Lost in Translation

Today I visit a gallery in the back streets of Harajuku called Design Festa (1F and 2F 3-20-18, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku) after Lena tips me off. It is a temporary home to artists in residence. Small rooms filled with crude paintings of girls that would easily pass for a child's work if not for the poetic patternings of images and mood; geometric jewelry; fragmented bodies in black and white photography; explosions of colour in digital projections. It's an amazing find.

Upstairs, I meet a petite Japanese girl who ends up being one of the artists called Akiho Sasaki. She and her two friends invite me for tea, which escalates into 3 cups of brew and a 2 hour conversation in which only one girl - Kumi - sort of speaks English and I complement her by speaking absolutely no Japanese (though in my defense, I am getting rather good at pronouncing names of train stations). The third - Yukari - has the tendency to laugh at anything that is said and swings between expressions of confusion and surprise.

2 hours and several toilet breaks later, I am Grand Master Flash of Charades and have developed the rather odd habit of putting a very unconvincing Japanese accent on my English words... as if that is going to make them understand me even more. It's the equivalent of speaking snail pace to a foreigner. It doesn't work and you sound simply ridiculous, but I try.

I can safely say that at least half the conversation has been lost in translation. However, I can happily report that several issues and topics of universal importance are broached. Common ground is established as we agree that:

a) roo bars stop your car from being totalled when you hit a Skippy in the outback

b) the girls need to watch "The Lord of the Rings"

c) Harry Potter is hot. Actually, I establish that. The others just nod with wide eyes and amused (and confused) expressions.

This international mixing is really doing wonders for world peace and cross-cultural dialogue.

When Yukari and Kumi get set to leave at 6pm, they kindly offer to take me to Harajuku Station with them. We pass quickly through the throngs at Takeshita Street. It's glorious chaos; a surging collective of bodies compressed between the narrow walkway and pushed forwards by the ever-moving crowds behind them.

It is Yukari who takes me all the way as far as Okachimachi (by far one of the coolest places to pronounce). She turns out to be a lot more down-to-earth and understanding than she had initially let on. I get a warm glow when she waves goodbye from the platform. New friends are to be found in the most unusual places and situations.

Mental note: Learn some Japanese for my second visit to this country (and there will be a sequel).

En route back to the hostel, I get lost and spend a good hour traipsing around in the dark back alleys of Asakusa. Thank God for the Poo Building (aka the Asahi Building) as a landmark for navigation. I finally figure out why I am so disoriented. I turned down the wrong street at the corner of the Mercedes Benz building. I am a genius.

Tonight, the hostel is 'the place to be'. There's an influx of new peeps willing and able to discuss their worldly adventures. And I've come to the conclusion that 'good looking American' (aka Rob from New York) from the other night, well, he is a lot less attractive when he opens his mouth. Like a Ronan Keating song, some people say it best when they say nothing at all.