Tokyo After the Disasters

Things like "Pray for Japan", "Do your best!" and "Please Endure!" are written everywhere these days. On the cover of this magazine it says: "We won't loose!!"

Our school has been repairing the walls after the earthquake. Our school is usually full of foreigners, but now it's so empty! Only a third of all the students are left! I hope everybody will be coming back soon.

The news has made the world believe that Japan is a "scary place" it says in Japanese newspapers. I live in Korea Town, but pretty much every single Korean person has left. Just a couple of weeks ago every school in Korea was closed down because it was going to rain, and they feared that the rain might be radioactive.

My guest house owner bought this chip on his hand, that measures if you're exposed to radiation. The chip hasn't showed any sign of radiation. According to some sources it's more radiation in New York, London or even north of Sweden than in Tokyo.

Our school wanted us make blogs about that it's safe in Tokyo, and I think that it feels safe, otherwise I wouldn't be here. 

The biggest difference, apart from that there's very few foreigners, is that they are saving energy at many places by not using lights, screens and music as much as before. It will be going on for a few more months.

Some parts of Japan has already had strategic black outs for some hours to save energy. Maybe central Tokyo will have a short black out this summer. In case that happens my guest house owner bought this machine to generate electricity by yourself.

I'm an extreme Coca Cola Zero addict, but the last weeks it has been hard to find any! And it seems like I'm not the only Coke Zero addicts out there, since the glass to this machine was smashed! XD

All the drinks with a red light under them are sold out. I've never seen anything like that! Now the situation is much better though.

Finally a story about a small village in north-east Japan. In this small village there was a man that had heard stories from his great ancestors about a 10 meter high wave a very long time ago. So he wanted to build a 10 meter high wall outside the village to protect it.

But nobody had ever heard about such high waves and thought he was crazy. Even in the history books the highest waves were at most 7 meters. But he insisted to build that 10 meter high wall, and it saved the village from the recent tsunami.

Is This a Girl or Boy??

Do you think these high-heel shoes belongs to a woman?

No, they belong to this guy!

He works at a this store selling harem pants guarded by a tiger and turtle.

Some things to complete your spring look! ;D

Engla and Me in New EGG

Engla and me is on a small picture in the latest issue of Men's EGG Youth. It's in the bottom right corner, if it's too small for you to find. ;D

The picture was part of a report from the EGG Youth Party in January. That party was so much fun! Miss that time!! You can read about it here.

This is what the new design of Men's EGG Youth look like.

This is what it used to look like. Which design do you like better?

Here's the Youth Party report we're in. See the red arrow for our photo. Under the photo it says: "Foreigners discovered! We found foreigners paying respect to Shibuya street culture."

There's been many EGG magazines now, and the style and models has changed a lot over the years. This book about the history about EGG, following the life story of some gyaru models from the first issues was recently released. It's crazy how much the gyaru fashion has changed since it started.

Met the Most Famous Host Ever

Hosts are people that get payed for drinking champange and having fake relationships. It's harder than it sounds! However, nobody does it better than this guy.

When I had just come back to Japan, I was really jet-lagged so I woke up 3am in the night. Usually most things are open at that time in Tokyo, but now those places close at midnight. My favorite ramen-place even closes at 22.30. :(

But there's one place that you can always trust. It sells everything you can imagine and much more, and it's always open no matter what. It's called Don Kihote, and you're almost guaranteed to see hosts there, since they work really late. Now most of it's neon signs are dark though, to save energy.

The mascot of Don Kihote. :)

I always go to Don Kihote to buy my favorite yoghurt, but they didn't have it. And you could only take one yoghurt per household of the one they had. As you can see, the mascot deeply apologizes for this. ;)

I shouldn't complain though, in north-east Japan there's recently been whole families living on nothing but one onigiri(rice ball) a day. Now you can have as much yoghurt as you want again, by the way. =)

After I had bought the yoghurt I saw a familiar face. The most succesful host ever, Ryoma, was also shopping at Don Kihote 4am. XD

It was really fun to meet him because I've been seeing him in magazines and videos for so many years. He was super nice and really outgoing. He's from Osaka, where people are known for being much more easy to talk with than in Tokyo. Most comedians in Japan are also from there.

I told him I've been in the magazine Men's Knuckle which he is modeling for. You can read about that here. He hadn't seen it but he would go home and check. We took pictures together but I looked horrible, specially next to him with his perfect skin. ;D

Me: -"Nice to meet you! See you again at Donki!"

Ryoma: -"See you at Men's Knuckle!"

So what can we learn from this? If you ever wanna talk to a host, don't go to a Host Club. Just go to Don Kihote. =)

You might get to hear there amazing theme song as well!!^^

Back in a Beautiful Japan!

Since it's spring here now and beautiful cherry blossoms, there's a lot of people in the parks. This cool group were having a meeting for there upcoming fashion show.

Tokyo has been very beautiful since I came back about a week ago.

During the spring there's an activity that most Japanese people take part in called "Hanami", which means "Flower watching". Here I'm at a Hanami-party arranged by Japanese university students.

It's nice to see Japanese people being happy and doing fun things again!^^

There's so much fun things to watch in the parks. Like hosts styling eachother's hair. ;D

Dance practice!

This is a very romantic time of the year! ;)

It's fun how much Japanese people dress up just for going to a park.

But it's even more fun how much they dress up their dogs! =)

The funniest thing though, was when I passed by the two people to the left in this picture and asked if they were having some kind of meeting. They said: -"Yes let us take you the rest of our crew."

We went into the woods and there was infinite of people looking like they were taken from a fairytale there, doing rehersal for a fashion show.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to "Hanami" again with Jenny, Tina and their friends but it was raining so we went to an Izakaya instead. Izakaya = Japanese bar/restaurant

There was an earthquake while we were there. It's aftershocks almost every day now, but you get used to it...

On the way to the Izakaya I saw the legendary "Banana vending machine" for the first time! =D

Most vending machines just sell drinks, but if you're lucky you can find vending machines selling hair spray, flowers and much more! If you're unlucky you can find vending machines selling nothing but used underwear. :/

The Mother of All UGG

This huge UGG-shoe was hanging around in central Sydney.

Australia is paradise for UGG lovers. There's even UGG with Swarovski crystal decoration.

Australia Street Performers

The Australian streets got some entertainers!

Charlie Chaplin got mad skillz!

American rock music in traditional Japanese clothes.

"Lost brain, found music, need money!" XD

Aborginal bodypainting.

Drummer at St Kilda beach in Melbourne.

Unicycling world champion.

Scottish style.