Sounds of Travel 5: One Night in Tokyo

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Here at Gadling we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each — maybe you’ll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you’ll think that they’re good songs. Got a favorite of your own? Leave it in the comments below and we’ll post it at the end of the series.

WEEK 4: Colder – One Night In Tokyo

Japan has a reputation of creating bewilderment and a sense of wonder for visitors from the Western world. For anyone who has ever gotten lost in the “fiction” of Japan created by movies like Lost in Translation or anime series like Gundam, there is a perception created of a place that looks strangely familiar yet somehow slightly askew, like your friend was hiding around the corner, waiting to jump out and scare the crap out of you. You’re left constantly on edge, ready to be surprised, shocked and amused by a constant barrage of stimuli.

It was with these thoughts in mind as I landed in Tokyo for my first trip to Japan earlier this year. My home base for the next 10 days was a high rise in the Shinjuku neighborhood – a bustling, neon-lit business district in central Tokyo. As I unpacked my things in my room, I flipped on my iPod to a song by Colder, a French electronic artist known for his moody, atmospheric compositions, fittingly selecting one of my favorite tracks called “One Night in Tokyo.”

As the track slowly kicked in, I took in my surroundings. Dusk was beginning to settle over this massive metropolis. Thousands of office towers lay before me – giant monoliths of concrete and glass glistening quietly, silhouetted against the quickly darkening sky. Each pulsated at the top with the intermittent blink of tiny red light, creating a vision of thousands of tiny insects flashing alone in the dark, performing a giant light show for an unknown audience that rushed by, oblivious. The scene was punctuated by the clackety-clack of endless subway cars as they rumbled into the gigantic Shinjuku rail station down below.

“One Night in Tokyo” was the perfect complement to my overwhelming sense of vertigo at the scene before me. The song builds slowly, adding layer upon layer of warm keyboard synths, dub echoes and handclaps, while lead singer Marc Tan sings in a detached, mysterious monotone. The sound effects fade in and out of the song chaotically, much like the intermittent trains that pierced the silence of my quiet hotel room.

As isolating as this all may sound, One Night in Tokyo was absolutely perfect for setting the right Tokyo mood. It captured what I found so intriguing about Tokyo at night – the air feels thick with excitement and potential. The dark alleyways, the searing neon, the bustle and the activity all created a sense of mystery and excitement. There was a constant sense that at any moment I would be thrust into my own movie plot, filled with strange characters and shady villans darting onto subway platforms and down sidestreets.

My next 10 days in Japan presented me with an experience I will never forget. The Japan of reality is surprisingly not like the one portrayed in my imagination – in fact it’s far weirder. But for those first few hours in Tokyo, as the day began to dim and One Night in Tokyo slowly dissipated from my speakers, my fantasy vision of Japan was alive and well.

Click here for previous Sounds of Travel

Monkey waiters in Japan a hit with diners

by Jamie Rhein on

Here’s a novel approach to providing customer service. At Kayabukiya Tavern, a restaurant just north of Tokyo, two Japanese macaque monkeys, one named Yat-chan and the other, Fuku-chan, fetch drinks and bring people warm towels to wipe their hands.

Dressed in waiter-like outfits, the duo are certified to work here. Customers love them and ply the monkeys with soya beans as tips. Because of animal rights regulations, the monkeys only work two hours a day, but according to this Mail-on line article, there are three more in training. Click on the video to see them in action. Some folks think the monkeys can understand drink orders.

“No Reservations” season 4, episode 16: Tokyo

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Location: it’s Tokyo time! Bourdain finally makes his pilgrimage to every food host’s favorite culinary destination, the capital of Japan and one of the world’s largest cities.

Episode Rating: Three bloody meat cleavers out of five. Bourdain made a concerted effort not to do the traditional “this is Japan” food show. It made for interesting subject matter, but the episode also seemed a bit disjointed as well.

Summary: In Anthony Bourdain’s mind, Japan is all about the relentless pursuit of perfection. No matter if it’s food, art or sport, the Japanese are almost religious in their attention to quality and detail. It is through this lens that Bourdain takes us on a tour of Tokyo, one of the most famous but also most confusing places to visit on earth (after visiting earlier this year, I would have to agree). After an earlier No Reservations visit to Osaka, where Tony proclaimed he was not going to “do the traditional” Japan visit to Tokyo, it was interesting to get an entirely different Bourdain perspective on the country, one which was noticeably more subdued than his previous visit.
There’s no better insight into Japanese culinary culture than noodles, and Tony starts his visit by meeting up with famous Japanese chef Masaharu Morimoto for some soba. Made mostly from buckwheat, soba noodles are “one of the most fundamental foods” in Japanese cooking. The noodle shop they visit has been perfecting the art of making the perfect noodle since 1789. Each noodle is cut to the exact width of 1.6mm to ensure proper cooking time and consistency. It was clear Tony was loving his noodles, and the camera work here confirms this – we see some serious “noodle porn” with plenty of close-ups and slow-mo effects for good measure.

Not to be outdone by Japanese noodle-making is the Japanese fanaticism for quality cocktails. To better experience the phenomenon, Tony visits Bar IshinoHana, world-famous for its exquisitely-crafted cocktails. According to Tony, the bartender spends an “agonizingly” long time making Tony’s drink – relax man, it’s going to be one-of-a-kind! In the pursuit of his hypothesis that the Japanese are obsessed with perfection, Tony asks the bartender what inspired him to become a bartender. Amusingly enough, the bartender answers his idol is Tom Cruise in Cocktail. How’s that for an odd source of inspiration?

In order to work off his designer-cocktail hangover the next day, Tony visits a sports complex to learn more about Kendo. The sport, involving the ancient martial arts techniques of sword fighting, is as much a mental exercise as it is a physical one. Participants use their shinai, or bamboo sword, to try and outmaneuver and out-think their opponent, aiming to strike body hits.

Back in Tokyo’s Roppongi district, Tony reunites with chef Morimoto after-hours at his restaurant, XEX. Morimoto prepares Bourdain a surprisingly delicious multi-course dinner using a whole Monkfish. Not a single organ is wasted – Tony gets to sample the liver (tastes like foie gras), fried monkfish with seaweed and bamboo shoots, and a “Nabe” (NAH-bay) made with Monkfish cartilage and skin. All unexpectedly prepared and unexpectedly delicious.

Tony seems to be tired of Tokyo, so he hops on a Shinkansen bullet train to take in some of the other nearby sites. I think Bourdain must be getting up there in years, because the next 5-10 minutes of the show take an unexpected turn into HGTV territory while Tony learns about the art of Ikebana, or Japanese flower arrangement. Really? Look, I don’t doubt that it’s a cool art form, but it really did seem out of place in your typical No Reservations episode that centers on gluttony, shooting firearms and killing animals. Perhaps Tony is becoming more mellow as he ages?

All the arts and crafts have made Tony hungry, so he heads to a famous Yakitori joint known for their top-notch chicken skewers. Let me tell you – there is not a single fingernail of that chicken which Tony did not eat in this scene, where he devours rare chicken breast, spleen, chicken sashimi, the chicken tissue connecting the liver and heart, chicken skin, and chicken tataki. I swear, I will not make any “tastes like chicken” jokes here. Tony makes a point of commenting on the raw chicken, which he finds surprisingly delicious. Apparently illness is not an issue, as the chicken is killed immediately before preparation.

Tony ends his adventure outside Tokyo with a visit to a knife-making shop in Sakai City, and with a traditional Kaiseki meal with chef Morimoto, prepared using fresh seasonal, regional ingredients. Tony samples some Cod sperm during his meal, but this kind of weird food indulgence almost seems routine at this point.

Appropriately, Bourdain ends his Tokyo visit with a trip to one of the city’s most famous sushi establishments. The sushi is simply made, amazingly fresh and accompanied by perfectly-made rice. Tony can’t help but hide his glee, proclaiming it the best sushi he’s ever had. Another reminder that when it comes to anything in Japan, the “devil is in the details.” Anthony Bourdain’s Japan is much of the same – an idealized vision of perfectly crafted foods, supreme attention to the little things and an overarching philosophy of minimalism. In modern Japan, that’s perhaps only half the picture – there are plenty of elements of Japanese culture, technology and bizarreness that Tony intentionally leaves out here. But for a show with a singular focus on food and spinning us a pretty narrative, it makes for a nicely packaged hour of television.

I Survived a Japanese Game Show: Thumbs up

by Jamie Rhein on

Yesterday, I wondered if ABC’s I Survived a Japanese Game Show would be really awful or very funny. I had some concern that there would be cultural insensitivity that would make for very bad TV. My teenage daughter, who I corralled to watch with me, and I laughed and laughed.

Hollywood got it right.

Whoever thought of this show likes people and knows something about what it feels like to be thrust into an unfamiliar environment, but wanting to stay open to the experience. This was like Lost In Translation meets The Amazing Race, Average Joe and the game show, Beat the Clock.

Because the cast had no idea what kind of show they had signed up for when they arrived from their various homes across the U.S., even the quick trip from the domestic to the international terminal at LAX in Los Angeles was funny.

“Huh? Say what?” they wondered after the short hop from one building to the other.

“You’re going to Japan,” said host/interpreter Tony Sano.

“Great!” ” Wonderful! ” was shouted out in a flurry of excitement. Most had never been out of the U.S.

After arriving in Tokyo, Ben Hughes, age 44, and the official handler of Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania summed up the feeling, “I was sitting on a couch in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and now, I’m in Japan.”

After briefly establishing Tokyo as a bustling, bright lights, big city kind of place, contestants were taken from the busiest intersection in the world across Rainbow Bridge to their home away from home –Kansai House run by Mamasan.

Mamasan, a stout Japanese woman has the role in the show of keeping these folks in line and teaching them a bit about Japanese culture. ” No shoes in the house,” she barked. “Now, you go to bed.”

The sake, the traditional style Japanese beds and the remote control toilet were points of interest before shut eye.

Here are a few of the reactions:

  • Of the sake, “It’s lighter than a wine cooler.”
  • Of the beds, “I don’t know if I want to sleep on the floor,”
  • And of the toilet, “Tokyo is way far advanced than the United States of America.”

The next morning, still without a clue about the purpose of this Japan jaunt, the contestants were taken to Toho Studio where Sano told them, “Many classic Japanese films are made here.”

All nodded and murmured in their what I imagined was a jet-lagged, “I don’t know why this is important really since I’ve never seen a Japanese classic film, but I’m happy to be here anyway” sound.

Then the fun really began. The intro to the game show was perfect.

As they trotted through a door while Sano told them that this was where one of the most popular game shows was filmed, one of them said, “It’s completely pitch black.”

Sano said, “The game show starts right now,” and the lights came on.

Surprise! There they were in the middle of the studio floor. “Hello, America! Welcome to Japan!” shouts out game show host, Rome Kanda. The Japanese audience on both sides goes wild.

The Americans are up for anything, even though they have an inkling that they are in the middle of a cross-cultural joke.

The look on their faces reminded me of how my Peace Corps group and I must have looked the day we were whisked from our Western-style training site to live in an African village only three days after arriving in the country. Totally unprepared, but willing to give it a go.

“This is Majide,” Kanda, explains. “It means you got to be crazy.” For the chance to win $250,000 the contestants are willing to be crazy.

“Wave to the crowd,” says Kanda.

The contestants wave.

“Wow, they do whatever I tell them,” says Kanda in Japanese to the Japanese audience, who laughs and continues to stomp, beat on drums, generally make excited audience sounds, and shout out “Majide” whenever Kanda gives the cue. This is a non-menacing audience, though, and the impression is they are rooting for the Americans to do well.

Gamely, and good-natured, the contestants divide up into two teams: the yellow penguins and the green monkeys.

The first game is called, “Conveyor Restaurant.”

In a nutshell: One person from the team is the eater. The other members have a helmet like contraption on their heads that holds a mochi, a sticky rice ball cake. Running on a treadmill, they make it to the spot where the eater is. The eater, without using his hands, has to lean over, grab the mochi with his mouth and eat it all up while the treadmill runner drops to the treadmill and is briskly dumped into a vat of flour.

The team that downs the most sticky rice balls in four minutes wins. As the game continues the treadmill goes faster. It was a hoot.

“There’s no cheating and no hanky panky,” warns Kanda.

“Good fall,” says a member of the yellow penguins who are watching from the green room. Zip goes a green monkey into the flour.

Later, covered from head to toe in flour, Ben says, “I hate treadmills,” but runs his heart out anyway.

“The mochi ball was so gooey I couldn’t chew it and swallow it,” said Donnell Pitman, age 32, and a real estate developer from Illinois who was the green team’s eater.

Sticky or not, he downed 10 of those babies. Which was enough to win the game. The yellow team only managed nine, even though 28 year-old, Andrew Kelly-Hayes, a radio sales consultant from Massachusetts ate like a champ.

“I don’t even know what that was. It was like putty,” he said later.

Once, while Andrew was chewing away, Kanda said in Japanese, “Look at that chubby face go to work, ” making the audience chortle with delight.

Fellow teammate, Darcy Sletager, a single mom and photo editor from Sandpoint, Idaho couldn’t stay on her feet long enough to deliver one mochi ball which caused the yellow team to lose.

“Darcy looked like a crash test dummy,” lamented Justin Wood, a financial representative from Alabama, and another yellow penguin.

For losing, the yellow penguins got to dress up like rickshaw drivers the next day to haul amenable Japanese people around.

For their win, the green monkeys scored a helicopter tour of Tokyo.

Each of these segments helped fill out the hour time slot of “How I Survived a Japanese game show,” but also established the personalities of the players. Cathy Nardone, age 21, for example, was described as a “Staten Island Diva.”

After the rickshaw experience, one of them said what is a mantra that ensures pleasant travel, “We took a bad situation and made it pretty cool.”

Still one of them was to be eliminated. The team chose Darcy because of her lack of “Conveyor Restaurant’ performance and Bilenda Madison, to compete in the game “Big Bugs Splat on Windshield.”

Dressed like bugs, the two took turns running towards a trampoline that they jumped on which hurled them at a mock-up of a car windshield with targets. The one who deposited green goo on the windshield closer to the targets got the most points.

“Are you exciting? ” Kanda asked Darcy. “Yes, I’m exciting, ” she said before running towards her last jump. She was exciting, but came one point short of winning.

At this point, guys in black suits ran into the studio, and after dancing around winner Bilenda, picked up Darcy carrying her out of the building.

The show ended with Darcy walking out the studio gate still dressed in her costume, her bug wings bouncing and her antennas swaying ever so slightly.

Yep, I was impressed. This is a good-natured show, at least so far. It teaches a bit about Japan, generates fun–perfect for the summer, and shows just how willing Americans are to put on a game face when they have to, and liking it.

I’m tuning in next week.

*Photos are from the “I Survived a Japanese Game Show” Web site.