Gaijin and Tonic

This “jet lag” is quite something. My alarm doesn’t go off. Turns out I couldn’t understand the buttons when I retired to bed. Gabe has asked for a wake-up call which either doesn’t happen or he sleeps through it. In a moment of clarity I wake up and look at the clock; the translator has already arrived at the show, which is now open to the public. Yikes. I feel like some many-armed Hindu God in the shower: cleaning, scrubbing, shampooing, soaping and trying to retain my equilibrium. Gabe doesn’t have a chance to shower and looks/smells even more like a train-wreck than I do. Hopefully our suits will fool the customers.

Cure for the common hangover:





Finally our coins are being released by customs. Thank you Mr. Hirai! Thank you Yoriko and your blingin’ cell-phone! It’s a “Golden Week Miracle.” Anything good from now on is a Golden Week Miracle.



After the show ends (mercifully) we strike out for Shibuya and haircuts. This French/Japanese salon was just the trick. My stylist had studied in Paris and spoke a cocktail of Japanese, French and English:

“Tsukiji (unintelligible) fish…(unintelligible) thon… étrangers
(unintelligible)… moisture…etc”









The hairdressers recommend a sushi conveyor-belt spot not too far away. A small selection of sunglasses to choose from before dinner.



Great sushi. The customers are on a metaphorical conveyor-belt before they get seats; you just keep shifting down the bench till a counter spot opens. You are allowed 20 minutes if you buy seven dishes and 30 minutes if you get 10. Each item is 105 yen ($1) and the total for everything we eat is $18.







Hot water piped around the counter for tea:



Uni/sea urchin:



Anago/small eel:



Tako/raw octopus. Rubber. Gabe refused to touch it after watching me masticate furiously for 5 minutes.



Yakuza? Coolest dude ever.



Shibuya/I bought a hat/ energy drinks/straight loungin’.











Vuenos hip-hop club. 3 levels. Japanese rappers, b-boys, and breakers.







3 am. Time to splash the cash like a nasty rash; approaching 25,000 yen of debauch pretty quickly this evening. We return to the Womb. Drum and bass upstairs, house downstairs. I dance the night away with Daisuke (his 28th birthday), his pals, and his very cute 20-year-old sister. Gabe chitchats with a well-dressed Tokyista who works in the porn industry doing lighting of “dicks and vaginas.”








I arrive bedraggled at the hotel at 6am: bright sunshine. Gabe is nowhere to be found.