Clubbing Solo

I've gotten my bearings a little with Tokyo.  After just walking out into the city a little it's not as tough as it initially seemed.  Just the contrast between Tokyo and Kyoto was a little bit staggering.  I started easy by checking out the Mori Museum which is on the 52nd floor of the Mori tower in the Roppongi Hills complex.  They had a retrospective on the Turner Prize which was great and included a few Damien Hirst dead animal pieces.  Also checked out the 21.21 design site - a exhibition space in the complex I'm staying at that is currently set by Isse Miyake.

It seems the latest rage here is building massive Time Warner Center type complexes on a much larger scale.  Roppongi Hills and the Toyko Midtown area are both giant high end beautiful malls with office towers rising above and amazing hotels at the top along those lines.

Went to dinner at what seemed to be a high end touristy type spot called Gonpachi, like someplace in the meatpacking district or something.  Food was great but from here on I want to feel more like a local, if possible.  After dinner went to a club called Feria in this 4 floor building called Grace that I had both read about and been pointed to by the concierge.  It was brutal.

The crowd was so beat, ranging from 16 year old looking russians and ugly japanese and western people, with a random assortment of strange old people - one being an old indian guy that looked like a dad in a robe and slippers.  There is apparently no crowd control.  Eventually an american dude approached me, curious why I was just standing at the bar looking disgusted and tried to bring me into the scene but it was worthless.  I'm not sure if it was a fair sampling of Tokyo night life or not, but if I walked into this place in NY I would have been there less than a minute and split.

Going to go explore some neighborhoods today.  I reminded myself that unlike Kyoto which was like the Washington DC of Japan with monuments everywhere, Tokyo is more like NY where you explore by checking out a few specific sights but mostly just wander around areas and window shop, etc.  Tough to tell what the weather is like since on the 50th floor my view is a white out of fog.