day 09 is a sunday, and sunday means "yoyogi park"-time! or, in other words: seeing japanese youth culture live-performing all around in the park. to me, this means a relaxing sunday with a rather high WTF???-factor, but not much to do than just staring, listening, taking pictures, and strolling around. but to get to "yoyogi park" i had to walk down "takeshita dori"[001-011], a street full of fashion shops for more alternative styles like punks, gothic lolitas, hip hop dancers, etc. (btw, pictures from day 04, [001-042] were taken right next to today's locations). so the first ones i met outside the park were all kind of gothic-lolitas, and other people in interesting outfits[013-050]. i think there's not much to say about it, just get an impression by the pictures yourself. in the park a gaggle of rockabillies[051-076] was dancing and having fun (with typical haircuts). look at the timestamps of the pictures, as later there will be some more pictures of the group. they were dancing all the time! also notice the shoes[058]. when i came by later there were all kind of parts from their shoes laying around. heavy dancing! next i saw several bands[078-105] with all kind of music genres and with more, or less skills. a band i really liked was "vale"[087-090]. so i sat down and listened to their music for quite a while. it turned out they only had three songs to perform, but they did that in an excellent way. they gave away free CDs, so i took one and donated some money. besides loud music there were also all kind of "performances", like this guy with nunchakus[107-109], who was really impressing. unfortunately only a few pictures turned out to be in focus. a group of japanese hippies[110] (though their clothes were really moderated) was also there, like other groups, of which i could not find out what they were actually doing. maybe some tailoring, or acting, or both? who knows. then some cosplay (short for "costume play") and other fancy dressing[121-131] again, with a real cute maid[118-119]. kawaiiii! some skateboarders[120] were there too and a police officer stopping at them to talk with them. but it looked more like a friendly talk and no giving orders or the like. the police officer drove on and the skaters went on doing their tricks. back to the rockabillies again[132-133] - same people, doing the same dance for (at least) two hours. and finally another band[134-140] with cute costumes and loads of fans as it seemed. afterwards i decided to listen to some more "vale"[141-142] music and returned to their location. in the meantime it started to rain (though it was more a light drizzle), but this didn't cool down the air a bit. on the contrary, the sultriness grew. by 17:00 (and due to the ongoing rain) most of the performers had already packed and left their open-air stages. so i also headed for the train station, and found a beautiful japanese garden[150-156] on the way. since i got a little hungry i tried this "soyjoy"[158] bar, but the soya joy was non existent actually. it tasted ok, but the consistency of the bar was a bit strange. when i got off the train there was a beautiful sunset with an dark red sky. unfortunately i didn't make it to the tenth floor of my hotel in time, so there are no good pictures of the sunset. too bad. since today i wanted to have maki[165], there's no new food report. maybe i'll try something yet unknown tomorrow, let's see. ah, and today i bought another "nekomimi"-girl "gashapon" - this is another cat girl (with cat-ears = "nekomimi") in a capsule ("gashapon"). this time i got the black one - yippieh! (see picture[097], on day 04). i also discovered that power napping is a great thing, since it can take quite a long time to get to some station and that's a good opportunity while sitting on the train to relax a bit. random facts about tokyo: most taxis have doors that open automatically, so the passenger can get on more easily. loads of people have some kind of washrag they use to wipe away the sweat. i bought one too in the cat store i visited on day 07 (see picture [006]), of course with a cat on it - pretty convenient, as it's hot all the time and there are lavatories all over tokyo where one can wash it from time to time.