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July 21st, 2005

03:00 pm - The Way Home Despite not getting to bed until 2:30am I manage to get up at 6:30am. Our plane leaves at 5pm tokyo time and I want to hit the famous Tuskiji fish market before we leave. Henna is still salty but wants to accompany me and we get on the subway looking like zombies and join the other japanese zombies on their way to work. The Tsukiji fish market is the world's largest, the japanese eat a hell of a lot of seafood, and I in particular want to see what it's like. We enter through what doesn't seem like a place for the general public, with trucks and guys with motorized carts zipping around. Once inside we're treated to acres of fresh squid, huge tunas, the reddest snapper, octopus, and just about every other edible creature that man gathers from the sea. The place is crawling with guys wearing rubber golashes moving, buying, selling, stacking, packing, and prepping all this stuff. I'm fascinated. I watch a couple of guys dress live fish and am envious of their skills. We almost get run over by the guys with the motorized carts a hundred times. After a brief breakfast we head back to the hotel to finish packing. Tokyo- you're a lovely, vibrant, and classy lady. I'll miss you. Sayonara.

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July 20th, 2005

11:45 pm - Loco for Yokohama We leave tomorrow and have decided to make the most of our last full day by going to Yokohama, which is only a half hour by JR (surface rail) from tokyo. Yokohama is right on the water and has a number of things we want to check it out. When we jump off the train the first thing we see is an amusement park with a giant ferris wheel and pink roller coaster. We decide right then that we definitely have to check out those rides at some point during the day, it being years since either of us had the chance to revisit these childhood favorites. First things first, however, and we start off with a very good meal and a short trek to the maritime museum. The museum contains a very complete history of the japanese maritime industry from it's birth after the first contact with europe, through both world wars (world war II is referred to as the "pacific war"), and todays cruise lines and commercial shipping. We both geek out on the informative digital presentations and historical artifacts like ship brochures from the heyday of the nippon steamers that called in ports from seattle to london to sydney. We grab a taxi for yokohama's famous chinatown and marvel at how clean and vibrant it is. There are tons of japanese tourists and street vendors selling steamed buns and tons of restaurants. We're still full from our earlier meal, but I'm wishing I hadn't eaten at all because the food looks so good. We browse around the shops selling all sorts of clothes and knick-knacks and manage to get some food down to complete our authentic chinatown experience. Next stop on the Yokohama tour is the aforementioned amusement park. The ferris wheel offers a scary but beautiful view of the harbor and surrounding area, and we snap some pix to record the moment. The roller coaster is one of the shortest I've ever ridden, but that's partially due to the face smashing speeds we reach on the killer dive into a tunnel underneath the park surface. Henna is so scared she can't even manage to scream and I let out a few somewhat involuntary woohoos. We disembark a bit shaky and deliriously happy from the adrenalin rush. The arcade deserves a stop and Henna gets down on a game where you play fake conga drums while I shoot skeleton soldiers in a military simulation. Japan has the best music related games, by the way. You can play guitar, congas, a drum set, piano, etc. They even link them so you can play the same tune/game session on different machines- like one person on the drum game and another on the guitar game. Rock on. We leave the amusement park a bit later than planned, but still take a nice walk down by the water. The sea breeze is refreshing and I can tell you there's nothing quite like walking on the Yokohama waterfront at night. Perfect. We're behind schedule, but we decide to still try to make it up a few train stops to the Ramen museum, which comes highly recommended by both Karla and Sam. We encounter a bit of confusion finding the right train, and then once again when we actually tried to find the museum. After walking right by it we finally locate the entrance and pay the 500 yen entrance fee thinking we still had plenty of time. The museum is basically a bunch of Ramen restaurants each showcasing a different cooking style from a different area of Japan, all located in a full-scale replica of old-town tokyo. It's all very cool, but within 5 minutes of entering we hear a broadcast message in japanese that we learn later was last call. As we walk by each shop they are literally putting out the "closed" sign. The upshot is we aren't able to sample any of the ramen, which is really the whole point of the damn thing. Oh well. On our way back to tokyo we encounter some more navigation mishaps, some of which is not at all our fault, but then Henna decides that we should try a different return route that should be quicker- in theory. In reality, it's a complete debacle and we end up taking a cab from one of the train stops because it's already ridiculously late. I haven't eaten dinner and Henna's attempts at rectifying the situation just end up making me progressively angrier. Once we finally get back to our hotel I head out on my own to procure my dinner. Henna doesn't take this very well. We've had some mostly navigation related dust-ups previously, but this is the first time it has escalated to the walk-away level. We go to bed salty as port Yokohama. observation: in japan fashion is everything. If you want to be a punk rocker, just go to the store and get "punk rocker" clothes. Metalhead? Ditto. Rockabilly? The same. Of course, there is a certain amount of this in the states as well (hot topic), but it's definitely not the same. For one thing, these clothes aren't even close to being cheap. Personally, I think that when you listen to a lot of japanese punk rock or similar genres it lacks the true anger and angst of the original. I think is due to the fact that, in general, japanese people are much happier than americans. They are coddled by an insular and consensus-oriented society and thus don't develop the disaffecton and alienation which is the genesis of british and american "alternative" music. On balance this is probably actually a good thing. If japan ever goes into a major economic decline this might change. There are definitely some exceptions though- Mono and Envy are some bands that come to mind- and that band Hnwo that we saw in the park. observation: japanese people really like reggae. I knew about their affection for jazz and hip-hop, but this discovery was a bit of a surprise.

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July 19th, 2005

09:06 pm - Ueno Ho! The Ueno neighborhood is our next destination and is known for its large park sprinkeled with attractions such as a museum and a zoo. Apparently it's also very attractive to homeless people, who I see for the first time in large numbers. We hit the national science museum, which turns out to be very rad. It has awesome biodiversity and history of evolution exhibits that keep us mesmerized until closing time. After walking around Ueno park a bit we're off to Ginza, another section of town we have yet to visit. It turns out Ginza is (surprise, surprise!) a high-end shopping district with brightly lit streets lined with every luxury label store you've ever heard of and more. One thing is for sure, japanese people are very fashion label conscious. This is a choice area for people watching, as obviously extremely wealthy japanese and hong kong folks zip around in luxury sedans and attend the opening of a new line of jewelry at cardier. Expensive suits and general bling bling are in abundance. Ginza reminds me of soho in NYC, but bigger and ritzier. We check out some local art at a couple of galleries in the area, not too shabby. In the midst of all this is a large toy store and we zip in for a look-see. The selection is large, but still rather mundane. The book store down the street is of more interest, and we spend a considerable amount of time there browsing and ultimately purchasing. After heading back to the hotel for a quick shower we're off to kabukicho,the red light district of Shinjuku. It turns out to be not all that exciting, just salarymen and couples wafting among the massage parlors and strip clubs. I play a boxing video game that turns out to be pretty dumb. All in all it was a rather banal (for japan), but relaxing evening. observation: tokyo makes NYC look like a big ghetto, but the night life in NYC is better.

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July 18th, 2005

10:18 pm - Beer Museum! We met up with Sam again to visit the Sapporo beer museum in the ebisu neighborhood. First stop is conveyor belt sushi, apparently a japanese invention. Sushi on little plates moves around the restaurant on a convenyor belt and you just take what you want as it comes by. It turns out there is a jazz festival going on at the museum with some damn good new orleans style jazz being performed live. There are pictures of Louis Armstrong and apparently some international Satchmo appreciation group is throwing the whole shebang. The attendees are mostly the retired day-tripper type, but we happen to catch a tall biker transvestite dancing and drinking to the music- engrossed in his own world. The beer museum itself is only midly interesting, and most disappointing of all the beer gallery is closed for the day. The whole point of going was to drink a bunch of fresh draft beers, but we had to settle for the canned variety. The shop did have some nice souvenirs though. We decided to head once again to Shibuya to do some more shopping and people watching. Saw the usual throngs of locals and stopped in an arcade to spend our hard earned cash on mindless folly. The drumming and guitar games were particularly fun and challenging. Sam kicked my ass on a few games of Tekken 3, although I managed to win a few matches. Not to bad for a complete novice. Before leaving we stop at a curry joint run by real live indians. Curry is popular in japan, so seeing a curry joint is not unusual, but seeing indians is. Seeing just about any foreigners in japan is not exactly rare, but random enough that you take notice. Running late as usual, we tried to make it back to the hotel in time to go the nearby (or so we were told) coin operated laundry. This late into the trip I'm re-wearing socks. Unfortunately, the laundry isn't all that close to the hotel and we can't find it anyway. We end up washing clothes in our tub and thus ends our day. observation: everybody in Japan reads manga (comics), from old men to young girls.

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July 17th, 2005

11:28 pm - Fetish Ball Rock After a couple of fitful hours of sleep we get up around 6am and head out to catch the train back to tokyo proper. Bleary-eyed and hungry, we split with Cameron, Steven, and Jay en route and say thankful prayers when we finally get back to our hotel. We hit the sack and don't get up again until 3pm. After a bit more dilly-dallying we decide to check out Roppongi Hills, which is this big shopping center complex situated in a tower. We join thousands of other folks browsing through the shopping extravaganza. I don't see any jeans less than $180, and thats only because every store is having a "sale". After a while I don't even bother looking. Of course Henna is into it, and she does find one store with reasonable prices. We tire fairly quickly of the roppongi hills scene and head to the nearby neighborhood of azabu juban, where there are supposedly shops with less stratospheric prices. Unfortunately, by the time we get there it's already a bit late and most of the stores are closed. We wander around a bit before hearing from Sam who agrees to come down and meet us. There's a cafe across the street from the subway exit where we are to meet Sam, so we sit and chill for a bit. Since we got to azabu juban we've noticed a few folks with bondage/goth type gear walking around. Turns out there is a fetish ball going on a basement club a mere halfblock from the cafe. Looks tempting, but the cover charge is 9000 yen ($90) for guys and 4000 yen for gals. Despite the provocatively dressed women walking around, we agree that the cover charge is a bit much, and head to roppongi crossing to check out an area notorious for bars that cater to foreigners and hook-up spots for american servicemen and japanese women. Of course, roppongi crossing is choked with crowds and strikes me as quite a strange scene. There are west african guys wearing bboy gear standing around whose job it is to hustle people into one of the innumerable bars and clubs in the area. We go into one and there are two people inside. We leave immediately. On our second attempt we're led into the "vip" section of a club that has the latest hip hop booming, and two TVs in the vip lounge spitting a steady stream of the latest hip hop videos. There are mostly foreigners here, and a couple of japanese girls. It's quiet enough to talk so we settle in as best we can and have a few drinks. Sam takes off as to not miss the last train. Henna is pretty much hell bent on going to the fetish ball. We work out a deal on splitting the cover charge and decide to go for it. The basement warehouse is packed with mostly ordinary looking folks, and then a bunch of staff folks all done up in their best fetish gear. It turns out this is basically a stage show, and the first act we catch are a couple of modern dancers, featuring one lady who dances like Daryll Hannah's Priss android in blade runner- after she is shot by harrison ford. The next act is the best, with a couple of nice young ladies demonstrating various bondage knots and such. The rest of night includes a guy who makes paper butterflies fly with a fan, a small staff fashion show, and semi-nude/nude female wrestling. All in all it was a bit disappointing considering the cost, but going to a fetish ball in tokyo is an opportunity one simply cannot pass up. observation: hip hop is very big in japan. I've seen japanese kids walking around with perms acquired for the sole purpose of growing an afro.

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July 16th, 2005

11:55 pm - meet me in Takadanobaba Late start again! Oh well. We've been planning on going to the Tokyo metropolitan museum of photography in the Ebisu neighborhood, but didn't get around to it until now. It's well worth the trip. In particular the world press photo 2005 contains some of the most powerful and disturbing images I've ever seen on film. If you get a chance to catch this exhibit you really should, it's traveling all over the world. After hanging out in Ebisu for a little bit we head over to Shinjuku station to meet Cameron and some his friends for dinner. We get there before everyone else, but Cameron arrives shortly with his friend and co-worker Steven, who is from the states, followed shortly by Sonya, who is a swiss national studying fashion. Sonya stuns us all a little bit with her sinead o'connor hairstyle. She tells us that her hair was falling out due to stress over school, so she decided to shave it all off. We set off to an izakaya for food and beers. While we're digging into bacon wrapped asparagus and egg smothered udon noodles, another friend of theirs, Jay from L.A., shows up. It turns out that they all met at japanese language school here and hang out from time to time. Jay is a hilarious smart ass so he and I hit it off quite well. I get scolded by our japanese waitress because I ventured to the bathroom without wearing the restaurant-provided clogs (you have to take off your shoes at these kind of establishments and I didn't see the clogs). I apologize in my best japanese. We eat a lot and drink a lot as is customary. I invite the whole crew over to the jam session at Jazz Intro, near the Takadanobaba station. This place is so tiny it's ridiculous, but the music is hot and Aki is there. We all settle in as best we can and I end up sitting in on a couple of numbers, once with Aki. Everybody has a lot of fun. Sonya invites us all to her place, which is somewhere just outside of tokyo proper. We catch the last train at 1am, which is full of red-eyed drunks, pick up some snacks and beers at the local 7-11, and go to Sonya's apartment. Her place is bigger than Ryan's sub-studio in minami izu, but still tiny by american standards and standard by japanese standards. We all flop down where we can and chat, watch lost in translation and happiness, drink, and generally enjoy ourselves until the wee hours of the morning. observation: even when you leave tokyo proper and venture out into the neighborhoods of the tokyo metro area, the population density is the same. It seems that in tokyo at least there is no respite from the overwhelming crush of your neighbors.

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July 15th, 2005

11:03 pm - Look Ma, top o' the mountain! We planned on waking up early to leave minami izu, but it doesn't work out that way. Ryan gets up as he has to go to "sports day" at his school, which is actually the last day of school before summer vacation. We see him off and then Annie too a bit later. I jump on the computer and to update my blog and Henna goes back to sleep. It's sunny and humid outside, but very relaxing. A few hours later Ryan comes back and we decide to head to the bus station to take the bus back to Shimoda Station. We're not looking forward to the sweaty 15 minute walk to the bus station. Fortunately, Ryan's landlady is in the parking lot and it turns out she is on her way to Shimoda to go to work. She offers us a ride and we gladly accept. During the ride she speaks her best english and we offer our best japanese. It works out pretty well. She tells us she's going to visit houston soon with her husband. Before we getting on the train back to tokyo I get a chance to go to the shimoda station rope car park. I ride a rope car up to the peak of a small mountain and once we disembark on the peak I unexpectedly find a breathtaking view of a bay on the other side. It's totally awesome. I snap a bunch of souvenir pictures and head back down the mountain so we can jump on the train. On the first leg of the train trip we're both knocked out. I find myself sleeping with my head back and mouth wide open. We switch trains to a Shikansen, a bullet train, and, yes, they go very fast. It's hard to tell how fast they're going except when we pass other trains, and then it sounds like we're in a wind tunnel. Once back in tokyo we get ready for a night out on the town. I finally talk to Aki, who is a young japanese jazz bassist I met at an elephant room jam session back in austin. He lives in tokyo now and I've been trying to hook up with him and check out more jazz clubs. He tells me he's going to a jam session from midnight to 5am at Jazz Intro, the same club we tried to find last monday. Henna and I decide to go to a rock club first and then perhaps meet up with Aki. We head out to this punk rock club in the Ebisu district called Milk that is recommended in my travel guide. The cover is 3,000 yen each (yikes), but two drinks each are included. We drop the cash and go in. The club itself is very cool, with two different basement levels. The first band is kind of mediocre. The second band, called Triol, sounds a complete nirvana knock-off, but I liked them better anyway. Henna starts fading fast around 1am so we decide to head back to the hotel. As we waited for a taxi (yes we had take a taxi again) we saw this tall and absolutely hammered white girl who apparently spoke fluent japanese arguing with her japanese boyfriend as he tried to physically put her in his bmw sports utility. He puts her in and walks around to the driver side, and she gets out the car. He puts her back in and has one of his friends hold her door shut while his buddy apologizes to us and the other onlookers. We laugh and jump in our cab. observation: I haven't seen a single american car in japan, but I have seen mercedes and BMWs. Weird thing is all the mercedes i've seen how the steering wheel on the right side like they were destined for the american market (japanese folks drive on the left side of the road). Also, there seem to be many more aggressively styled japanese (nissan, toyota, etc) sports sedans here. I think they make them bland for the american market.

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July 14th, 2005

11:25 pm - The sands of minami izu Today we are heading down the coast to Shiazoka prefecture to visit Ryan, a good friend of Henna's. He teaches english in a village named Imani Izu which is about a two hour train ride away on the JR limited express. The trip is nice because we travel along the coast and see some of the japanese countryside. Ryan meets us at the shimoda station, which is nestled between large, heavily forested hills. In fact the whole area is just a bunch of villages nestled in the hills. It's absolutely beautiful. After a brief meal and a search for cheap flip-flops for me, we jump in a tiny japanese car for the ride to imani izu, which is about 15 minutes from shimoda. The streets wind along the mountains, and once you get in a village area they are basically one lane, so traffic going in the opposite direction requires that someone pull over. Our next stop is the beach, which is also quite pretty. We tramp around in the sand and wade almost knee deep into the chilly water. Henna collects sea shells. Good times. For dinner we meet up with Annie, who is also a gaijin english teacher in the area and part of the same program that Ryan got his gig through. She lives in the same apartment complex as he does, and in fact it is her small japanese car that we have been using to flitter about. One of Annie's supervisors, a small japanese woman who introduces herself as Yukiko, also joins us. Ryan and Annie refer to her using only the honorific Sato-san (japanese people are extremely hieararchy conscious). She's pretty cool and her english is very good. We all eat japanized fake american food. Following dinner we head to one of the pachinko parlors in the area to try a little japanese style gambling. Pachinko parlors are extremely loud and obnoxious, and the game itself is rather mystefying to us. There are always glazed eyed people sitting in front of them with cigarettes dangling a minimum inch of ash. Looks like fun! Even with instructions from Sato-san, Ryan promptly manages to lose 20,000 yen, I lose 10,000 yen, and Henna is smarter than us both as she walks away with just a 500 yen loss. Losing $10 is enough for me and we see Sato-san off and head back to Ryan/Annie's apartment complex. Our nightcap consists of drinking cheap japanese beer and hanging out with Annie and Ryan, talking about anything and everything. I start an argument about whether certain performance artist freaks are actually talented or even interesting (I think not). We crash on futons in Ryan's tiny apartment. All is well. observation: a lot of japanese people smoke, but you don't see that many smoking on the street because it's illegal to do so in many places. However, they smoke in all restaurants- and the japan rail (JR) line has a smoking car on each train.

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July 13th, 2005

10:16 pm - I'm officially BIJ (Big in Japan) After our night of drinking we're off to another late start. We walk around our neighborhood trying to find a free wireless hotspot, because the hotel charges $18/day for net access, or 200 yen per ten minutes in their business center. Fuck that. We finally find an internet lab place that charges only 200 yen per half hour and end up staying there for 3 hours. In the evening we meet up with Sam, who is a friend of my friend Karla. Karla recently came back from the states after living in Nippon for 3 years. Anyway, I'd been corresponding with Sam since before we left austin and this is our first chance to meet him. He teaches english (of course) in a town a half-hour or so outside of tokyo. We get on the sub to a station in central tokyo where we watch a bunch of hip hop kids walking the streets as we wait to meet Sam. We're going to some sort of festival being held on the moat of the imperial palace nearby. It turns out there's a concert hall basically on the same grounds as the palace and Nelly is performing that night. The kids are all turned out in their best urban style gear to see him. The three of us go to the festival and plunk down 1000 yen to get on a small row boat and proceed out into the imperial palace moat. We're given some paper lanterns, a sharpie, sparklers, and a lighter. The part of the moat we're on isn't very big, and we manage to have a few collisions with our fellow revelers. I have no idea what we're commemorating, but being on the moat is relaxing. The idea is you write something on the lanterns, light them, and then set them on the water (they have a styrofoam base). They then light a few fireworks on the dock and we light our sparklers. It's all very cheesy and fun. After listening to a strange version of amazing grace being played live from the dock, we decide to break out. We head back to Shinjuku to find an izakaya (sp?), which is a restaurant where you go can get all types of appetizers and drinks and just hang out. We do just that and it's a lot of fun. Henna encounters a girl having a bulemic episode in the women's bathroom. Nice. Since Sam is rolling with us we decide to go back to ikebukuro to try and find Jazz Intro, the jazz club from our monday night debacle. After exiting the station Sam calls the club and finds out that it's like a block from where we originally searched. Of course. The club itself is tiny and it turns out they're not having any live music that night, but the owner directs us to another club down the street that is. We head over to the other joint, I think it's called the cotton club, where we find about 10 folks in a fair sized room listening to some local cats swing a miles davis number. Sounds good. A guy that looks like a waiter greets us and asks if we are musicians. We answer and in a few minutes I find myself sitting in on a thelonious monk tune (I think it was trinkle trinkle?). They have me do a bunch of four-bar solos at the end of the song, so that was a lot of fun. The waiter guy takes over on drums for the next couple of songs, and he's very good. I'm generally impressed with the level of musicianship I've encountered in Japan. We hang out for awhile longer, just drinking and listening, before leaving for our respective last trains. Our hosts encourage us to return, and I think that might be a good idea. observation: there are a bunch of hip-hop kids walking around that look like they walked off the set of a 50 cent video. It's kind of weird. observation: apparently it is the law of the land in tokyo that where ever in the city you travel you must not be more than a mile from a huge shopping district. Japanese are huge savers, but they also love to buy shit. This apparent contradiction was puzzling to me until Sam explained to me that single people in tokyo are the ones spendin a lot of the money. I knew that it is customary for single people to live with their parents until they're married, even if that's not until they're well into their thirties. What I didn't realize is that these single folks work and spend their money on baubles and $100 shirts.

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July 12th, 2005

11:06 pm - Ouch We're both sore as hell. I feel like someone ran over my legs with a big truck. We've been keeping a relentless pace and it finally caught up to us. We get a late start and head off to the Shinjuku part of town to go to the canon camera store. We get there and pick up the data cable for the camera. This part of town has some huge skyscrapers and an absolutely massive tokyo government building. We see some kid break dancing on the plaza while his friends cheer him on and film him from a walkway overpass. We're near the Virgin megastore so we decide to check it out. On the way we encounter a tower records store so we go there instead. It's inside this mall where there are a bunch of kids and young folks swarming over $100 shirts. It's the middle of the afternoon and I'm wondering what the fuck they're all doing there. Don't they go to school/work? Tower records is swarming with more kids. I notice that jazz gets as much floor space and merchandising as pop and rock. I find this bad-ass CD by an underground hip hop cat named Cesar Comanche. After some dawdling I decide to pick it up even though it costs $24. It's put out by a japanese label and I don't think I could get it in the states. In the evening we meet up with Cameron in Shibuya. Shibuya is a part of tokyo that you often see in pictures. Kids hang out at the station, which is huge. It's maybe 9pm and there are probably about 5 thousand people waiting to cross the street every minute- literally. We go to a restaurant/bar and finally get drunk. I also eat some raw horse, and can report it is quite tasty. It's sad, but getting drunk made me very happy. Of course we spent almost $100 between the three of us, so I was thinking my wallet might not be quite so happy, but Cameron insisted on paying. Very honorable of him. Drinking in tokyo is comparable to NYC in terms of prices, but the beer is a bit stronger. And the appetizers cost more. Japanese people tend to drink (alcohol) and eat together. observation: apparently, it is considered quite attractive for japanese women to be knock-kneed and pigeon-toed. You see 'em walking around everywhere with tight jeans and heels, with this kind of cutesy hop style of forward motion. Bulimia and anorexia are also in these days- as are chunky girls in the aforementioned tight jeans. No one seems to mind the dichotomy. observation: much of tokyo is disarmingly clean, however there are definitely some dirty gritty parts- like ikebukuro. Where we are staying is one of the super clean neighborhoods. observation: i haven't yet figured out how to capture this in our photos, but just about everywhere you go in tokyo you are surrounded by literally thousands of people. There's nothing like getting on a subway car packed to the gills at midnight.

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