Bloom In Japan

Since I will be working most Sundays, I decided to take advantage of my last day before work (Sept 9) and embarked on a little adventure. There is this place called Harajuku in downtown Tokyo that is famous for its street performers and shopping, and it really comes alive on Sunday afternoons. So I took the Tobu Tojo line into Ikebukuro, transferred over to the Yamanote line, and landed in Harajuku ready to see what all the fuss was about. I didn’t have a map, so I basically had to guess where to go, but right off the bat I found myself walking down Takeshita Street. Takeshita Street is basically this long-ass, pedestrian only street that is lined from end to end with various shops and restaurants. It’s quite a trip walking through it, as it is packed from end to end with people, so if you are claustrophobic you may not make it out alive. After working my way through that craziness I found myself in Omotesando, and took a stroll down Omotesando Street. Right away I was lucky enough to see some sort of traditional parade, of which I took video of and plan on putting up soon. Omotesando is known for its super high class shops and whatnot, so I was reserved to just enjoying the sights and keeping my wallet in my pants.

After wandering around for a bit, I finally found what I was looking for…the street performers. After taking some video of the cosplayers, I worked my way over to the entrance of Yoyogi Park. It was like entering a time warp and being thrown back to the 1950s, as I watched the Rockabilly dancers and another performance group strut their stuff in front of the tourists. I stuck around there for a bit until I finally heard some modern sounding music. As I walked around the bend, I was amazed to see some random rock band setup on the side of the street putting on a free show, amps and all. I watched a few songs and then continued walking down the path and found no less than 5 other bands within the next 500 feet or so. I imagine you could spend all day walking back and forth and see 20-30 different bands, it’s awesome.

After watching that group of bands for awhile, I crossed the street to some sort of festival grounds where there was a Brazilian festival going on. I wandered around there for a bit, took in some live Brazilian jazz, and then continued to the other side of the grounds. What was I met with? Oh just another group of about 20 bands playing up and down this huge walkway. I was looking forward to catching some local Japanese acts, but to have so many in one place was amazing. Some of them were pretty amateurish, but there were a few that definitely had some skill, making it well worth a watch. I finally dragged myself away, and walked towards the city. Twenty or so minutes later I found another thing I had wanted to see very badly, the world famous Shibuya crossing. It’s basically an intersection connecting 5 or 6 streets, but every 5 minutes or so the lights turn red and thousands of people cross the street in various directions. It’s hard to explain with words, but the video I put up later will show you what I mean.

After walking around Shibuya some more, I headed back and walked through Yoyogi Park itself. When you think of Tokyo, you think of masses of buildings and zero grass, but this park is incredibly huge. It took me a good hour and a half to walk around in a circle, and I don’t even think I saw all of it. Bike trails, running trails, dog parks, recreational areas; it has everything. It began to get late, and I had to meet Eric in Ikebukuro after he got off work, so I finished my solo adventure and hopped back on the train to grab a few drinks with the roomie. I’ll do my best to get the videos ripped and posted on YouTube sometime this week.

So the day after the Typhoon (Fri, Sept 7) brought with it something I had failed to see since landing 2 nights earlier, the sun. This was a double-edged sword however as it was insanely hot and humid, which is basically par for the course in Japan. I’ve been to Florida before and was amazed with the humidity there, but it’s on another level here. I literally walk 20 feet and I’m sweating my arse off, it’s crazy. So anyway, I decided to start my day by taking a jog through the neighborhood. What an experience. The main drag of my town is rather modern, with a lot of new buildings and all of that jazz. But as I made my way into the older part of Town, it was like entering a completely different world. The streets, if you can call them that, are all single lane and about as skinny as the width of a car. The homes and shops that line the streets combine to create a 20 foot wall, and make you feel like a mouse in a maze. Every single corner is a blind corner, and if you’re lucky there will be a nifty mirror to show you the cross traffic of cars and bikes. Unfortunately many don’t have this feature, so you need to stop and peak around the bend to avoid any collisions. If it weren’t for the Daiei store that is close to my apartment showing itself above the craziness, I would have never found my way back. All in all though, it was pretty awesome and something I will need to share with all of you via video at some point.

After jogging I decided to get some errands done and went to the grocery store. Who knew buying food could be such an intimidating experience, heh. I can read some Japanese, but trying to figure out what I was looking at in the store was near impossible. I finally managed to pick-up some neccessities, and even managed to pay for it all without incident. One thing that made me smile was finding the liquor section, and seeing a certain liquor from a certain movie; picture below. The rest of the day I pretty much just unpacked and got settled into the apartment. That night I met another one of Mike’s friends, Satomi, and along with Eric we just chilled and threw back some brewskies. All in all a pretty good day.

Here are a couple night shots from the balcony on Saturday the 8th.

So after eating at the coolest sushi place ever, Eric and I took a cab over to the Miyoshi Town city hall. First a little note about the taxis in Japan. After flagging one down (red light means vacant and green light means occupied…?), you don’t want to try and open the door for yourself. Instead you just say abra cadabra, and vualla, the door automatically opens and closes for you. It’s the same deal on the way out, which makes the outrageous fares seem a little less harsh. Anyways, as a foreigner living in Japan, you are required to register as an alien and receive a “Gaijin Card”. So after arriving at the city hall, we proceeded to the counter and began the most complicated form completion in history. The man behind the counter didn’t speak any English beyond two words (which will be covered in a second). I was presented with the registration form, and after 5-10 minutes of Eric trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do, the kind man broke out with these useful instructions. “Name, name, name, name, name”. I literally had to write my name 5 times on almost consecutive lines. After filling the form out and presenting it for review, I was relieved to hear the man bust out with “OK, OK, OK, OK, OK” as he pointed to each instance of my name. I really don’t know why I had to write my name a million times, but after 30 minutes of waiting I was presented with a temporary certificate that I would need to use until my card was ready 3 weeks later. If Eric hadn’t been there I would probably still be standing there like an idiot trying to speak in broken Japanese. It was day 1, and I had just realized how nice it would be to actually speak the language in this country.

After spending 15 minutes trying to decipher a bus schedule, we managed to catch a ride back to the apartment. We had just talked with Mike and agreed to meet him and a couple of friends out in Ikebukuro to celebrate a birthday. As Eric is getting ready, I turn on the TV and get greeted with a news report about the Typhoon that was on a crash course with Tokyo. What’s better is that it is scheduled to hit at 9pm, right when we were going to be in Ikebukuro celebrating. Obviously being the superheroes that we are, we weren’t going to let a little Typhoon keep us from a night out on the town, so we made our way over to the station and caught the train downtown.

After meeting us outside the train station, Mike led us over to a small London style pub called HUB for a couple of drinks during happy hour. After chilling for a little bit and meeting the birthday girl Reiko and Mike’s friend Simon, we made out way over to an izakaya for dinner and some more drinks. Izakayas are extremely common in Japan, and offer you the chance to enjoy dinner with a bunch of friends in a traditional atmosphere. You walk in, take off your shoes, and are seated in a private booth with the rest of your friends. You basically just order a bunch of dinner plates and share with everyone involved. I don’t remember everything we ordered, but everything was delicious.

After completely filling our stomachs with food, we decided to keep our livers in tip top shape by going to a shot bar. A shot bar, as you may be able to guess, is a bar that specializes in shots. The menus do have a couple mixed drinks available, but the vast majority are just listing for different shots and that. We were only there for about an hour, but I think we managed to kanpai about 6 shots each. I think 4 or 5 were tequila based, but one was a special order by Mike. I can’t remember the name for the life of me, but it was this dark green concoction that was 120 proof. Needless to say it burned a little going down the hatch. Another interesting thing that you can see a picture below is the bar food. In America most bars offer popcorn or peanuts or something similar. This bar had neither, but instead served ginger sticks and soy beans. Both were surprisingly good, and more than did the trick.

After stumbling out of Radio Hall, we decided to go back to HUB and drink up before having to catch the last train @ 12:30. One pretty sweet deal is the Liter Tower Beer. As you can see in the pic below, you basically get a liter sized mad scientist pitcher full of some tasty suds. You get about 4 glasses out of each one, so the 1350 yen price is actually a pretty decent deal. The strange bar food continued with the smallest wings I’ve ever seen, and the addition of fried ravioli to my repertoire. The TVs had typhoon news coverage on, and it showed some outlying areas getting smashed pretty hard. Last train was quickly approaching, so we left to go walk Reiko back to her apartment. On the way there we made our way through a pretty sweet park and navigated through some random ass alleys and whatnot. I’m a huge fan of the movie Blade Runner, so walking through a big city late at night, with the rain falling and neon everywhere is quite exciting for me. At any rate, we finally got to the birthday girl’s apartment, said our goodbyes, and made our way back to the train station. The typhoon peaked around this time, so running around without an umbrella quickly turned Eric and I into a couple of soaked drunkards. I also learned that a piece of cardboard really doesn’t do the trick for very long. A 30 minute train ride later, and we were back home. After surviving sushi, alien registration, a taxi, a bus, the train system, a pub, an izakaya, a shot bar, and a typhoon, day 1 came to an end. Welcome to Japan.

say anything bad about Japanese people again (not that I have in the past). Imagine yourself getting on the last train from downtown after a night of drinking, but that train stops 3 stations from your home. If you are me, you ignore common sense and walk the remaining distance instead of taking a taxi. Needless to say, I somehow underestimated the work involved with walking from said station back home, and began an hour+ journey into the heart of Japan by myself, equipped with only a compass and a faint idea of which direction to go. After about 45 minutes of wandering, I fell upon an AM/PM store (like a 7/11), and proceeded to ask for directions. After another 25 minutes of “communication”, what am I presented with? Not more directions, but a worker from the konbini equipped with a pedal bicycle, ready to freaking take me all the way to my home station. When he rolled up I immediately tried to refuse the hospitality, but after bickering back and forth I finally accepted the fact that Japanese people are quite possibly the nicest people on the planet, and received a ride all the way home. I wanted to pay a large sum to show my gratitude, but ended up convincing said friend to take a small amount of money for my appreciation for the entirely unnecessary amount of work that he applied. Seriously, would this sort of thing happen anywhere else on planet Earth?

Edit: This was written immediately after getting back, so I was a little drunk…But the point is the same. Having some kid half my size insist on taking me to my home station, at 1:30 AM, on an old rusty bicycle, was easily the nicest thing any stranger has ever done for me. I am still a little shocked to be honest.