The Savage Orient

22nd April 2010

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SHIBUYAAA, and bittersweet memories, Japan - Day 7

Ed note:  Sorry. I got hella long-winded with this post. Its just….so damn many memories for me, of what feels like a past life.  For those of you who don’t know, I lived in Tokyo for 6 months, and it changed me, more than anything else in my life.

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Didn’t get to sleep til almost dawn again, took too long to get our asses out of the door, trying to figure out what to do/where to go. We decided on….SHIBUYA!!!

Busiest intersection in the world WOO!!!

Actually, it wasn’t that busy today for some reason. Still pretty packed tho! Look! Cute Japanese girls in the wild!

I thought this chick was famous, so I tried taking pictures of her. I don’t think she is tho, cause no one was really paying attention. Then they yelled at me to stop taking pictures. Weeaak.

Just then, I took off my shirt and started flexing.

..and no one cared…

Just then, I ran into this girl who I went to school with when I was living in Japan. She….had stayed there ever since! Lucky. She wanted to hang out, but David and I were on a mission. Oh yeah, IT WAS FUCKING FRESHNESS BURGER TIME.

This.

Is the best damn hamburger you will ever eat. Yes. I’m serious. Better than that garbage you thought was awesome at your friend’s BBQ that one time. Better than the four Jumbo Jacks you ate one night when you were high. Better than biting into the coke-sprinkled raw ass of a cow and winning the state lottery twice. Freshness Burger.

Only problem is, shits hella expensive. That burger alone costs 5-6 USD. BUT OH MY GOD ITS SO DAMN TASTY.

David and I people-watched at Freshness for a while, and talked about crazy shit. Neat!

Then we walked like THIS for a while.

And I snapped up some pictures of crowds. I love everyones faces!!! That one dude is like “yeah!” and that one chick is biting her lip (and looking at me!?), and the other is wiping her nose…I love crowd photos!

Shibuya is home of the AWESOME Ghetto Happy Dining. Place is great. Best fried spicy chicken I’ve ever had. Sadly, we didn’t have the time to go there :(

There was some dumb TV show being filmed in one of the buildings on the street, and you could look in and see the audience and the performers. What’s big in Japan right now (…er…was…and still is?) are comedy duos, usually two dudes, and usually one is fat, and the other is skinny, and they make fun of each other. I don’t know how you’re going to find a fat person in Tokyo, tho. They just don’t exist (unless they’re whitey!)

David and I did more walking, more exploring…more memories of my Japan experience coming back. It was pretty defeating. I longed for those days…  I wished to again speak Japanese so easily as I once did…. :(

Sad crap aside, check THIS awesome slice of heaven out:

That’s right. What you see here is a girl in a foot cast, with only 1 crutch (because she needs the other hand free for her purse/shopping bags), and one high heel. Awesome. And such is the extremity of beauty in Tokyo. This woman cares so much about her looks, that she won’t let a cast and the need for two crutches prevent her from looking as fine as she can be. You go girl.

In addition, check this: women, in Tokyo, dress to the 9’s before they go to the gym. They’ll be in skirts, makeup, high-heels, fancy lingerie, the works, then go to the gym, change into gym clothes, work out, shower, get dressed, do their makeup all over again, and walk out of the place as fine as they walked in. Amazing!

Oh and see the girl on the left? That’s how almost every girl carries their purse/bags here. What ever happened to convenience, practicality, and over-the-shoulder? I dunno. It’s pretty crazy; Tokyo’s obsession with looks.

At least, this is just one foreigner’s opinions and views. Sure they look pretty. Like…all the damn time. But…at some point to me it just looks like vanity, and the illusion is destroyed.

Oh well, not like it’s happened yet. hah!

After a buncha walking, David and I needed to poo, so we b-lined it for the nearest department store. Along the way, 

This woman burned two holes into my soul.

..I nearly lost it.

Those eyes…

Anyways, we pooped in some random department store…..

THAT JUST SO HAPPENED TO HAVE AN INDOOR SOCCER FIELD, OUTDOORS, ON THE FREAKING ROOFTOP!!!! 10 FLOORS UP!!!  How sweet is that?!  FUCK YEAH! David and I hella took pictures up there, and daydreamed about playing on that field until some dude yelled at us not to take pictures.

What the hell, Japan? You all come to America and take a million pictures a day, and then you tell me I can’t take a picture of a freaking soccer field? Bah! Humbug!

I kinda like how this pic turned out. That’s all…

HOLY SHIT YELLOW RAIDEN!!! RUNN!!!

For dinner I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant in Tokyo, this place in Shinjuku-sanchome. We took the subway. Several of the subway exits in Shinjuku are packed with street performers at night. We came across this girl:

I’m such a sucker for Japanese female solo singer/guitarists. I mean, who isn’t? You? YOU HAVE NO SOUL!

The song we stuck around for was so pretty. I got video of it all, and I really wanna cut the footage I shot in Japan to her song. I tried going to her website to find an mp3 of it, but her site sucks. Its all stars and cute fonts and shit. What crap! Gimme your damn music woman!

Aaahhh….the OIOI building (left). Sewn so deep into my memories is this street…

What’s awesome about my favorite restaurant in Tokyo is that I’ve never remembered how to get there. All I know is you walk down this random street that takes you into a few alleyways full of restaurants and bars. And the one I’m looking for is the only one with vegetation on the outside.

HOLY SHIT THERE IT IS!!!!  Oh ガーリックステーキ how I’ve missed you!!!

This place, when I used to live in Tokyo, served garlic steak with a side of steamed asparagus and carrots for 700 yen. At that time, that was like $6.80. No tax, no tip! So cheap!

Todays exchange rate sucks way more than it used to, and it doesn’t cost 700 yen anymore. ITS 800!! NOOOOO!!!

It’s ok. It’s ok. The memories are worth it.

Inside you’ll find brick, wood, nice rustic decor, good lighting, warm atmosphere….oh wait shit this place is hella a date place!! Shit I totally forgot about that…..  uhh….awkward…  sorry David.

Everyone is treated to this bowl of crackers mix before their meal. And you know what? THIS IS THE BEST CRACKERS MIX YOU WILL EVER EAT EVER. EVER.  I don’t know what it is about it. I asked the guy last time I was in Japan what it was, and he wouldn’t tell me. Shit is so damn bomb. OH GOD SO BOMB.

It arrives!! The steak I’ve been waiting my whole life for. wait wha-??? where the fuck’s my asparagus and carrots? What the shit?? Fries?? WHAT HAPPENED!>??!?!

Oh well. At least it was all hella tasty. Not as good as it used to be, unfortunately, but still tasty as hell.

I used to know the owner there. This funny old man. He and I would talk every time I’d visit. He didn’t recognize me anymore, tho. He did pause for a second when I was looking at him, but I didn’t bother to approach, he was really busy. Memories…..  :’(

At the train station we thought we’d take retarded model pics of each other in front of this light column. We looked pretty gay hahaha.

OH SHIT WAIT!!! See those pants? Yes? Those are my badass puke-green pants I bought in Harajuku!!  Aren’t they awesome? hell fucking yes they are. And, they’re slightly shiny. I win.

For some reason I only have (or only took?) one pic of David in front of the light box. He looks pretty stupid, which is why I’m posting it here, ahahahah.

Check out these Japanese chicks! Crazy ass doll status!

I decided David should at least see Roppongi once since he’s in Tokyo. So off we went!

It was actually pretty lame (look, a black dude!), so we kept walking down the street and eventually ended up in Roppongi Hills. There, we saw….THIS!

AAHH IT RAPES USSS!!!!

Then we had a sexy, intimate, private photoshoot with Tokyo Tower (glowing penis in the distance)

OH YEAH BABY!!

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After a lot of picture and video taking, David started bitching about being hungry (actually I was too). So I decided to shut his fucking mouth up with a trip to my favorite ramen joint in Shin-Nakano. There, the bowls are HUGE. Like, you feel like dying half way though, but you power through anyways because its so damn delicious.

NGAH!! The memories!!!  I used to talk to that dude all of the time!! I used to be a pussy and could never finish his giant-bowl ramen (a HUGE insult in Japan). But, as I explained to him, I was a foreigner, and stupid, and had a small stomach. He used to know my order - ramen, half soup (お水半分). One day I remember I walked into his place and ordered a full bowl. “OOOHHH CHARENJI!” he replied. I was all “GANBARU!!”  When I finished, he was shocked! and he said “LEVEL UP!!”   hahahahaha  oh memories…. :(

oh my god there it fucking is!!!!  GAH!!!  I’VE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT THIS EVEN MORE THAN THE GARLIC STEAK!!!  BEST RAMEN IN THE WORLDD!!!!

uh wait, wait a minute…..the bowl is smaller than I remember….  OH SHIT! I ordered the smaller bowl by mistake!!!  NOOOOO!!!   Shit.

Oh well. It was still bomb as fuck. It was enough to satisfy us, but it wasn’t the samurai-crippling portion I had used to conquer.

Unfortunately, the guy there didn’t recognize me, either. Or maybe not. He paused for a sec when he saw me, but nothing more was said. Perhaps nothing needed to be said. I told him the day before I left Japan the first time, that his ramen was the best in the world, and that I would be back one day to eat it again. This was my moment. I felt free…

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Being that we were in my old neighborhood, I had to flag my old flagging pole, for old time’s sake.

I actually haven’t flagged in a really long time. I suck now.

Shin-Nakano is close to Nakano, a place that has a few really cool bars and restaurants, even open late! (it was 1:30am around now). So off we went, walking to Nakano!

I took a different route than I am used to, and we got lost for a bit. BUT! We ran into…

FUCKING OPTIMUS PRIME!!!  Hell yeah this is real!!  So badass!!  I got video of them turning into giant, mechanized bi-pedals, but their laser beams erased my camera.

Aaahh wow Nakano, you’re so pretty at night!!

Since we got lost, we ended up on the other side of Nakano train station. I had never been that far down that road, and I was surprised to see so many people out that late at night (I’m used to seeing practically none in that area).

Fuck yeah late-nite hanami.

We eventually ended up at Nakano Cafe. I love this place. The vibe is always so good, and the people working there are really nice. Actually, I think the same people still work there. This one French dude was still there. He was always really cool. He didn’t remember me, either.  Am I that forgettable? No one seems to remember me!!! Bah…  balls. We left around 3am.

You know the significance of this picture? I took the exact same one my last night in Japan the last time I was here. It just happened by chance that David and I ended up walking along the same road back to Shinjuku. I didn’t even realize it was the same road until I came across this bridge. My last night in Japan the last time, I was walking back from Shin-Okubo (Tokyo’s Korea town), in the opposite direction we were heading now. I took a picture to commemorate this moment. It was in the same direction as the other picture. The timestamps of the picture I took today and the one I took so long ago are almost identical, just separated by two years, and only a few days.

What a weird feeling it gave me. It felt like standing on a bridge between who I used to be, and who I am now.  The world around me seemed like it laid suspended in time, just waiting for my return, waiting for me to make a choice. I stood at the same spot I stood all that time ago, and gazed in the same direction. The last two insane years of my life dissolved away in this moment as I stood beside my past-self, looking deep into the darkness below, and dizzily at the lights above. It seemed, then, that not a lot had changed, that not a lot was different within me since that sad, sad day of my departure. I was still lost in Asia. I still didn’t feel welcome in Tokyo. I still didn’t understand Asian culture, nor its people. I can list so many life-changing events that have happened in my life since my return from Japan, but all of those seemed so distant in the face of my past and my present Asian experience, my Savage Orient.

I am not sure what lies ahead of me in my life, and I stopped thinking about that stuff long, long ago. I had grown accustomed in San Diego to just gliding along. I was too comfortable there, and I enjoyed my life and the people in it too much to be concerned with the future.

But now it has all changed. I have changed. All because of this bridge, and this memory. Despite my insurmountable Asian ignorance, I keep feeling the call to return.

Japan - Day 7 (click here for the camera dump)

Tagged: japan,nakano,shibuya,shinjuku,japanese cultureramenshin-nakanotokyotokyo towertime travel