The Fat Sumo Halloween Special

Posted on 29/10/2014 by Luke

My day begins with me being completely lost in Shinjuku, searching for an event called ‘Shinjuku Magic of Halloween.’ I was under the impression that the event starts with a massive street parade of people dressed in spooky costumes, but nothing of the sort appears to be happening. I give up searching and head back to the train station.

Outside Shinjuku Station, a television crew and a few people dressed up are standing in front of a big stage. With over two hundred entrances to the station, I have inadvertently stumbled upon the event I was here to see in the first place; and by the looks of it, the show is just about to start. Excellent timing as always. The lights come up, white smoke bellows from machines on either side of the stage, and the band comes out, much to the delight of the ghosts, witches, and Iron Man.

Today, I get the pleasure of seeing Anna Tsuchiya singing live. The former Kamikaze Girls actress-turned-model-turned-singer is simply amazing. I am about six rows from the front of the stage and have a great view. The music is great. The atmosphere is great. The weather is great. Anna sings two songs about Halloween in English before contractually mentioning the video game Psycho Break, the sponsor for the event.

For the third and final song, we get a little bit more from the smoke machines, and Anna sings her third single and first top-ten hit, ‘Rose’.

After singing, she thanks the crowd, and the band leaves the stage. One minute later, the entire crowd has dispersed, and I am the only one standing at the stage. So much for the Halloween parade. I follow the rest of the crowd into the train station and head back to Minowa.

The day is still warm, so I decide on a mid-afternoon bicycle ride. I cycle over the Sumida River in a straight line for ninety minutes, stopping off at the odd shrine or temple along the way. Eventually, I arrive at the Arakawa River and cross over into Edogawa. I haven’t been here before today, and I can’t find anything to do. I cycle around for a while until the sun begins to set.

After watching the sun from the bridge, it starts to cool down, so I race back to Asakusa.

Tonight, I have been invited to a party celebrating the one-year anniversary of a sumo restaurant. I have things to do first, though, so I arrive rather late; everyone is already drunk. Blind drunk. A few of my friends from the boat party are here too, and they are struggling to stand. A never-ending supply of glasses filled with a suspicious green liquid seem to be appearing from nowhere, and the familiar drinking chant of, “Yoi yoi yoisho,” makes its rounds. A sumo wrestler consumes a giant bottle of tequila in one go.

My masseur is here too; he tells me that my shoulders were the hardest he has ever had to massage in his entire career. Or at least I think that’s what he said; his slurs are somewhat difficult to decipher. I join in with the proceedings, enjoying the all-you-can-drink spread put on by the owner. Karaoke ends just as quickly as it starts, and bottles of spirits are passed around. I stay, drinking until I am dizzy, before deciding it is time to go home. As I leave, I am handed a gift bag filled with lovely souvenirs to go with my memories.

On a Clear Day I Can See Forever

Posted on 10/09/2014 by Luke

Summer surrenders to autumn, and the weather swiftly turns cool, as if overnight. My can of Boss Coffee falls from the vending machine piping hot. Today, I decide to explore the Toei Oedo Line. I walk twenty minutes to Kuramae Station. En route, I pass the Bandai Headquarters; a huge banner informs me that Tamagotchi is making a comeback at the end of this month. At Kuramae Station, I wait patiently for the train and receive strange looks as I laugh at the following sign:

I hop on the train without taking any notice of the time. It is, of course, 9 a.m. — rush hour. The train is packed. Today, I learn that this train goes all the way to Shinjuku. At every stop, more people get on. The crowding worsens, and the oxygen levels deplete. After about ten minutes, it becomes too much, so I squeeze my way out of the train at Kachidoki Station. I need air.

Kachidoki is in Koto and is the nearest station to the Tokyo Port Terminal. Whilst I’m here, I decide to take a little wander around the docks and the small interconnected islands. Dengue fever has now spread throughout Tokyo, and this area is a terrible place to be. All the streets here are lined with shrubbery and swarming with mosquitoes. A sign warns me to ‘Be careful with mosquitoes!’ Joking aside, it’s actually pretty serious, and I take the warning seriously.

I head toward the Harumi Railway Bridge.

The bridge is no longer in use. Barbed wire warns me not to cross, although I wouldn’t anyway as it doesn’t look very safe. What’s interesting here is that from this bridge, I can see both Tokyo Skytree and Tokyo Tower. I suppose it makes the trip worthwhile, maybe not. After I photograph the bridge and Tokyo Tower in the distance, I head back to Kachidoki Station. Rush hour is now long gone.

I take the Toei Oedo Line all the way to Shinjuku. I end up getting lost in the station, then get back on the same train as before, taking it to Tochomae Station. Here, I change trains but stay on the same line and head to Higashi-Shinjuku Station. Outside, I walk around looking for something to do. There isn’t a lot here—just restaurants, shops, and plenty of bars; a good place for a night out if I didn’t live so far away. I cross under the Yamanote Line and see children painting the wall beneath the tracks.

I follow the wall of graffiti to the entrance of Shin-Okubo Station and take the Yamanote Line to Ueno, changing trains once more before heading to Tawaramachi Station.

When I arrive back at the hostel, Hiro tells me that tonight we are having a soba party. “Not again!” I quip. The flyer for the party is the same as last time but with a different date. I relax for a while, killing time, before heading out for my seventh train of the day.

I take the Tobu Skytree Line just one stop to Tokyo Skytree Station. If I’m completely honest, I could have just walked it; it isn’t far. I blame the convenience of Japan for my laziness. I’ve been here almost four months now, and with Tokyo Skytree practically on my doorstep, I decide I might as well take the plunge. ‘Plunge’ probably isn’t the best word to have used.

I pay ¥2060 and wait anxiously for the lift. Surprisingly, there is absolutely no queue. The lift travels so fast that it makes my ears pop. 350 metres later, I arrive at the Tembo Observation Deck. The view is staggering.

Skytree Radio blares through the speakers. As I gaze over the Sumida River, I can see my hostel. “From the top of the tower, radio buzz in my ears, I can see my house from here, I can see my house from here.” The Owen Pallett song, ‘The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead,’ gets stuck in my head, and it will most likely stay there for the remainder of the day; not necessarily a bad thing though.

I wander the massive observation deck for a while, being careful not to get too close to the edge. There’s an option to pay an additional ¥1030 to go up to the next deck, another one-hundred metres higher. I think it’s terrible that this was never advertised to me until I’m already 350 metres in the sky—a sneaky trick to try and make me pay more. I decide not to bother; I’ve already spent a small fortune today as it is. Instead, I take the escalator down ten metres. Here, there’s a glass viewing point where I can stare at the traffic on the street below. Oddly, it doesn’t look like I’m too high up from here.

There’s another area where I can actually stand on a glass platform and have my photograph taken by the staff, although I can’t use my own camera. All I want to do is take a photograph of my foot on the glass panel, but I’m not allowed. Another trick: if you like the photograph, you can spend even more money and buy it.

I take the lift back down to the inescapable 5th floor. It would be unfair to say that the most exciting part of the Tokyo Skytree experience is the lift, but then again, I am quite the unfair person. As I had imagined, the exit to the lift leads into the gift shop. The train station is on the first floor, and surprisingly, I am forced to exit through not just one gift shop, but three. After three floors of tacky goods, I then have to walk all the way through a huge indoor food market just to get to my train.

Back at the hostel and with an hour to kill, I write whilst listening to Owen Pallett, or at least I try to write. At some point, all hell breaks loose: a monsoon. Tokyo is issued a flood and heavy rain warning—a red warning. I have honestly never seen rain so hard; I can’t possibly explain it without appearing to exaggerate. The hostel floods. I spend an hour helping out: moving furniture from flooded rooms to dry rooms, and mopping. Mopping until I have no energy to mop anymore. It’s just lucky that my laundry is comfortably drying on the 4th floor, so I don’t mind getting my clothes soaked in dirty floodwater. Eventually, the rain stops, and with a lot of hard work from the team here, everything is high and eventually dry.

It is fair to say that the soba party is a bit of a washout. Eventually, after an hour delay, it finally gets started. I shower and change clothes before enjoying some free noodles and beer. Deserved beer.

After the party, I take a wander outside to catch the end of the Harvest Moon. Somewhat fittingly, the moon hovers just behind Tokyo Skytree. An apposite end to the day.

Pyrotechnics and Parade

Posted on 25/08/2014 by Luke

I wake up at 5 a.m. to the sound of a drunk man in our dormitory room. He spends fifteen minutes trying to open his locker before giving up and leaving the room. It’s nights like these that I wish I were in a hotel. An hour later, the same guy who doesn’t know how to open a locker comes back and spends fifteen minutes trying to climb the ladder to his bed, which, of course, is the bed above mine.

More noise at eight. Two people packing and re-packing their cases loudly, stamping around loudly. I give up on sleep and get up, tired and annoyed. I kill time, drink coffee, then go to a cafe at nine for more coffee. Despite drinking a lot of coffee, I still feel drained. The hot weather adds to my exhaustion. I lazily stroll through the mid-morning Asakusa streets. There is an artist on the street using spray paint to create science-fiction themed space art. He goes from a blank canvas to a beautiful planetscape in a matter of minutes. Incredible.

I continue wandering. One guy raises his hand above his head as I walk past, “Woah! You are too tall!” he exclaims, much to my amusement. I head back to where the street performers gather and watch a yo-yo master skilfully Split the Atom.

Back at the hostel, I write up non-events, then kill time playing Baldur’s Gate on my camera. At 3 p.m., I still have no energy but need to get out of the hostel. I decide to head to Chofu. I take the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line to Shibuya. On the way, I hop off at Nihonbashi Station for a ¥300 smoothie (orange and ginger), then back on the next train three minutes later.

I cross Shibuya Crossing and take a shortcut through Yoyogi Park. My shortcut is somewhat obstructed by the Super Yosakoi dance festival. The entrance to Yoyogi Park’s event open space is blocked by hundreds of people dancing in the street.

The dancing here is actually quite good, the music catchy and rhythmic; I much prefer it to the Samba music that was playing all day yesterday. The stage here is in use too, with people in traditional clothing waving flags and dancing to very similar music to that of the street dancers. I take the ten-minute walk to Harajuku Station, trying to get away from the crowds. My plan is a shortcut through the forests surrounding the peaceful Meiji Shrine.

My shortcut is somewhat obstructed by the crowds of people gathering at the entrance to the shrine. A stage has been erected here, and more people are dancing. The Super Yosakoi dance festival is everywhere. The music from the speakers here is so loud that I actually have to walk with my fingers in my ears. A one-way system through the grounds of Meiji Shrine is also in place.

Halfway through my route through the shrine grounds, a third stage is active and features more dancing and loud live music. There is a sign with a big red cross over a picture of a camera; I presume it to mean “No photography,” yet everyone seems to be taking photographs. Very odd. Perhaps I have been misinterpreting this sign all these years.

I leave Meiji Shrine and head toward Shinjuku Station. It’s another hot day, and I have another ten minutes of walking to endure in the heat. Somehow, as this realisation of the temperature comes to mind, a stranger in the street hands me a fan. At Shinjuku Station, I get a little lost but eventually find my way to the entrance to the Keio Line. A million other people have decided to take this train too. I take the second train that pulls in as there is no room on the first. As I am pushed into the carriage, I see that the crowd behind me spills up the steps and beyond. It appears the whole of Tokyo is following me to Chofu.

The Special Express train makes just one other stop between Shinjuku and Chofu, and I arrive promptly at 6 p.m. I follow the swarms of people to the Tamagawa River. Just as I arrive at the river, there is an explosion in the sky.

Today is the annual Chofu City Fireworks Festival. It runs for an hour and includes 8,000 fireworks. I have a pretty decent spot and enjoy the spectacle. All along the river, little stores sell street food, and even Lawson Stores and Seven Eleven are getting in on the action. They have beers for sale outside floating in big ice buckets, and they have moved their hot food counters to the front of their stores.

The fireworks are impressive, although very stop and start. A lot of fireworks are launched at once, then nothing happens for twenty or so seconds, then lots of fireworks at once, et cætera. Every time a big explosion occurs, everyone around me says, “Sugoiii!” “Sugoi!” and “Oh, Sugoi!” This word means ‘amazing’ in English and seems to be the only word that the Japanese people here use to describe the fireworks. They certainly were amazing.

At 19:11, I head back to the station; the fireworks will continue for another twenty minutes or so, but I really don’t like the idea of getting back on a packed train. It seems everyone else has had the same idea; once again, the station is packed. I am not proud of it, but when the doors finally open, I dash to grab a ‘Priority Seat.’ These seats are intended for pregnant, elderly, and disabled people. I feel somewhat less guilty when the other seven Priority Seats are taken by youths.

Back in Shinjuku, I change to the Marunuchi Line and take it as far as Ginza before switching to the Ginza Line. I arrive back in Asakusa around eight.

I meet with some friends, and we head to a nearby British pub run by actual British people. They brew their own beer here, play British music, and serve by the pint. I go for the porter; nice but expensive at ¥1000. The song ‘Empty at the End’ by my friend’s band The Electric Soft Parade comes on at some point in the evening; my mind ends up back in Brighton.

Moshimo Tours, Robots, Red-lights, Coming to Life

Posted on 21/06/2014 by Luke

I am blaming everything on the constant breathing in and out of air-conditioned air. Everywhere I go there is air-conditioning. In my room. Inside the train. Outside the train. It has destroyed my throat to the point that it is so dry, it hurts when I swallow. Clearly the magical cow didn’t work. Thanks to illness, I haven’t done as much these past few days; not enough for a whole post each day. Instead, I will summarise the last three days here:

Wednesday

Today I am filmed as part of a television show for Fuji Television. The show, called Moshimo Tours, is about Cafe Byron Bay. Presented, I think, by Airi Taira. There are eight western guests in the cafe including me. We chat amongst ourselves as the lighting equipment and tripods are set up. There is basically nowhere to move with all the crew. Cameras three times the size as TV Tokyo’s. A team of about fifteen staff members all wait around outside until it is eventually time to film.

With the crew in place, Airi Taira, four comedians and a Japanese pop idol enter the cafe. Udo Suzuki and Hiroyuki Amano are here, they are the famous comedy due Kyain. Sanpei is here too; a football shirt wearing Japanese comedian who’s catchphrase is saying his own name. I instantly recognise him from episode two of cult classic ‘Adam and Joe Go Tokyo’. I am now on the same television show as him, which is quite exciting. The name of the famous Japanese pop idol escapes me. I am told that the band he is in are the Japanese equivalent to One Direction.

My part in this show is in the background. I am a customer enjoying a drink, talking to my friends, and pretending I haven’t noticed the comedians, and idol, at the bar. Pretending I haven’t noticed the huge lighting rig, the cameras, the guy furiously hand-writing cards which he holds up for the comedians to read from or garner instruction from.

After filming for some fifty minutes, the comedians leave and we are interviewed on camera. Following the interviews we are each given a gift from the producer as a thank you for taking part; a Japanese hand fan. As a thank you for coming, the cafe owner gives the eight of us some money to buy dinner, although she didn’t need to; just being on television with famous Japanese comedians was thank you enough. The show will air on Saturday 5th July at 6:30 p.m. on Fuji TV.

I book another month in Asakusa for the middle of August. It really is beginning to feel like home. Between now and then I am going to travel across Japan like I had originally intended. I get talking to a Japanese guy in a bar, he asks of my plans. I tell him that I am thinking of travelling first to a place called Beppu; famous for its hot springs and various kinds of geothermal healing. It turns out that the Japanese guy in the bar is on vacation in Tokyo, and he actually works at a hostel in Beppu. The same hostel I am considering booking. Beppu is on the other side of Japan, some 496 miles from Tokyo. Yet another strange coincidence.

Thursday

It is another hot clear day. I have been here for three weeks now and it has only rained for three of the days. I go into Cafe Byron Bay to thank the owner for buying me lunch. It is very early and I am the only customer. I ask her to make me some eggs. We talk. She says out of the blue that when I come back in August, she will happily employ me. “Thank you,” I say, tucking into my happy free-range eggs and happy toast. After breakfast I hire a bike again and spot this random guy:

I spend about four hours just cycling around Taito, exploring side streets at not-so-great speeds. Even the policemen here have one speed bicycles. I cycle down the Sumida River and back again, looking for interesting things, mostly seeking odd signs, hilarious typographical errors, or ‘staff wanted’ notices. I see a woman in black face makeup and red eyes. She is holding a doll. I have no idea why.

At the hostel Daisuke and I talk about farmyard animal noises and phone sounds. Different in every language; my favourite is probably the Japanese frog sound. We hang out at the hostel bar for a while. Today is Thursday but the Jazz Club isn’t on tonight, instead there is live music from three staff members; a guitarist, a vocalist, and a violinist. They are playing an evening of music from Studio Ghibli films. For each song the lyrics are read out in English, then the song is performed in Japanese. I stay and watch both sets.

Friday

Luis Suárez is out of his wheelchair and scoring goals. Not worth getting up at 4 a.m. for. After the game I had planned to watch ‘Japan versus Greek’; or so the sign in my hostel says, however, I decide to give it a miss and I’m glad I did. After breakfast I take a few trains and end up in Shinjuku. Here I walk around. I see a typo on a McDonald’s sign and wonder how a company of this size could not employ just one person that can proofread English. I think about writing to McDonald’s but the moment passes.

I take a walk to Kabukicho, the red-light district in Shinjuku. Here I find the famous ‘Robot Restaurant’ that everyone keeps telling me about. The restaurant features a live Japanese cabaret show. The female performers wear neon and not a lot else. They dance around on giant robot tanks, robot samurai, robot dinosaurs, all to the sound of techno music. It costs ¥5000 for a sixty minute show. I suppose they have to charge a lot to make back the ¥10 billion they allegedly spent on the place when it opened last year. ¥10 billion! I decide to give it a miss.

Back in Asakusa, I go out for a tuna sashimi set meal. It is served with the usual suspects, rice, miso soup, wasabi, a selection of pickles, and some love in the style of heart shapes and flowers. It costs ¥1830 with a beer, which just happens to be the exact amount of change I have in my pocket. Yet another strange coincidence.

My night ends at Cafe Byron Bay for last orders where I impress with a couple of card tricks. “What’s your favourite playing card?” I ask a Japanese salaryman. He tells me the seven of clubs; he actually says ‘clover’ instead of ‘clubs’. I reveal the top card and he gives me a puzzled look before bursting into applause. The top card is of course the seven of clubs. The magic trick earns me a beer.

I pop to a late night supermarket called ‘Life’. Here I buy a couple of cans of Suntory whisky highball. As I leave the shop I notice this amazing sign:

Cat Cafe, Cats and Dogs, Square Enix

Posted on 07/06/2014 by Luke

I wake up at 9 a.m. to the sound of rain. It is very loud. I head downstairs, I drink two cans of Boss Coffee Sweetened Rainbow Blend and write for a few hours, until I am finally ready to venture out into the monsoon that is the streets of Japan. I buy an umbrella, pleasantly, before taking the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line to Shibuya.

In Shibuya, vans drive around all day advertising new albums from random Japanese artists. There are three AKB48 vans that circle around, blazing out pop classic, Labrador Retriever. I wander the Dogenzaka district in the pouring rain until at last I find the sign I am looking for; it reads Neko, the Japanese word for cat.

Hapineko is a cat cafe. For ¥1180, I order peppermint tea with sweets and spend 30 minutes with the cats. Inside, there are literally tens of cats. Most of them are hiding or sleeping. I spend some time taking photographs until eventually I find a cat that sits with me and allows me to stroke her. It’s an odd concept, really, and how it came about, I really don’t know. As I leave, I playfully change the Japanese word for ‘thank you’ by one letter, “Aricatou gozaimasu!” The staff member gives me a puzzled look.

I hop on the Yamanote Line and 4 minutes later I hop off in Shinjuku. If Tokyo is the capital of Japan, I would say Shinjuku is the capital of Tokyo. It is massive and boasts the worlds largest train station. An average of 3.64 million passengers per day pass through the station, which has over 200 different exits. After an hour of searching, and a trip to a Metro Station to ‘borrow’ some free Internet, I manage to get directions and find that I am only eleven minutes away from where I need to be.

Eleven minutes later I arrive at Artnia, the official restaurant of Square Enix. I order two desserts from a Final Fantasy themed menu; the first I order is the Strawberry Pancakes, served with ice cream, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and a Cactuar. After finishing my huge portion of pancakes, I instantly regret ordering two desserts.

The second dessert is a parfait. It is in the shape of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII and contains an edible chocolate Buster Sword. It also features chocolate panna cotta, with coffee jelly and vanilla ice cream, all topped with a layer of whipped cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce. The total cost for both is a pricey ¥1910.

The restaurant also sells a selection of Square Enix official goods. They include games, stuffed toys, trading cards, necklaces, perfumes, and models of popular characters. Here are Tidus and Yuna from Final Fantasy X:

After the restaurant I head back to the hostel where I meet up with Andy, an Australian I had first met at the karaoke night, and Matt, the guy I went to the izakaya with a few nights ago. We decide to go to the English speaking bar across the road. Because of the rain, the bar is quiet and there are only two other customers. A Japanese man here says I look like a famous person, and after five minutes of searching on his phone he reveals that I look like a young Barry Manilow, I strongly disagree.

After last orders are called, Andy, Matt, and I head to another bar with the owner of the English bar and the Japanese man. Here we drink more and more beer and snack on Japanese omelette and smoked salmon served with Daikon. The Japanese man eventually leaves, but not before paying the whole bill. It turns out the three of us haven’t paid for a thing all evening. Thank you very much, Saito-san.

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