Get It Together - A.B.A. Remix Instrumental (Beastie Boys)

Instrumental version of Beastie Boys' remix of theirs and Q-Tip's 'Get It Together' from the album 'The In Sound From Way Out (Japanese Import)' - an album that has liner notes in both Japanese and French for obvious reasons. Photos of various bits of graffiti from around Shibuya...

End of Days: Tokyo

So, I’d reached the home straight of my journey with a final week in Tokyo to put an end to my three months of laziness. Having covered large chunks of Japan by this stage, I was perhaps ready to return to London, looking forward to seeing some old faces again after several weeks on the road alone.

But being that this was to be the umpteenth time that I have visited Tokyo I didn’t feel like I was going there as a tourist at all, but a traveller returning. All the major tourist spots in Tokyo done, my last week was more one of hunting round record shops, seeking out any good graffiti and sitting in pubs watching football. It, therefore, served as a good spot to ease me back into London living before the twelve-hour flight.

Shibuya

My first night was that of England-France in Euro 2012, and so I had the fun task of leaving the hotel at 01:00 to find a pub showing it. I found one, no trouble, though it also advertised itself as closing at 25:00 (the Japanese for 01:00). So, it was both showing the game at 01:00 and closing at 01:00 – do I have to watch through the window? Ordering a pint of Kirin in Japanese during ‘God Save the Queen’ confirmed that I didn’t have to watch through the window, as well as my patriotism. I got chatting to an American, who surprisingly had some useful comments to make about the Premier League, and a Scot from Hertfordshire living in Australia. I remember little about the game and left the pub at 3AM to be offered numerous massages by the night ladies of Ueno. I ventured back for Portugal-Denmark – where I was the only person still watching by 02:30 – and France-Ukraine – which was fun as the match was postponed an hour.

Shibuya

The days were filled by trawling through the ¥250 and ¥500 shelves in Book-Off and Dick Union, where you can find a surprisingly large amount of cheap, rare hip hop wedged in between old Gina G and 2Unlimited CDs. I came away with seventeen newly bought albums, all ranging from around £2-£6 in price and adding to the dilemma of how I was going to pack everything. It was amazing as to the things you could find if were prepared to look that little bit harder: US hip hop rarities nestled between 1990s UK boy bands and Ugly Kid Joe in endless shelves of forgotten CDs that have all made their way to Tokyo. It was a reminder of just how much shit music gets made, with the works of bands long-forgotten sat there to probably never get bought – unless that bloke I met in Sapporo ever pops in – but also a moment of nostalgia when seeing something you recognise and thought was ‘you know, okay’ when 12: Dodgy, ‘Good Enough’? BOOM! ‘Good enough’ being both a title and review. Where are they all now?

Saitama 2002 Stadium

Nissan Stadium, Yokohama

In my quest to visit all ten of Japan’s World Cup stadia, I made journeys to Saitama, to Urawa Reds’ home stadium: Saitama 2002 Stadium, which is an easy enough journey from Ueno, provided you get off at the right train station; and back to Yokohama to the Nissan Stadium: home of the F. Marinos and the 2002 World Cup final. This left me with a total of eight out of ten stadiums visited – not bad for a pointless task. I also visited the National Stadium in central Tokyo for my fourth Verdy game of the season: a triumphant 4-1 win over FC Gifu. Boom! Top of the league! Take that JEF Chiba Utd!

Verdy 4 - 1 FC Gifu

I also made a quick stop in Kawasaki on the way back from Yokohama, as I’d never actually stopped in Japan’s ninth largest city. Type Kawasaki into Google and you’ll get a lot of information about racing bikes, which is probably fair, as Kawasaki is one city in Japan that you can call a dump. It’s almost as if Tokyo said let’s take all the things we need, but might make the place look less attractive and dump them west of the Tama River and call it Kawasaki. Housing was pretty low-rent and there was lots of heavy industry going on. I didn’t see much of it, so probably being harsh, and if you take the time to walk in between the various factories in the bay area, it can probably get quite interesting at least, but don’t plan any picnics.

Kawasaki

My last week, though was less of a travelling experience, and more a living one. I’ve got quite used to Tokyo and can find my way around pretty easily, knowing where I need to go, and so after weeks of seeing new and different things everyday, I spent my last week back in familiar surroundings, getting myself back on European time by watching the Euros in preparation for my new life in Balham…

Oh God, let me go back!

Three months in drum and/or bass...

Another Two Weeks in Tokyo

So, I was back in Tokyo again, and again I was not alone. Well, I was for the first night, arriving from Kobe and checking-in at the hotel a day before my significant other (the missus, ‘er indoors, etc.) to account for her early arrival the next morning. Awww, eating tempura in Shinjuku like a true bachelor.

This stay in Tokyo came in two part: 1) in Yotsuya at the Mitsui Garden Hotel; and 2) in Ikebukuro at the Metropolitan. The two parts were broken up by the three day trip to Kawaguchiko, where merriment was had, and was largely some good ol’ sightseeing for the Tokyo virgin.

Part 1 started with lots of rain, and continued much in that vein throughout. The Shinjuku Metropolitan Government Building view deck kicked things off, though little could be seen, so we resorted to drunkenly watching an FC Tokyo game in Shibuya in the Asian Champions’ League: where the J-League team always wins. The rain kept up the next day, but that didn’t stop us donning our umbrellas (well, the hotel’s) and seeing the north east trilogy of Ueno, Asakusa and Akihabara through rain drops. We decided to walk the whole way, which seems stupid in hindsight, but there you go: Another victory for Captain Hindsight.

Uenokoen

Sky Tree

Asakusa

The rain let off to allow enough time to go to the Imperial Palace and Ginza, but it soon started again, so we withdrew before an attempted night out in Roppongi – a place I’m not too fussed about really. We settled for some food, but returned to Yotsuya to frequent two genuine English pubs, one of which (The Rising Sun) claims to be the oldest English pub in Tokyo – true facts! The sun stayed for the next two days, with a long walk around Shinagawa and across the Rainbow Bridge across Tokyo Bay followed by the usual Sunday in Yoyogi Park, Harajuku and Shibuya following ending in some further football watching at my new favourite pub, The Aldgate, where it seems the American barman is a genuine, authentic Man City fan. Who’d have thought?

Imperial Palace

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

Shinagawa

Rainbow Bridge

Tokyo Bay

Odaiba

It was then the Kawaguchiko was visited, initially with slight hangovers, for three days peace and quiet, before the second part of the Tokyo tour, with some slightly more adventurous locations.

With many of the main tourist attractions ticked off in Part 1, we started Part 2 with one of the main tourist attractions: Tokyo Tower at night, though we were a little more interesting the next day, heading west to the suburb of Kichijoji, a nice little place for shopping, eating and generally hanging round dressed like a clown as well as finding the Ghibli Museum, but not going in it (not sure if I need to see a model of something from a cartoon that badly) as the complicated ticket buying system seemed unnecessary. Not that it was complicated really, I was just feeling lazy. It was on the train back that I discovered the new dance craze among chubby Japanese schoolboys that everyone is talking about. Yes, the ‘Chubby Japanese schoolboy falling asleep while standing up on a train’ dance is going to be all over the globe soon. It’s not to be confused with the ‘Chubby Japanese schoolboy falling asleep while standing up on an escalator’ dance or the ‘Chubby Japanese schoolboy sleepwalking through Shinjuku train station’ dance. The evening was then spent drinking in Shibuya once again, this time in the company of an American I met during the earthquake last year to celebrate his 21^st birthday with his Finnish cousin. Then, a crippling last train home.

View from Tokyo Tower

Kichijoji

Last train home, Shibuya Station

We then did a round trip I did on my first visit to Japan, heading off to the old capital of Kamakura to shrine watch and beach sit before heading back to Tokyo via Yokohama port area and Chinatown. The weather wasn’t great in the morning, so the beach action left a little to be desired, but it was a good day spent in the nice old city allowing us to get our walk on. It grew darker and colder as we arrived in Yokohama, and as I grew increasingly lost, but eventually found the way to Yokohama Bay and Chinatown, but it was too cold and dark to stick around too long. Plus, we needed to get back in time to watch Richard Gere and Hennifer Hlopez in the remake of Japanese smash ‘Shall we Dance’. If only all films could be that good!

Kamakura

Kamakura

Kamakura

Yokohama

Yokohama

Having someone watch them with me killed my two-match winning streak as a Tokyo Verdy fan as they lost 1-0 in poor style to the beautifully-named Okayama Fagiano before locating a pub appropriately named ‘Camden Town’ in Ikebukuro which is shrewd enough to feature that classic Camden staple: the Rubik’s Cube. Then how about some real football? Last day of the season had to be watched. ‘Man City have fucked it! They have well and truly fucke…OOOOOOOOOowwwwaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAArrrggggggghhhhhhhh! That was liquid football.’ At least Villa just survived, thanks to Baggies equalising against Bolton the week before. Thanks Baggies. Didn’t see the news the next day coming at all; where will Sir Alex go now?

Tokyo Verdy v Okayama Fagiano

Tokyo Verdy v Okayama Fagiano

It was then time to be left on my own again by ‘the wife’ and take up a new hobby of plane-spotting and hit a shopping spree while staying in the urban ryokan, Ryokan Kamogawa. I took up some new trainers, an interest in anime ‘Tokyo Tribe 2’ and, since the sad news regarding Adam Yauch, took liberty in updating my Beastie Boys back catalogue (essentially their instrumental albums). I also went to see the poor 'Sadako 3D' for kicks.

Asakusa

Shibuya

It was a good two weeks and felt a lot more settled and like being back in London after all the constant unpacking and packing and changing of location. But it’s moving on up from here, literally, as I venture to Nikko en route to Hokkaido. 

Long Weekend in Tokyo

So, I’ve now finally said bye bye Camden, and hello hello Balham, only to say bye bye Balham straight away, and bye bye London, and indeed Europe for now. With my possessions now divided between Balham and Norfolk, I took the flight to Narita Airport to start a three month misadventure into the partly known and unknown.

After a reasonably successful flight, in that it landed, I made my way to Shinjuku to Hotel Sunroute Higashi with my first instinct being to sleep. But, of course, with my flight landing earlier than check-in time, I was left to bumble about in the rain until 2PM.

That out the way, I then did what I have done a lot over the past few days: sleep during the day. Jetlag has hit me badly this weekend on my arrival and my body loves waking up unnecessarily early, only to start to tire by mid-afternoon, leaving a couple of lost evenings already. Waking, the rain was still heavy, so my first day was a bit of a non-event, kept mainly indoors, mainly in bed.

The rain continued on Saturday, leaving my plans to walk around a bit scuppered, though I did buy a coat, which only cost me my soul, being that it’s a Nike SB. To celebrate, I had a couple of pints, which combined with the jetlag caused a near instant death and once again left me needing an early bed, though not before the sun finally came out.

Sunday was a better day, with the sun out and bringing with it a mild attempt at sunburn, or maybe it was just due to my going for a run that my face was so red. On a whim, I went to watch J-League Division 2 side Tokyo Verdy at the Ajinomoto Stadium in a 2-0 win over Thespa Kusastu. He crowd were lively, as ever in the J-League and a nice view of Fuji-san could be seen as the sun began to set. Jetlag was beaten for that day at least, leaving me able to go out for a meal and everything. That can’t be said of Monday, however, in which I woke early, again, and was Tokyo zombied by the afternoon.

In essence, it’s been a weekend to readjust my body clock. I was able to get quite a bit of exercise done, but jetlag kept my level of activity to a minimum.  Hopefully it will be gone when I move on to Okinawa, where I should be able to enjoy the evenings, as well as the rising sun.