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I spent a majority of the day in Harajuku and Aoyama thinking about trends. Grunge is coming back in a big way, everyone be careful with this one. However, at the end of the day I was still contemplating the granite tiles on the surfaces of my bathroom in the otherwise generic Cerulean Tower hotel that I am currently calling home. When you lay tile in any bathroom in America, you begin at one end, and when you get to the other end you cut the last tile short to fit the dimensions of the floor. Then you mount the fixtures where they need to go. Not so in Japan. The floor accomodates the size of the tile correctly, the fixtures align with the tile edges – perfection.
On my trip here I am on the lookout for examples of wabi-sabi, the art of imperfection. There appears to be a distinct difference between American imperfection and Japanese imperfection. American imperfection is a happy accident, while Japanese imperfection is yet a higher level of perfection. A big fuck you in the face of regularity.
Woke up to all of Tokyo outside of the hotel window. A misty fog has settled over the metropolis and this can only mean more rain. Much like New York City however, Tokyo is beautiful in the rain in a noir fashion. I am beginning to feel like the tragic character in a mystery novel. At least I had the best tempura of my life last night at a lovely place called Tenmatsu, where I was commended for both my chopstick skills (this was obviously just Japanese hospitality) and my culinary adventurousness (this part was accurate.)
