Thanksgiving thoughts

AOG, Madrid

It was Thanksgiving yesterday.

When I lived in London, I tried every year to have people round. Family too, though on the day. Friends celebrated Thanksgiving normally on Saturday with me.

Yesterday it almost passed me by. I didn't realize almost until I opened up my "Facemook" account and began to read the well wishes of my friends in the US.

They were all grateful for something.

I was grateful for being able to read their comments, because it meant I had
friends.

I know it sounds silly, but for me, friends have always been something special.

Something to be cherished and in need of care.

That is not to say I've been a good, or even an ok friend. I'm sure I haven't.

Why? Gee, I don't know, because I'm human?

N0r does it mean that my friends deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. They don't.

I've had mostly bad friends in life, until recently (that is to say, starting about 10 years ago or so). I've also had good friends, but good friends in life are a luxury.

And for every good friend I have, there's been about 30 plonkers, all in successive order. And for every plonker there's been about 500 morons.

I think the best thing I can say is that as I got older, I began to rid myself, ever so stealthily, of some of the ballast I was carrying around. In 2004, I believe, I cut diplomatic relations with a particular friend after having had just about enough. Do I miss this friend? Oh, I would be lying if I said no. I do. I miss this friend sometimes.

But right away I start to remember the reasons why I started to grow tired of this person, the hysterics, the scenes, the words, the strange behavior.

So yes, there is a feeling there, but I don't allow it to get very far.

Not long ago I became reacquainted with a friend from High School back in Texas. I last saw this person in 1998, at our reunion.

We've been in touch, off and on ever since.

These days, thanks to the magic of "Facemook", we are talking more often.

Are we growing closer? Hard to say, there is an ocean between us, and friendship is all about shared moments. And yet, we have developed a certain complicity.

Epistolary, but nevertheless constant.


Strangely enough, one of my best friends (a reader of this blog I might add) and I speak very irregularly, and yet, when we do, it feels as if we spoke just yesterday. We go through spells, and, amazingly, "Facemook" has not brought us closer.

Perhaps because we were close already?


For them, for the ones I left behind, the ones who left me by the wayside, the ones who steadfastly stick by my side, the ones I cherish, the ones I miss, even the ones I'm yet to meet, I say thank you on this post Thanksgiving (alias St. Turkey's Day) day.

Oprah

AOG, Madrid

Oprah! Oprah! Oprah...

I first heard this name in the mid 1980s. I was living in Texas then. I remember watching her show with utter fascination as a kid. I liked her voice, her demeanor, her manner.

I left the US to go and live in the UK, and, within a few years, she was there too, albeit with less success than in the US. Perhaps the American tendency to be touchy-feely about things, the great need to bring psychology to fix and explain all problems, proved too much for the British public.

I remember too how other programs made it big in the UK in the 1990s. There was, first of all, The Jerry Springer Show. Oh I we laughed, and cringed with shame and pain, at the sight of America’s Whitest and Trashiest on television.

On-screen violence, it was discovered, was a great crowd puller. To say nothing of all the insults which got bleeped out show after show.

It was repetitive in that the same sort of problems showed up. People who slept with relatives, men who slept with men whom they thought were women, long lost relatives fighting over who knows what. In short, people who went on television to sort out a problem the old fashioned way: with violence and insults. Touchy feely only in that you got hit and you felt it.

Then there was Jenny Jones. Interesting, and a couple of steps up on the social scale. But she was always so frail. Nonetheless, watchable enough. Being frail and open is not a negative.

And Ricky Lake. Gay friendly, fat friendly, girl friendly, mother friendly, tv friendly.

But I think we all liked her better on the silver screen.

We do owe her one key 1990s idea: the makeover!

On her show you could bring your old tattered mother who looked like a tired, run over, 1950s Vegas stripper, give her over to Ricky Lake’s staff, and return home with a cleaner, more updated version of the poor woman. Or your boyfriend. Or your Gothic daughter. Or your slimy boyfriend. Or his boyfriend!

Finally, there was the Oh-how-very-sanctimonious-holier-than-thou Sally Jesse Raphael.

Sally Jesse was like that bitch of a teacher you had in Elementary School who was always right. Always had the last word. Always tried for you to improve yourself. And when you didn’t, she came down on you like a ton of bricks.

Was she watchable? Was she ever. Like a car crash!

I mean, how could you not watch, perplexed, someone who defied the aging process? And in designer gear!

However, all along the line, Oprah remained a cut above the rest somehow.

Her show, which was always on again, off again in the UK, was always aimed at people who were aspirational.

It didn’t matter what your background was when you were on Oprah because being on Oprah meant that, by default, you were elevated from your social status immediately. To hers. A bit like Colonel Pickering, who would talk to a flower girl as though she were a lady.

You too were then a celebrity. Oprah always brings you up to her level. And unknowingly so. That of a rich celebrity. A well-to-do, upper middle America, normal person.

Because Oprah is nothing if she's not normal. Her reactions, her feelings, her ups and downs, are all normal. She is not what I'd call pretentious in the slightest.

Perhaps it was this elevation which made people tune in. Oprah is not for intellectuals, it is for people who aspire to know and understand what intellectuals were about. At least at first.

She even has a book club which recommends which books, and thoughts and ideas, your new-found social group cares for.

On Oprah I saw how racist people tried to make sense of their ideas by saying things like, “I don’t like blacks, but I like you. You are not like them”.

Is this not amazing? I think she did more for what is know in America as “race-relations” than any piece of legislation or Governmental goodwill.

I always liked her. So did my family. We all still do.

But because I live in Spain, I can’t watch her show any longer.

And I miss it.

I will miss it even more after 2011 because the queen of all talk shows started to say goodbye today.

On that year, 2011, she will tape her last show and concentrate on her new channel.

I am amazed at how long she has been a part of my life- over 20 years!

I have suffered with her when her weight you-yoed. I was with her, side by side, when she championed civil rights, when she had KKK members on her show, when she tried to help people.

I think this is probably what I will miss most, her ability to help people. I have seen so many shows where she helped others.

Most of all, she helps you to be yourself, whomever you might be. And that is great. I have to say, 2011 will be the end of an era. It will represent the end of a show, but much more. It will be a milestone of sorts.

Suddenly, we will all realize how far away we've come by her side. And how far we'll go without her.

Thank you Oprah. For being Oprah.

Writing in Diurno

AOG, Madrid

Today I went from my English class straight home. I picked up my new Mac, and went for a coffee at Diurno.

The place has been remodelled lately. Not all of it good. The counter is too high, which is bad, but the smokers have been banished to their own section, away from the rest of humanity, which is good for me (maybe less so for them).

Before I went to Japan, Diurno was a nice café which had decided to create a sort of plasticky gas chamber in the largest part of its premises to accommodate the smokers, giving them alone the use of the sofas, whilst banishing us to the front of the café, to use the tables and chairs, and, by the way, inhale the incoming smoke from the smoking area which perpetually kept both its windows unto the rest of the place, open. It was a lose-lose situation for us.



But now things have changed. The owner has had the good sense to rid the place of the plastic cage which divided an otherwise great space, and now most of the premises are one great open space- except for the specialty video section. And the much-too-large counters.

The other negative thing is its food. Before I left for Japan, (did I mention I just got back from the future?), Diurno had a very good selection of cakes, sweets and sandwiches made from different types of bread. They always looked appetising.

Enter the one-type-of-baguette-fits-all. The quality has come down. Gone too are its delicious chocolate doughnuts.

But enough bitching.

Last night I started writing a short story in English. A major step since I haven’t written in ages, never mind in English.

So this morning, after class, I thought I’d work on it a little bit. So off I went to Diurno to have a coffee, not a turkey and cheese English granary baguette, and do some writing.

Opposite me there was this guy reading an eBook of sorts. I’m not sure if it was Kindle, a Sony reader, Papyre, or what. It was like a small paperback. Red leather bound. He looked enthralled. And very modern.

More so than the two guys who took his place a while later and brought their two Labradors with them. Or me, who was, at the time, reading a paper newspaper!

How dared I!

Because it was still early, I got a place by the sofa section. Had the coffee, read the paper, and wrote for about 35 minutes. For me, a milestone.

It felt good to write. It made me feel useful, creative.

I have this crazy idea that I’ll send the finished story to The New Yorker.

And owning a copy of The Best American Short Stories, years 2007, 2008 and 2009, allows me to target a few more literary sources.

Google Wave Pt. 2

AOG, Madrid

I don't know whether to be scared, or grateful.

This morning I wrote a post about Google Wave.

How I thought it hopeless to try and find out about it, how I thought it useless and used, blah blah blah.

As if by magic, as if a little bird told them, as if, somehow, Google were monitoring the blog or something, this very afternoon, when I opened my Gmail account, there it was: the official Google Wave invitation.



Spooky? You bet!

Problem is, I can't really use it since I have nobody on my contacts account, and I can't write to anybody.

GWave (as I shall now call it), does allow me to invite eight people, which I have done.

In fact, a work colleague exchanged a Spotify invitation for a Gwave invite.

How's that for in-office PR?

Since I have no one I can write to, I have to wait until one of the people I've invited gets invited by Google to participate in the great GWave experiment.

I have to admit, I am now 1, maybe 3%, interested.

Thank you Google spies for reading my blog and fast-forwarding that invite this afternoon.

Google Wave

AOG, Madrid

Ok, I'm all for new stuff. New websites. New ideas. But I'm not so keen on new-but-not-for-you. Or new-by-invitation-only.

Such is the case with Google Wave, the new, über cool, who-knows-for-what service, from Google.

I read somewhere that it is meant to be how email would work if it were invented today.

Well....aren't they clever?

At times I think that...if it ain't broke...but anyway, we should not stand before the path of progress. Even if it is progress by invitation only.

However, to participate on their little scheme, you have to sign up, be invited, or kill a chicken, I'm not sure which combination works best.

A couple of months ago, my Facebook account was a-buzzin' with people talking about it, wanting to participate, wanting to know.

Since then, interest has waned. For many of my "friends" and for me. In fact I forgot about it until this morning.

Like a fool, I thought the thing might be up and running. Wrong. You still need to sign up, (which I did long ago), and pray they Google Gods let you participate.

Guess what's happened inside of me by now?

That's right, I am very uninterested by this whole Google Wave. Just as I am less than impressed by Google Chrome especially since it is not available for Mac and they are (only just it seems) working on a version.

I'm not anti Google. I like Gmail. And Google. And Google Black- Blackle.

But this system, perhaps designed to create expectation, is creating boredom and exasperation with their little product.

I know how this will play out in the end:

-It will come out.
-I won't care.
-Some people will start using it.
-I won't care.
-Someone will show me how the thing works.
-I will care 1%.

If I find it useful, I'll use it 50% how it was intended to be used, and 50% by the seat of my pants (i.e. intuitively). If not, it will lie in the great cyber grave, next to all other useless internet innovations. Like Beans.

Thank you Google for turning me right off your new invention.

iTune blues...

AOG, Madrid

I only got up about an hour ago and already I'm feeling tired. I've been working on the net, whilst (multitasker me!) uploading music unto my new MacBook Pro (birthday gift from my partner) iTunes. Which tends to run as it pleases....

Although I think that being able to link images to music is, really, very cool, the fact that iTunes tends to do this most of the time, and not all of the time (not Apple's fault really), is a pain.

I, who by now have uploaded about 15K songs, still have about 3K songs with no official image and just that horrid "note" background.

I wish it were something neutral at least. I hate it on iTunes and even more on the iPod.

Ah yes, the problems of modern life!

Japan Lag

AOG, Madrid

I came back from Tokyo last Sunday, a week ago today. I arrived in Barcelona around 11:30PM and got to bed around 1AM.

The next day I took a fast train from Barcelona to Madrid. Having left the country of silence less than 24 hours before, arriving at, and traveling through, the nation of noise, the shock was remarkable.

It all went mostly in silence on board our train until we stopped at Saragossa. There, two (maybe three) middle aged couples entered my coach.

From the minute they sat their Aragonese butts down, until we arrived at Madrid's Atocha Station, all they did was talk, non-stop, and in a loud voice. 

At one point, one of the ladies decided to call her son and hold a full conversation with him right in the carriage. I could not believe it.

It was interesting to overhear that one of the husbands in tow had not taken a train to Madrid in 35 years. 

That the last time his wife took a train was when they went on their honeymoon.

That they were all going to some Central American country for a well deserved vacation.

And although their lives were interesting, all I wanted was peace and quiet.

This week, it has taken me five days to realize where I was. This may sound more glamorous than what it really is. 

I was at work, and my mind was elsewhere. It wasn't as if I didn't know where I was, it was more like my cognizance of the outside world was still in Japan, and not here, in Madrid, at all.

It is hard to explain.

By Thursday, however, my cognizant self arrived with my physical self. I began to be more aware of my surroundings, my home, work colleagues. I don't know. It was odd. Perhaps jet lag played a part.

New Friends

This Thursday, to celebrate my newly found awareness of my life, I went to Diurno, my usual daily breakfast joint. 

I picked up this month's issue of In Madrid magazine and had a latte. On the classifieds section there was a small ad concerning "Gay friends in Madrid".

I thought, well, why the heck not?

But then I went to work and completely forgot about it.

I was sent home early-ish, and it was too cold to walk. I took a bus, and, after a couple of blocks, remembered the ad. I checked to see if I had the magazine with me. I did. So I texted both numbers on the ad. No reply for about 10 minutes.

I thought I'd left it too late, and began to plan my evening ahead: get some milk, wholemeal cookies, and watch Big Brother (or Gran Hermano, as it is known in Spain).

However, after a while, I got an SMS telling me where they met, and at what time they left. I rushed home, took the quickest shower (wash that work/office smell off!), and left.

On my way there, the other member actually called me to tell me where they were, and informed me that he had just gotten off a plane, and apologised for not having called earlier. 

Yes, he was British.

I arrived and was quickly greeted by one of the organisers who introduced me to the evening's participants.

One blonde American girl, one other American guy, one guy from, I think, Latin America somewhere, and the rest, Spanish guys of various ages and hairstyles.

We stayed at the café in question off of Montera street (or Whore Alley as I call it) until about 11:45PM, then, slowly, most people made their way home.

The evening's host and a Spanish guy invited me to go for one last drink in Chueca. I decided I would go with them.

All in all, an enjoyable and surprising evening, considering I woke up feeling very Tokyo, and went to bed feeling very Madrid.

Salt Lake OKs gay rights laws with Mormon backing

AOG, Madrid


I think it is a sad day when bodies such as “a church” have a say at basic human rights- whether they are for or against them. I just don’t see the relevance or the competence of an institution which, in theory, deals with spiritual ideas and theories concerning the hereafter, sin, etc etc. Human rights are above any concern institutions dealing in transcendental theories might have.

We are not living in the Dark Ages, and the opinion of religious folk should go no further than the pulpit they pray at. Certainly it does not belong on the mainstream by any stretch of the imagination. If you need guidance, choose ethics, not religion. They are the closest thing to “universal truths” we have. Or need.

Thank you Mormons, but keep it at home next time. I don’t tell you who to pray to, and you don’t tell me who to love.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Planet Japan: Day 3

AOG, Tokyo

We got up this morning, tired from the night before, and had breakfast at what has become our usual breakfast spot: Café Veloce. It is just across the street from our hotel.

The decor of the place is very European, and the food on sale too. We have discovered that in Japan, tea and coffee can be served either hot or cold, and when you buy it, you must specify whether your latte, here known exclusively as "café au lait" is hot, or cold.

We took all our guidebooks and Japanese directional paraphernalia to decide what to do today. Since this journey was slightly spur-of-the-moment, we have not really done all our homework concerning the place's sights. So this little directional ceremony happens daily.

"What do you want to do?" "Dunno. How about you?" "Dunno. I saw this..." and we take it from there.

Less than perfect, but it works.

Culture Day -文化の日,

Since many people told us that today was 'Culture Day' in Japan, we thought we'd do something cultural since, as everyone told us, there is no official nationwide celebration of any kind.

So we decide to visit the Asakusa (浅草) neighborhood. Why? It is by the river and there is a temple, the Asakusa Shrine.

Ah yes, temples. Perhaps the few remaining pieces of ancient Japanese architecture in Tokyo. The city was bombed during WWII so most architecture is post that era.

After paying for our hot cafés au lait and our mustardy ham and creamy egg sandwiches, we head for Shinjuku station.

Getting to Asakusa means taking the Subway and not the JR. So we do. However, they tell us we have to change at some point, at which point we do, in Chiyoda City, and find a side street which keeps us occupied for almost an hour just outside Kanda Station (神田駅).

It is at this station that I discover that Japanese stations have a sort of Rubber Stamp Stand with their own individual stamps. Judging from the map and layout on the wall, I'd say that you can go all over Tokyo collecting your stamp and printing it on whatever piece of paper you have at hand.

I'm sure there must be people who do this all year round and have filled many a notebook with them. I only did it this once. But I love my black stamp!

I must point out that one of the reasons we don't see as much of Tokyo as other mortals might is because to us, everywhere we go is a photo-op.

Given how all we see is different, all is game. Even the poor normal Japanese people who politely look away when two goateed "Gaijin" are taking their picture. In the middle of the street. For no reason. But then, when your country is another planet, what are we to do?

So after many clicks and much focusing, we go back to the station and enter Subwayland.

The subway trains are very spacious and, today anyway, not as crowded as JR. Opposite us is a 2.4 kids type of family, sprawled on the seats. Dad is keeping watch, and mom and children are passed out on the seats. Yes. Yes we did.

We took their pic.

Come on, they looked so sweet! How could I not?We also took some pics of, to us anyway, hilarious wall signs. Japan is a treasure trove of these, I must confess. Somewhere between Stalin and Hello Kitty.


There is one in particular which tells women to do their make up at home. It is a drawing.

In one frame, she is this unattractive hag doing her hair in the carriage, bothering everyone.

In the next frame, she looks like a beauty queen, much to the chagrin of her fellow passengers.

Ah..Japan!

So we finally get to Asakusa. It is a very crowded neighborhood today.

This is the place where most restaurants in Tokyo get these plastic mock-ups of their food. They seem to be very expensive because they are meant to mimick real food as realistically as possible. I have to say that they do a good job of this.

Culture Day Parade

But the main point of interest in Asakusa for us today is the parade. Yes, the Culture Day parade. Either we didn't make ourselves understood, or they lied to us. As we leave the station, we face an oncoming parade of Japanese folks dressed in ancient and historical gear representing the country's (or Tokyo's) different guilds.

On both sides of the street, Boy Scouts keep the crowds back. I have to say this is a very good way of using Boy Scouts: crowd control. It works because, I think, most people would be too embarrassed to overpower a young boy just to get to the other side of the street.

Most people except, only in Japan, senior citizens, and in particular, women. Yes, old women in Japan seem to have the run of the place.

In a culture which respects the elderly, the elderly do as they please. Respectfully, politely, at their own pace, but very much contravening the order of the day. The Boy Scouts smile and even help them to cross the street when they choose to do so.

We too try to cross the street once we realize that we are at a strange angle to take good pics. So we wait until the Flying Fish Goddess Purple Fishmonger's Guild pass by before sprinting to the other side of the street where the lighting is better. All Japanese look very solemn in their historical dress and makeup.

All but the gay.

From our new vantage point we saw one of the Japanese religious floats come by, surrounded by serious-looking men, and we start to point, and shoot the cameras. And yes, every mother has one.

Suddenly, one of the pallbearers caught sight of us, snapping away. All I can say is that his inner Naomi Campbell came out and he started to pose like this was a Mario Testino moment.

We thought it was hilarious. So did everyone else.

It is one of the many images I have to say thank you for.

He made us smile.

Yes, the Japanese have a sense of humor.

And people are the same wherever you go.

I liked this. I liked his impromptu reaction to the camera.

Sashay, Chantay, as Rupaul used to say!

When we turned the corner, and after not being much impressed by the Asahi Beer Hall building, or as my partner christened it, "The Booger Monument" or "Snot Tower", we turn a corner where we spend about an hour trying to capture the parade and the people of Tokyo in this festivity.

The police have closed off the street, and after the last group of people go by, and I have to say the story of the Samurai and the Fishermen was so well interpreted that even non-Japanese speaking people like ourselves understood the old tale about the fishermen who were assaulted by the Samurai (old Japanese Warrior Aristocracy) and lived to tell the tale when they kicked their Feudal asses somehow- we had an empty street all to ourselves.

But not before watching another group of people dressed in Western gear representing the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry in the middle of the XIX century.

Somehow, a few westerners have been roped in to participate and lend authenticity to the event. When I see this I begin to understand (well, not even understand, but rather start to ponder about) the effect that contact with the West had for this country.

One must not forget that Japan went from being a Medieval country in the middle of the century, to kicking the Imperial Russian Fleet's ass in 1905 in the Russo-Japanese War.




In less than 60 years. This is like native Americans going from being invaded in 1492 by Europeans to devastating the Spanish fleet with Airborne artillery in 60 years. Amazing does not cover it. And Japan is amazing.

Uniq-lo zebra crossing

After the parade ends with a group of all singing, all chanting children dressed as seafood and algae, or something, we stand outside the entrance to the Uniqlo store's gigantic zebra crossing to snap away. Crazy but effective.

We stay there for what seems like hours.

Eventually I get the feeling that old Japanese women try to bump into you once you have taken their photograph. Polite, but evil.

Asakusa

Afterwards we walk down the street which is empty. I spotted a Starbucks a while back, but as we walk down the street, going in seems like a waste of time. Too crowded.

Within 25 minutes, an eerie police car drives down slowly announcing from its speaker that the street will soon open up to traffic once more. Or so we think. We don't stick around to find out, and take the first side street we find.

We are hungry after all this culture, and need food. Sadly, the only restaurants which seem open happen to be Indian. And no, we didn't fly to Japan to have Indian food cooked in Tokyo. Snobbery? Perhaps. But it paid off.

Sensō-ji Temple (金龍山浅草寺,)

We continue walking and eventually stumble upon the Temple's grounds. The whole of Asakusa is like a village, rather than Tokyo.

The scale of things is much smaller. We see more of the sky. It has a different feel. Life here suddenly turns slightly more traditional.

We see a barber shop (I think one of the few universal signs must be the barber's which is just a red-white-and-blue as it is here in the West. We also come across a second-hand camera store. We look in. All are film cameras. Nothing digital.

Nevertheless, the cameras are beautiful to look at, mechanical and metallic. Nothing like the plasticky digital wonders hanging from our necks.

We visit the gigantic public restroom by one of the statues of Bhudda and then decide to stop and eat at a local restaurant.

Local Food

A line of people are waiting outside a dark store to buy sweet hot buns made from pumpkin. The minute I see them I am reminded of the Mexican pastry which looks identical to these: Conchas. The checkered sugary top is the same! I could not believe it.

So in we go, and the old lady running the place sits us next to a very unassuming Japanese lady wearing a business suit.

The place is slightly touristy, but not as we know it. It is touristy for Japanese tourists! All cultural references are garish, kitschy, but 100% for the Japanese market only. Black walls with old movie posters, old ads, old toys. I love it!

Everything in Japan is small to us because, generally, Japanese people are not as large as Westerners. The chairs are small, the table is small, the chopsticks are smaller, the cups and dishes. All.

They bring us the usual point-and-choose picture menu which seems to encompass of all Japan's restaurants. So we pick and point. They bring us hot green tea. Although I quite like it (though sometimes it tastes like boiled dirt) my partner drinks it, but asks for beer. Like a good Japanese!

Our rice, pickled green beans and meat arrives (I would give the dish a name, but I don't know what its called).

When we are done eating, the unassuming lady who shares our table strikes up a conversation in her best English. She has been to Europe, but not Spain. She asks us if we have been to the temple. When we say no, she tells us the temple protocol. As I best remember it, we must:

1-Go to the font and wash the right hand with the left, then the left with the right using a small pot. Then wash our mouth and spit out the water (she covers her mouth and bows her head as though she were sneezing to represent "spit it out" politely).

2-Go to the temple.

3-Bow. Clap twice. Make wish. Bow.

4-Leave.

She does not tell us about the flinging of money to the red lacquered box with bars which probably keeps the place running. I, of course, pay, then pray. The Good Ol' fashioned way.

The legend is that a couple of fishermen on the Sumida river found a statue of Guan Yin 觀音 (she is Chinese in origin, the Japanese call her Kannon) the Goddess of Mercy. in their nets. They threw it overboard only to have it come back time and again. Said statue is in the shrine.

Here's two images. One Chinese. The other is the Goddess of the sea Iemanjá. Her origin's are African, though she was morphed into something else when African slaves were brought to the Americas and they were forced to become Christians. Today she is worshiped in Cuba and many parts of Latin America, including Brazil in the syncretic Santería / Candomblé religions.






















I think the correlation with the apparition of statues of the Virgin Mary floating at sea, is amazing.

Except that Christians are too trusting of apparitions and they tend to celebrate the find straight away and would probably never think about throwing her image overboard.

The Japanese? Hey Yohi, what the hell is that piece of shit? Oh, it looks like a statue. Statue my ass, throw that junk overboard and lets keep fishing before our wives nag us to death.

Europeans? Hey Francesco, what the hell is that piece of shit? It looks like a statue of our Lady. (both) Miracolo!!

And they start to pray as the fish swim away and the get back to port empty handed.

Yes, Christians....so willing to stop working at any paranormal event.


So, we wash, clap, bow, ask, bow, and leave by the side door. My partner wished to visit the local hot baths he read about. I'm less than keen on taking a bath in public.

Didn't like them in Budapest, won't like them in Tokyo.

As we leave the temple, we stumble upon a woman with a trained monkey, entertaining a few children. I've never liked monkeys much. Especially trained monkeys. Not since I was bitten by one of their species back in Mexico city as a child.

My partner is also not very monkey friendly. We see another shrine, a well, and take a left. Not far from the Temple there is a small, private amusement park. The lights immediately work their magic on me, but my partner steers me away from temptation and we start to look for a non-sign-posted anodyne bath house. A Sento. It is meant to be near the Kannon Temple.

Asakusa Hot Baths

I go on instinct and my partner on written down instructions. He reads as I look around. The book says the entrance to this place is easily recognizable because of the marble by the door.

He wants to go one way, and I another. Eventually I convince him (every so slightly begrudgingly) and we approach a very old, tattered, and unassuming building with no marble by the door. Guess what? That's right. That's the place.

The bath master, nonplussed, tells us to take our shoes off, asks if we have brought towels (towels?), and rents us the towels. We pay, and enter barefootedly after our shoes are placed inside a wooden locker - probably a survivor of WWII bombings. One locker for my partner's shoes, two for me, one for each shoe. Did I mention things in Japan are small?

The changing room is something out of a 1940s tattered boxing locker room. The walls have peeling layers paint and some rising damp, the still semi-veneered wooden boarded floor creaks with every step. The lockers in the changing room are slightly bigger than the ones by the front door. They are covered in a green, marble-like, formica. Was this what the book meant? When in Tokyo do as the Tokyoites.

Undress, enter the bathroom through the glass doors. Wash like the Japanese. A group of elderly men are naked, sitting on a plastic stool, washing and scrubbing away. They are not friends. Or if they are, they do not speak when washing. We don't have any soap, or shampoo, or anything. So we wash with water, just like the Barbarians that we are. Nobody looks or says anything.

In the bath house, there are two pools of water. Everywhere I look I'm thinking "fungi", but not because it is dirty, the whole place, even with peeling paint, is immaculate. Clean does not cover it. And it smells of hot water, not humidity. Though the hot air of the bath is heavy.

After "washing" with water, we enter the empty pool. We float for a while, and repeat. Then back in the pool. Then out again.

The only other young person there gets in our pool for a while, then gets out.

After a long day, this bath is like paradise. We are so relaxed that we find it very difficult to leave the water. Impossible even. However, my difficulty to breathe at one point makes me exit the room. I grab my small (hand) towel, and go to the locker room. There is a man there, taking his time to get dressed, finishing a cigarette.

Since I was covered in hot water, rather than dry myself off with the (hand) towel, I just sit on the bench, and let the hot water evaporate. Getting dressed seems like a chore.

My bench buddy puts out his cigarette and leaves.

I start to get dressed. A strange music is playing. My partner comes out and does much like me. We are moving in slow motion.

We get dressed and leave, getting out 300 Yen towel deposit on the way out. I love the fact that we came here. We leave the bath house and head towards the amusement park.

We discover Asakusa Radio. How? Well, funnily enough, we hear a Pasodoble being sung. In Japanese. And afterwards, we walk right by a cabin that says Asakusa Radio, which has a small portable stereo on the step, emanating Japanese Golden Oldies. Suddenly the whole neighborhood looks like Tokyo in 1935. The only sound is the music. A small bit of magic enters the air.

Most stores are closing for the day, and a faint light is coming from the ones not shut yet. We stumble upon a local television soap opera production, which has many of the neighbors very interested. It might have been a movie, I'm not sure.

We move away from them, and chance upon one of the commercial streets. We see Japanese wooden sandals of different shapes, and many shops selling Kimono fabrics. The colors are something else! But the place is closing down, and the energy is one of saturation with the public. We understand and move on.

We then find a street with a gigantic Pachinko hall. Pachinko is a Japanese game to which the whole country is addicted.

Read that in many places, they place a few rigged machines by the door to entice you to enter because it looks like you win more often than not.

I take a few pics and we walk down the restaurant strip we could not find hours before. Its dinner time and everyone is enjoying themselves. A couple of Japanese rickshaws pass us by, and a well-dressed (slightly tipsy) couple asks me if I want to take their photograph. The light is awful, but I do take a couple of snaps.

As we walk through the Asakusa commercial maze, we see a woman sitting outside a store, with a table and a candle on the table. My first thought is that she is a fortune teller. I try to take her picture, but as soon as she sees us, she scuttles inside. We walk past and I see a giant hand with dotted lines across it. I now think she is something to do with Acupuncture, or something like that. It certainly looked medicinal. My partner is convinced she is a fortune teller.

We eventually get onto the strip which leads unto the temple. Wall-to-wall stores selling all sorts of Japanese tourist gear. Candy, toys, kimonos, chocolate, snacks, pottery, crafts. Everything.

I'm too tired to take it all in, but my partner decides to purchase a small girl kimono for his niece.

I am starving and I need to pee. We make it back to the subway station and discuss the evening's plans. We decide to visit one of Tokyo's other gay districts, Ueno once inside the train.

We decide on this just as the train pulls into Ueno station. Handy? Yes. Also mad.

We rush out and step outside. There is one of Tokio's gigantic Highways in front of us. And a map of the area.

The night before one of the Bar Master's had written down the address of a bar he thought we'd like.

No, Japanese addresses make no sense to the uninitiated. Looking at the map, and at what we have written down, we decipher the address. I think it went something like: M neighborhood, X district, Y street, P building, number 5 door.

We decide to chance it, and, lo and behold, we find the place!

It is early, there is only one other guy there at first when we arrive. The bar master must have been about 28, and his English is about average. We like this new place. Every time my partner goes to the toilet (beer), the bar master gives him a hot towel. It doesn't take long before he develops a pee complex. Soon enough, a few more people arrive.

We are surprised by how relaxed they are with their personal belongings. We have all our stuff either touching our feet, or in full view. One of the businessmen who arrives hangs his laptop and forgets about it.

We are amazed by the sense of security which permeates Japan. Still, our things remain where they are.

One of the locals approaches us when he finds out we come from Spain. He tells us his name is José. We are surprised. He lived in Miami when he was a kid (though he has been back in Japan for about 30 years), and he tells us that he's had many latin partners. So we speak in Spanish with him. He tells us that he'll take us to another bar he thinks we will like. So after two hours of biscuit eating and innumerable hot towels, he takes us through the dark, though spacious, streets of Ueno, to a bar called Battle. Yes, they called ahead, and the bar master speaks some English.

We get there, and the place is small. I'm getting used to this. Bar in Japan are small. I get it.

It is brown in color, very masculine. The previous bar was very nautical in feel. White and blue, white and blue.

Bar master at Battle is called Takashi. He asks if we are hungry. We are. He makes us spaghetti. A la Japonaise. Delicious.

There is one more person there, who speaks some English too. I have to say they both are puzzled we are intent on visiting Japanese bars. We do tend to be the only Western people everywhere we go. After asking our age, (and me my weight, I mean hello?) and the usual niceties, the bar master's partner arrives. Much younger. But very nice. We look at the clock and decide to head home. Trains stop running around midnight and we have to get home before they do.

When we get to Shinjuku station, we stop to take some more pics. I buy a fruit juice from the fruit juice stand on the platform. It is the best fruit juice I've had in my life. After taking a few pics, we head home. Shinkuju is alive with a buzz as it is every night.

The makeshift street stand that sells Manga porn in front of the station's South entrance (the one facing Takashimaya Times Square) has left and in its place there is a traveling Noodle bar.

There is the usual street bands trying to catch our attention. One in particular does. It consists of 4 grown men, dressed in suits, singing, and somebody's mother, on keyboards. They have a CD which we omit to buy, but we do take a few pics.

When we arrive at the hotel we are beat. Shower, and to bed.

Planet Japan:Day 2

AOG, Tokyo

We woke up tired from the previous day's events. Tired, but wired, of course. This city is too energetic to let yourself down.

We decided to try and find a bargain of sorts and headed towards the electronic emporium that is Akihabara.

Shinjuku Station

Ok, you know those movies where Central Station shows and you see a sea of people moving to and fro? How romantic, right? Well, forget about that. No station on this planet sees the amount of people as Shinjuku does.

The place is huge, but not like in New York. It is mostly underground, has many levels (including a shopping mall which extends 7 stories up and a couple down), and it is very like a labyrinth.

The first you notice is that Japanese society is very quiet. At least it is quiet at a personal level. We very quickly noticed that the loudest sound thousands of people made in that low-ceilinged place was the one made by their footsteps. But it is not the only sound.

The other sound is the announcements on the tannoy. But even those sound almost whisper like. Feminine voices sprout forth orders and commands almost as though they were little girls. It is the polite way.

I have to say that working out the ticket machines was not as daunting as we first thought it would be. They all have an "English" button.

And the great thing about Tokyo's transit system is that if you underpay, all you have to do is go to the JR or Subway desk found at every station on the network and pay the difference.

No penalty, no punishment, no social shame (how unlike London, by the way). It is good advice to buy the cheapest (130 Yen) ticket, hop on board, and pay the difference at your final destination.

The other thing you notice is how orderly the citizens of Japan get on the trains. The floor is painted where the doors will open on the edge of the platform, so you know where to line up.

Another thing about Japan, they don't like to crowd each other, so personal space is much larger than what you'd think. When we stood at our first street crossing, we were amazed at the distance between people. In fact, their system actually works better than ours. Since they are spaced apart, when both sides of the street cross, there is very little bumping into people, and you cross much faster.

At times I get the feeling that the Japanese have thought of everything...but they haven't, of course. Here and there, little "disruptions" are to be found. But more on those later.

The trains are always clean, always efficient, and always on time. If there is a delay, they tell you, and they inform you of the next train to arrive in its place. Also, the frequency of the trains is amazing.

I have to say that Madrid is superior to London in this respect. Train frequency is very good. But when compared to Tokyo, Madrid is definitely snail-paced. Never mind London!

It is as if every station has a continuous line of trains which is spaced out by a few minutes of tranquility. It is definitely non-stop transport. The only downside is that it shuts for the day around midnight, or half past. Hence the upsurge in Capsule hotels.

We took the JR train (Japan Railways) from Shinjuku and marveled as Tokyo sped past us at full speed. This city, fortunately, still keeps its Edo period roots here and there.

Read the Wikipedia article on Tokyo here.

It appears that Tokyo is crisscrossed by many rivers and canals. Next to these, it is not unusual to see the odd cluster of traditional homes (one or two story houses), and, a few minutes later, a high tech spectacle of lights and modern architecture.

Modern in Tokyo, however, often means a building from the 1960s or 1970s with a huge neon sign on top of it.

And another building from, perhaps, the 1980s, next to that one. Then a traditional building. Then one with no advertising. Then one which could be private apartments. And then, once again, modern neons and glare.

When we got off the JR, we walked right into the electronic district.

We were hungry so we thought, after taking some pictures, to get some lunch.

We found an alley and decided to walk into it, in the hope of finding some sort of decent grub somewhere.

Most places looked unappetizing at first sight, so we continued walking until we found the closest thing to what we thought resembled a restaurant the kind of which we could both withstand and understand without too much hassle. Which we did, eventually.

We walked in only to be told it was closing by an angry old man from the counter. The waitress had told us to sit down just one second before, so we were a bit confused. Then, out of nowhere, a younger man came out and told us it was almost 2 O'Clock, and it was "last orders".

So they acquiesced to our presence, and fed us some delicious sushi. It was not to be the first time we ate this.

With our bellies full, we walked back to the 7 story monster which is the electronic city of Yodobashi Camera.

Each floor contains a particular product and even, we were surprised to find, a bookshop and a branch of Tower Records.

After a myriad of wires, lights, photographic equipment, computers, accessories, Jewel Cases, Cell Phones, Headphones of all shapes and sizes, and the biggest television set my eyes have ever seen outside of a Hollywood movie (around 70K Euros if you are curious), the music was a welcome sight for sore eyes.

We saw hundreds of things, many of which we had no clue what they might be useful for, and spent hours inside that cyber-cage. Eventually we left, once we realised that any hope of taking photographs today had vanished. The light was gone.

So we left, having bought a couple of small items (prices are as high as they are in Europe, no bargains here in Tokyo). Once outside, we were surprised to see a small section of the street cordoned-off and filled with people staring at their mobiles.

In Japan, you cannot smoke on the street (though you can, it seems, everywhere else), and they have designated smoking areas. But no one was smoking, they were all looking down. We read on the guide book that most people in Japan access the internet from their cell phones, and they are right.

Everywhere we went, time after time, all we saw was people with their head down, staring at their phones. Not actually speaking, mind you, but reading, or typing away. I suppose it has something to do with their love of silence, or their respect for others.

So we headed back to the hotel, changed, and went out to for a drink.

Ni-chome part 2: Japanese Bar culture

Since it was still rather early, we decided to head back to Gregorios. It was open. And empty. We were the only people at this Jazz/Karaoke bar. Our friend from Barcelona had been there just a few days before us, and the bar Master (that's Master-san to you) remembered them well. In Japan, bar Masters decide who gets in and who does not. Simple as that.

They served us our drinks and we started talking. A bit later, the Master's partner brought out some delicious ribs for us to munch on. So we whiled the evening away, talking to the staff and no one else.

I asked about the name of the place, after all, it had opened just three weeks earlier. It seems that the bar's investor loves music and really likes Gregorian chants.

"When he thinks of music he thinks of the music for God", the Master told us. I didn't ask which God.

I thought it was fascinating about the connection between God, music, medieval Gregorian monk music, and a gay bar. A gay, Japanese, karaoke & jazz, bar.

The we'd thought we'd check out some other bar. I wanted to go to Arty Farty, but it was not to be. We were surprised by the bar tally (2 beers and two soft drinks), but said nothing.

The bar Master accompanied us to the next bar: Logos. I asked, eventually, about the name choice. I remember the Logos bar Master said something about looking up what it meant in the dictionary, and how it made him think of Egypt. So there you have it.

Perhaps our previous bar Master came with us as much out of courtesy as anything else because, at this next place, we were the only Westerners present.

We had read that bars in Japan often don't let foreigners in. Discrimination issues aside, there is probably a good reason for this.

You see, Master-san's job is to make you feel welcome, feed you some tid-bits, and, if needed, pimp you (and the other customers) a little bit.

He is meant to inform others of your interest in them, and vice versa. If he does not speak English and you don't speak Japanese...you understand.

Once at Logos (a hop and a skip away from Gregorios and on the same building as Arty Farty -so close!) he introduced us to the bar Master there, and bought us a drink (we think).

We all spoke for a while while we marvelled at the minute dimensions of the place. No more than 15 people, it seemed. All drinking, all singing karaoke. And all smiling at us. I have to say, in my experience, gay Japan is nothing if not friendly to a fault. Not just polite, friendly.

Then Master-san split and left us in the bar to fend for ourselves. Much smaller than Gregorios, and louder, it
was to be the norm bar-wise, henceforth.

After making his excuses to tend to his other customers, he quickly came back for us to ensure we sat down at the bar when a couple of people left, and assigned us one of his English-speaking staff to entertain us and keep us company. It was his day off but nevertheless, he complied.

As luck would have it, it was one of the customer's birthday, and someone had brought birthday cake. We were each offered a piece of cake, even though we were complete strangers to the place and knew no one. Like I said, friendly to a fault.

After some karaoke singing (I have to say that most of the videos which accompanied the songs looked like they were filmed in 1989) we decided to check out another bar.

We informed the Bar Master who, upon learning of our plans, called ahead to see if they could accommodate. They couldn't (meaning, no one on duty who speaks English tonight) and he took us to another bar.


Adventures in postmodern culture...Tokyo style

So he took us to another bar. Bridge. It was where the local gay culture vultures meet. Especially cinematic culture vultures.

We walked in, and everyone looked at us thinking how out of place we looked. The bar Master welcomed us, looking a bit puzzled, and our previous host left us in good, if confused, hands.

I have to say that of all the bars we visited in Japan, this turned out to be my favorite. It was slightly more spacious that the others (only just) and it had a balcony where people smoked. Meaning, it had large glass windows which allowed you to see the building in front.

The decor was very Euro-filmical: movie posters everywhere, well-lit bar shelves with European liquors, intellectual-looking customers.

We sat next to the bar's Anglophilic enlightened one, and, thank God, we had someone to speak with. He laughed at absolutely everything we said. I'm sure his previous consumption of alcohol helped.

Eventually the bar Master asked about our provenance, and when we said Spain, the whole bar turned to us.

Why?

Because Japanese queens, like any self-respecting intellectual queen anywhere else, love Almodovar's films.

They were very quick to point this out and inquire about our knowledge of the director. Needless to say we awed them with out insider information.

They did not know about the short film which accompanies his latest movie, "Broken embraces": "La concejala antropófaga" (The Cannibalistic City Councilor).

They could not believe their eyes. Nor could they believe that my partner, actually, had a copy of it on his iPod.

Here it is for you viewing pleasure. In Spanish. No Pedro, no need to thank us. We too are fans of yours!

Surprised and grateful is not the word. They loved it! And us for showing them. Especially after we mentioned that the short and Almodovar's latest film are connected, and how if you view the short, you understand the movie just a little bit better. Insider information you see...

Once the iceberg had been broken, one of the other customers informed us about his love for Andalucía and Southern Spain. He loved Granada, it seems. And Flamenco.

We politely declined to comment, since we all know what a faux pas it is to criticize someone's diva (be it human, female, animal or mineral).

After our cultural escapades du nuit, we decided to leave, and make one last attempt to visit the next bar on our list: Matagi (Hunter).

Following our upside down map of gay Tokyo (turns out that many maps in Japan have North pointing wherever the hell they feel like making it point to, regardless of accuracy), we finally made it to the alley where it was meant to be.

Did we see it? Did we hell!

We asked a couple of guys who were there if they knew where Matagi was at. They looked at each other and pointed to the door we were standing next to. Yes, gay and blind! Oh how we laughed!!!

Seeing as how it was closed we decided to head for bed. It was nearly 3AM and the night had proven quite fruitful. Still loving Japan.

PLANET JAPAN- DAY 1

AOG, Tokyo

We arrived in Tokyo at around 11.25 AM (9 hours ahead of Madrid), tired, slightly jetlagged, and anxious to see the city.

But first things first. Get through customs. It was one thing to see Japanese people wearing face masks on the plane, but we were not prepared to see the airport staff wearing them too. And the customs officer. And tourists from other parts of Asia who were waiting in line with us.

As we waited, a few customs officers asked us the same question again and again: had we filled out the declaration form? We said yes to all of them every time.

We also noticed that if you belong to the local Asian version of the EU, you are a "priority passport". I wish we had that in the West.

Once through Customs, we went to pick up our luggage, which was tidily waiting for us next to the belt. We then had to go through another control. A very friendly uniformed man (I am not sure if he was Japanese customs, police, or what), asked where we were from. When we said Spain he very politely asked us to open our suitcases.

Funnily enough, he didn't look at what we had packed, but instead he looked for hidden pockets, or false compartments in our luggage, whilst practizing his Spanish, which I thought was odd, but cute. This feeling will accompany me throughout our stay in Japan: odd, but cute.

We left with our luggage intact, and faced the culture shock which is Japan's Narita Airport Arrivals Terminal. Although most businesses have signs in English, the most obvious signs are in Japanese. We had to get from the Airport to our hotel somehow, and the choices, though many, were, at first, and for a long while, hidden to the naked eye.

Amidst an ocean of cell-phone rentals, car rentals, soft drink dispensers, taxi agencies, mass transit signs, etc, we tried as best we could, to make sense of it all.

We chose to take the Airport Limousine, a service which leaves you at your hotel's doorstep. A bus. The next one heading to our hotel left two hours hence, so we took the next limo service to Shinjuku Station. Which left one minute from the time we paid for the tickets to leave the desk and get to the bus. Which we did.

First impressions

We made it to the bus, and walked in. Culture shock does not cover it. The vehicle, though new, looked weirdly 1960s. All the seats had white croched seatbacks. The kind of thing somebody's grandmother would knit for her grandchildren....and in Japan, for their bus.

The inside of the bus was not what I would call comfortable for a Western person. Small, cramped, and hardly any room to place a backpack.

Alas, this mattered little since half my butt was hanging off the seat so as no to further intimidate the poor Japanese lady sitting next to me who was, by any account, minute, dainty and extremely polite.

The first thing which amazed me about our journey into Tokyo was just how green Japan is. Although it was built up all the way into the city, nature is everywhere. And it is very lush, even for November.

My overall impression of the country is that, above all, they don't wish to inconvenience or trouble anybody.

The highway is a perfect example of this. Given the lack of space in this country, many people live near, or facing, the roads. So in Japan, whenever you approach a built-up area, they build walls to isolate the sound, and insulate the population behind it from the sound of traffic.

Sound is a recurring theme in Japan. I'll explain in further posts.

Tokyo

I never expected the entry into Japan's capital to be so impressive. All I could say was...New York, eat your heart out.

The amount of skyscrapers was amazing. Their design, impressive. But then, so was the road we were on. In some places, it appeared that we were five or ten stories up in the air as we twisted and turned into the city's grid.

We could see into people's homes, but we really had no time to do much of that, since, curve after curve, the view only got more amazing than before.

So amazing, in fact, that it took us a while to realize that we were so high up, navigating in between tower blocks, gardens and, believe it or not, feudal Japanese moats (Imperial Palace grounds- no I could not believe they built a Highway next to it either, but there it was).

When we got off the bus at Shinjuku Station we were overawed. But our journey had just begun.

Hotel

We walked to our hotel, only a couple of blocks away, and checked in as we wondered about the pungent smell on the streets. Cabbage and poo. Yes. Those two. It is a recurring smell, so it must be something to do with their plumbing system. However, that is not to say that all of Tokyo smells like that. It does not. But once in a while, on a downwind...

We asked for a room as high up as possible, and we got one on the 14th floor, facing the skyscraper in front of us. No, we did not have a great view straight ahead, but we did have a good view to the side...once we asked the cleaning lady to show us how to open the window.

Our room was rather small. It would have been smaller had my partner not had the sense to investigate online and realize that hotel rooms in Japan are small and book the larger option. Larger means the bed fits a bit better and is not pressed next to the wall.

However, it did not mean the room came with a closet to store our clothes or a chest of drawers, so for the duration of our stay, we had to live out of suitcases and we had to ensure the room was tidy before the cleaning staff arrived. There was, however, a bar and a couple of hangers behind the door and next to the full length mirror which faced the bathroom.

Although this is not the smallest room I've stayed at (that inglorious title goes to the Hotel I stayed in the last time I was in Amsterdam for Madonna's concert in 2006), it was very small indeed.

Somehow we survived, is all I can say.

Harajuku: Cosplay Girls

Once settled in, we were starving, and before heading off for Yoyogi Park to catch the Cosplay girls (and it had to be done on the day since they only gather on Sundays,- or so we were told), we had to eat something. Too in shock to actually try anything Japanese yet, we walked into our corner McDonalds and had a quick lunch. We soon found out that in November, it gets dark around 5PM in Tokyo.

We walked to Shinjuku Station (which is massive) and went to buy a ticket for the train/subway/whatever which would take us to Harajuku Station (which is smaller and, oddly enough, designed to look like an English mock Tudor cricket hut, the kind found in any park in the UK).

Ah, but what are these Cosplay girls you may ask? According to our guidebook, they are people (mostly girls) who don't fit in at school. Social outcasts. Nerds even. They like to dress up like their favorite Manga heros and heroines, and then go to Harajuku and pose for the tourists. Taking their picture was one of the easiest photographs I took in Japan.


"Cosplay" (コスプレ, pronounced "kosupure"), is short for "costume roleplay". See Wikipedia article here.

However, it isn't only young school girls who like to dress up....


How do you say "attention seeking" in Japanese?

Anyyyway....

We walked towards the park and came across buskers, people passing by, families on a day our, and a group of Rockabilies with their children in tow who loved it when we asked to take their picture.

Afterwards, we decided to explore the area a bit further.

We had a coffee in a European-looking coffee shop along Omote-Sando street and found the avenue in question to be very pleasant.

We came across the Zara store, and Muji, before heading back. The former, more expensive than in Spain, the latter, cheaper than in Europe. Tired to the point of extinction, we thought we'd head back for dins-dins and a drink in the town.

What else can one do after a day of jet-setting and international glamour?

Exactly.

Nightlife: Ni-Chōme, day 1

Tokyo's gay neighborhood is in Shinjuku. It is known as Shinjuku Ni-chōme (新宿二丁目), which stands for something like "District/Ward Two" ("Ni" means Two in Japanese).

There are about 300 gay bars in this area, making it the largest concentration of gay bars of any neighborhood in the world. But you wouldn't know it from looking at it. That is because in Japan, not everything is what it seems.

We had dinner in a nice Noodle Bar, accompanied by a Japanese-Canadian guy (though he might have been American) and his Canadian lesbian friend. It wasn't so much that they ate with us, it was more like their conversation invaded our table as it bounced off the noodle bar's vapor-filled walls and percolated through our hot green teas.

She kept droning on and on about her partner, how she was unhappy because she was not "the one", not even after 5 years together, and how she did not know (or wanted to either) how to tell her that they should separate. I couldn't but feel sorry for the absent partner. What an awful partner she had! Imagine being bad-mouthed all over Tokyo! Sorry, but no.

And he mostly provided moral support and never ever questioned her about anything, though he did have time to speak ill of Japanese men now and again.

After dinner, we had enough energy to try one bar out, so we went to Advocate's Café.

The local drunken drag queen "disasterpiece" which we had seen once we arrived in Ni-Chōme had made her merry, chicken-yellow-split-ends-hair-off-the-shoulder-camisole-number-can't-walk-in-heels, way over to the bar.

We ordered a couple of drinks and sat in the only table which faced the street.

It was raining, and a few guys passed by. Some smiled. Most did not care about us.

The umbrella to have this season is definitely the transparent plastic, white handle one everyone seemed to be sporting.

We finished our drinks -not before being pestered by, and ignoring, the aforementioned local sad queen-, and headed back to the hotel -but not before trying to find one of the bars on our list.

In Japan, bars (and most everything else), are not necessarily at street level. Once you work out how the address system works (we did, but only on the 4th day), you realize that you must forever be entering buildings and taking the elevator up to whichever floor the place is situated in.

We did find our bar, Gregorios, but it was shut for the night.

It was cold and we had a full day ahead, so we treated ourselves to a cab ride home.

780 yen later, we were at out doorstep. Fatigued, thrilled, shocked, overwhelmed.

Oh yes, we liked Tokyo. We loved it!

On the way to Japan: First Rome, then Tokyo

AOG, Tokyo

My partner found this really good deal to Tokyo with Alitalia a few days ago and, almost on a whim, bought (after some consultation with yours truly and his own brother and some friends) two plane tickets to Japan.

Alitalia is an Italian airline which neither one of us had flown before, and, as a company, it gets really bad publicity in the European press.

A friend of ours told us about the experience a friend of his had with it last August.

Apparently they lost his luggage on the trip to Rome from Caracas, and, for the duration of his stay, he was without any of his things. He did get them back in the end. Once he returned to Venezuela!

It seems they are also on strike these days.

With this in mind, we left my partner's apartment early in the morning for our 11:45 flight to Rome. It is quite funny that a few months ago we discussed where to go in the Summer and we mentioned Rome a few times, before settling on Brasil (see previous posts).

So in the end, we went to both places...almost.

Rome's airport is on the coast, and nowhere near 'la città eterna'.

Funny how some things turn out...right?

The flight itself was not too bad. Although the interior color scheme is identical to that of a plasticky Christmas tree (same odd green hue), the seats were large enough for both of us, and comfortable enough.

The staff were a combination of politeness, aloofness, attitude, and airline industry courtesy. I don't think they can really be faulted for much. We got a small free snack on the way over. And some red orange juice which we both found very strange.

Be that as it may, however, that is more than what I can say for Iberia!

Once in Rome's airport, it was a slightly mad rush to the gate. We kept thinking how British the thing looked. Spartan meets budget cuts and aims for design. If nothing else, it is functional.

And just as expensive to shop in as Britain's (and Spain's) airports.

When we arrived at the gate, it was swarming with (mostly) Japanese tourists. How odd, I thought, that they should fly Alitalia to Europe -we had seen some of them in our flight from Barcelona. A few minutes later, I saw that many of the women were carrying Gucci bags, Prada backpacks, Missoni sweaters....and then it all became clear!

Once on the plane, we discovered the anomaly that our flight from Barcelona had been. The seats were not very comfortable, nor were they spacious. Furthermore, the flight was packed. And I mean packed!

I think there was only one spare seat next to one of the window exits. Next to me there sat a middle aged Japanese couple. Next to my partner, there was a couple around my age. We were both lucky enough that the wife (small Japanese lady in both cases) sat next to each of us. In Spain this normally does not happen.

The husband always sits next to me to ensure I don't disturb or take away his wife (if only they knew!). It appears that in Japan they have other things to think about....or maybe they want me to take and disturb their wife! Who knows.

The first odd thing we noticed about the Japanese (and this has turned out to be first of hundreds...and counting) was the large amount of passengers wearing masks over their faces. Throughout the whole 12 our flight, they never took off the mask. We found it a bit odd. Especially when, at the back of the plane, a small self-service minibar was set up by the crew.

They would come over, pour themselves a drink, and lower their mask for a few seconds to take a sip. Then they returned to their sit and all, I think, slept with their mask on.

After being served dinner at around 5PM our time, we were not to be served anything else until about 1 hour and 45 minutes before landing at Narita Airport, one hour outside Tokyo. To say that I almost starved to death is cutting it short. Oh my God were we ever hungry! There were not enough saltines and crackers to keep us going on that plane!

I slept most of the journey but once I got up from my slumber, I stayed up until we landed. And, unfortunately, everyone's personal TV screen and entertainment center -located on the seatback in front of you- worked, but mine.

I told the crew about it, but they are not engineers. What can they do, other than reset it as many times as you ask them to? Nothing. And no, there was no chance of an upgrade unfortunately.

Finally, after a 14 hour journey from Barcelona (and 3 hours sleep before leaving), we landed in Tokyo.

And Oh! Mah! Gad! the things we were about to see!