Hostile Traveler

I read this post on Craigslist and I thought I should share it with everyone that gets to experience the joys of air travel.

And yes, I’m still working on the pictures…

I returned home Saturday night after a remarkably uneventful trip (for once). No engine explosions, vomit, or crazy naked Asian chicks. Just a nice easy 13 hour flight and 13 hour time difference, so I basically landed at the same time I took off. Now if that doesn’t cause your system to freak out, I don’t know what will. As a result, I’ve spent the time since sleeping at random, including a 15+ hour stretch when I got home. Hopefully I normalize by tomorrow.

Waking up yesterday (admittedly at 4pm) to an inch of sleet and torrential rain alternating was a treat. After experiencing the cherry blossoms and the beginnings of Spring in Japan coming home to a wintry mix was not a pleasant experience. Isn’t it supposed to be spring? WTF?

Well, let’s get caught up on the events since I last wrote. Thursday night was pretty much covered, so lets start with Friday, where I decided that I needed to get my culture on and go to see something old. In a city so obsessed with the new, this is sometimes not an easy task. Not to mention the whole bombing thing in WWII, but we’ll leave that alone. I’m all culturally sensitive and stuff. Yeah.

So, first order of business - lunch. Should have been breakfast, but Thursday was a late night and I’m not much of a morning person. The nice thing about eating in restaurants in Japan is that most of them have a display case outside that contains plastic versions of their dishes. They’re amazingly lifelike, and all you need to do is drag the waiter outside and point to get something similar on your table. So far, I’ve been lucky to not find any hidden tentacles - they usually put those in plain view.

Couple of other random pics from my wanderings. The maid cafe thing has generated some comments and emails, so I wanted to put up this giant store dedicated to uniforms called M’s, found in Akihabara. I wasn’t kidding when I said that the Japanese take their fetishes very seriously. Oh, and beware if you decide to visit the website on the sign.

One final bit of Engrish that may or may not be intentional - some shirts being sold at a vendor in Asakusa.

My wanderings on Friday took me to what is one of the oldest parts of Tokyo, called Asakusa. Here, you don’t find any glass skyscrapers or neon overload, but instead, mostly older buildings and temples. It’s a less hectic area to walk around in, which was a nice break from the downtown areas of the city.

The main reason I came to this section was to see the Sensoji Temple and its surroundings. To get there, look for Kaminarimon Gate, under which hangs a giant red lantern.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but under the lantern is the Japanese version of Kenny Rogers.

After passing through the gate, you wind up on Namsite street, which is lined on both sides by vendors selling traditional tourist crap - kimonos, cheap swords, masks, and so on. There are, however, some nice things amongst all the crap, but you have to look a little bit harder while fighting through the crowds. There are also a lot of food vendors selling freshly-cooked pastries, rice cakes, and so on. The smell is heavenly, which I suppose, is fitting for a temple area. This time of year is when the cherry blossoms are in bloom, so everything is done up with a cherry blossom motif. And, if you look closely, Kenny Rogers-san is following me…

In light of my recent uneventful flight and my desire to change my travel karma, here are a couple of Buddha from 1687. That’s all. No wise-assed comments. Really.

Paper lanterns hung outside of the temple. If anyone can translate, feel free. I just thought they looked nice.

There’s a five-story pagoda outside of the main temple building that was built much later, but still impressive.

This is Sensoji Temple itself, which is (I believe) the oldest temple in Tokyo, built in the seventh century, though I’m not sure to what degree the building is original. It’s really quite nice, and is still in use judging by the monks wandering around.

I finally got to see a Rickshaw after all of these trips to Asia. Okay, it’s not that impressive. I dunno…I just would feel bad having a guy haul my big foreign ass around town.

….and that’s it for the pics. Friday night I spent a bit of time in Shibuya doing the Times Square-on-steroids thing, then went out for dinner at a yakitori place for some grilled meat. Early night in general because I was flying the next day.

Incidentally, if you’re ever visiting Tokyo, be sure to give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport - about 2 hours should be fine. Basically, there are three ways - a $200 taxi ride, a $40 bus ride that stops at every freaking hotel in the city, or a $35, 1 hour Narita Express train trip, but you have to get to Tokyo Station first. Oh, and because it’s the JR (Japan Rail) line, good luck figuring it out - English is sorta optional for most of the signage.

And now I’m back. I’ll work on getting the galleries updated soon. Kinda like the ones from Australia and Hong Kong that I haven’t put up yet. Someday…

I’m headed back home today. Let’s hope that my flight back is a little less interesting than the way over. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the entertainment factor, but I don’t want to to go Alaska again.

Wen I get some time/bandwidth I’ll update with some pics of Asakusa taken yesterday.

The title will make sense in a bit. In the meantime, let’s get caught up. Last night the regional sales manager type wanted Ken (Korean colleage for those not following the plot) to go out with himself and a candidate for sales weasel in Japan. Okay, fine. So we meet him at Hotel Okura, which is a well-known oldschool hotel here in Tokyo. It’s nice, but there are aspects of it that make it look its age, such as the seemingly endless stream of aging salarymen wandering around. Ken and I had to wait for a bit, so we spent a bit of time in the hotel bar, which may be rated as the place most likely to inspire suicide in all of Tokyo. Dark, smoky, depressing 70s decor, startlingly overpriced drinks - it had it all. Thankfully we didn’t have to spend much time there before moving on.

Dinner was teppanyaki, which is the typical Japanese style place in the states where the chef cooks on a grill in front of you. The thing is, this place was kind of posh, so there were no theatrics involved like the chef flicking shrimp tails into his hat and such. Instead, it was like watching a curiously obsessive chef make dinner while avoiding any sort of eye contact. Very odd. Now, I figured I’d be in good shape food-wise, but the problem is that I’m not much of a seafood fan…but this is Japan, so it’s almost unavoidable. So, I wasn’t too thrilled that the appetizer was tuna sashimi, followed by watching the chef throw still-twitching halved lobsters on the grill. The steaks were admittedly amazing, and I thought that the fried rice might save me as well, but it turned out to be full of tiny fish. Dammit. the other guys seemed to enjoy it though, so I’m sure it was good…just not my thing. I feel like I have something wrong with me when I see how much other people enjoy lobster, but for me, they’re just cockroaches of the sea.

Today was the last day of class, and we ended at around 1:30pm. It’s normally an hour earlier, but this being Japan, there were some overachievers in the class that wanted to redo some things. I told them there were no gold stars, but that didn’t seem to matter. Still, I guess it’s better than the slackjawed disinterest that I get during classes back home.

After class, I made a pilgrimage to geek Mecca - Akihabara. I tend to go here every time I come to Tokyo to see what the latest electronic toys are, plus there are some really interesting collectibles shops around. I know I’m an otaku (geek) but at least I admit it.

While walking around, I came across a bookstore that had the different types of books it sold on various floors listed in the window. It’s hard to not notice a magazine called FUCK with an anime character on the front of it.

The otaku seem to have a major fetish for girls dressed in maid outfits. There are cafes dedicated to this fetish where guys can go and get coffee or whatever while the waitresses, dressed as maids, serve them and flirt a bit. That’s as far as it goes, though I’m sure the nerds go home and beat off like a crazed chimpanzee afterwards.

One of the stores I went into sells figurines, and it seems like 90% of them are of anime women in various states of undress or revealing outfits. And they go for big money, so apparently the otaku are well-funded. Oh, and at the same store they have a cafe on the second floor that I glanced into where the women are dressed in cat outfits - little ears and a tail. Though I guess that isn’t that far from the old Playboy clubs from the…well, from before my time. Guys are just creepy as fuck sometimes, aren’t they? Oh wait, I’m a guy. Damn.

The sign below is an example of one of these cafes. The term ‘moe’ is a bit hard to explain, but I think it means ‘contentment’ - in other words, being happy in the environment you’re in, even if it’s just a fantasy.

And so the maid fetish theme continues. Walking down the street, there’s a vendor selling everything maid-related. Maid cookies, maid cake, and even the elusive Maid pudding. I kinda don’t wanna know…

After a bit it was time to head out of Akihabara before I either spent lots of money on electronics or developed a maid fetish myself. But, before going, I ran into an incredible crepe stand. Nice selection of flavors, though I personally settled for something simple - a #2 (caramel and whipped cream).

Had some time to burn before dinner, so checked out a new complex in the area I’m staying called ‘Midtown Tokyo’. Very very nice place, including a mall with lots of boutique stores that I can’t afford anything in. This is perhaps the nicest mall I’ve ever seen, and I’m sure the picture below doesn’t do it any justice.

Ken and I grabbed dinner at a Brazilian restaurant called Acaraje Tropicana , where I had hoped to introduce Ken to the wonderful gluttonous world of Rodizio. That’s where guys carrying skewers of meat keep coming to your table until your belly tears open from the strain. It’s carnivore heaven. Unfortunately, this place requires reservations for that a day in advance (wtf?) so we had to settle on dishes. Still, not bad, and the capirinhas were good.

Afterwards, I tried to find a tequila bar I had heard about called Agave, which is rumoured to have 400+ types of tequila. Alas, it wasn’t to be because I can’t find the freaking place to save my life. Granted, addresses around here are something I’m still trying to figure out, and this place is in a basement somewhere, but still…

So, we decided to hit a Roppongi mainstay - Bauhaus. Bauhaus has been open for something like 25 years, and the owner has a band that plays every night. They do covers of old American and British rock (Deep Purple, Queen, Led Zeppelin, etc) and they are amazing at it. They’re all tremendous musicians, and they put on a hell of a show. The only kind of funny part is that they speak very little english, so some of the lyrcs are obviously being done phonetically, but it’s easy to overlook something so minor in the face of such talent. Good stuff.

The outside doesn’t look like much….the blown ‘B’ doesn’t help I guess.

…and here’s the band. The singer looks a bit like a Japanese Ozzy Osbourne

And finally, a shot of Roppongi’s main drag on my walk back to the hotel.

Oh - about the topic. Everyone here smokes it seems, and Bauhaus is a pretty small place. So now I feel like beef jerky I have so much smoke permeating my skin and clothes. Time for a shower, methinks.

Tomorrow I’m off to be all cultural and shit and visit a temple area. Well, if they let me in. I wouldn’t.

I haven’t written anything for the past couple of days because, well, nothing that exciting is going on. I’ve been teaching class during the day, grabbing some dinner, then crashing. It doesn’t help that the remnants of jetlag are on the periphery of my consciousness, and that it’s been raining off and on so I’m not that inclined to go out anyways. Still, that’s likely to change tomorrow, which is the last day of training, and a half day to boot. Then Friday I’ll have the day to do some exploring, which I’m still figuring out.

For the foodies out there, I’ve been eating local as much as possible. For example, last night I went to an all-you-can-eat sushi and shabu shabu place. I’m not a sushi fan, but I love shabu shabu, which is basically a boiling pot of broth in which you cook paper-thin slices of meat and an assortment of veggies. Everything is very fresh and it’s a fun social thing to do. I also tried a kind of Japanese-French bistro place yesterday for lunch where I had a pork loin stewed in plum sauce and a kind of pasty risotto. Today was slightly more traditional Japanese - tempura in a bento with miso soup and steamed rice. The nice thing about Japanese food is I always feel good after eating it because it tends to be so light in comparison to Western food. Or it could be that I’m eating with sticks which slows my gluttonous ass down to more human levels.

Lately, I’ve had people ask how I find things to do when I travel to different places. When I first started doing this sort of thing, I did what everyone else does - pick up a travel guide and read. The thing is, youre typically getting a very sterile view of the area you’re going to be visiting. You get all of the “standard” attractions, places to go, and so on. It works, but it’s not a good way to get a true feel of where you’re staying.

For that, I’ve become very dependent on blogs and message boards. Blogs written by expats living in an area oftentimes don’t intend to provide travel information to visitors, but they do as a side effect of talking about ther lives. They may talk about something cool they visited, or a great place they ate, and for someone coming from the outside that may be a place that they would never have found on their own or by using a travel guide. The same goes for message boards, which are often congregation points for expats and can provide a ton of information - restaurants, attractions, and so on. Really, they’re a great way to see some of the grittier bits of a city that are off the beaten path.

In preparation for this trip, I looked back on some resources that I had found on previous trips to Tokyo. Alas, my favorite site MasaMania seems to be updated only infrequently at best lately. MasaMania is a Japanese photographer guy that does the most bizarre Engrish commentary ever but shows some interesting cultural phenomena at the same time, maybe inadvertently. The site now is just a shell of what it used to be.

So, I had to rely on some more standard resources, such as Metropolis, probably the largest Tokyo expat magazine and message board out there. There’s also a slightly more offcolor forum called Fucked Gaijin that is quite good. Quirky Japan is a listing of some of the stranger sights to see, and Japanmanship is a sometimes funny, sometimes bitter blog that has some gems in it. There are numerous other blogs out there because the expat community in Tokyo is so large, so just looking through some of those tends to be a bit of an adventure.

The other bit of “research” that I did was to watch a BBC series called Japanorama which is a BBC series hosted by Jonathan Ross. For those who don’t know him, he’s a talk show host in England that has a speech impediment like Barbara Walters where r’s become w’s. Think ‘Barbara’ becoming ‘Bawbawa’ and you’re on the right path. Anyways, each episode focuses on a theme (cool, geek, cute, tribe) and shows a bunch of stuff related to it. So, for example, in the zoku (tribe) episode, they covered Cosplay, which is where people dress up like anime characters and such. They also covered a wrestler called “Hard Gay” that is straight but plays a completely over-the-top gay leather type. If you have a few minutes, the YouTube vids the link point to are pretty funny. Think of ‘Party Boy” from Jackass and you’re on the right path.

So that’s my kind of alternative guide to discovering new places. It’s not quite as straightforward a path as looking through a travel book, but I can guarantee you’ll find something unique every time.