The Concept of a Line

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I suppose I have to be very brief, I don't want to spend too much time blogging. Faced with the idea of writing a blog about my last weekend in Tokyo, well, I can either write 5000 words or 50. So I'm compromising with 500 to 1000.

Friday night - exhaustion, brief visit to Shinjuku. Sake in Minamo Yono (Ben's place).

Saturday. Ben and I began wandering around Shinjuku. One interesting thing about the Japanese concept of order is that they naturally form lines - on train platforms, waiting for buses, or even complex, bipartite queues in front of Krispy Kreme. I've included a photograph below, but the immense line before Krispy Kreme is negotiated, wordlessly, by the queuers, to be in two segments, so as not to crowd a public passage. The first person in line in the second segment judges when to join the inner queue, and an appropriate number of them advance. Remember, this is quite a long, tiring line. Were it to be in a Western country, I think grannies and invalids would be trodden underfoot.

At any rate, B.T. took me through Harajuku to Omotosandee Hills to Shibuyu. This is an incredibly densely crowded area for shopping and consumption. At one stage we entered a shopping mall which was more like a Western capitalist fantasy of Xmas. 'In Tokyo,' said B.T., 'They have the best of everything'. Inside, the world's most opulent Xmas tree towered through five or more levels of boutique stores. The mall's speakers overwhelmed us with cascading waves of plucked harp strings with the rising and falling rhythms of sleigh bells ringing through now and then. A huge, glass gem stood in the centre of the skyscraper Xmas tree. Strange and, somehow, disturbing for its level of fantasy in consumption, but captivating all the same.

In Harajuku we spotted a group of about 20 catwalk models, standing about with their minders looking sixteen, awkwardly sophisticated, and strangely in place. Passing to Shibuyu, twilight now, there were hordes of people crowding neon-lit squares and laneways. This is a famous place for a photograph, and B.T. squeezed a couple off for me before disappearing on his date. So I jumped on a train to meet up with Caroline, B.T.'s neighbour, who was wandering around Ueno, to head to Roppongi.

Neither of us liked Roppongi very much. We managed to find some dinner, then headed back to Shinjuku. My ankle was killing me, and we had a martini at 'The Albatross' before I decided that I wasn't going to have an all-nighter later on with B.T. as we had planned. Returning back to Minami Yono, I crashed out, hoping to have Sunday for Tokyo.

Both B.T. and I were in manic, tired moods on Sunday, but we wandered through Shinjuku to Akihabura - where paedo porn manga, technology, and costumed kids abound - heading to an Edvard Munch exhibition at a museum in Ueno. At one stage, feeling so very manic, standing in a crowded train on the way to Ueno, I made a gesture, half-comic, that I was going insane to B.T., who laughed, and we began to improvise on a comedy script -

'Nurse, my god! Quick, stat! 20 ccs of surrealism! This man is having an existential crisis!'

A senior doctor appears, looking frustrated with both the intern and the nurse. The patient begins to flatline. The intern panics. S.D. (senior doctor) takes over.

S.D. - 'My god man! Where did you train?! It is clearly a nihilistic crisis. Nurse, 10ccs of abstract expressionism to counter-act the surrealism and another 30 of post-historical aporia! STAT!'

The patient flatlines.

Nurse - 'My god ...'
Intern - 'It is too horrible to think about ...'
S.D. - 'I've seen this before ... solipsism.'

We laughed and made it to Ueno. Entering the museum I quickly discovered that the Japanese concept of the line applied to more than queues for donuts. With a sheet numbering and explaining Munch's works, a queue crawled forward, pausing for a minute or two at each artwork. I have a habit of exploring art galleries in an impromptu sort of way, I'll begin wandering, something ends up taking my eye, and then I approach it in whatever way it seems to draw me. Some of the Japanese found my zig-zagging rude, but saw me looking at the paintings from odd angles, and liked it. The guards looked amused. I liked Munch's work; a great deal of it was on display, although 'The Scream', a favourite expressionist work, was not sitting next to 'Anxiety' and 'Despair' where it belonged. Much of Munch's later decorative works were on display - very colourful and vivid. B.T. and I played havoc with the queue in the gallery for around an hour.

Out of the museum I felt the odd angst. Another massive crowd was moving out of Ueno Park to the station, and we began to walk against the crowd, B.T. noting there was something psychological about it. He showed me his favourite Buddhist Temple, dedicated to a fox-spirit, where I stood emptily but in admiration. Then we headed past the lake of lotus flowers, it was late twilight and a freezing autumn wind made the multitude bend and bob above the water.

Then we went through Ueno markets, and found a Korean restaurant to eat. B.T. ordered a plate of beef, and a fellow came over and cooked it for us while we had a beer then some sake. I later discovered that I devoured beef tongue and intestine at this event (B.T. was a bit sinister here, but said he wanted me to try something without preconception). I think I preferred the typical beef aspects of being a Western carnivore, and I'd had tongue before, but the intestines were ... interesting.

Then, exhausted, we kept to our goal, and made it up Tokyo Tower! This was an arduous task. We waited in around 10 lines to ascend and descend. The tower is supposed to be a copy of Eiffel Tower, but I think the original is more massive, if the clone is a bit taller. The views were superb, but my camera wasn't adequate to capture them, so I hope to get hold of B.T.'s photographs.

Lastly, or so we thought, we were to finish my last night in Tokyo with a martini at 'The Albatross' in Shinjuku. We sat there, and began drinking - such a nice, cool bar. The bartender said 'hello' politely to me, remembering me. We met another Australian, some Japanese indie buskers, drank a rusty nail. Then B.T. turned to me and said 'You know, although I have work tomorrow, we could do an all-nighter tonight?' And I said 'Yes, why not?'

So, at 3 am, we were finishing up with a whisky shot with the bartender, after having chatted with a bunch of very cool Japanese. There was a small upstairs with some art on display, and it was really great! The artist himself was there and I gave him a drunken 'hello' and compliment which made him happy.

At 3 we found a Manga cafe and crashed. 6 am, I shook B.T. awake, we climbed onto the train for Minami Yono. Very tired. Businessmen were squeezed like sardines into the seat, and sleeping on the train, relying upon the pressure of the neighbour to stay upright. The sunlight played over early morning Tokyo, glancing into the train. I felt as though life could, occasionally, be glorious.

We missed our station, alighted at Omiya, utterly exhausted. Stood waiting with the great crowd for the next train to Minami Yono. It arrived, and another horde alighted. Something was said over the speakers, the Japanese formed lines before each door but did not enter.

'I've never seen this before,' B.T. remarked.

Train conductors quickly ran through each carriage, as though checking for something. Surely enough, one or two somnolent businessmen gradually staggered out of the doorway, past the waiting line, blinking sleepily. The line moved forward.

Finally, alighting, at 6:40 am, at Minami Yono, the horizon was free of smog.

'Look, there's Fuji.'

And there it stood, visible, 100 kilometres away, a brute of rock on the horizon. I'm leaving Tokyo in the next few hours to stay on a lodge on the side of Fuji for a couple of days. B.T. to follow later. More to come.

Farewell Tokyo!

(My thanks to B.T. for being such a gracious, patient, and companionable host.)

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Photos

Photo 4
Finding a Shinjuku restaurant, outside 'The Albatross' - it's only open late evenings. Yes, I like 'The Albatross'.

Photo 5
The yellowish, squid-like substance on the left is the entrails.