Tokyo Sanuk - my view

[Long Gun]

The Fuji Rock Festival was the main reason that I finally decided to visit Japan. Though I had always been vaguely interested in the country, that interest had never risen to the level necessary for me to overcome my reluctance to spend ridiculous sums of money on stuff which I could buy for a fraction of the price in other interesting Asian countries. The cost of the ticket for the festival was high (about B15,000) but there really wasn’t any alternative to that and in retrospect it was money very well spent. The fact that this included my accommodation costs for 4 nights of the 7 we would be there also made the cost more bearable. Originally, we looked well set for the other nights too as one of the 2 friends I was traveling with had booked a room in the Marriott in Tokyo with his VIP points and we were all going to crash there. As luck would have it, he developed a bad ear infection a couple of days beforehand and the doctor strongly advised him not to fly. Not much point in going to a rock festival if your ears have exploded, I suppose.

Some frantic last minute internet searching threw up a reasonable sounding place for Y3000 per head per night (B1200 – any conversions I make will be based on the exchange rate of Y2.5 to B1 which we got on the way out). In an attempt to minimize costs we flew Air India (B12500 through http://www.flights.com) and I borrowed tents, rucksack, sleeping bag etc from work. Air India was, eh, interesting. It was a direct flight (about 5 hours), only once a week which was perfect as it allowed some Tokyo time at each end, and the departure times were great (midnight from Bangkok, midday from Tokyo). It was also about B8000 cheaper than JAL! In fairness the plane got up and down very smoothly which was the main point of it all and the little idiosyncrasies gave us plenty of laughs. On the way out my remote was held together with sticky tape and to get the movie soundtrack, I had to grip it tightly. Unfortunately every now and again it would trigger the call signal to the flight attendant and switch a spotlight on. Coming back in daylight revealed the true splendour of the craft, panels held on with Bluetak, carpets curling up at the edges, cockroaches crawling up the walls, the emergency floor lighting strip lying under the seat and the ugliest bunch of flight attendants you could ever hope to meet, including one guy with a horrendous elephant man style growth on his neck. The food was not great, drinks trolley less than fully equipped (water poured from a 2-lire bottle of Aqua), but I got enough whiskey down me on the way back to make such details irrelevant.

Overall my impressions of Japan were overwhelmingly positive and I thought Tokyo was a brilliant city. Yes, everything is ridiculously expensive, on average I would say 2-3 times Bangkok prices, but it’s all relative and if someone would offer me treble my current salary and free accommodation I could quite happily live there. The transport system isn’t too easy to navigate and different train lines and the subway are run by different companies, but it does everything it’s supposed to in a very efficient and safe manner. I liked the food, especially the sushi bars with the conveyor belts rotating around the chefs who are constantly filling it with specific orders or whatever they feel like. This actually seemed reasonably priced. We avoided the top priced plates (you basically keep eating and stack your plates and they work out your bill from the different colours. A decent meal of 5 plates and lots of Japanese tea and sliced ginger came in at about B220-230, which at a guess might compare favourably with similar food here? I have never eaten in a Japanese restaurant in my life, the only sushi I have had was in hotel buffets. Can anyone comment here? The amazing thing was watching these Japanese guys coming in and stacking up 10-12 plates in 15 minutes. The area we stayed in was a quiet residential place but handy for the transport systems and the little guest house was fine, very friendly, very overpriced.

On the first night we decided to head for Roppongi which sounded the easiest to deal with for a couple of newbies. As we had to get up pretty early to head for the festival we thought we would hit happy (3) hour (s) and have an early night. There was an immediate buzz stepping out of the subway despite the fact that this was Wednesday night. We had seen Gas Panic recommended in various places so we searched that out first. We walked in at about 7.00 pm to loud greetings from the staff – there were only 2 other customers, a couple of already drunk office girls. Great music though and all drinks were Y300 – B120 until 9.30. By that time we were hammered after seeing off assorted Japanese beers, Margaritas and Long Island Iced Teas. Predictably we then had the ‘brainwave’ of staying out all night! The subway shuts down at 12 and reopens at 5, which, coincidentally is when the bars close! Anyway, the place hadn’t got much fuller though we were assured that most other nights there would be lots of lovely J-girls dancing on the bar – I was inclined to believe them by the end of the night. So, we wandered around and tried a few other bars, took the Subway to Shinjuku in search of smut, (somehow!) failed to find it and took a cab back to Roppongi. Some of the bars were very quiet, one or two very busy (Motown, an obvious pick-up joint, was definitely the busiest we saw) but we ended up back in Gas Panic at about 3. Still plenty of room but there was a (mixed) group of young Japanese who were clearly in party mood. I was surprised at this point, and frequently afterwards, at how little English the vast majority of people were able to speak. It made Thailand seem like the USA, or somewhere else with a reasonable command of basic English. Talking to people during the week it became apparent that English classes concentrated very much on reading and writing and very little time was spent on conversation. However, it also seemed to me that part of the problem was basically shyness, and, given time and patience, many were able to speak much more than they would originally admit to, and were very friendly and keen to try.

Anyway, one guy was buying me a lot of drinks, my mate was rapidly becoming besotted with one of his friends and dancing up a storm, and another of the girls in the group was becoming equally friendly towards me, though I had no real idea of what was going on and what any of the relationships between the group was. Things were getting pleasantly kissy and cuddly, though some of this also involved my benefactor until he started falling on the floor! By closing time at 5.00 am I thought things were going rather well. We stepped out into an extraordinary scene. It was daylight and every bar in the area was also emptying out and the streets were packed with young people, most of them somewhat shitfaced. My mate was trying to get his new chum to go to a love hotel with him but was always up against it as our new friends all had to be at work in a photography studio at 8.00 am!! Said goodbyes and went for breakfast where we were surrounded by completely top totty, but, and this was quite hard to get used to after Thailand, we weren’t drawing any attention at all. It was quite refreshing in a strange sort of way, realizing that most of the women were earning far more money than we do and that any relationships would have to be conducted on a level playing field! How unfair!! All these gorgeous young women all over the place and us both pretty clueless about how to read the plays, or even what the rules were. Nevertheless we had a great week, a non-stop laugh.

I should mention my impressions of the Japanese women at this point. Crass generalizations of course, but overall I still much prefer the look of Thai women, their faces and general physique. The Japanese girls seem to have common problems with their teeth (despite relentless 3-minute brushings) and there is evidence of widespread ‘duck’s disease’ Their arses are too near the ground. However, I was fascinated by the huge variety of faces and I love their overall style, the haircuts, the clothes and their reserved personalities. Approached with a smile, they giggle wonderfully and their faces light up like much of the rest of Asia. As the week went by I became more and more overwhelmed by them though, despite my increasing realization that this trip was unlikely to produce any serious action. There is little doubt that it could have, I chose to pass on one clear opening and still think we might have misread another situation completely. We had both arranged to meet up with e-mail contacts and I met two of mine at the festival, one of whom only came because I persuaded her. She was a very smart woman, great English, very good job, nice face but, unquestionably, rather chubby and with a serious case of DD. We got on fine, had a nice day/evening and she slept in my tent but I just couldn’t bring myself to make a move, not just for the sake of it. My mate was more determined to ‘pin another flag on the map’ and called her when we were back in Tokyo and went to her apartment and shagged her. I want my first J-girl to be a bit more special than that, something more worthy of the species. One of my mate’s main interests was whether they make that funny ‘ee, ee, ee’ noise like they do in the pornos. His research revealed a resounding ‘Yes’!

We met a lot of nice girls at the festival, difficult not to when you’re blocking their view of the bands all the time, and we offered many the opportunity to clamp their thighs around our ears (so they could see above the crowd) which would have been commonplace at Glastonbury, but we drew repeated shy giggling and shoegazing throughout the weekend. On the 2nd night we were drinking with a lovely group of people, all around 20/21. We were taken with two of the girls in particular who were both hammered and providing great entertainment with their dancing. One got herself a little out of her depth with this awful Californian smoothie, maybe 50 year old but seriously in love with himself and also rather fond of this delightful young girl. He was grabbing hold of her and trying to get very smoochy, it was just so out of place, and I could see that she was getting quite worried and the rest of the group were looking very uncomfortable. I sent my mate in to rescue her which he did successfully and we were the bee’s knees after that. All sorts of possibilities seemed to be looming for him (he’s only 29, I’m 45), I was unfortunately committed to sharing with chubby, but somewhere in the long slow walk back to the tents everything seemed to change and he ended up by himself.

We bumped into the two girls a couple of times the next day, and at the end of the evening’s entertainment they came to find us in the beer garden. By now I was chubbyless and suddenly single and we had a very nice drink and chat with them and I was quite optimistic on the walk back. When it came to the crunch we really couldn’t work out what they wanted and concluded that it was probably no more than they had had and we didn’t want to spoil the evening. If I knew that they had actually been gagging for us to make a move I would be very unhappy indeed. Anyway, this was a very interesting exploratory mission for me, I had my sack well-drained in Jakarta and the week in Japan afforded me with the opportunity to replenish my stocks in time for the return of my dear wifey, who tends to notice these sorts of things!

We had 2 more nights in Tokyo before we returned. On the first we went to Shibuya to meet one of my mate’s e-mail pals with a bunch of her friends and a bunch of Vietnamese guys in a Vietnamese restaurant. Very pleasant evening – it wasn’t hard to see why the girl was advertising and that she still lived with her folks at 30 years old, but she had a couple of very pleasant friends who seemed poised to come out with us for drinks afterwards – but then didn’t. We needed rest before our last day so didn’t see much of the district but it was again fantastically busy and alive. I would love to see these places at the weekend next time!

We spent much of the last day at Odaiba, a huge collection of shopping malls and leisure facilities in Tokyo harbour, and then when he went off chubby-shagging, I headed to Shinjuku with a decent map. Once more I was gobsmacked by the sheer scale of the district and just how many bars, pink salons, restaurants, hostess clubs, karaokes there were. Very bright, shiny atmosphere, lots of touts who were generally good entertainment but, fascinated though I was, they were fighting a losing battle with me at the prices they were quoting. General asking price was around Y15,000 – B6,000 for an hour’s massage and a BJ. However, a few drinks and some food later I decided I should at least have a closer look so I allowed a very persuasive Taiwanese female tout take me up to the 7th floor in a small lift, wondering what on earth I was doing. She introduced me to the manageress/receptionist who gave me a menu which I suspect was pretty standard for these places – I guess this was a ‘pink salon’(?). She indicated photos of some very good looking girls on the wall though I wouldn’t have known if they were genuine or who was actually working there at that time. I saw a couple of satisfied looking customers leaving (Asian) and saw one of the girls through a curtain and was quite impressed. It was all very downmarket though, beyond the curtain seemed to be just very flimsy-walled cubicles which is fine while it’s not busy but ….

Anyway, they were offering me ‘very special discounts’ and I think if I had not deliberately left myself with too little time before the subway closed, I might have been stupid, just for the sake of it. With these discounts, the bottom level was reduced from Y10,000 to Y6,000 which would give you an hour’s oily massage and a HJ, though it stressed that the masseuse would remain fully clothed. That’s about B2500 for about B500 worth in a traditional massage place in Thailand To get her kit off and get a BJ the cost would be Y15,000 (reduced to Y10,000 – but that’s still B4,000!!) After much entertaining banter, I made my excuses and left, much to their dismay, though I did tip the tout on the way down for her efforts.

Shared the flight back with a couple of lovely students on their way to a conference in Delhi and suggested they arrange a Bangkok stopover on their return journey and that was it, the end of a fabulous week. Thanks to all who supplied tips and info, especially to Frogpatrol. I can now understand your enthusiasm and why someone who has spent so long in Bangkok might choose to travel to Japan for fun! Can’t imagine any way I will ever reach that stage but I would like to at least make this an annual event and in the meantime I might just start hanging around Khao Sarn Road a bit, aiming to prey in unsuspecting tourists. Either that or move to Cambodia and become a motorcycle taxi boy.

Sayonara

LG

[ August 10, 2001: Message edited by: Long Gun ]

[Guest]

Recommended place is soap land "New York - New York" located in Tokyo-Ueno.

As with the most naughty places in Japan, if you go early, it will be cheaper.

Upon entrance, you pay approximately 5,000 Yen another 5,000 Yen to the girl upon job completion.

An good looking girl will bring you to your room awaiting an 1 hours services of body wash including your dick, a soak in the hot tube, an BJ and a hand for the finishing touch.

Good service for the on the way to home.

Remarks: avoiding the Philippine clubs in Tokyo: bad service : bad Girls

Doomo Arigato

[frogpatrol]

Long Gun,

Once again, brilliant report. Also, thanks for the kind words.

I had a good laugh when you told me that you could not find Shinjuku's Kabukicho. One wrong turn in Tokyo and you are off on a whole new adventure. I spend at least 40% of all of my trips in Tokyo wandering around lost. In an odd way, though, I kind of enjoy it.

So, the J-girls are creeping into your psyche - sounds like a Khao San Road outing is not far off.

froggo

[ August 11, 2001: Message edited by: frogpatrol ]