ROPPONGI

Roppongi is ageless, we walked around with glee as a couple for the first time back in 1982 and fast forward 31 years we still find joy at our pilgrimages to Roppongi. It is an action place, so to speak, but we are no longer any part of today's action. If I want to be honest we were no more than eager bystanders even in yesterday's action, never mainstream.  

A few happenings to illustrate the changing times; the beautiful baby and toddler shop with cute handmade animal motif pillows (which I think our girls kept) is now a Donna Kebab fast food joint, imagine that? The shop with a huge marijuana leaf logo at the front, which drew huge crowds with their range of pipes and accessories, is now a foot massage parlour run by Beijing compatriots; an elegant alfresco coffee shop where beautiful people hanged out has been redeveloped to another vulgar mini mall for cosmetics ... Fancl, La Mer, SKII ... can someone please explain why non-white people want white skin?  

One thing I noticed, the crowd has receded, it is no longer shoulder to shoulder.  It was a Thursday evening I know but the traffic was mostly office workers quick stepping to the Hibiya Line for home, not that many tourists and the shops and eateries were nowhere near full. I detected a sense of melancholy but then again, it could just be me. It is nothing a bowl of decent Ramen cannot reverse though.