Travelogue #2: Tokyo

While I've had a ton of time in my hotel room by myself I've been trying to do some exercises in a genre I dub "place songwriting." Just kind of soaking in the general atmosphere of a place, soaking in the sounds, the people, the feel of it all, and trying to come up with an aural component for that experience...I was inspired by songs like Rufus's "Barcelona," Sufjan's "Chicago," (fuck, all of Sufjan's songs about places), Sinatra's "New York, New York," Mason Jennings' "California"...the list goes on. It's been such a unique and mindblowing experience even after only 2 days in this crazy city. People who have never been out of the U.S need to experience coming to a place where finding a soul who speaks your language is like trying to find the message in a Will Ferrell movie, where making eye contact with someone rarely ever happens, where eating goose liver for breakfast is as ordinary and routine as brushing your teeth in the morning. My taste buds are still getting acclimated to all the interesting foods I've come across...so much raw fish...always raw fish!! For breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Unagi, maguro, ahi, among many other forgettable pronunciations and names. American arrogance aside, I'm actually really surprised that hardly anybody speaks English, because I thought Tokyo was one of the international business hubs of the world and I guess I thought more American businessmen frequented this place. Even the subway signs are all english-free...my dad spent 10 minutes trying to get the guy in the ticket booth to give him an English map. "Map," he said frantically, making a square in the air with his index finger. "Map." And all this time the guy was just smiling and nodding at him pleasantly as if he were telling a nice joke before finally realizing what my dad was miming. Sheesh.



We did eventually get to our destination thanks to this ^ ...went to the Western museum of art and I used my knowledge from my art history classes to educate my dad about Impressionism and Modernism and what the little dots in the Signac painting meant...it was great. We're about to tackle the craziness of the subway station yet again. It's raining outside and looking down from my window I see masses of umbrellas, moving along the sidewalk like little colorful dots. It made me miss America already. More to come soon.