1/1/08: Return of the rat, return of the rat!

Waking up in Japan on the first day of 2008 was an amazing feeling. New Years was always just kind of a mediocre "holiday" for me, and usually just felt like another day (exceptions; see Crewtonz 2005). For once in my life I felt like I had done something, seen something relevant and this was still only the beginning of my trip.

We started the day off by checking out the massive street fair that was going on at the temple next to our hostel. The Japanese know how to party because it was only 10 in the morning and there was definitely dudes get wild on some Asahi and Sake.



We had some Japanese street-meat for breakfast, it was good but I was decidedly against the fish flakes they put on it.




Shot of the temple next to the Hostel and people walking around the street fair.

I had read online that only two days out of the year is the Japanese Imperial Palace gardens open to the public; on the Emperors birthday and on New Years Day. Well it turned out I had read wrong... its the second day of the new years, this lead us to tourist mistake #3. We headed over to the palace to peep the scene and were quite insulted when we realized we were locked out.



us sitting with the palace behind us.



We waited maybe a half hour for the diplomat from America to roll up so we could wave to him and represent our country to the fullest. While waiting we passed the time by insulting the cars of all the other nations.

After we realized our mistake at the palace we headed over to the Meiji Shrine. Like I said before, the New Years is a massive holiday in Japan and people flock to all the shrines in order to leave gifts and prayers in hopes of receiving good fortune for the new years. Meiji Shrine is one of the biggest and most popular shrines in all of Japan so you can imagine what a mad house it was there. I actually found this to be quite an amazing site, so many people either had complete faith in the ritual or were just following tradition out of respect for their history. I would kill for this kind of culture in America. We waited online for about an hour in order to get to the main shrine building to throw our change in.




A couple shots of the crowd at Meiji.

At one point while waiting on the line I felt compelled, out of boredom, to take my arm and jam it in between James' arm and his body and proudly told him "you got hooked!". Little did I know that I had started a new game that would sweep the nation. For the remainder of the trip we were all on the lookout for various hooks, many laughs were had. By the time we were done at the Meiji Shrine night had fallen over us. Participating in tourism is an exhausting thing so we just decided to grab some grub and call it quits for the day. Although only getting a couple things done today it was still a truly amazing way to start the New Years off and I felt truly privileged in order to take part in some traditions that are really sacred to the Japanese. My only concern at this time was that I hoped tomorrow would be as good as the past few days.

12/31/07: Before the dawn of the rat

New years eve day has never been so much fun. With no real agenda for the day we had just set out to do some exploring, some getting lost, and making some tourist mistakes. We walked around the Sensō-ji shrine next to our hostel. New Years in Japan is a pretty major holiday for them so there was a lot of people just hanging around and eating street-meat at the big fairs going on.



Just hanging with the big man Buddha, no biggie.

We went to Ueno Park which was pretty close to where we were staying. Craig picked up his now infamous pouch here. We walked all around the park and saw lots of pretty cool stuff here.



Just hanging with Willy.



Carms with some friendly feral cat.



Read the tag. Probably the coolest cat I've ever seen, Wallabees are expensive in Japan.

Running out of ideas for the day we decided to head over to the Shinjuku area which is where the Burning Spirits gig was later on. Shinjuku is somewhat of a business district and hosts the some of the largest buildings in Tokyo, including the infamous Park Hyatt from Lost In Translation. Being tourists we figured we would check that out and possibly get some drinks (Suntory Whiskey for me) at the bar. Looking at the map of Shinjuku we found "the hyatt" on there and proceeded to make our way over. Inside the lobby we were kind of skeptical of it being the same Hyatt, but we assured ourselves by saying "it just looks different on film". We went to the bar on the second floor and sat down. After ordering 9 dollar espressos we came to the conclusion that this was the wrong Hyatt and the map proved us right when we saw that theres a Park Hyatt right down the street.



most expensive espresso I've ever had, but worth it for the funny story.

We walked down to the proper Hyatt, it was worth all the trouble. Beautiful hotel, and the view from the 49th floor was truly amazing. Unfortunately I only have shots of that on film and haven't had a chance to develop them yet. Also the bar from Lost In Translation was closed at the time, but we walked around and took pictures.







Next on the agenda was making our way over to try and find where the Burning Spirits New Years Eve gig was at, luckily it was also in Shinjuku. After finding the general vicinity of where Earthdom (venue) was at we decided to have a New Years Feast of Kaiten Sushi. Eel, Fatty Tuna, Octopus and others were eaten and enjoyed thoroughly. We found where the venue was at, barely, it was marked by almost no signs other than a small chalk board in front of a staircase leading to a basement in front of a building. I have to admit that this was the first time since I was 15 that I was sketched out about going to a hardcore show. The dudes hanging in front of the venue all rolled up on motorcycles and had some pretty gnarly gear on, I would best compare them to characters out of Mad Max. Also being foreigners we weren't quite sure how the local punks would take to us.



Crossface, first time I heard them but I thought they were pretty sick.




The Slowmotions, I hadn't heard this band until tonight but damn was I floored. Definitely one of my favorite bands that I've seen in a while.



Warhead played at the dawn of 2008, nothing like bringing in the New Years with insanely loud blistering Japanese Hardcore.



Possibly the most epic picture of all time. The guy in the back with long hair played drums in Bastard and the other guy plays guitar in Forward, and the dude in the front was the coolest guy I've ever met. We were just hanging out taking it all in and that dude was walking around with a giant bottle of Sake in his hand. He came up to us and ask us if we were from America, we said yes. He then asked us if we liked Bastard, "YOU LIKE BASTARD!?", we replied with an enthusiastic yes. He then introduced us to the drummer of Bastard, and also proceeded to try and find out people for us to meet. He also introduced us to the singer of Forward who was also in Deathside, Ishiya, who dropped some real wisdom on us... it was awesome. When I first got into hardcore it was by way of Japanese Hardcore that was shown to me by some of my elders, so this was pretty epic for me. A real "burning spirits" night. The gig was an all night gig but we decided to bounce after Warhead and pray to find a way home, luckily since it was New Years the JR Line was running late and we were able to get back to Asakusa. At 1 in the morning there was tons of people out in the streets, the latest we've seen any action. A lot of drunk Japanese folks celebrating the forthcoming of the rat. I have to make a note that the first thing we ate in 2008 was McDonalds, second time on the trip. All in all a pretty amazing New Years, one that was spent in the company of good friends and where some new ones were made.

Money spent Pt 2: Clothes and shoes

Before I go on with the regular entry I would like to shed some light on a substantial piece of Japanese pop culture... Kojima Yoshio. Kojima Yoshio is the Dane Cook of Japan, his comedy routine is immensely popular with the youth of Japan. He always performs wearing a speedo no matter what the gig



Now on with the regular entry. Japan is a country that is extremely concerned with aesthetics; cars, buildings, even toilets are all designed with the intention of being functional as well as pleasing to the eye. The most important aesthetic to the Japanese is without a doubt fashion. Tokyo being the epicenter of fashion in Japan, I felt the need to burn a little cash. More often than not you will notice that the Japanese attempt at taking western styles of fashion and tweaking them out just enough to make it look like they dressed themselves while on acid. This is why you will find so many American and European brands strewn across Japan. The only difference between the brands here and the brands represented there is the cut in clothing, and this is a positive. Japanese people on average being of smaller stature and frame demand tighter fitting clothing, as an American who hates the College-Campus-Clothes-Too-Baggy-Hackey-Sack-Look I was pretty excited.




Any skinhead/mod worth their weight in combat boots and vespas would be excited at the idea of multiple Fred Perry stores. In NY decent Fred gear is hard to come by, theres 99x but their stock is usually pretty stagnant. Once I found out that Japan hosted many Fred stores I was a very happy boy. Also around the New Years clothing stores have huge sales, which makes finding good bargains incredibly easy. I picked up a pretty nice boy scout belt and a jacket which has now become one of my favorite articles of clothing.



Shoes in Japan are bigger than god. Footwear is a key part of the Japanese youth wardrobe. Lucky for me I had Jaybil to show me to a secret spot that instantly became one of my favorites. It was like Flight Club NYC except not shitty and overpriced. The only downside was looking for size 13 shoes in a country with an average size of around 7 or 8. But I was able to find a really fresh pair of CO.JP Pistachios. I always loved the CO.JP stuff, and even more so now because not every herb in the world can walk into a skateshop or Journeys and picked up a sweet pair of limited SB's.



A huge style fad in Japan right now is dressing like you just came from a Suicidal Tendencies show in the 80's. They love vans, the love fliphats, and most importantly they love flannels. I was able to pick this guy up on sale at a real nice price. Quality Levi's western flannel.



A store that is gradually making its way to the states (theres now one in NYC) is Uniqlo. This place is awesome, its like the GAP of Japan except with way better clothes and stuff that actually fits properly and not like an oversize burlap sack. I got this quality work-guy shirt for less than 20 dollars and it fits like a dream. Hopefully they don't change the cuts of the clothes for Uniqlo USA.



Visiting one of the most renowned Tattoo shops in Japan as well as the world I felt it necessary not to just get tattooed but also pick up a shirt. Designed by Nami from 3 Tides, anything with satanic goats on it gets my instant approval.

Thats all for today, consumerism is awesome.

12/30/07: Number one candidate for best day of my life

Today we had made plans with my girlfriends friend Taeko, who was born in Japan but moved to New York at 12. I figured she would be a good person to hang out with, having some idea as to whats going on. I wasn't sure how the dudes would get along with her, but it turned out pretty solid. We wound up meeting her in Shibuya and doing the walk around Shibuya/Harajuku area again going into various stores. We also ate McDonalds (Macu, Dons, Macadonaldos) first the first time on the trip, this would become a common theme. Supreme was cool but insanely overpriced, Fred Perry was awesome and moderately priced, and the rest of the stores were forgettable. After some walking around we used our helpful tour guide to find us a good place to chow at, she came up with gold. Small little place in Shibuya with the sunk in tables and no shoes policy. I believe I got teriyaki beef, I can't remember but I remember it was really good. Afterwards it was decided that we were going to visit a cat cafe, which is a place where you pay money to go hang out with a whole bunch of cats... best concept in the world. Apparently it's really really expensive to own cats in Tokyo and hard to keep them because almost no landlords will allow them. This creates a demand for a place where the citizens of Tokyo, who are undoubtedly obsessed with cats (see hello kitty), to go hang with some felines.








Next Taeko took us to Akihabara, which is ALL electronics stores. Its insane how bright and intense everything is. Buying electronics in Japan will definitely save you some money, I wound up buying a double powered portable Ipod charger for like 10 bucks. Next on the agenda was an area I forget the name of but Taeko told us it was a street that was just all music gear stores, being full-on gear nerds we got pretty psyched. I wasn't sure what to expect but she was pretty much dead on in her description, it was ALL gear stores. Before we hit those though something else caught our eyes, DISK UNION. Disk Union would be the ultimate downfall of our money. They're a chain of music stores throughout Tokyo and every one of them you're guaranteed to drop some money. We finally got to checking out the gear stores and I was definitely psyched, all of them had some really old Japanese fuzz pedals from the early 70's. Unfortunately there were no bargains to be had here, prices ranged from the 300 dollar mark to the 1,000 dollar mark for certain pedals. These stores also had lots of Japanese Fender and Gibson knock offs which are supposed to be pretty close in quality to the originals.


Lucky for us there was a Kaiten-sushi place right on this street. Kaiten-Sushi was the number one most frequented type of food establishment on the trip. Basically the Sushi chefs make various sushi/sashimi dishes and put them on a conveyor belt, and you take whatever you want. The different kinds of plates determine the price, a plate of Inari is about $1 compared to a plate of Bintoro (fatty tuna) which is about 5 dollars. If you're into sushi and eating like a king then a Kaiten-Sushi bar is definitely for you.

After chowing we went to a small restaurant/drinking hole close to near where we were staying, Taeko, Chris and I had a few drinks while James and Carms watched. Finishing up we parted ways with Taeko and we headed back to Asakusa. One of the coolest parts of where we were staying was that we were DIRECTLY next door to Sensō-ji which is a fairly famous Buddhist temple. Unsatisfied with ending our evening at the time we took a walk around the temple and Asakusa.


This is a sculpture of a giant golden piece of shit in front of a waste disposal headquarters.





Some shots of the Asakusa area and the temple.

I can't really explain why this is one of the best days of my life, but its definitely one I will never forget. We crammed a lot of living into a short period of time, and its one of the few times where I've felt like I was a kid again. Whats better than spending a day in the company of some great people? I've definitely learned to appreciate things on a different level, and to see things for what they're really worth. Its kind of cheesy and I'm not a person of faith but I've felt some kind of spiritual enrichment from traveling, its been pretty fulfilling.

12/29/07: First day in Tokyo.

Waking up in the morning inside the capsule was kind of unnerving, I couldn't remember where I was at first and I began to panic. After realizing I calm down and it finally set into my brain that I wasn't anywhere near home.

We made our way to the Shinkansen (the bullet train) station. A few notes on Japanese subway and train stations.
1) They never smell like piss
2) They are more or less immaculate
3) Trains always run on time, and run frequently

While we were waiting for the train we decided to get some traditional Japanese bento lunch boxes, having absolutely no idea what they said on them we just looked at the pictures and took our best guess. They turned out to be absolutely nasty, I definitely felt sick afterwards.





a couple shots outside my window moving at approximately 180mph. everything between Osaka and Tokyo was just farms, mountains, and slight industrialization. The ride was quick and comfortable, two things Japan is all about: comfort and efficiency.

We stayed in a pretty nice hostel in Asakusa, it was cheap and really clean. The only buzzkill was the amount of backpacking idiots that come through there. Bored youths who came to Japan to spend entire days in the lobby of the hostel on the internet and hanging out with people with similar interest. This actually kind of pissed me off. You have this kids, most from the US, on the entire other side of the world and they're spending their time in a hostel. Didn't make any kind of sense to me, but whatever.





Dudes walking around the Asakusa area and on the subway frightening Japanese girls. The first difference I noticed between Tokyo and Osaka was that of space. Although Tokyo is a highly populated metropolis it doesn't feel cramped the way Osaka does, or New York for another example. The city had a really refreshing open air feeling to it, I particularly liked this.





We met up with Colin Bayer in Shibuya, he's a real chill dude. Shibuya is pretty damn crazy, a smaller cleaner less frustrating Times Square. Normally if I was in crowds like this in New York I would be knee deep in anxiety attacks, but for some reason I felt perfectly comfortable here. Later on in the trip I realized that it had something to do the with the people. As a foreigner (Gaijin) in Japan you're sure of two things; almost no one will make eye contact with you, and no one will bother you. Japanese people are all about keeping to themselves and minding their own business.

We experienced our first big typical tourist fuck-up this night. Looking for a place to eat we found some Hawaiian type restaurant, biggg mistake. The food was ridiculous, I ordered nachos and got about three the hamburgers were 1/16th pounders, they gave us a "free" appetizer that we had to pay for and on the bill was a $25 dollar "service charge". The joke was definitely on us, it made for a funny story at least. There was one positive to this restaurant, the first bit of Engrish on the trip:



y'all down with cheese height alignment?

We spent the rest of the night walking Harajuku and Shibuya in the rain, it was also kind of late so all the stores were closed. Things shutdown at 9 o clock on the dot in Tokyo every night, its insane because you'll be walking around and theres mad people everywhere and shit going on and then all of a sudden its just quiet.



welcome to the biggest Audi dealership in the world, they had a couple R8's in there.

The first day in Tokyo was pretty standard and was kind of a preliminary introduction to the next couple of days. The idea of being Japan had definitely settled in at this point and I had a strange brew of homesickness and wanderlust mixed in the pit of my stomach.

bye friends