Godaiba, Whoadaiba, Sodaiba, Woedaiba - Anydaiba you want!

The last effort to develop the Tokyo waterfront almost ruined the city and sent the country reeling into a 12 year recession during which ordinary people lost millions, some 35,000 people a year committed suicide, and the City administration with its friends in the Diet, began the slow but inexorable pouring of good money after bad once again.

But what they have built and are building out there is a story in itself. The relocation of the Tsukiji Fish Market to make way for more shoddy condo developments is but one aspect of the massive redevelopment of Chuo-ku on the Sumida. The landfill wasteland that became Odaiba of course is just the tip of the iceberg lettuce that is buried there with just about every other piece of trash not tossed into the friendly community incinerators that Gov. Ishihara planted in every 23 of the city's Wards. The old international fairgrounds at Harumi were turned into a scrapyard and incinerator for example.

But let's focus on the fun side, not the dark and unexamined side of things for a moment. What can you do on an idle afternoon or morning when you do what I did 2-3 days in a row and take the new Harunoumi Doori bridge shortcut. Observe what is under you when you cross but that is another story.

1) The fabulous miniaturization of the Japnaese dog world. Forget those Akitas and working dogs, go for the new world of Bonsai Bow-wows, tiny Chihuahuas, very very small indeed. One guy had 5 in his baby carriage, the smallest sitting in the ash tray. Why do Japanese baby carriages have ash trays that double as pooch pouches? As I said to Koichi Hama today, we won't sell many electroluminescent glow in the dark leads and collars if this minithing continues, people will let the bonsai pooches take bonsai poopoos and peepees in their bonsai balcony gardens.

2) Travel opportunity: More cool stuff on Odaiba. You can take a direct ferry to any of the 3 island. No. Not Oshima, Niijima or Miyakejima. Hokkaido, Shikoku or Kyushu. Awesome. I almost got on the nothern-bound one, just to hang with the truckers and freeters. Go to the end of the Ariake Pier. Absolutely no one there. You can even rent office space out there. Eerie.

3) Bizarre time-warps. That Old Lady of the Harbor, the statuesque Liberty standing there by the Aqua City shopping mall is simply so WRONG, so out of place that it is hallucinogenic. Tokyo since day one has never been an outward-bound outward-oriented open city, except a period from 1878 to 1898 when Tsukiji was gay Paree for gaijin, maybe the only visitors ever WELCOMED to Tokyo were John, Paul, Ringo and George. Mentally-crippled (but thankfully as of this writing lame-duck) Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara once told a group of foreign journalists: "Here is a way to keep you foreign residents happy - I read in Dickens the other day that you people like to eat "Crow Pie" so I am going to introduce a new Tokyo meibutsu - crow pie. Two stones in one bird as it were, fewer pesky crows and fewer pesky foreigners." I am not making this up by the way - I was there when he said it, and I swore one day to teach him the more pertinent English phrase - an arrogant man eating crow.



Ah well. A long day. Another manic Monday as Nirvana put it. Curt Kobain we miss you. You too Hunter S. Thompson. Savage biting wit is the best antidote to a trivialized existence. Ciao.

So go, have a good time. A crazy time. Like I did.

Hmmm. Don't take this too lightly. Or too seriously. Just another manic Monday in rainy season. Yowsa. PF


             
strange_days