The Japanese are the politest, friendliest most charming people you could ever meet. Unless you put them on a mountain, at which point it really is every man, woman, child and smartphone for themselves. The view from the top of Mount Fuji is truly amazing, but so was my surprise at actually still being alive when I got there. The 8 hour climb is much more of a clamber than the vigorous stroll I had envisaged. The mountain is also remarkably crowded, and the Japanese seem to view going up it as a true mission. They push past on single file track, they leap in front on vertiginous rock paths, they drag up their children. They climb until they vomit. They like to do this in vast groups whose leaders chant at them and at whom they chant back avidly. They do all this at night at an elevation of 10,000 feet. Then, finally, at the top of Mount Fuji there is a collection of wooden huts, biting cold and broken individuals that really made me feel like an extra in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. There is also an amazing view. No, you cannot see my pictures, you will have to go yourselves.
Anyway, after all the climbing I needed nourishment, and the food in Japan is excellent. The only term to describe the precision and delicacy of meals in even quite simple restaurants is exquisite. The fish is of course often raw. This is no bad thing because the cooked fish is by far the worst food on offer: a fish, complete with head and as I soon discover, guts, is exposed to a flamethrower for what must be quite some time and then placed on a plate until it stares you out.
The only problem with restaurants is finding them when one is effectively illiterate. But sometimes there is assistance. The Tokyo district of Roppongi is full of Romanian, West African and West Indian men who don’t actually believe that a foreigner could want to have dinner rather than go to a strip-club. They tell me that, whatever it is I wish, they can find it and take me there. This soon becomes exhausting so I actually ask the location of the restaurant I want to go to. This particular heart’s desire is beyond the wisdom of the self-appointed Guides to the Fleshpots and inevitably leads to mystification and misdirection. I therefore pick a random restaurant which has a suitably Japanese looking façade. There is some blurb on the door about a traditional Japanese show.
So in I go. It’s all very nicely laid out, friendly staff, generous portion of sake. There seem to be well-dressed individuals talking to various clients, all dresses for women and yakuta for men. I briefly wonder if this is one of the places where you pay to talk to people. I soon stand corrected – the well-dressed people are in fact the performers in the show. The show is excellent, a modern kabuki. It is a half-ballet, half music hall sketch and highly entertaining. I ascertain during the show that at least one of the female performers is much too deep voiced to be a Japanese woman.
The cast come and talk with the audience after the show. The lady who talks to me definitely has far too deep a voice for a Japanese woman. Indeed she is soon revealed to be a ladyboy. As she talks though a revelation begins to cross my mind. I look round. I take a more careful look at all the female performers. It is quite clear, they are all ladyboys. I had watched for over an hour, which included many flashes of leg, and failed to notice. Quite frankly it’s a good thing I didn’t find strip clubs tempting.
I am informed that Japan is a good place to be a ladyboy – people are comfortable with them and they don’t get murdered. I am pleased by this but also note that the bar, like many others, has a few people smoking in it as well. Let’s be clear, I’m not a ladyboy, and have no plans to become one. Nor do I smoke really, or plan to take it up. But it’s nice to think that somewhere in the world both these things are tolerated.
Finally – did I see any geisha you ask? The answer to this is yes, in Kyoto I saw two geisha or, more likely, maiko (trainees.) I won’t describe them for the simple reason that google images can do it better. Instead you can see the remarkably tame but sacred deer that wander the streets of the city of Nara.