Ouroboros

The ouroboros embodies the idea of a continuous cycle, where the beginning and end are the same.

The 450km between Kyoto and Tokyo went by in the blink of an eye on the Shinkansen and before I knew it I was departing the Shinkansen and boarding a JR line train to my next hotel. The JR (Japan Rail) Line is basically all the trains that aren't the Shinkansen, although the JR Group runs the Shinkansen as well. When I’d first gotten to Tokyo the only train I’d taken was from the station close to my hostel to get to the Shinkansen station, and the map of all the different systems was daunting. It’s a lot of different colors and letters and routes, however with the use of Google Maps and a basic understanding of the system it had been demystified to me and by the time I was back in Tokyo I’d been riding trains all over the country and there wasn’t anything surprising about it to me anymore. And honestly, it felt great to get off the Shinkansen, push through stunned tourists spinning in circles, and just go where I needed to go.

When you board a train here you either use a Suica card (like any sort of chargeable metro card) that’s on your phone or a physical card, to tap in and out of the station and it charges you accordingly. I didn’t actually go this route, choosing to buy physical tickets anytime I went anywhere. To do this you look at an overhead map above the ticket kiosk, find the station you want and the corresponding number, then you punch that into the ticket machine and it quotes you a price. Often the price is just the same as the number on the station you’re going to. You put in your money, it spits out a ticket and your change, you can also pay by card, and then you insert the ticket in the gate, it verifies it and spits it back out to you on the other side. Another really great thing about the system is you don’t need to actually know where you’re going, you just have to get inside the gate. So I could just initially pay for the cheapest ticket and then when I got where I needed to go I just upgraded the ticket from a machine to be able to get out of the gates.

The train rattled on the tracks as I watched the city pass by around me. It felt like my plan had worked; get out of Tokyo as soon as possible, experience the country and by the time I returned I’d be seasoned enough to handle the big city. I grinned to myself leaving the train and then realized where I really was. I was directly back in Sumida City, less than a block away from the first Sword Museum I’d visited and only a 15 minute walk from that first capsule hostel. Looking up, the McDonalds I’d eaten at on my first day in the country was literally across the street from me. Full circle. Ouroboros: The snake eating its own tail. Everything around me felt familiar. Even the places that I hadn’t really been to yet. There was no more pure novelty in my experience, my eyes were no longer wide and my face stunned. I was seasoned in the ways of the Japanese and eager to go paint the bigger canvas of Tokyo with my skateboard.

My hotel was only 5 minutes away from the train station and I skated ahead of the rest of the tourists filing into it and was prepared to drop my bags off, check in hadn’t been until 3 everywhere else, but in a nice surprise my room was already for me. The room was on the 25th floor, the highest I’d had by far, and I took a quick second to drop my bags, have a shower, pack a day bag, go check out the pool on the 31st floor, as well as the 2 restaurants. As with all hotels the restaurant food was grossly overpriced and I knew I wouldn’t even bother. Back out on the street it became clear that a big section of the street near the hotel was closed down for some sort of block party, but I didn’t really have much interest in it. I just wanted to get over one of the bridges that separates Sumida city from the downtown core. I got a little turned around by my map’s instructions but was soon walking up the ramp to one of the many bridges that cross over the many rivers. Crossing the bridge I looked over and saw the Himiko (Tokyo Cruise Ship) a long spaceship inspired ship, designed by anime creator Leiji Matsumoto - known for Galaxy Express 999 and Space Battleship Yamato, not to mention that his film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem was used to create Daft Punk’s Iconic One More Time music video. The Himiko looked cool as hell cruising up the river so I stopped to take a picture of it and then rolled down the decline on the other side of the bridge. I was getting hungry and knew that I’d need a little something before I set out on my bigger ride so I ducked into the first casual looking joint that I saw.

It was just a meat on stick type place and the people working there looked really young. They weren’t entirely sure what to make of me but still sat me and pointed to the QR code instructions for ordering and I was like I got this. I was given a bowl of cabbage as a free appetizer and considering my diet had been pretty meat and carb heavy it was a bit of a godsend. I got an order of chicken karaage, a fried jumbo prawn, a fried cheese stick and then a couple fried sausages made to look like octopus, oh and of course a beer. I snarfed it all down, had a brief conversation with the people who worked there who asked what I was doing. I just raised my skateboard in the air and they all looked impressed - cool! I smiled, threw up a peace sign and then was back on the street.

Then I just rode. I kept on going through the heart of downtown, the buildings rising higher and higher around me until I hit the dense foot traffic out front of Tokyo Station and got off. I walked through the crowd dense with Japanese and foreigners from all over. I kept going on foot until I got to another lengthy stretch of sparsely populated side streets and cruised until I hit a big second hand goods market set up in the middle of a mall’s outside plaza. I took my time combing through it, I was now consistently on the lookout for a good leather jacket or a nice silver ring, but nothing really caught my eye. Then I was back on my ride and rolling towards the Imperial Palace grounds but never actually made it there, instead coming to Hibiya park which described itself as an art park and I curved into it. The paths were nice and smooth and I rolled along at a nice leisurely pace checking out all the people relaxing on the large stretches of well manicured grass. There were lots of strange sculptures throughout the park. I came to a brief stop next to a stage area adjacent to the park where it sounded like a stand-up comedian was performing to a crowd of a couple hundred people. I grabbed a can of sparkling grapefruit juice and vodka from a Family Mart and kept on going. In the traffic jams downtown I passed a Lamborghini Countach that was stuck behind a big truck and as I passed I gave the driver a thumbs up and he revved the engine.

From here I continued my loop down to Chuo City, an island/peninsula South West of downtown. I crossed a huge bridge to get to it and was really starting to feel the distance I’d covered already. My destination was Tsukishima Monja Street, a long street made up of 80 restaurants and bars. It's closed to the general traffic and filled from end to end with families and tourists. Some of the vendors were open but I was just a bit too early to really make the most of it. So I found myself a Pocari Sweat and then began an extensive ride East, across 2 more bridges and then North Back towards my hotel. That day was a ride. A big long 10km ride through the veins and arteries into the heart of Tokyo and before exploring an entirely new area of its vascular system.

A moment to talk about skate stoppers. Skate stoppers are any type of design element or attached structure that make it so you can’t skate an object. At their most common they’re metal tabs that are either built into park benches or ledges, or they’re attached as an after measure if a place has become too popular. Cobblestone streets or stone tiled streets can be particularly difficult as the wheel has to roll over small gaps every few seconds, and the case of stone uneven edges that jut out at strange angles and can easily throw you akimbo. Skateboard wheels come in a variety of shapes and sizes and the general rule is the bigger and softer your wheels the faster you can go on streets, but you won’t get as much pop out of your ollie (jump) or speed on super flat even terrain. I don’t ride on hard wheels because I just know I’m not going to be doing any tricks. I’m more likely to consistently be going through all sorts of different terrains, although in Tokyo unlike Nagoya there’s a lot more ongoing general construction so there’s not necessarily always going to be the buttery smooth stuff. I ride on the Bones brand: Rough Riders - a wheel that’s smaller than conventional soft wheels, they’re not as wide, but still have a tremendous amount of give. Because of this I basically rode wherever I wanted. However, because in Japan I only saw skateboarders in Parks I think it’s generally accepted that skaters don’t take over public spots (staircases, railings, ledges, architecturally unique designs). But they have perfected a sort of all purpose skate stopper that I’m sure serves multiple other functions and I saw it everywhere in Japan. Used on practically every sidewalk and at each indent in the sidewalk between streets are the lines and dots pictured below.

As early as Shizuoka I was navigating these things. Sometimes it was just lines, sometimes it was just dots although at crossings a strip of lines seemed to precede the dots. In my early tests I rode over 1 square of each at a relatively high speed, just to see how it handled, and neither was fun. The dots were manageable but if all your wheels hit them you’d slow down a lot and risk having your board vibrate away from your stance. The lines were absolutely fine to ride across when they were in parallel to my direction and offered only minor resistance if you went across them diagonally, but if you went ripping straight into them they’d almost send you flying. There were a good number of times where the lines weren’t as brightly marked and they were here and I’d hit them without knowing and they’d thrown me to a stumbling stop off my board. I quickly realized that the best method for crossing the lines was to take almost all of my weight off my front foot (left) and step down on the lines with my pushing foot (right) as the board was crossing them; so I kept the board in control with my left food and them boosted out of the lines with a push. It was manageable but sometimes, as with a good portion of the ride through Koto City back to my hotel, there were lines to cross every 20 meters, which was very tedious. But it was that or skate in the street, there were no side streets for a couple kilometers of bridge crossings, and the traffic there was busy. So busy the bikes didn’t want to ride in it. Also it’s not like I’m just straight up skating on the sidewalk, that’s the type of stuff that scares the shit out of pedestrians the world over, there are bike lanes on the sidewalks.

When I got back to the hotel, which I was so pleased to find had a Lawson’s 24 hour convenience store in it, I bought a bag of freeze dried cheese, a bottle of soda water and a bottle of apple shochu. Shochu is basically a neutral grain spirit made with potatoes, barley or buckwheat and usually comes out to about 25-30% alcohol per volume. However, it doesn’t taste that strong, especially because it comes in a lot of fruit based flavors. You can drink it on its own and in my experience I’d mostly had it at Korean BBQ where you buy a small bottle, usually 12oz bottles and do it in shots until it's gone. In my hotel room I made shochu and soda while I first had a hot bath to soak my beef feet, legs and back and then sat for a while writing. After a couple hours I started to feel hunger and began looking up steakhouses. I noticed throughout Japan that Outback Steakhouse of all places had a pretty consistent presence and I’d rationalized that it was an Australian company, but right now I’m realizing that nope it’s an American Company. I didn’t want to go to Outback Steakhouse. I wanted to have Waguy.

Yeah but what even really is wagyu? It’s basically Japanese cattle that has been selectively bred with high quality European cattle and then is pampered / forced into a life of hedonism to produce insanely well marbled meat. There’s lots of stuff that says it's wagyu, and they probably aren’t lying, but not every single Japanese / European bread cow is going to produce that superior marbling. Though it’s of course probably better in practice than most mass cattle farming in North America. Anyway, I wanted a steak and it was time to have a steak. It looked like everything was going to be expensive. There wasn’t any steakhouse where I was going to get away with paying less than $60 for my meal and in the end went down to a riverside spot to choose between a hotel restaurant and an independent restaurant less than a block away from it. They had comparable prices and in the end I just tossed a coin.

The place I chose was Wagyu Wakuni (Rock Village). It looked fairly plain inside, general single person seating and tables, with 2 traditional barefoot Japanese sitting rooms. When I sat I surveyed the menu and chose the wagyu sirloin medium rare, with a prawn cocktail and dry sake to start - I’d have an american cab sauv with dinner. Everything was fine. The prawn cocktail had like 9 prawns in it and was served with lemon and cocktail sauce - it did exactly what a prawn cocktail should do. The sake was served in a short Delmonico glass (like a Collins glass but shorter with a flare at the rim) filled to the brim and placed in a little box to ensure it isn’t knocked over. The main was served with medallions of roasted potato and steamed broccoli and carrots and a nice pad of garlic butter on top of the meat. The steak came with a thin savory dipping sauce, additional fine salt and wasabi. It was good - I mean I never like seeing steamed vegetables on a plate, but that wasn’t what I was really paying for. There was nothing wrong with the steak, it was a good steak cooked well, but I’ve had better steak experiences at the chain steakhouse The Keg in Vancouver. To be honest over the years the Keg has proven more consistently pleasing for the price than just about any other steakhouse I’ve been to, the product is just too consistently good and their 3oz Martini’s are usually a deal.

I will say, something that might disappoint readers of this is that in all my reports of food I haven’t said one word about desert, candies or ice cream. These things are everywhere in Japan, I just don’t really care for sweet things. However I wanted you to know that there are waffle and crepes stands serving plenty of different combinations for both: melted chocolate, whipped cream, cream cheese icing, fresh strawberries, candied strawberries. Candied fruits on sticks are a very popular street vendor/kiosk item. The convenience stores are of course filled with a shitload of different candies, lots of them sweet and spicy, as well as ice cream style treats in the cooler. There’s a ton of ice cream and gelato joints. The Japanese appeared to love Italian food and their style of ice cream was no exception. Chocolate is popular, but more candy bar type things and less straight up chocolate - or I should say there are chocolate specific stores, but I never went into any of those. Pastries and baked goods are also everywhere here and often adjacent to the coffee shops, so you’d go to a coffee shop and get your coffee then go buy your pastry somewhere else. Starbucks is here, but like McDonalds it has a certain elevated quality and innovation in its products, not that I really tried any. Something ubiquitous across Japan was the matcha (fine green tea often drunk as a latte) Kit-Kats, which I would snack on on occasion but I think that’s just because I like Kit-Kat in general.

I went back to the hotel satisfied. What a great day of just riding and seeing the sights. It was Sunday night, there was no reason to push it, and besides most everything around me that could have been fun was closed. It was a satisfying return to Tokyo. It felt natural to be there, and I started to internally reflect on my journey, now knowing that I was on the final leg of it. Deep in reflective thought I got some chips for the hotel room and spent the evening finishing writing a piece. Then I started thinking about Canada.

The Canadian federal election was the next day and I was starting to have some serious anxiety about it. In my life, as I’ll elaborate on in the next piece, nothing had ever made me prouder to be Canadian. I am someone, as you may have known, who has been incredibly critical of Canada’s flaws and the mistakes of our government over the years. However, being in Japan, and Eastern Europe a few years earlier, made me realize how well regarded we are the world over even if we do feel like barbarians compared to the elder civilizations. Canada however, offers a different level of safety and comfort. I was starting to worry that the election would be won by Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative party and the Canada, I found myself fearing that the Canada I was now appreciating on a deeper level, would be forever metamorphosed into one of institutionalized bigotry and stupidity - where all the idiots, proud of their ignorance, would act like things were changing for the better while PP sold the country out to the Americans and international corporations, not to mention things becoming more dangerous for a lot of people. I sat there in my hotel watching the news from Canada on my computer and analysis on You tube. I watched a bunch of reels on Instagram from conservative bootlickers extremely confident that things were going to go their way. Smug dipshits talking about ending woke. What a convenient term we’ve created, to mean enlightened, but it’s like a basket in which conservative types can fill with any progressive ideology they wish, while also refusing to define what's in their particular basket. Saying you want to get rid of woke doesn’t mean you hate gay people or people of color, because they refuse to actually tell you what it stands for. A bulletproof vest for ignorance. I definitely had a few more shochu and soda while I lay down and slipped off into a nightmare filled rest where a dystopian Canada unfolded in my mind. When the snake of my travels finally ate its own tail, what new beginning would I be returning to?