mandooks

Tokyo Day 2 – Walk walk fashion baby

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Anxiety! It spikes through my body in waves, like a bad trip. I am filled with a low hum of anxiety about this trip all the time, because I am alone in a foreign country and it would be crazy not to. But this particular anxiety pertains to the real life that is waiting for me at home, the things I tried to avoid by coming here. I wish I didn’t have to face these things, but maybe now is exactly the right time, with some distance, weighed down by jetlag. Negative stuff doesn’t just go away because you ignore it. It will take me all my life to learn that lesson. Facing difficult things head on is… not my strong suit.

Anyway, who has time for that crap when you’ve got Harajuku to discover? I bought a red, lolita-adjacent flowy dress especially for this, and goddammit I’m gonna wear the crap out of it.

Harajuku: an odd mix of big avenues piled high with pricey brands Vuitton-Dior-Chanel-whatever, imposing malls and winding alleys full of designer stores and select thrift shops.

The subway takes me directly to Takeshita-dori: the belly of the beast. The sun is out today, the city is vibrant and full, this particular fervor I understand. Steep stairs lead to skull-adorned shops where they sell necklaces with tiny silver locks…. you know the ones. My Nana-loving heart bleeds. Rainbow-colored cotton candy, cream filled crepes, rad pumps and platform shoes so high they would bring you to tears. Takeshita-dori doesn’t disappoint.

I walk the slightly more chill avenues and streets of Otome-sando, enjoying this flirty little thing we’ve got going on, the sun and I. Slight wardrobe mishap: the wind loves to play with my flowy dress, which, by definition, flows. I hold on to my dress Marilyn-style every two seconds and pray I’m not actually flashing anyone.

At Laforet, I find vegan ramen. Vegan! Ramen! Three cheers for food. Well-fed and with renewed energy, I head to a vintage thrift store, get totally lost on the way there, end up strolling through the tiny streets of a residential neighbourhood, sunny and quiet. This is so nice. I take advantage of the quiet to turn up the music.

But like all fireworks and all sunsets we all burn in different ways: you are a fast explosion, I’m the embers

Google Maps points me in the right direction and while night falls, I head to Akihabara, temple of otaku culture, according to the guide. Well, okay. It is brightly colored and imposing. Okay. There are manga and gaming shops. Cool. I’m freezing in my flowy dress and there’s nothing charming about this place. Also, my feet hurt. I head back to the hostel.

That evening, I get a call from my dad. He’s in the south of Laos, getting ready to cross over to the Dark Side (aka Cambodia). We spend a few minutes shitting all over the French: family traditions.

I’ve got museum tickets for tomorrow and a brand new Harajuku sweater to show off. Life is good.

SONG CREDITS : Nightingale/December Song – Sunset Rubdown

Tokyo Day 1 – Into the Unknown

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You know, when all your veins are trembling,
You recognize it - life!

Wendy Cope

At customs, I think my bag gets targeted for a search because of my pink hair – the uniformed guy sure insisted a bunch of times on the harsh punishment for drug smugglers… Right. The other pink-haired person in the queue also gets their bag searched. Just saying.

It’s 7am, I have slept a maximum of three hours on this goddamn plane, and I do not know what comes next. This is going to be great.

I expect things to be hard, that’s my default when traveling – when I experience life in general – so I’m quite surprised that some things are not that complicated : getting cash, buying a metro card, the trip from the airport to the hostel, leaving my luggage there… all pretty straightforward and easy. I’m starting to think, maybe I can do this.

Turns out I can’t. Not on five hours of sleep in two days and an empty stomach and wifi-less. I walk around aimlessly in the cold before I find a coffee shop to warm up in, install 3G and caffeinate. Respite. And an opportunity to do some serious research on what to do during the next few days. Or like, the next six hours, before I can actually check in at the hostel. The sky overhead is grey and flat. Welcome to Tokyo.

I was warned about the amount of coins I would be handed. So far (yes, it’s been five hours), it has been the opposite of a burden. There was no coins in Cambodia – only ugly dollar bills and poetically insignificant riel bills. Euro coins are ugly and boring. They weigh me down as I avoid the gaze of a different homeless person at every step, escape my pockets into their waiting cups. These delicate little coins weigh nothing – different sizes and shapes and colors, symbolic values that mean nothing to me.

Soon I will escape my refuge and go on the hunt for the famed Shibuya crossing. After a hard morning, I’ve decided to face things head on : six days don’t leave a lot of time for hiding out in a pit of anxiety.

On the other side of the world, my friends are asleep. Margot is very busy not arguing with her family in Mexico. If I think about how alone I am right now, I’ll start crying. But what are coffee shops for if not to spill a few useless tears?

I walk around Shinjuku, then all the way to Shibuya, taking in the urban vastness of this megalopolis. Ugly concrete, compact cars, kawaii designs, swarms of people. As night falls quickly over my weary shoulders, Tokyo lights up around me and seems to pick up speed. I should feel lost and ant-like in this strange city, but I’ve spent evenings crying in the streets of Thailand’s capital, lost and helpless. Tokyo just feels like Bangkok on crack.

For a semblance of familiarity and warmth, I explore the different floors of Tower Records, threaten to burn their Coldplay display (it would serve them right), find twenty one pilots in the rows of albums. I feel more like myself than I have since I left Brussels.

In the brightly colored streets of Shibuya, steadily fed by the crowds scrambling around the famed crossing, the Japanese version of Into the Unknown keeps playing on a loop. A fever dream, a hallucination, a sign. May Elsa’s hunger for adventure be with me.

I’m getting seriously cold and this has been enough outrageous capitalism for one day. I take the subway back to the hostel, buy seaweed onigiri at the konbini (a decade of reading mangas prepared me adequately for this, thank you Ai Yazawa), and enjoy familiarizing myself with the hostel’s kitchen and common room. What a cool place to stay at.

I decide to hit up Harajuku the next day : what’s the point of waiting? This is where I was always heading anyway.

SONG CREDITS: Into the Unknown – Frozen 2 – Disney

Tokyo Day 0 – All things grow

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At the airport, after a brutal two hours of sleep and more adulting than I am usually able to handle, I feel myself slip back into that person already. Bare-bones me, haunter of airports. Pink hair, sweatpants, backpack, sad music in my ears (I was in love with the place in my mind, in my mind, I made a lot of mistakes in my mind, in my mind).

After the intensity of the past few days, I’ve been waiting for this: a return to form. I order a truly horrid latte at Exki. Later I’ll go look at the books, strategically place a copy of Good Omens in front of the Cassandra Clares. This is old hat. What comes next is… unknown, in a way that scares me. I am not prepared. This whole trip was a spur of the moment thing and I don’t know how I’ll fare in this very foreign world. But I do get a thrill when the check-in lady announces my final destination. Tokyo. Oh my god.

I still feel the same way I did when I went to San Francisco two years ago. About bringing my fucked up self on this trip and being scared of circumstances as well as myself. With the added bonus of knowing my past self had the same worries and pulled through. With confidence boosted up by the fact that I am now less shit at making friends. But still. How will I measure up?

That thing where they put free-to-use pianos in train stations and airports: I’m obviously very into that. I was waiting for my gate to be announced when someone started playing Bohemian Rhapsody, like an angel sent by Santa to bless my trip. Happy Mercurymass, everybody.

“I think the reason I am doing this is because I enjoy proving myself wrong”, I write in a black notebook, so exhausted I have trouble staying upright, watching the sun rise over Gate A.

Waiting for my connecting flight in Frankfurt, I chat with a very nice Tunisian lady whose husband is Belgian. She informs me that Belgium is shit, “there’s nothing to see there”, and its people are boring. Haha. I yote.

I think of how truly unprepared I am as sleep keeps escaping my numerous attempts to catch it. It is 7pm my time, 3am local time. Four more hours caged in this metal bird. What I want to do right now is sleep. Or sing harmonies. Or write a poem. What I don’t want to do is watch the end of X-Men Dark Phoenix. I hate planes.

SONG CREDITS: Chicago – Sufjan Stevens

before.

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This piece is known as ‘the poem that’s so cheesy it’s practically fondue’. You’ve been warned.

would you
come over to
my house we could
sit on the floor
make up lyrics for
forgotten songs
you would
tuck your toes under my thigh
warm your fingertips on
the chipped porcelain of my
skull-shaped teacup
when I bring it to my lips it
always reminds me of
you

let me be kind to 
someone who won’t 
hold it against me

I will
listen while you 
talk about the things you
love
you could
laugh at my jokes
if you think they’re funny
maybe when I’m tired
I’ll let you 
mess up my hair
we could
share a blanket and
fall asleep holding hands

I don’t want romance.
please, darling,
just see me

Things to commit to memory

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I spent Halloween night writing and singing songs with my friends. It was the very definition of living my best life. This is for them.

My heart is so full
Of mismatched stickers on computers
Fantastic bouts of laughter
Cigarette breaks in the coldest darkest night
Plush leaf sheep petted, coddled, traded from hand to hand
Dark secrets of Google searches revealed

Our fearless leaders:
Pink hair, clear eyes, green tail
Construct elaborate militant theories
About giant monsters, savior robots,
Humans crushed under their heel

A twin by my side
Enthusiast romantic chemist
Pilot of twenty one vessels
Trash collector king:
My serendipitous brother

This community of dedicated warriors:
The quiet pitter-patter of their typing fingers
Spinning into being, heart-shaped, hard-edged,
Untold worlds, luminescent on a dusty keyboard
Through obscure challenges and inside jokes

This drivel we’ve written
This dream of ours
An unpalatable house of cards
Crumbling under the weight of our critical minds

We exchange stamps, cards, notebooks
Enough food and coffee to feed a small army
Of relentless storytellers
Diligent wordsmiths
Stumbling, half-awake, through the hurdles of adulthood
Hopeful, toward a bowl of hummus

The sun crests high windows
Ornate ceilings
A guitar, five voices
Exhausted, heartfelt, elated
Drag half-forgotten lyrics from their deepest teenage angst
(Even Thom Yorke wouldn’t
Take this from us)
Melodies warm up my icy fingers, my black-striped soul
Until they remember how to sing

Down on the ground, up through the roof
We drown our weary bodies
In pancakes and syrup
My daydream empire for an inviting bed

But the warmth of your smiles
Keeps me awake
Humming
Climbing
All the way up to my ivory tower

I feel alive when I’m surrounded with
Talented driven compassionate silly
Rainbow-colored
Friends