7 posts tagged “shibuya”
I'd say it extends back to Saturday, really, but the focus isn't on that. We went out to the Solid Steel Nippon Tour at one of the clubs to see DJ Food & DK and a bunch of other DJs from Ninja Tune. It was a great time. And I haven't met so many Canadians. Seriously, the place was half-full of foreigners, which is unusual, even for that
particular club. We were out until 7am, and went to Denny's for breakfast. Yes ... and Denny's here, well, is actually really really damn good. As is everything American via Japan, it's a weird emulation that is much better. Anyway ...
Monday night we went and met up with my friends Severine and Michel. They're French, from Paris. Both are neurobiologists that study object detection in the visual cortex (Sev, she does this on mice,
Michel, he's working with monkeys), bloody brilliant people, and rather funny. Went to an izakaya for drinks and, since I hadn't eaten, grabbed some food as well. edamame and yakitori shish-kababs, etc.
Anyway, we were in Shibuya, which is a 20-min walk from home. We missed the last train, on purpose, since getting up early isn't a requirement in my world anymore. So, 1am rolls around, we leave the bar, and head home. Dan is drunk as hell, having drank five hot sake. I don't think I've ever seen him so drunk. Not so bad, really, just a bit of slurred speech. No different than the talkative Dan we all know.
We get about 2/3 of the way home and we're in a relatively quiet area, Ebisu, but it's still quite commercial. Dan sees a photo-op of about 50 wine bottles on a set of stairs leading up to a bar. We both notice the
door is open, there's some music filtering out. Of course, Daniel decides to investigate. He pokes his head in and is greeted by the bar tender who speaks passable English. The place is empty, and tiny. 10 people would be packed. so, 2 of us, bartender ... so far.
We order cold sake. I ask for "ginjo", which is the tastier, but slightly more expensive variety. The bartender calls downstairs to have some brought up. this should have been the indication that we were in for an, shall we say, interesting evening. As the saying goes, "a fool and his money are soon easily parted". Fool or drunk, whatever.
We agreed to have just 1 drink (oddly, I stuck to this, Daniel, well, he only had 2) and then go home.
Shortly after we start sipping our very tasty and overpriced nihon-shu, a well-spoken business man in a nice suit comes in. A moment later his girlfriend or wife sits next to him, too. The place is so small, it is impossible not to have a conversation. They're quite nice. Dan starts into his business mode schpeil. I take little notice and start talking to the bartender, trying to practice some japanese, too.
Ten minutes later the bar owner, a very dignified and poised middle aged woman, comes in and starts chatting with us, too. An impressive lady, a property owner, very japanese in a non-japanese-woman kind of way (hard to explain that one). She asks, in a bold way that let's you know she's a smart cookie, if she could have a glass of champagne. I agree, knowing full well that we will be the ones footing her bill. It's just like that ...
Five minutes following her arrival, two more ladies join the quickly growing party. One is in her 30's, the other in her 20's. Daniel is in full swing talking to the businessman and his wife, so I focus on these two women. The older one, also incredibly dignified, I don't remember the name of. She's pretty, but, well, not as pretty as the younger one, who's name turns out to be Momo (Momoka, in full). I start rambling drunkenly in English and Japanese about travelling, teaching, about Canada, and all kinds of things. Neither of them speak English nearly as well as the owner or the bartender, so I get to practice more, which is fine by me. Of course, I'm paying for the girls' drinks, too. They were nice, though, and only had one glass of champagne each.
So now it's an instant party. the place was dead, then we arrived ... seemed very well choreographed to have people arrive, us drink more, spend more money, but it was so fun that it didn't feel like a scam or anything. Hell, we wanted to have fun, we did.
Then some irritated short man speaking English with a French accent comes charging in telling us to shut it up and keep it down; he lives up-stairs. The owner, who owns the entire building, is this dude's landlady. He's staying in a guest house, just like I am. I understand, it's now 2am and he wants to sleep. Sucks for him to live right above a bar, though. He then threatens to call the police if we don't keep it down.
3am rolls up and, well, a single police officer does, indeed, arrive. It's OK, we're all ready to leave by this point. I've already gotten an e-mail and phone # from this Momo and Daniel has gotten one more business contact in Japan. 2, in fact, as we also chatted with the owner. Gotta respect a single, strong woman like that, especially one like that in Japan.
Everything wraps up, we get our cheque. Daniel, well, he didn't realize we'd be paying for the girls' drinks, gets a little weirded out. I knew what was going on, reassured him that I knew, and we paid our ¥10,000 cheque and resume our drunken stumble back. I mean, it could have been a whole hell of a lot more expensive, all things considered.
It's starting to get light out (Japan and it's lack of DST) and it's not even 4am. Get home, and the front door is locked. I know, I know, that should seem normal. But, it is never locked. And I didn't bring my key! So we pound on the door until someone comes. The new guy that just moved in Saturday from the US half-asleep unlocks the door for us. Have to remember to thank him again.
Let me tell you, though, I did pay for the lack of intelligence with an amazing hangover the next day.
With a bit of a shake this morning, I woke up. Not much of a quake, really, but enough to wake me up for a bit. I then drifted back to sleep again until the bathroom door blowing in the wind and smashing into the wall got me out of bed. Ah, older houses can be funny things.
Much like Christmas holidays with it's weird schedule and proximity to New Years, Golden Week is several holidays with days in between. Many Japanese take those days off entirely and hordes of people leave Tokyo to travel. Technically, this year, the holidays are Monday, Thursday and Friday (as today was the actual holiday, Greenery Day, a lieu day is given for monday). Next Saturday is also a holiday. I can't imagine what the train stations and airports looked like on Friday or Saturday, or even today.
So, today having absolutely beautiful weather, I decided to go for a bike ride on the new bike I bought last weekend. I'm so reliant on the subway, that I figured it'd be a great idea to get to know the city a bit better by being above ground and on the streets. With nothing much other than my bag, and thankfully a compass, I set off to find my way to Shinjuku.
It was mostly uphill and I did get lost a couple of times, but got my bearings again with the compass and managed to find my way to the skyscraper district. I actually amazed myself, really. The roads aren't exactly predictable here, let alone named much of the time and traveling through uncharted areas for me requires almost pure dead reckoning and luck. But, I did make it.
I was going to buy a bike-basket at Tokyo Hands, one of my favorite stores, but didn't find anything that I liked that seemed like a reasonable price. But I was in Takashimaya Times Square, so I decided that, hey, maybe there's some clothes I might like at Takashimaya. Uh, no. Nothing within my meager budget. Not a chance.
After the slow wander from the top floor to the basement, I figured I'd slowly make my way home, via Harajuku. Sunday afternoons by the Meiji Bridge are always full of incredible color and costumes of all the girls living out a fantasy of manga or anime, and as just about any travel guidebook might tell you, not really to be missed. Having been there a few times, I already knew the spot and just how crowded it can get. Well, I had neglected to think about that or that it's the beginning of a rather busy holiday week while pushing my bike through the crowds out in front of the JR station along Jingumae Dori. Wow.
But after all of the shoving and people falling on my wee little bike because they're not looking where they're going, I arrived at Meiji Bridge. All the primping and preening. It was better than ever. The last time I'd been up here it was still kind of cold.
Today was a nice and warm day, so the "Harajuku Girls" weren't wearing perfectly matching coats anymore. Seemed far more civilized if you ask me. And they'd multiplied. I knew there was a reason I'd waited to take pictures. Ah, but the crowds were rather thick making it a challenge to take photos with my point-and-shoot camera and still getting a good angle. I'm more of a fan of candid photography, so patience was really the key.
But, I did tire of trying to get a great shot, as I'm not always the most patient. There will be other weekends to gather more photographs of pretty people in pretty costumes. So, bike in tow, I continued on my merry way, along Jingumae Dori alongside Yoyogi Koen where I found the rockabilly's.
So much fun. Some of them looked like they've been doing this for 10-15 years. No doubt that's the truth. Past the food stands and bands playing, these guys just rock out to brutally distorted 50's rock blasting from an ancient portable stereo in their black leather gear. Must be terribly hot, as I was sweating in jeans and a t-shirt.
The light was changing, and my camera battery died, so I meandered my way through the crowded, twisted streets down through Shibuya and Daikanyama and once more found myself at the front of my house.
And wow, it's suddenly very late. Guess I should head to sleep. Fun times!
So, against my somewhat better judgement, I decided to head out last night with some of my new friends to Club Asia in Shibuya for some dancing to house, techno and drum & bass. I say against better judgement because I knew it would turn into another all-nighter. And I was right. I got home far later than is probably healthy for me. At least I don't work until the evening, so I have plenty of time to rest up.
But, wow, was it worth it. After the super-packed venue for Fantastic Plastic Machine, this was a nice change. Crowded, yes, but at least it wasn't a mosh-pit! I met so many new people with my broken Japanese, it was incredible. Everyone was there for one primary reason, though, music.
It's a cliché to say that music is the universal language, but, last night it was really evident to me. But the more practice trying to speak Japanese, the better, I say! And despite that, the amount of English that most young Tokyoites can speak is quite high, even if they don't think so.
I really did lose count of how many people I met and talked to, which for me, well, that's just incredible. Unlike the underground club music aficionados in, say Toronto, the whole scene is just a lot more friendly. I'd chalk it up to being a foreigner, but I don't think that's the case at all. No cool receptions in Tokyo. I even met and talked to (well, tried to) a couple of the DJs.
So, I danced my ass off, and I'm going to be sore for a couple days because of it. A few of us went for all-night rice bowls on the way home while watching some poor SOBs trudging their way to the office. We'll see how well I fare in trudging in the same tomorrow. I think I might be starting to get to old for this. heh.
It's been days! Hello Vox! I spent many afternoons wandering around Meguro River for hanami, cherry blossom viewing. It was very crowded, and the trees were so strikingly beautiful. It made me fully realize why so many haiku have been written about the magical presence of the pink and white little flowers.
I would have loved to spend endless hours outside in the warm weather, drinking nihonshu (aka, sake) and eating takoyaki or grilled mochi, but alas, the time would always come that I'd have to head to work and being half-drunk might not be the best of plans. :D
Saturday afternoon was spent walking from Shibuya to Harajuku to Daikanyama to Nakameguro. It made me realize just how close I live to all of these places. It felt like walking from Yonge Street and Queen through West Queen West to the edge of Trinity-Bellwoods park.
During the trip, I found no less than five pairs of shoes I wanted to buy. That'd have set me back almost $600! Some may not know, but I have, unlike most men, a small obsession with shoes. I'm good though, I don't go overboard on shoe buying. I mean, I only have 2 pairs here in Japan that I brought with me. In the end, I opted to buy something a little less pricey during my voyage, a cellphone strap.
Here, you can see it pictured next to my phone. He's a daikon! The back of his jacket says, 茶 (cha) which means "tea". Haven't translated the other kanji, but I do know one of them, 開, means "open". The other one is hard to read.
Darkness started slowly creeping up on me by the time I got to Meguro, and a light sprinkle of rain was edging it's way onto the swollen crowds watching the sakura petals falling into the river. I decided to get myself home to relax. I had also spotted a pair of camo pants in Nakameguro I think I'll have to go back and try. Very unique design.
Sunday I went out to Chiba city, which is an hour away by train, to get a proper haircut and hang out with my new hair-stylist friend, Yasu. Starbucks are everywhere in Japan, and even more dense in Chiba than Tokyo, which I found incredible. Went for Korean at a restaurant on the top floor of Parco Chiba, part of a chain of depato (department store) in Japan. It was damn fine food, and included noodles, a big bi-bim-bap and some kind of thing that resembled a pizza, which i couldn't catch the name of. Kim-chi in all of it of course.
Then I caught the train home and tried to call it an early night, which of course didn't happen.
I can't seem to fall asleep before 1am these days, which results in my waking up quite late in the morning. Usually never before 10am, but never later than 11am. Ah-well, I still can usually get a lot done in the hours before work (although today I'm being a little lazy because it's raining). After work is the same thing. But, for some reason I feel guilty and lazy for having a non-standard waking life. Truly, I get more done in a day now than I did back in Toronto. I should just fully embrace my nocturnal tendency and not get hung up on being out of synch with a lot of the world.
Anyway, great double-CD of the ... uh ... best of Fantastic Plastic Machine. Felt rather fitting to buy it in Shibuya, too. If you have no idea what I mean, then, well, that's OK. Shibuya-kei is commonly what FPM is considered to be, so, ya. I'm not sure it is, but, oh-well. It's fun, I love his stuff, and going to go see his grand tour kick off next month at ageHa with some people coming from Toronto. Think the venue even has a pool. Ex-tra-va-gaaaant.
I also discovered that Cornelius (no, not from Planet of the Apes) had a show next weekend at Liquidroom in Ebisu, so I started investigating, but it's sold out. And so is every other show he's booked to play until June. Ah, maybe I'll catch him at a non-concert show in Nakameguro. He lives down those parts, I hear.
A couple of days ago my MacBook case started cracking next to the keyboard. It hadn't been dropped or nothing abusive had happened to it. So yesterday I booked a Genius Bar appointment at the closest Apple Store a 7 minute ride away in Shibuya. Thankfully there's often not only gaijin, but almost everyone speaks decent English. Far better than my Japanese at least. I handed over my laptop after showing the problem. It was quite obvious what needed fixing and he informed me that during the normal post-op test phase they, on occasion, have to replace the hard drive.
A tad panicked, I didn't want to give the machine to anyone after hearing that. But, that passed as I reminded myself that, yes, I do keep back-ups of everything. Photos on Flickr, music is copied to my iPod regularly. The only thing that wasn't backed up was my résumé, which inconvenient to replace, is, after all, still up in my head. In the end, nothing needed to be "restored" since the hard drive was just fine. However, in addition to the new top case (which includes the keyboard and trackpad), they did, in fact, replace the heatsink/fan. I guess it's better to be proactive than have a melted laptop, and since I have Apple Care, it cost me nothing anyway. Extended warranties can be good.
On my return trip picking up the machine today, walking back to Hachiko crossing, I spotted a particularly interesting toy shop. I had passed it before, looked inside quick but didn't explore all 3 floors. As it had just started to sprinkle rain while I was in the Apple Store, I figured it was worth looking around some more. Inside, I found the motherlode of all Star Wars geek's dreams; toys, figurines, collectibles of all kinds. Wow. just wow.
This was about 1/3 of the "wall" of stuff they had. The shape of the store was such that I couldn't get a view of everything at once, so I opted for the longest straight stretch. You can see here all of the models in glass, the light sabre replicas below them, and I was particularly enthused by the Han Solo frozen in carbonite statuette on the top shelf. I don't remember the price, and the glare from the lights is obscuring it, but if I was to guess, I'd think it was probably about ¥70,000+. Not shown here is the AT-AT model that, from what I would guess by the price (¥300,000) was that it may have actually been used in one of the movies. Could be wrong. It was purdy, though.
So, now I'm back, content with my functioning, not-falling-apart computer greatful I didn't spend an armload of cash on some very, very fine collectibles. Lets hope that Apple no longer is using cheap-as-crap polycarbonite for the casing now. Maybe something more along the lines of Han Solo's encasement would be better. But, in white please. No "BlackBook" here, thanks.
Well, I've now been here in Tokyo for a grand total of 24 hours.
After my last post I decided to take a stroll up to the Imperial Palace again during daylight to see what this side of it looked like. I just wanted to kill some time until rush hour was over so I didn't have to lug my crap into huge crowds of people. It really is quite beautiful and this isn't even the nice side, from what I know.
I returned to the hotel and gathered my things together and made the trek with my 100lbs of stuff to Shinjuku, where the Sakura House office is. Shinjuku is billed as the busiest train/subway station in the world, and it's not hard to see why. For one thing, it's just vast. It took about 5 minutes to just find the exit, and I wasn't lost.
When I concluded settling things and getting my keys and directions from the wonderful Sakura House staff, I trudged back to the station to find the entrance to the JR Yamanote line. Like I said, this is a big station, and I even had to stop and take a break not to gather my bearings, as everything is extremely well-labelled in addition to Japanese, but also English and Korean.
Ticket in hand, I made my way to the platform. Up and down so many stairs I managed to get on the incorrect platform, but noticed before a train came and walked back down and around to the right place. I haven't yet even needed to stop and ask anyone for help or directions, everything is so clearly marked.
The JR line trains (at least on the Yamanote) are a lot more crowded than the ones I'd been on before. If you imagine the TTC during rush hour, this is the normal daytime, non-rush density on the JR. I felt kind of guilty taking up so much space with my bags, but what could I do? Not much. I'm just a crazy gaijin here, so no one really takes notice anyway.
Following the map I was given at the office, I walked the 5ish minutes from the Komazawa-Daigaku station to the house. No problems there, but I did seem to manage to not see the very bright pink sign on the door and walked a couple meters past it.
It's not a huge room, but it's certainly enough for me, now.
I unpacked, took a bit of a rest and decided to head back to Shibuya to see what there was to see. Unfortunately, en route I realized I was more than exhausted. My jet-lag had kicked in and I was starting to get easily confused again. It's only 3 stops to Shibuya from here, so I decided to keep on going.
I left the station from the Hachiko exit, which is somewhat famous. I was so overwhelmed with the number of people and flashing things and noise that I didn't even notice the statue that it's named after. I'll visit again to see if I can find it. I crossed the street to get a look at the intersection and have my Lost in Translation moment drinking coffee in the 2nd floor Starbucks.
That's it for today. I think I'm going to take a nap, see if I can find something cheap to eat and, if I have the jet-lagged energy, make my way to Ginza to see if I can find a drink. It is Friday, after all.
