Photo Diary: Best of Vancouver

Alcatraz ER: Tokyo

Once upon a time in Tokyo, my then-partner took me to a place which was described to me as "interesting." At that point, I had already been in Tokyo off and on for the past three years, so I was not about to get all giggly and surprised over some cheesy Japanese tourist experience. I told my partner that I had seen a lot of "interesting" stuff in Japan, so this better exceed expectations.

We called together a groups of friends to meet at this restaurant in Shibuya. About half of us met at Hachiko (the famous dog statue outside of Shibuya station) and walked together.  I can't even describe how we got there. Street names, addresses and landmarks are all meaningless in this neck of the woods.

After we arrived another friend called from the station asking for directions. I handed the phone to a Japanese friend who stayed on the line for a minute before hanging up and somehow my friend arrived at the restaurant in five minutes. Unbelievable. There is nothing I could have said that would have gotten her here.

as cheesy as you wanna be

Actually, there is probably one thing I could have said: Alcatraz ER. That's the name of the place, and it is legendary in Tokyo. The space is set up like a jail, with cells and handcuffs, but there staff are all doctors and nurses, so that's where the ER theme comes in. Strange combo, a little goofy, a little sexist, but a whole lot of fun.

Upon entering, you must input your blood type, which is really so Japanese. Most Americans  probably don't even know their own blood type. After that you are greeted by two sexy nurses, who will give you a fake shot (like a vaccination, not a drink) before handcuffing you and leading you into a cell.

bathroom

dining area

While in the cell, everyone is seated on the floor, which is pretty normal for Japanese people, but can get uncomfortable for a westerner. The cell is fully enclosed to give the illusion that you are in a jail, but it's not locked (uh, that would be a fire hazard). To order, you must bang your stick on the bars on of the cell just like in old prison movies.  Every hour, the power goes out and there is a "prison break" where one crazy inmate escapes and tries to climb into your cell and scare you.

typical cell for two

The cast

Rounding up the inmates

The long hallway

The best part about this place though, it the menu. When I first went here years ago, they had a very limited food menu, but have since improved. The highlight of the experince, however, is their wacky drink selection.

All the drinks are really something unique in presentation. Some come in a baby bottle, others are served to you in a test tubes. The downside is, as with all cocktails in Japan, they are weak as shit. I have to knock back forty of them just to get a solid buzz going, and this place isn't cheap. Still there are not many places in the world where you get to stir your drink with a dildo.So, for that, it is totally worth it.

Some of my favorites:

alcohol in a baby bottle

flask from a science experiment

test tube drinks

This drink was called, "Precum"

Reality Check: Saint's Alp Teahouse

Alright, I have to remind myself that it's time to stop reliving my foreign fantasies and settle for a nice dose of reality. 

Here is what I'm doing now.... 

Enjoying a delicious bubble tea at Saint's Alp Teahouse in Chicago. I've been traveling quite a bit for work lately, but not the kind of traveling I like to do. I recently had some down time in Chicago and am taking advantage of this precious opportunity to relish in bubble tea heaven. I have been dreaming of this place ever since I went to their New York location back in 2009. 

It's a funny story how I heard about this place, one of those things I like to call, chance happenings. 

As part of my research on racism against Asian Americans,  I was reading an article for class on the plane to NYC, and the author (a journalist) casually mentioned that her interview with the article's informant took place over a bubble tea at Saint's Alp in NYC.  Seeing as how I was about to arrive in New York imminently with no solid plans, I jotted down the name of the place in my notebook and decided to check it out later. 

What the hell else was I going to do? 

I hadn't done any research on the right places to go in NYC, and I wasn't yet savvy on Yelp, so I didn't think to go online and check ratings. I just decided that if the place was good enough for a journalist to conduct an interview, it was good enough for me. 

 On the second day in New York I visited this tiny cafe near NYU and fell in love. The bubble tea was thick and frothy, the tea eggs were savory, and the pork chop rice meal was divine. I went back every single day until I flew home.

I became a regular fixture at the Saint's Alp in New York, sitting in a corner, writing for two to three hours while knocking back one bubble tea after another. When I heard they opened a location in Chicago's Chinatown, I became all the more excited to relive my experience.

The Chicago location was quite a bit different than New York City. First of all, it's much more like a restaurant than a cafe. The menu was surprisingly more robust than what I remember it being in New York, though that could have changed since 2009. It was also not nearly as busy. I got a large booth to myself, and there were only ever a few other customers besides me. It was nice, but I miss the crowded chaos of the NYU location. Writing in a crowded cafe and an empty restaurant are too entirely different experiences.

The food was pretty much as I remembered it, frothy bubble tea, tea eggs, chicken wings, pork chop. God how I wish there was Taiwanese food in Portland. 

After all is said and done, I love the Saint's Alp in NYC way more than Chicago, but I love Chicago as a city way more than NYC. What's to be done about that? Well, at least I got to experience it for a brief time this fall. 

Hey, I've Been There! - Don Quixote on Yasukuni Dori

One of the coolest things about traveling the world is coming home and being reminded of your journey  through mundane things. Sometimes they come in the form of signs, posters, movies, or catalogs that make you say, "Hey....I've been there!"

The more obscure, the better.

This happens so often to me that I am dedicating a section on my blog to it.

Shortly after my 2009 visit to Japan, I  returned to the US, and while browsing the stationary section of Urban Outfitters, noticed a small notebook with a picture of Tokyo as its cover.

It took me a while to recognize the location, but I soon realized that it is one of the most famous landmarks in all of Tokyo. The writing in the bottom right corner is the sign for "Don Quixote" a popular chain store. This photograph is of the Yasukuni Dori (Yasukuni St.) in Shinjuku.
What was more amazing, is that I took a photograph of this exact landmark at almost the same angle.

Pretty fucking cool huh....