A Day With Kei. Part 1

Harry had had some previous contact with a Couchsurfer who had offered to take us fishing in the mountains. When we finally go up we perceived it too late to meet him. However we stuck with the plan and met him in his extreme Tokyo suburb town at about 3pm.

Kei was cool from the word go.

He was soft-spoken and very considerate. I had the feeling that he always had a little twinkle in his eye and was quietly planning something. This was of course the best thing ever from the Couchsurfer, the devious fire that makes everything awesome and funky during your time with them.

Harry had had some experience with bikes he went on the single whilst I sat on the back of Kei’s double. We stopped off quickly at his house. A cool and cosy creation filled with stuff he had collected on his travels and a remarkable amount of Disney merchandise. Then he outlined the plan, we were to go into the nearby mountains, eat some lunch, then head to a fishing spot he found and catch a couple of fish, this would then be capped off by an outdoor onsen (were Kei has a membership card of all things) and then it would be back to his for some food.

Good, good, plan.

The biking through the mountains was great. We first went through the Tokyo suburbs and then on to winding roads and lanes that snakes passed small towns and lively local festivals. Festival season was just winding down in Japan and every town we passed had at least one leaping idiot dressed as the god of fire or something running up and down its streets.

The view over the lake was rather fantastic. Dinner was also. Take away food in Japan really is rather good. There aren’t that many big supermarkets in Japan just hundreds of 7/11s or Am/Pm’s. Our favourite, The Lawson, provides pretty decent take away noodles and stuff like that.

After tea, and with the light fading, we headed to the fishing hole. It was down a steep track near a crazy old guy’s farm. We climbed down the sort of storm drain-esque riverbanks and fished with salmon eggs. Needless to say both Harry and Kei caught a fish and I achieved nothing .

They were only small fish anyway so we had to throw them back. I don’t feel so inadequate when you consider their meagreness. Once it had become too dark to fish we scrambled up the bank and met the farmer. Kei apparently had had some tea there once and wanted to say thank you. Tbc…

'Oh, Take me out to the ball game...'

Tokyo Yakult Swallows Vs Tokyo Yomogori (I think that is right) Giants.

This was to be held at the Jingu Stadium, the oldest in the Japanese game apparently. To be honest we just sang the Pingu theme tune a lot…this would not be the weirdest fan activity of that night by a long shot…

The way Japanese Baseball is structured is odd. It is played everywhere, much like Rugby Union but never really had a proper league until recent times. This league contains two divisions which only contain six teams in each. It’s kind of odd that a nation of about 160million people, obsessed by Baseball, only have twelve teams to support. High School Baseball realistically fills this gap but when you consider that six of those twelve teams are from the Tokyo area, who the hell are some people actually supporting? You wouldn’t put one Football team in London and expect that to fulfil all its inhabitants. Bizarrely however this appears to be what the Japanese system does. In all of the Kansai area, that’s Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and god knows how many towns in-between, there is one team, the Hanshin Tigers. This system still somehow works. Kansai must have a population of at least 15million.

The J-League took the opposite approach when it was formed in 1992, there are currently 36 teams in two leagues. This approach is miles cooler because it means that seeing J-League is really easy as just about every town has a team, some even two or three.

Now, onto the game itself.

Tokyo Giants are the Man U of Japanese Baseball. It makes you proud to be a Swallows fan. Any team that is in some way pro-biotic must get your vote. As the announcer says constantly:

‘Go Go Swallows!’

We bought tickets for the outfield for the genius price of about a tenner. With are unexpected fiscal resources we decided to by hotdogs and coke for our Japanese whiskey. We aimed to be merry by about the 5th innings. Americans have told us that Baseball only works when you are pissed so we gave it a go.

Baseball is nine innings a side, when three men are out your innings is over, getting one man all the way around gives you a point. Simple really. You don’t properly watch it anyway, you more kind of sit near it.

The stadium was half Giants fans and was packed, maybe around 40k at a push. The noise was odd as it came from organised chanting. Not chanting like at Yokohama FC, with megaphones and stuff, more like chanting whenever the announcer calls for it.

Now for a taste of the bizarre…

At the end of the seventh innings, we were being stuffed by this point indecently, a little tune plays and everyone gets out pink or baby blue see-through plastic ‘swinging sixties’ style umbrellas and does a little dance with them. Sometime after this bizarre event me and Harry will be sitting in a ‘local’ restaurant in Osaka watching the Hanshin Tigers play those dastardly Giants. When we mentioned the Swallows to the bar man he held seven fingers up and mimed dancing with an umbrella. At least it isn’t only me and Harry who found this event ridiculous.

Indecently we were mauled a the Giants about 7-2,but hey, I saw the bottom of the ninth, beer was consumed from a keg on a girls back, we danced with a umbrella, what more do you want?

Tokyo Fish Market

The fish market in Tokyo is, I think, the biggest in the world. Apparently if you get there for about 4am you can see the famous tuna auction. This is of course ridiculously difficult/expensive considering that the underground stops at midnight.

If I haven’t mentioned before the JR (Japan Rail) company operates all the trains, half the subways and many busses and taxis. Therefore they shut down at 12 to make you pay for the more expensive taxis. This isn’t the only reason for it, the Japanese are seldom out late in the same way we are, and, if they are, they will stay at a capsule or something.



This all meant that we aimed to get the 5:10 am train in order to get to the fish market for around 6. Still plenty of activity available and plenty fun to be had.

We went in a crew format, with about six others from the hostel in tow. This slowed us down a bit and was a little gay. It’s quite annoying looking out for people in an environment as busy as the market was. Anyway it was fine really and me, harry and Steve just kept an eye on each other.

The market itself was teeming.

Vans, people and crazy men on bizarre fork lift trucks zoom around essentially trying to run you over. The trucks had a flat back with a round cylindrical front. The engine was under this and it was also were he stood, controlling the whole contraption with a massive steering wheel.

We saw awesome machines, much like the one Doc Brown creates on Back to the Future III, we creating and then cutting huge blocks of ice. Fortunately for Japanese productivity they were more effective than the one pioneered in Hill Valley in 1885.

We walked between all the tight little lanes examining some of the most bizarre fish you could ever really imagine. Everything that I had eaten in the last 3 weeks was wriggling and oozing around on trays and in little carried bags. I photographed most of it at the great displeasure of the stall owners. At one point I photographed a huge crab, only to see a guy come out of his hut looking at me grumpily. Instead of chastising me he decided to let me and the odd Dutchman I was with hold it. Check out the pic.

We sampled some of the fresh fish in a Sashimi restaurant in the small lanes near the market. The queues outside the sushi places were huge but not for the sashimi. He shows a high level of idiocy on the part of the local tourists. Sashimi is essentially sushi but all in one bowl without the rice. Anyway it was half the price and had no queue. We win. The owner of the bar was heavily tourist friendly and spoke good English, which is actually quite rare in Japan. Apparently we were dining with some Japanese celebrity TV actress. He was fawning over her heavily, too be honest she looked a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. Being a celebrity must be a total arse.

On the way home we stopped off in the catering district to see the shops were they sell all the plastic food to the restaurants. If I haven’t previously mentioned every restaurant in Japan have fantastically accurate plastic replicas of the food it serves in the window. The shop was awesome. I would have loved a plastic bowl of noodles but it turns out that buying plastic food is a rich man’s game.

A Spanish day was decided upon and we staggered home to sleep.