Photographs from a small group of islands
Tokyo may lack some things, but not drinking establishments — not by any stretch of the imagination. And yet despite many being lavish and elaborately decorated affairs, it’s almost impossible to resist the dirty little places down dark alleyways that offer wonderful, character-filled glimpses of the past. Cramped escapes that happily exist in the modern world, but very rarely give the changing times more than a cursory glance.
The yen might well be falling, but due to an island dispute and hawkish new prime minister/long simmering resentment/economic stagnation/sheer idiocy (delete where applicable), nationalist sentiment is going very much in the opposite direction. Or at the very least, public expression of such views is, with shouted attacks and individual hatreds just a few of the scenes I’ve seen of late.
But a goose stepping flag waver heading an (albeit rather small) organised march seemed like a further shift in an already worrying trend.
Particularly so as those behind him were suggesting a call to arms in the country’s aforementioned and ongoing territorial discord with China.
The only blessing being that a brief fracas with a group of angry bystanders and some of the marchers about 5 minutes after these photographs were taken, does suggests that some people at least are having their eyes opened in regards where the country may be headed.
When it comes to the likes of abandoned recording studios, homes and even completely untouched schools, there’s invariably not only a sense of sadness, but also the mystery as to why things ended the way they did. With a large number of Japan’s long-closed hotels, however, the real sadness is invariably in the depressing predictability of their demise.
Built in briefly booming resort areas, they generally boasted pleasant rooms, lavish function halls and state of the art entertainment.
Places where guests could be expected to happily kick back and enjoy a relaxing break from the stresses of city life.
Huge expenditure based on the overly optimistic idea that the good times would never end. But they did. Often quite quickly. And the Tower Hotel is another casualty on a long and lamentable list.
To be fair though, some visitors did enjoy enjoy it.
Or they at least tried to.
But, as the tourist boom faded, so did the once lavish accommodation that catered for them. The rooms never getting updated to match the times.
With mod cons such as fridges not especially tempting to potential guests — particularly so in the year 2000 when the Tower finally closed its doors.
The vicious circle of tired old rooms not bringing the money in; money desperately needed to refurbish said rooms in order to be competitive again. Although that said, it’s hard to imagine any amount of expenditure making some of them even remotely appealing, as gazing out at a corrugated wall is generally not what people want on a weekend away.
There again, neither is playing woefully outdated video games.
Plus even drinking away the disappointment wasn’t really an option. The bar.
Twin Peaks-esque decor.
And far from exotic exotic window stickers.
All provided a backdrop that even copious amounts of alcohol would have been hard pushed to obliterate. Perhaps the only blessing being that reserving a table wouldn’t have been a worry.
But, on the way back to their rooms, they’d at least have had the chance to pause on this lovingly recreated bridge and ponder an era other than the one that permeated the rest of the hotel.
Her appearance may well be very different. The line of work more traditional. But this young maiko’s slightly panicked dash to an appointment was strangely reminiscent of so many stressed out salaried workers daily routines
In many ways Tokyo seems to be in a constant state of flux, and yet at the same time, no matter how much it changes, it also stays very much the same.
