A Night in Shibuya

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To tell you the truth, I can’t remember what I did during the daytime this day.  But according to the pictures, I spent the night partying away in Shibuya with Yoshi and Ryan, which clues me in to the last part of the day!  : )



A lazy day of sitting around the Guest House, and walking around Azabujuban.  I called Yoshi up from the now trusty pay phone at the Mini Mart, and arranged to meet him at the same statue in Shibuya as I’d met him at the first time.  Meeting time, roughly 5:30pm, so I left with plenty of time to spare to allow for some getting lost time.  Little did I expect to find it right off the bat this time, having stopped for a few minutes in the station to overlook the 5 crossings part of Shibuya.  This was an area used in the filming of Lost in Translation and is a truly amazing sight.  5 crosswalks zigzagging across the street, with everyone walking at the same time… all traffic just stops to allow for the ungodly amount of pedestrians.  Later in the night I would find out that the pedestrian traffic just didn’t stop it’s insanity, even around midnight.  Anyway, as I was saying, I stopped to overlook the 5 crossings, and saw the dog statue right below me, now all I had to do was figure out which of the million exits would take me to it?!?!   I lucked out, picked the right one, and was right there.  I was pretty early, so I hung around the smoking area for a while waiting and watching all of the people.  I think Tokyo has to be a top spot to people watch.  London was pretty good too, but nothing like this.  I’ll only assume that it’s because I have no idea what’s being said, or why certain things are being done, it’s only there to serve for my curiosity.  Fine by me.  I contemplated asking the time after having a few smokes, but after being grossly misunderstood by the schoolgirls in Asakusa, I was a little nervous, so I chickened out.  Bad move personally, I thought I’d gained a little courage over there, guess not.  Not sure if I felt more uneasy trying to practice my Japanese, or if they felt more uneasy about this Gaijin (foreigner) hanging around their smoking area.  All I can say is I’m glad I’m not so shy, otherwise this trip would’ve driven me nuts. 



Yoshi finally shows up, and we take off to get a bite to eat, and start on the Biru! (Beer!) He finds a cool place on the 5th floor of a close by building, with a nice view overlooking the chaos down below.  He tells me they serve beer till 7pm, although I’m not too sure what the reason was.  Some very strange things over there.   You can buy beer and smokes from vending machines, but not from most convenience stores, clubs and bars are open virtually all night long serving alcohol, yet some restaurants stop serving it early in the evening.  So many things I didn’t ask Yoshi for clarification on, I just kinda accepted.  So once again, the beer flowed, our mouths flapped, and much talking pursued.  The story of my separation from my Ex-Fiancé was the topic for a while, in which Yoshi was insisting I go back to her and insist that we try again.  I think somewhere in there was some “Lost in Translation” or culture moments as I tried to explain to him that she left me, and she had different ideas now about what she wanted.  But all he could seem to concentrate on was that I still loved her, and that was enough for him to carry it on from there.  It was pretty intense, and a very male chauvinistic conversation (and I mean that in the best way possible) but things just seem so different over there, or at least different from his view, which seems a lot more traditional.  Eventually, after plenty of beer, yakitori and pickled cucumber (gag) and some asparagus things (You’d be proud Mum!), we left.  I offered to take Yoshi to the guest house, as it was still early, and I don’t think he’d ever been to that area of Tokyo, plus it would be interesting to see some interaction there between him and the Housemates.  Before that though, he took me to Book 1st, a very large 5 story book store to show me their selection of foreign language books.  Now this place was happening for books, although very expensive.  I could make a killing in that country importing and selling books alone!   But the selection to teach Japanese was unbelieveable, and I had to hold back from buying so many of them, especially knowing that I could pick them up in the states for so much cheaper.  But then I saw “More making out in Japanese”, and having come over with the first volume, and it making such a hit around the guest house, I just had to pick it up.  1700 yen!!!!!!  That’s about $10 more than in the States!  Ouch!  Oh well, it was worth it, and I can now say I bought a book while in Japan, for whatever that’s worth. 



After Book 1st, we took the train to Azabujuban, and here is where I get lost, again, like so many times before.  If only I could pick an exit and stick with it, I’d be fine.  Instead, I always exit the subway at a different place.  I quickly gained my bearings having only walked the wrong way for about 20 feet, turned around, saw Wendys and got excited!  Now I was the tour guide with Yoshi, and he was looking all over the place like a tourist.  Funny stuff.  We stopped at the Mini Mart, picked up a few cans of Asahi, and headed up the five flights of stairs to the lounge.  The lounge was packed, and for my lack of remembering everyone’s name, the introduction was “Yoshi, this is everyone, everyone, this is Yoshi!” He was very well received, and as we grabbed a seat on the mat, conversations ensued.  We cracked open the beers, and eventually popped in Lost in Translation.  This was great, I finally had someone there to translate the parts that just weren’t translated in the movie, intentionally for effect.  So as the director in the part when they are filming the commercial is going off, Yoshi translates for all of us.  The whole room fell silent as we all laughed at how indepth he was getting at directing Bill Murray, and the simple translation the interpreter was giving him.  Then Yoshi and Taka got to talking to each other in Japanese, and a whole lot of bowing between the two started.  I think it was just introductions to each other, but it was interesting to see one of the guys from the House that just chills western style like the rest of us snap back to his traditional roots.  The respect could be heard in the conversation, despite not understanding a word except for a few names of people and places being mentioned.  It was starting to get late, 11pm to be exact, and Yoshi was either going to go home, or wanted to go out and party.  A quick decision was made, and a night in Shibuya was now in the works.  I asked Ryan to come along, and he was more than game, we just had to hang around and wait for some of the Canadians to get back.  We gave them 15 minutes, they didn’t return, so we left.



This is where the night got a little interesting.  Shibuya is very “entertainment” orientated.  And by entertainment, I mean Sex Clubs.  You pay a 7000 or 8000 yen cover, go in and pick a girl, and spend an hour with her for ummm, entertainment.  We actually had something else in mind, more of a dance club, but Yoshi wanted to make sure we had a good time, a good experience to take back, as he explains to us how these places work.  So we’re walking around, and he’s negotiating with people on the streets that are trying to allure us into numerous different places.  Yoshi explains to us that some of these places can be dangerous for foreigners as they get taken advantage of, but if we stick with him, everything would be ok.  Eventually, I think I make it clear that Ryan and I want to go to a “normal club”, a disco, a dance club, where the 20 something’s go to party.  Finally, Ryan and I find a place called Xanadu, the music sounds decent, and the cover is only 500 yen which includes a drink.  We head down to check it out.  Now THIS, is exactly what we were looking for.  Besides the bar staff, Ryan and I were probably the only white people in there.  Excellent!  We beeline for the bar, get some drinks and check out the scene.  The music is outrageously loud, the atmosphere awesome!  We were all a little broke, but this made a nice change from the expense of Roppongi, and at 500 yen per drink, and they were STRONG, we were in business.  We hadn’t been in the place for but 5 minutes, and Ryan met this really cute girl Fumi, and was talking away to her, and dancing, and having a great time.  They introduced me to her friend, whose name I forget.  She was nice, but seemed to be terrified of the big foreigner as every time I leaned in to talk to her over the music, she jumped about a mile.  So I kinda left her alone and hung out at the bar talking to the bartender when I ended up meeting Akiko.  She sauntered upto the bar, and I helped her order a drink.  We started talking, then dancing, and then she throws me up on the stage to dance.  I was having a blast, and Yoshi seemed to be having a good time, especially after I ordered him a few Kamikazes, he was all over the place.  

A few more drinks, and a lot more dancing, Ryan and I meet back at the bar and decide it’s time to leave.  We look for Yoshi, and he is nowhere to be found.  We hang out a little longer, hoping that he shows up, he doesn’t.  All I knew is that he was out of money, and the trains had stopped running.  I already had a good idea where he’d be, and that was out sleeping on the sidewalk somewhere waiting till morning, so we looked around outside but couldn’t find him.  Us all being out of money, except for enough to take a Taxi back to Azabujuban, there wasn’t much we’d be able to do for him anyway.  I’d seen enough people sleeping on the streets in suits and such to assume that this was a safe enough practice, obviously pretty damn common around here, so I didn’t worry too much about him.  We walk to the 5 crossings area, hail a cab and mutter the Azabujuban Station to the driver hoping he understood.  He repeated our destination, with a Hai (yes) at the end, and started on his way.  As I’m counting our money, and watching the meter go up, we decide to change the destination to the Hyatt in Roppongi as we weren’t going to have enough money to get all the way home.  Fortunately I managed to convey this message to the white gloved taxi driver, and he swung over to the Hyatt before we passed it.  From there, it was a good 10-15 minute walk to the Guest House which was no problem.  Wow, what a night.  We get back to the house, I stay up and talk with Taka and Yumi about our night out, and stay up till sunrise chatting away.  Tomorrow would be a quiet day I’m sure.  Yoshi and I had planned to get to Ueno Park, I know this isn’t happening.  Bedtime!!

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Photos

Me, Yoshi and Ryan
At a club in Shibuya having a blast!