Yasukuni, Asakusa, Shimo-Kitazawa. Oh my.

At the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine houses, according to Shinto practice, all of those who have died in the name of the Emperor (read: Kamikaze pilots, those who organized the Rape of Nanking, Unit 731 and the Comfort women, etc etc). Former Prime Minister Koizumi angered China and Korea by visiting the shrine numerous times. The shrine museum's version of history, especially of World War II, can be most politely described as "creative."








A festival in Asakusa, one of the older, more traditional parts of Tokyo (it was the center of everything back when Tokyo was called Edo), whose theme escapes me.







Shimo-kitazawa is a very "hip" area that survived (for the most part) the rapid development of the rest of the city, by which I mean that its a collection of alleyways with no major roads or tall buildings, and just a few chain stores (There was a Starbucks. I pretended not to see.).

One of the main reasons for my trip there was to find the quintessential Jazzkissa, or Jazz Cafe (kissa is short for kissaten [key-sa-ten], which means coffee shop) in Tokyo. Jazzkissas are places to sit quietly, read a magazine or a light novel, drink sour, slightly overpriced coffee, and listen to jazz records (sometimes CDs, mostly vinyl) for hours and hours. They're all independent places, and they're all about the atmosphere.

Well, for me, this sounded like heaven, so online I went to find out more. By all accounts, the best preserved Jazzkissa, that is, from their heyday in the 60s and 70s, is in Shimo-Kitazawa, a little place tucked away on a side street called Masako. Many others have gone out of business, or presumably become soulless Starbucks.

Masako was as advertised, down to the taste of the drink (I had milk tea, possibly for the last time). The lights were dim, the music soft enough to relax to but loud enough to declare that this particular cafe is about listening and not talking. It might have been Lou Donaldson playing when I walked in, but I wasn't sure.

Forcing myself to finish my milk tea, I finished the Kawabata Yasunari novel I had brought with me and looked at all the old jazz-themed posters on the wall. Two guys with long hair and tight black jeans who had come in with guitar bags smoked cigarettes in the corner, talking quietly. A man, his teacup empty, looked asleep. Ella Fitzgerald's voice filled the room with soul, lingered for a moment, and evaporated. Someone coughed, and I got up to pay the bill.





Masako