tokyo white night

This past Friday night I went out to Kichijoji to a bar that was all done up like the milk bar from A Clockwork Orange. It was like Corova in NYC, but smaller and not as dark, and it had a funny bathroom with a mini-toilet and a huge sink.
I had a few fantastic ginger infused vodka cocktails and a tofu dish. I hung out with the Milk Bar posse, and got sucked into the DVD of A Clockwork Orange that was playing on the tv. I was tired though. It was a long day, after a long week. I was ready for bed.

I went to the station to get on the train, and Mia decided to stick around a little longer. There was some kind of accident, so none of the trains were going anywhere fast. No one knew what to do and basically I missed the last train going back to Chiba. I felt this happening as soon as I got to train station. Something told me this was going to happen, but I told the silly anxiety voice inside me to just shut up.

In many other cities I'd just hail a cab, but here it would have probably cost me about 200 bucks, since I was so far away from my apartment. So I decided to stick it out and chill in Tokyo till the next train. There are million things to see in Tokyo!

It was kind of a shitty situation. I was by myself, in an area I'd never been to, my cell phone just died, and my pen ran out of ink. Oh, and then it started raining, a lot. It was straight out of a movie. In past I feel like I would have probably cried, or been really pissed off, but I didn't cry and I wasn't angry. I just hung out and took the first train home 4 hours later. I accepted the situation and decided to make an adventure of it.

I went to about 8 different 24 hour establishments and watched people. I went to convenience stores and read magazines. I bought a new toothbrush. I went to a 24 hour drug store and checked out all the ridiculous beauty products and supplements to make your breasts bigger, your face smaller, your calves more shapely, your underarms less hairy, your hair more bouncy.... I took pictures of amusing products.
I wasn't the only one this had happened to, it was a Friday night with tons of people out and about, and I didn't feel like I was in any danger. I thought about just going to a bar and getting wasted, but then figured a lady all on her own in a big city, far away from home, and stranded for a few hours, well... maybe that wasn't be the best option. It was kinda fun, though not what I had planned on doing this particular Friday/Saturday. I spent Saturday recovering from my first white night in Tokyo. I slept all day and the only productive thing I did was pick up my dry cleaning and replied to a few emails.

Things are good. Who knows what excitement is in store for me this weekend!

have a rice day

I see this sign everyday when I'm leaving the train station.

fried thingies

Everyone keeps asking me how the sushi is. Like I drink raw fish smoothies for breakfast, then packing away huge platters of fatty salmon for lunch, and topping it off with sushi ice cream on a stick as a midday snack. I am quite excited by the sushi, I like sushi. It's great, but I find myself documenting a lot more of the stuff I've never had before, never seen before, and have no idea what it tastes like.

I'm addicted to these fried potato things, korokke (コロッケ). There are all kinds with random different things mixed inside-from ground beef to veggies. There are creamed corn ones, or shrimp ones. They also have katsu, fried other thingies, so I decided to sample one (or two) a day to see what they're all about.
Things were going well with my experiment. I never met a fried thingie I didn't like until I came across mini menchi katsu. It was like some kind of breaded and fried scrapple-esque meat. It was all downhill from there. Friday's fried thingie adventure turned out to be the most insane one I've tried yet: egg salad with mayo on a piece of ham that's breaded and fried. From the picture on the label, I thought it had corn inside. Nope, no corn at all.

The experiment with the fried thingies is officially called off. However, my different tea a day journey continues. Stay tuned for Miss Koco takes on Tokyo, one vending machine at a time.

nuke the cake

I just had to get one. I couldn't resist.

This afternoon I found myself committing what my mother probably would define as the ultimate sin. First, I stood right in front of the microwave for a whole minute. I'm sure I'm going to grow an extra appendage in my sleep tonight. Second, I made a cake in the microwave--in a mug.

An oven isn't a standard item in a Japanese kitchen. I'm guessing that's why food companies have developed products that are easily cooked in a microwave. For this mocha treat all you need is an egg, a microwave, a mug, and a couple minutes. The instructions said two minutes for a 500W microwave, 1 minute for 600W microwaves, but mine is a 730W so I figured around 40 seconds should do it.

Okay. It came out looking so unappealing, and it didn't exactly smell good either, but I tried it. It wasn't good, but it was fun to watch. I'm reminded of the time I put an egg in the microwave to "see what happens." I knew what was going to happen; it did in fact explode and it made a nasty stinky mess. I don't recommend putting an egg in the microwave--nor do I recommend the microwaveable cake. However, both were quite entertaining. I still crack up when I think about the egg incident.


The box came with two. I'm not going to use the other one. If you'd like to experience the joy of a microwaveable mocha mug cake, let me know. I'll snailmail it to you.

I think it would be safe to say that the owner of this scooter and I would get along. Maybe this person just likes stickers, or maybe this person is a hamburger eating, poodle loving, pot smoking Japanese queer with a scooter. Either way I think we could be good friends.  Who are you? And why don't I know you? This looks like evidence that magic exists--like that characters from books can remove themselves from the world of fiction and go live in Tokyo.

supplements

I went to pick up some body wash at the Rite Aid/CVSish place and came across these strange items in the supplements aisle. F-cup Cookie??? If these actually worked and women in Japan started eating them, they'd have to come up with butt enhancers or something like that to balance them out. Who makes this stuff?

signage

The signs are all over the subways about smoking or running for the train are fascinating. I'm not sure if they are supposed to be funny, but I think they're great.

I found this in the Stick Figures in Peril Pool on Flickr. I really don't have a lot of free time. I have no idea how I find these things. They sorta come to me.

yo dj gutz!

Look who I found! It's DJ GUTZ! I haven't seen him since Flow Fest 2006 in Korea.

He's got some more groovy shake your booty mixes on his site. This guy has a lot of soul. I predict there is going to be lots of dancing in the near future.

mobo moga

Mia and I went to a sweet little place for lunch in Shinjuku called Mobo Moga. The name stands for Modern Boy, Modern Girl. I'd tell you where it's located if I could, but it's not like there are cross streets**. It was dimly lit like a good dive bar. It's funky, good funky, and it's dripping with an awesome DIY aesthetic. The menus were collaged with pinup girls and images of their special tex-mex fusion dishes. There was bad English splattered all over the place. One item on their menu is Cheese Humburg Piraf. We ordered the Mexican Tacorice: lettuce, salsa, chick peas, a sunny side up egg, rice, and mayo on the side that I didn't touch. It hit the spot.
We were forced into ordering something from their wild drink menu. I saw a picture of a beverage that resembled Slimer in a glass. I looked at Mia, she looked at me. I said, "That looks disgusting." Then Mia ordered one. I'm glad she did, it had to be done. It was a YOLO (you only live once) moment. It turned out to be a melon cream soda with vanilla ice cream. Super sweet. I love that it came in a pyrex glass. Very fabulous.

**Here's a site in Japanese with a map and directions. Google translate tells me that the directions are as follows: Shibuya Tokyu Hands exit (1 slope-side floor of the organ) across the alley in right away, "Space Department Store," the second floor. I don't know if that helps.

Resurrection Tokyo Freeze

I stumbled upon a bunch people frozen in the streets of Harajuku. They were doing some kind of improv/flash mobish type thing where they were told to strike and then hold a pose for 5 - 8 minutes.

You'd think, as a person who likes and has created performance art, that I'd think it was soooo interesting. At first I thought it was like a bunch of models who were promoting something. Everything reads as a gimmick to me these days. Maybe it was just the New Yorker in me saying, "Whatever you are selling I don't want it, get out of my way." Maybe I'm getting old; 'cause I was irritated that it was messing up the flow and it caused such a traffic jam. Whatever it is/was, the project is much cooler in the form of documentation than it was to experience first-hand.

Meiji Shrine

I love this; a wish for incomplete happiness...

yoyogi sunday

Sensory overload.

Yoyogi Park has something for everyone. Maybe there is some online system that notifies people interested in obscure outdoor activities and organizes meetings in the park on the weekends for them. There is a meeting place for dancing rockabillies, a place for jugglers, another for lovers of the hula-hoop, a whole section for bubble blowers (one meeting place for large bubble makers and another for small bubble blowers). There is a place for the dog lovers, the drummers, the gypsy-themed fashionistas, the lovers of loud techo music... and plenty of benches and grass to sit and admire all this in one place.

my feel feeling fresh

If you're a a VIP in my world you probably get fabulous things in the mail from me. Don't be surprised if you get some of these to help you "wake up with your feel feeling fresh"
I've always wanted to do some kind of mail-based package project. A subscription people could sign up for in order to get fun stuff in the mail from me from the places I go. I was thinking like everything from Japanese pizza hut menus (along with my commentary) to a selection of Korean gum; an occasional quirky postcard or a list of good words to know in Thai; a map of my adventures on day or a play list of the soundtrack of my life theses days; a photo journal of a week in new tea beverages and my reviews, handmade phone charms or mini-envelopes made from wild magazines picked up at the 7-11 in Tokyo. It would be produced seasonally and I'd call it POSTAGE or koco-mail (but that sounds like I'm referencing ANTM, "Tyra-mail") or maybe koco@mail (the @ symbol is not referred to as "at" but instead as golbangi, or snail in Korean). But no one would get that last one unless I explained it.

You know what? Here's the deal. I'll send you 4 packages this year with fantastic stuff I pick up along my adventures if you give me 50 bucks... no, how about $49.94? What a deal! That means I make no money, but I get to go to the post office and I have an excuse to buy all the wild stuff I come across. It will be like my favorite day all the time. It's like buying my adoration for a mere fraction of the price.

$49.94 (USD)
1 year (4 mailings) of documentation,
collected bits of funny and fabulous,
from miss koco's adventures
straight to your mailbox

lady & bird

Every day I pass Inage station. There is a sculpture of a woman with her arms extended up towards the sky, her head tilted to the side, like she is doing a morning stretch. I look for her, mostly because she has a friend who is always with her--a bird. I think it is the same bird everyday, sitting either in her hand or on her face.

bento!

I'm considering a future career as a Japanese housewife.

"I came to kill"

I'm not sure which source is most accurate but a man attacked and killed 5 (6 or 7) and wounded 11 (or 14) people with a knife in Akihabara, in the middle of the day. People are always telling me how safe Japan is. I wasn't there, luckily, to see this, and I'm sure that there are few things that a good sense of street-smarts will do to save you from a knife-wielding lunatic on a mission, but I wonder how someone gets away with such an act. And why? What pushes someone to that point? Was there nothing anyone could have done to prevent this?

Tokyo is intense and exciting like New York, but also carries a more extreme version of pressure. The word that I've been thinking Tokyo leads with is TIGHT. I can see how life can wear on a person. There have been two suicides, people jumping in front of trains, in the past month--that I personally know of because my commute was disturbed as a result. Still, what pushes people over the edge? That I just don't understand, I guess I don't want to completely either. The only thing I guess I'm left saying is that I'm so glad they don't have a lot of guns. Then this place might feel a lot more like home, where in the city of brotherly love (Philadelphia) there were 406 homicides in 2006. One of the victims being Orlando Rivera, who I loved so very very deeply. I will never let go of my fury that he wasn't able to live to write a book about his life; he had such beautiful words and a bunch of tragic tales. Stories that should have been told from the other end, where things had gotten better. I just don't understand.

This stabbing incident was some really shitty news. There's only so much hurt and confusion a sensitive cancerian like myself can swallow. I want to create beautiful things, share happy joyful moments, document only the best of my world as I experience it. This is where I create a little bit of peace and happiness. My blog is the place I save to put the good funny quirky bits... so you know what?! What I think Tokyo needs is a holiday, or big dose of Madonna, or better yet BOTH! So, without further ado,this one goes out to Japan, to Orlando, even to the guy who lost his mind in Akihabara, especially to the families and friends that lost someone today, to the unfortunate people who just thought they were out to go shopping, to the people who need to dance more often and stress a little less, and to you.

party in my tummy

Everyone joked around when I moved to Korea, saying that I was going to come home twice the size I left. It was amusing. I ate a lot but, nothing really happened. I may not be so lucky with this time around in Asia. I love eating in Japan sooooo much.

I find myself doing a happy food dance when I eat. The soundtrack to my eating experiences is right out of Yo Gabba Gabba. "I'm gonna eat, yeah! yummy yummy gonna eat. Yeah! Yummy yummy Japanese in my tummy party party! YEAH! There's a party in my tummy. So yummy, so yummy."

And why wouldn't it be like a party in my tummy when there's stuff like this to eat:
Does salmon, soft cream cheese, and avocado with an amazing sauce made from the nectar of the gods wanna go to the party in my tummy? Hells yeah! It melts in your mouth transporting you to some other dimension. There are flying naked pixies, dragons swirling around each other through space, magical sparkling fireworks... if you've ever watched Cooking Master Boy, then you know what I'm talking about.

I eat, a lot. And I take pictures of it. So what.

local flavor

Somehow every time I hangout with Mia we end up making all these people, we engage in a healthy dose of ridiculousness with our new buddies, and then I end up taking pictures with random locals and eating all kinds of things my sober self probably would never consider to even go near.

For example, last night:

We checked out Zyu, which is something like the "tree standing bar." There aren't any real seats and the interior looks a bit like a sauna. I imagined that maybe I should be there with my head wrapped in a towel. Oh it was so much fun! We were welcomed in by a few regulars. I can tell you that they were not lying when they said they were regulars because when I went to the website, there they were. Theres a great vibe in the place, the owner/bartender Naoki serves up some fantastic little dishes, and the prices are perfect. 300 円 for a beer, or a nice cool glass of makoli. Nice simple bar snacks that range in price from 100 to 400 円. If you pay for a set of 100 円 tickets

We're standing, chatting up our new friends, and the next thing I know, they're buying we makoli and making me try their tasty and strange little side dishes. First I tried gyoniku sausage. One woman described it as "naked fish" and I would call it a fish hot dog. Eh. Not my favorite. I'd say it was まあまあ, so-so.
Next, I was eating a house special, the Wasabi Joy--small pieces of cream cheese topped with dried fish flakes, and a wasabi soy sauce to dip it in. This was surprisingly おいしい, delicious! I found that Zyu's macoli, a rice wine from Korea, tasted better than the macoli I had in Korea. It tastes a bit like a smooth yogurt drink. I never want to drink beer again.

Then it was time for pictures.

After Zyu, we went to an izakaya. When you sit down often you get a hot towel to clean your hands, or to "refresh yourself" as Martin did.

They also bring out some side dishes as a free service. This place had a hijiki salad and some fish with a bit of mayo to dip it in. Yeah, I ate the whole fish, even the head.

We ordered some gyoza, a salad, some beer, then proceeded to the karoke spot to finish the night off. Now I can't talk. Good times.

Philly Peeps: FPA Salon 6.11.2008

If I could only be in many places at once...
First Person Salon at the Gershman Y: Wednesday, June 11th (7-9pm)

• Ron Kanter and selections from his new documentary “New Cops” featuring a discussion with some of the featured officers.
• Lorene Cary, founder of Art Sanctuary, reading from recent memoir.
• Donald Gensler, Mural Artist, presents his recent work “Independence Starts Here” (at Broad and Race) about Philadelphians living with disability.
  

This Salon looks like a really good one too. I love the new video First Person Arts put together to help you find the Y. Now there is no excuse. If you are in Philly, you have to go.

too little free time

I love my job. I never thought I'd say these words, but I really like teaching, and I think I'm kinda good at it. It's a bit like performance art. I sometimes even refer to it as Miss Koco's English Show, which I sing like it's the last line of my opening theme song. I present it with a little dance as if I'm the TAH-DAH girl at the end of an magic trick. My students are smart, and cute, and funny, and all female. So, it's just as much tea time with the girls--talking about Thursday's episode of Last Friends (an intense drama with domestic violence and a hopeless lesbian love), fashion, and food--as it is English class.

But with the long hours, and a commute from hell, I have NO time to do the millions of things I want to do in Japan--like take endless pictures of funny signs:

Or eat ALL DAY.

Or go to one art show after the next.

Or watch Last Friends to see what the hoopla is all about.

Or update my blog. In a way though, I feel that I'm getting a very true version of what it's like to live and work in Japan. I can see why someone might want a housewife to make lunch, be home to sign for packages, and do the dishes so you don't have to worry about housekeeping. I have a sneaky plan and a quiet prayer I say in hopes of getting a seat on the train. I have so many aspirations to do certain activities and pursue subjects I want to know more about, but have to cram it all into short hours on the way to work or coming home, the thirty minutes or so after I eat and before I pass out, or into that fleeting time we call the weekend. I cherish my weekends like they are made of gold, a gift directly from the heavens. I'm not complaining so much about my lack of free time, it's good for me to have something constructive to do. I make better use of the moments that belong to me, and I do my best to enjoy the ones I'm selling to "make a living." But... I still think I'd do a lot of good things for the world if I had an adoring benefactor who spoiled me by giving me the means to explore, experiment, create, and document to my heart's content. I'm accepting applications on a rolling basis.

i'm so tired

I've been SOOOOO busy and really tired, so I haven't been updating as much as I'd like to. I have uploaded some pictures to my flickr page though...