Tokyo Walk without Aura Reading

Ah, beautiful Nishi-Azabu, pricey and clean and sophisticated even for Tokyo. If you stayed in this same neighborhood on seven different trips, staying for 3+ weeks at a time…

If you were an adventurous walker, someone who strolled around most days, rain or shine…

Don’t you think that future trips would be variations on the theme of “same old ‘hood“?

Not here. You kidding? 

Tokyo has surprised me. Again.

NOT MUCH AURA READING ON THESE STREETS

Walking in Frankfurt or London, Cincinnati or Andover, I’m used to livening up the sightseeing by doing the occasional Aura Reading. If you’ve studied with me, you know that I definitely do not advocate constantly doing Face Reading or Aura Reading or non-stop Empath Merge techniques. But the occasional use of a Deeper Perception technique brings such insight into collective consciousness. And individuals.

Here in Tokyo, however, I’m staying glued to the surface. Loving it here, actually. 

If you’ve ever visited this city of millions, you know it’s so large as to be just plain unknowable. On one of my trips here, I stayed in a different neighbornood entirely, Asakusa, with its huge shrine and tourist attractions. That, like other neighborhoods I have visited by subway, is all part of the same mega-city. 

The scope of the entire city is mind-boggling, even to a New York girl. Not only do you find outrageous urban density, with non-stop stores, apartments, and office buildings – think busy, chattering crowds extending out to the horizon in every direction. 

Just as baffling to me, everyone seems so calm about the human swarm. Never yet have I seen a Japanese shopper stop on the street, head swivelling, drool and words like projectile vomit, accompanied by windmill gestures that scream, “Stop right now! Everybody. Stuff all this sensory overload! I. Can’t. Take. It. Any moooooooorrrrrrrreeeeeeeee.”

Sometimes I’ve felt that way, though.

Amazingly, I survive and think, “Just one more block before I go home.” These night walks have become my high adventure sport. Like eating bizarre, crunchy fish snacks from the nearby Seven Elevens.

GREETINGS, OMOTE-SANDO

Skyscrapers in my new neighborhood can march non-stop for blocks, each architectural marvel spiffy, proud, post-modern and wildly creative. Yet often you’ll also see banged-up bicycles tethered in front of them, as millions in Tokyo really do cycle for serious transportation, deftly weaving through pedestrian traffic.

Sideways isn’t all. The city also goes up, up, up. This is what I discovered recently in my new neighborhood. A subway sign tells me the name of the place — a typical collection of vowels punctuated by crispy consonants: Emoting what about a beach?

I found Omote-Sando by walking up a familar street in Rappongi, but in the opposite direction from normal. Suddenly, a routine afternoon stroll felt like opening up one of those magician’s boxes, where you keep pulling out colorful scarf after scarf. The swanky scene opened up to a fresh new vista of amazing storefronts and skyscrapers.

• Pass the oyster bar (Special! Dinner only $39!) 
• Check out the gelato shop, like a Baskin Robbins for yacht owners.
• And, oh my, can you believe those dresses and suits? Those glass-fronted buildings go up one floor after another, each sparkling item promising you the most luxe appearance imaginable?

Clothes from London. And Paris. And Milan. And these are clothes for short women like me. At 5′ 1″ and change, I seldom see clothes displayed for a person of my size. Of course, these mannequins (like real-live Japanese women) weigh about as much as a mustard seed, compared to me.

Names of these boutiques are baffling, with many in Roman script. Like “Dress Code,” which sells eyeglasses. Or “FrankQueenSense” which sells high-end clothing and puns.

Signs are in strange English, or Japanese, or mixtures. One large storefront sign, for a fancy dress shop, proclaims in large letters: R O L O C.

Get it?

There’s “Sex and the City” — the store. How perfect is that?

One ladies’ dress shop is called Odeur d’Ophelia. Hold on, didn’t the Shakespeare character turn raving mad and then kill herself? And Hamlet never mentioned how great she smelled at that point, either.

NIGHT REVELS

After that first accidental stroll, I’ve taken to nocturnal roaming of Omote-Sando. At 9 p.m., it’s an endless Easter Parade of chic people, plus the occasional drunks.

Conversation overhead while walking next to a pleasantly tipsy British pair:

Her: How do you style your hair that way? Did you make that part on purpose?

Him: Don’t try to analyze genius.

Most conversations, of course, I can’t understand one bit. But at least I can window shop in any language. New Yorkers, think Madison Avenue, 50th – 86th Street. Washingtonians, think Dupont Circle. Whatever your city imagination, it would be dazzled by all these storefronts.

Besides the fancy shop windows, skinny ads climb up the sides of the 8-story buildings, naming the various shops above ground, all nighttime neon lights and huge billboards with ads.

Suddenly, up one of those tall buildings, there stands Beyonce, so radiant. Even her bare legs positively glisten.

I’m so relieved to see a familiar face, I nearly wave. “Hey, Beyonce, how ya doin’?”

Of course, this version of Beyonce is five-times as large as life. Even if she weren’t, the mega-star might have more important things to do than to chat with the likes of me.  

AND WHERE DID THOSE 5,000 PEOPLE COME FROM?

Saturday night, I am back, roaming. A left turn past the Mary Quant shop brings me toward yet another shopping mecca with a different vibe. Soon I see new vistas of brightly lit department stores. Then, suddenly, I catch the full sight of these crowds.

Omigod, the streets ahead are so filled with so many people, there must be at least 5,000 of them. Young kids, walking in a hurry, purposeful about their fun.

It’s another famous neighborhood, Shibuya.

There it is, 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, the street positively rippling with late-teen wanderlust. I am three times this age. This feels strange, being here.

I turn in the opposite direction and nearly run until I reach Omote-Sando again, where (now that I notice ages), the populace has been replaced with people aged 30.

How did they do that?

A FINAL SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

Okay, I do supplement my window shopping by going into a few boutiques. I may not be 30, or wealthy, or able to speak Japanese. I may not be buying anything, but at least by now I can say a pretty decent “Thank you” or even (if I really like the shop-keeper) “Good evening.”

One of the shops I pass is Talbots, where I buy some clothes back home because they make so many clothes for what the French call “Littles.” I pop in, curious. Somehow, Talbot’s ultra-tailored, All American, WASPY clothes have morphed into Japanese looks. A simple blouse, that might cost $25 back home, is $60 here. But what did you expect? It costs a lot to teach these garments to speak a completely different language.

Sure I could enter the big-name stores nearby, like Chanel and Gucci, blah-blah-blah. I prefer to go into really Japanese-looking department stores. One stands like purple fireworks caught in mid-air, with the biggest end of the purple blast toward the heavens, the rest of the shape narrowing toward the street, like a stylized exclamation point without the dot.

I go into a slightly less flashy-looking building adjacent.

Perhaps for the rest of my visit, I will take the Escalator and Bathroom Tour. Could be fascinating with these overwhelmingly ritzy establishments.

In my first stop on this Tour, in the building without any name in English, the floors are mosaic marble tiles that glisten like mirrors. Escalators take me up and down four floors, with museum-quality shops for people who must never get stains on their clothes.

Checking out one price tag (Are they kidding?), I’m reminded of what my Aunt Ellen once said about some very expensive food. “Are you really going to buy something like that to eat? For that price, maybe you should hang it on the wall.”

For the ultimate excitement of this nocturnal Tour, I summon up courage and enter the Ladies. As I expected, it is a palace of perfect mirrors, right angles, delicious little cubicles. Using one, the whole experience is so luxe, I feel as if I should be paying. My small, human contribution to this shrine seems quite inadequate.

Large bottles of a mysterious green soap stand next to the sinks. As I peer at my reflection in one of the mirrors, it’s astonishing. Lit like a costly product, I look like a million dollars.

Yes, they know how to do mirrors right in a place like this. Tomorrow, maybe I will take more of that Escalator and Bathroom Tour. And I just can’t wait to wave at Beyonce.