Simon Lewis: Comrade Hack

Aloha! We went to ‘Hawaii Town’. You rent a swimming costume and Hawaiian shirt then enter a hall the size of an aircraft hangar which holds four or five swimming pools, slides, kiddy pools, jacuzzis and so on, and on a giant pirate ship dancers hula-dance wearing grass skirts and bikinis made of plastic half-coconuts.

There were easily three thousand people in there and not one of them was actually swimming. Which would have been hard anyway, as the water in the crowded pools was never more than 1.2 metres deep. It’s wholesome family fun and people with tattoos are barred.

At the onsens, or hot spring spas, off to the side, the Hawaiian theme abruptly falls away; the communal pool was in a pastiche European mansion, and then the men-only area was in traditional, timbered Japanese style. You strip down, then shower, then get into a thigh high-pool of sulphurous water, and lie there.

It’s far too hot to do anything, even think, and is very relaxing, though the sight of naked old men sloughing about with their wet towel carried on their head (where else can they put it?), scraggy bollocks dangling in your eyeline, is enough to put you off your Hawaiian pizza.

Noe’s parents live in the suburban sprawl a couple of hours out of Tokyo. There is no high street or town centre, so it all feels aimless and deracinated. It is just like western suburbia (there are even plastic gnomes) but instead of lawns they have vegetable patches.

Still, it is very safe; people leave their doors unlocked and there are even unmanned produce stalls at the side of the road – having picked out what you want you leave the money in a tin, and the stall owner collects it at the end of the day – that’s a level of trustworthiness I can’t imagine anywhere else.

Every day I go for a walk. I am usually the only pedestrian which makes walking seem a marginal, almost disreputable activity; I guess everyone drives everywhere. Though the houses are trim and attractive, with black tile roofs and elegant wooden shutters, there is little sense of urban planning, everything looks like it’s been dropped in at random.

The first shop, ten minutes down the road, is the 7-11. There’s an impressive range of merchandise, much of it with odd English names – fashion magazines called ‘Trendy’, ‘Men’s Egg’, ‘Blenda’; you can buy an eyebrow pencil called ‘Tiny Sniper’ and marshmallows called ‘Hattenfatteners’. I buy energy drink ‘Pocari Sweat’ and ‘Chelsea’ chocolates.

The next landmark is a bowling hall, then the Hitachi R and D department, and then you walk at the side of an expressway until you arrive at a Shinto Temple. You’re supposed to wash your hands then ring a bell, and you can get your fortune told. Almost opposite, a giant consumer electronics mall offers, among a vast range of products, heated toilet seats, massage chairs, a hello kitty rape alarm.

So yeah it’s okay but I would go nuts if I lived here. Anyway, off to Shanghai for a week tomorrow.