Congratulations on making it to the final installment of the Tokyo trip!
I have a cheesy little video for you at the bottom of this entry.

If you’re going to meet a beautiful girl in a foreign city, it would be nice to meet her early into the trip so you’ve got some time to hang. But my luck, consistent as ever, dictates I meet her the night before my last one in town.

Well, it’s better than if we hadn’t met at all, right?

The whole point of traveling is to do shit you can’t do back home. Which is why, this whole time in Tokyo, I’ve been steady eating Japanese McDonald’s.

Before you dismiss me as a stupid American you must hear my twisted logic. I can already get good Japanese food back home; shit, when Yuka or Tommy Chops is cooking I can get good-ass homecooked Japanese food in the comfort of my own building.

What I can’t get back in New York is a McTeriyaki Burger. Or the Makkudonarudo wasabi mayonnaise bacon lettuce burger. Or Chicken McNuggets with a wasabi dipping sauce. Also, Japanese McDonald’s is way lighter than the American version, you don’t get that sick feeling afterwards, and it’s the cheapest meal in town.

I just thought of something--the “Mc” in “Chicken McNuggets” implies the chicken has some kind of Irish lineage. In Japan, shouldn’t they call it “Chicken Nugget-san?” Perhaps I’ll dash off a letter to marketing.

In Tokyo I see a lot of young single people eating by themselves. Japan is a lonely place to live.

Living in Japan was hard, psychologically. It was hard not being able to meaingfully communicate with anyone on a regular basis. After three months of living here I spent very little time on the phone but started buying gin with the groceries. After six months I was getting weird and writing a lot.

After nine months something in my psych profile switched categories, permanently. I’m not sure which column it was in, but I know the psychological clothes I used to wear don’t fit right anymore, and I can’t believe I ever thought they looked good on me.

“What are you doing tonight?” asks K/O. I’m in the hotel, talking to her on her cell. I still can’t believe I have this girl’s number. At any moment I’m going to wake up back in New York and hear raindrops hitting the roof, then I’ll groan and try to get back to sleep and re-insert myself in the middle of the same dream, but I’ll fuck it up and wind up in Iraq or the Bronx instead.

“No plans,” I say. I look over at L.A. Ad Man, and he’s good-to-go too. So now we’ve got dinner plans.

K/O picks a place in Shibuya. It starts to rain.

In the hotel room I laugh out loud at some of the pictures L.A. Ad Man took. He found this candy with a picture of two guys with their arms around each other; one guy is touching the other’s nipple and two old women are crying in the background. Apparently this candy makes you gay if you have conservative parents.

It’s weird, I normally travel alone. But this trip I was hanging out with L.A. and the NYC crew, and I actually had a really good time.

I never would have found half these restaurants or done half the stuff I’d done if I was alone. L.A. had done research and came to town with a stack of Tokyo-on-the-web printouts, so if it wasn’t for him I’da never gone on that boat ride to Odaiba.

Marz introduced me to Kay, who introduced me to K/O, who is one of those girls I pass on the street in a parallel universe and try to think of something to say while she gets in a waiting taxi and disappears.

I’m waiting outside when K/O calls to say she’s running fifteen minutes late for dinner. I would be disappointed (or back in New York, dismissive) but in my mind I can clearly see the parallel universe taxi receding in the distance, and suddenly fifteen minutes doesn’t seem like such a long time to wait.

With my transparent umbrella, I stand in the drizzle in front of a silver tower in Shibuya while sedate mobs of Japanese hipsters flow past in orderly fashion. I do not want to go back home tomorrow. I do not want to take the train to Narita and climb aboard my Boeing-constructed 777 repatriation device.

Maybe I should get myself arrested. Maybe Japanese jail is better than a New York apartment. And I’m pretty sure the food is free, though something tells me they ain’t serving sushi.

“Hi, sorry I’m late,” says K/O, strolling up with her umbrella deployed. I can practically hear a soundtrack as she approaches. (Jackie Gleason, “Days of Wine and Roses.”)

L.A. and Kenji join us a couple cigarettes later, and we’re off for the restaurant.

The restaurant, Gonpachi, is on top of a building on top of a hill, and the elevator ride is fucking amazing; it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced. It’s glass and when you get in, the overhead light is bright. As the elevator ascends, the light gradually gets dimmer, so by the time you reach the top it’s pitch-black.

But the higher you go, the more the city lights of Tokyo reveal themselves, so it gets darker inside but brighter outside. Fucking beautiful. Didn’t hurt that I was riding it up with K/O.

This fucking rocks, man. It’s about 8am in New York right now. I’d ordinarily be dragging my feet on the way to the office while my coffee gets cold and taxis swerve around me. Instead I’m taking elevators to high floors in Tokyo with a beautiful girl. And I’m about to eat food I know will be delicious.

After dinner Kenji and L.A. break out--whether or not there was any engineering involved, I won’t say--and now it’s down to me and K/O. She takes me to a dark Goth place called Christon Café. It’s a cavernous underground church-themed café that serves booze.

The whole place is done up like a cross between a dungeon, a church and the Addams Family mansion, all hewn-stone with assloads of candles and religious iconography. There are a couple Japanese goths hanging out. It’s a weird place to drink sangria and saké, but this is what I love about Tokyo. (You know they got some joint here that’s jail-themed? I hear each table gets locked in a cell during the meal. I bet no one bats an eye.)

Our black-clad waitress flits about in the background, and in terms of skin tone it looks like she’s been dead for several weeks. K/O and I shoot the shit for a couple hours. Getting to know each other. Making each other laugh. Making each other feel better.

After the drinks are drained we call for the check.

I’m tired but ain’t planning on sleeping tonight, since I want to conk out for the flight tomorrow.

For my last night in Tokyo, I figure I’ve got three choices: I can see if K/O feels like hanging out all night, I can try to track Chie down and hang, or, the dark option, I can try to meet up with my ex. I guess the decision would be telling.


I made my choice.

Early Monday morning the sun is coming up as she and I walk through the deserted streets. We stayed up all night and now she’s got to get back home, before a certain someone wakes up. And me, I’ve got a plane to catch and a life to get back to. I’ve got the things I'm supposed to be doing. I’ve got a sure thing back in New York, and that sure thing is...rent.

But a movie kiss by a waiting taxi makes me wonder if I have a reason to come back. Or if this is just a fleeting travel incident, a lucky but temporary alignment of stars, a pilot the networks will never pick up on.

She gets into the taxi. I reach for the door to close it, but it’s Tokyo; the doors close automatically. The cab starts moving and I watch it recede into the distance.

A moment later the taxi’s gone, and a few hours later, so is my plane. And yeah, I’m on it. Sitting all the way in the back, which I’m grateful for.

‘Cause I don’t want to hear that CLACK when they shut the cabin door. That crisp and definitive sound that, quite literally, signifies closure and the end of something.

In Tokyo I shot some low-res video with the Canon. Strung the clips together in iMovie, added some saccharine J-pop and made a cheesy little mini-movie. You can download it here, it’s a “.mov” file:

Tokyo Movie

It’s about 14MB and there’s sound.

Sorry about the shaky shots. I don’t exactly have a steady hand; my tripod is Coffee.