We went shopping in Ginza the other day. Interesting shopping street, but quite honestly, I did not find it any more special than 5th Avenue, Bond street, or other famous shopping streets. Blobalization is a wonderful thing, but it has homogenized shopping somewhat.
We had fun though and no one was the least concerned about a white rubber burqa'd woman wandering back and forth across the street (blocked off for foot traffic). It was warm and far too humid for much leisurely walking, however.
We also wandered around some of the parks and other public gathering places (I confess, i do not recall the names) and saw some individuals engaging in CosPlay or Kurigumi. This is the practice, somewhat popular here in Japan, of people dressing up in complete body covering costumes as htei favorite anime characters. The costumes are fabulous creations, the face masks are very stylized and strange looking on life sized humans, and the people in the street accept them completely.
On character came up to us, bowed, then fingered the material of my burqa, rattled off something that included the word 'rubber' and bowed again, then went prancing off to rejoin her friends. she was in a bright blue dress with little white gloves and socks and skin toned tights and sleeves. I say 'her' because the character was female (I confess, I do not know my anime that well) but it could have been a man in the costume (who's to say?)
Sir has suggested that this might be a place where i could go out on the street in full enclosure, including full face hood, sans burqa, and attract virtually no comment...certainly I would not 'scare the horses' as it were. There were police directing traffic and they never looked twice at the CosPlay characters.
Well, tonight we are off to another dinner and I must go make myself ready. I shall write more later.
Enjoy
Lady
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3 comments:
Hello,
So you are in Japan. I always enjoy reading your blog. Yes Ginza is a nice district to shop in. Unfortunately you were not in the Harajuku district on a Sunday. That is when the most costumes are worn. There are some lates clothiers in Japan. However I have no idea how to find them. As I found navigating in Japan to be difficult for non-Nihong speakers. Enjoy your stay.
I hope you enjoyed Tokyo Latex Lady. I used to visit there two or three times a year in the 90's. It's one of those cities that is amazing first time you visit but can get to you when you visit regularly.
The people are normally very friendly and polite but even though their graduates need to pass English as a foreign language, the prevalence is as a written skill and therefore few are confident enough to speak English. Makes life a little difficult when, like me, you were standing up in a classroom trying to teach them and getting no feedback!
As you said in your earlier entry, you would probably get away wearing outfits without the burqa in Japan. People will be interested but just accept it. I once passed a couple of ladies walking in a park on a sunday wearing black latex catsuits. Every looked but nobody made a fuss.
On an aside, I/we haven't got round to emailing you yet, life has been very, very hectic, but we would like to. Thank you for the invitation.
Hi, these a rubber restaurant that I really want to visit.. Here's the link, perhaps you could check it out if you have time.
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/rubber-restaurant/index.html
Terence.
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