The third Letter From Tomorrow
These notes are from Thursday. Sorry about the delay in posting. You'd think that being this far ahead (timewise) would help me to put the journals up the day they happen, but you'd be wrong.
2/9/06, Thursday
1:00pm
Tokyo, Shibuya
-Shibuya is like a dream. Literally. The walkways remind me of a dream I had when I was younger. They climb and stretch over eachother.
-I hit an arcade earlier where I played one round of a not so fun game and two rounds of a fun one.
-Everyone here is so hip that it hurts a little. In the good way, though. It’s like Haight Ashbury like that. That is a more consumeristic, crowded Haight Ashbury.
-Lunch is from a Japanese Fast Food chain. My burger came with a friend egg on it. Now, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.
-The mix of people here is impressive. School girls, hipsters, mothers, middle aged businessmen, budding businessmen.
-Any urge I had to travel after college is officially doubled.
-I bought too many CD’s today. If it helps, most of them are gifts.
-There is a hipster couple across from me. They are basically adorable.
-I got some good graffiti/urban grit pictures from south Shibuya
-I walked through a Shinto Shrine this morning. Park of it was surrounded by trees so that you couldn’t see the city. It was a unique feeling here.
4pm
Yokohama, Hotel
-Looking out the window at the city, it feels heavy around me. Maybe it’s from all the walking, or not having a home here, but I feel tired now. I feel quiet. There are a couple of lines of trees outside the window and down a way, but they are not enough. Not nearly enough.
2/10/06, Friday
noon:
Yokohama, the hotel (Tokyo, Ginza)
The morning after:
-A little hungover today. We went to a men’s club last night.
-We got off the train in Ginza, the ritzy-business district. It was a short walk to the club where we were led down a thin staircase which was flanked on both sides by wall length mirrors. To three black vellur loveseats.
-We were soon joined by three female ‘escorts’.
-From their garb, one could have mistook them for Homcoming queens. Their age and appearance only served to cement the image.
-Despite the Japanese beer and three course meal, the highschool feeling persisted while I chatted with the pretty girl next to me, just enough to appear flirty to everyone except her. It is a skill I’d never quite mastered then, and after a few years openly out in a liberal Northern California university, I was as rusty at it as ever.
-Between my minor Japanese skill and my companion’s moderate command of English, the conversation meandered its way from the films of Kurosawa and Studio Ghibli to manga and finally to older, landmark anime. Character names and laughter were shields against the ever present awkwardness until I finally found unconcerned with the exact distance between her sholders and mine and how ‘manly’ my posture was. This comfort, of course, seems to be the only possible result of so many tall beer glasses and animated conversations.
-The atmosphere was aided by velvet draperies, a waitresses dressed in high waited ‘shorts’ (for lack of a better word) and fishnet stockings displaying her long legs, and a lounge singer who -with the help of piano accompaniment- treated us with a cover of ‘My Heart Will Go On.’
-The evening eventually moved on and upward to the second floor karaoke parlor where I listened to my Dad and his business partner, Randy, cover Boz Scaggs and Otis Redding.
-Most of my choices were old beatles, Elton John, and Weezer (Across the Sea seemed to poignant to pass up.)
-Where my choices were often dictated more by whim than skill, Randy choose more carefully. Which is to say: the man can sing.
-Between the cocktails and karaoke, the night wound up and then down.
-Here is a note from that night’s notebook.
“As we left, I had a thought. Maybe the point (of the escorts) wasn’t to feel attractive or loved. Not in that way. Maybe it was just to feel -if only for a night- that you had a friend.”
-Dad and I are both getting a little hungry. Lunch now. More later.
2/9/06, Thursday
1:00pm
Tokyo, Shibuya
-Shibuya is like a dream. Literally. The walkways remind me of a dream I had when I was younger. They climb and stretch over eachother.
-I hit an arcade earlier where I played one round of a not so fun game and two rounds of a fun one.
-Everyone here is so hip that it hurts a little. In the good way, though. It’s like Haight Ashbury like that. That is a more consumeristic, crowded Haight Ashbury.
-Lunch is from a Japanese Fast Food chain. My burger came with a friend egg on it. Now, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.
-The mix of people here is impressive. School girls, hipsters, mothers, middle aged businessmen, budding businessmen.
-Any urge I had to travel after college is officially doubled.
-I bought too many CD’s today. If it helps, most of them are gifts.
-There is a hipster couple across from me. They are basically adorable.
-I got some good graffiti/urban grit pictures from south Shibuya
-I walked through a Shinto Shrine this morning. Park of it was surrounded by trees so that you couldn’t see the city. It was a unique feeling here.
4pm
Yokohama, Hotel
-Looking out the window at the city, it feels heavy around me. Maybe it’s from all the walking, or not having a home here, but I feel tired now. I feel quiet. There are a couple of lines of trees outside the window and down a way, but they are not enough. Not nearly enough.
2/10/06, Friday
noon:
Yokohama, the hotel (Tokyo, Ginza)
The morning after:
-A little hungover today. We went to a men’s club last night.
-We got off the train in Ginza, the ritzy-business district. It was a short walk to the club where we were led down a thin staircase which was flanked on both sides by wall length mirrors. To three black vellur loveseats.
-We were soon joined by three female ‘escorts’.
-From their garb, one could have mistook them for Homcoming queens. Their age and appearance only served to cement the image.
-Despite the Japanese beer and three course meal, the highschool feeling persisted while I chatted with the pretty girl next to me, just enough to appear flirty to everyone except her. It is a skill I’d never quite mastered then, and after a few years openly out in a liberal Northern California university, I was as rusty at it as ever.
-Between my minor Japanese skill and my companion’s moderate command of English, the conversation meandered its way from the films of Kurosawa and Studio Ghibli to manga and finally to older, landmark anime. Character names and laughter were shields against the ever present awkwardness until I finally found unconcerned with the exact distance between her sholders and mine and how ‘manly’ my posture was. This comfort, of course, seems to be the only possible result of so many tall beer glasses and animated conversations.
-The atmosphere was aided by velvet draperies, a waitresses dressed in high waited ‘shorts’ (for lack of a better word) and fishnet stockings displaying her long legs, and a lounge singer who -with the help of piano accompaniment- treated us with a cover of ‘My Heart Will Go On.’
-The evening eventually moved on and upward to the second floor karaoke parlor where I listened to my Dad and his business partner, Randy, cover Boz Scaggs and Otis Redding.
-Most of my choices were old beatles, Elton John, and Weezer (Across the Sea seemed to poignant to pass up.)
-Where my choices were often dictated more by whim than skill, Randy choose more carefully. Which is to say: the man can sing.
-Between the cocktails and karaoke, the night wound up and then down.
-Here is a note from that night’s notebook.
“As we left, I had a thought. Maybe the point (of the escorts) wasn’t to feel attractive or loved. Not in that way. Maybe it was just to feel -if only for a night- that you had a friend.”
-Dad and I are both getting a little hungry. Lunch now. More later.