05 VI 07
alive in Tokyo.
packing started late (as in 2am late) and ran to the zero hour, as is my custom. dad was shambling about by 330, and Clay called about fifteen later to give his regards. "Is dad up yet?" "Yep." "Is he grinding the coffee beans [his new passion]?" "Yep. Dude looks like a zombie."
managed to hit the sleep patterns just right, so it's 1030 here and i'm only now getting tired after another long day of hiking and dragging heavy luggage around. my buddy Lane from orientation was on the same flight, so it was nice to have another gaijin on board. he didn't luck out on seats like i did: up in the second deck, window seat, with - and i'd never before seen this marvelous invention that makes The Life Airborne palatable - a second storage compartment built into the side of the plane. so not only does the window seat have more elbow room, i stored books and nonsense right at my elbow. mmm.
food was borderline very tasty (wow), and the old woman next to me played her DS the whole flight. it is true - the device has captured and claimed Japan wholesale.
fast forward fifteen hours, and i checked into the hotel for the night. off to Kyoto in the morning. right off the bat i started finding great Engrish all over town, and took pictures when possible. the best one of the day remains unrecorded - a t-shirt with a black/white print of a young woman smoking a cigarette, with a scrawled green caption "DINOSAUR JUNIOR."
since i rolled into town late, i decided to burn the rest of the day exploring Shinjuku, the wild entertainment district that apparently houses, somewhere, my new lab. incidentally, the hotel and sweet bar/restaurant from Lost in Translation is a few blocks away, so i'll have to get pretty and go someday. anyway, Shinjuku at night is a feverish kaleidoscope of neon glyphs and pop art. pachinko parlors scream from a block away, their big new attraction an Evangelion-themed machine.
there are people in all flavors of bizarre getups in Shinjuku. occasional girls will float about in pseudoVictorian steampunk dresses. armies of James Iha wannabes strut by dressed like a mashup of Marilyn Manson and a fuzzy bird. whew.
somebody recently mentioned, apparently to his mother, that McDonalds combo meals in Japan are $20 US. i called big-time bullshit on this one and investigated. 'bout five bucks. now that's a scammer in action. thus far, and i'm editing this four days into the trip, it's not nearly as expensive as i'd anticipated. i survived London when it was the #1 most expensive city and the dollar was at an extreme low. the exchange rate is really quite fine right now - no worries.
dinner below an internet cafe at a kaitenzushi bar, one of those conveyor belt sushi joints. i killed eight delicious fragments of beast for less than $6. again, Japan doesn't have to be stupid-expensive if you know where to look.
wandered through Shinjuku for a couple hours until i started noticing Kabuki-cho signs. Kabu-cho is, as you may know, the primary red light district down here. i stopped at a movie theater, innocently looking at Pirates and Spider-Man posters in Japanese, when an extremely well-dressed man sidled up and addressed me in fair Engrish. oh, he was a talented pimp. i assured him that i was not "up for a peepy sexy strip show", or other enumerated services.
i started walking back and reached a series of restaurants about thirty feet later, where i found an truly incredible poster advertisement set up outside an upscale establishment. now, everyone has at some point seen a diagram of the cuts on cattle. Texans have that pattern on their crib quilts from birth. but no, what i saw in 5' wide, full-colored glory was a schematic breakdown of cuts and dishes... with pictures!... of a whale. seventeen different treats. i have a photo and will post it asap (edit: now up on facebook)
beer vending machines. dudes reading dodgy manga on the train. it's all true.
and i love it.
