It’s been a plain while since I’ve last had a vacation. You might consider my initial landing here a brief vacation, but if my posts say anything, being in a hotel Tokyo wasn’t really being in Tokyo, and it wasn’t all together enjoyable. I think the most recent case for me having a vacation would be the first time I went to New York a month for school nearly two years ago. Then I was in a new place, old enough to drink, a credit card limit that was way to high for what I deserved, with work that consisted of touring museums and visiting studios. Yes, it was a required daily itinerary, but it was full of things I wanted to do anyway. But I think that is still the biggest cause of it not being a vacation. It was an extended stay (a New York winter) with some freedom, though, still with financial and time restrictions. A summer before that I went to Thailand for a week with the best person in the world, and I think that was probably the last thing I would actually consider a vacation. I took time off of my summer research (an oblivious foreshadowing of designing a virtual Japanese language classroom and games) hopped on a plane and traveled around Bangkok and one of the Kohs. Sure, I’ve done road trips and gone camping since then, but I think there’s a sense of luxury the idea of a vacation has to meet and an island beach bungalow in the Pacific only barely meets those standards.
Anyway, now I had a treat. A rare aligning of three Japanese holidays that gave me three extra workdays free. In the spring there’s a whole week Japanese people refer to as Golden Week, so this occurance (the next of which happens in sixteen years) is aptly dubbed Silver Week. A couple weeks ago, Carmelo, my friendly neighborhood rascal, informed me that he was taking this time to go to Tokyo to attend a three day rave concert, Ultra Japan. The few who know my true interests are aware that, deep deep down maybe even under all the Led Zeppelin, I live for the trance and raucous beat of step and electronic music. It’s been like that ever since I was a child and that genre was barely discernible from Rob Zombie. I remember listening to early Basement Jaxx tracks and having that be my hardcore. When I discovered that noise like Sleigh Bells actually existed I understood there was an actual purpose in life. The end of my college senior year could be practically mapped out by Rusko. At the top of this discovery–as it was for most people–reigned Skrillex, a musician, DJ, performer, and seemingly great guy from California. It’s been a while for me since Skrillex was what I preferred to listen to, and I’d given up on seeing him in concert years ago. But recently he partnered with probably the greatest DJ/producer since early 2000s Daft Punk, Diplo, and came out with an album which I think you’ve heard of, and it’s quite literally (due to the broken hard drive) one of the only things I have left to listen to. Basically, he’s made some of my favorite music (yes, you can call that music) and was headlining the concert on Sunday night, and now I could finally see him, and there was no reason for me not to, because hey, I’m not getting any younger.
Wow, that’s a lot to add to an already long post, but good to know my devotion is strong.
Anyway, with Carmelo’s plane ticket booked and tickets sold out weeks before, it seemed I’d missed my chance. And good thing, too, since even a one day pass was quite expensive. The next day as I mulled over what I would actually do for Silver Week–go nowhere and buy a couch instead–Carmelo sent me a message saying that they’d have a final run of tickets that night at 10 o’clock. It seemed, as they say, too good to be true. I didn’t even have to make a decision. I was given a chance to go and I took it.
Surprisingly, a couple of people who lived around us also got tickets and in the end there were four of us going. Carmelo was taking a plane, and another guy was going by bus, so in the end we got there by planes, trains, and automobiles (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
The unfortunate thing in getting there separately, though, was having no direct overlap where we could all meet up. Carmelo spent the first day with his girlfriend, and after lack of planning on our part, our other friend made his own itinerary for the weekend. And if you recall, I decided to ‘wing it’.
I woke up on Saturday before six o’clock, and after stuffing my backpack half full of t-shirts, a rain jacket, and the other half with my camera, Dune, and food for the day I was out the door by seven. I don’t think I asked anyone for a ride, but since everyone was already on their own trips I don’t think it would’ve done me any good, so I was on my own to walk to the train station. My neighbor and former college classmate, who’d also be going to Tokyo, told me the night before to take the train to a regional town where I could then be resigned to the shinkansen. It was at first something I wanted to avoid, but with a couple cuts to my materialistic budget, I think the convenience and experience is worth it.
After all, I got on the first train at 8:00, and after switching, arrived at Tokyo some fifty pages into Dune, not sleep deprived, and around 11:00 making less than half the time of a bus ride at less than double the price. I didn’t know quite what to do first, and if you’ve never been dropped off at Tokyo station let me tell you it’s a trip. It felt like the part in a Hollywood sci-fi where the crew of a space ship has to evacuate before something self-destructs, so everyone is running all over the place and the fluorescent lights and signs are all in some alien language. Eventually, I decided to go to the place I knew would require the shortest amount of time: Harajuku.
If you were a teenager in the 2000s you almost certainly remember when Gwen Stefani hit her prime and went crazy about Bananas. Well, a lot of her influence during that time also came from Japan and specifically the unique trends from Harajuku’s Takeshita street. It is a pretty sweet spot especially if you’re a young Japanese girl ready to spend a lot of money, but seeing as I’m hardly any of the above, I knew it wouldn’t take long for me to pass through. I really just had almost a wistful longing to go there as it’s a decent vibe of Tokyo on a whole.
It’s hard to believe that across from the street, literally on the other side of the train tracks, the city shops evaporate into almost two hundred acres of forest that make up the Meiji shrine, a park and temple dedicated to their emperor of their restorative period. It’s sort of like being in New York City, and then happening upon Central Park, but only if the entirety of Central Park was like a huge memorial to George Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, and Reagan complete with cherry blossoms and air force ones. It’s a neat break while you’re staying in the city.
After that I cruised over to, well, the outskirts of Tokyo, over a half hour train ride, to go to the acclaimed Tokyo Game Show. This was one of many annual events that were being held over the weekend, and supposedly an event that should wow and please.
I’d hate to say it was an overall flop, but it at least lacked a form of bravado. I think I was still on the thrill of the E3 announcements, and expected some more previews to come out of Japan. Alas, it was mainly promotion of smaller games and studios, plenty of mobile trials, and hardly anything blockbuster. Especially as a foreigner I hardly knew many of the Japanese based brands, and had little money to spend on the elitist gear they were shipping out. I guess it was fun to see Star Wars Battlefront being played, and I tested out the newest revamp of one of my favorite series, Need for Speed, but otherwise the next best thing was Final Fantasy Online, and with so many previews already of games that are supposed to coming out next year (FF15, KH3, Fallout, Mirror’s Edge, Uncharted) I was hoping for a bit more.
Getting there, walking around, having lunch, and winning a free shirt still took up the afternoon, and by the time I reached the station I realized that I was actually in a pretty fantastic place. The whole convention center is beyond the normal sightseeing trip in Tokyo, so in order to entice people to stay in the city they’ve ingeniously placed a whole outdoor outlet mall right outside the station. As the nights have been getting darker and darker around six o’clock when I get home from school, I’ve been wanting to find a store where I could get some bright clothes to run around in. I hit the Nike store first, and since I was there decided to rummage around the Gap, Vans, Bathing Apes, Northface, et cetera. In the end I did only buy one flourescent yellow singlet and matching shirt, but I also recognized that no matter where I am, shopping is such a soothing hobby for me.
I wound up drifting around Tokyo for the remainder of the night, heading around Akihabara, Shibuya, and finally landing in Shinjuku. Both places I’d hoped to stay fell through and I resigned to put down the extra cash to stay at a capsule hotel. Like the shinkansen, though, I felt the money was worth the experience. I ended up wandering over a mile through the city going to three different hotels before I found one with an open bed, deviously placed on the road in between Kabukicho and Nichome. It cost ￥3,200 which for a night in one of the world most expensive cities isn’t the worst deal. Once I made it past the cross dresser in the stairway I found the corridor for my capsule and was glad to note everything was clean and quiet. They even had razors and pre-pasted toothbrushes in the washroom. I plugged in my phone flitting at 1% battery, and read a bit of Dune (a seemingly cliched but so far terrific sci-fi epic), finally feeling content. I was more than enervated by the day that I felt alone and wasted. I knew I was exaggerating these feelings in my mind, but I really felt like I just wanted to call it a holiday and go home the next day–like that spaceship that I was on in Tokyo station really did explode, and my escape pod could only contain one person and now I was drifting seeing the wonders of the universe without really being able to interact with it. I made more of a plan as I laid to sleep, knowing exactly where I’d start my day, and deciding to tackle it with a much more positive attitude.
DILLON TRAVELS 