Leaving Ryogoku, I head out to Shinjuku for the evening and from the moment I get off the subway, I feel like I’ve stepped into Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Shinjuku is where Tokyo keeps a good proportion of its neon lighting - not to mention its black market and red light district.
It’s also where around 2 million commuters arrive each day and the station complex, with its sixty exits, is exactly that: complex. I get to street level as quickly as possible.
To the west, Nishi-Shinjuku is a showcase for modern architecture and very much in keeping with the literal meaning of shinjuku: modern lodgings, but it is in Higashi-Shinjuku, the seedier east-side where I spend my evening. I start by looking for a conveyor belt sushi restaurant that I’ve heard of. This first attempt to deal with Japanese addresses is an utter failure, so in the end I pick a snack bar and enjoy some gyoza, edamame and another excellent Japanese beer.
I wander Shinjuku for a while, admiring the neon before finding myself in Shomben Yokocho, a small cluster of bars and restaurants. I see a group of shirtless Australians who seem to be debating whether the translation of Shomben Yokocho - Piss Alley - is an invitation. Giving them a wide berth, I duck into a place called Vagabond and am rewarded with a delightful, atmospheric piano bar.
I take a seat at the bar and drain a few bourbons while enjoying the live jazz. I manage to strike up a conversation with two middle-aged ladies to my right (Vagabond attracts a mature crowd, I gather). They tell me that they like to come here because it reminds them of the 40s and it’s easy for me to imagine this very western bar filled with GIs in the post-war years, although tonight I’m the only foreigner in the house. The pianist wraps up his set and I head out into the Shinjuku night. This time I head west and weave between the soaring skyscrapers, before reaching the metro station and returning to my temporary home in Ginza.
I've got about three hours before I need to be up again to catch the famous Tsukuji fish market. A sensible part of my mind proposes sleep as the best way to spend these hours, but it is apparently overruled by a desire to lie wide-awake and think about sleep, about how nice it would be to be asleep and a variety of other thoughts that get in the way of actually achieving sleep. At some point, however, sleep prevails and I doze off.
It’s also where around 2 million commuters arrive each day and the station complex, with its sixty exits, is exactly that: complex. I get to street level as quickly as possible.
To the west, Nishi-Shinjuku is a showcase for modern architecture and very much in keeping with the literal meaning of shinjuku: modern lodgings, but it is in Higashi-Shinjuku, the seedier east-side where I spend my evening. I start by looking for a conveyor belt sushi restaurant that I’ve heard of. This first attempt to deal with Japanese addresses is an utter failure, so in the end I pick a snack bar and enjoy some gyoza, edamame and another excellent Japanese beer.
I wander Shinjuku for a while, admiring the neon before finding myself in Shomben Yokocho, a small cluster of bars and restaurants. I see a group of shirtless Australians who seem to be debating whether the translation of Shomben Yokocho - Piss Alley - is an invitation. Giving them a wide berth, I duck into a place called Vagabond and am rewarded with a delightful, atmospheric piano bar.
I take a seat at the bar and drain a few bourbons while enjoying the live jazz. I manage to strike up a conversation with two middle-aged ladies to my right (Vagabond attracts a mature crowd, I gather). They tell me that they like to come here because it reminds them of the 40s and it’s easy for me to imagine this very western bar filled with GIs in the post-war years, although tonight I’m the only foreigner in the house. The pianist wraps up his set and I head out into the Shinjuku night. This time I head west and weave between the soaring skyscrapers, before reaching the metro station and returning to my temporary home in Ginza.
I've got about three hours before I need to be up again to catch the famous Tsukuji fish market. A sensible part of my mind proposes sleep as the best way to spend these hours, but it is apparently overruled by a desire to lie wide-awake and think about sleep, about how nice it would be to be asleep and a variety of other thoughts that get in the way of actually achieving sleep. At some point, however, sleep prevails and I doze off.
No comments:
Post a Comment