Happy New Year!

An interesting observation of mine as I walk through the streets of Tokyo or am out clubbing in the nightlife districts of Shibuya of wherever, is that the girls I generally find the most attractive among the native population of this city, are the ones that look the least like Japanese. Quite tall, hair dyed dark brown, or at least another shade of black, and skin at least a bit darker than the ghostly pale skin tone most seem to strive for - those are all attributes that would increase the likelihood of me looking twice at someone. Add a fashion style that says luxury rather than cute or slutty, and that second look is almost guaranteed.

Not that this is anything new. The ethnicities I tend to find the most attractive are, I think, those found in southern Europe, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and South America. So you might wonder what the hell I am doing in a country like Japan in the first place. You might. But doing so would of course fail to take into account all the wonderful things that make this country - and this city in particular - one of my absolute favorite places in the world. So let's stop wondering, and get on with the rest of this post.

Something very interesting that I learned today is that apparently the Japanese word arigatou, meaning "thank you", is a loanword. It comes from Portuguese obrigado, imported around the time when westerners (read: Portuguese) first came to Japan. Who would have thought that?

Anyway, as today is the first day of the new year, that of course means that yesterday was New Year's Eve! And that in turn means I had some great fun with a bunch of my friends. It was probably the most spontaneous and least planned New Year's Eve I have experienced in quite some time though. By the time I left my home for Shibuya at seven forty five in the evening, I still didn't know where we would be around the countdown to midnight.

We started out at the nice french-italian restaurant La Boheme in Shibuya (on the way to which we passed an Apple Store, which made me think of how much I want a Mac again). The restaurant had a very nice atmosphere, feeling a bit "old school" European, with interior walls of stone and everything. It felt somewhat exclusive, to be sure, but the place was actually quite affordable.

As for the food, we ordered in a bunch of pizzas with various toppings, and some tasty chicken as well. This was the first time I ate pizza since I left Sweden. They were considerably smaller than Swedish pizzas, but oh so tasty! I started out drinking wine, but then switched to drinks, finding a very nice, slightly sparkling orange tasting drink whose name I unfortunately can't remember.

Around eleven thirty we left the restaurant, as they had another reservation at twelve. We worked our way back to the large crossing outside of Shibuya station, where we got just in time for the countdown! The crowd went wild, and the new year arrived. Sad to say there are no fireworks on New Years in Japan - I wonder why. After gathering up on the opposite side of the crossing, I opened the bottle of champagne I had bought on my way to Shibuya earlier that evening. Sharing it with about half the people I was there with (it was only enough for so many, but I did have the prerogative of choosing who got a glass), we cheered for prosperity and success in this new year.

And prosperity and success is exactly what I would like to wish all of you out there. Happy new year to all of you! May 2009 be the year when all our dreams start coming true.

That naturally should have come at the end of the post, but as I am not really done yet, that will not actually be the case. Back to my story, we have reached the point where the fellowship start breaking up. For after the cheering with champagne, the group split in two. One half went to karaoke, while the other, with me among them, went clubbing. The choice of club fell on Atom, mostly because I said I wanted R&B and House, and none of us seemed to know of any other club in the area playing that kind of music. Which reminds me, I really should check out some new clubs one of these days.

We danced the night away, went to McDonalds for breakfast, returned to the station and went separate ways. When I exited the station in Ikebukuro I noticed that people seemed to be camping outside of several department stores. I am guessing that means that the legendary city-wide January sale starts today. Worth checking out to be sure, but I am definitely not in the kind of rush that made those sorry ass souls stay out there in the cold for I don't know how many hours this night.

Another interesting flock of people I ran into on my way home this morning was a group that had gathered on the walking bridge across the highway to look at what I think was the sunrise. If it was anything else, it was nothing I could see, and the sunrise was pretty nice, so that was probably it. They even had a camera set up, with some old man taking pictures.

I stopped up there for a few seconds to look at it with them. With one last glance at that beautiful sunrise, I then turned around and continued my walk home.