In a Class of its Own: Changi Airport

Singapore's Changi Airport ought to be considered a tourist attraction in its own right for its sheer opulence and the range of things that you can do there. The place consistently wins awards for excellence and is described as one of the best airports in the world, as well as a busy Asian hub (the 5th busiest in Asia, and the 19th busiest in the world, in 2007).

While London Heathrow was going into meltdown during its recent expansion, Singapore Airport's new Terminal 3 opened without a hitch earlier this year -- a little delayed due to the War on Terror and the subsequent stalling in traffic growth. Even before it opened, T3 was being praised as an architectural wonder. As Singapore Sights wrote: "Terminal 3 features a unique roof architecture which allows soft natural light into the building while keeping tropical heat out. The one-of-a-kind design has 919 skylights with specially designed reflector panels which automatically adjust themselves to allow an optimal amount of soft and uniform daylight into the terminal building. The overall effect is a soothing ambience at all times of the day.

"Another key highlight of Terminal 3 is a five-storey high vertical garden, called the Green Wall. Spanning 300 meters across the main building, it can be admired both from the departure and arrival halls. The Green Wall is covered with 25 species of climbing plants and is interspersed with four cascading waterfalls. In addition, a sculptured sandstone art wall display with multi-language welcome messages located below the Green Wall offers an artistic treat for arriving passengers waiting for their baggage..."

Changi has been courting both premium and budget travellers with the opening of a commercially important persons terminal by JetQuay and a S$45 million Budget Terminal in 2006. To further diversify the picture, the new full-service nine-story Crowne Plaza Hotel is under construction, immediately adjacent to Terminal 3.

According to Changi Airport's own official website, which rates me as one of their friends, the facility boasts the following amenities:

1 -- Miles of duty-free shopping, the usual kind of stuff you would expect to find in an airport -- but also shopping of a seriously more upmarket calibre. Inside Retailing Magazine reported in January 2008: "Apple, FIFA, Vertu, Sony Style and Ferrari are brands usually associated with up-market shopping malls. Now they're coming to an airport near you - well, near to those travelling internationally anyway... "Singapore Changi Airport's long-awaited third terminal, T3, will open on January 9 with more than 100 retailers and 40 food operators vying for the cash of not just travellers but locals as well.  "While 55 of the new retail tenancies and 20 food operators will be air-side - which means only travellers can access them - another 45 shops and 20 food vendors will be accessible to Singaporeans who aren't flying anywhere.  "'For Singaporeans, a trip to the airport is something the whole family likes to do, so we want to give them more reason to come out here,' an airport spokesperson told Inside Retailing Magazine on a tour of the new terminal, currently under systems testing..." 2 -- Rooftop swimming pool with accompanying bar (of course!). 3 -- Gardens and koi ponds featuring cactus, bamboo, ferns, sunflower, and heliconia -- truly beautiful believe me! 4 -- Sleeping chairs fitted with vibrator alerts to wake you up when your plane leaves (I'm planning to camp out there the next time I find myself stranded with no money, as happened in 2003!) I'll just plug in my ear-plugs and doze off! 6 -- A sports bar with a complicated payment system, which seems to involve the manager having to validate every purchase, and the signing of paperwork. This frequently results in the staff forgetting to give change to customers, who then get angry and storm off to find another bar (of which there are many, thankfully!) 7 -- A free movie cinema (that's right, a free cinema in an airport!) with a big screen and cinema-style seats and 24-hour rotation. The only thing missing is the popcorn. And the only catch is all the movies they play seem to be cheesy B-grade American movies, the sort that might appeal to teenagers (and Singaporeans, no doubt!) 8 -- Countless restaurants offering an international range -- sushi or Indian curries, you name it. Says Laura, who had the chance to overnight at Changi: "There is a fantastic indian restraunt on the second floor in terminal 1, has the best Dosai (Indian pancake with a yummy potato filling) and its pretty cheap too." Actually, I believe I gorged myself on those dosais back in 2003, when I was en route to Iceland. There was a variety stuffed with cheese which was so rich, I couldn't even finish them! On my coming trip, I will search them out. 9 -- Traditional culture shows using live actors. On my last visit there was a Chinese magician-cum-martial artist juggling plates and catching knives. At one point his assistant tried to lance his throat with a sharp spear. By some Shaolin magic of mind-over-matter, the martial artist was able to prevent the spear from piercing his neck. The assistant strained with all his might, and the spear bent over at a ridiculous angle -- but the only wound the martial artist suffered was a little blood. This little blood was enough to freak out some Nordic children in the crowd, who had to run back to the shields of their mothers. Whatever happened to the Viking spirit? 10 -- A downstairs foodcourt set up in the typical "hawker's market" style, featuring such delicious dishes as chicken laksa (you need tissues because it sure is spicy!). 11 -- A science museum and "Timezone Australia" arcade lounge. 12 -- Designated napping areas and specially designed snooze chairs free of charge. Or, for $AUS23 for three hours, you can sleep in your own chamber at the shower, fitness and lifestyle centre. A room with television and a private bathroom in the Ambassador Transit Hotel - which is within the airport - costs $44, while a budget room with shared bathroom is $30. 13 -- If pampering is on your itinerary, the Aromazone massage centre has aromatherapy, reflexology and massage treatments. A one-hour aromatherapeutic massage treatment costs $AUS58. A traditional foot reflexology session, helpful in relaxing nerves and tracing qi imbalances, is $30 per half-hour, as is a head-and-shoulder massage. 14 -- Changi's fitness centre or the gym in the Ambassador Transit Hotel have sessions for between $AUS8 and $12 (including hire of sports attire and footwear). At the rooftop swimming pool and jacuzzi complex, a swim and shower costs $AUS10. You must bring your own swimwear but soap, shampoo, shower gel, moisturising lotion and towels are provided. If you're feeling a bit out of puff after your workout, head to the oxygen bar, where 10 minutes of pure oxygen costs $12.

Anyway, you get the picture: it is one kick-ass airport, consistently voted the best in the world. You could spend the day in there, and still find things to do. There are options all round, and plenty of beverages to be consumed.

The Tower of Babble

I surfaced early this stormtossed Sunday, eagerly welcoming my reconnection to the wired world. The man from Mediatti (Edogawa Cable Television -- phone 0120-281641) did indeed arrive at 11am, as the sky thundered; my contract was finally signed, 2.5 months after the first attempt. However, contrary to my expectations, the guy who handles the hardware side of the equation couldn't make it on account of the typhoon. He/she won't be able to come until Tuesday, in fact. Which means two more days of trying to avoid myself, in a world of reduced interactivity.

My computer has been in detox for like 10 or 11 weeks; I have been suffering withdrawal symptoms for just as long. There must be viruses and cookies on my computer flapping around like condemned fish on a deck, frantically trying to reconnect, and complete their programmed agenda. It makes me wonder: are there also viruses and cookies loose in my mind? Now they are in detox, they must be feeling the pinch. Are they toiling to hook up again with the Web, but are mysteriously being denied access? Access has been denied a long time now, but there are only two more days of this cold turkey left to bear.

Maybe it was a good thing the Internet was not reconnected today, because it encouraged me to go out and investigate the typhoon, which was hurling towards Tokyo. After a night of unremitting rain, I was surprised when at about noon the heavens cleared, allowing the sun to shine bright and hot. The eye of the storm wasn't supposed to pass until 6pm. I thought to myself: this seems to be a strange meteorological phenomenon, and if I go outside, I will be able to experience it. Just like my mate down in Chiba, surfing the waves... just like that mad Australian I would be meeting the typhoon halfway, and riding it. So, I hit the street, and the first thing I did, was skirt 'round the perimeter of my apartment block, and creep 'cross the carpark that it abuts. I wanted to see what my apartment looked like from the rear, but my incursion freaked out one of my neighbors, an elderly woman who lives perpendicular to my back shutters. She opened the backdoor of her house and wandered out warily, mumbling to herself. Perhaps she suspected that I was a burglar, they always accuse foreigners of something or another in this country. When I unsheathed my camera to snap a photo of my room, she gasped, her worst fears confirming. I bowed awkwardly, and apologized, "Sumimasen, ojamashimashita!" as politely as I could, wishing I spoke better Japanese. I don't think she understood me. 

Bruised by my latest collision with Japanese xenophobia (why do I always end up living next door to busybodies? and by the way, I am not the only gaijin who has trouble with odd neighbors!), I swiveled around and left.

My apartment, from the rear carpark (Japan, 2007)

I returned to the road, and discerned in the distance a tremendous chimney, at least 20 to 30 floors high, flashing through the mist. As in many parts of deterritorialized suburban Tokyo, my local monument is a waste incineration plant. Inspired by Paul Virilio's concepts of speed (and its effect on the city), I decided to walk towards it. It's good sense, after all, to be able to orient yourself by the skyline, in case you ever got lost. And as it turned out, I had gotten lost once around this tower, more than 4 years ago in another era of my Tokyo life, while I was distributing chirashi for Kobayashi-sensei. Back in those days I would never have honed in on something as utilitarian as a chimney -- but I have learnt to appreciate extreme engineering recently, it is what Japan is all about. I reasoned it would be a good way to experience not only the typhoon, but the devastation of Paul Virilio's speed -- the Japanese landscape which had been swallowed up, and cemented over, by progress. As I was to discover, this was also the perfect place to perceive the potentials of negating speed, by learning to slow down and smell the roses.

My local landmark, a garbage incineration chimney (Japan, 2007)

It soon struck me how much greener it is here in Edogawa Ward, compared to my former locality of Taito Ward (台東区). A tiny temple lofted into view, radiating such an atmosphere of calm that I knew it was a little pocket of old harmony, in other words a piece of original Japan which had survived the explosion of speed. As I ventured on, it became more apparent that there were flotsam and jetsam of old harmony all over the place. Weeds springing verdantly from a cracked sidewalk, their flowers reflected in sputtering puddles... to me they were not vagrants but spontaneous Japanese gardens, in miniature and scattered to the margins. The real gardens of the people living on the Kyu-Edo River, every inch of their front yards hogged by azalea hedges, without a single blade of grass in sight. Totally different from the suburbs of Australia! And the weather was also different from your weather back wherever you drop from, unless you hail from the hurricane belt -- yes, the weather was pretty interesting today. The sun fought a mostly losing battle with the clouds, but every now and then it would emerge again, and transform everything into a wonderful summer's day -- for a couple of minutes at least. Then the wind and the steam and the humidity would return.

Asked if there was any merit in information society, Paul Virilio replied: "Yes, because it finally poses the question of a common language. It cannot be otherwise if there is to be world citizenship. It is Babel, moreover. What we are witnessing is not the Tower of Babel but the return of Babel. Can the world have a single language? Is this unicity of communication good or evil? Another positive point: Information will make us earthlings..."

Contemplating My New Apartment

I attended a Soka Gakkai gathering this morning, and once it was finished Kobayashi-sensei (小林先生) invited me to inspect one of the apartments inside his newly constructed mansion, out in the backblocks of Shinozaki. Umesh joined me for the ride, and like myself he seemed pleased by the place, although he muddied the mood somewhat by categorizing it as a "room". It might well be just the size of a typical room in Nepal, but in my opinion there is a whole house condensed into that apartment, and a whole world of seductive pleasures. It is a monument to Japanese miniaturization, cunningly contrived, every square centimetre exploited for all it can yield, and then some. They need to do that in Japan, of course, because there is not much space. They need to be creative. Umesh doesn't get that, evidently.

Anyway, upon returning to Liberty House I sent this repot to my Mum and Dad, a glowing report you might say, complete with choice photos:

I went to have a look at my new apartment today and I was amazed by what I saw. It is one of the best apartments I have seen in Japan, brand new and already set up with high tech fixtures like airconditioning and climate control, a computerised bathroom, walk-in wardrobe, and so on. It doesn't seem like anyone has lived here before -- it all looks so new and clean. And it is only costing me $150 a week -- I don't think you could rent a brand new 3-room apartment in Sydney for $150 a week. But since my boss is the owner of the apartment block, I think he is giving me a substantial discount.

High-tech features, and a little cupboardy thing in the genkan (Japan, 2007)

There is no furniture but I don't need a bed, since I usually sleep on the floor these days Japanese style (but it might be hard on a wooden floor.)

Micro-kitchen, tucked into a corner (Japan, 2007)

I already have a TV and computer and from what my boss was saying, it sounds like Internet and cable TV is free at his apartment.

Pristine kitchen sink, and a green tiled wall (Japan, 2007)

 I was planning to buy a fridge but I think my boss said he could lend me one of his.

I have been dreaming of an airconditioner since I first moved to Japan, and I might soon have one! (Japan, 2007)

The only thing I need is a washing machine but right next to the apartment block, there are a whole bunch of washing machines on the street -- you can take your clothes there, put in some money, and wash your clothes right there on the street. I am also sure I saw some fridges sitting on the street when I was walking back to the train station, and some other furniture which people had thrown away.

Nifty little walk-in wardrobe (Japan, 2007)

All in all the new apartment is about 100 times better than the place I live now, and a big step forward. Even though I would rather be in Vietnam -- I feel like going back down later in the year to check things out. But at least I have a secure home in Japan to come back to.

Techscapes and Macrobiotic Highs: An Afternoon in Aoyama

Tokyo is the ultimate urban jungle and life here presents you with endless vistas of cunningly contrived concoctions of glass, concrete and steel, everywhere you look, and seemingly everywhere you go. Whether downtown or in the 'burbs, at home or on the streets, futuristic scenes surround you, seduce you, and astound you to the extent you start to feel like you're the star of your very own Blade Runner fantasy, playing in a cinema in another dimension. Futurism is the name of the game here, the dominant architectural theme, and it has been entrenched for so long it has written itself into the fossil record of the city, as well as the DNA of its inhabitants. It's a shrine to speed, a temple to technology; frenetic as a Drum&Bass track, and just as relentless. Sometimes it is just all too noisy, and all too totalitarian, and you long for a bit of old fashioned peace, a bit of the original 和 ("harmony", the former name for Japan). Interestingly enough, not all of the futurism in Tokyo is new, and some of it looks decidedly dated... that might seem paradoxical until you realize that futurism is a movement not an era, and tomorrow is a day that never dawns. Follow the tracks of the Yamanote Line between Kanda and Akihabara, for example, and you will find older incarnations of the genre, pylons, noodle shops dug under the train lines, slabs of concrete corroded by rust, untidy bundles of wires strung up wherever they will hang, and archaic air-conditioning vents spinning in the morning humidity... pretty it ain't but back in its time this was probably the most high-tech place on Earth, and the very vision of a glorious future. Who were the dreamers who imagined this city into being? I ask myself sometimes, when I am wandering around, what inspired their stupendous leap of imagination? If futurism is just a style, in other words, who invented it, and why? I believe that the official Futurism, the one that gets a capital F, was an Italian artistic movement, an anarchist movement of sorts with Fascist complications, which flared into life in the early 20th Century. Leading proponents of the movement, notably Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla, and Umberto Boccioni, glorified fast cars and rogue locomotives and good factory mud, scorned women, proclaimed that war was "the world's only hygiene", and proposed a Khmer Rouge style solution to the "problem" of tradition. According to the Futurist manifesto and the manifestos which followed, museums and libraries should be burnt to the ground or drowned, and the city torn down and built again, from scratch, by every new generation. "Time and Space died yesterday," Marinetti wrote in the first manifesto, published in 1909. "We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed." I don't know if there was any direct link between the European Futurists and Japan, although the Axis would later lead them into an ideological marriage, for a short time at least. Perhaps it doesn't matter whether there was a connection or not, this might rather be an example of synchronicity, of the Jungian kind. The way I figure it, in modern societies we all have a vision of how the future should look, each according to our own hopes and fears: it could be hyper-consumerist, neo-communalist, conformist, the brainwashed masses of 1984, or the individualist paradise symbolized by the jetpack and the Martian colonies in the works of Robert A. Heinlein. Others might imagine a world which is pacifist, Deep Ecologist, or perhaps populated by Mad Max warriors roaming the deserts fighting Google and its cyborg spawn. Disparate visions these are indeed, but where they intersect collective dreams emerge, lowest common denominator blueprints: in our case rockets and the atomic bomb, freeways and the motorcar, more recently celebrity culture, TV, and the Internet. Everything shiny and sci-fi, mind you, everyone air-brushed and glittery (and on that matter, note that you never see rust on The Enterprise. Nor do they have any astrologers or Feng Shui geomancers on the bridge! Why is that? What kind of technocentrism is being pushed?) In Asia, things turned out shiny and sci-fi, too, but much of the detail is different. Why so? I speculate that there was in fact a homegrown futurism in Japan, a Zen/Shinto futurism, which culminated not just in the Mitsubishi Zero, but also Doraemon, Gundam, anime, and all these self-flushing toilets you find here today. Futurism may have dreamed of demolishing the ancient cities of Europe but it never succeeded there, the sway of the past was too strong. Tokyo, on the other hand, has always been a city in constant flux -- a chaotic frenzy of construction and destruction -- and Marinetti's Year Zero fantasies finally found their realization beneath a Pacific sky. Accordingly, I consider Tokyo to be one of the world's foremost "techscapes" -- an environment in which the landscape has been totally subsumed by the laws and logic of the megalopolis, and the technology which enables it. It is also a city so detailed, but yet so vast, you could spend years here and keep making amazing discoveries. I discovered something amazing today, actually, with my old girlfriend Akiko: the new Prada showroom in Aoyama. The latter half of this post concerns that discovery. A little earlier in the day, Akiko and I dined at one of Tokyo's quality vegetarian restaurants, Hanada Rosso, which the first half of this post will describe. All in all it was a very cool afternoon indeed, and the coolest aspect of the whole thing is, I believe that Paper Burning made it happen. It is a bold claim, but I stand by it!

High-tech beehive: Prada Showroom in Aoyama (Japan, 2004)

Branded as Tokyo's version of Milan's Via Montenapoleone and one of the top three shopping and entertainment hubs in the city, Aoyama (青山) and the neighboring Omotesandou (表参道) precinct is jammed with quirky boutiques, cute cafes, beauty salons, and even a United Nations University campus. There are plenty of restaurants as well, ranging from sushi joints to expensive French and Turkish eateries. Today with Akiko, a vehement vegetarian, I ventured to a classy macrobiotic restaurant called Hanada Rosso. Hanada Rosso has a policy which states, uncompromisingly: "Non-meat, non-milk, non-egg, non-chemical". When the menu appeared, Akiko and I both ordered the same dish: the Tempe-Burger, a tofu contrivance costing ¥1050. Possibly I followed her lead in ordering here, I am not sure why. But it was a good choice: not only was it delicious, but it left me with a peculiar feeling of satisfaction after eating it -- a kind of purity you might say, a sense of clarity, a macrobiotic high! I felt satisfied but not full at all. Perhaps it was because this food was spiritual food, free of harmful chemicals, lovingly prepared, with no bad dead animal karma to go along with it. Or perhaps it was because of the Korean Shizandra berry smart drug I had ingested just before the date, or even just because I was so glad to see Akiko again, after all our time apart!

Vegetarians visiting Japan often complain about their problems finding suitable food in the country. John Howley maintains a list of Japanese vegetarian restaurants on his website, mentioning only 20 establishments for the Greater Tokyo area -- a conurbation of 20 million people. So, that it is roughly one vegetarian restaurant for every million people (of course, there must be many which have flown under Howley's radar, but still, you get the drift!) Japan is not a vegetarian Utopia by any means, and this fact might seem surprising given its Buddhist past and all, the veneration shown to non-animate entities such as rivers and stones. People don't go heavy on the beef like they do in Australia or the States, but there is usually a certain amount of meat mixed into every meal in Japan -- even tofu gets doused in shaved fish! For vegetarians like my Akiko, trying to educate the masses, all this meat can make life a misery. However, there are vegetarian restaurants around, and if you are in Tokyo, I would recommend a visit to the Hanada Rosso. As well as a delicious range of main courses, the menu features organic beer and wine, soy shakes and organic coffee. The restaurant is located on the second floor of the Sleeve Building, 6-11-1 South Aoyama. The telephone number is (03) 3406 1264.

Having enjoyed a memorable hour or two at Hanada Rosso, playing some personality quiz games I have lately employed for nampa, it was time to hit the streets, and look at the surrounding attractions. We walked into the nearby Idee interior design shop to admire its ample Scandinavian and European displays. It was there, looking out the window, I caught sight of a particularly weird building in the distance, a building audacious even by Tokyo standards -- a crystalline pentagonal green pyramid which Akiko identified as the new Prada showroom. Although neither of us are brand label junkies (nothing could be further from the truth), we decided to make a beeline to the hive-like Prada showroom, to see what the fuss is all about.

Designed by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the building rises from the street like a kaleidoscope, covered with bulbous, diamond-shaped windows. Once inside, those bulbous windows start to distort your senses, making the showroom seem both very big and very small, both at the same time! In fact, "kaleidoscopic" is the best way to describe this building, which is more a piece of art than just a mere showroom. Things always seem to shapeshift when you are inside it. While the outside is green crystal, the interior is a kind of stark white/pearl color which is both soft (in the carpet sense) and futuristic, reminiscent of a UFO. TV sets dangle on stalks from the ceiling, like anemone hunting for prey. Stairs lead to deep-set lounge recesses, where windows afford views of local landmarks, such as Roppongi Hills. It is all very cool, and I couldn't resist snapping off some photos on my keitai phone, even though I was reprimanded for it. 

We ended the afternoon at a cafe where Akiko showed me her iPod, a device I had never seen up close before. Scrolling through her Beatles collection over a Cafe Mocha, I had to confess her contraption made my own Sony MP3 player look a little bit silly, a little redundant. Such a shiny toy her iPod was, high-tech, but also organic... in many ways it was just like the organic high-tech Prada Showroom we had just explored, or a polished stone in a shrine that had miraculously come to life, and revealed its spirit to the world! Like the Tempe-Burger I had consumed earlier in the day, just like that Shizandra smart drug, this gadget seemed designed to lift your consciousness into a higher state of being. It wasn't Japanese, but it was still Shinto, and it was still Zen. It was not only Zen, but it was also a vision, and a visitor from the future. A future which, even now, is slowly dragging itself into manifestation, into being. The iPods are merely the vanguards of what is to come. Much as I hate to admit it, the vegetarians are probably much the same. Thus we have been warned. Watch this space for more!

New Years Day in Japan (A New Sea Change)

It's amazing how sometimes you can "meet your match", that special someone who instantly -- and irrevocably -- changes your life. I mean "meet your match" in a number of different ways, in a whole constellation of different ways. For example, there is "meeting your match" on the "soulmate" level: finding your true love, that person who melds with you, completes you, your Twin Flame in other words. That's the contemporary idea of a "good match", and I do subscribe to the theory, to a limited extent at least. But there are many other different possible meanings to the phrase "meet your match", and I am not talking only of finding things that burn! Like a prize fighter finally meeting his match in the ring, that one guy who can knock him out -- that is meeting your match. The prize fighter who meets his match, and loses his title -- that is what I am talking about today. It is a humbling experience when you meet your match. You might be motivated to drop on to the floor, and bow in reverence to this person who has bested you.

Let me put it this way: I was starting to think like I could be a playboy, with girls all over the place, a woman in every port, or a partner for every day of the week. That's the standard playboy dream, and I thought I was on my way to attaining it, after a slow start in life. There was one particular girl (Masumi) who I used to work with about 8 months ago or so, and with whom I used to exchange emails, even when I was with Akiko and Miyuki... it might have been just casual flirtation, but it gave me a thrill to think I could have two girls at the same time, three if I tried hard enough. There are plenty of gaijin dudes in Japan living that kind of fantasy, that Hugh Hefner fantasy, and I thought I was about to join the ranks. Then I lost Akiko, and I lost Miyuki, and suddenly I was back to square one: miserable and alone. Even when I flew out to Tottori the other week for my TV job my blues had accompanied me on the plane, blotting out the spotlight I should have been basking myself in, dragging me down at every turn. Just like Churchill's black dog, sprinting at me from across the dunes. I would scan my keitai forlornly, between shoots, looking for some text message from Akiko. Nothing from her there, not even anything from Miyuki... they weren't playing the game no longer. Holiday season arrived, and I thought I was going to be in for a dismal time. Then, out of the blue, I received a perky Happy New Year! message from Masumi, and my spirits soared. Somebody still cared! But this time around, I knew a bit of casual flirtation wasn't going to suffice. I needed something solid, something substantial! So I went out on a limb, and asked her out! Well, kind of asked her out... I offered to go out to her bayside hometown and visit her. And suddenly I realized that far from being the "casual fling on the side" that I used to picture her in my fantasies, she had actually become the center of my life. The thought arose in my mind: instead of me conquering her (as another notch, another knockout), maybe she had conquered me. Seduction is always more powerful than production, as Baudrillard would say. It is the paradox of romantic love, I suppose -- it is always the woman who pulls the strings. And after meeting her, at some country izakaya, I realized my life would never be the same again. So, the old me met my match, and was forced to sue for mercy!

Side street off Okubashi Dori, north of Nippori (Japan, 2004)

To celebrate my recent change in fortunes, I went for a walk, actually it was a megawalk, megawalking being just the appropriate way to explore a megacity like Tokyo. I often pick a random direction and walk until I find something interesting; lately I've been heading north a lot. This time I went up past Uguisudani Station (鶯谷駅) along Kototoidori (言問通り) with its clusters of love hotels and its generally seedy air, then through the backstreets of Nippori (日暮里), where I might have picked up a bottle of green tea, or a cheap burger at McDonald's. I think I sent an MMS to Masumi there, while the sun shone wanly, struggling through the clouds. It was New Year's Day, and I was due to go all out the way to Kisarazu (木更津) the following day to see her. For today, however, Tokyo was mine. One of things I like about this city is that every area seems to have its own specialty or reason for being; Shitaya (下谷) where I live is famous for its Morning Glory festivals, and Nippori is known as Fabric Town. There are tens of fabric shops lined along the narrow streets, some of them so rammed full of material it is almost impossible to move down the aisles. Today of course all the fabric shops were closed, and the streets generally deserted. I walked past them all, shutters down, some of them with kadomatsu sitting in front of the premises. Either kadomatsu, or some kind of pine branch stuck to the front door, to celebrate the New Year. Somewhere along the line I must have stumbled upon the Okubashi Dori (尾久橋通り), which was to take me to my randomly chosen destination for the day. Down under some crazy overpass, cars whizzing by overhead, navigating myself through the bicycle traps. Down beneath the crazy overpass and out on to the streets beyond, with their dry cleaning businesses, obento shops, keymaking premises, that kind of thing. Perhaps, from time to time, some old lady or gent passed by me on a bicycle, ringing their bell. Later on I passed a street, lined with bare trees, and Hi no Maru (Rising Sun) flags, which perfectly summed up the spirit of the day... dead but reviving. It was cloudy at the time; in time the clouds cleared, and the sun broke out, bathing the city in springlike cheer.

Mansions on the bank of the Sumida River, catching some late winter sun (Japan, 2004)

Every part of Tokyo has its own identity, that's one of the things I like about the city; another thing I like is that even though it is home to some 20 million people, the infrastructure is so developed and possibly even overdeveloped, it can often seem like you are the only person around. This city is the urban jungle penultimate and I just love exploring all the little nooks and crannies, the underpasses and overpasses, the engineering and the rusted relics from the Bubble Years. When I touched down at Narita Airport for my first time ever on the sunny morning of November 11, 2000, and took the ride into Ueno station downtown, the thing which struck me hardest was the concrete. The legions of brown and gray concrete apartment boxes (mansions), which start rising from the Plain of Kanto halfway across Chiba, and jostle with each other ever more aggressively, the closer you get to the city. By the time you reach downtown it is all wall to wall concrete -- concrete everywhere, with barely space for a tree to poke through. Layers of concrete in fact, piled up on top of each other, like the rings in a tree trunk, recording the history of the city right through the Contraction and Expansion of the Bubble, and the less developed years before, all the way back to the devastation of the war. It depressed me -- I couldn't imagine how anyone could live in such a desert, in such a wanton wasteland. It jarred with my aesthetics, and it lacerated my soul. My first impression of Tokyo (and as we know first impressions count so much!) was that this was an ugly city. There seemed to be no trace of the ancient past (as in Jerusalem, London, Madrid), and contrary to expectations there was no in your face celebration of a Utopian future (as in the mile high towers of Hong Kong, the hypercolor of Singapore, need I mention Dubai?) Tokyo that morning didn't seem to be a celebration of anything other than bland 20th Century functionalism, replicated en masse, like a virus. Almost Stalinist, although I know that is not the right term. Still, you get the idea -- this city is The Projects. It took me years to realize that such epic ugliness could indeed be beautiful -- the severity was part of the charm (as in a Japanese rock garden or a severely pruned tree.) But by definition understated never grabs you by the balls straight up, it's like an acquired taste, or that girl who was number three... and now suddenly number one, if you can play your cards right. That's if you have any cards left in your hand!