Japan
After two months in Vietnam, we were a little concerned about the whiplash culture shock of returning to the US. So what we did was, we booked a few nights in Tokyo-- thinking it would soften the transition.
This did not end up working out so hot. As it happens, we could have gone from Vietnam to about anywhere else in the universe and it would have been less of a shock than Tokyo was. Talk about your whiplash!
There are a lot of Asian people in Tokyo, but that’s about where the similarities end.
We arrived at midnight Monday on a flight from Hanoi. Customs was a breeze and we were able to make one of the last trains leaving Haneda, bound for the Shimokitazawa neighborhood via the Yamonote line. A couple of transfers got us to Higashi Station, and we stepped off the platform feeling pretty buff. We had successfully navigated the first leg of our visit on the busiest public transportation system in the world.
Strapping into our packs and walking out into Tokyo, we braced for the pulsing neon and seething humanity we’d seen on TripAdvisor. Instead, we were greeted with darkness, cold and an eerie silence.
We wondered if we’d taken a wrong turn at Hong Kong. Surely this could not be Tokyo, Japan—the world’s largest city which vibrates with movement, electricity and sublime chaos at all hours. But it was absolutely deserted. The buildings were modest, the streets spotless, and there were no vehicles or pedestrians in sight. It looked like a movie set after the best boy had gone home and turned out the lights.
We looked at each other and shrugged, starting down the empty street toward our first flop, just a few blocks away. The Mustard Hotel was tidy and quiet. A desk clerk emerged from the curtained back room rubbing his eyes and let us in to the lobby where he checked us in. The room at the Mustard felt like a community college dormitory or like a really super nice prison, with bunkbeds and a tiny high window. The room was spare, with no artwork or décor of any kind. The only things in it were two pair of gray linen pajamas and a turntable.
We thought about slipping into the jammies and borrowing a record from the bins in the lobby, but instead we searched SIGNS OF LIFE NEAR ME. Google Maps shyly suggested that Never Never Land was open just around the corner, pouring alcohols and cooking the food until 2am. We doubted it, but re-shoed and headed in that direction just to be sure.
And this is where the whole tour changed. NNL was like a different Tokyo altogether, with its dark wood furnishings, vivid art, disco ball and black lacquered piano. A jazz record played courteously on the turntable. And standing behind the bar-- like he’d been waiting for us all month-- was Ken the boy bartender.
Ken said his kitchen was cold for the night, but he poured us a glass of wine and practiced his English on us for an hour even though he told us several times he was getting ready to close up. There was no one else around. It was after 1am, to be fair. But he was incredibly sweet. We felt way welcomed and would actually pop in to the bar each of the three nights we spent in the neighborhood (the last of which even featured a quick jam with the Loudness Guy. Everyone knows Honkey Tonk Woman…).
The brilliant March sunshine showed us a different Kitazawa the next morning. Students, families and hipsters alike roamed the pedestrian-only lanes of the lower neighborhood, pausing to browse in any one of the seemingly hundreds of mouthwatering vintage clothing shops. Each boutique seemed to have its own theme and specialty: denim in this one, leather across the street-- suits, shoes, sweats, shades, scarves. Every collection was impeccably-curated and displayed: no crowded racks or clothing-by-the-pound here. It was a pageant of the retail arts. Quite unbelievable, honestly.
Tokyo was that way in general of course: alphabetized, organized, evenly spaced. It was sound, sane and sensible. Everything was clearly priced, the seats heated, and all the light switches worked. Never was it unsafe, out of order or covered in rust, grime, ten thousand motor-scooters or garbage. It was not like Vietnam very much at all.
Not that it wasn’t TOO safe and orderly. Surely it was. After being a pedestrian in the anarchy of Vietnam for two months, it was a positively surreal experience to wait in a crowd of 200 people perched on a curb all watching for the WALK sign to light up when there was not an automobile in-sight in either direction. There are no WALK signs in Vietnam-- very few traffic lights of any kind as a matter of fact.
Nor are there ‘unwritten rules’ like the ones that keep Japan functioning as smoothly as it does. Vietnam is not big on rules—it’s more of an honor system. The Vietnamese subscribe to the Viv Savage law of nature, that being ‘have a good time ALL the time.’ In Japan it’s more like ‘feel free to have a good time as long as no one else sees you doing it.’
No public exercising. No public affection. No smoking. No eating or drinking (unless it is in the approved eating or drinking area). No sitting. No talking. It was incredible to be on a crowded train where no one was talking. So quiet. As someone who likes to talk and often does, I had trouble keeping my mouth shut in these situations, almost to a tourette-like extent. I couldn’t hardly stand it.
Of course it’s great when stuff works and it’s nice when you know how much things cost without having to ask and of course it’s a relief not to worry about getting a hematoma every time you step off a curb. But there are costs to order. The social pressure is palpable and the isolation is hard to watch at times. The suicide rate in Japan is the highest in the developed world, especially among the young. And that’s a problem when you don’t have enough young people to begin with. Tokyo looks like a hard place to grow up.
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My 40-year college buddy Mark lives half the year in Tokyo with his wife Yoko and we got to see those guys a couple of times. Mark came to visit me in NYC when I was there for the summer of 1986, so we have been in some wiggy towns together. Yoko is a native of Tokyo and we had a chance to visit her family’s 100-year old soba restaurant in Setagaya and meet her 90+ year old aunt who is the matriarch of the family and the boss of the business. Yoko was born next door and her cousins still live in the building. It was so cool to see that piece of her history and meet her family. Everyone was very kind and the noodles were delicious too!
Mark & Yoko were not the only acquaintances we ran down in that bottomless city. We were sitting in a tiny 2nd story bar called Kinema one night when a text landed from Crider suggesting we visit the Teengenerate bar, Poor Cow. Conveniently it was RIGHT NEXT DOOR and of course Fifi was sitting behind the flier-plastered bar when we walked in. Fink was at 3rd base and it didn’t take long to get our point across that Dave Crider had sent us and that Patti was in fact Josie P. Cat, at which point all jigoku broke loose. Much air-guitaring ensued and we were subjected to a ‘personality test’ that required us to write our ten favorite records on one side of the paper and our ten favorite songs on the other. There were no grades per se, but Fifi did put on the first Pretenders album since it appeared on both our lists. It was extremely rock and roll.
Poor Cow is like the size of the Old Spaghetti Factory compared to some of the bars in Kitazawa and Shinjuku, which we also haunted. The maniacal Golden Gai neighborhood in particular features some of the world’s smallest rooms of any kind—let alone the smallest bars. Some have only three stools and maybe a tiny table in the corner. They’re all dark and themed and unreasonably cool. If you could ever make your way through all of them I should think you’d end up alcoholic.
Of course the best of all them—the mother of all rock bars—was Mother Rock Bar. We sought it out on Matt’s recommendation-- never would have found the narrow, dank basement space on our own. It’s a little larger than some—6 stools, 2 small booths and a bench running the length of the wall opposite the bar. The mistress greets you by shining a penlight on the seat in which she recommends you sit. Or she holds up the ancient laminated sign that reads NO SEATS RIGHT NOW IS STAND OK? Meanwhile she is pouring drinks, making change, and switching the music AFTER EVERY SONG. When you order a round, she hands you a penlight and the catalog which is kind of a like a karaoke binder, but with only the bands listed. She brings you your drinks and you yell ALICE COOPER and she goes to the shelf and pulls out the whole catalog and puts the 7 CDs on the bar. When she comes back by, you point at track 2 of side 2 of Killer and pretty soon Yeah Yeah Yeah is playing at a punishing volume.
We shared a couple of tequila shots with her, and when she learned we were from Seattle, she made a space for us right up at the bar and put on some of her own Seattle selections. Between our Mudhoney & Soundgarden and her Nirvana & Pearl Jam, we had a pretty good little grunge plunge going on. The other patrons did not seem to mind. I gave her my Rock City hat on the way out and yelled that MATT SAYS HI. I’m sure she neither heard nor understood a word I said, but I think she’d have done a backflip if there’d been enough room.
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In the middle of our visit, we overnighted at a traditional Japanese Inn in the Asakusa neighborhood, near Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temple, Senso-ji. Despite the heavily-touristed location, the atmosphere inside the ryokan was serene. Our room featured the opaque papered sliding screens & tatami mats and of course the visit included a soak in the traditional ofuro communal bath. The hospitality was humbling and the experience is highly-recommended—a luxurious escape from the hustle of Tokyo.
But after that, it was totally time to hoof up to the redlight district and check in to a skanky love hotel.
Patti had served as our travel agent for this entire trip. She spent months studying the geographies, hawking for competitive airfares, researching the visa requirements, booking the excursions and perhaps most grueling of all—securing the lodging. By the time we left the ryokan on Sunday morning, we had slept in 26 rented beds over the course of the previous 8 weeks. And Patti was about out of gas.
“I think I’m burning out on travel agent,” she had said wearily. “You’re going to have to take over.”
So, after all the other rooms, and the busses, trains, shuttles and taxis plus the expeditions and workshops and tours and attractions and flights and meals, all of it—I stepped heroically in to book one final hotel room. Here I come to save the day…
There were clues that the Hotel BaliAn was in fact a love hotel. One of those clues was the repeated reference in the reviews to the place being a total love hotel. But those reviews usually also had the word ‘but’ in them and by all accounts the BaliAn was a snappy, clean, conveniently-located property with lots of free lotions and also a Suntory Whisky dispenser. What could go wrong?
I hoped nothing. A lot was riding on this selection. Patti had given me one assignment amongst the sea of her achievements and I was loathe to fuck it up. I scoured Agoda for something with style in a good location that wasn’t too expensive, and I kept coming back to the BaliAn with its Malaysian rattan motif and rose-petal bath. We lugged our bags into the lobby and looked around.
And of course it was totally a love hotel! Hourly rates and Japanese prostitutes as far as the eye could see. In fairness, however, it was also in fact clean, stylish and not too expensive. The Hotel BaliAn was the best place we stayed in Tokyo and among the best of the entire trip, seriously.
But for sure: that Kabukicho district is pretty red, as in red light. With all of the general social repression going on, we found it fascinating that these love leases were being so flagrantly settled and executed, at all hours of the day. I guess it’s only sex. And all other facets of the transactions appeared very Japanese—the girls were clean, the johns well-mannered. No one was intoxicated or loud (of course) or scuffed in any visible way. It was very civilized and we didn’t have any second thoughts about being there at all. I had booked us a killer accommodation and lifted my fist in triumph.
But it was our very last room. After two nights at the BaliAn we’d be zipping our packs up and boarding the Narita Express, saying goodbye not only to Tokyo but to our entire thrilling, immersive, perplexing, humid, fabulous Oriental adventure.
But there was still a little time. Time for yet another dizzyingly delicious sushi dinner. Time for the just plain dizzying digital teamLab Borderless exhibit in Toyosu. There was an entire afternoon for strolling the paths of the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden looking for the signature cherry blossoms (they were shy yet—we missed them by maybe a week…). The last Tower Records store on Earth. The whiteglove shopping experience of Isetan Shinjuku and the corresponding white knuckle experience of Don Quijote. The 45th floor of the Metropolitan Government Building from which you can see for miles in all directions, with Seattle-sized neighborhoods scattered out every window.
It’s so vast. You can’t fully appreciate it from the ground. It’s not until you get up over it that you realize just how massive Tokyo is. We thought we’d had a productive and representative few days, but when you look out and see how much you didn’t see, you realize you didn’t see shit. I can’t wait to get back for some all-you-can-Tokyo, because it’s a wonder—its own unique sprawling biosphere.
I never thought I was all that interested in visiting Asia. There’s a lot of places I’ve always wanted to go, but the far east wasn’t necessarily one of them. But dang. I guess you really don’t know what you don’t know. Plus now that I’m fluent in both Vietnamese and Japanese, it will make it easier to go back.
We’re home now of course. SeaTac seemed empty and the cars on I5 looked really dirty. The armored cop outside the customs gate was holding a bazooka. And all the people on the shuttle were yelling into their cellphones on speaker. But otherwise, it didn’t feel as weird being home as we’d expected. The house was clean and warm. Lauren had the mail stacked neatly and the plants looked great. We set our bags down and slowly walked from room-to-room re-acquainting with our little place on Earth. It aint bad. But there are some pretty affordable December flights to Sri Lanka right now…
