lorring...lorring...lorring on a liver

To get from my apartment in Manhattan to the spot where I’m standing in the middle of Tokyo on Day Five, I took a car, a subway, a monorail, a plane and a train. Now I’m rounding out the vehicular experience by stepping onto a boat.

I’m good with trains, but my experience with boats is limited to occasional jaunts on the Staten Island Ferry, which carries weary commuters home when it’s not busy slamming into piers and killing them.

When the crew (Kay, Marz, Miguel, E.J., Anthony, L.A. Ad Man, myself) first bought tickets for the Sumida River Line, I got excited ‘cause I saw this poster

and thought that was the boat we’d be riding. But that poster is just hype for the next-generation boat. The one we got on resembled...a flatter version of the Staten Island ferry. And they served beer. Japan is different.

Nondescript passenger trawler that it is, it’s still technically a pleasure craft, designed to seat a maximum of picture-snapping tourists in reclined comfort. (I like that term, “pleasure craft.” Tough to use in a sentence though.)

Like many American corporations, the boat had a glass ceiling. Through it we can occasionally spot the sun, which is up today but has been mostly hanging out behind clouds, IM’ing the moon or whatever it does when it’s not working.

After a leisurely cruise down the river, the boat stopped at Hamarikyu Gardens. We were some of the only people to get off the boat.

I thought they were dropping us off on this island and we’d just be fucked, like they would leave us here and it would turn into Battle Royale. Then someone showed me a map and explained the garden wasn’t an island at all. Pssh...like it matters.

I wanted to stay on the cruise but Miguel, who’s apparently a nature-head, was itching to see something park-like. Me, I usually have a good time only when there’s large amounts of concrete around me. I can’t quite say the charms of nature are totally lost on me, but they’re definitely misplaced.

In the park we saw this creature, it’s either a duck or a goose:

‘Scuse me.

Pardon me.

Comin’ through.

Earlier in the day we’d been to Asakusa, checking out the temple. Well, I didn’t check it out so much as I just snapped flicks, watched people and grew mesmerized by some ponytails. I’m not much for tourist attractions.

Then we came to this park, and the next planned stop was the Sega Joypolis--a massive arcade, or “Game Center” on Odaiba.

Temple, park, arcade.

Culture, nature, danger.

After our little park tour, during which I learned many useful and interesting facts and gained an insight into the beauty of nature (I’m reading this off a cue-card), we went back to the dock and jumped on another boat, this one bound for our final destination, Odaiba.

The second boat was cooool! You could stand up on the roof. The sun wasn’t too hot and the breeze was perfect. In fact the sun was probably typing stuff like :)

Gaijin-tachi.

After five minutes I called Chiharu, to see if she’d be up for tonight’s party. Then the boat began to drift aimlessly, and it even pulled a couple U-turns before coming to a dead halt--in the middle of the river. I pictured a slow motion fight going on in the cockpit, two Japanese captains choking each other half-heartedly while the steering wheel spun slowly left and right.

Someone eventually won the fight, and the boat resumed course for Odaiba.

Chicks who ride motorcycles are cool, and Chie’s probably the coolest. She’s a friend of mine from Tokyo who works as a motorcycle designer, and she does illustration and photography as well. She’s super-talented and a total social hub. Walk into one end of a party with her, and you’ll walk out the other end with a stack of business cards and more phone numbers than you know what to do with.

Did you know phone numbers in Japan are eight digits? That’s a lot of goddamn people that you need eight digits to cover them all.

Back in New York, I always wished I could strike a special deal with the phone company so I could have a one-digit phone number. It would be so cool. People would be like “What’s your number?” and I’d be like, all nonchalant, “Four.”

Anyways I haven’t seen Chie in a couple years, and we re-upped for the first time Friday night. She and I both look exactly the same, I think.

(CPF photo courtesy Anthony)

Chie brought me and the crew to a party in Aoyama. Elevators open on the eighth floor and you find yourself in this tidy gallery space filled with Tokyo hipsters, Japanese chatter and experimental music.

The place was called “Camel Pleasure Factory,” and I soon found out why; it was sponsored by Camel Cigarettes. There were free cigarettes and lighters everywhere. Lately I’m having mixed feelings about smoking--I really do need to quit--but I couldn’t help but avail myself of the free product. Smokes are eight bucks a pack back in 212.

Chie immediately began introducing me to people--creatives, business types, guys, chicks, Japanese-British, Japanese-Australian, Japanese-Japanese--and I did my best to keep the names straight. She even wingmanned for Miguel! Chie’s the coolest.

While the people were all chill, the music was something else. It was “experimental,” meaning it sounded like someone throwing an A.M. radio down a staircase. One of the DJs played twenty minutes of excruciating and apparently intentional static samples. This guy clearly makes the CDs they sell at the gift shop in Hell. And while I didn’t buy any of his music, I definitely paid for it. Culture, nature, torture.

Out on the balcony I knocked out a cigarette and looked out on darkened Tokyo. Although I had another two days here, most of the crew would be leaving tomorrow.

After the party the group of us was in the alleyway downstairs, ready to scare up some chow. Chie planned to meet us mid-meal; she had to jet off to meet a friend. Her motorcycle was parked out front, a superbike.

Still wearing heels, she pulled her helmet on, closed the visor and kickstarted her Suzuki. Every guy in attendance turned to stare.

“Jya ne,” she waved, and rocketed off.

The hottest whip in town.

Transportation I can afford.

In Japan anyone can drive the subway
as long as they ask politely enough.
Here I am flooring this bitch.

Better than TV.

jinja

mo’ jinja

jinja ale

It’s like the George Washington Bridge without the Camaros.

You need to drive over this bridge listening to Jimmy Cliff singing “Many Rivers To Cross.”

Late-night chowing: Me, Marz, an obscured jeffstaple.
(Photo courtesy Anthony)

Chie.

Minami-Aoyama.