Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Japan, day Five

aka: Young men with legs

aka: Sex sells

More backlog from the Japan trip:

Monday 07/02/01:

A pleasant way to reach Asakusa is by boat and one of the piers on the river cruise route happens to be in Hama Rikyu-Teien garden. John and I had nice stroll through the gardens, admiring the year hundred year old pine that you are supposed to admire and appreciating the views that you are supposed to admire and gawking at the assorted plants that you are supposed to gawk at. Just like good little tourists.

Sarcasm aside, it actually was a very beautiful garden, even with it being the middle of summer, not exactly the best time of year to see it.

There is a lot of construction going on in the neighborhood (chrome) surrounding the garden. Well, actually there is a lot of construction going on all over Tokyo period. Entire blocks of buildings were being torn down and rebuilt. It looks like the garden will soon be surrounded by high rises and skyscrapers. I'm not sure how that will affect the calm serenity that the garden is supposed to induce/promote.

We would have spent more time there, being calm and serene while we had the opportunity, but we had a boat to catch.

The cruise along the Sumida-gawa river was cool. Literally. It was another very warm day, but it was nice along the river. Part of the high light of the cruise is that you travel under several bridges. I could hear the taped Japanese comments about the assorted bridges that was played over the boat's loudspeakers. I couldn't understand tit, but I could hear it. The abbreviated English translations on the other hand, I could barely make out.

John said that he could hear it fine, so it wasn't some sort of nefarious plot to confuse and bewilder English speaking tourists, it was just me paying for too many hours spent in overly loud dance clubs when I was young.

I've mentioned in an earlier entry that there is very little graffiti in Tokyo. On the streets that is. The riverbank on the other hand was covered in it. I don't know if they were political statements or simple tagging of territory, but there was a lot. There were also a lot of homeless encampments as well. I didn't see any actual homeless there, just their tents and cardboard box shelters. Kind of odd I guess.

One of the tourist traps that we passed on the cruise was the Asahi Beer Hall. We didn't go there, but now that I have seen the building, I have nothing add to the continuing argument over whether the sculpture on top of the building looks like a proud flame or a giant golden turd.

Once we were in Asakusa, we made our to the Senso-ji Temple. This was a big time, overly ornate, very large temple and was quite impressive. To get to the temple, you walk through a huge gate and then proceed up an even larger shopping arcade (Nakamise-dori).

The arcade was very gaudy, very plastic and a lot of fun. I think I was starting to worry John, because I kept stopping to look at hideously tacky souvenirs. He shouldn't have worried. I didn't want to buy any of them, but that didn't stop me from staring at 'em and wondering who the heck thought up this stuff?

We had lunch at a nearby, relatively famous restaurant where the only thing that John could eat was a plain omelet. John ate a lot of omelets during the trip. It was usually the only meatless item at most of the more "real" Japanese places that we ate at.

Anyway, John ordered his omelet and I had a broiled eggplant dish. It wasn't until after we had left the restaurant that we realized we had both ordered side dishes. Maybe that's why the waitress looked at us funny when we ordered.

John and I rationalized that since we had both gotten small meals, we were due some ice cream and the ice turned out to be vanilla gelato, since that was the closest stand. Funny how that turned out :-)

The stand also had had sesame flavored gelato, but I didn't try any since I didn't know how to ask for a sample. The idea sounds interesting, but considering that it was a weird shade of grey, I didn't feel like taking a risk.

We wanted to find the neighborhood that sells plastic food and other restaurant supplies, but we made a wrong turn somewhere after leaving the temple area and ended up in the middle of a red light light district. We could tell since the ever-present vending machines now sold beer instead of soda. That and the fact that we were surrounded by porn theaters, strip joints and pachinko parlors.

From the posters in front of the theaters, it would seem that the "big" movie of the summer was something involving a rather ugly, country bumpkin man who goes to the big city and for one reason or another, ends up sleeping his way through bunches of buxom babes. Not exactly my kind of flick. Not exactly my kind of neighborhood. To be honest though, it wasn't so much degenerate as much as it was just run down.

We never did find the plastic food shops, but on our way to the subway, we passed some rickshaw drivers (all men) who were standing, no strutting along the street. A couple of them had rolled up their already short shorts way up high to expose as much of their thighs as possible. Another was bending over examining his legs very carefully. I'm sure that it was pure coincidence that he also happened to be waving his ass around as he checked his legs out.

I was surprised when John stopped, I didn't think they were his type (way too young), but it turned out that he was actually looking at a group of grandmotherly women. The women were giggling and were not so subtly checking the young men out. John surreptitiously photographed the scene and I tried not to laugh.

Afterwards, we went back to Ropungi. Figuring that Carlos and Beth could use a bit of a break from us, we wandered through the neighborhood for a little while instead of heading straight back to their place. Besides, we hadn't really seen Ropungi yet, despite the fact that we were staying there.

John and I checked out several stores, but for some perverse reason, the one that impressed me most was the hundred yen store. Essentially the Japanese equivalent of a one dollar store, although due to the exchange rate, everything was about eighty cents or there about. Most of the stuff was junky, although I did find a cheap gift for Kristen. Some anime poster thing that appeared to be of two toga wearing women kissing. It was had to tell though the packaging, but hey, for only a hundred yen who could complain.

The next most interesting store was a department store. Not being Ginza, this was a wallmart/kmart kind of place. There was still food in the basement, but no ten thousand yen melons.

The men's clothing section did however, have humorous, joke underwear. At least I'm hoping they were gag gifts. A thong with floppy elephant ears and a trunk for a man's, uh, "trunk" had better not be a serious gift item.

Deciding that nothing could top elephant underwear (not even the rooster faced briefs with the easy open beak), we decided that it was time to head back to Carlos and Beth's.

More later

nico

note: Even after Kristen opened up her gift from the hundred yen store, I thought the poster was of two women kissing. According to her, it's actually a fairly effeminate looking man kissing a woman. It's from a show that has something to do with time travel and ancient Greece and time crossed lovers or something. Despite the fact that I have never seen the program, I have decided that it would be better if the guy really was a woman.

Hey, she could be from Lesbos or something. Just a thought :-)

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