Radio off!

24th of May, 2002ce* in: diary

Ooo! I miss hanging out at trendy parties, sipping wine with media luvvies and getting so shitfaced drunk I don’t know which side of up is up.
Well, all my dreams were answered as my old work mate here called Klaus sent me some cryptic information via email about having a drink or four. We got some tucker in as cheap as we could then headed out to another station around midnight.
Klauses phone shut itself off. May seem like no big thing, but it fucking reset itself… back into Japanese language and cleared the entire contents of his address book! Great, we now had no directions for the party or anyone to contact so we could get there. I stopped a Japanese couple in the street with my half drunken level of Japanese (which is quite good!) and got them to fix his phone back into displaying English once again.
Klaus luckily found some scrap of paper in his back pocket with a guys phone number on it. We were back in the game! Off to the party!

On the way to the party I found a guy walking down the street, I knew him from the other big night out beforehand (see below post) and I dragged him to the party too, turns out thats where he just left, but didn’t mind going back for some more Klaus+Hawken powered mind boggling drunken stunts, which we did ten fold.

The night finally had to end, I think it was when we lost the power of sight, myself and Klaus staggered off home. Amazingly we were able to find our way back on track to Harajuku (where we both used to live last year). On the way, Klaus photocopied his ass in full colour at the local kinkos…

!
To the amazement of the waiting staff and customers, he copied his ass 5 times and left. We held an improvised modern art statement to equal even Spencer Tunic by placing photocopies on the windshields of parked sportscars.

With that and drinking/singing/shouting ontop of local monuments and no access parks, we were the proper hooligans Japan has been warned about.

Lost badge

17th of May, 2002ce* in: diary

Met up with Colin and Dave for some heavy drinking and chat, we were meeting Katsura (my old work mate) and a few of her friends came along too. Trying to avoid what is commonly called a ‘gocon’, being three guys and three girls, we ate drank got merry
After this merriment had finished the three ladies concerned went home. Shibuya is a nice place to meet up with people because of all the fine establishments to hang out at.
It was about 11pm, the adventure had just started. Myself and Dave went to meet some of Daves mates at ‘Hachiko’ the infamous dog statue outside Shibuya’s main train station exit. We met with some folks of diverse backgrounds and drank as one. Colin went home.
After hanging out until 3am in one place (for some reason), we decided to head off clubbing at Yellow. The que was massive, so I buggered off to roppongi to see my girlfriend, I hate roppongi, its a dirty smelly place full of westerners! Bit like soho, london.
First off I was with some guy called Tim and a Japanese guy who spoke like a rapper directly from the ‘projects. We actually ended up at a hostess bar, for the uninitiated, this is a place where men go to be chatted up by paid women, the charge is something like 6000 yen an hour (about 30) to have some Russian lady wearing next to nothing, pour you drinks and chat you up. To touch her body costs 1000 yen per touch.

Luckily we had no money and the Japanese guy ran the bar!

Before we could get to finishing our drinks we decided to leave, it was just too much. My first experience of a hostess bar, and without indulgement we left. Its a pretty strange business, and pays well for the girls working. Near my house theres about 30 such clubs and I live in a tiny little backwater town with one bank and a police station the size of a bathroom.
Theres also about 10 pachinko parlours near my house, maybe I’ll go into what is pachinko another day. :)

We danced at the club next door for a bit, with Tim desperately trying to get a catch, although the concept was a little odd to him and he came away empty handed. I had my girlfriend there, so no distractions for me.

After leaving, I noticed that I must have snagged my bag on the coin locker where I stored it, as my Green Blue Peter badge had been torn clean off!
The badge has history, it was the first to be issued to the public! I wrote to Blue Peter in 1989 telling them to stop using polystyrene in their homemade Christmas decorations as it released CFC gasses into the atmosphere thus destroying the o-zone layer we once had.
Bright kid, where the fuck was that sensibility when I staggered home half dead on a 80 night out loosing not only my badge but my shades too! (they fell off as I climbed off the train, retrived just out of the nick of time by an old lady standing behind closed train doors)

So from this day onward, I am never going carry anything precious, in fact I shall be wearing a brown sack and living in a barn now…

new site

10th of May, 2002ce* in: diary

I made something! not much going on these days as I’m not working but I am doing little bits of freelance work here and there, japan is a hard place without contacts, and money… luckily, I still have a little bit of both!

Me, the website renewal artist! Who’d of thought it eh?
Next I’m might re-new some pub and eaterie sites out here, it pays the rent, ahem. All good, all good. Cyber cafes are expensive though… and thats all I have, cyber cafes and a shitty old steam powered laptop.

the site, dont ask me what it says:
http://www.meibi.or.jp/

eve’nin

My Golden Week Holiday! prt.4

4th of May, 2002ce* in: diary

We drove out to a large dam with the host’s son, in his passion wagon. A love mobile that seated 8 people easily, only played abba songs through a headache inducing subwoofer and had blacked out windows all the way to the windshield!
We joy rode here and there, even to some wooden cabins with a natural spring! (strange stuff this, a river, with bubbles) then on to a cafe p pstop place that hadn’t changed in 30 years. My favourite type of cafe.

The tour ended and we all went back the house. This house was incredible, and old. Old Japanese houses are starting to get thin on the ground so I do infact feel very lucky to see such a sight. We watched no-rules wrestling on the TV (K1 vs Pride) which gave great entertainment to all, although when the guys face slowly got more and more covered in blood I was slightly put off my food. Then in true Japanese tradition, all of the 8 or 9 people gathered around the floor level table fell instantly asleep! all of us lazing there in the mid afternoon sun, sleeping on the tatami mats, like a pack. A very animal and safe air was about this such procedure. Something I’ve yet to find in another western civilisation, Japanese seem to take comfort in big numbers - but that is a public moment, where courtesy must be met and rules obeyed. Private moments are usually one on one with Japanese people, more than one can cause confusion with formalities, so thats the way they like it.
Younger Japanese are starting to break this aging system apart, but still have the ingrained procedures that make Japanese families so strong.

An evening walk in the woods led us to no monkeys but instead to some shy Japanese kids of the age 17 / 18 or there abouts. They requested a photo or five with the funny looking ‘kakoi’ foreigners. I was able to speak minimal sentences and they seemed very nice. Everyone in the countryside had natural curiosity to the French and English faces that were thrust out there, natural meaning, they had only welcome and warmth to show us, natural in the respect of a babies curiosity.
In the city, being stared at holds a very different sentiment indeed, although as a gaijin I’m bound by my countries customs to either look away or try to stare out. Or talk, stick out my tongue when drunk!

The time came to come back to Tokyo. A joyous and eventful holiday. Best of all, I didn’t spend a penny!

My Golden Week Holiday! prt.3

3rd of May, 2002ce* in: diary

What did today have in store for me then!?

Well if memory serves me correctly I think we went out to see another temple with its famous samurai graveyard, the name of this temple was Hodaiji. The temple its self was massive, beit closed, but the graveyard was very interesting. I was standing here looking at some tombstones of samurais 700 years past, cool! The tombs were in the shape of little houses, with little faces on the outsides peering at me quite menacingly. Me the Gaijin Devil :)

As we were walking back, with our cameras spent, I fell behind to walk with the French chap and the Lord of the house we were staying in (an old man in his 60’s who looked at least 50, and could probably do shot putting in the Olympics) when an old woman on her bicycle road past, looked at our host and just said ‘nani, shashin?’ which in basic terms means ‘what’s that? taking photos?’, then proceeded to ride away. Odd I thought, no hello, no good day, no goodbye. It turns out that she was in the old mans class at school some 50 years ago! In Japan it seems ok to drop all formalities if you know someone well, although I wouldn’t try it to this extent.

We said our goodbyes to our gracious hosts, heading out for Yokama. Tomorrow is Sunday, May the 5th, Boys day festival in Japan. Many of the rich or temple owning families have suits of samurai Armour on display, to the rest of the living this is quite impossible, but they don’t half like hanging bloody great big 20 / 30 foot long flags in their gardens! These flags were everywhere in the countryside, they are in the shape of the Carp fish, and just as colourful. There is a hole in the mouth a bit like a wind sock, so when the wind really picks up they inflate to stand horizontally in the sky. A monstrous and overwhelming sight. As fabrics became cheaper, I suppose the flags got bigger, and these days they really are huge.

We got to our destination but the hosts were out working, so we took a detour up a another mountain, this time is was a seriously large mountain which made my ears pop. At the top, for some bizarre reason, is Japan’s first milk farm. The cows were shipped over from England about a hundred years ago. The farms name is ‘Kozu Bokujo’, me and the cows were the only foreigners about, even though this place was packed out. Lots of animals, real milk (milk in Japan tastes like its been nuked) for a change, lots of people burning their names into wood with branding irons. (really!)

Met the new family, which had the name Aoki, same to Gen’s parents, and 3 other neighbouring houses. No sooner had we done that than we were whisked off to sit in another onsen (called ‘Ara Fune no Yu’ or ‘violent battleship spring’ in my shoddy translation). This onsen was mixed! but only every other week, not this week. Water was a bit better than the others, quite busy though.

Back to the house for more food and beer! Mr Aoki (Gen’s father) proclaimed that I ‘drank like a fish’ to which he kept filling up my glass on his mission to drink me under the table. I probably cursed him in my sleep.

My Golden Week Holiday! prt.2

2nd of May, 2002ce* in: diary

I found myself in a strange town called Matsuida.
We ate breakfast with the family we were staying with (the Koitabashi Family) and then headed out for the mountains. We arrived at a mountain called Miyogisan, the air was fresh, the view spectacular and the scenery dramatic. A few footsteps from the carpark and I was in yet another persons house drinking tea. It seems that the family I came out here with grew-up in this area, in so being, they knew every fucker and their dog out here!

We proceeded to walk an ancient route up the mountain side, a route which can only be described as a death trap. At the top I was amazed to find old ladies and old men walking about on this peak like it was a walk down to the shops… when I had to use the best of my spider skills to even traverse half of what they had done.
At the top were some chains and ropes etc, something to hold on to if a gale force 4 wind swept the place clean. Then before I knew it, we were on our way down again. There were several temples in this area, one called ‘Naka No Take Jinja’ was the place we had lunch next to.

Then we drove down the mountain, rather fast, to get back out on the open road. I think it was now the intention to find a pottery place. One has to remember, everyone here is speaking Japanese, the route and schedule are unknown to me, no-one speaks a word of English, this is deep countryside. I just had to go with the flow, which, I did.
We eventually found the pottery place (called Myugitobo) after much fart arsing about. Was interesting for about 5 minutes, but it seemed like we were going to be there for a few hours again, so I went to smoke with Gen while taking pictures of his car.

The evening drew in, we were onsen bound. Onsens are a funny thing, for us daft foreigners. Take all your kit off and sit in a hot outdoors bath with about 20 other large sweaty (same sex) bodies, not as bad as one might think, if your only purpose is to get clean. These places practically cover the Japanese countryside, and were mixed baths before the Christians came here with their segregation policies and ideals of covering up boobs & bollocks some 200/300 years back.

Went back to the house to eat a hearty meal and got paralytic.

My Golden Week Holiday! prt.1

1st of May, 2002ce* in: diary

I had a few phone calls in Japanese from my Friends family out here in Japan, I couldn’t decipher much, but I did get down a date and a time, and a station to be at. Why did I have to be there at that time, I later found out, that they were taking me on holiday with them to Guma county (a few hours drive from Tokyo).

I headed off to the station to be met by the mother and father of someone who I haven’t even seen for a very long time. This was 10pm. We headed back to their place where I drank some beer, then was forced some more beer, beer seemed to flow from here and I wasn’t complaining. I was treated to a grand tour of the house and some vinyl junkie ranting, along with the spectacular sound system - two gigantic Tannoy speakers with a home made valve amp each.

At about 2am we were ready to depart onto the highway, as this was ‘golden week’, the traffic was jam packed. The car we were riding in can only be described as ridiculous. A 1970’s American sports gas guzzler. My legs were close to falling off by the time we got to the first pit stop, a rest station with free tea!

I travelled in the back of this car with a French translator, up front was the Mum and Son, in another car (a new Japanese ‘cappuccino’ suzuki) were the son’s friend on the wheel, and the son’s Father, the son is Gen. The family is Aoki. The French man is Mr Charles.