Roppongi Mornings

Where am I? I feel terrible. I see a computer screen and a black leather couch. I feel terrible. I need water. Where am I? Ah...manga cafe. The other mid-week clubbers look decidedly more composed than I do in their high heels and clothes that glitter, helping themselves to cappucinnos from the free drink machines. Upon venturing outside, I realize that I am no longer in Roppongi, but have landed back in Shibuya! It seems like fabulous luck though - There is a brand new train line that just opened last week, running all the way from Shibuya to my local station. Nothing complicated, no transfers or line changes, just hop on a train and be whisked home. Nothing could go wrong with that right? Be careful Nick, the Gods of Irony are watching...

Feeling a bit under the weather, I am glad that I am travelling away from Tokyo, rather than towards it. It is 8:30am on a weekday, and the thought of commuter rush-hour is definitely not appealing at the moment. At the train station, I have to wade across what are literally rivers of commuters; if you get caught in one, you have no choice but to move in the same direction they are, and sometimes it becomes physically impossible to get to the other side of a platform until the commuter current subsides. Once I am on my train though, my plan works perfectly - it is almost completely empty, and I can nap blissfully all the way to my station.

Well, not exactly my station...More precisely, some other station I didnt know the name of. It turns out that some trains on the new line dont follow it to the end, but run away onto one of the other branch lines which go directly to the middle of nowhere. After about 5 different stations I had never heard of, I finally decided to get off the train and investigate. After thoroughly cursing the train, the operators of the train, the designers of the train, and anyone else remotely associated with the train company, I try to come up with a way to get home. There is only one way however - backtrack by catching a train in the direction of Tokyo.

There is no blissful napping here, just a train full of commuters. The morning hangover is truly kicking in now, with an occasional stab of pain from a pair of midgets with chainsaws residing in my brain. Being hungover also gives me a superhuman sense of smell - I sense with a whole new depth the oily smell of the engines, the dirty smell of the pigeons on platform, and the sweaty smell of a train full of commuters. It is at this point that my stomach quietly pipes up with `I dont feel so good`. `Be quiet stomach! I drank plenty of water and havent eaten anything for the last 13 hours. There are no remnants of food or alchohol left in you, you should have nothing to complain about!`

I have never been good at resolving disputes with my body parts, and my stomach wins in the end. My heart pounds and my palms turn sweaty as I try to hold on a little longer; there is not a single window or bucket on the train, and the express train I am on doesnt stop very frequently. Finally I land at a station, and hope I might be able to make it down to the toilets about 30m away.

My hopes are in vain, and my stomach finally wins the battle with my brain before I am even halfway there. Covering my mouth works for the first few steps, but quickly becomes futile. At a complete loss for what to do, I simply try not to make a scene...which is pretty much impossible. It would have been the most hilarious thing to watch, a guy walking at an ordinary pace with his hand over his mouth, not even breaking step while lurching all over his clothes. I make it to the bathroom 15 seconds later, but it might as well have been 15 minutes with all the mess I have made. It seems I made a mistake when tallying up the contents of my stomach; I have only a faint memory of eating the doner kebab whose remnants I am now wearing. I try washing it off with water, which turns my clothes from dirty and smelly to wet, dirty and smelly. I wonder whether I could just stay in this bathroom forever, deriving sustainance from the hand soap, but eventually have to face the music - I still have to spend another half an hour on trains and ten minutes walking in order to get back home.

The sheer bizareness of the situation helped somewhat. It seemed so unreal, so impossible that I just floated from one station to the next, ignoring the confused looks of passerbys. From a distance they probably thought it was coffee, but those close enough to smell me probably knew better. After finally making it home, I realize that I cannot exactly enter my host family`s house in this condition. After failing miserably to wash my clothes with mineral water (which is very cold, as I discovered) I am hit with a brilliant idea. Why not just wear my clothes inside out? I check...the reverse side of the fabric is indeed still clean. However, turning ones pants inside out requires you to remove them from your body, and this is a little difficult in the middle of the street. Instead, I go to the local park next door to my house, and hide in the bushes looking like the most suspicious individual in the world while I implement my plan. Later when walking down the street, a shop assistant comes up to me and tells me `your shirt is on inside out`. Inside out? Not `covered in vomit`? It worked!!! Now if only I thought of this BEFORE I paraded in front of half of Tokyo...

I arrive home and wash my clothes and body off in the shower (both are still far from clean). Exhausted, I finally have the opportunity to look back on the events of the night/morning, and I laugh heartily at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

Yep, Roppongi delivers what it promises. An experience you will never forget.