Oh, Roppongi

Thursday, October 28th, 2010 in: News

My first weekend back in Japan, I tagged along with Shinobu and her friends to Zushi, a beach town not far from Yokohama. It’s amazing how the beach culture remains constant no matter where you are. I felt like I could have just as easily been in Southern California or Okinawa, from the vibe of the crowds lounging in the sand or floating in the water, to the bars and shops that lined the shore. On the way I got a message from my climbing friend Shihong who was visiting friends from California and headed to same beach that day. I met up with them and we floated in the lukewarm ocean, Coronas in hand, chatting until the sun set the ocean on fire and disappeared over the horizon. Shihong’s friend Sim works for a software company in Tokyo; he’s an outgoing guy, the kind you immediately warm up to. Although Shihong was going back home early next week, Sim invited me to his birthday party the following weekend in Roppongi. I’m not a big party animal, but it sounded like fun and they were telling me I should meet his coworkers who share some of my interests. So the following Friday, I found myself heading to the F-Bar in Roppongi dressed in my “nice shirt” and actual shoes, unsure of what to expect.

I was a bit late, but couldn’t get through to Sim’s phone, so I assumed they were already inside. The 3500 yen cover charge was rather high, even for a Tokyo club, but when I asked about my friend, the words “birthday party” changed the tone as they demanded 8000 yen for the luxury of sitting at a table. I tried to call Sim, ready to give up and head back home. Just as he picked up, the bouncers just grabbed my arm and shoved me inside, embarrassed to have someone pacing in the foyer bitching about the cost of entry. F-Bar is long and narrow, with the bar on the left hugging the wall and the “VIP sections” with tables and chairs raised on the right. The narrow strip of floorspace leading to the equally narrow dancefloor wasn’t yet packed for the night’s meat market–it was only 11:15pm. By coming out so late I had committed to an all-nighter; it was already too late to head back home before the last train. Inside I could barely hear Sim on the line, but caught that he actually hadn’t arrived yet. I stood opposite the bar and leaned against some railing, completely out of my comfort zone. When I’m uncomfortable, I get fidgety–I need something to keep myself occupied–it’s one of the reasons I have so many hobbies. But here, I had no yo-yo, no juggling balls, no ukulele, not even an iPhone to hide my discomfort; it was just me and a bunch of random strangers who clearly spent more time on their appearance than myself, and some pounding club music that would have made conversation a wasted effort. I pulled out my phone and pretended to be preoccupied with it because I literally had nothing better to do with myself. A great start to a long night, I know.

Sim arrived after about 20 agonizing minutes of staring at my phone and kicking myself for not being more sociable, but I really wasn’t interested in interacting with these people. They were here to see and be seen, to drink and dance and party because that’s what they needed to have a good time. I was there to celebrate a birthday for someone I’d only met once and talk about yoga and climbing with his coworkers. Ughhh what was I thinking?

Sim’s VIP area was crowded with his friends and coworkers, all happy to get out of the office and let their hair down a little. They kept a steady stream of vodka and mixers coming to serve as social lubricant. I finally worked up the courage to take a drink for myself, and I kept topping it off with vodka to settle my nerves. Sim’s friends were actually a decent group of people, and very friendly to this interloper. Everyone was in IT, working for this or that social media company in a nearby Roppongi highrise. Mostly foreigners, a few of them spoke decent Japanese, but English was the lingua franca of the VIP room. Sim’s boss and his wife were super nice and happy to talk a bit about yoga. They hadn’t been in town long, so his wife told me she was still getting used to the whole “living in Tokyo” thing. One of Sim’s coworkers, a girl named Yoshiko, was already stepping into obnoxiously drunk territory, and taking full advantage of the excuse to step out from the tatemae and remove her social filter. She spoke little English, so I played translator for her as she tried to tell the boss’s wife how pretty she was. As the night progressed I got more comfortable in my chair, and though most people left as they lived close by (how convenient), I ended up getting plastered and just chatting with an equally plastered Yoshiko until about 3 or 4 in the morning.

And that’s when my memory gave out.

The next thing I know is blinding light. I open my eyes and try to see around me as my eyes adjust, and realize that I’m sitting on some steps outside the club, and it’s already daytime. I must have passed out in the club and gotten kicked out when they closed. I fumble for my phone to check the time; it’s almost 7, the trains started running long ago. I had trouble focusing on the numbers, still remarkably drunk to the point of stupidity. When I get this way, a homing beacon in my brain turns itself on that somehow maneuvers me back home so I can recover from the previous night’s poor decisions. Then I looked past the phone and saw something I couldn’t explain: I was holding a purse.

Not my purse, a woman’s purse.

Oh, I had my bag, but this new piece of luggage came with no explanation; I had no idea whose it was or where it came from. Eventually a salient thought penetrated the drunken fog and I actually looked in the purse for some ID. It was Yoshiko’s, but where was she? I looked around for her but only saw white guys who had struck out at the bar. I realized that I must have looked the same. I sat back down grasping my head with both hands in an attempt to keep the world steady for a minute to let me think. Crap, how much did I drink? What am I supposed to do with this purse? What the FUCK is going on here?

When I am this messed up, in serious need of a shower and a good night’s sleep, a switch goes off in my head that sets me on autopilot and maneuvers me home. In ten minutes there was no sign of Yoshiko or anyone else I recognized from the night before. I didn’t know anyone, so there was no one I could trust with the bag, and I couldn’t just leave it and walk away. What’s the right thing to do in a situation like this? Don’t answer that because it doesn’t matter; I was inebriated beyond reason. There was only one option in my mind: take it home with me and return it later.

Fortunately my innate sense of directions seem to work on public transportation. I’m not sure how long it took me to actually get on the train with all the breaks I took between the club and the subway platform; I was a drunken wreck, clutching a woman’s purse, which means I could blend right in in Japan. The train was mercifully empty and I passed out in a seat, waking up at the last stop and realizing I had overshot my stop. I crawled out the train and across the platform to double back. The rest of my commute was equally pathetic, and when I finally got home it was about 9am and I was ready to just die. Sosha was at the kitchen table eating cornflakes. “Okaeri, how was it?” he asked.

I shuffled across the room with my eyes half-closed and apparently said “Fuck Roppongi, fuck vodka, and fuck this purse.” I fell onto the futon in the living room, grateful for a floor that could stop gravity from sucking me directly to hell. My last thought was “shit, I just robbed someone.”

To be continued…

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