Snow is Cold

Today I met Akemi again in the morning, she took me to a hotel where you can see a nice view over Shibuya although sadly the hotel ppl wouldn’t let us go right to the top floor. Random button pressing allowed us to get to one almost at the top though. Most of them were locked down so that only people with room keys could access them!!! The cheek. From the hotel the thing that sprung out at me was the rooftop half-size football pitch on an adjacent building. Lack of space dictates, I suppose.. Crazy. Afterwards she took me to her old workplace – a mall which I only discovered later caters solely for women – still, she thought I should see it! In fairness it would probably be a fairly good place to hang out on a rainy day ;)

Brunch was taken in a sushi place that had a minimum order of 7 plates (pairs of things). The food was delicious and amazingly cheap!! I felt pretty stuffed all day afterwards tho. Still, I wish such good food were so readily available so cheaply back at home.. We got kicked out in the end because there’s a time limit on how long you can stay seated in the restaurant – it’s that popular. Wow.

After iced coffees (way too hot for normal coffee this time out) I headed over to Kichijoji to meet Rena. It was a bit of a game trying to get there as my map was in Japanese, but luckily I found the right train platform, as confirmed by a nearby attendant. I was a big fan of Kichijoji – it’s a funky area with many small, traditional bars and shops. Particularly in an area called Harmonica Yokocyo. The park is also a big feature of the area with lots of perfomers scattered around it. Rena assured me that some of Japan’s musicians have started out performing here. Nearby there seemed to be quite a world influence with shops selling Thai style (hippy) clothes (reminded me quite a bit of Camden) along with very old fashioned yakitori vendors and the usual smattering of interior design stores! Seriously, if it [the vases/crockery etc] were more easily transported home I think we would have had a field day on more than one occasion!

On arrival we headed to the park and after feeding the fish for a little bit (it was war in the water) I decided it would be fun to hire a boat and go out on the lake. We were soon cruising along nicely, although it was rather thirsty work given the temperature and humidity! After teaching Rena how to row and after a few close encounters with surrounding trees/other boats/swans we headed back to shore and picked up some especially strangely flavoured ice creams. Actually I don’t think mine was that bad, but purple potato flavoured ice cream?! Weird.. Quite a bizarre aftertaste. Played frisbee on the dirt for a bit as there is by and large a complete absence of grass in Japanese parks but couldn’t last that long as it was very, very warm under the trees. We drew quite a few looks from passers by, either cuz they nearly got hit or were thinking, “what the hell are those strange people doing?” :) to cool down we went and took advantage of the air conditioning in a nearby store, aahhhh.

Later had a brief look round a few clothes stores and marvelled at the wonderful use of English on some of the t-shirts – I’d wanted to get my sis’ one for her birthday, thinking she’d appreciate it – before going to check out the Harmonica Yokocyo area mentioned above. Encountered a huge line-up of people queuing to get some kind of food – I think it was something fried but apparently it’s a speciality of that particular store and it’s always ridiculously busy! These people like their food. Can’t blame them really. We ended up first in a tiny little bar with crates for tables and barrels for seats that had a very noticable panda theme going on. Even the beer was panda beer! Then again it was called the panda bar or something like that. They were playing Jack Johnson on the stereo when we arrived and it was blissful. Another moment time forgot.

Considering we hadn’t eaten lunch we ordered a snack from the bar, however I’m not sure I was too keen on our dish of very salty, rubbery squid guts and potatoes. Maybe it’s an acquired taste.. When we left we passed a fortune teller whereupon I decided it might be cool to get my fortune read (although it would all have had to be translated, obviously), but sadly the guy was booked apart from one slot which I later missed due to being preoccupied with drinking more beer in another small, saloon type bar that was exceedingly cosy and reeked of the 60s, if I remember correctly.. I think it was something to do with the propaganda posters on the wall.. Still, the beer and conversation flowed and it was soon time to head back to central Tokyo to meet up with a huge dinner party in from Shanghai to go to the Fuji rock festival!

We arrived kind of late as I had to go back to my hotel to change first, then we couldn’t get in contact with anyone, but after hanging around in a perfume shop and remembering how much I like Davidoff’s ‘Cool Water’ on a girl we managed to get in touch from Ebisu station. By the time we arrived at the izakaya things were very much in full swing and the beer and food flowed freely! I was surprised to discover that ‘fish head’, despite looking as it sounds, was not just a fish head lumped on a plate but a huge fish head with lots of very tender meat around it. Yummy. The beginning of the end of the night came when Julien and I downed a 3 or 4 shot measure of sake, poured from a GIANT sake bottle, in one go, being the only two man (or stupid) enough to do so. Things get kind of hazier from here on, but amongst my memories of the night I also remember it being an absolute mission to find Womb, the club we were after (many drunken conversations – in Japanese – with taxi drivers and passers by in the street ensued), although we found it eventually! I had high hopes for the place as it’s pretty famous, but it was nothing like anything I might have expected. The interior is like a giant cylinder, or citadel is perhaps more appropriate, with a large circular dancefloor with 4 stories of bars going up on the side facing the DJ booth. It was pretty cool but I think everyone was probably too fucked to notice! I do remember lots of high fives being exchanged with the locals when the music kicked off though, haha.

One thing I found very strange was that people even formed a long, neat line to get drinks (from the one barman on duty). Initially I thought he was being rather rude by not serving me stood in the middle of the bar, but I guess that’s just how it is. I liked their electronic drinks menu displayed in tiny font on LCD screen at the bar though, very cool.

For some reason the guys decided we were leaving at around 3 or 3.15 to head to another club. I really have no recollection of why. We headed over to an area called Roppongi – internationally famed as the area of hedonism in Tokyo. Here we went to a club called Gaspanic, though I remember we walked in, walked around and walked out again, lol. Seemed kind of pointless. The guys then decided they were going to go home but I didn’t feel like going just then so checked out a few more places solo. I think what I saw were some of the most horrific images of wrongness/meat markets ever, with a bizarre clientele from Russian to South American, 18 to 50 or beyond. Very surreal. Still, it was an experience, even if I was mentally scarred afterwards :p

Today we started out pretty early to head out of town to the Hakone area South West of Tokyo, where we planned to go hiking. The area is pretty close to Mt Fuji, although sadly the hazy conditions meant that visibility was quite limited, although it was a very nice sunny day. We met at 8.30 to catch a 9 o’clock train, I was rather pissed off to discover that I couldn’t use my pass to take the train there as it was a private rail line – funnily enough there was no mention of distinction between private and public railway lines at the time of purchasing and, at £240, it wasn’t exactly cheap! Also, the train was particularly busy so we could only get seats together in a smoking carriage, yuck. Still, needs must.

I didn’t have time to get breakfast so ended up buying a sandwich set on the train. Even the sandwiches were cute – little rectangles, neatly cut with no crusts, in a variety of flavours.

On arrival at Hakone station (or wherever it was – there was some confusion) we took a bus to our start point for the hike. After getting off (in seemingly the middle of nowhere) though we decided it was probably prudent, if not necessity, to get some lunch and supplies of water before we set out, except we should have stayed on the bus for another stop or two… Some running around and a conversation with a female innkeeper ensued and it was decided that we needed to take another bus to go and find civilisation. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait too long for one to arrive and soon we were in a soba restaurant in Moto-Hakone with a fabulous view out over the lake. Apparently soba noodles are a speciality of the region, lunch was pretty damn good in fairness – I had fish caught from the lake we were looking over with my noodles, yum.

The hike we did was supposed to take around 2 and a half hours, and took in various historic sites and places of beauty along the way. It started out fairly mellow, with us passing by a idyllic grassy area with trees and mountain backdrop (and random old guy hanging out), but after rounding the first lake the path took a steep turn upwards. Actually we started doubling back on ourselves by accident, then nearly fell over numerous times on rock covered stones, then eventually realised that the path that seemed to be going off into oblivion WAS the path that we actually needed to take. Parts of the path around here were very soft underfoot due to the recent rainfall and one time my shoe sank entirely into the quicksand like mud (actually I was wearing sandals), yuck. Shortly after we encountered a snake on the path, prompting Rena to jump behind me :)

The path upwards was pretty hardcore – fairly steep, mountainous (surprisingly) and rocky. And it was ridiculously hot to the point that my shirt was soaked through and my hair was dripping wet! When the path eventually leveled off and we came out into a clearing we realised we’d climbed over 700m from where we started. Not bad going. We were thankful for the rest and the creation that is Aquarius energy drink, ion replenishing amino whateverwotsits and all. From here we walked along the roadside ’til we reached a small shrine. As we walked up the hill towards it a shadow loomed out from within and as we got close we could see an imposing buddha statue starting down broodingly from the darkness. It was kinda eerie, but sitting on the steps there facing out towards the mountains and nearby lake it felt like an eternity could pass in reflection without noticing.

The lakes themselves were beautiful. The first one very much so – surrounded by forest with the walkway winding around it. The second wasn’t quite so accessible but looked like something out of a Vietnam movie! Also bumped into the first other people for a long time – a middle aged woman with an elderly couple who were walking near the second lake. We would have gone closer but were feeling pretty fatigued from the climb. Rena decided it would be a good time to visit an ‘onsen’ (hot springs baths), as we’d noted there were a few along our route. The one we visited was a special sulphourous type with milky green water – the minerals and stuff in the water are supposed to be very good for you. We got there 45 minutes before chucking out time so had to take in both baths on offer in rather quick succession! The baths themselves are sex-segregated (as you go in naked). Inside the first one I went in was an old Japanese guy rolling about in an interior bath (there were 2 pools – one inside and one out), however the outdoor pool looked much more interesting so we mumbled a hello of sorts to each other and I left him to it! The water in the baths is at 42C so I was advised to go in bit by bit so as not to overheat too quickly and die. It took around 10 minutes before I was submerged. The feeling was great after the long walk, surrounded in the open air by mountains and serene gardens, with seemingly only the birds and cicadas for company. Incidentally, the volume of noise created by the local wildlife is pretty astounding, almost regardless of where you are. You get used to it after a while surely, but sometimes it seems as if you are walking through the jungle in some exotic country! The second of the two baths wasn’t quite so cool, as it was openly visible to a carpark where there were men working. Once again, couldn’t see that kind of thing happening in England!

On leaving the onsen, feeling quite refreshed, there was still a good way to go before we reached our goal. Thankfully from this point on it was mostly downhill, and the next stop was a set of waterfalls which looked awesome in our guide book. The descent took us down a vast number of steps, which were quite treacherous in places. In fact I was utilised as a stop buffer on more than one occasion ;) at the bottom of the steps the path seemed to go left, however there was a route less travelled to the right which was somewhat overgrown, so of course we felt compelled to see what was down there. Fighting through a ridiculous number of cobwebs eventually brought us out at a small bridge right next to a waterfall. Very movie fantasy land esque. Stopped here to take soooo many waterfall pics! It was such a nice spot. The views on the pathway down were amazing too, all looking out over the falling valley, I loved it. Sadly all good things must come to an end and soon after passing a famous merging cherry blossom tree we were back out on the road. Whilst trying to avoid being eaten alive by mosquitoes we noticed just how high the mountain we’d just come down from was behind us. Sense of accomplishment. I felt really lucky to have seen this place. It’s mentioned in my guide book but that’s just information about the town, not hiking routes through the mountains! It’s good to have wordly friends :)

It was already getting late so to save time I suggested we stop halfway home for dinner in Machida. We hit another izakaya which had AWESOME bbq chicken skewers, plus you could see the chefs cooking all the food on the grates right in front of us. We got fairly merry on beer and… vinegar cocktails (not my choice), to the point where I thought ppl might complain about our counter-corner antics. Still, it was all good. Not quite sure how it got so late but by the time I got back to Tokyo the subway had already closed and I was in severe danger of missing my hotel curfew. Not quite sure why they have these but presumably because the business folk don’t want to be disturbed by the late night party people… Anyhow I scrambled around for a taxi and managed to make it back with 5 mins to spare. Phew. I think they would have probably given me some leeway to be fair, but I really didn’t fancy spending the night locked out on the street considering how tired I was!!!

Free breakfast in the Listel was soba salad, sushi-style semi-sweet egg, frankfurters, sesame vegetables, yoghurt and natto (a weeeeird sticky fermented bean thing that’s considered a delicacy in japan). Interesting. Sadly outside was another grey day, but carrying my umbrella around all day proved to be entirely pointless as the cloud broke and it became very warm and sunny! In the morning I met Akemi at the police box (like a small office thing) at the East exit of Shinjuku station. I’d decided to walk to the station from my hotel so unfortunately didn’t really have any help of the internal signposting (and the station is huge). Still, after a bit of scrambling around I managed to find what I was looking for!

I hadn’t seen Akemi since March 2005 and I definitely thought she looked older than when I last saw her. I hate how you can’t stop time (for a variety of reasons). On meeting we headed down to Shibuya so that it wasn’t so far for Akemi to get to work when she was due to start (12.30). We went to an awesome yakiniku restaurant that served up possibly the best beansprouts I’ve ever eaten (lol). It was really good to catch up, though I felt that Akemi’s English was a little more shy than before – I’d always thought she was the most confident English speaker amongst the foreign crowd at work. After food & a coffee (surrounded by smokers – yuck – really don’t understand why so many people smoke here, don’t they know it’s bad for you?!) I went with Akemi to her shop (she’s assistant store manager for a swimwear chain’s Shibuya office), Loco Boutique. Her co-workers looked rather shocked to see her turning up with a foreign guy, especially considering I wasn’t the same person that she’d previously introduced as her boyfriend. Ahhhh, assumptions are a wonderful thing. Still after we’d cleared that up we took a couple of groups pics and I headed out to explore Shibuya for a while. The area isn’t exactly culture-rich as it largely caters to the fashion-oriented youth, but I managed to seek out a ‘love hotel’ on love hotel hill (which I found unwittingly, reminds me of the time we ended up in the red light district in Amsterdam by accident, although this was much more tame) before going to check out the crazy kids in a video games arcade. Pete had told me that the arcades and pachinko places were crazy, and I suppose I wasn’t disappointed, though I only passed through quickly as I was due to meet Rena soon after. Still it was interesting to watch the people banging away on electronic arcade drum machines. Afterwards I made my way through the throng along tree-lined boulevards chock full of shops and boutiques before heading back to the station.

After lunch we headed over to the Imperial Palace to check out the gardens. Unfortunately the palace itself is completely closed off to visitors but the interior gardens alone are supposed to be worth the trip. We wandered slowly through the surrounds to the park entry gate only to find out it had closed 5 minutes previously. Dammit! Suppose I should have checked on that, but 4 seemed absurdly early. Anyway, decided to head to Ueno-Koen (park) instead. I really enjoyed this place, it was very peaceful. I’d heard that it’s home to many of Tokyo’s homeless and it was intriguing to see the tents, constructed using pieces of blue plastic sheeting, scattered around the place, surely enough with pairs of shoes lined up neatly outside (lol). Inside the park we visited Toshogu shrine which was practically deserted. I watched with great interest as a businessman and later woman tossed their money into the ‘osaisen’ (donations box) before bowing, clapping twice (to awaken the gods to their prayer) and silently clasping their hands together whilst making their address. I must have stood there for 5 minutes just watching them. To one side of the shrine was a wish wall adorned with numerous wooden placards – you could buy one for 500 yen or so and write your wishes on it. Most of them were wishing for good fortune for their families etc. but I was fascinated by both the number and variety of the messages.

On the long approach to the shrine was a world peace monument dedicated to the abolishment of atomic weapons in commemoration of the WWII victims. I couldn’t help but feel a deep sadness whilst gazing at the eternally burning flame housed within. The feeling was not unlike ground zero in NYC, although not as overwhelming. Rena later commented on how I’d gone quiet for a time during our visit, though I’m not sure if that was as a result or more that it was a product of thinking about how much I didn’t want to do the things I had to do when I got home :( sigh.

At around 5.30 the park was winding down (they generally are open from dawn ’til dusk and it gets darker quite a bit earlier in Japan than England) so we made our way out after a brief frisbee experiment cut short due to fear of arrest/decapitation of pedestrians to a funky street called ameyoko dori. Here there were a myriad of street stalls, mostly seafood and bric-a-brac clothing vendors. It was extremely colourful, if not a bit smelly. Unfortunately we were a little pressed for time so Rena and I headed to an izakaya for dinner – basically a restaurant/bar which sells a bit of everything. There places are awesome and should definitely be imported to the UK (along with Wendy’s and green tea frappuccinos)! Inside, our table was excellently located between a pair of stereotypical Japanese late teen/early 20s girls and a middle aged salaryman with teenage girl. I asked Rena to translate some of their conversation, arguably the most interesting of which was the girls talking about how fat people should have no rights. It actually seemed like one girl was doing most of the talking whilst the other one nodded and giggled a lot.

After Rena left for home I headed to Shinjuku’s skyscraper district (which I’d ended up in earlier in the day when I forgot where I was supposed to be meeting her) to check out the nighttime cityscapes available from their viewing decks. Sadly the ‘free’ areas weren’t that great and most of the views were offered from within bars, restaurants and… exotic dance clubs. I tried to take a couple of pictures but the amount of reflection was kind of limiting so they didn’t come out very well. The second building I went to was quite interesting though in that it was in the shape of a hollow triangular cylinder, so you could see into the interior chasm through the windows. Also the first building’s elevator was so fast that my ears popped four times on the way up to the 53rd floor! Crazy.

Later I took a detour through the Kabuki-cho district of Shinjuku on the way back to my hotel. This area is kind of like the red-light district, although it is also home to many of the city’s theatres and karaoke clubs. I felt as if I was targeted by the black stereotype-conforming doormen as a single foreigner wandering late at night, though they soon desisted after I made it explicit that I wasn’t in the mood for buying pussy tonight (seriously!), despite their claims that life is too short :)

Closer to my hotel the streets became decidedly more Japanese once again. I was amazed at how every restaurant, no matter how small, seemed to have customers at 11pm on a Tuesday. I was also amazed by the number of 24 hour convenience stores and vending machines that are littered around the city – they are literally everywhere!!! Plus they aren’t significantly more expensive, if at all, than the ‘konbinya’ – lessons to be learned. Did make me wonder how they are stocked up all the time though, given the vast number…

And so it begins!!! Was up until 3.45am the night before I left trying to find somewhere to stay… Methinks I should possibly have arranged something sooner given that it’s high season right now!! Still, I booked into the Listel Shinjuku for my first night, which turned out to be really nice, and cheaper than the shittier hotels I’m going to have from now on, doh! I actually have to change hotels twice in 3 days, but whatever, they’re all within around 400m of one another.

Sunday was such a long day. Got up at 9 after 5 hours sleep, boarded a subway, got on a plane, sat next to 2 Aussie girls (one of whom was quite cute) and offended them by saying why was I the one who had to start conversation when I was sat next to 2 Aussie girls, watched ‘V for Vendetta’ (which was RUBBISH), slept 30mins in total (only because I took advantage of the free bar and necked 2 beers, a red wine and a Johnny Walker), saw some cool landscapes over Norway, worried about the landing as the cloud extended down to about 30m above ground and had an altimeter displayed on my screen in the back of the seat in front, attempted to decipher a Japanese landing card, got out the other side, saw a Starbucks first thing after exiting the arrivals hall, nearly left 2 bags in the rail pass exchange office, got on another train (at almost exactly the same time as I got on the first subway train, weird), drove through fields that looked exactly like ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ (link to follow), drove through lots of 70s looking skyscrapers, arrived in Shinjuku (Westerly district of central Tokyo, where lots of craziness goes on and also where Bill Murray’s AWESOME hotel in ‘Lost in Translation’ – the Park Hyatt Tokyo – is located), walked around aimlessly in the rain for quite a while cuz I forgot my hotel address, dumped my stuff and headed out again.

A couple of things struck me on arrival. One was that the weather was better in ENGLAND than here. I was totally shocked that the weather in England could possibly be better than anywhere else in the world. Two was that it is oppressively humid here, way more than at home. Basically my first impression of Japan was that it’s like a more tropical, humid, exotic version of England. And it’s full of Japanese people. And there’s neon everywhere. And the public transport works. And there’s no chavs. And, ok I’ll stop there.

First task was to find some lunch, which was taken in a quaint ramen shop (ramen is noodles in soup with veggies and meat). Apparently it was some special type of noodle that comes from a different prefecture, but it tasted pretty standard to me! It was also way better than the couple of places I’ve been to in London, darn. After lunch I had to pop back to the hotel to check in, then headed over to Odaiba to visit a big indoor entertainment complex cum shopping mall called ‘Decks’, which occupies a pretty large area and has a massive bridge connecting two areas, the other of which houses a Toyota centre resplendent with indoor track, suspended in mid-air, with full size electric cars driving round it(!) and another mall with very alfresco architecture and, in fact, a fake alfresco sky painted on the entirety of the inside of the roof.

Later on headed over for dinner in Tsukishima and ate a speciality of that particular street called monja, and okonomiyaki (a fat pancake like thing with egg, cabbage and seafood), self cooked on a teppanyaki style hotplate. It was pretty cool but by this stage I was literally in a state of waking sleep! I did have a coffee in the mall before leaving, but the effects were only temporary plus I was sufficiently dehydrated from travelling that the caffeine made me feel kind of nauseous (just before going on a race-car simulator!), but it was fine after eating.

I succeeded in turning in the wrong direction out of the station on the way back to my hotel, as everything looked completely different in the dark because of the ridiculous concentration of neon signs! Still I realised pretty quickly and, after about 4 about-faces, managed to find my way. I don’t think I’ve slept as well as I did then for a looooong time! Literally put my head on the pillow, opened my eyes again and 9 hours had passed… Sweet :) there was a pretty awesome view out the window at night time too with the ‘Skyscraper district’ in the background, but unfortunately it was too foggy for the picture to come out well. Still, I tried and will post the result up soon!

Looks like I might get a bit wet in the back end of the rainy season in Japan… Hopefully stuff like this will have stopped happening by then though… Rain and 30C. Sounds lovely :)