Sorry that this update took so long! Life has been very good
at getting in the way. I do plan to finish the report though, and I will try to
steadily put out updates whenever I can. Thank you if you are still reading! I really
appreciate all the comments so far, they encourage me to keep writing.
My first day after Disney, it became clear that my plan to
get up early and explore Tokyo was not going to happen. The illness that I had
felt coming on during Fantasmic the previous night had hit me full force, and I did not want to get out of bed. I decided to be reasonable and sleep through the
morning, because if I didn’t rest I may end up ruining the rest of the trip for
myself. I woke up again around lunch time, feeling a little better and
desperately hungry. As the hostel didn’t have any food in it, I realised I
would have to go out at some stage. Oh joy. I threw on jeans and a new shirt I
had bought at 109 and headed toward the station where the restaurants are.
On the way I stopped at the 7-11 to buy an essential product
for someone coughing in Japan: the surgical mask. The Japanese find bodily
functions such as coughing and sneezing quite gross, and in cities like Tokyo
where people are packed close in trains and shops, dangerously contagious. Due
to these issues it is considered common courtesy to cover your mouth and nose
with a surgical mask if you’ll be coughing in public. It is also important to
note that the Japanese find blowing your nose in public very rude. C. Coville
on Cracked once compared it to pulling out an adult diaper in public because
you had a stomach upset. Considering this attitude toward the show my
face was currently putting on, I was happy to head for the face masks and
reserve my nose blowing for the bathroom.
I bought a three pack and put one on. Despite the fact that
I had regularly seen people wearing these all over Tokyo, I felt convinced for
a moment that people would point and stare. Thankfully, as I kept walking
people seemed to pay me no mind whatsoever. In fact, I noticed a diminished
amount of attention from the neighbourhood people, possibly because my mask was
masking a lot of my pale foreign face, or possibly because they had just seen
me before by this point. When I got to the station, my food choices seemed to
be Burger King and Denny’s. Not the best choices for someone feeling under the
weather, but I didn’t feel like walking any further so I got a table at Denny’s
and ordered some fairly plain pasta. By the time lunch was over, I was actually
feeling a lot better. The food seemed to give me energy, so I decided to take
the subway to one of my must-see spots that I had been dying to return to for
years: Nakano Broadway.
While Akihabara is like a department store for nerdery,
Nakano Broadway is like a great pawn shop or antique store. It’s poky, often cluttered, and full
of weird old things you don’t care about, but for most collectors it is also
home to weird old things you would sell your right arm for. It is multi floor
indoor mall full of tiny specialty shops hidden north of the station (Find
the Sun Mall near the station exit, walk all the way through and you will be
staring at Nakano’s entrance). Most of the nerdier stuff is on 2F and above. Rare
manga, gachapon toys, doujinshi (fan made comics), expensive rare film cells, cutesy
themed merchandise, second hand collectibles, rare doll parts, and vintage toys
that haven’t been seen in America in decades line the shelves of the stores
here, often hidden among old plastic bags from special events and toys that
look like stuff you would give to the Salvation Army. Some of the stores are
very well organised, with special items in glass cases and very carefully
protected. Others will have you searching through bins of clutter to find the
best items. Beware of some stores in this complex if you are easily offended,
as lewd gag gifts, porn, pornographic doujinshi, and other offensive comics (gore etc) are
common in certain stores. This is also the home of a couple of Mandarake’s
showcase stores, where nothing is for sale unless you’re a millionaire but you
can come and look at their rare items. If you are headed for Nakano Broadway I
definitely suggest you have a look at the information available online or in books
like Cruising the Anime City by Patrick Macias and Tomohiro Machiyama. There are many maps
available that can tell you which little store is likely to sell what you’re
looking for.
Seeing as I had been
there before and was ill I decided I was happy to take my time and give each
interesting shop a slow look over, digging if I wanted to. I saw a lot of
things that were quite cool for me (Original Strawberry Shortcake Sour Grapes
figurine! Wow!) but was mostly browsing when I saw something that made me think
of all my dear Duffeteers:
Several shops seemed to have large section devoted to
selling Duffys, Shellie Maes and racks of old edition outfits! Seeing these sections
made me wish I was more of a Duffy collector because it was gorgeous to look
at. I only wished I could take orders from friends on the forums but I was ill
and had no idea what I’d be looking for. Instead I took some pictures so they
might make their own pilgrimages to Nakano if needed. Continuing on my way I found myself in yet
another cluttered store that I wasn’t finding much interest in until suddenly I
turned around and saw a very cute looking rack:
MORE DISNEYLAND MERCH! Not only that but at its foot, POPCORN
BUCKETS! Some of the merchandise was even from foreign Disney parks, although
Tokyo sells quite enough cutesy collectibles for me. The shopaholic in me went
mad as I searched the racks for rare or personally relevant items. As a sucker
for cute popcorn buckets I rooted around in the bucket bins like a mad thing,
and struck gold – the Mickey jack o lantern bucket from the Halloween that I
couldn’t get to Tokyo! After some more searching I sat at the foot of the rack
with a pile of things I adored, slowly weighing the cost and putting some back
on the shelf like a good recovering compulsive shopper. In the end though, I
couldn’t leave without a few things, especially the popcorn bucket and a little
decorative Minnie to go with him.
Here is what the store looks like from the outside, for
those who might visit.
As I brought my choices to the counter the clerk gave me a
knowing smile, as he had just quietly watched my surprise Disney discovery and subsequent
frenzied searches while completely unnoticed by me! Goodness knows how amusing it was
to watch the crazy gaijin suddenly stop and root through all that while my eyes
stayed fixed on the DIIIIIIIISSSNNEEEEEEEEEEEYYYY. I smiled back widely, as I
was way too happy with my purchases to be embarrassed. After this I spent the
next hour or two wandering Nakano looking through a variety of cute merch,
figurines, cosplay, manga and other fun stuff.
I was careful to keep my purchases small unless they were
gifts, but it took a lot of self discipline at times, especially when I saw
this:
I desperately wanted to take this statue of kimono Mickey
and Minnie home, but it was very heavy and bulky, and goodness knows I had a
lot of other shopping left to potentially fit in my suitcase, so after a long
time standing in the shop deliberating, I left it for some other collector to
find and love. After this I was feeling a bit tired and was ready to leave, but
I was also feeling a bit dirty and stuffy from being sick, and I realised one
of my other Tokyo must-dos would fix my predicament perfectly: Oedo Onsen
Monogatari, the Edo themed bathhouse.
I headed for the train and headed across the city to make my
way to the man-made island of Odaiba, just off the coast of Tokyo. There are
several ways to get to Odaiba, including trains and ferries, but my favourite
was to head to Shimbashi Station so I could use the Yurikamome terminal
just outside. The Yurikamome is a special monorail line that heads from Shimbashi
over the river to most of the Odaiba stations. It goes through the city and then loops around in a circle to gain
height before crossing the bridge, giving you ample time to see lovely views of
the city and Odaiba, which is especially pretty at night. Odaiba was built as a
sort of ‘city of the future’ and quite a few architects were given carte
blanche to go crazy on the buildings here, so they are quite fun to look at. It
was still daylight as I headed over, giving me a good look at the buildings, as
well as a far off look at the 30 ft Gundam replica that has been built behind
an Odaiba shopping centre.
From what I understand this big guy is temporary, but he’s
been up for a while and is quite a sight poking out of the tree tops! Finally I
made it to the station and my destination for the evening. This place is designed to offer a hot spring style
experience in the city, themed around old Edo era Tokyo. You are required to
wear a yukata (summer kimono), and all the common areas, restaurants and shops
inside are themed to look like old Edo era stalls, only the theming is not what
you’d call Disney quality. Most of it is quite obvious, plasticky and a little
tacky, but that to be honest is a large part of the place’s charm. Not only
that but it offers about 10-14 different baths for each gender (single sex
bathing) some of which are outdoor rotemburo style, so it’s worth a little bit
of tacky.
(Enjoy my blurry, sneaky photographs of the common areas)
Oedo Onsen has a great payment system which allows you to
walk around in nothing but a yukata and a plastic bracelet with a barcode you
can use to pay for things. You settle your bill when you check out. This makes
it much easier to relax, but it relies on you going through a farcical system
of lockers and keys. Upon entering the building one of the first things you see
is a locker room for your shoes. I immediately took off my shoes in the little
entryway, placing them in an empty shoe locker and taking the key with me to
the front desk. Key number 1. I then indicated ‘one person’ and was given my
barcode bracelet, which also includes a locker key. Key number 2. The counter
person directed toward the yukata rental counter, where they had 5 styles to
choose from. Once I had my yukata I headed for the locker room, where I changed
and deposited my clothes, valuables, and key number 1 into the locker. I then
was free to wander the restaurant/shopping area with just my yukata and
key/barcode bracelet, but I decided to head straight for the baths. When you
get to the bathing area you are confronted with, that’s right, another locker
room. The lady at the counter gave me a towel and a washcloth, and indicated
for me to find a locker.
Now keep in mind that most Japanese communal bathing is done
completely nude. Wearing even a bathing suit in a nude bath is a huge faux pas,
as (among other things) getting completely naked and scrubbing every inch of
your body first is the only way to be sure you won’t make the bath water dirty
for others. Luckily I have done this a fair few times, so I was able to quietly
strip down to my birthday suit, put my yukata, towel, and key number 2 into the
locker, taking YET ANOTHER KEY on a bracelet to wear in the baths themselves. Key
number 3. To sum up: My shoes were in a locker, the key to which was in another
locker, the key to which was in another locker, the key to which was on my
wrist. I find this system a little funny every time I visit, however you can’t
fault it. After all, I was standing there naked but for a waterproof bracelet
and felt completely confident that all my belongings were safely stored.
After all the days of Disney and sickness, I was deeply
happy to get a really good clean. The hostel showers were fine, but Japanese
bathing leaves you with a whole different level of clean if you do what the
locals do: scrub every inch of your body, rinse, sit in the bath until you
pretty much can’t handle the heat any longer, go back to the wash stations and
scrub everything again now that your pores are open, rinse, repeat if needed. This
much steam is also fantastic for blocked sinuses like I had, so this was
perfect. A couple of hours later after trying out the rock pools, the spa jets,
the cypress tubs, the salt baths, and scrubbing in between I needed to get out
of the heat.
When you go back into the locker room from the baths one of the
really nice touches of this bathhouse becomes obvious. Next to the locker area
there is a long hallway of lit mirrors and vanity stations with hairdryers,
clean hairbrushes, and complementary moisturising products and hair products so that you can get
yourself looking nice again before you go out into the common area. A lot of
Japanese girls really love their hair and makeup (it is much more expected in
Japan that women wear full makeup every day) so this is a great touch. I
grabbed a cold drink from the vending machine (which is capable of scanning the
barcode bracelet! So cool!) and took full advantage of the facilities.
Look at the cool barcode thing!
The rest of the evening I spent resting and wandering about
the common areas, eating shaved ice and looking at souvenirs. I also discovered
some lovely places to sit in the foot bath garden where people of both sexes
can spend time together. A lot of couples on dates stroll around in their
yukata and it’s adorable to watch. Although I recommend any future travellers
watch out for the bath with pointy reflexology stones at the bottom. As the
girl who walked through it before me put it: ‘Itai! Itai! Itai!’ You can also
pay extra to have tiny fish eat skin from your feet in one pool. Some people
swear it reduces their calluses like nothing else, but I decided to give it a
miss this time. Eventually I decided I was tired and made my way home, falling straight
into bed once I reached the hotel.
Hopefully the next update will come faster than this one!
Tune in next time for goth/Lolita shopping at Ikebukuro Closet Child.
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