Today is November 26, 2008, and I’ve just made the startling realization that I haven’t been to Tokyo in over a month. Maybe it’s because of Paulette’s words to me that island JETs lose touch with their islands when they leave every weekend. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending entirely too much money recently.
Either way, I still have a hangover from August, the most riotously fun and hedonistic month of my life. September too, actually. During those two months I minimized my time on Oshima, leaving every weekend for Tokyo and going nuts in the big city. After my wallet stopped screaming, presumably because it starved to death, I calmed down a bit in October. During that month, I only left for Tokyo twice (and one of those was Halloween, so it doesn’t count).
Ah Halloween, the most pagan and fun of holidays. I suppose I’ll start with the story of how I procured my costume.
Back during the second weekend of October, I decided that I needed to take one of my multitude of trips to Tokyo. I don’t remember why I decided to go, but at that point, I would take any excuse. I think it might have had something to do with Lisa e-mailing me and telling me that there was some big cultural event, and that I should be there.
So I started my usual barrage of cell phone e-mails to everyone that I know. I got a ton of responses back, and completely overcommitted myself to doing something with everyone, including someone I hadn’t met yet, a hilarious college kid I met on the boat, a cute Japanese girl I met at a bar a few weeks prior, Lisa, Paulette, and practically everyone else I knew in Tokyo. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just bring everyone together!”
I’m sure all of the “responsible” (read: not me) people reading this can see the potential flaws in this plan.
Anyway, I had three days to make all of this work, and by god, I was determined to get back in contact with everyone I knew in Tokyo. I jumped on the jetfoil after work, and started e-mailing like crazy. Unfortunately, after about ten minutes, I lost reception, and had to waste valuable minutes just sitting there on the ship.
After I arrived in Tokyo, I started my barrage of e-mails again. Walking and typing at the same time, my first destination was the Capsule Land Hotel in Shibuya. I checked in, threw my stuff in my locker, and got an e-mail back from Tim, a mid-30s Lonely Planet writer. He told me there was a party at a Spanish bar going down. At the same time, I got an e-mail from Hiroshi, the incredibly gregarious college student, who told me he was on his way to Shibuya to meet me. I didn’t actually invite him, but I guess something got lost in translation.
As we walked I popped an e-mail back to Tim asking if +1 was alright, to which he replied “It had better be a girl”. Hmm… I decided not to respond.
We arrived at the station to meet Tim, and we started walking to the Spanish Bar. This place (I forget the name of it) seemed like a miniature red-light district of sorts, with lots of little seedy bars and a few peep shows being advertised. Naturally, it fascinated me.
We entered the bar, and the “party” that I was expecting from his e-mail was actually just a bunch of lower-middle-aged guys sitting around eating and drinking wine. Definitely fine by me — I was ready for a change of pace. Anyway, they were all younger than anyone that I hang out with on Oshima.
Conversation was mostly focused on business — all of these guys had made it pretty big in Tokyo. The person whose birthday it was had started an editing business, and was telling me about opportunities for people who have really good voices (me) for doing voiceover work. He said it can pay up to 25,000円 ($250) per hour. Interesting.
The food was amazing, the people were friendly, and the wine was plentiful. Oddly enough, there was a collection of a few dozen pig legs hanging over the bar. For some reason, the decor matched the bartender and chef, who was a friendly British guy with tattoos all over his body.
Afterward, we said our goodbyes, and headed out. I didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the last time I would see Tim. He just moved to Canada about a week ago. In the life of an expat, friends are quite transitory.
Later that night, I headed to a hip-hop club in Shibuya’s Dogenzaka — one of the two real red light districts of Tokyo. I was ushered in past the line, presumably because I’m a foreigner, and was given a drink ticket. They opened the doors, and smoke and bass billowed out. I cautiously walked in, not knowing what kind of club this was. After a quick survey, there didn’t seem to be any yakuza, so I felt a bit more comfortable. The club was really cool — a pretty open two-story place with a bridge going over the middle of the dance floor.
I strolled over to the bar, where two cute girls started ogling me. I smiled and said hi, and they both started giggling and ran away. Damn, people here can get really shy sometimes. I continued on to the bar and handed the bartender my drink ticket.
Me: “A beer, please”
Him: “Sorry, you can only get Smirnoff Ice with that.”
What the fuck?!
Me: “Okaaaay… I’ll take one then.”
I took a quick look around to see if my masculinity would be in any way reduced by drinking from this most wussy of drinks. After I spotted a guy with a green mohawk, a biker jacket, and an assortment of chains with a cig in one hand and a Smirnoff in the other, I decided it was probably okay here. I’m not proud of this — I actually drank the whole thing. But I didn’t like it.
It was getting really crowded, so I elbowed my way down onto the dance floor, where DJs were spinning some pretty good beats, interspersed with some really out-of-place music, like Avril Lavigne. Everyone else seemed to love it though. When in Tokyo, dance as the Tokyoites do.
Which brings me to another point — what the hell is with Japanese dancing at clubs? Here, girls were dressed in some of the sluttiest clothes I’ve ever seen, and the guys were decked out in what it would look like if you put a goth, a rapper, and Louis Vuitton into a blender together, and even STILL guys and girls weren’t dancing together. There’s an overwhelming shyness that pervades society here when it comes to contact with the opposite sex in public. In America, there’s the attitude that it’s not a good night on the dance floor unless someone ends up pregnant, but here it felt like a fifth-grade dance where the boys and girls were sitting on opposite sides of the room, egging each other on to go ask Keiko to awkwardly shuffle from side-to-side, separated by fully outstretched arms (leave room for God!)
But I digress. The oddities of Japanese intersexual relations aside, I enjoyed myself for a while before deciding to go home at about 2:00. Suddenly, a Japanese guy dressed like Kanye West mixed with Flava Flav jumped on stage, and about five of his homies joined him. Little did I know, I was about to bear witness to one of the most odd and entertaining things that I’d seen since coming to Japan: the Japanese hip-hop show.
Listening to rap in another language is otherworldly — while some people (i.e. my Grandmother) probably couldn’t tell the difference, hip-hop occupies a special place in my heart. Hearing it in Japanese was just plain weird. These guys sounded a little bit like the Beastie Boys meeting Three Six Mafia — intense, crude, and hard-hitting. I stuck around for another hour or so, and was just leaving, when a girl intercepted me on my way out and started dancing with me. I was a little surprised, since she was black, as tall as me, and impeccably well dressed. The weird part was that I hadn’t seen any foreingers since coming here. It got even weirder when she opened her mouth, and asked me in a very strange accent, “So, where are you from?”
We talked for a while, and it turns out that her name was Ekaterina, and she was a fashion designer on assignment here from Sweden. We started hitting it off.
Ekaterina: “You should meet my friends. Katja! Anisa! Come here!”
A blonde and a brunette, who were entirely overdressed for the occasion, walked up. The style was palpable. We all started dancing. Suddenly, the night looked to take a very interesting turn.
Katja: “So, Tyler, what do you think about getting out of here? I don’t much like Hip-Hop.”
Anisa: “Yeah, we’re looking for something a little more… Relaxing.”
Ekaterina: “Do you think you could show us somewhere… More fun?”
Very interesting, indeed.
We all rolled out, turning every single head in the club. Even the bouncer’s jaw dropped.
After we got out on the street, I checked the time. 3:30 AM.
Ekaterina: “So, where should we go? I’m not done dancing yet!”
Me: “What kind of music do you like?”
Ekaterina: “Anything electronic, really.”
Anisa: “You would. Are there any jazz clubs around here?”
Suddenly, Katja started speaking in Sweedish, and Ekaterina and Anisa followed suit. Their discussion got a bit more heated, and Anisa threw her hands in the air, shouted something, and then folded her arms. Ekaterina turned to me, smiled, and asked, “Is there any house music around here?”
Me: “I know just the place.”
Dogenzaka is home to many clubs, the most famous of which is undoubtedly Womb. It is perhaps most famous for its appearance in the movie Babel, where the deaf girl on X goes to the club and starts jamming out to the lights. A three-story warehouse, it has an extremely unassuming front that looks like one of those wooden construction site tunnels over the sidewalk in big cities. There are no signs and no music escaping. You really have to know that Womb is there in order to find it. Fortunately, I found it the month before on my birthday.
Me: “Okay, here it is! Let’s go inside.”
Anisa: “Are you sure? This place looks really dumpy.”
Me: “Trust me, it’s world-class. One of the best in Japan.”
We walked up to the man dressed in a black suit on the outside, and I asked him to let us in. Obviously sensing no problems with three Swedish models/fashion designers and an American, he opened the door to the tunnel. About twenty-five feet straight ahead on the left, there was a big metal door that could easily be mistaken for a wall. It creaked open, revealing the bowels of the club. Still no music could be heard. If there was an all-out war in Tokyo, Womb would be one hell of a fortress.
We walked up to the cashier in front, and I used the fingerprint scanner to sign in (if you’re a member you get discounts). They went ahead and waved the girls through — I said I’d meet them on the inside. I reached into my wallet to grab the Monopoly Money that is Yen, and I made the most horrifying realization of the night.
I was out of money.
And Mizuho’s ATM cards don’t work after Midnight on Saturdays.
I looked down into my empty wallet, and then back up to the cashier with pleading eyes. He gave me a very knowing look, shook his head and said “sorry”.
Epic Fail.
