Back To Tokyo and Onwards

Fuji-san behind the sky scrapers of Shinjuku

It's odd when a couple of degrees feels cosy.  And it's strange when you wake up buried in the snowy mountains of Japan, literally in the middle of nowhere, travel for a mere three hours, and find yourself in one of the worlds most populous cities.  Over 13 million people live there.   It is definitely one of the most intensely concentrated in terms of population.  Tokyo is massive.  It isn't actually a city, but in fact the largest metropolitan area in the world.  I think the greater metropolitan area actually has a population of 35 million.  For anyone who hasn't been there, it's difficult to comprehend just how big it is.  We always enjoy taking people up one of the tallest buildings in the city - 58 floors high with a 360 degree view of Tokyo.  It's completely amazing to behold.  Metropolis madness.  And during the week days the population of Tokyo's population swells even more, as people head centrally-bound for work, school, university etc.  Another of our favourite things to do is go to the the world's busiest train station - Shinjuku - and watch the morning crowds surge in and out.  You have to get yourself a good vantage point.  A position on a step looking down.  Seriously, it is fascinating shit.  So many people, so little touching.  My brother and I would play the "Walk Across Swiftly In A Diagonal Manner And See If Anyone Bumps Into You" game (Actually we really have to come with a better title if we ever want it to catch on - although at least it warrants no explanation of what the game entails).  No one ever did by the way, despite our best efforts to cause a human dodgem car-like pile up.  When you get sick of that, you can go and watch the men in white gloves shoving all the people in the train door.  They sure pack them in hard.  I've been in situations like that.

Strange that something so intense raises no particular interest

Only the foreigners stink

Once, I was in a subway on my way to work packed in tight. I was really familiar with my co worker's pits, and let me tell you it was not a good thing.    He was a very hairy individual.  Anyway, deep, deep below, in the subterranean levels of the earth, within a subway tunnel, the train suddenly stopped.  And it wasn't at a station.  There was no announcement, no explanation.  Just an uncomfortable feeling that something was wrong.  I fought the urge to fart.  Although, I could have just let it go as there was no way it could have been pinned on me, and I could have rolled my eyes towards my hairy friend - farts are easily pinned on the hairy.  We all stood there squashed against each other in a brightly lit carriage encased by the darkness outside.  I'm not usually claustrophobic, but there were some moments when I felt like each breath of oxygen was being snatched away by one of my unfortunate fellow passengers.  Ten minutes went by before the train started up again.  I remained unsettled, and after 45 minutes with the same train rattling through station after station, I was pretty bloody anxious to be finally released from my metal prison.  I never rode that line again.  I found an alternate route to work, and although it was about 20 minutes longer, and still sometimes just as crowded, it was on an above ground line.  It made a huge difference.

I lived in Tokyo for quite some time.  Initially I lived on the outskirts (I have previously mentioned my experiences in Noda - home of the Kikoman Soy Sauce Factory -http://twintravelling.blogspot.jp/2012/03/no-love-for-no-da.html ).  

My other experience on the outskirts of Tokyo, was when I lived in an apartment block with about 20 other western scumbags from my company.  Our apartment block was called "Pra Terrier" -  unsure where they got that name - sometimes they just don't get those kind of things right.  We were all employed to work at various universities around Tokyo.  This time I worked centrally, but I lived way out ( hence the commutes from hell on the Claustrophobic Express every morning).  Something that made me happy from this time, was a  girlfriend I made here, and worked with, who is now a friend that I still get to see one or two times a year - in the UK or Europe somewhere.  She made everything else bearable.  The shit apartment, the job of drudgery, the boring commute.  But most of all she made it possible to tolerate the two absolute wankers we go stuck with as co-workers.  If you had to look up the words - Fuckhead Loser Homophobic Sexist Racist Anti-Semitic Cockhead there would be a picture of Simon.  If you had to look up the words Simpering Prat then there would be a picture of Andy.  

Tokyo Bay by night - far far from depressing Funabashi - home to the Pra Terriers

They hated us as much as we hated them.  I think they hated us because they walked up behind us while we were discussing how they must go home and have a wank in the bath after teaching all day.  This was because we worked at an all girl's university with very pretty young Japanese girls who wore skirts so short you could freely gaze at their underwear during class time .  Then on the way to the station you had to walk passed a myriad of shops selling such explicit porn that your eyeballs were visibly raped every afternoon.  Hell, I was seriously considering becoming a lesbian, so god know how those two middle aged desperadoes coped.  I imagine there had been a severe period of drought for them back in the UK, as with bad personalities, and looks that were not exactly easy on the eye, well, times must have been tough.  Well, obviously me and my friend assumed that the sexual release was done by serious tossing off every afternoon when they got home.  Unfortunately, they were eavesdropping at the point when we were discussing the consistency of cum in bath water, and wondering if Andy got it in his hair, and Simon got it in the black hair that grew all over the backs of his hands like a thick carpet.  It's always awkward at times like that when you hear a familiar voice behind you say accusingly "Not talking about us are you?".  Yep, the relationship deteriorated from that point.  Things got so bad that Simon would scream off his balcony when he got pissed every night "you fucking fucking BIIIIIITTTTCHES!".  He would also write abusive messages on my whiteboard about me before I came into my classroom, and started lurking around corners and spying on me.  I became scared of him after that.  I definitely didn't bring up the cum on his hairy hands topic again.  Way to be sensitive dude....jesus!

The poor girl was only 22

Luckily the job finished and I didn't end up like that poor UK teacher, Lindsay Hawker.  She was actually found in the suburb that we lived in (Funabashi), half buried in a bath tub of sand and soil a month or so after I left the depressing grey hell-hole behind.  Somehow, some student sicko had got her back to his apartment, and raped, tortured, and killed her.  This was before he went on the run for a couple years and had numerous amounts of facial plastic surgery, before finally getting caught.  

Her murderer, now serving life in prison

Is it wrong that I want a glimpse of the crab claw hands???

Even though, petty crimes stats are low here, the big stuff is pretty twisted.  I remember some story an magazine for ex-pats ran one Halloween about some of the more grisly crimes that have been committed in Japan.  It really was the stuff of nightmares.  Particularly insomnia-inducing was the story of the child sex abuser and serial killer with deformed hands like fused crab claws.  He would terrorise the parents with details of their children's murders and abuses afterwards.  That shit is horrific, and it makes me wonder why I'm writing about it now.......I'm going to stop immediately.

I'm going to instead talk about how nice it is when friends come all the way to Japan to meet you.  Because it sure is.  We had a fun Tokyo day - amazingly blue sky and not too chilly - here, there and everywhere.  It was pretty tiring, but definitely fun.  Because both me and Chalks ended up living centrally for months at a time over a three year period, we know Tokyo pretty well.  Good areas, great shops, the yummy restaurants.  We feel right at home going this way and that, - although I usually tell Japanese people that I lived here for just three months when they compliment my Japanese abilities.  Then there is more smiling and more compliments.  When I say it was more like a few years, they look at me like I'm mental.  I can't stand the disappointment in their eyes.  Lying is better.  

you are all going to die now......

Well, a brief interlude in Tokyo (and say it like a proper Japanese person would you - none of this To-Ki-Oh bullshit, it's Tock-Yoh and don't you forget it....), and then it was back to the snow.  This time Nozawa Onsen - off to stay at Ko's guesthouse with the bad breakfast, the dated interior and Ko's daughter who lurks in the background with her long black hair all over her face.  I call her- Sadako from The Ring.  The Japanese version of course - so much scarier than Naomi Watts in the Hollywood one.  See, I'm at it again.....I hope I don't get nightmares, even Japanese horror dreams are so much worse....