The Womb

From the relative quiet of Kiyosato prefecture to Shibuya. You couldn't get a bigger contrast if you tried. J-Pop, as I may have mentioned before, is truly base. Japanese DJs however, are something of a rare talent. 'The Womb' houses the best of them. Ironically, I chose a night when a non-Japanese DJ was headlining, but last weekend still served to quell the misconception that Japanese people are reserved when it comes to enjoying a night out. Unlike many Shibuya nightclubs, it is nigh on impossible to find the non-descript grey double door entry to the Womb, especially considering its notoriety as a bloody good place to pass an evening. Up a back alley, past some love hotels with seedy names like 'Paradise Inn', and the only give away is an inoffensive looking bouncer in a black jumper. Even the queue is well hidden inside, snaking with Japanese efficiency towards an ID check and a fairly astronomical entry fee. A few cheap tinnies from the equivalent of Lidl ensures that costs are kept at a minimum; I didn’t go to university to learn just Japanese.

Unfortunately, in central Tokyo you don’t just deal with the Japanese. American soldiers on leave fill in the gaps between the four hundred odd locals on the dance floor, their shirts hardly able to contain all the creatine and obvious frat boy chat up lines. Standing in the queue listening to ‘Chad’ or ‘Curt’ (any generic name will do) talk about how he’s had ‘like, fourteen beers’ and that he heard ‘Travis had totally bailed’, I felt that I may be in for a less than authentic night. At the top of the stairs the smell of dry ice hits; the fog cloaked dance floor occasionally reveals girls in miniskirts surrounded by guys in trendy baseball caps and glasses with no prescription (something I have come to realise is a real fashion statement in Japan). Every so often a U.S. Marine shoves his way to the front in a vain attempt to catch a few drips of sweat from the brow of a DJ they’ve never heard of and then hi five another brash squaddie before shoving his way back to the front of the queue for the bar to ‘chug’ another beer and high five some more. Tools.

For once, my rhymically sterile dancing can go unnoticed as the tsunami of dry ice swamps all visibility leaving vague shadows and outlines of hands intercepting laser beams, the bass drowning out any social interaction. Dancefloor sign language prevails. An impromtu game of charades to explain that I want to go get a beer involves miming drinking, paying...and since I'm in Japan bowing for good measure. The bass, coupled with the dancing feet of several hundred revellers makes the floor feel like theres an earthquake going on. Which is also quite feasible I suppose. The crew that I arrived with quickly disperses. Shy of holding hands all night its not unsurprising considering. Slightly annoying though when everybody leaves without you. More annoying still when you factor in that my jacket was in a locker with everyone elses. Katsu sends me a very helpful text saying that theyve gone and hes got my jacket. Its polar outside and I'm wearing a t shirt. Brilliant.

Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I stayed on for a while dancing with Japanese dudes dressed as stereotypes of late 90s ravers. Kaye West glasses, gayglo check shirts. They even order water at the bar. By the time I leave its dawn and the first of the commuters are falling asleep next to me on the train as I shiver despite the beer jacket I attempted to put on before I left.

Yokohama feels more quiet than it should be walking back towards my dorm to the soundtrack of a slightly sarcastic sounding onset of tinnitus from six hours of sweaty dancefloor electro. Even the crows sound a bit sarky. At roughly 8am head hit hay, where it stayed until about 4.30pm... making it very nearly 48 hours since I had seen daylight. Luckily its raining less than it has been here, so I have spent the week out in the relative sunshine playing american football (who'd have thunk it), pulling muscles in parts of my body I didnt think I had and topping up my melanin levels.

For once I have decided to put up an actual photo of the actual thing I'm talking about purely to demonstrate the sheer awesomness of this truly wonderful place.