Don’t Mention Blade Runner While in Tokyo Challenge
Aw FUCK
April 16, 2023 | Tokyo, Japan
After a procession of tiny cars featuring a slate of politicians hand rumbled away from the turnaround outside, I proceeded into the park toward the Meiju Shrine.
The Meiji Restoration - the return of the Emperor of Japan to a place of power, rather than the shogunate military ruling in an isolated feudal system - represents one of the most astounding shifts in a national polity and international power in the history of the world. In 1853, when American Commodore Matthew Perry forced the nation open at literal gunpoint, Japan was a fractious, backward feudal state ripe for colonization by the rapacious European powers. By 1868, Japan was a powerful, rapidly industrializing nation, united under an constitutional monarchy and poised to become a rapacious colonial power itself.
Basically, they did a speedrun of the construction of a modern capitalist state. It’s why he has a kickin pad for the afterlife.
The runup to it is quite beautiful, with green filtered light from the overarching canopy and giant tanks of alcohol flanking the path.
A later tour guide will describe the donation of alcohol - specifically sake - to shrines and temples as an ancient tradition of securing and preserving the occasional rice surplus and ensure (and probably give rise to) practices and rituals that involve the distribution of that alcohol.
On my walk back it started raining, then hailing. The effect on crowds was nearly instant - the nearly ubiquitous clear umbrellas come out.
I stopped at a library in the area before heading back on the short subway ride to Shinjuku, pulled out my iPad to write, and broke a consistent rule in Japanese libraries: they are for reading books and magazines - computer use is forbidden. You are supposed to go to an internet cafe for that kind of thing.
Either a paralyzing sense of politeness, or the fact it was pretty close to closing time anyway, I avoided getting kicked out. I only learned about any of this in my subsequent visits to other libraries in the country.
I got some writing done and decided to check Twitter to see what advertisers targeting Japan had not yet abandoned it.
Before returning home for the evening I hit up the famous Shinjuku Golden Gai, where you can eat almost any grilled meat you can imagine on a stick at like 87645 tiny shops crammed into the same two alleys and if it is raining a little you can pretend you live in Blade Runner
Tomorrow I have a date with an Onsen and kind of with a guy? In a platonic way. Probably. We’ll see!
