I love it when stereotypes come to life. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the redneck with the rat-tail and the Dale Earnhardt Memorial T-Shirt. I will cross the street to walk behind the overweight Italian wearing the pinkie ring, wife-beater and New York Giants sweatpants. If you are a Spanish woman on the bus with ridiculous hoop earrings and nails that belong on a velociraptor, I probably want to be your best friend. These people are the backbone of the human experience. So imagine my delight when I came across not one, but two in Odaiba.
That's right, dear reader. A live, up-close sighting of two forgotten favorites: Rumpled Japanese Businessman with Bored Russian Prostitute.
Oh happy day.
We were walking through the Sega Joypolis, trying in vain to decipher the instructions on the token machines. All of the signs on these machines were in Japanese and everyone we asked for help spoke incredibly fast Japanese. To say I have a newfound sympathy for foreign tourists is a mild understatement. We were jamming coins into slots and swearing softly under our breath when I looked behind us and there they were, standing just a few feet away like a pair of zebra wandering onto our safari path. Rumpled Japanese Businessman and Bored Russian Prostitute. I was suddenly no longer interested in G4 Racer Turbo Supreme.
He was a small man wearing a large suit that looked like it hadn't come off of him in three days except to be bunched up in a ball on the floor of his hotel room while he slept. He had his briefcase on a strap slung over his shoulder that made him look folded over, and the hangdog, baggy-eyed expression of a corporate road warrior. They work frighteningly hard in Tokyo. There was never a time during the day or night when people weren't going to or coming from some sort of office job. I found out later that a lot of people in the city come in from the suburbs to work, stay in a hotel near their job all week, then hop the train back home for the weekends. This guy had that written all over him. A lifer, buying some company to help him kill a Monday afternoon. We'll call him Tadahito.
She was unbelievably bleached-blonde, to the point where I thought her hair might have been made of peroxide. Just ridiculously blonde. Her extensions had extensions. Her skin was ghost white and caked with make-up; bright red lipstick and enough foundation to build an apartment complex on. Her clothes were black with random gold highlights, which was an alarming combo of expensive-prostitute chic and New Jersey housewife couture.
And heels. Jesus Christ these heels. In flats she was probably 5'7". In these heels she was 6'1". It was like being in the same room as a Valkyrie. A Valkyrie hooker from Russia who had stopped to buy a clothes in Paramus. We'll call her Svetlana.
While Tadahito's expression was hangdog salaryman, Svetlana's was the dead-eyed face of a woman who had been in the business for awhile. Not the wild-eyed look of a street-walker, but the one of a professional who was as comfortable as someone was going to get in her line of work.
Both of these people had been in their profession for way, way too long. And it showed. In a way, they complimented each other.
They were playing the game Hungry Animals, which is Hungry Hungry Hippos (best game ever) boiled down to it's simplest elements: throwing balls into the opening/closing mouth of one big hippo head. Party people jump up. Tadahito was counting tokens in his hand as Svetlana threw balls into the mouth of the hippo with surprising intensity. She went from Bored to Competitive. With each shot that went in, tickets unfurled from the bottom of the machine and curled neatly against the baggy leg of Tadahito's suit pants. When the time expired, Svetlana's nose wrinkled, then her face returned to neutral. Tadahito immediately handed her more tokens, as if he were desperate to see an emotion from her other then workman-like ennui. She resumed play.
The next and last time I saw them was as we walked through the food court of Joypolis. They were in line to order, both wearing the same odd expression on their face as they stared up at the menu. They seemed to say, "Well, what now?". They looked beat, the way a person does when life has whacked them in the stomach repeatedly, like a sugared-up 8 year-old does a pinata when the blindfold comes off.
I was dying to know their back story. How did he make enough money to afford to have an escort for so long that he could take her to an amusement park? How did she wind up in Tokyo when she looked like she should be adorning the prow of a Viking longboat? And what in the name of Heaven possessed them to go an amusement park?! When do you rent a high-priced hooker and say "Well, I'm out of ideas. Wanna play skee-ball?". Where in their day had they reached that point? I demand answers. Otherwise I will never understand people with money.
Why isn't someone making a movie about these two, instead of the bullshit where Scarlett Johannsen is bored with Bill Murray? These people are infinitely more interesting to me. I want to know how these two people from completely different worlds made it to that exact moment. The moment where businessman is paying a sex-worker to hang out with him in an indoor amusement park, playing carnival games, trying to decide whether to get noodles or nachos.
Why I Didn't Take the Picture, Reason A:
Sometimes people need their moments. The last thing either Rumpled Japanese Businessman or Bored Russian Prostitute needed that day was some jag-bag with a camera taking giggle-shots from a distance. If I start doing shit like that, then I have to get a job with TMZ and living a life of regret. They had been through enough. Let her make her money. Let him have his fun.
Why I Didn't Take the Picture, Reason B:
She probably had a knife.
Turbo Parking Zamboni
Intensity Button-Face
Just keep bringing us drinks.
We ordered the five-course prix fixe cause in our brains we're eccentric millionaires, and it started with this. I don't know what it was, but I liked it. 
They give you this to eat it with. A spoon with an edge. A spife. What a country. 
It was very very good ice cream with berries, so the spife was a bit overkill. Still real good though.
Isn't that nice? And you thought they were just here to lurk in the dark and hack people to death with katanas. 
Hey, what the hell? It's clean here. And buildings are made of materials other then driftwood and the ghosts of orphans that powered the Cyclone. There isn't one bearded lady here. I am surprised. Obviously, the person who wrote the guidebook had never been to Coney Island.
Monorail. See that? One rail. And see that guy standing at the front? Huh? HE'S NOT THE DRIVER. THERE IS NO DRIVER. ROBOT-POWERED. MONORAIL. Sha-BAM.
Look how calm we are on the robot-powered Monorail.
Here's us passing underneath the Rainbow Bridge, connecting Tokyo to Odaiba, as well as Midgard to Asgard. Look it up, or ask someone who got the Cthulu reference back on Day 2 what is the hell it is I just said.
Where we are greeted by Lady Liberty. Oh boy. This...this was awkward. Turns out we'd been in Lower Manhattan this whole week. No wonder people were looking at me funny when I tried to speak Japanese. But wait, that can't be right, I took a 13 hour plane ride. I was confused. There's only one thing to do when you're confused.
Ask a robot. They'll either answer or try to destroy you. Just keep asking until you find one that isn't programmed for murder. Turns out we were in fact in Japan. Whew!
Always good to double-check. Let's look at stuff. 
Decks a wholly owned subsidiary of Happy Flex-Straw. 
Post-lunch walk through Decks lead us to various shops of various quality, some of which were located in a part of the complex that for a reason that completely escapes me, was modeled after what pleasure-mall designers think Hong Kong looks like. This is what they came up with. Bang-up job guys. I was almost as confused here as when I saw the Statue of Liberty.
Eh. Close enough.
A more appropriate name for Muscle Park would be Judgment Dome. It sounds like a sweet place that would have batting cages and video games, but really it's a oddly designed place where you pay people to tell you how slow you can throw a ball or how agile you aren't through a series of humiliating, boring "games". Not surprisingly, no pictures were allowed inside, probably because no one wants a stranger documenting their failed attempt at kicking a soccer ball through a hoop held by a cartoon panda. 
YES.
Virtual Reality AND Interactivity. Believe it.
This is Halfpipe Canyon. Next to it was a ride called Spinning Bullet. If you're prone to seizures, this wasn't the place for you.
Carisa spent approximately $500 on this game.
This is a combo Cylon/Dalek/Locomotive. I've never been more frightened.
While I had my back turned, Carisa wandered over to the new House of the Dead game, which is based around her totally rational fear of zombies. I don't know who gave her the gun, but when I came over seven people were dead and she was screaming. They were surprisingly cool about this. Happens more then you think, apparently.
In Japan, Santa's attained the rank of Captain. Good for him.
We salute you.
Well done indeed.
