Tokyo in two words. Fucking Huge. Tokyo in another two words. But Good. It was like taking 5 microtrips to different cities all of which were fucking mental. Massive shopping centres? Yup. Huge TV built into the side of a building? Check. Déjà vu despite having never been there before (thanks to Lost In Translation)? Certainly. Tokyo is like a Monet floating in a swimming pool; you know it’s going to be expensive but you can’t help but jump in. The ward we were staying in, Asakusa, was perhaps comparable to Kumamoto city in size and scale. Perhaps. Perhaps Asakusa is bigger, we didn’t see all that much of it. However, 20 minutes train ride away is the frankly ridiculous Shibuya, whose massive skyscraping shopping centres go on forever. Probably not literally forever, but as near as makes no difference. It’s also home to the crossing made famous in the aforementioned film. It’s the one with the dinosaur on the building. The moving one. You know. Needless to say I walked across that crossing as many times as I could in the short time we were there, hoping for some cooky Bill Murray type to appear. He did not.
Shinjuku was where I’d stayed when I first arrived in Japan. It was home for 3 days. I was convinced it was the “hotel district” and that was it. As with so many things, I was completely wrong. It was fucking mental. There’s a chain over here called Don Quixote but it may as well be called “everything in the whole sodding world under one roof that has various stuffed toys hanging from it.” The Shinjuku branch was 6 floors of chaos; bloody minded, consumerist chaos. I loved it. To add some spice to the mix someone thought it’d be funny to have all of these 6 floors, containing such diverse goods as Doritos, flick knives and Rolex watches, rely on one checkout situated right at the very back of the first/ground floor. As I say, absolute chaos.
Akihabara is the otaku centre of the world, otaku here meaning geek. Although it’s been heavily romanticised in the western world don’t be fooled; your average otaku is a social freak that should be avoided at all costs. Hundreds of stores containing cartoon porn, people dressed as cartoons and cartoons you can control with a joystick are crammed into Akihabara’s main street. Next to those healthy signs of the coming apocalypse are dozens of electric stores selling everything from computers to wall fans to lengthy appendages that I was assured were not backscratchers.
Ometesando is the new Shibuya apparently; the fashion capital of Japan’s youth. It reminded me of Camden town. I’ve only ever been to Camden once and most of it was spent cowering in fear behind poor Hannah. Why are you looking at me Old Asian Lady? Why are you offering me overpriced Chinese food? Why are you offering it so loudly? This place was much nicer. Lovely backstreets filled with archetypal Japanese Goths, hobbling around on boots so stacked they were almost as tall as a normal person. Shops selling handmade socks for the price of a small French chateaux. Toy stores stocked to the brim with oddities and perversions, all aimed at the under-5 market. It was great.
Roppongi is Tokyo’s red light district. Restaurants and bars give way to brothels and “lingerie bars” on a street culminating in the largest phallus ever created; Tokyo Tower. We didn’t spend much time here, disturbed as we were by a 333 metre high metal…part. The shopping centre was nice though and it did contain the Konami headquarters. Worth a photo, that.
So yes, fun was had. We had a few nice meals and tried to forget about our medieval torture chamber of a hostel. The weather was good to us and the people, although completely oblivious to our presence, didn’t try to harm us. I had already planned a return visit before realising that a twenty foot high anime maid splashed across a banner offering to “serve” me had not registered as strange, and that I really should go home for a bit.
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