I think I speak for my entire family when I say, "tickets to America-town!"

Our hotel (right across a plaza, somewhat confusingly, from a dog hotel by the same name) was a mock-up of an Edo-era village - much like the capsule hotel, you walked around in yukata all the time, only this was period dress, sort of like mandatory historical cosplay.  Every "historical site" you could visit, however, from the tavern to the blacksmith's to the magistrate's office, was, you guessed it a different kind of gift shop proffering 21st century baubles.  It was like staying the night at Old Sturbridge Village or Plymouth Plantation, except every butter-churner or ox-handler is trying to sell you on cell-phone covers, commemorative toe-socks and souvenier keychains. The most devious thing is that it's a cashless world here: you just have them scan your hotel badge and they add anything you buy to your tab, a great way to have no idea how much money you're hemorrhaging until its too late.

      I think the Japanese have a slightly different take on Gatsby, even when compared with Baz Luhrman...unless this is Leonardo DiCaprio, bishonnen style...

Boy, did this guy take a wrong turn at the Lower East Side...

Fortunately, the hotel did have a halfway decent onsen. One which, despite my having been told by the onsen attendant AND the hotel concierge didn't re-open the next morning until 8, was operating just fine at 5:30 when I woke up, and provided a nice, relaxing soak to finish off the vacation with.  

If only you would wash off the stink of commercialsm...but then, I suppose, if that happened, they wouldn't let me back in the US.

I'll close with Lisa Simpson's sage words about travel and homeland: "America may have its ups and downs, its glories and its follies, but mostly...it's where all our stuff is."

Hope to see that stuff, and you all, very soon.

- D

Special Gundam-tastic entry!

The horror, the horror! (Odaiba)

Fight, Josh-u-san...for us all!

On our final afternoon we found ourselves in Odaiba, an island, technically part of Tokyo, where hard-line conservatives in the Meji era had placed cannons (that's what the word "daiba" means) in a vain attempt to dissuade American incursions.  Today, the irony couldn't be thicker.

My best attempt at describing what Odaiba is: An epcott-center, Disneyland mock-up of Japan that is home to actual people. Hideous and consumerist on a near unimaginable scale, it boasts enormous, city block length, city block high, architectural nightmare buildings which contains mall after mall after mall.  

Nearly all Western shops, all maximum kitsch - nothing but theme crap to buy, buy, buy everywhere you look.  Amusement parks, mini-racecars, chain restaurants, and hordes of prosperous looking Japanese teens and twentysomethings everywhere, American mall-rats with epicanths. Sensory-overload decorations, soulless merchandizing crap at all angles. Josh described it as "an insland-sized Fudruckers."  I calleed it the iOs version of Japan: within one mall floor you could find a sushi bar, maid cafe, video arcade, Edo-themed fashion store, and more, side by side, in fake commercial form.

I hadn't realized the hotel I'd booked for our last night was here, and I hadn't realized just what Odaiba was until it was too late. Nevertheless we TRIED to have some fun, but every attempt fizzled miserably.  A giant, life-sized Gundam robot suggested at the presence of some sort of anime museam...but no, it was just a cafe with overpriced refreshments and souveniers to buy.  An attraction called "monster hunter", advertised on posters all throughout the island, turned out not to be some awesome amusement ride or interactive theme park where you coul fight monsters, but merely a gift shop where you could purchase monster-themed crap.  "Is this it?" I kept asking the very befuddled clerk.  "I mean, is there more than just this gift shop?"  Apparently, not. The Sega Joy-Opolis?  A video arcade with a $25 cover charge.  At one point, an "idoru" (girl-group signing band) arrived on some sort of outdoor mainstage (immediately officials enjoined the crowd that photography was strictly forbidden, and you were restricted to buying pre-packaged pictures for sale), but they didn't even perform anything: they just made some announcement about their newest album, now on sale, giggled and blew kisses to the crowd, then left as quickly as they came.  Odaiba - nothing real or tangible here at all, just crap to spend money on.

Now we understood the island of Odaiba - it was a quarantine. A place, surrounded by water, to trap and house the "Mall of the Americas" phenomenon that has already swallowed the USA hole. Gods help Japan if this giant Capitalist Kaiju ever escapes, for it will surely destroy Tokyo if given the chance.

On the plus side, the kaiten sushi place we ate at, kitschy as it was (you order on mini-ipads and your sushi arrives on a remote-controlled toy Shinkansen), offered EXCELLENT faire.  I mean, excellent, even for Japan, quality sushi...and for low prices. Egad, I think the virus has infected me as well!

We also talked our way into a 5 star hotel to see its secret, hidden $300 a night suites that were made up in tribute to various anime shows (I promised I would write a tripadvisor review, so now I have to).

Other than those two highlights, Odaiba was pretty much a bust, a bizarre cautionary tale to end our trip upon (or, in Josh's analysis, a "post-Japan decompression chamber" that allowed us to start to get back into America-mode without "cultural bends."

- D