Jazz becomes a salaryman

Yes, the dolphins of financial content have beached themselves on the rocky shores of disappointment leaving yours truly with absolutely no cash. I can't use my English pounds because they wither away when exchanged into Japanese yen. On top of that my Eikaiwa (conversation-based) language school is paying me about 4 years in arrears, meaning I'm not going to see a significant amount of money any time soon. Therefore I have now joined the thousands of salarymen who cram themselves onto the trains early in the morning with almost asphyxiating dedication and perseverence in order to earn the bread... or at least the crusts... well mouldy crusts. I say mouldy crusts, it's actually just the mould in itself; the bread has long gone.

I have no idea how some of these guys do it. At a time far too early to be considered civilised, these smartly-dressed sardines physically force themselves onto the train, turning toward the door as they get on, and then push backwards, compressing the people behind them into a fine commuter-based paste. There is no rush hour on earth like Tokyo rush hour. I don't care where you've been, or how many thousands of people you've seen trying to crawl into a space half the appropriate capacity, Tokyo simply beats everywhere hands down. No one complains, tuts, or sighs. They just accept the fact that they are about to be made into one giant, homogenous salaryman pancake.

It seems a lot of salarymen do things to extremes, the majority of them getting up before sunrise, travelling in unhealthily-sized crowds, and returning home close to midnight after putting in a minimum of 12 hours, though usually closer to 15 or 16. Of course they return home only after drinking whisky to the extent that, when getting on the same train, one is immediately hit in the face by an almost tangible whiff of booze so strong that it practically gives you a face lift.

I've only been on this regime (minus the booze) for two weeks and I'm already nearly dead. I've been nodding off in my lessons while desperately trying to pass it off as philosophical whimsy. I've been subsisting entirely on Calorie Mate which, while good enough for the fictional gaming super-CIA-Marine Solid Snake, probably lacks the nutritional value required to keep people who exist in the real world alive. I'll be honest; it's like eating a block of solid anti-matter that's been sprayed with chocolate. If you're a real masochist you can go for the cheese flavour but you'd be better off asking someone to punch you in the face with boxing gloves made with reeking, fusty milk. Calorie Mate: it kept a virtual character alive because it only has virtual nutrition.

With the economic situation the way it is, it looks like I'm going to have to keep this up for another month perhaps. But as soon as I get out of this patch of 14 hour days, I will hopefully have some cash to see more of Tokyo, and some free time to actually write what I've seen other than the back of a very tired Japanese man's head pressed into my face on the underground.

誕生日おめでとう！Happy Birthday, and Japan's night time, seedy underbelly.

Yes, the time to celebrate my Nativity has been and gone. I'm now 26 which, I feel, is better than being 25. 26 has a feeling of authentic, newly acquired life experience to it whilst still retaining all the advantages of remaining a young 'un. 25 was a bit of a no man's land; too young to know better, but not young enough to warrant being naive and wide-eyed all the time. So now I can look down on early 20s types and their puppy-like innocence, whilst still being able to pass myself off as one of them from time to time.

My birthday party was my first big night out in Tokyo, and what a night it was. We started by going to a very exclusive bar called Fereira, in Roppongi. So exclusive, in fact, that we were the only customers! I suppose the 3000￥ cover charge should have been a give away, but I didn't know any better and was just following the advice of my Japanese guides (very easy to do when you're not paying!). Since we wanted to go clubbing, the big sign hanging ominously over the entrance to the bar saying "NO DANCING" was not a good start. The fact that the bar staff outnumbered the customers (i.e. me and my friends) was also a little unnerving, as well as the undivided attention they gave us.

PANIC ATTACK

After drinking our two free cocktails with the entire place to ourselves, we decided to head to a different environ, and ended up in GasPanic, Fereira's nemesis. Waitresses dancing on the bar surface, a thick fog of smoke, funky music; the party had finally started. We spent a couple of hours there, dancing a lot and mainly drinking "Banana fucks", whatever they may be. The atmosphere was great, although Roppongi's reputation as a bit of a seedy hangout was beginning to manifest itself. In Roppongi, the 「外人・がいじん・gai-jin・foreigners」 definitely came close to outnumbering the Japanese; all of them totally plastered and most of them chasing after the locals. Apparently if you want to pick up a girl without all the hassle of having to get to know them first, Roppongi's the place to go, hence the gaggles of Japanese girls dressed in little more than a sentiment and the equal number of American/British lads closely following, usually singing something about football.

As well as the mating calls of the nocturnal, migratory inhabitants of Roppongi, an equal amount of chatter is generated by the door staff working the night clubs and the more than abundant strip joints that run down the main road. Along with these are those running the massage parlours, which I'm pretty sure don't actually offer massages. Fortunately we were in a good-sized group, but I can well imagine that if you were by yourself or just with your girlfriend, that this place would be quite hellish. The door staff (all of whom are, without exception, Nigerian, for reasons I don't understand at all) can be very persistent to the point where you can feel very uncomfortable, even threatened.

Whilst we're opening up the underbelly of Japan's clubbing centre, I would suggest if you want to go to Roppongi that you go as a group. If you want to go somewhere with your lady friend, then find somewhere else. Clubbing with my flatmates, the sheer number of times I had to step in to separate them from a be-suited Japanese salary-man quite excessively groping them in rather inappropriate places... well it was a lot. Observing the crowd around me, it was quite clear that these guys would pay no attention to the fact that two people were obviously a couple. In they would go and grope nonetheless. So for clubbing, yes, I'm sure Roppongi might tick your boxes a couple of times, though even with a group I can imagine having to run the aggressive door man hurdles, and shield the female members of your group from the hands of rich businessmen might grow a little tiresome very quickly.

Ahem... anyway. MY night out was great. We finished dancing our socks off in GasPanic, and, with many Banana Fucks down our gullet, made our way to Karaoke. This wasn't so much out of choice (although it did end up being the perfect way to the end the evening) as it was due to the fact that the last trains in Tokyo are around 12am. Add to this the facts that Roppongi isn't particularly close to anywhere and taxis are very expensive, if you're out clubbing past 11:45pm, you're pretty much stranded until the trains start again at 5am. So off we went to Karaoke.

The karaoke place was great. Moody lighting, a very comfortable room all to yourself, and an amazing selection of songs. They even had a decent selection of Motorhead songs, resulting in me giving an amazing rendition of Ace of Spades. I didn't know I could sound that much like Lemmy if I wanted to. Maybe it was my moustache that helped me. We all had an amazing time unwinding from the packed mayhem of GasPanic and the streets of Roppongi.

After it hit 5am most of the flatmates went back, but I stayed out to eat some ramen in a noodle bar so that I could sit and watch Roppongi recover from itself and peer at some of the Japanese clubbers around me, dressed like true fashionistas (how some of them manage to look so cool I'll never know!). Then it was off home.

Exclusive bar, clubs, karaoke, noodles. A perfect night out :)

じゃ、またね！See you later!