natasha nakamura's diary

August 12

Young men primp their spiky hairdos without embarrassment. Some dye their hair blond, afflict fanciful facial hair, have their eyebrows sculpted, and dangle things from their ears and noses. It is too easy to say this masculine concern for effect means Tokyo is culturally adrift, but the fall of Rome does come to mind.

Tokyo seems to have become a coffee-drinking city while I've been away, with all its Starbucks and Starbucks clones. Let us contemplate the difference between "tea-mind" and "coffee-mind".

It's going to take me a while to come to grips with this Roppongi Hills thing. It's as though some master planner plunked an aircraft carrier designed by Mies van der Rohe down into the middle of a familiar old Tokyo neighborhood. It's just too enormous for an intimate city like Tokyo. There are good things there, though, such as the fine restaurant called L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, where no reservations are taken and everyone sits at the counter, so you can look right into the kitchen and keep an eye on things.