I figured I should hold good on my promise of one last sayounara post before ending my Tokyo blog. Not that I really want it to end, but it wouldn’t be a Tokyo blog without the Tokyo. And even though I’ve been back in Melbourne over a month, I still want to mark the end of our time in Japan (this time around) with a final entry.
December in Tokyo was a blur of farewells, Christmas parties and karaoke, ending on the 18th when we picked the kids up from the school bus stop, jumped in a cab and headed for Narita. If I was one of my kids, I would have been a little confused by the whole thing. In the morning, we asked them to pack their school bags with whatever they wanted to take on the plane as hand luggage. They had a normal day at school, caught the bus home, said goodbye to our friends and then began the next journey back to Melbourne. Fourteen hours later, they were swimming at the beach near Gold Coast Airport as we waited for our connecting flight.
After Christmas the kids spent some quality time with their grandparents at a Victorian beach, while Michael and I came back to Japan for a couple of weeks travel and to pack up the apartment. I’ll let the pictures tell the story, but we took in Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Kobe before heading to Hakuba for some skiing. And by the way, the ‘brown bath’ pictures? It’s compost. Yes, compost. Hot and smelly and apparently good for your health.
So, that’s that. We’re in Melbourne and I’m scouting around for things to do now that the kids are back at school. I’ve signed up for a Japanese subject at uni and am looking for the perfect job (does it exist?). I’ve recruited some local karaoke tragics and the first Ladies Night was a roaring success. There’s a supermarket down the road where I can buy Pocky and Japanese curry. Unfortunately, now that I can read the list of ingredients, I find the curry is loaded with MSG, but I might keep serving it for old time’s sake.
I miss Tokyo already, but am just biding my time til I go back. Thanks to everyone who helped make our stint so mind-blowingly fabulous! どもありがとございました！またね！
I can’t live in denial any longer: we are leaving Tokyo. I thought I could stay longer if I pretended it wasn’t happening, but that plan doesn’t seem to be working. We are booked to fly out in three weeks, and Michael is already home and moving back into our house.
So, I’ve been working on my list of things to do before I go. Some items are fast becoming habit. Take karaoke, for example. A few months ago it was something I’d been hankering for, but there was no real urgency. Now, every opportunity for karaoke simply must be taken. I’ve had several Ladies Nights, with more to come, dragged Michael up there on Date Night (in preference to a Love Hotel!), am trying to squeeze in a night with the kids and, who knows, I might even go solo by the end. Karaoke is good for the soul. Mine, anyway.
Other things on the list, some already ticked off as you’ll see by the photos:
- Watching sumo wrestlers practice at their stable (no, I didn’t make up that word but it does make me wonder about the collective noun for sumo wrestlers – a herd, a bloat?). The sweating and grunting and heaving is much more impressive up close.
- Hiking in the glorious Kiso Valley, the old highway between Tokyo and Kyoto. Done.
- To visit a bento factory. Sadly, will probably remain unrealised. Don’t they ever have open days, like at paper factories and canneries back in Australia?
- To be an illegal entrant in the Omotesando Halloween parade, tick.
- Korean bath at Adam & Eve, scheduled.
- Buying plastic food at Kappabashi, at around 5,000 yen it’s the most expensive bowl of udon in Japan.
- Showing my sister Hayley around – any 24-year-old really should get over here right now if at all possible. We had a great time in Shibuya bar crawling on bikes, not quite as cool when you have a baby seat on the back, but we did our best.
- Winning a six-pack of beer in a public game of jan-ken-pon (paper scissors rock) – still not sure if I cheated, but just happy the crowd didn’t turn nasty. One of those times when being a foreigner works in your favour.
- To pass the Level 4 Japanese language exam – scheduled for next Sunday, but by no means guaranteed.
- To visit Tokyo Disneyland – it wasn’t exactly on the top of my list, unlike some other people in my family, but it had to be done all the same.
- To cross Tokyo Bay on a ferry then take (what seemed to be) the oldest cable car in the world to see the biggest buddha in Japan.
- To drink a kaki (persimmon) cocktail in peak season – tick…and tick, they were delicious.
- Being treated to the ultimate in Japanese customer service at a high-end ryokan (Japanese inn) in Nikko.
- Bending our minds at every museum imaginable – Edo period, fire, earthquake, kite, art, emerging science, space, open-air, sumo, folk crafts, with Hiroshima to come…
- To buy as many vintage Japanese dresses as possible before I get on the plane. In process.
It has been an amazing time and I’d do it all over again. Expect one more sayounara post before December is out and after that, it’s curtains. Here are the visuals:
When Japanese celebrities fall from grace, they fall hard and fast. Yesterday actress and former teen idol Noriko Sakai, 38, appeared in the Tokyo District Court pleading guilty to charges of using an illegal stimulant, hoping to stave off a ten-year prison sentence.
The short version of the story is that Sakai’s ‘professional surfer’ husband was arrested in Shibuya in August, after police thought he was acting strangely and subsequently found illegal drugs in his pocket. Sakai tried to rescue him, to no avail, then went into hiding. The public worried for her, thinking that the shock of finding out she had a drug-abusing husband was too much to bear.
Six days later, she turns herself in to police, admitting to having used an illegal stimulant 10 times, or ‘usually about once or twice a month’, according to an article in The Asahi Tribune today. In court, prosecutors were unforgiving:
‘The defendant was in the business of giving people dreams and hope, but her crime led to major disappointment among many people and also caused economic losses.’
The verdict will be handed down 9 November, but for her part Sakai is already repentant. She plans to leave showbiz to study nursing so she can care for her mother, who is ill. She also plans to get a divorce. There’s been no mention of plans to remove the small tattoo spotted on her ankle last year (tsk, tsk).
Sakai’s star still seems to be shining bright among at least one part of the community though. There was a typhoon here yesterday but that didn’t stop 6,615 fans waiting outside the court. They know the exact figure because, the Tribune states:
‘Before the trial, numbered wristbands were handed out to 6,615 people hoping to get a seat in the courtroom. Twenty were chosen at random, making the odds – one in 330 – the highest ever.’
There you have it, the local way to measure celebrity stardom – the odds of getting a ringside seat while dreams, hope and economic losses come crashing down all around. A note to Noriko Sakai: Don’t worry, I for one am not holding you responsible for any losses I might have incurred, economic or otherwise.
No doubt about it, there’s a lot of high-end retail in Tokyo, where every luxury brand seems to have several flagship stores, but I prefer to hang out at the lower end of the scale. I’ve already mentioned the amazing second-hand clothes stores here, but my favourite ‘go to’ store for everything else is the discount chain Don Quijote.
My first visit to Donki (as they call it) was on the way home from a night out. It was pretty late, but the place was packed with drunken Japanese kids picking and pointing and laughing. I went in for a closer look and found three hectic, chaotic floors choc full of every product imaginable, including the essential Weetabix and Giant Pocky. Once I spotted those, there was no going back: forget the expensive and self-important Kinokuniya, I was a confirmed Donki shopper.
On the weekend I went there with the kids, in search of some black hairspray for our Halloween costumes. In the interests of posterity, I recorded our journey, on video:
Getting a haircut in a country where you don’t speak the language can be tricky. Actually, getting the haircut is not that tricky, but getting the haircut you want is another thing altogether.
Luckily I’m not overly precious about my hair, but when I moved here my more established Tokyo girlfriends hooked me up with Lincoln, a Brit who services the gaijin over at Toni & Guy. He’s lovely and I always get treated like a queen there. At the front desk there are two, sometimes three, people to welcome you, take your coat, compliment you on your outfit and whisper into their headset that another valued customer has arrived. Other people wearing headsets appear like ninjas, escort you to your seat and do their utmost to make you comfortable. They’ve never offered me a glass of wine though, I must say, and often by the time I make it to the hairdresser I need a drink more than a haircut. I usually go there on date night when Michael is out of town. That means I am: A) more stressed than normal and B) not getting out much.
Anyway, despite the absence of alcohol, I usually feel (and hopefully look) better by the time I swan out an hour later. Lincoln does the cut and can translate my instructions to the colourist, no problem. Michael’s not really a Toni & Guy kind of guy, so he generally drops into a local barber (any local barber, not just ours) and has had some interesting experiences. The first time, he didn’t know what he was in for and when the lady asked him questions in Japanese he just generally replied with a ‘Yes’. Soon, his head was snapped back for a wet shave, followed by a swift trim of any visible facial hair, as well as some that wasn’t.
After I stopped laughing at this story, I began to wonder what to do about Eamon and Curtis; the number three shave I’d given them in Australia was growing into a number eight or nine by this stage and my clippers wouldn’t work because of the different voltage here.
We pass a local barber shop on the way to the metro station, so I started taking more notice of what went on in there, without being too conspicuous. It was old-school, with decor unchanged since the 70s and a stripey pole outside. Inside, two older Japanese men held court behind the big old barber chairs, while one even older guy watched daytime soap operas on a portable TV.
Visiting this barber shop has become one of my favourite things to do in Tokyo. At first I brought along a book to read while I waited, but ended up spending the entire time standing up, following proceedings with a huge grin on my face. These three men have been working in this shop seven days-a-week since time began. They barely speak to one another, but work as a finely tuned machine. One’s fast, one’s slow and the other watches TV. Every so often, he shuffles over to the broom, sweeps up, then resumes his position. The system works perfectly.
Eamon and Curtis are particular about their hair and we’ve had to bargain Eamon down from a full-blown mohawk to a regular David Beckham-style one. Once, we showed the barber a picture of Beckham to give him the idea, and now they just say ‘Beckham!’ every time we show up at the door. When we go there, the boys speed off ahead and are in their seats, gowned-up, by the time I’ve managed to park my bike. Last time we went, I asked if we could take some photos:
Yes, if you look closely, that white stuff you see is shaving cream – from their necks, around and above the ears and to the side of the face. As calmly as possible I tell them, ‘Sit still boys, don’t move, don’t sneeze, don’t even breathe.’ And for once they co-operate, perhaps because they know not to mess with a man holding a blade, but also because they get chewing gum at the end. A whole packet. Each.
Every time we leave the barber shop, I love Tokyo just that little bit more. The boys, of course, couldn’t care less. Far from being a unique cultural experience, to them, it’s all about the chewing gum.
