Sons of Loki

Following the conclusion of my mid-term exam, I decided to hit Tokyo again. Of course, all too soon, going to Tokyo will be a lot more difficult than hopping on the Keio Line from Tobitakyu station, and words like “Semi-Special Express” and “Keio West Entrance” will be distant memories – like a dream, even.

I hit my usual places in Shinjuku – a few rounds of Beatmania IIDX and Drummania (the latter I’m getting better at, the former I fail hugely at), the game store where I never buy anything (I only go back because I saw Drummania for sale there once, but didn’t buy it, and now I regret it) – then thought I’d check out this exhibition at the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art in Chiyoda, something about architecture that I’d read an article about in Metropolis.

Regrettably, it turned out to be closed on Mondays, but no worries: instead I enjoyed a relaxing stroll around the perimeter of the Imperial Palace, which is closed to plebs like me.
After a quick burger and a bit of kanji study in a Ginza Lotteria (about the least classy meal you can have in ultra-classy Ginza) I came to Tokyo Station (probably my favourite station in all of Tokyo; an important hub like Shinjuku, but not as inhuman and impersonal) and wound up, like I so often do, back on the streets of New York City, a dope fiend, a slave, then prison; then the madhouse; then the grave Akihabara.

Ah, I’ll miss that fucking place (I imagine in decades to come, travel guides to Tokyo will open the section on Akihabara with a quote from me along those lines). The hobby stores. The bizarre proliferation of home security stalls. The game shops, of course; the myriad electronics meccas, the maid cafes, the KFC, the Coco Curryhouse; the corner which valiantly tries to ignore the rest of the place by having trendy cafes and a Muji and a pâtisserie but lets the side down by including a (ridiculously popular) Gundam Cafe; the streets and alleys which I shamefully know like the back of my hand.

In Yodobashi Camera I listened to their hi-fi equipment, because I’ve got it into my head that, as a music-loving nerd, my room next year will not be complete without some big-ass floorstanding speakers and the cheapest best-sounding amplifier I can buy (probably the Q Acoustics 1030is and an amp from the Cambridge Audio Topaz range at the moment, he says, pretending he knows something about hi-fi systems). I thought I spied a bargain on a Marantz amp, but it turns out I can get it cheaper in the UK and it’s a bit pants anyway, so that saves me posting a 7kg amplifier back home.

So. 東京、また逢う日まで (until we meet again, Tokyo)…