Those Damn Yankees

Although much of the rest of the group had returned to America, four of us found ourselves in Yoyogi park (fully named Yoyogi-Kamizono-Cho). This massive park had a little of something for everyone. There were many green spaces with lush plant life (we saw someone sunbathing nude), bridges over beautiful bodies of water (we saw Harajuku style for the first time here), and then we found a massive asphalt surface (where we saw some Japanese Yankees).

I was not familiar with "Japanese Yankees" (as our Japanese friend described them), but I will try to give you a mental image before posting a video. If you remember the days of Grease and poodle skirts; well, think of the "greasers", the bikers with slicked back hair with a totally "bad" attitude. Now imagine a snapshot of a gang of those bikers in today's society. Now imagine those dudes being Japanese.

We stumbled across the area not knowing what we were hearing, but there was some American rock and roll from the 60's blasting loud. As we reached the massive circle, we realized that these full grown men were a working snapshot of the 1960's in America. They were drinking (and throwing) beer, dancing with each other, and posing for hundreds of onlookers.

There's no possible way for me to have captured the essence of this experience, but I have learned that there really is no way to truly capture Japan to share with people who have not experienced it. I hope you enjoy the following video, as it will be the last one I'm posting. I apologize for the low quality of the footage; I was not comfortable getting much closer to the Yankees, honestly. Feel free to check up on my thread on starcityscene.com to read more about my adventures in Japan. I suppose this is my Sayonara for this blog.