Do you want to know who I admire the most in this world? It's not some famous Diva actor or popstar. It's not some over paid sports person. It's not even a revolutionary or a peacemaker. It's my baby brother, though I have never told him. Why? Because he has always had the odds stacked against him most of his life and he took those odds and went "Up yours odds! I will still do this anyway!" These odds started from the moment he arrived on this planet, because my brother was never meant to have been here in the first place. My mum became pregnant after having me, more or less straight away. Up to the point of giving birth to my sister my mother always thought that she was having one child. She was wrong! All the doctors were wrong! The hospital was wrong! She was having twins and 15 minutes later my brother was born small weak, with malnutrition, looking like he wasn't longed for this world. The doctors told my parents he won't live. He did! They then said he would probably have brain damage. He didn't! He was diagnosed with learning difficulties and told he would have to go to the special learning unit. My brother worked twice as hard at learning and stayed in normal classes. He was told he probably wouldn't get any GCSE'S. He did! He wouldn't get any A levels. He did! He wouldn't go to university. He did! After graduation he said he wanted to go and work in Japan! We all laughed: "Yeah right Darren!" we would say. He went anyway and stayed for 3 years and started to learn Japanese. He got married, came back to England and had a child. After a year he decided he wanted to further himself. He applied for jobs at high up firms. He would get down to the final few each time but get rejected. "We like you" they would say "but your not experienced enough, your writing isn't good enough!" He had this for 2 years, but he never gave up and kept trying harder after every rejection and then one day it happened. "I'm moving back to Tokyo. A company want me!" And that's where we find him now: working for one of the biggest law firms in the world, a valuable and highly regarded, as far as I can see, member of the company. You should never tell anyone they can't do something in life, no matter what, because if they want it enough, they can! This is why I admire my brother the most in this world.
I hadn't seen my brother and his family in over a year and a half, since they had last paid a 2 week visit to England. I was coming to Australia anyway, so what better way of breaking up a trip than stoping off in Tokyo and having some family time. Besides I been to Tokyo ten years before with my boyfriend of the time and my sister and had the time of my life. Even now, a decade later of traveling, I still think Tokyo is one of the best cities and experiences I have ever had.
"Leo is really looking forward to seeing Aunty Carly again" my brother would tell me. This bemuses me! "How the Hell does he remember me in this first place?" I thought to myself. I've always regarded myself as the absent Aunty. Even when my nephew was living in England I was never around as he was in Manchester and I was always leading my life in London. Unlike my sister I have never been maternal. When my nephew would cry or have a tantrum like kids do I would never know what to do and walk away in my usual selfish manner, feeling not a lot. Things in my life have changed recently though. I have learnt more about children, and I'm not as scared or awkward anymore around them. I have learnt a side to me I thought I never had. I saw this as an opportunity to connect with my nephew. And to get to know him.
My brother came to pick me up at the airport which I insisted on as:
1. I was carrying a bloody great big suit case full of presents for him!
2. I hadn't got a clue how to get to his and neither did I understand any of the swiggly writing that is known as Japanese.
3. He's my brother, so he has too.
To be fair though I'm not sure whether my brother had much more knowledge than me of the Tokyo train system as he seemed to get lost every two seconds. It's not like he's lived in Tokyo for six years! Oh wait a sec! Yes he has. On changing train lines my brother insists we go into the seven eleven shop and buy some alcoholic beverages as he tells me lots of Japanese people drink them on the way home.
"You should of have one of these!" He's says pointing at a can in the fridge "It's a Suntory Highball! It's soda and whiskey and it has no calories!"
"Are you trying to say I'm fat Darren?"
"No! I'm yes saying girls like that type of thing!"
"That's kind of stereotyping women!" I retort. I'm just about to go off on one of my feminist rants, when I think, "Actuallly whiskey and soda sounds really good and no calories! Even better!"
We spend the rest of the journey back to his drinking Santory Highball from a can looking like alcoholic westerners as I don't see one Japanese person drinking the whole way home. Great!
I awake the next morning a little confused due to jet lag and a hyperactive five year old jumping on me!
"Aunty Carly, Aunty Carly!" So he does know my name! I look at him. He's grown so much, and God he's so beautiful. I know I'm biased but he is. He looks like my brother but he looks Asian too. He shows me his favourite Lego pieces , his favourite cartoon shows. He's speaks to me in a mixture of Japanese and English. His Japanese is better than his English and he seems shy at times talking to me in English. He insists that I come and pick him up from kindergarten, so he can show me to all his friends. To be fair I do feel like a speciality or an oddity (depends which way you look at it) as my nephew presents me to his friends. In fact you feel like this most of your time in Japan. Coming from such a culturally diverse place such a London, Tokyo even though it's is far bigger, with a greater population, it has very little racial diversity. As a 5'10 blonde I stick out like a sore thumb. You sense people staring but when you catch their eyes they always look away quickly. The Japanese never like to be seem looking.
You can't go to Tokyo with out going to a themed restaurant. In fact I think it should be made illegal not to go to one, as its part of the whole Japanese experience.
When I was last here my brother took us to one called Lock Up, which saw us handcuffed to some girl clad in PVC and taken to our cell where we served our food in between the bars and half way through the meal the lights went out and we were attacked by criminals. Definitely the strangest meal I've ever had.
This time my brother was keen to go to a new themed place that had just opened called Robot Restaurant, as a lot of my brothers colegues had recommended it. He thought it would be good a good place for just me and him time.Now what I am about to describe does not even come close to how crazy this night or this place was. You need to have been there to believe it, but I will do my best. It is as follows. We head to Shinjukui at the heart of Tokyo. It's a maze of high rised buildings and lights. It's hard to believe with its vastness that Tokyo was nothing more than rumble after world war 2 and that it was all rebuilt again at such a fast rate like a Phoenix from the ashes.
We arrive outside the venue which is down the back streets of the seedy red light district. Now let's just say you really couldn't miss the venue. Why? Well if you think of every light in Vegas being put onto one building lone building then this was a building. It had so many lights that if you looked at it too long you would probably have an epileptic fit. If this was the outside then what the Hell was the inside like? Well let me tell you! We are led down stairs in to what was know as the waiting area. So try and imagine if a 70's disco, a pimp pad and Versace's house was merged together, well that's kind of the best way to describe this room. It's kitsch, bling and just amazing! Me and my brother are opened mouthed. We are led to are table by a pretty Japanese girl dressed as a sexy Santa who than puts down a robot dinosaur on a table that moves around and makes noises. What the Hell! I turn to my brother.
"What's the robot dinosaur about?"
"I haven't got a clue!" he replies "but it's bloody hilarious!"
We order some Japanese alcoholic drinks in a can, and I haven't got a clue what is, but it's very strong. As we sit drinking two Japanese girls, scantily clad in silver beaded outfits and thigh high boots, appear. One starts to play the piano. The other a violin. My brother starts laughing. "Jesus Christ!" He says. I can see what he's laughing at. The piano player is wearing a black thong underneath her silver tassles which are trying to pass as a skirt of some sort. It really doesn't leave a lot to the imagination.
"I think I can see now, why the guys from work recommended this place Daz!" I say.
The girls are then joined by some guys dressed as robots playing some Japanese flutes. It gets weirder! Then two more scantily clad girls come out with Santa hats on and sing their version of Mariah Careys "All I Want for Christmas is You!" It would have been quite good as they can actually sing. The problem is they don't really know English and so don't pronounce any of the words properly so it sounds like a demented speech impediment version of the song.
"I need the toilet!" I think! Not like the toilet is going to be any less of an experience; which is wasn't! I open the door to find ever square radius covered in gold, mirror and bling. Even the toilet seat is a tropical cerise print. I actually can't wee as I think I'm in shock. It's all too much! The first thing I say when I get back to brother is: "Daz you have to go to the toilets!"
The introduction is over and we get separated from our robot dinosaur (sad!) and dragged further down into the basement to see the actual show. We get placed at tables surrounding an arena and given more of the strange alcoholic Japanese canned drinks. OK! To sum it up it a nutshell the performance is as follows: lots of scantily clad beautiful Japanese girls come out. I start to get really envious of their amazing figures until I realise they actually have a figure of a child and that they only have breasts because they have really padded bras on. Then some girls come out and sit on gyrating diamanté horses and sing Lady Gaga's "Telephone" under laser beams. Next there are some boxing battles between robots and more scantily clad girls and fire breathing dragons. It's at this point I think there must be weird drugs in those Japanese canned drinks and I'm on some kind of crazy acid trip; especially for the finale which consists of UV light dancing girls followed by robotic roller bladers, robotic dogs and a dancing robot. This is then top off with a load more scantily clad smiling Japanese girls riding around on moving women cars with huge breasts, and we were all given glow sticks to dance with. No words! I mean no words could describe that event I said to my brother later as we finished the night the only way knew having a drink in Tokyos answer to an English replica pub. "Maybe epic is the best way to describe it!" my brother later said. I think maybe he was right!
On my last day in Tokyo I decided to take my nephew to another big rage in Japan at the moment: animal themed cafes. You see in Tokyo people have such small homes in densely populated areas most of them don't have room for pets, so people see these cafes as a good way to be able to interact with animals. Cat cafes used to be the favour of the month, but now this season it all seems to be about rabbit cafes, hence that's where we went. We use to have a rabbit when we were kids. It was a white albino dwarfe called Nibbles. I think it was slightly crazy as it always use to piss on me and bite me if wore a certain T-shirt which was burgundy with mustard stripes. I also think he was gay as one time I came to clean out the hutch to find him buggering the long haired ginuea pig Dibbles (see what we did there?) who we had got him as a companion; but I guess Nibbles had a different opinion on what type of companion he wanted. Later Dibbles had to be put down because of a heart attack. My mother could not bring herself to tell the vet the real reason for what induced this attack! When Nibbles eventually died we buried him under the shed in a Victoria biscuit tin and threw daisies we had picked from the garden over his coffin while my step dad covered him in soil with a spade. I actually cried for that sodomising rapist of ginuea pigs! Oh child hood memories!
We get to the cafe which is full of rabbits in cages. Leo gets to chose which two rabbits he wants to play with first. Of course he chooses the biggest called Figaro which is the size of a small dog and one girly looking one with white long hair and a pink bow in its mane. They are cute until they decide to piss and shit every where! My child horrors flash back at me but a least this time it isn't on my burgundy and mustard striped T-shirt (loved that T-shirt)! Leo soon becomes bored and is more interested in chatting to the women that work there. It's at that point I realise my nephew has quite a lot of charm, attitude and swagger for a five year old. I think he's going to be a heart breaker in the future. We leave the rabbit cafe after delinting and frebreezing ourselves of rabbit hairs and fumes. I'm not sure I will be in any great hurry to pay to drink, drinks while rabbits shit and piss all over me again? Been there; done that; and got the bloody T-shirt!
My nephew was being quite difficult on the way home and even threw a tantrum. I felt angry at him for this. It was my last day after all and not part of the plan, so in my usual selfish Manner I decided I couldn't cope with this, I never can when kids misbehave and walked off. It's only later well I'm lay on the sofa knackered, and Leo comes and snuggles next to me for a hug, I realise he is only a child and that's what children do and they are learning all the time, like I am learning all the time! I put my arm around him and we hug. Is the best hug in the world and I finally think for the first time I'm not a stranger to him and maybe actually an Aunty. It's a nice feeling and one I will keep working at. Next stop Kyoto!
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