Akihabara or Geekdom, Ground Zero

Faced with the dismal failure of my quest for soba noodles, I thought, "F that, I'm going to Akihabara." For those of you unfamiliar with Akihabara, it is known as Tokyo's center for electronics and the focal point for otaku (nerd) culture. This is the place to go if you are looking for the latest digital cameras, video games or anime releases.

On the way there, I spotted a Mister Donut, a donut chain that Steph had raved about on the plane. Since my stomach had just been denied soba, I stepped in and began translating the katakana on the display labels. Chocolate, honey, curry...whoa, curry? There comes a point in every man's life when he should consider eating a curry donut, and for me, that point was now. I ordered it. It was indeed filled with a savory curry, with a crunchy panko coating on the outside of the donut.

They really like their buildings big and tall over here.

And they're not really ones for subtlety.

I was warned beforehand that Akihabara can be rather intense, but I shooed that aside. I mean, how bad can it possibly be? As it turns out, Akihabara is the munincipal equivalent of LSD in terms of sensory overload (not that I would know). The streets are filled with neon signs, blaring loudspeakers, flashing displays, music cranked to the highest decibel and girls in French maid outfits. Wait, what? Yes, somewhere along the way, Japan decided that it was a) obsessed with Paris and b) obsessed with servility in women and the two have happily combined in the French Maid Cafe phenomenon. At a number of fine establishments in Akihabara, you can indulge in your wildest fantasy of being served and pampered with French maids. They will greet you as master or mistress, cater to your whims and serve you overpriced coffee. I thought about going into one, then decided that it wasn't worth waiting in the line spilling out the door.

I'd been expecting more cosplayers, but instead there were French maids on every corner.

The sign is hard to read, but these girls (and a dude??) are advertising an opportunity to eat at the same table that the Backstreet Boys used for their music video "Bigger" (released on November 2).

Aside from French maid cafes, Akihabara is filled with electronics stores, vendors hawking duty-free items (some specialize in overseas models that will work abroad), and anime and manga media shops. My neurons were overloading. Ceramic knives! Rewritable Blu-Ray discs! Gorgeous, phenomenally crisp 60" TVs with resolutions better than my eyes (for the low, low price of ¥648,000)! Monitor cleaners shaped like a hamburger! Arcades filled with adolescent boys who looked like they hadn't showered in some time!

A capsule pod in an arcade, there is a list of machines that you can fight as.

I was really amused by this taiko drumming video game.

All right, focus Crystal, you don't really need a WiMax router. Or a USB key with a figurine attached that does crunches.

Akihabara's raunchier side also made its presence known from time to time. On more than one occasion, I would be browsing a perfectly respectable manga store, then go downstairs and suddenly notice that all the covers feature scantily clad, big-breasted women and that I was conspicuously the only female in the room. Or, I'd be drawn into a shop by a display of short skirts (I figure I can augment my collection of one). Then the next floor up would feature lingerie and vibrators, and the next floor up would feature clamps and dildos, then the next floor up would feature dolls...

Anyway, I was on a mission with this trip. After a lot of searching, I managed to find a copy of the first Cowboy Bebop album. It took me a while to realize CDs were being sorted alphabetically in hiragana, and even then, the first couple stores I tried didn't carry it. Then, I did some monster hunting for the Tokyo Anime Center, which turned out not to be on the main drag of Soto-Kanda. The Tokyo Anime Center is worth a short sidetrip though; I thought their selection of trinkets and paraphernalia was well-thought out compared to the average jam-packed store.

Several hours of browsing later, I was drained and ready to move elsewhere. Next up, the Asakusa Temple.

Navigating in Tokyo

Unlike some classic cities laid out on grids (cough Chicago), Tokyo's addressing system has no rhyme or reason. Well, the addresses are given in terms of wards, chome (city district), block and building number. And the building numbers were given in the order of their constructions, so they are generally not consecutive (a lot of things were razed in the 1940s...). Wait, what? How the hell to the Japanese find anything around here? As it turns out, they do a fair amount of bumbling around too, but at least they speak and read Japanese. So, what's it like for a nearly illiterate gaijin (foreigner) to navigate the city? For an exercise in masochism, I decided to go to Kanda Soba Noodle (it was recommended by an article in Metropolis) armed with nothing but the address: 2-10 Kanda Awaji-cho and the recommended subway station (Ogawamachi). No maps, no directions, nada.

I stepped out of the Ogawamachi station on the Ginza line and immediately regretted my decision. Street signage was in Japanese and I had no idea which direction I was headed. Spotting a koban (police station), I waltzed in and asked, "Eigo o hanashimasu ka?" The two officers sitting behind the desk announced resolutely, "No Engrish." My heart sank. I gave them the address I was looking for and they managed to convey the general direction I should head. (Giving directions via charades is surprisingly difficult.) I walked off and soon found myself lost in another part of town. By this time, I'd started noticing the small green signs that denote chome on street light poles. Ok, I can just follow those because they're numbered consecutively right? 2-16, 2-20, 2-7, 2-8, 2-13...dammit. An hour or so passed and my frustration was rising.

As I stood on a corner with furrowed eyebrows, a woman approached me and asked if I needed help. I quickly explained that I was American and was a bit lost. "Ah, I thought you were Japanese!" "No, just Chinese and American," I said. "Do you know where Kanda Yabu Soba is?"
Her eyes immediately lit up and she grinned. "Ohh, Yabu Soba!!" she exclaimed, as she made eating motions with her hands. Within a few minutes, she walked me a couple blocks away, where she pointed to a sign with directions to the restaurant. I was pretty much kissing my knees bowing to thank her.

Following the signage on the street light poles, I soon came across a wooden fence and a woman vigorously hosing down the sidewalk. "Kanda Yabu Soba desu ka?" I asked. "Hai," the woman answered. However, the restaurant was closed for another hour. I groaned.

Conclusion: Print out maps of the places you're trying to find. Make sure major streets are marked in both Japanese and English. Learn how to understand directions in Japanese. And finally, check the hours of the business you are trying to find.

Engrish Signage of the Day

Normally, with bad translations, I can at least guess the writer's intent, but here I am not so sure.

This isn't Engrish so much as something we beelined toward.

It's a Small World

In less than 2 hours in Tokyo, I have already met a couple guys...from Chicago...and we have a friend in common (a Fed AE). Good thing I went halfway around the world to hang out with people who live in my state. Yay for not having Dinner for One tonight!

13 Hours is a Very Long Flight

...but at least I met Steph, my new bff from Singapore and seatmate for the ORD-NRT leg of this trip! Normally, I don't make too strenuous an effort to talk to people on planes, but this time, after the round of courtesy pleasantries (are you coming or leaving/traveling for business or pleasure?), we kept the chatter going. She had just spent a week visiting Chicago and was now on her way home to Singapore. "So, what did you think?" I asked. "Ehh..." was the reply. Unfortunately, she had a pretty lousy week in the Windy City, since she was a) sick and b) staying in the 'burbs. "My friend had this bright idea to stay out in the suburbs, which meant it took an hour to get into the city every time, and cost about $15. Next time, I'm definitely staying in the city I'm visiting." Apparently, she'd visited mostly to experience Halloween, but they missed the train into and on weekends, Metra tends to run every 2 hours so...

"Ok, what did you like about chicago?" I asked. "THE POPCORN! I have TWO jumbo bags of the Garrett's cheese and caramel mix in my luggage. I was going to give one to friends but now I'm rethinking." I started chuckling. "Also, Denny's!" she continued. "And Taco Bell, it's so good!" We got into a discussion of Chicago's food highlights (you knew it was going there) and she did at least cover the basics (hot dogs and deep dish pizza) though she wasn't particularly impressed. "You know," I commented, "those are both well-known features of Chicago cuisine, but we actually have really great Mexican in this town too." I began raving about tamales and carnitas by the pound in Pilsen, freshly fried churros at Maxwell Street and Rick Bayless' haute Mexican. "Drat, I wish I had met you on the way here, rather than on the way back." Steph said sadly. The discussion then meandered onto durian ("ice cream is the best introduction"), what it's like to work in public relations ("sounds glamorous but in actuality a lot of sucking up"), and things that are illegal in Singapore (jaywalking, selling chewing gum though actually chewing it is not).

At this point, the flight attendants thought we were traveling together, and were giving us one menu to share and the same sets of customs cards. ("Wait, I'm not staying in Tokyo!")

A few potentially enlightening gleanings:

I'd never before thought of American fast food as a tourist draw, but in retrospect, it does deserve recognition for being widely accessible, consistent, cheap and most importantly, tasting good. Food snob though I may be, if it were no longer available, I would be clamoring for an Arby's roast beef and McDonald's fries like a kid at fat camp.

Though we may be typified abroad by the McDonald's arches, American cities are actually quite cosmopolitan. In Chicago, you can easily get excellent examples of French, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Cajun, Polish, etc. In contrast, Tokyo, with its population of 28 million, has woefully nonexistent Mexican food. This country is truly a melting pot and it's something to be proud of.

Steph's English was almost indistinguishable from the average American, save for a few Britishisms like "tea time" and "queue." Apparently, her parents raised her speaking English, and though Mandarin is compulsory in schools, she never learned it well and has forgotten the bulk of it. That surprised me, as it was the first country I'd heard of where the language of the colonizers has supplanted that of the natives.

Tokyo!

Though street crime is relatively low in Japan, quirky camouflage designs like this vending-machine dress are being offered to an increasingly anxious public to hide from would-be assailants.

I know I've been pretty quiet lately (life has been busy), however, prepare to be deluged with posts in the next 10 days as I venture off to Japan and report to you guys on how life looks from the Future.

Halloween 2009

Every year, Halloween brings out an endless slew of people dressed as strippers (an oxymoron, I know), Jesus, Mario, and slutty [insert symbol of innocence/normally staid occupation here]s. Though there were plenty of these haunting Chicago, overall, the quality of costumes seen this year was higher than last year, possibly because it was not an election year.

Somewhat surprisingly, I did not see a single Bernie Madoff or Kanye West costume. There were at least half a dozen people dressed as swine flu though, with padded stomachs and swirly tail accoutrements.

In no particular order, some of my favorite costumes this year included:

1. A guy dressed up as Chicago legend and Hot Doug's proprietor Doug Sohn accompanied by a girl dressed as a hot dog
2. Stunningly realistic Chicago parking meters, a fearsome sight indeed
3. Libyan Dictator Muammar Qaddafi/"part-time UN Secretary-General"
4. Quail Man, complete with tighty whities
5. Cereal Killer with bloodied cereal boxes and plastic knives stuck through them
6. A Bunch of Grapes (purple balloons in assorted sizes all over the body)
7. Vince from the Slap Chop infomercial, wielding a slap-chop and greasy hair
8. And finally, Redneck Siamese Twins. There are no words to explain this, so I'll just include the following picture. Yes, that is one pair of overalls. Watching them walk, or dance, or sit down was knee-slapping hilarious.
   

In the realm of conceptual costumes, I decided there was no way I'd be able to top last year's rendition of Picasso's Blue Period. So I went another route and decided to go as Gogo Yubari, the crazy Asian chick from Kill Bill. I collected a navy blazer, plaid skirt and white knee-length socks, and pinned the coat patch to the pocket. Then, I spent a while nailing a metal chain around a foil-wrapped styrofoam ball, studded with shish-kebab skewers painted silver. The resultant morning star was actually semi-dangerous; I kept accidentally stabbing myself with it all night.

Here, we have the illustrious Doug Sohn, myself, Haley (dressed as a Mii) and Britton (dressed as a "nurse").