Sons of Loki

Last time in my exciting tales, I was on a bus coming in to park outside the Subaru Building in West Shinjuku. Will I survive to catch my plane on Monday? Can I finish all the odd jobs I have left to do? Will the mysteries of the Nagano Sword be finally revealed? HERE I TELL ALL

We got back earlier than expected, so Jade and I got back to my room pretty early. She caught some kip; I caught up with the latest happenings on the interwebs and fretted about the impending rent payment and tried to work out how I was going to put the contents of an entire room and ten months of life into one suitcase and two bags.

We took a run to Musashi-sakai for gyoza and ramen with our friend Hime, who was sadly headed back to Korea that day, a few days before we headed home. After goodbyes we headed back to TUFS where I managed to get my rent shit sorted

Sort of. I mean, no one really seemed that bothered that I’d been given a day to pay £500, but I guess I was lucky not to have to pay it there and then. I’ll have to make an international payment which will cost me £7.50 out of me own pocket and christ, I don’t know.

Anyway, I asked myself: if I had one last free night in Tokyo – which I did – where would I go? The answer was, of course, the New York Bar at the Park Hyatt.

Haha! Who would believe that a penniless student loser like myself would sort of become a regular at the New York Bar? Some English tourists asked me for directions, and I was like – oh, it’s just up here, and you take a lift to the sky lobby … It must have been my fifth time, actually, and screw it if a martini costs £12 because there’s no bar more incredible, with that amazing view of Shinjuku and beyond out the window.

I came in shorts. There was a dress code. They sent a man to get me some black trousers to change into. Only in Japan.

Anyway, we had a drink and because we aren’t ridiculously rich (yet) we got out of there and rolled on down to Hanbey in Kichijoij, which is sort of the polar opposite of the New York Bar – noisy, cheap, and completely out of date. We managed to drag Katy out too, had a few beers and yakitori and a frog leg, which I’d actually got used to. And that was it. Last Friday night in Japan.

The next day, I finished off my year abroad report for Leeds. 2,000 words is actually quite a lot, although if Leeds hadn’t asked me to do it I probably would have written a blog post to the same effect anyway. Long story short: had some ups, had some downs, came away with a better understanding of myself. And a better understanding of how I study, too. Jade went out into town for a final wander, but I had no such luxury: after feeling strangely emotional listening to Marisa Stole The Precious Thing I caught the train to Fuchu. Technically I live in Fuchu City, but it’s a lot easier to get to Koganei City from TUFS, and so I’d only been to Fuchu twice: once at the start of the year for administrative procedures, and once in December to go see Avatar.

I was there to cancel my phone and return my health insurance card, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made to cancel my phone the next day. So I headed down to City Hall for to settle my national health fees and return the card, as is required.

City Hall.

On a Saturday.

It’s only open weekdays.

So continued the miserable story of my attempt to leave the country.

Thus foiled, I gave up and went for curry one last time, then wandered down to the Fuchu shrine we visited all those months ago. I washed my hands at the trough, wandered inside. It was quiet. Went up to the shrine, tossed a few coins in, awakened the spirits. Asked for a safe trip home. Bowed, turned around, headed back to the modern world.

BOOM! KAPOW! We stumbled out of Asakusa station into a warzone; police marshalling traffic, explosions in the sky, the distant sound of mortars firing, the street streaming with refugees. Except it was the Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival, and we were dressed like this:


You can’t see the bow I tied in Jade’s obi. I was proud of that. It looked pretty bad, but it was the first time I’d even tried tying an obi, and the instructions were all in Japanese, and it may not have looked exactly proper but it was damn good for a first try, I reckon.

The place was packed, and we weren’t even at the actual site. And we were late (due to obi complications). And we were trying to meet up with Satomi, but it dawned that in the streets heaving with people in a neighbourhood neither of us knew, with the phone service overloaded in some parts and impossible to talk on due to GIANT BOOMS, meeting up wouldn’t be possible.

I got quite flustered, but then I realised – hey, しょうがない, and then tried to enjoy what was left of the fireworks. I mean, we couldn’t actually see anything because of the buildings, but I seen fireworks before. What was more exciting was the atmosphere.


There were a lot of girls wearing yukata – the only guys in them were boyfriends and a handful of gaijin like us, dressing up for the night. An old man turned to us and gave us a kind 「かわいい。」, which was sweet. Frenzied street sellers sold takoyaki, screaming 「サンビャク！さんびゃくえん！！」 at festivalgoers. I bought some cus – well, it’s what you do at festivals, right? – and it was delicious. We managed to avoid the crush of people leaving by walking down to JR Asakusabashi station – buying some highballs on the way – and got the train to Ogikubo to see Risako and Rob. What with it being our final night in Tokyo, we decided to go to McDonalds.

The next day, we left. And that’s a story for another day.

The day after USJ, Tuesday 23rd March, we went to Nara.

I think that morning, my free gift at the capsule hotel was a capsule hotel voucher. I rather like the idea that you could check in at the capsule hotel on Monday a penniless man and slowly rebuild your life through the loyalty points system. A pair of socks. A free beer. 500 yen off your next stay. Then, shoes. A hat. A pass for the subway.

On the train to Nara, from Osaka, I was reading Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar, which my mum had given to my sister to give to me but oh thanks sis why don’t you go ahead and read it first and give me it when you’re done, that’s fine, just like that time you bought me Obama’s autobiography and then decided you’d hang on to it for a while, oh when was that two Christmases ago you say? oh well it must be a pretty engrossing book I’m sure

and it was a good read, because he was writing about the Japanese train system (in 1975), and there I was on a Japanese train.

As a tourist, Theroux had a role in society, and he could play it out as he liked. It occurred to me that they say Japan is all about the role you play, and in Japan foreigners can have two roles; gaijin-san the Tourist

観光目当ての外人さん
カメラ片手に登る富士山
At tourist spots, the gaijin man
Climbs Mt Fuji, a camera in hand
– Teriyaki Boyz, “5th Element”

who goes to temples and wears backpacks and fumbles with the language and forgets to take her shoes off, and gaijin-san the Businessman, who is a teacher or businessman, invariably American and in his 30s or 40s, who is fluent and confident and married to a Japanese woman.

If you fit into those roles it’s fine – people excuse you for being a tourist, or they accept you for being a businessperson and leave you be. But as a young aimless student, I never can quite do either of those. I speak too much Japanese to let myself stoop to fumbling along in English and gestures like a tourist would, but I’m not at the level of proper ex-pats so I can’t really get anything done. I can’t wear a suit, but I can’t strap on a backpack, either. So I’m a kind of outlier, I guess.

Anyway, Nara was cool. They were celebrating their 1,300th anniversary. There were all these deer. We took a look in these old antique bricabrac shops, which I realised I an becoming enamoured with; it’s all old crap, but it’s interesting old crap. It was raining. I saw some temples. We visited a little tourist information place funded by the Okamura corporation, where I tried out their earthquake simulation and protection device. The old man was nice.

The day after, I went to see James and Eri in Kobe. It was a real shame, that it was raining; still, we got to see some of the old Western-style town, and there was a nice view from a small shrine.

Down by the port, the weather wasn’t any better. Katie and Chris peeled off for some shopping, so James, Eri and I went for karaoke and, later, an izakaya with Jayson and Simon. It was very pleasant to get a few drinks and just shoot the shit for a while with the guys.

That night, I wasn’t coming back to the capsule hotel. After inevitable panic, I got the right train back to Osaka, and found the night bus home. Contrary to what I’d heard, it wasn’t so bad; you’re not going to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep, but the dude next to me didn’t snore, and there was a little privacy cover to pull over your head. At one point I got out at one of the rest stops, just so I could have the experience of walking around a Japanese truck stop at 4am in the drizzling rain in the middle of nowhere, trucks as far as the eye could see.

Back in Shinjuku, at 8am, everybody was being miserable in the rain, but I was home.

So, Friday, Katie and Chris returned to Tokyo, and we met up for drinks at the hyper-prestigious New York Bar, which still boggles my mind whenever I visit. (I’ve been, what, four times now? Christ.)

The guy ahead of us, who could have almost been Hugh Grant, said he was with the Cameron Diaz group. (I swear that’s what he said, but she didn’t turn up.) We went in and sat down and I had a martini, the New York Bar special with Bombay Sapphire.

We were surrounded by foreigners in suits and expensive-looking couples and people who looked far more important than me. The thing is, I’d like to be those people. City bankers, top managers, assistants to movie stars; the people who come to the New York Bar and order something with no regards for cost and sit with a sense of calm detachment and not slack-jawed astonishment that they’re even allowed in.

And at the same time, I’d hate to be those people. And I’d hate to be around those people. I wanted to be enjoying a drink with the high-cheekboned blond-haired businessman at the bar, and simultaneously knew that talking to him would be deeply unpalatable.

One day I will be a fifty-something English professor in Tokyo, with hordes of cash and a long list of bestsellers and oodles of fans, and I will come to the New York Bar for a drink and still feel like a little man let into the big boy’s club for an hour or two.

I kind of got a similar feeling at the Roppongi Art Night, held at the incredible Roppongi Hills complex.

I shop til I drop in Roppongi Hills
But don’t follow shit, ain’t none free – chill
Pharrell, Teriyaki Boyz, “超 LARGE”

Roppongi Hills couldn’t be more different to sleazy old regular Roppongi; it’s a massive complex of boutiques and shops and cafes and restaurants, centered around the huge Mori Tower, where a 1BR apartment starts at 370,000 a month. (There’s also some kind of hackerspace called the Academy which I should check out.) This Art Night was a big art expo thingy. They had various acts and displays going on, though to tell the truth we were more just wandering around marvelling at the ultra-modern decor of the place. At an outdoor plaza, Verbal was doing a DJ set for a tiny crowd (though it was only 7:30pm), and I saw that RIP SLYME‘s DJ Fumiya and Ryo-Z would be turning up later. So kind of a big deal.

Everything looked so cool. We sat in Starbucks and thumbed through interior design magazines, while I thought about how I wanted my room to be next year. In a nearby Tsutaya, I flicked through some fashion magazines and checked out the graphic design books. I kind of want to do graphic design. And work in magazines. And be a writer. What do I do? Who do I talk to? Is it too late? Is it too early? What do I want to be?

Anyway, I said my goodbyes to Kate and Chris near the Hibiya line station. They would be flying back in the morning. I bid them farewell, and went off to get my train back home.

And it’s all coming together, just a little bit more. I’ve been here two months today. Can you imagine it? And we all have something to show for it; Ella’s off giving speeches to Imperial princesses, Dan’s hanging out with Japanese actors, and – well hey, let’s just say it’s been an interesting weekend.

Today I did some weight training with Rob at ICU, which was draining work, but we rewarded ourselves with a trip to Book Off (owners of the amusingly-named Hard Off chain of second-hand stores). I bought Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask in the original Japanese, which I will probably struggle with for a few days before giving up on and parking on my shelf to look good for the rest of the year. Then I got lost took a scenic route home, along the Nogawa river, marvelling at the birds and trees and how pleasant it all was, despite the chilly weather. I cut through Tama Cemetery (which I always feel a little guilty about) and saw a colony of cats staring suspiciously at me, and then later after a stupidly tight and low turn on wet tarmac I fell off my bike, grazing my knee and turning it a lovely shade of purple. Hurt like hell for a while, so I sat and rested it before moving on.

On Saturday my dear friend James came up from Kobe with our friend Eri, and I gave them a haphazard tour of Tokyo. Well, Shinjuku. Well, a bit of it. Returned to the New York Bar (“I’m practically a regular,” I said wittily, with the kind of wit I am valued for at the New York Bar, where all the staff probably know my name, maybe) for another £11 martini, then a meal at a Chinese restaurant (where the food is nothing like good, authentic, British Chinese food).

The day after I’d signed up for this 300 yen sightseeing do, run by the International Office. It was rather enlightening. We saw the Diet, the seat of the Japanese government, and the House of Representatives.


Then a westward jaunt to the Edo Tokyo Museum. Not the best museum I’ve seen lately (that’d have to be the National Museum of Korea) but a nice place to while away a Sunday afternoon. A lot of meticulously-crafted little models, which were gorgeous.

Stages in woodblock printing.

Wartime sketches of the USS Saratoga and Yorktown.

There was quite an interesting point in the exhibition where you passed out of the war-era Tokyo, with the bombs dropping all around and fires raging and desperation looming only to find yourself in the post-war section, surrounded by modern automobiles and inane 50s TV commercials. I like to think that this somehow reflects the shock to the national psyche after Japan’s defeat, or it might just be poor planning on the part of the museum.

After that, we went to a nearby chankonabe restaurant which serves the shabu-shabu so beloved of sumo wrestlers. “I can tell why they’re so fat,” I wittily quipped quippily, confronted by mounds of fish and veg and meat.

And did I mention, I finished Nanowrimo? Yes, behold the snazzy winner’s web badge to the right there (unless you’ve got this on a RSS feed, you clever person). It seemed an impossible task thirty days ago, but whether by accident or design I did about 2400 words this morning after class, leaving just another 100 in the afternoon (50,000th word was “to”) and then a few hundred just for good measure.

I eagerly await instruction on what to do next from the Nanowrimo team.

(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.