Weekend in Roppongi

I went to the Roppongi neighborhood twice this weekend, once with a group of friends on Friday night to just go out and again with someone on Sunday night to the Mori Museum. I will preface this entry with the caveat that I forgot my camera (yes, both times) and did not take any pictures. However, that may not be entirely a disadvantage, given the usual activity that goes on in the district under discussion.

Roppongi is like any U.S. city's Chinatown (I know this is Japan) in reverse; it is where all the Westerners live. Accordingly, everything in the area caters to Western needs: Western restaurants, clothing shops, bookstores, etc. I had been warned that it is also a bit of a meat market: Japanese women converge in the area to meet gaijin men and Nigerian dudes accost Caucasian men to persuade them to go to their clubs and peep shows.

This became evident when I arrived at Roppongi Station a good 15 minutes before my party and decided to have a look around. I was fortunate enough to make it out of the station and across the street before the first of perhaps 20 dudes solicited me to “go upstairs… real Japanese women… hot and steamy… do you like leather?... anything you want… fulfill your fantasies…” By the time I made it to the end of the street, I was on the phone to my friends begging them to hurry up.

When my friends arrived, we decided to go to Outback's Steakhouse to experience the local cuisine. The party consisted of approximately 12 Taiwanese students, one Japanese student, and me. Everyone formed a protective boundary around me as we walked down the street, but evidently the Nigerian Brotherhood has seen this tactic before as they penetrated the force field with ease. It doesn't help that I am a foot taller than everyone else. The most ridiculous aspect of their solicitations is that at this point I had been subjected to an equal number of moderately drunk (i.e., 1 pint of beer) Japanese women leering at me.

Outback's was great: they didn't serve any dishes with rice; the waitresses spoke better English than I do; and we engaged at least 3 times in the Japanese tradition of singing “Happy Basuday” to patrons who may or may not have actually had a birthday that night. It's the same song in English, but you clap through the whole damned thing and the Japanese can't make the th sound in “birthday.” Fortunately, my friends brought their cameras and shared their photos, which can be found in the photo gallery.

We had intended to go to the infamous nightclubs in the area, but we eventually wasted the entire night at Outback's and left prompted afterwards so as to catch the last train of the night. This may have been for the better given what I have heard about aforementioned nightclubs, because I did not want to spent the rest of my life soaking in a vat of penicillin.

Sunday night was much more tame. Roppongi slows down on Sundays and actually might be deemed “inhabitable.” I went with Ashley, also from Taiwan, to the Mori Museum to see an Annette Messenger (French) exhibit that was as Catholic as the Pope. I was sure that I was going to end up explaining all of the esoteric Western/Christian elements inherent in the pieces only to discover that she understood it better than I did.

The museum's admission ticket includes access to the roof on the 53rd floor, which gives a stunning panoramic of Tokyo. It's so nice that I will eventually return just to take pictures.

Miscellaneous Notes:

I am leaving for Kyoto in like 2 hours, where I will be through the following weekend.