Sayonara, Nippon. Also, a Very Memorable Hot Dog - Japan Pt. 14 (conclusion)
I woke up in Tokyo, Japan for the final time on this trip, slowly coming to terms as I had each morning that I was in a hotel room in a different continent, thousands of miles and a wide, blue ocean away from the people who I know and love. I sat upright in bed and surveyed the room: Goodbye, hotel towels, strewn about the floor. Goodbye, mini-fridge, with my empty Suntory Strong Zero cans stacked on top like participation trophies. Goodbye, dehumidifier that embraces me and hums like my mother’s lullabies. I love you and I’ll miss you, and I’ll spend every red cent I earn to return into your loving arms.
Over the last seven nights staying in this Tokyo hotel room with three other adult men, my stuff had slowly spread around to every corner. This became particularly noticeable as the clothes, records and souvenirs I purchased ballooned from panic-shopping as my end-date approached. Luckily, I had brought along a mostly-empty suitcase as my checked luggage, knowing full-well that my Spendocrat instincts would be steering the wheel of my psyche on this vacation.
I carefully packed each treasure I purchased, gently nestled within my fresh laundry and personal items. Before I knew it, everything was packed, and I smiled and nodded in smug satisfaction when I realized that I had successfully estimated the space that I had in luggage. I was going to be able to bring all of my goodies home. Seth, on the other hand, was far more judicious in what he spent his money on, and the types of things he was interested in bringing back to our homeland. When I left a book store with a stack of alt-manga teetering in my hands, he would walk out with a postcard or a keychain. He packed for the next legs of his journey in just a few minutes.
The hotel was willing to hold onto our luggage after our checkout, and my flight wasn’t until 4PM, so we decided to go out for a late breakfast, which in the USA we call “Lunfast”. We decided to take the approach we did several times before, picking a place at random, hopefully with one of those Japanese rice omelettes with mysterious, creamy goo-eggs. We turned down a narrow street that was characteristically packed with more restaurants than could feasibly stay open, and flipped through a few menus next to the entrances. One of menus had a beautiful photo of a rice omelette, its creamy yellow gooiness captured in glorious sun-bleached color. We looked up and saw it was a loud, dark bar, which to me is all the better, since I love “Lunfast” at a place like that, and making the transition from drinking coffee to high balls is a special weekend treat, and not problematic in the slightest.
Seth and I were told we could sit wherever we like, and we ended up next to a VERY loud group of drunk people. We ascertained that they had been there all night, and the crowd was made up of hardcore barflies, rather than the IPA dads with their Stepford wives “letting loose” on a Saturday with a few grapefruit mimosas that I was used to seeing at places in Brooklyn. The man behind the bar walked over and served us coffee as we pored over the menu, tellingly the only coffee I saw anyone there drinking.
Seth took the initiative to go up to the bar to order, and he came back with some disappointing news: the menu was for the night crowd, hoping to dilute some of the alcohol sloshing around in their stomachs with a grease explosion before heading home. He did pick something up to prevent what was to be an inevitable toddler-scale temper tantrum from me: a nice big high ball. Seth knows the key to my heart, which is alcohol, and the door it opens is heart disease. Besides, I was getting on an airplane that day, and air travel scuttles the rule forbidding drinks before noon.
As I slorped down my drink, the table next to us got louder and louder, to the point that they made me a little nervous. They looked like they might be tough customers, with the rare sight in Japan of tattoos running up and down their arms, and they weren’t of obscure cartoon characters like mine. At one point one of them circled our table, looking at the ground like he had dropped something, and my heart rate went up a little when I considered that we could be getting extorted, but he sat back down and continued drinking. Nothing came of it, and I should probably have just talked to my therapist about this instead of my Substack readers.
Seth did a little reconnaissance on his phone, and when my drink was drained we walked half a block to a Chinese place. It was very casual, we ordered a bunch of food to share on a touchscreen, and we were served promptly. I drenched some dumplings in what I thought was hot sauce but might have been novacane, as it completely numbed the entirety of my mouth.
With our appetites sated, we spent about a half hour walking around the streets of Shinjuku. I can’t decided if I prefered this neighborhood to Nanba, where we stayed in Osaka, but it had a grit that the other places we stayed lacked. The sheer density of it made walking around anywhere a fascinating experience, since you never knew what you were going to see on any given turn, but you were bound to see something interesting.
Around noon we headed back to the hotel, as it was my time to gather my shit and say sayonara to Nippon. I opted for an Uber over the hotel’s car service, since it looked like it would save me about $30. A few minutes later an immaculate taxi pulled up to the front to spirit me away to the Haneda airport. I gave Seth a hug goodbye, I was gonna miss the big galloot, and hopped in the cab. Seth had another week to spend in Japan as a solo mission, and I recommend following him on Instagram (@checherbud) to see what his next legs of the journey entailed.
I watched the city roll bye, and I knew I’d return some day. I have a lot of places that I need to visit before I ever go back to Japan, but it was easily the coolest vacation I’ve ever been on, and melted away any hang-ups or reservations I had about traveling internationally. The entire lead-up to this trip I had it in my head that some some type of calamity would prevent me from entering the country, be it a passport issue or them finding drugs on my person that I manifested using my imagination and anxiety. None of that happened, almost everything went smoothly, and I had an incredible time. I have Max and Seth to thank for such a seamless vacation. Also a huge thank you to Rick, who gave me some local flavor of Kyoto. I now know better for next time what to do and what not to do on a trip like this.
I arrived at the airport without incident, and felt a little taste of home when the Uber app gave me the option to tip, the first time I’d tipped on the entire trip. I was very early. So early, in fact, that the check-in counters for American Airlines weren’t open for another full hour. Luckily, the airport had plenty of restaurants and shops to peruse, and I had the opportunity to pick up some last-minute gifts in the surprisingly high-quality mall area there. I then sat down at a gimicky space-themed bar to enjoy my last proper high ball in Japan.
The check-in counter finally opened, and after the easiest security check I’ve ever gone through (they didn’t make me remove my shoes!) I was in the main international concourse, with several more hours to kill before my flight boarded.
I had a bit of an appetite, so I decided to check out the food options in the proper terminal. The options were typical overpriced airport bullshit. One of the places had some American fare, albeit bizarro versions of it. All over Japan I saw advertisements for what I thought were hot dogs, but they just looked wrong. The bun was too big, the dog was small and a sickly-white, ketchup and mustard were applied on top of the bun rather than within it. They looked disgusting. So naturally I decided to have one for my last meal in Japan.
I made my order of a hot dog and a slice of the worst-looking pizza I’ve ever seen. They didn’t have to heat up the pizza as it was under a heat lamp, but I was told the hot dog would take some time. I was given the pizza and a beer I ordered, along with a pager to let me know when my hot dog treat was ready for me. I managed to find a seat in the huge, packed eating area, and tried the pizza, which was easily the worst I’ve had this year, not even close. It was like a simulacrum of pizza, or what you’d think pizza was if it was described to you by a six year old. It’s what pizza tastes like when you eat it in a dream but what you’re really tasting the pillow or your own morning breath. Rubbery cheese, crust that had the texture of a croissant, just wild stuff.
My pager started ringing like I won the lottery, but this was to be the worst lottery you could possibly win. It was like the Shirley Jackson short story The Lottery. I was handed this:
The “hot dog” consisted of a flavorless, light beige, pinkie-finger-width flesh tube jammed into a roll of bread way too large for it, with fiddly little ribbons of ketchup and mustard zig-zagging along the top in a way that made it almost impossible to hold without getting it on your fingers. The meat to bread ratio was all wrong, the consistency was simultaneously sandy and chalky, and yeah, I ate the whole thing. It was easily the most memorable and exciting part of my entire two week trip to Japan.
Now that I knew that the hot dog that looked bad was indeed bad, I went and found my gate. While I waited, I had my last Procari Sweat, and I knew I’d miss the stuff. When I posted a photo of it on Instagram and reminisced on how I’d miss it to my adoring fans, several people slipped into my DM’s in a very-not-sexy-way and told me you can buy it at stores like H-Mart in the States. Well, fine, that’s just dandy, but is it in a vending machine every 25 feet, waiting chilled for you to tap your phone to pay 90 cents, roll out and cure your hangover? No, it’s not. America fucking sucks.
Anyway, I guess I had a 12 hour flight to catch, so I queued up and shuffled into the plane when my group was called. I had the good sense to get an aisle seat on this flight, and had my solid brick of records that I bought safely tucked under the seat in front of me. This flight was much more of a slog than the first one, and the WiFi on the plane, which I planned to purchase, wasn’t working. I tried my best to get some sleep, unsure of how the hell that would affect my jet lag.
My flight took off at 4:00 PM on Sunday, and was to land at 4:00 PM on Sunday in New York City. I have no idea how in the hell that worked. Was one of the countries locked into some type of symbiosis, waiting for me to land so it could thaw and life could return to normal? I kept looking at the world clock on my phone, which I had set to show New York and Tokyo, and still couldn’t really wrap my head around it. I also like to keep the default iPhone location of Cupertino, California listed, so I can keep track of what time it is for Steve Jobs in Hell.
I slept for most of the flight, only waking up for the meals and snacks that were served occasionally. At one point a flight attendant spilled apple juice on me, which was about the most exciting thing that happened. It went by a hell of a lot faster, but it was still as uncomfortable and unpleasant to try and sleep as you can imagine any 12 hour coach flight would be.
We landed safely and after the arduous and slow process of disembarkation we shuffled into the international terminal of JFK. There was an immediate culture shock. I forgot how diverse the United States is, rather than the somewhat homogenous makeup of Japan. It was also very loud, and people were speaking at the deafening pitch I associate with home. I made my way to customs, where a woman was trying to corral people from all over the world at maximum volume with extreme intensity. At first I feared her as I got further in line, but all of her shouting was interspersed with lots of “sweetie”’s and “hon”’s with a sort of boisterous warmth, and I remembered that some very nice folks just talk like that here. It was refreshing after two weeks in relative silence.
When my turn to go through customs arrived I walked over to the gate. He asked me the typical questions in the typical glum way, barely looking up from his computer screen. He asked if I had made purchases totaling over $800, and I told a little white lie and said “no”, and he let me through. I then walked over to grab my suitcase at the luggage return, and was pleased to see that it came along for my journey. I considered taking the Air Train back to Ridgewood, which takes about an hour and a half and several transfers, but on the long walk to the station with my heavy luggage I came to my senses because fuck that shit. I called a cab and hopped in.
The ride home could not have been more different than the ride to the airport in Tokyo, which was only hours ago and on the other side of the globe. We took packed highways, surrounded by massive SUVs barreling down the road at 80 miles per hour, one sneeze away from a 20 care pileup with multiple casualties (I have some car trauma, ask my therapist!) I made easy conversation about my trip with the very friendly driver, and it felt so natural and at home. I realized how much I missed a casual interaction with strangers without struggling with a language I didn’t speak or a culture I didn’t grow up in.
I made it home to my building that hadn’t burned down and I walked in and greeted my cat who didn’t die of starvation. It felt good to be home, and the apartment was in good shape after my friends Claire, Matea and Reuben had helped take care of Spooky. I started unpacking and suddenly my phone buzzed.
It was my friend Isa, the tour manager for the Built to Spill. They’re a popular indie band that I have little knowledge or interest in, but my life somehow runs a wide orbit around them. My old comics publisher is friends with the lead singer, I previously dated the woman who painted their last album cover, and then dated their tour manager years later, just by coincidence of the Tinder Roulette.
I had seen them once in 2017 when I was invited backstage to their green room by my publisher who was in Seattle for the show, and I briefly met the band through a din of pot smoke. Apparently Isa was in that room, seven years before I actually met her. I was suffering at the time from what turned out to be the early stages of the flu, and I made it about three minutes into their first song (the first I’d ever heard by them) before I hit the Uber escape hatch and headed home.
I had almost forgotten that they were going to be playing the Bowery Ballroom the night I got back, and had mostly written it off since I was sure to be exhausted and feeling like shit. Well, when I got the text inviting me that evening, I decided what the hell. It would stave off the Sunday Scaries and it was my only chance to see Isa before she had to leave to continue the tour. I unpacked and cleaned my apartment, while Spooky trailed me the entire time vocalizing just how much she missed me and how fucking pissed off she was that I was gone for so long.
I assembled an extremely snappy outfit from the fresh drip I purchased in Japan and headed for the train. Around 45 minutes later I found myself at Bowery Ballroom in lower Manhattan. I was very late, and some bored-looking security guys let me in the front. I went up to two women who were checking for tickets, and I told them I was “On the List”. They also seemed pretty bored, as the show was in its back-half and they seemingly hadn’t been doing much for the last several hours, so they were happy to have a casual chat with me. I forgot how fun it is to feel somewhat charming, rather than some fucking idiot dipshit asshole American trying to ask where the bathroom was but somehow doing so in a way that’s insulting. They told me to go to the ticketing counter, and was granted an all-access pass, which made me feel like a Very Important Person. I went in and didn’t see anyone I recognized in the lobby, so I texted Isa knowing she was likely extremely busy with the show and headed for the concert hall.
The first thing I did, as I do at every show, was find the bar so I can have a drink in my hand, even though that makes clapping almost impossible. I found the bar at the rear end of the venue, and encountered a familiar friend:
A liquor distributor must have been reading this blog, because this beverage was at the bar and the world revolves around me. I instead opted for an IPA and rotated myself 360 degrees to observe the show.
The crowd was exactly what you’d expect from an indie band that got popular in the late 90s: a lot of nerdy late-gen-x elder-millennial folks, soft with age and a few too many heavy beers on the weekend. I stuck out like a sore thumb, sipping my IPA a year shy of 40.
Built to Spill seems like the type of band folks follow around to enjoy the nuanced differences between shows, and having seen them exactly .02 times, I have very few things to say about what they played or how they sounded. There was a guitar solo. The crowd was into it. I think they played one of their albums in entirety. They said “Thank you,” after each song. I had fun.
Before the encore I heard back from Isa, and she said to head to the green room during the last song. I asked a security guard where that was, flashing my super-duper VIP bracelet (which was green instead of blue which made me much better than everyone else), and was led to a door behind the bar in the lobby. The green room was fancier than I expected, and felt a bit like an Urban Outfitters without the cheap clothes, trinkets and shitty turntables. I saw Isa for the first time in months, gave her a big hug, and we caught up in an adjacent office that was oddly sterile, like where they’d take you if you shoplifted at Urban Outfitters.
I hadn’t seen her all summer, as she had spent the summer navigating the complicated visa renewal process in Brazil, while I had spent the summer working my ass off at a stressful new job. She was now in peak work-mode, and took several calls in between our chat while simultaneously sending off work emails and doing something or other in a spreadsheet. Before too long she had to attend to the band, as the show had ended and there was a lot of coordinating to do.
I headed for the venue’s lobby, which was packed with people coming out from the show. There was a long line at the merch table, which I saw was being staffed by my friend Laura. Without considering how busy she was I shouted “HEY! Laura!!!!” and she looked over and greeted me with a big smile and a hug, while the person she was helping frowned at us. I let her attend to them, and then loitered menacingly while I waited for everything to wrap up. Security guards started to ask folks to head for the door, and when I was approached I had the opportunity to flash my green bracelet. I needed to savor every opportunity I had to do that, it’s not every day that you get to feel special.
The show was followed by an after-party in the green room, which was filled with people. I stood around awkwardly, as I didn’t know anybody and the two people I did know were wrapped up in work or chatting with strangers. I was then hit by a wave of extreme exhaustion mixed with melancholia. I had just traveled intercontinentally, turning a 24 hour day into a 37 hour day. I also had to work the next morning, because I never plan for my health or comfort, and go very, very hard at life. We only get one.
I told Isa I was heading out, and she encouraged me to stay, offering to introduce me to a few other New York indie bands there that I had heard of but couldn’t really care less about. I politely declined, and she took me to the merch table and gave me one of the shirts she designed. I gave her a big hug and headed home, where I immediately went to bed, ending what was an impossibly full day. What little sleep I got I dreamt furiously about my teeth falling out and not studying for a test in a class I didn’t attend in college 20 years ago.
Instead of ending the blog with extra photos as I have in previous posts, I want to include some final thoughts about this experience. I wrote pretty much all I have to say about Japan (something like a hundred page’s worth), but writing this blog was an amazing experience in its own right. Like I said in my first post, I hadn’t blogged in 20 years, and I forgot how amazing it feels to write about life without then spending hundreds of hours afterward scratching away at a piece of bristol board, drawing it into comics. Writing is very fast, easy and fun for me, whether you think I’m good at it or not. The second I called an IED an IUD while writing the first post and burst out laughing at myself (malapropisms are incredibly funny to me), I realized I was back in business. My over-active inner monologue has always been my best company, and getting it all down on a computer screen and sharing it with the world is worth it, even if nobody reads it.
I plan to continue the blog, be it in a little more deliberate manner. I promise it’ll be a lot more frequent than my comics output, because it’s a hell of a lot less painful and difficult to tap this out. I’ve already written quite a bit for it, and have too many ideas for more. I have no idea how many people will come along for the ride, but hearing from folks who read these first 14 posts about a two week vacation I went on means a hell of a lot to me. Thank you so much for reading, I say that genuinely.
Oh, and one last request, and I ask again politely: Please, please Kissa Tommy.
