February in Tokyo

The country bumpkins had a trip up to the Capital City. The country bumpkins being Lucy, Rob, Tim and myself. Four otakus together. The beauty of it was Rob and Tim went off on their little music otaku night, and Lucy and I got to do the same. Tokyo was the best it has ever been. Back in August Rob and I had a great time, but I was (supposed to be) working and the trip wasn't exactly relaxing. This weekend was simply about pottering around Tokyo, drinking, eating, and dossing about. There were many indications that we were in the capital city, and that we were the country bumpkins. On arrival in Tokyo station, we stood gawking at a fight going on between two considerably drunk men old enough to know better, fighting over, from what Rob could gage, one of the fellas looking at the other fella's phone on the train. Brilliant. Lots of people got involved, one pretty boy who was far too pretty and whose clothes were far too nice to properly break up the fight, and another boy who came running out of nowhere and ran and jumped on top of the two men mid fight in a rather movie style fashion and most probably unnecessary. But it looked good and it added to the drama. I know i'm just describing an ordinary occurance in The Toon, but seriously, when you've been a country bumpkin in Japan for a year and a half this kind of thing is quite a shock to the system. We soothed our nerves by seeking out noodles a little after midnight. It had been a long journey up and we were knackered.

We stayed in a Capsule Hotel (because it was the cheapest option) a hotel which economises on the space and puts you all in these little capsule like beds, so it's pretty communal and feels like you are on a space ship. One snag; they demand you get the hell out at 10am on the dot, like a traditional English B&B, so off we went to explore Tokyo, courtesy of Tim backed up by Rob. Tim is the Tokyo expert - he has visited the city about 14 times so far, and knows all the little random side streets offering freaks and geeks and of course the uniques. When I say explore, I should admit we spent half the day in book shops selling English Language books. This in itself is worth the trip to the capital! Rob found a book written by a film professor of his which quoted him in the acknowledgments. Lucy and I got very excited by this. Rob Mitchell. In Print. In Tokyo. Rob, as usual, wasn't very excited by this.

Whilst Tim and Rob went off to one of their chin stroking "fabulous" noise nights, Lucy and I naturally had to represent the Northern Lass front, and so went on a mission to a "superclub". Club Womb was brilliant. Such a sound system! Clean, pure - you come out at 5am with your ear drums still intact. Ahh, the technology of Tokyo. We saw Steve Lawler, which was pretty proggie, but not that I would have noticed that anyway because I spent half the night kissing a boy called Jack from England. Which, I must say, was very nice, but made me feel a bit like a teenager in a Youth Club. I blame Lucy for this - she ran off to go and have some speaker-sex and I think she must have been humping every speaker she could find in the club because I didn't see her again. What was there left to do but kiss a boy called Jack? The interesting thing was that the Japanese were at it aswell! Now THAT is something you don't see often in a club in Fukuoka. Tokyo is like a different country. I saw many displays of public affection which, after practically zero displays down in country bumpkin land, is quite a pleasant surprise.

Escorting Jack to the train station as he had a flight to catch back to Beijing was where it all went a bit wrong. Lucy and I failed miserably to understand the train system and ended up on a train that went round for more than an hour before we realised it wasn't going to stop where we needed it to stop. A 10 minute journey turned into a 1.5hr journey, which at 7am in the morning when you need to get back to the hotel to get a few hours sleep before they kick you out again at 10am is NOT FUNNY.

We stayed in an area called Akihabara, famous for being the centre of technology and everything electric. Outside of Akihabara station stand the maids who hand out leaflets touting customers for the bars where they do their maid thing in; shy school boys count their change and nervously approach the maids and get their photo taken for 500yen, no doubt something that makes their whole year. Perverts, in their 60's. not so shy, also do the same.

This is one example of a kind of place the perverts hang out, although us foreigners are not allowed in! Which is such a shame, because we are all equally perverted. This one is the kind where you pretend to have a conversation with a laydee but all the time can feel her up. On the door you can see Japanese Only. Charming eh?!

Everywhere we went we experienced nothing but helpful, considerate, and inexplicably kind Japanese people smelling the countryside coming off us and offering any help they could give us whether we actually needed it or not. A lady in the Capsule Hotel who I hadn't even spoken more than a good morning to demanded I take her number before she left just in case I needed to call anybody should things get a bit "scary". A lady in a train station risked missing her train to tell us exactly where we needed to be going to catch which particular train we were looking for no doubt in an obvious state of confusion. This again is another reason why I am SCARED to no longer live in Japan. When I'm lost or "scared" I might actually have to approach somebody!

I fell a little bit in love with Tokyo from this visit, which actually took me by surprise. I have always been one to celebrate the south of Japan, and Fukuoka especially, yet after this visit I have looked upon Tokyo with new eyes. It is calm in a way you would never imagine. Usually whilst in Capital Cities I feel somewhat stressed and anxous just from the very nature of them being the biggest busiest city. But despite still being the biggest busiest city, Tokyo still retains that Japanese element of peace and serenity. (Obviously forget the part about the fight on arrival! Tim missed that bit, and when I told him he said in all his visits to Tokyo - and there have been more than you can count on one finger - he has never witnessed a fight. Think it must have been a freakish incident!). Fortunately I've got two visits left - i'll be taking Caitlin when she visits in March and Pascal when he visits in April. This feels extremely extravagant, 3 trips in 3 months.... But then how could I possibly let the pair of them leave without showing them one of the most famous cities in the world??? Exactly.