Yokohama

I had a horrible night two nights ago.

I was in Shinjuku looking for a place to have a quick drink and a chat before I headed home. After being bombarded with offers for sex, I retreated to a hole in the wall on the second floor called "Psy Bar" which played requests for songs. I had them play Talking Heads and drank a Jagermeister and Ginger Ale. The bartender's name was Toru and we both loved Crystal Castles. He told me about a great electronica club in Shibuya where he saw them live. His shoes had black and white fur all over them. We added each other on Facebook and said we would go to a club if we had time. I talked to a middle aged woman who told me how she saw Aerosmith in concert in Japan when she was younger. She complimented me on my Japanese. Then, a drunk guy gave everyone at the bar candy and helped me find out the last bus for Yokohama.

I ran to the station and caught what I thought was the right bus, but it turned out that the line cut off the last end of it's stops at that time. So I got off in a town called Kamata. From there, my only choice was to take a Taxi. As soon as you get in you're $7 down. Yokohama was 14km from Kamata and I had no idea what M's address was. She was asleep and I couldn't contact her.

I got to talking to the bus driver and it turns out he was half-Korean! He knew exactly where Changwon was. I was so surprised. We talked about delicious Korean food. He told me his father is Korean, but he lived in Japan all his life. He helped me look around for M's house, because I knew it was near a school, but I didn't know which school. We tried two schools and failed. The meter was at $75, so I decided just to get out of the taxi. Feeling miserable about wasting almost 1/5 of my very tiny travel budget, soaked in sweat, sticky, and tired, I wandered around Yokohama for an hour at 2 AM.

I was cursing, kicking, and having multiple freak outs down quiet, narrow streets in the middle of the Japanese countryside. Finally, I found a gas station and used my minimal Japanese skills to ask if they knew which school that the 74 line went to from Tsunashima, and if they knew where that school was from here. It was a total long shot, but luckily he had the internet, and we eventually we found out where it was located. He printed off a map for me. I said, "Thank you," and, "I'm sorry," a thousand times.

He asked me, "Aruku no?" (Are you walking?)

"Hai."

"Kekko aru yo." (It's pretty far, you know.)

"Hai."

So, I began to walk. It took me 15 minutes to get to the closest landmark on the map, so I realized that this was an hour or hour and a half walk. I got in another taxi and gave it another shot. The driver was extremely kind and we found the school in the map. I dished out another $12 and said goodnight.

I called M, because I was still lost, then after another long walk, I found M's apartment. I've never been so glad to come back home. It was 3 AM. Lost in Translation? No, actually. Lost in the middle of nowhere? Yes.

Lesson learned: Write down the information before you leave!

Shinkjuku: Balls to the Wall

Saturday I met my old friend and alumnus, Tsukasa, in Shinjuku, Tokyo. He took a 2 hour bullet train trip just to see me. It cost him the equivalent of $200, and that really meant a lot to me. He showed me around the area.

Shinjuku has a reputation as a city that never sleeps. Anything you want to do (or have done to you) can be found in Shinkjuku. We walked down the love hotel streets to see the architecture.

"If you see two people, you can asume they are about to or just finished doing something. If we walk here together, people might think we`re doing something," said Tsukasa.

Then we walked down the narrow, brightly lit avenues. Tsukasa told me that because of the earthquake, Japan is trying to conserve energy, so many of the neon lights that I love so much were turned off. Normally, he said, it looks like daytime all the time.


We ate ramen, which is all I`ve been eating since I got here, and filled each other in on the last two years we missed. Then we went to find a good place to have a beer. As we searched, we were bombarded by Japanese men and the even more persistent, African men, trying to get us to drink (among other things) with girls. The Africans won`t take "No" for an answer, so I just let Tsuakasa do the talking and pretended I wasn`t American.

One Japanese guy approached me, but then switched to English, "Sex? No?"

All the guys and girls in Shinjuku look the same: dyed-blonde hair, tanned skin, dressed for success, and asking you into some bar. It`s like Jersey Shore and Amsterdam all bottled and shaken up into tiny streets. The word that best describes this area would be "ayashii," or "sketchy."

We found one of Tsukasa`s favorite spots and got the night going with all-you-can-drink Asahi on tap. Tsukasa ordered two of his favorite dishes, Gyuu no tama and Uma. That`s cow balls and horse to you, and all of it raw. All my vegetarian friends in Chilla-fornia are going to hate me for this one.

The idea of eating testicles was still dominating my mind even after trying it. The flavor itself was not bad at all, but every time I chewed into it, there was still a little synapse shooting off in the back of my head telling me it was wrong. Horse, on the other hand, I`m terribly guilty to admit, was delectable. Experience > Fear.

Here are the testicles:


Here`s the horse:

Around 11, Saki met us for drinks, and we had a mini California State University of Northridge Alumni reunion dinner. Looks like everyone is working their asses off, and everyone has no time for love, girlfriends, or even proper sleep. I asked our waiter, who was not Japanese, if he knew English. He told me in Japanese, that he didn`t understand. Tsukasa had a good laugh at that.

Before we met, we were joking that when two gods meet, the earth shakes. Tsukasa and I laughed the night away, and just around 3AM we had an earthquake. I was freaking out, because all I could think about was the disaster. Tsukasa laughed it off, saying it was as common as ball-hairs to boys. I`m paraphrasing here.


Saki had more work to do, so he left home on the last train. However, true to the reputation of the city, Tsukasa and I didn`t sleep a peep. We had more Ramen for breakfast and said goodbye. Tsukasa was running on 3 hours of sleep, had a 2 hour journey ahead of him, and had to go into work that day. He`s a monster, a machine.


We said goodbye with no room for sadness in our hearts. We both knew it wouldn`t be the last time we would see each other. I guarantee it.

Like We Never Left

It is nice to know that after 4 years, neither of us has changed too much. As soon as I arrived, we were back to old tricks like we never parted ways. She will always have a special place in my heart.



Last night we caught up, had ice cream, watch Hollow Man 2, and made eyeballs with those little beads that you melt together with an iron. When`s the last time you did that?


Tomorrow: Yokohama Summer Festivals

Here's Jonny!

I'm back, and this time I'm more brazen and culturally irreverent than ever. I'm western, sexually frustrated, overworked, and ready to bust out of South Korea. Last time I went to Japan I saw all that cultural shit, but this time it's weird Japan.


I'm going to see Ken Kagami's gallery, a leprosy museum, an Anarchist bookstore, some punk rock shows, clubbing in Tokyo, maybe check out a Tranny party, and much, much more. I'll be staying with my friend, "M," who I haven't seen for over 4 years.


Her story is an interesting one. We were dating and both going to school at California State University, Northridge in Los Angeles. It was our summer break and she had to go back to Japan to renew her visa. Then I stopped hearing from her.

School started back up again, and I still waited for her, hoping desperately that she would return to me. However, that time never came. It took me a long time to accept that she was never coming back, and my mind would always wander to the idea of her potential death.


One day, I was waiting at a bus stop in front of my school after class. I was talking on the phone with my Mom and she said, "Whatever happened to M?"

"I don't know, Mom. I hope she's okay."

A bus pulled up as I finished my sentence. The doors opened up and sitting in the front seat was my best friend and lover, "M." I jumped on the bus, although I had no idea where it would take me. We must be chained mentally in some way.

M could not renew her visa, because the person who renews visas was on his vacation that summer. She had just come back for a few days to move her stuff from her old apartment into storage. We had dinner at my house the next night, and that was the last time I saw her. We lost touch once more. I sent e-mails, Myspace messages, packages, love letters, gifts, and mixtapes, but never a reply. Finally, I gave up and moved on.

For some reason, I decided to try and find her on a website which is the equivalent to America's "Facebook." The website is called "Mixi" and I was able to sign up thanks to my friend Sachi. So, I typed in M's old e-mail and was able to find her profile. I sent her a message, and she replied!

Years had passed and I had no idea where she had gone or what had happened. We were both thrilled to be in contact once more. She told me everything that had happened:

Her father had disappeared. Yes, he vanished without a trace. M's family still has no idea where he has gone. This left M and the family with no income. M and her sister had to move out to their own apartment and get jobs, as well as their mother. M was not able to move back to America and had to abandon her education. She had one year of college left. She was studying to be a film director and loved Anime, Pedro Almodovar, and David Lynch. She made me fall in love with all three of these as well.

Apparently, this type of occurrence is not uncommon. I was told by my Japanese friend and co-worker from my Halu Ramen serving job, Hikaru, that there was a name in Japanese for such a thing. "Jouhatsu suru" means "to evaporate." The social pressure and potential personal and family shame boils them to a point where they can't take it anymore and they turn into vapor--gone.