Tokyo Nights

My two best friends came to visit us in Japan, and the trip started of disastrously. They were supposed to fly in from Tokyo to Nagoya, but in a desperate effort to make it to a Halloween party, I had them catch the shinkansen so they could get here sooner. That’s right. In Japan, trains are faster than planes.

After an hour of waiting I abandoned my car in the passenger pick up area and started making laps around the train station. I yelled their names and clicked my tongue until my mouth was sore. After two hours I asked the shinkansen operator if a typhoon had washed the train into the sea. After three hours and a fresh patch of gray hair in my beard, I contacted the police. They took me to the station master who, after 20 sweaty, agonizing minutes, gave me the microphone for the PA system. This was my one and only chance.

“Tam Tran and Cole Welsome, this is Joe Mitchell. Please come to the Station Master’s office,” boomed throughout Nagoya station. I had done it and I collapsed from exhaustion, if they were here, they’d find me.

Seconds later, someone knocked on the door and the police opened it to the two smiling faces of my best friends. They looked like they’d just awoken from a pleasant nap, and indeed they had. Turns out I’d send them to the wrong connecting station in Tokyo, and they’d just barely made a train and arrived in Nagoya moments before. So I’d ruined our chances of making the party and probably taken a few years of my life, but, on the other hand, if the station master had let me use the PA any sooner, they wouldn’t have been in the station to hear it, and I would have abandoned them for a stiff drink.

We still made it to the after party at the Karaoke bar, where they met Chaba (dressed as a woman and armed with a gun) and sang Takayama to sleep with Tam’s throaty rendition of Weezer’s sweater song, and Cole’s always stunning performance of “Witchy Woman.”

We spent a few days in Takayama, mostly enjoying the fall foliage and playing with monkeys and squirrels. We ate at all our favorite restaurants. Tam and Cole seemed most impressed with the curry restaurant we’d never been to before, though it made Raquel feel sick. You can never please ‘em all.

We left for Tokyo to make our reservations for Yazuda sushi. It was divine. Even after I told Yazuda-san himself I had eaten tuna liver in Takayama, and he (not so politely) informed me that tuna guts are always dumped into the sea, and in a mountain town like Takayama, it was far more likely that I’d eaten bear liver than tuna guts, it was still the most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten. I ate twice as much sushi as Tam and Cole, and they were forced to watch as me and the man who’d replaced Raquel at the 8 seat restaurant (she refused to eat sushi two days in a row) grunted our appreciation as we stuffed our mouths with the likes of sea urchin, needlefish and the best shrimp, EVER. Only when Raquel strolled in, after waiting on the steps outside the restaurant for an hour, did we make our exit. High on omega-3’s, I passed out in a stinky fishy mess, and we reconvened in the morning.

The next day we killed time with a giant Gundam until our reservation at the Robot Restaurant.

A note on themed restaurants in Tokyo:   

1. Cat cafes have far too many rules. Don’t pick up the cats, don’t let the cats sit on table, don’t touch the sleeping cats, don’t chase the cats, on and on and on. I found a cat who liked tummy-rubs, so it was still worth it, but for the tourist visiting Japan, avoid the cat café. You’ll have far more fun tormenting your own ball of fur when you return home.

2. Not all maid cafes are created equal. Raquel and I went to a maid café on our last visit to Tokyo, and loved it. The maids taught us all kinds of cute tricks, and the place was filled with all sorts of people, from Japanese bikers to British grandmothers. The maid cafe we took Tam and Cole to was empty except for a few single guys who spent a little too much time there. It was still overwhelming and we ended up paying too much (I wanted the maid dance instead of the photo, damn it!) but thus is life in Tokyo.  

3. The Robot Restaurant is awesome. The Robot Restaurant had it all: Saxophone wielding angels and robot guitarists who played nauseating renditions of James Blunt songs, drummers on ten foot tall dueling robotic platforms, a giant sequined horse, even a chain gun-wielding Rita Repulsa (my first crush) who was eaten by a huge jungle snake. The show was so good that one of the local crime lords came out, complete with 5 hired escorts and two bodyguards. I heard someone complain that the crime lord’s women got all the popcorn, but I’d rather be popcorn-less than a prostitute any day.

You haven't experienced James Blunt until you've seen it performed by robots.

We went shopping in Akihabara the next day, and I watched the chaos of Tokyo slowly blind my friends. They started strong, but by the evening Cole was complaining that the claw machines were a conspiracy and Tam looked like his beloved sage grouse, paralyzed by bright lights. We dragged them to Karaoke and plied them out of their daze with alcohol, otherwise I think they would’ve ended up in a puddle, trying to hide from the lights and the Japanese and the consumerism beyond anything Austin has to offer. But we had fun. Cole found a vending machine that served hot corn drink and drank way too much of it, and Tam and I danced to some street music, though when I blinked Tam had been replaced by a Japanese man furiously dancing with my crotch. I found my friends and we got the hell out.

We made the mistake of taking them shopping again the next day. Tam shrugged compulsively as shop owners made him clean their store fronts and Cole proclaimed he’d rather people watch than shop, though his back was turned to the seething crowd behind us. Raquel, oblivious to their plight, shopped like a fiend until they abandoned us for the nearby Meiji Shrine.

The magic of Tokyo is the juxtaposition of it all. On one side of the tracks is the busiest shopping district in Tokyo, on the other an ancient mystic forest, swirling with mist and sacred temples. I found Tam underneath a Torii gate, clearly looking relieved to be somewhere he could hear birdsongs. Cole had left him for a bathroom, so we set out into the park, hoping to spot a giant white tongue clicker. Meiji shrine and the park around it is beautiful, like something from another time. We saw three weddings, a collection of flowering bonsai trees, and woman who could make birds land in her hand. Meiji Shrine is magic.  

I asked them what they thought of it all, of Japan, of Tokyo, and of Takayama. I think Cole said it best. “Japan is different down to the smallest detail, but the big stuff’s all the same.”  

And it’s true. Everything is different in Japan, the stores, the restaurants, the games, but it’s still all the same, clothes, food, distractions. Like everything about the modern world, Japan has the rare ability to overwhelm but is usually underwhelming to a fault. But the great thing about it is when the flashing lights are too much, and there's too many people all around you, you can head for the wild that’s always pressing in on the cities and escape, as long as you’re willing to follow your friends.

Joe Darris Mitchell lives in Takayama Japan with his darling wife, and already misses his friends. If you liked this story, +1 it, or read more about Tokyo, or Japanese food.

The Sounds of Tokyo

The sounds of Tokyo are what I remember most. We arrived in Shibuya to the sounds of chanting and pounding drums. We found traditional Japanese drummers dancing under neon and flashing lights, screaming for their ancestors in a part of the city bright enough to keep away any ghosts.

We crowded into a bar with about ten other people surrounding two sushi chefs who quietly slapped fish onto rice. “Aji! Hotate!” “Samon! Maduro,” “Sake kurasai!” the patrons chanted. The chef silently placed our food on an enormous bamboo leaf. I ate, relishing the sound of raw squid popping between my teeth.

We found an Irish bar and I sipped a Guiness while Irish-accented English rained down all around us. Our American accents embarrassed me into silence, so we left.

The bells of winning and the synchronized slaps of arcade dancers called us into an arcade. We boogied to anime theme songs and shrieked gleefully as Mario screamed when I shot him with a turtle shell.  

We sat down for a quiet breath on the third floor of a forsaken hotdog stand. I ordered the seaweed and mayo, Raquel the pickled onions. We listened to American music recorded in Australia while the glass kept the sounds of the city out. We watched the streets, silent vignettes of life in Tokyo. A group strolled through the city, then one collapsed, too drunk to continue. Her friends laughed and one of the men hoisted her onto his back. She slumbered on.

We followed the loud drone of a bass drum and found a club hidden beneath a thrift store with people lined up to get in. But we heard too much English, so we abandoned it for a deserted dance club where the bouncer screamed our drink orders over the blaring cumbia masic.

“What are you drinking?”

Kirin’s fine! I yelled over the music.

“We have a cheaper beer, you want that instead?”

The DJ kept the Latin beat as we sipped our Black Ninja lager. The bouncer and a smiling Japanese woman trounced a Latin couple at darts as they encouraged them to take more shots. Two Japanese men danced at the bar.   

“You know this song?” A dancing Japanese asked, fist pumping in time to the bass.

I nodded.

Satisfied, he danced away.

Exhausted, we checked into an internet café filled with the muffled sounds of Karaoke. Our residency cards earned us a room on the top floor so small I had to lay down diagonally to fit. We fell asleep to the sounds of keyboards typing and the man in the cubicle next to us snoring in fits.

We rode the train to the fish market at six AM, hoping to hear men bartering over tuna in another language. We raced crowds to get on the train, then found ourselves crammed in with droves of children in Mickey Mouse ears and teenage girls humming Disney princess songs.

We pressed on, only to discover the fish market was closed. We allowed ourselves to be lured into a tiny sushi place by an elderly couple who promised us English and fresh seafood. I ate sea urchin, tuna roe, and different cuts of tuna on a bed of rice. I drowned it all in hot tea and a bowl miso soup overflowing with seaweed; it seemed more decadent than fish after living in the mountains for three months.

I slept to the mumbled conversations of the Japanese as we rode the train to Akihabara. Raquel woke me with a whisper, and we ventured out to the videogame and arcade district of Tokyo. A sound stage promised a show at noon. Maids promised an escape from the madness of the streets in their cafes. We fell for the false promise on an arcade. We clanked coins into claw machines, and fought each other’s avatars as an announcer said “ready, fight!” and, “Way TO go!” in English thick with a Japanese accent.  

Back on the street, crowds jostled for space at the sound stage. Japanese women dressed in elaborate costumes sullenly moved to prerecorded voice tracks of their characters introducing themselves. Only the girl with the gun looked happy. With all the girls on stage and looking miserable, the announcer revealed a new pachinko machine that promised animated versions of the women standing before us. Most people crowded closer, we slipped away into a maid café.

If you ever go to Japan, go to a maid café. It is one the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. We walked in, and the head maid announced us, and all of the diners applauded. The maid taught us how to order. We had to pretend to clean our faces and say “meow, meow,” like a kitten. The maid vanished. We watched other people meow-meow, couples, old ladies, even a table of leather-clad bikers.

Thirsty, we cleaned our whiskers and meow-meowed. The entire café responded, “Kawai!” and shook their hands like our cuteness might make them explode. Our waitress arrived with water, took our order for coffee, and taught us to say kawai anytime someone meow-meowed. Now we would be able to overwhelm new diners, and pay the experience forward. She put rabbit ears on Raquel and cat ears on me and left us once more. The bikers laughed mercilessly at me, so the maids put ears on them and silenced their laughter. Finally the head maid dimmed the light, and began her maid dance. We were lucky to witness it. Normally one must pay double and stay for two hours instead of one, but another table had paid her for the show, so we got to watch, voyeurs of cuteness. She bounced back and forth, twirled around, and sang high pitched Japanese lyrics. It was the most adorable thing I have ever seen an adult do. The lights came back on. We snapped polaroids with the maids and caught a train to Harajuku.

Harajuku’s biggest shops had people boasting outside, begging us to enter; the smallest shops had persistent shop-keeps, who dared us to try their style. Overwhelmed, I hung on to Raquel as she whirred from shop to shop, like a song bird listening to competing males defend their territory.

We piled back on the bus home. Our bus driver was a tiny old man who whispered to us like a grandfather who didn’t wish to wake his youngest grandchild. He only spoke Japanese but I think he wished us dreams of soft blankets and kittens, and perhaps reminded us it was OK to have a cookie before bed. We woke to his gentle voice in Takayama, he waved goodbye and whispered “Gon ban wa.”

We crashed into our bed, hearing nothing but the sounds of the crickets, and the babbling creek at the end of our street, thankful for the noise of Tokyo, and the quiet of Takayama.  

If you want to read more about sightseeing in Japan, maybe visit Kyoto or Nagoya with Joe and his wife, or stay in Takayama for an amazing weekend.

Joe Darris Mitchell lives in Takayama with his darling wife, and wants to know:
What sounds are unique where you live?