tokyo

september 1999


this was my first trip to japan. i had heard a lot about what tokyo was like. and i have to say it has lived up to most of my expectations.

when i first arrived at narita airport one of the first things i saw was an advertisement featuring takeshi kaneiro. a taste of taiwan to make me feel at home.

after a quick trip through customs i headed for the trains to find the way
to my hotel. i arrived at night so i couldn't see much out of the train. once i got off the train and left the station i was greeted by rows of immaculate taxis. the roads were much cleaner than taipei. and with all the curves and little lanes i really felt like i had entered some sort of never never land. at first i got a little lost walking to my hotel but i soon found it.

at the hotel the hotel clerk was super friendly. he spoke to me in english for quite awhile. he told me how he didn't like his boss very much and how some of the japanese guests are really rude. one man came up to get his key and the clerk said to me "he can see i am talking with a foreigner he shouldn't bark for his key like that". the clerk told me he had no problem understanding my english but once he had a guest from nyc and he couldn't understand him. and he has friends from austrailia who's english he has a hard time understanding sometimes. he said to me they speak broken english. he said he wanted to come to america for a vacation and to shoot a gun(!!) is this the message the states send now? "if you want to play with a gun come to america!!"?? well, perhaps. he asked for my address so we could become pen friends. so that was a nice beginning to my tokyo adventure.


the next day i took the train to shinjuku to my other hotel. seeing japan in daylight for the first time gave me a clearer impression. riding on the train i saw more typical suburbs and japan seemed less like a never never land.beyond the small businesses and houses i could see rolling green hills. i kept expecting godzilla to pop up over one of them. once in shinjuku i walked to my hotel on my way a foreigner stopped me to see if i needed any help.

once i got to my hotel i couldn't find my hotel confirmation slip!! and to make things worse the hotel clerk couldn't speak english and i can speak no japanese. but somehow i communicated that he needed to call the reservation place and they would confirm my reservation. so he called and awhile later a fax arrived. and everything was cool.


after dropping my stuff in my room i headed to the jr subway line. the first i planned to see was shibuya. one of my goals on this trip was to buy a lot of cds i can't get anywhere else. of course cds in japan are really expensive but unfortunately i got used to the price so i was dropping 20 or 30 bucks u.s. on cds and not thinking anything of it. i'm scared to know how much i really spent. but i did manage to buy first issues of stuff by some of my favourite bands like pizzicato five and cornelius. some of their original issues came with elaborate books or flip books. very cool.

i had heard alot about shibuya. it being the young person's trendy spot. the lonely planet said it seemed like anyone over 30 had been banned from this area. but i don't know what they were talking about. when i first got to shibuya it didn't seem all that special. it is big though with lots to see. this is where the world's largest tower records is. shibuya itself was much bigger than i thought. crazy criss cross streets that got me lost. once i found a shop i liked i wasn't sure if i would ever be able to find it again. it was fun just to wander around and pop into any shop that looked half interesting. or watch the hip kids hanging out. somehow it reminded me of parts of seattle in the 80s or vancouver when all the punks used to hang out by eatons. i saw quite a few young women still sporting the copper look. (copper hair, copper skin). not to mention platform shoes that would make elton john jealous. later a japanese friend of mine told me a girl had fallen down and died while wearing these sort of shoes. she tripped and her head struck a rock. and that was that apparently.

one day i went to ginza. this was the first area known as an upscale shopping district with lots of western style buildings and the such. there are lots of boutiques in this area as well as the sony building. in the sony building you can view their latest products even some that haven't been released yet. it was pretty interesting. but i guess i always want things to be even more futuristic than they are.

not far from ginza is hibeya park. this was the first western style park in tokyo. it's a nice place to relax and get away from the feeling of urban tokyo. and not far from this park is the imperial palace. you can't go into the palace itself or get to close. but there are nice gardens near by that you can explore.

between shinjuku and shibuya is harajuku. i actually found harajuku more hip and lively than shibuya. but maybe because i wasn't in shibuya on the weekend. harajuku has lots of cool little shops and restaurants. i saw shops specializing in used american clothes. this must be where the clothes people in the u.s. buy at thrifts and sell to japan end up. walking down some of these streets and looking at the shops you might as well been in nyc or seattle...i saw a shop devoted to the beatles, a big shop devoted to snoopy. you could even have your picture taken inside a a school bus like in the comic. plus they were selling all kinds of snoopy stuff. metal lunch boxes, wash clothes,etc...not far from this big snoopy shop was a smaller shop that featured lots of old peanuts memorabilia. i think i saw soap i had when i was little. weird to be in japan but getting heavy deja vu from my childhood like that. and of course there were a few record shops in this area as well as department stores. department stores seem to breed like guppies in tokyo. everytime you turn around there is another giant department store beckoning you in...

there is more to harajuku than shopping though. not far from the harajuku station is the meiji shrine. you follow a large gravel road through the woods to the shrine. on the way you have the option of taking different roads. one leading to a garden and one to a museum. i only went to the shrine as i was in a hurry that day. the shrine was destroyed during world war two but rebuilt in 1958. as you walk along the road to the shrine there is a big tori that was rebuilt using a tree from alishan in taiwan. the shrine itself is pretty simple and peaceful. not as colourful or gaudy as some of the buddhist temples.

one night i went exploring shinjuku. there were some lanes near my hotel with lots of lights. so i wandered down there. it ended up being rows and rows of strip clubs and the such. old men wearing placards trying to get you to go into this club or that club. or young women wearing school girl uniforms trying to get you into another club. sort of odd. i have seen pictures of vending machines that sell girls uniforms or underwear but the only vending machines i saw sold drinks or cigarettes. japan is said to be the king of vending machines. i did see alot of vending machines but not so many that it made me think it was that special.

on my last night i got to see my pen friend mina. we have corresponded since i was 17 or 18. and we met once back in 90 or 91. she invited me to go to an amusement park with her and some of her friends. before we met up i called her and asked her how much money i would need. and it ended up i didn't have enough so i went to find a cash machine that would take u.s. cards. well, i found one at a department store that was all in english! but when i punched my code in it asked me "how many 10,000 yen notes do you want?". because the exchange rate was so terrible when i was in tokyo 10,000 yen was nearly 100 u.s. dollars! and that was the least you could get out. yikes. so i just got one out. as it turned out i didn't even need it. so anyways, after this i took the train to meet my friends. they took me to this small amusement park next to the tokyo dome. the park is called "big egg city" as the dome is known as"the big egg". mina told me in japan girls like rollercoasters more than boys. i was surprised. it always seemed to me that most of the females i know are not very fond of roller coasters. either way i was happy to ride rollercoasters with mina and her friends. unfortunately the coasters were not the best. and none that went upside down. but there were other rides to scare us...mina's friend wanted to go on this haunted zombie ride. it was your typical ride through a haunted house ride. though i swear one of the heads on the three headed zombies looked like cher. but maybe that is just me. the scariest ride we went on was one of those freefall rides. it you sit in a chair and it takes you up 30 metres and then drops you to the ground in 2 seconds. i am scared of heights and here i was feet dangling on a chair up above the tokyo dome. i kept saying "i am so scared, i so scared..." and closed my eyes tightly. and then when we fall i screamed like a school girl. but despite how scared i was i loved it! and later in the night we rode it again and i kept my eyes open this time and didn't scream. we wanted to play air hockey before we left but the park closed before we could.

so then we went to a little restaurant near the park. it was packed with men smoking and drinking. my friends said it was a typical salarymen restaurant. lots of men smoking and drinking and the food is cheap. so we spent the rest of the night talking about travelling and the differences i had noticed between taiwan and japan. i mentioned that i thought the japanese were very private people and one of my new friends said the japanese are indifferent to others a lot of times. and i guess that is true. though the japanese friend who said this and my other new friends that night were super friendly and kind to me. it was really the highlight of my trip and i hated to leave them the next day. they all said to me that i had to come back and that i had to come on a weekend next time so they would have more time to show me around. i really hope to too.

the next morning i had to get up early to catch a train to the airport. once i was at the airport i went to check in. they looked through my passport and said "where's your visa?" i said i'm just going to get a landing visa when i arrive. they said i had to have a ticket out of taiwan to get one. i said i had one but it is in taiwan. can't they just look it up on the computer or something. and they said no and made me buy another ticket. they said i could just get a refund when i get to taipei. so after this hassle i went to my gate. i had just sat down when they paged me. i thought maybe there was something wrong with the ticket i had just bought. but when i went up there they said something i didn't quite make out. i said what? business class? they then took my ticket and ripped it up and gave me a business seat! woo! i was loving that. i was flying singapore airlines and i highly reccomend them. all seats (yes, even economy) have little tvs. and you have the choice of something like 12 channels! woo! i saw "life is beautiful" on my way to tokyo.

after having to buy that other ticket and all. when i got to taipei they only asked me when i would be leaving checked to see that it was within 14 days and then let me go. they didn't even ask to see my ticket. but i guess it was a good precaution just so i wouldn't have any problems.



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