Erick Prokesh’s Asia Diaries

Dallas decorator Eric Prokesh is traveling throughout Asia for the next couple of weeks, and I asked him to send photos and diary entries along his journey. These first photos were taken in Tokyo and show beautifully dramatic contrasts, don’t you think? His posts explain the photos, and are so evocative. Be sure to read them all. I’ll be posting Hong Kong later in the week, then Cambodia. Click on the jump to read Eric’s diary from Tokyo.

ASIA DIARIES

Tokyo.
Arrival in immigration is slower than ever. Visitors are now photographed and printed on arrival, which is new. Tokyo, though not a bargain, comes as a relief after visiting Euro-zone countries. A good dinner for two with drinks can easily be had for $75.00. Every national cuisine at the high standard expected in a capital city is available. The pleasure and efficiency of a “robata bar” or conveyor belt Sushi restaurant should not be missed.

Our Hotel, the Park Hotel Tokyo in Shiodome, is part of a vast media complex which includes Nippon Television, an advertising museum, and advertising and P.R. offices. The soaring lobby, on the 25th floor has restaurants and a bar which attract a hip international advertising crowd and has stunning views of the city as do the rooms. Rooms though smallish, are ample by Tokyo standards with great city views, functional and neat. And here a brief excursus on Japanese toilets is unavoidable. Dallasites who have shopped Design Expo will be familiar with Japanese models which offer all of the options of a car-washbut the Japanese continue to make technological advances in this field. On opening the large rose-wood doors to the stalls in The Park, the lid opens, and lights illuminate the bowl. An LCD touch screen to the side displays an extensive menu of options. $220.00 for a double.

The chaos of the central fish market is a good first for early day. Fleets of delivery vans and high-speed propane powered mini-lorries Which require Direction by traffic cops in places, deliver fish to the scores of merchants and processors . The quantity of seafood species, many unidentifiable to this westerner, including enormous tunas, some selling for more than $20,000.00, will fascinate any sushi lover.

Sofia Coppola’s film, Lost in Translation, accurately captures the feeling of drift and apartness one feels in Tokyo. I think this comes partly from the unexpected quiet- surprising in such a large city. Drivers refrain from using horns and I was cautioned by an Italian friend working here, that private conversation should be inaudible in public. In the metro people speak little, no one talks on cell phones, and people sit taking up as little space as possible even when trains are relatively empty.

Metro stations are devoid of the characteristic human hum I have been in a station at the beginning of the Ginza line during Monday rush hour with people tightly pressed in layers 40 wide, slowly and without complaint, ascending stairs to the platform. Once in the train, with passengers packed so tightly that even breathing was difficult, people kept their eyes closed in silence in an effort to respect the privacy of those they were crushing.

This deference to privacy does not prevent the Japanese from reaching out to visitors. In my brief stay I was approached twice for help with directions and instructed at the Senso Ji shrine in the best way to bathe myself in the incense smoke.

Disturbing is the proliferation of face-masks, more in evidence this year than my last trip to Asia. There is in fact a worrying outbreak of flu now which has caused schools to be closed in Hong-Kong. But whether from a fear of pollution, SARS, Avian flu or dust, they look incongruous on the fashion conscious Japanese. I see an unexplored possibility for a fashion accessory. Masks with logo LV’s spring to mind. In fact on my last day in Tokyo I did see one in Burburry plaid.

The Locus of the Tokyo fashionable has long shifted away from the Ginza which seems stolid with it’s huge black Maybach’s with waiting drivers to Omote-Sando Hills. A long strand filled with cafes, all of the expected international shops and people possessing the confidence of easy-chic terminates in one of Tokyo’s most beautiful greenspaces-Shibuya-Ku . The park entrance is populated with Japanese Goths, Baby-Doll Girls and other assorted Bohemian types who seem to exist to be photographed by the curious. The park contains the beautifully reconstructed Meiji-Gingu shrine where on a lovely spring day one may see as I did, a traditional Shintu wedding ceremony.

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