On Sunday I went to Yoyogi Park (the one next to Harajuku).

Chou line to Shinjuku then change to the Yamanote line to Harajuku, cost: 160yen.

I went with Yvette. She has never been before.

Upon arriving at Harajuku, some bizarre ritual was going on:

Celebrating the exuberance of Yoyogi Park from Ashley Mills on Vimeo.

I caught this kid looking for someone:

Its funny that the kids were carrying the chairs. After observing this spectacle for a few seconds we walked back toward Yoyogi park. A funny scene was occuring on the opposite side of the road:

It was really funny, see the video screen with the kids head in. The kid was jupming up and down to see himself on the screen. The picture is captured just as the kids head came into view. But if you imagine it live, the head was bouncing on and off the screen about once per second, hehe.

There was a bonkers street which I never noticed before:

Right, onto the usual Harajuku bridge freakshow:

This crowd turned up a couple of weeks ago and have been here since. Maybe I should start a rival gang that says “free beating” and see if anyone takes me up on the offer.

The next think we saw was truly freakish and disturbing. This woman was leading a scantily latex-clad child through the throngs of people:

Seriously. What kind of parent dresses their child up in PVC knee boots, suspenders, and a PVC miniskirt… Lets not even bother to discuss it any further and just satisfy ourselves with being suitably horrified.

The usual gang of misfits were present:

Look at the one with the clown face in red (in the picture above)…

I think clownface realized that what she was wearing was just a tad ludicrous, because she seemed to be a little upset at the attention and was receiving consolation from her buddies:

There was some freakish goth person:

I use fun-making words and descriptions like these but actually I think this scene is cool, apart from the pretentiousness of it. I mean, don’t pretend that you dress like that only for yourself… you don’t. Some of the misfits were saying “no picture” and crossing one finger from each hand into an x. Don’t stand around in a public place infamous for its freakish characters in ludicrous clothes if you don’t want the attention. There are plenty of other places you can go where nobody would give you that attention.

There is a conflict you see because some of the freaks (ahem, alternatively dressed individuals) welcome the attention and they will pose for photos, so its kind of ridiculous. I guess this is teen angst for you “we’re different, just accept us, why are you photoing us, we are humans like you, but we’re not like you, I mean, err err we” I imagine them saying…

We moved on to the rockabillies, who are proud of their identities and have learned to accept the attention with a cool indifference. Here is Yvette standing next to one of their Cadillacs:

Lets see our favorite friends dancing again:

Rockabilly Dancing from Ashley Mills on Vimeo.

Next we sampled the usual eclectic mix of performers along the perimeter path:

There were loads more but I didn’t take photos.

It would be really cool to compile a video showcasing the talents of Yoyogi park. For each band you could record a couple of songs, and you could have like a mini interview. It would be a nice entertainment to show people. My camera video is pretty shit so it woudln’t be fantastic if I did this. Maybe I will do it one week if I feel inclined. But its getting colder now so I’m not sure how long the stuff keeps going.

I was surprised to come across another party:

Yoyogi Party from Ashley Mills on Vimeo.

The soundsystem was no “Eastaudio Soundsystem” but the party atmosphere was nethertheless pretty cool. We walked through this and then went round to the Indian festival that was on (Remember last week it was the Sri-Lanka festival, well they change it every week… i know, how cool).

We ate some curry and then went back to the party.

This was the funniest bit:

Babylon Yoyogi Dancers from Ashley Mills on Vimeo.

They were allowed (socially) to do this, people laughed, but not in derision. It was funny, and they knew it was funny. They were enjoying themselves.

I wish we had this kind of freedom in the UK. The freedom to have parties on some public space that nobody is using at the time. The freedom to dance around like a fool and enjoy yourself without fear of ridicule. The freedom to be yourself and be accepted as yourself.

It is a pity that we don’t have these freedoms, in general. Of course, we can have these freedoms amongst people we know, but not in general.

If we tried to have a free party in the UK on some patch of recreational ground, it would get shut down by the police. If it didn’t get shut down it would be destroyed anyway by chavs and violence.

The closest you can get to the kind of freedom enjoyed here in Yoyogi is to goto a festival like WOMAD. With WOMAD I would say it is even more free. If you have never been to WOMAD festival in Wiltshire, then go. It is fantastic.

We decided to leave the party and go home, since I was feeling tired and Yvette wanted to goto Shinjuku to get some clothes. I saw this gothlic loli on the way out:

I didn’t hang around in Shinjuku for long because it is generally pretty boring for a man to go womens clothes shopping. I did observe this funny accesories bag before leaving however:

I left Yvette in the shopping complex and went home.