Wired Cafe News in Tokyo
Am sitting in an Internet cafe (Wired Cafe News -- part of the Cafe Company in Japan which boasts a wide array of styles and venue choices, with its Wired locations seemingly the best of the bunch) in the Nihonbashi district. It's Saturday, and the cafe is located in an office tower, so the place is pretty sparsely populated at the moment and the staff are standing around dying for something to do.
The coffee is good, the food is great (I had a thick, toasted "New York Style" open-faced BLT that I only wish I could get the likes of in New York, and the BF ordered a plate of Banana French Toast that came drizzled in chocolate and served with a side of vanilla ice cream) and the atmosphere is perfect -- hi-tech retro-modern is the only way I can think of to describe it. The lighting fixtures are all classic 50's modern, the tables and chairs simple yet comfortable, the entire floor is pre-distressed wood and the place has a wide-open converted warehouse look to it. There are several wall-mounted monitors streaming the latest financial news as well as a large LED display above the kitchen counter, white ceiling fans spin lazily and there are six ceiling-mounted JBL speakers for maximum sound disbursement. The wireless Internet connection is blazing fast, the background music is trendy euro-rock and lounge pop, and the waiter in his black felt fedora, white shirt, slouchy black trousers cinched up with an aged white leather belt and a pair of gorgeous pointy-toed, distressed brown leather ankle-boots, carries around a pocket PDA where he entered our orders on his touch-screen display.
Here are some quick snaps the BF took with with the built-in camera on his MacBook:
But beyond simple coffee and food items, they also serve beer, wine and liquor, boast a smoking section with leather sofas and reclining chairs and offer a counter of brand-new HP PC's for customers who aren't lugging along their own laptops.
This is exactly the kind of Internet cafe I keep hoping to find in the United States, and I can't for the life of me figure out why no one in the U.S. is willing or able to put something together like this -- which has been a constant refrain in my head pretty much everywhere I turn here in Tokyo. Is it that the Japanese consumer base is that much more demanding?
The daily business of consumption here is astonishing in its rapacious quality, with stores, restaurants and shops opening and closing at fad-like speeds. Just within the short time we've been here, a new glass and steel outlet was built and opened across the street from our hotel, featuring a Happy Lawsons children's store (at which there are daily lines of families waiting to enter), plus a bi-level HD-DVD lounge and cafe. I swear to god, one day we walked past the location and there were just bulldozers and heavy machinery, while the next day we walked outside and were greeted with the sight of a nearly complete building, just in time for the Christmas rush.
And speaking of the Christmas rush, the crowds of shoppers thronging the sidewalks are an impressive sign that the Japanese economy is in rebound mode after its dark, post-90's crash. This has been a great time to visit Japan, as the energy level is buzzing, the bars are busy, the restaurants booked up and the US dollar still doing well enough against the Yen to negate any sticker-shock effect. In fact, I've often been surprised at how inexpensive everything seems to be in comparison to U.S. prices -- bottles of wine are selling for considerably less than what we'd pay at a U.S. restaurant, fashion clothing is way less expensive than what I'd shell out at a U.S. mall or department store, a latte and scone at Starbucks is cheaper than its equivalent in Santa Monica or Seattle, and we can purchase an all-day subway pass for about 8 bucks, which is comparable to the all-day Fun Pass offered in NYC.
And I already mentioned how clean and efficient the subway system is . . . the year I lived in New York, I used the subway system as little as possible. It was filthy and sometimes dangerous. I wonder how Japanese travelers react upon their first encounter with the NYC subway system? I've already read about Japanese tourists succumbing to Paris Syndrome upon the shock of arriving in the City of Romance only to experience horrible customer service, rude French citizens and trash strewn streets . . . what must they think of New York, with its heaps of garbage bags piled on the sidewalks, taxis in disrepair (the last time I visited NYC, one of the taxi's I flagged down utterly conked out blocks before I arrived at my destination -- smoke started rising from its engine, the thing shuddered and coughed and the driver simply aimed toward the curb and banged to a halt . . . nice), harried customer service, grimy subway cars and stations, and an often aggressively hostile street culture?
Rotten Apple Syndrome, perhaps?