Last train woes...

an old man at a concert in Shimokitazawa

Desperate for some kind of live music, we ventured out to see a half gaijin, half Japanese band that was compared to Echo & the Bunnymen in the Japan Times. Let it be known that the Japan Times should never be trusted due to its complete lack of any factual content. Case in point: This band sounded nothing like Echo & the Bunnymen. They kind of sounded like they wanted to be compared to them, if only for one song. Actually, they seemed to have a bit of difficulty in deciding exactly which band they wanted to sound like most. The result was a mess.

After the concert--which started promptly at 8 and was finished by 10--we decided to go bar hopping. We started at one of my favorite bars, The Boy Peach. The only reason I like this bar is because they have some pretty good music--which you can request--and the bartenders will sing along to the Smiths. The drinks are cheap, too.

We were slowing losing members of the party due to last train schedules. At some point during the night I had stopped looking at my watch. My last train leaves at 1:07am. At 1:02, my friend, J., saw the time & somehow managed to get the bill, pay it, and get both of us out of the door. We rounded the corner and could see the station--with my last train pulling in! A mad, drunken dash ensued. We ran down the length of the station, rounded the corner & started running up the [very steep] stairs. Somewhere near the middle of the stairs, my legs, lungs & soul decided simultaneously that they couldn't go on. I said something to this effect, which in a drunken, melodramatic way probably went a little like this:

"I...just...can't...go...on... You go... without me. I'll just... sleep here..."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt a hand on my back & a swift push up the stairs. I made it through the turn style, down the stairs & somehow into the still open doors of the last train, which closed right behind me.

Through all of this I've learned that a good friend is someone who will push your drunk ass up the stairs when you can't get there on your own...

the Buddha's soul escapes at night

Desperate to get out of Tokyo, we headed to Kamakura, home of the infamous Great Buddha. It probably took as long to get there as it did for us to figure out which platform we were supposed to be on in Shinjuku... While the wonderful cell phones do tell us how to get from one station to another, plus the times and costs of the trains, they do not tell us which platform they depart from.

Kamakura is a relatively small town, especially in comparison to Tokyo. It seemed that the bulk of the population consisted of tourists who couldn't find their way around. Since we, whether consciously or not, always seem to end up following the people in front of us, it was literally the blind leading the blind. Despite this, the Buddha was easy enough to find, and we ended up spending a considerable amount of time just sitting near it in silence. "Basking in the glow of the Buddha," if you will.

By the time the sun went down, it was freezing, and, after eating sweet potato ice cream, we decided to duck into a coffee shop/art gallery to warm up before heading towards the beach. The downstairs portion of the place was an art gallery with a huge grand piano taking up more than half of the space. There were three people sitting around it drinking wine. Up a very steep and rickety flight of stairs was the coffee shop section. There was hole in the middle of the room which opened down to the gallery and was surrounded by a small counter with chairs. One of the women in the gallery was playing something truly beautiful on the piano beneath us. When she finished, and after we stopped clapping, like a true artiste she went into a broken English rant about how it was an original song which she composed on the spot, and that's the only way she'll play music. For the first time in a long time, I felt peaceful and warm and glad to be here in Japan.

After freezing on the beach we decided to go to Denny's. After all, what's a trip to Japan without going to Denny's? Being somewhat naive, I was really excited about having some pancakes. The interior seemed Denny's enough--ugly booths and fairly hideous wallpaper... But when we opened the menu, there was no Moon Over My Hammy to be had, nor any pancakes. There were various soba dishes, and lots of meat items, green tea ice cream and Bubbalicious for sale at the register, which I bought without even looking at the price... I blew bubbles all the way home--much to the chagrin of the natives.

Window displays...

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Obviously Japan is not a country founded on Puritan beliefs... Case in point, how should one try to sell Calvin Klein underwear? Sex!!

Chikan!!

Well, it finally happened. I got groped on the train last night. Funny thing is, it wasn't by a Japanese guy. It was by a fucking gaijin.

Through the help of Metropolis and my friend B.'s sharp eye for ads, we found an Israeli restaurant specializing in falafel, hummus & kebabs. [which is not exactly what I think of when I think Israeli food, but what do I know?] The falafel was actually good! And not kind of good, like all the other falafel places, which were kind of good only because I've been wanting falafel so much & it's been so long since I've had some that ANYTHING resembling falafel is good to me... This falafel was actual falafel!

In mourning the election--and in celebration of the end of the week--a good amount of shitty beer was consumed. It was kind of late when I started the trek home. Of course, there were the usual sick drunks coughing and hacking on me on the Yamanote line.

When I got to Shinjuku, there were people running through the station & the voice on the intercom was probably saying that the last train was leaving soon. It's easy to get caught up in the group here and I started running towards the train. When I finally got on the train I had to wait another five minutes. Right before the doors closed about six more people crammed in & somehow I got pushed to the other side of the car. Maybe I wouldn't have been pushed so far if I hadn't been drinking, but that's pure speculation. During the push, I stumbled past two gaijins, and ended up crammed against the door.

Somewhere between Shinjuku and my stop, the gaijins ended up behind me. Had I taken my headphones out, I probably would've understood which language they were speaking. It wasn't English, it wasn't French and it wasn't Spanish, that much I know. One of them started grinding into my ass and then rubbing his crotch. I could see him reflected in the glass of the door and he was looking at me and smiling. We were coming to the next stop when I elbowed him somewhere in the gut area. The doors opened and more people shoved in and I could move away from the asshole.

When the Lonely Planet book talks about getting groped on the train, they should really make a point to tell us that it's the gaijins we need to look out for...

Halloween & flying flesh...

Halloween is a purely gaijin event in Japan. While waiting to meet up with A. in Shibuya, there were quite a few drunk gaijins dressed for the occasion. Little did we know that A. was going to be one of them...

We decided that if he was going to live through the evening, we would need to get some food into him quick. On A.'s drunken insistence, we went into what we thought was an izakaya. It turned out to be a yakiniku establishment instead, i.e., a place where you order raw meat and they bring a grill to your table. The grill is put in the middle of the table and everyone gets the joy of cooking their own meat. I guess the Western equivalent would be that fondue craze that hit in the late 80s...

A.--who was still in his Halloween costume--went into a drunken, broken Japanese ramble with the poor waiter about the types of meat that he wished to have, while I apologized to him as best I could and ordered some kind of caramel dessert.

When the flesh arrived, A. started cooking with his chopsticks--instead of the metal tongs provided--while telling rambling, drunken stories. Let it be known that they provide metal tongs for a reason. It seems that meat tends to stick to the metal mesh of the grill and you just can't get a good enough grip with chopsticks... Either that or they realized A.'s state and provided the tongs out of the kindness of their hearts. He was ignoring my comments to this effect, saying that it would taste better with chopsticks.

While telling a story, he tried to flip the meat with his chopsticks. He grabbed a corner and pulled at it. The meat didn't move. He pulled harder. The meat didn't move. Finally he yanked it. The meat went flying off the grill, hit B. in the forehead and landed on her lap. B. sat there for a second with a dazed look on her face and a black wet spot on her forehead. A. looked down at his chopsticks and then began frantically looking around the grill, the table and the floor for his lost meat. B. started laughing hysterically and pointing to the meat that was still on her lap. When A. finally realized what had happened, he got rather upset. "That [piece of meat] was almost finished and was going to be perfect!"

It was at this point that the only vegetarian at the table grabbed the tongs and started cooking. It was only a matter of time before I got hit with the flying meat, and I daresay I wouldn't have taken it as well as B. had.