Graffiti-zed Tokyo

as it started!

I had gone to Koenji for dinner last Sunday, and on the way back I decided to walk all the way to Waseda because I had missed the last train. While following the directions my iPhone provided me, I started noticing that since the very first few hundred meters that I had started walking, there had been graffiti all over the walls besides which I was walking. I haven't seen much graffiti in Japan so I was pretty surprised, but what was even more surprising was that it was continuous and continued to go on for about 2-3 kilometers. After walking for about half a kilometer I realized that there was some kind of story going on as the graffiti progressed, but the story eventually ended after another half a kilometer. Sensing this was the end of the graffiti I started focusing on other things around me, but after a hundred meters or so, the graffiti re-emerged and this time I noticed that all the drawings done had something written on top or near them, after walking for a bit I realized that the drawings on the wall were all related to a word game (Shiritori in Japanese and something like ATLAS in English). This got me even more interested and I kept trying to figure out the next word., all the while walking really slow so as to not see what the next picture would be. This went on for almost one and a half kilometers and I was about to reach my destination when eventually there was a drawing of a Giraffe (Kirin in Japanese) and the graffiti on the wall, along with the game, ended there (Since in Shiritori when someone says a word ending with the 'n' sound, they lose!). I recommend everyone to take that walk and be amazed by the innovate and amazing graffiti skills Tokyo has to provide!!