Japan Review 1: Sunrise Nippon

To a certain extent I felt sorry for Japan.

From Arashi to the Japanese Society to lovely lovely tonkatsu, it had a lot of expectations to live up to.

To get it out of the way first, NO – I did not do any kendo.

Sorry.

If you keep reading though, you’ll see that there was literally no time.

The story rightly begins upon a Lufthansa plane to Frankfurt. When I went to see L’Arc~en~Ciel in Paris, I was amazed by the luxury of AirFrance. Well, Lufthansa beats it -> 10/10 for sure. Even the on-board snack had helpful facts about food printed on it. I passed the time by reading the introduction to “The Annotated Alice”. The Alice books are the type where I spend about 3 minutes at a time reading and then spend about 15 minutes thinking about what I read. So it takes a looooooog time to get through! The flight was pleasant and not too long. I arrived in Germany in good spirits.

The reputation of Frankfurt Airport preceded it. Toru is always moaning about it. I assumed it was his same typically wild overreaction to everything. Now, I take it back. I spent 6 hours waiting for my connection and it was HELL ON EARTH. Or Hell in McDonalds at least. I had to eat in the famous Frankfurt McDonalds and as far as McDonalds go, it wasn’t too bad. You can watch the planes from a big glass wall. I spent the time making a video of the ninjers from Dun Laoghaire:

^ Jorge’s laugh is the best part, don’t you think?

Eventually I could check in to the ANA lounge and was told by the girl at the desk that some of the group had already arrived. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell me who. This gave me the best part of an hour to stare at the people around me, trying to figure out who was who. Most were fairly obvious. The large group of people speaking in heavily accented English was a bit of a give away.

Before boarding there was a touch of drama as the ANA staff realised the flight was over-booked. There were wandering around with harried expressions offering €500 and a first class upgrade to anyone who would wait for the flight the next day. I have no idea how it turned out but it didn’t seem that that bad a deal.

Whether we knew each other or not, all the people who were on the Study Tour seemed to drift towards each other while we were boarding. I had a few minutes of panic where I imagined that EVERYONE had met each other already and I had missed the friendship boat, but I managed to hold it together…

Once I was in my seat on the plane I found myself next to the delightful Nicola from Italy and the lovely Kristófer from Iceland. We were all fairly wrecked so there was enough small talk to make sure that none of us were serial killers or kiddy fiddlers but not much more. Nicola did describe me as an Anglo-Saxon though, which didn’t go down too well. A choice Old English expressions soon put that right though

I don’t remember all the films I watched…One was “Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo)” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1087578/#comment

It’s a real slow-burner and a bit “arty” but I liked it. The summary sounds crap but it’s gripping and a little bit uncomfortable to watch. I also watched the music videos which were all crap apart from Perfume. <- They’re a technopop girl group and a good download of their album “GAME” is hard to find, but it’s fantastic if you can get it.

Anyway, there are no photos of any of this because I wasn’t sure if all my electronics were going to work in Japan…

The food, comfort freebies and entertainment system on ANA was good but not as good as AirFrance or the almight KoreanAir. Shape up Japan, shape up.

After a million hours in the air, but thankfully not much turbulence, we landed in Narita.

Finally I was in Japan! A life-long (or maybe year-long) dream was realised!

I was already on the lookout for ikemen types. I’m fairly sure you have to be Japanese to be an “ikemen”. That’s not to say that all Japanese men are ikemen. However, I think the standard ikemen is a pretty-boy Japanese guy, though allowances can be made for other types of attractiveness. For example, you wouldn’t call Koki from KAT-TUN an typical ikemen, but he probably qualifies anyway. I need to write a full blog about this….or sit down and take a long hard look at my priorities in life….

But, for now, back to the ikemen! After a looooooooooong wait at the passport control area, I was up at the top of the queue and found myself face to face with an ikemen….passport-control-guy-immigration-man. Hooray! I had to do that electronic fingerprint thing though, which I screwed up about 7 times. Ooops. I suppose I don’t look that threatening because eventually he just checked my documents and waved me through. Ikemen and Siobhán 1 – 0 Fingerprint machine.

The luggage came quickly after that fiasco and I led a group (yes! power!) of Study Tour people out into Arrivals. There I spotted a charming middle-aged Japanese woman holding a sign for us and I bounded over to her in a manner as genki as possible. This was Keiko-san who would be our guide and mother for the whole Tour. She directed us over to her partner in crime Yajima-san, who was waiting in a corner trying to keep us all together. Yajima-san is a dapper young man who had only graduated from college last May and, at the tender age of 22 had a pretty swanky job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was also wearing a nice shirt and tie, which is plus a million points in my book.

As the the rest of us trickled through, I tried to chat to the others and find out who was who. There was a clear imbalance in numbers. I was the only Irish person and there were 5 (FIVE) Germans! Everyone had to speak English though so ha ha, I win.

By then we had been travelling for close to 24 hours, some more, some less. Somehow sleeping on the planeleaves you more tired when you wake up. I was buzzing though, imagine being in the same country as all my idols! The same country as Gackt! The same country as kendo! The same country as…..well, everything! On our coach (with Japanese-sized leg room   ) we got a brief introduction to the trip. It had to be brief though because most people were falling asleep. I however, couldn’t stop staring out the window. Narita is the main international airport for Tokyo, but it’s not actually in Tokyo prefecture. It’s in Chiba. I really wanted to see Chiba for the following reasons:

CHIBA FACTFILE

• Chiba is the home of Aiba-chan from Arashi
• Chiba is the home of Kimutaku from SMAP
• Chiba is the home of Koki from KAT-TUN

So I had always imagined it to be this totally crazy place, the capital of genki. It turns out that Chiba wasn’t exactly what I was expecting….but it was still brilliant anyway.

After about an hour or so we got to Tokyo and crossed the Rainbow Bridge (haha, gay. sorry. only joking. maybe) to our hotel. It was right beside the Tokyo Tower, the Tokyo Prince Hotel: http://www.princejapan.com/tokyoprincehotel/

It was the first of many fancy hotels in Japan. More importantly, it’s in Minato-ku – THE SAME PLACE THAT SHO-KUN FROM ARASHI IS FROM!!!!! Perfect!!!

Our luggage was carried in by the porters and we were each given the keys to our own rooms. Mine was beside Kristófer (Iceland) so we went up together. As were were instructed to go to a reception in an hour’s time, we decided to go together to minimise the risk of getting completely lost.

As you can imagine, I was MASSIVELY excited about having my own room (a TWIN room no less) in an expensive hotel and tore through the place examining every drawer and bottle of shampoo I could lay my hands on. I soon realised that most of my electronics worked so it was time to start taking some pictures!

 <- Free slippers in the wardrobe!

 <- Free yukata too!

And the rest of the room:

 

 

 <-The view of Tokyo Tower out my window. It’s gorgeous at night. Bigger than the Eiffel (Ken’s) Tower too!

At this point I was beginning to calm down. The whole “being in Japan” thing was finally sinking in….Then it hit me! I had been in Japan for about 3 hours by then AND I STILL HADN’T SEEN ANY IDOLS!!! Nooooooo!

I began to panic…

So I switched on the TV…

And…

I swear to God…

The first thing I see is…

This…

….

….

….

 <- SMAP!!!!!!!!!!! OHMYGOD IT’S SMAP!!!!!

Look how cute Kimutaku (red scarf) is! Look how chubby Goro-chan (right hand side) is! They’re REAL!

<-They were promoting their new album “Super.Modern.Artistic.Performance” and I saw them! Even though it was only TV I was so happy and excited! You might think I would have preferred Arashi, but that’s not true. The senpai groups in Johnny’s Jimusho are important. Without SMAP there would be no Arashi, so it’s appropriate that SMAP were the first idols I saw in Japan. That’s what I think anyway.

After all that excitement, I took a quick bath and got glammed up for the reception. Representatives from all of the embassies with people involved as well as people from all of the events we would attend in Tokyo were invited. Although we were told it wasn’t strictly formal, I wasn’t taking any risks. Being typically male, Kristófer was ready first and came knocking at my door. I reluctantly turned off my TV and we headed to the lobby.

<- We took a bad photo in the lift going down…

In the lobby, some people on the Study Tour were already their. Keiko-san had badges for us with our names and countries in romaji and katakana. This was as much for our sake as anyone else’s and I for one was extremely grateful! As we waited for the others to turn up, I took a few photos. Looking at the pictures now, it feels strange because at the time I didn’t know who anybody was…

<- This is Kristine from Latvia. She became one of my best buddies on the trip.

 

There are no photos of the reception itself. By then I had started to realise that the some of the other people on the Tour didn’t have a particular interest in Japan. For them the Tour was something good to have on their CV. With this in mind I thought I should try to act mature and serious at the reception.

We began with some speeches and then a delicious buffet was opened up. I was a bit lost because most people immediately joined up with the rep from their embassy but (surprise surprise) the Irish rep was late. I tagged on to a few other groups and tried to mingle a bit. Finally the Irish guy came. He had actually won the Study Tour prize 12 years ago and it had obviously served him well. He didn’t stay long though and I was soon stuck on my own again. I was a bit fed up with all this “being mature” lark so I got stuck into the food. I chatted with some of the others, including Maria from Greece who would become another of my close friends.

At that stage though I wasn’t close to anybody and despite getting a number of business cards, hadn’t made any real connections. Somehow I found my way over to a group of about 7 or 8 containing people on the Tour, some of the high ranking people in Panasonic Company and the people who run the Panasonic Centre in Tokyo. Surprisingly, most of the Panasonic people were women, a factor which would become important in a minute…

As we sipped our wine, the Panasonic people politely asked each of us why we were interested in Japan. The others gave the standard answers – history, economy, politics, blah, blah, blah. However, when it was my turn I couldn’t handle being serious and mature anymore so I blurted out “ARASHI!” The general response was that Japanese “Eeeeeh?!?!” Having gone that far I thought I may as well go the whole way and In case they hadn’t fully understood me I sang “A-ra-shi, A-ra-shi, for dreeeeeeeeeam!” with full hand movements.

The other people on the Tour looked horrified. The Panasonic women, on the other hand, went absolutely CRAZY! It turned out that they were all massive Arashi fans! Who knew that Panasonic was such a hot-bed of idol-love?!?! The crowded around me squealing with delight. We spent about an hour exchanging anecdotes and discussing who our favourites were. One of them was from Chiba and she almost died when I told her that Aiba-chan was too. The Panasonic head-honcho joined us for a while, contributing “Ah….Matsujun ne” to the conversation. Eventually most of the other Japanese in the room joined us and it turned into a big Johnny’s Jimusho conference.

After a while I noticed that nearly all of the other Study Tour people had gone and Yajima-san was trying to get us out too. I said tearful goodbyes to the Panasonic women and headed down to the lobby where most of the group had congregated. Some of the older folk decided that their first night in Japan would be best spent in bed. The rest of us decided to explore the area around the hotel.

We started out a fairly large group but smaller factions splintered off as we walked. I was feeling fairly calm and not doing anything too strange… THEN SOMETHING AMAZING HAPPENED!!!! (And I went crazy again!)

As we walked past the Tokyo Tower, we saw a film crew. Curious, we headed over. My head nearly exploded when I realised that they filming a Japanese drama! It was like they knew I was coming and were waiting for me! I went right over to behind the camera and looked at the actors. I didn’t recognise them but there was a girl and a guy. Or should I say a girl and an ikemen! A crazy blond hair ikemen. It looked like a date scene. I was so happy I could have stayed there for hours! The assistant director started shooing us away though, I suppose having loads of Europeans staring at you is a bit distracting.

I needed info though, so I politely asked him what the drama was. He relaxed a bit when he heard Japanese and started explaining it to me. I thought he said “Giri Giri” drama, now I know it was “Gira Gira”. I asked him about the ikemen, which he thought was hilarious. I was half excited from all this info and half excited by the fact that I was having an actual conversation in Japanese. Eventually I had to leave though and all I got was this crap photo:

 

I did some research on “Gira Gira”:

“Based on a hit manga, this adaptation depicts the life of a married man Nanase Kohei after he returned to his former job as a male host. He woos the clients with his gentle and caring nature, and soon retrieves his former credit as the ace of the club. However, the transition back for this middle-aged man is not without its challenges. Afraid that his wife will find out about this job, Nanase is also garnering jealousy and displeasure from the younger hosts. Throughout the course of his employment, he demonstrates to others that hosting should not be the vulgar occupation it has become where the entire goal is to make the women frivolously spend money, rather, it is about a human connection that is so often overlooked. “

So it looks like the blond ikemen is Igarashi Shunji from the acting group D-BOYS, who I really shouldhave recognised. He’s in a few of my idol magazines, d’oh! He doesn’t even look cute in those pictures, he looks amazing in person! This is what he’s usually like ->

   <- Whooo!

And this the lead actor doing promotion for “Gira Gira” – looks good!:

So after all that excitement, it was time to find a bar or nightclub or……anything! I asked a few locals, but nothing came from it. Most places were closed. Eventually we found place that was kind of half izakaya, half Chinese restaurant. Still, a drink is a drink, right?

So we had a few drinks. Then a few more. Then the old men at the next table bought us lots of sweet Chinese wine. We all became great friends:

 

<- Me’n'Olga

After drinking far too much, we admired the Tokyo Tower at night:

And when I got back to my room I tried to admire it out the window:

(FAIL)

With that it was time to hit the sack and after checking all the TV channels for idols, I went to sleep in my expensive bed.

In the next instalment: Ministry of Foreign Affairs! Melon Milk! Bad Food! Diet of Japan! Kabuki! Good Food! Tokyo at Night!

and….

 

GIANT JOHNNIES!!!!!! \(^_^)/ (You’ll see….)