After undocking hallie in a fit of annoyance and depression I resolved that I really needed to find something to eat. I took the elevator down to the second floor, which contains (among other things) about four restaurants. But I got off the elevator and heard.. music. The basement of the hotel is kind of like a shopping mall, and there was a folk-rock group playing between two pillars. A small crowd had gathered. I watched.

They were called Solt. I don’t know what that means, if it is supposed to mean anything at all. They were very good — reminded me of going to see Carolyn Neapole or Michelle Morand when they still had live shows in crummy little venues with jury-rigged sound systems. I would have bought a CD if I could have found one. Music, my savior; they played me out of the mall and into the darkness of west Shinjuku. I felt better almost immediately. In search of food, wallet and digital camera in tow, I hit the street.

I hadn’t really planned to end up in Shibuya. What happened, really, was that I started wandering around the back alleys of western Shinjuku. I “accidentally” found Yodobashi Camera, even though I kinda sorta knew where it was to begin with. I wandered through an electronics shop and marvelled at the amount of stuff for sale. (Some of the tiny laptop computers were plenty cute, and put hallie to shame in terms of specs.) Lots of neon, lots of light. I spent some quality time — but no money — in the Odakyu department store, with its giant cosmetics floor. The gay man in me was pretty sure he could find some really good skin care stuff in there, but the gay man in me, alas, speaks only English (and I don’t really know how to pull off “fag” in
Japanese). There was a wig outlet in Odakyu with an astonishingly large number of wigs for sale — I didn’t realize that baldness among women was a problem in Japan, but apparently it is.

And then I decided that I wanted to see The Intersection — the Hachiko exit from Shibuya station, reputedly the busiest intersection in the world. So I hopped a train out to Shibuya.

Something I discovered last night: I like Tokyo more in the dark. A lot more. Yesterday I wrote about being able to understand it on an inanimate level but not an animate one; Tokyo, for whatever reason, becomes more understandable at night. The scale seems reduced, for starters, and the city simply has more personality in the dark. I don’t know why this surprises me: I like most cities better in the dark. (As an aside, people who never see the city in which they live in the middle of the night really don’t know what they’re missing. Stay up late sometime and go for a drive through downtown at 02:00 or so, and you’ll be able to appreciate your city on an entirely different level.)

Shibuya was dramatic. I can’t really say I found anything hugely interesting in and of itself but the experience as a whole was remarkable. I purposely got lost (well, ok, it was sort of by accident since I said, “oh, this must be a shortcut” — hah, right) and then had to navigate my way back towards Hachiko along the freeway. Fun times: Touts on the street peddeled their wares using megaphones; burly white guys tried to entice me to venture into Gas Panic, a club that is known for having fights break out (no thanks). Tiny shops were everywhere — the diary hut, the chopstick hut, the battery hut.

The intersection, by the way, really is that busy. When the lights change pedestrians come spewing out from five different directions, and the whole effect was eerily reminiscent of the scene in “Fear of a Bot Planet” where Leela and Fry get caught in the robot rush hour. (I don’t know why that comparison came to mind.) Lost in Translation fans will be able to see several things that look familiar at this place.

I ran into a bunch of white people in Shibuya, doing more or less the same thing as I was. Three were annoying yuppie-types yelling into their cellphones about deceiving Japanese business partners. Most, however, were just tourists out looking at the city in which they found themselves. And you know what? They were almost all German or Finns. I don’t know what to make of this (although I knew, from my admittedly non-scientific survey of tourists who end up in the emergency department, that Germans like to take their holidays around this time of the year). Hauke, his girlfriend (Petra?) and I had a nice little chat standing at Hachiko intersection; it was great, in its own way, to be able to talk freely with someone for the first time in a couple of days. The time I spent logged on to the net reading the familiar sites, replying to e-mail, and talking to J. on MSN (albeit briefly) helped too — it really was the isolation. I resolved, right then and there, to spend at least an hour per day trying to talk to people locally, and at least an hour catching up on things back home.

(I also discovered that an hour of honest-to-god IP connectivity in my hotel’s lobby was $9 — back home I’d think this was highway robbery, but here I think it’s a total steal.)

Eventually I headed back to Shinjuku. I walked down Koshu-Kaido and decided that, since it was damn near 21:00, it would probably be a good idea if I found something to eat. Nothing seemed especially appealing, but I finally caved and went into the Japanese equivalent of an automat crossed with a noodle shop: Put your money in a vending machine, get a ticket, pick up your noodles. Soba and prawn tempura. Y420. Fuck, it was good — the first food I’d really had in 48 hours. And it just about filled me up. Slurpy, hot, and I could
tell my body really wanted it.

The MGA observation deck was still open (they’re open until 23:00) so I went upstairs again and took more pictures. Tokyo at night really is gorgeous. Incidentally, the inside of the MGA observation deck is a
giant toy store and a nifty lounge. No, I don’t know why this is so, but you’d think the lounge would be enough. The ambiance was kind of ruined by incessant electronic beeping.

Ten Random Lessons About Japan (so far):

1. The ticket machines will drive you batty. There’s a cheap and easy way to do it, but that involves fighting with two machines (the machine that sold you the ticket in the first place, and then the fare adjustment machine). Persist until you figure out how to get an iO/Passnet card (it only took me all day). Your life will be so much better.
2. 85% of the clubs in Shibuya and Shinjuku look vaguely dirty, even if they’re totally innocent.
3. Pictures of pachinko parlors do nothing to capture the sheer noise of the place. WCB would enforce hearing protection requirements. Also, there’s a lot of smoke.
4. When you walk into a store, restaurant, or even through a department store clerks will yell at you. They will continue to yell at you as you move through the store. Ignore them. The same goes for people on the street handing out flyers or packets of tissue — if you don’t want one, just ignore them, don’t try to be polite. “Iie, kekko desu” works, but then you get into a feedback loop (more on this in a later entry).
5. It is very very easy to scald yourself in a Japanese bathtub. Water temperatures run on the hot side. However, deep soaking tubs rule. There are few better ways to soothe an aching body than by throwing oneself into the tub. Yay hot baths.
6. If you are over ~5’8″, watch your head everywhere. Trust me. I learned this trying to get into my hotel room. Ow.
7. Do not lose your iO card, especially if it has more than about Y800 left on it. You’ll feel ridiculously stupid. (Also, you just blew $8.) I have no idea what happened to the first one I bought, which
   means it’ll probably turn up in a month when I’m back in Victoria.

8. For the agorophobe, Xanax would be good. Alcohol is better. “Sumimasen.. nan desu ka?” “Whiskey desu.” “Ah, so.” For relaxing times..
9. Vending machines are lots of fun. Try some of everything.
10. The Japanese have discovered an awesome cross between a pop-top can and a twist-open bottle. It’s so cool. I wish we had these back home. It’s an aluminum twist-open can. 355 ml of Coca Cola in a resealable container. Yay! (The first thing I bought in Japan was one of these, a can of Canada Dry.)

Speaking of ramapnt consumerism: I hate the fact that every time I get change it seems to comes back in Y10 increments. For Canadians, this is like.. you pay for ~$5 worth of something with a $10 bill, and you get a $2 coin and 12 quarters. Fortunately, there’s a solution. There are machines all over the place where you can exchange your extraneous coinage for something more convenient — usually an aforementioned bottle of liquid. I converted my 20+ Y10 coins into a can of Sapporo beer. Yay beer!