New Year’s Eve

It’s 6PM � we’re watching Da!Da!Da! on TV. P and I were talking about how TV on New Year’s Eve is always excruciating. She called it a “babysitting nightmare.”

The bus tour was pretty good. We didn’t see much, but we got a nice ride around. Between that and the fact that we *finally* got to walk around Ikebukuro and orient ourselves, I feel like I’m getting the hang of Tokyo. Six months here and I’d be perfectly okay. LOL

The bus tour started with a long trip around Ikebukuro, which was kind of cool, if unintentional. Then we had a long, winding trip in and around a bunch of other neighborhoods, all of which were fascinating. Some were really high-end and modern; some were old-fashioned, with traditional-style houses and many temples and shrines. The really expensive areas don’t look it, because so many they tend to be crowded and old.

Eventually we pulled up to the bus terminal where, after 15 minutes, we got back on the same bus (of course) and set off on the tour.

The first stop was the Meiji shrine. It was very empty, as tomorrow would be New Year’s Day and the place would be mobbed. We were able to see the decorations for the festivities…and we saw a guy walk by in a white, double-breasted suit, wearing sunglasses and carrying a cane. I stared openly at him, because if he *wasn’t* Yakuza, then he was playing one on TV, I swear. We bought a few Omamori, knowing full well that we really needed to get them after the New Year…but a lot of these became souvenirs for friends, so we figured it didn�t matter so much. (I know, that’s cold…) Pattie bought a charm that looked like a little shrine – it was for passing the college entrance exams. We got lost on the way back and were late getting back for the bus. Not surprisingly, we were mortified, so we were especially on time and not a pain for the rest of the trip.

The Meiji shrine was actually interesting, from my perspective. The spirit of the place (kami) was in the place itself, and the shrine itself, not in any statue that I saw. We threw coins, bowed, clapped and prayed. The tour guide had shown us the fountain where Pattie and I purified ourselves. Satuo-san said that we didn’t have to wash our hands in the basin – we were purified when we paid. We threw money at the kami (they like this) and prayed. Sato-san told us that the Japanese aren’t religious, they just went to temple and made wishes. I don’t think there’s much difference, myself. :-)

After that, we headed over to the Imperial Palace. Apparently, the reclamation of Tokyo Bay actually began with Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Palace was closed, because tomorrow being the New Year and all, they’d have several tens of thousands of people trooping through to be waved at by the Emperor, which is really kind of cool, if you think of it.

Our tour guide, the afore-mentioned Satou-san, was a scream. He said that since his name meant “sugar” in Japanese, we should call him “Sugar Daddy,” and then said that he was sweeter than the other guide, whose name meant “salt.” As we passed the Ginza, he told us that the biggest (and thusly, the most expensive) building was his, and the next biggest was owned by his brother. He then went on to elaborate – he was the president of a pharmaceutical company which was working on a cure for baldness (he said as he rubbed his balding head) and he did this for fun on the weekend. We all laughed, but after he stopped speaking, Pattie and I just stared at each other, wondering. Wouldn�t it be funny if he actually *was*? Satou is one of the three most common names in Japan, so I’ll never know.

His best lines of the day were as we passed the Russian Embassy. He told us that between the Embassy and the Japanese-American club on the other side, were underground tunnels, so that every night during the Cold War, the two sides could get together and party. At the end of the road was a raised police box that he said was from the late 60’s when there were quite a few riots. The box was raised, so the police could see the mob coming down the road towards the Embassy. Satou-san told us that the police watched for riots every day from 9AM to sunset, but if we rioted before or after that, there would be no police.

One last Satou-san story – as we passed the National Police building, he said that since there was so little crime in Japan, all the police in the country were inside, watching TV. Every time he told us a story, he would pause, then say, “Its in my imagination.”

As we passed Harajuku, there was a *really* long line of young women – we don’t know for what, probably a store opening. Satou-san mentioned that Harajuku was a popular place for young women…and therefore a popular place for young men.

From the Palace, we went to Senso-ji Temple. This was very cool – Pattie said it was “a lot of bang for your buck.” Along with the main temple, there were many smaller shrines and statues donated privately. The street in front of the temple is the very famous Nakamise-dori. It’s lined with cheesy little over-priced knickknack shops that sell shit you don’t need for too much money. There were a fair amount of people wandering around the grounds, but in the next few days, the place would be wall-to-wall people. We thought we might go back, just because it was so cool.

Pattie took an Omikuji, a fortune, at the temple. It was “good luck” and we were very happy. We decided not to push our luck and I did not take one. We had a snack (two different types of dango) but decided not to stay, because we wanted to do the rest of the bus ride to see more of town. We got back on the bus, where the two New York-style kogals on the tour were very late and bitched that we didn’t wait for them – when every other tour they’d ever been on had waited. I turned to Pattie and asked, “They’re in the habit of being late on all their tours?” These two were stupid, loud and rude the entire time…which actually made me feel kind of good. They were so horrible compared to everyone else, the little slip P and I had made, when we got lost sort of looked less pathetic.

After the tour landed us in the Ginza Pattie and I decided that the shopping center of Tokyo had nothing we cared about, so we headed back to the hotel to eat, rest and shop locally. If we felt up to it, we were going to try and make it back to the Senso-ji that night for New Years…but we knew that it was unlikely. We were both crashing by 10 every night. We had a light snack and decided to start hitting the anime and manga stores hard. It was time to get down to business.

Next time: 100 ways to spend money

The Cosplay area was located on the roof. To get there, you left whatever Hall your were in, which was always the furthest one possible, walked about a mile to a middle area, where you were wound around in a circle (apparently so yopu could get to know the other people on their way up to and coming down from the Cosplay area,) up an escalator and out onto the roof…where you wandered aimlessly for a while snapping pictures that you would later wonder what they were of.

People were posing for animal crackers, clustering in little series-related groups. We snapped a few pictures of some pleasantly plump Senshi, & a few One Piece characters and other random stuff. Like the drooling hentai fanboys taking a picture of a provocatively posing bunny girl. There were some things that were consistent with American cosplay…some series that you could just gurantee you’d see: DBZ, Ranma, Evangelion, Sailor Moon etc – all the basic “gateway” anime.. While walking around, we saw a Rei from Eva, and I pointed and said to Saiko, “Kyo no Rei,” (Today’s Rei) because we had seen at least one every day. Some things are universal. LOL

Pattie awarded best in show to a really spectacular Lady Oscar and Marie Antoinette from Rose of Versailles. I awarded my Best in Show to a faboo Mr. 2 from One Piece. Not only was his costume really good, he was prancing and mincing around on his toes just like Mr. 2 Bone Clay should. All Oscar and Marie had to do was stand there.

By far, the most overcosplayed series was Prince of Tennis – there had to be a hundred of them on any given day. Considering the ease of the costume  – a blue sweatsuit with “Seigaku” on the back, it wasn’t all that surprising. Some sports store was making a fortune with Seigaku Tennis Club workout clothes, I’m sure.

While we fought our way out to the Cosplay area, we passed through the Corporate area – lots of anime and manga companies had booths there. There was a real press of bodies, and Pattie and I were laughing as we squeezed through, past a long, crowded line of guys, past some idol singing a song on a stage, while other guys sang with her, shouting “We love you Mima!”: (OK, OK, they weren’t, really – that was a little anime joke. But they were shouting “Hey” and jumping up and down.) When we got through, Pattie and I were like. “Wheeeee! Can we ride again??” After we passed through, I turned and realized that the crush was for the Gainax booth. Ah, that explained it.

We had exhausted all the joys Comiket had to offer (of course, we hadn’t – we would have needed another three days to do that for real. And I still smart thinking of all the stuff I didn’t get – and the stuff I didn’t know was there until too late, like Haibane Renmei.) Anyway, Saiko and Emi led us to Odaiba – one of the stations in the reclaimed area of Tokyo Bay, now mostly given over to massive malls. We met up with Takami, another friend of Emi’s, who we had met last summer. Takami is a very funny person and she and Pattie absolutely crack each other up. Pattie’s Japanese and Takami’s English make for some really hysterical conversations…to be fair, Takami’s English is better than Pattie’s Japanese. But the two of them are endlessly entertaining. I keep swearing that at Yuricon, I’m going to set the two of them up at a table and charge people $5 to watch the “Pattie and Takami” show.

Odaiba Aqua City is basically a mall. The stores were about half the usual stores you’d see in any other mall. We had coffee and cake at a cafe’. Pattie spied a sticker store and was all psyched, but when she got there, the stickers were all exotic – from America. We heard the “Ketchup Song” in the mall – if a friend hadn’t played it for us right before we left, we wouldn’t have recognized it.

We detoxed for a while, and Takami approved of my haul of doujinshi for the day. After it got dark, we headed out to the Fuji TV building that we had passed everytime on the train. The building looks like four thick towers with two cross ways and a big ball suspended in the middle. First we headed for the store, were pattie and I bought One Piece stuff. (Nami, Nami, Nami!!!) Emi taught Pattie to make a gesture and a noise that were apparently VERY funny, because some comedian did them. (We later saw that comedian on TV, but he never did the thing he was famous for.) Then we went to the rooftop observation deck (which prompted a very funny conversation between Pattie and Takami about the observation dick, which led Pattie to ask Emi to tell Takami that dick meant penis, which Emi misheard as peanuts.Poor Saiko probably thought we were insane.) We walked around and didn;t participate in the Love Stamp Rally, but we did see Tokyo Tower and all of Tokyo at night, which was very beautiful.

When we came down from the building, we headed back to the train station. Saiko left us, so the four of us were left. We got on the train and Emi asked if we were hungry. By then I had been through three waves of sick, tired, hungry, etc., but all I really wanted right then was to go back to the hotel, so of course I said, “Sure.” And when she asked if we wanted to be Indiana Jones, inside my head I was screaming “no!” So I said “yes” without hesitation. The smile on Emi’s face made me worried as anything. I figured that this was payback for making them eat peppers and sausage sandwiches at the New Jersey Shore.

So, the four of us headed to Shinjuku. I couldn’t even begin to tell you where we were, or how far we walked. All I know is that the evening was dark and cold and full of lots of little shops…all selling cell phones. LOL And stuff being sold on the streets…crap that no one needs or wants, but we all end up buying anyway. Eventually, we ended up at a skanky little alleyway. All the “restauants” were one step away from being open-air street stands. Some only had plastic strips to prtect the patrons from the wind. We squeezed ourselves into a counter with an actual door, full of older guys with large bottles of Sapporo beer. Emi said, with a grin, “Women don;t come here often.” No…you think? LOL We were delighted and so was everyone in the place. Not only did four women show up – two were gaijin! Yeeha! The guy at the end of the counter was grinning from ear to ear and waving at Pattie and me like crazy.

Emi was explaining what they had and she said they agemono, aka fried things – she said, “pork and…” and everyone in the place started calling out random food items in English – beef, chicken, tofu, shrimp, on and on…and everyone was laughing hysterically, including Pattie and I. Emi waved at the little plastic bins on the shelves in front of us and said that we could order from them too, but that she’d order us rice and soybeans. We were totally cool with that, and Pattie and I picked the bin in front of us as looking interesting and tasty (it had bacon, how bad could it be?) The guy cooking kept calling out whatever he was making in English, so we knew what it was. It was a hoot.

The rice had curried soybeans and jellied consomme’ with a slice of ham – which was alot tastier than it sounds. The bacon dish had chicken and tofu and was pretty amazing. Emi ordered eel (anago, not unagi) and tempura parsley, which was absolutely fabulous. Takami said it was called “tomorrow leaf” and Emi said, “No it’s not.” Everything was incredible, but there was too much food. I felt bad that I couldn’t eat more. But we gave the place something to talk about for a few days, I bet. Or perhaps a few weeks.  LOL And the bill for this feast? $2/person.

We got back to the hotel at about 8:30. We had a bath and moaned around the place. Tomorrow will start early – we’re doing a 4-hour bus tour, but we’ll be on the bus for more like 6 hours, since they’ll be picking up at a bunch of hotels and we’re first. We hope it’s a comfy bus….

Next time: The Wheels on the Bus….

My journal literally skips Day Three. It is dated 12/30 and was written on Day Four. It begins, “The reason I did not write about yesterday at all was that this time yesterday I was begging the gods to kill me now.” I’ll try and quote verbatim as much as possible, because I wrote the journal the next night and was watching TV. TV in Japan is endlessly fascinating and I want to share my thoughts as they spontaneously occurred. :-) And I promise that the misery DOES get better, so bear with me!

I woke feeling dizzy and queasy. I ate as much breakfast as I could stand (not enough to cover the cost at the hotel, of course.)

I have to break in here and say that my TV choices tonight include Sound of Music in Japanese and Beat Takeshi hosting a “Medical Horror” show.

We met Emi an hour later than yesterday at the station she switches lines at and headed to Tokyo Big Site. Most of the doujinshi was based on Role Playing Games and historical games or manga, I suppose. We didn’t buy much, and we didn’t recognize any of the cosplay costumes. We stopped for lunch at a different place than the day before (and I do remember the very lovely girl in the exceptionally nice suit at another table. I told Emi I wanted her for my birthday, which confused poor Emi. Her coat was lovely and she looked really good in it, then she took the coat off and the suit underneath was magnificent. She had clearly had it professionally tailored and she looked incredible, as long as she stood still. When she moved she, as with so many otaku, looked like a schlub. But that/s a whole other rant…the pathetic body language of otaku…) But by the time lunch was over, I was so sick and shaky that I really don’t remember the rest of the day.

I know that we went to look at Cosplay, but it was over and I was just trudging along, holding on to Pattie so I didn’t fall down. We walked a lot and *eventually* after a hellish trip, got back to the hotel. I do know that by the time we were done at Comiket that day, we were down to 1/3 the flyers for Yuricon that we had come with, which amazed me. (Especially as we didn�t buy anything Day 2!)

So, I laid down on the hotal bed – it was like 5:30 – and practically died. Pattie wouldn’t let me sleep yet, but I catnapped for a little while anyway. When One Piece came on we got a full hour of it as a New Year’s special, we got to see that last movie, “King Chopper and the Island of Animals” which was really nice. By the time it was over, I was feeling better, but still not good enough to eat anything. Pattie had a sandwich from the AM/PM. I tried to read, but my eyes were jumping and I couldn’t focus. The weirdest thing jet lag did to me, though, was make me feeling that the ground was moving all the time. Laying down I actually got seasick! I finally went to sleep at 9:30, woke up at 4:30 and fell back asleep. It was awful….

Now we’re watching a horrific “Ze Besto Ten” countdown, wherein aged idols are singing their hit songs from a decade ago. The host is a scary crone with the most AWFUL ensemble complete with breast prosthesis dress in hot pink. Sort of Hello Dolly meets lowrider. The idols are drunk off their asses to get through this miserable show…it’s absolutely terrifying. One actually just fell off her seat.

The good news is, the next morning I felt significantly better. The throb in every muscle in my body was much less – that was something right off!

Waaah! Now the idol on TV is singing, while juggling a small yippee dog…while Ultraman looms over her…

Day Four, Part 1

We arrived at Takadanobaba before Emi did again, and had a nice ride to the International Exhibition Center station on the new Rinkai line (by now, Emi had worked out a new, shorter route using the new train line.) Today was the last day of Comiket – hentai day – and the crowd control was stiff. We were walked all the way around the back end of Big Site and came in through the backside of the East Hall. We set off with a mission. I had marked a few things I wanted to check out and Emi had a load of people to visit. I bought *so* much doujinshi and had to carry it around all day!

But Emi had fun handing out our advertisement flyers and talking to people, including a fan of her artwork. (Non-manga…she’s a talented artist among other things.) We wandered around looking for cool yuri doujinshi. I found a ton of well-done Azumanga Daioh DJ, but no hentai that wasn’t just…erm, weird (Sakaki-san and the cat???) and there were so many geeky fanboys at some tables, we avoided them out of self-preservation. (At one point, Pattie saw Emi head towards a table where there was line of fanboys and she thought “she’ll get eaten alive!”)

There were so *many* fanboys at some of the tables (notably, the ones which had the hardest core hentai…lots of major objectification of women going on there) that there were lines that went outside the halls and wrapped around themselves. The longest had signs that said, “one hour wait from here.” This was the first day when it was actually difficult to get through some parts of the Halls. This was kind of how we thought it would be all weekend.

We stopped at lunch the same place we did the first day. I was feeling a lot better and ate lunch happily. We commented on the bizarre site of Nazis walking around all over the place. There was obviously some manga or other with a major WWII theme. As a lesbian, I was drooling at the hot chicks in black, silver and leather (Gestapo uniforms are really hot. They did that on purpose.) As a Jew, it was freaking me right out. LOL All day Sunday and Monday, we saw WWII German and Japanese uniforms – it was a teeny-weeny bit creepy. The weirdest thing was the Nazis from one series (it was *always* girls and they *always* looked amazingly sexy, which annoyed the hell out of us) had Jewish star armbands on with uniforms. All very bizarre and wrong.

Pattie kept busting me all weekend, because there were plenty of cross-playing women and every time a cute girl in a suit and tie walked by I felt that it would be rude not to at least admire them. She kept kidding me about drooling. But I digress.

Back to Emi and our Yuricon “commercial.” Pattie and I loved the hysterical laughter that trailed the “commercial” and the gambattes that came after the laughter. One guy was so excited at the thought of Yuricon that he *literally* began to jump up and down and scream like a girl. LOL We hit up a row of women who do yuri and I bought scads of doujinshi…amazing the women, as I’d pick one of everything. I finally met Tadeno-san, of the circle Mono, my current favorite mangaka. Her “Office Mono” is an incredible bit of yuri by women for women…good stories, good characters, great sex. I’ve done some translation of a few of those stories. I bought one of everything her circle had done, which was a fair amount – amazing the entire group. One of the women gave me her fanfic book as thanks for my support and for Yuricon. Emi and Tadeno-san spoke for a while and after we left, I went running back, because I remembered I had brought stickers to give them. They put a sticker on their price list, which made me happy. I felt good supporting them. Now I have to get them to Yuricon. :-)

Sometime that day, we had been introduced to one of Emi’s friends, Saiko. After we hit up the yuri manga section, we hooked back up with Saiko and her friend Ishida-san (a very nice, soft-spoken young man, with excellent manners and polite English.) We all went to see the Cosplay.

Next Time: Fanservice, Ferris Wheels and Fuji TV

8 PM

After Comiket, Emi had arranged for us to meet her cousin, who works for an anime company. (They do several well known titles, including a few of my and Pattie’s favorites.) We took the brand new Rinkai line (so new Emi didn�t know it, because when it opened not a month before she hadn’t been in Tokyo.) The trains were all gleaming and new and some of them were automatic, with no conductor) back to Shinjuku.

I was holding on to Pattie, trying not to pass out. I barely spoke, which is not my usual state. I was mostly staring at the ground, staying upright. The train made me really sick, and it was with great relief that I stumbled out into the Shinjuku night.

It was a real shame that I couldn’t appreciate Shinjuku that night. I’d love to go back and spend a lot more time there until I knew the area. It’s got several main streets and a ton of teeny little “snickleways.” (A snickelway is a term from York, England, for a little alley that winds around all over the place with no apparent order.) Shinjuku has a little of the same qualities of Times Square (especially before Mayor Giuliani cleaned it up) and a little Herald Square and a lot of Greenwich Village. (I was about to say just “The Village” but I realized not all of you are from NYC and wouldn’t know what I mean.) Shinjuku is home to the Nichome, the gay and lesbian area of Tokyo, about which I will write more later.

Emi and her cousin were going to take us somewhere, but either they couldn’t find it, or something (I’ll be honest, I was so lost in my self-pity I wasn’t paying attention) so we headed back the way we came and ended up in a magnificent restaurant that I barely noticed. It was really nice, from what I remember – all wood floors and benches that hugged the tables, that snuggled the cooking areas. I’d love to go back …the food was, apparently excellent. I was unable to eat a thing. The slow burn of my last reserves just stopped and I totally, utterly crashed at dinner.

Emi’s cousin was really nice – she’s been to the US, and speaks very good English, and she was funny, and I wasn’t. My verbal skills dropped down to monosyllabic grunts, and it was everything I could do to not be sick. While Pattie and the rest ate fresh made tofu, chicken a mushroom dish, I could barely keep my eyes open. I sipped at some tea and prayed for the gods to kill me now. I would have paid everything I had to go home at that moment.

Pattie, on the other hand, was snarfing down the food, exclaiming at its excellence all the while. Pattie asked what everything was, when it came out, because the menu was all in handwritten Japanese with no pictures and Emi and her cousin had ordered for us. Emi pointed at things – this is chicken, this is tofu, and this is “something else.” She totally could not remember what she had ordered. Pattie loved the “something else.”

Several times I fell asleep at the table and she had to poke me awake – it did not endear her to me. Aside from just being mortifying in general, I was really feeling worse than I ever had without being genuinely ill.

Ultimately, after I fell asleep about six times in a matter of minutes, we cut the evening short. I felt terrible about it, but I just couldn’t stay awake. I did manage to get a mouthful of food in and I will say that the homemade tofu was excellent. With luck, I’ll get back and be able to enjoy it the next time.

The worst part about all this was that Pattie seemed perfectly fine – I completely resented that. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was shaking so hard that I could barely stand up. It felt like every bone in my body had turned to jelly. When I finally managed to sleep, I had the weirdest dreams of Otakon and having Susan Sarandon as an old schoolmate.

Next time: The Wonders of TV