I had a big day planned, but I wanted to get out early while Elizabeth slept in. I told her that I was going to go out for a little while and take some pictures. It was around 7:30 AM and I knew that she was going to want to stay in until around 9:30 AM. I told her that I would bring her back some coffee and a snack. And I told her that there was a place in Harajuku that had amazing pancakes and we should head over there to get some breakfast.
I headed down to the street and the seediness that once filled the streets was asleep for the night. And while I half expected to see someone doing a walk of shame coming out of the young men’s brothel, there wasn’t a creature stirring. There was a strange quiet to the city, in spite of the fact that there were some people, who were dressed up in hard hats and vests, working on the road outside. I hopped into the Lawson on the corner to grab a drink, then set off to see what these streets looked like during the day. It’s always odd to walk down a street that is a busy hotspot at night, with lots of lights and energy, but looks horrific and boring in the morning. The doors are all locked up with gates. The streets, walls, and windows have a layer of dirt and grime permanently caked on, which is hardly visible at night.
I walked passed a sports complex with a batting cage on the second level and an arcade on the first. I thought that maybe in the US, there might be a mini-golf course somewhere, but that didn’t look to be the case in this instance. I thought that it would be fun to come back with Elizabeth, but it looked to be closed. And closed in a way where it might have been permanently closed. I continued on, hoping to find a lost oasis of fun and excitement, but I ended up sort of getting lost, eventually making back near the train station. I found my way back to the karaoke bar street, where I saw a coffee shop called Komeda’s Coffee next to the Burger King. I really liked the logo and font choice that the company chose. I thought that this might be a real deal coffee place that would dwarf Starbucks in quality. I went in the door which immediately took me up a staircase. When I walked in the door on the second floor where a coffee shop/diner was revealed.
This didn’t look like the quick cup of coffee in the styrofoam cup kind place. It looked more like the old men get breakfast and drink coffee all day out of porcelain cups, kind of place. I pondered just walking out and just grabbing coffee at the Lawson near the apartment, but I really liked the logo for this place and I felt like they could use my patronage. A young man came to the register. I told him that I’d like a coffee to go, and he looked confused, then walked away. Another waiter/host came by as someone else was entering and I was once again, told to wait, while the man that entered was shown to a table. When one of the gentleman came back, I told him that I’d like to order a coffee to go and he managed to ring me up and take my money. He went back over to where there was a coffee maker, but then started struggling to find a cup. He went over to another person behind the counter and they discussed what I assumed was, where are the to-go cups.
Eventually, in one of the cabinet doors, he found a brown, insulated, corrugated paper cup, which he filled with coffee. It felt like I had been there a while, because I was able to get out my camera and take a panoramic video of the the shop before he came back. I was polite and thanked him, but it definitely wasn’t the fast food coffee service that I had grown used to. I left the shop, then went back down the stairs to head back to the apartment. Before going back however, I decided to go up to the next busy road passed our apartment to see what I could see.
When I got there, it was another typical busy Japanese street, with men and women rushing in business clothes to get to where they wanted to go. Oddly enough though, the language of the signs on the other side of the street wasn’t in Japanese, it was in Korean. There were Korean restaurants and markets, tailors and dry cleaners. I took a short walk to the next block over and noticed that there was another Don Quixote store. I headed back to the apartment from there.
I was getting really hungry for these special Harajuku pancakes, and I had hoped that Elizabeth would be almost ready to go. As usual, when I came up the stairs and keyed myself in, she was still in bed with the baby. I sat on the couch and explained my extreme level of hunger, and she replied with “Why are we going to Harajuku for pancakes? Don’t they have breakfast around here?” “Yeah, they have breakfast around here, but these are special pancakes. Bloggers say this place is the best.” Elizabeth was dismissive, but still got ready at a relatively moderate speed. It was definitely good that I had a little bit of a snack, but I was still feeling impatient about not being able to really start the day I had planned. I gave Elizabeth the coffee and told her that I got it from a special place, but after she drank it, she said that it tasted like it just came out of the convenience store machine. There was nothing special about it. “Oh well,” I thought. “I guess I tried.”
Once everything was ready to go, with the baby in the stroller and the backpack filled with our essentials, we locked up the apartment and headed down the elevator. Once again, we saw the heavy-set Japanese man, in the elevator as we went down. Were we on the same schedule? Was he stalking us? I don’t know how we could know. Elizabeth said that we needed to get more diapers from Escher, so we had to stop at the store. I think that she still had a few, but needed to stock up. I remembered the Don Quixote store in the Korean neighborhood, a block away. It was right on our way to the subway stop that we needed to take to get to Harajuku.
We went into the Don Quixote and walked around the store looking for diapers. We finally found some within the sprawl of items surrounding us on allsides. There was only one brand of diapers and they only came in large packages of 100+. While Escher was going to need to be changed a few times, today, Elizabeth didn’t feel like we should carry 99 diapers around with us all day. While we were out and about we would try to find a different store that may carry a smaller quantity.
As we were walking down the street, there was a group of children crowded around a window. As we got closer, we saw that while from a distance, this looked like a typical storefront window, it was, in fact, a large fish tank. The tank seemed pretty large, but some of the fish looked enormous. Through one of the window panes, you could see what looked like a large eel. I couldn’t really tell what the storefront was for, because it was in Korean writing and I didn’t investigate it too much, but I wonder if this was a restaurant that was going to be serving these fish, and this was not just an aquarium for decoration. The children were still getting a kick out of looking at these fish, in the window, either way, before they were whisked away with their adult guardian.
We continued down the street towards the subway station. We would see a sign here and there with a staircase leading down, but we knew that it would be safer to find an elevator. We eventually found an elevator that would take us down to the subway, then after doing some further searching below, we found a second elevator that would take us to the correct track. It was still a little later than rush hour and the platform had people on it, but compared to the crowds on other trains, this one was rather empty.
When we arrived at the Harajuku Station and went up to the ground level, the gray clouds and rain from earlier in our trip had subsided and the sun was joined by skies of blue. We began using the maps app to guide us to Rainbow Pancakes. The route from the subway station took us down back streets, filled with tiny shops and salons. Here you could acquire new fashion and a new hairstyle as well. I was surprised to see so many second hand clothing stores, showing off the coolest styles from the 80’s and 90’s. Some shops were filled with Tommy Hilfiger sweaters and rugby shirts, that took me back to freshman year in high school. Outside one of the shops, there was a gentleman about my age wearing a Kangol flat cap, like my own, and he signaled me in solidarity.
Beyond these fashionable shops, the navigation app brought us to the Rainbow Pancakes. It was located in a two story building, with steps leading up, instead of an elevator. There was a door on the first floor that we thought might lead us a quick way up, but when we went inside, a female employee told us that we were to go upstairs. We inquired about what we should do with the stroller and she told us that it would be okay to leave in that room. So far, the decor of the first floor dining room was fun and colorful. There was a large vertical rainbow cylinder that was made out of different colored glass and it just spelled hip to me. We took Escher up the stairs with the carrier and walked in through the front door. While the second floor dining area wasn’t the visually blinding rainbow theme decor that I was expecting, I was impressed by its clean simplicity.
The restaurant only had one row of tables along the wall and while this place went viral online, Tuesday morning wasn’t as busy as I thought it would be. We were able to get seated instantly and a waitress, came over and brought us an English menu. These pancakes were nothing to scoff about, they did have plain buttermilk, but they also had blueberry and strawberry. The toppings were all really creative, topped with fruit and whipped cream like you were eating dessert for breakfast. The menu showed small photos of each of the items then next to it was a description. While, there were strawberries with chocolate syrup pancakes and banana with walnut pancakes, I opted for apple cinnamon with caramel pancakes. I want to say that Elizabeth ordered ones that were maple, but I don’t really remember.
When they brought out our order, we were beyond impressed with the presentation. The pancakes were super fluffy, and the sweet tooth in me, thought that the apple topping was delicious. Sometimes, I think that restaurants hyped by bloggers might not be as impressive as they are portrayed. The fact that I got some delicious pancakes and I didn’t have to wait for a table, made me enjoy the experience even more than I expected.
After we ate our pancakes, we went back down the stairs. We reclaimed the stroller on the first floor. We went down the street to where thrift stores were located and headed back towards the main street. I created a map through the Google Maps, where I had a list of 10 different places in Harajuku that we could go visit. One of the things that popped up, was a place for crepes, so we ended up going to the street.
We walked towards the Takeshite Street sign, then under it’s archway. As soon as we began walking down the street, we could tell that this was a really popular destination. There were toy stores, clothing stores, and stores that just sold a variety of different things. I was thinking about what to bring back for our son, Hendrix, and I saw that one of the stores that had a lot of kids stuff in the window. I thought that it might be a good place to find cool Japanese toys. When we walked in the door, we ended up seeing an Oscar the Grouch stand up, next to a garbage can. You could put yourself in the garbage can and hold up a funny sign that said Harajuku or a few other sayings. We ended up putting Escher in the garbage can and taking a few photos of him.
There was a teenager standing nearby, so we asked her if she would take a photo of Elizabeth, Escher and I. She agreed to, then she asked if we would take her picture. I told her that I would and took a picture of her with the Oscar the Grouch with her phone. We walked around inside the gift shop for a few minutes, but we couldn’t find anything that we wanted to buy. When we walked outside, all the sudden a huge gust of wind blew my flat hat off. It was so powerful, that I got thrown back, off balance and almost fell over.
We started looking into the stores and we found that all the stores were really similar in the items the they sold. Usually all the same kind of clothing styles, there was the Lolita style, punk rock style, and then there was more early 90s or late 80’s style comprised mostly of sports clothing like starter jackets, but also rugby shirts. There was also schoolgirl style. Then I believe that there was something that might be an original Harajuku style. This style had lots of repeated patterns of something kooky. Sometimes cat patterns or checkers or flat lined characters that were filled with bright colors. We continued to walk down the road to find that all the different shops were so similar, that they might have been all the same franchise of the same store just all on one street. Once we had gone into one, we felt like we had gone into them all. We ended up going into one store where Elizabeth was looking for something specific for Escher, a hat or a sweater or something. She had to go use the bathroom. She went up an escalator to a different floor and seemed to be gone a long time. I was stuck pushing the stroller around. Escher would get upset anytime the stroller would stop, so I just walked in circles around the first floor of the store that was all womens clothing, shoes, and accessories. Everytime I would circle, all of the women would stop to look and say, “Oh, he’s so cute! He’s so cute!” And he was so cute. Elizabeth was back soon enough and we were back on the road to tour the rest of what Harajuku had to offer.
We ended up seeing a Gap store and thought that it might be a good place to find something for Escher, because they had a baby and a kid section. The Gap was really interesting, because it looked identical to the Gaps that are in the United States. We went upstairs to where they had the Baby and Kids Gap section. We saw that they had all sorts of different clothes and we found a little sweater vest that fit him and would keep him warmer over the next few days. We paid for the vest, then walked back down the street, toward the sort of main road, that we had toured before. It seemed like we had just indulged in pancakes, but it was lunch time and we were getting a little hungry. We decided to go to the Kawaii Monster Cafe, where we could get food that looked like candy in a decor that looked like we were inside a cartoon.
In the same building as the cafe was a thrift store called Kinji. It was the coolest thrift store I’d ever been in it had a massive amount of clothes. Unlike a Goodwill or Salvation Army everything was really high quality. There wasn’t any junk, so everything was very expensive. There were a few vintage Adidas jackets, that I wanted to buy, but because they were close to $50 USD or more, I figured, I’d better pass. The more I walked around the store, I noticed that they also had cool 90’s fashion. All sorts of different cargo pants and flannel shirts were on the racks. We walked around the store for a little while and I kept thinking about how I really wanted to buy something. The selection of desirable items was so vast, that I didn’t really know what to buy. Elizabeth had taken off with Escher for the moment, so I basically talked myself out of spending any money. Elizabeth was at a coffee shop one floor up, feeding Escher and when she was done we took the elevator up to the Kawaii Monster Cafe.
There are lots of themed restaurants in Tokyo and they are all different and awesome in their own way. When looking through one of those “Best of Harajuku” lists, there was a robot restaurant, one that looks like an old Chinese Village, video game theme restaurants, and even places where the servers are dressed like French maids. The Kawaii Monster Cafe is a restaurant made to look like everything is made of candy and I felt like it was the one that I found to be the most artistic. All of the food is colorful, the spaghetti is multi-colored, the fries come out with sauces displayed on your plate like a painter’s palette.
Coming out of the elevator, we walked to the the front desk straight ahead. In English, the hostess asked if we ever been there before. I told her that we hadn’t. She explained that there was a cover charge to enter. We told the hostess that we’re okay anywhere, let’s just go in. So the hostess told us to leave the stroller, to the side. Not really realizing what was going to happen next, because the lobby area was blocked off completely from the seating area. The colorfly dressed hostess in over the top Harajuku lolita dress asked, “Are you ready?” We nodded.
She opened the door slowly to reveal the eye candy beyond. It was truly like entering the imagination room of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. After walking through the door, you walk into a dark room with purple and pink lights. However, all around you are wonderfully colorful visuals. In front of you is a merry-go-round that appears as if it’s made of candy. It was a pop art design that brought us into a fully immersed 3D art installation.
Different sections of the restaurant cost a different level of cover charge, but from what I could tell, besides being in a booth, verses being at a table and chairs (the booths were more expensive), you could see the stage show slightly better from a booth. We would come to find out that even though, we were sitting in the cheap seats, we could walk closer to the stage, and watch the show, and they didn’t restrict you from walking to the different sections.
Since, we hadn’t chosen to spend the additional cover charge to sit at a round booth, that looked like you were sitting in a chocolate cake or an ice cream sunday, the hostess guided us over to the cheaper section on the left side of the stage. Even this section had a colorful and creative decor. We sat down to find that this was another restaurant, where you order with an iPad. We started looking through the digital pages of the menu, seeing all these colorful dishes. On top of the initial cover charge, you have a minimum requirement to purchase one drink and one entree, per person. I decided to play it safe and order a steak with fries. The steak was strips of tri-tip played over steak fries (pretty boring for a place with such colorful dishes). Elizabeth, however, ordered the multicolored rainbow pasta. The noodles were all different colors and the sauce was presented look like paint on the palette.
As soon as we ordered the food, we are free to start walking around and take pictures of everything. The room isn’t very big so we are able to making it around to see all of the regions, in a short amount of time. The layout reminded me a little bit of an old Candyland board, where you encounter a lollipop forests, and then a spearmint castles, and further down the board is a fudge swamp with a scary monster. After making it as far as the carousel stage, the lights changed and the music began. Two colorfully dress lolitas joined a brolita with neon colored dreadlocks in a song and dance, accompanied by a light show, while the carousel spun behind them. Between the weird electronic music and their extreme costumes, it almost felt like aliens had landed.
The show only lasted for only about 5 or 10 minutes. Since we watched the show from the area right in front of the stage, when it ended the dancers and the Kawaii monster walked out into the audience, and we were able to get some photos with all of them. We finished around the inside of the restaurant taking a few photos in each of the different sections. While some of the sections looked like candy or ice cream or cake, the back section had red lips on a repeating background in a pop art style. For some reason, this really made me think of the 80’s and bands like Blondie and Talking Heads started playing in my head.
Just after we returned to our table, our lunch had arrived. As advertised, the French fries arrived on the plate with a palette of colors of different flavors of dips. Elizabeth’s multi-colored pasta looked sweet, but tasted spicy. The ginger drink that I ordered, looked like a party in a glass and tasted like one too. It was just the perfect compliment to my steak, despite my steak and fries looking rather tame next to Elizabeth’s pasta. Part of the way through our meal, the monster came over to our table and sat down with us, and we were able to get a second photo with him.
The final course of our order was our dessert. On the menu, a tiny photo of the 800 yen ice cream dish looked like a massive waffle cone style sundae, but when it arrived, it was in a small plastic ice cream cone shaped dish with two small spheres of ice cream. The dessert was delicious, but it was hardly as impressive as the rest of our order. For being a dessert themed restaurant, I was underwhelmed with the dessert. Especially considering, $8 at a Cold Stone Creamery in the US, can buy you enough ice cream to give you a huge stomach ache, but after our pancakes did we really need more sweets?
I headed to the restroom, located just beyond the carousel, and I walked through a doorway to the bar area. The bar area was ice themed. If you could imagine a cartoon version of an ice cave on Antarctica without the frigid temperatures, this was what I think it would look like. I feel like with a dj playing and some smoke machines this room would make a fun night club, but during the day, it was quiet and empty.
When I came back from the bathroom, we were starting to get to the point where it was time to move on to the next point of interest. Just before they brought us our bill, a server came over, and offered us a lollipop on a long stick. With this lollipop purchase, we would be allowed to go on stage with the monster and dancers, and ride on the candy carousel. While in my younger, freer days, I would’ve jumped at the chance to be the center of attention, but in my current life stage, where I just feel too old to do such things, I declined the offer.
We paid the bill which was close to $60 USD, then headed through the exit, where our stroller had been sitting. As we were walking through the lobby, there were a couple of young woman speaking in English to the hostess. The hostess explained that the dining room closed in 30 minutes, but they didn’t seem deterred. I thought that was a little quick to get the full experience of light and color. The hostess even insisted that there wouldn’t be a show. It didn’t seem to matter to them, I suppose, because they paid the cover charge and went in anyway.
We took the elevator back down to the ground floor to the Kinji thrift store. I was still pretty adamant about buying cool clothes in Japan. So, I looked around and started picking out late 90’s fashion that would’ve fit in at a rave, when I was a teenager. Just then Escher started throwing a fit. I had been pushing him in the stroller while Elizabeth was looking at clothes in a different section of the store. I set the clothes down at the rack in front of me, then started looking for her, because she was the only one that would be able to stifle him. Once I found her, she sweeped up the baby and took him to the coffee shop up stairs. When I went back to look for the clothes, they were gone. I walked around the store looking to see if there was a rack of unclaimed clothes, but I wasn’t having much luck. As I looked up and down the aisles, I saw Japanese teenagers trying on all sorts of items. The highlight was a young man wearing a huge fur coat that made him look like a pimp. I asked him how much they were charging for it, then insisted that he buy it.
I made my way to the back of the store, where the dressing rooms were and to my surprise, there were the clothes that I set aside. I grabbed them from the rack and took them into a dressing room. I felt all set to look like the 17 year old that I was in 1997, finally going to an underground warehouse party. I started putting on the baggy style camo, cargo pants, the bright orange jacket, and green puffy vest. With each item of clothing, I just started looking more and more ridiculous. By the time I had my full outfit in place, I looked like a slightly overweight 30-something poser. I decided that I was too old for the cool, hip, 90’s throwback look. I put my regular clothes back on and headed back up to the cafe feeling defeated.
Elizabeth was nursing Escher and drinking coffee while sitting quietly on the cafe patio. I sat next to her at the table and waited until she was ready to leave. While I considered having some coffee, I just sat there feeling depressed. “How’d it go?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m an old man,” I said, “and I looked ridiculous.” Elizabeth said, “I’m sure you looked fine. Let’s go back down and get something.” “The moment has passed,” I said. “Let’s just get going.”
Even though, It felt like we had just ate, we started thinking about what we should have for dinner before the New Japan Pro Wrestling show. We decided to walk around to a few more places on the best of harajuku list. Around the corner from the coffee shop was a row of boutiques, with modern and vintage styles. Hidden in the basement of one of them was a shop called DOG.
We had the stroller filled with our days necessities and Escher reclining comfortably, so Elizabeth told me to just go inside to check it out. I was reluctant at first, but continued down the narrow spiral staircase, into a clothing dungeon. Apparently, Lady Gaga put this place on the map and if you’ve seen her in costume, you’d think that the place where she shops would be out of control. As I looked through the racks, all of the clothes looked like someone raided a thrift store, took some scissors to the clothes, then sewed the pieces back together at random. There would be a button up shirt sewn with a jean jacket, that was then lined with a t-shirt, or a tuxedo shirt sewn together with half of a baseball jersey. Without looking at the price tags, I went up and told Elizabeth that she had to check this place out. At first, she was reluctant, because where were we going to leave the stroller, just in the alley?
In the end, somehow I convinced her that it would only be a few seconds. She pull the baby out, then we climbed down the dungeon steps together. Elizabeth was thrown aback by the designs, but didn’t really seem impressed or excited about them. As we looked at a few of the pieces, then checked out the price tags, we were finding that the simpler shirts were going for about $300, while some of the more elaborate jackets and dresses were selling up in the $1000’s. Who besides Lady Gaga is buying these clothes and in a city with the highest rent in the world? How could they afford one of these shirts and pay the rest of their bills? I couldn’t figure it out.
After being blown away by the prices of the garments, we headed out of the dungeon, then got back to the stroller, which was still stashed in a corner. We were starting to get hungry, but we knew that we had limited time to get to the Tokyo Dome to catch the wrestling show. We decided to go back down the Takeshite Street to see if we could find something quick to eat. We ended up seeing only dessert crepes and McDonald’s to choose from. I still sort of wanted to buy some kooky local clothes, and made Elizabeth stop in a boutique called, ACDC Rags. I saw a really amazing satin jacket with a dragon on the front and a huge tiger on the back. The jacket reminded me of the jacket that Rocky bought after he started making lots of money. I thought about whether or not, I would be able to pull off such a look, but after looking in the mirror, I decided that it wasn’t me.
The style of most of the shirts, pants, and jackets in this store, was pop art patterns of cats, stripes, checkers, or cartoon characters repeated. There were two gentlemen working at the store that were all decked out from head to toe in this odd fashion. The way that they were sporting the attire, made it look like they were intentionally clashing. As we looked through the racks, we noticed that there were basically two sizes: small and XXXL, both of which said one size fits all, on the tags.
I found a shirt with a pattern of different cat heads floating in space, then paired it with a pair of baggy checkered pants. While the shirt fit a little differently than I’m used to, with a really wide neck hole and short sleeves, it was long enough to match my height. The one size of elastic waistband pants, fit great in the waist, but the pants were a little short for my height. These items, paired with my slip on, black, canvas Vans, Adidas track jacket, and black Kangol, made me think that I looked pretty cool. I walked out of the dressing room, paid the clerk, then asked him, if he would pose for a photo with me, because dressed in the same crazy looking clothes. With the most serious expression for someone, wearing clothes that looked almost like clown clothing, the cashier posed for the camera, and we got a perfect shot.
I insisted that Elizabeth find a crazy get up as well, and while she was reluctant to go to crazy, she agreed to go into a shop and find something to match me. After going into a few shops, we found that all of them sold almost the same items, but one had punk rock plaid skirts. “Get one of these,” I insisted. There was a rack of thigh high socks, and I told Elizabeth that she should pick out a pair of these too. She picked out a pair that were black and white striped and looked like the socks that the Wicked Witch wore in the Wizard of Oz. After upgrading her look, we looked at the time. I had completely lost track of time, and knew that we needed to get on a train right away, if we were going to make it to the wrestling show on time.
We arrived at the subway station during rush hour and there were lots of trains coming and going. It was supposed to be about 30-45 minutes to get to the Tokyo Dome Theater from Harajuku, but I convinced myself that the wrestling event wouldn’t start on time. We might arrive 45 minutes late, but maybe it would begin 30 minutes late and we would only miss 15 minutes. We also didn’t know how long the wrestling show was going to last, some WWE shows last 2-3 hours, maybe we would still have lots of excited matches to watch, no matter how late we arrived.
New Japan Pro Wrestling
When we arrived at the Tokyo Dome station, we ended up near the mall/amusement park on the opposite side of the stadium from where the theater was located. After re-centering ourselves on the map, we walked around the whole stadium, until we arrived at what appeared to be the entrance to the theater. We took the elevator up to the correct floor and when the doors opened, it was mayhem. All of Tokyo’s hardcore NJPW fans were in attendance.
Elizabeth was concerned about the noise and Escher crying during the show. While it had taken a while to get there and we could’ve turned back at anytime, she was second guessing us going in. A security guard, whose job it was to keep people from loitering in the lobby without tickets, came over to us and told us that we had to buy a ticket or leave. We debated with each other for about 10 minutes, while the security guard went back and forth with us. We tried to ask if we could do in’s and out’s if she needed to nurse the baby. Elizabeth was also concerned about what we were going to eat, because the Kawaii Monster Rainbow pasta hadn’t been as filling as she’d wanted. What was the concession stand was selling, she wondered. All meanwhile, the show was going on without us.
About an hour after the starting time, the crowds left the theater area and filled the concession area, located on the other side of a glass wall, in front of us. After finally deciding that it would be fine, if we went in with the baby, I went to the ticket office to purchase tickets. There were basically two types of seats available, the $125 ring side seats and the $35 standing room only seats, everything else was completely sold out. I opted for the $35 standing room only seats, even though I knew that Elizabeth wouldn’t want to stand with the baby. The security guard that had previously been trying to coerce us into making a decision, was leading Elizabeth with the stroller to the ticket office, where we would have to check it in while we were watching the matches. I was a little disappointed that I was able to purchase a discount ticket since the show was half over, but I guess that isn’t the way that it works.
With tickets in hand, we joined the crowd of people who had gathered on the other side of the glass wall. We waited in line for the snack bar. While we had hoped that there was more of a selection of items, there basically only chips, hot dogs, candy, beer, and soda. Elizabeth had me ask if they had vegetarian food, perhaps she was expecting there to be something more than what was on view. Unfortunately the vendor behind the counter didn’t speak English and we would be left eating chips and beer for dinner.
We headed into the theater to discover where the standing-room section was located. The room was packed. The seating was in the round, with seats on all four sides of the ring. On three of the sides there were about 10 rows of seats with second floor balconies. People were standing at the railing and hanging signs for their favorite wrestler. On the fourth side, were about 50 rows of seats on an incline. On the top, there was a 6-foot deep section, where people were standing. We confirmed with the security guard at the bottom of the stairs, that we were going to be watching from that section and he pointed up and nodded.
We climbed to the top passing businessmen in suits, and fans supporting their favorite wrestlers by wearing their shirts and hats. When we reached the top, and looked back, I was still impressed with the view of the ring. With the inclusion of the large screens on the far wall showing close ups of the wrestlers, I was sure that it would be a good time. There were three matches lined up for the last hour of the show. While they were all people I had never heard of, I was still excited to see how their style might have differed from American wrestlers and I also just wanted to feel the crowd cheering and getting excited, while shouting in Japanese.
All three matches were tag team bouts, and we watched and cheers as these matches went on. In between each match there were elaborate introductions, which got you excited for the upcoming bout. At the very of the show, almost to connect a storyline for the people at home, one of the managers for the team Roppongi 3K, spoke English and Japanese to address the crowd. He really got the crowd hyped up and ready to come out the next time they came to town. While usually these managers are the bad guys, I felt like if I was a regular to the NJPW shows, these are the guys that I would be supporting. While in modern Japanese culture sumo and baseball are the sports of choice, there is a niche for pro-wrestling, just like in the US, and I was happening to have experienced it.
At the end of the show, however, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get us there earlier. Elizabeth had sat hidden almost the whole hour, and I was tired from all of the walking around, that we had done that day, so it couldn’t be helped. I had tried to buy the tickets at the 7-11 at the Ticket Pia machine, the night before and I had no luck. When it comes to packing a million things into one days, you are bound to miss part of something. We just happened to miss half of the wrestling show.
We went back down the stairs into a back room that was selling merchandise. I looked over the different items, but all of the shirts and posters were all over $30. I had wanted to send some NJPW items to my cousin, whose wedding I missed to go on the trip, but for the prices that they were charging for the items and the fact that nothing really screamed, “This is an authentic Japanese wrestling item.” I opted to just skip out on getting her something.
We then, took the elevator down to the ground level. We were still pretty hungry. While we were trying to stick with eating authentic Japanese cuisine, we saw a TGI Fridays and decided that this would have to work; especially considering there didn’t look like there were any other restaurants around.
As soon as you walk into a TGI Fridays, anywhere in the world, you are transported into TGI Fridays World. It really is a unique experience, even if the walls aren’t covered with unique local tchotchkes, they still have the same menu and the red and white stripes are displayed everywhere. A young woman in a striped shirt and black suspenders, took us over to a U-shaped booth near the back of the restaurant and left us with our English menus.
When a waiter came back, we ordered some margaritas and some of TGI Friday’s signature fare. I ordered an appetizer sampler and Elizabeth ordered a salad. Just before they brought us our drinks, the hostess came over and offered to get us a high chair. Then invited us to sit in a table with chairs. We insisted that we were fine with sitting where we were and that we didn’t really need to move.
Our margaritas arrived and the hostess came over again and offered for us to move. Once again, we declined. We started to get the idea that she wanted us to move, but was too polite to tell us. When the food arrived, it was exactly like we expected it. Was it okay to cheat on Japan and get some generic American food? I think so. We ate our boring uninspired meal, and finished our margaritas. We paid the bill and on our way out, the male host standing at the door handed me a balloon that was twisted into a pink and orange flower. I asked him if he made it, and he said that he didn’t. He said that he wasn’t talented, but I told him that he was young enough, that he will find his talent someday, and he smiled.
We walked back to the subway station on the other side of the Tokyo Dome, and then took the subway back to the Shinjuku station. This would be our last chance to check out the arcades and karaoke, because we were going to be heading down to Kyoto in the morning. However, after all of the exploring that we had done that day, we were ready to cut the night short. As we walked back down from the train station, into the Shinjuku side streets, I saw the Sega arcade that had been closed earlier in the day. I told Elizabeth that I wanted to check it out, and she was reluctant to go in. She said that she would wait outside and I ran in to check it out.
I took the escalator up to the second floor arcade and as I walked through, I could see that they had all the staples. Guitar and drum games, racing games, and fighting games, but there were also machines that looked like they were games where you could go on a webcam date. I wasn’t really sure how it all worked exactly, but it looked like you put in your yen and looked at a screen, then someone at a different console could meet up with you. It looked like it was advertised for young men looking to meet women, but it might have just been a simulation. Either way, it seemed strange that you would go to an arcade, surrounded by people, then talk to a screen. I supposed, that’s what socializing has come to. I didn’t stay to play any of the games, because I didn’t want to keep Elizabeth waiting with the baby for too long. After only a minute or two, I headed back down the escalator, where they were waiting.
The walk back to the apartment was a little less daunting this time, than before. Even though, there still seemed to be a lot of people about who drinking in the streets, we felt fairly safe. We came up to the Don Quixote, which I had discovered during my morning walk featuring the Superman statue guarding the front door. Elizabeth said that she needed to go in, because the baby needed diapers. So I went inside and waited just inside the door, while she went up to the floor where she would eventually find a large bag of diapers. The first floor was filled with every Halloween costume imaginable. Instead of the tall, long-haired, blonde Caucasian women who model American costumes, these were young Japanese girls modeling costumes for the Video Game Plumber Red costumes.
Lots of people were coming into the store, walking around me, looking for the perfect costume. I couldn’t help, but think that it was strange that Halloween was even a thing in Japan. In the age of social media, all sorts of American cultural things were making it out into the world and other countries were eating it up. Elizabeth managed to purchase the diapers and we then headed back to the apartment. It wasn’t raining like it had been on previous nights before, but there still didn’t appear to be many people in the area walking around. In fact, the streets seemed almost empty, which seemed surreal given the crowds that we were used to.
Upon arrival, we settled into the warm apartment, packed up our dry clothes, and got ready for the morning. Just as I went to pull the zipper to close my overstuffed backpack, the tab broke free from the zipper. After trying to pull the other tab back across, and the teeth didn’t catch either. I had rendered my back useless. I took out all of the clothes and gifts to put them in the red ACDC Rags bag, that I just acquired. Then I stuffed the plastic shopping bag in the back pack upside down. With a belt and the strap of my camera case, I managed to wrap the bag closed tight enough that I would be able to make it to Kyoto without losing any of my luggage. After we were all packed up, we watched some TV before going to sleep on our box spring, where we would be dreaming of the hotel bed that we would be sleeping in the next night.