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downtown with The Girl

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I took The Girl downtown today. I introduced her to an old barber of mine and made had her sit through my haircut, then it was photography walking and also toy shopping. We were looking for an OMG doll. Instead we met an American who was running a little shop called Mesh who showed us what a kendama can really do in the hands of a pro. The Girl immediately began to pick it up, of course, clacking the wooden ball around between the various cups and points. There's even a meditation ritual you can do. We had an old wooden one (a gift from our friend Ota-san when The Boy was a baby) but The Girl bought a novelty pen type as well as a stocking-stuffer.

All in, we had a nice time.

My barber told me that since people stopped routinely coming downtown for work that the neighborhood (Gotanda) has been dead. It looked lively enough to me but there was no one in his place when we got there and no one arrived. Harajuku was a great deal busier, about as crowded as I've seen anywhere these past three years. I noticed that I could converse a great deal more with my barber on this visit than I could in the past. The lessons are working!