Trends, slogans, plushie-men, vending your beers... truly 'tis a land
of contrast, this Nippon, and our first couple of days (and nights) here have gotten
us off to a rollicking good start. Journey with me into a land of mystery,
as I kick back with a can of Grape Fanta, try to puzzle out what the manly
Leopard/Barbarian on TV is saying, and note down a few highlights for your
reading pleasure.
 Our
first evening in Japan, of course, was something of a starry-eyed blur.
Things were much the same as at home initially, except for the alien sensation
of being inside a cartoon - fostered by all of the Japanese text everywhere
(which
I've only ever seen in Anime, of course), my own tiredness, and the sheer number
of sweet, high-pitched female voices talking continuously at me from all angles
(mostly pre-recorded, incidentally). Then, of course, there was the
fact that for everything the abundant signage was asking you to do, there was
a colorful
mascot character (such as a shifty-eyed hamster with an awkward grin)
demonstrating
correct behaviour.
 My
attempts at learning to understand the occasional bit of Japanese have done
very little for my comprehension skills given the rapid-fire-moonspeak I've
encountered throughout thus far, but I did understand that roughly half of
every sentence directed at me amounts to "forgivuhness-puhleeze" (that
is, meaningless polite-words), and that the escalators have been telling me
(ever so sweetly) to watch my step, hold my baggage carefully, fly Air Japan,
shoot Furanku Drebbin, etc.
At any rate, to fast-forward slightly, the
first evening went by quite quickly: our group made its way with no hassles
at all through a couple of checks and onto a train while all around, the voices
told us to do stuff. As the ticket gates helpfully (and cheerfully) indicated,
we could even buy a little green card which would act as credit on all of the
trains and in many of the shops and vending machines all around us, allowing
us to simply swipe our card whenever the voices told us to buy stuff. This
we did, giving us ever so much credit to squander on trains, pies, and unpalatable
Japanese drinks endorsed (with visible enthusiasm) by Tommy Lee Jones.
Beyond that, the night consisted of eating Japanese-style with the rest of
Team Ninja, and beginning my own personal quest to try all the weirdest drinks
in the country. Tonight's bright pink cocktail of strawberries, calpis and probably
gin would be only the first of many drinks I would order without being able
to even read what it is that I'm asking for - a list which would grow to include
a great many items, including various kinds of hot and cold tea, more alcoholic
cocktails,
every melon-, grape-, aloe-vera- and camel-flavoured soft-drink at an infinite-refills
buffet,
vitamin drinks which taste
like wrung-out undergarments, and of course the inimitable "Comic Ice-Tea",
which attempts to disguise with cute packaging that they are in fact bottling
sewrage. Which brings me to my feature presentation, starting with Day 1...
Day 1 - In which Liv meets maids, models, mice and grandmasters; oh, my!
Before I start my writeup of Day 1, I would like to suggest that prior
to purchasing anything that looks generally palatable from a convenience
store in Japan, you look carefully for a tiny bit of Katakana somewhere
on the packaging which says Jerry Foodo ("Jelly food").
This will mean that it is nothing like the item depicted on the packaging,
but in fact some mad scientist's attempt to replicate said food in the
form of a gelatinous mass.
By my own experience, this branch of the sciences is doomed to failure.
So
the first thing to note about Japan is the first thing you notice when you
get there: the trains are your friends, and they are always on time. More than
once, Ash and I have watched the clocks (and our wristwatches) with interest,
noting that within a second or so of the exact minute the train is expected
ticking over, the train will have pulled into the station and opened its doors.
The trains are pleasantly heated and exceedingly smooth, too, rarely giving
any kind of jolt even when stopping at stations, etc., and there's always something
interesting to look at even when you're going through tunnels, since every
single train car contains over 90 separate advertisements (and sometimes TV
screens playing more advertisements), which between them confirm my suspicion
that Japan has more good graphic designers and illustrators than the rest of
the world put together.
And, of course, there's
no hassle regarding ticketing at
all, save perhaps if you go broke - because your Suica card wirelessly bleeps
you past any ticket gate, allowing you to simply wander into the station and
get on a train. It's no wonder all the people here are so cheerful - maybe
I'm making too
much of this Suica card thing, but I simply can't see why every other country
isn't doing this right now. The convenience is unmatched!
 Speaking
of convenience: in
heading out for the day, it's not really necessary to prepare very much in
advance,
in this country. Japan has everything we have here, with a great many more
options, and it's all incredibly convenient. It's cold?
Get to a hot drink vending machine. It's raining?
Use the umbrella vending machine. You're visiting someone? Use the gift-vending-machine.
Feeling peckish? Grab a meal-ticket from the ramen-vending-machine, and the
food will be in your hands within a couple of minutes. That's too long? Well,
then get to the instant noodle machine! In the mood for romance? The flower
and condom machines have got you covered. You like your girls two-dimensional
and brightly coloured? You better believe there's vending machines for those.
These vending
machines are everywhere,
and you can get anything you want. It's easy to see why Tommy Lee Jones swears
by 'em!
If you're willing to take a bit longer than two minutes, of course, there's
no shortage of fine opportunities to eat like a king. Don't go looking for
a steak unless you're willing to spend a small fortune; but you can eat just
anything you want cheaply, so long as it's fish. Fish and noodle meals
run the gamut, from the various sashimi through a huge collection of interesting
miso-based, noodly and/or fried concoctions, all of which I (as a person
who generally dislikes seafood) can assure you are extremely
delicious. On our first day, however, I fell prey to the wiles of Tokyo's
massive Ueno station, where the extremely delicious smell of baked goods
wafts all the way down the long escalator you must take from your train.
Day 1 was the start of my love affair with Ueno's baked goods, but certainly
not the only time I went overboard and purchased an entire pie. Today's pie
was a delectable concoction consisting of a delicious center made from sweet
potatoes,
a crispy exterior, and a variety of berries I couldn't even identify (but
was happy to stuff in my mouth).
Our first stop for the World Tour of Japan was that mecca of Japanese culture,
the Tokyo Big Sight (seen above). Strange name, maybe, but it was certainly
a ... big sight. Like, really big. It looks big in the picture there, but -
trust me - it's bigger. So I guess it's pretty well named.
 We
were here for the Tokyo Anime Festival 2009. This, too, lived up to its
name. In flipping through the channels that morning, I had already seen (in
one random sample) the whole spectrum of Japanese TV: Haado-Gei ("Hard
Gay") lookalikes, baseball games, inexplicable variety shows, and naked
breasts (alas, a pay channel which turned off ten seconds later), but I had
been disappointed not to find any Anime. This was more than made up for within
the first few seconds of this festival, when Ash insisted on buying an overpriced
bottle of water with characters from Shuffle! on it, and we sat down to eat
my delicious berry pie in a nice vantage point from where we could see the
massive crowd pouring through the festival.
Let's just say that if you can imagine it, it was there. Maids in fluffy dresses
rubbed shoulders with huge fluffy mice, samurai, and a million Japanese (and
foreign) nerds. Despite the earlier note that there would be no cosplay, there
was also the occasional Omega Man, or sword-carrying big-hair-guy, as well
as one guy who looked like a bug-monster out of Power Rangers. The otaku (that
is, sweaty nerds) packing the hall were rather orderly about everything, forming
huge queues for everything from entering the small museum of anime museums
(don't ask me...), to taking a picture with the girl in the tight yellow catsuit.
Since giant queues don't really do it for me, I mostly wandered around looking
at artbooks, figurines, artists' booths, art schools' booths, and just generally
ogling the maids.
Leaving the many girls aside for the moment (although I have failed to mention
thus far that there is a serious abundance here of attractive girls - and,
thanks to the highly visual culture, they're all impeccably dressed, coiffeured
and made up to boot; as indeed are most of the guys that you see - minus the
make-up, perhaps), I should mention the remaining attractions. The figurines
especially were amazing. I include a picture of my favourite
one, below (which, alas, I was not allowed to purchase, or else I would've
packed it in my bag right away). For those of you who care at all, the character
is Saber, from Fate Stay Night, an anime I've personally, alas, never watched.
The artists attending the convention ranged
from professionals
to starting animators; this one guy had apparently produced an entire space-opera
of incredible
3D animation as a portfolio piece, whereas some others were extremely keen
to sell me their DVD of original animation produced for Comiket (the Japanese
comics-festival; a much bigger event than this one). I sat down and sketched
stuff for a bit with some asian girls, and as a result was handed a whole folder
full of art-school pamphlets, sign-up sheets and newsletters by a lady working
nearby (I'm still not sure whether this was a compliment...). I purchased some
lovely artbooks by Studio Ghibli illustrators, met some Australian dudes from
Madman Entertainment, told them to bloody well release some things that I wanted,
and honed my Japanese skills on the local populace.
All
around, there were stalls and exhibits reminiscent of CeBit (if it didn't suck...
German CeBit, maybe), and intermixed amongst these there were stages
whereupon various stage-shows took place. These consisted largely of well-proportioned
young ladies showing off various costumes in loosely-scripted comedy routines,
but also included such niceties as a battle between Iga-ninja and their ancestral
enemies, angry humanoid vegetables (the vegetables won, but only because of
a dirty trick they pulled with some fireworks; the bastards). One final stage
show deserving of mention was a lengthy karaoke-like contest wherein groups
competed to dub the sound onto a segment of anime. The reason it deserves mention
is because the nerds competing were uncannily accurate, never even skipping
a beat... which was as disturbing as it was impressive.
 A
tiny cinema was playing a clip from an anime I still can't identify, showing
an extremely well choreographed road-race, wherein 3D rendering combined with
animation to produce two to three minutes of truly intense racing action. Outside,
a man held up a sign, saying "please come in". Near him, a man held
up a sign saying "turn off cell phones", and behind that another
dude with a "rest
area / no shoving" sign (maybe they couldn't afford a fourth guy?). I
had actually noted this odd phenomenon before at the airport: when the Japanese
want to draw your attention to something, they will not merely put up a sign
- they will hand this sign to a guy, who is employed to stand around holding
it up. Now, these guys don't really add much to the sign experience. They don't
speak, not even to read out the sign, and aren't always even pointing at the
sign,
but they are certainly a novel way to deal with unemployment in an overpopulated
country. If work-for-the-dole arrangements here included getting you to stand
around holding up signs all
day, a lot less people would be clogging
up our welfare system. Then again, there may be personal rewards to this job
that I cannot dream of, since these guys look happy as can be.
I could go on forever about the convention, but it was really just the start
of our day. In fact, around 4 pm we made a quick trip to the waffle-machine
(mmm, waffles) and slurped down some cheap noodly goodness, then headed back
to the Kashiwa Plaza Hotel to sort through our lucre and for a spot of local
flavour. As we had encountered certain difficulties given the two kinds of
power adapters used here, our first stop was a local store (on the outskirts
of Tokyo where we were staying, mind) called Big Camera. Contrary to its name,
this store appeared to be rather a small camera place, and didn't stock the
adapters we needed at all. That is, it seemed to, until we realised that store
wasn't Big Camera. Big Camera was that entire LEVEL of the building, comprising
a vast range of electrical goods from camera equipment through iPods and whatnot.
It took us a while to search, and we still could not find the adapters... until
we went upstairs. Then went upstairs again. And again. See, as it turned out,
Big Camera was in fact the ENTIRE BUILDING. And it didn't sell just cameras,
but travel goods, multimedia devices, computer equipment, sound systems, televisions,
whitegoods, bags and accessories, hi-tech optical equipment and telescopes,
books, handpainted quilts, embroidery, traditional art, etc. (all of which
we actually got to WATCH the guy hand-painting in-store), clothing, manchester,
beds, statuary, garden products, ceramics, swords and traditional samurai armour.
Well, that is, that's what we saw on our way to the 8th floor where we found
what we needed - there seemed to be plenty more floors.
Baffled by the sheer scope of what was, after all, a camera-store just TO
THE SIDE of an actual big-department-store, both way out in the outskirts of
Tokyo, we almost came late to our first trip to the honbu ("Home Dojo") of
Bujinkan. We made it on time, however, after another smooth, perfectly timed
train trip, and found the honbu to be rather a small place tucked away somewhere
near the train station, just outside what I later found out was a brothel (and
here I thought the big red lamp with elegant black characters on it was merely
a bit of local flavour).
The honbu is quite an experience. It's packed to the brim with individuals
from all around the world, all speaking different languages, all highly advanced
practitioners who improvise the moves on display into a majestic array of nasty-ass
killing moves. When the Grandmaster showed up, in one of his trademark loud
shirts (bright yellow today), a hush descended and he moved through the crowd
to start the lesson in a stately fashion. Bow-in was brisk and snappy, and
without much fanfare the lesson was on. Now, I can't tell you exactly what
went on in the secret ninja training, lest I should have to kill you, but training
with the grandmaster (obviously) typically involves learning some grandmaster-level
technique of seemingly-impossible ninja ass-kickery, and today's impossible
technique was "Throwing without Throwing" - which, if you've ever
seen the hombu, you would know was rather a good choice of topic given the
amount of space we had for throwing.
Watching the grandmaster at work was an experience in itself. Soke doesn't
teach specific moves, per se, but the spirit of a move - the 'feeling' you
are looking to achieve. Soke spoke of not wanting to teach
a finite number of moves or techniques (as other arts do) but rather
teaching a system of movement whereby one reacts to the moves of one's enemy
with appropriate counters which cause that person to be unable to respond or
move in any way you do not want them to. This abstract goodness is all well
and good for black belts, of course, since they know the basic component techniques,
but we green belts had to supplement our learnin' a bit with watching the
technique of all the black-belts
around us (except for the mexican guys, who always seem to be doing something
else entirely...)
to work out what was going on.
Of course, we weren't the only ones to raise
an eyebrow here, there and everywhere. It takes a certain level of skill even
to see what Soke is actually doing. His technique is effortless; utterly effortless. Some
of you NWTJ ninjas will have seen a bit of that sort of thing in action when
we trained with the elderly Ed Martin recently, but Soke is - of course - on
a whole 'nother level... and the way he teaches is actually very accessible.
In fact, quite unexpectedly, he cracked jokes and bones with equal frequency,
punctuating some of his more philosophical concepts (such as "winning
by losing") with tongue-in-cheek examples (such as giving in when arguing
with the wife). Some of his analogies made learning his intent much easier,
such as his discussion of a yo-yo when saying that you do not always need to
be controlling your foe by guiding them with your body so long as you retain
a connection and an awareness of their movement.
In lieu of the 5-10 minute tea break we typically have in our lessons, Soke's
lessons incorporated about a 30 minute calligraphy break, wherein students
lined up (in an ever-increasing line) to beg the grandmaster for a calligraphic
creation to take home. We were told that Soke sees this as another opportunity
to share something important with his students, and that much of the calligraphy
he was doing was of budo sayings, proverbs, etc. He also did a variety
of interesting impressionistic bits and pieces, including a number of cats
and naked women. Incidentally, you should never ask Soke to paint a picture
of your face.
At the end of the class, also, Soke always asks whether there are any people
there looking to take the go-dan test. Go-dan (that is, the rank of fifth-dan
black belt) is the first of the bujinkan ranks that may only be conferred by
the highest practitioners
of the art, and involves a test of ninja-awareness wherein someone swings a
(wooden) sword at your head from behind at a random interval, and you dodge
it without any warning. Needless to say, this makes for an interesting end
to the session, as you watch some of the higher-ups demonstrate their ninja-dodging
skills (or get clubbed viciously in the head).
When I got back to the hotel after another night of drinkin' and carousing
- this time in
one of the traditional-style (that is, low and smoky) sarariman (Japanese
office drone) drinking
houses - the TV was playing the anime "Clannad" just for me. Overall, it
was one heck of a first day.
Day 2 - In which Liv is thrown out of a Pachinko parlor, and consumes 70 lemons
The morning of the second day saw Ash and myself wandering the streets of
Kashiwa, to get a bit of a feel for what the regular residential districts,
etc., of the city were like outside of the more touristy and central areas.
As it happens, these neighborhoods (not too surprisingly) look a great deal
like residential areas in Anime, down to the big street-sign-like armatures
holding up fisheye mirrors (rather handy for drivers, really). We saw a great
many Japanese people wandering about, or riding bikes, many of them wearing
surgical facemasks.
Over here, you see, when someone gets sick, their immediate reaction isn't
to hop on a train and sneeze on Liviu (as it seems to be in Australia), but
to start wearing surgical facemasks so as to ensure they do not transfer their
flu to the rest of the population. Overall, this seems like a pretty clever
measure, though these masks were so common that they were probably also being
used preventatively. Various 'levels' of surgical mask (with better filters,
etc.) are available in stores, and just as with everything else, there is a
breadth of variety to these masks that is unheard-of over here. Who knew you
could get medicated face masks? Well, apparently Ash did.
Aside from noting some interesting architecture / civil engineering (tunnels
under roads, etc., with wheelchair/shopping-trolley access, for instance),
and the fact that eating a good steak is the province of kings around here
(oh God, the prices!), we basically just wandered around in random directions and tried to read the signs. From what I'm told, incidentally, those expensive Japanese steaks are so marbled
and delicious that the poor cow producing them must have a body that's about
40% fat, and probably looks like some sort of a bovine balloon.
During our journey, while Ashnil was erstwhile occupied with relieving himself and I was forced
to wait for his whole moisturising routine to complete itself, the particular
design of the stairs I was on coupled with a sudden influx of schoolgirls on
the level above exposed me to (or rather, exposed
to me?) another fan-favourite local attraction, which the Japanese know as pantsu.
Given
the kinds of games we saw on sale on Day 4, I suppose most people must disagree
with me, but I found the experience (what the Brits call "checking out
the talent") somewhat
overrated.
Today's class was run by Oguri-sensei, whose slower-paced class (providing
some chances to really experiment) was quite welcome after the rapid-fire tutelage
of Dr. Hatsumi. Oguri-sensei also wandered around more to help people perform
the move correctly, which was likewise welcome. Essentially the class echoed
and expanded upon a lot of of Soke's own teachings the day before (as, I would
find, do most of the shihan classes at the Honbu dojo), focusing on setting
up your arms in such a way that you don't have to move them at all, but can
merely walk or change the position of your legs, to deny your opponent the
ability to escape, and take them effortlessly to the ground. Oguri-sensei directly
showed Andrew and myself some tricks, and gave some good grounding on what
basic techniques the moves he was showing were based on (something that's not
easy to determine, trust me), and everyone found the class most enlightening.
There was no particular grandmaster-level technique learned (as there was no grand-master),
but we did learn some fabulous Jumonji-based takedowns.
Afterward, we also discovered what was to become a true companion on our bujinkan
journey through the cold days and nights of Tokyo: the hot-tea vending machine.
The lemon tea from that thing is sweet as honey, and absolutely to die for
- particularly when the wind whips up, and you're huddled in small ninja groups
awaiting the next train.
That night, a small group of us (that is, myself, Ash and Andrew) headed out
to Tokyo Tower to catch some snaps of the Tokyo skyline, the results of which
you can see in this post (Ash will have some nicer pics for you later,
since his camera doesn't resort to guesswork when the lights go out). There's
not much else I can say, really, except that the Eiffel Tower would look pretty
crap (and would also be 13 meters shorter) if you lined it up next to this
one, Tokyo Tower is one of the largest
buildings in Japan, the line to get in was extremely long, the tower itself
was a throng of humanity (who all line up in orderly rows for a long time to
get
up there, and clog up the place when they do), and the elevator ride up (with
its prerecorded message and glass sides to let you see how high up you are)
was incredibly similar to the Space Probe Seven ride at Australia's Wonderland
(making some of us just a little bit nervous... particularly when we peered
between the floor and the elevator, at the top, and saw the free-fall that
would've awaited us).
After we had finished taking a heap of pictures, and generally being touristy,
we headed back down to a place that had tempted us greatly while standing in
the line (and tortured us by being just out of reach), namely a little place
called Marion's Crepes. Delicious sweets were certainly starting to become
a staple of our trip, and by this point none of us thought anything of having
an all-crepe dinner - and rightly so, because it would've been unthinkable
to not have had that meal, which gives me a warm glow just to remember. I would
give you a description of the crepes we had and all that, but just
describing them wouldn't tell the whole story; saying that Marion's
made excellent crepes would be like saying Jesus knocked
out some damn fine furniture. I'll leave you to imagine this part yourselves.
Sated, sleepy, and somewhat whimsical, we left the Tokyo tower and headed
back homeward with a spring in our step. It speaks to the power and skill
behind the many blows to the head we had received, and the sheer quality the
desserts we had devoured, that we did so while singing "The Shoop Shoop
Song" by Cher the entire way. It likewise speaks to the accepting nature of
the Japanese that no-one
even batted
an eyelash at this, and we were far from the oddest crew of misfits on the trains.
In this land where Victorian lace, fedora hats, business
suits and miniskirts with knee-high socks can coexist, two weirdoes who look
like terrorists (plus one awesome LivMan) can blend in
without even trying, even if they are singing 80s Pop (with accompanying dance
moves).
When finally we returned to our regular haunts, we had a bit of extra time,
so Andrew and I said farewell to Ash (who isn't a 'nightlife' person) and wandered
around looking for something Japanese to do. No sooner had we posed the question
than we were answered by the neon lights, smoky haze and deafening roar of
a Pachinko parlor. A glance flicked between us, and as one we entered. There,
in the choking fumes, a million PC Speakers seemed to be playing bad MIDIs
at varying tempo, and some gaudily-dressed serving-girls and a weasely man
rubbing his hands together watched with amazing eagerness (don't the Japanese
ever get bored?) as a bunch of late-night punters shot some metal balls around
in indecipherable machines that flashed colored lights a whole lot.
An elderly woman seemed to be able to play the game, chain-smoke, and use
her cell phone all at once, so we figured it wasn't exactly rocket science.
We put in 1000 Yen between us, and got out a Pachinko card. We were heading
over to try it in the machines (and wondering how/where/why we get those metal
balls for the machine) when the weasely man wandered up, wringing his hands
together, and trying to explain to us that the parlor would only be open for
about another 20 minutes. We nodded, and went on to the machines. Incredulous,
the man starts again, explaining with patient sign-language gestures that we
did not have much time, and that the arcade would close when the little minute
hand on the clock in the corner reaches the hour mark. Intending only to shoot
a couple of balls around for, like, 5 minutes, I didn't much care that the
store would close in four times that long, forcing him to wince, wring his
hands, and try once again (even simpler) to explain the same thing, and causing
the female attendants to giggle behind their hands at his inability to tame
the wild gaijin ("foreign assholes") before him. Attempting
to explain that we only wanted one game, and pointing to the near-catatonic
smoking lady and her pals, I tried in vain to assert our right to play... but
by this time we were being ushered towards the door, and our money cheerfully
refunded (with some additional bowing). Further hilarity ensued when I tried
to keep the 1000 Yen game card, saying that I would just use it the next day,
then; since apparently these cards are never meant to leave the store, this
caused further intriguing cultural clashes which resulted in us being deposited
securely on the threshold of the store, and the doors firmly locked.
Within, the old woman was on her fifteenth pack of Camels, and neither her
nor the sweaty dudes around her looked like they were leaving any time soon,
so I was left to sit out the front of the store and shake my fist at the weasely
Pachinko-man, vowing that we would be back at a more agreeable hour, and would
clean the place out. As with many revenge-related personal quests, this vow
would end in misfortune.
Thus rebuffed, we pointed our shoes towards home. Before heading to the hotel
I decided to look for some fruit or fruit juices, etc., because I was worried
at the lack of any fruit in my diet, and wanted some Vitamin C since I was
feeling a bit under the weather. As it happens, however, Japan doesn't really
'do' fresh fruit, or natural fruit juices (at least not in convenience stores
open late at night). I did, however, find a bottle of some kind of concentrate
which claimed to contain the accumulated
goodness of no less than seventy lemons in the one bottle, and decided to put
together a healthy supplementary dinner from such items. Thus it was that I
ended up that evening sitting on Ash's bed (Andrew and I didn't want to get
crumbs all over our own rooms) watching weird Japanese television, and twisting
up my face repeatedly when I discovered the taste of said lemon-concentrate,
when Ash told me that the katakana I couldn't read on the melon-bread wrapper
said "curry" (and hence, I had bought CURRY melon-bread... or rather TWO
of them, since I thought it would be delicious), when I actually tasted said
curry/melon
bread, and finally when I realised that the fruit jelly I had bought did not
contain fruit bits in jelly, but bits of somewhat more solid jelly floating
in jelly.
I choked down pretty much all of that before going to sleep, even though most
of it tasted like slime. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this did more to deteriorate
my state of health the next day than improve it.
Day 3 - In which Liv narrowly avoids getting naked with the Yakuza
Today started relatively benignly, much as all my other days in Japan
had started (though I haven't mentioned it until now): in the quest to
try a McDonalds Hottu-Dogu ("McHotDog"). Advertisements abound
here exhorting me to "play ball" and try a delicious Mc Hottu-Dogu,
and I simply must have one. Alas, lazy sack of bones that I am, I have
never yet managed to successfully get my hands on one - largely because
it is part of the Breakfast menu, which I'm never really on time for (or
don't recall when I am).
Yes, that's right, I said Breakfast - because here in Japan, Hot Dogs
are a breakfast food. Apparently.
They just don't want me tasting the deliciousness, I'm certain. They try
to throw me off the scent with awkward availability and making it look
really disgusting - but I shall not be fooled!
It
was also today that I observed the difficulty I warned you about in my first section:
the little kanji for 'jelly-food', which you really really must ensure is not
on your delicious breakfast, unless you want to experience some amazing nausea
when socked in the gut later on (presuming, of course, that you are planning
to get punched hard in the gut that day - if that's not in your personal itinerary,
go wild).
 Finally, it was today that I noticed the sheer prevalence of manga on the trains in Japan. It's
not surprising given the breadth of subject matter and art styles available,
in this country especially, but everyone loves manga here, it's pretty clear:
young
and old, male and female, hip
and nerdy, thin and f- well, actually, I haven't seen any fat people all trip.
Eat too
much Japanese
food, you probably just get terrible gas. That would explain the facemasks.
If you haven't got your manga fix for the morning train, I should
note that you will rarely have to head to a bookstore: the convenience stores,
odds and ends stores, and even the station itself, will have numerous manga
available for your browsing pleasure. Better still, you can pick up a Mobile
Gundam robot hobby building/painting kit, if such is your fancy... and you
never know when you'll be on your way to work and realize you've forgotten
your 1/12th scale figurine of the Millennium Falcon, so it's great to know
they stock a few of those as well.
Oguri-sensei
ran the morning class today, also, and the man certainly knows how to keep
people's interest in kicking others in the face. As to myself, I discovered
here the inherent disadvantage of training in a corner with a view of the near
wall: training here is a whole lot more effective if you are able to watch
the black-belts fight, rather than being limited to your own crappy interpretation
of what is being shown.
There are some moments on this trip when there is a man's foot on the back
of my head, my hand is twisted half around, and my nose is being mashed against
the floor, when I could be forgiven for wondering why exactly I'm halfway across
the planet paying these people to beat the crap out of me.
The answer's not so difficult, though, really. I'm a dumbass!
Even still, Oguri-sensei's class was quite valuable, and getting beaten down
does teach you a little something about how not to stand in the way of a punch,
and/or how much stuff really doesn't work when the dude hammerin' on you is
bigger than you. As Oguri-sensei himself noted, it's all about keeping the
right distance from your adversary.
In my case, this would seem to be somewhere five blocks away, sipping a
latté.
Soke's class (also held today) was a rapid-fire assemblage of ass-kickery
as always, teaching
a great many things all at once, so as to let you absorb the 'feel' of the
techniques without giving you time to learn specific moves. Again, he is teaching
a 'system of movement' rather than a finite set of attacks or defenses. One
of the chief points made today was that one should never simply repeat a move
until it is learned. Instead, one should repeat it differently, attempting
to expend
less effort every subsequent time than one did the time before. Done enough
times, one may approach Soke's level of never even breaking a sweat. Speaking
of which, we got to see Soke inflict some pretty brutal damage today, and I'm
told he actually fractured one poor guy's wrist. There are no apologies in
the Bujinkan, of course, and Soke's only response was that had this dude been
training with Takamatsu-sensei (the Grandmaster's own teacher), he would be
on the floor crying to momma.
As an added bonus, we got to take a picture with Soke today, which me and
Ash took full advantage of by looking like a dag and blinking mid-photo, respectively.
It's good to know that in all the years since High School, I still haven't
learned to smile for a group photograph.
Upon return from class, there was still an evening to go, so I immersed myself
in research into the perfect Japanese onsen experience, planning to
check out the 'bath culture' for which Japan is so famous. Ashnil had gone
to sleep early due to the cold and whatnot, but I wasn't about to let nature
decide where and when I can I can blunder ill-prepared into a potential series
of cultural faux pas. Besides, I figured the therapeutic properties of onsen
were just what the doctor ordered on a cold-ass week like this.
Long story short, I isolated two likely places wherein I might check out the
ambience, both of which promised medicinal waters the colour of soy sauce and
a staggered configuration of pools of varying temperature which overheat your
muscles into a quivering mass, after which you are dipped in successively cooler
pools, then left to stew in the tepid outside baths with your fellow lovers
of cleanliness. Apparently the whole procedure is mind-blowingly therapeutic.
I looked up the details to get there via the trains, and then tried to decide
on which I would like to actually go see. In so doing, I (rather inadvertently)
ended up doing a bit more research on them than I had been intending to...
and learned some choice things:
- Having expected a certain ambience akin to the 'unrestrained bathing trip'
one will typically purchase one's intended in that fabulous life-simulation
game Europa 1400, I was disappointed to see that mixed bathing -
that is, any bathing situation involving any sort of attraction for anyone
who isn't Hard Gay - actually died out some time around the appearance of
the first missionaries in Japan. Christian bastards had to go ruin it for
everyone...
- Onsen bathing nowadays is, hence, something of a sausage-stew.
- Elderly
Japanese men regularly ignore the rule about cleaning yourself prior to getting
in the tub with the other men.
- Other rules, such as 'no fondling' are also a bit touch-and-go with the
in-crowd. (Literally.)
- The first place I had picked out doesn't even have a womens' section, and
may very well be a gay hangout. Contrary to its claims, it also doesn't really
have that whole pipeline of carefully engineered baths-of-varying temperature,
but rather two 'common' tubs, marked 'hot' and 'tepid' respectively. The
tepid pool, apparently, is hot enough to boil an egg. The 'hot' pool could
well kill you if you sit in it too long.
- The second place I had picked out is a well-known Yakuza destination (despite,
or perhaps because of, their specific rules against Yakuza bathing there).
Although the attractions of the place are described accurately
in the various guidebooks, non-regulars - to say nothing of foreigners - typically
find themselves fixed
uncomfortably with the gazes of a great many unfriendly eyes. Visitors must
demonstrate an acceptable level of bathhouse etiquette, and scrub themselves
thoroughly under the scrutiny of numerous unfamiliar men, before they can
be allowed to share the tub with a bevvy of tattoed thugs. Soiling the purity
of the tub in any way, such as by sneezing (something I was doing a fair
bit of today), can lead to... altercations. Despite the care taken, however,
toddlers are allowed in the pool, and the tang of their urine is easy to
miss in the murky, soy-sauce coloured water.
Now, I'm not typically one to back out of a new and cultural experience...
but I figure I already spend a lot of my time in Australia hanging around with
a bunch of dicks, and some of the larger dudes can't keep their hands off me
at the best of times, so maybe I've already gone as far down this path as I'm
willing to go. I opted to shelve this particular slice
of Japanese-style living, and instead return to old haunts.
That's right, I headed out into Kashiwa for a bite to eat, daring a local
place with better prices despite their indecipherable Japanese menu, and to
reprise my attempt at Pachinko at a more reasonable hour of the day. The meal
was surprisingly good, considering the circumstances. You see, the writing
I believed
I had recognised
successfully when I made my order turned out to mean something else entirely,
and I was left nursing a bowl of piping hot chopped leeks and asparagus with
bean sprouts boiled
in Miso, prodding my chopsticks at some kind of furry tofu floating in it,
and only belatedly realising that it was
so full of chilli it was starting to burn my throat.
Having been pleasantly surprised by the overall good taste, even if my
throat was begging for water, I re-entered the Pachinko parlour with Andrew
and we again parted with 1000 of our hard-earned for a grubby little card,
which we put in a slot on the machine and waited for something to happen.
And waited. There were a whole bunch of noises and lights from the machine,
but this didn't seem to actually be doing anything.
And waited. Some kind of bullshit anime frog on the display was shouting about
something.
And waited. Eventually, the machine got angry at us, and threatened to return
our card if we don't put some damn balls in. Everyone else had iron balls,
which they were getting out of the machine... by playing the game... for which
they needed iron balls.
It was just about when we had pressed every button on the thing and started
shaking it shouting "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" that a nearby Japanese
dude took pity upon our pitiful selves, and showed us how to dispense a few
balls, and that turning the thing on the side makes the balls shoot out into
the machine, and that the balls need to go into the little house to make Mr.
Big Hair Guy shout happily and bury his fist in that lizardman's face. Also,
it seemed like you have to whack the big red button at intervals when called
to do so, presumably to prove that you're still awake.
He told us all of this while still playing his own game one-handed. As he
shot measured doses of balls into his own machine, machine-gun fire rang out,
bells tolled, and ever increasing numbers of iron balls poured out of his machine.
The guy behind us was up to seven or eight trays of balls, which presumably
would translate to a substantial fortune (in Yen or in medical bills, depending
on whether he tripped and poured them all over the floor). Anyways, while the cool
dudes around us were expending very little effort and practically drowning
in balls, we twisted, turned, pushed and tugged our knob every which way,
and could barely make it shoot out our balls; and never in the right
direction. I began to feel like I had gone to that gay-bath after all.
Frustration built up amongst the baffled gaijin punters, and many
brave balls were lost forever. Again, bored-looking Japanese dude came to the
rescue, this time leaning over to dual-wield Pachinko
machines with
a stifled yawn that must have signified
the severe mental strain of such fierce concentration. Sure enough, it seemed
as though the knob had to be turned at a very precise angle, not too little
and not too much, to bounce the balls along at just the right clip to have 'em
rebound in the right place and trickle down through the bowels of the machine
toward the little house that sits in the center. Players would presumably adjust
and counter-adjust their knob-angle based on the success of their strategy,
eventually reaching the sweet-spot that is Pachinko Nirvana, holding the knob
as steadily as possible (since it's on a spring) and using their other hands
to scoop out the excess of their iron-bead treasure while watching the weird
anime stuff on the screen for any indication that they would be required to
press a button at some point.
By the end of the night, we emerged from the smoky haze with our winnings
of a majestic... TWO iron balls. Or, at least, with the general feeling of
not having quite lost everything due to our own stupidity, since the
actual iron balls in question had been donated by me to our friend the bored-looking
Japanese
guy. Moreover,
in the midst of our fabulous losing-streak, we only retained those two balls
out of happenstance. It's not that we played it smart and backed out when we
had something like 0.5% of our initial stake remaining (two balls out of many
hundreds), but rather that at some point in our journey towards the shared
title of worst-Pachinko-players-ever... we managed to break the machine.
At that point, of course, the weasely-faced man came back over, and his nostrils
positively flared upon seeing us again. Taking matters briskly in hand, ushering
us away from the poor stewardess trying to fix the machine, and kicking us
quite efficiently out the door, he once again fixed us with his trademark stare
and this time watched to make sure that we did not return.
Retiring to my bed some 1,000 Yen poorer, I have every expectation I won't
be allowed in there again.
Day 4 - In which Liv busts his lip and bleeds all over everything
Ahh, Japan. Never a dull moment. Already I am having trouble controlling
Ashnil's enthusiasm, and after our visit to Akihabara today the poor guy
is absolutey certain they he wants to move out here and leave his old life
behind.
Fabulous a sitcom though it would be - "A Nerdy Black Guy in Tokyo"
- I think perhaps his own excitement would kill him, and will endeavour
to ensure that he does come back to Australia if at all possible. He has
responsibilities after all, and as his senior I simply can't condone such
a dereliction of his studies and work.
Incidentally, if you guys could please post me my remaining belongings,
I don't think I shall be coming home after all.
I started today rather unusually: you see, the cold air here in Tokyo has been doing a number on my lips (maybe Ash's lengthy moisturising routine is good for something after all...), and they have been cracking and splitting rather painfully for some time. As such, they were in rather a weakened state when I nicked them with the shaver today, and... just wouldn't stop bleeding.
If you ever find yourself in a foreign country bleeding uncontrollably from your lips, you should know that a small pile of tissues is no help at all, the refresher towel you foolishly leave amongst them will sting like a bitch, a fridge full of Pocky is not quite an ice-pack, your band-aids will be useless, and your huge pile of yen will be no consolation as you slowly bleed to death.
Or, you know, just bleed slowly for hours, suck it up, walk it off, and get on the train to Electric City.
Tokyo's Electric City is a colourful district easily reached from anywhere
by rail, and hard to miss even from space (particularly at night). It's bright,
it's airy, it's beautiful, and it's a world right out of any male nerd's dream.
(Otome Road, the female counterpart, incidentally serves the same function
for females just down the road.) The place is 100% electronics, games, manga,
anime,
music, media,
gadgetry, kitch, toystores and concentrated weird. It would be futile
to describe the place in detail, since your imaginations can readily fill in
the details: I have seen everything here from music CDs through consoles, anime
figurines, life-size love-dolls, DVDs, cosplay outfits, replica weaponry...
oh, forget it, I can't list all this crap. There's just too much of it.
What's really stunning about this place, however, is the sheer variety to
be found in all of these categories.
Whether you're looking for clothing for your tiny plastic dolls or DVDs of
swimsuit-idols giving extra special attention to some suggestive ice-cream
cones, or (gods forbid) something a little more benign, this place's attention
to detail will make you feel like the people here understand and appreciate
your needs on a whole 'nother level - much as my visit to Marion's Crepés
on Day 2 did for me.
I don't think I can possibly overemphasise how incredibly rich is their selection
of just about anything. I give a representative example above for you to compare
to Australia's typical manga selection, but really it's impossible to truly
convey. For each of my examples above, there are multilevel shopping extravaganzas.
The simplest store of anime figurines is here a veritable gallery showcasing
some absolutely amazing statue-work (as well as larger items such as life-size
Predator heads, 1:1 Cast-Iron Iron-Man suits, and the like), arrayed with great
care in spotless glass
cases, with customers snapping pictures and wandering reverently through, giving
each piece its due consideration, like visitors at a shrine. This, of course,
backed up by rows upon rows of shelves upon shelves of figures and figures
and figures and figure accessories and even figure painting and hobbyists'
kits. Likewise, this place is like a fashion center for dolls, with a veritable
department store worth of choices for your musuko and musume ("sons"
and "daughters" respectively - a favourite otaku terminology for
their
figurines), not to mention for your life-size doll or particularly playful
significant other.
Stores here are often small, but always continue to numerous floors, with
a selection that boggles the mind. Our small group entered a tiny music store
(packed wall-to-wall with CDs and shelves of CDs) and was surprised to find
that it continued five levels up, each level absolutely packed with stock -
an incredible selection of music, and that only in a couple of select subgenres:
there were stores with a great deal more, to be sure. Incidentally, if you
want me to bring you back some sort of CD... I can't recognise anything on
these darn shelves (and Adrian beat me to buying the last copies of everything
that I did recognise...),
but I'm certainly
able to ask for stuff, so if you'd rather I come back with something nice, darn
well tell me what I should be looking for. This means you, Bog.
So as I was saying, this size was startling, but turned out to be much smaller
than the norm: in the streets and back alleys alike, stores took up eight or
so levels more often than not, and every level was stocked with new and exciting
stuff even more magical, colourful, shiny, depraved or baffling than the last.
We were each giddy as the proverbial schoolgirls we were pretty much surrounded
with, Andrew over figurines, me over artbooks, Adrian over music and Ash over
just about everything. Incidentally, let me just say that filling
RJorb's request for his present in this environment did
not require a great deal of effort.
As the electronics center of Tokyo, Akihabara also boasted a fabulous selection
of games, and there was no shortage of multilevel video-gaming arcades to go
with the shopping arcades. As always, Ash was all talk and sat out when it
came to actually doing anything (except shopping...), but Andrew and I each signed
up for a Gundam Pilot's Card (a futuristic dealie which is still in my wallet),
jumped into some fancy-ass space pods, put on our headsets, got our feet on
the pedals, grabbed the dual five-button joysticks, slammed the ignition
button, and fired our
robot war machines out into cyberspace to do networked battle with other pale,
quivering pod-creatures all over the world.
Our mechanical wrath was vicious and terrible to behold, and although we never
came up against one another in battle, we did pwn more than our fair share
of n00bs (as they say), and I enjoyed an almost perpetual stay atop the leaderboards
just as soon as I perfected my tactic of rocket-boosting onto buildings, sniping
the enemy team from difficult-to-retaliate vantage points, and leaping into
the fray with my energy-sword to burn up all my fuel on speed-dashes when the
fools finally caught on and surrounded the building (at which point the rest
of my team would be shooting them all in the back - though not particularly
due to my fabulous leadership, mind you, since the players all spoke Japanese,
of which the only word I used - repeatedly - was "BANZAAI!").
With a battle-overview system that shows the locations (and 'life-signs')
of the
individual
pilots in the pods, and a series of printed maps for all of the levels available
to take into your pod, etc., it was pretty clear that this game was Serious
Business™ - and though I can't hardly do much better than today's performance
I do hope to have another try before I go.
The sheer enthusiasm for spending a great deal of money over here was extremely
contagious, and I did seriously consider walking off and not trying to find
my group again lest I succomb further to their consumer-frenzy. It is
certainly true that "you only live once" - but when everyone you're
with is saying "you only live once" every few minutes, it may be time to
consider whether you want that life to include food and a roof over your head.
Then again, you do only live once.  In the end, I got a little competitive...
and, well, I don't know how I'm going to get this stuff home. I took a picture
of my hotel room to add to this post, but it didn't come out all that well.
Suffice it to say that there's now a couple of cute thingamies decorating my
desk, and the corner of my room contains a pile of artbooks and a huge and
mysterious box. I'm not going to tell you what inside the box, but you're allowed
to marvel at it later if I can work out a way to get it into the country.
One thing I most definitely cannot get into the country, and want very very
much, however, is an Airsoft gun. There were stores here that stocked veritable
armories of them: extremely realistic looking metal firearms of various sorts
which fire BB gun pellets and/or special paintballs. These things were just
so awesome, I think it's a crime for possession of them in Australia to be...
well, a crime. It's simply unjust, I tell you. One of those hot semi-automatic
lookalikes (ala The Transporter), I would've bought in a heartbeat. Andrew
and I feasted our eyes on the collection more than once, then wiped away our
tears and moved on.
Once the shopping frenzy had abated a little (for today anyway), our next
stop was soaking in sone local flavour. we figured we could bop two birds with
one stone by checking out the Popo Animation Studio & Maid Café. As indicated,
this was an (amateur) Animation Studio, where some girls in sailor fuku were
busy making bizarre cartoons and saucy illustrations, while all around them
a healthy population of flouncy French-maids served personalized snacks to
the cafe clientele, and entertained them with their bouncy... conversation.
Here again the ability of the Japanese to be happy all of the time was most
positively in evidence. Whoever made that joke about the Japanese not knowing how to smile hasn't seen this generation in action. Today's wasn't top weather for maid outfits, and these
girls had been at it all day, but I'll be damned if they weren't still happy
as Larry. This in turn made the customers happy - especially the overweight
40+ year-old nerd dude we saw positively mobbed by loving female attention
(clearly a regular).
I found the personalized meals a fun idea. Presumably in her eagerness to
please you fully, and to simulate familiarity with your tastes, your personal
maid will interpret your order in her own way. Despite all ordering the same
ice cream, each of us received a slightly different dish, for instance - made
with sprinkles or artfully chocolate sauced, etc. The one feature in common,
however, was that each featured prominently a big whipped-cream heart filled
with bright red jam. Mmm, jam.
One difficulty we perhaps should've expected was that the maid experience
required a certain language proficiency.
Since due to my superior (if shitty) command of the language I have somehow
become an interpreter throughout this trip, I did my best to translate what
they were saying, but the maids were clearly keener on the people they could
properly communicate with. I used up most of the relevant words that I knew
by holding a brief exchange with one of the artist girls, but since she wasn't
actually there to entertain the clientele, she seemed more interested in her
work. I watched her draw & paint for a while, instead, and my remaining
attempts at Japanese speech were limited to translating Ash's questions regarding
where the heck the stuff he had ordered had got to. For a place packed to the
brim with maids, come to think of it, this café had remarkably poor service.
Nevertheless, it was good fun.
Returning to Kashiwa that night, I realized how cheap Pocky was, and pretty
much bought out the store. I spent the rest of the evening eating four whole packets of Pocky and
watching "Supaidaaman 2" for the first time in Japanese. As it happens,
the dialogue adds very little to that movie (but I did learn the words for "harmonic
stabiliser").
Day 5 - In which Liv enters the Tokyo Budokan wearing shoes, and Soke pulls a pistol
Today we ducked out early for a spot of hanami ("cherry blossom viewing")
in the cherry-blossom filled zone of Ueno park. It's not quite peak blossom
season, but a lot of the trees are blooming nonetheless, and Ueno park
is pretty spectacular either way.
This park is a vast place sprawling off of one end of Tokyo's second-busiest
station. It's very well tended, in fact most of the trees look like Bonsai,
and have huge sticks holding them in pleasing shapes as with Bonsai. Festive
lanterns line the walkways, and picnickers are everywhere soaking in the
ambience. Ueno park is also full of cats of every stripe. Apparently wild,
these cats are nevertheless extremely friendly. Oddly, as Andrew remarked
today, we had still never seen an insect in Japan by that point... only
people, catgirls and cats.
The first thing I did upon arriving was to magnanimously buy the three
of us Takoyaki (delicious octopus balls) for breakfast. This gesture was
wasted, since Andrew and Ash refused to have more than one each, but that
did leave a pretty big pile of good food for myself. Hard to be put out
at ungrateful jerks when you get to eat their breakfast.
After that, we went to see the local shrine. It was a lovely, traditional
building and all, but the sheer amount of things there that cost 100 or
200 yen to do, the bunch of charms and writings for sale, etc., plus the
big donation boxes to toss coins in, made it feel a bit more like the park
gift-shop than a holy place. Who knew Shintoism was so tourist-targeted?
(Ash, probably.)
 The shrine was, however, ringing with the sound of live traditional music.
Unfortunately, it sounded a lot more like traditional Inca music to me...
A rather good guess, it turns out: the music was unrelated to the temple,
but that of some buskers in sombreroes outside. We watched them for a while,
enjoying their stylin' sounds, before moving on. More buskers abounded,
however, including one man and woman who inflated a giant balloon, stuffed
the man inside it, and proceeded to do an acrobatic woman-and-blob dance.
This capped off our Ueno experience, so we headed further out, to Senso-ji
temple in Asakusa, and the bustling markets, gardens and city around it.
This proved less easy to find, but beyond a point we could just follow
the rickshaws full of fat Americans.
Thus reconnoitered, the Asakusa markets proved hugely long, dense and
packed with cool stuff. If you have money to spend in this country, you
can be sure there's an entire street somewhere that is packed with stuff
you simply have to have. Judging by the yukatas, swords, foodstuffs, etc.
we saw, this was the street for tourists with loose purse-strings. I wasn't
really interested in anything here, so I mainly just wandered the side-streets
of the market rather than spend any money here. After you've been in this
place for a while, you can tell the difference pretty easily between overpriced
tourist crap, and overpriced authentic crap (for the locals). A giveaway
indicator, for instance, is the presence of fruit and/or giant piles of
beans. (Speaking of which, the variety in beans around here is bean-tastic!
I want to make myself a sandwich with one of every type of bean...)
 Beyond the bustling markets lay the biggest Shinto shrine we'd seen yet
(but by no means the largest we would see). Here, big angry demon gatewarden
guys flanked gates and shrines full of paintings, statuary and big giant
lanterns. Figuring to learn some of the history for free, I attached myself
to a German tour group that was touring the place... But I soon discontinued
the practice after learning that Shinto stuff is pretty straightforward,
and my initial guesses as to the significance of stuff were pretty darn
good; and of course once I realized how much bloody time is wasted by tour
groups wandering around a place. Remind me never to go on an organized
tour... I can cover several blocks, photograph everything, and get lunch
in the time it takes these guys to haul themselves between two fountains,
and explain that those giant wicker shoes are called the Shoes of Buddha,
as a tribute to his uncommonly large feet. Or his wisdom. Or something.
Since it was the thing to do, we also picked up our fortunes for the year.
I went first, shaking the big wood thing, pulling out a stick, cross-referencing
with the appropriate drawer, and pulling it out:
Bad Fortune. Misfortune will befall me at every step, my patients will
not recover, I won't get the job, my love life is in big trouble, and I
probably ought to take out volcano insurance. Grreat.
Andrew reaches in: Best Fortune. Everything that goes badly for me, he
shall receive in abundance. "Score!" says he, "Can't beat
that, can ya?" he adds rhetorically.
Ash reaches in: Highest, Most Excellent Fortune...
Turns out that you can.
 Chagrined, and a little suspicious since the awesomeness of our fortunes
coincided with the ratio of our monetary contributions to the temple, I
tied my bad fortune to the bad-fortune-line thingy with a request for the
Gods to help me out. We shall see later if it improves my bad luck.
Beyond that, our shrine tour didn't go on much longer, because ninja classes
resumed tonight. Soke was teaching again, this time at the Tokyo Budokan:
essentially a shared training hall for various flavours of martial arts
(and apparently for the 2016 Olympics).
I walked in just in time for the class here (the others having gone off
to a budokan shop nearby and hence split off from me earlier, as I went
exploring), but entered from the wrong side. Because of this, I missed
the sign on the other side about the entirety of the budokan being a shoes-free
zone. Hence, I of course headed in blithely, fully shod.
This did not serve me well since, as I was to find out, a person with
shoes on is received with shocked horror in the inner chambers, and the
no-shoes policy does not apply to the angry-looking police dudes who then
start to follow you as you hurriedly back out to find a change-room.
Eventually, though, I did get changed successfully, etc. (though I was
required to take special care with my shoes, which I didn't have a bag
for). Soke started the class not long later.
Today, he taught the Grandmaster-level Unseen Hand technique. Now, ninja
techniques in general will involve some level of striking from an unseen
vantage point, such that the enemy cannot block, but this class took that
idea to its extreme. Various wild examples of this were shown, all following
the same general pattern... But the most out-and-out awesome was the one
in which Soke appeared to stand his ground and walk right through his enemy,
sprawling him on the ground. What actually happened was an almost invisible
series of tiny, sharp attacks that took the opponent's balance in one direction
but actually served as a serious distraction to the bewildered opponent
while Soke slipped his hand into their Gi unnoticed, so as to then suddenly
reverse his direction, whirl the guy completely off balance, and throw
him to the ground. I say 'throw', but really it just looked like Soke walked
past him normally, and the dude just stiffened, whirled about and collapsed
face-first onto the floor.
What made this technique so awesome was that the second time he did it,
he paused instead of completing his move, with his hand in the opponent's
Gi. As the uke regained his balance and made to throw a punch, there was
a sudden 'click'. Suddenly, the guy froze altogether, as Soke pushed aside
his opponent's Gi jacket for our benefit, showing us that - hidden in the
guy's own clothing - the Grandmaster had a loaded gun to his throat.
Soke wasn't just hiding the gun from his opponent... somehow he had also
kept it hidden from the entire audience! Soke had no sleeves or anything,
but until that 'click' not one of us seems to have even realized there
was something in his hand. Bloody brilliant, mate. The man's a living legend.
As to the rest of it, Soke again showed how his techniques require no
actual strength behind them, but emphasised that his whole body backed
up every movement nevertheless. It was fabulous stuff, but I won't go into
detail here.
 After that came Fran's farewell at the Saizeria - a rather good Italian
chain found all over, particularly near budo venues (apparently), where
the resident ninja muchly appreciate being able to eat a bit of meat. It
is especially notable for offering infinite refills of any non-alcoholic
drink for only 180 yen. This, incidentally, is how I have sampled such
a wide variety of disgusting and/or delicious Japanese drinks. Fran was
not staying the whole time, instead leaving for San Francisco, and this
little get together was to see her off.
Thereafter, it was back to Kashiwa, where Ash surprised me by deciding
to join us in going out to an Irish pub, rather than heading back to his
room as usual. There, we chatted with international ninja, and did a bit
of singing with one of Tokyo's friendly drunks. Again, my command of the
language was just enough to translate a little, and our lengthy series
of inane conversations about sport (baseball especially), drinking, Australia,
music and how very much this guy loved us (apparently a lot) was actually
rather entertaining. Probably a better way to learn Japanese than clicking
a whole lot of pictures, besides.
Once most of the ninja went home and things died down a bit, we decided
we'd had enough passive smoking and went back to the hotel.
It must've been about 2 am, but the hotel staff were wide awake and cheerful
as can be. They may be humanoid robots.
This is the end of part 1 of my Japan-series of posts. You will get the next part some time soon, but I'm not sure how much longer our ability to get cheap internet will last, so it may be a reasonably lengthy wait. Enjoy what I've put up to this point, for the time being, and I hope to regale you soon with "Day 6 - In which Liv gets pissed on by a toilet". |
Liviu and Ash's World Tour of Japan
Elo: Ohh wow, awesome guys! hope you are making the most of your time over there...
Ranneko: Glad to hear that you guys are having an awesome time.
GrubLord: Well, if Day 4 is anything to go by, there's certainly going to be a lot of random junk... but you guys are going to have to wait until I have a few more long train trips to type these posts, before we get to that part of the story... 
Syfro: That's some fine stubble you've got going there.
Lunzo: Awesome read Grubs. You've got an entertaining writing style and it sounds like you're having a blast there.
Nemisii: sounds like you're having a blast, good to hear. 
teh_saq: I have ŧo saÿ, gîven ÿoür înabîŀîŧÿ ŧo dîsŧîngüîsh reaŀ food from "jeŀŀÿ food" I'm gŀad ŧhaŧ ÿoü sŧaÿed awaÿ from skînnÿ dîppîng possîbîŀîŧîes wîŧh organîsed crîme ŧÿpes. Even green-beŀŧ nînja skîŀŀs are ünŀîkeŀÿ ŧo have been süffîcîenŧ ŧo rescüe ÿoü from an awfüŀ faŧe. Aŀŧhoügh, îf ÿoü manage ŧo geŧ some of ŧhaŧ aforemenŧîoned jeŀŀÿ food ŧhroügh cüsŧoms ŧhen I foresee ŧhe reŧürn of ŧhe ŊerdFesŧ Bŀack Bîŧch Drînks Roünd "The Greaŧ Sîckenîng: From Japan wîŧh Vengeance"...
