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2 - Just In Tokyo

Just In TokyoGarrett County Press/Links.net PDF edition 2002 (v 1.22w)

This edition is released under a Creative Commons License:Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/)

For more information address:Justin Hall - justin@bud.com - www.links.net

Garrett County Press - www.gcpress.com828 Royal St. #248New Orleans, LA 70116

ISBN: 1-891053-50-7

Japan—Travel—NonfictionUnderground—Cultural Studies

AcknowledgementsThanks to: GK Darby (gcpress.com) for all that publishing entails.Tricia McGillis (mcgillis.com) for expert publication design advice.Stephen Church (analyticajapan.com) for his immense Japaneseglossary and corrections. Wilson Kello (samelab.com) for iteratedcover art. The Ito family (itofisher.com) for introductions, educationand encouragement. John Nathan for context, always over breakfastat the New Otani Hotel. Kenji Eno (fyto.com) for backgrounding weirdTokyo. Donald Richie for expansive trailblazing and encouragement.Mark Shreiber for subcultural insight. Ayako Ishikawa for researchsupport and guidance. Chris Hecker (d6.com) for office space andtech support. The staff and denizens of the Foreign Correspondents’Club (fccj.or.jp) for their support, resources and learned companion-ship. Gamers.com, Justin Reid at TheFeature.com and folks readingLinks.net who helped to send me to Tokyo in the first place. Japaneseteachers: Omoto (nihongoweb.com), Chase, Shamoon, Yuasa,Shibata, Hayashi, Yamashita, Evans, Kitao, Pinckard(umamitsunami.com). Howard Rheingold (rheingold.com) for hisintroductions, teaching me writing and cultural exploration. Colin Hallfor relentless boosterism. Joan Hall, thanks for just about everything.

This book was laid out using PageMaker 6.5 on an IBM Thinkpad X21running Windows XP. Fonts include Gilgongo, Japan, Zeroes,Franklin Gothic, Courier New Times New Roman and Arial.

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Just In Tokyo

a city guide byJustin Hall

published by the Garrett County PressNew Orleans, Louisiana

4 - Just In Tokyo

Japan’s population is estimated around 127.1 million. 12 millionof those people live in Tokyo metro, making for a populationdensity of around 5,514 people per square kilometer.

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5Just In Tokyo -

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6 - Just In Tokyo

Japanese folks are avid travellers. In 2000 17 million Japanesetraveled abroad, while 5 million foreign tourists visited Japan.

Japan is an island, five times further away from Korea than Englandis from France. This isolation has resulted in a marvellous mutantculture, the leading reason to see Japan. Still that distance andisolation is at the heart of some alienating expense and inconve-nience in traveling to Japan.

But for the flexible Western traveller, travel to Japan can be inexpen-sive and immensely stimulating.

This guide is composed by a young American male with about sixmonths experience living in Japan. Somewhere between visitor andresident, with some middling Japanese, and a fresh eye. I’ve trav-elled to Africa, Asia, Central America, Russia and Europe. So someof this is hardened travel advice earned squatting over holes cut inthe Honduran soil, picking blood sucking insects out of my short

Welcome to Japan

Every year more people visit Tunisia or Croatiathan visit Japan.- Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

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hairs, and some of this has been inspiredby giant televisions in the streets and thechance to eat raw cod sperm as smilingJapanese folks lead me into safe explora-tion.

My first visit to Japan I didn’t speak a wordof Japanese. Even without the language, Imanaged to meet provocative people, havewild experiences, eat unusual food, stay insome relatively inexpensive lodging, anddevelop an abiding curiousity in the countrythat brought me back to live there.

So while I offer fresh perspective on acountry that has been well editorialized,there is some very real danger that I amgeneralizing or specifying erroneously.None of this is true for sure! Some isregional, some is misinterpreted. Take these observations as fodderfor your own poking around, and question everything. Most folks youmeet, foreign and Japanese, will be happy to share data with youand talk with you about Japan.

It’s a sensory deprivation experience to visit Japan, where you can’tread and write. You’ll be confronted with most of the services andsettings you might expect in modern western society, except theinterface will be largely unintelligible. This is changing somewhat asinstructions are increasingly provided in English, in roman letters.But occasionally the English you’ll find is more curious than helpful.They have interpreted English language and western culture in theirown way and you’re likely to learn as much about your home andyourself as you will learn about whatever “Japan” is.

You don't have to go toJapan to have an inkling thatthe Japanese are not as therest of us are. In fact, they'redecidedly weird. If you takethe conventional gamut ofhuman possibility asrunning, say, fromCanadians to Brazilians,after 10 minutes in the landof the rising sun, you realisethe Japs are off the map, outof the game, on anotherplanet. It's not that they'realiens, but they are thepeople that aliens might beif they'd learnt Human bycorrespondence course andwanted to slip in unnoticed.- A.A. Gill, “Mad in Japan”

Ni-HonTwo Japanese Kanji characters, the first oneis “sun” and the second “source.” Together“ni-hon,” they mean Japan, sun-source. Thesecond character also means origin, root, orbook; look for it on bookstores.

Welcome -

8 - Just In Tokyo

Conveniences for the Foreign TravelerSafety

After travelling to difficult and tense places around the world, Japancan come as a relief. Wandering a dark alley, you are likely to bemore scary as a foreigner than anything native you might encounter.You can lurch around mostly drunk, if you so choose, and you willonly be acting as the locals do. Few people will mess with you inthat state; they are too busy staggering about and throwing up on thestreets themselves. There are some folks who don’t like foreigners;keep your eyes out and don’t provoke any tough guys in nice suits orthe young men who work for them. Police help maintain the socialorder in Japan; you’ll find that their jobs can extend to helping theforeigner find lodgings or some obscure building.

CostumeJapanese people seem more fashion conscious than most otherfolks; people wear appropriate outfits, with great attention to detail.Witness not just the articulate style of some young people, but thecolorful and precise outfits of service personnel around Tokyo. This ishelpful for the foreign traveller; you don’t have to wander through astore wondering who works there; anyone wearing an apron is likelyready to receive your question. Accordingly, most of the folks whomight mean trouble for you are dressed like porno thugs - slightlyoutrageous style, compared to the ubiquitous black suited salarymen.Gangsters in fine silks (Yakuza) and sweatsuits and young men withshaven eyebrows might in fact be friendly but at least you should beable to read what place they have in society by their clothes beforeyou decide to flag them down. There are some Japanese kids frontin’American gangsta style: baggy jeans, gold chains, sport shirts,cornrow hair; it’s not clear that they back up their thug appearancewith any real-life gaffling.

Vending MachinesWhy rely on messy human interaction when you can have machinemediated clarity? You will find vending machines in Japan selling awider variety of goods than they do elsewhere - toiletries, food,drinks, pornography to name a few. Over five million vending ma-chines on this small island means you are never more than a few

An estimated 97% of Japanese studentscontinue schooling on through high school.

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coins and a block or two away from a bubbly vitamin drink, hotcreamy tea in a can, a “Pocari Sweat” athletic drink, sweet cornsoup and hot chocolate rum drinks.

PhotographyTravellers who want to take pictures will find themselves well sup-ported by one of the most camera-happy countries in the world.You’ll see middle aged ladies heading to the park on the weekendwith three foot long lenses. 83% of the population is estimated toown cameras. People will understand what you are doing with acamera and might agree to pose or at least take a photo for you.Accessories and batteries for most cameras are easy to come by.

Convenience StoresThere are rich worlds of compressed shopping in nearly everyneighborhood, what seems like every block in Japan. If you figureout what you like in a Japanese convenience store you are never farfrom immediate gratification.

Coin LockersA busy vagabond can stash their stuff in a multitude of coin lockersavailable in train stations, dance clubs, hotels.

Traveler’s InconveniencesCost

Japan can be awfully expensive. Recent dollar to yen rates havefavored the foreign traveller, still it seems you can’t walk out your doorin Tokyo without spending $30. It’s the cost of importing things to thisisland. It’s the cost of an elaborate system of permissions and bu-reaucracy. Someone once turned to me in Tokyo and chirped, “I lovethat you don’t have to tip here!” Yes, well, consider the cost of tipsfactored into the cost of everything. Think of it as membership duesfor a helpful island club. The trains are painfully punctual, you’re notlikely to get mugged, and often people will go out of their way to helpyou. And so you pay a little bit more, sometimes a lot more.

For prices in this book, we assume an exchange rate of around 130yen to each US$ dollar. The quick and dirty way to approximate theexchange rate is to take a price stated in yen and trim off two zeros.For example, 1000 yen would be around 10 dollars. Actually, it’sabout $7.70; if you think of it as ten dollars instead of the actualamount you should come out ahead.

Welcome -

10 - Just In Tokyo

Vending MachinesThere’s quite a number of restaurants where you’ll be expected tobuy a ticket from a vending machine as the means of ordering yourfood. This is inconvenient because it doesn’t make any sense.There’s a person, standing behind a counter, next to another cashregister, and they won’t take your money and give you food. Thenonce you realize they’ve been gesturing at the vending machine andnot at the door, you’ll have to decode what’s on the menu of smallbuttons. Fret not; you can always flail about helplessly until some-one comes over to help you pick something, often based on theplastic food in the window, pictures, or what someone else is alreadyeating.

SmokingMore than 55% of adult Japanese men smoke and increasing num-bers of women as well. Cigarette vending machines line streets andalleys. If that bothers you, try to find an empty seat in the nonsmok-ing section provided by some restaurants and cafes: invariably adank corner sandwiched between the bathroom and the smokers.Get used to it. Be thankful people don’t smoke on subway trains.

NativityGroucho Marx would have been fine here; this club would never havehad him for a member. What exactly Japan is and who exactly isJapanese is the subject of many books and sustained debates.Suffice it to say that some Japanese have a strict sense of socialorder and there might be times you will be made to feel unwelcome.There’s a ready cold shoulder here for those who obviously don’tknow how to fit in with a uniquely organized system. “gaijin” is verycommon slang, short for “gaikokujin” which means outside-country-person. That’s you, everywhere, all the time.

Your foreign language and foreign persona will immediately intimi-date some folks. This can be disheartening when you need help oryou are just curious about something. Participation is the best fun intravelling, and you should not let occasional ignorant moments throwyou off from poking your nose in some Japanese corners. Begentle, be graceful and keep a welcoming smile on your face. Mostpeople want to be helpful and many are curious about you as well.

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InfrastructureCommunication

There are payphones all over Japan. Most payphones use thinplastic phone cards rather than coins. Some folks collect thesecards for their pictures of local attractions or frolicking animals. Youcan buy these at convenience stores.

Mobile Phones - keitai denwaTokyo is a large city and if you plan to be there for a number of days,you should consider procuring a mobile phone. These are availablefor rental at Narita airport, and at some high-end hotels. A mobilephone is useful in Japan only if you think you might like to meetpeople and stay in touch. Especially if you plan to do some wander-ing without hotel reservations, a mobile phone is a fantastic way toactually develop some sorts of short or long term relationships. Forexample: On the train from the airport, you meet a Japanese guycoming back from three months living in Thailand. “Wow!” you think,“A Japanese person who seems like someone I might be friendswith!” He’s headed home now, but he’d be happy to meet you fordrinks in two days. But you don’t know where you’ll be staying then!Do you have any way to stay in touch besides payphones?

You might consider buying a mobile phone if you plan to be in Japanfor more than a short while or you have money to burn and you wantan odd technology souvenier While phones in the west are mostlyblack and white bricks, mobile phones in Japan boast cameras,email/Internet access, and they can play Galaga, Pac-Man orArkanoid to boot. Of course most of the mobile phone Internet is inJapanese. Still it can make a marvellous thing to show off fromJapan back at home. You’ll have to supply an address and creditcard number. Some of the mobile phone providers in Japan will notsell mobile services to visiting foreigners - only cheap, basic prepaidphones. If you want the fun, technologically advanced models, keepchecking around. If you eventually decide to leave Japan, cancellingthe service after you sign up could pose a challenge.

Japan has the highest rate of vending machines per capita- one for every 23 people. In the United States, there’s onevending machine for every 32 people or so. Infrastructure -

12 - Just In Tokyo

Internet AccessTokyo has a glut of cheap DSL and broadband connections. Youshould find some Internet cafes easily in areas where young folksare milling about. Try asking about Internet access at hotels andperhaps video game arcades; you might end up in a room stackedwith Manga comics and a few computers for rent in the back, orperhaps at a full-fledged Internet cafe. The keyboard will invariablybe in Japanese; all the keys you need to email your baby are therebut the spacebar is a hazard - extra-narrow, and if you hit any of theadjacent keys, you toggle the Japanese typing mode on. Hit theescape key a bunch of times, and try punching the key in the upperleft hand part of the keyboard; that often seems to bring your “romaji”back (roman script).

PayphonesYou can jack in with an ordinary phone cord and dial-up through thefairly-common gray NTT payphones. They can handle ISDN dialupas well, if you can figure that out. Payable with phone cards. A fewof the US service providers offer Japanese dial-up numbers, occa-sionally with a surcharge attached (Earthlink, for example).

Kinko’sThe ubiquitous copy shops and virtual offices are here in Tokyo andthey offer expensive rental Internet connections on PCs andMacintoshes.

Necca - www.necca.ne.jpA small chain of locations stuffed with PCs, mostly kids playingonline games inside. They’ll rent you a computer attached to aprinter, with access to a CD burner for fairly reasonable rates.Snacks and coffee available. Akihabara and Shibuya.

Wi-Fi - 802.11bKnowledgeable gearheads with an 802.11b connection in their laptopshould be able to find some Tokyo hotspots. Ask online before yougo, try the Tokyo PC Users Group: www.tokyopc.org

Name CardsBusiness cards are a big deal in Japan. Individuals have them.While young folk have somewhat dispensed with some of Japan’sfamous bowing, two-handed-handoff business card rituals, it’s still

Japan is purported to have a 99% literacy rate.

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expected that you should be able to introduce yourself with a piece ofpaper. Definitely get a cheap card with your email address to bringwith you if you want to make some friends in Japan. Add an illustra-tion or even a photo of yourself, something to remember you by.Traditional Japan is interested in your organizational affiliation, so ifyou have any be sure to include it - any school, office, club, coven orcabal should do.

MoneyCash Machines

Cash machines throughout Tokyo readily distribute yen from foreignaccounts. The Japanese Post Office system offers ATMs that mightaccept your foreign bank card, and Citibank has foreign-friendlylocations in Tokyo as well. If you can afford it, expect to walk aroundwith a few hundred dollars in your wallet. While it’s possible to livecheap in Japan, you might find yourself in a pinch where folks expectyou to have piles of cash to peel off. The society is still very cash-based. Fortunately it’s safe enough that you should fear losingthings more than you should fear being mugged. And even if youlose your wallet, Japan has a built-in incentive system for returninglost wallets; the returner gets 10% of the contents if the police canfind the owner. Mark your possessions with your address, and atelephone number in Japan if you can, and let Japanese efficiencyand honesty protect your belongings. Many have been pleasantlysurprised.

Credit CardsCredit Cards are fantastic tools for travellers. They can help you outin a pinch, allowing you to travel beyond your means. And if youhave a crappy day, you can treat yourself to something nice, withouthaving to consider any immediate cash ramifications.

Not always in Japan. A friend was in Tokyo and had to buy a last-minute plane ticket. We found a travel agency that could handle ourrequest. The new ticket would cost $1500. My friend whipped outhis credit card; “Sorry, we don’t take credit cards.” We were flabber-gasted. They expected us to head to our bank and walk backthrough town with over a thousand dollars in cash? “Why don’t youuse credit cards?” “We don’t want to lose that 2 or 3 percent [feecharged by the credit card companies]” they said.

Infrastructure -

14 - Just In Tokyo

Some stores take Visa cards, but only Visa cards issued by Japa-nese banks (this may seem illegal or illogical to you; good luckarguing your point). Some stores will take your plastic, but they willcharge you a credit card surcharge. At the cash register, ask about“kaado” and hand them what you have. Also having more than onevariety of credit card can help.

PackingEasy slip-on shoes without laces - you’ll be removing them to entersome restaurants, hotel rooms and homes. When should youremove your shoes? Often when stepping up on to another level ortype of flooring. Or when you see straw mat floors, but mostly whenyou see other slippers and shoes lined up near a doorway.

Nice socks - you might be hanging around quite a bit without shoeson; try to avoid gnarly socks.

Gifts for new friends and folks who might do you a favor - chocolatesare easy, something local from your home region is better. Bring abunch of small presents and sort it out when you get here.

Earplugs - Tokyo can be noisy, people live, travel and work closetogether. Especially if you care to try any of the unusualaccomodation options, you might find a disturbing amount of ambi-ent noise.

The Royals, the Uyoku and the YakuzaThe Japanese royal family is purportedly the oldest survivingroyal lineage - 125 generations. The Emperor was considereddivine by the Shinto religion up until the end of World WarII when the Americans forced him to announce on the radiothat he was not, in fact, a god. Some Japanese folks are stillpissed off about that - the “uyoku” are right-wingers whodrive vans around Tokyo blaring nationalist sentiments andsongs. They occasionally visit people who express ideasdifferent from their own and rough them up, often until theyare paid off - political extortion linked to the Yakuza gangsterswho are supposedly quite close with the right-wingers.Certainly during the Emperor’s annual birthday speech inDecember, it is the suited mafiosi and raving flag-wavers whomake the biggest show of the event. Meanwhile, the Emperorhimself never breaks his perfectly rational and pleasantfacade as the largely backgrounded leader of modern Japan.Recently, he just seems happy to finally have a grandchild,even if it is a girl.

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MovementLanding

You’ll likely land at Narita Airport, five stories tall. Expect to be able totake a train or bus into central Tokyo. If you take a bus, you’ll see thestaggering amounts of gray concrete buildings and electric lightscomposing urban Japan. If you take the train, you’ll get there a littlefaster.

You should be able to get from the airport in to Tokyo for around $20.A cab might cost you over $250.

WalkingIt has been said that Tokyo was designed to resist invasion. Roadsrun twisting, narrowing and widening. Savefor a very few notable examples such as theGinza, streets are not laid out and markedlike they are in many cities in America; thereare very few urban grids in Tokyo.

Generally, people don’t talk about intersec-tions and street corners. Most streets aren’treadily labelled. Addresses identify thedistrict, neighborhood and block a building ison. Like the Charles and Ray Eames shortfilm on the powers of ten, use an address in Japan to zoom into adistrict, then a neighborhood, and finally a block to find any particularbuilding.

Tokyo is a series of small towns. You’ll find each neighborhood hastwo ramen restaurants, a tea shop, a fast food burger shop, astationery store selling hanko (Japanese name stamps used forsigning documents), some place to buy a mobile phone, four conve-nience stores, a small store selling fresh vegetables and dry goods,a fishmonger, a sweets shop and bakery, three small “snack” host-ess bars, a karaoke parlour. Central Tokyo does not have residentialand business neighborhoods split up as much as some other cities.

Hand PaperPublic bathrooms in Japantypically lack hand towelsand occasionally lack toiletpaper. Accordingly, as youare walking about the city,people will attempt to handyou little promotional tissuepackages. Feel free to reachout and stock up; these cancome in quite handy.

The Japanese are shrinking. According to 1997 figures, the birthrateis 1.39 children per couple. Japanese folks are not replacingthemselves. Who, or what, will be Japanese in the future? Movement -

16 - Just In Tokyo

Tokyo often appears in the keen essays postedby Scottish musician Momus on his web site:www.demon.co.uk/momus“If you’re printing a flier in Tokyo, you put alittle map in one corner showing, not streetnames or monuments recognisable citywide,but the nearest subway exit and then thepositions, relative to your club, of localbranches of konbini chains like AM/PM, orlandmarks like McDonalds and Starbucks.This is because most built structures in Tokyoare impermanent, unremarkable, boxlike andforgettable. What marks one from another isits ‘electrographic architecture’ — the neonand LED displays mounted on facades, thegraphic design of familiar logos draped, oftenseveral stories deep, across their blank faces.”- from “I Lovehate LA”

Still each neighborhood has itsown speciality, flavor. As youwalk you’ll come across wildgems: an archery store inKanda, an underground jazz barin Yotsuya, a go (Japanesestrategy board game with blackand white pieces) boutique inGinza.

You’ll find yourself wanderingthrough a small alley until itnarrows and you’ll wonder ifhuman beings are supposed tobe able to pass through. Justthen a Japanese luxury car with

its rear view mirrors flattened against its sides will come up along-side you, plowing ahead through the impossibly narrow gap atfrightening speed.

Walking ToursMost of my long walks happen by accident. You could walk fromShinjuku to Shibuya, through the young parts of town. Then take awalk from Nippori to Kanda, the older part of town. Pick a place inTokyo and ask random people, for example, say: “Asakusa?” andsomeone will likely say some things and finally point in one directionor another. More on walking in the Neighborhoods section later.

KobanScattered throughout town are Police Boxes, called koban, wherepolice sit waiting to give people directions. They will be happy topoint you around. They have maps, patience, and occasionallysome basic directional English.

RailsJapanese people ride more rails than any other people on the planet.Accordingly, they have an addictively useful rail system. Tokyo iscrisscrossed by subway lines. It’s not unusual to be walking inTokyo for twenty minutes and pass four different train stations on

In 1997 there were estimated to be around 710,000 robotsin the world; over 400,000 of those were living in Japan.

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three different subway lines. Of course the subway map mayappear to be an immense tangle. But the rail professionals areprepared to help you reach your destination. And in spite of what youmight read in the language section of this booklet, you’ll find manyJapanese people are singularly excited to help you get around.

You can get a handy bilingual subway map by asking one of the menat the ticket taking stations. If they don’t understand what you want,try chizu, that might be Japanese for map.

Tickets are purchased from machines near the gates. Some of themore modern machines feature computer animated pictures ofladies bowing to you as you make your purchase. You buy a ticket tocover the initial cost of going through the gates, usually around 120yen, and then there is some additional amount required on the ticketabove and beyond that amount, depending on how far away yourfinal station is. You can buy the cheapest ticket, get yourself on thetrain, and pay a bit more at the last station before you exit. Pleasenote: you’re required to hold on to your ticket stub to get back out.My very tall brother lost his ticket stub. Frustrated, he simply strodethrough the gates. Small alarms went off; no one bothered us.

Frequent traveller passes are quite convenient; for 1000, 3000 and5000 yen, you get a pretty picture card that will feed the machinequick so you don’t have to pause to buy a ticket and miss that train.This can be invaluable, as it could be up to four minutes before thenext train comes.

It's quite easy to be swept along by the confidence of your fellowsubway travellers. Especially when they are moving so fast and sosure, and you can't read all of the signs, or even if you can read thesigns you might not read them right. At once it seems like a me-thodical place, but if you get an overview of the subway system, youcan see, it’s easy to get lost. A frequent occurrence; fortunatelymost station masters are quite forgiving, urging you in the rightdirection and helping you with your tickets.

Titillating Subway ShoTitillating Subway ShoTitillating Subway ShoTitillating Subway ShoTitillating Subway Shots Herts Herts Herts Herts Here:e:e:e:e:www.linwww.linwww.linwww.linwww.links.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trip/japan/subwayip/japan/subwayip/japan/subwayip/japan/subwayip/japan/subway

Movement -

Average life expectancy in Japan is the hightest in the world.In 2001, it was 77.63 years for men, 84.1 years for women.This is due in part to the varied diet including small portionsand sparing bits of fish, not much dairy or meat.

18 - Just In Tokyo

Businesses, museums and other institutions in Japan are preparedto help you find them by subway. The subways have multiple exits,places where you emerge out from the subterranean city into busyTokyo. If someone says exit 12A, be sure to remember that; instations with multiple exits, some will be hundreds of meters awayfrom each other, and without grid streets you can’t expect to findyour way from one subway exit to another easily.

Subterranean MinglingRiding the subway in Tokyo is the closest many foreigners couldever come to physical intimacy with Japanese people. You will findyourself compressed severely. Picture a silent mosh pit with peoplein nicer clothes. Morning and evening rush hour is the businesssuited folks; the last train after midnight is the real fun with inebriatedsouls exhaling and laughing and swaying a bit more wobbly-like.

There’s something fantastic about being this close to this manypeople when most of them are being quiet. Most manage to keeptheir personal boundaries even though they have an elbow in theirface. People are careful with their eyes in these crowds; little or noeye contact with nearby riders helps maintain personal space.

Crowds surge out and in, an unstoppable force carrying whateverpieces of you might be sandwiched between them. Unsuspectingpassengers can lose a shoe or a bag easily, especially if they arestanding near the door.

Subterranean HealthRiding the subway in Tokyo puts you at ground zero for the 1995sarin gas attacks by Aum Shinrikyo. Religious cultists excited to seedoomsday thought they might premeditate the end of the world bypoisoning the Tokyo subway system with sarin gas. When you seehow remarkably efficient the system is, you can imagine how scoresof coughing, bleeding, blinded people groping their way around thesestations must have really thrown a wrench in the works.

So is that why you’ll see so many Japanese folks in the subwaywearing facemasks? It can be unsettling - are they paranoid, orprotecting themselves from something the rest of us are too lazyand ignorant to understand? Maybe Sarin poisoning? To discover thereason people wore these things, before I spoke Japanese, I donned

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my own cotton face mask. Eventually someone stopped staring longenough to let me know that most facemask wearers are protectingthemselves from hayfever, because they're sensitive to it and it'sallergy season. Or they have a cold and they’re keeping it to them-selves. Like many things that seem odd here, once you find out thereasoning behind them, they make good sense.

Subterranean LoveFlirting is a fantastic way to pass twenty minutes on the train.People are already glancing at you since your clothing, body lan-guage, apparent cluelessness and perhaps ethnicity mark you as anoutsider. So feel free to have fun with that by tossing about someloaded glances. Just remember please don’t take a young person’scuriosity too seriously, and respect your hosts.

Another thing to remember, always, is to smile. You will find manychance encounters on the trains (with people of all ages!) if youremember to present a friendly countenance.

Subterranean FashionOf course the subway is a fantastic place to people watch, and keepup on Japanese fashion. Suddenly you’ll blink and you’ll realize thatevery lady you see under the age of forty has a small set of fur ballshanging off of her purse. Or many of the young dudes are wearingpuffy brown leather coats. Fashion here happens fast and hard andthe subway presents a wonderful thick pool of Japanese people tostudy.

Particularly shoes, something you can watch without seeming toointent on surveillance. Look down, notice the shoes - that lady inbusiness formal attire has curly-toed high heels that would make theMad Hatter proud. That bird-legged lady walking up the steps out ofthe station has an ankle cast on, and she’s still wearing some highhigh heels.

Subterranean ForeignersTokyo may be the only major world capital where you can board acrowded subway car and look around you and see no one else thatappears to be from a foreign country. There may be some Koreansor Chinese folks in the mix, but if you were in London, or Paris, or

Movement -

Crime is increasing in Japan - from 1.7 million reportedcrimes in 1995 to 2.4 million reported crimes in 2000.

20 - Just In Tokyo

New York, there would be Africans, Arabs, Hassidm, Russians,people from all over the world jostling for that seat near the door.

So when you do see a foreigner it can feel like a bit of an event.Whether or not you want to make contact, I urge you to smile; therecan be some lonely moments around Tokyo and it’s nice to keepthings peaceable between folks

Of course that foreigner may be a longtime resident sizing you up asa greenhorn. Or a fellow traveller who speaks less Japanese thanyou do. Either way, the other folks visiting Japan likely have a story toshare; they’re probably as weird as you are.

Subterranean CommerceThe subway stations in Tokyo are integrated with stores, such thatyou might emerge from your cross-city train ride, sweaty and con-fused, in a giant, well-lit, sweet smelling mall basement food court.

Tokyo itself is saturated with advertising, as much as any large cityexcept things are more closely packed. And there's more lights andlarge public advertising TVs. The subways are no different, exceptthat you're a more captive audience. Use the kwik katakana guideon page 32 to amuse yourself with sounding out supposedly Englishlanaguage words!

Riding the subways affords opportunities to peek over the shouldersof Japanese people reading comic books and sports papers withsome salacious and straightforward content. And you can see whatpeople are doing with their mobile phones; sometimes Galaga,sometimes Breakout, mostly reading and writing short mail.

Yamanote LineThe Yamanote is a great line for seeing Tokyo, it runs an elevatedloop around the city. It’s not the fastest way around town, but it’s theonly train that will take you from Ueno to Ikebukuro to Shinjuku toHarajuku to Shibuya to Ebisu to Yurakucho near Ginza. It’s thetourist’s line for Tokyo. Japan Railways runs the Yamanote line, andthey sell something called the “Suica” a thin card with a radio fre-quency transmitter in it. So what? So you can stick this card in yourwallet and just swipe your wallet over the ticket machine. Themoney is deducted from the running total you’ve deposited on thecard. It feels like magic each and every swipe.

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CabsWandering through some of the populous neighborhoods at night, it’snot unusual to see a line of cabs running over four blocks. I’ve hadcabdrivers insist I walk to the front of the line before I can get in acab. Other times they’ll pick you up just fine.

The door swings open automatically to anticipate your arrival. Andthen it closes behind you (the driver has a lever for the door at hisside). Inside is white lace covering the seats and headrests. Themeter starts at around 660 yen, about $5. That will carry you for adecent bit of time before more money is added to your fare.

Since the trains stop running between 12.30 and 1am, the cabsmight end up being your only means of transportation during latehours. They know this too, so there is a late-night surcharge addedto the usual expensive rates.

Like New York, the train is usually faster for getting across town thana taxi, during the daytime when there is plenty of traffic. It’s fantasticto see Tokyo go by. But you’ll miss the people show of the subway.

CarsYou could get a car for your time in Tokyo. You’d be driving on theBritish side of the road; it’s reputed that the Emperor of Japanlearned to drive from the King of England. Or, according to StephenChurch, “it’s all to do with swords and being right-handed.”

You’ll see some of the smallest cars you’ve ever seen driving on theopen road, tiny boxes that look just fine for getting around but wouldseem to be wimpy on the American freeway, competing with stationwagons and sport utility vehicles. But not all cars in Japan are small;head to some areas where young folks party and you’ll invariably seea large van modified with purple plexiglass to look like Batman’s badhair day, giant tailpipes thundering motor sounds, and maybe popstarfaces painted on the back doors. They are spectacle cars com-posed of fantastic plastic and they probably wouldn’t be allowed onyour home streets. Too bad for you.

The United States has 17,000 marines stationed on Okinawa,two and a half hours south of Tokyo by plane. This is America’slargest permanent overseas military posting. Movement -

22 - Just In Tokyo

NeighborhoodsFollowing Nara, and then Kyoto, Tokyo is the latest in a series ofJapanese capital cities built around the Emperor. Many Tokyoneighborhoods have character hundreds of years old; some haveevolved modern meaning from rubble following a disastrous earth-quake in 1923 and the severe firebombing during World War II.Tokyo has been built and rebuilt; there’s a scattershot quality to it. Amodern mirrored office building rises up narrow between a squatcinderblock laundromat, a leaning wooden house and a small shrine.

ShitamachiTokyo means “Eastern Capital.” It wasreferred to as “Edo” when woodblock printsand kabuki were cutting-edge stuff. Mostlywhen people talk about Edo now they referto a bygone era. Shitamachi is a broad partof eastern Tokyo, the older side of town thatbest preserves some of the flavors of Edo-era Tokyo - wooden homes, loads ofshrines and temples, accessible people inless constant cosmopolitan hurry.UenoUeno Park is a home to the homeless inTokyo. You’ll see widespread encamp-ments. Blue construction tarps have beenfashioned into tents and lean-tos. Get closeand you’ll spy some industriousness -clothes hangers with clean laundry, a golfbag hung from a tree holding rakes andbrooms. It’s rumoured people can receivepostal mail addressed to Ueno Park. Someof these homeless folk speak English; don’tworry, they’ll likely approach you.

Ueno Park also houses a zoo, a temple, ashrine, the Tokyo National Museum, theNatural Sciences museum, a Western art

Shitamachi means ‘towns below’and refers to those areasbeneath the castle but still withinthe city limits. EdwardSeidensticker has felicitouslytranslated the term as ‘Low City’- the hills became the Yamanote,the ‘High City’. He has alsoestimated that the Low City,which gave Edo so much of itscharacter, only occupied aboutone-fifth of the city.It now occupies even less, theHigh City has grown so much.Yet the traditional Low Cityperseveres, even now remainingdifferent in feeling from theWesternized Yamanote. Nowcomprised (according to theShitamachi Museum) of Kanda,Nihombashi, Kyobashi, Shitaya(Ueno), Asakusa, Honjo andFukagawa, it still retains whatlittle is left of the feel of old Edo- distinctly plebeian, also fun-loving, less inhibited than thoseremains of areas where themilitary aristocracy, theshogunate, observed its rules ofdecorum.- Donald Richie, Tokyo

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museum and an awesome giant bronzeblue whale. The Tokyo National Museum isa good traditional arts overview, a solidJapanese craft and culture downloaddoable in an afternoon.

More small and more entertaining is theShitamachi museum, located near a largemarsh in Ueno Park. Downstairs you canwander shoeless into recreations of cen-tury-old tenement homes and crafts stu-dios, upstairs you can get your hands onsome toys and games from the old days.

At the base of the Ueno Park steps, thelarge Ueno Station. From here trains leavefor North Japan. After the Ueno Park steps,a crowded intersection begins with streetvendors and even some foreigners distrib-uting some occasionally illegal goods. Justbeyond this start markets that run along thetrain tracks between Ueno andOkachimachi. These dense corridors are packed with shops wherevocal hawkers push foodstuffs, discount luggage, shoes, lighters.The shoulder to shoulder conditions, market smells and marketchants make this one of the most lively places to wander about inTokyo.

Akihabara - Electric TownWander far enough through the Ueno-Okachimachi market and you’llend up in the crowded capital of consumer electronics. Akihabara isnew stuff located in an old section of town; imagine electronicsmerchants wheeling piles of gleaming slim laptops in wooden cartsthrough narrow streets.

As unlikely as that may sound, the beating heart of Akihabara is thesmall rabbit warren tunnels between and beneath buildings whereyou can find security cameras, electric lights, walkie-talkies, minidisc

1945 Firebombing of TokyoIn an effort to strike at Japan’smilitary production integratedwith homes and neighborhoodsin Tokyo, the United Statesdropped incendiary bombs onthe city in the waning days ofWorld War II. Tokyo’s densityand wooden buildings made it aperfect target for a firestorm.Well over 100,000 people areestimated to have died as a resultof these attacks. The death anddevastation was more extensivethan the atomic bomb attacks.Large sections of Tokyo wereflattened and charred bodiesfilled the rivers. This eventresonates in the Tokyo psyche;it was depicted in IsaoTakahata’s animated film “Graveof the Fireflies,” the tear-jerkingstory of two children orphanedby these attacks.

TTTTToooookykykykykyo Neighborhoo Neighborhoo Neighborhoo Neighborhoo Neighborhoods:ods:ods:ods:ods:www.linwww.linwww.linwww.linwww.links.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trks.net/vita/trip/japan/toip/japan/toip/japan/toip/japan/toip/japan/tokykykykykyooooo

Neighborhoods -

24 - Just In Tokyo

players - all electronics, pieces of electron-ics that have ever been made, sold from anarrow, low-ceilinged stall by a guy smok-ing Peace-brand cigarettes as he sitssoldering on a three-legged stool.

The technology is plentiful here, but theprices are not cheap. Televisions,Walkmen and laptops are not bargains inAkihabara. But you will discover gadgetshere you cannot find anywhere else - arobotic jellyfish, electric cuticle trimmers.

If you are a game enthusiast, for example,you will find infinite video games, consolesand accessories on sale - including the oldermachines and even some American videogame antiques. Of course nearly all thesoftware and videos here are in the Japaneselanguage, for the Japanese market. Unlike

much of the rest of Asia, it’s fairly hard to find bootlegged media here. Nopushcarts filled with burned CDs and DVDs with badly photocopiedcovers. The Japanese pop culture machine manufactures an immenseamount of new material on a regular basis and they seem to have strictcopyright enforcement on their side. Their DVDs are region encoded toplay only on players that use “Region 2” discs (or players that have beenmodified to play Japanese movies; computers are a fairly easy way to getaround this nuisance, for example). Videotapes from Japan are NTSC;they should play on most American VCRs and TVs.

YamanoteRoppongi - “High Touch Town”

Cheap love, fast folks, bad vibes. Roppongi is the best place to gofor quick evening fun with other foreigners. This neighborhood ismade to help you have a “good time.” Accordingly, music you mighthear at night at home is blaring from clubs as Russians, Nigerians,Swedes and Chinese all hustle about selling or buying desire or whatpasses for it in the intercultural urban night. Ebisu on the YamanoteLine connects to the Hibiya Line to Roppongi.

This Here Is Pagan CountryJapan is the world’s largest andmost technologically advancedpagan country. The native religionof Japan Shinto is animist,worshipping Kami, gods ofancestors and nature spirits.Witness abundant graven images.In Japan temples are Buddhist andshrines are Shinto; these religionsmix liberally. Accordingly, religionis a fluid part of life; you’ll see agingshrines slotted in between newbuildings. You should visit theseplaces; if there’s any kind ofceremony or festival (matsuri) youmight come to see monotheism ascomparatively quite dull.There’s not too many temples andshrines detailed in this book;stumbling upon them and treatingthem right is a personal journey.

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ShinjukuThe band X has a song where they refer to Los Angeles as the “Cityof Electric Light.” They were talented, but they were wrong. Tokyo isthe city of electric light. And Shinjuku is its brightest spot.

Shinjuku at night is New Year’s eve anywhere else, says TokyoiteDonald Richie. Shinjuku literally means “new inn,” new in the 1600sor so. Shinjuku today is tall bright streets and alleys with tiny stallsand stores. This is the part of Tokyo that looks the most like BladeRunner. Electronics, books and sex are for sale here, like any otherarea, just in more dense profusion. Out the East gate from the giantShinjuku station you’ll find both large department stores and smallmassage parlors. Nearby Kabukicho is about as sleazy as modernTokyo gets; a dense profusion of video booths, small sex clubs andlove hotels. On the Yamanote Line, Shinjuku Station is the busiesttrain station in the world, where over 700,000 riders mingle daily.

HarajukuHarajuku on Sunday afternoon is Halloween anywhere else. Kidsdress up: Amish fetish, mutant tan and blonde girlstyle, fresh-from acar wreck makeup. There’s a narrow street of shops, Takeshita-dori,where you can accessorize yourself completely for any fetish orflash-in-the-pan trend. It’s some of the best people watching in theworld. The nearby park is also nice walking on weekends, betweenthe tough looking 50s Greasers. On the Yamanote Line; listen forthe unique bittersweet Harajuku chime on the JR line subway plat-form.

Shimo-KitazawaIn Shimo Kitazawa neon crowded teenage culture is compressedinto narrow streets and low-rise buildings. Shimo is known as atheater and performing arts district, a relaxed and intimate localewith many small pleasant restaurants and shops. Take the train toShibuya and head west four stops on the Inokashira line.

Of the Japanese population of 127.1 million, over 17 percentare over 65 years old. The Japanese government forecasts thatpercentage could go as high as 28 percent by 2025. Add thelengthy Japanese lifespan, a low birthrate, an absolute aversionto immigration, and Japan may soon be a nation of old folks. Neighborhoods -

26 - Just In Tokyo

LanguageYou enter a train station, clutching a map. Sweating from wanderingaround Tokyo lost, nerves slightly frayed, you summon the courageto approach a stranger to ask for help. You turn to a middle agedman waiting for a ticket machine, “Do you understand English?” Theman waves his hand in front of his face, the Japanese gesture for“no” as he backs away quickly, his bowed head displaying signs ofterror. You look around only to discover that everyone else nearbyhas moved further away from you and those people you can see onthe periphery are moving rapidly in the other direction.

Do they speak English?Japanese people learn some English in school. English reading andwriting are drilled into their heads. But the system hasn’t done agood job of encouraging them to chat in foreign languages. Com-bine that with a cultural ethic emphasizing harmony (embarrassmentavoidance for themselves and others) and you have people whooccasionally react with terror when asked to use what they feel mustbe poor English skills. This is not to give you the impression that allJapanese people would react this way, but you will occasionally findyourself isolated. Sometimes people will not want to communicate,and your gentlest efforts to reach out will appear to threaten them.

You might find that some people who will be unable to communicatewith you verbally in your language can manage to write you a finecoherent English language letter later.

The language presents significant barriers, especially to foreignersvisiting from Western countries. Japanese signs mostly havesymbols you cannot sound out. While many of the trains and res-taurants and hotels have English-language signage, by and large youwill be illiterate in Japan.

Still most Japanese people, like people in the rest of the world, theyare curious about foreigners and excited to share their culture.Some folks will offer to help you and practice English with you evenbefore you even look helpless. If you keep a smile on your face, and

In Tokyo, there are currently sixteen girls under the ageof 25 who have black hair. See if you can spot them all!

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offer basic greetings, many folks will thenfeel welcome to ask you questions theyinvariably have for anyone not Japanese.

And Japan presents some uniqueaffordances. Plastic food will help youorder. Most of the subway hotspots aremarked in English. If you want to wanderoff the beaten path where there are fewerforeigners, so you can see some of the“real Japan,” you will find little English.There will be moments of massive mis-communication and great insecurity. Andsomeone might help you. And you willsurvive.

Long-Term LearningThe research has been done. Whilehaving a romantic partner who speaksJapanese is the best way to alleviate bothilliteracy and loneliness, the best way toquickly learn Japanese is to study the rules of grammar before youarrive in Japan. Living there is a bath in vocabulary. Knowing whichis a verb and which is a noun will be far easier after a few hours in awooden chair somewhere in your home country.

Engrish - Japanese EnglishThe Japanese have taken English and made it their own. Much hasbeen made of “Engrish,” the seemingly mangled Japanese Englishon packaging and signage in Japan. There’s a web site entirelydevoted to cataloging these strange moments of adapted Japanese-English, www.engrish.com. From their archives: from the side of a“Palnap” tissue box: “What feeling do you need the best in yourlifestyle? Trendy feeling, natural feeling and traditional feeling. We’lllead a tasteful life to find your personal style. Mild and tenderness arebasic of our living life.”

Engrish should not be read literally. Think of Japanese English asnon-specific, expressing feeling. For example, the use of “let’s” toexpress enthusiastic collective activity: “Let’s Kiosk!” “Let’s Skiing!”

Language -

Japanese grammar is not for thefaint of heart or weak of mind.What’s more, the Japanese alsodo not have any words for “me”,“them”, “him, or “her” thatanyone could use without beingincredibly insulting (theJapanese word for “you”, forexample, when written in kanji,translates to ”I hope a monkeyscratches your face off”).Because of this, the sentence “Hejust killed her!” and “I just killedher!” sound exactly the same,meaning that most people inJapan have no idea what is goingon around them at any givenmoment. You are supposed tofigure these things out from the“context”, which is a Germanword meaning “you’re screwed”.- Dan Barrett, So You Want ToLearn Japanese, danbarrett.cjb.net

28 - Just In Tokyo

Some Traveler’s Japanesesumimasen - sorry my large bag just nearly knocked you over on thetrain.

sumimasen - please distract yourself from typing on your mobilephone long enough to move out of the way so I can get off thissubway car seconds before the doors close.

wakarimasen - I am unable to speak any of your language except tosay ‘I do not understand” and if you say anything more I might repeatthis word even if I’m better off shutting up and nodding and readingyour facial expression to try to figure out what you’re saying but thejet lag is kicking in and all I wanted to know is if you have a room thatdoesn’t smell like forty years of accumulated cigarette smoke.

dozo - older lady carrying two large canvas shopping bags; you arestanding up in a crowded subway car as young men and womenwho have seats fiddle with their mobile phones ignoring you. Localswill force you to stand in spite of your age, but I am a foreigner and Iwill stand up to offer you this seat. Please, please, take it!

domo - thank you, you have said many things to me that I do notunderstand, and it would probably be okay if I said nothing, but domois a small gesture of my appreciation for this delicious muscat grapeyogurt drink that I have just successfully purchased from you in thisvery fluorescent-lit convenience store.

arigato - domo just sounds too short, so I will say arigato to you, theeager waitress who just handed me a hot towel.

domo arigato - I am grateful, o subway station manager, that youhave let me through this gate even though I lost my ticket and I couldhave been lying about it and I can’t speak your language but youfigured out from my worried expression and gestures that I am agood person and I just want to leave your station.

konnichiwa - I’ve heard this one Japanese greeting and so I’m goingto say “good afternoon” all day and all night long as my internationalgesture of friendship.

ohayo - let’s smile, bow slightly, perhaps awkwardly, and say “goodmorning!” because it’s easy to remember and fun to say.

In Japan,six newspapers are printed for every ten people, nearlythree times the rate of newspapers per person in America.

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kanpai - let’s drink! because sometimesalcohol does help ease the pain I feel inmy shoulders and legs from traveling.And maybe when we are a little bit drunkwe will feel like we understand eachother, mister air conditioning systemsengineer with some basic English and agreat fondness for the TV show Friends.

Combinations:arigato, sumimasen - thank you for atleast standing in front of me while Ipleaded unsuccessfully. Though I thoughtyou couldn’t comprehend me, I will finallyadmit that it was inappropriate to ask youto believe me: when I pulled that sportdrink out of the mechanized fridge in myroom I was merely inspecting it and Ireally hadn’t read the sign that said inlarge red English letters that I would becharged for anything I so much astouched.

domo sumimasen - I’m sorry I made you feel obviously flustered in myattempts to communicate with you, late night Ginza cab driver refusingto take me anywhere because you say you don’t understand eventhought I am showing you an address printed in Japanese. You mustbe discriminating against me but to preserve international harmonyand experiment with Japanese thinking I will apologize instead ofdemanding justice.

What they might say to youIrrashaimasse! - welcome to our restaurant/store/business! personwho can not understand our greeting and might feel slightly assaultedsince six Japanese people just shouted at them as soon as they slidopen that door.

Machine TranslationThose folks eager to understandsome of the world around themand begin to try to communicatemight be helped by some of themany electric dictionariesavailable in Japan. Nearly all ofthese dictionaries are made forJapanese people to translate intoEnglish, so the menus andbuttons won’t be labelled so youcan read them. But SeikoInstruments has a model calledthe RM-2000 that is built forEnglish-speakers to readJapanese. It’s a great tool,missing some words; notablytuna, boss, boyfriend. If youtype in “prostitute” it willsuggest maybe you wanted theworld for “protestant.” Stilluseful though. The RM-2000 canbe found at most electronicsstores and it will cost you around19800 yen.

Language -

Japanese literacy requires being able to read andwrite 1,945 Kanji characters. Some Japanese folksuse a dictionary when reading the newspaper.

30 - Just In Tokyo

Physical LanguageBesides some basic Japanese words, you can have fun with someof the Japanese physical gestures, in context:

A pinky held up out of a fist alone is a sign for girlfriend; a thumbalone is a sign for boyfriend. (Accordingly, if you do the “hang loose”gesture from America, fist with thumb and pinky extended rockingback and forth, you might be implying sexual flexibility.)

Most Japanese will generally understand if you hold your thumb uplike “right on” and you’re a man, you’re not asking for homosexualrelations or inferring that the nearest man is your boyfriend. But youmight shift your “right on” gesture to be the thumb and index fingermaking a circle with the other fingers extended, “okay,” a gestureJapanese might understand to mean “I’d like my change in coins.”

Two single index fingers extended over your head on either side likehorns is a gesture for an angry wife. I would say, angry anyone,except that the traditional headdress worn by a Japanese bride wassaid to be for the purpose of covering her horns.

Holding the left hand flat, palm up, and taking the right fist upright,circling over the left palm, imitating a mortar and pestle, that may bea Japanese gesture for flattery.

Point at your nose to refer to yourself, not at your chest. It looksfunny in your home country!

Japanese WritingThere are three written scripts used in Japan. While this mightinitially sound complicated, difficult, obfuscating, and inefficient, itallows great variation in personal expression through writing andtypography.

HiraganaHiragana is the relatively simple-looking curvaceous phonetic scriptused to spell out native Japanese words. Invented by a Japanesemonk in the 800s, it was intended for women to use since they werethought to be unable to manage the complex Chinese/Kanji charac-ters. Accordingly, many of the first literary works published in Japanwere composed by Japanese women using hiragana. Notably, TheTale of Genji, composed by Lady Murasaki (Lady Purple) just beforeChrist was 1000 years old.

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a rice field over asword/power - man

a pregnant personsitting - woman

a man with his armsstretched wide - big

the sun is behind a tree, so youmust be looking east - east

Sample Kanji

Sample CompoundsCompounds are two or more Kanji strung together to illustrate aconcept.

electric + car= trainelectric + talk

= telephone

electric + word = nothing, because theystopped making new Kanji compounds beforethe computer came along. But electric + wordshould equal web page, don’t you think?

These sorts of pictograms are explained some by Len Walsh’shelpful Read Japanese Today - a fun book to take with you on thesubway to start to decode some of the Kanji around you. If you learnKanji, you might be able to read some things in Chinese, thoughthere are occasionally differences in meaning. For example, inJapanese, hand-paper means letter, and in Chinese, hand-papermeans toilet tissue.

KanjiJapan’s complicated characters, or Kanji, were borrowed fromChina in the 6th century, they have meanings associated with them(not so much phonetic sounds). American poet Ezra Pound be-lieved he could decipher the pictographs at the root of these charac-ters; he actually managed to be correct some of the time. Here’s afew samples, see if you can trace the visual representation here:

an eye on itsside - eye

an eye on its sidewith legs - to look

breasts on theirside - mother

Language -

32 - Just In Tokyo

K

S

T

NH

MYRWA

KatakanaKatakana is the script the Japanese have reserved especially forforeign words. Mostly consonants paired with vowels, the soundsmirror the Hiragana alphabet. Amuse yourself around Tokyo by sound-ing out words you find in advertisements, signs and menus. Words like“Hollandaise” take on entirely new character; check out some of the“Katakana Kwizes” in this booklet for other examples and practice onthe plane.

tsu

with “ = G

with “ = Z

with “ = D

with “ = Bwith ° = P

Vowels

shi

chi

N OSustain the vowel:

Note: This is a heedlessly incomplete introduction to this language.

A I U E O

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LodgingLodgings alone are a great way to see the city and much of Japa-nese culture. There are a wide variety of options, ranging from thesleekly high-tech to the kitschy. If you’re willing to live like a nomad,moving around between nights, you can find some good cheapadventure around bedtime.

RyokanStay in a Ryokan if you want to experience some of old Japan: afuton on the floor, under padded blankets. The smell of straw matsunder stockinged feet. Rice paper screens. A large bathtub; pleasedon’t empty the water (others might bathe after you - scrub up andrinse down before you enter). Possibly a squat toilet. And food;many ryokan offer traditional Japanese dinner and breakfast to theirguests; it may be included in your costs, or not. You may find your-self sitting in a thin cotton robe, freshly bathed, working chopsticksover slices of pickled vegetables, looking at a TV playing the eveningnews next to a long black and white wall scroll, legs folded on acushion on a straw mat, and you might feel fantastic.

Taito RyokanSet in Asakusa, near Tawaramachi Station on the Ginza Line, stayingat Taito Ryokan puts you in the middle of old Tokyo, short walkingdistance from town’s big shrine with all the nearby old-fashionedmerchant madness. This ryokan is owned by a twenty-somethingKenichi, he likes having travelers around so he runs the place cheapand welcoming: 3000 yen a night for a single room. You’ll have toshare a shower and toilet with a dozen other wanderers, and thefacilities are not quite as starched neat and clean as elsewhere inTokyo. But for cheap, location, a bit of traditional flavor, and a veryhelpful proprietor, it doesn’t get much better than Taito Ryokan -www.libertyhouse.gr.jp

Kimi RyokanIn Ikebukuro, Kimi Ryokan is quite international. Listed in manyTokyo guidebooks and thick with Australians and Americans, you’llfind it a cheap, accommodating place to stay, sleeping with a bit of

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34 - Just In Tokyo Japan imports 80% of its energy.

old Japanese flavor, even if the ambient sounds are non-Japanesespeaking tourists and travellers. There was a nice man behind thecounter; I told him how surprised I was to be offered so many mas-sages on the nearby streets. I think he misunderstood me; he askedif I wanted him to call a masseuse to visit my room? Kimi Ryokanhas a fancy electric toilet on the first floor.

Business HotelsThis is how the Japanese refer to the minimal in Western accommo-dation. A room tiny but still large enough that you can crouch next toyour luggage between the door and the full to queen-sized bed.Often a tall American might graze the ceiling with his or her head.Perhaps you can touch all four walls with your limbs from your bed.

Still there are some nice touches: conve-nience, comfort, a console next to the bed,brochures for the pay-per-view cable (theseare occasionally more explicit than Playboyback at home).

If you try to arrange a cheap room at theairport, this is the type of hotel they will likelysuggest. Central Tokyo room rates for asingle bed with a bathroom attached willusually run from 7500 to 11,000 yen ($58-$85). And they do mean single; I have beencaught trying to bring a friend up to the roomwith me, and forced to rent a larger roomintended for two.Kanda Green HotelA nice bamboo lined exterior walkway, thishotel is a convenient walking distance fromAkihabara. They prevented me from bringinga guest up to my room. The rooms them-selves are a marvel of compression - as

small a space as you could imagine providing a human being whilestill being able to stand (though if you are over six feet tall, you willnot be able to stand fully). The furnishings here are newish and it’squite clean, which helps. Starting around 8400 yen per night ($65).

Try a Toilet!Your hotel stay could be yourchance to try elaborate Japanesehigh-technology toilets. Thesetoilets might have cleaning jetsfor women’s parts andeveryone’s parts, bum dryingheated air jets, vents to suck upfoul airs, remote controls andheated seats (the hardest thingto give up if you return home).Please note that these toilets canbe quite powerful; if you turn onthe water jets, there’s usually away to turn them off, or youshould wait - don’t panic and tryto leave. If you stand up whilethe toilet is spraying, somethingunintended could become wet.Fortunately, if you are alone inyour hotel room you canexperiment with these featuresand not have to emerge from arestaurant bathroom with pantssoaking wet from toilet spray.

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Love HotelsSince most Tokyo homes and apartments can be quite small andprivacy can be hard to come by, there are Love Hotels throughoutJapan to facilitate licit and illicit trysts. These places offer compara-tively palatial accommodations at very reasonable rates.

You can find a room ready for shagging (rotating beds, giant baths)costing between 5000 to 15000 yen per night ($38-$115) - versus8000 minimum ($62) for a cramped business hotel room. Theserooms are far grander than most cheap hotels - larger beds, floorspace, a sitting area, and a two or three person bathtub and shower.

And some rooms are decorated to delight. The older Love Hotelstend towards unusual stylings: historical or theatrical themes. A bedshaped like a race car, with wheels. Bathtubs set in stone, like aoutdoor sulfur springs. A room-sized roulette wheel built into theceiling. Stereos that power quivering beds. In Love Hotel rooms,you could find karaoke, water beds, tanning beds, small saunas,pachinko and slot machines, TV console video games, VCRs withfree and rental movies. If your idea of fun is to sing naked karaokeunder neon green electric light, then love hotels are for you. If youwant to visit a bit of cheap kitsch anthropology, Love Hotels can beimmensely rewarding. If you’re tired of anonymous, sanitary andcramped, then Love Hotels are the best bang for your travel buck.

Love Hotels are frequently in slightly dodgy-seeming neighborhoods, places wherepeople might be buying and selling sex.This may creep you out, but since this isTokyo there is little chance you will beassaulted or stolen from. These are byand large semi-legitimate businesses thatcater to wide swaths of Japanese society,from teenagers up to older folks escapingtheir families. It may not be polite conver-sation, but you’ll find many, if not most,Japanese folks have visited one or more ofthese places. Note some common euphe-misms for Love Hotel: couples hotel,leisure hotel, fashion hotel. You can

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Love Lost?Satellite of Love, edited byKyoichi Tsuzuki, is asumptuous if poorly boundpicture book about JapaneseLove Hotels. The author hasa certain fondness for theunusual and especiallykitschy hotels, disappearingand endangered since recentlaws have worked to tonedown the sex shack business.If you can find a copy, thesepictures should certainly whetyour appetite for elaborateentertainment lodgings.

36 - Just In Tokyo

recognize them from the placards out infront listing different rates for a few hours, afew more hours, and overnight. Often along

with the Katakana characters for hotel, these places have Englishnames: Hotel Elmer, Hotel Clean, Hotel Princess, Hotel Carrot.

Love Hotels can be easier to book than normal hotel rooms. Youwalk into a lobby and look at a collection of photos posted on thewall. If there’s a light behind a photo, the room is available. Press abutton, go to the small hole in the wall and give the receptionistbehind the hole some money in exchange for a key. If you’re check-ing in after 11pm, you’re typically staying for the whole night.

Still, Love Hotels are definitely not appropriatefor long-term stays. Overnight guests mustcheck in after 11pm, and you probably can’tleave your luggage multiple days.

Love Hotels present the same communicationproblems you could have anywhere else,compounded by sex trade overtones and any ofyour own insecurities you might have packed.

Hotel ManjoThe Hotel Manjo in Uguisudani is an aging exemplar of low-costentertainment lodging. Rooms themed for feudal Japan, Versailles,“Cowntry & Westarn” cost $65 overnight. From the Uguisudanistation platform, head out through the downstairs exit. Out of thestation, turn right to walk along the tracks. A few hundred metersalong on that street. The sign is high up, in black and white Englishsixties-styled letters.

Hotel ParukoHotel Paruko is in the thick of Love Hotel hill in Shibuya. Here doz-ens of small hourly hotels vie for the active casual sex business inthis area popular with young folks. Paruko is another aging lovehotel. Here some beds are shaped like race cars, some round bedsspin in circles. I sat in a bathtub shaped like a large bowl, atop apillar in the middle of the bathroom. Fun stuff! The sign is not inEnglish; search for the katakana letters on the side of a red brickbuilding.

Itami’s Taxing WomanSome lively Love Hotelsmake an appearance in theexcellent 1987 Japanesecomedy “A Taxing Woman”(Marusa no onna). Likemost of Juzo Itami’s films itis a funny and revealing lookat contemporary Japan.

°

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Hotel SekishuThis Uguisudani Love Hotel offers some traditional Japanese-themed rooms with straw mats, beds on the floor, rice paperscreens. Each room boasts a large stone-lined bath area, nearlynatural two or three person rock tubs set into the floor. A beautifulplace to take a private bath in the big city. Just down the street fromHotel Manjo, look for the sample stone bath out front.

Capsule HotelsCapsule Hotels present the smallest amount of space necessary tosleep. About three feet tall, three feet wide, and six and a half feetdeep, a plastic coffin open at one end. Inside, you’ll typically find aTV suspended from the ceiling, a bedside console with a radio, clockand alarm and controls for the TV, lights and air conditioning system.For privacy you close a cloth screen at the end of your capsule. Ona typical floor in a capsule hotel there might be twenty to seventycapsules, so you are essentially sharing lodging with this many otherpeople. You will hear them snore, cough, take mobile phone calls,stumble out of their capsules to head to the bathroom.

These hotels are primarily male institutions,designed for salarymen who miss the last trainhome. If you are stuck somewhere in Tokyo lateat night, go to the station and ask the police orthe station master where the nearest “ka-pu-su-ru ho-te-ru” is - they’ll likely have a map to showyou.

These places are packed with extremely drunkdudes. Some pass out in the hallways andlounges before they get to their capsules. It’sreally quite a scene. And then they manage toget up and out by 8am. You will likely be kickedout by ten. Often the baths and showers close before the hoteldoes. Don’t wait until the last minute to clean up.

There are a few capsule hotels that cater to women, though womenprobably shouldn’t leave their capsule hotel search until the last train.

Capsule hotels often offer collective spa facilities. You’ll find a waisthigh shower for pre-cleaning and then a large hot water tub. Some

°“capsule”:

Console ControlMost hotel rooms have abedside console forcontrolling the lights, airconditioning, TV andstereo. This convenienceis common in most alllodgings, from thecheapest to the mostexpensive. Theseconsoles are often a goodway to date the hotel; thebuilt-in clocks inparticular reveal when theroom was constructed.

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add a cold water tub and a sauna. This can be a great way toluxuriate and relax. Don’t worry much about standing out, youalready do. There are signs up forbidding tattoos; probably a prohibi-tion against the tattooed Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, but perhapsthey prohibit hip foreigners as well.

Large folks will likely be uncomfortable in capsules, as will folks whotend to toss and turn, move around in their sleep. And light sleepers.Bring ear plugs and they should tide you over. With earplugs, theprimary drawbacks are the poor air circulation (only slightly amelio-rated by the sometimes functional in-capsule air conditioning), andthe lack of storage space. In the capsule itself, there is no room foryour luggage if you want to lay down properly. There are occasion-ally lockers provided; often these are large enough only for a brief-case, though some capsule hotels offer larger coin lockers. Cap-sules generally fall in the 3000 to 5000 range per night ($23-$38).

Shibuya CapsuleLandNear love hotel hill in Shibuya, this ten or so storey building offersaround 30 capsules per floor. Bathing facilities include showers, awarm bath and a small dry sauna. The capsule TVs have onechannel of porn and seven other channels. Cheapy headphones areprovided. CapsuleLand offers standard single and double hotelrooms as well. Rates around 3700 yen ($28), out by 10am. They’lltry to make you buy your room from a vending machine, but they willtake credit cards behind the counter as well.

Shinjuku Green PlazaBeneath some marvellous baths covered in the Pleasure section,the Green Plaza hosts a capsule colony - hundreds of nondescriptplastic coffins stuffed with businessmen staggering in from their badluck in the pleasure quarters. A short walk from Shinjuku Station,through some of the lively sex-for-sale area Kabukicho. Acceptscredit cards.

Sauna and Capsule Mizuho - OmoriIf you find yourself in Omori, near Shinagawa, inquire at the policestation for the two nearest capsule hotels, and go to the capsulehotel second closest to the train station. The Mizuho is a modernfacility with beautiful new capsules, a restaurant serving dinner and

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breakfast. For those looking for super-cheap accommodations, youcan sleep on a mat on the floor of the “big room” for around $25 inthe immediate company of dozens of other men. The highlight of thethis capsule hotel is doubtlessly the bathing: skylit atrium bathtubstiled with pleasant mosaics. A giant aqueduct looking marble-protru-sion in the room signals a contemporary spin on Rome. Sauna andcold plunge as well. Accepts credit cards.

Luxury HotelsJapan boasts some of the most elegant hotels in the world. For over$200 a night you can stay in a large room with silk wallpaper, niceart, and fantastic service. It’s a different way to see Tokyo, oftenremoved from the exciting hustle bustle of the neon city. If you likethe person with whom you share your room, that might not be aproblem. But if you’re only in Japan for a few days, why drop out?

Park HyattIn front of Shinjuku Park, this hotel is a modern marvel ofpostmodern luxury. Artful art and lighting abounds. It’s a bit likestaying in a contemporary art museum. There were dried leavessticking out of in the wall above my bed the last time I stayed there.The rooms are palatial, giant and expansive. Seating for two, a largedesk, a large bed, and still room to run laps. Japanese Englishdictionary and the OED in the rooms, with fax machine. Health club.Top quality restaurants. Drawbacks? It’s isolated. It’s a pleasantenough walk through the municipal buildings and park strewn withhouse-less Japanese folk, but it is a bit lonely to exit your hotel intodeserted streets when so much of Tokyo is still thumping. About atwenty minute walk from the Shinjuku subway station - that’s prettyfar for the amount of money involved. Maybe that’s the point.Rooms starting around 50000 yen per night ($385).

Hotel OkuraJapan’s lodgings of luxury for over 40 years. Celebrities, investmentbankers and rich folks from the States who arrange trips to Japanoften end up here. This is where Kissinger stays, and Steve Jobs,and Björk. It’s a warmer feeling than the Park Hyatt; the large 60shigh style high-ceilinged lounge in the main wing is more welcomingthan the postmodern equivalent. The Okura is located near the

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American Embassy, short walking distance from three or four cen-trally-located subway stations. The rooms are straight up luxury,great comfort, nothing jaw-dropping. Quaint touches; the expensiveboutiques in the basement, a draft beer cart that will pour you atwenty dollar mug in your room. Extra daily charge for Internetaccess. Rooms starting at 29000 yen ($223).

Cerulean Tower TokyoThis hotel just opened last year. Tasteful clean granite and woodstyling, eminent comfort. Eminently comfortable rooms and delight-fully large shower bathrooms. It’s a short walk to Shibuya, on theother side of the tracks from the fun love hotels and teenagersrunning rampant. There’s a jazz club in the hotel as well as a Nohstage (traditional Japanese opera - highbrow). Rooms starting at30000 yen ($230).

Katakana Kwiz: DrinksSound out these common beverages using the Katakana Chart onpage 32; answers appear at the end of the book.

Katakana Kwiz: CountriesSound out this country:

” ”

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FoodTypically Tokyo residents live in small dwellings that make entertain-ing too intimate. The culture doesn’t lend itself to having dinnerparties. Instead, a dense variety of restaurants serve as venues fornightly meals and socializing.

Perhaps it’s a mental justification after paying much money for foodhere, but it may seem to you that the average meal in Japan is wellprepared and likely tasty. Some visitors find the food bland and don’tcare for the Japanese emphasis on texture and presentation. Eitherway, Japanese food is made with care - these folks seem to obsessover their edibles. If there are eight channels on a Japanese TV, atleast two of them are playing a food or cooking show. Many primetime shows feature food competitions, restaurant visits and celebri-ties pronouncing different dishes oishii! - delicious!

Talking about "Japanese Food" is a bit like talking about "AmericanFood" - there's a lot of different ingredients, spices and flavoursavailable. Pay particular attention to the texture of a food, if it has notaste or some bad taste, maybe people eat it for the feeling they getin their mouth or between their teeth.

At the core of Japanese dining is an immediate closeness with theocean surrounding them, and an abiding fondness for pickled andbitter flavours. But over the years the Japanese have adopted manyexternal cuisines and made them their own. If you leave yourselfopen to eating in Japan, you can find a wide range of fish and fowl,mammals and plantmatter to chew on. If you must eat cuisine likeyou have at home, be prepared for something just slightly different.Learn to love it, imagine someone put time into making it different.Whatever they’re doing with food in Japan they’re doing one thingright; these people live the longest of any in the world.

Plastic Food and PhotographsFunny and freaky, the plastic food all over the city can be quiteconvenient. Foreign folks too tired to decode a Japanese menu canfind their next meal in plastic models outside in the window. It’s justfine to ask the waitperson to accompany you outside the restaurantso you can point at the particular polyurethane curry that looks just

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Let This Be a Lesson To You:At first, I didn’t have the nerve. Iwandered Roppongi’s early-morningstreets, tortured by the delicious smellsemanating from the many businessmen’snoodle shops, intimidated by the crowds.Japanese salarymen sat cheek-to-jowl,happily slurping down bowls of soba. Ididn’t want to stare. I didn’t want tooffend. I was acutely aware of howfreakish and un-Japanese I looked, withmy height, in my boots and leather jacket.The prospect of pushing aside the bannerto one of these places, sliding back thedoor, and stepping inside, then squeezingon to a stool at a packed counter andtrying to figure out how and what to orderwas a little frightening. One couldn’tenter a place, change one’s mind and thencreep away. The prospect of being thecenter of attention at this tender hour,with the capillaries in my brain shriveledfrom all the beers on the flight, and thejet lag even worse than it had been theday before - I just couldn’t handle it. Iwandered the streets, gaping, my stomachgrowling, looking for somewhere,anywhere to sit down and have coffee,something to eat. ... There was no way,I told myself that I was gonna eat my firstTokyo meal at Starbucks! ... Mutteringto myself, I found the narrowest, mostuninviting-looking street, pushed asidethe banner of the first soba shop I entered,slid back the door and plopped myselfdown on a stool. When greeted, I simplypointed a thumb at the guy next to meand said, ‘Dozo. I’ll have what’s he’shaving.’”- Anthony Bourdain, KitchenConfidential

right to you. Some restaurantshave picture menus or trans-lated menus; if you appear notto be Japanese, like most ofthe world, they will likely bringthis menu to you if they have it.And you can always look at thefood of the people around youand point at what they’rehaving.

Nearly any style of Japanesefood is available both as adensely elegant simple presen-tation of the freshest food tocross your tongue, or as acheap chain-store alternative.

NoodlesIf you want to eat cheap andfrequently, you’ll find yourselfslurping down a lot of noodles.You’ll be surprised at how goodany hole in the wall noodleshop can be in Tokyo.

RamenRamen isn’t necessarily instantfried bits in a styrofoam cup.Ramen can refer to a largesteaming bowl of freshly spunnoodles soaking in rich smokypork juice, miso paste or soy/salt broth. Typical toppingsinclude pork, egg, bambooshoots, sliced onion, seaweed.It may not be healthy or subtle,but it's often delicious and it's a

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Most Japanese restaurants providehot hand towels before your meal.Besides offering a brief sensualpleasure, these often serve as the onlynapkin you’ll receive for the meal.

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mainstay of Japanese streetcuisine.

Tetsugakudou RamenTetsugakudou Ramen is ramenmade with ample black magic.The name means “philosophyhouse”and they say goodramen and good eating experi-ence are at the core of theirentire worldview. These bowlsof soup may be the best thingyou’ve ever tasted for the firstseven minutes. Thereafter, youmay come to feel increasinglydeadened. It’s an extremelyintense eating experience. Tryto eat the medium boiled eggscarefully, so you don’t leak theloose yolk into the pork broth.But even if you did, you’ll bequite full. Whoo boy.Tetsugakudou makes otherramen stands seem instant.Near the Uguisudani trainstation, head through thedownstairs exit. Out of thestation past McDonald’s, rightat the first corner, about sixdoors down. Closed Sundays.

SobaSoba are buckwheat noodles.While they can be served withtempura and other fixings, theyare often served alone, coldnoodles with a dipping sauce.

Kanda SobaOnly the neighborhood is offthe beaten track; this soba

shop is famous, well marked inguidebooks. The food isdelicious, the atmospherenicely aged, the staff singsmost of the orders. The pricesare high for soba. Go to Kandastation and ask where it is; it’sfamous. Kanda Soba. At leasta policeman should knowwhere it is.

UdonUdon are the thicker noodles,made of rice flour. They typi-cally come in a soup, oftenslightly lighter fare than ramen(less pure pork). My favouritevariety of udon is inaniwa, thinstrands popular in Akita, north-ern Japan - you can find themin some Tokyo restaurants.

MeatGyudon

Thinly sliced beef marinated insoy, served on top of a bowl ofrice. Optional additions includeonions, green onions, thinslices of pickled ginger and rawegg. A sweet corn and lettucesalad on the side. Simple, andoften quite cheap. Yoshinoya isthe leading chain purveyor ofthis fare; most of the gyudonrestaurants you’ll see in Tokyowill be chain stores. Gyudon ispopular fast cheap fare.

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Shabu ShabuThinly sliced beef that youwave briefly through hot water,barely cooking it before dippingit in salty or sweet sauce andthen straight to your mouth.The bubbling water in thecenter of the table takes onmeaty flavor, and to this youadd mushrooms, carrots, tofuand noodles. Fish these outand then add noodles to makeShabu Shabu a deconstructedsoup meal.

Mo-Mo ParadiseMo mo is the Japanese wordfor moo, or cow. This restau-rant may not serve the highestquality ingredients, but theyoffer all you can eat shabushabu and sukiyaki for an houror so for under 30 dollars. Thatcan be an enormous amount ofmeat, tofu and vegetables.Look out - it’s possible to injureyourself overeating here.Located on the fifth floor of abuilding near Shinjuku Station,across the street from a Ken-tucky Fried Chicken. Goodluck finding it.

Curry and RiceBrown sweet spicy saucepoured over mostly unrecog-nizable meat and vegetablessharing a plate with rice.

YakitoriYakitori literally means roastedbird. You'll find roadsideshacks set up to serve littleskewers of meat and veg-etables. Nankotsu, roastedbits of chicken with cartilageare quite good, crunchy.Shitake (mushrooms) arewonderful as well. You can getpretty crazy at yakitori joints,ordering pork temples and evengrilled rectum.

Yurakucho YakitoriIn crowded smoky streetsidestands under the JR tracksnear the Yurakucho stationyou’ll find some of the bestskewers around. The spirit islively with proprietors calling outto customers and you mightfind some drunk diners willingto help you order. Great forintimacy, shoulder to shouldercommunal eating fun.

TonkatsuMostly pork, though occasion-ally chicken, shrimp or oyster,breaded and deep fried. Typi-cally served topped with a thickbrown sauce and some shred-ded cabbage.

Sanno Park TowerNTT DoCoMo’s “i-mode”mobile phone service has beenone of the few Japanesebusiness successes in theInternet age. Sanno Park

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veyor belt of sushi platesmoving by in front of your face.

The word sushi specificallyrefers to the vinegared riceinvolved, but broadly meansraw fish and other stuffwrapped with seaweed andrice. Sashimi is just plain fish,maybe with a side dish of rice.

Tsukiji Fish MarketTsukiji is the world’s largestwholesale fish market. Athumping thriving place, a giantaquarium where everything isdying and for sale. Narrowalleys are fascinating walking,punctuated by crazy maddeneddiesel carts careening carryingtheir loads of styrofoam andsea goods. You’re best offarriving before 7.30am, so youcan catch the action and notjust the clean up. There arethree stages; close to the river,fish and sea goods are auc-tioned off, including giant frozentuna (big as a motor scooter)and swordfish taller than youare. Walk away from the riverand there are stalls with folksselling sea stuff wholesale.These are the best wandering,where you can get close to thefreaky fish and the salty fish-mongers. Walk further awayfrom the river and you’ll see the

Tower is DoCoMo’s headquar-ters, and there is a fine katsurestaurant in the basementwhere you can eat amidst folkswho might work for NTTDoCoMo.

KoreanMuch of the best meat food inTokyo is found at Koreanrestaurants. Grill thin fattyslices of beef at your table.Delicious clear soup. Excellentspicy cabbage and side dishes.And of course bibimba, ricemixed with vegetables in a hotstone bowl.

SeafoodJapan is an island. They makeextensive use of sea products.

SushiWhile sushi might be the first(and only) thing many Ameri-cans think of when they think ofJapanese food, sushi is actu-ally not a common meal. Sure,a nibble of tuna with some ricemight be included with thatlunch set but sushi is mostly asnack, something you eat onyour way to something else.Still they love fresh fish, and ifsushi is what you desire, it’spossible in Tokyo to find sushiso fresh it will change your life.And you can eat as much of itas you like, often by grabbingwhat looks good from a con-

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goods being boxed up andprepared for the hotels andrestaurants around Tokyo.

Past that, there are stalls andstands where the freshest fishyou have ever eaten is beingsliced and served. If there’s aline out in front, it’s probablygood. Across from a place thatsells rubber boots, there’s atiny narrow sushi place; expectto eat a great set menu coursefor $30; beer and green teaalways go well with sushi,surprisingly so before 9am.

UnagiWhile unagi, barbecued seaeel, is a mainstay of manydelicious sushi meals, you willfind restaurants in Japanserving large flat unagi steakson their own. Not to mentionthe bitter hearts and tastydeep-fried spines of thesebeasts. Typically it’s hearty,heavy fare. Often theserestaurents have curly slightlycartooned eel depicted outside.

TakoOctopus is a popular foodstuff;misleadingly called tako inJapanese. Most often you’llsee happy octopi on awningadvertising walk-up takostands, selling balls of octopusand vegetables mixed witheggy batter and fried, served in

ball shapes covered in sweetbrown sauce.

TempuraTempura was adopted fromPortuguese travellers whovisited Japan in the 1500s,batter-frying non-meat disheson Fridays when Catholicscouldn’t eat meat. Tempuratoday is vegetables, shrimp orfreshwater eel, dipped in a thinbatter with much egg, thensubmerged briefly in hot oil

MaguroTuna is popular, mostly raw.You’ll see some restaurantswhere they’re serving whatlooks like shiny red bits of freshtuna over rice in snotty whitemountain potato sauce withflecks of dried seaweed. It canbe an unsettling mouthful.

MiscellaneousOkonomiyaki

Do-It-Yourself pancakes thickwith cabbage, seafood, meat,eggs, noodles, whatever islaying around. Be aware that ifyou order okonomiyaki, youmight be expected to cook yourown, on a hot griddle at yourtable. Still you should be ableto express enoughcluelessness that someonenearby will help; either way itain’t too tough. Be aware, it’susually better to cook the

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BreakfastA Japanese breakfast mightconsist of raw egg over ricewith soy sauce, strips of driedsalted seaweed (nori), somegrilled salmon, pickled veg-etables. While the raw eggover rice might seem too snot-like, it is quite delicious with justa dash of soy sauce, the flavorof the fish, or some saltedseaweed. Also natto might beserved with breakfast (coveredlater).

Fast FoodJapan has McDonald’s andKentucky Fried Chicken. Youmight find some limited enter-tainment and comfort of homevisiting here and comparingyour experience.

Besides fast food tempura,gyudon and katsu, there arelocal Japanese fast food burgerjoints.

First KitchenLook for the large numeral “1”around town. Try the hotate,scallop with butter and salt - apowder you shake into a bag offrench fries. Probably mostlyMSG.

Kentucky Fried ChickenKFC is like you might remem-ber from home except thebiscuit might show up shaped

pancake longer, longer longerthan you expect.

Hiroshima-StyleNear Yotsuya station, down themain street, and around acorner to your right just twostreets after the “since 1967Jazz Bar,” in a basementthere’s a Hiroshima-styleOkonomiyaki restaurant. Theproprietor is also a jazz man,the food and the music areexcellent. Here the proprietorprepares the pancakes foreveryone.

NabeNabe is a hearty soup cookedat your table. Typically a claypot is delivered with the ingredi-ents already inside. There aremany varieties of nabe, try thekarai, a nearly-creamy spicynabe. After you eat most of thegood meat and veggies frominside you’ll get some udon toadd to the remaining sauce.

OdenAt a 7-11 convenience store,you might see a vat of bubblingbrown briny liquid separatedinto six or eight different slots:inside each fishcake, squidbits, vegetables, radish, eggsmarinating. You can point andchoose, for a small bowl’sworth maybe with spicy yellowmustard. Other places serve itbesides 7-11. Food -

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like a donut. There’s a docu-mentary, hard to find butrumoured to be excellent,called The Colonel Comes toJapan. By noted author andJapan scholar John Nathan, themovie uses KFC as a meansof studying Japan-US culturalexchange in the context ofcommerce.

KonbiniA range of weird goods in bite-sized chunks, magazines andstimulation appearing on nearlyevery block. They sell meals,like pasta with fish eggs or acheese omelette and they willmicrowave it on the spot foryou. Be mindful where youdine.

Rice ballsSmall triangles and balls of ricestuffed with fish and vegetablesand sour plum are a deliciousstaple of the Japanese diet.While traditionally this is thesort of food that would be madewithin the family or home, theubiquitous Japanese conve-nience store offers a widerange of unusual flavors thatwill be largely unreadable toyou even after a few weeks.You could end up with mayon-naise and fish eggs, or tuna, orsalmon, or sour plum. It’s allfilling, and some quite tasty.

Bring some back on the planefor friends, the rice balls shouldprobably keep that long.

IzakayaThese Japanese pubs mightseem like the equivalent ofDenny’s from their picturemenus and their broad, flatsampling of Japanese cuisine.But if you’re hungry and con-fused you can’t do much betterthan a picture menu, and oftenIzakaya are all that’s open late.The tofu salads are usuallytasty and maybe try somegrilled fish (often sapa, mack-erel). And always gyoza(greasy, meaty potstickers),maybe edamame (boiledsoybeans).

DrinkSitting down to a Japanesemeal you are most oftengreeted by a cup of warm tea.Maybe cold tea. Water isinfrequently provided, and if yourequest it (omizu), they’re likelyto forget the first two times youask. As Mizuko Ito explained itto me, the Japanese are raiseddrinking tea. So water seemskind of plain; maybe they feelits kind of sad or boring to drinksomething with no flavor.These must be among themost thoroughly caffeinatedpeople on the planet.

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Vending MachinesYou will find vending machineseverywhere including yourbedroom in Japan, selling allmanner of flavoured drinks.

Alcoholic and social drinking iscovered in the pleasure sec-tion.

CuriositiesWhale

If Greenpeace and mammal-friendly concerns don’t out-weigh your food curiosity, youmight be able to find whale,kujira, to eat around Tokyo.Mostly Minke whale, servedcooked, or thin sliced shavedraw sashimi-style, it has ameaty flavor. The supply ofwhalemeat in town fluctuatesaccording to the supply leftover from Japanese national“scientific research.” You mightsee proud excited signs withexclamation points outside ofsome restaurants that serve it;not at all in keeping with thedour mood of the internationalwhale protection communityinterested in preventing theJapanese stomach fromconquering presumedly dwin-dling species.

HorseJapanese folks eat horsemeat.Not as a matter of daily dining,but more as a delicacy. Mostly

raw, thin shaved slices frozen,or thicker bloody chunks of rawhorsemeat (basashi).Horsemeat tastes better than itmight sound, especially withsome soy sauce and a bit ofgreen onion. Yum.

Yaki-ImoIf you hear a doleful song “Ya-ki-i-mooh, Ya-ki-i-moooh”coming from a tiny pickup truckwith a smoking chimney in theback, that’s the Yaki-imo man,parked somewhere nearbyselling roasted yams. Try one,they’re slightly smoky, butmostly plain yam.

NattoNatto is a popular breakfastfood in Japan. These rawfermented soy beans have apungent odor; some Japanesefolks are repelled by the stuff.Japan is the only nation in theworld that eats this stuff raw;elsewhere in Asia they cook it.

The texture resembles snot;small brown bits suspended ina puddle of sticky, pasty, stringygoop that will resist your effortsto pull it apart without carryingthe strings into your mouth. Ifyou order and consume nattoin a Japanese restaurant, youwill never have to prove yourcourage in any other way.

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PleasureThere are so many things to do in this crowded city; just leaving yourlodging and deciding to find a washcloth can be an urban adventure.This section is largely concerned with modern pleasures; how theJapanese entertain themselves today and how you might join them.

GamesGo

The Japanese play a board strategy game called go (or igo). It’sover 4,000 years old, and they borrowed it from China. If you cansensically manipulate these black and white stones on a grid etchedin wood, you’ll find ample opportunities to play go, near food carts, inpublic parks, cafes, and go parlors. It could be a great way to get tomeet some folks; the game transcends spoken language.

PachinkoAny town in Japan with a population greater than seven has a giantloud gaudy Pachinko Parlour. Festooned with neon and animatedcharacters beckoning, the automatic doors part and you are stand-ing in the midst of a cacophony of clanging bells and falling metalballs.Chaotic, crass and common, a visit to a Pachinko parlour is manda-tory. Pachinko should quickly disabuse you of any notion that theJapanese are a bunch of zen, sophisticated, tea-drinking, rock-garden raking, kimono-wearing aesthetes.

Pachinko is an analog arcade game, like vertical pinball. If Pinball isa fight against death, working to prevent a very few balls from disap-pearing at the bottom of the board, then Pachinko is a search forbalance in the midst of the voluminous stream of life.

The Pachinko machine is a board with nails on it. You grasp aplastic knob on the right side, below the board, and as you turn theknob, a steady stream of metal balls arc up from the bottom left overthe top of the Pachinko playing field to fall down between the nails.You can't control the path of the falling balls, you can only makeadjustments to their starting speed. If you time it right, more of yourballs will fall down the center, towards an open chute. The more

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balls that fall in the chute, the more balls you are given to continueplaying Pachinko.

When you reach that sweet spot, you are holding steady on a knob,breathing, watching balls fall with a certain likelihood, but still largelyout of your control. The right spot is a place of balance, the middleway between too hard and too soft. And it is a place you want tostay. You’ll know if you found it; you’ll be accumulating balls fasterthan you can spend them.

The successful pachinko players sit with large stacks of ball-filledplastic bins behind them. Pachinko is gambling, unofficially. Theparlours give you prizes in exchange for the balls you’ve won, andthere are invariably small nondescript storefronts nearby that willtake your prizes and trade them for cash.

There’s no recommended Pachinko parlour here; they’re so over-whelming that no one has stayed in the memory. Find one with lotsof people in it playing. Usually you purchase a card at a vendingmachine (surprise surprise) for 1000 or 2000 yen; this card is in-serted into the side of the machine. If you sit near some Japaneseplayers long enough, you’ll might find that folks will help you out,getting you started, giving you tips, maybe a few balls.

Video GamesTall, packed video game arcades appear in every neighborhood ofTokyo. Inside, beyond the crane machines where you can reach outto win candy, stuffed animals, consumer electronics or live lobsters,there are lively stand up arcade games, many of which never reachthe United States. The latest technology here is always somethingto marvel at, along with the bizarre game culture that seems uniqueto Tokyo or at least Asia. A dog-walking game, a game of two largetaiko drums, a game where you swing the handle of a samuraisword to slash foes on-screen; the games in Japan are more varied,and at times more physically involving. Most games are 100 yen(75¢).

In the back corners or upper floors of many video game parlours inJapan there are horse-racing games where you raise a stallion torace against the other players seated at nearby consoles.Horseracing is popular in Japan; this involving equestrian arcadegame would likely never sell widely in the United States.

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The most popular games seem to be the fighting games. Sega’sVirtua Fighter 4 allow frequent players to carry their statistics withthem on cards. If you’re good, get a card from a vending machineand you can prove yourself in mostly silent matches between menwho don’t make fun of each other or seem to talk smack betweenmatches.

Print Club - “puri kura”Photo booths are a popular curbside attraction in Japan. A far cryfrom simple quick-printed pictures, the state of the art in Japanincludes multiple cameras you can set at any angle and the chanceto review your pictures on a small screen, doodling on your image oradding a background to fashion yourself floating in space or standingin a sea of British flag-patterned stars.

These are not machines intended for passport photos, or anythingterrifically useful. Some of these machines are in areas of videogame arcades intended for girls only; single men walking throughmight get some strange looks and an invitation to leave. Still thereare so many of these machines, anyone should be able to find aplace to get a little goofy in front of a camera.

The results? A sheet of colorful photostickers. Many locations willhave scissors so you can cut up and distribute stickers to any folkswho might have appeared in your sticker-shots with you. It can begreat fun to have your photo taken with locals, especially if they arehyper-fashionable, dressed up Tokyo kids. Good luck inviting themto join you in a small curtained room; patience and an innocentexpression have yielded some great fun souvenier stickers. Be sureto scissor and share what you have taken! Depending on how youmuddle through some of the on-screen Japanese, your stickersmight appear online. www.mitemite.ne.jp is one such site displayingphotostickers beamed directly from the booths.

BathingJapan has a tradition of public bathing. Japanese people travellingwithin the country frequent onsen, traditional hot springs.

In the cities where the sulfer mostly bubbles up in nightclubs, youcan still find places to soak in hot tubs and saunas in various neigh-borhoods. The etiquette is roughly this: sit on a stool in front of one

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of the waist-high showers. Soap and shampoo thoroughly. Rinseoff - go into the tubs clean. Take a small clean washcloth with you.Soak this washcloth discreetly and then lift it above you.Assume a mostly serious expression on your face asyou leave a lumpy dripping washcloth on your head.

Shinjuku Green PlazaThe Green Plaza is a labyrinthine complex of bathsand saunas, undergirded by hundreds of capsules and topped byrooftop soaking baths overlooking the skyscrapers of Shinjuku.There are two or three separate floors involved, with four or fivestaircases, be persistent in searching until you’re standing nakedlooking at the twinkling lights of Tokyo commerce. The spa facilitiesare available for both men and women. This includes access to a24 hour restaurant and lounge with televisions, newspapers andsmoking Japanese people. The Green Plaza is in Shinjuku’sKabukicho, a sex for sale district.

Jakotsuyu - AsakusaBuried in a side alley of a side alley, this natural hot springs nearTawarimachi Station on the Ginza line is located in a lively old part oftown. Nearby are the homes of three of the Yakuza (mafia) groups;you can see some of their tattooed, perhaps tough looking dudes inthe buff here. There are bathing spaces for both genders. Thename here means “Snake Bone Baths;” in the male tubs you mightfeel some friendly physical contact. Depending on how you like yourstimulation, you could try a light electrocution: Jakotsuyu has someelectric baths; you’ll know when you sit in them.

ShoppingFake FoodNear Asakusa there is a street where they sell the plastic foodmodels. While this would seem to be a fantastic souvenier, grabbinga few fake bowls of ramen and curry rice to share with folks backhome, the models turn out to be expensive goods. A nice fake grilledsquid on a plate with some glistening plastic rice might run youupwards of $50. Either way, these are fun to look at.

Religious GoodsYou can find beads, household shrines, monk’s clothes and otherreligious and traditional goods near Asakusa, at the Tawaramachistation, just past Ueno on the Ginza line. Pleasure -

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Consumer ElectronicsJapan is awash in consumer electronics. That doesn’t mean theyare cheaper, just that there is a fabulous selection. So you are betteroff trying to find something weird, like an electric nosehair clipper,rather than a nice new TV. See the Akihabara section under neigh-borhoods.

StationeryThe Japanese seem to love fine paper and pens and so you’ll findmarvellous stationery stores in nearly every neighborhood. Stufffound in these stores can make for great gifts for folks back home.

ParksTokyo has less public green space than many cities. “Public space”seems to be in short supply, and often collective recreation comes ifit’s sponsored, brightly lit, and there are plastic attractions involved.Still there are a number of parks around town. Most make for prettywalking, good places to watch Japanese people pursuing hobbiesand maybe mingle with locals, foreigners and homeless folk. Evenafter dark, most parks seem to be safe.

MuseumsTokyo is fairly well littered with small, corporate sponsored or indi-vidually crafted museums - to cultural movements, to odd industries,or famous individuals.

Edo-Tokyo MuseumLike a spaceship landed gracefully in Shitamachi, the Edo-Tokyomuseum is a remarkable high technology exterior hosting inside anexpansive museum on old Tokyo. A major museum destination.

Asakura Choso MuseumVisiting this accomplished “naturalist” sculptor’s home might be theonly chance some visitors have to take off their shoes and pad aboutthrough a traditional tatami-mat Japanese house. This museum is anice quiet place to look over his art (evocative of Rodin), his court-yard garden and get a feeling for the spirit of a high-minded Japa-nese home. He had 15 cats, though, and sculpted all of them, so it’snot entirely weighty art there. Located near the Nippori station’snorth:west exit. The surrounding neighborhood, loaded withtemples, graveyards and old homes, can make for idyllic strolling.

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Commercial AmusementMuch of Tokyo may seem like commercial amusement, but there areplaces that present more thoroughly manufactured artificial pleasure.

OdaibaThey filled in parts of Tokyo Bay and built the shopping city of tomor-row. Sure to look increasingly aged, Odaiba today is a contemporarycommercial entertainment mecca. Mall-type stores, a Sega gamepalace, movie theatres, a car history museum and new car show-room / amusement park presented by Toyota.

DisneyDisneyland in Japan is much the same as it might be in Europe orAmerica, except stuffed with Japanese people. Some visitors mightseem to you to be unsettlingly fond of Winnie the Pooh, for example,but I could introduce you to some Americans who are similarlydevoted. Japan has the DisneySea resort, that is unique to thisisland nation: It’s the usual artful artifice from Disney, coupled with afew thrilling rides and a lot of walking between middling food stands.

Makuhari MesseTokyo’s convention center offers a regular stream of giant exposi-tions. If you show up with a plausible-enough business card youcould claim to be press and you might find yourself wanderingamidst consumer electronics, video games, cars or flowers.

KaraokeKaraoke means empty orchestra. Karaoke also means inhibitionslost, and small group good times. Most people around the worldhave some tradition of social singing; karaoke takes pop songs,removes the vocal tracks, and presents this music to you with amicrophone and the lyrics so you can entertain your friends with yourfavourite songs onscreen.

Karaoke in America is typically one big room where one personperforms at a time, for a crowd. Besides Karaoke in bars, most ofthe inner-city Karaoke in Japan consists of buildings packed withsmall rooms for rent. Groups of one to six people can sit comfort-ably around a private TV and sing their songs for people in theirgroup. You can order snacks and beverages here as well. Wordhas it hard-up teenagers rent these rooms to crash or get it on.

ka-ra-o-ke

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If you have a chance to go out for Karaoke with some Japanesefolks, do sing some English-language classics. Most folks love theBeatles and the kids seem to know quite a few Bon Jovi songs.

DancingTokyo has some wild clubs. You can spend money quickly, and youmight find some good DJs. Be warned, often clubs are in base-ments, fairly unventilated and packed with smokers.

Gas PanicThis legendary Roppongi institution was named for the originallocation that had no bathrooms. It’s a clearinghouse for interculturaldesire, where marines and foreign businessmen leer at made-upJapanese ladies probably also on the make. Gas Panic verges onbeing a Disco Inferno at times: there’s relentless dancing, dancingup on the tables even. You must always have a drink in your hand.Put it down, they clear it away, and then some guy with a menucomes up to you and harasses you to order another drink or leave.

MuseMuse is located a short walking distance from Roppongi, in Nishi-Azabu. A much more sedate and perhaps mature vibe than GasPanic, you’ll find a few different moods built into this basement bar.Billiards near the front, small private booths, sculpted seating areas,and finally a small cave-like dance area in the back.

Department HAt Department H, there’s definitely dancing but most of it takes placeon stage and some of it on all fours. Department H would seem tobe the heart of Tokyo’s kink-scene; you’ll find fetishes you had neverheard of or had long ago forgotten paraded through the audience orperformed to promote another club or establishment across town.Not for the faint of heart or easily offended; blood and live booty-licking might be on the menu, as are public nudity and touchingbetween strangers. Department H happens on the first Saturday ofeach month, after midnight, in a club above an AM/PM conveniencestore in Shibuya’s Love Hotel hill.

DrinkingThe Japanese enjoy their alcohol; walking around Tokyo there willseem to be more social drinking than you might see in most coun-

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tries. People blatantly stagger about, throwing up on subway plat-forms, red in the face, acting happy. I say acting because perfor-mance is a rich part of social drinking in Japan. The point is not onlyto get thoroughly sauced, but to revel in it; act drunk, be drunk.

The Japanese drink an enormous amount of domestic beer. It canbe difficult to track down a dark, foreign or micro-brew. Iwate-ken tothe North has a local microbrew that appears elsewhere at times;the logo is two reindeer butting heads or prowling about with a field ofstars overhead. The blue bottle or blue can is a delicious richflavour, nearly a Belgian taste.

Sake is served at most restaurants, sometimes in a small woodenbox. If it’s cold, it’s usually nicer sake. If it’s served overflowing intoa small plate beneath the glass, it’s a gesture of generosity andyou’re welcome to sip the spilled remnants. Some sake is cloudy-white, called “nigori” it is often sweet and only partially fermented.

Rice-based spirits, shochu, are clear with a nice citrusy bite. Popu-lar in Korea as well; Japan has its own brands and varieties. ManyJapanese have an abiding fondness for whiskey, both foreign anddomestic labels.

If you go out for drinks in Japan, the beer and sake are typicallyserved in a large bottle with small glasses for everyone. Pour forother folks and hope they pour for you. It’s a nice way to encouragesocial lubrication; once you return home and people are busy servingthemselves it might seem positively selfish.

If you wander around at night, you will notice small signs hanging offthe sides of buildings. Millions of them, each one representing a bar,tiny dimly-lit watering holes. These are the places that Japanesebusinessmen go to unwind, and places they entertain their friends.It’s possible that your unannounced appearance will not be well-received by the intimates at any one particular establishment but ifyou feel imbued with cash and charm, give it a whirl.

Umeboshi SourUmeboshi is the sour plum, a popular flavor in Japan. An Umeboshisour is one of these pink-purple plums in the bottom of your glass,mingling with ice, club soda and shochu. You are encouraged to

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mash up the sour plum with your chopsticks to break up the fruitflesh and distribute the flavour. Note, an “ume sour” is a drink fla-vored with a syrup, not the natural briny flavor of umeboshi - be sureyou are ordering all six syllables - oo-meh-boh-shi-sau-wah.

Ginza LionThe Ginza Lion was built in 1899 as a German-style beer hall.Marvellous tiles and mosaics, and invariably the insides packed withJapanese and foreigners tilting back large mugs of Sapporo, as theyrun it to promote their beer. Some German and Japanese foodavailable as well, and occasionally a beer-promotional floorshow.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of JapanLocated above the Hibiya Station exit A2, this is a fantastic place fora visiting foreigner involved with any sort of media. The Club wasstarted after World War II as a place for visiting journalists to find abed, a desk and a place to file stories. They’ve lost the beds, butthey serve food, drinks, broadband Internet connections, and oftenfascinating speeches on Japanese culture, business and politics.They have complementary guest memberships, which gives youaccess to a giant English-language library about Japan, daily news-papers and monthly magazines from around the world, and a greatplace to check your email at your leisure. Guest membership shouldnot be hard to come by if you can represent yourself as somehowbeing associated with the media or as a foreign businesspersonvisiting Japan. They have a certain aging problem as well, so per-manent membership is severely discounted for people under 35.The bar here is a great place to get context for your time in Japan,talking to journalists who report on health care, taxes, automobiles,banking troubles, politicians. These people process Japan for theoutside world and they often like to share their observations. Youcan’t buy drinks here without being some form of a member.

Yotsuya Jazz BarAlong the main street running through Yotsuya, near the subwaystation, there’s a “Jazz Bar” advertised, “Since 1967.” Down in thebasement, the music rules, conversation obliterated by giant speak-ers placed at the end of the lovely Scandinavian wood-paneled room.Order yourself a drink and sit there and listen to high fidelity recordedjazz.

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DrugsI would not bring pleasure drugs with me into Japan. PaulMcCartney spent nine days in jail for some weed in his suitcase, andhe co-wrote “Let it Be,” a song many Japanese people adore, and“Hey Jude,” which is the on-hold muzak for half the phones in Japan.Still you’ll see headshops and marijuana culture icons around -there’s definitely some weed here somewhere. Carry it at your peril- you already stand out and the slightest variation from the routinehere might earn you some inspection from the authorities.

Due to a loophole in the drug laws, psychedelic mushrooms are forsale in areas frequented by hipster teenagers, namely Shibuya. Thepeople that sell them often look positively twitchy. Legislators areactively working to close this loophole; it may already be gone.

Speed, or shabu, snorted, smoked and even injected, would seem tobe the drug of choice in Japan. It fits in with societal productivity.Methamphetamines were popular and legal during Japan’s laudedpost-World War II rebuilding. Now definitely illegal, speed is moreoften used for pleasure; recently cheap methamphetamines manu-factured in China have pushed prices down and so more kids aregetting involved with velocity-enhancing drugs.

Socializing and SexIf you are getting ready to move to Japan and you are curious tomeet some Japanese, you can find Japanese folks eager to meetand talk with strangers over the Internet. Sites like Tokyo Friendsand Tokyo Classifieds promote cultural exchange with messageboards and personal advertisements. Find someone of your pre-ferred gender interested in meeting for language exchange (what-ever that entails) and email them before you go to set up a possibledate.

HomosocialJapan is probably more homosocial than what you’re used to. Menand women have separate social spheres. Many restaurants, barsand cafes might seem to have an assumed gender preferenceprinted above the door. Don’t take this seriously unless it makes youuncomfortable or you are asked to leave. You already don’t fit inanyhow.

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For WomenCaroline Pover’s Being A Broad in Japan is unquestionably the bestbook for western women coming here. She interviewed 250 foreignladies about their experience living in Japan and mixed in her owncommentary in this straight-talking guide. While the target audienceis ladies, anyone will find some insight into living in Japan.

Pover’s focus is long term living, but she takes up dating and culture.In short, Japanese men are a bit different. Perhaps shy. As she

observed, western women looking to dateor enjoy a Japanese man might have tomake the first move, multiple times.

On one hand, Japan is safer as rates ofrape are lower. But rape is how you defineit; rates of public molestation are higher.Chikan are infamous subway perverts whouse the crowded conditions on subways tofind their fingers in someone’s panties,hoping that a woman’s fear of drawingattention to herself will keep her from callingout. Recently the government and indi-vidual woman have been fighting thesesorts of gropers more effectively. ButPover’s interviewees observe that reportingsexual misconduct can often lead to misun-derstanding and reverse accusation.

Women are advised to keep their witsabout them in spite of the seeming wide-spread public safety. This is obvious. Butwomen should find Japan will welcome asolo female traveller largely with curiousity.If you are out late drinking, you’re temptingthe devil no matter where you live. Japan issafer than most places.For MenEach neighborhood in Tokyo would seem tohave an area entirely devoted to stimulatingthe heterosexual male imagination. Some

There is never enough to dowhen you travel.This must be one of the reasonswhy travelers the world over areknown for their attempts to pickother people up. It is not thatthey want sex so much as it isthat they want something to fillthe emptiness that their veryfreedom has created. And whatelse can you do after the coffeeshops, the zoos, the museums,and the libraries are rifled?Too - another factor in favor ofseeking sex - there is no morepersonal undertaking. Naked,lying down, one is resolutelyoneself, the person oneotherwise left at home. Thefreedom to lose yourself, one ofthe great attractions of the sexualencounter, is based, after all,upon the assumption that youhave first found yourself.At the same time - tips for thetraveler - there are few betterways of learning the language,of taking the temperature of theland, of measuring the innerstates of its inhabitants. Also,there are few more attractivememories to take home with one.Sex makes, in its way, the idealsouvenir.- Donald Richie, The Inland Sea

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of these businesses, but not all, prefer to cater specifically to Japa-nese men, or foreign men who can fake Japanese well enough tomake easy customers.

PornographyIf you are curious about pornography, Japan is a wild place to re-search the stuff. You’ll find cheap newsprint porn comic books in theconvenience stores, alongside typical pornographic magazines. Allhotels with TV have plenty of porn. And there are plenty of sex-media shops around town. If you have no qualms about makinghorny Japanese men shopping for porn uncomfortable, you are freeto wander and inspect the goods. Tapes of very young girls playingin the park will be sold near tapes of secret cameras from bath-rooms and hotel rooms. It’s an unsettling world of mediated maledesire unleashed.

Porn in Japan contains plenty of non-consensual sex. Often onepartner involved says nothing much more than stop, stop (yamete).But while the themes and conduct may seem aggressive, the geni-tals are typically fuzzed out, pixellated: a striking contradiction,violence and prudishness.

I.K.U.An artist Shu Lea Cheang made an unofficial, pornographic sequel toBlade Runner called I.K.U. In Japanese iku means “to go” and it’swhat some Japanese people say when they experiencing orgasm.The film evolves Blade Runner’s teasing replicants into full-fledgedneon night sex warriors engaged in rectum-hunting in beautifulelectric color. Available on DVD in Japan; you might have to specialorder I.K.U., or write out the name; it’s not a common title in mostvideo shops, and it’s a little too artsy weird for most porn vendors.

Sex SoftwareOver a quarter of all PC software sold in Japan is pornographic.Most of this is cartoon anime porn, sometimes called hentai. Wan-dering around Akihabara looking at software and computer stores,you’ll find that if you walk too far into the corner of a store you’re all ofa sudden surrounded by tiny cartoon girls with giant tits - nurses,schoolgirls, dominatrixes available for conquest on your personalcomputer. The games are mostly adventure games, stories that youplay through by multiple choice; if you pick properly you see

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slideshows of hot anime sex action. There is sex software featuringmale models; typically in its own much smaller section.

ProstitutionProstitution is supposedly illegal in Japan. You wouldn’t know it fromwalking certain neighborhoods. In places like Shinbashi, Kabukichonear Shinjuku, or Uguisudani near Ueno, sex certainly seems to befor sale. There are straightforward streetwalkers, often located nearlove hotels so you can readily shack up with Japanese ladies andwomen from Southeast Asia and China. There are home deliveryservices as well; in Tokyo you can order a wicked wife or soiledschoolgirl to come to your house or hotel room for different sex acts.These are often advertised by small salacious paper flyers decorat-ing phone booths and adhered to signposts at night. There are also“image clubs” places where you can have a fantasy performed foryou. Fancy sex in a schoolroom? An enema from a naughty nurse?How about breaking and entering to molest a sleeping woman?

If you prefer some bit of discretion there are telephone clubs, placeswhere men arrange dates with young ladies. If the date arrangementgoes well over the phone, men can purchase affection and theyoung ladies can make a good bundle. If you believe the weeklytabloids, young girls sell sex to afford expensive accessories in avicious fashion race. All these sorts of services are available tosomeone who has particular fantasies, can afford paid sex pleasure,and can read and speak enough Japanese to arrange it and con-vince the pimping people that you are not a dodgy foreigner.

Massaji?The commercial sex most foreign men will be offered in Japan is“massaji?” Ladies in padded overcoats will call out and occasionallygrab your arm, offering to take you somewhere for some physicalcontact. What exactly that contact entails and how much it shouldcost are fluid things. Once I was lonely and looking for a place tostay; one young Chinese woman made a rather persistent offer and Iwas slightly dismayed to discover that she was really only selling aback massage. Afterwards I was allowed to sleep on her massagetable until noon. Total for an oily back rub and seven hours sleeping:6500 yen ($50).

There are around 400,000 non-Asian foreigners livingin Japan. The bulk of these are from South America.

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You will see scores of small storefront massage parlors all overJapan. Most are thinly-veiled cover-ups for straightforward mas-sage, meaning they will rub your back and your feet, maybe with oilor baby powder. If the massage offer contains the words “health”“service” or “fashion,” that’s a tip off that the message might involveyour child-making parts. Prices for those services should likely be atleast double typical massage rates.

Hostess ClubsYou might see a bright street-level sign with similing ladies, advertis-ing “Fun Pub Guilty” or some such bar. The cover charge might be$75-$150, in addition to similar hourly rates. Curious Westernersmight be surprised to find men sitting with young ladies mostlychatting and drinking inside. They might be singing karaoke. Theseplaces, called Hostess Clubs or sunaku (“snack”) are the moderndescendent of the traditional Japanese Geisha establishment. Inolden days, highly made-up and elaborately dressed ladies playedthree-string cat-gut guitars and sang traditional poems while menbecame increasingly drunk and perhaps hoped to get beneath thefemale kimono. Geisha were, and are, thoroughly trained and veryexpensive. Think of hostess bars as a more democratic form ofGeisha, a social club where more average salarymen can afford toentertain friends and maintain a paid girlfriend. After repeat visits,costing thousands of dollars, a young lady might be willing to join youfor dinner beforehand or maybe even take a short trip somewhere.And if you buy her a mink coat, an expensive ring, or give her moneyto start her own business? The boundaries are fluid, and set byeach party. These ladies have their work cut out for them if theyexpect to get rich. Some western women have ventured into the“water trade” and they discovered that you have to work to maintainyour clientele - routinely calling them to entice more spending “Whyhaven’t you come around lately?”

There are male “Host Clubs” as well, mostly staffed by locals.Rumor has it that there are even host bars populated by foreignmen. Either gender, if you feel like you can do a good job selling yourcharms, you might find this is a fabulous way to earn fast cash tostay in Japan; practice your language skills while having a chance toalienate your emotions and come to detest the opposite sex.

Pleasure -

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It’s a strange world of gendered commerce, and it can be quiteexpensive to study. Besides the $150 cover charge, you might payover $100 for a bottle of whiskey or vodka that will be kept at the clubfor your next return. Most clubs will turn you away at the door if youare not in the company of a Japanese man, or if you do not speakJapanese yourself. To enter expecting sex outright is déclassé; forthe amount of money involved most Westerners might be surprisedto find that these people are, in fact, just talking.

Katakana Kwiz: AppliancesSound out these common appliances using the Katakana Chart onpage 32. Answers appear towards the end of this book.

Katakana Kwiz: Random WordsSound out these words using the Katakana Chart:

°

Around 14,000 adult videos are made in Japan everyyear, in the United States that figure is closer to2,500.

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ReferencesBooks

Donald RichieDonald Richie cannot come more highly recommended. A foreignerfrom Ohio, middle America, he craved some foreign experience.Landing in Japan with the American army after World War II, hefound a country digging its traditions out from under smoulderingrubble. He’s spent 50 years living in Japan, exploring the countrywith a wide eye. The Donald Richie Reader gives a great survey ofhis writings on Japan, including food, foreigners, sex and culture.Always he is observant, self-critical and well-informed. In 1999 hewrote a short book on Tokyo that is fascinating reading as well.

Being A BroadCaroline Pover’s Being A Broad in Japan is not only useful for West-ern Women residing in Japan, the intended audience, but for anyonewho wonders how they might go about living in this island nation.The tone of the book is fantastic - straightforward and personal.

Tokyo ConfidentialMark Schreiber is an excellent guide to the seamy side of Japan,working for decades to translate and embellish stories from Japan’sweekly tabloids. He edited Tokyo Confidential, a fascinating collec-tion of sensational news and rumors from the popular Japanesepress. It’s a telling look at the Japanese subconscious.

Lonely PlanetThere are plenty of guides to Tokyo and Japan. Some are marvel-ously focused, considering just food, traditional lodging orcraftworks. Lonely Planet was my first all-around guidebook to thistown, a good start for someone without a lot of money looking to trysome weird stuff.

MagazinesFormerly called Tokyo Classified, Metropolis is the most comprehen-sive English language city paper for Tokyo. Entertainment listings,trend watching, and the lively classified advertisements for servicesand personals. If you think you might want to find a job, house,romantic partner, buddy or club in Japan, this is a fantastic place to

References -

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start. Check their web site: www.tokyoclassified.com, an excellentstash of old articles, Japanese celebrity profiles, cultural curiousities.

A free monthly mag, JapanZine is a cheeky bit of insight into contem-porary culture as reported by underbelly-crawling Gaijin visitors.

The monthly J@panInc magazine considers Japanese technologyand business issues in English.

From A.A. Gill an article entitled “Mad in Japan,” Sunday Times, 9September 2001. It’s a scathing writeup of modern Japan fromsomeone wildly underinformed and deeply opinionated. Quiteamusing and offensive! Search the web for it; it’s out there.

WebSitesJapanToday.com is a good overview of recent news in Japan.

“Gaijin In Japan” online forums, filled mostly by English teacherssharing wisdom and stories about life in Japan. There’s some prettytasty lowbrow stuff in here.

Chanpon.org is a magazine and web community considering the mixof Japanese and foreign cultures. If you’re interested in someintellectually stimulating contacts in Japan, you might find them in theChanpon message boards.

Ed Jacob’s “Quirky Japan Homepage” defies stereotypes and con-ventions. Unusual and even unsettling information about this countryjostles with genuinely helpful advice for residents and visitors.

I have written about my time in Japan and supplemented it withphotos. Long after this booklet is printed, this site should be up-dated: www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/tokyo/guide/

Nearly all the statistics provided in this book come from the Japa-nese Government, provided online in the Statistical Handbook ofJapan 2001: www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/contents.htmwith some initial guidance on statistics provided by Jonathan Wattsof the Guardian UK.

Answers for the Katakana Kwizes: Drinks: biru (beer), kohee(coffee), kora (cola), orenji (orange), uain (wine), miruku (milk)- Appliances: terebi (TV), rajio (radio), pasokon (PC), rimokon(remote control) - Countries: amerika - Random: doa (door),kontororu (control), sabisu (service), toire (toilet)

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CCCCCooooovvvvvererererer art by J. Wilson K art by J. Wilson K art by J. Wilson K art by J. Wilson K art by J. Wilson Kello of Samelabs:ello of Samelabs:ello of Samelabs:ello of Samelabs:ello of Samelabs:

About the Author:

Justin Hall is a writer, traveler, born inChicago, lived in Oakland, Californiaand Tokyo. He loves working on an oldunruly web site, Justin’s Links(www.links.net). He went to Japan for avideo game trade show in April 2001,was seduced by the stimulation, acci-dentally signed up for an intensiveJapanese language class and figuredhe might as well move there for a whileonce he’d half-way learned how tostumble through Japanese. SinceOctober 2001 he’s been living in cap-sule hotels and ryokan. His emailaddress should still be justin@bud.com.

68 - Just In Tokyo

published by the Garrett County PressNew Orleans, Louisiana

some response to Just In Tokyo:“Why settle for a laundry list of hotels and sites when you can have a Justin's-eye view of one of the more impenetrable cities in the world? I doubt youwill find loving attention to capsule hotels, cyberporn, and First Kitchenhotate fries anywhere else. Part travel diary, part ethnography, and partguidebook, Just In Tokyo gives hints to the enterprising traveller on how tobeat your own inspired and irrepressible path through a city of riotousdensity and flux.”- Mizuko Ito, Visiting Associate Professor, Keio University, Graduate Schoolof Media and Governance

I have many foreign friends, when I know that their sightseeing in Tokyo is thesame, I am disappointed extremely: Tokyo Tower, the Imperial Palace, Kabuki-za.Maybe I will not go to such a place more than 3 times in a lifetime.It is the same as giving only kiss, although you are married.It is the same as playing only Tetris, although you have Playstation2.It is the same as eating only sausages, although you ordered a jambalaya.

Traveler, Taste more!American! Play Japan deeply!You should marry Tokyo!

Tokyo, I think almost every country is the same. It depends on you whetherTokyo becomes interesting or less boring. You can encourage the man of past 40who was fired from restructuring in the public bath called 'Sento' and you can bemistaken for a molester by a high school student girl who operated orthopedicallyin the train. You can eat the sushi which the robot made in the dance-club. Youcan say "You are a person really kind" to the cute pet in a mobile phone at thecapsule-hotel. After that, you will know the merit and poorness of Tokyo.Meritorious and poor - When you love it, you are already a Japanese about 24%.No, you don't need to worry if you become so. You can be originalyou again, if you burn this book which is used as the first step ofyour trip, you already know.- Kenji Eno, Video Game Creator, President of fyto inc.

“Put down that ‘Prague on $5 a Day,’ you hippie! Justin’s Tokyo-On-No-Yen-Just-Confused-Smiles will have you flirting, reeling with liquor anddressed up like an extra from a bootleg high-school production ofNeuromancer as you chow down on a hearty breakfast of vending-machineschoolgirl panties. As you lie awake in your coffin hotel, listening to themidnight symphony of salaryman flatulence and drunken good cheer, fireup your DoCoMo handset, aim its flat-panel display at this book and readand you will feel comforted.”- Cory Doctorow, Author: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom