Friday, January 26th, 2001
It's Friday...and I sleep in preparation for a big night out on the town. In the afternoon, I go to Shinjuku Eki and walk south through Yoyogi (which is basically just your everyday plain-vanilla big city district.) to Harajuku. This place is crazy! One street is teen fashion central with a carnival atmosphere, and the parallel street one block over is high-class beauty salons and fancy expensive boutiques. I walk past many stores offering "American-style clothes." I chuckle at the Japanese idea of American style, and at the prices teens are paying for used t-shirts with nonsense English on them. There are brightly-colored signs, vendors yelling, food booths set up everywhere, crowds of people laughing and walking around...much like a fair. On one hand I feel like the quintessential tourist, out of place and walking around with my mouth agape, but on the other hand the crowd is big enough and happy enough that it doesn't seem to matter.

I am interested in looking around a skate/snowboard/BMX/surf shop. More of those infernal cheap folding sixteen-inch wheel monstrosities!


I also find a punk shop (complete with flat black storefront) called "Mari's Rock." The one clerk is sour-faced and apathetic (typical punk) and Tom J. would have spent his life savings here. I ask her in perfectly understandable Japanese if there are any business cards. I can't understand why (except maybe just more discrimination) but she pretended not to understand, so I had to leave empty-handed. I come across the "Tintin Shop," which was so cool...all the books in tons of different languages, models, posters, t-shirts, sweatshirts, calendars, knick-knacks, clocks, dining sets, all Tintin. Much better than that enjoyable toystore in Sausalito. I tell the clerk that the store is fun and interesting, and that we don't have anything like it in America. Too bad I don't have more money to spend, or room in my pack, because I love this place.

I call Echo as we had arranged, so we can meet for dinner. She takes me to an Indian food place in Shibuya, the "Raj Mahal." Indian staff, nice atmosphere, and far and away the best Indian food I have ever had, even if Echo did pick a so-so vegetable curry from the menu. She accompanies me to Roppongi, a district renowned among foreigners in Japan. We go to a basement bar, got about three feet in the door and can't move any further due to the crowd, so we leave. The Italian bar on the third floor of the same building is quiet and quite nice. We have one drink and Echo leaves. I wander down the street in a bit of a daze. Gaijin everywhere, mostly in classy outfits, but either loud and drunk, or on the way to it. Dance clubs, bars, more clubs, shot bars, restaurants everywhere. Money and girls everywhere. Japanese girls, American girls, Aussie girls, Kiwi girls, and a few African and Eastern European too. I go into Club Envy, a bit suspicious...gaijin on the street level offering free drinks to those who will come up. I think it is a new place, hence the heavy advertising. It is empty save for two tired-looking foreign businessmen. These guys have the exclusive attention of the two hostesses working there, and every five minutes I see another ¥10,000 ($85) change hands. Hmmmm...."I'm paying a woman to pretend to like me." After a short while, I surmise the staff are all Kiwi, note that fact, and take advantage of their men's room before leaving. As I continue on my way, I see a Lancia Delta S4 (Yes, the World Rally Car homologation special.) I think it is a very appropriate to Roppongi: Foreign to Japan, a bit unorthodox, loud, and maybe somewhat crass, but certainly expensive and effective.

I end up at Gas Panic (another crazy English name) after I accidentally started talking to this black guy who was standing on the sidewalk. Talking to this "steerer" was how I got into Club Envy also. But Gas Panic was nice...loud music and expensive drinks, but I'm afraid that's the norm here. There is a nice mix of Japanese and foreigners who seem interested in meeting people. I hang out for quite a while on both the second and the third floor, and talk a little to a few people there about Japan.

I leave to try my luck elsewhere and find myself the only customer in the "Golden Gate," which promises to be an "international community bar." Maybe that oxymoron is the problem...instead, it is me, a questionable British female bartender, and a crap Japanese DJ spinning very loud, very bad dance mix to an empty house. Oh well. By this time it is 2:30, I am well committed to spending the night in Roppongi, and I was getting hungry. I find the Hard Rock Cafe to be a nice haven that is still open. I get more polite compliments from a friendly cute waitress on my Japanese. I keep laughing inside and feeling really good about myself because the other guys nearby are commenting about how cute she is when she leaves, and trying to make time with her without any luck while she was there. I eventually go back to Gas Panic, where the steerer apologized and told me to try the basement.

"Basement? I didn't know you had a basement."

"Oh yeah! It's the best part...just try it, just head down there, you'll see!"

"Isn't that what you told me last time about the upstairs?"

"Naw...the upstairs is just okay...the basement is where all the beautiful women will be."

I still don't believe the guy...every time it is a different "inside line" just for me! I go down there, and find more of a dance club with tons of young people. I help a group of Japanese girls take their picture, and start chatting with them, but they answer me in English every time. Then they leave me to go dance. I consider leaving, but when I poke my head up in the alley, it is snowing like crazy. Hmmm...staying here costs a lot, because to stay you have to have a drink in your hand, but I don't know where else I would go. It is now 4:00AM, and it is probably only an hour more until the trains start running, but I am tired enough that it seems like an endless hour. I get home about 7:00AM wondering what I have done and go to bed.

January 27th, 2001

Back to the Index