Tokyo, 3 am

You can only know a city when you walk through it at 2 or 3 am in the morning. I did this last night, walking from Shinjuku, through Harajuku and Shibuya, on to Meguro where my place is.

Now the problem is that public transport stops around 12:30 am, but the city certainly does not. Shops are closed, but bars and cafes and restaurants are still open and very crowded. Even in Meguro, which is not a busy shopping hub, I walked by local ramen shops at around 3 am and saw they were packed with people. And not just club-hopping youth ... unless guys in their mid 40s are into club-hopping.

There's also no paucity of drunken business men staggering around the streets in search of a cab and while there is a plethora of cabs in Tokyo, none seem free at 2 or 3 am. And by staggering, I mean really unable to walk. There are capsule hotels available for these men if they can't get home, and some public bath/sauna places that are open 24 hours also offer some "sleeping" areas. I can just imagine what they'd be like at 3 am.

The city did feel exceedingly safe, and it feels like an exceedingly safe city anyway. I did not feel in danger once, did not need to look over my shoulder to see if I was going to be mugged (although a few people looked at me wondering if I was going to mug them.)

As I got home, I saw this billboard. Not sure what it's for, but she seems to be indicating I'm a loser.

This Time, It's Personal!

From the land where even the buildings have sequels.

Blossoming

Mmmm... Cherry Blossom ... aaaauuuuyyyyhhhhh.

These pics were taken yesterday near my apartment. The blossoms aren't in full ... err ... blossom, but they're close. Already people are making afternoon picnics and evening dinners along the river under the blossom trees.

Full blossom will arrive in the next day or so.

But don't worry ... you're not missing anything. It really isn't that special. Pause. Pause. Pause. Not.

It Must Be the Genes

Goddamn it!

They're thin. I've seen maybe five overweight people in Tokyo. One grossly overweight. Yeah, I know they have us beaten with their sushi diet and their smaller portions, but they aren't angels when it comes to food consumption. There are so MANY pastry and cake shops throughout Tokyo and always busy. I've seen slender little old ladies polish off three or four cakes in one sitting and wash it down with a frappacino. And their fat-marbled meats I almost find inedible. And while people do drink tea, sugar drinks (such as Calpis) and beer are gulped down. They don't seem to exercise too much, so it must be the genes.

We must find these genes, extract and duplicate them and make them available in pill form now!

Or maybe it's the fish in the fish tank theory. No matter how much you feed it, the fish will only grow as large as the tank allows. Tokyo is a very spatially-challenged city ... Not sure how this excuses the fat people in New York.

My Place Only Has A Shower

From a news report:

The body of a woman believed to be British was found in a bathtub full of sand on an apartment balcony near Tokyo, Japanese media reported today.

Police believe the body, found late last night, is that of a 22-year-old British woman who worked at a language school, media reports said.

A police spokesman said the body of what "appeared to be a young woman" had been found, but he could not confirm the nationality of the dead person.

The apartment where the body was found in Ichikawa, east of Tokyo, belongs to a Japanese man in his 20s whom the British woman knew, according to the reports.

Police were searching for the Japanese man, the reports said.

A British woman who lived with the 22-year-old was reported to have called the police yesterday afternoon to tell them that the woman had not come home and had not been reachable by mobile phone.

"We can confirm that a British national is missing -- an English teacher -- and as you know the Japanese police have discovered a body," a British embassy spokesman said. "Beyond that we cannot comment."

How Much is That Doggie in the Window?

Well, at the Seibu department store where I saw this adorable little pup behind glass, the answer was clear: 450,000 yen which, at the current rate of exchange, is $3618 US. Pricey, but compared to the cost of melons, it's a bargain!

If You Build It...

So what does the gold sculpture atop of this building look like to you?

If you said shaving cream, you'd be wrong. If you said a flame that is being blown on, you'd make the creator happy because that was his intention. If you said it looks like a big yellow poop, you're on your way to becoming a Japanese person.

I know this blog has focused on fecal matter a little too much, but the Japanese are obsessed by it. I have been told that this building is a laugh-point for the Japanese. Part of the Asahi beer building area, it was supposed to be a shining example of the glory of Japanese design. Instead it's called the "poop" building and a source of humor for all. You see, the Japanese think poop is funny. That's what I've been told. I will take some pics of the cartoon poops to further validate my claim, so stay tuned.

7.1 Earthquake Hits Japan

It hit at 10 am. I slept. My years of earthquake prepardness living in California obviously haven't gone to waste.

Those Funny Poms

Gay Priding or Hiding?

Welcome to Shinjuku 2-Chome, the gay center of Tokyo. Nestled in the tail end of the busiest shopping district in Tokyo (aptly placed), the gay hood is barely one city block and sliced into a few smaller blocks so there's a little back-street weaving to be had.

The above pic was taken during the day when the hood is practically deserted. At night, it turns into a bustling fagopolis and you can see up to 30 or 40 gay men walking the streets! Nobody holds hands. No big tongue-wrestling kisses. No bears in tank tops and tight chaps. No drag queens. No naked men with pierced everything flopping a semi-erect penis around in public. In fact, it's hard to tell which guys are gays and which are straight.

As with many shopping areas in Tokyo, you have to look up to make sure you don't miss a store. Many of the bars are in apartment buildings, so there'll be 3 or 4 bars in one building. There are only a couple of gay bookstores and they are tucked away in some narrow passages, with a little rainbow flag above the entrance and block letters in English: MEN ONLY.

I'm assuming that gay life has masterfully infiltrated the outskirts of Tokyo because considering this is a city of 12.5 million inhabitants, this tiny area is a pitiful representation of the queer lifestyle. I can only imagine what gay men from Tokyo visiting the Castro must think.

Leave My Yearnig Alone!

And a big hello to fellow itchybum-man, Scott.

Godmilla and the Cops

So I find a wallet with 2000 yen and a suica card. The suica card is a rechargeable public transit card you swipe when you enter the subway. This one had been tagged, so it could be used to find the owner. You can put anywhere up to 10,000 yen on these cards, so there is potential it is valuable.

I decide I will be a good tourist and hand these into the police. I enter a police station. There are about 20 cops inside, straight out of a John Woo movie. The desk sergeant is a young woman in a spiffy, pressed uniform. They're all a little wary about why I'm there.

I hand in the wallet and say, "I found this on the street." They seem perplexed. I say, "Okay, bye!" All 20 cops scream at me to wait. That's when I realize this is a bad idea.

Paperwork.

Now where I come from, the cops would probably thank me for the effort, pocket the 2000 yen and toss away the leather wallet. But things are done differently here. The young female cop tries to talk to me in really bad English. She asks me to write down my name. I write Miller Godmilla and this doesn't ring any bells. Am I just visiting? Yep. What's my address? I have no idea. Phone number? I decide to give it. Probably a mistake. I am asked to pinpoint on a map where I found the wallet and what time.

Then a translator is called in. Oh my god. Thirty minutes have passed. The translator is a shorter woman. She smiles and nods a lot. She explains that if they can't find the owner, I get to keep the money, wallet and suica card. I say that's okay, I'm just visiting. "You don't want it?" she asks. No, I explain. If I wanted the money, I would have kept it. "Okay. Well, by law you are entitled to demand 20% of the value of everything you returned from the owner." Hmm... I ask, "Including the value of the wallet?" She shakes her head and says she is not sure. "And how about the value of the receipts in the wallet? That's about 40,000 yen worth." She shakes her head. "No, I think that the receipts have no value." I tell her I was just joking and I don't want 20% of the value of the stuff from the owner. I just want to return it.

No problem. But if I don't want to make claim of ownership of the wallet or demand 20%, then I have to sign papers giving up my rights. What rights? I have no rights. I found a freaking wallet on the street and thought I'd be nice and give it back. Too bad. So I sign documents and have no idea what they really mean.

The name and signature of Godmilla now exist on official Japanese police paperwork and I hope, whether the owner gets his stuff back or not, this is the last I hear of it.

iPoop

Ashamed of your repugnant restroom rectal recitals? Of course you are. Never fear, the Japanese have found a solution. Hit the music note button and the sound of fake flushing fills the cubicle, masking any poop sound you might make. Sure I tried it. It's a very tinny sound, like something you'd download off a PNP network. There's volume adjust, so you can perfectly match your bowel movement ... lower volume if you've just has a croissant and level "11" for that bean curry you had the night before.

All well and good. But it took me 5 mins to find the REAL flush button, which was on the back of the pipe behind the toilet and unmarked.

(Thanks to Muir for title suggestion.)

Movies

If you're looking for a travel diary about visits to ancient temples, you're reading the wrong blog. Today I went to the movies! Saw Ghost Rider (and what an utter piece of fecal delight that was, kiddies) at the Wald 9 cinema. Like most things here, it was almost the same experience, but just a little different.

When you buy a ticket, you must choose your seat. This is dumb. The cinema was only one third full but there's no way to tell in advance if you're going to sit next to someone. Four empty seats between me and a couple. A woman came in and sat next to the couple. In the US you'd just move a seat and give everyone some personal space. Nope. It's the seat she chose, it's the seat she'll sit in.

Interestingly, if you split the auditorium down the center so there is a left and right, 90% of Japanese moviegoers sat on the right side. Remember the Japanese read right to left. In the US, we read left to right and I was told in LA that this is also how Hollywood films are filmed. Check it out next time you go to the cinema - you'll see more people sitting on the left side of the cinema.

All ads were in Japanese, including the five minute "short" film about what you can't do in the cinema: no smoking, no cell phone, no talking, no kicking of chair, no tapping of foot, no pushing back on chair. But you can drink beer and eat popcorn. When I ventured out with my empty soda cup and popcorn container, they were snatched from me. All food remnants were discarded. Soda cup top and straw removed and put in the appropriate holder, popcorn container stacked with others for recycling (god, I hope they're recycled). Check out the "healthy" snacks advertised at the concession stand.

Hermit Club

Apparently it's not affiliated with the Misanthrope's Choir or the Misogynist's Women's Auxiliary.

Get A Nose Job

Nauseatingly untalented, Cameron Diaz is also nauseatingly ubiquitous in Tokyo. Paid a reported US$6 million for 3 hours work (good if you can get it), she appears in commercials for Japan’s leading cell phone provider, Soft Bank. Godzilla-sized TV screens attached to buildings in unavoidable shopping hubs like Shibuya and Shinjuku replay her commercials ad infinitum (the term is particularly apt here), like Soft Bank wants to get their $6 million worth out of her. Does advertising by associative imagery really still work? Way to go perpetuating the ditzy blonde persona of Californian females. Males fare better. We’re represented by Brad Pitt…

What Kind of Dictionaries?

I know it's puerile and border-line xenophobic to make mockery of the "r" for "l" disconnect the Japanese have when using English, but signs like these hit the same funny bone that makes me laugh at Benny Hill.

Someone told me that "elections are coming soon"... I nearly died laughing.

Food, Glorious Food

To say the Japanese know how to present food would be a "tortology" (sorry, couldn't resist!)

Seibu department store, Ikebukuro. First floor. It's the size of a football stadium. And every imaginable Japanese edible delight, many meticulously prepared on the spot, so well packaged that it would be a crime to eat them. But since I am from a country founded as a penal colony, this ain't a problem.

It took me twenty minutes to walk around this nosh nirvana. Maybe the idea is that you walk off the calories before you consume them. Interestingly, there are few overweight Japanese people and I haven't seen one grande-sized person since I arrived here. Despite smaller portions, they seem to scoff down an equivalent amount to my American brethren, but don't seem to pack on the pounds the same way. Interesting.

Click on the pics for a larger version, but understand this is but a morsel of the banquet availabe at this store.

Okay, I Wont

Yokohama

When I mention Yokohama, naturally you'll recall this was the location for the final showdown between Godzilla and Mothra, and was the setting for the video games Shenmue, Enchanted Arms and Shadow Hearts 2. What you mightn't realize is that with 3.6 millions shoppers ... er, inhabitants, it's the second largest city in Japan.

Visited on the weekend. One major draw was the expansive, colorful and olfactorily pleasing Chinatown, one of the largest Chinese communities outside of China. Delicious food, crowded streets, and outrageous kitsch (check out the boob keyrings).

Interestingly, it was easy to differentiate the Chinese and Japanese. Completely different mannerisms and energy. The Chinese seem a little more brusque to me; the Japanese seem much more genteel.

Next came the whole port area of Yokohama, which includes a very futuristic-looking building and a building that looks like to me a like a giant taco shell.

This is the center of Yokohama and home to the largest shopping mall I’ve ever seen. Eight endless floors crammed with shopping overkill. Walk out of the mall and you enter a second mall nearly as large. The Japanese are clearly the most consumer-based culture on the face of the planet. I’ll hunt for statistics to back the accusation, but they’ve got to shop even more than Americans.

Being a port town, there were some groovy gentrified areas around the water. One of these was an old red-brick warehouse that has been turned into … you guessed it … a shopping mall.

Individuals

Shinjuku station in Tokyo is arguably one of the busiest train stations in the world. A new wing is being built and the construction site is walled with slightly larger than life pics of Tokyoites. What's fascinating is the depiction of the "new" Tokyo. The wall is titled "The Future" and it celebrates a diversity of people. While the streets are filled with dark-suited business man clones, there's a sense that individuality is not only tolerated, but encouraged. The close-up pic is especially interesting. I'm not sure if it's clear, but this person was once a man. Maybe he still is. And is that a wedding band?

Drug Store's

I have no idea. It was an office building and gave no indication of what was inside. Your interpretation of what this might mean is welcome.

GODMILLA VENTS #1

Yes, the Japanese are egregiously polite, but I am becoming increasingly ticked off at behaviour I observe EVERY time I ride the subway. It happened again this morning. A sweet old lady in her 70s or 80s (well, she could be 130 considering how youthful Japanese people look) boarded the car. If they did a Japanese remake of Murder She Wrote, she could play Jessica "Fretcher".

Three women, roughly 25, 30 and late 30s, sat in the section where you are required by law to surrender to your seats to pregnant women, old or disabled people. None of them stood for her, but watched as she struggled to reach the hand rail to hang on. When one of these women left, another 30-something woman rushed to grab the seat ahead of the old lady. This pushed me over the edge.

"Hey!" I yelled, and got everyone's attention. "Give her the seat!" The old lady, realizing what I was doing but not wanting to make a fuss, said "okay, okay" in English and patted my back. The young woman who sat down stared at me venomously but didn't speak. "Yeah, you understand me, you fucking bitch!" I said. "When you're old, I hope nobdoy gives you a seat and you trip over your sagging tits and die." Well, I say these things when I'm outraged.

My new tactic will be to muscle people out of seats and hold them until someone who needs them gets onboard. I think the wankful politeness of bowing or saying "thank you" a dozen times is meaningless. When your feet are tired and you want to sit down and then you see an old person get on the train and struggle to stand, your basic human decency is put to the test. It's when politeness costs something of you that it becomes valuable.

Isn't this supposed to be a culture that values the elderly? I should remind the bitch in the heels who pushed the old lady out of a seat. Hmm... I might get someone to write a card that I can photocopy and hand out: "You have taken a seat from an old person who really needs to sit down. I am a gaijin and am pointing out that you are a worthless human being who has brought disgrace on your people. I hope your shame destroys you."

Vent ended.

Nothing is FREE!!!

Not far from the Meiji Shrine, at a very busy intersection, stood four youths holding up signs: FREE HUGS. I watched people, mostly tourists, go up to them and get free hugs. Naturally, I was suspicious. Were they religious zealots? Would they inject me with something? Plant an RFID chip on me? What would Jack Bauer do in a situation like this? Well, he'd probably torture them for information. I just watched more and more people get free hugs, and then I went home.

Married at Meiji

The Meiji Shrine has been photographed by better than me, so wiki it if you want to take a look, and you should. It's a big tourist trap, but truly amazing. I was there on the weekend and saw a traditional wedding procession. The bride's dress was just stunning, but it inhibited her ability to make anything more than baby steps, so getting across a 100-foot courtyard took for-evah! I imagine the guy next to her is her new hubby. Check out his priceless expression.

Learnstream?

Hmm... Here are some instructions from a Softbank prepaid "mobail" phone. Is this what Learnstream has been working on since Vitesse got shut down? Check out steps 2 and 3 carefully.

Million Dollar Melons

I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. At the supermarket. Innocently shopping. Then I saw this melon on the left for 6800 yen ... about $58 U.S. The one on the right is only 4800 yen, but it doesn't come with a nice wooden box. Other than this, I have to say Tokyo has not been as expensive as I dreaded it would be.

Sleepy Shopper

I love this guy. The store was phenomenally busy and noisy and he was in the middle of it all, completely asleep. Not just a little nap, but full REM snoredom. I shopped around and came back 15 minutes later and he was still asleep.

Tuna Cans

There's an old joke: "How many Japanese people does it take to fill a Tokyo subway car?" The problem is that there's no punchline because no matter how full a car is, three more people always push on at the next stop. There is nothing I can say about the Japanese subway that isn't already public knowledge: crowded, clean, crowded, on time, crowded, efficient, and crowded.

This pic was taken last night around 11:45 pm. It is strange to be spooning a stranger so closely that you can feel whether they're wearing boxers or briefs and not get arrested. While pharma companies work to improve erections with drugs like Viagra, someone ought to create a drug that inhibits naturally occurring spontaneous wood for men on the Tokyo subway.

Two seconds after I took this pic, the train stopped suddenly. It was an extraordinary effect. We all toppled on our own. But the whole group moved back to a standing position at the same time, like we'd become pats of an organism that moved as one. That's how crushed the feeling is on the Tokyo subway. You lose individuality and become part of a one-ness. Hmm... Maybe I can use that line next time: "Is that one-ness in your pants, or are you just trying to make more room for other passengers?"

Perfect Woman

The two things every man wants his woman to be: fantastic AND aggressive!

Books

All the bookstores I've seen in Tokyo are called bookstores. The English word. But they don't carry English books. There ought to be a law about that.

I saw this seven floor Borders-like bookstore in Shibuya and figured they must. Went inside. Not only does the store use the English work "book", but the categories are in English too. I couldn't find the English books. I asked a helpful young store clerk, "Where are the English books?" She smiled and nodded and took me to a section of English authors translated into Japanese. "No, no," I said. "Books in English language?" She shook her head. "No, we don't have," she said. "You should learn Japanese books," she said and smiled. I wanted to say, "Yeah, and you should use your own word for books so you don't confuse dumb-ass English speakers," but I am being super-polite on this trip.

"Japanese books are very nice," she said and handed me one. She was right. Beautiful binding and paper and a ribbon bookmark built into the book. I started flicking through the book from right to left, but she stopped me. "No, no," she said. "You must read book backwards. That is how we do it in Japan." I said: "Agatha Christie novels must suck for you people."

Quick, Non-PC Observations

1. Given the difficulty with pronounciation, why is the most numerous and popular convenience store chain in Tokyo called "Lawsons"?

2. At gym change room last night. Given all the aesthetic trends the Japanese originated or adopted, how is it that the whole clipping of pubic hair has completely passed them by? Of all people, surely Japanese men would benefit most from the value-added optical illusion pube-clipping offers.

3. It's freezing here, but all school girls still wear skirts short enough that you can almost read the washing instruction label on their underwear. All school girls dress like this. Except for the dumpy ones. Somehow they seem to have bought up every long skirt in the land.

The Mustard Samurai and Yoshi

What's great is how butch the guy in mustard acted. He was keeping an eye on some youths with piercings and torn-jeans, ready to pounce into action like an Akira Kurosawa hero at the first sign of trouble. It's hard to convey, even in pictures, how utterly cool it was to see these guys dressed in this traditional garb. While San Francisco is a menagerie of sartorial interpretation, we don't have such a rich history to draw from. They looked surprisingly comfortable and nobody but me even noticed them.

The guy in the blue with the fuzzy hair and round glasses was obviously his fatter, comic-relief side-kick, probably named Yoshi. He leaps in the air, cries out in a high voice and sits on enemies to defeat them.

Godmilla Strikes #1

Headed to Tokyo Dome, the city's baseball stadium. On the way we passed this homeless guy, the first I had seen in Tokyo. I expressed surprise. I decided to give him a 500 Yen coin. He kind of looked like my recently deceased dad, except Asian. And homeless. And hairier. I was warned not to, but that made no sense. I offered the guy money and he freaked! He tried to get to his feet to perform some martial arts move on me, and having seen Jackie Chan's Drunken Master movie, I decided to take a step back. His outburst brought much attention. Not to him, but to me.

What gives? I was told: "Chances are he ran a company and it became bankrupt. To take money from you would be to dishonor himself." But laying in his own filth wearing rags is okay? "Sometimes companies find these people because they know they have skills, and will re-employ them." This gave me hope for all my ex-Vitesse friends. I also heard from someone: "I have one friend who is homeless because he does not want to pay for rent. He showers at health club and sleeps in a park and has a real job. He has a cell phone so nobody knows that he is homeless."

That must be how people save for house deposits in San Francisco.

No Harry Pottering?

This do-and-don't sign at a local playground seems self-explanatory. Naturally one ought not to hurt flowers or make empty soda cans cry. And little boys should never leapt over fences, especially if they've ever watched an episode of Benny Hill. But all I can make of the top, middle picture is that you should not attack anyone with magic, for any reason. No doubt the kid in blue is from Hufflepuff. What a dork!

Douching At Denny's

Ah, this is the kind of stuff we're looking for. Witness an interesting public toilet at Denny's. It has a built in bidet with three power settings. The third setting with the woman coming off the seat is not illustrative hyperbole. I was not lifted off the seat, but when its clean and rinse cycle ended, my nose was dripping.

Arrival

I’m surprised at how many Asian people there are in Tokyo. I don’t mean to sound fatuous, but having lived so long in a mongrelized town like San Francisco, where the ruling ethnicity is “weirdo”, I thought a town as cosmopolitan as Tokyo would be more mixed.

Nope. I'm the only white guy I've seen in my hood. It's called Meguro, it's in the Tokyo prefecture, a little south of Shinjuku and Shibuya, two major shopping hubs. Narrow, winding, unmarked/unnamed streets make navigation difficult. After a cab driver took an hour to find my apartment, I tied some white baggie-ties to the branches of some trees so I'd find my way back.

I decided the first day or so would be well invested in learning the subway system. Dan Brown could write a Da Vinci Code sequel just based on that.