It was too hot for ramen.
My appetite is sensitive to the weather. I eat fruit and fresh produce all summer. No soup. Not when it’s humid. Food was the greatest challenge for me on my first trip to Tokyo. I had no idea what to expect when it came to food. Sophia had prepped me for everything else. Yet food somehow slipped away from our forethought and I think it made the time in Tokyo challenging yet rewarding overall.
First off, I always taste or try items if I am curious enough. There’s a thrill in that called living. I’m aware of the “diet rules” I may be breaking, blah blah. But I always want to have an experience with items presented to me. Gifts come all day, you just have to be open and willing to receive.
So, I ate airplane food. Spent my first few hours at the Cerulean on the porcelain throne. A note was taken, I then proceeded to find fresh produce. We stumbled upon a market where all of the food was perfect. Not a dent, scratch, scar, extra tit or eye – none of that. A Wilder Wonka dream of imaginative produce. Sophia told me that Japanese people like things to be perfect. She screamed it to me while I was rebelliously draped in Bacchar clothing. I made my first purchase at that moment. Something that I figured to be Japanese-style produce. I didn’t trust it. But I was willing to experience something new.
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The plums weren’t bad. Grapes tasted like Welch’s crafted them in a plant. They were strange, but I was also hungry all the time. Like a rabbit. I tried soba noodles with mountain potatoes and wondered what the fermentation of that would look like in my stomach. On the outside it looked like snot. So I could only imagine what my intestines considered. There was this bakery that we stumbled upon on the first day while looking for breakfast. When we realized that breakfast did not exist, this bakery became the morning snack go-to. I’ve never had so many carbohydrates at one time. Not even before a race and I love to use that as an excuse for gorging on pasta. This was an elevated concoction of breads, noodles, rice, and flavored water. That was the moment I felt like a foreigner. Dodging through the city, looking for something that spoke my food language.
On the third day, we got a knock on the door. It was Mami San, our translator and casting director for a social campaign we were shooting for Adidas Tokyo. Heaven sent us Mami and she pointed me in the direction of all the food. Low and behold, beyond the big lights were hidden health gems. The second blessing came in the form of Ruba Abu-Nimah who offered even more alternatives. Lono was there and it made it all feel like Harlem again. I had someone looking out who knew the territory. We also ended up at Club Harlem until 6am one morning. I haven’t done that since Vegas.
Here were a few of the suggested and sampled vegetarian stops on our visit:
Honmura An – Rippongi
Daylight Kitchen – Shibuya
Omotesando – Harajuku
Sunshine Juice – Rippongi
Narita Airport Sushi – Narita
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Beyond the food, we somehow found a way to finish up the fifth edition of UNDO Magazine, while crammed in a corner of a hotel room. The madness started on the plane with copy editing. It’s a hard job when contributors don’t meet deadline. When we inquire as to why people don’t meet deadline and the answer we usually hear is because people want to get paid. Yet, I pay for this to be printed and distributed so that the voice of people can be heard. It all doesn’t add up to me, but I know it stems from having strong grassroots that are necessary to build a sturdy platform. Not everyone delays the process for us but for the ones who do force us to look crazy in the back of ATA direct to Tokyo. This continued almost everyday until the final deadline along with final images for Adidas confirmed for submission by the end of our travels as well.
One day I’m scrolling through Instagram and see that my long-time friend Neek is posting from the lobby of the same hotel that I’m staying in. Come to find out he was in town with Ian and Faso for an Anti Social Pop-Up. It’s moments like this when words like happenstance and coincidence get thrown out the window. Especially after finding out that Daichi was working for Adidas and it felt like the entire crew that I worked with at Stussy in 09 were together – somewhere across the globe.
One week was not enough. Tokyo was an experience of a lifetime that I shared with the hustle of getting as much as you can completed while you’re young and flexible. It was a challenge. I think I came home and tried to sleep off all of the stress. Took me weeks to get adjusted to time and days to get my stomach and digestive system back to normal. But I traveled hungry and I ate well.
Find out more from Nai Vasha on Budget Hungry and @hi_vasha.
