Super Tokyo Adventure Mega Japan Fun Time

(night majestic)

My vacation in Japan was amazing. I've wanted to go there pretty much since the moment I figured out that all my favourite Nintendo games originated there. It's exactly as strange as I always imagined it, and pictures and words can only do so much to capture that. But fuck are they ever gonna try.

That banner panorama is taken from the bar at the Tokyo Park Hyatt, 42nd floor. That's the place from Lost in Translation.

The place is a real electronic dream. Or nightmare. I've described Korea and a colourblind neon insanity fest a good dozen times, but Japan puts this place to shame. I had to take care not to go all Exorcist and pull a few neck-twisting head turns looking around at all the wonderful distractions. Likewise, I had to take special care that not every picture I took was a panorama. There are video games and video screens and people and colours and lights everywhere.

In a sense, it's kind of like Korea two-point-oh. Or like Blade Runner meets Anime. Or like the 80s' version of the future, with copious quantities of pornography tossed-in for good measure.

Ah yes, the pornographic nature of Japan. Note that the pictures in my collage here were not taken in sex shops. The signs were taken from the street, and the products were all from relatively 'normal' shops. Alright, granted, one of these shops was some sort of all-purpose grocery mart that we stumbled into at 2 in the morning, but nonetheless, it was an otherwise normal store with this one section dedicated to some strange and depraved shit. Not that separate, though. I promise, the magic kits were on the same shelf as the vibrators.

Also take note that I've added some black blocks to make this collage safe for work and moms. However, if you click on the picture to see the full version, it is not safe for work whatsoever. Unless you work in a Japanese sex shop.

But speaking of toys, Japan's full of the sort that actually are safe to display proudly in public. Not that proudly displaying scads of nerdy Japanese toys will exactly win you many friends, but at least it won't alienate all but the most depraved of visitors.

Practically everything I bought fell into the 'useless kitsch' category (see the middle of the collage for some of the toys I bought). My favourite buys were my pixel kits, though, as they allow pixel-perfect recreations of all the games that came out when I was still young enough to get in trouble for saying 'fuck'.

I actually spent a lot of my Japan trip doing exactly what I would have if I'd visited there at the age of 12 or so. Toys and games and the attention-span of a gnat are all necessary parts of life in Tokyo, I think. Akihabara was easily one of my favourite parts of Tokyo. As home of all things electronic and overtly weirdly Japanese, this place represented that fucked-up bit of culture that attracted me to this place. Toys and games and grown-up toys and little things that go whizz-beep-bang-boop everywhere. I was in heaven, and after four hours was still disappointed that I had to go meet Cahill and the Cohorts at the airport. However, after a day and a half of exploring confusing Japan alone, I could use stand to see some people whom I'd met more than a day prior.

Hanging with Cahill, Eric and Roberto was cool. Numbers like that give you the safety to do funny walks down the street for no reason. They give you someone to drink with in the lobby of the capsule hotel. Or in random bars you pass. Or on the streets.

The four of us spent most our time in Shinjuku and Shibuya, two popular districts in Tokyo. Their trip was only for about two days, which is really a torturous short bit of time to spend in Tokyo. When the guys left to catch their plane on Sunday night, I decided to on and interesting place to sleep.

Well, I actually slept somewhere pretty interesting every night. My first 2 nights in Shinjuku, I slept at a capsule hotel. That's the kind of infamous place where "Japanese people sleep in drawers". It's basically a place where they have matrix-like shelves along the wall, each about the size of a comfortably-large coffin. Inside these little beige boxes, you've got a thin mattress, an alarm, and a TV about twice the size of my fist. The whole thing is surprisingly comfortable, and I think it's really an efficient use of limited space.

On my third night I booked my own room in a PC cafe and slept in the comfortable leather chair while watching streaming movies on the internet. This is actually a popular choice for sleeping arrangements. They even have special overnight pricing for just this purpose.

On the last night, I went to Asakusa and checked out a Ryokan. That's a traditional Japanese guest house - kind of like the B & B of the far east. My rest on the bamboo floor that night was easily my deepest and most comfortable of the journey. Not that a plastic coffin and a chair are really the stiffest comfort competition, but still.

I spent a day in Odaiba on Monday. After a night of sleeping in a chair, a famous spa sounded just right. The whole thing was amazingly relaxing, even if it did look like E. Honda's level from Street Fighter 2. Mid-February sitting in boiling water outdoors in a Japanese rock-built hot tub has quite a bit of world-experience appeal.

But speaking of mister Honda, fuck if the cars aren't cooler here, too. Even when they aren't cool by any stretch of the imagination, they're so ridiculous and tiny that they've got an appeal all their own. Korea actually has these crazy import laws that basically double the price of any non-Korean vehicle, so all you ever see are Hyundais, Kias, and Daewoos. The only reason these sell well outside of Korea is that they're really, really cheap. Maybe that's necessary when so many Koreans drive like their cars are either disposable or invincible.

Hell, cars in Japan are Right Hand Drive. Even if I didn't already love JDM vehicles, any country where they drive on the wrong side of the road is automatically a little cooler.

But I'm sure very few people are interested in cars and toys and games and all that shit. Admittedly, I'm sure a bunch are interested in the black-bar stuff, but that's your own fucking business. We all know why everyone really likes Japan: crazy signs and labels. So, in closing this week, here's a collection of potential head scratchers.



My comments, clockwise from the upper-right corner.

Jack Black: You love his off-the-wall comedy stylings, now try his out-of-the-bottle coffee freshness!

Yeah, 'cause I really need directions to the Giant Panda. It's not the kind of thing I'd notice on my own. (Confidentially, even with the signs, I couldn't find the fucking thing. I think there's a slight chance it might be a metaphorical Giant Panda. Like, there's a little Giant Panda in each of us us. Either that, or I'm retarded.)

Depresso coffee. Now with extra anti-caffeine! AKA booze.

Don't smoke while walking. No joke here, it's a rule in Tokyo. It's so you don't burn others with your cigarette. While you're at it, don't smoke cigarettes that are longer than your own legs.

Sunnyside Cafe. You've gotta be from Newfoundland to find this funny.

Real black music. For all of you sick of dark gray and navy blue music. Fakers!

And that's it for Tokyo. Well, just for shits and giggles, here's an obscenely wide, almost 360-degree panorama of Tokyo, as taken from the top of one of the world's largest ferris wheels in Odaiba.



Also, you can find more pictures that didn't even make the blog on my flickr album. And you can read a more cogent and chronological account of my adventures in the Trip Journal below.