My Eccentric Japan Memoirs, Take 1

Most of my regular readers (and twitter followers) must already know that I went to Japan about three weeks ago. Yeah, Japan was fun and I’d really like to visit again. While planning my trip I thought to myself that this would be the first and last time I went to Japan because I have a lot of countries on my to visit list not to mention there was the problem of getting a visitor’s visa as I hold a Nigerian passport.

I spent my time in Japan visiting friends on one hand and visiting temples and shrines on the other. Most of my friends I had made while studying in the UK but about two I met while in France. To break down all that I did while in Japan, I met Rie, Ai, Hiro, Hiro, Yu, Olov, Haruna, Ken, Miyuki, Chika, Tomoyo, Gohei, Yuko, Toru, Taka and I don’t think I’m forgetting anyone else. I went to Kyoto, Osaka, Nikko, Kamakura and Yokohama. I saw the city centre of Tokyo and by that I mean Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Harajuku. I also saw the ‘country-side’ (in my opinion these were actually towns) when I visited Hachioji and Hino with Yu.

I don’t really have much to say about my trip to Japan simply because I updated my twitter every day while I was there. My hotel had Wifi so updating was made easy, it became my thing to do before sleeping. If I were to go into everything again, it’d be repititive for me. I guess I could just entertain everyone with my memories of my time in Tokyo. My hope is that as I recount my memories, I’ll stop being lazy and keep on writing ^.^

The person I saw the most while in Tokyo was Rie, a friend from my university days in Durham. We met in Harajuku first then she took me to Shinjuku, Tokyo Tower and Yokohama on different days. One of the reasons I love Rie is because she is too funny. Once I was on a train with her and her friend Haruna when she remarked that I did not have any hair on my arms. ‘Why?’ she asked. I tried to explain that I actually do have hair on my arms but she insisted saying ‘inai!’ her voice filled with wonder. Then she looked at me with this earnest look in her eyes and asked ‘waki wa?‘ ‘Waki‘ for your information means ‘armpit’ so she was basically asking me if I had any hair there. I still find that so funny.

The same Rie got it into her head that she needed to find me a Japanese boyfriend. It was during our second meeting that she looked at me and said that I needed a Japanese boyfriend but she didn’t know who to match me with. That day we were meeting with Ai who also was in England with Rie and who I knew but never talked with. Rie concluded that maybe Ai would know someone for me and Ai had a list of names which she counted off on her fingers. We laughed it off and changed the topic, I thought that was the end of that. A few days after meeting with them, I met Rie again at Shinjuku this time with Haruna. We agree to meet at the south exit at Shinjuku station. As soon I came out of the exit and said hi to both of them, Rie started talking about a guy called Paul. She said Paul would be coming to meet us in about an hour. ‘Nihonjin?’ I asked because I’d never met a Japanese person with an English name and Rie replied affirmative.

Later as the three of us were eating cakes (I had the melon symphony!) and drinking iced tea, Rie told me what I should do. ‘You should go for Paul,’ she said. ‘Haruna and I will support you.’ Then she told me how Paul is tall and how he speaks good English. After a while she asked me where I wanted to go next and I said that I wanted to go to the izakaya (Japanese pub) so she and Haruna came up with something for me to say to Paul which in English means ‘Take me to the pub!’. They wanted me to say this in very direct Japanese to Paul and when I said that I would do no such thing Rie asked ‘whyyyy?’ I replied saying that I am shy and she just shook her head and said ‘I don’t think so’. Luckily or unluckily for me, Paul did not show up in the end as he had mixed up the day of our meeting. Still the girls insisted that I talk to him on the phone…

Another good memory I had was my time with Yu and his friend Ken. Yu is a friend of my friend Kazu who I met while in England. Kazu is the person who PROMISED to take me to a place where I could dress in visual kei style when I came to Japan. He did not keep his promise but then again I understand that he was busy. I heard he had gotten married and also that his wife was expecting a baby. Yu explained that he had been working hard to support his family. Kazu was just 22 or 23 the last time I checked so almost everyone made a point of telling me that they thought his actions were unreasonable. Anyway, a year ago before I made myself invisible on facebook Yu sent me a friend request that I thought was polite and we’ve been online friends since. When I noticed that two of my English friends who travel to Japan every year met up with him, I decided I needed to do that as well. We met at Ikebukuro station and took almost an hour finding each other even though we were both at the East exit…that was not fun at all.

After having coffee Yu asked me if I wanted to go to his hometown and from there drive to Mt. Takao. The original plan was to go see fireworks somewhere near Ikebukuro but I liked the idea of going to his hometown especially after he referred to it as ‘the countryside, 2 hours from Tokyo’. We went there by train and it really took almost 2 hours to get there. At his hometown, Yu went to get his dad’s car apparently he only rides a motorbike so is not used to driving a car. I thought his driving was okay. Yu picked up his friend Ken and together we started the journey towards Mt. Takao. Before going there we stopped at some place to have coffee. To be honest I think Ken had a crush or something on one of the waitresses there, a lady from Austria. At the cafe, we talked with the people who worked there who were mostly European youths who made a living by homestaying with the woman who owned the cafe while working for her. After iced coffees (I had some honey flower tea or something similar) we got in the car and finally started the journey to Mt. Takao.

I refer to that time as my ‘mini road trip’ and I will always remember it fondly. First of all, Ken came up and said ‘let’s practice Japanese!’ He wrote out sentences in Japanese and asked me to translate them to English. The first question, I had problems reading because I’m not good at kanji at all! After a few trys I read the sentence which said ‘I like you’ or ‘Watashi wa anata ga suki desu‘. Ken told me I was wrong as the sentence actually meant ‘I love you’ however Yu was on my side saying that I got the sentence correct. Ken went on explaining that actually ‘aishiteru‘ means ‘I love you’ but that Japanese are too shy to say ‘I love you’ so when they say ‘suki desu’ which actually means ‘like’ they mean ‘love’.

Side note: I always laugh when Japanese people tell me that they are shy because I don’t see it. The day after hanging out with Yu and Ken, I found myself wandering around Shibuya with four guys friends so I asked them if they would every say ‘aishiteru‘ to a girl. Toru who I call ‘yankee‘ because he does look like a gangster said that he could say it to any girl he likes but then he told me to ask Hiro, the only guy I know who meets the shy stereoptype if he had ever said ‘aishiteru‘ to a girl before. When I did Hiro actually blushed and said he couldn’t say.

So I practiced Japanese for the first few minutes of our car journey the rest of the time was spent blasting Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance on the car speakers and singing along. It was fun actually and with all that singing it came as no surprise when Ken said ‘karaoke ikitai!‘. We got to Mt. Takao and were waiting for the cable car to take us to the beer garden somewhere on the mountain when we changed our minds and turned back. Ken wanted to go to karaoke and I didn’t mind going wherever as long as I was hanging out with both of them. They were really good company. Yu is different from the other Japanese guys I know and I guess it is because he always speaks frankly. At a point I stared getting worried anytime he said ‘to be frank…’ because I had no idea what he was going to be frank about. Ken supposedly comes from a ‘strange family’, he showed me pictures of his family and they do look like eccentric down-to-earth people. He is also very funny. While we were walking away from Mt. Takao he started talking about his encounter a ghost while driving in the last night year. When I laughed he said ‘I am serious!’ He chastised me telling me not to underestimate the powerful Japanese ghosts. I think he really met the ghost but the way he talked and said he was scared of the dark made me laugh.

Yu talked about this abandoned theme park that we could walk through. He said it was fun and I got infected by his enthusiasm, imagining running through an abandoned theme park at night. However when we got to the abandoned theme park we found it completely sealed, the place was even under 24 hours survelliance. I told Ken and Yu that I was sure the authorities knew they were hanging out there. I really didn’t mind that the place was sealed off after all Ken told me that if we caught sight of any authorities, we’d have to run and I was not ready to be bundled and deported.

While we didn’t have our adventure in the abandoned theme park, we had burgers. After eating it was time to part, Yu drove me to the nearest station to my hotel which took more than an hour, almost two. We spent that time talking about stuff that I cannot remember. I do however remember that that guy honestly answered every single question I asked him then shot them right back at me. I looked through his phone and saw a nude picture of his friend apparently taken in a karaoke bar. I saw another image in which Yu looked just like a gangster. The person in the image looked completely different from him and I told him this. Yu then told me that police actually used to stop him at that time…he looked so different because of his haircut. I found that amazing. The time I spent with both Yu and Ken during our ‘mini road trip’ will always be a good memory.