Sons of Loki

It’s been a strange, expensive weekend: went to Womb on Friday for the first time in two years for Dan and Jan’s birthdays – it was 懐かしい (nostalgic), but kind of not so fun as I remembered. On Saturday I went to the ICU guys’ guesthouse to make katsu kare with Rob, Kanako and Kaz, which turned out incredibly delicious, and in the evening we all went out to an izakaya for a few drinks and karaoke with our Leeds coursemate Dan, newly arrived from Kobe for a few days in Tokyo. Later we ended up back at mine to hang out (so rarely I have guests!) and drink sake and hold impromptu jamming sessions on guitar and mandolin, which was fun.

Today Rob had invited me to this martial arts convention at the Nippon Budokan (where Dylan recorded a live album in ’79), for which he had a spare ticket. It was kinda cool to start off with – they had all these different martial arts troupes from all over Japan assembling to show off their stuff in the middle of the big old Budokan arena. This being Japan, despite the place being reasonably packed, not a peep could be heard from the assembled crowd aside from the occasional round of polite applause.
It wore on a bit, though. It was mostly kendo and quarterstaffs, which means a minute of staring at each other, a slow advance, a shout and a swing, and then a minute to slowly back away from each other. Still, it got lively at points, like when one team broke out the flails and other exotic weaponry. There was a nice surprise at the end, too.

Check out this sword draw:







Right at the end, they broke out the muskets, for some reason unfathomable to me. But it was an awesome way to end … with a bang! (Sorry.)

The second of ignition.

Check out the puff of smoke just emerging right above his head here.

(Allegedly she’s singing “smoking cigars”, but you can never be too sure with Bjork)

Last night was my planned birthday celebrations, and I was genuinely heartened by just how many people turned up: old friends, new friends, friends who were sort of in between. A group of us set out from Shinjuku station to the Shinjuku Park Tower and the Hotel Park Hyatt. Oh, the sumptuous wood panelling, the carpets, the soft lighting and the overwhelming sense of sheer class! It’s another world in there, of luxury and considerable wealth, and it’s exciting just to spend an hour there.

So, up to the 54th floor, home to the New York Bar: I had cocked up slightly, telling people we’d dodge the cover charge if we got there before 8pm, but (probably to combat people like me) it turns out that it’s only if you leave before 8pm. But there was a general consensus of “hey, when will we next be here”, and so we settled in at our table and I ordered a bourbon and soda and after coordinating plans with the people who would be coming later/were already there/were lost basked in the general atmosphere. A jazz band came on. The lights of Shinjuku twinkled. Bar staff hurried to and fro. People drank. The bar was being all marbley and mahogany-y and muted and sombre and classy and I wished I could have just bottled up the ambience because it was so ridiculously cool.

Entry, service charge and one drink? 5,000 yen – £33. Yeah. Obscene luxury comes at a price.

So we ditched the Hyatt and met up with the others at Shinjuku, and then got to Shibuya to meet yet more people, so that in total we had me, Ella, Fran, Dan, Hattie, Satomi, Rob, Miles, Katy, Chris, Jan, Yuta, Tom, Kat, and Ruben, and it was so awesome to have all my friends there and to have everyone turn up, and that was what made it such a good night.

We split up: half of us went to get some drinks in, the other half went to get some food, and I hadn’t eaten so I went with them. Round about 11:30pm it was last trains, so most people headed home, leaving the Mancunians (Tom/Ruben/Kat), Jan, Rob, Dan, Satomi and Verity to PARTY HARD UNTIL DAWN. In theory. We couldn’t quite work out where we wanted to go, and Shinichi Osawa was playing in Roppongi but that was kinda expensive and then we missed the last train, and we could have gone to WOMB, but then I thought hey, Club Air is only 3,500 yen and I’d like to see what that’s like, so we marched through the backstreets of Shibuya and eventually stumbled across Air, a house/techno club hidden underneath a bohemian restaurant in a residential area. They were IDing, which meant Satomi and Verity couldn’t get in, unfortunately, so they went their separate ways with Rob while the six of us left headed down the flights of stairs into Air. And it was pretty good. Drinks weren’t too pricey (although anything isn’t too pricey after the Hyatt), and after a year at Leeds of Halo and Oceana I’d forgotten how much I enjoy house music. Some bald British chaps called Shapeshifters were DJing, which Tom was excited about. And so we partied into the wee hours, some Japanese girls we’d just met spontaneously erupted into singing “Happy Birthday” for me, Dan had his smuggled-in bottle of scotch plucked from his hand by one of the staff, some Spirytus was downed (96% – I was not touching that stuff), we exited merrily at 4:30am or so and got back to the station largely without incident (he says, glossing).

Funny thing on the way back: a trio of homebound musicians (judging by their instruments) on the train were talking in Japanese about De La Soul and Marvin Gaye, and I caught Tom’s eye, and he was like “Are you hearing this?” and suddenly the musicians went silent and the girl said “聞いた?” (“They heard?”) and an awkward moment was avoided when quick as a flash Tom launches into a conversation with them about Marvin Gaye, which lasts a merry serendipitous ten seconds before it’s our stop and we have to get off. Ah, those little connections you make with complete strangers, sometimes. It’s really rather wonderful.