Day Two in Tokyo
It’s been another huge day. It’s only 10pm here and I’m ready to crash.
This morning, a friend of Scott and Marcia’s, Mamiko, came by. She’s a curator for a university museum. I’d guess she’s about 27 or 28. She was very friendly, but conversation was tricky because of her little English and our nonexistant Japanese. The impression that I got was that she helps Scott explore and research the contemporary/outsider art scene here. At any rate, she knew of a few up-and-coming galleries in an area that had some factories that were in the transition to commercial spaces. Like Chelsea, in a way. So, we subway-ed it across Tokyo, and then walked through a couple neighborhoods. Out by some anonymous looking factory and a taxi repair lot was a handsomly rennovated building. The interior had very elegant sliding walls, glass doors and was a very finished gallery space. Of the 6 floors of the building, the top 3 held about two galleries each. There was a really tight little show of about 8 works on paper by some 20th century masters. They had a couple very early Warhol sketches, a small Cy Twombly drawing, a Gorky, and an OK Picasso. The rest of the shows were kind of a let down. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if they hadn’t lit all the rooms with florescent lights, a big mistake when it comes to lighting galleries.
But, anyway, it was a good experience and it got me thinking critically about art again (something I had been missing) and it was a nice trip to take. We walked back to the subway and took it to the Ginza again. On the weekends, they block the streets to traffic in order to accommodate all of the pedestrians. It was an intense sight to see. The Ginza became this huge steel and glass canyon filled, as far as you could see, with this river of people, strange and surreal since nobody really spoke above a whisper.
There, by the subway entrance, Mamiko helped Scott talk to the slightly crazy old guy who makes these intricate and compulsive dolls out of discarded clothing. This fellow doesn’t seem to make much money on these dolls considering that when you buy one from him, he gives you one or two more just for being interested. He never really made it clear who he was or where he was from, but he was seemed very happy that we stopped to hang out with him. I think Scott plans on going back to find out more, considering that he’s been collecting dozens of these dolls and plans on researching this fellow as an outsider artist.
Mamiko was very interested in Indian food so we found a good restaurant for lunch. It was really excellent.
Since this computer doesn’t have a CD burner, Bec and I were concerned about finding some alternative storage medium that’d transport our growing number of digital photos. We figured one of those USB thumb drives would do the trick. Obtaining one, however, reqired that we visit Big Camera, a major electronics multi-level department store.
Ok, I can’t even begin to describe how crowded, overwhelming, cluttered, manac, and intense 6 stories of fast paced, overstocked electronics bargain shopping in downtown Tokyo is. We managed to find an floor assistant and communicate to him what we were looking for with surprising ease considering the fact that all gestures for “thumb drive” could easily be misinterpreted as vulgar assaults in any culture. He directed us to a display case full of these drives. Each display model has a number next to it and on the outside of the case are a whole pile of laminated cards with the corresponding number. We took the tag to the cashier and they rang us up. We then took the elevator to the top floor where, in one corner of the room, by the deep friers, they had the extravagent mechanical massage chairs. The chairs were, aparantly, so divine that there were a team of employees dedicated to making sure that people didn’t fall asleep for too long in these chairs. Despite their best efforts, we saw quite a few people slack-jawed under a pile of shopping bags dozing off to the buzz of their chair.
Initially, I was unimpressed. Then, I saw the huge control panel. Then, I saw the section that fit around your feet and calfs. Then, i saw the price tag. I just *had* to try the $7,000 massage chair. I sat myself down a began pressing buttons at random. They were all in Japanese with no pictographs that’d give you an indication of what the settings where. As it turned out, all of the buttons seemed to be for the same setting: Absolutely Fucking Incredible. In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised me if, instead of a complicated machine, they just put three small people inside the chair, all of whom were expertly trained in massage. That is, until about half-way through the program cycle when the mechanism became so agressive and inhuman-feeling that I started to fear that it’d malfunction and wind up paralysing me when it’s servos overloaded and massaged its way through my torso.. I put that fear to rest as soon as I realized, “Wait a minute: I’m in Japan. Nothing breaks here!”
At any rate, we eventually extricated ourselves from our respective bliss-chairs and took a cab back to the apartment.
We hung out for a little while and then Marcia, Bec and I went out for dinner (Scott’s a little under the weather). We walked a few blocks into the Ropongi neighborhood to an astounding Udon noodle restaurant. They served us these 16 inch wide bowls filled with hot broth, freshly cut thick, wide Udon noodles, and the ingredients of your choice (mine was beef, Bec’s came with a big slab of fried tofu, and Marcia had tempura in hers), served with beautiful wooden lid on the bowl. It was easily in the top 5 noodle meals I’ve had. After dinner, we went to a sort of convenience store, which means 3 floors of a grocery store, CVS and Radio Shack all smashed together. They had tons of weird cookies and crackers and way, *way* too many preserved tentacle snacks.
We just got home moments ago, and I’m totally wiped out. In fact, I barely remember sitting down to write this post.
Please excuse the lack of photos so far. I’ve had such little time to even look at them, let alone try to upload them on this very slow computer. We might have to wait until we get to Beijing to put the pictures on line.
That’s all for now.
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