Blade Runner, Baseball and a Yokohama Mamma
I woke up to the sound of pounding rain for the first time in my month in Japan. It had rained sporadically here and there over the previous few weeks, but the effect had mostly just been like pouring a ladle of water on the rocks in a sauna; more humid heat. That morning though, the sound woke up me – it drummed against the windows, impelled along by a wind strong enough to rattle the internal vents at the ryokan I was staying at.
At first, I sat up and smiled; I always love a change of scenery, and it had been sunny in Atami for three weeks. Back in Toronto, a good summer storm was one of my favourite events, accompanied as they are by spectacular thunder and lightning shows. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be traveling to Yokohama that morning. Could rain shut down the trains? Not unless there was some sort of disaster, right? The country runs on those trains… Wait, it’s a typhoon? Fuck.
I eventually made it to Yokohama, a city of 3 million people on the western edge of Tokyo Bay, at 11:30 that night. I had been forced to use the shinkansen, bullet train, at some expense, and didn’t even get the boyish glee of going an infinity-amount-of-miles-per-hour because it was nighttime and we were mostly traveling through tunnels. Womp womp. As I walked from the local subway station to my hostel (“cubicle hotel”) I realized why the booking had been so cheap – it was in the middle of the red light district.
Laughing, I checked in to what really was a nice hotel-thingy and was impressed at the size and luxury of the coffin-like cubicle I was assigned to sleep in – seriously, I’m not being sarcastic. My last experience with these things was clean and sufficient, but not ‘nice’ – this was the Cadillac of Cubicle Hotels. It had a goddamn TV in the unit! After a street-vendor dinner and late-night walkabout through the district (empty at midnight on a Monday), I crashed around 1 am, looking forward to a full day in Yokohama. I had no plans, but then, when do I ever?
I wandered out the front door into a very quiet neighbourhood (y’think?) around 9am. The only thing I knew about Yokohama was that it had a recently redeveloped waterfront, and a baseball team. Rough plan, accomplished! It was another sweltering day in Japan, probably 35 degrees C despite the cloud cover, and I shambled stickily north-east towards the main waterfront area. The city was quiet, everyone working or hiding from the heat, and I got an exclusive tour through the residential and commercial neighbourhoods lining the canal. Like in Tokyo, the waterfront along the canal itself was woefully ill-utilized – do Japanese people not enjoy water view terraces?
The next four hours were spent touring the quite-nice but ho-hum daytime waterfront of the city. The towers were new and crisp (rare in Japan, surprisingly) and contrasted well with reclaimed industrial buildings revamped for shopping. The heat continued to punish me, and I found refuge in World Porters, another architecturally historic mall. Free wifi and a robust food court were welcome at lunch, but the real gem was finding a movie theatre – I had been itching to see the new Ghost Busters movie for a while, and it had just been released in Japan. Sources told me that most Hollywood movies here are released in English with Japanese subtitles, so I thought I was set.
Yes, angry internet people, I realize this isn’t World Porters, it’s the Red Brick Warehouse. But it’s much prettier, so just chill ok?
Nope. Dubbed. I hummed over paying the ridiculous fare and watching it anyway, but in the end decided my money would be better used on other diversions. Slightly defeated (it had taken a lot of research to figure out that the movie was dubbed) I dragged my feet out of the mall, back into the heat.
Next I wandered towards the baseball stadium while appreciating Yokohama’s architecture and a few gorgeous tree-lined boulevards. I arrived early for ticket sales, and watched happily as a crowd of workers assembled food vending outlets and picnic tables. The Yokohama Baystars are a middling team in a second-tier league, and I had been worried that the amusement factor would suffer by this. The hype building up to the game promised otherwise, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Splurging, I bought 8th row, third-base tickets (one of my favourite sections back home) for more money than expected for a second-tier team. Only visitor-section tickets were available, so I shrugged and bought them. I figured that there would be a few out-of-town stragglers cheering for the Hanshin Tigers, and the rest of the stadium would be Baystar fans. I was wrong, and it was awesome.
The stadium filled up early and was equally divided between the blue-grey Baystars side and the black-yellow of the Tigers. Everyone wore gameday apparel – hats or jerseys or complete uniforms – and the teams both had a drum-and-flag band like at a European football (or TFC) game. The sides were polite, taking turns to sing their songs and drum in their players, one by one. But the civility didn’t reduce the excitement, as the crowd stayed active and noisy even when the opposing team was getting hits.
The father-son duo sitting next to me started chatting me up early in the game. The father was a pitiless heckler, which would have been hilarious at home, but clearly made the rest of the fans around us uncomfortable. I laughed in spite of myself as he sang songs and called out players by name, totally without the support of the crowd – his shameless invective really tugged my Tuesday-night Jays’ game heartstrings.
I made friends with most of the fans sitting around me, as everyone tested out their English on the bearded stranger at the Tigers game. Beers weren’t as expensive as the ticket price would have suggested, which was a huge relief. Service was fast, but I felt sorry for the tiny girls carrying around 10L kegs on their back, up and down the stadium stairs in the 30 degree evening heat. The diminutive housewife sitting next to me put back at least six beers during the game, and shared her Tigers balloons with me during the critical two-outs parts of the game. The balloons were, um, suggestively shaped, but everyone had one and it was a fun scene when we all let them go at once, on the third out. And the cheerleaders were… predictable.
The Tigers won, 9-3. I felt bad for the home fans but reveled alongside my new Tigers pals. We all crashed down the ramp into the streets in a scene so familiar and comforting that it made me homesick.
My B+ direction sense and A+ lucky stars directed me back towards to the waterfront to see its reputed nighttime glory. Expectations were met – Landmark Tower anchored the shoreline of modern buildings all lit up in a very Blade Runner-esque backdrop. The ferris wheel (called the Cosmo Clock) glowed in a brilliant LED display that was mesmerizing on three beers. I bullshitted my way up to the 70th floor of the Landmark, looking for an observation deck or bar – like in Tokyo, there was a very nice restaurant that was outside my dress-code league, but the maitre d’ was kind enough to let me go check out the view from one of the windows. Looking down was, for once, not as impressive as looking up.
Heading home from the waterfront I wasn’t quite willing to call it quits on Yokohama yet, so I scanned around for a bar with an actual bar (many don’t have one, so I’d end up at a table, alone) until I saw a sign for “Bar Hideout”, very reminiscent of Toronto. The three guests and one bartender at that gamer-nerd hole in the wall were warily friendly, sharing stories in fair English and treating me to a comically large glass of sochu, which I suspect was a test. I drank it without falling down, then almost fell down the stairs on my way out. Test, passed?
Footsore but happy, I walked home slowly through my hookerville hood, chuckling at the openly suggestive bar signs and sidewalk hostesses. The working girls were from other parts of Asia or even Europe, but were never Japanese. I looked like a hobo – all beard and long hair and sweaty – so was thankfully left alone for the most part. But one tenacious old girl wasn’t going to give up so easily. She was polite, and very quiet, but she walked beside me for half a block doing her best to break me down.
“Hey America, you want love?” I smiled and waved her off politely.
“Hey, come on, you need love.” So true.
“America, give me a try. Best Yokohama Mamma around. No regrets!” I laughed, and resolved to write a whole blog post just so I could repeat that one line. I wish I could have bought her a beer without entering into some sort of contract.
What’s it with me and old ladies lately?
