Tokyo Blog

There was a party at the apartment not so long ago. Mostly Japanese and Korean guys came, and in typical fashion bought a huge amount with them. We had already bought beer for everyone and made a giant cocktail (Vodka, Gin and fruit juices), but everyone who came bought more alcohol; more than they could even consume themselves to add to the stockpile. It wasn’t just alcohol they bought either: inside the numerous combini bags there were rice crackers, manju sweets, wasabi snacks, peanuts, pizza (uncooked), noodles, cup noodles, fish sausages (nasty), sour worms, fish crackers, frankfurters, dried fish, dried squid, crisps and loads of other stuff besides.

So when the party is underway and the the 3LDK is maxed out, the group of girls in attendance start cooking in the kitchen area. Like, 5 pizzas, plates of german sausages, large plates of noodles etc., and start handing them out to the party crew. It was like a wife-off. Who, out of the girls, can prove themselves to be the best, domestically? It was pretty interesting for me from a cultural point of view. I’m always comparing Japan to the UK. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but it’s really the only yardstick I have by which to measure.

So that happened, and then the next day I tentatively slide open the door to the living area from my bedroom. The place was annihilated. There was a mass of beer cans, food plates and packaging. The quantity of beer cans was astounding. I’ve had parties before back home, but this was something new. I knew straight away that this was going to present a problem for us.

In Japan, or at least in Taito-ku in Tokyo, you have a refuse collection system in place that segregates waste into 3 categories: burnable (paper, food waste, cardboard etc.), recyclable (glass, plastic, pet bottles, polystyrene trays etc.), and non-burnable (pretty much everything else that falls outside these categories). The problem is, recycling is compulsory. If you put out a bag of rubbish on burnable day, it will be checked, and if there is a glass bottle or a plastic bottle, or whatever, it won’t be taken. Same goes for the other days too; you have to put the appropriate gomi out. On recycle day you have a few different crates with the type of rubbish meant for it scrawled in magic-marker on the side (in Japanese of course - an opportunity to practice those reading skills). The problem is, these crates are so small. You could fit maybe 20 crushed beer cans in one, but we had like 150. Three full rubbish bags of them.

In the past, we had managed to put out a huge bag of recyclables on recycling day, and the guys just took it. I thought maybe we could do the same this time, so I lined up all 6 bags (the cans and the other packaging, plus the ordinary household stuff we had accumulated), and went to bed. Next morning (late-ish), I looked over the balcony down onto the street, and the bags were gone. I was pretty relieved. I went into the kitchen to make some English tea and we’d ran out of milk, so I was going to pop out to the combini, but I couldn’t get out of the front door. I pushed pretty hard to get out, and outside the door was all of the rubbish, piled up with more reading practice taped to the top.

So now, we need to find a way to dispense the waste in some other way. Doing it in dribs and drabs over time using the collection service could take years. Instead, I’ve been trying to devise a strategy to loose the waste somehow. More cultural info for you here now: In Tokyo, outside the numerous combinis (convenience stores), there are bottle, can and paper bins for you to put stuff in. They also have these next to drinks vending machines in the city. I’m thinking that there must be enough of these in my area to fit all of the party waste in. It will mean splitting the large bags up into smaller batches and putting them in the front basket of my bike, ready for the first sortie of Operation Gomi.

I have a SoftBank phone. If you have ever owned a mobile phone in Japan, you will know from the time you shopped around between DoCoMo, AU by KDDI, and SoftBank that aquiring one, the right one, is very complicated and difficult. I found SoftBank to be the better of the bigger companies. I liked the brand and the shop interiors, and the options and tariffs weren’t too hard to fathom. Also, they do a pre-paid option, something that many other brands are making it impossible to do. Well, now SoftBank are trying to grow their brand and attract more customers, and if this new site is anything to go by, I think they’re going to do it. The site is by THA, and the production values here are absolutely amazing, it’s so polished. Thanks THA! Some more Flash greatness from Japan to play with.

Still so busy, so very few posts have gone up recently, I know. I did manage to upload some more pictures or Kusatsu though. We all took cameras, so there are various images on flickr right now, taken from everybody’s pooled snaps.

After a period of intense hard work, the light at the end of the tunnel came in the form of a trip to a famous Onsen resort town called Kusatsu in Gunma prefecture, to relax and unwind. It was my friend Sam’s birthday, so a bunch of Japanese guys he knows organised a birthday outing. An Onsen is a bathing pool filled with naturally heated mineral water, which is made hot by the volcanic activity below the surface. The water bubbles up naturally in ponds and springs all over the area, and even flows in rivers in places, emitting a strong sulphuric odour. We got a coach from Ikebukuro in Tokyo, 4 hours’ drive up Japan’s so-called ‘Romantic Road’. We stopped off first after about 2 hours for a break at a service station and me and Trent bought some salted barbecued pork for breakfast, then we carried on until we left the highway and began to drive through small towns and villages. After about 3 hours we stopped off at a Manju factory. Manju is a small dark brown cake filled with sweet bean paste. These were free to try so we wrangled two each. Each time we stopped the Japanese guys bought loads of supplies; the first time we stopped they bought Chuppa-Chups (enough for the whole group), rice crackers, sweet tofu jellies, crisps, and literally bags of other snacks and confectionery. Second time, at the Manju factory, they crossed the car park to a grocery stall and bought two packs of oranges and a bag of tomatoes that we ate whole, like apples, rapidly as the coach was about to leave.

When we arrived at the hotel in Kusatsu, our hangovers had been removed by force feeding ourselves the fruits of the Japanese guys’ shopaholicism (this was Saturday morning, and we had to be up early - 7.00am). We checked in and then donned the traditional Japanese gear you get given at Ryokans and Ryokan Hotels. Ours was the latter, but the outfits were good. We all put on a Yukata (cotton robe), tied it with a belt off to the left side (where you wear you sword), then covered over with an overgarment for the Yukata. I forgot the name, but it is short on the body, ties in the middle of your chest and has enormously wide sleeves, with a concealed pocket in the sleeve of each side where you can store other weapons. So I put my Nike baseball boots on, Trent put on his white leather loafers, and we hit the town straight away. We stopped off at every shop on the way to try out the Japanese pickles, which were amazing, and then headed up to the main Onsen of Kusatsu where we hung out for a couple of hours. You have to take off everything, and go in stark naked, of course. The water is only just tolerable at the near end of the spring, but as you head down towards the far end, it gets even hotter and massive clouds of steam come at you over the water, carried by the wind. Actually, it felt like I was cooking alive, but afterwards I felt extremely invigorated, and the healthiest I’d felt in ages. We went to an old woman’s shop on the way back for green tea and some Konyaku, which is a vegetable or bean-based jelly covered in Miso. More health was imparted. Then it all began to unravel as we kicked off the Nomikai; Sat around a table in the hotel, we threw down lots of beer and sake and then had a second Onsen at the hotel. This was also amazing: a small but equally scalding pool in a rock garden at the top of a wooded hill, patches of snow here and there on the way down.

After that more drinking, a Japanese evening meal, more drinking, a bowl of instant Ramen from the supermarket plus dried fish and squid, more rice crackers, more crisps, miso mackerel, tinned horse (yes, tinned horse), 3 litres of red wine and more manju. The next day we had Onsen again at the hotel spa, a huge Japanese breakfast incorporating the dreaded natto, and then rehydrated from the vending machines in the hotel lobby. Kimochikatta da yo! View the meagre flickr offerings here.

At last, I’ve managed to get the last 3 weeks’ photos uploaded to flickr. The pictures I just put up are of Kasai Rinkai Park, Odaiba, and Hanami in Ueno Park and Sumida Park.

I found my favourite TV programme of the 90’s on YouTube. I used to watch Mirrorball religiously at Uni because it was about some of the best promo film directors of the time. The focus was on music videos, but back then there were many collaborations taking part between Chris Cunningham and a few leftfield artists, most notably Aphex Twin. Well, it’s all on there, the whole series, each one focussing on a different director. Quality isn’t great because they’ve been lifted from VHS!

This is just around the corner from me, and I’m always up here lately. Here it is, well lit up at night, Ueno near Okachimachi.

I’ve found another pastime I prefer to ‘looking at the leftover Hanami casualties at 2 o’clock in the morning in Ueno Park’. This is a slight variation; ‘Hanami party crashing’. Actually, we were just walking in Ueno park on Friday night, and I had paused to scoop up a mouthful of Takoyaki (octopus balls), when some guys started shouting at us from one of the allotted party areas, underneath the cherry blossom trees. I was about to get defensive, having been more accustomed to the English way of life on a Friday night; you get shouted at, it’s probably abuse, so it’s time to get shirty! As it was, the guys were beckoning us across to come join their Hanami party, which we did. We were pretty pleased to have found this group of people to hang around and drink with. I was supposed to be going to a Hanami party on Sunday afternoon, but it looks like I’ve had one party already, and when we parted we were talking about arranging another drinking party for after the weekend, so that makes three!

It was a really good night, and it made me aware of how friendly the Japanese people are, and how enjoyable their festivals are. They shared their beer and sake with us, and my housemate even got interviewed on Japanese Television! Oh, and we shouted at some police officers.

Veterans of Japanophilia, Marxy and crew, bring you articles on Japanese culture. I found this one on how the Japanese writing system was almost reformed to phase out Kanji (Chinese Characters)! Lot’s of other interesting stuff on there, cleverly mixing low and high brow.

Sorry for the lack of stories recently, I’ve been mega-busy working on a couple of freelance projects. I’m aiming to get them done before the end of the week, with just the weekend to fix and amend them. It would be nice to get it all out of the way for saturday as it’s going to be sunny that day and I want to get my hanami on. I was running in Ueno park yesterday (Tuesday) actually, as a much needed break from my desk. The hanami is just starting and a few companies and groups had tried to get their cherry blossom viewing parties in early. The blossom wasn’t spectacular yet, but the park was buzzing, so slalom was the order of the day. Abunai!

If you’ve been to the Sony Building in Ginza recently, you might have stopped in the entrance lobby to check out these cards that you can pick up. If you take it over to the machine nearby, you can place it in the sight of an overhead camera in order to interact with the card! You have a screen in front of you, and as soon as the machine picks up the presence of your card, a 3D representation of the building appears in the area at the top of the card (where the grey and black spots are). Thus, tilting the card means you can view the 3D representation from different angles, and from that get a plan of the various attractions on all floors. You also use the printed buttons on the card (forward, backward, and enter) as an interface with which to navigate through the info. Whoa!

I didn’t realise! Tokyo has it’s own statue of liberty! It doesn’t seem to be part of any ‘world in miniature’ kind of installation, which makes it’s existence on a raised platform in Odaiba especially weird. Talking about Odaiba, did you know the manmade island of Odaiba is built on a mountain of Tokyo household rubbish?

A Korean friend showed us how to make this. In typical Korean fashion, it’s really hot. It’s like a stew consisting of chillies, mushroom powder, potato, leek, chicken thighs, liver, shiitake mushrooms and other things. Sounds simple, but it is really nice! I thought I’d put it on here to form the first post in the thus-far neglected food section. Really this section should be packed with stories, as it’s what I’ve enjoyed most about Tokyo so far.

I only ever thought I would travel through Tokyo on the subway, rarely by Taxi as it’s too expensive. I would never buy a car to use in Tokyo, because there’s no point for me. Now, having travelled out of, and back into, and through Tokyo in a car, I think it’s the best way to travel through the city in terms of getting a grip on the geography, and seeing some cool urban landscapes. It was a beautiful spring evening the other day, and then at sunset we were just coming back into Central Tokyo and ended up speeding through the streets as the lights were starting to come on, and the neon started to appear.

Before I entered the corrugated iron construction in the sinister bric-a-brac section of an old shopping mall in Odaiba, I didn’t know about the legend of Kuchisake Onna (Slit-Mouth Woman). The legend is of a woman a long time ago, who was the wife or lover of a Samurai. She was very beautiful, but also very vain. Her Samurai husband suspected her of cheating, so slit the corners of her mouth from ear to ear, screaming “Who will think you are beautiful now?!”

Urban legend has it that a woman roams around at night, especially on foggy evenings (Odaiba was fogged-out today), with her face covered by a surgical mask, her weapon of choice: a pair of blunt scissors. If she comes across somebody, she will ask them “Am I beautiful?”, before stabbing them to death.

So the man handed me a torch with a red gel over the lens and an amber coloured children’s lollipop, and I opened the sliding door into a pitch black corridor. Mutilated bodies and human hair hung from ropes and children’s toys could be found slumped in the corners of the passageways through which I was cautiously moving. I had already been warned “If you see the woman with the scissors - run”, and yet the sign on the outside had clearly said “Don’t run”! I had also been told to place the candy on a table where a pair of scissors could be found.

So I was trying to stay smug as I walked further into the maze of the building, having previously seen schoolgirls coming out of the exit of the structure screaming in terror, some crawling, some crying. I turned a corner and pointed my torch. There were sheets of black rubber hanging from the ceiling, partially blocking the way ahead. I could see there were more further down, staggered so that the gap between the wall and the sheet was on a different side of the corridor each time, creating large blind spots my feeble torchlight couldn’t penetrate. I prepared myself for something and nonchalantly swept aside the first sheet so I could pass, but recoiled involuntarily. I can’t properly remember what I saw but I think it was a large doll’s head, detached from the body, dirtied and with a missing eye, at my eye level. I was back a little from the sheet which was rippling from my initial attempt to pass, and had not controlled the aim of my torch, so bought it back down to point towards the corridor, and the sheet.

I was laughing to myself. I was trying my hardest not to get shaken at any point, reminding myself that it was like a fairground attraction. So I moved the black sheet again, but there was nothing this time, so I knew that there was at least one person who was inside with me, waiting for me up ahead. I pressed on through the ‘house’, sometimes entering small rooms, often getting hit in the face by objects that had been strung up but got missed by the torchlight as they were too high. Many more tricks were carried out, and noises were activated, whereby turning in the direction of the source would result in pointing your torch into the bloodstained faces of past ‘victims’, scissors protruding from eye sockets. I was looking for a table. A surface where there was a pair of scissors maybe. So I’d slowed down even more when the corridor opened out again. I’d seen what I thought to be a table, the only one so far that looked like it might be the right place to put the lollipop. I headed over and was almost at the table when I heard a movement to my right. I already knew what to expect, but still managed to forget to properly inspect the table before I turned my torch in the direction of the noise. I didn’t hit anything with the beam of my torch and was about to pan when a girl, tall by Japanese standards, wearing a surgical mask and brandishing a long pair of scissors lurched into the red light of the torch. I knew I was supposed to run, so I did! I slammed the lolly down on the table and pegged it!

I went around some piled up wood and course canvas material and tried to look where I was going assisted by the torch. For the first time there was another light source apart from mine in this room, on a table. Next to the naked bulb there was a pair of scissors plunged into the felting on top of the table with congealed blood heaped around the base. I stopped and thought about my lollipop, misplaced further back. I didn’t know what you got if you put it in the right place, and was feeling slightly embarrassed that I’d put it down on the wrong table, so I turned back to see if there was a way for me to go back without bumping into Kuchisake Onna again. I hadn’t even taken more than two steps when I found myself running towards a light at the end of a corridor pursued by two guys in leather masks and Kuchisake Onna dragging one foot behind her and pointing forward with the shears. One final eardrum-bursting hiss of air hit me in the face as I came out of the doorway and back into a shopping centre in Odaiba. I stopped as soon as I got outside and tried to appear more composed. And then thought that if I hadn’t watched Japanese horror films like ‘The Grudge’ and ‘ The Ring’ before, I might have got the lolly correctly placed and won a prize.

As I was leaving a guy handed me a flyer for the new movie coming out soon: Kuchisake Onna 2. Cool marketting ploy, I thought.