TWO MANGOES for the equivalent of $138.00. Yikes!

This grocery store I only go to when my craving to read labels in English outweighs my desire to be frugal. Takahashi San says people shop there just to be seen carrying the bags with the Kinokuniya logo.

It's probably a good thing you can't enlarge the group photo in the previous post--my hair isn't at all photogenic after 2 months where its only care has been me chopping at the bangs in moments of quiet desperation.

The "Bozu Stlye" cut is beginning to seem like a desirable option.

Paul, our tour leader pointing out that should we get hungry, relief was at hand in the form of a pasta-dispensing vending machine.

Paul is one of those hyper-enthusiastic history buffs with a head full of facts such as: Back in the day, 60% of the land was for the Samurai class, 20% for temples, and the remaining 20% for the rest of the folks. Getting me to remember even that much is just short of a miracle.

He took us to this amazing store--aisles and aisles of clear acrylic boxes in which people display whatever they wish to sell on consignment. Mostly collectible figurines of anime characters, a huge part of the culture.

Escapism is a sizable industry in Japan. Perhaps because of the long work hours and adherence to the many strict rules of conduct. The Japanese don't typically move from job to job--wherever they begin their career is where they will end their career. If that job is less than stimulating you can hardly blame them for hitting the comic books in their free time.

Miku Suzuki in her weekend wear. A far cry from her elevator portrait! If you are on Facebook, check out the photos of her in a kimono, really lovely.

As the representative for our building she accompanied me, the sole guest from our building, to the tour site here we hooked up with a dozen or so people from the other two buildings for the tour of Akihabara, the busiest tourist hot spot in Tokyo. Electric town, if you remember my blog from way back.

Amazingly we only lost one German, and only for a while, and I doubt he even knew he was lost as we had left him in Don Quixote, a multi-level madhouse of a store that defies description almost as adroitly as do the Maid Cafes.

Quality video clip of the Maid Cafe. (I didn't say what level of quality.)

"I hope that gal's boss doesn't see how's she's dressed while handing out those fliers."

"It's part of her job to dress like that, she's advertising for a Maid Cafe."

"Huh?"

It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I got to actually experience a Maid Cafe as part of a tour put on by the people who own our building. It's kind of the Japanese version of Hooters, only more sexually overt and with audience participation. The girls have to be under the age of 20, and as you can see from the poster the primary focus of their job is to look as young as possible.

The covert nature of the photos makes them blurry but this way I feel ok about posting them.

So the deal is, the guys come in and drink, the "maids" do some jerky-squeaky kind of dancing, the guys jump up and down with them and put on fuzzy bunny ears and hold rubber chickens between their legs while having their pictures taken....

That was the gist of it. In the past there used to be more of a direct link with prostitution but apparently the law has put a kibosh on that to whatever degree they can control it. It seemed like most of the men there were regulars.

I got the feeling they don't usually have women as customers, but they were very friendly with us nonetheless. It's a shame Matthew was too sick to come along, it was a quite the experience.

If you are sick in Japan you wear a face mask, no two ways about it.

If you are Matthew and you are sick in Japan you wish you were a whole lot shorter so you could lie on the couch to watch TV.

Window-shopping on Omotesando today my eye got snagged by the similar expressions of these two women. One in an art gallery and the other in an adjoining MAC beauty supply store.

Beer candies!

For all you Kill Bill fans out there--we did have dinner at the restaurant where Uma Thurman's famous fight scene was partially filmed. (VERY partially, only about 1%--the rest of it was shot on a set that was built based on the restaurant.)

Space being at a premium, many restaurants are down under. Above ground there is just room for a doorway, and peering down to get a sense of what awaits is an exercise in futility. One that we can't help engaging in nevertheless.

It's a leap of faith, once you get to the bottom of the stairs you are pretty much committed.

Sometimes the restaurant turns out to be under yet another one, leaving a confirmed claustrophobe such as myself desperately playing mind games with myself. "Oh, it's just dark out, that's why I can't see the view..."

We haven't been to the Bistro Art one yet, even though I can see it when I look out our window. Its not in the "just-pop-in-for-a-bite" price range.

Yakuza with full-body tattoos at the Sanja Festival.

Because of the association of tattoos with gangs and yakuza, people with tattoos, like Matthew, are not permitted to go to many of the onsens (Japanese hotsprings of which there are many due to the volcanic nature of the country). Some places will allow entry with band-aids covering the offending ink work.

When we went to the gym at the hotel back in April, Matthew was obliged to wear a long-sleeved polyester sweat-shirt handed to him by the sweetly smiling gym attendant so as not to distress the sensibilities of the other guests.

(The hotel had attendants for everything. I could never quite get comfortable with the girls in kimonos whose sole function it was to push the UP or DOWN elevator button for us and then stand and wait so they could usher us safely inside when it arrived. Now that we have been here a while I have become used to the heightened level of service in almost all aspects of daily living, and probably the elevator girls would no longer register as remarkable.)

Doggie Couture is big business in Tokyo.

Ignomious get-ups notwithstanding, the dogs are well-treated on the whole. But as in the U.S. there is a problem with horrific conditions in puppy mills. According to Metropolis Magazine, the government is reluctant to step in because most of the mills are run by the yakuza, the japanese mafia. This begs the question whether the problem still exists back home for similar reasons, and if not then what excuse is there?

Kimonos are actually enjoying an upswing in popularity, with some women wearing them every day. I find it impossible to see a woman in a kimono as anything but graceful and cultured, there's just something about the whole effect...

These two ladies are strolling on the Ginza, the street is closed off on the weekend making it a pleasant family-friendly shopping experience.

I'm sounding like a paid advertisement.

Hopefully I've satisfied those of you who were asking about the fashions, and those who don't care got to buzz through a whole lot of photos in a hurry!

For the ultimate in cool this guy is hard to beat. I don't know if this is what he wears everyday, or if it's his Sunday suit or what, but it is just so elegant, isn't it?

Something else I like is the men's work pants. They look like the ultimate in comfort, sort of a manly version of harem pants.

The men are relatively less watchable, although these pants are eye-catching.

Oddly ingenious incorporation of the underwear into the outerwear. I guess it saves the pants from falling down, there is ostensibly a waistband at the top of the whole affair.

I kind of like it, I must admit.

Hats, ruffles...

Lots of high heels. And once I started looking, lots of band-aids on feet.

I am told that podiatrists do a very good business here.

The red-headed gal in the black boots was at Fuji-Q, the amusement park. I can't imagine standing in a 4 hour line practically on tippy-toes, even with a body weight of less than 100 pounds soaking wet.

Shorts over tights.

At first I thought the ruffly shorts were an anomaly, but they are quite de rigeur here.

I make an effort be somewhat surreptitious in my picture-taking because trying to explain that "It's for my blog!" would be unlikely to allay any skepticism.

I was happy to find an entire photography exhibit devoted to Japanese women's legs. The dressing of legs seems almost to be an art form.