Day Four/Five: Tokyo/Transit (Narrow Road to the Deep North)

This post is being written from Car One of a Shinkansen train. Shinkansen is a Japanese word that means “fast and comfortable train”. I have already looked over the followers list and have determined that none of you can prove me wrong quickly, so just take my word for it. Where this will ultimately be published from is another matter altogether. We’re bound for Sapporo, a city on the north island of Hokkaido famous for its snow festival, noodles and beer. It may be famous for other things, but they don’t concern us.

The journey involves taking three trains over a 12-hour period. We’re on the first of these now. We should arrive by 6am, just in time for it to still be incredibly freaking cold. I’m looking forward to it. If you’re reading this on the blog, we made it safe and sound. If you’re reading this from data fragments recovered from a frozen laptop hard drive, something else happened. Here’s hoping its the former.

So as we while away this long night, allow me to share with you some of what we got up to on our last couple of days in Tokyo.

IT WAS LIKE HAVING ZARAH WITH ME, BUT NOT IN A GOOD WAY

On Wednesday we got off to a late start. This was despite the fact that our roommate got off to quite an early one. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t nice. From there we headed into Shimo-Kitozawa, a weird series of small streets packed with clothes shops and tiny restaurants. It was fun, even if we did visit just about every shoe store with the Nike tick out front (hence the title). But it had a good feel about it, and it was a nice place to hang out for a while. Daniel and Ali bought sushi bento boxes for lunch, and we sat on a small wall near a rail line crossing as they ate them. The sight of the two white guys eating sushi was funny enough for a few of the locals to remark about it; they seemed quite amused. Daniel really got into it, ordering a box meant for two people and wolfing it down, proclaiming vigorously how good it was. He would later complain of nausea.

Next we went to Harajuku. It wasn’t Sunday so the weird parade-thing wasn’t happening, but we found plenty to amuse ourselves with. Steph met us near the station and we headed into the shrine and gardens established in memory of Emperor Meiji, the monarch who oversaw Japan’s industrialisation and integration into the wider world. We walked through the park, visited the shrine itself and made our way to the treasure museum. It was closed, but the view was pretty. The rest of Harajuku was pretty unremarkable; much the same collection of shops and chain restaurants that dotted a lot of other upscale districts we had visited. We did find another awesome toy store though, which was nice.

That night we decided to go western for dinner. We found out that there was a Hard Rock Cafe in Roppongi, but we were unenthused at the prospect of a long train ride. Luckily for us, there was another one two stops away! Located inside the train station! Score!

THE MUSEUM OF WIND

The next day (in story terms) or today (in writing terms) or yesterday (in publishing terms) or the day in question (at the inquiry into the recovery of frozen laptop) was my last in Tokyo (Daniel and Ali head back towards the end of their trip), so we used it to cross a few things off our list. That meant getting up at 5am to make our way to the famous Tsujiki fish markets, a bizarre and chaotic daily grind as people descend on a warehouse to buy fresh seafood of every variety imaginable. Huge tunas, fresh octopus, a wide variety of things I didn’t know you could eat. It’s hard to describe accurately. Pictures don’t catch the mad crush of tiny vehicles moving through the crowded aisles, and I’m not nearly a good enough writer to capture the smells and sounds of the place. I will say, though, that I have respect for these people: they do this every day, and get it done despite the fact that Western tourists seem to make it as difficult as possible for that to happen.

After that, we checked out and looked for a way to wind down the 7 hours between then and our train. To that end, we went to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. I suggested the Tokyo National Museum, but Daniel assured me that he heard that the Edo-Tokyo Museum was the best in the city. Since we never made it to the Tokyo National, I can claim that he is wrong even though the museum was pretty cool. A series of exhibits chart the course of Tokyo from a fishing village to the seat of feudal military power under the Tokugawa Shogunate to a modern metropolis and capital. Lots of cool stuff. The Edo-Tokyo Museum also housed Tokyo’s largest collection of wind, it seems. It was like standing on the top of a mountain as we waited for the escalator into the building. Yet another strike against Daniel’s judgment. The remainder of the day was spent wandering around a park in Ueno, where we checked out some of the shrines that dot the place and watched some street performers. And that’s it. Now we’re on the train. Soon we will transfer to a one hour train and then again to a seven hour one. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Post-Journey Update: We transferred to two other trains, a Tsugaru and a Hamansu which are apparently Japanese for "slow and not-so-comfortable trains". We made it nonetheless. First thoughts on Sapporo: it's freaking cold.

-Nik

The Ancient Japanese Art

As I mentioned in the earlier post, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Karaoke in Tokyo was a once in a lifetime experience (especially given the price we paid for it), and featured many a cringe-worthy moment whenever one of us took to the mic.


Ali's "Highlights"
1. 'Love Will Tear Us Apart" Joy Division
2. 'Changes' David Bowie
3. 'Paint It Black' The Rolling Stones

Daniel's "Highlights"
1. 'London Calling' The Clash
2. 'Love Will Tear Us Apart Again" Joy Division
3. 'My Generation' The Who

Nik's Highlights
1. 'I Would Do Anything For Love' Meat Loaf
2. 'Welcome to the Black Parade' My Chemical Romance
3. 'Tonight Tonight' The Smashing Pumpkins

A thoroughly shameful evening, especially given the high standards set by the rest of our group. But our unique mix of classic rock and not much else at all provided plenty of lol-worthy moments. I like to think that my raspy tribute to MCR that rounded out the night (my voice was well and truly gone by that point) was a fitting end to the evening. In the end, it cost us an arm and a leg for the two hours we spent in that 7th storey booth in Shibuya, but it was worth every yen.

-Nik

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

Video Life

This device has consumed far too much of our time:


Ali literally gets the shakes if he doesn't get a fix once a day. He is literally going to bed filled with rage because some guy beat him. It's sad to see a young man ruined by addiction.

-Nik

Housekeeping: Feelings of Abandonment

Hey everyone, just a few quick updates on the status of the blog:

-The Weeaboo Hat would seem to be no more. It seems to have collapsed for a few reasons. Firstly, despite finding a myriad of crazy Japanese clothing articles, we could not find a decent hat. Hats have apparently gone out of style in this city, especially Pokemon-themed ones. A contributing factor to the demise of the hat was our inability to come up with a way to fairly allocate it on a given day. For example, Dan and Ali thought that standing in front of a plastic robot in a store merited instant Weeaboo Hat status. However, we were unable to agree whether comparing the prices of stuffed Totoro dolls at different shops across Tokyo merited the same treatment. I thought it was a slam dunk given what these Totoro things have inspired. I was, however, overruled. That leaves me as the first and only recipient of this dubious honour. I know it was a fan favourite (and by my count, we have six of you now!) and so I'm sorry. I like to think, though, that it hasn't really left us; that it is out there somewhere, waiting for the moment when it's people need it once more.

-Daily blogging is unlikely to be a thing in the future. Faithful readers will have already spotted this based on the fact that we missed posting anything yesterday. Faithful readers will also note that yesterday was, in fact, our second day. That means that daily blogging survived for one day of this trip. Go team! We will be posting as much as we can though. I should get some details of the last 1.5 days up in the very near future.

-Nik

Day One - Tokyo (Akihabara and Shibuya)

We're down one day, and it's been a lot of fun. The flight was fine, and uneventful enough to escape further mention.* We arrived in Tokyo on time and cleared immigration, baggage claim and customs in about 5 minutes. It was great. Whether it was the legendary Japanese efficiency or an unmentioned Japanese laziness cannot be said for sure, but we were appreciative nonetheless.

Anyway, after an 80 minute train ride and a 20 second walk, we arrived at our hostel. I am writing from there now actually. It's a great little place with good facilities (including free internets! Yay!).

Moving on to more interesting things: we headed in to Akihabara as our first order of business. Also known as "Electric City", the area is a mecca for electronics, video games, random gadgets and a staggering array of Japanese fetish. Famous for its "maid cafes" and an amazing number of shops selling everything from high-end computers to metres upon metres of electrical wire, it truly was a sight to behold, even if it did scare us more than a little. We searched high and low for a Weeaboo Hat here (see other post for explanation), braving some pretty terrifying stores in order to search for the best Pikachu-inspired cap or cat-eared beanie with which to humiliate each other. We endured level upon level of one particularly confronting department store, with each level taking us further out of our comfort zone, the escalator acting like some kind of river into a heart of immense darkness. But good news! Instead of finding Mr. Kurtz at the top and having the horror of the world laid bare before our eyes, we found a video arcade with Street Fighter IV. It was the end of all our 100 yen coins, but it was worth it.



Having nerded it up in Akihabara (and having been thwarted in our attempts to find the cafe where you can play with kittens), we headed back to the hostel to regroup before heading out on a fresh expedition. Our destination: Shibuya, a trendy youth shopping district. We roamed the streets for a while, checking out shops where things were either ridiculously cheap or "this pair of pants costs half of all my travel money" expensive. It was hard not to feel overstimulated standing in the main intersection of the area as billboards and giant video screens and lights popped up around you. A lot of fun, especially in the early hours of night when people were still flooding in for shopping and dinner.



A few thoughts on everything so far: Tokyo is very clean for a city of its size. Western food is hard to come by if you're not willing to eat at Maccas. There is an awesome noodle shop on some street in some part of Akihabara and I forgot its name but if you're ever there you should check it out if you can find it (that's not very helpful, is it?). Despite Daniel bragging about his awesome camera, we have spotted no less than 3 tourists with bigger lenses than his. One was a woman, and he looked quite emasculated.

Anyway, that's all for today. The hostel just kicked the karaoke people out so all has gone silent, save for Daniel uploading his enormous photos.

-Nik

*That's not strictly true. One thing is worth bringing up: the movie we drew was, I kid you not, a film about the guy who invented the windshield wiper and his quest for recognition of his incredible smarts in designing a swishing piece of plastic. It was a real adventure piece. And in the magazine, they had the nerve to bill it as an "advance screening" like they were doing us a favour! Suffice it to say, it really stuck in my craw.

The Weeaboo Hat - Inaugural Edition

Some of you may have noticed in the side column that we included a section for the 'Weeaboo Hat.' 'Weeaboo' is one of those internet terms which means one who is overly in love with Japanese culture. A while ago, it was suggested that we find some very over-the-top, very Japanese, very colourful piece of headwear and use it as a punishment: the person to go to the most ridiculous lengths out of love for the Japanese way of life would wear the Weeaboo Hat for that day.

It is my sad duty to announce that the wearer of the Weeaboo Hat for February 2 2009 is... me. This is the reason why:



So I was excited to meet Evangelion Unit 01 in person. Big deal. But for some reason, Daniel and Ali saw this as a bit silly. It didn't help when I asked Daniel to take a photo. It certainly didn't help when I started explaining to Ali that Evangelion Unit 01 was not, technically speaking, a robot. I should note in my own defence that this only happened because I was willing to admit what I liked. After Daniel correctly identified a seperate robot as something called a "Gundam" and we threatened him with the hat, he started pretending not to know anything about Japan and acted like he barely knew what city he was in.

It's all just a bit academic - the hat itself has not actually been purchased, although we are working up a list of finalists. But there you have it: your Weeaboo Hat wearer for the first day of this journey.

-Nik