Let’s get it cracking. Many of you know Ann Parr, the beautiful woman who gave me life. Mother dearest asked me to leave my bowel movements out of these posts. To that I say: I’m an artist mom. You can’t stifle my vision. I suggest you evacuate (!) the premises now and skip to the next paragraph, if you can’t handle the precious truth. Fear not, there’s plenty of garbage to read afterward. So! It took a minute to ready my bowels for my Japanese toilet journey, which is not like me, as you may have gleaned, dear reader (I blame two meals worth of airplane food). But yesterday, I found cause to poop, and got to make use of the futuristic Japanese toilet. The experience was at first unnerving, but in the end (!!), legendary. It’s faster, it’s cleaner, and it feels awesome. Also, the seats are heated. I intend to poop even more than usual while I’m here.
Following that beautiful engagement, I strolled through the narrow streets of Asakusa to the Senso-Ji Buddhist temple and grounds. Serene and perfectly manicured, the interior of the central temple was as beautiful as any place of worship I’ve seen in India, Europe or South America. One can understand the compulsion to pray in places like these. The intricate golden spires atop sloping rooves repeated for effect in these towers are so striking, their perfect symmetrical patterns so much better in person, rising above the gardens and trees yet nestled so small in this vast metropolis. The giant lanterns were my favourite. In fact, lanterns are everywhere, and I adore them. I had always figured their ubiquity was overblown by photographers. It is not. If there was ever a good reason to not learn a language, it might be because I don’t know if I want to know what everything means. The written language looks so pretty just as mystifying characters.
I got there early – by the time I was ready to leave, the pathways were choked with the faithful and the curious. There was something unique about the experience though. All churches ask for your money, but in Japan they make it so much more fun. You pay for the incense to light for your prayers. You throw money into a catcher for your prayers. You buy envelopes to send your prayers in. It’s more direct, and it’s more fun than I’m used to in these palaces for gods. And prettier too.
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I walked about a dozen blocks (stopping on the way for a very good Vietnamese meal that I’ve never seen offered back home) toward the lovely Ueno park, which is home to the Ueno Park Zoo, Tokyo National Museum, The National Museum of Western Art, The Metropolitan Art Museum, and the National Museum of Nature and Science. In the centre of the latter four institutions was a grand plaza and fountain. Few lingered on the brisk, but not unpleasant February afternoon, and I watched them hurry past through the windows of a very bourgeoise café where I sipped a fresh-fruit tea. I hope I never pay $9 for a non-alcoholic beverage again for as long as I live, but the experience was pleasant.
I did go to the Tokyo National Museum, and it was very good. I learned a lot, and I won’t bore you with all that. More importantly, I learned that I’m going to write at the beginning and end of the day, and not bring my laptop around with me any more because that bitch is heavy and I hate it.
I also went to the Ueno Park Zoo, before the museum. I’ve never been to a zoo before, because I don’t believe that it’s a good idea to cage animals needlessly, but I surveyed it from the outside and read some positive reviews, and figured, “hey, fuck it. They’re not going to shut down whether I go in or not”. Plus, it was only $6. Like, regardless of what I have to say next, it’s incredible value for your entertainment dollar, especially if you’re not bothered by the suffering of intelligent animals. It all started out well enough. Great indoor and outdoor exhibits of happy-seeming and healthy-looking animals. I posted some ponies that look like me on insta, I saw some funny birds, checked out some scary Gators, chilled with some cute flying foxes and cuter lemurs. There were flamingos! Those guys are hilarious – when they move in unison, they remind me of groups of college kids rolling through Bastion Square on a Saturday night, but better dressed.
It was then that I got to the big boys, the large mammals. As an aside, the zoo looked really small from where I entered. It turned out to be huge. I didn’t know there were big boys. At first I was stoked! I’d never seen a giraffe before, and they had three, all looking reasonably happy. But that was followed by some pretty lonely looking rhinoceros, hippopotamuses, a tiger, a polar bear. None of those guys looked jazzed on life. It bummed me out enough to skip the giant panda exhibit and bounce. That fruit tea I mentioned earlier doubled as a musing on animal slavery. There are more jokes ahead, I swear. I made a funny one about sucking Macaques on the gram.
On my way back, I googled ramen joints, since I hadn’t had any yet and what the fuck am I doing! I found a well reviewed one in the Ueno train station, walked there, got lost and couldn’t find it. The upshots were as follows: 1) I discovered when they do road work and have to displace a sidewalk, they cordon off the places you can walk with steel bars that are held in place by pink cartoon rabbits… a lot of rabbits. 2) While in the train station, I found a really nice stationary store. 3) If you linger in a train station too long and try to leave without getting on a train, they charge you for the trouble. It cost about $1.50 to wander in there. That chapped my super-clean ass a little, and is not really an upshot, but a backfire.
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I finally ate ramen, and it was very, very good. It was whiter and unlike any ramen I’ve had, including pressed chicken and diced, raw red onion. I was dubious, making my order and paying through a terminal near the joint’s front door. I was wrong to doubt the fine people at Tiger Ken’s. The meal was a resounding Hadouken.
My evening finished over some fine Japanese whiskey at the Hub Jazz Bar, a few blocks from my hotel. The bartender was very good, and the Hawaiian band was adorable, if not memorable otherwise. I had two doubles and left feeling a little drunk. A very informative super-genius I know told me that this is common. Apparently, according to her, if you feel out of your element, the effects of drugs and alcohol seem multiplied. At least anecdotally, this bears out. Most of you know I am not drunk after four ounces of whiskey. I also think fatigue was playing it’s role, as I’ve been logging a lot of kilometers and am still feeling the effects of jet lag. Perhaps the best part of that day was watching senior citizens leaving the Hub at the end of the night, delighted by the music and spirits and company shared. It was cute as fuck. I slept like an adult, and if I sleep like a baby at any point, I probably won’t tell you. If you’ve been reading along all this time you’ll know why, and I guess that’s my poop-story limit.
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The next morning (today, as I write, but yesterday as it will be when I post), I woke up before my alarm and got another early start. I like being up in the mornings, and if not for the hours demanded by my profession, I think I would be aging into being a morning person. I had the city at my fingertips and decided that this would be the day that I would go shopping in Tokyo, a feature of this travel that I had saved for and was excited to exploit.
My study from months ago pointed me in the direction of a neighbourhood called Koenji, and I fell in love with the place. The subway ride there brought me through the heart of the city. Jay-Z and whomever he and Ye sampled was wrong. There is, in fact, love in the heart of the city, ya dummies! I’m sure it can’t just be mine.
The new and vintage shopping was superb and reasonable (in most places), the spirit of the place was lively, and the scenery was beguiling. After my breakfast, I strolled past a high school doing phys-ed soccer, saw the earliest budding of cherry blossoms, watched hungover young owners and workers of hip clothing stores setting up for the day’s commerce. One shop had so many vintage leather boots they had to empty much of the store onto the street just to make room for customers to walk inside to view the rest of the stock. Above the arches to the covered bit of the Pal Street shopping area hung a faded pink sign that looked only better for the neglect. I may have rose-coloured glasses for this place, but Tokyo is stealing my heart and I’m not here to resist.
An abridged list of things I bought: A black t-shirt that says “mental health” in blood-red letters; a seven-coloured plaid; a pair of American army issue camo pants; a vintage brown Henley-ish shirt; a green shirt; a sea-foam sweatshirt; a pair of grey sunglasses; a white thermal long-sleeved t.
I had a fantastic cup of coffee from a shop where the owner/operator was obsessed with the city of Boston, a place he had travelled to eight times in his life. The walls were adorned with newspaper clippings of the Redsox, The Departed posters, and the like. I typed a message into google translator that said “I am a Toronto Blue Jays fan, but Pedro Martinez was the very best I ever saw”. He replied in English (obviously) and we had a nice chat. Smiling, I said “go Jays” on the way out, and he too smiled as he booed me.
On the way back to Asakusa/Taito, I stopped in Nakano to check out a famous skate shop, where I bought another shirt, and enjoyed my first standing sushi bar. I was in and out of there in 10 minutes, eating 10 pieces of excellent nigiri, for $10 – a triple-double. I don’t want to eat my meals standing, because I do enough of that at Churchill, but I got the appeal. I ate and I left, a simple transaction. I also couldn’t find the chopsticks in the box 8 inches from my elbow, and ate the first three pieces with my hands because I got nervous and assumed that’s what I was supposed to do. The chefs were amused, but the woman working there took pity on me. Whatever, it’s not like I’m gonna tell anybody. After that, I ended up having a drink with Katsu at his bar called Juke. The premise of Juke is that if you buy drinks, you can make any song request you want from his rather large catalogue, or a movie request to be projected on the back wall silently. I had two ounces of Jagermeister and felt drunk. Most of you know I do not get drunk on two ounces of Jager. Katsu found out I was Canadian and enthusiastically bumped Rush for most of the time I was there. It was in no way unpleasant.
Having realized I bought too much stuff, I went to a department store called Don Quixote (thank frig for spellcheck – I have never learned how to spell that and at this point I refuse to) to see about getting luggage. I had intended to do this in Canada before I departed, but left it to long and decided to take my chances. I made it barely two days. Nice.
I managed to finally piss someone off by not speaking Japanese, because the first guy I tried communicating with looked at me like Talia and Britney dealing with shitty-rude chongo-boomers on a busy shift. But eventually I found a real Amanda (who was a dude, not that it matters – being a dirty-old Mandy is not gendered) who sold me a suitcase. I needed a suitcase for life, and now I have one. I emptied my purchases and my clothes from home out of my backpack and into my rolling Samsonite, and now my shoulders wont be sore and I can buy way more shit to make my shoulders sore.
I think I’ll head out for a walk now. Adding the pictures to this post feels like a job for another time. I hope, dear reader, that if you are curious about anything, you’ll ask through the various channels available to us. I would be delighted to examine the ground you’d like to see covered in these coming weeks. I’d like to still feel connected to home while I’m lost but not in the way I like best.
Ok, I’m gonna listen to some more gangster rap now. Buffalo, baby.
Dummy Fat Japanese Adventures with Largefather Rowe 