First impressions of Tokyo.

i
love
tokyo
something fierce.

I want to live here someday.

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I know it has difficulties and impenetrabilities and lack of Japanese language would be a major stumbling block, but there is something texturally and atmospherically radiant about the place. I tell people who have an interest in visual things that they must scuba dive because of what they will see. I feel the same way about Tokyo.

Impressions.

As we came into the city the most ominous urban storm front I've ever seen rumbled over the infinite geometry of Tokyo's buildings. Every place has for some reason its own quality of light, and we rode into Tokyo under a flourescent green and grey sky and the heaviest rain I've ever seen. What I saw I know is the result of many confluences and cannot be seen anywhere else.

We're at the Shibuya Excel hotel and our views look right down on that famous crosswalk in Shibuya, watching pedestrians ebb and flow like waves.

Vending machines and ticket systems keep social contact clean and simple. All the awkwardness of interaction when dining is easily dodged in this city if you're somewhat socially neurotic.

In a serious otaku haven of wall to wall manga and toys that left Nick and I speechless in its nerd overdose factor, a drop dead gorgeous woman stands in front of a display case of Blythe dolls under lock and key. Staring. Unmoving. For an eternity.

Bad fast food ramen here is better than any you'd get anywhere in New York. Manna from heaven esepcially after so many flights.

Shopping here seems to be really important. In Tokyu Hands the costume department was booming with business. Maybe some holiday is coming I don't know about. Another gorgeous girl slowly goes through all the fake moustaches.

A lot of people know more English than they let on. I'm not entirely sure what just happened in the hotel elevator, but an American confused by the thing made some small talk about his confusion. After he left, a Japanese girl turned to me and said something in Japanese quoting him and giggled away. I'm pretty sure she was mocking him. I'm in disguise here and unfortunately can hardly understand a thing anyone is saying.

Somehow we found a bar last night and intending to have a quiet one next thing we knew I was legless, drinking far too much with a Canadian metal band whose name I cannot and probably will never remember despite their good company and a pack of kogarus. For those seeking random experiences, Shibuya is a nebula of them.

I also sense some odd sense of danger here. That the city is engineered to keep loneliness at a certain level if you fall that way. That you could get lost forever.

I don't know how to write, at the moment, of what it is here that moves me so. I know that walking here in the bath of neon and flourescence and the beautiful people, men and women so striking, I feel something sublime and wordless.
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I was going to meet up with fellow director Nagi Noda here, but she is headed to Angkor Wat the same time I am here. But I am going to interview her about her work hopefully in New York soon and will write it up here. She directed the Yuki video for Sentimental Journey I posted previously which I think is one of the greatest videos ever.

_

We had an overnight layover in Singapore.

Singapore vibes me. Not to offend an entire nation based upon mere hours spent in it, but there's something decidely off about the place that sends me a twitching. I remember this Wired article by William Gibson about the place. We were stranded in the airport for hours between our connecting flights, and at a low point Nick decided to wisely find a hotel nearby even though we only ended up sleeping there for two hours.

I wandered for awhile. The only thing I found open so late at night was a stand selling fake Prada and Gucci, dominated by girls dancing in the open air of the closed outdoor shopping arcade to Beyonce and Shakira. Signs for "Wanko" and "Bite Me" and "No durian allowed here". Stray cats in alleyways prowling about.

American Idol runs on their tv stations. Sanjaya is a point of controversy here.

Our cabdriver said "It's a dictatorship, but a great one. We're all happy here."

I am happy to be in Tokyo right now.

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