While searching for weekend activities, I had stumbled upon a weekly pub crawl that seemed promising, not least of which because it caters to English-speaking folks. This particular weekend’s crawl was in Roppongi, a district known for its nightlife. The crawl had the usual free shots, drink specials, and icebreaker games as we bounced among a few nearby bars. Andrew and I really enjoyed meeting and talking to a lot of people with wildly varying backgrounds but who all call Tokyo home. After the official crawl was over, we continued barhopping with some new friends until the early hours, mostly at Mistral Bleu Train Bar, where the music was supplied by the hundreds of rock CDs that lined several shelves of the bar. The bartender was also a joy to talk to since she knew American and British rock very well, especially a lot of the music I grew up with.

On Saturday, we took the train to an incredibly crowded and steamy Harajuku station so that we could check out the Cinco de Mayo festival. We walked around briefly and didn’t stay long (and ended up getting Mexican food from a local restaurant instead), but we did spend a while exploring nearby Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi Park, one of the largest parks in Tokyo. The park is an expansive sprawl of beautiful forest and the largest walking paths and torii (Japanese gates) I’ve ever seen; I swear this park was built for giants. Most people we saw were out for a walk or sightseeing or visiting the temple. I don’t remember seeing anyone exercising or playing sports, but we did pass quite a few archers who had finished shooting just before we arrived and were heading home.

To kick off Saturday night, we started with Popeye brewpub, a recommendation from Andrew’s father when he visited Tokyo. It was completely packed when we got there and they managed to squeeze us in, but then began the game of musical chairs: first standing at a barrel table on the steps, then upgraded to another barrel table further up the steps, then crammed into an alcove at a tiny table, then upgraded to a prime spot on the front patio. We had several excellent craft beers and a decent amount of free food (a perk of ordering specific beers at happy hour), which turned out to be our dinner. Popeye is in Ryogoku, the neighborhood at the center of the sumo universe; as we were sitting on the patio, we exchanged peace signs with a sumo wrestler who walked by and looked somewhat longingly at all the beer and food.

After Popeye’s, we went back to Roppongi and progressed through our fine-tuned, scientific methodology of finding a bar. Truth be told, we wandered for a long time (no one said this approach was perfect), to the point that we passed the same prostitute den mother multiple times. Eventually we found what we wanted: a pleasant karaoke lounge with darts, a nice bartender, a dancing PSY doll on the bar, and a group of friendly Japanese girls, one of whom could speak English pretty well. Fast forward many hours through lots of darts games and karaoke and it was another solid night. Brushing up on our J-pop knowledge that night in Hakone, if only for namedropping purposes, paid dividends.

Sunday was sobering, both in a let’s-not-drink-anymore sense and also a we’re-leaving-Asia-tomorrow sense. After a late start, we went to Ginza – a district known for its very high-end shopping – for a solid Indian buffet lunch and a few trips to some interesting local stores. Our main reason for going to Ginza was to visit one of the lesser-known museums there and we settled on Advertising Museum Tokyo, which showcases exactly what you’d expect: advertising. It was incredibly interesting, covering everything from Edo-era store signs to modern commercials to some of the most artistic, successful, or fascinating international ad campaigns of recent memory. Highly recommended. And it’s free!

That evening we went back to Golden Gai to get our fix of closet bars, as that felt like the only appropriate way to end the trip. Our spot from earlier in the week was full (i.e. there were six people in there) so we drank at the fantastically-named “Kangaroo Court Decision” and then an upstairs bar catering to backpackers. After chatting with the well-traveled bartenders there for a couple hours, we decided that it was time to wrap it up and head back.

Appropriately, the next day was dreary and rainy as we walked through the streets and hopped a couple trains to get to the airport. Andrew and I had separate flights, so we said our goodbyes and I found myself as a solo traveler once again. For the second time in nine months, I sat in quiet sadness as I crossed the inky expanse of the Pacific Ocean. As was the case the previous July, I was excited about what lay ahead of me, but I already missed what I was leaving behind.

I’ll have to write down my thoughts about my trip as a whole later, but for now, I’ll make some observations about Japan. Presented in no particular order:

• Japanese people dress very well (and fashionably) pretty much all the time. As a general rule, if a Japanese person is out of their home, they’re looking good. For instance, when we were walking through the bamboo grove in Kyoto, we saw multiple girls prancing around in short skirts and heels. In a grove! Not that I’m complaining, of course. Obviously most of my empirical evidence comes from looking at Japanese women, but the guys are well put-together too; some of them clearly spend a lot of time on their hair alone.
• Public transportation in Japan (just like in Hong Kong) is surgical. It was eye-opening to experience well-run, clean, and frequent rail travel everywhere we went. It also helps that, and there’s no delicate way of putting this, the riffraff that makes public transportation in America (especially San Francisco) less desirable just doesn’t exist in Japan. Or Hong Kong. Or anywhere else in Asia I spent time in. I don’t have an explanation for any of this, but clearly Asia’s doing something right (or secretive).
• Japan was probably the most difficult place to travel. English isn’t big in Japan like the other countries I went to, partially because Japanese culture tries to stay well-insulated and partially because they don’t need to cater to tourists. Seafood plays a huge role in Japanese food, so purely vegetarian food was also tricky to find. I very much understand the reasons why, so I’m not complaining. Neither of these obstacles are deal-breakers, but they do force me to do more research and have more patience.
• Japanese people can be shy about speaking English in public because they might get self-conscious about attempting something they aren’t skilled at. We found the bar scene to be a huge exception to this rule; we met a lot of locals that were very eager to talk to us, even if they barely spoke English.
• Trains of all varieties were deathly quiet. I very much appreciated not hearing conversations or one-sided phone calls.
• Certain transit workers would perform what I’d call politeness or safety rituals. For instance, the stewardesses and conductors on the shinkansen would stop and bow to the car upon entering or exiting. One of the bus drivers in Hakone would point in four different directions before pulling away from each bus stop (which reminded me a bit of the New York subway sign-pointing gag).

I’m certainly not obsessed with Japanese culture (as some Westerners are), but I’ve always found it intriguing and finally visiting the source did not disappoint. Our time there was enlightening and entertaining.

Finally, I have to express my thanks to Andrew for pulling the trigger on a plane ticket so quickly and accompanying me for three weeks. It was certainly nice to share costs for lodging, but more importantly, it made a huge difference to have a travel, drinking, food, and shenanigans buddy. I know he will read this post at some point, so, Andrew, here’s a collection of our favorite Japanese signs and inside jokes:

That evening, we hunted down one of the restaurants on the map, had an excellent dinner, then went out in search of some live music. Some research on Timeout led us to O-Nest, a two-floor music venue and bar. There were four indie acts of varying talent, including a man who looped the sound of his own voice (with no actual music) in a strange piece of performance art. The Japanese folks in the crowd laughed a lot at whatever he was saying, so I guess it couldn’t have been that bad. A pleasant side-effect of going to this venue is that the closest train station is next to Shibuya’s scramble crossing, one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in the world. It’s not uncommon for tourists to grab a table at one of the local businesses (e.g. Starbucks) and people-watch the crossing. We spent a few minutes enjoying the neon lights and bustling crowds before heading home.

We rose early the next morning to catch sight of one of the really unique aspects of Japanese culture: sumo. There are tournaments three times a year and unfortunately our trip didn’t coincide with any of them, but there was an open practice scheduled, which turned out to be entertaining and enlightening in its own right. The practice was at the same stadium as the tournaments and even though we arrived only shortly after it began, the only seats available were in the upper sections. While the action below was fascinating, it was also interesting to see what kind of crowd came to a Tuesday morning practice. I had figured it would be almost entirely older men, but they were only a fraction of the spectators. Families, school children, professionals, and teenagers escaped from school or work to watch the practice. I think the big appeal is that the practices are free to attend and people can still see the wrestlers, watch some matches, sit in the stadium, and enjoy some of the traditions and rituals.

Through some protocol that I didn’t quite pick up on, the wrestlers would determine amongst themselves who would fight the winner of the previous match. They would wrestle for several rounds until the loser decided he had had enough and another competitor would step in. The wrestlers not participating in the current match would either stand off to the side to stretch and stomp or stand around the ring to break up the wrestlers should emotions run too high.

When the wrestlers weren’t facing off in matches, they were engaging in a brute-force-style practice whereby one wrestler (who I’ll call the “defense”) would brace his body and hold it steady while another wrestler (the “offense”) would try to push him across the entire ring. The defense locks his back leg and lets his feet slide across the dirt while the offense pushes. It’s similar to American football players pushing the sled in their practices. Each offensive wrestler would go about four full-ring pushes, then tap out with a funny sideways roll in the dirt. A few times, the offensive wrestler, clearly exhausted, would have a lot of trouble reaching four pushes, at which point there was a semi-humorous public shaming ritual whereby the offensive player would get on all fours and the defensive player would flip him over onto his back via a light kick to the side. (You can see this in one of the photos below.) Whenever this happened, the crowd would liven up and cheer on the wrestler until he could muster up the strength and energy to finish out his pushes.

After the practice was over, we walked outside to the front of the stadium and contemplated our next move, while noticing a lot of people were congregating next to the main stairs. After a couple minutes, some of the wrestlers started appearing in their street clothes and walked through the crowd, stopping every few seconds to pose for pictures or sign an autograph. No smiles from the wrestlers though, which you could chalk up to sumo culture or sheer exhaustion. It was really interesting to see the orderliness and politeness of the crowd, especially given that there were no real barricades and only a couple security officers. After the wrestlers made their way through the crowd to the street, they casually walked home, hysterically conspicuous given their traditional clothes and massive stature. In fact, we inadvertently followed one for a block or two on our way back to one of the nearby train stations.

Our next stop was Akihabara, a district known for its otaku (roughly translated as “geek” or “nerd”) and its businesses catering to such types, such as IT malls, arcades, and maid cafes. After wandering around the neighborhood for a bit and doing some window-shopping, we decided to partake in the culture and visit one of the maid cafes. On paper, the idea of a maid cafe definitely seems geared towards lonely and/or nerdy guys (of all ages), but the crowd was surprisingly peppered with a few girls. The waitresses all wear French maid outfits, refer to male patrons as “Master”, and chat it up with customers. The length of time that the waitresses hang around and the interest level they (pretend to) have seems to be roughly proportional to how much money the customers spend on coffee, snacks, food, or drinks. The entire scene feels like it runs the risk of being sexualized or fetishized by perverted Westerners, but in the moment, everything is playful and benign.

Andrew and I treated ourselves to a couple coffees, complete with toppings of our own design: a pig for Andrew, and “me” for me. We were there for about an hour and since we were seated directly in front of the small stage, we had an excellent view of the on-stage antics: a musical number performed by all the waitresses and the embarrassed, self-conscious otaku who was pulled onstage to celebrate his five hundredth visit (as recorded by his membership card). The waitresses sang a song to him and he did his best to avoid eye contact with most everyone. After finishing our coffees, we posed for a Polaroid photo with our waitress and received several complimentary gifts before taking our leave.

That evening, after another Google Maps-driven dinner, we went for a drink at New York Bar on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo, better known as the fancy bar that appears in multiple scenes in Lost in Translation. It’s easy to see why they chose this setting for the movie: the bar is gorgeous, elegant, massive, and offers some incredible views of the city. These amenities come with a significant price tag though, so we bounced after one round (and before the hefty cover charge started).

Our next (and evidently only) stop of the evening was Golden Gai, a fascinating nightlife area in Shinjuku. It’s extremely small, with tiny streets and alleys, and yet fits over 200 bars. Most of the bars we saw could seat only 6-8 customers; imagine a large closet with a fully-stocked bar and a handful of stools. Following our usual “not empty, not full, and no white people” method of selection, we settled into one of the cozy closet bars for a few rounds and a lot of pleasant conversation with the two bartenders, both of whom could speak English. Many beers and whiskies later, we stumbled out and grabbed a taxi home to grab some sleep before our excursion to Hakone the next day.