cherry blossom haiku

late in life we drift

sadly briefly on a breeze

cherry blossom falls

photo & words © Chris Young 2018

13 - Lego & Beer

(Day 13- Saturday)

I hate to say it, but I slept a hundred times better in that guest house in Arashiyama than three in the bed at this hotel last night. My son punched me in the mouth and kicked me twice in the bits and this morning will no doubt pretend he knows nothing about it.

Taken in Shimbashi, Tokyo.

Today we've come from Machida up the Odakyu line to change via Yoyogi Uehara and Shimbashi to Odaiba to the Lego Discovery Centre. 

This way to the Tokyo Teleport Station

I wasn't kidding

There's a bigger Lego Land in Nagoya, but due to it seeming a bit expensive and us not having much time there, we opted for the smaller Lego Discovery Centre in Odaiba. Our kid loved it and we spent five long hours there surrounded by hundreds of hyper children and pale, tired parents, not to mention billions of lego bricks.

The beautiful Tokyo skyline at night, but look closer

Tokyo Tower

The best part I think that both my son and I liked was the automobile creation area, where you designed your vehicle and tested it on various ramps and races against other kids' (and Dads') creations. We spent ages there and made a few pals from many different countries.

A Lego Dragon

The second best thing was the 4D short Lego movie theatre. 3D glasses, fans in the ceiling to blow air at you, water splashing on you at appropriate moments - it was quite an experience! But I have to confess, after five hours of lego I was ready to never buy, play with or think about lego ever again.

A Lego Star Wars Death Star - just 86,300 yen! (£570.09)

In the evening I'd arranged to meet another long standing friend of mine from our 'Ripped' days in a bar called the Warrior Celt, in Ueno, which is hidden away upstairs amid the packed in shops and services of every description in the depths of downtown Tokyo. Depths is a good word for it, because you can really feel the pressure from the sheer density of bars, restaurants, pachinko parlours, karaoke bars, American clothes shops, convenience stores all crammed four high into tiny spaces beneath railway tracks.

The Warrior Celt, while serving good Guinness, is a smoking zone, which I hadn't been used to for many years since coming back to the UK, and when we arrived a group of about a dozen people from all over the world were involved in some kind of vociferous drinking game which in the small space made it very hard to talk, so we removed ourselves to a Brewdog in Roppongi. On the way to which we were propositioned by a guy who wanted to take us to a Strip Bar, which is something I wrote into my first novel 'Tokyomares'. I tried not to freak out too much though as just because I write about something (I rationalised while a little drunk) it doesn't mean it can't still happen in real life.

Once we finally found the Brew Dog we sat at one end of the bar and drank exorbitantly priced "British Pints" and caught up on the past six years, while down the bar I saw about five guys all sitting alone, on their cell phones, right next to each other. Among other things we discussed aquaponics (the growth of fruit and vegetables in water instead of soil) and much much more, which I have absolutely no memory of now whatsoever.

TVs on trains. But I see my conveyor belt ramen train carriage idea hasn't caught on yet

Navigating the Tokyo train and subway system is hard enough for the sober Japanese person from out of town, let alone the drunk foreigner on holiday, but I had a feeling I'd be all night once I got onto the circular Yamanote line and headed for my old favourite station - Shinjuku (which I have much experience navigating while drunk). There I switched onto the Odakyu line and headed south, thinking whatever drunk gaijin think about on the second last train home.

Read Day 14. 

moth haiku

a new friend is found

with whom to reflect on life

metamorphosis

image & text © chris young 2018