I met Prince Roy yesterday afternoon at the best Sababa in Taiwan, the one near Yongkang Street, for lunch and conversation on the veranda. I’d brought my trumpet because David Chen and I were going to play at Chalaw’s CD release party in Gongguan later that night. Neither of us had to work as it was a national holiday to commemorate the 2/28 Incident of 1947. It was also one of the DPP’s last chances for publicity before the presidential election next month, and many events were scheduled. PR had arranged to meet up with several other bloggers at CKS Hall, where the DPP was holding an event and marching from there to the Songshan Soccer Stadium, so I thought I’d tag along. I didn’t feel like going all the way back to Bitan, and it was just a short walk from Yongkang Street.

A large stage was set up for a symphony performance in front of the actual hall, but the actual event was being held by the gate. PR and I were both reminded what a poor job the designers had done with the new inscription, which looks like it was drawn by four different people and then photoshopped together by drunken lemurs. Ok, maybe it’s not that bad, but lord, it ain’t good. At least they didn’t tear down the walls, as they had threatened to at one point.

Due to the importance of the event and the lovely weather, I was expecting a huge crowd, but there weren’t that many people there, less than had witnessed the changing of the inscription. President Chen showed up and walked around a bodyguard-controlled corridor shaking hands. PR and I were just standing around and somehow got within a foot of him; PR even shook his hand. I saw the symbol of irony that is the Minister of Education, Tu Cheng-sheng, posing for pictures. We also saw Craig Ferguson and spotted David Reid, who, having had his cheek stamped with a DPP stamp, got a good spot amongst the wall of TV cameras and wasn’t going to budge. I also saw Darren there. Later, Wayne and Mark showed up, but it wasn’t clear exactly what was going to happen. The small crowd seemed lackluster and muted.

As the sun dipped towards the horizon the weather got substantially cooler. Large flocks of birds flew around between the gate and nearby trees. Eventually some marchers who had been making their way on foot up the island showed up with flags, along with some loudspeaker trucks, and people began to move off towards the street. Wayne and Mark followed, while the rest of us headed for the subway. David and Craig were going to take the MRT up to Zhongshan to get ahead of the marchers, while PR, wallowing in indecision, said he was going home.

I met up with Chalaw, Honghao, Doug and the others at a noodle shop next to the Riverside and Kafka by the Sea for some dumplings. There was also a guy I hadn’t met, a Spanish guitar player named Ramses who is in Taiwan studying Chinese. He’s hoping to switch to a kind of musician’s visa soon, he told me. After we’d eaten we went up to the cafe and drank some rice wine Honghao had thoughtfully provided. It tasted like those little Yakult yogurt drinks you see everywhere here in lunch boxes.

I was a bit nervous as I hadn’t played the songs from the album in months, and I hadn’t even picked up my trumpet since well before the new year. I’d forgotten the pieces I’d learned for the album, but I was able to follow along and accompany well enough. As we were running through a few of the songs from the album, a heavyset young man with long dreadlocks walked in. Later he played a few songs with Chalaw, including a couple of Cui Jian covers as well as his own works. I was impressed with his voice as well as his songs, but most of all the way the music seemed to move him. His name is Matzka, from the Paiwan tribe, and he’s just starting out.

I glanced out the window and saw a long line of people waiting to get into Riverside downstairs. Apparently the drummer from Matzka’s group was playing down there. We finished up and moved our stuff so that people would have a place to sit while they opened the doors.

The crowd wasn’t huge, but they were enthusiastic. David and I got off stage after we’d finished the songs we played on. I sat at a table in the back, by the window, watching the show and traffic outside. The original band members’ voices mixed well, the harmonies tighter and better than before. David had pointed out that Honghao was still wearing his shiny black police shoes, and I wondered if he might be on standby in case of a 2/28-related incident.

During the break later, fans ran around getting people from the band to sign their CDs. It didn’t seem fair that so many people wanted Ramses’ signature, even though he didn’t play on the album; the excellent slide guitar work on the actual album is actually David Chen’s doing.

Matzka, at least, knew this, and was impressed by David’s slide guitar work on the album, he told me in the smoking room towards the end of the show. These days he plays at a dive in Bali on Tuesday nights with two other guys playing bass and drums. His songs have a kind of reggae/ska vibe and could some more instrumentation, I think.

The show ended late, after 11pm. I said good-bye to everyone who remained (David, quite drunk, had departed with Robyn already), and went to a nearby KFC for a snack. I was reading one of Asimov’s robot novels when I looked up to see Wayne and Mark staring hungrily through the window at my fries. They’d lost interest in the DPP march halfway through and gone for dinner with Prince Roy instead. We chatted a bit before they, too, headed home.

I took the MRT back, reaching Bitan after midnight and dreading the view of the desolation along the riverbank. All of the buildings have been torn down on both sides of the water, save for the public restrooms, leaving a only huge swath of debris where once we lounged, talked, ate and played. It’s a truly depressing sight, somehow even worse in the emptiness of the night.

I met Prince Roy yesterday afternoon at the best Sababa in Taiwan, the one near Yongkang Street, for lunch and conversation on the veranda. I’d brought my trumpet because David Chen and I were going to play at Chalaw’s CD release party in Gongguan later that night. Neither of us had to work as it was a national holiday to commemorate the 2/28 Incident of 1947. It was also one of the DPP’s last chances for publicity before the presidential election next month, and many events were scheduled. PR had arranged to meet up with several other bloggers at CKS Hall, where the DPP was holding an event and marching from there to the Songshan Soccer Stadium, so I thought I’d tag along. I didn’t feel like going all the way back to Bitan, and it was just a short walk from Yongkang Street.

A large stage was set up for a symphony performance in front of the actual hall, but the actual event was being held by the gate. PR and I were both reminded what a poor job the designers had done with the new inscription, which looks like it was drawn by four different people and then photoshopped together by drunken lemurs. Ok, maybe it’s not that bad, but lord, it ain’t good. At least they didn’t tear down the walls, as they had threatened to at one point.

Due to the importance of the event and the lovely weather, I was expecting a huge crowd, but there weren’t that many people there, less than had witnessed the changing of the inscription. President Chen showed up and walked around a bodyguard-controlled corridor shaking hands. PR and I were just standing around and somehow got within a foot of him; PR even shook his hand. I saw the symbol of irony that is the Minister of Education, Tu Cheng-sheng, posing for pictures. We also saw Craig Ferguson and spotted David Reid, who, having had his cheek stamped with a DPP stamp, got a good spot amongst the wall of TV cameras and wasn’t going to budge. I also saw Darren there. Later, Wayne and Mark showed up, but it wasn’t clear exactly what was going to happen. The small crowd seemed lackluster and muted.

As the sun dipped towards the horizon the weather got substantially cooler. Large flocks of birds flew around between the gate and nearby trees. Eventually some marchers who had been making their way on foot up the island showed up with flags, along with some loudspeaker trucks, and people began to move off towards the street. Wayne and Mark followed, while the rest of us headed for the subway. David and Craig were going to take the MRT up to Zhongshan to get ahead of the marchers, while PR, wallowing in indecision, said he was going home.

I met up with Chalaw, Honghao, Doug and the others at a noodle shop next to the Riverside and Kafka by the Sea for some dumplings. There was also a guy I hadn’t met, a Spanish guitar player named Ramses who is in Taiwan studying Chinese. He’s hoping to switch to a kind of musician’s visa soon, he told me. After we’d eaten we went up to the cafe and drank some rice wine Honghao had thoughtfully provided. It tasted like those little Yakult yogurt drinks you see everywhere here in lunch boxes.

I was a bit nervous as I hadn’t played the songs from the album in months, and I hadn’t even picked up my trumpet since well before the new year. I’d forgotten the pieces I’d learned for the album, but I was able to follow along and accompany well enough. As we were running through a few of the songs from the album, a heavyset young man with long dreadlocks walked in. Later he played a few songs with Chalaw, including a couple of Cui Jian covers as well as his own works. I was impressed with his voice as well as his songs, but most of all the way the music seemed to move him. His name is Matzka, from the Paiwan tribe, and he’s just starting out.

I glanced out the window and saw a long line of people waiting to get into Riverside downstairs. Apparently the drummer from Matzka’s group was playing down there. We finished up and moved our stuff so that people would have a place to sit while they opened the doors.

The crowd wasn’t huge, but they were enthusiastic. David and I got off stage after we’d finished the songs we played on. I sat at a table in the back, by the window, watching the show and traffic outside. The original band members’ voices mixed well, the harmonies tighter and better than before. David had pointed out that Honghao was still wearing his shiny black police shoes, and I wondered if he might be on standby in case of a 2/28-related incident.

During the break later, fans ran around getting people from the band to sign their CDs. It didn’t seem fair that so many people wanted Ramses’ signature, even though he didn’t play on the album; the excellent slide guitar work on the actual album is actually David Chen’s doing.

Matzka, at least, knew this, and was impressed by David’s slide guitar work on the album, he told me in the smoking room towards the end of the show. These days he plays at a dive in Bali on Tuesday nights with two other guys playing bass and drums. His songs have a kind of reggae/ska vibe and could some more instrumentation, I think.

The show ended late, after 11pm. I said good-bye to everyone who remained (David, quite drunk, had departed with Robyn already), and went to a nearby KFC for a snack. I was reading one of Asimov’s robot novels when I looked up to see Wayne and Mark staring hungrily through the window at my fries. They’d lost interest in the DPP march halfway through and gone for dinner with Prince Roy instead. We chatted a bit before they, too, headed home.

I took the MRT back, reaching Bitan after midnight and dreading the view of the desolation along the riverbank. All of the buildings have been torn down on both sides of the water, save for the public restrooms, leaving a only huge swath of debris where once we lounged, talked, ate and played. It’s a truly depressing sight, somehow even worse in the emptiness of the night.

過年去東京玩了十幾天，　回來之后就得了

I’ve been wandering around in a haze for the past week since I got back. Last Friday I went to the doctor when my cold wasn’t going away, and he gave me meds for a severe sinus and throat infection, pretty heavy meds, too. So there’s not much to report. Much of my trip detritus still litters the floor of my apartment where I dumped it when I got back, along with my laundry. I’m only getting a few photos up each day.

The weather here is cold -not Tokyo cold, but not exactly beach weather- and grey. There was some occasional sun over the weekend, but I was in no state to go out and enjoy it. My apologies to everyone who has invited me out recently; I’m just not in the mood, preferring to huddle in the Cave drinking hot ginger tea. I’ve been managing to make it in to work and back home each day, but that’s about it. I haven’t been to tai-chi practice in weeks. I stupidly tried some badminton on Monday night, but of course that turned out to be a really bad idea, one I’m still paying for.

So, some observations.

1. The Kenwood C711 in-ear earphones I bought in Tokyo are really good with the iPod, better than the Sennheiser CX300s or the Sony EX71s. The only way I was able to discern this was because electronics stores in Tokyo allow people to try things out, as there are no applicable reviews online, and hearing is highly subjective. The Shure e2cs everyone raves about online sound like utter crap to my ears. It’s a good thing I didn’t buy into the online reviews and tried them myself.

2. The more I think about it, the more I tend to think that maybe a great camera should be something we ignore instead of admire. When you see a fellow shooting with a little older point-and-shoot, maybe instead of thinking, “What the hell is he going to do with that?” we should instead be impressed that he’s trying to get good shots out of such a basic camera. When we see someone with a new full-frame DSLR, instead of being impressed, we should hold them up to much higher standards at the very least. I’m wondering if, before long, cameras will all be so advanced that no one will ever have to worry about exposure, aperture, shutter times, or any of that any more; everything will be taken care of. I can even imagine cameras that automatically compose shots for you or alert you to a photogenic person or situation in the vicinity. What will we think of people who have the first wave of such cameras in the future? Will we look up to them or just curse their relative purchasing power? Sometimes it seems like today we retain the vestiges of an era where only good photographers tended to have good cameras, but is that the case any more? I doubt it.

3. I’m thinking I really should just sell my motorcycle. It’s not that I particularly need the money; someone else would probably enjoy the bike a lot more than I have been, as I simply never ride it. I did just make a large house payment, though. And the trip needs to be paid for.

4. Surely Frank Hsieh has something more on Ma Ying-jeou than the fact that he had a green card when he was a student in the US? Or that his sister cheated on an exam in 1968? All of this hinting around that Ma is actually a closet US citizen just makes Hsieh look like an idiot. I had expected a much better campaign than this from him and the DPP. I am, however, still waiting for the usual pre-election weird thing to happen. We’ve got a month to go, though, so there’s plenty of time.

5. The high-rise apartments above the Xindian MRT station across the river from me have, I believe, finally topped out at a pretty lofty height. They’re huge. I’m wondering just how that monster is going to change the demographics of Bitan, with a large influx of office workers and upper-class families living in this previously mostly working-class neighborhood, not to mention with the ongoing renovation project of the riverbanks and the bridge. Hopefully we’ll at least get a Blockbuster or Asia1 video rental store out of the deal.

In any case, all of this is just semi-addled musing. I hope to be back on track soon-ish.

Things got worse after I posted my entry last night. My nose and throat really started bothering me, and I spent the night huddled and sweating into the blankets. I felt a bit better in the morning, however. Checkout was at 10am, so I gathered up all my things from the little room I’ve lived in for the past 12 days, and walked to the Skyliner train station in Ueno to buy a ticket and store my bag while I took a last look around.

I walked up past Ueno Park to a nice traditional neighborhood behind a temple, and then around to the bridge over the train tracks. It was cold and rainy, and I didn’t feel much like spending much time out in it. I had some tempura at a little place underneath the railroad tracks and bought some throat lozenges at a drug store. “Throat medicine?” I asked the woman behind the counter. She got some for me. “Suck?” I asked, and she made a sucking motion with her mouth. I suppose if I were straight this would have seemed really sexy.

It was time to catch my train to the airport. Looking out over Tokyo’s suburbs in that weather make me think of Taiwan, though the differences are huge. The houses in Japan mostly have pitched roofs and are individual units. The biggest difference is the care people in Japan put into their abode’s appearance, though Japan is dirtier and less orderly than was my impression 17 years ago. I kept falling asleep on the train, my interest in the view out the window fighting with my urge to pass out.

At the airport, the line at the ticket counter stretched about a mile, and there was no line for no checked baggage, so I asked about it and was let through. It’s a good thing, too, because the line was moving so slowly I definitely would have missed my flight. Then security, immigration, spending the last of my Japanese change on duty-free water and things.

The rain outside the embarkation lobby was heavy, and planes on the runway shot huge clouds of mist behind them on takeoff, while those landing seemd to have collected clouds on their wings. We spent a lot of time in line to take off, but finally we made it up through the clouds and into the permanent blue. Other than an annoying kid kicking the back of my seat and the fact that my screen didn’t work, it was a good enough flight. I noticed a chink of paint gouged out of the wing, which looked pretty unsightly. Since I was all stuffed up, my ears nearly exploded on the descent part of the trip. I kept holding my nose and blowing, and eventually managed to relieve some of the pressure.

Taipei, I found when I stepped out of the terminal, seems every bit as cold as Tokyo, though the difference in humidity is noticeable. I took the bus in, expecting to cringe at the sights of Sanchong and Nankan on the way, but instead I found myself happy to be back in my own country. Next to the spaghetti-like entanglements involved in taking the Tokyo Metro, Taipei’s MRT seemed ludicrously simple, the simple child’s version. It was good to understand what everyone around me was saying, and I was happy to get back to the Water Curtain Cave, messy as it is.

And that’s my account of my 12 days in Tokyo. Thanks for reading; I’ll start working on the photos and video of the trip, but be warned; it will take a while because I got a lot of stuff there, and also because my cold is back. I thought it was gone, but no; it was just lying in wait. Clever things, colds. Clever, but cruel.

It seemed warmer when I stepped outside this morning, so instead of taking the subway, I decided to just walk and see where I ended up. As I proceeded south, more people began appearing on the deserted streets. By the time I came upon a series of shops selling snowboarding equipment, and then a group of music stores, the sidewalks were actually kind of crowded. Young people sat outside a coffee house taking hits of an espresso bong, while a cavalcade of black cars with the Japanese flag and the war flag drove by, loudspeakers blaring shouting and music. Japanese nationalists, I assume. Nobody seemed to be paying them any attention.

I found myself near the Imperial Palace grounds, so I went in to have a look. I was disappointed to find that, although the grounds are nice, there are precious few old buildings left inside, and none of those that are still around are accessible. There’s a large base with nothing on it near the center of the park. Apparently a large castle stood there for a few years hundreds of years ago before burning to the ground. I sat on the concrete at the top of it and figured out exactly where I was with GPS, and then took a picture for a couple of Australians.

After finding my bearings, I walked across the highway bordering the grounds to see the Budokan, which I’d read about and seen in various martial arts publications since I was a kid. What I didn’t expect was to hear be-bop music coming from inside. It turns out that there’s a concert series being held there, and I heard a ripping harmonica solo issue from within. I have to say, however, that it did somewhat lessen the solemn image I had of the Budokan in my mind.

More popular was the Science Museum. So popular, in fact, that there was a long line of cars waiting to get parking spaces there. The drivers were amusing themselves by reading, watching TV, texting, or just staring into space.

I went back to the Palace-less palace grounds and listened to the crows for a bit, as they are the only birds you can hear in winter here. Then I walked across the spongy yellow grass and down to the front gate, where a guard yelled at me to get off the edge of the moat where I was taking a rather mediocre picture. The grounds are strictly patrolled, on foot, bicycle, car, and camera, to keep people from going places they shouldn’t be. As it happens, the original guard stations are some of the few original structures to survive, and they seemed familiar to me in their placement and arrangement, perhaps because I spent a lot of time in various guard posts when I was in the army.

On Sundays the city government shuts down many major thoroughfares in the city and opens them up for bicycles and pedestrians, which is quite cool.

I’d arranged to meet Yas at his shop at 3:30, but I keep forgetting how big Tokyo is. The efficient subway system makes it seem smaller than it really is. I walked to the Tokyo Station, which looks like the mother of all old Taiwanese train stations (and I guess it is, in a way, as the Japanese built them all), and got on a train about 15 minutes later than I should have. Consequently, as soon as I walked in the door, Yas said, “Let’s go.”

It turns out the festival was held basically where I’d been walking this morning, in a small theater in an alley in the Kanda district. Yas introduced me to an actress named Aya, as well as another director. A heavyset man with long hair was busy threading the projector and setting up things while occasionally filming things with his handheld 8mm camera. Eventually he put it on a shelf and left it, but it was still taking a frame every five seconds. I guess he was making a time-lapse thing, so I played around with it, moving incrementally every five seconds so that it would look like I was moving at normal speed for a second or so.

The heavy guy made a short speech, the lights went down, and the first film played. It was quite terrifying and very abstract. The second film opened with a woman giving a guy a blow job, after which they had naked, black-and-white sex. Nothing was omitted. In another shot, I realized that the guy having sex was the projectionist standing just behind me. The film was processed in a really strange way I assumed was on purpose, but later Yas told me that it was because he developed the film in his bathtub to save time and money. He also said the guy has won a lot of awards in Europe for his experimental work.

Then Yas’ film, Carnophobia, played. It was both claustrophobic and extremely disturbing. Later I made some suggestions about how the knife should sound when it…well, I don’t want to spoil it for you.

The first part of the show over, I talked to a jazz pianist Yas knows for a bit, though his English is not really, uh, existent. He did give me a CD, though; I gave him a name card, hinting that the Muddy Basin Ramblers would really like to play a gig in Tokyo sometime.

I had to get something to eat as I hadn’t eaten all day, and some of the films in the second half seemed pretty guaranteed to make me lose my appetite, so I skipped out during the break, feeling very disoriented when Yas pointed me in the direction of the subway station. I think it was the films, which weren’t bad, just…really, really…bizarre.

Originally I had planned to go to a bar in Shinjuku, but I ended up walking around Kanda some more, taking pictures of trains and tunnels near the medical university and St. Nicolai’s ornate Russian Orthodox cathedral. Nearby I found a restaurant called “Gorilla Curry” or something like that; you know I had to have me some o’ that, and it was delicious. Ads for the restaurant played on a TV inside, which I thought kind of superfluous; if you’re already in there, you probably don’t need convincing.

After dinner I walked around the area some more, thinking I would go back at 10pm and talk with Yas and the portly guy again, but when I got there it was closed; they’d finished early and left. I didn’t feel like taking the subway and walked all the way back to my hotel, admiring the three-dimensional nature of this great city, with its elevated trains, subways, and multi-level architecture, its tiny restaurants crammed into every nook and cranny, it’s apparent complete lack of roaches, rats and smoking scooters. The Japanese people, however, are still mostly a mystery to me:

The police stations all have a sign outside counting the number of injuries and deaths in the district the day before.

Workers are some of the most stylish I’ve ever seen, with wonderful baggy pants, tabi shoes, bandanas and trendy long hair and goatees.

The first thing the staff says to a customer entering a store is “Sorry!”

Those films.

Instead of coming upstairs, I walked around the streets behind, which I hadn’t seen before. It was oddly empty; nobody was around at all. I stood in the middle of an intersection, filming the lights turning red and green. It was eerie. The sound of my shoes squeaking echoed in the silence, and I halfway expected someone to open their window and shout, “Enough with the squeaky shoes!” but nobody did.

I was meeting Arnd on the bridge at Harajuku just after noon, but I had a late start while figuring out how to get there on the subway. I actually enjoy planning trips on unfamiliar transportation systems; it just hammers in the fact that I’m somewhere new, makes it seem more exciting than it really is. On the train, I noticed that there are overhead bins for luggage, though I’ve rarely seen anyone use them. You can’t really put things under the seats, because that’s where the heaters are, and all of the ice cream you bought would melt.

I was so busy taking pictures of a woman sitting opposite me I almost missed my stop. It’s a good thing I know kanji, because the English name was blocked by the train’s window bars. Arnd snuck up behind me on the bridge and showed me all the pictures he’d taken of me surreptitiously since my arrival.

It was a cold, gray day, so the park at Harajuku wasn’t the bustling bastion of weirdness it usually is, Arnd explained. We passed the Bono impersonator and a group of girls dressed up as…something, I’m not sure what. Cartoon characters, maybe, and then walked to a small woman playing an electronic piano and singing quite pleasantly to a small crowd, including many photographers. A foreign couple asking directions turned out to be Germans stationed in Shanghai on a visit, and Arnd spent some time talking with them.

There wasn’t much going on the park proper, so we went to the Shinto temple where everyone gets married in a traditional style. The gravel road leading to the temple was broad and shaded by large trees, with huge wooden gates at either end and a small bridge in the middle. It felt completely isolated from the city, like it was in the middle of a distant forest. At the temple, we saw a marriage procession, which surprised Arnd as he had thought they only happened on Sundays. Then we saw another procession, and another. The couples, priests and families walked slowly around the courtyard. “The brides all look 45,” Arnd said.

“Maybe this is the 45-year-old-bride temple,” I suggested. We both took quite a few pictures, but Arnd’s 18-200mm lens was far more useful than my 17-70 (I ended up taking pictures of Arnd taking pictures of people taking pictures of the happy couple instead: Yes, it’s “Poagao: Metaphotographer!”), and I kept running out of memory.

Afterwards, we headed back out to the more bustling parts of Harajuku, which is actually a very trendy area. Arnd pointed out some remarkable buildings along the way, examples of interesting architecture. One was structured like the trees that like the street and located right next to an extremely ugly structure, like something you’d see in Sanchong and think, “Yeah, I’m in Sanchong all right.”

“That building needs a good cleaning,” Arnd said.

“That building needs a good wrecking ball,” I said, but he had turned into an alley behind a nice neo-gothic restaurant. I followed, and we found ourselves outside what appeared to be a church. A bunch of people in suits and nice dresses were waiting with cameras and flowers, and soon a bridge and groom appeared. Arnd explained that it wasn’t a real church and had nothing to do with religion; apparently the Japanese like the appearance and trappings of a Christian wedding without any of the religious meaning. Two huge heaters warmed the crowd, but it soon began to snow. It was cold enough that there was no water in the snow, just light, hard flakes, but the crowd wasn’t dissuaded, and the freezing bride threw a bouquet to them before the happy couple walked off as the crowd shouted their good wishes. Arnd was in and out of the whole thing; someone even gave him some flower petals to throw, but I just stood near a heater, appreciating its warmth. My hot packets were working hard to keep my hands warm as the temperature dropped.

After that, we went to meet Arnd’s girlfriend, and then walked down a crowded, quirky street that seemed to have all kinds of shops, including a sock store where I picked up some 5-toed socks for my tabi shoes (“Suitable on attending school” the label reads). I also saw a shop just for dog clothes and another called “Store My Ducks” that I’m still trying to figure out. Is duck storage really that serious a problem?

We kept walking to an even more exclusive but less visited area and I saw the glass monstrosity that is the Tokyo Prada building, flanked by other interesting architecture. Everyone who approached the doors of the Prada building seemed to swagger, but maybe it was just the cold.

Arnd and his girlfriend had to go, so I wandered around the area a bit more. I was freezing and hadn’t eaten since breakfast, though, so I took the train to Shinbashi and had some more raw-egg pork chop on rice at a ticket store before getting on the monorail out to Odaiba, a newly developed area on reclaimed land out in Tokyo Bay.

Riding the monorail feels like flying slowly through the city, as it’s so high up and there are no accompanying tracks to spoil the view. We took the massive Rainbow Bridge over the river, traffic accompanying us on the highway part of the bridge.

I got off at Aomi and found that it had started to rain. I was a little surprised because it felt too cold for rain. Inside, I looked at some of the interesting new cars, and then crossed over to Venus Fort (yes, that’s it’s name) to find the vintage car display I’d heard about from Arnd.

Venus Fort is a multi-level mall with ceilings shaped, painted and lit to make it seem like it’s just after sunset all the time. In the middle is a huge fountain. It’s nice enough, but all the stores are women’s clothing stores, so I guess they saw it necessary to give the guys a place to go while the women shopped. Thus, the car museum.

Inside, I saw some beautiful automobiles, all in mint condition, e.g. a ’64 Mustang convertible, a ’59 Cadillac El Dorado, a Chevy Impala of the same year, an original Datsun 240Z, one of those BMW “Bubble Cars” a Ferrari Dino and the original Corvette Stingray.

I was about walked out, though, so I caught the train back to Shinbashi. Odaiba reminds me a bit of parts of Neihu, all new buildings and nothing else, very sterile and empty. Back in the city, the rain had turned to a heavy snow, turning the sidewalks slushy. I passed a firetruck outside a restaurant but saw no fire. The firetrucks have loudspeakers here, basically saying “Excuse me, coming through, sorry for all the racket!” as they drive through the streets.

On the subway back to Ueno, I noticed the man sitting next to me was reading a pr0n comic with nekkid comic girls. Then he exited, and a woman got on, sat next to me, and started to read another pr0n comic with nekkid comic girls. I looked around for a camera trained on me, but saw none.

Back in Ueno, dinner at my old Japanese radio restaurant again, shrimp tempura accompanied by David Niven’s excellent autobiography The Moon’s a Balloon. I think the owner’s getting used to me coming there; the portions are getting bigger. I’m going to miss the place. Outside, the snow lay thick on the ground, but was turning to rain again, resulting in a slush that made me glad I’d bought new socks; looks like I’ll need them. Tomorrow I’m going to Yas’ film festival later in the afternoon. As for the rest of the day, I’ll see what the weather’s like and go from there.

Another brilliant day, weather-wise, though still cold. I am loving the sharp, clean-edged light in Tokyo these days.

I took the JR (Japan Rail) for the first time today, to get out to Mitaka, changing trains at Tokyo Station. The JR runs above ground, or at least that line does, so I got a good few of the city on the way out. We passed an amusement park with a ferris wheel before the suburbs began. Soon we were cutting through a sea of slate rooftops.

I got off the train at Mitaka and walked past the bus to the museum, as I wanted to walk there instead. The map said to follow the canal to the park, where the museum is located. It was a nice stroll along the canal, which was clean and didn’t smell at all. The park, when I reached it, was full of joggers and bicyclers. Then I came to the museum.

Apparently Miyazaki didn’t understand why anyone would want to build a Ghibli Museum until he actually saw the place. The building is a kind of stucco design, half buried in the earth with a glass tower. The line was short and quick, and I soon found myself in the huge atrium. Overhead was a large ceiling fan with wings straight from a flying machine in Castle in the Sky. The windows were stained glass, and many featured scenes from the various movies.

I watched the short film they show exclusively to visitors, about schoolchildren playing with a sailboat and meeting a whale. I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, but it did seem to be fairly anti-whaling in its message. I was sorry that I couldn’t see any of the other films in rotation there.

In another room was a series of steampunk animation devices. Everything is located more or less at a child’s eye level, so if you’re an adult of average height you’ll spend a lot of time bending over to see the exhibits. One particularly fascinating piece involved a spinning wheel with clay figures lit by a stroboscope so that a circle of animated figures formed like magic.

In another room was a mock up of the animators’ workspaces, complete with storyboards, inspirational materials, backgrounds, etc. I wondered if the cigarettes in the ashtray were really smoked by animation staff members.

One section features the story of the three bears, with a huge table and chairs you could sit at, with the bears themselves in another room. The books in the original Russian were on display. At the bookstore upstairs I found a few Miyazaki stories that would have made excellent movies, but I guess were never made. It’s too bad. One book described a huge warrior cat and a girl hunted by an evil samurai. Man, I would love to see that movie.

I went to the gift shop to look around. Unfortunately, there were no big-balled raccoon dolls available. The necklace piece from Castle in the Sky was for sale for 26,000 yen. “Will it let me fly?” I asked the woman behind the counter.

“Only if your last name is Laputa,” she said.

“Sorry, I bet you get asked that a lot,” I said, realizing that I was just adding to her misery. She nodded and smiled.

I bought a small Totoro with Umbrella figurine and went up to the roof, where a full-scale model of one of the robots from Castle in the Sky stood, surrounded by tourists and children. Everyone wanted their picture taken with the robot, so it was hard to get close to it. Instead I stood a little ways in front of it, and found that it was looking right at me. It was an odd experience; not unsettling, but as if I were just a little closer to that universe where it could come to life.

In all, I spent three hours at the museum. They’re strict about their no photography or filming rule. I snuck up to the third-floor balcony to try to catch a vidlet, but almost immediately a woman was there with her walkie-talkie telling me to knock it off. Then she somehow used technology/magic to wipe the video from my camera’s memory, I found later.

The restaurant was full of people, so I decided to leave and walk around the neighborhood a bit. Snow still covered parts of the park, but it was nice to walk on something other than concrete for a while. The smell of pine trees and the cold, still air were refreshing after the warm, child-filled museum. I walked through a nice subdivision and then a not-so-nice but still neat and orderly one, then along the canal back towards Mitaka Station. Some of the long wooden houses along the train tracks reminded me of San Francisco.

There weren’t many trees out there, except for along major thoroughfares. The crosswalk signals sounded like they were searching for life-forms on Ceti Alpha VI (or is it Ceti Alpha V? I always get those two mixed up).

Back at the station, I stopped in at a small restaurant that had just opened for business for some lunch, even though it was already 6pm. Then I ascended the stairs of the train station, only to find that the sunset was rather nice, so I took out my little camera to take a vidlet. Next to me an older man was talking to someone in Japanese. “He’s talking to nobody,” I said to the camera. Then I realized that he was actually talking to me. He had seen what I was shooting and took out his cellphone to take the same shot. I still had no idea what he was saying, so I just looked at him, waited until he finished, and said, “Ok!”

“Ok!” he said, smiled, and left. I hope he got a nice shot.

I took the train to Shibuya next. Upon exiting the massively crowded station, I was immediately confronted with the huge screen from Lost in Translation, as well as the huge intersection that everyone films when they want to emphasize overpopulation. It was a sea of people getting off work and just a little bit daunting. It was also full of white people, Gaijin Central for some reason.

I walked up the road and found a guitar store that sold bass ukuleles. I tried one out and really liked it, but I couldn’t afford something like that, even if it didn’t involve getting something that fragile back to Taiwan in one piece. Down another street, I found a decent toy store and bought a comic book and a small model of the Enterprise, but refrained from buying a Captain Benjamin Cisko (AKA the sexiest Captain in Starfleet) figure with TOS uniform. Outside, a bus inexplicably played the Pink Panther theme while it drove around the block, PP cartoons playing in all of its windows.

For dinner, I stopped in at an all-white ticket-style diner for a pork chop on rice with a raw egg on top. It was delicious. Then I walked around the block and spotted a nice pedestrian bridge where I took photos of the traffic below.

It was getting on towards 11pm at this point, but the square around the station was still full of people. Rock bands were setting up. I visited the statue of the dog who waited for his deceased master for a decade in front of the station, and wondered if it was the inspiration for the touching Futurama episode with Fry’s dog.

My feet were sore, so I sat on a railing and watched the ebb and flow of the crowds, enjoying the spectacle and grinning like an idiot. The huge screen would show a live feed of the crowd in the square, and I waved at myself. I know, I know: I’m such a tourist.

I’ve been here a week now, but it feels like just a couple of days. It’s hard to think about going back, but I guess I have to start. Tomorrow I’m meeting Arnd at Harajuku for some afternoon shooting, and Sunday I hope to go to Yas’s film festival. I’d also like to see the view from Odaiba at night, and some more Krispy Kreme donuts wouldn’t go amiss.

Lovely weather out today. The people at the reception desk downstairs call me by my name with its Japanese pronunciation: Hayashi Mijiyaki-san! Hai!

It being such a nice day, I decided to go to Asakusa, but when I got to the subway station I accidentally ended up on the wrong platform. I told the guy at the window, and he issued me an “I am an idiot who cannot read plain signs” tag to take around to the correct platform. There I boarded a train and sat next to two heavy (in that entitled-due-to-excessive mass kind of way) Korean girls with identical Olympus mini DSLRs.

At Asakusa, once I managed to find my way out of the warren of shops and stores surrounding the station underground, I headed for the bridge over the Sumida River for a look. A mass of surprisingly unkempt old junks lined one bank, and on top of a tall glass building on the other side was to all appearances a gigantic, golden turd. I’m guessing Godzilla’s been drinking late at night again.

I turned around and made my way to the Shoji shrine/shopping complex, avoiding the main thoroughfare and taking side alleys to the shrine itself, which was swamped with tourists from all nations, though only the Japanese dared take the rickshaws for rental rides. The urn in the center of the square was surrounded by tourists trying to wave the smoke in their direction for good luck. I found this amusing because, whenever I am near smoke, it naturally blows my way, and so it was today: wherever I walked, the smoke followed me. I think the more devoted of the tourists were a bit jealous.

I walked around the rather neglected bell tower, which looked like a nice place to live, and then around to the rear of the temple, where workers were carting leftover snow and spreading it around to melt. Otherwise the area was deserted, but I felt that the shadows of the trees and the puddles left by the melting snow, mined by pigeons, were far more photogenic than anything in the busy front end.

I left the complex and walked around the neighborhood. Once, when I was taking a picture of some colorful garbage left in front of a shop, a man walked by chuckling at, I can only assume, my choice of subject matter. So I took a picture of him. I am finding the hot packets quite useful for gloveless shooting in the cold, by the way.

Later, I came across a shop displaying shiny suits of all colors and velvet lapels. “Too small for you!” the owner told me. Probably a good thing, as I was eying the maroon number.

After lunch at a counter-style curry place, I walked back to the river and bought a round-trip ticket on the river cruise to Hinode Pier and back. With me on the flat, glass-ceilinged boat were dozens of schoolchildren who were doing some kind of school project that apparently involved shrieking and jumping up and down. It wasn’t terribly relaxing.

But the view was nice, and I could rest my legs as I watched the city slide by. We went under bridge after bridge, but the woman describing them on the microphone at the front of the boat stood no chance against the students’ noise.

Eventually we arrived at the Tokyo Port. I had no idea where I was, so I asked when the last boat back to Asakusa was. “5pm,” the guy at the counter said. I had an hour and a half, so I walked across the road, under the highway, over a bridge and up a street until I reached a downtown-like area. A sign for an observation deck caught my eye, so I followed it to the Hamamatsucho World Trade Center. A ticket to the 40th-floor observatory costs 630 yen, so I thought I’d go up take a look.

I practically had the place to myself. Yet the view was wonderful, even better than the city government building, I thought, though it could have been the light. The sun was inching towards the horizon, and the whole area was spectacularly lit. I would have liked to have stayed until the city below lit up, but I would have missed the last boat back to Asakusa, and I was meeting Arnd later in Ueno. I guessed, however, that they would keep the lights on inside, spoiling any chance at good night shots.

Back at the dock, I noted a genuine vintage Airstream trailer made into a food stand sitting unattended on the dock as I boarded the ferry. This time there were only a few people on board, and the city was slowly lighting up as the sun went down. Navigating back up the river proved very relaxing and much more enjoyable than the trip down had been. I wondered if the people sitting behind me were inserting English words in their conversation for my benefit, as people in Taiwan often do. Japanese, however, has so many English words in it that I really couldn’t tell.

Back in Asakusa, I started walking in a roughly westward direction towards Ueno, somehow ending up on a street full of motorcycle shops. There is the perfect amount of motorcycles in Tokyo; they are common enough that people know how to drive around them, but they aren’t nearly as crushingly ubiquitous as they are in Taiwan. I saw some really sweet, low-slung models, too.

I thought as I walked how much effort people here have put into making life more convenient. From the little restaurants everywhere to the pictures of food, the vending machines, the ticket-based economy to the public restrooms and useful maps; everything seems taken care of. It’s a little frightening, but then again, I’m used to living in what amounts to a working anarchy, where things are left to solve themselves most of the time. Some would frame the contrast in terms of Buddhist vs. Taoist philosophies, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. I’m still getting used to standing on the left side of the escalator.

A road sign read: “If the parks or schools in your neighborhood are not safe, please take refuse in the area indicated on the map.” The indicated area, shown below on the sign, was Ueno Park.

I reached Ueno Station early, so I sat down next to the escalator by the Hard Rock Cafe to wait. Unbeknownst to me, Arnd arrived about the same time, waiting just behind a column around the corner. We both sat in our spots for roughly 20 minutes, each wondering where the other was. Eventually I stood up, walked a few steps and saw Arnd and his friends, many from Flickr.

We crossed the road and walked to Za Watami, a third-floor restaurant near the train tracks, the kind where you take off your shoes, put them in a little wooden box and sit with your legs in a depression around a table, and ordered beer and snacks. As soon as we sat down, out came the cameras, with everyone snapping away at each other while we waited for the food to arrive. Besides me and Arnd, flickrites Hiromy, Jimmy, Grumpy Old Man and Un Gato Nipon were there.

Over the course of the next few hours we talked about Japan, Taiwan, travel, photography, technology, and many other interesting things. It was good to meet up with the group; I had a lot of fun. I’ve now filled up my 4gb card on my big camera and have just 6 minutes of video left on my little camera.

Tomorrow I am going to visit the Ghibli Museum. I have no idea where it is or how to get there, but I’m sure I can figure it out. Much of this trip has involved figuring things out as I go, and it’s worked so far.

The weather wasn’t so nice when I got up this morning. In fact, snowflakes were swirling through the air outside my window again. I toyed with the idea of going out to Odaiba and looking at the mall there, but I just wasn’t in a mall mood, so instead I set out for the fish market at Tsukiji. It was just a fish market kind of day.

Ideally, it’s best to get to the fish market early in the morning when everything is happening, but I got there later, when things were already winding down. First I walked down a narrow alley past sushi restaurant after sushi restaurant, and then into the market proper, nearly getting run over several times by curious mini cargo vehicles that look like robots, basically a small motor inside a circular trashcan casing attached to a cargo bed and steered with a huge ring on top. Most of the workers wore either green or blue, mostly blue.

You can find a lot of different things at the fish market besides fish, like brushes, scales, cardboard boxes and T-shirts with the characters for many kinds of fish printed on them. I tried to find a shirt for my Taiwanese friend “Whale” but alas, there doesn’t seem to be a market for such things. Sorry, Whale. “Can I interest you in a salmon T-shirt? Or a tuna cap?” the old owner asked.

I continued walking to the back of the market, which was the dirtiest place I’ve seen in Tokyo despite the efforts of the staff, and out the other side, emerging next to a large park on the Sumida River that used to be the Imperial Family’s “detached palace” where they could walk around Being Aloof all day. From there I could see the old original capsule hotel building, but when I walked over to have a look, I found it was closed. Only one room on the ground floor was viewable through the round window. The interior was pure 1970’s.

It was starting to snow again and I remembered the hot packets I’d brought with me (they are actually Japanese and are available at convenience stores here, so bringing them from Taiwan was like recommending arpeggios to Phillip Glass), and put a couple in my jacket pockets. I don’t know why I didn’t think of them before, but they’re really nice.

Soon I found myself in the fashionable Ginza district. There’s a whole different vibe on that street from the rest of the city. The street lamps are different, the buildings and shop are more exclusive, the sidewalks are wide, the pavement is a special grade, and the pedestrians are extra pushy. I walked into a swatch store, which had many display rooms filled with watches, walled in glass. Suddenly, one of the display rooms rose into the air. A few moments later another disappeared into the floor. They were all elevators. Just for kicks, and to get out of the cold, I took one of the rooms up to the top, where I stared at a saleslady who stood by a case full of expensive watches until the doors closed and back down I went. I suppose she’s used to that sort of thing.

I continued walking up the street to the Apple Ginza store, the first real Apple store I’ve been to. It wasn’t really anything special. I played with the new Mac Air, which weighs the same as my old Thinkpad, has the same memory, but does feature a more frustrating keyboard. Then I decided to check the upper floors out, and got in the elevator to find that there were no buttons inside. Typical Apple: you’ll stop at every floor and you’ll like it! Not that I’m completely anti-Apple. They did have a nice wifi-signal, something I’ve found to be rarer in Tokyo than in Taipei, strangely enough. Also, I have a 16gb iPod, which has just been rendered obsolete by the unaccessible new apps and the release of a 32gb version.

I walked back down the street and over a couple of blocks towards the train tracks and a group of department stores, where spent a couple of minutes watching a pretty neat 3D LCD display with 3D glasses. I also tried my Sigma 17-70 lens on a 5D, only to find that it doesn’t actually work. I’ve come to realize that I really do need a larger LCD screen on the back of my camera; the tiny one on my 20D makes it next to impossible to tell if I got a shot or not.

I continued along the railroad tracks as the snow fell. Fortunately it didn’t stick so walking was easy, though it was cold (warm pockets helped). I had no destination in mind, really, just walking and enjoying not knowing what was around the next corner. For lunch I stopped at a deserted little restaurant literally underneath the railroad tracks (the Japanese know how to use space) for some outrageously priced shrimp tempura. The waitress placed a glass of ice water on the table, which I found peculiar, considering the amount of ice that was freely available just outside the windows. I asked for some hot tea, which is usually standard fare at such places, but they didn’t have any. It wasn’t just me, either, as another customer who came in later got the same. Occasionally a train would pound overhead.

When the tempura arrived, there were two bowls of very similar looking liquid on the tray. I tasted both, wondering if one of them might be hot soup, but couldn’t figure out what went with what, so I poured one of them on my cold noodles. The waitress came over and said, “No, this goes on that, and this goes with that.” Ah, right. The food wasn’t bad. The thing I’ve found about Japanese food in Japan so far is, when it’s good, it’s very good. When it’s bad, it’s actually not bad.

I took some stairs down into the basement of one of the stores and, completely by accident, found myself in front of none other than a Krispy Kreme store in all its retro glory. A line stretched a little ways around the corner, and I couldn’t pass up such an opportunity, so I joined in. The line was 99% women, and I wondered how all these people could not be working at three in the afternoon. Everyone in line got one free donut fresh out of the oven.

Eventually we got into the store itself, after a woman explained that, if you wanted just a big box o’ donuts and didn’t care what was in it, they’d give you one right now and you could go on your merry way. The rest of us shuffled through the line, by the window where you oversee and nod approvingly at the ranks of donuts marching by. I got a dozen, but I am curious about one thing: I have never seen any donut store in Asia selling a plain frosted cake donut. The only frosted cake donuts sold anywhere in Asia, at any donut chain, it seems, are the chocolate kind, be it Krispy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts or Mister Donut. None. It’s a mystery.

I didn’t feel like walking around with a huge box of donuts in addition to my backpack and camera, so I took the subway back to the hotel and rested up a little before going back to Big Gym in Ueno for some more comics. This time, the staff was nice enough to help me download pdf versions, which I paid them for. “Is this a bear shop?” I asked one of the guys. He shook his head. “Because you’re all bears,” I pointed out. It was true: every one of the guys there was a bear, some of them quite good looking. One of them gave me a card for the Big Gym in Taipei, which I’d never been to or even heard of. Another, named Kenji, was quite generous with the free hugs. It made me sorry I don’t speak Japanese as I had no idea what he was saying.

As I’d paid them in cash again, I was low and needed to visit an ATM, so I went to several local banks, cursing after finding none that would accept my Chinatrust card. Of course, I felt rather foolish when I walked into a 7-Eleven and found that their ATMs work just fine.

I had dinner at the same old place where I ate last night. Although people here aren’t allowed to smoke on the streets outside designated areas (“It could hurt children,” Yas told me yesterday), it’s perfectly fine to smoke in restaurants, even when you’re eating. It didn’t bother me too much; in fact, it kind of added to the atmosphere of the place. With the old Japanese songs on the scratchy radio, I could almost imagine that I’d stepped back in time. Occasionally the owner would look out the front window for signs of more snow. On the way back to my hotel, I realized that every truck I’ve seen at construction sites has appeared as shiny as if it were still in the showroom.

Tomorrow night I’m meeting Arnd for dinner; other than that, I have no clue. Someone told me that “Tokyo is for shopping; there’s not much here for sightseeing,” but I don’t usually go for the sightseeing bits and like just wandering around “normal” places. I also like not having any plans for a change, just going wherever I like. Tokyo’s subway is very convenient and goes everywhere, and there’s something interesting waiting down every street and alley.