Sunday, May 01, 2005

Homelessness in Tokyo : The city that never sleeps

K, this is interesting...I spend one night being homeless in the great city of tokyo...mainly in Shinjuku. The irony is this...I had a place to stay but me and my buddy Lee Boon Hon was crazy enough to say.."Hey, let's try being homeless in Japan....go anywhere also must have this experience!" ...And then there was the man-to-man handshake and promise done....we're gonna be homeless!

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Fakeys of us sleeping.....

Let me start again...There was 8 of us bloddy M'sians. We book hotel room for 4 peaheads...little did we know that the hotel managaer can be quite strict and chased 4 of us away. we made a deal among ourselves that 4 will sleep 1st while 4 more will sleep at god knows where(They went to sleep at karaoke) I spend the 1st night in the hotel room...
The next day we went for meeting with other seniors...Two kind young ladies offered us 4 people (2 guys 2 girls) a place at their place on one condition...not to come back to late. Ok...thanx a lot ladies.....
Later that day, me and a bunch of fellas wanted to go round the city....which means coming back late. So, during dinner me and Boon struck on a conversation about homeless...and decided that we wanted to try being homeless....and that's it. Promise made.
At the start, it wasn't that bad...we walked around...and walk....and walk....and finally understood the meaning of 'The night is still young' (Don't think I'll ever use it again) . Well....we just kept on walking looking for a place to sleep...funny thing is, every crook looks inviting! I noticed that people who wants a decent place to stay always fret about where to stay and being homeless, everywhere is possible! No trouble looking for a place to stay...
We found a place that leads downstairs...went down, greeted by a guy who says "Welcome..how may i help you?" We pretended as if our japanese was hopeless asked what place that is..he said place for adults...we continued playing...what? Bar? No No...disco? No no..what? I no speak english...すみません(sorry)...hahaha...
So we walked on...we passed a street in Shinjuku called Kabukicho. There's people in suits all over...all dressed up like business man. Almost all of them approached us asking if we want to see girls naked...if we want to touch naked girls....if we want to screw naked girls.....well, me and that guy Boon figured out that if we speak english, we can play a while and make our escape..it worked super well..with most of them appologizing..hmm, they appologize for approaching us or for not being able to satisfy our libido?....well, most of them make full use of body language...hand gesture that points at his groin, points at his mouth ...points at the one other smelly place...let me tell you that was HILARIOUS!! Anyway, one worked out that he can make us understand by keying in numbers into his handphone and show it to us....for one minute, I thought he was gonna call someone who can speak english, i saw that my loyal buddy Boon was all set to run away leaving me there. haha.... ..This part i don't have any pics...afraid to take one. Someone might kill me for taking pics....I mean it figures....they don't want me to take free pics of their girls struting their stuff.
We earlier planned that if we can't make our great escape, we would just pay and enjoy what they have to offer rather than being chopped up to pieces. Oh, stuff that keeps these guys from approaching you, ice cream and videocam...kids, take note please.
Anyway...we found a place we thought was a nice place to spend our homeless night. Our peaceful homeless sleep didn't last that long....our inexperience taught us that the temperature drops drastically at 3 something and will leave us to shiver our very own soul out of our body.
Well, can't sleep...mite as well walk on...
While on our little 'adventure' I saw a poor man got beaten the shit out of him...and that happen only 30 meters from the police box! poor guy was kneeling and he got kicked and punced......I can't shoot slimy white liquid from my hands and climb walls so i left him being helpless..

On that night, I realised why they call Tokyo the city that never sleeps....that night I saw this..

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and this....

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The first one is a PET SHOP!! Imagine mentally healthy, sane people buying pets at 3.30 in the morning!! and training their pets!! It's like...fetch Spike, go fetch! Good boy, here's a piece of sushi. Now fetch again Spike!...at 3 in the morning. The second one is Psycologically logic and head with brains homosapiens doing shopping at 4 in the morning!! Not to mention during our adventure, we saw people playing arcade football and arcade drum and praticing baseball at 3 in the morning!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THEM?? DON'T THEY SLEEP??
That is when we really understood the meaning of homelessness....people whom we call homeless, yep, those fragrant people who sleeps on the street, are not so homeless after all....the streets ARE their home! they have a place to sleep, a place for retreat.....while those people practicing baseball and train pets in the wee hours in the morning, they ARE the homeless ones...
And then the sun rises.....aaahhhhh, the sun, wait, my watch says 5 in the morning....WHAT? The Sun doesn't sleep too??
Well, we went for breakfast, ate ramen when we saw some homeless people, classmates i'd say...

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It's like live comedy... the guy on the right ate as fast as he could and just prop on the table. The one on the right...gawd, you guys should have seen his face. It's like every swallow he take portrays suffering on his face...he naps for a while, wakes up, takes a few painful swallow then falls asleep again. As if he suffer so much just to eat. It's like Stephen Chow's show...live.

You all might say that we did something stupid... got a place to stay but went being homeless instead. So stupid that we do not deserve JPA but.....if I've not experience homelessness, I would definitely not have discovered what I have written above. It was a nice experience in a way....in another way, I see myself a fool, a complete waste of oxygen.....but no regrets though!