Japanese students, yes we do seem to get a lot of them, principally here short term to improve their English but many of the academic variety too. Generally their first time out of Tokyo, the Harajuku gene kicks in as soon as they disembark, can anyone please explain to me why all Japanese teenage boys dye their hair blond on arrival, but our bleach only serves to transform their hardy Oriental pigment to a garish yellow tone, not a good look but a constant one nonetheless!!! The girls delight in the Gothic Lolita image, charming on home territory, but those frilly little frocks can easily get caught in the chain and lap dancing heels are much more suited to limousines. They are young and here to have fun.
They love hiring bikes, probably their first real taste of mobile independence, considered safe and condoned by parents, after all this is a small city compared to Tokyo and we do drive on the same side of the road …………..this means nothing, a cycle lane seems to be a single white line never to be traversed in case they cycle over a drain or hit the kerb, the middle of the road is order of the day and speed is kept to the bare minimum, just enough to remain at wobbling velocity, oh, and I nearly forgot, they cycle in packs, never less than 10 lined up side by side across both carriageways.
I-pods are permanent fixtures, over which volume they converse, always in Japanese, with hand gestures which would do an Apsara dancer proud. They wend their slow and precarious way through the city from one shopping mall to another. Natural born style icons this variety never fail to impress, not the types to sacrifice style for comfort or warmth, sensible and shoes do not belong in the same sentence, a lifestyle after my own heart; their dress is always totally inappropriate but eternally interesting and original, I actually really like type number III…………..
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