Day Two/Three: Tokyo (Or: From Every Kind of Man Obedience I Expect)

Here we continue our semi-regular updates on what we've been up to around Tokyo. It's been an interesting couple of days - we've gotten around, seen the sights, met up with friends, established a nemesis (don't bother asking. All will be revealed in due course) and done a whole bunch of other stuff.

OVER THERE, YOU CAN SEE WHERE THE EMPEROR FARMS AND CATCHES HIS POKEMONS. IN ALL OF JAPAN, ONLY HE HAS CAUGHT THEM ALL

Let's go back to the beginning. Tuesday was a rough start. Our alarm sounded for a solid 10/15 minutes before anyone moved on it, much to the annoyance of our roommate. Ali had a bad night because he barely slept on the plane. Berri had a bad night because I snored or something (I deny it). I actually slept fine, but I did not want to get up. We headed out to our first stop for the day: the Imperial Palace. We made our way through the imposing Kiyo-Mon gate and then walked around the grounds. The tour itself was an up-and-down kind of experience. There were some great sights and moments, like this:

But occasionally we would lose our place in the English-language tour recording we were using, and a lot of the locations described were not included in the tour. We did not even get to see the rice paddy where the Emperor himself plants and harvests his own crop every year. Nonetheless, a pretty good time was had by all.

THERE ARE NO FEWER THAN THREE TIFFANY & CO. STORES ON THIS STREET

Next up was Ginza, perhaps the most exclusive high-end shopping district in Tokyo. The main street of the area was lined with top-range department stores and huge shops for pretty much every major fashion brand in existence. But, given the time, before exploring all of this we decided to get lunch. This led us on an epic journey from one end of the area to the other in search of a place that a guidebook assured us was the best noodle place in Tokyo. As self-proclaimed connoisseurs of this kind of thing, we made every effort to seek this place out. Every effort. That is no joke. We were well and truly lost in an area that wasn’t really more than four blocks deep in any direction and bounded on two sides by train lines. Eventually we caved, but it took a long time to reach that point.

Anyway, to the rest: Ginza was shiny and bright and it probably would have bankrupted us to enter any of the freaking stores. But we did visit a huge toy store that was pretty interesting.

MEET THE WONGS

We headed back to Shibuya for the evening. Our objective: meet up with Steph and Amanda Wong. That mission was accomplished relatively easily i.e. we left the station and there they were.


From there we went to dinner. After a hostile reception at one restaurant and a lack of consensus about several others, we sat down to what turned out to be an excellent meal. After that we went back into the middle of the district in search of Street Fighter IV once again. We failed, but that led to an interesting development: I ran into Jun Neki, a guy I went to high school with. It is a very, very small world.

After that slightly bewildering encounter, we met up with Lockie, a friend of Steph and Amanda and a semi-native of Tokyo. He would be our guide and mentor for the next phase of our journey through the culture of Japan...karaoke.

WHAT KIND OF KARAOKE PLACE DOESN’T HAVE “ROCKET MAN”?

Ahh, karaoke... what can I say? There were many high points (Lockie singing Franz Ferdinand), and many more low ones (me singing My Chemical Romance). There was a fair bit in between as well. It was two hours packed with revelations: Ali, despite his strong reluctance to sing, could not help himself after about 3 minutes in the booth. I am actually not as good as Freddy Mercury at singing “Don’t Stop Me Now” and it doesn’t matter how hard I try to prove otherwise. Daniel is a mean duet partner.


By the time we left, our wallets were significantly lighter – something to do with having ventured into a more expensive time period. The night didn’t end there, though. Our love of the empty orchestra (apparently that’s what it means) meant that we missed pretty much all the trains. Getting home was an interesting experience, accomplished via a mix of trains we didn’t want to take and taxis we didn’t want to pay for.

THIS PLACE RUNS ON MAGIC, I SWEAR

We now skip ahead one day. We got going (relatively) quickly despite the previous night’s shenanigans. That left us free to get on with the day’s main event: the Ghibli Museum, a wondrous tribute to the works of Studio Ghibli, who are responsible for Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away and My Neighbour Tortoro amongst other creations. The museum is a weird place – exhibitions about the creative process are crammed into tiny rooms; there are holes in the walls that small children occasionally emerge from, their original locations unknown; there was a room with a giant catbus in it. Plus, there was a robot on the roof. Not being a huge Ghibli fan, I didn’t understand a decent proportion of what I saw but it was cool nonetheless.

WAITER! THERE'S A CAT IN MY SOUP

Neko Ja La La is a cat cafe. That is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a small one-room drinking establishment where a whole bunch of cats roam freely around, interacting with the guests or just ignoring them and going about their business. Needless to say, we had to go.

It did not disappoint. To get in, we had to go through a rather elaborate procedure involving disinfectant, a long list of instructions and a door system resembling an airlock. But then we were free to experience everything that Neko Ja La La had to offer. There were something like 15 cats in the room, ranging from a tiny Abyssinian to a huge beast of a cat that seemed to rule over the others like a king. I’m not joking. He was huge. He was on par with a decent-sized dog. Daniel said he could have probably ridden the thing and I believe him. The cats didn’t seem to like us too much, save for one who became really attached to the end of my jeans for some reason, but I think we got our money’s worth.

ON TOP OF THE WORLD

Next up was Shinjuku, the business centre of Tokyo. We met up with Steph and wandered aimlessly for a while before heading to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, a massive twin skyscraper that has free viewing platforms on the 45th floor of each tower. The view from the top was pretty spectacular, especially at night. The glass and bright interior lighting didn’t make for good photos, though, which was a bit unfortunate.

After that, we went back to Akihabara for – what else? – Street Fighter IV. It was an embarrassing affair this time. We were playing real people instead of the computer, and we were thrashed pretty comprehensively. And yet, I have no doubt that we will do it all again in short order.

Anyway, that provides some sense of what we’ve been up to. This is our last full day in Tokyo together (caveats are because we’re here Friday until 6pm, and Daniel and Ali will be back towards the end of the month). I’ll post again soon.

-Nik