A Seal from Kabuki-chō

Kabuki-chō is Tokyo’s entertainment and red light district. We take the orange Chūo-line to Shinjuku and get out at this busy station’s East exit from where we enter the streets of Kabuki-chō. This is the big metropolitan Tokyo we know from photographs in travel guides. Big screens with flashy commercials on them look down on us from huge buildings, like a group of Cyclopses, making us feel small in a moving concrete canyon. The large round space in front of the station is much busier even than holiday Kichijōji.
As tomorrow’s training will be all work and it will be a strenuous task trying to stay awake through seven hours of speeches in a warm room, making a respectable face, taking notes, downloading information, today I have set myself a fun task. I want something to play. And it has to be a seal. Kabuki-chō is my treasure hunting ground.
The first shop front flashes large breast-shaped pillows and an elephant head covering the crotch of a plastic male body. The shop turns out to be a maze, much deeper and bigger than the small entrance suggests, its merchandise a strange combination of clothes, home appliances, make up, and bizarre toys.
We might need something seedier to find my seal. Around the corner, we find a small shop called “Wild One”. It is nothing but a small corridor, a wrinkly mama behind the counter with short hair and a serious make up overdose gluing the pores of her face shut. Looking around, I can’t find anything resembling a seal. There is a penguin.
“Excuse me,” I finally ask her. “Do you happen to have a seal?” “Seal? Hm.” She is unfazed by my request and slowly gets up from her seat. “I don’t think we have a seal. As far as cute things go,” she says with a voice marred by years of smoke, guttural noises, and other dirt passing through her throat, as she combs through a small glass shelf at the entrance, “We have a dolphin and a bee. The dolphin is ¥ 4000 Yen, the bee ¥5000.”
She shows me both, but I have to disappoint her and tell her I’m not interested in bees or dolphins. I have come to find a seal. And it will be a seal or nothing. Of course I know that the latter is the more likely outcome, but you have to try if you want to succeed, and trying itself is fun.
We wander about gazing at the variety of shows and massage parlours, the suited men standing in front of them to invite people in. Cheap shops, expensive shops, none of them spelling out explicitly what happens inside them. They have pictures of scantily clad girls on them, some in school uniforms, some wearing nothing, some foreign, some Japanese. There are prices for different times. ¥ 6000 and for an hour’s “course” (whatever that may entail), ¥ 10,000 for two hours. The most explicit message we find, written in English, is “Only Japanese”.
Finally, an inconspicuous grey plastic curtain along a darker alleyway leads us into another shop. This one seems to have no particular name. The words above the door are content-related and simply functional. “Adult Toys”, it says.
We go in, and again, the shop’s size is not impressive. But the array of goods in this shop seems to be more extensive than that at the “Wild One”. A man in his late forties with a balding head, hair combed across it in thin strands from left to right, fixed with copious amounts of wax, politely welcomes us and gestures at a wall of lit-up vibrators. “Omiage, omiage!” he says. “Get some souvenirs for your friends at home!” “Actually,” I confess, “I’m not here to buy omiage. I’m looking for a seal.”
“A seal? Well, there are al kinds of things here, so just have a look, you might be lucky.” I comb through the shelves. Again, they are full of dolphins. This time, I find a penguin, as well. Lots of nun-like women that creepily glare at me in semi-see-through colours, filled with pearls. When I think I have looked at every single item this shop is selling and am about to leave, Wax Strand calls from the other side of the room: “What about a fur seal?” “A fur seal?” Within a second, I’m next to him to see whether he is actually telling the truth. He holds up a see through box with a little white thing in it. I take a closer look. Jesus, Mary and St Joseph. It is in actual fact, a seal. Bent 90 degrees in the middle for perfect vibration distribution, its cute little head looking up at the golden gate, its tail fin spreading across the beach of pleasure. On the control, there is a picture of a smiling fur seal, and it says “otossei – a fur seal”.
I can’t believe my luck. “I’ll have that.” I say, and then can’t stop laughing about the bizarre and unexpected result of this impossible seal hunt. “I’ll make it cheap for you,” says Wax Strand. It’s usually ¥ 5000, but I’ll give it to you for ¥ 4000.” He puts in some batteries and checks whether it is moving. The fur seal is moving. He returns it to the box and puts it in an innocent looking red-chequered paper bag for me. Mission accomplished.
It is time for food again. We try to find cheap yaki-niku (fried beef) and ask one of the men inviting people into shops that sell “courses” for help. He lends us the high-tech skills of his mobile phone navigation system, polite and caring, and walking us half the way to the restaurant as another man appears out of nowhere, runs across the street, and wordlessly takes over his post. We find the place we are looking for, but it is full, and we are not willing to wait for 40 minutes. Instead, we find a Wara-Wara and eat a variety of dishes, including fried mochi (sticky rice balls) with cheese and bacon, Okonomiyaki, Hokkaido pumpkin gratin, salad wraps, and fried pork with spring onions. When our stomachs are full, it is still early, so we embark on a last little adventure between our different train stations.
We get off at Ueno, hoping Ueno Park might be lit up and offer another opportunity for taking pictures and enjoying some more relaxing views after the endlessly sparkling and flashing streets of Kabuki-chō. But there is not much light in the park. Mostly benches covered with blue plastic tarpaulins, the little sleeping cells of homeless people. There are animal statues made of lit up wires. The light in the wires changes colours. They are live-sized and, arranged into scenes taken from “The Carnival of the Animals”, offer a mesmerising little spectacle, A reindeer pulling monkeys around on a sled. Big penguins, a giant bear, a peacock. We take more pictures and finally have a last coffee in Ueno before we go our separate ways again.
P is off to get his subway line, I am off to get mine: the Ginza line to Asakusa, where I can sleep in a capsule for ¥ 3000. Walking down the steps towards my train, I whistle happily at the drab, yellow walls. I’ve got a fur seal in my pocket. Capsule today, Hilton tomorrow. A seal in your pocket eats all your sorrow. Come here, Seal, you have talent. You can bark, you can purr, Seal, so purr tonight. I’m taking you to a capsule tonight, just you and me in a capsule tonight, ooooh, just you and me. As I step onto the train, I swear I can hear Seal clapping his fins in my pocket.