NYC, Take 2

To my chagrin, I spent a good part of my 20's as a self-proclaimed metrosexual. At one point I actually had room in my life for leather pants and matching alligator shoes and belts. For about 6 years, I travelled to New York to soak in the city life and obsess about the culture of style that I wasn't getting in Jackson.

Then Thailand happened. Along the way I cut down my wardrobe to 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants. If you look through my photo album for the last 3 years you'll notice in every photo I'm always wearing either a red shirt, a black fleece, an orange jacket or some hopelessly outworn Gap jeans (circa 2005). (*the jacket you see in the Japan photos is on loan from Pui's uncle) Other than the pain of having to do laundry a lot more often, I haven't missed having all those extra clothes one bit.

That is until I landed in Tokyo. I felt the exact same sort of insecurity as I felt walking down 5th Avenue in my Carhart jacket and Levis in the 90's. This city is every bit (if not more) style obsessed than New York. I commented to Pui on how much make up the women wear here and she pointed out that she has seen almost as many men wearing eyeliner. I would say 60-70 percent of the women in their 20's are wearing high heels and the other 30 percent are wearing knee high hooker boots.


What really reminds me of New York though is how you can blow your whole day doing nothing but people watching, riding subways and eating great food. The metro system (see map in previous post) is absolutely fantastic. The hairdo's alone are worth coming to Japan to see. As for as the culinary side, I'm blown away- the sushi is like butter, the noodles taste like they were made 10 minutes ago. Of course this is coming from someone that used to think that the best 'ramen' I would ever have came from those little dried noodle packages at the grocery store.

So anyways, the whole point of this rambling entry is that had I visited this place in my mid 20's, I have no doubt this is where I would have ended up. As far as big cities go, I think this one is about as good as it gets.