Tokyo Photos

Some galleries now online

The Sunday gang in Harajuku

I’d rather be in Tokyo
I’d rather listen to Thin Lizzy-oh
Watch the Sunday gang in Harajuku
There’s something wrong with me, I’m a cuckoo

Coming up Omotesando towards Yoyogi Park and the Meiji shrine, this is fashion in the sense of Louise Vuitton. Takeshita-dori is more like Carnaby Street, or at a push, Camden: I mean, they have Claire’s accessories and the Body Shop here (but also a lot of shops advertising clothes that are a combination called “gothic lolita”). The back streets between the two are more interesting, smaller boutiques, record shops, and the only place in Tokyo I’ve found stencil graffiti, one by Faile, natch, he gets everywhere.

And up on the bridge by the station is where it is truly as weird as rumoured. Such perfectly put together outfits… they stand and gossip, take pictures of each other, and then when a gaijin comes along and stumbles the one phrase of japanese he knows… “shashin o totte mo e desu ka?” they dutifully pose for you. One girl isn’t ready yet when I ask, she’s still dressing, and hurriedly puts on her black gloves, then throws her hands behind her head in a perfect vogue.

It’s not over till the fat bloke waves a bow around

From the gods in the Sumo stadium at Ryogoku it’s hard to tell one wrestler from another,so you identify them first by the colour of their mawashi, and then by any little quirks or characteristics they have… one can do a virtual vertical splits when he lifts his legs at the beginning of the ritual. Another throws his salt high into the air before it lands in the ring. One is ‘funny’… he slaps his belly and face at the audience before a bout. It’s a one-day tournament, a straight knockout up to the top, for all the wrestlers in the top league, Makuuchi. I’m rooting for a Bulgarian Ozeki, but he doesn’t even make the semi finals, and rather boringly, the Yokozuna wins. At the beginning of the later bouts, advertisers carrying little banners circle the ring, and at the end of the bout the referee hands the winner his cut of the advertising revenue in an envelope.

Sights

The sun going down across Tokyo and the lights coming on, on tower blocks and in neon canyons, clusters of a dozen mini-cities in one.

Ticket men in clean white gloves like stills researchers, cleaners constantly at work and free public toilets everywhere.

Anti-smoking propaganda that appeals to your sense of social responsibility rather than fear of your own death.

Language tutorials on screens on the Yamanote line teaching English students the difference between alone and lonely (I’m just alone today); catching sight of a vivid poster and being surprised that it isn’t moving.

Tsukiji: Fishsellers axing frozen tuna into rough chunks; a smaller fish still jerking as a cleaver falls into the back of its head; water tubs red with the blood of eels; the constant traffic of motorised trucks scooting the day’s purchases away; mountains of discarded polystyrene being corralled by mini-diggers.

Women in traditional dress hurrying along on their way to work in the hostess bars of Ginza.

Mount Fuji, crisp, clear and ineffably symmetrical and picturesque from the top of the wonder wheel on Odaiba. No wonder they named a film stock after it.

Hamburger Curry in Piss Alley

Not nearly as bad as it sounds. Choose your curry sauce, its strength, a quantity of rice, and then add something to put on top of it. Eat with a spoon. Also on the menu: sashimi for breakfast at Tsukiji market, and raw horse meat, dipped in ginger soy, at the Lion beer hall in Ginza. And a beer, too, for the first time in 5 1/4 years.

Touchdown

Touchdown at Narita. By train into the city; pass through Chiba on the way. There’s no approaching skyline, nothing ‘Tokyo’ to recognise… there’s a superfluity of ‘there’s here, and it takes a while to recognise them. The hostel’s closed when I arrive, so I get a roundtrip cruise with my rucksack, up and down the Sumida-gawa. It’s unremarkable, but on the promenades alongside the river there are many makeshift wood-and-blue-tarp homeless bashes.

My room is tiny, but very cheap, and so is dinner from a cafe where you choose your meal from a vending machine with pictures then hand the receipt to the chef… everything comes with a bowl of miso and a cup of green tea.

Go to Shibuya for the evening, just to try to get myself onto Japan time. At the main intersection, the crowds wait patiently either side uintil the lights turn green, then surge towards each other, replacing the traffic entirely. I persuade the barker at a pachinko parlour to show me how to play, but it makes no sense whatsoever… hundreds of balls rattle through the bagatelle pins, and you can barely control the speed with the one handle you have. Pinball it isn’t. The rest of Shibuya is a mixture of small record shops, bars and punky boutiques mixed with big chains.

About one person in a hundred is wearing a white SARS-type facemask. I think it must be east asian bird-flu paranoia or suchlike, but it’s the people with colds who are wearing them, to be polite.

The city is trying to regulate smoking heavily. Notices everywhere tell you not to smoke while walking; streetside ‘smoker’s places’ are the only place you’re theoretically allowed… people cluster around them like workplace doorways. On Chuo-dori in Akihabara, there’s what looks like a shop called ‘smoker’s style’. Inside, it’s a big smokatorium, keeping the streets free from the evil smokers. There’s even a ladies-only area.