I have been walking through Tokyo to the rhythm of David Bowie’s Where Are We Now. My walks, like the song, are a steady rereading of place names remembered, retreaded; names that are memories and walking through them just to feel their familiarity. Just walking the dead. When he sings, “had to get the train … Continue reading »
Despite all the time I have spent in Tokyo, I have not taken that many day trips out of the city. I have been to Kamakura a couple of times, for example, and Nikko and Fuji Five Lakes, but that’s about it. When I lived here I preferred to go far from the city — … Continue reading »
The house I always stay at here in Tokyo is a five minute walk to Roppongi’s main drag and the favoured lodging for the women who come to Tokyo to make their money in Roppongi’s stripclubs, hostess clubs and bars. Right now it is quiet. So quiet. Quiet enough that I can almost hear the … Continue reading »
I could lose myself just wandering through Tokyo’s streets: from the back alleys bursting with tiny bars and restaurants; below the noisy underpasses, and along the wide tree-lined boulevards. When I lived in Tokyo I wandered for hours but I always had someplace to be at 8 p.m. Work. Now, I just wander, unanchored, and … Continue reading »
I’m home. Back in my beloved, precious Japan for a few weeks.
In Japan, and other places where Japanese culture is strong, this is the time of the O-bon festival — the honouring of the spirits of dead ancestors. At this time it is common for Japanese families travel to relatives’ graves, or to set up household altars so that their spirits may visit them instead. O-bon … Continue reading »
One of the things I loved most about living on O’ahu was the little bits of Japan sprinkled across the island. From the Japanese grocery stores, to O-Bon festivals, mochi balls mixed into shave ice cups and the bilingual signs around Waikiki. The Byodo-in Temple is an exact replica of a 900-year-old temple in Japan … Continue reading »
My memories of Japan travel across all the senses, sometimes pausing on just one. Taste. Cool soba on a hot summer day; oden in the winter; fresh sushi from a tiny shop in Tokyo’s Hiroo district; sweet mochi from the nameless store on the backstreets of Nishi Azabu, and yakitori at the Azabu Juban festival. … Continue reading »
Sharing exciting publication news: I had a piece — Treading the Water Trade — published the other day at one of my favourite websites, The Hairpin. Encouraged by recommendations from a few people, I am trying to start work on a book about my time in the hostess clubs of Tokyo and, more so, about … Continue reading »
RIP Adam Yauch. ——————- My Beastie Boys story is an indirect one. I never met them or even saw them live. They just happened to form a backdrop to one summer 14 years ago. It was 1998 and Intergalactic had just been released. I was working as a nurse’s aide in the dementia unit of … Continue reading »
