People Watching

Rather than attending the ALT Christmas party (which I can't wait to hear about) a few friends and I went to Hiroshima. It was in celebration of Bren's 24th birthday, hooray for Bren! I ended up spending most of the day time alone. The others wanted to see the Peace museum and park, I had already done this so I wandered the streets of Hiroshima. This second visit has really allowed me to get oriented with the city and realize that it is all shops. I actually have no clue where the businesses are because every tall building you see is a giant mall.

Allow me to describe the Japanese mall or department store to you. From the outside it looks like your average office building. Inside there are 9 floors of shops. The basement is usually where the food shop is. The rest of the floors have small little shops that all flow into one another. There is no doorway between shops so it is confusing which shop is which and it is difficult to tell what their names are. Each floor has about 10 or more of these little shops. Some floors have larger stores like the Gap (which takes up about half of a floor), a bookshop, The Loft (a store containing everything you could ever want), Muji (similar to The Loft minus color) and Tower Records. It would be impossible to have an identical outfit as someone else is Japan. I remember in high school everyone wearing the same thing, I can't imagine that happening in Hiroshima.

There is also an arcade area that is a covered street of shops called Hondori. This is where I sat and watched people for a long time. The people of Hiroshima are so unique to the people of Yamaguchi (or Tamagawa for that matter). I felt like I was sitting in the audience at a runway fashion show. Everybody of every age is dressed stylishly. I tried to look for someone just wearing average jeans, a sweater and sneakers; finally I just had to look at myself for the description to be satisfied. The fashion trends now in Japan are wearing dark colors (black, grey, blue, green). Most women wear skirts of all different lengths, some pants and jeans, but they are unique looking. For shoes they wear the most uncomfortable looking shoes. Pointy ones, stiletto heals, boots, slip- ons all clunking through the street. On top they wear multiple layers of rags that look as though it is out of a pile of clothes that someone is pillaging from the 80's. Some of the styles I quite like, others are just weird. Men wear all different kinds of things, so it would be difficult to describe what they wear. In Hiroshima there are people my age. Couples strolling through the street holding hands (even some fairly young couples that look as though they could be in jr high). Old women all wear skirts and nice shoes. The people in this country don't seem to dress for comfort, which is a very huge American characteristic. Anything comfortable will do, no matter how hideous you look. Don't get me wrong, it is nice to walk into a shop dressed well looking like you can afford to buy something at this store, but walking around for 5 hours in high heels just isn't my idea of a good time. So next time you go to Hiroshima don't forget to wear your mini skirt in the cold, and most uncomfortable pointy shoes to feel in place.