Libertarian musings from just inside the M25.

My trip to Yokohama today was something of a mixture of work and entertainment. As far as I can see, Yokohama is a city built mostly for the purpose of generating money from international trade – a lot of high-rise buildings, lots of swish hotels, and a very large number of mooring-stations, artificial harbours and piers. Of the latter, one of the most important is Osanbashi Pier, which used to be the point of arrival for the big trade vessels from the Netherlands, Portugal and especially the USA after the 19^th century – now, it is still used as a point of embarking and unloading, but by far the most significant alternative role that the place has developed is that of an exhibition and display venue, and it was for the latter purpose that it was of interest to me, and to all the other important people gathered there today. The summit was hosted in a German cruise ship, the Hanseatic, and I got to feel very smug and official rubbing shoulders with the great and good for a couple of hours, being inundated in meishi and making small-talk in a range of languages. Thankfully I wasn’t actually meant to be doing anything directly myself – that was up to my boss, the preparation for whose Big Moment had been the final project I had undertaken at work. So I sat back, chatted and observed – and was then driven back to work once all the (generous) canapés on the ship had been gobbled up. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent tying up loose ends, being generally fussed over by my co-workers, and then scoffing a lot of sake and more canapés after crashing the opening ceremony for a renovated floor in the building where I work – which featured (among other things) a Very Important German wearing a happi coat and using an oversized mallet to break open a wooden keg of sake. And no, before you ask, that Very Important German wasn’t me…

The final part of the evening consisted of Laura H, Laura L (whose real name is apparently Laura B), Christian H and a girl named Sara who we met at the ceremony heading to Shinjuku in order to take a lift up to the top of the City Government Building in order to get a proper view out over Tokyo by night. The first thing I noticed when we got to the top was that this particular activity seems to be exceptionally high on the list of ‘romantic things to do for young couples’ in Tokyo – apart from us, pretty much all the other visitors were young pairs of lovers, who were all so entwined and engrossed with each other that I suspect they paid very little attention to what one could actually see out of the various windows. I probably saw more young people snogging intently this evening than I have throughout the rest of my stay – as I pointed out in a previous post, Public Displays of Affection are just not the done thing in Japanese society.  I expect that the 45^th floor of a skyscraper at 22:30 is about as close as they’ll be able to get in Tokyo to a secluded spot without actually withdrawing to their private sphere, so I imagine they were pretty determined to make use of the opportunity. But this certainly didn’t mean that I was going to judge them any less for doing so – I’ve been on the receiving end of more than enough judgement of my own for the same reason in England, after all… Unfortunately, this excursion marked the end of my time together with the 299-yen-pub crew, so as we all started to go our separate ways once we’d come down from the observation floor, the sweet sorrow of parting manifested itself over and over again – I’ve had some great times with the people I’ve met here, and the memories will stay with me wherever we all go from here. Eventually, I found myself striding down Meiji-dori from Kita-sando to Shibuya, plugged into Metallica and revelling in the welcoming crispness of a proper autumn night – not even the thought of having to spend the next few hours wrestling my belongings back into my suitcase could dampen my mood.