One of the great things about being back in Tokyo is that I get to revisit some of my old haunts.  And during a walk through my former neighborhood today, I was fortunate to have yet another chance to see one of the strangest bar signs ever.  Either this bar is owned by a sarcastic atheist or someone took liberties with the translation.  Either way, it’s awesome. 

I’m a big fan of the random bar names in Tokyo.  I pass this one all the time when I’m out on walks with Hurley.

My culinary life in Tokyo has taken a sudden and dramatic turn.  It would appear that the food gods heard my repeated questioning of why a city with a food obsession as intense as Tokyo doesn’t have a good, reliable Mexican food option.  Not even a quick burrito joint!  Indeed, I’ve wondered aloud on many occasions why a place like Chipotle doesn’t exist here, particularly given the Japanese willingness to experiment with different foods and their manic focus on fresh, quality ingredients.

Well, sure as shit, this past November a little spot called Frijoles opened up just down the street from us.  And – in a total alignment of the planets moment – it’s modeled exactly after Chipotle!  From the ambiance, ordering process, carnitas/chicken/steak/veggie options, multiple salsa choices, bottled beers, even the color scheme of the menu.  I tried a carnitas burrito tonight for my first taste and found it to be quite tasty, though certainly nothing like the real thing.  The chips were not of the tortilla sort, which was kinda weird, but they tasted strangely good nonetheless.  And the mild salsa they include for dipping consists solely of chunks of tomato and onion, so they haven’t quite mastered that element yet.  Still, it’ll be good enough for an easy lunch option on a lazy Sunday afternoon, which is just fine by me.  Who knows if this place will even last, but they can count on having at least one expat regular!

By the way, a careful reading of the Frijoles philosophy makes for a fun glimpse into the awkward wording that often arises when the Japanese attempt to translate their words into English:

We believe in serving real great-tasting food which you may usually enjoy at fine dining, in casual environment.  We prepare our food with gas stove, pots and pans, knife and other kitchen utensil, refrigerator stocked with a various fresh ingredients, herbs and spices, and dry goods.  Ingredients we use include marinated chicken and steaks, carnitas (seasoned and braised pork), pinto and black beans and more.  And a majority of our food is prepared from scratch in our restaurant, not simply reheated and slapped together to order.  We do all of these because we believe food tastes much better when we make it this way.

I read an interesting column by Roger Cohen the other day in the IHT that had me grinning with understanding approval.  Though I didn’t entirely follow the story’s arc, I thought Cohen made some great points while attempting a brief interpretation of Japan.  The piece starts off with a nod to Japan’s quirkiness and penchant for technology that comes in the form of a trip to the gym, where Cohen finds his exercise machine displaying images of calorie-laden guilty pleasures like beer, ice cream and cheesecake.  I personally found that a fairly strange source of motivation, but I’m often serenaded by songs like “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “On The Wings Of Love” when at my own gym (not kidding), so perhaps we should just add this to the ever-expanding list of Japanese peculiarities.

The piece had other interesting observations that are worth pondering, many of which I’ve blogged about in the past.  There’s always a special joy one takes from journalistic reinforcement!

On Japan’s hobby obsession:

Indeed, there’s a Japanese word, otaku, denoting a whole universe of monomaniacal geek-like obsession, whether with an electronic game, some odd hobby, or the cartoonlike “manga” comic books devoted to everything from kamikazes to kinky sex….Japan is rich enough, bored enough with national ambition, strait-jacketed enough and gloomy enough to find immense attraction in playful escapism and quirky obsession.

On Japanese deference and conformity:

Events have imbued the Japanese corporate warrior with a new insouciance.  It coexists with a tremendous conformity. On Sundays, when traffic is closed around the imperial palace, I saw lines of people waiting for pedestrian lights to change even though there were no cars. Smiling deference can seem so uniform as to constitute a gleaming wall. I can see how the urge to escape from this homogeneity could be strong.

Here was the scene just outside our door today:

Last night, I attended an Argentinian wine-tasting event with some friends.  As we made our way around the room, wrestling with overpowering Malbecs along the way, some tango music began playing as a Japanese couple took to the dance floor.  A crowd immediately began to form around them, cameras flashing left and right as mesmerized onlookers jostled for viewing position.  It was pretty clear from the outset that this couple knew what they were doing, but I had no idea what a proper tango looked like so I wasn’t sure what to make of it (even though I had seen a mass tango breakout on the streets of Buenos Aires during a visit there many moons ago).  So, me being the ignoramus that I am regarding all things dance, I mentioned to a friend that the woman seemed awfully stiff, basically sticking her head in the man’s neck and never moving from the chest up while the couple sauntered around the dance floor.  And my buddy responded by wondering aloud why an Argentine couple wasn’t there instead to provide the tango display, which I met with nodding agreement.

Well, as it turns out, this wasn’t just any Japanese couple with a passing interest in tango.  Rather, they were the newly-crowned world champions of tango.  I kid you not.  That’s their winning picture above, capturing the moment when they beat out a host of Argentine couples at the Tango Dance World Championships in Buenos Aires back in August.  And now I can add to my life’s list of interesting events the fact that I once saw the world’s greatest tango act.  Live and up close.  And here I thought I’d never get that box checked!

This little story helps to illustrate something that I find fascinating about the Japanese.  Oddities and frustrating practices aside, the Japanese are an amazing people: immensely talented, curious about the world around them, unforgiving in their exactness, and intensely focused when goals are set.  You hear stories about Japanese who literally dedicate their lives to perfecting tea ceremonies or calligraphy, and the puzzled American chuckles at the point of it all.  But such striving for perfection means the Japanese are capable of excelling in a multitude of arenas.  It’s the reason why the country leads in several areas of technological innovation, and it’s also why the food here is so extraordinary.  I hear stories all the time of Japanese chefs cooking the best Italian some have ever tasted, and that seemingly hyperbolic statement is inevitably complemented by a story of how the chef moved to Italy and worked on a farm for five years learning about the life cycle of food and its proper preparation from the motherland.

Maybe this helps explain why the concept of hobbies is so big here.  It seems everybody has one, and the hobbies typically aren’t of the standard variety.  Nothing generic and broad like movies or books or music.  It’s more likely you’ll hear someone talk sincerely about a very specific hobby, like their stuffed animal collection or Russian language club.  I’ve found this to be a unique attribute among the Japanese.  Once they decide they like something and want to pursue it, they go straight at it and give it their all.  There’s something really cool and respectable about that.

Meanwhile, I’m left to ponder how, in my crazy busy state of mind, I managed to miss the news that today marked the start of the NBA regular season.  I’ve clearly been here too long!

We were greeted last night by  the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in ten years (or so I’m told).  Lucky for me, I had to be up at 3:30 AM for a conference call with the home office.  This allowed me stand at our window and marvel at the impressiveness of the sideways rain, which was kinda cool.  More importantly, it also allowed me to chuckle at an oddity that nicely illustrates both Japan’s nanny state mentality as well as its general disregard for noise pollution.

There was the scene, 3:30 in the morning with lots of wind and rain swirling about.  And what do I hear?  Some charming little bells followed by a woman’s recorded voice (that annoying, high-pitched, squeaky Japanese kind) blasting over the loudspeakers placed throughout our neighborhood.  What was she saying?  Basically, that it is very windy and rainy, so be careful.  Thanks, for that.  Not only did you just scream the super obvious from the hilltops, but you woke up half the neighborhood while doing so.  This went on for a solid ten minutes, then it would break for about twenty before coming back on again.  I can’t imagine how many expats were inclined to throw their patio furniture at those loudspeakers last night.

We’re talking about a country where soothing chimes go off each day at 5 PM just to remind its citizenry that the workday is done.  And a country where loud, verbal protest is the most common sort.  Guys stand outside of the television station across from our apartment with a microphone and box speaker yelling nonsense about some programming.  And far right wackos  ride around in black vans and buses blasting nationalist propaganda at all hours of the day, including bright and early on weekend mornings when they love to visit our neighborhood (being expat-heavy and all).  These things are so loud that each time I hear them I have fun with the daydream that shows me aiming a rocket propelled grenade launcher at those bastards from my balcony, or scurrying down to street level and pulling the drivers out of their seats so I can proceed to pummel them in front of their friends.  There is no way in hell such levels of noise pollution would be allowed in a place like New York, which helps demonstrate the upshot of the inhospitable big city.

It’s now 8 AM and the sun is shining, though a pretty powerful wind remains.  Lizzi is out walking Hurley, braving the elements.  I just saw a white and orange colored object fly across the horizon.  Perhaps the typhoon gods had other plans for our little furball.  Meanwhile, ever the cautious people, schools are closed today in Tokyo.  I need to shower and head to the office.  Here’s hoping the taxis are still running.

Headline from The Mainichi Daily News regarding new prime minister Hatoyama:

Hatoyama’s Wife Says Her Man is no Alien, but he Loves Foot Massages and Prawn Crackers

I thought this was a cute moment between a father and son, so I snapped their photo while waiting for a train in the Tokyo subway.  I love the almost matching hats and the identical “Asian crouch”.  Good stuff.

I attended the annual Azabujuban Matsuri with some friends this past Sunday (you can find photos of the event by clicking here or by clicking on the photos listed under Flickr to the right).  As I’m sure you’re wondering, matsuri means festival in Japanese (or so I’m told).  And each year around this time, the enclave of Azabujuban (a neighborhood right next to ours in Roppongi) has a popular, three-day street festival the features lots of fun little food stands and a crush of humanity.  It’s kind of like the Taste of Chicago but with about 10% of the space, so it’s not an event for the claustrophobic among us.  Though I’ve walked by the event in the past, I never mustered the courage to meander through.  But this year was different, mainly thanks to an invitation from a Japanese friend (Naoko).  Though there are plenty of street festivals like this throughout the city during Obon season, this particular matsuri is apparently a famous one.  Maybe it’s because some guys did a Michael Jackson Thriller rendition at it a couple years back.  Or maybe it’s because Azabujuban is known as a sort of melting pot, so the fare is particularly gaijin-friendly.  Indeed, beyond the standard Japanese offerings, there were also plenty of Korean stands as well as a special international section that featured the countries of India, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand and the Philippines, among others.  Whatever the case, it was a pretty cool event.  The food was great and the nama biru (draft beer) flowed smoothly.  And, thankfully, the oppressive mushi atsui weather (hot & sticky) gave us a break from the standard August routine.

And to top it all off, I got to see this awesome shirt.

One of the stranger things to see in Japan is all the women walking with umbrellas on perfectly clear days when the risk of rain would appear miniscule.  The rationale goes like this: while us gaijin go to varying lengths to make ourselves darker (i.e. tan), the Japanese would prefer to be whiter and so do all they can to avoid catching any rays.  As a result, you routinely see women wandering about the city outfitted like those pictured below.  And in the more extreme cases, you’ll see not only an umbrella, but also a hat, gloves, and long sleeve shirts.  All while it’s 90 degrees out with 100% humidity.  Crazy.

We’ve got a few things today:

1.  A 50-year old cram school teacher (cram schools are like those Kaplan study courses) was busted for plugging toilets on Tobu line trains because he felt that “[Tobu] employees have a lackluster work attitude.”

2.  A 70-year old woman received a mandatory two-year jail sentence for shoplifting a 98 yen (~98 cents) eraser from a supermarket.

3.  As I was out walking Hurley today, I passed by a Chevrolet-branded bicycle with the trademark “Heartbeat of America” and all.  I had no idea Chevy (or GM) made bikes, but perhaps they’ll have better luck with them than they have with cars and trucks!

These are melancholy days in Tokyo.  The economy continues to sink faster than the LDP, and the obligatory frown and furrowed brow so loved by the Japanese have somehow managed to grow more intense.  And, worst of all, it’s hotter and stickier than probably anywhere on planet earth.  Indeed, the summer doldrums have fully settled in.  But, believe it or not, I’m generally content.  My walks to the office suck – I show up a dripping, blotchy mess – but my morning runs grow more gratifying as the mercury rises.  Put simply, I love to sweat when exercising, and ending my runs with entire shirts turned darker shades by the perspiration is a downright wonderful feeling.  Of course, the mushi atsui weather also means that beer mugs and Coke cans turn to slobbering messes instantaneously upon serving.  And I immediately pour sweat each time I exit the shower, making me ponder the wasted effort of it all.  But it’s all OK because I know that tomorrow’s run will more than make up for it.

Speaking of those runs, my morning path usually takes me through the infamous Roppongi Crossing.  This is an intersection of the two main roads that slice through our area of town, and it forms the nexus of decadent and devious behavior for Tokyo-based gaijins (the Japanese have their own crazy part of town called Kabukicho).  During the day, Roppongi is an area famous for its high class living, working, and shopping.  It’s the home of Goldman Sachs, Bentley dealerships, and crazy expensive condos where famous people dwell.  At night, Roppongi is better known for its restaurants, funky bars, hostess/dance/strip clubs, and karaoke booths.  And it’s home to TGI Fridays, Tony Roma’s, and the Hard Rock Cafe, which draws an interesting mix of people, including a certain gaijin businessman who, insisting that the jukebox is great, can be found most Fridays at TGIF for a little taste of home – a couple cold beers and a cheeseburger.

Roppongi Crossing is also famous for the dozens of Nigerians roaming about trying to lure the scores of drunk, stumbling gaijin into their clubs.  The score for them is this: get the gaijins to the door, get paid.  They could care less what happens to you after you’re delivered to their club’s bosses.  It’s a volume business and you’re the package.  These guys are an enterprising and persistent bunch, and they are happy to tell you anything – no matter how far it is from the truth – to get you into their club.  There’s no honor among these hucksters, to be sure.  Once stuck inside, gaijins are sure to be plowed with $50 beers by trashy women of all nationalities who, very nice of them, are happy to let you buy them lots of $50 drinks too.  It’s a great racket, and I have no doubt it serves as the primary revenue source for the yakuza – and for lots of working girls.  That’s fine by me.  But I must say that walking through there at night – as someone with zero interest in the bars being advertised – is a total nightmare.  These Nigerians are aggressive in the most annoying of ways, and a gaijin walking alone is like blood in the water to these sharks.  I call it running the gauntlet.  You’ll walk fifteen feet batting away one guy promising you “beautiful titties” only to immediately be descended upon by another guy promising basically the same thing just as soon as you shake the last guy loose.  And once you think you’ve managed some breathing room away from the Nigerians, you’re not in the clear yet, as you’ll soon be beset by Chinese ladies offering “massaji?”.  This process repeats itself over and over again until you finally reach the area’s perimeter and make your way back to the land of the living.

In case you’re wondering, the club promoters are, in fact, all Nigerian.  I’m not sure what the arrangement is, but the Nigerians have a monopoly on the badgering business here.  I’m told that it used to be Iranians who ran the show, but once the bubble burst they were all shipped back home because they were doing jobs that needed to go to Japanese desperate for work (an interesting form of protectionism, to say the least).  I did happen across a young American guy once who was peddling the same thing, which confused me to no end.  Turns out he was a wanderer just looking to score some dough before moving on to his next spot.  Strange but kind of cool all the same.

In any event, it’s always a surreal experience when I pass through this area early each morning on my runs.  By the time I reach the crossing, I’m at the tail-end of my jaunt, feeling healthy and able as sweat streaks off of me in every direction.  And as I come to the crossing, I always marvel at the remnants from the prior night’s festivities: empty beer cans, bags of trash, half-eaten McDonald’s cheeseburgers, Nigerians surrounded by women, and the occasional misguided gaijin.  Lizzi and I once saw a very drunk American guy standing almost sideways and attempting to negotiate rather loudly with a working girl.  And one time when I went to the Citibank ATM for an early morning cash run, I observed a British man (I could tell by the accent) standing there with a very European- and “professional”- looking woman.  They were engaged in deep discussion (right by an ATM, mind you), all under the watchful eye of your friendly neighborhood Nigerian.  Good times.

Each time I pass by this scene, I can’t help but marvel at the dichotomy revealed by me running against such a mischievous backdrop.  It’s a wonderful contrast that leaves me entranced more often than not, probably because that’s right about the time the endorphins start to kick in.  Alas, this sweatball of a man is invariably snapped out of his daydream by a woman’s voice, gruff and heavily-accented.  “Massaji?”