konnichiwa from japan.

it’s 5:55pm on this lovely sunday and i am looking out from keio plaza and enjoying this sick view. pase is cat napping. and i’m a robot i guess. i haven’t had proper sleep in forever. but i’m… fine with it. my left eye is bloodshot though. i just can’t sleep. i dont think i want to.

today is officially the second day but we are already body clock death. so while hes sleeping i’m internetting/watching olympics/observing potential tsunami warnings but we’re okay with it. we still have this entire week so its all good. i’m still thinking about how i’m going to shoot him in these surroundings.

needless to say, this city has blown my mind (you were right gean) and the style these fucking people have is AMAZING. i want to take everyones picture. i feel like such an idiot with this language barrier, it’s beyond difficult. it ends up being a lot of polite smiling and head nodding. the girls here are so adorable, especially in the harajuku district. like the dope ass school girls, or girls in like pink jackets and furry boots and mini skirts — i am so in love. it’s so free.

i’ve been trying to video everytime i can, and god i hate you vimeo for your upload rates but it’s slowly coming along.

[vimeo 9796843]

yesterday we walked around for like five, six hours and just took the city in. i want to experience it before i take the mamiya out and go camera happy. i want to think about it before i’m just like “this looks cool cause its japan” — i have to think. we had brunch at Boutique Kitsune and i ate an octopus tentacle and freaked out. felt like cracking knuckles. baby steps.

so last night was our first night out because pase was playing at the Le Baron Tokyo (there’s one in Paris, and one in NY) for the JoyRich after party. the people i mentioned before, the la crew on the same flight are here for this store opening, so it was essentially this crazy celebration. (LOVE this girl with the blue hair.)

i took a nap and woke up at midnight and wanted to vomit. and pase is like you ready? and i’m like i want to die. but i put on a 4 dollar dress and heels and got my ass in gear. i stood there quietly for like 45 minutes just watching everyone, all the beautiful girls, the good looking dudes dressed all fly…. it was just weird. felt so out of my element like when i go to new york but it was amazing. so nice to feel ignored and purely spectate. but within the hour i became hype girl for pase because the kids don’t understand “GET YOUR HANDS UP COME ON COME ON” so i basically danced like a moron alone and grabbed everyones hands and made  people dance. it was super fun. “are you a supermodel” is what i was asked. which is so laughable, but really endearing. that would never happen in new york. i think it was my heels, or “are you a dj” which was just as laughable. everyone so sweet though and polite, all wanting the same thing, to just have fun and hear music.

now. an amazing thing happened at le baron. i finally met the one and only Yonehara Yasumasa… otherwise known as the man, otherwise known as YONE.

if i had to compare his fame to a photographer of the same aesthetic, he’d be the fucking japanese terry richardson with the style of bronques but sort of dirtier and way more voyeuristic.

i have always wanted to meet yone, and i facebooked him a while back because we have some music friends in common — but jesus i never thought it’d really occur.

he shot these risque polaroids of pase a while back so naturally they are friends. he came up to me, took my photo, slapped me up, and was the coolest older married dude i’ve ever met. he said “you have to come to my studio” and i nearly freaked. and now, i know homie wants a nude photo but COME ON like — i have to see where this guy shoots, what he does, etc.

yeah the subject matter might be whatever/overdone/etc but there is something to be said about a person who’s created their empire and career in their own country. he has a deal with fuji because he shoots their instant polaroids, and has done endless campaigns, books and shows. i actually like how he photographs girls — it’s…. it’s bizarre. mostly raunchy, but i like the westernized looking asian girls he picks, the blue eye contacts, fake eyelashes, blonde hair. i’m into it. i mean, i can appreciate what it is and peer into another culture.

so we got home like 5am, and i stayed up until like noon. i don’t know what’s wrong with me. and funny fact, outside our window this morning was the fucking tokyo marathon, literally thousands of people just outside our window and on tv at the same time.

[vimeo 9795870]

it is now 12 hours later, and i think i’m going to wake up pase and see if he wants to walk around shibuya and take some dumb tourist photos. or at least stop his snoring.

bunch of pictures/videos to bombard the internet with. sorry yalllll.

[vimeo 9797264]

and this tsunami scare is frontin. stop.