Tokyo travel feature - Published in One Week To Live, 2007
Yabai
As the original megalopolis, Tokyo doesn’t disappoint. Whether it’s entertainment, culture or something else you’re after, the city and its incredible amalgamation of old and new, cramped and spacious, has something to offer. Walk anywhere in the many quarters of the city centre and you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by a wealth of attractions all vying for and grabbing your attention as you wonder to yourself ‘what the hell is this?’
Walking around the busier parts of town, like Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Ikebukuro or Akihabara it’s easy to see why Tokyo has become such a centre of attraction for people worldwide in the last decade. After centuries of isolation, Japan has finally opened itself up in the last decade and there’s enough there to keep you interested for years on end.
People in Tokyo are definitely one of a kind – treading a fine line between having a unique style and just trying too hard. Take the ‘Shibuya girls’ for example, who wear a bastard mash up of western clothes and styles, apply huge amounts of make up, find new hair styles straight out of Nathan Barley and indulge in the kind of tanning that is a walking advertisement for skin cancer. Yet they have become a symbol of Tokyo cool and trendy in the last few years, attracting praise and interest from the West. Cross one in the street or the trains though and you might well be wondering who in their right mind would think that actually looks cool.
No matter how perplexed people’s dressing habits leave you, and it happens a lot, fashion and Tokyo go hand in hand. Harajuku is the fashion centre: a twisted futuristic version of Shoreditch and Soho mashed together, that attracts many westerners in search of the latest Japanese trend. Whatever you’re looking for fashion wise, chances are you’ll find it in Harajuku – whether or not it makes you look good is another question.
Tokyo isn’t all fashion and crazy looking people. It’s also an absolute geek heaven, with more geek paraphernalia than you can contemplate in your wildest dreams: from anime and manga to video games via all flavours of porn and sexual enterntaiment down to the latest technological toys.
Akihabara is the mecca for a lot of these things. It’s there that you’ll find the biggest arcades in the world (home to thousands of otaku), electronics shops that offer a smorgasbord of technological entertainment over 7 floors alongside tiny little shops not too dissimilar to Camden, and maid cafes. As the name implies these are bars where you go to be served by girls dressed as, well maids – complete with small bunny ears to increase the cuteness factor. It’s a true otaku heaven and slightly disturbing manga fantasy taken a little too far, with girls using honorific language to address customers (such ‘as welcome home master’) and additional services being available – nothing nasty though. Maid cafes are truly one of those ‘only in Japan’ things.
Another ‘only in Japan’ invention is the love hotel – which populate areas like Shibuya. Love hotels are Tokyo’s answer to overcrowding and the absence of privacy in the Japanese home. Simply put they are ‘hotels’ which offer hourly rates for people who just want to, you know… get it on. And there are a lot of them and a lot of weirdly themed rooms sure to leave you feeling a little too distracted.
Night life in Tokyo is also quite unique. The clubs and bars all offer a variety of styles, from small venues playing live music to big clubs playing all flavours of house and trance. Prices are quite steep but where else would you find clubs with drinks machines, recycling bins and toilets that wipe you and play you music?
And even though Tokyo has no night time transport system, it more than makes up for it by offering the kind of all night entertainment most cities dream off. Whether it’s a love hotel for those who got lucky, or a karaoke bar offering you a private room and all you can drink options or even a manga café with private booth, tv, dvd, computer, reclining chair and access to a huge library of media. All of which will set you back less than the cost of a cab ride home.
At first glance the centre of Tokyo is open season for consumerism and entertainment. However delve into the side streets and turn the right corners and you soon find yourself immersed in a different world. Small food stalls, clothes shops, temples, shrines and even the odd park all offer a stark contrast to the bustling, neon bright streets that inspired Blade Runner. Culture seeps from such places and you soon find yourself wondering how such things can co-exist together. Only in Japan is the only answer.
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