I am unable to cover my usual Malibu beat this week because I’m in Japan to attend a wedding. Although it’s my second time here, upon landing in Tokyo I was again struck by how clean the city is. It’s because people simply do not eat while walking around and maintain a high level of civic propriety — lining up to enter subway cars and not yakking on their cell phones in public. Even the cabs are spotless, driven by men in suits and ties. The insides are upholstered in doilies whiter than a hospital bedsheet.
April is the best time to vacation in Japan because the weather is temperate and the cherry trees are in bloom. Their falling petals left a pink carpet lining the path to my hotel.
First stop: Yoyogi Park, where a traditional Shinto wedding was in progress. Next to Harajuku, where you’ll see girls known as “Gothic Lolitas” or “Goth Lolis,” dressed in elaborate doll-like costumes of short petticoats and tiny hats.
For those who like their entertainment loud and mystifying, we visited Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku. While I wouldn’t recommend eating there, the attraction is an over-the-top live action spectacle of costumed performers, robots, lasers and animation. The hour-long show makes you feel like you are in the middle of a 3-D anime movie. None of it makes any sense, but you’ll never forget it.
Close by are the bars of Golden Gai, a tiny cluster of alley streets with the tiniest bars you’ve ever seen. One after the other, these bars literally seat only five people each! If you can’t find a seat (and you can’t), try climbing up the narrowest, steepest stairs you’ve ever seen to a rooftop annex.
Tucked inside Shibuya, one of the busiest, most vibrant parts of the city, is a coffee shop that’s nearly hidden and unknown to most tourists, the complete antithesis of Robot Restaurant. We paid a visit to Meikyoku Kissa Lion, a 90-year-old baroque café that only serves coffee, tea, lemonade — and nothing else. Oh, and there’s a strict ‘no talking’ policy as well. What you will find on a separate menu here is the daily selection of classical music amplified by two enormous speakers built into the front wall. After one selection concluded, staff lifted the stylus from an actual vinyl LP and put the needle down on another record, softly explaining in Japanese that a selection of Bach was next. The album cover is then placed into a display slot at the front of the café, one of a handful remaining of the kissaten that increased in popularity through the 1970s, catering to the tastes of audiophile lovers of jazz and classical music on speakers bigger than most could afford or fit into tiny Japanese apartments.
My third day in Tokyo also led to two very different café experiences, both in the electronics center of Akihabara. We first went to a “Maid” café. It’s a slightly illicit experience. These cafes were originally meant to cater to men by women dressed in French maid costumes who call their customers “Master.” Today, most maid cafes are cosplay restaurants featuring young women dressed in overly cute maid costumes, who speak in a highly stylized “kawaii” (super-cute) manner. We were forced to do the same, required to wear animal ear head bands, and when we needed our waitress she would only respond to a “meow meow,” which was immediately echoed by the various maids throughout the room. The food served is either in the shape of an animal or has a bunny or cat drawn on with ketchup, jelly or latte foam. Some maid cafes have a cover charge. They all have strict rules: No maid photographs without a fee, and absolutely no touching your maid.
As Meikyoku Kissa Lion served as a welcome respite from the sensory overload of Robot Restaurant, the perfect antidote to the maid café was Akiba Fukurou, considered the most therapeutic of Tokyo’s owl cafes. These cafés serve no food or drink, but rather offer “cozy time” with a few dozen live owls of various sizes and dispositions. It’s reservation only, and thank goodness we reserved weeks early, because the day’s five hourly sessions were completely booked. In the tiny “café” decorated with chandeliers and harp music in the background you quietly contemplate the owls, which will be carefully placed by the proprietors to perch on your wrist or shoulder.
Next stop, a Shinkasen (bullet train) to Nagano for the wedding.
