Melania and I had a practically comatose night’s sleep and woke up around nine thirty the next morning. This had been our plan all along, of course ;) We were going to try to get a “water bus” from Tsukiji to Asakusa to look at the shrine there, and then sort out plans for the evening. We hung around in the hotel room until pretty late – maybe about twelve? – watching Korean dramas (Beethoven Virus) and making fun of them (“Why are you doing this?” “Why? I’ll tell you for why. Because I’m a bastard.”), and drinking green tea. I didn’t get the chance to eat breakfast, though, so our first detour was to Doutor for a matcha latte and a corned beef sandwich, which was nothing like regular corned beef.
It was awesome.
So we started walking and I managed to dissuade everyone from heading east when we were trying to go to a waterside park that was south of us. Of course, we got there to find the part was shut and pretty much deserted. This sign at Tsukiji fish market should have given us a clue...
Unfortunately we didn’t pay attention. We decided to change our plan our plan to trying to visit Disney Land instead (something that had come up in our chat on the way to the coffee shop) or at least see if we could get night time tickets; and hopped onto the metro (when we managed to find the damn thing) to zip off to Maihama to see what we could see. Aside from the Disney monorail, there was a big shopping centre and way, way off in the distance... Disney Land!
I’m a total cynic but even I got a little bit excited.
The excitement was short-lived, however, because we couldn’t get night tickets, and found that day tickets were RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE considering we’d only be able to spend three hours there. Having tossed that plan out of the window with a resounding crash (...only not, because we were in the basement), we decided to explore the weird shopping centre we found ourselves in.
...and an hour and a half, maybe two hours after we’d eaten, Melania and Steve were hungry again.
And thirsty, too.
On the top level, we found a bunch of restaurants and bars, and ended up in one called Roti’s, which specialised in Harvest Moon Ales. Steven and Melania tried one of everything, and a sausage platter. I had an ale and a coffee. Separately, not together.
By the time we left the ale place it was about five o clock. We wandered a little while and eventually happened on a place to eat. Of all places, it was a tapas bar with extremely high stools and one comically short waitress.
(She was barely even eye height with our table...)
We ate delightful things such as paella and calamari (Japanese style) and not-so-delightful things like a squid ink medley (no thank you...) and ocellated octopus (made even less delightful by the circumstances of our next encounter, which I will discuss further on...).
Incidentally, we found that ocellated was not a strange spelling of oscillated (though the word did have us wondering in what manner the food would arrive at our table...) – apparently it means “eye-like” because of the way it lives in a shell. I’ve never seen an eye with tentacles coming out of if, but I can imagine that if I saw one, it would look like an ocellated octopus.
We went back outside into the main atrium to catch the end of some strange spectacle involving another short man and a keyboard, who was quickly packed off in favour of a giant choir who shuffled on while a recorded version of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy played in the back ground, whilst four soloists took their place on the stage behind. Once everyone was in place... the choir and accompanying orchestra launched into Ode to Joy again (surely they could have picked something else to come on to...?).
The soloists didn’t have much to do at all, but they probably got paid a lot for freezing their tits/cheeks off so I suppose they did pretty well out of it.
Once that was done, everyone pulled out glowsticks/torches and sang Auld Lang Syne in Japanese. At about eight thirty in the evening.
Thanks to the lyrics being on the screen in a reasonable size with some helpful furigana added, I was able to make my way through quite well. If they’d only do that for my school songs I’d be up there belting out “WE ARE NISHI JUNIOR HIGH” with the rest of the staff. I don’t even know the name of Yushin’s school song :/
We wandered next into Torredor cigar bar. The clue’s in the name – it served cigars and was also a bar. It was like an old fashioned library, only it had pictures of Che Guevara on the walls. We strongly suspect these pictures were of movie Che as most were copyrighted to a movie company....
The resemblance is striking.
We settled into some extremely comfortable leather armchairs and didn’t move for a few hours, perusing the drinks and cigar menus – the cigars were listed by fun facts such as length and girth, which led to a whole host of crude jokes. In our second round, we decided to order a cigar and share it between us (I believe this is where my troubles began...). Being a first time smoker I was a little worried (what if I got addicted on my first go? D8) but it was actually quite pleasant. There are no pictures of me because in most of them I’m either frowning at the cigar like it’s about to hurt me, or looking at it like, “WTF is this?!” So have a nice one I took of Melania and Steve instead.
And yes, the Dutchie was passed ‘pon the left hand side.
We left there about ten thirty and meandered back towards Maihama station where we were told the best view of the fireworks would be. And where we were told there was a HUGE Disney store shaped like a hat and suitcase. So we stopped there, bought omiyage (I think I got enough...) and I also got a cute Micky Mouse omamori (protective talisman). I’ve no idea what it’s supposed to protect me from, but I bought it anyway.
On the way out we grabbed coffee. I abstained (What? The drink we use to get us out of bed in the morning?!) and grabbed a pumpkin soup, which was heavenly, and we trooped away from the crowds onto a walkway (which was deserted before we went there, people only started coming AFTER) to watch the fireworks...
...which lasted probably less than five minutes, after which everyone started to leave. Luckily for us, most of them were going back into the park to drink, and not getting on the train, so we managed to get back into Tokyo unmolested.
Melania and I watched a bit of New Years TV in the hotel, the delights of which included:
- Two men dressed only in boxer shorts with tissue boxes strapped to their heads. The object of the game? Pull tissues out of the other fighter’s box whilst guarding your own. As a warning you have to call, “Tish, Tish, TISSUE!”. I think my friends ought to play this one some day.
- A strange talent show, hosted by an okama.
- (In said talent show) A guy who could use his ass to do a variety of things, including honk a horn and peel a banana.
- (Also in said talent show) A guy in extremely tight spandex shorts with a wind problem. His party piece was to lie on his back, bring his legs close to his head (thus exposing his ass. In spandex, this leaves very little to the imagination. I can tell you for certain that he was wearing a thong) and propel a bean using only a clear tube and fart power.
- The previous pair did a double act. Fart Boy propelled a bean to his a bell held between Ass Man’s clenched buttocks.
I showered, went to bed, and was up about an hour later :/ Lucky me, I managed to get sick on New Years. Which is where my second encounter with the ocellated octopus comes in. It, ah... jumped up my throat.
So, there was that. Luckily by the following morning the worst was over, though I still didn’t feel up to getting around, so I figured the best idea was for me to be left at Steve’s. One of my main reasons for staying in Japan over Christmas and New Year was that I wanted to do a New Year’s day shrine visit and just like that I got relegated to sleeping it off on the sofa! We had planned to take public transport to Shinjuku, but after almost collapsing walking a hundred metres to the conbini on the corner to get something hydrating (and freaking out because the ATM there wouldn’t let me do ANYTHING, not even enter my PIN), I was pretty adamant that travelling on the metro wasn’t going to end well.
...all right, I think I was probably more bitchy and petulant than that but in any case we wound up in a taxi back to Shinjuku. I can’t remember much of the cab ride beyond getting in, to be honest, only that he kept hitting bumps in the road, and hitting them HARD.
And that’s how my New Year’s day was spent. Sleeping, mostly – be it passed out on Steve’s sofa, or unconscious on the bus home. January 2nd was spent similarly, too. It certainly wasn’t what I planned, but at least I got a couple of days in before I succumbed to the ew. In a comedic turn of events, Melania and Steve (not romantically connected) went off to visit a temple (with my blessing). They found a nice one, gave their money and made their prayer. Afterwards they looked it up... they had just prayed in “The Temple of the Falling Child” – a fertility temple where couples go when they’re trying to conceive. Shortly after that, Melania was “adopted” by a child on the street who just wandered over and held her hand. Probably by mistake.
Although I now have a year to make up for, I’m already planning next year’s festivities to be considerably closer to home. No way am I missing out on Christmas two years running. I reckon I’ll leave Matsuyama directly after the second year closing ceremony is over (or the morning following the school’s enkai, whichever I end up at...) and stay home comfy and safe until the new term begins ^__^
おまけ
Incidentally, this is never a good thing to put beside a lever you don’t want pulling. It only makes people want to pull it even more.
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