Day 3: Naka-Meguro

Today’s primary destination: my favorite neighborhood in Tokyo, Naka-Meguro, a mix of hip shops and restaurants along a canal lined with cherry blossom trees. When I first visited back in Nov 2016, I vowed to return to see the trees in all their pink glory. Luckily for me, Sakura was still going strong despite the trees having passed peak bloom. Couples and families strolled on either side of the canal posing for photos and sipping strawberry champagne.

After walking the full length down and back, I climbed the hill to Saturdays Surf NYC like a true New Yorker and sat on the sunny back deck with an iced latte and my book of the moment, Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami. Across the street at the beautiful Tsutaya Books, I spotted my boy! (Terrible pic, but you get the idea.)

From Meguro, I walked back to bustling Shibuya, where youngish shoppers flooded the streets, then on to Harakuju and Cat Street, a winding narrow street lined with indie shops mixed with luxury brands and places to eat.

I stopped for ramen at Oreyu Shio, where I ordered special sesame paste ramen from a machine that spit out a ticket. I then waited in line until a woman asked how many people and took said ticket. Despite the many people huddled out front, things moved along quickly and before long, I was seated at the bar with a steaming hot bowl before me. Needless to say, it was better than any ramen you’d find in NYC. Sorry about it.

I had no plans for the afternoon, so on a whim I took the train 40 minutes to the Museum of Contemporary Art. The special exhibition (Christian Dior something or other) was sold out, but the permanent collection proved quite funky. This piece of blinking numbers by Miyajima Tatsuo was especially mesmerizing.

And oh right, I went to the club! I had purchased a ticket way in advance for a Guy J DJ set at a club called WOMB a fifteen-minute walk from my hotel in Shibuya. Though I was ready for bed at 7 p.m., I forced myself to wake up again at 11 p.m. and head back out. I wove my way through a chaotic Shibuya packed with youthful revelers until I found the literally underground club. The main floor was quite empty—turns out 11:30 p.m. is still early, club-wise.

I staked a spot in the front and found my people—a Japanese dude wearing a white long-sleeve tee and a black bucket hat bobbing from side to side directly in front of the DJ, and a woman wearing a white tunic over jeans who seemed like a friend of the DJ; she too never left her spot bopping at the front. Everyone else in attendance seemed quite blah and/or awful, especially the white guy with a shaved head except for a stripe of buzzed hair down the middle who said, “lots of ambient techno in here, huh?” to which I made a face before running away. Ew.

But the DJ, he was great. DJ Ogawa, who clapped between songs in honor of the music, hands raised as if in prayer, played first until 1:30 a.m. and he was way more my style than the bass-heavy Guy J. The crowd got worse at the night went on (too many tourists, says the tourist), so I ditched early and was back by 2 a.m.