the ultimate adult playground

saturday we spent 12 hours walking around most of tokyo. after daikanyama, after the diner (E24U) we went to "OUTLET" the weird place where you can buy all kinds of cheap strange things. i invested in really neat chopsticks with little froggies and piggies on them, shoelaces with posh kitties, stickers, a voice changing microphone that makes you sound like baby, robot, old man and boy, a monkey lighter that lights out of his head when you drop his arm down, an eyeball popping ashtray, frog and pig trays, a pig yoga towel, a bamboo money tray for the studio similar to the ones you put your money on when paying for items here in japan, some iron on kitty patches for my yogi toes rugs, and some other fun items, but, unfortunately because of space, we passed on the electric crawling hand, lava lamps, mushroom stools, whale mouth kitty houses, and the "choke a chicken" that "bawks and squaks" when you squeeze it's neck. off to ebisu, where jeff found a dried fish snack joint where they gave us natto tea, which was pretty good, considering i do not really like natto, and thinking we were going the right way, ended up almost in roppongi, and then ayoyama, omote sando, harajuku, shibuya, etc. walking off the food we ate throughout the day, including one of those noodle shops that you have to buy a ticket out of a vending machine (this is pictured above) turning it in, and getting your ultra cheap noodles-420 yen, around 3 bucks. something else i've been too intimidated to do until now. we ended up at taco derio of all places, i've been wanting to try japanese mexican food for some time. and it was good, not authentic, but good anyhow. i had a quesidilla and jeff had a meat taco, but there was no explanation as to what "meat" it was.

sunday we met katzu at the local czechoslovakian diner that serves eastern european beers with wedges of brie cheese, and he took us to shinjuku so jeff could spend a couple hours in airs, a 5 floor bootleg store visited by famous rock stars from around the world, their autographs sporting the walls throughout. first floor was basic rock cds, then rock dvds, then heavy metal and hardcore on floor 3, movie/dvds on the next floor, and 5th floor full of kiddie porn and piss and fetish vids. then off to takashamaya, the massive food court below shinjuku rail station. and back to respekt, the local hang out where we will have our sayonara party in a couple weeks when i leave this place.
we got some good bootleg 60s vids that included the monks and some other old german punk bands,old stones, the seeds, question mark and the mysterians, arthur brown, among others, as well as some rare cds-new york dolls live in new york from 1973 and a great stooges bootleg from the recent reunion tour. the packaging being the real three stooges. tokyo is the ultimate adult playground.

my mysore classes are doing very well. i've been adjusting between 20 and 30 people in 3 hours every day, and what this is doing is making me a much better, stronger, more accurate teacher. i can't believe how fast i can put students into supta kurmasana and pasasana now. and i can drop back anybody, any size, any shape, any stiffness. i used to marvel at senior teachers like lino who could do that so quick and with such precision. now i know what it takes. doing it over and over and over and over again. this is really a training ground for me, japanese yoga teaching bootcamp!
today when i was teaching, i was feeling very grateful for this experience, because it is truly a gift from above, and me thinks i must have done something good in a previous life to deserve it, cause it sure can't be this life!
anyhow, i love japan, i love the students that come to me for help, both here and in chicago and all over the world. i am so incredibly blessed.

and on top of all of this, my teaching partner bill, who is returning from kovalam today, has picked up the absolutely perfect gift for the new yoga studio, which, coincidentally, is also in tokyo-yoga...siva in nataraj!