Culture Shock!
Aside from the minor technological improvements and obvious difficulty reading signs, there wasn’t too much in Japan that I considered strange. I’ve traveled alone to countries where I don’t speak the language. I’ve seen Asian décor and writing before. I’ve seen pictures of schoolgirls and armies of black-suit clad businessmen. But none of that prepared me for the first night I returned to Tokyo.
I took the highway bus into the city and headed towards Akasaka to find the cheapest accommodation available that night… a capsule hotel. For those of you not familiar with the concept, it’s basically a building filled with 2x1x1m pods resembling something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The floor in each of these is a bed. Inside there’s a TV, Radio, Alarm Clock, and Light. You get to keep all of your personal belongings in a locker room. For this little hole in the wall you pay about $35; not a bad price for a place to sleep in a major metropolis. It’s actually a great concept, and an excellent use of space.
The odd thing is that there is only one shower room for all 500+ capsules. At the entrance there is a small area to leave you towel and all of your clothes. Yes, all of them… here you have to bare it all in front of the businessmen who didn’t make their last train for the night. This is bizarre enough on in its own, but due to my tattoos it became a little stranger. Japanese people with Irezumi (tattoos) are usually members of Yakuza (mafia) and not allowed in the public baths. Being a Gaijin (foreigner) they probably didn’t consider me much of a threat, but eyes were glued on me for the entire bathing experience. Not the most comfortable situation as you can imagine.
After I left I was lucky enough to meet two cool Canadians. Ryan has been teaching English in Miko for 10 months, and they were heading out to celebrate the Mark’s last night of two weeks in Japan. We walked to nearby Roppongi in search food. This district of Tokyo is famous for the highest concentration of Gaijin. It was the site of the old US base during the occupation, and contains the most entertainment catering to outsiders. It didn’t seem much different than any other part of high-tech Tokyo, but you see a foreigner every couple minutes rather every couple hours. We found a Yakitori restaurant called Matsurubi and proceeded to have the most unusual meals of the trip.
Being a bit more experienced, Ryan ordered a feast for us. Our waiter brought a small stove to the table and started the Nabe cooking. This is a tasty soup/stew which you slowly prepare yourself by adding noodles, vegetables and chicken-balls. We then had a large order of various grilled skewers made with mushrooms, leeks, peppers, pork, chicken breast, neck, heart, gizzard, cartilage, and a few other things I can’t remember (or have since blocked out of my memory). It was all unbelievably delicious!! The only difficult part was coming to terms with what I was eating. We washed our meal down with beer and Shochu, a distilled spirit made from sweet potato. It tastes like heaven, looks like water and although it has 35% alcohol… it drinks as easy as water too!!
To wrap up the evening, we headed across the street for more drinking at Gas Panic. This place was a complete Gaijin bar… nothing but American music and half-filled with foreigners. It wasn’t much different than a club back home, but there were two unique differences. First of all, there were coin operated lockers for you to keep your jacket and other belongings… excellent idea! There was also a rule that you must have a drink in your hands at all times or they kick you out… luckily it was happy hour night, and all drinks (including red bull and vodka) were only $3. As you can probably guess, this all led to a wicked hangover.
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Tags: Asia, Culture Shock, Food, Japan, Japan: Toyko, Tokyo
Adam Shane
RBV for $3…..?
Thats it…I’m moving. 🙂
– Greg
🙂 I HAVE to sleep in one of those one day. I think I’ll feel like being ready to be frozen and then wake up in year 2789.
Enjoy Tokyo!!
simon =)
i would be so fucking claustrophobic in those things. happy to hear you are trying new and otherwise unattractive parts of animals….. remember try anything twice before you block it out!
your pics rock!
-george.