Day 10: Yokohama
It was the day we had all been waiting for… and pretty much dreading as well. It was finally time to head to Yokohama where the second, and final Magma fest show was taking place. And not just because we were all having such a blast in Tokyo, being left to our own devices; we simply did not want to deal with those fucking annoying, whiney ass, punk rock/hardcore guys.
The morning began like all the others: woke up, washed up, packed, and while waiting for checkout time, watched some TV. This particular morning I tuned into a news program that was dealing with Chinese knock-offs. First they had a guy with a hidden camera go into some bootleg DVD shop and buy a movie (Death Note), with the director of said film in the studio to gauge his reaction (Japanese television LOVES the picture-in-picture, reaction shots). And then they showed a fake Tokyo Disneyland, somewhere in China…
… I don’t know why, but that dude trying to be Doraemon comes off kinda creepy.
As previously stated multiple times, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was a BIG deal there and here’s some pics from the big premiere event. Here we have Davey Jones sneering, and I believe also whipping the audience, which reminded me of Chocky, the midget wrestler from Mexico who dresses like Chucky from Child’s Play, that likes to come down the ramp, lunge at kids in the audience, and stab them with a rubber knife.
Anyhow, before our ride to Yokohama arrived, we had some time to kill, so we all went had breakfast as some “European styled” cafe. Along the way, we passed this quaint little temple…
June and I had traditional Japanese dishes while the rest of the gang had more “American” fare; by this point, Joe, Keith, and Anney were starting to miss the taste of the red, white, and blue, whereas June and I were still both ga-ga for curry and rice. Also, I had already tested some Japanese takes on American food earlier in the week and knew that its can be pretty bad, which also meant I avoided getting sick like everyone else (except for June of course). Though one a side note, I forgot to mention in my previous entry that I had McDonald’s as a late night dinner (hey, I was a bit drunk, and McDonald’s is great after a few beers); I tried the regional Tamago Double Mac, which I had been curious about since day two of the trip, and it was actually really good! Wasn’t so much the egg, but the sauce. Oh, and it goes without saying that the service in Shinjuku blows away the service in any McDonald’s that you’ll find in NYC, but I’ve already beaten the “things are just so much better in Japan” horse to death about 18 times now. Also, just one small snippet from the illuminati meeting from the night prior: apparently, rumor has it that Burger King is “finally coming back” to Japan, and there’s a great deal of “excitement” over it.
Once we got back, we still had some time to kill, plus Keith wasn’t feeling too bad, so he decided to put on his cat costume one more time and walk around a bit…
Hide and Katzu both showed up in a van… a tiny one, of course. It was mentioned that there was a lot of equipment to pick up, meaning there wouldn’t be enough room for us people, so we were given instructions on how to get to Yokohama via the JR Train. And after loading the van with our luggage, off we went…
Some more examples of how crazy clean, as well as how crazy Japanese people are in general. Remember that picture of the building that was under construction from the previous day’s snapshots on the way to the train? Well we passed by the base, and it was boarded up of course, but instead of being plastered with random flyers and posters like in NYC (which is often some upcoming rap album from who the fuck knows), you had bizarre concept art, like an orchestra made of doctors and patients, or giant robots scaring/about to crush people. The future?
Anyway, we were soon on our way…
… As much as I had loved Tokyo, I welcomed the change in environment. Almost immediately, we noticed the difference, and Yokohama felt somewhat like Suzuki, but a bit more laid back, and that was rather nice. The big task at hand was to set up for the show, which I was hoping would be quick and easy, like it was in Okinawa, so we could check out the huge ferris wheel in just a bit…
Hell, even catch a game at the stadium if one was going on; I’m not a big fan of baseball in America, but I have a feeling it isn’t nearly as obnoxious in Japan. Plus, I was dying to know what stadium dogs are like in Nippon…
Alas, we would spend the ENTIRE day setting up. At least the venue was 1000% better than the previous show’s…
It was a proper concert hall, one that also hosted numerous other events, mostly wrestling. A picture from their hall of fame…
There were numerous posters all around for upcoming events…
But yeah, it was not only nice but very encouraging to see a real deal stage, with real deal lights…
As well as the skating ramp that was promised at the last venue…
… It was hoped that, with things finally feeling “legit”, maybe the bands wouldn’t be so fucking moody and agitated. After-all, we had a long plane ride to share with them.
Here’s a little, but strong, bit of sunlight that managed to get inside…
Which June and myself decided to exploit for the purposes of arty-farty/fuckin’ around pictures…
The one question that Joe constantly asked Hide and Taka was “So, where are the inflatables?” These were the huge balloons based upon the characters he had created for the show. The point of origin was Wisconsin or somewhere in the mid-west and were supposed to have arrived for the Okinawa show a week previously, even though nothing could have been done with them anyway due to that venue’s small size. And when they didn’t turn up, Joe as well as myself wondered throughout the week as to their whereabouts and if they would actually show up (given how a lot things had no gone according to plan). But they did finally arrive; there were two in total, which was more than enough, because they would be BIG.
Here’s the first one, right after its been unraveled. And to get them inflated, we would need this…
… Which turned out to be the source of all or stress and frustration for the entire day. Each inflatable had its own, which would blow up the balloon and then be kept on for the duration of the event. Problem was, there was miscommunication somewhere along the line; they had European, not Japanese-styled power plugs. Which meant getting an adaptor/converter. First Joe, Keith, and Taka went all around the neighborhood for a hardware store to acquire them; such a store was found, but it didn’t have what was needed, though the guy working there knew exactly the parts in questions and where to get it… Akihabara. Which was like two-three hours away. Plus its not like one could use the train since the adapters were apparently big and heavy. But cars were out of the question since traffic that day was really bad (hence why our luggage hadn’t arrived, and it was five hours later by this point), and regardless of the congestion, the cab fare would be astronomical. But that’s not all! Each converter would cost about $400 American. And two were needed…
Needless to say, we were fucked. June said she would handle the expense herself, since it was pretty clear that the festival was dead broke and couldn’t fork the cash (which explains all the hotel hopping, among other things). And this is after she already paid for all of our hotel rooms once already. I should also maybe mention that I didn’t do nearly as much shopping as I was originally planning to (I was going to get, among other things, a Super Famicom, a bunch of games, including Radiant Silvergun, plus much more than just one BEAMS shirt) since near the end, I seriously wondered if there would be return plane tickets waiting for us, so I set aside money for “just in case”. Thankfully, the electrician at the venue came to our rescue, who redid the wiring and allowed the units to plug into Japanese power sources. And as advertised, one the switch was flipped, it look less than five minutes to get this…
And here’s the second one, from start to finish…
So the inflatables were taken care of, but there was still the matter of our luggage. The hours passed, yet they were still missing, and I was starting to freak out. I guess because I had almost lost my laptop, then I had just lost some stuff for real, things I had acquired but misplaced due to the constant moving. The sitting around and doing nothing was also driving me nuts, especially since I was in a new part of Japan and I really wanted to check it out. Also, even if I just wanted to go straight to the hotel, we couldn’t since the luggage also had the merchandise, so we the set-up was also on hold. I kept asking Hide, and I was simply told that Katzu was stuck in traffic, but after a while I began to wonder if it was total bullshit (come on, traffic couldn’t be that bad), though I didn’t dare press the issue since it was clear that the stress of the show had really worn him down. No longer was he the chipper, cheerful fellow from before, even when punk rockers were bitching and moaning at him. His head was down for the most part, and he spoke very softly and slowly. It was clear that the guy hadn’t slept in like five days. All I could do was tend to the monster blisters that had begun to form from all the intense walking I had done all throughout the trip. Thankfully, June had needles, Purell, and bandages handy. Eventually… more like the entire day actually, about six, seven hours later… our stuff arrived. And once the set-up complete, it was time to check in. Here’s hotel room number #8 I think?
Yeah, I know. It looks EXACTLY like the last one. But the sheets are different! And the kimono was more comfy, plus internet actually worked this time around. Another bathroom shot, just because…
Again, just like before. Afterwards, I met up with Joe and June, to hunt for food, and again, I ran into Ben from Murphy?s Law, who thankfully was the only real exchange with an American musician from the show that day. As in the past, he pointed out stuff to check out, which in that instance was a street fair that was taking place just around the corner. Unfortunately, it was kinda late, around ten, by then, so things were closing down…
… You could still get some skewered octopus though. I’d find out that octopus is Yokohama’s main dish.
So we decided to explore the area a bit, since the moon was out and weather was really nice…
There were lot of traditional looking restaurants in the vicinity…
As well as plenty of wacky things hung about…
Hey, its MK again!
Their crosswalk signs were a bit creepy if you ask me…
The entire neighborhood was decorated with stuff like this all over and high above…
Eventually we came to a strip mall. Most of the stores were done for the day, but a few were still open, like a couple of game stores. I almost got Gran Turismo Prologue and few PSone titles (like this one). There were numerous arcades handy, of course, and I managed to check them out, of course. One place had yet another “I can’t believe I’m seeing this” title, a shmup no less: Xexex!
The same place also had a number of machines with no joystick set-ups…
Since there were no full-on keyboards, and they certainly didn’t appear to be music titles, I’m guessing they were quiz games?
And there were a few h-games here and there…
Another arcade seemed to be all into Tekken…
Just around the corner of our hotel was some physical therapy clinic, that of course had cuteness written all over it…
Television that night consisted of a new report featuring some robot kid with super human-like levels of expressiveness…
Aftewards was a show that I simply could not make heads or tails of. It started out with some five year old boy being snatched off the street and kept locked up in a dingy looking bedroom. All he did was cry and constantly draw circles with crayons in dingy coloring books that I’m guessing his captors supplied. Next was this older kid, in his early teens, who instead of being wide eyed and innocent like the young boy, was all mean and surly. I think they showed him punching a classmate, a girl, right in the face during class! Then a woman was introduced, one who must have had acid thrown on her face or something and was therefore disfigured. She was shown in some police interrogation room, and was constantly being grilled. Maybe she killed the person who scarred her? Maybe she did it to herself and tried to sue a potentially innocent party (or maybe an ex-lover, for revenge?), and the cop saw through the bullshit? Anyhow, point is, the show felt ultra heavy and sadistic. And two men appeared to be the stars, the center of it all. Who? These guys…
… These totally goofy looking, and goofy acting guys. As you can see, one has a comical looking pompadour, similar to Ace Ventura, and the other which you might not be able to tell has a moustache that’s actually just really long nose-hairs.
Also, occasionally was this weird Mafioso looking dude, who was also a new reporter, along with a ditsy girl, I’m guessing someone he’s banging, and a really snobby person…
Here’s a scene later on, in which the two dudes are at a strip club. One guy tried to open up, but the other is distracted. And when the second guy hears something and is knocked out of his trance then tries to respond, the first is then distracted. The background music was Whitney Houston’s I will Never Forget You. Talk about emotional…
Next was a Reno 911-type comedic cop show that was all light-hearted and goofy in the beginning, but got all melodramatic near the end. I really couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on, but the only reason why I didn’t take my eyes off the screen was this one girl…
… Who was insanely cute, as well as awkward and goofy, which made her even cuter. Imagine Allison Hannigan’s character from American Pie but all kawaii. Easily the cutest thing I saw in Japan my entire trip. And remember, I don’t “dig” Asian chicks! Okay, by the end of the trip, my stance has softened, at least towards Japanese girls, but I still don’t go all crazy over every Asian girl that crosses my path, like most white guys I know.
And finally, a bunch of rockabilly types doing some line-dance….
I tried taking some snapshots of the anime I was watching, but my batteries were dead again and it was getting late. Had to get up early the next day… success or disaster, tomorrow would be BIG.
