Tokyo Road Journals – Part Two

3am
The comfort quest when it comes to bus seat sleeping is an art form I’d rank up there with sculpting, Opera and pretending to enjoy The View so that you can get laid. The craft is not a simple one. If you have people in front and behind you and have the window seat the odds of comfort are against you. Placing your legs on the seat in front of you will disturb the sleeper in that seat and reclining back will disturb the person behind you. You can’t lounge out your legs into the aisle and you can’t use both seats as a love seat for midgets if the seat next to you is occupied…especially if it is occupied by a very, very creepy hooded Japanese potential serial killer. I am a self bus seat comfort seeker having lived not one but two 3 ½ day bus trips across the fabled Canadas. I’ve mentioned my ability to place myself into travel comas before but before one can sink into that darkness one has to not have a seatbelt rammed up their ass. Tip #1: Use what you have and work with it. If you have a leg rest prop it up. If there is an elevated area under the window use it for your arm if it is higher up or your leg if farther down. Recline as much as you can before you give the person behind you a face full of seat. Window ledges are wonderful armrests. Tip #2: Contort! Contort! Contort! If you haven’t studied the Karma Sutra then race to your nearest library, ask the clerk to grab you something from the “We Don’t Put It On The Shelves” section and hurry home. Practice these positions without the sex partner, of course. Once you’ve mastered these you are ready for bus travel. When your body space is limited you have to shift and bend in the most awkward of positions. Don’t think about how silly you look. Only look ahead to some sleep. Sure, your head may look funny under your armpit now and your toe really shouldn’t be in your nostril but nothing is ridiculous in the quest for bus travel sleep. Tip #3: Once you find that place KEEP IT! Never move. Not for anything or anybody. You may never get there again. Should the bus be hit by a downed fighter jet, should a gang of wild dingos descending upon you wielding M16 assault rifles, should you find a dozen Fox News reporters blocking your path, should you encounter fire, rain or snow, should Dennis Hopper rig up a bomb to your bus and your only chance of survival is Keanu Reeves for the love of God, Buddha, Mohammed and Rupert Murdok, do not alter your sleeping position! After about an hour of transforming myself into a comfort seeking pipecleaner in the hands of a two-year old (I would have went for the pretzel analogy but they are not twisted enough to adequately describe me) I found sleep. I would manage to hold onto it for about two hours before I was awoken by a painful jabbing onto my left shoulder. The vision clears to reveal Creepy Guy’s head! AhhhhhHHHHHHHHH!!! For a moment I think he has been decapitated the way it is bobbing about on my shoulder but regardless of this gruesome thought I maintain my sleeping tip #3 mantra and I do not move. Maybe the Ninja who has held our bus hostage is still close to the back seats, sword in hand, waiting for one more head to peek up over the seats. Creepy Guy lets out a snort. Damn, I’ll never get to see a Ninja! The dude was only sleeping and much like Train Head Pinball he had drifted off to find his own comfort zone which included my left shoulder. I was about to nudge him off to the right when he moved himself only to tilt back towards me. I held my hand up ready to catch him but he paused in the middle and rested back. I shifted a little, yes breaking Tip #3, I know, so that should he want to turn my shoulder into a pillow yet again his falling towards it would net him with a forehead welt as he crashed into the hard seat backing. Ha ha! Meanwhile, behind me, Mog sleeps peacefully filled with kid candy in his plenty of leg room seat. You know, sometimes being as cheap as I am makes me want to kick myself square in the meat and two veg.


6am
We were early getting into Tokyo. Really early. Mog, someone who had taken this trip before, said that our driver decided to not make anymore rest stops. Although two stops were made on the road, he said, nobody was allowed off the bus and so we cut about a half-hour to an hour’s worth off of our travel time. Creepy Guy made a quick dash off the bus forever disappearing into whatever dark places he calls home and sure to reappearing in the headlines any day now, and Mog and I gathered up our belongings and headed off the bus. Mog had carted along a bit more then I. In addition to a large backpack he carried with him a long, stuffed red duffel that contained a laptop and other various Mog necessities of travel. He also brought along a tripod for his camera, his marvelous camera that looked like it was chiseled by Rodin. Nikkonic art. His red duffel, how oversized and awkward it was to carry, got me thinking to the Hughes film Planes, Trains and Automobiles where a persnickety Steve Martin meets up with a boisterous John Candy for a comedical (and sometimes heartwarming) cross country romp to get back home for Thanksgiving. Candy plays my favorite of his characters, Del Griffith, a traveling shower curtain ring salesmen who lives life whimsically on the road. He lugs around with him a large trunk which earlier on in the film we are told contain his sales wares but by the end of the movie we find they contain much more. No, not a dead body. This is a comedy…although that might make for an interesting spin on the tale. The personalities of the two characters are exact opposites, which adds to the humor, and this road roaming Odd Couple berate, battle and eventually befriend each other. After one heated exchange Candy utters, in a touching performance: “You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you... but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like... I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. 'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.” What a great film. Early on I had already thought of Mog and myself as the Odd Couple, Mog being more laid back and free with his finances and myself being a penny pinching miser worrying about every ticking second. If we were going by that comparrison I was certainly Felix to Mog’s Oscar but now I think of us more as Neal Page (Martin) and Del Griffith and Mog, by virtue of attitude, not girth, plays the Candy role perfectly…especially toting around that duffel bag. After all the other bus travelers passed we were seemingly alone. This was not the Tokyo I envisioned. Where were the hoards of people (yeah, it was 6am, I know), where were the skyscrapers and neon (yes, yes it was during the day) and most importantly were was all the giant lizard destruction? Opened in 1914, Tokyo Station, from one side looking like a run down factory and from the other designed to resemble an old, brick building, is located in the Chiyoda district of the city and can see up to 4,000 trains a day. Plans for construction of the station date back to 1889 but work was delayed because of the First Sino-Japanese War as well as the Russo-Japanese War. Work begain in 1908 with the building being designed in celebration of Japan’s victory in the Russo conflict. 1921 say the assassination of then Prime Minister Takashi at the southern gates of the terminal and in 1945 the station was ravaged by allied bombings. Quickly rebuilt to a two story building instead of the original three, the station would be damaged once again by fire in 1949. Over the years the station has been significantly upgraded and the entire underground of the complex now is a shopping center with various shops, souvenir stores and restaurants. The current state of the station, Mog and I discovered as we wandered from walled area to walled area, is also under construction. Plans for expansion now include a walkway to the Imperial Palace as well as a special parking hub for buses and taxis. Nothing inside the station was open this early in the morning and Mog suggested that considering us already being in the area now would be a good time to hit up the Imperial Palace, one of the must sees on my Tokyo list despite his frequent urgings that due to heightened security precautions there was really nothing to see. We tossed our packs into some coin lockers and headed out into Tokyo.



Later
Siting here in the Hard Rock Café – Tokyo awaiting a Western style breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast hopefully served to us by that beautiful creature sporting way too much flare. Can I get her with a side of coffee? I wanted to write a bursting paragraph of praise about the Imperial Palace but Mog was right. What a letdown. The Palace, or Kokyo, is the White House of Japan, home to the Emperor and his family. Moved here from Kyoto after the Meiji Restoration, the palace was given extensive grounds for which to construct the elaborate palatial residence. Strewn about the grounds are gardens and smaller buildings no less beautiful, I’m sure. There’s the Gamera pit as well as the Godzilla tearoom where the Emperor hosts tea whenever the lizard is in town. Wild sumo roam the grounds eating only berries and peacocks and Pokemon huts were built for the public in 2001. Of course, all this is speculation because YOU CAN’T SEE BEYOND THE DAMNED WALL! A large wall runs all around the grounds and, damn, there is even a mote. Al you can see are the exteriors of the wall and whatever you can glimpse from the small hills in the parks outside. Mog led me to the one area he thought was impressive about the site, a bridge and garden, but even that was currently closed with armed guards eyeing our approach. The patrol here, Mog said, was heavy. Well, I wanted to conserve my photographs for the five days on the road and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. Really, there was nothing to see here but a really nice wall with corners looking somewhat castle like. Breakfast at the Hard Rock was far more poignant an experience then visiting this “palace”. I refuse to capitalize your P you shy, letdown of a building! Inside Mog and I made short work of our food, both of us lusting for Western breakfasts. I know I have had dreams of the Elgin Street Diner and Dunns back in Ottawa in which I wake up able to taste the back bacon. We sat next to a framed Rolling Stones record as well as a picture of KISS which strangely added a snipped in photo of Robert Palmer. The connection? Videos of classic rock hits were our morning radio and as we munched we sung to AC/DC and Queen.

Later
With nothing much do due this early in the morning we killed about an hour in the Hard Rock before deciding to head to the nearby Ueno-Koen park. Though this spot is popular in the cherry blossom season there was currently not much going on.


We walked back a pond filled with lillypads as well as some colorful boats made up to look like ducks but overall we were just filling time. Right now the park’s homeless population seemed to be having more fun then we were. Mog pointed out a small wall with dozens of cushions spaced out a few feet apart from each other on top of it. He said that this is the way the homeless hold their spots. Walking by the lillypad pond on the way out the only thought that occurred outside of the current feeling of boredom was how humorous it would be to take a dump truck of Kermit puppets and plop them all into this pond. Now that would make this park a tourist attraction!

10am
It was now time to venture onto that spaghetti maze that is the Tokyo rail system. I was surprised to find that there were no English indicators on the rail maps above the ticket machines. Hell, even my station in small Nara land has Romanized text. Mog was able to read the Kanji, though, and directed us to the correct platform. Everywhere we pretty much wanted to go could be centralized by the green loop line, something I etched into my memory. Our distention was Yoyogi-koen which would complete the trilogy of Tokyo letdowns. Yoyogi is a large park near Harajuku Station where, in December 1910, the first air flight took place in Japan. The site was converted into a military parading complex and during the US occupation of Tokyo the area was home to the Washington Heights residence for US military officers. In ’64 it would be a site for the Tokyo Olympics and was declared a city park shortly thereafter. Currently there are plans to construct a stadium on the site which would host the 2016 Summer Olympics should Tokyo win the bid. In recent years the area, Sundays especially, has become a popular spot for the Tokyo goth kids and a spot where you can see a little cos-play-zoku. A little back history here is in order. Yoyogi-koen used to be the main stomping grounds of the Takenokozoku.



Now, before you start thinking street gang I’ll tell you that, although possessing gang like qualities, Takenokozoku are Tokyo men and women infatuated with the music and styles of the 1950s and early 1960s. The men ride around in old cars, sport leather and comb their hair in perfect pompadours to emulate the greasers of old. The early 80s say the rise of the Takenokozoku (which means “bamboo shoot group”). Now Takenokozoku does not just define these Rockabilly dancers but it was this group the police decided to set their sights on when the dancers and their 50s tunes began overrunning the parklands. All day park parties which resembled something out of American Graffiti with the souped up cars, oldies booming soundtrack, leather clad greasers and hoop skirted young Japanese girls were deemed a nuisance by law enforcement (wow it only took a couple decades) and a team of police dressed in riot gear thundered down upon the park a few years ago in an effort to clean up the Rockabilly “gang”. Damn that Officer Krupke! In place of the greasers has come the Cos-play-kids, an even more peculiar bunch that consists mainly of teenage girls but among their lot can also be found mopey boys and the occasional transvestite. These kids dress up in everything from your typical gothic black to blazing colors that consist of some colors that have not yet been discovered by modern science. With a love for certain Japanese bands that dress up in similar costumes for their performances (think of KISS and GWAR), these kids emulate these bands by purchasing or making their own outfits which they parade themselves in on Sundays on the bridge taking you into the park. Like the emo or goth groups elsewhere in the world, these kids feel alienated by their lifestyle, often are victims of extreme bullying in school, and these Sunday groups in Yoyogi are a form of expression among peers. Tourists come, cameras ready, and the costumed ones chew up the scenery by posing and mugging about for the cameras finding a strange form of acceptance in the foreigners and Japanese alike who have come to gawk at them and their garish outfits. A search online will bring up photographs of kids dressed up like fans at a Marilyn Manson show, fishnets, lots of black and faces painted and glittered. But goths aren’t the only ones getting in on the cos-play. You can find girls in pink pleather nursing outfits, maids, people that look very Amish and the occasional anime character. Today Mog and I saw none of the above. We stood on the bridge and saw only two costumed girls (and upon closer inspection one of them wasn’t a girl at all) where there were supposed to be dozens. Where was everybody?


After taking a few shots of the all too eager to pose transvestite (who had about three teeth to her/his name) Mog and I began our search for the cos-play kids only to yield nothing for our efforts. A sign posted to a pillar underneath an overpass would give us the answer to why those crazy cosies were nowhere to be found. Today was a day for the Takenokozoku greasers, a return to their park that had now been overrun with depressed teens and young girls revealing way too much cleavage. It was Rockabilly Day in Yayogi and the greasers rolled on in with their cards, pompadours, hoop skirted women and, of course, their Golden Oldies to once again dance the day away. I’m not a car person. Steph and Shawn, you both can contest to my disinterest in one of your hobbies, but there is something about an old, 1950s car, blazing red in the Tokyo sun, that makes the drool drip. Mog and I stuck by the car observing the greasers and their girls with the rest of the crowds. They were setting up some sound equipment in preparation for their dance numbers. Wait, was that the Japanese version of Henry Winkler? Wait, has all this been just a casting session for a Japanese version of Happy Days? “Sit on it, Potsie-san!” (*cue laugh track*) Some of these kids looked mean, mafia mean, but it was hard to take them seriously in all that leather when you factor in the heat. Then again, it takes a real man to dress in leather in plus 30 temperatures.


We left the Greasers to their rocking around the clock and stumbled upon a flea market of sorts underneath a park overpass. Various clothes, most looking pretty new as opposed to the moth eaten fair found at this type of function, toys and dishes were being sold for ridiculously high prices. Seriously, once guy was selling old T-shirts at Y2000 ($20) a pop at a flea market! Old cassette tapes were selling for the same price as new CDs and don’t even get me started on the stuffed toys. Somebody should tell these people that Walmart has lower prices then their park underpass flea-market and they best get to marking down with their price guns if they want this Cannuck to give them more then a passing glance. On our way out of the park Mog and I stumbled upon a curious site. Two men, one in a beret, both carrying camera and lighting equipment were leading two extremely sexy women into a clearing in the park. Recalling the Japanese love for shocking, amateur and usually outdoors pornography, Mog and I both pulled up a curb to see what might unfold. What would unfold would be nothing more then a half hour worth of lighting for a photo shop so Mog and I left them to it although I’m sure we both were internal wondering if those women might still touch each other at one point and we were fighting off the urge to race back to our viewing area secure in our perversions.




Later
Close by to the park is the Meiji shrine. This Shinto shrine, the cities largest, was built in dedication to the souls of Empress Shoken and Emperor Meiji. Emperor Meiji, Mog’s favorite of Japanese Emperors, is the 122nd emperor of Japan and reigned from 1867 until his death in 1912. Meiji is responsbible for the Meiji Restoration, a series of events that lead to great change in the countries political structure. Japan, which had formally been closed to the rest of the world, was reopened by Meiji. The restoration would give way to a rise in industrialization in Japan as well as a greater military power. The souls of Meiji and his bride (both dying two years apart) were enshrined in Meiji Jingu in 1920. The shrine, much like everything in Tokyo, was destroyed in the war and the current shrine dates back to the late 50s. 175 acres of forest with over 365 species of trees surrounded the shrine. The shrine has three areas: the Naien (inner area), the Gaien (outer area) and the Meiji Memorial Hall. Many of the prayer markers by the shrine were written in requests for fruitful educational endeavors as many people here to pray for success in school and on tests. Some students who maybe should be home studying were bowed down before the shrine when we arrived. You are not allowed to take photos of the shrine, a guard would tell me, and as I was returning my camera to the camera bag a wedding party passed us by. The bridge, in beautiful white, walked as though on air, graceful as crowds swarmed down upon the procession with cameras a blazing. With the area filling up due to wedding crashers, Mog and I decided to hit the rails again.

2pm
We found ourselves in Akihabara, the electronics haven of Tokyo. Here, some claim, is the largest selection of electronics in the known world. Though not one for technology, Mog was seeking some new gizmos (Mog…gizmo…I kill me!) and I figured the place would be good for a once over.






Outside the train station were young girls dressed up in maid outfits handing out flyers for various maid cafes. Maid cafes are an offshoot of cos-play and they started up in this area around 2000. Inside these restaurants you are treated by the “maid staff” as a master of a private home. You are not just somebody sitting down to a mocha. Meido (the maids) have chosen the popular French maid look for their outfits and in reading their job description one has to wonder how desperate some of these women are for work. In looking at the bruised faced and multiple cut leg of one of the maids at the station one has to believe that this gig doesn’t attract the higher class of Tokyo girl. I could, of course, be very wrong. The girls must act “cute” and in a moe (moe sort of describes multiple fetish mannerisms, from what I gather) and as part of their duties as waitresses (umm….sorry, maids) they must refer to customers as Masters and never deviate from the roll play. Extra care is taken with customers in a maid café so that they can feel relaxed, at home and pampered. To me this ranks up their with those game shows when it comes to weird things found in Japan. Although one of these girls was really into the crowds that gathered around her, the others did not seem happy to be there. This strange phenomenon has started to catch on in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and, yikes, even Canada. There are also less popular butler cafes for the ladies.


The Akihabara area has developed into a culture unto itself called Otaku. The people who hang out in Akihabara are known for their technologically obsessive lifestyles and their devotion to Manga. These are the uber-nerds, the outsiders and social outcasts preferring the warm touch of a laptop keyboard to that of a woman, now with a home in the wires and motherboards, cameras and MP3 players, video games and…well, damn it, if it is electronic it’s found here…even a Pikachu dildo, folks! This holy land of technology is a busy, busy place. Although the area dates back to the 1800s, the place became a boom in the 1980s with the explosion of personal computers and home video game systems. Shops sprung up overnight offering competitive prices and top quality equipment and the Japanese swooped down upon the area in search for deals. The 1990s PC boom only farther the areas success but soon larger chain stores would spout out around the city offering prices that could not be matched or beaten by the smaller merchants in Akihabara. Where some shops closed others opened now selling anime books and merchandise as well as catering to the nostalgia in the now 20-somethings who grew up in the video gaming area by selling off old cartridges and game systems. Walking, actually pushing your way through this district, you find building upon building, everything tightly packed, containing countless shelves of countless electronics old and new. Robots, toasters and old Mega Man games. Plugs, keyboards and lava lamps. Electronic pets, cameras and speakers. I could fill pages upon pages in listing all that can be found here. For a none techy this area wasn’t very enthralling but Mog was in heaven as he walked from store to store. Some of these shops are very modern while others are really sketchy. Small bins and dusty shelves sell items that would be illegal back home (read: pirated movies, games and mod-chipped systems), probably illegal here, and the merchandise at some of these shops looks like it had been run over by a gang of toddlers but, hey, it was only a buck for that old Atari! I wonder if I could find Frostbite here? Mog snagged a new Kitty Chan (Space Invaders…okay, even I liked that one) and took me into a store that only sold old video games. Seriously, everything was here, even games long forgotten. As he looked around on the upper levels I aquired a tag-along in the form of a young Japanese kid from New Jersey here on vacation. As I fiddled about with some of the test systems (discovering my old favorite Punch Out!) the kid would ask me questions like: “Do you know the trick to beating Soda Poplinksi?” and “Are you a member of the gaming press?” through his puckered lips. Man, they were puckered. Did he just down a dump truck full of Sour Patch Kids? “Are you a member of the gaming press?” would become a catch phrase for the rest of the trip with Mog and I both firing it off each other at random. Mog would snag a new camera lens in a nearing camera shop while I watched three police officers surround a young kid we suspect was caught shoplifting. At one point the kid slapped an officers hand away and it looked like he was about to be obliterated.

Later
After returning to the station to grab our bags we went to check into the hotel. Because Mog had only booked a single room, far more cost effective, I had to stay in the lobby entrenceway away from curious desk clerk eyes. When he had checked in I snuck intothe elevator (which was actually out of view from the desk) and was in like Flynn. The very feminine sounding Hotel Princess Garden (you expected pink rooms and lots of ponies) would be our home for the next two days. This Mog recommended and booked hotel was actually pretty nice and surely a step up from a packed hostel room I had originally planned upon. There was a nice Japanese garden outside, nice artwork on the wall and it was very cozy. We set up camp. I took the floor and Mog got the bed. The room was pretty cramped but we got around alight. We had a small fridge, a desk and that wonderful free tea that the Japanese hotel give you. Much better then a pillow mint, I say. Over the course of the day Mog would get text messages from a coworker/friend who was also in Tokyo today. Originally he was supposed to climb Fuji with her and her father but they were none too keen on the late night-let’s-see-the-sun-rise hike both him and I wanted to take so they opted to travel separately. However, with both of them in the city she was interested on meeting up for a few drinks or maybe a night of clubbing. The fact that this is not my scene aside, the price tag on getting into some of these places was budget breaking and after some deliberation I told Mog that I’d just as soon stay behind. We decided upon propping up the self locking door open so he could get back in, he took a quick shower and both of us headed to at least my final destination of the day and a place that in my mind is synonymous with Tokyo. We had some fast food for supper and on our way back to the station I noted some landmarks to help get me back.


As we exited the hotel we were treated to the gorgeous view of Mount Fuji rising above the city. Orange and red in the sunset light, the mountain looked very, very sinister. Beautiful, yes, but considering that within another day we’d be hiking up that bitch, the word sinister is a fitting description.






The Shibuya area is the neon signed Tokyo I’d seen in film and photograph. This is the shopping hub for the young and over the last 30 years this has become the place to be for brand name merchandise, the top of the line fashions and some fine night dining. The streets are packed at night with shoppers and the neon ads above provide the ambiance and atmosphere. The 109 building is located in the heart of this shopping area is one of the most popular shopping areas in the country. Modern shops like HMV and Tower Records can be found amongst the Japanese chain stores. We passed a statue of an Akita dog on our way to the glitz. As the story goes a dog named Hachiko would come every day to Shibuya Station to visit a station master who fed him graciously. When the station master passed away the dog continued to visit and became a staple of the area for nearly 20 years. The statue was built near their meeting spot at Shibuya station to commemorate this touching story. But tonight it was about neon of every color, crowds carrying sacks of freshly purchased goodies and towers of steel reflecting the neon advertising. Mog and I would pay a visit to the Tower Records, walk by the Disney store made up to look like a black castle and visit a comic book shop specializing in English comics before he headed out for drinks. I walked around within the lights of Shibuya for another hour or so dazzled by it all yet simultaneously thinking of escaping to more naturalistic surroundings, the ongoing internal conflict between city and country that wages inside me, and after deciding enough had been seen and enough photographs had been taken I returned to the train station. With my Kanji translator now on his way to the club district of Roppongi, I had to remember my way back with the landmarks I had noted on the way to the hotel. Finding the station was easy. The Kanji looked like a set of bunkbeds and a squid. Outside the station I saw the Wendy’s (where Mog and I had had supper) and remembered the road to the hotel was on the other side of the station. I then passed my bank, a 7-11 and a small grocery before walking into the Princess and returning to the room.

11pm
Mog is still out on the town and I am thinking I should have joined him. Sure, I don’t drink and there is that nasty money spending I’d have had to deal with but it probably would have beat hanging around this hotel room. Well, at least I had the internet…the maddening internet! I’d spend ten minutes trying to find a hotspot in this hotel only to get booted within three. I did manage to check my email, send off a few greetings from Tokyo and check the news before the frustration of it all almost forced me to toss Mog’s laptop out the window. Cooler heads prevailed and I laid back in the cooling winds of the air-conditioner with this journal to read over the events of the day. Much was packed into our Tokyo Tour – Day One and tomorrow would be another full day of travel. Nearing midnight now I have just used the Do Not Disturb Sign to prop open the door slightly for Mog. I debate taking the bed. He’s not hear, right? But the floor spot was right in the air stream and it was far too comfortable here to move. Outside the window a car alarm goes off and is quickly silenced. Yup, I’m writing about car alarms now to fill the time ticking void. I decide sleep is a better option and so I hit the lights and close this book.