Sabbatikos

After our morning of temples, Japanese knives, cameras, curry, claw machines, and a Super Potato, we hopped on the train for Shinjuku to meet Yoriko, a former colleague from the years when I managed a team in Japan. She met us at Shinjuku Station, and from there we walked straight into the glorious fray of one of Tokyo’s busiest neighborhoods. Our first stop was the giant 3D calico cat billboard looming above the east side of the station, where every 15 minutes an enormous animated cat wakes up, stretches, yawns, and highlights the business of being a cat. Having two cats waiting for us back home, including Puff, our own calico (a clear twin to the one in Shinjuku), we had to stop, wait, and watch.

After the cat videos we still had unfinished business involving shoes. Tawny and Clara had spent the previous day searching Onitsuka Tiger stores for an elusive style they both wanted but could not find in their sizes. Since we were in Shinjuku and there was another store nearby, we made a quick detour. This time the shoes were there, in the right sizes, and naturally they bought them. Clara also managed to find a rare pair that one of her colleagues back home had asked her to look for, which meant that our streak of Japanese shopping victories continued.

All that successful shopping had worked up an appetite, so Yoriko led us toward Omoide Yokocho, the cluster of narrow alleys beside Shinjuku Station that is also affectionately known as Piss Alley. The name is a remnant of its postwar past. The neighborhood has retained the cramped, smoky, and crowded chaotic character that makes it such a fantastic place to eat. Tiny yakitori stalls line the narrow passageways, many with room for only six or eight people squeezed shoulder to shoulder around a counter while smoke from the grills rolls out into the alley.

We found one that could accommodate all five of us and squeezed ourselves inside. Having Yoriko with us removed the language barrier and also expanded the range of things appearing on our table considerably. Tawny and I stayed mostly in familiar territory with chicken, pork, steak, vegetables, and bacon wrapped asparagus, while Ian decided that traveling with a Japanese local was the perfect opportunity to become more adventurous. With Yoriko happily ordering some of her favorites, skewers of chicken hearts, liver, intestines, and beef tongue began arriving from the grill. Ian joined her while the rest of us watched with varying degrees of curiosity, accolades for his adventurous spirit. Everybody found something they loved, although we were disappointed that our beloved grilled ginkgo nuts were unavailable. We made a mental note to keep looking for them on this trip. Perhaps they just weren’t in season.

From the smoky grills of Omoide Yokocho, we headed deeper into Shinjuku in search of another distinctly Japanese cultural experience: pachinko. We had been telling Yoriko the story of the last time we brought Clara to Japan, when she was about six years old and we had wandered into a pachinko parlor completely unaware that children were not allowed. Back then, pachinko meant buying baskets filled with hundreds of small stainless steel balls, which you fed into machines amid an overwhelming barrage of bells, flashing lights, metallic pings, electronic sirens, and clouds of cigarette smoke. Tawny had just purchased a basket containing more than a hundred balls when an employee approached and explained (in Japanese) that Clara could not be there. Since Tawny had, after all, purchased the balls, she poured the entire basket into her purse. We knew someone back home with an old pachinko machine, so she figured she would bring them back as a souvenir. The employees watched us in astonishment, but didn’t prevent us from walking out with them. What would TSA think?

Eighteen years later, we were back, but this time Clara was safely over twenty, Yoriko could help us understand what we were doing, and the modern pachinko machines kept the balls contained inside. Clara, Ian, and Tawny each claimed a machine, fed in a 1,000 yen note, and began twisting the controls to launch countless balls upward to descend randomly bouncing through a forest of pins. Almost immediately, alarms began sounding from Ian’s machine. Then Clara’s. Then Tawny’s. For a few glorious seconds we thought we had somehow discovered three pachinko savants. Whoo hoo! We were winning! Um, no. We were not. The machines were sounding alarms because all three of them were twisting the controls so aggressively they were just recycling out of play. Once Yoriko helped us decipher what was happening, everyone adjusted their torque, found the pachinko panache, and proceeded to promptly lose all their balls in a matter of minutes. We won absolutely nothing, but laughed hard enough that it felt like good value for the money.

It was time for Golden Gai. Tucked into a few packed blocks of Kabukicho are nearly 300 hundred tiny bars, many with only four, five, or six seats, each with its own theme and personality. The challenge is not finding a bar. The challenge is choosing one. We wandered through the narrow alleys peering through doors and climbing tiny staircases, occasionally sticking our heads into a promising establishment only to discover that it was full, too quiet, too loud, too strange or not strange enough. With five people, consensus became increasingly impossible. Nobody wanted to be remembered as the one who doomed our Golden Gai experience by choosing the wrong bar.

Eventually, I made an executive decision. Near the outer edge of the district was an utterly unassuming place called Bar Lonely. The name alone seemed promising and it was giving me a good vibe. We opened the door and squeezed inside.

Once inside, there was barely enough room to turn around, let alone put ourselves in seats. Two customers were already at the bar along with the two presumed owners, and our arrival brought the room to capacity. We squeezed ourselves onto the corner booth in the dim red light, ordered a round of drinks, and began looking around at the photographs, records, books, notes, and assorted memorabilia covering the walls.

Above us I noticed a signed piece of paper from MGMT and pointed it out to Clara. She suggested that perhaps “MGMT” simply stood for “management.” I was pretty sure it was the band. Our bartender overheard the conversation and confirmed that, yes, it was indeed MGMT. They had been there.

Then he pointed toward a Franz Ferdinand album on the wall. They had been there too. In fact, he explained, Franz Ferdinand had not only visited Bar Lonely but had written a song about it called “Bar Lonely,” specifically referencing this bar in Golden Gai. He turned on the television behind the bar and pulled up the video for the song. We sat there watching Franz Ferdinand sing about the exact spot we were sitting. Our inability to choose among hundreds of bars seemed more like good luck. There were photographs and signatures from other visitors, including filmmaker Guy Ritchie, and the owner explained that MGMT, Franz Ferdinand, and Ritchie had all been through the same little room and had sat right where we were sitting. What had begun as a random choice had turned into the sort of accidental travel experience you can’t plan for. We ordered another round, talked with the owners, and lingered.

Eventually it was time to call it a night. We said goodbye to the owners of Bar Lonely, squeezed ourselves back through the door into Golden Gai, and walked with Yoriko toward the edge of Shinjuku. After a wonderful afternoon and evening together, we said our goodbyes to Yoriko, and decided that our feet had finally earned a taxi. Rain had begun falling again, so rather than navigate trains and the wet streets back to Shinagawa, we climbed into a taxi and headed for the hotel.

Yoriko-san, arigatōgozaimashita!