Tokyo Day 1 - Shinjuku

Our hotel, the Shinjuku Prince
Asia is big.

So big, in fact, that in order to get to Japan on business, I had to get up at 5:15 in the morning to catch a 5 hour flight to Tokyo, Japan, to connect to an hour and a half train ride that only got me in to the hotel with my colleagues at around 4:00 pm today.

And it's a trip.

Learning the places to avoid while looking for dinner a spot
Tokyo is definitely different than the Japan that Sarah and I saw in Kyoto. At least where we are is edgier and much faster paced.

Where Kyoto saw us walking through traditional neighborhoods with wooden streets and kimono clad women, where we are, in Shinjuku, is a completely "new" city with practically no history. A concrete and neon jungle punctuated by the constant visual jarring of women and men on the bleeding edge of fashion. Whereas Kyoto was the city of the geisha, our hotel borders on "Kabukicho" - the red light district. Their faces are ornately painted, but definitely not in the same way.

We ate fried curry pork chop tonkatsu instead, ordered from a vending machine
To call any city a place of contrasts has become a complete cliche. However, the six block radius around our hotel (as far as we've gotten) is so textured and varied that for once, I'm willing to risk the cliche.

A row of "love hotels" - ours is a real one, don't worry.

The well dressed and impeccably shod clientele of Gucci and Barney's mix readily with the pimps and working girls just as easily as their storefronts do.

Homeless men bed down for the night in front of high end boutiques while policemen saunter past a cluster of what can only be yakuza with their glam-rock hair and cocky demeanor; wearing expensive pin-striped suits like Halloween costumes.

A Japanese indie rock band belts out rockin' lyrics at a sidewalk concert while Nigerian hustlers pester us to give us their cards for services unknown.

On one stretch of street, we walked by, all in a row, a Western Store selling cowboy boots, dream catchers and other "western" paraphernalia, a skate store selling both snowboards and skateboards and a boutique selling high end jeans. It felt like someone had cross pollinated Ann Arbor, MI, Burlington, VT, Hong Kong and New York.

All the while, all around, the streets are surreally quiet and clean for being chockablock with people. Nary a scrap of litter is to be seen and cars and buses seem to whisper as they drive past. I got the distinct feeling of being conscious of my voice and of not speaking too loudly on the street to my companions so as not to disturb the quiet conversations and thoughts of other pedestrians. It felt like being in a large, quiet church, only outdoors and more garishly lit.

Homeless settling in for the night at Barney's doorstep
It's a crazy mish-mash that makes even Hong Kong or New York, now that we're used to them, seem like a faraway dream of normalcy.

Absolutely exhilarating.


Tomorrow, we're off to work.

Another seeming contrast is that, for as efficient as the Japanese are reputed to be, their street address and subway systems are arcane and esoteric at best. Buildings are numbered in the order they were built and the subway system is run by multiple companies whose stations and routes don't link up.

Finding our way tomorrow will be a whole new adventure.