Earthquakes and night times
Tokyo had an earthquake the other morning. I remember stirring from a pretty deep sleep to the shaking. But it stopped soon after I realised, and I just went back to sleep. I actually completely forgot about it until someone I work with brought it up in conversation.
It’s funny though. It’s a complete non-event. I’m not sure what sort of magnitude it was, but it must’ve been somewhat decent for it to have woken me (I can normally sleep through some pretty significant disturbances). Some article I was reading mentioned that when the next big quake hits, the number of deaths is likely to hit 10,000. For a city of somewhere between 14 and 37 million (depending on how you define it), that’s some pretty good odds! edit: i.e. of not dying.
I’m writing this as Sunday draws to a close. I don’t feel like I did too much this weekend. One of the Japanese guys at work organised a ‘premium’ Friday dinner for a few us, which was cool. Premium because it was the last Friday of the month, and so more people were out. But damn. I can’t tell the difference. Once you hit any sort of hub or hive of activity, there are so many people that premium or no premium are indistinguishable.
The food was like a big pot of soup with different things slightly submerged by said soup. Pretty sure it was tofu, octopus, mushroom, and other such paraphernalia. But they weren’t really part of the soup. Just in the soup. Weird, but good!
So that was Friday. Saturday day, I explored more of the Daikanyama area, where I live. It’s cool, but it’s not necessarily the type of place I’d typically gravitate to. Being so close to Shibuya is great. But it’s a bit too Double Bay’y. There are a lot of amazingly expensive cars driving around, ridiculously priced boutiques, Michelin starred restaurants, and places where you can buy $10 equivalent coffees. There is a Denny’s right next to me though, so it’s (thankfully) not all gold-plated living.
Following daytime exploring times, I headed out to Shibuya, solo. It’s something I’ve done for the last few weekends, and it has been (mostly) fun. There’s stretches where it can feel awkward. But it’s not that bad in retrospect. Maybe just a few minutes of not talking to anyone when I first arrive and order a drink. I’ve met quite a few expats on these trips out. Here for reasons as diverse as working at a video gaming company, DJ’ing, just really loving Japan (arriving and not leaving)… and investment banking. Ha.
Not every experience has been the best of times, as per last night. Ended up getting swept up in the enthusiasm of two dudes who were over here from Portugal. Boys on tour type deal. I wasn’t really up for hitting the clubs, but they were, and so I ended up joining them (and an expat American dude) for a bit. Shit clubs are shit, though, no matter where you are in the world. The place we ended up at was blaring the standard Fatman Scoop, and other such aneurysms. After two ridiculously priced drinks, I bailed.
I’m keen to keep exploring to find decent live music venues/dive bars. Beat Café, in Shibuya was cool (a place I ended up at last week). DJ was awesome. 80s inspired set, and the people I met schooled me up on a bunch of the cultural idiosyncrasies. Including how to get by if/when I’m ever in strife. Don’t be a dick, basically.
A few more photos. Shot on Friday night and wanderings on Saturday that took me through Daikanyama, to Ebisu, and then up to Harajuku, back to Shibuya and home. A lot more that I could write/say, but will leave it there for now.
