talk to people, but I did interview 2 of the women on their keitai use which I'll transcribe and post on my keitai paper blog. I had to return to take back my video to Temple, another annoyance making me wish I had chosen the Azabu guesthouse after all.
Was supposed to get together with Francis & co for Jacuzzi karaoke at 8:30 in Roppongi so planned on going to mass at 6 in Roppongi then wander around for a while. Somehow I got sidetracked in a cool consignment store and bookstore so never made it. Also had to go in search of another umbrella since it had started to rain heavily again (on the day I hung out my laundry to dry of course!). Slippery stairs caused a slip, my fall broken by knocking over about 10 pairs of shoes and a bumping into a sturdy guy that happened to be standing in the way. Managed to make it on time--lingering for a while as people greeted, changed into bathing suits, got up the courage to start singing, waving at gawking people through the window, finally getting food, etc. It turned out to be fun--a lot of 80's/early 90's songs as well as Japanese and even Enimem. They ended up deciding to go another hour but it was already a splurge so I took off.
Friday night hung out in Ginza for a while, looking at different galleries. Fuji Salon had an especially cool nature and travel photography exhibit. Got home a little early, not many people hanging around except for Italian girl and French embassy girl watching a stupid movie. After they finished, I watched "Bounce Ko Gals", a pretty disturbing movie about high school girls that earn money, to the tune of 100,000 a session, by hanging out or having sex with middle age men. In this case, the Yacuza gets involved, in frustration of having their own sex and escort business cut in upon. In a sense, the Yacuza almost ends up being a good guy, threatening and lecturing the girls, but in the end letting them go and giving them their money back. There was a happy ending of sorts, focusing on the friendship of the girls helping each other out, quickly forgetting the other girl that got her eye gouged out by a would-be customer. What made the movie so depressing was that I know there's a basis in truth for it, with the articles written about it and murder cases I've heard about.
Saturday I ended up watching "Spirited Away" in the morning, finishing just in time for the Digital Eve meeting near Shibuya. Many giveaways on the street--kleenex,fliers and squeezable packet of ice cream. Got a little lost looking for the Crosstower Building and ended up walking around in circles looking for the little cafe meeting place. I found another woman, from New Zealand, also looking for the meeting so she got directions on her keitai and we finally found it. When we got there, the owners asked us all to move somewhere else since there were so many of us that we would scare away other customers (not that there were people begging to come in at that door and we were actually buying drinks, but...). So we all took off from Starbucks, where the supposedly 1 1/2 hr gathering turned into over 3 hours when I finally had to leave.
It was a pretty international group, one Kiwi, one Aussie, one Indian/American, 2 Chinese-Malay, 6 Japanese and me. I asked one of the Japanese women if she was involved in the Tokyo PC User's Group, and she said it was English only while Digital Eve was bilingual so she felt more comfortable there. There was quite a range of tech savvy as well--from housewives that just used the web to software engineers to marketing people for tech firms. It seemed like too short a time to talk to people, but I did interview 2 of the women on their keitai use which I'll transcribe and post on my keitai paper blog. I had to return to take back my video to Temple, another annoyance making me wish I had chosen the Azabu guesthouse after all.
Was supposed to get together with Francis & co for Jacuzzi karaoke at 8:30 in Roppongi so planned on going to mass at 6 in Roppongi then wander around for a while. Somehow I got sidetracked in a cool consignment store and bookstore so never made it. Also had to go in search of another umbrella since it had started to rain heavily again (on the day I hung out my laundry to dry of course!). Slippery stairs caused a slip, my fall broken by knocking over about 10 pairs of shoes and a bumping into a sturdy guy that happened to be standing in the way. Managed to make it on time--lingering for a while as people greeted, changed into bathing suits, got up the courage to start singing, waving at gawking people through the window, finally getting food, etc. It turned out to be fun--a lot of 80's/early 90's songs as well as Japanese and even Enimem. They ended up deciding to go another hour but it was already a splurge so I took off.
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