Issue #321: ＮＥＤＳRecords is the Greatest Place on Earth
This is not a Japan travel guide. This is not a Japan travel diary. Okay, it is actually both of those things. I didn’t bring my laptop on my trip and word processing/newsletter photo adding from the iPad and iPhone has some major downsides compared to the alternative. Apologies for any deviations from the production values you’re used to. But, I’m on vacation!
Japan Travel Diary & Guide: Tokyo and Yokohama
International travel is a strange luxury. It is awesome as a whole, of course. And visiting another country, any country, is an amazing opportunity. But man, flying economy is crazy. And I mean regular ass economy. Packed in to a huge plane like sardines. The random woman to my left was at war with the guy behind her the entire flight. Every time she reclined, he would just shove her seat back up. And then with the first beverage service, they hand us these:
This is a crazy thing to have as the complementary snack. The air in the airplane cabin was immediately filled with the strong scent of the seasoning and I bet everybody’s breath was kickin. My breath took a hit, but it wasn’t fatal.
I had a pretty good setup for sleeping, once my breath was appropriately cleansed:
It’s all so far, so good. As I write this I am sitting on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka and the trip has been going very well. This particular Shinkansen trip does happen to be hell. There is no way American tourists can be more obnoxious than whatever nationality of tourist is seated on nearly every other seat in this car. They are going wild, walking up and down the aisles, just crazy behavior. I’m not one of those people who is a stickler for all the truisms that dictate tourist behavior in Japan, but this is ridiculous.
We’ve done a lot so far. In Tokyo, we inadvertently split our time between doing things we’ve done before and stuff that was new. Things that were new to me between our last visit and this current one (or newly experienced because I forgot them):
Public bathrooms don’t have paper towels and only occasionally have hand dryers. Usually you will be waving your hands around like a maniac trying to dry them off.
Iced pour overs are huge here. And expensive, even with the favorable exchange rate. But also extremely worth it. We found two fantastic coffee spots, Kielo Coffee in Akihabara and Samoyed Coffee Freaks in Shinjuku.
Considering the many guides that exist for Japanese travel, I think there is some amount of anxiety regarding coming here. I think it’s a bit overblown, although there are a lot of things to consider. For the most part, both of these trips have been pretty sparsely planned without much consideration taken for some of the details. Maybe more might have helped, but things have panned out so far. I think there is some worthwhile advice that is worth more than your average Japan travel listicle:
Use the iPhone Suica card for everything
Last time, I didn’t use my Suica card for much. It was a pain in the ass to reload and the machines only took cash, so I only wanted to use it for the train where it was my only option. Now, with the advent of the Suica in Apple Wallet, it is trivial to reload it at any time. I use it for everything. Many stores accept it, vending machines, arcade games, the train. With all the conversation about Japan being a cash society, I am rarely somewhere where IC card (of which Suica is one of a few options) or credit card are not accepted.
If you are bringing large suitcases, book the Shinkansen seats with luggage
There’s a clear option for this on the JR West website which we used for booking our train tickets. You technically either need to have this or a luggage space reservation to put your large bags, even though some people try to circumvent this requirement. I wouldn’t recommend that.
Make reservations for table service restaurants
We got lucky last time, but we’ve gotten turned away or hit with some ridiculous wait times on this trip for sitting down to eat
Some of my favorite places we visited in Tokyo were:
N E D S Records
Inside a multi-tenant building in Shinjuku, it’s not easy to find. But the hunt is worth it. The first time I visited in 2018, the hunt was painful. This time was easy, I remembered exactly where it was, though the building is set back from the street and really doesn’t look like it’s open to the public. I’ll just excerpt a text message I sent into a group chat of friends about my experience this time around:
[The shop owner] lored me on Japanese noise music for the store’s entire 90 minute hour and a half of operation [Eds. Note: the store is only open from 7:30 - 9 every day] and puts shit into my hands like he’s Nardwaur interviewing me but instead making sales. 30 minutes in he pulls out this insane old t-shirt, true vintage from this wild noise comp [The Tyranny of the Beat (1991)] with a ton of ill bands on it and says “I remember you like noise t-shirt, only 2000 yen!” He also gave me a bunch of old zines he made in the 90s from another record store he owned.
The experience of a lifetime. And you can go eat in Kabukicho after.
Flower Records
This one was on my list for 2018 but I didn’t make it until this trip. All I can say is: wow. N E D S, visually, is overwhelming, but this place is on a whole other level. Like N E D S, this is in a residential apartment building with the “record store” housed in a very small apartment. This one is easier to find with ample signage on the front of the building in the bustling restaurants outside of Nakano Broadway. There is a surprising amount of organization of the seemingly haphazardly placed cardboard boxes piled high with records. It takes some doing, but the stuff is worth digging through and usually sorted with like genres and mediums. I found a bootleg of the Toy Box VHS, a recording of 1982 sets from Execute, Gauze, and Axe - Bomber, a band with Sakevi and Masami Ghoul. Can’t wait to watch this shit. I might even screen it at the microcinema — info on that TBD.
Flower Records
LOS APSON?
Another record store in Koenji for noise and electronic music, but aside from a few silly products has a real nice vibe. Sun Ra VHS collections, Merzbow multi CD sets, and Incapacitants t-shirts still available at time of writing.
Record Shop BASE
Competitively priced Koenji punk store for records, CDs, tapes, and shirts, but the stuff I was shopping for (live DVDs and VHSs) was pricier here than what I found at other places. Chopped it up (language barrier notwithstanding) with the clerk and another apparent old head about my Lip Cream and Outo shirt that I bought from Tom General Speech. The art on the shopping bag alone makes copping something worth it.
Inui-dori
This one might not be in the cards for most visitors, as this walking street within the Tokyo Imperial Palace is only open twice a year. We got in on the last day for the season. It will open again in autumn. During the security check, they make you take a sip of any drinks you have — to ensure they are fit for human consumption and not a suspicious substance.
Taito HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard)
This is the best arcade in Akihabara and it’s not close. In a sea of claw machines, gacha card battlers, and Gundam Extreme Vs 2 Overboost, it actually has real shit. Pop’n Music, every fighting game on the planet, Tetris Grandmaster 1-3, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo for 30 yen. The rest of the games are usually 100 yen a credit.
Aoyama Flower Market Green House
This is actually a cafe and like most places in Japan where food is involved, requires a little bit of a time commitment to sit and eat. But the food and ambiance are stupendous.
We also visited Yokohama. It’s definitely worth making the trip. Yokohama Chinatown was a blast with great food, but it is probably the most crowded place I have ever been in my life.
Now on to Osaka. More next week.
Erin’s Travel Dispatch
(The following is written by my fiancée and sometimes editor Erin Gwozdz):
“Nature has other plans”
Cherry blossoms were expected to be in full bloom by the time we got to Tokyo. On the weekend we saw a cherry blossom festival along the river, sans cherry blossoms. You could imagine the bare trees, which drape elegantly over the river, in full bloom, lining the banks in pink petals. Still, the festival went on, with bands playing and food vendors serving up all sort of snacks. If you squinted, you could see one or two blossoms opening on a tree.
Comical, but also a humbling reminder of accepting what is out of your control. The beauty of sakura is that it’s here and gone in a flash. Perhaps see the beginnings of that anticipation isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Until next time.