Candle Night

I really want to see the Rockabillies and crazy Harajuku fashion people who hang out at Yoyogi park, but they are only there on Sundays! I was so excited for last Sunday to come, but then it did and it rained. It rained all day. A lot. Sad!

So I decided to go anyways but found that no one was there, as I had suspected. Wouldn't want to get our picture taken with our makeup dripping now would we. But, I did stumble upon an Earth celebration because apparently it was the Summer Solstice. (It was also Father's Day, but it wouldn't be Father's Day in California where my Dad is until really late that night for me. I wasn't neglecting my Dad. promise.)

But Harajuku was pretty much boring. I walked through Yoyogi park and no one was there save for a few old people in ponchos doing tai chi or something. But I found myself at Yoyogi station and spontaneously decided to go to Roppongi just because I knew that the Oedo Subway line at Yoyogi would get me there. Here's the grand Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in all its grandness!

It's crazy how tall it is. It disappears into the mist a bit. And then just outside that is this funky spider-like statue that reminds me of a Miyazaki film. Oh! like the old guy who works at the bottom of the bath house in Spirited Away! I don't know. I took a picture because it's famous. And also huge and creepy.

The main reason I decided to jump on the subway to Roppongi is because I was missing American food. I didn't think that was even possible!! American food is icky!! Well, compared to Japanese food it is.

Roppongi is like the gaijin mecca of Japan. It's the mother ship that no one told me about. I'm like ET. Totally got left behind there. All the store clerks and cafe staff speak at least a little English, you can get hot dogs and giant slabs of steak here, and there are a ton of gaij around every corner. So, naturally, I got a bagel.

Doesn't that look like the tastiest bagel in all the world?!! Maybe just for me because I have a crazy love affair with bagels and I've been separated from my love for so long.

All and all, I don't think Roppongi Hill is all that interesting. I mean, Mori Tower is pretty cool because you can go up to the top and get a 360 view of Tokyo, but I didn't do that because it was raining and so cloudy I wouldn't have been able to see anything. Mostly Roppongi Hills is just a really huge, fancy shopping mall with nothing but designer stores. It's great if you want to buy a $300 purse, but I didn't so much.

So I went back to the station, which is connected to Roppongi Hills, and was about to buy a ticket home when I saw a sign that said, "Tokyo Midtown ↓" so off I went to see what this Tokyo Midtown was all about.

Turns out, it's another huge shopping center that has an underground walkway connecting it to Roppongi Hills. Only it's cooler. Yes, definitely better. I don't know why, I just like it better. Probably because I happened to go there right in the middle of a huge event.

Seems I stumbled upon "Candle Night," which is this huge even where people light candles and turn off the lights for a few hours to conserve energy. I think it was in honor of the Summer Solstice. People were writing their wishes on the outside of these cups and then putting a candle inside of them.

I decided to stick around until night when they were all lit up. Also, they were having some live music. This girl with a really beautiful voice was singing ballads. Her name is Kumaki Anri and I bought her newest single that had these three songs on them, the first three songs she sang that night: kimi no namae, inori, tsubasa.

Yesterday I was near Ginza and I actually heard "kimi no namae" playing on a big TV screen as I was crossing the street so I guess she's kinda popular? I really liked her in person; her voice is really angelic and kind of sucks you in, but I'm not sure if I like her recorded songs that much. It's the same songs, but she was so much more captivating in person. (I also was really excited that I understood almost all the lyrics of the song "kimi no namae." Yay! Although, that probably means that her lyrics arn't that original since I knew all the vocabulary...)

And here's what the candles looked like all lit up. My camera isn't that good with night shots, but it still looks really pretty. The mist is so thick that the huge building in the background is half invisible. haha. That band of light continues up quite a ways but you can't see it.

I tried to take a picture with flash, but it just got all the rain drops falling. I think it's pretty cool though. Looks like snow.

There's something kind of magical about having thousands of candles around you. Also, the fact that they continued to burn even after being continuously rained on is somewhat poetic, no?

You actually had a pretty good view of Tokyo Tower from the grass where the candles were so I took a picture of it through the trees. It came out blurry so I was going to take another one, but the second after I took the picture, all the lights went off!! I was so lucky!! I guess Tokyo Tower was also participating in Candle Night by turning off the lights and saving electricity. Literally, the second I hit the shutter button the lights went off. It's was really quite spooky. Just stumbling upon a huge event like Candle Night is kind of spooky. I really am just the queen of coincidences. Guuzen-sama. ^^