bad day, happy endings

Sorry I haven't posted anything new up here for a while - we've been in Kyoto for the last few days and Internet access has been much harder to come by here than it was in Tokyo (where there were three free computers right downstairs in our hotel lobby). But now we finally have located a good place to log-on - a totally awesome 24-hour internet cafe called Yu Kuhan where you can also rent little cubicles with televisions and sofa loveseats in them, and where there are free drinks (mostly coffee - the Japanese love coffee) and a library of anime, manga, and games - I thought I'd first fill everyone in on our last day (Tuesday) in Tokyo before coming to Kyoto (we're actually heading back to Tokyo for a few days in a bit), which really sucked. Everything had been going (relatively) smoothly with our trip so far and maybe we were getting overconfident - then came Tuesday and the proverbial shit hit the fan...

1) We both tossed and turned all Monday night - maybe it was residual jetlag, maybe the seemingly increasing hardness of our bed, who knows. But we both woke up groggy and grouchy.

2) The weather sucked - gray, overcast, humid, not quite raining but clearly about to bring the fucking fury.

3) Our stomachs were all out of whack - Maya kept ducking into the bathroom; I had the opposite problem, plus nonstop burping. Maybe it was the all-too-fresh raw fish from the night before. Or the bento box we had had for lunch. Only the gods of digestion know.

4) Had to do laundry (when you've only packed two or three changes of clothes, and it's typhoon season, that's what happens)...in a tiny washer and drier tucked into a tiny corner in out hotel's kitchenette where you can't even open door of either machine all the way...and where someone had left their wet laundry in the washer so we had to move it all to the dryer to do our wash, then when we had done our wash, said dickhead still hadn't shown up and we had to move his/her clothes back to the washer to dry our shit...and where said drier took about three cycles before it achieved anything even approaching dryness. (My jeans were still damp the next day.)

5) Went to buy Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets to Kyoto for the next day - Maya went to try and figure out the ticket machine, I got in the long-ass line to a teller. She thought she had figured shit out, called me out of line, only for us to discover we were still plenty confused, so we got back in line, finally got to the teller...who didn't speak English, but we somehow communicated to him what we needed, upon which he took my credit card to charge the fare, then a second later handed the card back and crossed his index fingers in an "X" sign - card denied. So I gave him my ATM card - again, card denied. We don't have enough cash on us for the tickets, so we're fucked.

6) Return to the machines, thinking maybe the teller dude just didn't know what he was doing. Nope, cards still denied, which was extra mysterious since I had used the credit card just this morning as well as the night before.

7) Fearful that my bank had shut down my card(s) suspecting identity theft due to all my recent charges in Japan - even though I had called them a month before our trip, telling them I'd be in Asia for the next few months in order to avoid just this sort of thing - we looked in our guidebook for a Citibank in Tokyo. Then proceeded to take the train to Shinjuku (where the nearest one was supposedly located), got out, and, again, the problem encountered the night before with the sushi restaurant - no street addresses! After walking around pretty much aimlessly, we finally spot a Citibank sign, run over, and try the ATM. My card works fine! What the hell? Take out enough money for the Shinkansen tickets, plus plenty more in case of god knows what.

8) Now we go to Ikebukuro (home of the Sunshine City mall) to return this camera that we had bought a few days ago from this electronic equipment superstore called Big Camera. Long story, but basically the camera we had brought with us has been kind of bugging out since we got here, and while we were on the way to Harajuku the other day, it really started bugging out and since the sky was looking like rain and since we didn't want to miss out on snapping shots of the Harajuku kids in full regalia, we bought this new camera very hastily. Turns out the camera sucks, and the next day our original camera started working again fine... So we get to the camera store, manage to track down an employee who speaks English, tell him we want to return the camera, whereupon he consults with his manager for a disturbingly long time, then comes back apologetically: Sorry, no return (cue long, barely intelligible explanation in broken English). Uhhh... Maya tries to convince him otherwise, but her efforts are clearly going nowhere fast, so we try another route: Can we at least exchange it? He consults with the manager again for a suspensefully long time. Finally, yes, manager says we can exchange. So we're set to swap the camera for this Canon Powershot, which we had looked up online the night before and discovered was much better than the camera we had gotten. We go to the checkout counter, hand the cashier my credit card, on which the original purchase had been made. Shit doesn't work! The poor barely-English-speaking employee has to call my credit card company, sort out some shit about how they were just processing the original charge so they couldn't cancel it or I don't know what beauraucratic absurdity. Eventually, after much ado about nothing, we work out a way around it all: The cashier will give us cash back for the original purchase, which we will then give right back to the store to pay for the new camera. Ye gods.

9) Having completed the whole insane transaction, we practically run for the store exit before any new complication springs up, and discover that it's fucking pouring out - "it's like a typhoon or something," as we've been kidding everytime the weather has gotten shitty (which is often). We're starving at this point, so we make a mad dash for a restaurant at a moment when the rain seems to be letting up. Shit starts right back up again, of course, and we're drenched. The streets are basically flooding, and we see the manhole cover bouncing up and down as water gushes up from around it.

10) The storm finally subsides, we duck into the Sunshine City mall and go to this soba noodle place, where there's no English menu and no one speaks English and we accidentally order a whole extra meal.

11) At least with some food in our bellies, we decide to try and find the arcade where we had first seen those medical gauze-wrapped, blood-dripping "Gloomy Bear" dolls which everyone reading our blog seems to be crazy about. We were set on trying to win one, particularly for Maya's niece, Anna, who is subletting our apartment right now. Wandering in circles, we finally realize we're in the altogether wrong neighborhood. The arcade was in Shibuya (not Ikebukuro where we still are)!

12) On the way back to the train, we run into someone in an awesome ultra-cute teddy bear outfit bobbing side to side in front of an arcade - we need a picture! So we grab our (original) camera (which had been working fine again) - the thing goes totally bonkers. So then we scramble to get out and set up the new camera, give it to this young girl who works for the arcade and ask her to shoot a picture of us with said teddy bear, but the new camera also refuses to cooperate! Finally, after much desperate button-pushing and mode-changing, we get the fucking thing working and the girl snaps the hardearned pic below (see the exhaustion and exasperation on our faces?).



13) So we go to Shibuya, somehow find the arcade with the Gloomy Bears, and end up wasting 2,000 yen (approx. $20) trying to win this totally rigged, impossible, bullshit game - you know, one of those deals with the machanical arm that you have to control and try to pick up stuffed toys with. Has anyone ever actually won a toy with one of those hell-spawned contraptions? (So anyway, sorry Anna, we tried.) I'm pissed, pissed, pissed - I had decided (a stupid idea, I admit) that if I at least could win a goddamn Gloomy Bear that this godawful day would have been salvaged, but no, the day was officially fucked.

14) Maybe it was inevitable considering the endless horrors we'd been enduring since we woke up, but Maya and I end up getting into a monster of a fight. Tears are shed, I think, though it's hard to tell, because, of course, it has started raining again and we're getting sopped.

Somehow, under an awning of a big bookstore, we made up just enough to decide that since we're in the neightborhood and since we don't really have that much more time in Tokyo, we should try to find "Love Hotel Hill," which is in Shibuya. If you don't know, Love Hotels are these distinctly Japanese things that evolved because of the tight living quarters that most Japanese people not only habitate in themselves but share with their extended families. This has meant that many people, particularly young people, need a place outside the home to, uh, get it on, so to speak. Enter Love Hotels, little getaways that you can rent out for a few hours - a period referred to as "Rest" - or for the whole night - "Stay." For extra discreetness, you rent out your room by machine. Many of these rooms have themes - S&M, hot tub, bumper cars(?) - and you can often buy lingerie and sex toys on the premises; most of the rooms, however, are just basic walls-and-a-bed setups. Love Hotel Hill features the largest concentration of these hotels in one area in all of Japan - and all of the world. Unfortunately, Maya and I were in no mood to put a Love Hotel to use - any Hate Hotels available where a pissed-off couple can whale on each other for a few hours? - but we did want to see them and it ended up being pretty nuts. And you know what, the strange, rather cheesy, a little sketchy, but somehow still endearing sight of them all (and of all the couples stepping in and out of them, basking in their pre- or post-coital glows) kind of cheered us up and even brought back some of our own love.