Sparkling Unicorn

I’ve been sitting here in Ueno Park, with, I would roughly estimate, a million other people, munching on my roasted corn cob and yakatori, drinking my draft beer and wondering if I really have anything to add to the fabled Tokyo lore.

Luckily, it didn’t take long to come up with a definitive answer: Not a fucking hope in hell.

“Tokyo is really, really big.”

“ Tokyo’s subway is really, really efficient & easy to use.”

“Tokyo really, really has a lot of different neighborhoods.”

“Tokyo is really, really crowded.”

So fuck it. I’ll simply show you what I did over the past week, with  additional superfluous and unnecessary comments and let you draw your own conclusions.

My introduction was a 2 hour drive through central Tokyo, as part of my 7 hour slog from Mt. Fuji. I’m sure I didn’t even scratch the surface. It’s not an exaggeration. This city goes on to the horizon in every direction.

After settling into my groovy pad (and, yes, this is the whole thing. It’s reminiscent of those cells you see on the Interweb in Scandinavian countries where people comment,”You call this a prison?”), I walked to Ueno Park, famous for its Sakura (cherry blossom) gatherings. People spread out giant tarps and then hang out all day & night, eating, drinking & generally schmoozing. Unfortunately, the cherry blossoms are late this year, but everybody seems to have decided ”Well, fuck that. Who cares?” and gone ahead anyway.

An added bonus is that there are revolving musical performances by what I would classify as stereotypical Japanese acts. No video unfortunately (stupid Blogger!)  but this might give you an inkling of what I mean.

I didn’t get either an autograph or a selfie. Believe me, I’m kicking myself. There was another group whose lead singer was wearing a fox on his head and a thrash girl group. No end of entertainment here.

Time for the obligatory temple visit. This time it’s the Buddhist temple of Senso-ji, although to be honest I was more interested in the nearby kitschy shopping  street. Seen one Buddhist temple, seen ‘em all. And, naturally, even though it was 9:00 on a Sunday morning, it was jam packed with tourists, eager to tick yet another one off the list.

People here are so desperate for the cherry blossoms that they’ll literally line up around The One Tree to get a photo. Sad but true.

Welcome to Nakamise Street, aka Kitsch City. You name it, we got it - $10 t-shirts, plastic statues, overpriced snacks, it’s all here. To state the obvious, any kind of “atmosphere” or sanctity has been  absolutely sucked out of these temples by tourists, and my heart goes out to the few Japanese who are actually trying to worship here. It must be like going to church on Sunday and having the mass interrupted by a group of Goths, spitting, farting and drinking the holy water - but worse. Fucking foreigners.

Oooh! Shibuya Scramble Crossing. Unbelievably overhyped. It’s not a “beating heart”, as the guidebooks would have you believe. It’s a fucking crosswalk. Yes, it gets crowded, but honestly, every street crossing in a touristy area is probably more crowded than this. At least here you have some space to move without fear of being trampled. Maybe I just came at a bad time.

You want to see crowded? I’ll give you crowded.

This is Harajuku/Aoyama, a very trendy shopping area. That street is a 2 km. stretch of high-end stores. The blob you can’t really make out in the background is a sidewalk that is wall-to-wall people. Two solid lines - one going in each direction. You’d like to cut across? Dream on. It’s Vietnam street crossing with people substituted for scooters. Not quite as deadly, but just as annoying. 

But that’s nothing. Let’s do Hard Core.

Welcome to Takeshita-dori Street, where the groovy wanna-bes hang out. I have never been so afraid in my life. It actually got to the point where there were so many people sandwiched together on the street that we froze in a grotesque lump of immobile humanity. At which point my lizard brain started thinking,”What if anything happens? These dudes will trample us like yesterday’s newspapers.” And no matter what, you could not move to get out. There was literally nowhere to go. The longest 15 minutes of my entire life.

After this nightmare, I made my way to Yoyogi Park, where the Sakura-Without-The-Sakura Festival was also in full swing.

But I hadn’t come for the food or the flowers. I’d come to see the Rockabilly Gangs.

Every Sunday afternoon since Time Immemorial, these groovy guys show up, turn up the boom box full blast and twist & shout to golden oldies in  bizarre choreographed routines. I wish I could play you the videos (stupid Blogger!) so you could revel in the full experience. In Yoyogi Park, rock & roll will never die.

This is Mori Tower (naned after the developer naturally), a 54 storey monolith in Roppongi Hills that has everything - high-end shops and restaurants, apartments, offices and, for me, the Mori Art Museum on the 52 floor.

They happened to be having an exhibit of Urban Artists (including Banksy), which has absolutely nothing to do with Tokyo, but which I’ll inflict on you anyway because I thought it was pretty cool.

So, on Day 2 …

Actually, I’ve completely lost track of when I did what, not that it matters. 

On to Tsukiji Fish Market. This is where they used to have the famous daily morning tuna auctions, but it’s been moved. You can still go & see it, but you have to be there by 5:00 am and even then you may not get a good view. Hard Old Man pass. All I really want is the sushi (and, in my case) grilled octopus. Mmmmm.

Now for some culture - a stroll through the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum. If you’re not into Japan, you can skip this one, because that’s all she wrote. Luckily, I am a certified “shinnichi”, so it was a morning of pure bliss.

Semi-irrelevant aside: this is the lineup for a special exhibition. Notice the plethora of black umbrellas. On rainy days, everyone uses see-through umbrellas. On sunny days, the ladies use black ones to avoid any exposure to the sun. In Japan, the lighter, the better. 

And for any fellow Japanese obsessives:

Next, Shinjuku, the nightlife capital of Tokyo. You should see this place in the daytime. It’s a deserted ghost town. Ah, but once the sun sets, it’s a different story. Supposedly, there’s an element of “danger” wandering around here, especially in the back alleys, but I think that’s bullshit, so people can go home and brag that they ventured out in spite of the potential loss of life and limb. But, as I’ve said before,  I’m a grubby old man, not a solo female traveller, so probably not worth the bother.

Whatever. It’s a great place to wander around, either out in the crowded, Vegas-like streets or the back alleyways. Speaking of which, here’s where I ate dinner & hung out.

See any restaurant. No? Neither did I

The guy on the right (whose name I’ve forgotten although he told me innumerable times) is a 31 year old local politician from Niigata, a city up North, who spent a year studying in Salt Lake City and would love to be Prime Minister one day. Haruki, the guy in the background,  grilled me so many chicken parts (which he explained to me by touching the appropriate part of his body - gizzard, thigh, etc. Thank God no chicken anus) that I thought I was going to explode.

This is Yukushi, a 47 year old from Toyama, who made me fish and appetizers while explaining the meaning of life. Quite an evening.

I spent a morning in two “bohemian”, trendy neighborhoods, Koenji & Shimokiazawa, mostly to scope them out for Sarah in case she makes it here some day. I’m not Sarah, but if I was, this would be like dying & going to heaven - more vintage & clothing stores than you can shake a stick at, interspersed with cafe, bakeries & restaurants. A dream come true.

Of course I did The Imperial Palace, which truthfully I found absolutely underwhelming. You can’t  actually tour the palace without a reservation (so automatically out) and the grounds and gardens are……tidy?

They did have these trees, which is what the fuss is all about. I’m sure when they’re all in bloom it must be quite a sight, but people are literally losing their shit over them. It’s like that old Star Trek episode where they’re exposed to the spores and become completely brainwashed and dozy. Again, maybe it’s me.

Unfortunately, this disappointment was quickly followed by another. I went to a nearby place which is lauded for its transcendently delicious  pork.

You walk in, order your pork (small, medium or large) from a machine, give them your receipt and Voila! Looks good, doesn’t it?

Not so much. As with their chicken, the Japanese idea of yummy can be summarized by “Bring on the fat!”, which doesn’t exactly jive with my sensibilities. Oh, I ate it, but you try to surreptitiously avoid the large hunks of fat without being caught while using chopsticks. It was a fucking nightmare.

Finally this morning I made it to Akihabara, the electronics and gaming Mecca here. Not that I was in any way interested, but I figured….well, you know.

Meh. Again, if you’re into that kind of thing it must be like Disneyland. I’m not and it wasn’t. Cool to look at.

Bet she LOVED it

So that’s it. Tonight I’m going back to Ueno Park to grab some grub, catch a few hideous tunes and hang out with my homies. Then tomorrow morning it’s maybe a museum and neighborhood stroll and then begin the 30 hour marathon home. Hopefully. my narcotics stash will work as well as it did on the way over and I’ll survive. I’ve somehow made it this far, although I’m not sure whether to brag about that or apologize for it. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how much longer my beleaguered body and mind can make it through these hamster-in-a-wheel trips. Every time I finish, I swear The Next One will be much more laid back. But my lizard brain just keeps pulling me back in. “One foot in the grave, my man.You’ll NEVER be here again. You want to miss out, fine with me, you fucking  loser. “

I think this pretty much sums it up.

So sayonara. As always, what a long strange trip it’s been. Can’t wait for the next one. I’m thinking Florida.