Day 7: Shibuya
It was close to midnight of day five, and while wandering about Koreatown in Shinjuku, I got a call from Hide. It was to let me know that I should get up early the next day since my party (Joe, June, Keith, and Anney) was going to be moved to another hotel. No explanation was given, but it wasn?t hard to figure out why; the tension and hostility between us and the punk rockers after the previous evening?s confrontation simply could not be ignored. It was definitely a powder keg ready to explode, so for our safety, it was decided to separate us. And to be honest, I really didn?t have any problems with that, nor did anyone else in my group.
So the next morning, we all got nice and early to once again pack our bags and move on out. And of course, in the middle of it all, I still found some time to snap pictures of wackiness caught on the Japanese boob tube. This time featuring a bunch of kids dressed like bugs, all led by some dude, also a bug (and with scary looking teeth), all singing songs and making friends with other animals, and learning about how everything is connected within the cosmos. I think…
Back to leaving the premises: the only tricky part was avoiding the punk rockers, or at least coming up with some excuse as to why we were moving, or so I figured. The ones we did come across with couldn?t have given two shits. Aside from the dudes from Murphy?s Law and Harley?s War, everyone else with whom I was cool with had started giving me the cold should treatment, or in some cases, dirty looks. Whatever.
Here?s Joe outside with Katzu, one of the Magma volunteers. He was forever driving people around and moving shit, and was like seriously the nicest guy in all of Japan, which is saying a LOT.
Guess how old he is? 20?s, maybe early 30?s, right? Wrong. Late 40s/early 50s if I?m not mistaken. Those Japanese people age well!
Anyhow, we all hopped into cabs and headed over our next resting place, which was a definite 180 to where we had just left from, which was a rather nice, luxurious modern hotel on a main street near the center of town. The new place was this rather tiny, yet charming, ?traditional? lodge, which felt more like a hospice than a full-fledged hotel and appeared to be straight from the 70?s due to the coloring of the carpeting and walls. Plus it was smack in the middle of the red light district! Interesting…
Much like the very first hotel in Kawasaki, they had slippers so you wouldn?t dirty the floors with outside dirt and grime while indoors (even though the streets are so clean you could eat off of them). The room itself was a far cry from the one previous…
… But hey, I couldn?t complain. It was still, new and different and JAPAN! Though it was definitely the tiniest space yet.
But what was sort of a problem was how check in wasn?t till three in the afternoon, and here we were, ten in the morning with tons of stuff, too much to carry around throughout the day, but arrangements were made with the front desk to have it stored till that time, while we about the city. That was easy. Though the next bit of news was something else…
Hide explained to us that we were smack in the middle of a ?Yakuza town? as he called it. Basically, the entire area was controlled by the mafia. Again, it was the red-light district, and much like in Okinanawa, the neighborhood was pretty dead at that point, which was the morning. Though it definitely felt grimier and sleazier compared to where we just were, but that was just character wise; once more, the streets themselves were pristine, with zero trash to be found anywhere. The location of this second hotel was actually closer to the center of it all, meaning the shopping district and the train station were in far less walking distance from before, but since it was all side streets, back alleys, and the such, everything intersected and crisscrossed in all sorts of ways, which would cause quite the situation later on…
Here?s a few sights just around the corner. It being the spot for sex, there were plenty of gentlemen?s clubs to be found…
You also had apes (I guess this was for some American themed club)…
Bats…
And ninjas…
Here?s a bowling alley/movie theater that was not too far from the hotel…
Which had a mix of Japanese and American films. As previously stated, Pirates of the Caribbean was playing, and it was getting a MONSTER push Japan. Anyhow, here?s a coming soon poster for all you Harry Potter fans out there?
… BTW, some of those pictures in that last batch become an important part of the story later on.
Oh, in addition seeing movies, you could also see live events in the area as well, aside from naked women dancing. How about semi-naked men fighting?
I LOVE Japanese pro-wrestling, and I really wanted to check it out, and would be in town for the match on the 31st, but it conflicted with my super, secret meeting taking place, which I?m not supposed to talk about, so this will be my one and only time mentioning it!
There was plenty of WACKY JAPPY (wow, its my first time using that word since starting my report!) to be found as well…
And my group acted the parts of WACKY AMERICANS rather well me thinks…
Anyhow, we all decided to do some more exploring. First up was Shibuya, which meant a trip via the subway:
Yet another reason why Japan made me actually mad to live in New York City is how their rail system flat-out blows NYC?s out of the water, and that is no exaggeration. Granted, it was confusing and intimidating at first, but so was the New York subways when I first moved here and started using, plus it?s in my native tongue. Aside from offering info in English, you are never confused as to which line you are on because every train is colored on the outside; unlike New York subway cars which only have a little symbol to tell you what it is. That means the train designated for that line HAS to be on that line in Japan, whereas in NYC things always gets mixed up and you are never told why. Also, there?s a train every two or three minutes, PERIOD. No matter what time I took a train, even late at night, one always showed up in less than four minutes. Plus, get this MTA, they fucking tell you if other trains are having delays, as well as the reason, while on a train that?s going to a station where connections are possible! It could be argued that the reason why the trains are so finely tuned in Japan is that it?s a commuter-based environment. And consider that New York City is just as much, there is NO fucking reason why things are as bad as they are, especially when the trains in NYC make more money. There?s a whole slew of other reasons, but I?ll stop now.
Anyway, here we are in Shibuya, another major shopping/entertainment district…
Shibuya gets featured a lot in movies, like Kill Bill and Lost in Translation, primarily the main intersection near the train station. It?s crosswalks are supposedly the busiest in the world, with the number of people in the tens of thousands crossing every single minute! From the pictures I?ve seen, it?s far more impressive and crazier in the evening, but it was a spectacle during the mid-afternoon nonetheless, though my pictures sadly doesn?t even come close to capturing the scene…
Walking down one street offered this crazy looking building?
The streets were always crowded…
Supeinzaka, or Spain Slope, was this small, winding street that?s lined with shops and cafes and is named after how it apparently resembles a typical street in Spain.
Another thing lining the streets were high school girls. When I asked folks online, at various gamer message boards to be exact, what to check out during my trip, I was advised to hit Shibuya 109…
Which is this ten story tall building that is filled with 109 different shops, all aimed at girls. I was also told that at the top was some huge panties store and that I should try to sneak pictures of girls going through the selection, which seemed like an awesome idea at first, but I got both cold when I finally found the building since it was too pervy, even for me, plus I didn?t want to get arrested. Though funny enough, Keith and Anney were totally up for joining me!
Though one place that I absolutely knew I had to check out in Shibuya was Mandrake, this insanely huge comic book shop in the city. They must have had every single comic ever printed in Japan in that place…
… Man, I wish I knew what that donuts book was all about…..
? Seriously, when was the last time you saw these many girls in a comic shop in America in a given day, let alone all at once, and in just one aisle! And there were loads more throughout the store. Anyhow, I couldn?t take too many pics since they had a no pictures allowed policy. I?m normally a lot stealthier, but I guess it was a bit too obvious when trying to snap a picture of this one girl how had the Gothic Lolita look going on.
By the elevator (while waiting to go up to the J-pop caf? on the top floor, which was sadly closed that day.
