Saturday Tokyo Drifters

Arriving at the Ryuo train station at 7:30am on a partly sunny, Saturday morning, we felt excited to be on our way to Tokyo for a day of films and fun! Courtney had invited us to attend the Tokyo International Film Festival with her and Thilmin yesterday and we just couldn't say no to such an invitation. So we traveled into Kofu early on Saturday morning to hop on a bus and ride into Tokyo. As we found our seats and sat down on the coach bus, Matt and I had a flashback to when we used to ride Badger Bus home from Milwaukee; this trip became oddly familiar in this sense.

We encountered heavy traffic as the bus made its way into Shinjuku--the area of Tokyo where Matt and I had our post-departure orientation back at the end of July. Of course, I really only got a good chance to see Shinjuku in the dark at that time (we were stuck in meetings and conferences all day at the orientation and only ventured out into the city one night--when jet lag was not quite so debilitating) and the daylight made it seem even more massive than I remembered.

Our bus arrived at Shinjuku station, where we hopped on the subway and went to Roppongi--where the film festival was taking place. After ascending from the bowels of Tokyo (we must have taken 3 or 4 huge escalators up before reaching the street level), we began our walk to the movie theater. The city, even in the overcast sky, was bustling and alive and the windows of the skyscrapers glimmered from traffic lights and periodic rays of sunshine bursting through the clouds. We approached the complex which hosted the festival, bought our tickets for a Vietnamese film entitled Saigon Love Story (which we later found out was a kind of musical melodrama), and then went over to Starbucks to have a coffee and snack. Let me tell you, drinking that white chocolate mocha and eating the blueberry cream scone put me right back at home. It really tasted delicious.

Sitting at Starbucks, Courntey, Thilmin, Matt and I (and later Courtney's friend Nick) talked about how much we all missed college--the classes, the learning, the atmosphere--and I started to get sort of sad. I do miss UWM and my friends there and the life that I had come to know those four years as an undergrad. I miss being "forced" to learn new things and having exposure to many things I might never have known of had a teacher or friend not recommended it. Being at the festival made me miss the Union Theater and watching both foreign and domestic, main-stream and experimental films there with Matt and our other friends. I have a feeling that, once I return to the states, I will soon end up back at school and in the atmosphere I now miss.

Anyway, enough of my nostaligic rambling--we finally entered the movie theater and found our seats. About twenty minutes into the film, I knew that I would not like it very much. And the next two hours proved my intuition correctly. The film, itself, did have some interesting things to say--it was clearly a melodrama, based on Hollywood musical tradition (the star-struck lovers, the conflict, the singing, and the eventual heterosexual coupling at the end--the nuclear family), and dealt with class struggles/differences quite effectively. The plot and writing, however, were both trite and over the top and many of the directorial and cinematic choices were just plain ridiculous. But, perhaps if I had seen more Vietnamese films, I would be critiquing this quite differently. Then again, maybe not.

Well, after seeing the movie and being somewhat disppointed in it, we decided that we would rather spend the rest of our time in Tokyo walking around, getting a good meal, and doing some shopping. So, heading back towards to subway station, we were drawn to a crowd of people lining the street. We realized that there was a red carpet rolled out and a public fashion show taking place before the directors, actors, etc. of the films being shown at the festival appeared. We stood around, trying to peak our heads over the crowd to get a glimpse of the models (and their goofy hair styles) and the actors. After a while, we decided to head out and made our way to the Subway station--gawking at all the nice cars and stylish people passing by us. Getting off the subway at Yoyogi, we decided to take a walk through the park (stopping at the famous Shrine) and then ending up in Harajuku (the famous shopping district of Tokyo). However, as our luck would have it, the park and shrine were closed and so we had to make our way around the park, getting somewhat turned around, and eventually making our way back to Shinjuku station. We hopped on a train, rode to Harajuku station, and walked into a sea of neon lights, hoards of people, and loud music eminating from the hundreds of shops all around.

Deciding that our bellies needed filling, we tried to enter 2 different restaurants (both of which would not admit us because we were a party of 6 and it was a busy Saturday night) and eventually ended up at this great place (recommended by Courtney's friend Jen) run by an Australian. The best part of this restaurant was the fact that they had a vegetarian component to their menu! I think this was probably the first time Matt and I did not have to search the menu, deliberating on whether certain dishes had meat in it or not. We all got drinks and a hummus platter--delicious!--and had a great meal! Matt ordered the vegetable lasagna and I got the veggie casadillas! They were fantastic! We also all got magnificent deserts--they even had pumpkin pie!--and had a great time talking for hours around the table. I also enjoyed looking out the full-length window we were seated in front of, people watching and seeing others eating at the restaurant across the street.

Leaving the restaurant, we proceeded to the main street again, where we did some shopping at Zara (I got a nice, brown turtleneck sweater for winter), and then we decided to make our way back to the station. Thilmin, Matt, and I especially wanted to take the 10pm express train back to Kofu so we could then grab the last train at 11:56pm to Ryuo. So making it back to Shinjuku station, we made it to the express train platform, saw a cute old man doing stretches against a pole, and entered the train. Our ride back, though only 1 hour and 40 minutes, seemed to take forever. Matt and I kept dozing off and he got a headache which made the trip less enjoyable. I did notice, at times when I wasn't nodding off, the stark contrast between Tokyo (with all the lights and buildings crammed together) and Yamanashi (with the distant twinkle of lights on hillsides and long stretches of blackness and farmland). I told Matt that seeing Tokyo again after living in Ryuo for two and a half months gave me a kind of sensory overload. There are so many people there and so many lights and so much noise--it is just stimulus wherever you go! And while I love big cities and wish we were living in one, it was interesting to note this after living in our little, "rural" area.

Overall, we had a great Saturday with Courtney and Thilmin; their company was wonderful and we really got a chance to talk and get to know one another. And while things did not run perfectly for us when we were there and there were some disappointments with the festival, we did have a great time and hope to do it again soon!