Saturday

This weekend has been amazing so far... and Sunday hasn't even happened yet! Yesterday I had a second interview for a part-time teaching job that went well (yay), and then I trekked-metroed right across this big big city to Odaiba in Tokyo Bay to check out Design Festa. Tokyo Bay is a newly developed artificial island, home to some mega-malls (Decks Tokyo Beach and Venus Fort, a "women-focused shopping experience"), entertainment centres and some impressive architecture. It's an area I'd definitely like to check out again - and noooo, not because of the malls; the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation is there (touted by Lonely Planet as Japan's best science museum - "terrific" for kids (=terrific for me)), as is the Museum of Maritime Science. And the Tokyo Big Sight was HUGE - Design Festa was HUGE. It was amazing: there were so many booths and so many mediums, styles, sizes and looks - paper crafts, pottery, painting, sketching, body art, musicians, toys, stuffed animals, humans-as-art (some walking around, some sitting frozen still), jewelry, leather crafts, furniture... there was a little bit of everything. I arrived hungry, ate quiche, walked around for three hours and then called it a day - home I went in the rain. I DID stop at the Food Shop in Shibuya and ate the best donut I've ever had in my entire life, an assertion that Steve claimed (with wide eyes) was "bold." Yes, bold. I may have to have another, just to verify this lofty claim... if I have to. It was incredible. Anyways, that was Saturday. I walked home in the rain and made a modified version of Curried Coconut Chicken on couscous for dinner - yum. That was that. We've been watching hockey all morning and soon I'm back on the train, headed for Shinjuku to meet Akiko, a friend from high school. Design Fest pics.......

pig boy: no eating!!


the number of people-as-art had me wondering if this was a person, lying down in a monster suit




sitting-still strawberry girl-as-art - this lassie didn't move a MUSCLE... creepy.

also creepy.

not so much creepy as gross? and funny. giant booger girl doll.


fun, oversized double-decker furniture - I like!