Tokyo is Disneyland with a chronic hard-on. Not to say that it's sex-crazed (although that could be argued either way) but simply in that it's impossible to imagine until you're there. Once you are there, you'll realize: Well I'll be damned; it is like Disneyland with a hard-on. That's all I'm saying. If you're looking for the land of Geishas and samurai you've come to the wrong place. If you want a series of truly surreal cultural experiences that will have you questioning the authenticity of everyday reality: Bingo.

On your first night in Tokyo, head to Kabuki-cho. This is the red-light and lights-out district of Tokyo. Here you'll find love hotels tailored to every fetish ever imagined, including a special hotel for men to bring their "life-size love dolls" for a night of luxury lovin.' There's something for everyone: the high class, the low class, and the no class alike. There are plenty of Cosplay cafes (cosplay is a shorter way to say costume play, which you'll find quite a bit of in this town) including the infamous Maid Cafés. You'll plenty of young ladies in frilly maid costumes handing out flyers all around town. There advertising for their particular café, in which all the waitresses are dressed like English maids from a really cheesy dirty flick. Freud would have a field day studying the variety of subversive dominant-submissive role-shifting that goes on in these cafés. Once inside you have your choice of maid who is then obliged to serve you, sit with you, and chat with you in a caricature of a proper English lady. If you're willing to pay a little extra, you can challenge your maid to a variety of contests, the favorite being a pancake eating contest. While you are given a substantially larger stack than your maid, she has to eat in a classic polite matter befitting a fake English maid. If you win, you're allowed to take a Polaroid picture of your maid but if you lose than she is forced to give you a punishing slap across the face. I'm sure there is a very subtle sexual meaning to all of this but I'd rather it remain a mystery.

Once you have recovered from your hangover the next morning, guilt from the previous night's debauchery may set in. For those of the Christian faiths, salvation is close at hand. Go for a meal at the Christon Café, a restaurant that seems more gaga for Christ than all of Italy. It's designed after gothic churches and is chock-full of crucifixes, religious statues, and emblems. Once your soul is cleansed, your body may wish to follow suit. Onsen, or natural hot springs, are a traditional luxury in Japan. They are meant to break down barriers between people (communal nudity can have that effect) and allowing people to relax in a comfortable environment. At the Hakone Kowakien Yunessun Park and Spa the have a new series of novelty onsens including a ramen spa, a green tea spa, a coffee spa (caffeine addicts unite!), and a rather disturbing red wine spa. The ramen bath is shaped like a ramen bowl and contains pepper-flavored water colored a light, milky brown, to like tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen soup. "The water contains collagen and garlic extracts, and theme park officials claim it can help produce beautiful skin and aid moisture retention. The aroma of pepper is said to have the effects of refreshing your mind, warming your burned-out heart and inflaming your passion." Personally, the only things I've known pepper to inflame were my tears ducts.

So how about lunch at the Shibuya Medical Prison? A macabre mix of a hospital, prison, and a strangely kinky haunted house. Upon arrival you have to give your blood type to peppy nurses in very tight uniforms. Then they handcuff you and lead you to your "cell" after which they take your drink order. The cocktails are served in test tubes or even drip bags and the food, which unfortunately seems to be authentic prison food, is served on metal operating trays. Various crazed "lunatics" in ski masks run about the place wreaking havoc among the patrons throughout your meal.

If you miss hanging out with other foreigners (we all do look the same, don't we?), there's an entire section of Tokyo that seems to have been set aside specifically for Gaijin-land. Roppongi is the only place in Japan where you will find entire restaurants and bars without a single Japanese person in them. They are literally filled with a cornucopia of tourists and immigrants with one uniting trait: We're not Japanese. Every other establishment will be an arcade in which adults are spending their hard-earned money on games and picto-graph sticker machines. This area is becoming increasingly infamous for foreign gangs and crime syndicates although there isn't a whole lot of real evidence they actually exist.

If you happen to still be more or less coherent by Sunday, you simply must head to Harajuku to gawk at the cosplay characters that gather there. Most are Japanese teenagers who schedule a weekly protest against their strict culture by dressing up as whatever radical thing pops into their heads and loitering until sunset. Many feel that this is the only really outlet they have for their rebellious urges (no one tell them about sex, drugs, and rock and roll). When I went to pay my homage to these rebels and would-be social pariahs there was what seemed to be a Grease look-alike party going on near the station. About 30 people congregated decked out in their leather outfits, slicked back hair, and poodle skirts twisting their little hearts out while their beautifully restored 1950s American cars were parked nearby. People had gathered to watch them as they got down and I'll say this for them: they looked like they were having a hell of a good time. I have to admit I rather envied their lack of inhibition. They were damn fine dancers, too. Truly.

Further adventures to be continued. naturally.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Comment

smaller | bigger

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment