Mar 18 2007

Tokyo, Yayogi Park

Published by at 8:47 pm under Scott's Adventures,Uncategorized

Seb’s brother Jascha has suggested we check out Yayogi park, so we jump the train for the far side of the city. We arrive to a packed station and shuffle out with a morass of people to the bridge leading to the Meiji shrine. Grouped on the bridge are dozens of young girls dressed up in absurdly “cute” costumes having their pictures taken by and with the tourists.

We pass through this insanity and into the shrine’s gardens, and to a quiet and serene environment a world apart from the Tokyo we’ve seen. We walk to the temple, where a (very public) wedding is taking place in full traditional outfits, but our hunger forces us to seek out lunch.

As we near the bridge again, we hear some American 50’s music playing near by, and follow it to Yayogi park. At the entrance are about 20 young men all dressed in full, black James Dean leathers dancing their hearts out. The music sounds American, but is actually in Japanese. Elvis hair slicked back, dark sunglasses and shoes worn down to a torn, ratty mess, these guys trade turns being the focus dancer in the middle of the circle while the others dance around him. They look like they’ve been dancing for hours! Groupies in 50’s high school girls outfits add even more flair.

We walk further into the park and find dozens of “theme” groups, people performing samurai swordplay, juggling, drumming, even cowboy style line dancing. If you have a hobby, there’s a group here for you to hang out with. Most everyone is dressed the part, you have to come prepared if you want to play 🙂

We’re still starved, and follow our noses across the street to a street food fair. There’s all manner of fried, boiled and BBQ food here, some with heinously long lines. We pick one of the longer ones and grab some unbelievably greasy fried pork dumplings (and a nice local beer). We keep walking and find a hundreds waiting in a windy parking lot to get into an auditorium – whatever is going on, it must be worth freezing you ass off for! Around the corner, another line, this time all 14 year old girls in nearly identical Goth dress and makeup. Only in Japan would you conform so perfectly to be a rebel, and stand politely in line. “Me thinks they don’t quite get it.”

We stroll back towards the park, and find some sidewalk street bands; and they’re good! Wacky outfits, take no prisoners attitude, and under it all, passionate gifted signers. We watch agape, and wonder what these guys do the rest of the week!

We jump the train back to Ginza, and grab a bite in a sushi boat house under the tracks – which is (surprisingly) excellent. We pay a return visit to our Internet Lounge (we’re members, remember!) to pick a new hotel in Roppongi, where we’ve decided to make our next camp.

Roppongi is much seedier than Ginza, and we’re immediately accosted by aggressive Nigerians trying to set us up with hookers. We try to wave them off, but they’re relentless, and we decide to escape to the hotel. All this sushi, and we’re finally craving red meat: we ask the concierge for a Kobe suggestion. The restaurant’s just around the corner, and we fight through the Nigerians again to get to it. It’s very elegant (we’re a bit underdressed in our fleeces), but they’re polite, and sit us as far in the back as possible. We order up the full Kobe 1 lb steak with a top bottle of sake. It’s absolutely mouth-watering, richly marbled, and quite literally melts in our mouth. I remember the last bite being as good as the first!

We exit out the back way to avoid the Nigerians (a few still find us), and we decide to escape to Roppongi Hills, the “city within a city” mall nearby; sadly, it’s mostly closed for the night. It’s also very cold and windy out, so when we see a mellow looking basement bar sign, we jump at it. The bar is miniscule! There are perhaps 10 people filling the place, 6 are the band. It’s warm, friendly, and wonderful, but sadly just about to close. We chat up the staff a bit, and ask for a suggestion for late night drinking, and the barman promises to show us a nice place.

Sadly, despite our attempts to describe “relaxing bar,” he leads us straight to a nasty, thumping disco. We convince him it’s not what we’re after, and spot a British pub. We buy him a beer and Seb watches some football hoping to find the Arsenal game. Bah, they’re closing too, we call it a night.

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